OVERMAN 
 
 MIRIAM 
 MICHEI,SON
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR : 
 
 " In the Bishop s Carriage " 
 
 "The Madigans" 
 The Yellow Journalist "
 
 JESSIE INCELL 
 She cauRht his eye and held it defiantly 
 
 Set page rS
 
 Anthony Overman 
 
 BY 
 
 MIRIAM MICHELSON 
 
 Author of "In the Bishop s Carriage," Etc. 
 
 Illustrated by John Cecil Clay 
 
 New York 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Company 
 1906
 
 Copyright, 1906, by 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Company 
 
 Published, August, 1906 
 
 All rights reserved, 
 
 including that of translation into foreign languages, 
 including the Scandinavian
 
 STACK 
 
 NEX 
 
 PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS 
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN, who is variously described 
 herein as " One of the obscure Christs." 
 "Just a Crank." "Only a theory-box." 
 
 JESSIE INCELL, a newspaper woman, "who 
 walked into people s holy of holies or most 
 grisly skeletoned closet with clicking heels 
 and a cheerful unconsciousness of her un- 
 human lack of both." This was her own 
 judgment, delivered half-humorously, half- 
 pathetically in after years. But a man who 
 worked with her declared she was " a wo 
 man with a man s tolerance and a clear, 
 big brain, and the sweetest, most spirited, 
 jolliest face in the world." 
 
 DEAN MORGAN, " An average man," he once 
 said of himself, " not a bit better than other 
 men, and not so sure besides that other men 
 are very bad." 
 
 WILL DONAGHEY, A Renunciant first; later a 
 Protestant. 
 
 HILMA HULSBERG, simple, sincere, loving; essen 
 tially feminine.
 
 PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS Continued 
 
 THE MINOR CHARACTERS include a labor leader, 
 a minister of the gospel, a successful physi 
 cian, a young violinist, a woman newspaper 
 artist, a landlady unsoured by experience, 
 etc., etc.
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 JESSIE INCELL " SHE CAUGHT HIS EYE AND HELD 
 
 IT DEFIANTLY" Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN " DOES IT STRIKE YOU AS so 
 
 VERY ODD, HE DEMANDED GRAVELY, THAT A 
 FELLOW SHOULD HAVE AN IDEAL AND TURN HIS 
 BACK ON CONVENTIONAL IDEAS FOR THE SAKE OF 
 IT? " I 4 
 
 " WHY DIDN T YOU SAY IT ALL THAT NIGHT I 
 
 LEFT, WHEN I WAS JUST HUNGERING FOR A 
 
 WORD FROM YOU ! " 1 54 
 
 "THE TWO POLICEMEN ONE SITTING BESIDE HIM, 
 THE OTHER STANDING WATCHFULLY BEHIND, 
 DREW CLOSER AND SLOWLY THEIR FINGERS 
 CLOSED UPON THEIR WEAPONS " 224-225 
 
 " OH, PITY ME No GOOD-BYE ! " 300
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ONCE this road, along which the girl strolled, 
 was a wandering path, trodden out through 
 the thick manzanita by a thirsty grizzly 
 on his way from the Sierras down to the river. 
 
 Later the miners, surging up through the gulches 
 and canyons, found the uncertain trail, and their 
 restless feet beat it into a topographical fact. 
 
 By the time the primitive poetry of straining 
 gold out of water had yielded to the more profitable 
 prose of hydraulic mining, the little gap through 
 the chaparral and over the ridge had been em 
 phasized till it was recognized as a roadway; and 
 the manzanita, and her big sister the madrone, 
 withdrawing their skirts from under the careless 
 feet that trampled upon them, had retreated up the 
 hillsides, where they could look down upon the 
 bare, ever-widening parting in the forest over 
 which horses were driven now, and the wheels of 
 wagons heavily loaded ground out the humbler 
 growth which, through its obscurity, had persisted. 
 
 Then the general name with which the pass had 
 been indicated became specific and capitalized 
 and Little Gap grew into a town; a most un-
 
 4 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 assuming California village straggling contentedly 
 on either side of, or rather punctuating at intervals, 
 the road that had created it the road which, 
 although it now ends ingloriously at the crudely 
 ugly railroad station, irresistibly leads the eye up, 
 up to the summit of the Sierras. 
 
 And there is a breeziness, a spaciousness, an 
 undefiled ecstasy of purity about the High Sierras. 
 Nature, yet untainted by man, has expressed 
 herself largely in mighty pine-clad, snow-topped 
 blue mountains and rolling stretches of foot-hills; 
 in rivers whose clarity is as perfect as the first 
 snow-formed drops that heralded them; and a 
 sky of chaste and limpid blue, pale as with awe 
 of the celestial wonders it has gazed upon. But 
 there is an effect of simplicity with it all, an 
 omission of sensational landscape contrasts. 
 These Western Alps were conceived in no semi- 
 theatrical, awe-awakening mood, and yet a steadily 
 uplifting consciousness of broadly built beauty, 
 set in a canvas of inspiring height and depth, comes 
 to him who looks for the first time, as this girl 
 Jessie Incell did, upon the almost primeval purity 
 of this still new bit of the world. 
 
 Not that Miss Incell was unusually susceptible 
 to the beauty of Nature. She had been too busy 
 since she left school not so long ago to become 
 a connoisseur in the works of the Artist who
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 5 
 
 paints one subject continually yet never twice 
 alike. The world of men and women had far too 
 great an interest for her to permit Nature s still- 
 life to overshadow it. She was possessed of a not 
 unhealthy, wide-awake, good-natured curiosity 
 about other people s affairs. As for her own, she 
 was practical, optimistic and successful, and her 
 profession, which she looked upon as so essential 
 an element of her life that she could not conceive 
 herself apart from it, intensified the very qualities 
 that fitted her for it. 
 
 Still the influence of the place and the time it 
 was twilight fell upon her. Her work brought 
 her into many queer places and into all sorts of 
 queer people s lives, but it rarely took her away 
 from the city, whose every year of prosperous 
 growth was undoing the work of centuries in 
 which Nature had made it beautiful for man to 
 unbeautify. So Miss Incell walked down the 
 road from the village and off toward the clearing 
 in the forest, with a sense of vacation relaxation* 
 that rarely accompanied her in her little journeys 
 of inquiry into other people s business. For 
 her profession required concentration, although 
 her temperament, as well as the keen, ever-renewed 
 interest she felt in each subject that came under 
 her observation, made devotion to the matter on 
 hand a pleasure. But this evening she strolled
 
 6 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 along consciously enjoying the free, sweet air that 
 blew down from the mountains, whose snowy 
 caps glittered late in the last rays of the sun, and 
 the fresh coolness of evening, so grateful after her 
 long, hot ride in the train. And yet earth and 
 sky, mountains and forest became negligible and 
 unreal to Miss Incell as the mere background 
 against which life plays itself, when she rounded a 
 turn in the path and came to a small clearing in 
 the forest in which a little log cottage stood, its 
 broken gaping windows and shabby need of re 
 pair revealed by the leaping flames of the bonfire, 
 by whose light two men and a woman were un 
 packing a pitifully small load of household goods. 
 A trained instinct in the young woman took 
 quick possession of the rude stage-setting. With 
 no conscious recognition of the mental process she 
 had found the words to describe .this brave, poor, 
 thriftless little hegira, the supple young Irishman 
 who had unhitched the horse and was leading it 
 to the tumble-down stable behind the house, the 
 fair Swedish woman, evidently his wife, who was 
 standing with sleeves rolled up to the elbow, issuing 
 orders as to the disposal of the furniture, and the 
 bearded giant in overalls, jumper and broad- 
 brimmed straw hat who bent his strong, young 
 back to take upon it the kitchen stove he was to 
 carry into the house.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 7 
 
 Jessie Incell stood in the shadow of the great 
 trees watching. Along with a self-gratulatory 
 recognition of her good-fortune in arriving just 
 at a dramatic moment in these people s lives, 
 there came the prudent consciousness that many 
 a good "story" is wrecked because of a faulty ap 
 proach to the subject of it. Still there was some 
 thing so primitive, so unsophisticated about this 
 little settlement and the settlers out here in the 
 woods that caution came to appear unnecessary 
 and Miss Incell advanced at length within the 
 circle the fire-light spread upon the grass. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, I am looking for Mr. Over 
 man Mr. Anthony Overman," she said address 
 ing the party as a whole, though she knew quite 
 well which of the two men was the one she sought. 
 "Can you tell me where I might find him ?" 
 
 Her rather high, self-possessed voice with its 
 cultured girlish lilt fell upon the little group en 
 gaged in the earliest, least self-conscious occupation 
 of mankind homebuilding and dissolved it into 
 conventional elements. The woman in the door 
 way stepped back into the house, suddenly aware 
 that she was not prepared to meet a visitor. The 
 young Irishman, following her immediately, threw 
 up a resenting chin at the interruption, feeling 
 that same but belated sense of intrusion that the 
 Indians had when, long ago, the gold-seekers came
 
 8 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 to build this little house by the American river, 
 whose upper tributaries were once so treasure- 
 laden. The big young man, who had now de 
 posited the stove inside the house, straightened 
 his back, as he walked down the few wooden steps, 
 loosened the handkerchief knotted about his per 
 spiring throat, took off his hat as he advanced to 
 meet her and said: 
 
 "I am Anthony Overman." 
 
 "How fortunate I am to find you," she said, 
 sparring verbally for time to study him before she 
 should disclose her errand. "They told me at the 
 hotel that you would probably be very busy 
 toi-day. " 
 
 " I ve been going about trying to get the loan of 
 a horse so that Donaghey and Hilma could get 
 into the place before night. You see everything s 
 upset, I can t ask you in. But won t you sit down ?" 
 He pointed to the low, broad stump of a tree* 
 
 Miss Incell had the genius for adapting herself 
 to circumstances which made life both easy and 
 pleasant to her, and she sat down now on the 
 rooted stool, her attitude showing so comfortable a 
 disregard for inconveniences that Overman, re 
 lieved as to the disposition of a young lady visitor 
 whom he had never before seen or spoken to, 
 leaned his shoulder against the nearest oak and 
 stood attentively looking down upon her.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 9 
 
 "I wonder, Mr. Overman," she said looking up 
 with a most fetching air of innocent interest, 
 "whether you would give me some information 
 about a peculiar sect up here called The Renun- 
 ciants ? I ve just come up from San Francisco 
 this afternoon and at the hotel they suggested my 
 coming to you." 
 
 "What do you want to know ?" 
 
 "Why His simplicity disarmed her, so that 
 the directness of the question was almost dis 
 concerting, but she went on cheerily. "Why, 
 everything you will tell me. I ve heard, you know, 
 of the trouble up here and 
 
 "You mean about the community s breaking 
 
 5 " 
 
 up r 
 
 "Yes," she assented encouragingly. 
 
 "Well, there isn t much to tell. A number 
 of men and women I am I was one of them 
 have come to California from all parts of 
 the country to live as a community in what 
 we have called the City of Peace. There is 
 nothing remarkable about any of us, nor any 
 thing very new about the experiment. We simply 
 thought that out here we could establish a colony 
 on the lines that Renunciants believe in, and 
 live a life of purity, industry and peace. Brother 
 Ariel Mr. Senn . . . You have seen Mr. 
 Senn?"
 
 io ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "No. 1 wanted to. But he is out of town." 
 
 "At Auburn. He ll be back tomorrow very 
 likely. Senn can tell you more than I and of 
 course no one can form an opinion, a just opinion, 
 without hearing his side. Our side is just this: 
 we looked upon Senn as part apostle, part father, 
 part manager of us. He had charge of our busi 
 ness and was the leader in our spiritual aspirations. 
 We found him to be dishonest in the management 
 of our affairs. We learned that he was evading 
 the obligations of religion our religion which he 
 had founded and was leading a life of such im 
 morality, even according to worldly standards, 
 as to bring scandal upon us and expose innocent 
 women connected with us to shocking misinter 
 pretation." 
 
 "Scandal?" She leaned far forward; this was 
 what she had come to hear. "Tell me was there 
 anything really immoral about Mr. Senn s life up 
 yonder at the Home on the Hill with Sister Bere 
 nice and Sister Beulah and the rest ?" 
 
 He looked down upon her a moment without 
 answering. 
 
 "I d rather not discuss such things with you," 
 he said slowly. 
 
 In the dusk her face flamed red. She had 
 never been struck across the cheek, but she could 
 understand now how one s face might tingle after
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN n 
 
 such a blow. But by profession, as well as tem 
 perament, she was a good fighter. She promptly 
 struck back. 
 
 "I thought you Renunciants believed that 
 impurity can exist only where the intention is im 
 pure," she said maliciously. 
 
 "You are not one of us," he answered unmoved, 
 and his lack of resentment, his forbearance made 
 her feel that perhaps there had not been the sting 
 of design in his impugnment of her taste. "And 
 your tone shows that you have no respect for what 
 we believe believed no, believe. 1 
 
 In her surprise she dropped a pencil with which 
 she had been taking sketch notes on a paper pad, 
 forgetting personal griefs in professional interest 
 in this peculiar type. 
 
 "Believe!" she exclaimed. "Still? . . . 
 Still?" 
 
 "Yes, still." He shifted his body but he met 
 her gaze. "Because Senn has proven a false 
 prophet, the religion he preached is not necessarily 
 false. My belief in the possibility of an ideal 
 community life is not shaken by the fact that 
 this one, under Senn s guidance, has come to 
 grief." 
 
 "You are optimistic," she sneered still unfor 
 giving. "And yet Senn is a drunkard ?" 
 
 "Yes."
 
 12 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "And a thief?" 
 
 He did not reply. 
 
 "And a libertine?" 
 
 "It is all true." 
 
 " But it does not affect your belief in the cult 
 he preached established of which he is the 
 author ?" 
 
 "May I ask," suddenly he bent forward looking 
 at her intently, "may I ask why you want to know 
 all this?" 
 
 She laughed within herself at the long-delayed 
 question. But she answered with a pretense of 
 surprise, an affected innocent unconsciousness of 
 its appositeness that was disproportionately art 
 ful, so simple he seemed. 
 
 "Why certainly. I thought you knew. I am 
 Miss Incell, Jessie Incell of the Inquirer, and the 
 office has sent me up here to get to the bottom of 
 this Renunciants scandal." 
 
 She watched the effect on him amusedly. Her 
 name, familiar to newspaper readers throughout 
 the West, evidently made no impression out here 
 under the great oaks and pine. Evidently this 
 man had not heard it before. But he realized 
 that he had answered frankly every question she 
 had put, not knowing what use she intended to 
 make of what he said, and he turned away from 
 her with a child-like movement, as though phys-
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 13 
 
 ically to put her out of his horizon while he ad 
 justed his mind to the new situation. 
 
 As for her, she had all the material she 
 needed. She sat now looking at him; first be 
 cause of her unquenchable interest in human 
 nature, making a study of this particular speci 
 men for her own gratification, and second because 
 
 O 7 
 
 the evening was beautifully balmy, and it was 
 delightful, to one who had spent her days in the 
 close rush of city life, to be out here in the soli 
 tude of the still forest beneath the great black 
 trees. 
 
 "Well," he said at last turning again to her, 
 "it doesn t make any difference. I don t remember 
 exactly what I ve said to you, and I don t care to 
 get into the papers, but I haven t said anything 
 that isn t true." 
 
 "I m sure that you needn t regret anything 
 you ve said. And I m really very much obliged 
 to you. I wanted, not so much facts from you 
 as as atmosphere," she said skilfully. "Some 
 thing, you know, that would give me a line on 
 Renunciants in general, that might make me 
 comprehend the kind of people who could go into 
 this sort of thing, make me sympathize with them, 
 you understand." 
 
 He put his arms behind him now and looked 
 smiling down upon her.
 
 i 4 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "You wanted to try to get inside the head of a 
 crank, is that it ?" he asked. 
 
 She looked up, a sweet swift, insincere denial on 
 her lips. But the simple candor of his face 
 and his words had its effect upon a nature to 
 which formality was irksome. 
 
 "Exactly," she said relieved. 
 
 He threw back his head then and laughed aloud, 
 and she laughed with him. And after this she 
 dropped the character she had assumed as a dis 
 guise to her journalistic designs and yielded to her 
 curiosity without attempt at dissimulation. 
 
 "Do tell me," she asked, leaning forward, her 
 hands loosely clasped about her knees, "how a man 
 like you came to join a humbug like Senn." 
 
 "Does it strike you as so very odd," he de 
 manded gravely, "that a fellow should have an 
 ideal and turn his back on conventional ideas for 
 the sake of it ?" 
 
 "It does very much so." 
 
 "And you don t believe in enthusiasms," he 
 went on questioning in his turn, "in self-sacrifice, 
 in betterment of the world by means of 
 
 "Of high thinking and low living on the Senn 
 plan," she interrupted. 
 
 He stood a moment silently looking down upon 
 her. 
 
 "I think," he said slowly after a moment, "that
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 Does it strike you as so very odd, he demanded gravely, that a fellow 
 should have an ideal and turn his back on conventional ideas for the sake 
 of it? "
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 15 
 
 you either are not quite honest or not quite capable 
 of appreciating this question. It is very easy to 
 speak cynically; although, to be frank with you, I 
 cannot conceive of a young mind without aspira 
 tions, nor can I find anything in common with it. " 
 
 She smiled to herself in the fast-gathering dusk. 
 Evidently, she said to herself, she was being dis 
 approved of. 
 
 "Why don t you convert me ?" she asked gaily. 
 
 " I doubt, " he said severely, " I doubt my power. 
 But more than this I distrust the shallows of a 
 flippant nature." 
 
 She laughed aloud in sudden, honest enjoyment. 
 It was a good laugh to hear, girlish and hearty, 
 with a chuckle of amusement running beneath 
 it that gave it a boyish quality. 
 
 Then I m not worth converting, not even so 
 much so as the lady in yonder?" she mocked, 
 nodding toward the cabin before her. 
 
 "Hilma Hulsberg is an ignorant Swedish girl," 
 he answered with grave rebuke. "You would find 
 her English very diverting, I ve no doubt, but she 
 is capable of sincere and honest faith and trust." 
 
 "In Senn?" 
 
 "In the things she thought Senn represented, 
 in the things she still believes exist though Senn 
 is all you said he is." 
 
 "Then will you explain to me," she said with
 
 16 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 a sexless impersonality in discussing sex problems 
 which was not assumed, "how she can be a wife 
 and a Renunciant, too ? Marriage is forbidden 
 by an article in your faith, isn t it?" 
 
 "Hilma and Donaghey married, according to 
 the law of the State," he said coldly, "to avert 
 scandalous misinterpretation from just such people 
 
 "Myself, you were going to say," she con 
 cluded saucily. 
 
 "But they are not man and wife," he added. 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 The scornful intonation did not anger him, as 
 she had hoped it would, but it seemed to arouse 
 his combativeness. 
 
 "Look here, I don t know you at all and you 
 don t know me, and we are not likely ever to see 
 each other again. You think me a crank and a 
 fool for having been taken in. But I tell you it s 
 no harder for you to realize that a man can be 
 what I am than it is for me to understand how 
 a girl can be like you if you re sincere. Don t 
 you believe in anything?" 
 
 "Not in miracles," she answered, roused herself 
 now. "I know something of human nature and 
 I know it isn t going to be changed by building a 
 community house on the top of a hill and calling 
 it the Home of Peace; by isolating oneself in small
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 17 
 
 stone houses to meditate ; by starving one s body 
 of meat and living on grain and guff; trying, in 
 short, to lift oneself by his mental and moral 
 boot-straps, while gravity in the shape of sinful 
 human nature forever pulls one down. You see 
 how it has worked with your New Jerusalem. 
 You are all scattered, bankrupt. A pious old 
 fraud has sucked you dry. And you re not the 
 first lot he has wrecked. I don t think your 
 gullibility a great tribute to common sense." 
 
 She was playing on him now, on his patience, on 
 his sincerity if he was really sincere; she wasn t 
 yet sure of this. 
 
 "You re right that far," he said without a 
 shade of resentment. "But it may be a tribute 
 to something more precious than common sense. 
 I am older than you and I ve made a fool of my 
 self. I have worked since I was a child and all that 
 I had in the world this man Senn has got. I am, as 
 you say, sucked dry, and can get nothing back. 
 And I see the pitiful contemptible figure we cut 
 in your eyes Donaghey, poor Hilma and myself, 
 shipwrecked, stranded out here in the forest with 
 scarcely enough to eat. But I swear to you 
 I d go into another thing again that promised 
 what this did. And I d rather be a fool and a 
 crank a hundred times over than be destitute 
 of hope for humanity, than be content with the
 
 1 8 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 best the world has succeeded so far in making of 
 life." 
 
 "You would! You would?" she cried incred 
 ulously. 
 
 "I was looking for my ideal," he went on, as 
 though only half conscious of the interruption, 
 "when I heard of the Renunciants, and I 
 thought I had found it. When I think again that 
 there is hope of my ideal being realized I ll try 
 again and again." 
 
 She looked up at him curiously. The bonfire 
 had burned down and he stood in the dusk, his 
 back against a tree, his arms crossed easily behind 
 his muscular back, his short-bearded chin thrust 
 aggressively forward, a striking figure in the loose 
 garments he wore, having a strength and a grace 
 that were faun-like the unworldliness of his 
 sentiments harmonizing effectively, it seemed to 
 her, with himself and his surroundings. The 
 artistic instinct in her was stirred by the pic- 
 turesqueness of the situation. 
 
 "Do you care to tell me," she asked puzzled, 
 "just what practical result you hoped to accom 
 plish?" 
 
 He threw out his hands. 
 
 "Does it seem ridiculous to you," he demanded 
 passionately, "that by self-denial and bodily and 
 mental discipline, by hard work and simple living
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 19 
 
 that one may make a better man of himself one 
 who had been a wild young chap without home or 
 friends ? And after he had mastered himself and 
 read and studied, would it be so strange if he could 
 influence and strengthen others of his kind ? 
 People who live close-packed in the world even 
 girls like you become cynical and selfish and 
 low-aimed. Is it so absurd that by setting one s 
 life in great spaces, by being always face to face 
 with grandeur and beauty like this" He threw 
 out a hand toward the Sierras snow-crested and 
 the rushing river nearly a half mile below them 
 "and having before one psychically the example, 
 the altruism of fine souls, living and dead, and 
 their printed words to add to the delight of study- 
 is it strange that the satisfaction of self-mastery 
 and an unquenchable yearning to make the world 
 a better place to live in should follow ? Is it all 
 a mere fad of vegetarianism to you, a bit of mys 
 ticism, and a queer playing with dangerous in 
 stincts our conviction that imperfect creatures 
 should refrain from giving birth to others as im 
 perfect ? Is that all it looks to you ? Is it possible ?" 
 She looked at him in silence as he stood between 
 her and the roughly built old cottage, through 
 whose weather-beaten sides the light within now 
 shone. And her eyes wandered from the speaking 
 poverty of his clothes to the dirt and disorder of the
 
 20 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 hasty squatter settlement. Then she shook her 
 self, as though waking from a wistful dream, and 
 rose suddenly. 
 
 "You have been very kind," she said holding 
 out a hand with a boyish sort of grace. "I don t 
 understand it nor you, but thank you. I really 
 forgot that I was interviewing." 
 
 "So did I," he said shortly. "It s dark. You 
 won t be able to see the road. Wait a minute till 
 I light a lantern and walk with you up to the 
 hotel." 
 
 "I didn t know it was so late," she began vexed. 
 " But I m not afraid. You needn t bother, thanks, 
 I m quite accustomed to going about alone." 
 
 "In the city, perhaps. It isn t safe here." 
 
 He left her and came back with the lantern 
 the first she had ever used and they walked in 
 silence, save for his directions to avoid this ob 
 struction or that on the dark road, toward the 
 village. 
 
 Miss Incell was glad he did not speak. A 
 hidden strain of sentiment in her responded to the 
 novelty of the walk. The sweet scents of the 
 country after nightfall, the dim black presence 
 of the forest, the solemn rushing of the river, and 
 the consciousness of the watching heights of the 
 Sierras up among the stars struck a chord in her 
 that seldom vibrated.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 21 
 
 But by the time she had reached her room in the 
 primitive little hotel and got out her paper and 
 pencils, she recognized this mood only for the 
 literary value it might have in making her "story" 
 picturesque. She wrote for two hours, and then 
 went over to the telegraph office to send her 
 account and the following message: 
 
 "Dean W. Morgan, Acting City Editor. Am 
 sending 2000 words Renunciant story. Sketches 
 by mail. Will see Senn to-morrow for follow 
 story. Home to-morrow night. Jessie Incell." 
 
 Miss Incell went back to her room, ordered a 
 light supper sent up to her, undressed and went 
 to bed, and was sound asleep before Morgan, 
 acting city editor, had filed his return message, 
 congratulating her on the journalistic feat she had 
 accomplished to the glory of the Inquirer and the 
 confusion of its rivals.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 TT S a caprice of Nature s to leave behind her the 
 key to the cipher in which she writes. In the 
 shaping of the highest form of rudimentary life 
 to-day she unfolds to the wise and watchful the 
 whole history of development. And in the lifting 
 of the haze from the Sierras in the early morning 
 after Jessie Incell had exposed the Community 
 of Renunciants, she lifted the same veil that 
 hung over the world when it was virgin the morning 
 that Creation set peaks to soaring, rivers to rushing, 
 trees to waving sentient green arms of gladness, 
 and earth to sloping down to flower-bordered turf 
 and meadows. 
 
 The recreation charmed Miss Incell. She 
 was standing beside her wheel on the hill whose 
 summit was topped by the deserted, though yet 
 unfinished, brick home of the Fraternity. The 
 site is a marvelously beautiful one and Miss Incell 
 looked across from it to the very tip of the Sierras, 
 deep blue now with the haze of distant forest fires, 
 and down to the pines and redwoods from which 
 the smoke of the arriving train rose in fair white 
 clouds, and smiled to herself in sheer content. On 
 that train were bundles and bundles of morning 
 papers; chief among them the Inquirer which 
 was presently to explode its bomb of publicity,
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 23 
 
 manufactured by her own hands, upon the un 
 suspecting town. And knowing this, she had 
 ordered an early breakfast, hired a wheel, ridden 
 up to the Home of Peace and secured her interview 
 with the leader of the Fraternity, before he could 
 learn in what terms she had already written about 
 him and the flock of idealists and simpletons he 
 had shorn and scandalized. 
 
 She had got a good interview which meant 
 to her an unconscious self-revelation of its subject 
 which, interpreted with a spice of malice, some 
 humor and cleverness, would expose the farce 
 played up here among the everlasting hills and 
 make good reading apart from its interest as a 
 newsy, human story. So this newspaperwoman 
 had a delicious sense of having won in a game she 
 had played single-handed; her wit and news 
 paper experience and professional privileges pitted 
 against the combined suspicion and antagonism 
 of the religio-economic community, its natural 
 distaste for publicity, and the real weakness and 
 depravity it had to hide. 
 
 Miss Incell chuckled aloud as she mounted her 
 wheel, looking back for a moment to the patri 
 archal saint and swindler who stood in the door 
 way of the Home, beaming benevolently down 
 upon her in the belief skilfully fostered by her 
 while she had listened to him that he had com-
 
 24 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 pletely put his inquisitor off the track and in 
 cidentally made a pleasant personal impression 
 upon her; a not unusual experience of his among 
 women. 
 
 But this particular woman rode slowly along 
 the driveway, taking mental notes of Brother 
 Abraham at the milking, Brother Daniel chasing 
 an unruly cow, seized also with the contagion of 
 rebellion, Brother Harvey and Brother Justin 
 working among the olive trees, while Sister 
 Berenice clattered tins in the kitchen and Sister 
 Beulah stopped washing windows to peer through 
 them after the girl, whose irreverence and cynicism 
 she suspected, with the intuitive distrust of her sex. 
 
 Jessie Incell herself had a delightful sense of 
 being a sort of journalistic Puck to whom hidden 
 things are visible. She saw behind the apparent 
 idyl the seamy shame of selfish purpose; and a 
 non-human spirit of mischief which, according 
 to her philosophy, was the recompense and ac 
 companiment of being a spectator, made her gloat 
 over this satire on human optimism and idealism. 
 
 The spokes of her wheel flew faster as she 
 turned down the hill, and the introduction to her 
 character study of Senn began to weave itself in 
 her alert and practised mind. The sensational 
 journal that employed her believed that a clever 
 newspaper woman may be more than a mere
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 25 
 
 reportorial retina, and Miss Incell consequently 
 wrote with what coloring of wit or satire of senti 
 ment best pleased her and suited her story. Frag 
 ments of description, apt, characterizing adjec 
 tives, satirical short comments in parenthetical 
 expression, together with a scheme for the ma 
 terial presentation of the article, the make-up of 
 type and sketches into an attractive first page, 
 began to take shape in her busy brain. She had 
 reached the top of a bit of smooth road on the 
 down grade. The morning air was sweetly, 
 purely invigorating. She was alone to enjoy it, 
 young, buoyantly healthy and full of self-content. 
 Yielding to an athletic pleasure in exercise, which 
 she could not often indulge, she took her feet from 
 the pedals and coasted down the hill. The sensa 
 tion was glorious, she felt as though she were flying 
 through the morning up here above the black- 
 green tops of the pines. She rode skilfully, her 
 eye was steady and clear and her seat firm. But 
 what she could not take into consideration was 
 the potential frailties of a bicycle hired in a small 
 county town, where the pleasures of wheeling 
 were rarely indulged in and the use of the bicycle 
 as a two-wheeled horse had not occurred to a 
 primitive population. 
 
 Miss Incell s lithe little body had become so 
 thoroughly a partner in the rapid motion that she
 
 2 6 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 did not receive the full force of the shock when 
 the tire burst. But she flew over the handle bars 
 with a conviction, humorous as it was instan 
 taneous, that she had not really flown before, and 
 she came to earth with such force that she lost 
 her sense of humor together with the rest of her 
 senses and waked at last, after the first fainting 
 spell she had had in her short, healthy life, to 
 know that something serious had befallen her left 
 ankle. 
 
 She sat up, a bit giddy then but thoroughly her 
 self, and looked disgustedly at her boot. The 
 wrecked and abandoned wheel lay also in the line 
 of her vision just beyond, but all her indignation 
 was reserved for the luckless ankle that incapac 
 itated her. She had the perfectly healthy ani 
 mal s sense of impersonal fury at the unwarranted 
 collapse of a member. She regarded that awk 
 wardly outstretched, throbbing foot with the 
 scornful look that failure merits. She hated it 
 for a coward and a weakling. It was her nature, 
 as well as the ethics of her profession, to have no 
 mercy upon the one who has "fallen down." The 
 detail of carrying her safely through her enterprise 
 had been partly entrusted to that same stupid foot, 
 as she denominated it; and for no reason, some 
 reason, any reason the terms were synonymous 
 in her vocabulary the foot had failed. She
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 27 
 
 would have cut it off and thrown it from her if she 
 could, without a qualm. She had no sense of 
 kinship with failures. She knew no excuse for 
 not doing not only what is expected of one, but 
 even more than could be anticipated. She had 
 a feeling of alienation from the unfit member and 
 she regarded it with contempt and steady dis 
 approval till, perhaps in revenge, it began to 
 smart and burn so that her hot hate was quenched 
 in tears. 
 
 She smiled ruefully through a mist, wiped her 
 eyes, and unlaced her high boot. This relieved 
 her and she leaned, back against a madrone to 
 think the thing out. After all it wasn t so bad. 
 She had the whole day before her. Presently 
 someone, driving along the road, would help her 
 into town. She would have a doctor look at her 
 ankle and patch it up temporarily. Then she 
 would do her writing, be driven to the train, and 
 reach San Francisco early next morning if not 
 late that night. Though she planned it all 
 successfully she did not look upon that rascal foot 
 of hers with any less severity. It was not the foot s 
 fault that she had not been crippled and her whole 
 story spoiled. It was only her own quick capacity 
 of adjustment to circumstances, upon which she 
 prided herself, and her forehandedness in getting 
 up so early that had saved the day.
 
 2 8 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 This train of thought led her straight to her 
 reasons for early rising, and her eyes began to 
 twinkle. She took out a paper pad and pencil and 
 penknife and sharpened a new point before she 
 began to touch up her sketch of Senn. She 
 sketched crudely but had a happy knack of getting 
 the tone of a face, its significance, the expression 
 that lay behind the features, and this gift together 
 with her newspaper instinct for striking poses and 
 a faculty of description and mimicry made it easy 
 for a good draughtsman to complete her sketches in 
 the spirit in which they were conceived. 
 
 In the illustration which now grew under her 
 hand, Miss Incell had caught the expression of 
 mingled cunning and piety that marks the religious 
 hypocrite. She only indicated the long white 
 flowing beard, the white curls and bald fore 
 head, and with business-like notes in a quick, 
 round hand she described the easy though watch 
 ful pose her subject had assumed when, slippered 
 and suspendered in his soft silk shirt, this latest of 
 semi-Messiahs, semi-promoters had sat opposite 
 her, rocking gently as he answered her questions. 
 
 The sound of approaching carriage wheels 
 interrupted her contemplation of her work (she 
 was considering it with a critical, loving, malicious 
 smile) and she pulled herself to her only remaining 
 foot that seemed to have a conscience, and gave
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 29 
 
 tongue to a halloo that was quickly stifled. For it 
 was the subject of her sketch in person who was 
 driving by on his way to town. For just a second, 
 though Jessie Incell had a vision, which nearly 
 convulsed her, of herself riding into town beside 
 the man whom she had made odious in the eyes 
 of his whole little world, which must have already 
 read the Inquirers expose of him, his methods 
 and morals. The mischievous instinct in her 
 was sorely tempted but another instinct, deeper 
 rooted and more significant of her real self, made 
 contact with the venerable-appearing old satyr 
 abhorrent to her. A peculiar quality in this girl s 
 nature, which had been emphasized by her work, 
 permitted Miss Incell to seek this man out and 
 listen impersonally to his self-revelation of an 
 impure mind and the hypocritical pretense with 
 which he sought to cover it. But the thought of 
 
 o o 
 
 voluntary acquaintance with Senn was loathsome 
 to her, and she dropped back in the shadow of the 
 madrone while he drove by, as unconscious of her 
 presence as he was of the storm of obloquy about 
 to engulf and overthrow him. 
 
 The hours were long for the Inquirer s star 
 reporter after this. The sun rose high and higher 
 and in all the broad, peaceful landscape from the 
 glittering ice cones of the Sierras to the crimsoned 
 leaf of the poison oak garlanded from tree to tree,
 
 30 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 nothing moved. She heard no sound save the 
 distant clang of a cow bell, the deadened rush of 
 the river far off, or the quickly throttled shriek of 
 an engine s whistle as a train plunged up through 
 the mountains or down toward the bay. She had 
 covered every scrap of paper she had with notes and 
 detached bits of the story she meant to write, but 
 irritated at last by the impossibility of getting it 
 into shape on the single small pad she had taken 
 with her, she stuffed all the fragments into her 
 side satchel and with heroic resolution she stood 
 upright, reached for the tough limb of the madrone 
 under which she had fallen, hacked and cut with 
 her small penknife till she had detached it from 
 its gorgeously red trunk and made herself a cane. 
 With this she hobbled forward and downward 
 toward town. And she continued determinedly 
 on her way, long after the burning pain in her 
 wrenched and twisted bones cried out against the 
 jarring her erratic gait necessitated. But she 
 yielded at last when the road began to mount 
 again and, weak from suffering, sank down in a 
 bed of rustling leaves under a straggling oak that 
 had rooted itself in a cup-like dip between two 
 softly rounded, low hills. Her suffering made 
 her forget the unforgivable sin of which her foot 
 had been guilty and, throwing aside her shoe, she 
 nursed the stricken member tenderly, trying to
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 31 
 
 rub down the inflammation that had swollen it so out 
 of shape that she could not put on the shoe again. 
 It had grown very warm and the exertion re 
 quired by her crippled condition had exhausted 
 her. She was a. bit nauseated from hunger as 
 well as pain, and she lay back disheartened and 
 almost indifferent* to anything but the prospect of 
 lying still. The haze of noon covered the warm 
 earth and the sun beat on the shining white caps on 
 the great mountains as though to dissolve them 
 into one blinding beam of light. Gradually as 
 she lay there, the pain in Miss Incell s ankle 
 seemed to become dulled; the cowbells sounded 
 farther ofF and came less and less frequently. 
 And presently so different was the situation 
 from any that she had known, so strangely effec 
 tive was it in revealing to her another self than the 
 one she recognized and authorized she began to 
 tell herself how good it is to lie close, close to earth, 
 steeped in sunshine, in heat, in quiet; to forget 
 restlessness and ambition and suffering and hap 
 piness; to lose consciousness, to know no sense of 
 responsibility, or of failure, or success, or kinship 
 except to the great, quiet, slumbrous breast of 
 Nature; to feel only and this with exquisite, 
 permeating keenness th.e conviction of one s 
 earthiness, of the nearness of one s absorption into 
 clean, insensitive earth and nothingness.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A N HOUR later, Anthony Overman walking 
 along beside the docile old horse he was taking 
 back to its owner, found the metropolitan journalist 
 lying asleep. After an unbelieving start at his odd 
 discovery he recognized her, for the little town could 
 hold but one woman so smartly yet mannishly 
 gowned, so obviously an urban product. 
 
 While he stood idly looking down upon her, 
 the patient, spotted white horse cropped the grass 
 on the roadside. Time meant no more to old 
 Graylock, Little Gap s one horse for hire, than it 
 did to the disillusioned Renunciants paralyzed 
 momentarily by the crashing of their world and 
 the necessity of immediately making another. 
 
 There was a smile beneath Overman s mustache 
 and the tip of his short, untrimmed beard twitched 
 humorously. In his self-centred earnestness the 
 night before he had not really considered what 
 manner of young woman it was who had fallen 
 down from the skies to question him lightly about 
 the subjects of which he had thought most deeply. 
 But to-day, out here inthebroadlightof afternoon, 
 there was something grotesquely idyllic about his 
 discovery, something absurdly at variance in the 
 rather pathetic, helpless, relaxed little figure and 
 the sturdy assertiveness of her cynical, up-to-date 
 
 3*
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 33 
 
 self of the night before. She had taken off her 
 jaunty little hat with its cocked feather, her brown, 
 tumbled head was pillowed on her arm, her cheeks 
 were flushed and her girlish lips apart, and her 
 frank, mocking, boyish eyes were hidden. She 
 looked such a little thing in her short golf skirt, 
 such a child of a woman as she lay there that 
 she appealed to that sense of protectiveness, which 
 is the first sense awakened in man by woman, 
 however the second may differ from it. 
 
 But the light of amusement had not yet died 
 out of his eye when she waked. She sat up sud 
 denly, blinking indignantly at a world that had 
 surprised her off guard, catching with char 
 acteristic quickness the atmosphere of gentle ridi 
 cule with which the lurking smile of the one spec 
 tator enwrapped her, and resenting it. 
 
 She sprang to her. feet,, forgetting that one of 
 them was no longer fit for service. 
 
 "Ouch!" she cried and sank back sick with 
 pain. 
 
 "You are hurt I thought you were asleep," 
 Overman cried dropping down beside her. 
 
 She looked up then recognizing his voice. 
 
 "Oh,, it s it s I remember your name," she 
 groaned, "but ! can t think of anything but t he 
 smashed bones in this ankle of mine. Plague it, 
 it hurts me so!"
 
 34 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 He looked down upon the swollen stockinged 
 foot she was trying to hide under her short skirt. 
 
 "That must be painful," he said sympathet 
 ically, and in her weakness his tone brought tears 
 to her eyes. "You must let me help you. I ll 
 carry you out to the road and put you on old 
 Graylock and then we ll travel back to town to 
 get the doctor. " 
 
 "Thank you," she said hesitatingly, with an 
 almost imperceptible gesture checking the move 
 he made toward carrying out his words. "I can 
 walk or rather hobble a few steps if you ll hand 
 me the madrone crutch yonder that I cut." 
 
 But he did not obey her, he got to his feet and 
 stood looking resentfully down upon her. 
 
 "Who would have thought a girl like you could 
 be a prude!" he said critically. 
 
 " I m not a prude. But I hate a man to touch 
 me," she flashed back at him, in her haste to repel 
 the insinuation, saying more than she wished to 
 say. And repenting both her r efusal of assistance 
 and the reason she had inadvertently given, she 
 added, "Oh, I know how silly I am and, if you ll 
 pardon me, I ll be very grateful for your help, 
 Mr. Overman." 
 
 He did not answer but took her in his arms in a 
 business-like way, as though she were merely a 
 bundle and so small a one as not to require much
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 35 
 
 attention. He set her on the horse, turned the 
 animal s benevolent, long white face toward town 
 and was starting off when she cried, "I must have 
 my hat, please, and my shoe." 
 
 He brought them to her, one in either hand, as 
 she sat perched uneasily upon the mild, old beast 
 whose neck she feared to slide down, as he inno 
 cently cropped the grass. And the incongruity 
 of her modish, feminine apparel contrasted with 
 the straight lines of this man s primitively simple 
 dress brought the light of a laugh to her eye. 
 
 "A woman never knows how funny she and her 
 belongings are," she said, "till she looks at both 
 from a man s point of view. Aren t we compli 
 cating things, we women ? How in the world 
 did you get the feminine side of the Fraternity 
 to put aside gewgaws and do the simplicity 
 business ?" 
 
 They were mainly poor women, you know, * 
 he answered, turning the horse s head down hill, 
 "with not many gewgaws to put aside." 
 
 "I know, but a half-naked beggar will fish a 
 dirty ribbon out of an ash-barrel to ornament 
 himself, if he happens to be a she. And really I 
 can sympathize with her. Men can go back to 
 simplicity and not have their ugliness jump to the 
 eyes, if they have only the usual number of legs 
 and arms and the ordinary arrangement of feat-
 
 36 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 ures. But we women are such striking guys with 
 out our little first aids to the ugly. . . Oh, Mr 
 Mr. Overman, my ankle hurts me so I shall scream 
 if I have to let my foot hang down any longer!" 
 
 He looked into her face he was very tall and 
 her tearful, angry eyes as she sat upon Graylock s 
 slippery back were almost on a level with his. 
 
 "Why in the world," he demanded with some 
 perplexity, "didn t you say so before?" 
 
 "Because," she answered impatiently, "nat 
 urally I hoped by talking a lot of nonsense fast I 
 could forget it, of course." 
 
 He lifted her then and set her down again in 
 side-saddle fashion, with the injured foot lying 
 across her knee. And she rode on in silence till 
 they came to the top of the declivity that becomes 
 the main street of the village farther down. Then 
 
 O 
 
 he put his arm about her, walking close beside old 
 Graylock, and she thanked him humbly and 
 leaned more and more upon the support his lean 
 strength gave. 
 
 As he noticed her growing pallor and the lines 
 of pain about her lips, he tried to divert her by 
 telling her of the humorous side of community 
 life. He concluded with the story of the wealthy 
 widow from Boston who came three thousand 
 miles to join the colony; who subscribed to all the 
 rules and agreed to hand over all her property to
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 37 
 
 Messiah Senn and never to appeal to the courts to 
 recover it, and yet revolted when it came to sac 
 rificing the black bead chain she wore about her 
 scrawny neck. 
 
 But Miss Incell could scarcely listen and the 
 corners of her mouth twitched with agony, though 
 she was biting her lip with determination not to 
 cry out. 
 
 He carried her half-fainting into the little house 
 in the clearing when they reached it. She had 
 insisted till then that she must be taken up to the 
 village to her hotel, but she looked up at him 
 gratefully when he deposited her on a chintz- 
 covered lounge in the Swedish woman s half- 
 naked parlor, before she closed her lids from 
 which the slow tears of agony were forcing their 
 way down her cheeks. 
 
 Overman brought the one village surgeon back 
 to see her. He was an irregular practitioner, 
 graduate of no school, a nervous, bilious little 
 bald-headed man, delighted with the publicity 
 to be gained by attending a patient whose name 
 was so well known. But he was not conscienceless 
 and after cutting away her stocking and setting 
 the misplaced bones as well as he could, he advised 
 Miss Incell to notify her family and her own phy 
 sician. 
 
 "You take it for granted that no well-regulated
 
 38 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 female is without both," she exclaimed pulling 
 herself upright to face him. Two red spots of 
 pain and fever glowed in her cheeks. Well, I 
 haven t either. But it doesn t make any difference 
 so far as this beastly little ankle of mine is con 
 cerned, for I m going back on to-night s train, the 
 10:15. But before that, if you ll leave something 
 for me to pour on this nasty egotistical foot of mine 
 to keep it from throbbing itself to the centre of the 
 stage, I ll do some work I ve got to do." 
 
 "My dear young lady!" 
 
 The doctor shook his head, demurred, admired 
 and assented all in one breath, but compromised 
 finally by leaving a prescription and the assurance 
 that he would call again at dusk. 
 
 Overman went with him up to the village and 
 came back with the prescription filled. The 
 Swedish girl had removed Miss Incell s jacket, 
 piled some pillows behind her and thrown a 
 coverlet over the injured foot, and had served her 
 tea in a cup so heavy that the nervous girl s hand 
 shook as she held it to her lips. 
 
 She put the cup and the tray from her and held 
 out her hand as Overman entered, taking not the 
 medicine but his long, rough hand cordially in 
 both of hers. 
 
 "I m a test of your altruism," she cried gaily. 
 "You are so good to me. Who would have
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 39 
 
 thought when I was pestering you with questions 
 last night that you d have me on your conscience 
 to-day, too ?" 
 
 "We don t mind do we, Hilma?" he said 
 turning with a smile toward the Swedish girl, "if 
 Miss Incell will put up with this rough place." 
 
 "That is what I to her have been saying," said 
 Hilma in the softest shattered English. 
 
 "Put up with it!" repeated Miss Incell re 
 proachfully. "You make me ashamed. I know 
 how greatly I must inconvenience you people, 
 Mrs. Mrs.- 
 
 " Hilma," said the girl simply. 
 
 "Mrs. Hilma then. But please don t let 
 me be a greater nuisance than is absolutely 
 necessary," she concluded as she took the pack 
 age of paper and the lotion which Overman had 
 brought. 
 
 "Hadn t you better let your work go," he 
 suggested diffidently, "and let me telegraph to 
 your paper ?" 
 
 "Not much!" she answered promptly. "I ve 
 got an awfully good story and it s got to go. I ll 
 cut it short, though, and get it done, for that foot 
 of mine will make me dance before long." 
 
 So Overman left her and the Swedish girl 
 placed the lap-board she used for sewing over 
 Miss Incell s knees, tiptoeing then from the room.
 
 40 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 For a couple of hours after that Jessie Incell wrote 
 steadily, stopping only now and then to pour some 
 of the soothing liniment on her bandaged foot. 
 But when Overman came into the room at dusk, 
 she was lying back exhausted, grinding her teeth 
 with pain. He took the bundle of paper from her, 
 listened attentively to her instructions, which he 
 carried out at the telegraph office before he sought 
 the village doctor. 
 
 Doctor Purcey s headquarters were in the gro 
 cery store (which was all the saloon the town could 
 boast) and here he was holding forth to an in 
 terested audience on the subject of Jessie Incell 
 and the accident she had met with. As he talked 
 the farmers looked from the sensational printed 
 page in their hands with her name in inch-long 
 black capitals at its top, to the doctor s eager face, 
 and their wondering admiration for the first seemed 
 to shed some lustre on the second. In spite of 
 this, Doctor Purcey accompanied Overman to 
 the cottage in the clearing and found, to his alarm, 
 that his distinguished patient was hot with fever 
 and writhing in pain. Miss Incell sent Overman 
 from the room. 
 
 "I don t mind squealing before the doctor," 
 she said with stern facetiousness. "It s his busi 
 ness to see people squirm, but it shames me to 
 make a baby of myself before you, and Lord
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 41 
 
 knows just now I feel like being the biggest baby 
 a coward girl can be." 
 
 But when her foot had been rebandaged and 
 the pain was quieted, she called for Hilma. 
 
 "I want a carriage," she said, "to take me to 
 the station. And if you ll come down to the city 
 with me Oh, do come as my guest," she added 
 as the Swedish girl shook her head timidly, "and 
 like the good Samaritan you are, help me to get 
 home. I never can be thankful enough to you 
 for your care, you nice little Mrs. Hilma. Say, 
 can t you come down with me ? These men of 
 yours seem pretty well able to take care of them 
 selves. I ll show you the town as soon as I m 
 well enough and it ll be rather a lark for us both. 
 I wish you d come." 
 
 The Swedish girl looked dazedly from his 
 patient to the doctor, seeking words of caution, 
 deprecation and gratitude. 
 
 "No, no, my dear young lady," interposed 
 Doctor Purcey, shutting his rusty black surgical 
 case with extreme care. " Be reasonable and stay 
 if on l y 
 
 "I can t I won t!" 
 
 "You but you must, my dear young lady. 
 To be frank, I fear serious complications and with 
 your permission will telegraph to the city, for 
 your physician, or some specialist. I dare not
 
 42 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 let you move even to the hotel. You simply cannot 
 leave till some higher authority than mine permits 
 it. Now, if Baumfelder could see you." The 
 little village doctor had cherished a hope all his 
 life that some miracle might bring him into pro 
 fessional contact with the great city surgeon. 
 "But till he does no, I assure you, Miss Incell, 
 you can t go. It might cripple you for life." 
 
 "Oh damn!" sobbed Miss Incell turning her 
 face to the wall. 
 
 Which eloquent comment and its every attend 
 ant circumstance, Doctor Purcey related in detail 
 at the grocery, to the edification of all Little Gap.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 TN ALL her life which, though not very 
 long, had been one of varied experiences, 
 Jessie Incell had never known a sleepless night 
 of pain. She waked, after the last of a series 
 of half-delirious nightmares in which the occur 
 rences of the past two days played a distorted 
 part, (the demon of bad dreams having bewitched 
 even her consciousness of success into black, 
 hopeless failure) to hardly recognize herself in the 
 weak, half-hysterical woman who welcomed the 
 Swedish girl s solicitude with a passionate grati 
 tude, as disproportionate as was her sense of for- 
 lornness and discomfoit. 
 
 And this feeling was intensified though she 
 was hardly conscious of it by her disappointment 
 when she learned that Overman, who had found 
 work on a neighboring farm, had left the cottage 
 with Donaghey before her waking. She wanted 
 to talk of herself, to analyze aloud the sensations 
 that surprised and interested her. She wanted to 
 ridicule, before a sympathetic and intelligently 
 appreciative listener, the childish lack of propor 
 tion with which even a short illness affects one s 
 point of view. And she preferred Overman to be 
 that listener, for a certain largeness and steadiness 
 of poise in him soothed and rested her. 
 
 43
 
 44 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 Conversation with the Swedish girl was out of 
 the question. She waited upon her guest with a 
 careful, almost-childish humility. Clearly she 
 regarded Miss Incell as a quite wonderful being 
 of altogether another sphere than her own, of an 
 audacious third sort of sex that was privileged and 
 peculiar, and her slow, sw r eet imperfect English 
 became unintelligible in her confusion when any 
 topic but the simplest, and most pertinent was 
 broached. 
 
 In despair then Miss Incell called for the papers. 
 She had never been without the news two days in 
 succession since she became a journalist. But in 
 despair which shamed her own, Hilma revealed 
 the almost incredible fact that there was not a 
 newspaper in the house. 
 
 "Yet Will shall to you one bring when he home 
 comes," Hilma promised softly. 
 
 She stepped with a soft lightness that had some 
 thing birdlike and yet very womanly about it. In 
 the clear blondness of her frank face there shone 
 a deprecating joy, as she moved busily about the 
 bare place, as though, Miss Incell said to herself, 
 she were avowing her happiness and declaring 
 her unworthiness in the same passionately glad 
 breath. 
 
 The newspaperwoman watcheu her with interest. 
 The domestic side of life w T as rather out of her line
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 45 
 
 of vision, as an observer of freakish human nature. 
 By trade, Jessie Incell was a student of the un 
 usual in humanity, and the sweet homeliness of 
 the ordinary was one of the marvels her mind had 
 not dwelt upon and her pen had not chronicled. 
 
 Long before the doctor came, though, the ego 
 tism of suffering had turned her thoughts back upon 
 herself. She writhed in pain, as she lay alone, 
 and in the intervals when the pain was not so 
 intense, she lost confidence and began to question 
 her judgment in dealing with the facts of her 
 story as she had. Ordinarily she was not afflicted 
 with that doubting reaction that follows upon 
 creation. In a sense her work was creation, for 
 she saw her subject vividly, considered it imagina 
 tively as well as practically, and treated it with 
 some artistic skill. Usually she finished her 
 articles with a comfortable sense of justified fatigue 
 and a comforting feeling of success. In the 
 morning, the Inquirer usually confirmed her 
 impression that she had handled the matter in 
 hand in a workmanlike way, and experience told 
 her this was enough to demand from oneself. 
 
 Pompous little Doctor Purcey found her in a 
 state of nervous impatience and irritation which, 
 had he known the ordinary equable course of her 
 disposition, might have told him much about his 
 patient s condition. By the dull, though, every-
 
 46 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 thing incomprehensible in the more gifted is attrib 
 uted to that hopelessly erratic quality, which is 
 supposed to accompany talent. The physician 
 examined the swollen, discolored ankle with a 
 respect which he might have given to something 
 declared a work of art by one in authority. He 
 knew enough to be dissatisfied with his patient s 
 progress, but he had the old-time physician s 
 disinclination to reveal his real condition to the 
 suffering layman, and took refuge from Miss 
 Incell s clear questioning in a maze of non- 
 commital technicalities that baffled and exasper 
 ated her. 
 
 He left her feverishly distrustful of his ability; 
 of his lack of commonsense her quick reading of 
 his character had left her no doubt. So she 
 groaned and fretted and dozed and dreamed the 
 afternoon through. She was used to busy days 
 and companionable mates. Her mind, though 
 not deep, was broad, and she was accustomed to 
 feed it on a variety of subjects discussed from all 
 points of view with the men at the office. But 
 there was not a line of reading matter in this 
 small house, and her easily-discouraged effort 
 to use the doctor as a messenger to the book 
 store had brought upon her a wordy discourse 
 on literature in general and fiction in partic 
 ular, which was intended only to display his
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 47 
 
 own familiarity with the subject for her admiring 
 approval. 
 
 It was with a sense of deliverance from mortal 
 boredom that she heard the back door close that 
 evening when the men of the household came home 
 from work. It was after supper when Overman 
 came in to her. She sat up looking her welcome, 
 when behind his back her quick eye caught the 
 silent handclasp between Hilma and Donaghey, 
 a handclasp so eager and so surreptitious that it 
 had all the strength of a caress. The sight ap 
 pealed to Jessie s sense of humor, but it also struck 
 a chord that was tenderly susceptible in her de 
 pressed state, and she put up a hot hand to meet 
 Overman s with an unconscious simulation of 
 Hilma s gesture. He took it with a movement 
 provokingly unlike the Irishman s; it was so 
 fatherly and yet so queerly childlike. And he 
 gave his attention to the qualities of the hand 
 instead of the handclasp. 
 
 "You are feverish, Miss Incell, your hand is 
 very hot. Have you had a hard day ?" he asked, 
 drawing up the chair that had not been occupied 
 since the little doctor had left it. 
 
 "I ve been in she began, but stopped; the 
 reportorial use of strong language, she knew, was 
 hardly as appropriate in speech as it might be 
 mentally "in misery all day. Your Hilma
 
 48 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 or rather, Mr. Donaghey s Hilma," she added 
 mischievously, "is a jewel among women. She 
 is patience and kindness incarnate, but she is not 
 a conversationalist and in the intervals when I 
 have not longed to scream, I have been pining to 
 talk. Dr. Purcey came and talked himself, 
 instead of listening to me. Do you know, Mr. 
 Overman, I have a conviction that he is guilty of 
 some stupid malpractice on that unspeakable foot 
 of mine that may be more serious than the original 
 injury ? After he left I undid all his bandages, 
 made Hilma throw his herb decoction out of the 
 window, and if he only knew how my foot has kept 
 me jumping with pain since then, he d be revenged 
 I think." 
 
 " Does it hurt you now ?" he asked solicitously. 
 He had been watching her curiously as she spoke. 
 
 "Not when people talk to me and entertain me. " 
 
 He laughed. "All right, so far as I can. But 
 what do you propose to do about it ?" 
 
 "Just to wait and try to keep sane till Baum- 
 felder arrives, the great Baumfelder, you know. 
 I ve met him and he has some sense even if he is a 
 doctor. The office is sending him up to take 
 care of me. He ll tell me whether there s any 
 thing serious in this thing or not . . . Do you 
 know, Mr. Overman," she said breaking off 
 suddenly, "it s a sacred newspaper custom to tell
 
 49 
 
 all you know when you come back from a detail. 
 What s the news about yourself and Renunci- 
 ants in general ?" 
 
 He laughed again. There certainly was a 
 charm about so refreshing and unconventional 
 a young woman. 
 
 "Nothing much. There s nothing to be got out 
 of Senn, nothing of what we ve all made over to 
 him. He belongs to the Venus Fly-trap species 
 of capitalists; all the traps are so hinged that 
 whatever goes in may never come out." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 She looked up at him with all her old interest 
 in other people s affairs. It was very pleas 
 ant and homelike here now, Miss Incell felt, 
 with Hilma putting away the supper things 
 and Donaghey going about doing chores for 
 her and whistling very melodiously under his 
 breath. The long summer twilight made lights 
 unnecessary, the doors and windows looking out 
 upon the forest were wide open, and an at 
 mosphere of simple domesticity pervaded the 
 place, infinitely soothing to jangled nerves and de 
 pressed spirits. 
 
 "But Will and I will be busy till winter comes 
 working on Beebee s place," he went on quite 
 ready to respond to her interest, though not alto 
 gether understanding her motive. "We ll earn
 
 50 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 enough to keep Hilma and the little place going 
 and after that 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "Well, frankly, I don t know what after that 
 . . . Am I being interviewed?" he asked 
 with a smile. "Surely no one cares. . . ." 
 
 She looked a reproach. She had the capacity 
 to make friends readily and she was accustomed 
 to meeting men upon a sort of brotherly basis. 
 The novelty of her acquaintance with this man and 
 his care of her gave her a sense of companionship 
 with Overman, whom she had known only as 
 the subject for a freak story forty-eight hours ago. 
 But the effectiveness of her unspoken reproach 
 was lessened by a smothered chuckle from Dona- 
 ghey. 
 
 The Irishman had sat down on the door-step 
 to read the bundle of papers he had brought with 
 him. In the strenuous necessity for bringing a 
 little three-roomed home out of the chaos of their 
 sudden departure from the Fraternity fold, these 
 three were probably the only people in Little Gap 
 who had not yet enjoyed Jessie Incell s expose of the 
 Renunciant cult, and the peculiarly personal 
 method with which she had done her work. 
 Donaghey with an extension to the writer of that 
 shame-facedness which he would have experienced 
 had he been in her place, fancied that Miss Incell
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 51 
 
 would be embarrassed by having her communica 
 tion to the paper read in her presence. So he had 
 retreated to the front door steps, expecting to 
 inform himself unnoticed of just how this news 
 paperwoman had been impressed, when his sud 
 den outburst of merriment attracted attention to 
 him. Throwing delicacy to the winds then, he 
 came in holding the big-lettered sheet ostentatious 
 ly before him and chuckling as he read aloud. 
 
 " He made a picturesque figure standing there 
 in the twilight, his long, straight body and hand 
 some, earnest face set off by the coarse simplicity 
 of his attire. "My name is Overman," he said 
 
 with quiet dignity "By the bones of 
 
 Saint Simon, Adonis Anthony, how does that 
 strike you ?" 
 
 Overman tore the paper from his hands. He 
 stood looking, as though what he saw was unbe 
 lievable, from the girl on the lounge to the sensa 
 tional exploitation in her sketch and interview of 
 his personality. His growing liking for her, his 
 pity for her suffering were drowned in a nauseating 
 consciousness of the unwarranted impudence of 
 the thing he was reading. He flushed hot with 
 anger and distaste. So this was what she meant 
 by an interview, and this was the use she had put 
 him to! The paper slipped from his fingers and 
 he turned from her, trying to conceal his indig-
 
 52 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 nation reminding himself that she was a woman 
 and helpless and his guest. But she was wholly 
 unconscious of the effort he made and quite inno 
 cent of having given offense. The sight of the 
 
 o o o 
 
 paper, her own paper, containing her own story 
 had roused all her professional instinct. 
 
 "If you don t give me those papers," she 
 threatened laughingly, "I ll get up and take them 
 from you. " 
 
 She seized the sheets avidly that Donaghey 
 brought her. 
 
 "Fancy being two days without your own paper 
 when it s starring your most sensational story!" 
 she murmured wholly absorbed. 
 
 She glanced quickly over the illustrations; saw 
 her sketch of Overman completed in Ordway s 
 showy, insincere style and labeled "Anthony, the 
 Adonis of the Renunciants"; noted that her editor 
 had retained the sub-head she had suggested under 
 the picture of the photograph of Brother Jared, 
 leader of the schism "If Senn must get drunk, 
 why don t he do it privately?"; saw the uncut 
 length of the story, the prominence given it and her 
 name; read the flaring headlines over again and 
 sank back with a sigh of gratification, of thorough 
 content. 
 
 The Inquirer s all right," she cried. "Here s 
 to the office!"
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 53 
 
 Her words might have been an invocation, for 
 a man suddenly blocked the doorway, repeating 
 them with a seconding cordiality. 
 
 " That s good loyal doctrine. Here s to it!" 
 he said coming in upon them and hurrying toward 
 her. "You bet it s all right, for it gave me the 
 detail of coming up to rescue you, Jessie Incell." 
 
 He was a smooth-shaven fellow with a cynical 
 mouth and a clear, alert eye. He walked with an 
 unmistakeable air of confidence in himself and on 
 his entrance took possession of the centre of the 
 little stage with a manner that was as arrogant as 
 it was unconscious. 
 
 "Dean Morgan!" Jessie held out both hands 
 which he took, bending over her with an empress- 
 ment half-sincere, half-burlesque. She drew back 
 then saying saucily, "It s purely in your official 
 capacity that I am falling upon your neck, Mr. 
 Morgan. It s like a whiff of home to see someone 
 from the office." 
 
 "I quite understand, you needn t make it so 
 plain, Miss Incell," he rejoined readily with a 
 grin. "It was a purely official kjss, a family 
 caress of a joint and several community nature 
 which I was about to imprint upon your chaste 
 journalistic cheek." 
 
 " Journalistic cheek! That s just what yours 
 is," she cried. "It s awfully kind of you, but you
 
 54 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 know you re famous in the local room for over 
 doing your details." 
 
 "Upon my honor as a journalist, Miss Incell, 
 I swear to you it was the Boss s orders that 
 
 "Bosh!" 
 
 He laughed good-naturedly and turned to the 
 tall, stout man who had followed him and still 
 stood in the doorway, curiously looking in. 
 
 "Come in, Doctor," Morgan said. "I don t 
 think you ll find your patient s condition very 
 serious, if one may judge by the fact tha- 1 : she s 
 quite as impertinent as she ever was." 
 
 To the Swedish girl, they seemed to fill the 
 little roughly finished room, these two pros 
 perous-looking men with their well-made city 
 clothes and their manner of being born to com 
 fort, to a knowledge of the world and how to 
 make use of the good things in it. When 
 Miss Incell turned to introduce her friends to 
 her hosts, she found that both Donaghey and 
 Overman had disappeared, while Hilma s round 
 gray eyes and pink cheeks attested her excite 
 ment and appreciation of the honor done her rude 
 little home. 
 
 "You may go outside and smoke while the 
 doctor looks at my ankle," Miss Incell said to 
 her fellow journalist. "Mrs. Donaghey will 
 help us, won t you Hilma ? Do come in."
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 55 
 
 "I will happy be," stammered the Swedish 
 girl shyly. 
 
 "Doctor Baumfelder, Mrs. Donaghey a born 
 nurse, doctor, the softest-fingered, lightest-footed 
 creature that was ever seen off the boughs of a tree. 
 She s simply been too kind to me." 
 
 "No no!" Hilma blushed furiously. 
 
 "And Mr. Morgan, Hilma, a facetious reporter 
 on the Inquirer, whose head is swelled because 
 he s been made assistant city editor. Go outside 
 now, like a nice child," she waved a dismissing 
 hand toward Morgan, "and keep out of mischief 
 if you can." 
 
 "All right, ma am." 
 
 Morgan dropped his overcoat on a chair and 
 walked out and down the rude steps. The forest 
 was evidently the back-yard of this primitive 
 cottage which fronted the road, but between it and 
 the white strip, narrow here almost as a path, 
 there was a space of tangled vines and decapitated 
 trees in which two men were working. Morgan 
 lighted a cigar and walked over toward them. 
 
 "Good-evening. Have a cigar?" He held 
 out a couple. 
 
 "I don t smoke," said Donaghey. 
 
 "You make a mistake," Morgan said puffing 
 pleasurably. "Won t you have one?" he turned 
 to Overman.
 
 56 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "Thank you, I ve got to go in now." 
 
 "What for ?" asked Morgan, for the reason that 
 he always asked a question when he wanted an 
 answer. 
 
 "To wash dishes." Overman turned his back 
 upon the newspaperman and disappeared round 
 the rear of the house. 
 
 "Sociable kind of fellow that," laughed Morgan. 
 " I wonder what sort of husband he really makes. " 
 
 "He s not the husband, I am," said Donaghey 
 crossly. 
 
 "Why don t you do the dish-washing then?" 
 
 "Why don t you mind your own business?" 
 
 "And me a newspaperman! Now, isn t it too 
 much you are asking ? What the devil s the matter 
 with you two anyway ? One would think I was 
 Christopher Columbus come up to discover and 
 defraud the natives." 
 
 "We don t like reporters," said Donaghey 
 shortly as he turned to follow his friend. 
 
 "That s not surprising. Reporters can t like 
 you either but they can let you know it without 
 behaving like savages. But that s not w T hat I 
 wanted to say. The Inquirer has sent me up 
 here to see that Miss Incell gets the best of care. 
 You understand, don t you, that the paper is re 
 sponsible for all her bills ? Just hand yours to me 
 when you re ready,"
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 57 
 
 :t There isn t any to hand there won t be any," 
 Donaghey called over his shoulder. 
 
 "Well I ll be ..." 
 
 The Irishman s departure rendered completion 
 of his sentence unnecessary, and Morgan strolled 
 about the little space in the dusk, puffing content 
 edly at his cigar, and then lighting another and 
 another, wasting no thought, apparently, upon the 
 encounter. He was glad, though, when the big 
 surgeon appeared at the door and beckoned to 
 him. 
 
 "I say, Jessie," Morgan began even as he 
 mounted the steps, "this is a queer joint you ve 
 fallen into. We must get you out of it good 
 and quick. A girl I know is the Boss s 
 white-haired boy since this Renunciant scoop of 
 yours was delivered, and I m to spend the 
 shekels generously for you. A congenial detail- 
 well, I wonder! ... I say, what s the 
 matter?" 
 
 Miss Incell opened a pair of dull, suffering eyes 
 in an ashy face. She smiled wanly up at Morgan 
 but did not speak. 
 
 "The able country practitioner has been getting 
 in his deadly work," explained Baumfelder, an 
 eminent member of his profession, his skill being 
 supplemented and directed by a fund of practical
 
 58 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 commonsense which was evidenced in everything 
 he undertook, except his Bohemian connections 
 with newspaper people, whom he persisted in 
 investing with a literary spirit utterly foreign to 
 their work. "And I have had to undo it. Miss 
 Incell s a heroine," he added. 
 
 Baumfelder had two fads, women and journal 
 ists. To find the two combined in one appealed 
 to the little that was weak in him. 
 
 But Miss Incell raised a deprecating hand. "Let 
 your editorial columns be free from bias, Doctor," 
 she said weakly. "Honesty s the best policy 
 there in the long run, for the simple reason that 
 you re bound to be seen through. I m what a 
 cockney reporter on the Inquirer used to call 
 a bleddy haound when it comes to submitting 
 to surgical torture. You ve taken the starch out 
 of me and 
 
 "And you d better not talk any more," he said, 
 as ungallantly severe in his professional capacity 
 as he was mendaciously complimentary on his 
 social side. "Go to sleep, Miss Incell. Dean 
 and I ll go up to the hotel and to-morrow morning 
 we ll come down to see how you re progressing. 
 Good-night. Good-night, Nurse." 
 
 The great man smilingly held out his hand to 
 the confused Swedish girl, who wiped her own on 
 her apron before she took the long, beautifully
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 59 
 
 strong white fingers reverently for a moment in 
 hers. 
 
 "Good-night, you poor little girl," Morgan 
 whispered almost tenderly. 
 
 But the clever Miss Incell must have been too 
 exhausted even to resent his tone.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 sensat i n f resting on the bosom 
 of Abraham when she s in your care," 
 Miss Incell said gratefully to her physician in 
 answer to his query as to how she had slept. 
 
 There was very little of the coquette about this 
 young woman, but it was not in feminine flesh and 
 blood wholly to resist the influence of this woman 
 worshiper. 
 
 "My first name is Paul," murmured the great 
 surgeon appreciatively. "It is my brother a 
 man literally devoid of enthusiasms, except for 
 ptomaines who was called after the father of 
 our tribe." 
 
 "Thank you," said his patient pertly. 
 
 At which they both laughed, clearing the flirta 
 tious atmosphere and settling down to business. 
 Through all this light badinage the Swedish girl 
 listened soberly, in gentle uncomprehension. She 
 looked upon the great surgeon with awed eyes, 
 only a degree less admiring than the gaze with 
 which she beheld Jessie Incell, a woman perfectly 
 at her ease with such men as this. And Baum- 
 felder, with that quick and pleased recognition of 
 thoroughness in any capacity, which marked his 
 nature, was able to put Hilma as nearly at her ease 
 as it was possible for so shy a creature to be. The 
 
 60
 
 6i 
 
 appearance of Morgan, though, always embar 
 rassed her to the point of disappearance. 
 
 "It s a disease of the native up in this part of 
 the world," the young man said laughing after 
 Hilma had escaped. There s something eerie, 
 Jessie, about the folk one meets about this en 
 chanted cottage. The moment you speak to 
 them they disappear. It s this habit, their love 
 of keeping dark and laying low and mortifying 
 their natural inquisitiveness that has given them 
 their community name, I suppose. As a matter 
 of fact, I don t believe there s anybody alive 
 here except the doctor, you and me, Miss Incell. 
 The others are wraiths with damn bad man 
 ners." 
 
 Miss Incell pulled herself upright, earning a 
 reproof, which she ignored, from Baumfelder for 
 her impulsiveness. 
 
 "They re the nicest people in the world, Dean 
 Morgan," she declared ardently. "I know people 
 whose manners would earn even your commen 
 dation, Mr. Assistant City Editor, who haven t 
 the taste and natural kindness of these." 
 
 "Which of them the boors I ran on to last 
 night?" 
 
 "I won t have you speak like that!" she said 
 sharply. "The office didn t send you up here to 
 say nasty things about people who ve been kind
 
 62 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 to me. And you mustn t quarrel with me. It 
 affects my temper ature^ doesn t it, Doctor ?" 
 
 So Morgan sat down amiably and gossiped the 
 morning away. He told Miss Incell all the latest 
 personal details of the office who was rumored up 
 and who down since the Boss s return; who had 
 made a scoop and who had fallen down; and who 
 was about to flit from one journalistic perch to an 
 other; of the artist who was scheming to get on the 
 Inquirer and the restless reporter who was about to 
 leave it; of the newest social scandal and the 
 latest political development. He talked well and 
 wittily and she enjoyed to the full a return in 
 spirit to the busy, impertinent, knowing atmos- 
 sphere that was so congenial to her. 
 
 At noon Hilma served luncheon and Doctor 
 Baumfelder, the most fastidious epicure in a club 
 of gourmets, partook of the fried ham, the biscuits 
 and tea with a pretense of enjoyment that de 
 lighted the little Swede. 
 
 O 
 
 The two men lounged off during the afternoon 
 striding over the little town, the observed of all the 
 curious eyes in Little Gap which looked upon the 
 accident to Jessie Incell in their midst as one of 
 those unexpected boons which Providence occa 
 sionally bestows upon the deserving. It was 
 vouchsafed to Doctor Purcey to meet and greet 
 the great Baumfelder, to walk with him through
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 63 
 
 Little Gap s one street, to be invited to take a 
 drink at the hotel, and to be gently but firmly 
 turned out of his case without his even so much as 
 suspecting that his treatment of it had met with 
 anything but the fullest approval. He displayed 
 the generous check Morgan had drawn for his 
 services at the grocery store, in the ostensible 
 course of cashing it, and his acquaintance with 
 the noted surgeon became one of those myths in 
 his memory which grow in the reciting and in pro 
 portion to the recession of its origin in antiquity. 
 
 But when Baumfelder told Miss Incell that 
 evening after examining her ankle, that she must 
 look forward to a stay of some weeks in the little 
 town, she promptly and petulantly refused to 
 obey; a bit of feminine perversity whose signifi 
 cance Doctor Baumfelder was altogether too wise 
 to overvalue, especially as his patient s mind 
 turned immediately to a remorseful realization of 
 what exile from town must mean to these two city- 
 bred visitors. 
 
 "Go back, both of you," she commanded. 
 "Take the night train only lost souls dare try the 
 day one in summer and leave me to my fate. 
 Stay ? Of course, I ll have to stay, a while any 
 way. But I know what ll become of me. I ll 
 turn Renunciant in despair, I know I will, and be 
 come old Senn s private secretary. I ll comb my
 
 64 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 hair back straight, forget how to take a joke and 
 pass into the fold, recanting all my errors and 
 burning the Inquirer publicly at a midnight orgie 
 on top of Renunciant Hill . . . Dost like the 
 picture, Doctor ?" 
 
 "Don t say you like any picture for which she 
 poses, even a renouncing one, now don t, Baum- 
 felder," interrupted Morgan. "She s already 
 so spoiled that there s no standing her." 
 
 The two men departed in a whirl of facetious 
 sentiment that left the little cottage quite quiet and 
 isolated. Hilma had listened to the doctor s last 
 directions like an acolyte before the high priest, as 
 Morgan phrased it, and it was agreed that Baum- 
 felder should come up again to Little Gap in a 
 week should circumstances require it, and that 
 Morgan should come whenever Miss Incell tele 
 graphed for him. 
 
 It was a strange life that now opened before the 
 young woman, a life of long, still days and long, 
 silent nights. The uneventful monotony of the 
 time lay upon her at first as a tangible load of hours 
 and stillness. The isolation of the little cottage, 
 the unaccustomed idleness and the rigidity of 
 pose against which Miss Incell s spirit and her 
 body chafed, together with the knowledge that all 
 this was not for a day but for an indefinite number 
 of days that stretched dully ahead of her this
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 65 
 
 threw the stricken journalist into a state of nervous 
 irritation, from which she suddenly awakened to 
 the piqued consciousness that she had not seen 
 Overman for a week and demanded of herself the 
 reason for his neglect. 
 
 She was rather a spoiled young woman, though 
 a very practical one. Her talent, her bonhomie, 
 an unpretentious ease of manner, her frank and 
 unaffected good-nature and a sterling sense of 
 humor made her welcome among the men at 
 the office who liked a good fellow, whether that 
 fellow were masculine or feminine. She was ac 
 customed to finding people quite ready to like her, 
 and civilizing contact with the other sex had taught 
 her not to demand too much of the ensuing friend 
 ship. She knew men and liked them and was not 
 given to overestimating their vices nor under- 
 
 O O 
 
 valuing their virtues. She took it as a matter of 
 course that they should treat her differently than 
 other women were treated, seeking her out and 
 making their points for the benefit of her criticism 
 or admiration, precisely as she herself sought 
 them. She had so long ceased to regard men 
 solely from the point of view which hamp 
 ers yet thrills femininity that it did not occur to 
 her to conceal a liking for any particular 
 one of them when it took possession of her. 
 Anything deeper or more disturbing than lik-
 
 66 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 ing had not yet entered into her busy scheme of 
 things. 
 
 She watched Hilma one long afternoon for hours 
 trying to decide just how she could present the 
 subject. It irritated her to know that she was 
 planning a strategic attack upon that which there 
 was no admissible reason she should not approach 
 frankly. And, stung by the thought, she suddenly 
 opened with a question. 
 
 "Hilma, where is Mr. Overman?" 
 "Anthony ?" The Swedish girl turned her eyes 
 upon Miss Incell, who fidgeted beneath that clear, 
 childish gaze fancying it saw farther than it 
 really did. "He stays now at Beebee s An 
 thony." 
 
 "All day and all night too ?" 
 "He works the day. By night he sleeps there." 
 "Because I have taken his place here?" 
 "No surely. For he and Will, the both, sleep 
 together. And often, when it hot is like now, they 
 sleep outside the trees under." 
 
 "Why then doesn t he come home." 
 The simple phrase as she spoke it touched a 
 hitherto silent chord in Jessie Incell. She had 
 never before been placed in the position so familiar 
 to women; it was she who "came home"; not 
 any man who came home to her. 
 
 "That I do know not," Hilma answered simply.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 67 
 
 Miss Incell pondered a moment. "Well, tell 
 him then tell Will to tell him that I want to see 
 him." 
 
 Hilma bowed her head obediently. Nothing 
 was to be denied this marvelous woman who 
 issued orders to men and met them on a footing 
 that the Swedish girl considered little short of 
 sacreligious. 
 
 Overman came the next evening. It was after 
 supper at the end of a hot day, and in her pleasure at 
 the prospect of any change in the slow monotony 
 of existence, Miss Incell would have welcomed 
 him with that eager, boyish interest in others 
 which made an introduction to her an experience, 
 had it not been for his own manner. 
 
 "How do you do ?" he asked civilly. "I hope 
 you are better. You wanted to see me is there 
 anything I can do for you ?" 
 
 As she looked up at him she experienced a vari 
 ety of emotions; she told herself that disgust was 
 the predominating one. 
 
 "Yes," she said shortly, " a number of things. 
 For one, you might take a seat instead of towering 
 above one like an uncomfortable genius who had 
 come unwillingly, because he couldn t help it 
 when the lamp was rubbed." 
 
 "Do I make you nervous, Aladdin ?" he laughed 
 obeying her.
 
 68 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 She was surprised herself at the pleasure the 
 change in his tone gave her. 
 
 "To be frank, you make me tired , " she 
 said, but with no faultfinding in her voice. "You 
 put me in the position of asking the reason why and 
 I m not accustomed to asking the reason, for I 
 don t usually care." 
 
 " Why what?" 
 
 "Why you are so grudging in your hospitality 
 as to compel your guest to imagine a reason for 
 your keeping out of her way." 
 
 He made an indignant motion, but checked 
 it. 
 
 "And what reason have you imagined, Miss 
 Incell?" 
 
 There can be but one that you resent my 
 being here." 
 
 "You know that isn t true." 
 
 "Of course I do," she laughed. "But in the 
 name of all that s feminine, what else could I say 
 to a man so shamelessly straightforward as you are, 
 who s too good to lie even a little bit for politeness 
 sake and to a girl!" 
 
 "Don t don t say anything," he urged. "You 
 make me feel ashamed of myself now that I am 
 with you and 
 
 "Didn t it occur to you," she demanded se 
 verely rejoicing in the ease with which she had
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 69 
 
 won, "that I must make some arrangement with 
 you toward paying for my expenses here ?" 
 
 "With me? No." 
 
 "Why not? Isn t it your house? Didn t all 
 that s left of your money pay for it ?" 
 
 "Hilma has told you. Yes, but the place is 
 hers. She will accept nothing from you, you 
 know that." 
 
 "She must or I won t stay here." 
 
 He smiled. " What will you, what can you do ? " 
 
 "I can have myself taken up to that fiendish 
 hotel," she smiled back, "where I shall be driven 
 mad by a trained nurse sent up from the city by 
 the office." 
 
 "You wouldn t do so foolish a thing." 
 
 "Oh, wouldn t I? You don t know me." 
 
 The doctor has forbidden you to move," he 
 said earnestly. 
 
 " But the doctor can t make me forfeit my self- 
 respect for an old crooked ankle." 
 
 "I do hope you will not insist." 
 
 "But I will if you make me. I d rather limp 
 than fall upon you three like a highwaywoman 
 and hold you up for such services leaving out 
 the way in which Hilma has given them as any 
 hospital in San Francisco would make the In 
 quirer shed tears of gold to pay. If you won t 
 listen to me I ll speak to Hilma."
 
 7 o ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "Do." 
 
 "I shall. But there s another thing. Don t 
 you suppose Hilma s bored to death with me and 
 deserves some help from you in the task of bearing 
 with me ?" 
 
 "You know she is devoted to you. You have 
 made her love you in these few days, love to wait 
 upon you." 
 
 "There is an uncomplimentary surprise in your 
 voice, Mr. Overman. Well, don t you suppose 
 that she and her husband get tired of an eternal 
 third person around, who is simply thrown upon 
 their mercy ? Don t you suppose they d like you 
 to take me off their hands so that they could be 
 alone occasionally ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You don t!" Her eyes were merrily cynical. 
 " Why should they be different from other people ? 
 
 "I have told you. And, as you have expressed 
 it in your article when you spoke of Senn, Dis 
 cussion of such subjects may as well be confined to 
 the medical profession; normal people consider 
 them unfit for publication. 
 
 "Not indelicately put, do you think?" she 
 asked with pretended innocence, but she was con 
 sumed with anger. 
 
 "There would have been more delicacy in not 
 putting it at all," he said stiffly.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 71 
 
 "Oh, indeed! I thought you were going to 
 compliment me on my moderation. But what s 
 a newspaper reporter for then ?" 
 
 "I m sure," he said slowly ? "I don t know." 
 
 "So that s it eh?" She sat up straight and 
 met his eyes angrily; angrily conscious, too, that 
 he could anger her. 
 
 He did not answer for a moment. When he did 
 speak his voice was so gentle that it rebuked the 
 acerbity in her own. 
 
 "No, this is what it is. You have made me 
 ridiculous which is nothing, for I am an ob 
 scure individual and, as you may imagine, one who 
 has so little care for conventionalities as to join a 
 crank community cannot be very susceptible to 
 what people think or say of him. But I did meet 
 you fairly and frankly that night and, because you 
 are a woman perhaps or because my mind was still 
 a-whirl with change, having to choose suddenly a 
 new viewpoint from which to measure things 
 anyway, I spoke to you as a man does not speak 
 to the world at large. I repeat, I am of no im 
 portance, but the treachery 
 
 "Treachery!" 
 
 "Yes, the treachery, in spirit, in effect, is not 
 such because it was done to me. The pitiable 
 state in which you found us, Will, Hilma and me, 
 might have appealed to a thoughtful woman or
 
 72 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 one who had a heart. It was only material for you, 
 and the dishonorable use 
 
 "I like that!" She blazed at him. 
 
 "It was dishonorable," he went on sternly, "for 
 you knew well that if I could have anticipated that 
 sensational, unfair, intensely and impertinently 
 personal article of yours, I should not have spoken 
 to you, I should not have provided you with 
 material for it. You knew what you were going 
 to do with it. You took care not to let me 
 know 
 
 "I did not I did not consider you at all. I 
 never thought to see you or speak to you again!" 
 she exclaimed hotly. 
 
 "And for that reason you took a mean advan 
 tage of our position, of my foolish candor, and you 
 served us up as a ridiculous lot of fools, without 
 any regard for the deeper significance our folly 
 betokened. It was the act of a clever, conscience 
 less, frivolous woman. There is a noblesse oblige 
 binding upon those whose mental endowment has 
 put them in the aristocracy of brains; its obliga 
 tions include a reverence for honest, hopeful belief 
 in the betterment of worldly conditions. For 
 what is the petty product of men s thought com 
 pared to the only work on earth that is worth 
 doing making it a better, easier, finer place to 
 live in ? God made man "
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 73 
 
 "Did he? Are you so sure of that? I m not 
 and I don t care by the equivocation of silence to 
 pretend to such a belief, when neither I nor you 
 nor anyone else can know anything about it." 
 
 She saw with satisfaction that she had shocked 
 him. 
 
 "I am sorry," he said slowly. "I wandered, 
 as I am apt to, because of my interest in the thing 
 that fills my thought. What I started to say is 
 that such men and women as you lower their order, 
 the order of intellect, when they put their gifts to 
 such base, trivial use as this; when they point out 
 the obviously weak and ridiculous steps by which 
 humanity is striving to crawl forward and up 
 ward, and lazily or ignorantly or cruelly ignore the 
 fact that the movement is onward, upward. Such 
 natures would see the dust on the hem of Christ s 
 gown as He passed and gleefully put all their 
 talents to mock at it, never once realizing that 
 He had passed, so blind are they to the glory of 
 His presence, so deaf to the ineffable music of 
 His words!" 
 
 He had risen and was standing, his stern eyes 
 blazing down upon her. She had fallen back 
 upon her pillow, her face white with anger. 
 
 "And so," her words fell like cool, ironical 
 drops upon the heated silence, "so you stayed 
 away to punish me?"
 
 74 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "No . . ." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "To punish me," he said simply. 
 
 She looked up eagerly. 
 
 "For still liking you . . . in spite of it," 
 he answered the compelling question in her eyes. 
 
 Her lids fell with the answer and a silence came 
 upon the little room and on them both. Over 
 man stood looking down upon her with a queer 
 expression in his troubled eyes that seemed to 
 plead with her to help him against herself. She 
 did not meet his gaze. She was wondering why 
 she no longer felt the smallest irritation at his 
 arraignment of her. His last admission the old 
 self-surrender of all his weapons in one that man 
 makes to woman blotted out everything else. 
 
 "What a crank you are!" she sighed at last 
 happily.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 T"\OCTOR BAUMFELDER S assistant, who 
 came up to Little Gap during the following 
 week to see Miss Incell, reported to his chief 
 and to the managing editor of the Inquirer that, 
 although convalescence had set in and the nurs 
 ing of his patient was all that could be desired, 
 the young woman s recovery was bound to be 
 very slow. She had used the ankle after fracturing 
 the small bone whose misplacement was but 
 half the trouble, abrading the skin which the coun 
 try doctor s herbal treatment had slightly in 
 fected. Though all danger of any serious result 
 was quite at an end, the young lady should posi 
 tively not put her weight on that foot for weeks to 
 come; nor should she be hurried even with the use 
 of a crutch. He begged to add, however, that the 
 country air itself was highly beneficial, that the 
 patient was cheerful and had every necessary con 
 venience, despite the peculiarities of the odd little 
 household, and she seemed not at all impatient to 
 get away when he left Little Gap. 
 
 The next train after the one which took the 
 assistant back to San Francisco brought Miss 
 Incell a huge bunch of civilized roses from her 
 editor, a box of candy that was built up like a 
 saccharine cave-dweller s house from Morgan, a 
 
 75
 
 76 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 letter from Baumfelder, which began with strictly 
 professional and lucid directions as to further 
 precautions her nurse must take, and ended with 
 a personal, flirtatious touch that was thoroughly 
 characteristic. 
 
 Truly Miss Incell was very content. Her 
 trunk had been sent up to her, she received the 
 papers regularly, by every mail she got books and 
 magazines. She wearied often of bodily inaction, 
 but mentally and physically she seemed to be 
 tasting a new experience that demanded nothing 
 of her save easy, pleasant acquiescence. 
 
 Her papers and books had at last bridged over 
 the distrust with which Donaghey had at first re 
 garded her. The Irishman, who had hitherto 
 avoided her or been silent and ill-at-ease in her 
 presence, fancying that her eyes were still and 
 always exercising their critical, inquisitive, repor- 
 torial function, had a passion for reading which 
 was like that of a child whose starved, virgin mind 
 wakes suddenly to realization of the fact that men 
 have thought and written. He had an argumen 
 tative, impressionable mind, and he fell into the 
 habit of discussing all he read with this girl- 
 journalist, for the pleasure it was to listen to her 
 cynical comment which reflected the behind-the- 
 scenes atmosphere of the office where she had 
 learned disillusion, but without bitterness. And
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 77 
 
 she bound him more strongly to her by playing 
 fairy god-mother to his wishes; causing the books 
 to appear almost immediately which he coveted 
 as soon as he read of them in the book-reviews. 
 
 With Donaghey s surrender the rough-hewn 
 walls of the little log cabin in the forest became 
 the scene of a simply-lived, homelike idyl, whose 
 magic the four who dwelt within learned to look 
 back upon and wonder at, as they might who 
 have passed through dreamland awake. 
 
 A radiance of peace illumined Hilma s fair face 
 in those days; every common detail of woman s 
 lot was glorified for her in that sun that lights up 
 personal experience once in a woman s lifetime 
 and makes the scheme of creation seem to her a 
 thing planned with reference solely to herself as its 
 object and end. She finished one labor and 
 began another, feeling in each an intimate interest 
 and pleasure that made her busy days a symphony 
 of praise and thanksgiving. She loved every stick 
 and stone upon the premises; they were hers. 
 She spent a wealth of loving care and forethought 
 upon every household detail, and her cheerful 
 thrift, her ingenuity and patient industry made 
 every one in the little place so comfortable that 
 isolation from the world was robbed of its pains 
 and yielded only pleasure. 
 
 The same miracle that haloed common things
 
 ;8 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 for the Swedish girl wrought in Donaghey a desire 
 for home-building, to which he yielded as unthink 
 ingly as the sparrow does. He had patient, skil 
 ful fingers and the delight of the dextrous in using 
 them. To beautify the interior of the cottage 
 became the hobby of his leisure hours, and the 
 unpainted redwood with its beautiful rippling 
 grain like the motion of a wave mirrored in sub 
 stantial wood responded to every lover-like 
 touch he spent upon it. For hours in the even 
 ing, while Overman read aloud, and all day Sun 
 day he would sit finishing a cabinet he had set into 
 the wall, perfecting the polish on a door panel, or 
 inventing means for lightening Hilma s labor. It 
 was his genius intuitively to know the secrets of 
 the joiner s trade and to display taste in this direc 
 tion that he was guiltless of in any other, and the 
 bent of his mind made this employment the means 
 best adapted to rest and refresh him. Jessie Incell 
 used to let her eyes wander from Hilma s gentle 
 activity to the perfection of repose suggested by 
 the little Irishman s absorbed stillness while only 
 his hands moved, and she said to herself that these 
 two complemented each other so exquisitely that 
 it seemed but one life both lived. 
 
 To both Overman and Jessie the zest of dis 
 covering that there was nothing so trivial in the 
 life or thought of the one that did not outweigh in
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 79 
 
 interest for the other every deed and fact in man 
 kind s experience to both this experience came 
 as a revelation so gentle and so gradual that neither 
 realized the consequences of yielding to it. On 
 the evening when they were stirred most strongly 
 to self-revelation, they had been sitting out alone 
 in front of the cottage. 
 
 "It s your turn now," Miss Incell said, as she 
 finished a quick, humorously insincere account of 
 herself. "Confess now and begin at the begin 
 ning. I was born of poor but honest parents. 
 
 "Poor? Yes. Very, very poor. Honest? I 
 believe so but do you really care to know?" he 
 asked, the absorbed interest in her piquant, alert 
 face lending a value to all he said that he had 
 never dreamed it might possess for any human 
 being. "But it isn t pleasant. My childhood and 
 boyhood was the squalid, oppressed youth of the 
 wretched poor. I cannot look back and see my 
 self even in my earliest memory without the 
 weight of responsibility, without the tugging con 
 sciousness of being ill-fed, half-clothed and on the 
 verge of that terribly true poverty whose meaning 
 only the real poor know; and of them, the self- 
 supporting children of the poor know best. I 
 would not have you realize what it was," he added 
 gently. 
 
 She was looking at him with that fearful pity,
 
 8o ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 that panting sympathy that a woman has for the 
 dead and gone suffering of the boy who was father 
 to the man she listens to, the man she yearns to 
 shield as his mother might. 
 
 "No, I would not have you know what it was 
 to me," he went on after a pause, "and yet you 
 and every other human being ought to be made to 
 realize what it is to-day, now, to otb^r children. 
 The bite of winter and the cursed, fet d breath of 
 summer, the being sick and young and hopeless, 
 the fearful definiteness of the consequence of not 
 working or not being able to get work, the foul 
 knowledge of vice and crime thrust into one s 
 face like a nauseating rag that cuts one off from 
 the pure air, and the awful God, the awful 
 sight of suffering women and children! Do you 
 wonder I m a crank ? Why, a crank is only one 
 who knows these things and can t forget them." 
 
 He had a voice, Jessie Incell said to herself 
 that, however great the wretchedness its words 
 depicted, could not lose its tang of hope and de 
 fiance. It was this note of courage sounding like 
 a bugle call in the very thick of defeat, that called 
 to her despite her easy pessimism. 
 
 "Go on tell me," she murmured. 
 
 "You can understand, can t you," he asked 
 appealingly, " how such a child, such a boy, such 
 a man, who had raised himself at last above the
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 81 
 
 mire, would be haunted by the faces, the cries of 
 the damned he had left still floundering, choking 
 in it ? And you can see how such a man know 
 ing, as the poor do know how small is the margin 
 upon which human beings can exist, how very, 
 very little suffices should risk all he had when 
 an idealistic scheme that promised wholesale 
 redemption from earthly misery came like a revel 
 ation to him ? I d like you to understand- 
 not merely to fasten an easy name to me and pass 
 on please." 
 
 She threw out her hand with a quick deprecating 
 gesture and he went on. 
 
 "You see when one has watched blind philan 
 thropy beggar beggars still more effectually; when 
 one has seen the wretches fall back into the bog 
 through sheer lack of strength to take the helping 
 hand that s held out to them; when one has learned 
 the depths of human depravity, the limits of human 
 weakness, the boundlessness of human suffering, 
 if he thinks at all, he must become one of two 
 things a despairing pessimist or a dogged dreamer 
 who is bound to persist in his search for a remedy 
 through disappointment and defeat, for the simple 
 reason that he is unable to desist. He is possessed 
 by a passion, a madness that makes him sure there 
 is but one thing in the world worthy man s best 
 thought and full strength, the making of it fit to
 
 82 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 live in. He ll be made the tool as I was of 
 schemers; his very idealism will lead him into 
 such company as will put his ideals to shame; 
 he ll die with his victory un-won, which isn t a 
 calamity, for for himself he has lived in har 
 mony with the ideals set before him, and there 
 can be no earthly heaven finer than this. As for 
 that for which he has worked, there will be many 
 men after him, born as he was with a specialized 
 bent in this one direction; humanity-lovers, who 
 follow the tendency of their natures as inevitably 
 as the workers in a bee-hive follow theirs and 
 fulfill the end for which they were created. There 
 simply must be a better world for future genera 
 tions to live in. Some men die and raise the stand 
 ard of living and thinking a millionth of a human 
 inch by the lever of spiritualized sentiment. 
 Others live and are not sure whether they are lift 
 ing or depressing the scale. It drops in time with 
 the weight of human selfishness and stupidity, 
 but it is bound to rise again even though it fall 
 again because of the irresistible strength of the 
 whole of a man s genius when it is unswervingly 
 pointed in one direction, and because that man is 
 but one of many fashioned, like himself, to be an 
 instrument. Dare one belittle the effect of such 
 work ? Can you even assert that it is hopeless ? 
 The fool who goes about it, to my notion, is a
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 83 
 
 thousand times wiser than the wise man who 
 ignores it. The doctors who prescribe unavail- 
 ingly for it are scientifically nearer perfect under 
 standing of it than those who selfishly pass it by. 
 I d rather ease a child s back of his load for an 
 hour than win the greatest victory history has 
 recorded. I d rather be a prop to a drunkard s 
 will a prop that will sustain him once, though 
 he fall a hundred other times than write the 
 Bible under Jehovah s dictation. It s an age of 
 specialization, Miss Incell, I was born to be a 
 crank. Just how I shall go about it the next 
 time I don t know, but I do know that the same 
 ardor, the same confidence that got me into Senn s 
 clutches will accompany the process when I get on 
 my feet and try again." 
 
 There was a lighter tone in his voice as he 
 finished speaking, an unworded apology for the 
 seriousness of his subject. But his earnestness, 
 the saturation of his soul with the thing that pos 
 sessed him stirred her as she would not have be 
 lieved a month ago she could be moved. 
 
 "I wonder," she said wistfully, "how much of 
 himself a man has the right to will away from 
 from his relations ? Shouldn t there be a moral 
 law to cover such a question ? I ve met your 
 brothers, you know," she added in a tone that was 
 more characteristic. "You re a big family, you
 
 84 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 cranks, and in a way I have a specialty myself 
 which is studying and serving up you specialists. 
 I ll admit that one crank washes another out of my 
 mind; they follow upon my attention in such 
 quick succession, and I do lose interest in the 
 particular crankiness that absorbs each of them. 
 But I have never gone away from an interview 
 with one of them that I haven t found myself, 
 (in spite of my determination always to remain a 
 spectator) brooding over the family relations of 
 the crank in question. It s the mother of a crank 
 that most interests me. In my fancy she dwells 
 a whole colony of her, sonned by varied fads em 
 bodied in flesh and blood a creature that is every 
 thing proud, miserable, loving, disappointed 
 everything but happy. What becomes of the 
 fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and and wives 
 of cranks ? What is their place in Crankology ?" 
 
 She could always make him smile, and it would 
 have disturbed Miss Incell not a little could she 
 have known how well worth while it seemed to 
 her to be the cause of one of those short, amused 
 laughs with which he greeted this gay little sally 
 of hers. 
 
 "I don t know from experience," he said, and 
 then more seriously, "my father died before I was 
 born; he was killed in the mine and he left, merci 
 fully, but one child for mother to struggle for in her
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 85 
 
 poverty. And we did struggle, we two. It was a 
 campaign without truce, in which the din of battle 
 deafened us by day and haunted our dreams at 
 night. She was killed in action after a gallant 
 fight, early in the engagement. And for years 
 before I even knew that the fight was on, she had 
 never taken off her armor. It s a thing like that 
 the irrevocably past misery and death of one s 
 best-beloved, weaker than oneself, whom one 
 might stay and comfort now, if it were not too late, 
 if she had only waited till one was strong enough 
 that makes tigers of men or altruists cranks. 
 For it requires no feat of imagination, no stretching 
 of sympathy to know that other boys are watching 
 their mothers go down under the blows and 
 shocks of war on weaker humanity. And other 
 tender, brave eyes are glazing in death, their last, 
 half-conscious thought a prayer for the poor little 
 comrade in arms . . . Oh!" 
 
 He did not see how almost maternal was the 
 look with which this girl regarded him, for he was 
 gazing far off" into the past. When he did throw 
 back his head, as though physically to put away 
 memories that overwhelmed him, and turned to 
 her, her eyes were downcast and she was asking 
 half-timidly, 
 
 "But what can one do ?" 
 
 "Do!" he cried the question got him to his
 
 86 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 feet. "There s only one thing to do, there can be 
 but one To say the thing your soul says, to live 
 the life your heart wills, to die the death your imag 
 ination approves and your spirit sanctions! That s 
 what one can do. To live the inner life that 
 possesses one, openly in all its depth, in all its 
 changefulness, in all its seeming lawlessness. Yet 
 to keep one law, the highest, the only one; to 
 keep that inviolate, changing freely, fully as it 
 appears to you to change, or as you, in your 
 greater light, learn to interpret it the law of 
 individual liberty, the centre of the soul s gravity 
 about which the world revolves. Do! Why, put 
 your creed into your deed. Dare to do the thing 
 that tempts you, toward which your whole being 
 yearns and turns with a strength that is irresistible. 
 The pity is when the impulse is only almost 
 irresistible. Oh, if only every strong impulse 
 toward honesty, toward beauty, toward altruism 
 that moves one would make its history, not only 
 in our own lives, but in others . If only no man 
 could withstand the force that impels him to do 
 this, to be that, and later another person, another 
 thing. Dare to be free. Free to do the thing you 
 crave to do and that craves the doing. Free to 
 live in that higher realm where none is fit to criti 
 cize save one s self. Free to scorn ridicule, to 
 face contempt, to brave remorse. Free to give
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 87 
 
 life to the one human soul that can demand and 
 grant such a boon one s own self. To scorn a 
 shame and strike a knave and openly curse a 
 time-server. To lift this one up, not because he is 
 weak, but because his cause is just and as such 
 demands your service as no king, however great, 
 no god however high commanded subject however 
 loyal and lowly, nor devotee, however, bigoted. 
 To give to the cause that claims your reverence 
 swift complete subservience. To feel to the 
 full every passion, ethical and emotional, of which 
 you are capable. To believe and love and suffer 
 and be disillusioned. To be false, if necessary to 
 be true to yourself. Yet being true to yourself 
 you could not be false, for no one can promise 
 more than he can fulfill. To live, to live! To 
 know no coward half-life where one s greater 
 self, stifled and loathing, struggles though chained 
 to and gagged by the lesser one. To die a martyr, 
 if that be necessary, or live an outlaw. To suffer 
 for principle, while it is principle to you, and to dis 
 regard it the moment it loses significance for you. 
 To foster to its fullest flourishing the flower of 
 your soul till it develops such strange and wonder 
 ful growths as even you did not dream of. To do 
 everything that fancy fancy which is the inspired 
 soul dreaming dictates; to do it regardless, freely, 
 joyfully, with never a cowardly second thought,
 
 88 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 but to act upon impulse and instinct as upon a 
 clarion call. To be all that you would. To live 
 all the lives that are in you. No longer to train 
 this side and restrain that, to clip and mold and 
 mar, as a Japanese gardener cripples and mars the 
 plant he dwarfs, as we dwarf and cripple the souls 
 within us and make a monstrosity, not a human 
 poem of the material given us. 
 
 "To live this life, these lives, and to die unre- 
 gretful, however unsuccessful as the world reckons 
 success. For there really is but one failure the 
 failure to live your own life, your life, your only 
 one. Failing this you live none at all. You are 
 only a shadow of another and often, more s the 
 irremediable pity, of another shadow. 
 
 "Oh, never to know myself a coward and 
 pitifully seek self-excuse! Never to feel that soul- 
 devouring contempt of the thing the world and I 
 have made of myself! Never to walk with shamed 
 eyes before one braver than myself, and holier, 
 because not a traitor to himself. Never, never to 
 say Tt might have been , but It was or it is or 
 It shall be. To testify to the truth when it is the 
 truth to me, so long as it remains the truth this 
 only. I have tired you. Oh, see, what a miserable, 
 selfish crank I am!" he cried remorsefully. 
 
 "No," her voice was very weary and she was 
 looking at him with envy and with pity, "but I
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 89 
 
 believe I am tired of myself. Will you help 
 me to go in now ? It must be late. " 
 
 Out here under the trees the dusk had come 
 upon them almost without their realizing it. 
 
 "You must forgive me," he said as he stooped 
 to lift and carry her into the house. "I am an 
 ill-balanced talker whom a sympathetic listener 
 causes to topple over. I could only speak so to 
 you I have hardly said as much to myself but 
 you can see now what egoists we who think our 
 selves altruists really are." 
 
 She did not answer except to wish him good 
 night, as he helped her to the lounge and went off 
 to find Donaghey. Hilma came in after a little, 
 her sewing in her busy hands, but Jessie had un 
 dressed without her aid and was lying with her 
 hands clasped over her head. 
 
 "Just stay and sew here a bit, won t you, 
 Hilma?" she asked when her nurse would have 
 withdrawn. 
 
 "I am afraid I will keep you awake." 
 
 "No, you won t. I can t go to sleep just yet. 
 Do you remember, Hilma, when you were little 
 being afraid sometimes to go to sleep alone ? I m 
 feeling little to-night, almost contemptibly small, 
 and I m afraid. There are nights when one 
 had better shut the door on things that are 
 trying to think themselves. I m not ready to
 
 9 o ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 entertain; my house is not in order. Let s talk, 
 Hilma." 
 
 The Swedish girl obediently drew out her 
 basket and Jessie turned toward her, her head 
 pillowed on her arm. 
 
 "I m getting well, you know." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And it won t be long before I m leaving Ar 
 cadia." 
 
 "Arcadia?" Hilma repeated puzzled. "Oh! 
 I am sorry." 
 
 "Yes, that s why I m glad. Never mind, but 
 listen. Before I go you and I have got to fight 
 out the battle the men are too cowardly to have 
 anything to do with. You know what I mean 
 the idea of your pretending anything, you milk- 
 white baby!" 
 
 The Swedish girl dropped her hands help 
 lessly in her lap. 
 
 "Yes," Miss Incell went on, "you ve got to 
 let me pay you for at least 
 
 "No, I cannot." 
 
 "Yes, you can if you try," she laughed. Con 
 tact with the simplicity, the gentle directness of 
 this girl s nature always soothed her. "See, how 
 amiable it was of me to stay here trusting to your 
 generosity not to let me remain in a false position." 
 
 "I do not understand."
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 91 
 
 "I know you don t." 
 
 "Talk to Anthony about it." begged Hilma. 
 
 "You fraud, you know he insists the whole 
 grand establishment is yours!" 
 
 "To Will then," she said faintly. She bent 
 her face over her sewing, like a child that doesn t 
 wish to meet clear-sighted eyes. 
 
 "Will! Hilma, how can you beg the question 
 like this?" 
 
 Hurriedly the Swedish girl rose, putting her 
 sewing away. But Miss Incell reached out and 
 pulled her back to her rocking chair. 
 
 " I won t insist, Hilma, not to-night anyway, if 
 you ll only sit awhile. You ve got lots of sewing 
 to do, haven t you ? And you ll sew in the kitchen 
 if you don t here ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Hilma penitently. 
 
 "All right, do sew here then. I ll say good 
 night, for I may fall asleep and forget it. But 
 just you sit there, like a little younger mother of 
 me, and I ll slip off to sleep perhaps like a good 
 girl eh?" 
 
 "Yes all right. I will pleased be if the light 
 disturbs you not." 
 
 Miss Incell shook her head. She lay with 
 closed eyes her arms above her head, the frill of 
 her sleeve falling away from her well-turned 
 wrists, the frill at her throat rising and falling
 
 92 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 with her bosom s rhythmic breathing. She was 
 not thinking. She was not sleeping. She was 
 listening in fancy as she had listened in fact. But 
 Hilma s gentle presence, the quiet of the night, 
 the air of peace and domesticity that pervaded 
 the place all conspired to rob the words she heard 
 again of their restless burdening thought, and to 
 bring to her ears, like the melodious throb of an 
 organ s song robbed by distance of the verse that 
 accompanies it, only the sound of a voice that 
 woke echoes in her heart. 
 
 But she lay so long quite still that the Swedish 
 girl thought she slept and, after a silent interlude 
 of watching, Hilma laid aside the gingham gown 
 she was making and, lifting a basket of white 
 sewing from under the chintz drapery of the table 
 where it had been hidden, she bent over it with an 
 absorption that was but the sequel of the dream 
 the woman lying on the lounge was dreaming. 
 
 The sudden consciousness that she was so 
 dreaming came all at once to Jessie Incell and 
 her eyes opened with what might have been a 
 click of determination, if it had been accompanied 
 by sound. She was no dreamer, but a practical, 
 busy woman who saw herself, half in terror, half 
 in amusement, guilty of a reverie, the significance 
 of which she was unwilling to admit even to her 
 waking self. But what she saw in Hilma s hands
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 93 
 
 dissipated all thought of herself. She stared 
 unbelieving and stared again and sat up at last 
 still staring. 
 
 " Hilma ! " she cried. " Oh Hilma ! " 
 
 There was mockery in her voice and tenderness 
 and exultation and shocked, incredulous surprise. 
 
 With a start the Swedish girl sprang to her feet. 
 The little garment, the first crude covering for 
 miniature humanity s nakedness, over which she 
 had been bending secretively, adoringly, fell 
 from her hands, and she buried in them her face, 
 whose delicate skin was suffused by a burning 
 wave of color. 
 
 "Oh, Hilma and you could refuse to let 
 me help!" 
 
 Something in Miss Incell s tone gave the girl 
 courage to look up. She saw her friend s arms 
 outstretched and above them the rippling tender 
 ness of a face more given to express lighter 
 emotions, and she felt the mockery washed away 
 in a flood of sweet sentiment. 
 
 Jessie Jessie," she stammered, falling on 
 her knees before the couch and using her guest s 
 name for once with ease and naturalness, "what 
 could I do? I I so loved him . . ." 
 
 Jessie held the abased blonde head tight in her 
 arms. It was some moments before the Swedish 
 girl raised her shamed, happy eyes, and then
 
 94 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 from her lips fell a timid word that expressed the 
 whole ineffectual struggle to live up to foster ideals, 
 which she and her husband had adopted and 
 tried so hard to make their own. 
 
 "But Anthony!" she whispered piteously. 
 
 Miss Incell s arms relaxed. That wailing 
 accent quite unwomanned her. Her shoulders 
 shook and she fell back upon her pillow convulsed 
 with silent laughter.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 p\EAN MORGAN held in his outstretched 
 
 hand a rosewood crutch. 
 
 "Miss Jessie Incell, A. M. maid of arts, 
 or, arts with an apostrophe, if you prefer the 
 cockney origin of the word. " (It was Mr. Morgan s 
 way to play about his subject, to "chase his 
 journalistic tail" as the reporters of the Inquirer 
 put it). "On behalf of the honorable fraternity of 
 which I am one and you are, too permit me to 
 present to you this token of the local room s 
 esteem . . . (Tut, tut, young woman, haven t 
 you attended banquets enough to know that the 
 giftee never accepts the gift till the gifter has had 
 time to make his speech ? . . . On this felici 
 tous occasion, fellow citizens" as Miss Incell 
 sat back again upon the couch, Morgan turned to 
 include in a pompous bow poor Hilma, who stood 
 by with a bewildered, smiling face, and Donaghey 
 who was appreciatively a-grin. "On this occasion 
 I rise to express to you my own and your own 
 feelings on the subject of yellow journalisttes 
 with two Ys and an V. This, my friends, is the 
 woman s century; so called because the lydies are 
 engaged in out-heroding Herod all over this broad 
 free land, over which the star spangled banner of 
 freedom and fake may ever wave. Applause! 
 
 95
 
 96 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 . . . (It s the place for it, you know it is, 
 Jessie Incell.) . . . To continue; although 
 man in his timid conservative way has tried to 
 feel the sensational popular pulse and cater to 
 that inherent yellowness which knows that fiction 
 is stranger than fact and loves it for that reason, 
 yet it has remained for Woman to realize the very 
 acme, the perfection, the quintessence I may say, 
 the very yellow jaundice of journalism . . . 
 (Cries of Hear! Hear! Morgan for President! 1 
 etc., etc.) . . . My friends, I thank you. 
 Who is it that first went up in a balloon to inter 
 view a comet the lady before me, Miss Jessie 
 Incell! Who, braving the perils of subterranean 
 disaster, and nausea, descended into the very 
 bowels of the earth to inquire how its vermiform 
 appendage was taking its sudden publicity ? Who, 
 standing fearlessly beside a lynch-ed Negro, took 
 down in shorthand from his purpling lips the 
 indispensable information of how it feels to be 
 burned alive ? Who accompanied a neighboring 
 prince and princess upon their honeymoon ? Who 
 but why multiply instances ? Who but Jessie 
 Incell knows it all ? Who but Miss Incell advises 
 us how to propose, whom to marry, what infant 
 food industry to patronize! She accompanies us 
 from the craddle to the grave, and her very next 
 detail, I ve a hunch, will be to write a racy eight-
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 97 
 
 hundred words giving Jehovah s opinion of the 
 unparalleled enterprise of the Inquirer in sending 
 Miss Jessie Incell (capitals five-inches long) in 
 bloomers and the latest model flying machine all 
 the way aloft and back in time for the first edition! 
 
 " My friends, I ask you to drink with me to the 
 health of Miss Jessie Incell s ankle. The toast 
 will be drunk standing on one foot out of respect 
 to our distinguished guest." 
 
 The speaker s words were promptly drowned 
 in applause according to formula and Mr. Morgan, 
 bowing to right and left, sat down flushed, as his 
 manner intimated, w r ith success. 
 
 "Mr. Chairman, Mr. Morgan, Ladies and Fel 
 low sufferers," Miss Incell began, rising from 
 her couch and balancing herself on her new crutch, 
 "it is with feelings 
 
 "Hear! Hear!" cried Morgan. "She has em. 
 Actually, the great and only Jessie Incell has 
 feelin s, even as you and I!" 
 
 "Feelings," continued Miss Incell severely, 
 "that well up from an over-bulged ankle 
 
 "Applause! Cheers! Laughter!" shouted Mor 
 gan. 
 
 " that I rise to. . . Oh, Mr. Overman, 
 come here and see the pretty thing the boys 
 in the office have sent me! I ll be sorry when 
 Fm no longer lame enough to use it."
 
 98 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 Morgan turned quickly and faced Overman 
 standing at the door. 
 
 "By all that s beautiful, tis Adonis!" he 
 exclaimed. 
 
 "Oh, how yellow you are!" Miss Incell turned 
 upon him. "And not only by profession, Dean 
 Morgan, but by nature." 
 
 "I really am not so lovely as I ve been painted," 
 Overman said coming into the room, "nor so 
 holy. For one thing, I resent being considered 
 a vain fool." 
 
 Morgan looked up quickly. The answer and 
 its tone were unexpected. 
 
 "I really beg your pardon," he said good- 
 naturedly, "but how was I to know?" 
 
 " By putting yourself in my place." 
 
 The journalist made a motion that declared the 
 impossibility of his changing identities, even in 
 fancy, with one so unlike himself. 
 
 The gesture irritated Overman; it teemed with 
 that intangible insolence which marked the news 
 paperman s manner to those whom he suspected 
 of being lacking in brains or savoir faire or the 
 degree of up-to-dateness that commanded his 
 respect. But before Overman could speak, Miss 
 Incell, stamping with her uninjured foot upon the 
 uncarpeted floor, threw herself mentally between 
 them.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 99 
 
 "Don t thrash him Anthony." She used his 
 first name deliberately, challenging Morgan s eyes 
 which met hers inquisitively. "Not that a beating 
 wouldn t do him good, but because it would imply 
 that you hadn t forgiven me and forgotten that 
 impertinent old story. Mr. Morgan, you don t 
 deserve it, but I am going to introduce you to Mr. 
 Overman. I thought you two had met before. 
 Now, do look at my present, Anthony." 
 
 She put the well-turned light little crutch into 
 Overman s hands, laying her hand on his arm and 
 limping back to the lounge. She pointed out the 
 velvet-cushioned top and the silver plate upon the 
 side with its inscription, "To One Wounded on 
 the Battlefield," and explained at length to him 
 what the local room meant. She dilated upon 
 the varied characters of the "boys," who made up 
 the news staff of the Inquirer, their different 
 specialties and the "scoops" each was credited 
 with. And she deceived only the guileless Hilma 
 by her loquacity, for to the rest her intention was 
 quite apparent. 
 
 But to see the self-possessed Miss Incell obvi 
 ously talking against time was more than Overman 
 could bear. As soon as a pause made it possible 
 he turned to Morgan, appealing to him for in 
 formation concerning the rumored strike of 
 teamsters in San Francisco, and when she heard
 
 ioo ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 the voice of the two raised in earnest debate over 
 the labor question, Jessie rose with a relieved 
 sigh and hobbled over to Hilma. 
 
 The Swedish girl was bending over Miss Incell s 
 trunk which was packed nearly to the brim. Each 
 article of clothing that she laid away, her long, 
 slim hands patted caressingly. Her honest gray 
 eyes, which she lifted to Jessie s face, were brim 
 ming with tears. 
 
 The pine pillow we all have gathered that 
 last day in the woods it here is," she said 
 with an unsteady voice. "The wild flowers you 
 have pressed, on this side are. And and 
 
 "Oh, you little goose, you dear little goose!" 
 Miss Incell whispered putting an arm about her. 
 "I just love to have you cry because I m going. Do 
 you know, Hilma, that I can t remember any 
 body s crying at being separated from me ? The 
 hotel-keepers regret my going but but really you 
 mustn t." 
 
 "It will so lonely be without you." 
 
 "Pshaw! Hilma Donaghey, you know you ll 
 never be lonely in all your life now." 
 
 The Swedish girl smiled through her tears and 
 while she and Miss Incell stepped aside for a mo 
 ment, Donaghey strapped the trunk and carried 
 it out to the wagon that Anthony had driven up 
 to the door.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 101 
 
 It seemed to Jessie Incell when she looked back 
 upon it, that she had been living long, long days 
 of undisturbed companionship, of peace, of idyllic 
 content; and that suddenly Time, as though to 
 make up for the lost hours, had caught her 
 up in a whirl of preparation of which every second 
 had to be accounted for. Her whispered colloquy 
 with Hilma was all too short for the heartfelt words 
 these two had to say. Then the younger woman 
 helped her on with her jacket and hat, as a mother 
 might the great girl she was sending off to college; 
 the mother instinct spoke in every act of the 
 Swedish girl in those days, it illumined her fair 
 face, and made her look upon the unmarried 
 woman (before whose varied experiences and 
 accomplishments she had once humbly bowed 
 down) as a child to be protected and tended. 
 
 It was Hilma s nature to spend herself in lov 
 ing ministry; to love the creature she waited upon, 
 and to wait upon the one she loved. Nature 
 makes such mothers now and then, whose in 
 stinct is as blind and as irresistible as that which 
 haunts the eyes of a lean dog, dominated by the 
 mother-passion, and makes them terrible to meet. 
 But the selfishness a deux or a trois which the 
 procreative period in humanity begets, was a 
 thing apart from this woman. She had always 
 served, willingly, lovingly, unreasoningly; and
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 the prospect of having something all her own 
 upon which to lavish herself rilled her with a gentle 
 gratitude that made the whole world her creditor. 
 The uneven-tempered Irishman who had, as it 
 were, called her to the holy ministry of maternity 
 was touched and troubled by her devotion. And 
 she watched over Anthony with the prayerful 
 care that devout women give to their prophets; a 
 care which is at once an apology for their own 
 humbleness and an exercise of religiosity. But 
 she shamed and embarrassed him by this humility 
 and loving watchfulness over his comfort. And 
 the meek confession of sin and unworthiness in 
 her every tone and gesture in Overman s presence, 
 would have tempted Miss Incell to ridicule, in the 
 days that were done now, if it had not been for the 
 fact that such sincerity and frank humility had in 
 them something inherently pathetic that mois 
 tened her eye in spite of her sense of humor. 
 
 Indeed, Miss Incell s vaunted sense of humor, 
 which, Morgan was wont to say, made her such a 
 good fellow, such a boon companion to all the men 
 who knew her, deserted her that last evening at 
 Little Gap, though she tried to be gay. She sent 
 the men out to the wagon ahead of her and while 
 Hilma was busy in the kitchen, she stood a moment 
 alone at the door of the living room. Here she 
 had lain through pleasant sunny mornings. Here
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 103 
 
 they four had lived their simple idyl of comrade 
 ship. Here in the evenings Hilma had sewed and 
 Donaghey had read or Anthony had talked and 
 she had listened. She looked from one piece to 
 the other in the unpretentious little place, at the 
 work table, the latest triumph of his handiwork 
 that Donaghey had made for Hilma; at the ferns 
 Anthony had brought back from the mountains 
 for herself. 
 
 "Good-bye, Arcady, " she sighed half-smiling, 
 and stretched out a hand to it in the dusk. 
 
 Then she called to Anthony and Morgan to help 
 her down the steps and into the high wagon, and 
 while Hilma drove slowly up the lane, the three 
 men walked by the side. Morgan and Overman 
 were still discussing the threatened strike and its 
 possibilities. The newspaperman, though he had 
 been connected during all his professional life 
 with demagogic journals, was an aristocrat at 
 heart and by instinct. His contempt for those who 
 ruled the people a disrespect founded upon the 
 thorough knowledge the journalist gets of politics 
 behind the scenes was only second to that he 
 had for the people who permitted themselves to be 
 so governed, so cheated, so betrayed. He gave 
 his opinions in private with that freedom with 
 which the thinker revenges himself upon circum 
 stances that forbid the public utterance of them
 
 io 4 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 and the vivid, informal, exaggerated style of his 
 speech had a keen attraction for Overman, who 
 was familiar with such arguments as Morgan used 
 only in the rather heavy, pretentious manner of 
 the political economist. 
 
 When Hilma pulled up the horses at the rail 
 road tracks, Morgan was launched on the full 
 tide of such an argument as he delighted in. 
 
 "Let it come!" he sneered. "Let the strike 
 come, the bigger the better. The Inquirer will 
 go blathering mad about the wrongs of the people 
 and I ll blather with it, of course. But I ll wait, 
 just the same, to see them get the worst of it as 
 they always do, and as they deserve to do. They re 
 a lot of deluded sheep, perpetually scampering 
 about in a panic, and driven by traitorous sheep 
 dogs employed by their master and enemy. 
 They re born to be driven and beaten down. 
 They haven t sense enough to submit nor strength 
 enough to rebel adequately. And they ll wind 
 up ultimately at the slaughterhouse where they re 
 bound for anyway!" 
 
 "I say, let it come, too," Overman cried. He 
 lifted Jessie out upon the high sidewalk, which 
 was on a level with the wagon s seat. His hands 
 were gentle and steady but the battle-ring was in 
 his voice. "Every strike s a good one. Every 
 defeat is bejter than passive non-resistance.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 105 
 
 Every victory unsettles you and such men as think 
 like you, if only a trifle, from the seat you fancy is 
 so secure upon the people s backs. They ll not 
 always be sheep, you ll find out some day, and all 
 the false shepherd dogs that betray their confidence 
 and all the usurping owners that fatten on their 
 pelts can t continue such an artificial state of 
 society forever." 
 
 "They ve managed to, for about all the period 
 of the world s history that we ve records of," re 
 torted Morgan. 
 
 "With an occasional oversetting that proved the 
 sheep to be a tiger." 
 
 "But to be caught and fettered again by the 
 same old chain with a new name." 
 
 "But to be comparatively better off after the 
 second chaining than before the first," insisted 
 Overman. 
 
 " I fail to see the betterment," said Morgan 
 shortly. 
 
 " That s because men who live as well as you 
 bodily, and in the same spiritual atmosphere, can 
 neither fathom the depths of misery in which man 
 can yet live, nor perceive alleviations in a black 
 ness of despair that is all one shade to eyes like 
 yours. Why, there are statistics to show 
 
 " To show anything on any side, according to 
 the interpretation you want to place upon them.
 
 io6 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 Don t say statistics to me; I ve made em my 
 self." 
 
 " Well, I haven t. But for every increase in 
 wages wrenched as the prize of victory 
 
 "There s an increase in the cost of living that 
 leaves the victory barren." "Suppose it does 
 partly negative the material victory ? It cannot 
 lessen the spiritual gain in the stimulus to others 
 to do likewise and in the challenge thrown out 
 to men who think to justify the system. In 
 other words, if you ll permit me, men like 
 you make men like me. You are the type of 
 man whose very conservatism makes radicals, 
 reformers cranks, if you like. It is your very 
 satisfaction with the existing state of things that 
 makes it intolerable to the others of us. The few 
 who benefit by the system are not powerful enough 
 with all their millions to make permanent the topsy 
 turvy rule of the many working for the few. It is 
 you the great body of such men as you, who 
 make nothing not even spiritual satisfaction out of 
 it, who have not even the excuse that you benefit by 
 it, who make the system possible, who make its 
 continuance probable who will suffer some day 
 as fully, as legitimately as its head and chief 
 offenders for your indifference, for your positive 
 conservatism, for your sins of omission and the 
 stodgy mugwumpery "
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 107 
 
 "But Anthony Overman!" 
 
 The interruption came from Miss Incell; far off 
 in the hollow in the forest she had seen the glow of 
 the headlight on the coming train. 
 
 "You ll pardon the indignation in my tone," 
 she continued lightly, "but if you had been 
 petted and babied and given the centre of the 
 stage as I have for six weeks, it would hurt 
 your vanity a bit to find that the last few mo 
 ments of your stay were to be taken up by a 
 discussion that has nothing to do with the real 
 problem how Little Gap is going to get on 
 without me." 
 
 Overman turned quickly. The faint, far-off 
 scream of the whistle came in on the soft, dark 
 night. 
 
 "You see how she is spoiled, Overman," said 
 Morgan with a short laugh. "She is always in a 
 temper when her story is not on the first page. 
 Tell her quickly that life will be a waste after the 
 train leaves to-night, and while you re doing it I ll 
 go on and see if they did reserve the drawing room 
 I wired for." 
 
 Overman held out his hand and Miss Incell put 
 hers in it, looking up at him with a face that was 
 at once troubled, merry and vexed. 
 
 "You know," he said slowly, "that I don t 
 believe life can be a waste so long as one can work.
 
 io8 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 But I needn t try to tell you, Jessie, how we ll miss 
 you. You know that." 
 
 " But it s such a satisfaction to be told the things 
 
 o 
 
 one knows," she said, a hysterical note in her gay 
 voice. " It s only being told the things one doesn t 
 know that s saddening." 
 
 "Well," he drew her hand within his arm and 
 she found she could walk a step or two, relying 
 upon the steady support he gave. " Imagine the 
 forest, Jessie, without the trees, and the sky 
 without the stars, and the kitchen as it would be 
 without Hilma in it, and the day without an 
 evening you ll see then what life looks to me 
 after you are gone. " 
 
 She waited a moment as though half-doubtingly 
 for something expected, half-hopefully to prolong 
 the satisfaction his words were to her. 
 
 "But," she began as he remained silent, 
 "there are still the poor whom ye have always 
 with you." 
 
 There was an appeal in her voice, despite its 
 facetious attempt, that she could not hide. 
 
 "You wouldn t rob me of everything, would you, 
 all at once ?" he demanded a deeper question in his 
 voice than in the words. 
 
 She did not answer immediately, and the shriek 
 ing whistle again filled in the pause. 
 
 "Yes," she said suddenly, "yes, I would. I d
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 109 
 
 rob you of everything till you came to realize how 
 absurd it is of you to stay buried up here. Come 
 down to the city and work for your ideas, Anthony 
 Overman. There s infinitely more misery there 
 if that s what you enjoy, and you can be as great 
 a crank there as here." 
 
 "You tempt me," he laughed. 
 
 "I wish I could," she said with sudden sincerity. 
 "I personally am not satisfied to lose sight of 
 you. One doesn t make friends so often that 
 one can afford to let them go. You re the first 
 subject of mine that turned out to be a 
 human being and you re not very human, An 
 thony. Come down do will you ? I want you 
 to." 
 
 "Thank you. I may." 
 
 "You say that as though I were the veriest 
 stranger to whom politeness is due," she cried 
 angrily withdrawing her hand. 
 
 "No," he answered, holding her elbow in the 
 hollow of his hand as she turned toward the sta 
 tion, "no, I say it, as I say everything I do to you, 
 with all my heart." 
 
 "Then you will come?" 
 
 "Wait," he said gently, "till you have got back 
 to your old environment. Perhaps you ll see 
 then how badly I might fit in there and how- 
 little you really want me. "
 
 i io ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "You have no right whatever to doubt me," 
 she said resentingly. 
 
 The train came crashing then into the little 
 station. Morgan helped Miss Incell up the step 
 and she stood there, her hand in Hilma s, the 
 high platform permitting them to stand on a 
 level. 
 
 "Good-bye, Democrat," Morgan held out his 
 hand which Overman grasped. "You ll remem 
 ber that you ve a pull with the Inquirer, won t 
 you, that the office is in your debt for all you ve 
 done for Miss Incell?" 
 
 "No, we re in the office s debt for the loan of 
 her, Hilma, Donaghey and I," he said, and then 
 while the others were saying good-bye, he turned 
 to Miss Incell. "Good-bye. I wonder whether 
 you d ever care to write to me ? No one but 
 yourself could know what a letter from you would 
 mean to me. Will you Jessie ?" 
 
 A sudden, hopeful thaw melted her displeasure 
 and as the train pulled out she was waving 
 her hand gayly at the little colony on the plat 
 form. 
 
 "The fellow s actually got brains," Morgan 
 said, as he followed her into the car. "If he 
 weren t such an ass and didn t take himself so ser 
 iously he might make use of all he s read and 
 thought out for himself. "
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN in 
 
 "Indeed!" Miss Incell lifted her brows super 
 ciliously. "Did you ever know a little reporter 
 who failed to patronize the big man he runs up 
 against ? It s one of the perennial farces of the 
 profession, isn t it?"
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A T A O be able to work and to love one s work 
 * the zest of life came back to Jessie Incell at 
 sight of her desk. All her old fondness for her pro 
 fession revived in the familiar atmosphere of hurry, 
 of interest, of happenings, of possibilities. All her 
 old poise and self-confidence returned while she 
 gossiped for half an afternoon with the "boys." 
 She heard with such eager attention as only the 
 journalist gives of the doings and sayings of people 
 in whom personally she had not the smallest 
 interest. She listened to the inside histories that 
 had been playing themselves in her absence. She 
 delved into the politics of the office itself. She 
 demanded the news all of it, the suppressed items, 
 the reasons for printing or suppressing every 
 thing that would not have escaped her had she 
 been in town; she wanted it all with an appetite 
 for it that newsgathering alone gives. And then 
 she commented impertinently upon the personal 
 peculiarities of the staff, noting a change here or 
 an emphasis there in manner, speech or costume. 
 She took good-naturedly the chaff she merited 
 in return and served Little Gap up piecemeal 
 the doctor, the postmaster, the station-agent; the 
 curious communities that have been attracted by 
 the spot, as though it possessed some peculiar
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 113 
 
 quality with which to magnetize the unbalanced. 
 She told them of the sect that sees the devil in 
 speech; of the tiny fraternity that believes Satan 
 dwells in the garments put on after his first ap 
 pearance on earth, and shuns clothing accordingly; 
 she described those who have fasted forty days 
 "And my friend Donaghey s one of them," she 
 cried; and exclaimed at those who prayed them 
 selves to death "And Hilma, the blessed, very 
 nearly was one of them!" 
 
 "In fact," she went on more lightly, "there s 
 something in the air up yonder that nourishes 
 notions till they become fads; that feeds fads till 
 they become hobbies; and stimulates hobbies 
 till they seem holy. No one is quite sane up 
 there. If he were he d be clapped quick into an 
 asylum so mad sanity appears when all the 
 world s luny." 
 
 "It s true," Morgan corroborated, strolling out 
 from his desk in the corner, "Miss Incell herself 
 had her hallucinations up there. And I had to 
 humor her as madness always cheekily expects 
 to be humored." 
 
 "For instance?" Miss Incell swung round in 
 her chair and faced him challengingly. 
 
 "For instance, she thought she was in love with 
 A burning flush swept over her face. 
 
 " with Nature," Morgan laughed. "She
 
 ii 4 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 fancied she liked living close to earth and the 
 bugs and beetles thereof. She lost her sense of 
 values and forgot the significance of a scoop. 
 She became indifferent to the art of eating and the 
 
 O 
 
 joys of the hot-water pipe. She played, like 
 another queen who was the yellow journalist of 
 her day, at idyl-making, and if I hadn t gone up 
 and rescued her she d have been taking herself as 
 seriously as 
 
 "As Mr. Morgan does his first little desk 
 position," she interrupted rising. "Good-bye, 
 if that s all the news." 
 
 Morgan opened the door for her and helped her 
 to the elevator. 
 
 "Won t you let me take you home ?" he asked. 
 
 "No thank you. Tisn t a bit necessary. 
 And who d take the desk ?" 
 
 "Anybody. Let me come. You owe me some 
 thing, you know, for withholding my hand. I 
 could have delivered you and your hallucination 
 to the mercies of the shop." 
 
 "Why didn t you ?" she demanded hardily. 
 
 "You know why because I don t dare dis 
 please you. And besides the hallucination 
 won t last down here in the atmosphere of real 
 things. And after it s all gone 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 "Don t be so cruel. What good will it do you
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 115 
 
 to make me say it now ? You re not ready to 
 listen. That fellow up there has got you hypno 
 tized so that you 
 
 "Do you know," she said with sudden brisk 
 ness, "I believe Little Gap has affected you, too." 
 
 "No, it isn t Little Gap. I had this this bit 
 of madness in me long before I went up there, and 
 
 Jf* Q G 1 f* 
 CoolC 
 
 : Then it s sure to be cured, if you re only 
 patient. Sanity dwells at the sea-level, you know. 
 Good-bye. " 
 
 She stepped into the elevator and smiled up at 
 him as it descended. 
 
 But the smile left her face as she walked slowly 
 along with her crutch. She had a tiny apartment 
 very near the office, and she was the exception to 
 the rule of tenants there for her landlady served 
 her meals. But she had known Mrs. Connor for 
 years, had boarded with her ever since the old 
 Irish woman left the strenuous life of the tub 
 for the more genteel occupation of keeping an 
 apartment house. She had encouraged her in her 
 aspirations and helped her to fill the new place; 
 consequently she occupied a position in the house 
 and in Mrs. Connor s heart that would have been 
 hers, even had she lacked a certain taking way of 
 seeking the human being behind the greatest 
 formalist.
 
 n6 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 And Mrs. Connor was very human despite the 
 bloodless calling she had chosen. She loved to 
 gossip as much as did Jessie Incell herself, and she 
 basked in the reflected light which the young 
 woman s flimsy journalistic fame shed upon her 
 place. There were times when she seemed to be 
 on the point of exploding with the ostentatious 
 secrecy she felt called upon to maintain in Jessie s 
 behalf. "Wild horses couldn t get me to tell ye," 
 she would declare to the caller who inquired 
 whether Miss Incell was in town. She deplored 
 and detested the opposition newspaper, and the 
 scandalous inferences she permitted one to draw 
 from her nods and winks and shrugs, concerning 
 the character of any other prominent woman 
 journalist, gave cause for relief that she hadn t 
 told all she knew. On the morning after Miss 
 Incell had achieved some sensational story Mrs. 
 Connor walked the earth with the step of a con 
 queror. She bullied the one person on earth of 
 whom she stood in awe her butcher and she 
 volunteered to the man who kept the news-stand on 
 the corner unpublished details, largely fictitious, 
 concerning the Inquirer s featured story of the 
 day. On the days when the prima donna of a 
 rival office startled the journalistic world Mrs. 
 Connor tied up her head and sat brooding over the 
 kitchen fire. On those days her eyes always
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 117 
 
 pained so that she was unable to read, and Heaven 
 pity the unfortunate neighbor who volunteered 
 any information! If Jessie did not come home to 
 dinner on time Mrs. Connor s lugubriousness be 
 came funereal; she never told what she anticipated 
 in these crises, but the awful nature of her fore 
 bodings was plain to the housemaids. The only 
 thing that could rouse her from her indisposition 
 was the final arrival of Miss Incell, who was 
 accustomed to being received on such occasions 
 with mammoth sighs and groans and a counten 
 ance of such stony resignation as nothing on earth 
 could lighten except an attempt at making the 
 supposedly miserable maiden comfortable bodily. 
 
 " Just a cup of tay for ye th night, Miss Jessie, " 
 she would coax in a lachrymose tremolo, "ye 
 must just eat something, child. It s your duty." 
 
 "But I m hungry," Miss Incell might protest, 
 her appetite unaffected by the supposititious cal 
 amity. "I want a chop nicely broiled. I want 
 an artichoke, even if it is late, with that cold, soft 
 creamy mayonnaise you make. And I want 
 
 "Ye shall have em ye shall have em!" Mrs. 
 Connor cried then almost hysterical at the thought 
 of such Spartan concealment of suffering. 
 
 And she would totter downstairs to work for the 
 beaten journalist and serve her with her own fat, 
 capable hand; and she had been known to join
 
 n8 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 her toward the end of the famous little dinner in a 
 glass of claret, over which she would forget her 
 tenant s defeat and remember all her own tri 
 umphs. 
 
 "Ye were speakin of Driscoll now who owns the 
 Tribunal." Mrs. Connor loved to lose herself in 
 reminiscence and grasped at the opportunity 
 offered by a familiar name. "Jim Driscoll, is it? 
 I cud a had him. My! Long ago, before he knew 
 the differ between a scoop and a bate he was afther 
 me. Bridget , he used t say ( I d be standin at 
 the tub an he d come noseyin round) Bridget, 
 whin ll ye have me ? Whin ye can make as 
 much money as I can by honest wurruk, ye lazy 
 bones. Till then off wid ye! 
 
 "And is t Baumfelder the rich doctor was up t 
 see ye th* avenin ? I mind his father, the peddler. 
 I cud a had him. Oh, many s the time he s said, 
 Bridget, I ll change my religion for ye. Well, I 
 wouldn t do as much for ye/ says I, an* tain t 
 much I d think of a man who d deny his God for 
 a woman s pretty face. ... I was pretty in 
 thim days, Miss Jessie, I swear t ye. A com 
 plexion th likes of which ye don t see these days 
 whin women are playing the man and min are 
 carin for thimselves like women. Ropes of hair, 
 a good stout lot of it I had, an a merry eye an* a 
 light heart and such power to rub in my arms and
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 119 
 
 willingness in my soul as I d give a lot t see in that 
 jade Jenny as does my washin . No China laun 
 dry for me. I nivver could bear thim Chinese, th 
 opium smokin lot! Dye mind that story in yis- 
 tiddah s news section about the removal of China 
 town an th property, blocks an blocks of it, a 
 man named Horton owns there ? Well I cud 
 a had him. Oh yes! He used to be the best o 
 th lot an he had a cigar stand down on Mont 
 gomery street years before th Inquirer moved 
 down there. Th best o th lot, Miss Jessie, I m 
 tellin ye " 
 
 "Except Mr. Connor, of course," interpolated 
 Miss Incell. 
 
 "Except Misther Connor," agreed his widow 
 solemnly. 
 
 For whatever liberties she permitted herself 
 with other men s names a fashion she had picked 
 up in the Bohemia which Miss Incell had brought 
 to her doorsteps she invariably referred to her 
 late husband, for whom she had worked all her 
 life, with the gentlemanly prefix. 
 
 But there came a day when Mrs. Connor went 
 up to Miss IncelPs room for a suggestion about 
 dinner and found that young woman sitting look 
 ing wistfully out of the window, her idle pen in her 
 hand and a sheet of closely written paper quite dry 
 on the desk before her: all the symptoms, her
 
 120 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 sympathetic landlady fancied, most appropriate 
 to defeat. 
 
 Mrs. Connor s conscience smote her she had 
 taken advantage of Miss Incell s absence to revel 
 in an easy, merely dilettante interest in news 
 papers, and so was unaware of the specific misery 
 that demanded consolation. Still, like other 
 people more vitally concerned with journalism, 
 the old Irishwoman was not one to acknowledge a 
 
 o 
 
 remissness; so thoroughly imbued was she with the 
 spirit of the craft that she too believed anything 
 excusable except an excuse. 
 
 "For my own part, Miss Jessie," she began this 
 evening with elephantine subtlety, "I didn t think 
 much of th story th Tribunal brags so much 
 about. Now would ye call it good newspaper 
 policy to print a thing like that ? What 
 
 say ? " 
 
 "I really don t know, Mrs. Connor," Jessie 
 said rousing herself from abstraction. " I I 
 haven t begun to read the papers closely yet." 
 
 "No? . . . No?" Mrs. Connor wiped her 
 hands with her apron. They were not wet, but 
 they had been so often at critical times during her 
 life and the habit recurred when she was perplexed. 
 
 Her face with its hardened ruddiness, a sort of 
 fossilized blush, all that remained of the delicacy 
 of skin she boasted, turned like Miss Incell s to-
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 121 
 
 ward the window. But the light that came from 
 there revealed only the girl s unnatural dejection; 
 not the cause of it. 
 
 Below Jessie Incell s high window, the most 
 beautiful bay in the world, lapped the hilly 
 town. It spread out beneath a high, clear 
 sky in large, gracious curves, a roomy wide ex 
 panse of sheen and softness. Its islands lay re 
 laxed upon its generous bosom. Its shipping 
 spread roomily, its masts a light fringe of com 
 merce about the city s skirts. The passing ferry 
 boats seemed to emphasize its largeness instead of 
 diminishing it. Off to the north the dry hills of 
 late summer rose soft and round, huddled like 
 gigantic deer in brown-gold masses. To the east 
 twinkled the friendly lights of other towns ram 
 bling unconstrained along the stretches of the bay. 
 And out to the west in the hazy golden glimmer of 
 the Gate the bay merged into the ocean and the 
 ocean became bay, and the sinking sun, shed 
 ding a ceremonious splendor over the scene, played 
 priest over the marriage of the waters. 
 
 Mrs. Connor s eyes looked upon it as they had 
 for fifty years, taking in all the little of it they had 
 ever been capable of containing. 
 
 Miss Incell gazed upon it and saw not a single 
 outline of tjiat expanse of purity and peace, which 
 had so often lent consolation when she was weary.
 
 izz ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "Does yer fut hurt ye, Miss Jessie?" Mrs. 
 Connor dropped the indirection of her post- 
 scrubbing days; she turned her back on the glory 
 outside striving to fathom the trouble within. 
 
 "I don t think it s my foot, Mrs. Connor." 
 Miss Incell s surprised laugh ended abruptly 
 without the trail of chuckles "like bubbles of clean 
 suds dripping from the sheets" Mrs. Connor 
 was wont to say. " Perhaps it is, though. I wish 
 I do wish it were. No the trouble with me 
 is that I have got an hallucination. Dean 
 Morgan s right," she added with a sigh. 
 
 Mrs. Connor looked wary. Words were seldom 
 what they seemed and a disinclination to be 
 laughed at was one of her acquired journalistic 
 traits. 
 
 "That young man s got the swelled head," 
 she said at last grimly. "It s a desk posi 
 tion that s done it. Just because he s managing 
 editor 
 
 "Just assistant city editor, Mrs. C." 
 
 " Tis what I say. They can t stand carryin 
 a green pencil." 
 
 "Blue," said Jessie absently. 
 
 Mrs. Connor looked annoyed. Technical ac 
 curacy she held to be the vice of pedants and she 
 was still unenlightened as to her young friend s 
 ailment. She had turned to go, her mission un-
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 123 
 
 accomplished, when Miss Incell rose and called 
 to her. 
 
 "Mrs. Connor," she said putting her hands 
 upon the landlady s fat shoulders, steady and 
 broad like bridges of steel, "you ve told me often 
 of the others the men you could have had, you 
 know but never anything really of the one you 
 did take. Come now, tell me you won t mind 
 telling me, not for publication, you know, but 
 merely as an evidence of good faith, and relying 
 on mine tell me about Mr. Connor." 
 
 The landlady s clear old eye wandered. Her 
 fat, uncorseted breast heaved and she rubbed her 
 arms and her forehead vigorously with her apron, 
 freeing herself uncomfortably from the young 
 woman s direct gaze. 
 
 "Misther Connor," she said at length with dig 
 nity, "was a gintleman. All th days of me life 
 I ll mourn his loss. He was wan of nature s 
 noblemin, Miss Jessie." 
 
 "Of course, of course, " said Miss Incell sooth 
 ingly. Some literary experience had taught her 
 what excellent leverage there is in the laudatory 
 preface. 
 
 "Nivver a man was his akel in good-nathur, in 
 contentedness of spirit, in in puttin up with 
 things." 
 
 "Yes. But?"
 
 i2 4 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "But he was a divvle if iver there was wan! 
 Mind that. Whin he was in liquor an pity 
 knows whin he wasn t he d lay hands on on the 
 wan he owed most to. An he wouldn t wurruk. 
 He hated wurruk like the divvle hates holy wather. 
 Job afther job he d lose an me at th tub, an th 
 bye twas th only wan we iver had Miss Jessie 
 down sick an needin my care, whin in Dinnis 
 rolls bilin dhrunk. 
 
 Her voice had become uncertain and faded 
 gradually into stillness. She stood looking out 
 contemplatively at the view which had changed so 
 little since the day she had borne and buried her 
 misery, shaking her head slowly, continuing her 
 conjugal history in her thoughts, unconscious for 
 the moment that she had given voice to them, 
 
 Miss Incell waited. She was a gifted inter 
 viewer, finely susceptible to atmosphere. The 
 lights burned brighter across the bay and the ferry 
 boats stood out on the softly blackening water like 
 far-sailing glow-worms. 
 
 " But in spite of it all The suggestion was 
 
 gently sympathetic, tentative, appealing. 
 
 "In spite of it all," Mrs. Connor shook herself 
 out of the past into the unrealities she had builded 
 for the comfort of the present, "in spite of it there 
 nivver was anny man in th world like Misther 
 Connor. "
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 125 
 
 "Of course not." Not half the heartiness in 
 Miss Incell s tone was ironical. "And as for the 
 men we could have had 
 
 "Those we cud a had, Miss Jessie, lumped 
 altogether ain t worth wan hair o the head o th 
 man we ha married an lived with, an an 
 loved." 
 
 The landlady s voice fell as though she feared a 
 mocking echo. The echoes of this odd little apart 
 ment were apt to be mocking, and sentiment usu 
 ally shrank in corners while cynicism stalked 
 about like a masterful man in his own house. But 
 in the dusk of this particular evening and in the 
 thoughtful pose of the girl who had seated her 
 self at her desk again something uncommon 
 lurked that stirred the old Irishwoman. 
 
 "Miss Jessie," she whispered stertorously, 
 "ye re not thinkin of marryin that mon Morgan ? 
 Don t marry a newspaperman, don t, dear. I 
 used t wash for wan an I had t write his bill in 
 indelible ink on his cuff an sind it t th opposi 
 tion paper before he d pay it. An they say whin 
 they re dhrunk, they re not only th divvle 
 which is what all min are dhrunk but him with 
 smartness grafted on t him. It ain t Morgan ?" 
 
 "No no, Mrs. Connor," Jessie answered 
 hurriedly. "I I don t suppose I ll ever marry. 
 Women can t marry an hallucination,"
 
 iz6 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "Oh, I don t know about that," said Mrs. 
 Connor with vague encouragement, "I cud a had 
 a policeman, an a figure like you now, Miss Jessie, 
 with all your writin an your name an that, 
 might grace anny position. Min are min, an in 
 America . . . Come now, what should I send 
 ye for dinner?" 
 
 "Not much to-night no, really. Up in the 
 country I got out of the habit of eating heartily in 
 the evening." 
 
 Mrs. Connor sniffed contemptuously. 
 
 "And besides I have a letter to write, " Jessie 
 added. 
 
 "What s that?" The landlady, turned tyran 
 nical at the sight of weakness, pointed with a thick 
 ringer, stubbed by years of close association with 
 corrugated zinc. "Ye re not workin yet?" It 
 was a pose of Mrs. Connor s to revile Miss Incell s 
 work which secretly she gloried in. 
 
 "That?" Jessie looked at the pages toward 
 which Mrs. Connor s accusing finger pointed. 
 
 "Yes, that writin. That iverlastin writin!" 
 The distrust of the Dark Ages dwelt in Mrs. Con 
 nor s tone; she looked as though she would have 
 liked to cross herself. 
 
 "Oh, that is merely one of the letters that are 
 never mailed, Mrs. Connor. Born to blush inkly 
 unseen, you know. You have to write just so
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 127 
 
 many of that kind during your life. They seem 
 to be an utter waste of time and copy but 
 they serve a purpose. For till you see what you 
 think you think in black and white, written by 
 your own pen, you can t know whether you re 
 entitled to any self-respect or not you know." 
 
 Mrs. Connor didn t know, but she did know 
 that no practical journalist ever admits that he 
 doesn t know; and she had acquired what she 
 considered the virtues of the profession, if nothing 
 else. So she gathered up Miss Incell s full waste 
 basket and was about to leave when her eye fell 
 again upon the closely written pages. 
 
 "Then shall I take the letther down wid th 
 rest of th rubbish ?" she asked, convinced that in 
 that letter lay the cause of the girl s strange be 
 havior. 
 
 "N no, thank you. They don t mail un- 
 mailable letters, Mrs. Connor, but they don t 
 always destroy them either. They re good to 
 keep, for by rereading them you get whipped back 
 in line. And the man who made the conventions 
 knew mighty well what he was about. 
 Good-night. "
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 TV/TISS INCELL S landlady felt her distrust of 
 "all writin ," and the letter in particular 
 which had lain on the young woman s table, 
 justified when the upstairs maid brought down 
 an untouched tray of eatables, with the report 
 that "Mith Jetthie wath buthy reading a long 
 letter the had written to herthelf, and the th not 
 at home to anybody if anybody callth." 
 
 But the letter Miss Incell had written to her 
 self began "Dear Anthony Overman" and was 
 still unsigned. And between the opening and the 
 closing lay all Jessie Incell would have liked to 
 say and all she dared not, for fear of incurring her 
 own grave displeasure; no light thing in a young 
 woman possessing her talent for ridicule. She 
 had begun the letter in good faith. But as she 
 progressed an occasional phrase or expression had 
 raised a question in her mind, which she had re 
 solved to consider by and by. And the very 
 possibility of altering, toning down and revising 
 later had given an unstability to the composition 
 which became an unreality as she wrote on, yield 
 ing to the temptation of full expression and post 
 poning any mental debate as to advisability or 
 propriety. So that the document, begun rea 
 sonably, had become a fanciful thing before long 
 
 128
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 129 
 
 whose very impossibility as a communication from 
 herself to Overman led her on to still greater im 
 probabilities, till at last she was playing con 
 sciously with fiction, but fiction she was tempted 
 to make fact. 
 
 "I have just got home after my first appearance 
 at the office," she wrote. "Not to go to work yet, 
 but to say How do you do to the boys, to learn 
 all the news and to yield again to the preoccupa 
 tion of that environment which, according to you, 
 was so speedily to wean me from the friends I left 
 behind me. 
 
 "It hasn t as this letter may indicate. In 
 fact in fact, Anthony Overman, I am distinctly 
 lonely as I sit here looking out of my high window 
 over the bay. I miss Hilma and Will Donaghey, 
 the queer, lovable, cross-grained fellow, and you. 
 I miss a certain poise there used to be of clean, 
 simple, worth-while living up in the Sierras. 
 This last is a delusion of course. I have merely 
 been exposed to the Renunciant contagion and am 
 suffering from a slight attack of crankiness/ 
 Real living and working will cure that quickly. 
 
 "And this is one reason why I want you to come 
 down and try the same cure. At least, I believe 
 this is one of the reasons. Another is that it seems 
 to me most of what I miss of the Little Gap life 
 is you, Anthony.
 
 130 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "Now, why in the world of commonsense may 
 not a woman say as much to a man ? If you were a 
 woman or I a man, I should not hesitate to ask 
 you to come down to San Francisco to visit me. 
 In either case we d be two men, you and I, or two 
 women living together in my dear little apartment 
 and I d remake acquaintance with the dirty, 
 straggling, beautiful town I am so fond of, ex 
 periencing an added pleasure because you w r ere 
 seeing and feeling w T hat I see and feel. We d go to 
 work together on the paper and rest together and 
 play together after we got through digging. You d 
 moderate my passion for scoops, which takes me, 
 careless of everything else, into a world where I 
 can ignore people to the verge of forgetting that 
 they may be human. I d be excellent for you, 
 too; a corrective of crankism, an antidote to 
 dreams, an example of practical worldly wisdom. 
 We d quarrel desperately, I suppose, but that too, 
 I think, would be very good for you. It would be 
 better for you to violently hate a single, concrete 
 human being than to dwell up there in lofty love 
 for the whole race, without really knowing one of 
 us. No, you don t not even Hilma and Donaghey. 
 
 "You don t know anybody, Anthony. You 
 don t know me. You won t know me, nor your 
 self. You are satisfied to make me your close 
 friend for the weeks we were together, and are
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 131 
 
 satisfied now to let us drift apart. What sort of 
 friendship is that ? Your eyes are clogged with 
 theories. I don t care how fine they are or how 
 true; they re not worth a day of actual living. 
 
 "Are you missing me a bit, O Buddha ? 
 Are you lonely a bit ? Do you regret that we 
 two are not of the same sex, or altogether different 
 conventions, so that we might be companions 
 unhindered, unquestioned that at least, you 
 might come down to see me (if you obstinately 
 persist in still living up in the hills) or that I might 
 run up to you when I had a day or so off and 
 wanted to listen to you talk ? 
 
 Tell me, isn t there something, some little 
 thing gone out of the forest and the mountains and 
 the sky and the little log cottage and your heart, 
 Anthony ? Can you really let me go as easy as 
 this ? If you were any other sort of man I d know 
 and understand the connection between your 
 actions and your thoughts. But with that fanatic 
 purpose of yours to drive you on and lift you, in a 
 sense, above the necessities that would conquer 
 another, a mere human man I don t know 
 I don t know. 
 
 "All I know is I want you, Anthony. I long 
 for you I crave the sound of your voice and the 
 look of your clear eyes. And at times like this 
 minute, this quick, fleeting, fleeting minute I
 
 i 3 2 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 know you want me, too, that you miss your friend, 
 that you too feel the bond that has grown between 
 us, a bond that you d not see broken. I know 
 that this feeling that moves me so strongly is but 
 the answering sympathetic impulse of your own 
 longing far off there, yonder, high on the hills. 
 
 "And then, all at once, that sureness leaves me. 
 And I hate you, Anthony Overman, for waking 
 a feeling of which you are unworthy." 
 
 As she read them over her own words moved 
 her as the writing of them had hardly done. 
 With the last paragraph a paroxysm of anger and 
 humiliation shook her and she seized the page in 
 tending to tear it to pieces. But she caught sight 
 then on the lower leaf of the fanciful picture of a 
 life in common which her own pen had created, 
 and she throbbed with tenderness for her imagi 
 nation s offspring. 
 
 "No," she said, as though there were some 
 thing sentient in the letter that could understand. 
 "I ll put you away. They say that everbody is 
 some sort of fool that nobody dreams of. It will 
 be good for me to have this thing where I can get 
 at it and convince myself by ocular demonstration 
 that I m not to be trusted. My thoughts have 
 actually become incomplete to me unless I can 
 talk or write them to him! Well, when my case
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 133 
 
 comes up in court when I m arrested for choking 
 that lisping maid to death the police, rum 
 maging through my things, will come across this 
 letter, and some smart girl reporter,who s on flirting 
 terms with the Chief, will publish it as her scoop. 
 And everybody (deceitfully ignoring his own 
 skeleton weakness, yet undiscovered) will say, 
 You wouldn t have believed it of her, would you ? 
 And she seemed to have such commonsense, too! 
 Well here s for a commonsense letter that in 
 tends to be mailed. I wonder am I always to 
 write two versions to that man every time an 
 epistolary mood seizes me!" 
 
 She pulled her blotter viciously toward her and 
 began again to write: 
 
 "My Dear Mr. Overman, 
 
 I write to inform you that no sudden and sur 
 prising change has manifested itself in me or in my 
 feelings by the drop from an elevation to the sea 
 level, and the passage of seventy-two hours. I 
 still hope that we shall continue our friendship and 
 that you care for this, too. I still believe that you 
 make a mistake in living off in the mountains 
 making a Renunciant community of yourself, at 
 the risk of becoming a greater crank even than you 
 are now, and of some day providing copy for some 
 yellow woman journalist s article, beside which 
 Jessie Incell s expose of Brother Ariel Senn will 
 seem innocuous.
 
 i 3 4 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "It really is not good for man to be alone, 
 Anthony. Even rubbing up against the world 
 is not enough to smooth out all the kinks of ego 
 tism in strong individualities. I pray you come to 
 the rescue of your present self and lift Anthony 
 Overman out of the danger that threatens. I see 
 a possible future for you that at once saddens and 
 amuses me. So, come down, O Man, from thy 
 heights to where mere mortals dwell at the sea 
 level. I know you intend to some day, but now s 
 the day. Come down and go to work on the In 
 quirer. Morgan says a position is waiting for 
 you. Why deny yourself the experience ? One 
 can always retire in disgust at the end, instead of 
 the beginning of life. I am writing to Hilma by 
 this mail, impressing it upon the dear conscien 
 tious little soul that it is her duty to make you so 
 miserable and uncomfortable up there that you ll 
 just have to give up your role of hermit. 
 
 "I am strange to say, still 
 
 Your friend, at the sea level as well as 
 up in the mountains, 
 
 Jessie Incell." 
 
 She sealed and stamped this in a thoroughly 
 business-like manner and then wrote Hilma a few 
 lines telling her how quickly her ankle was gaining 
 strength, how comparatively little she used her 
 pretty crutch, and how considerate the office had 
 been in creating a position where one had nothing 
 to do but to re-write other people s copy, till she
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 135 
 
 should be well enough to go about town again. 
 She reminded Hilma of her promise to come down 
 to pay her a visit before winter and the rains set in, 
 and she wound up with a querulously tender para 
 graph in which she accused the Swedish girl of 
 spoiling her by all her tender ministrations, so 
 that she felt like a little child compelled for the 
 first time to go to sleep alone. 
 
 And she did set about her preparations for bed 
 in a haphazard, undecided sort of way, lingering 
 long at the open window in intervals of undress 
 ing, which she accomplished by starlight, her 
 eyes on the black, soft stretch of the bay, 
 spangled now by lights that glowed and sparkled 
 aggressively, as though gaining strength from the 
 defeat of day. And at the very last, when she had 
 laid herself down on her slim couch, she rose again 
 in the dark and shamefacedly pulled open the 
 drawer of her desk to lay her hand gently and 
 caressingly upon the letter which she had declared 
 unmailable; and she went back to bed as though 
 she had found loving comfort in its contact. 
 
 By day though Miss Incell sternly refused to 
 countenance any nonsense or to recognize herself 
 in a sentimental damosel who had time for dreams 
 and desires. She got up early. Below her the 
 bay was wrapped in fog and the hoarse whistles 
 of the tugs and sirens were complaining like over-
 
 136 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 worked things with a grievance, a touch of bron 
 chitis due to the damp, and an alcoholic tendency 
 that might be attributed to the same cause. She 
 buttoned herself determinedly into her jacket, set 
 her hat severely upon her head in the correcting 
 manner with which she had seen mothers add a 
 dignifying touch of discipline to the perfunctory 
 washing and dressing of their children and, with 
 the lisping maid s help, she got down the long 
 flight of steps that led to the street. As she walked 
 down the steep sidewalk, there was a steady, 
 business-like swing to her cane that had nothing 
 of the cripple in it. (She had discarded the crutch 
 and it hung upon her wall like a warrior s sword 
 when the fray is over the simile was Morgan s). 
 And she landed from a cable car at the office door 
 feeling, in spite of her lagging foot, that she had 
 never been away from her desk, that she never 
 wanted to be, and that she had only dreamed she 
 craved something her work could not give her. 
 
 But in a few days she found that she had got 
 back only into the routine; not into the atmosphere 
 she had left. She told herself pettishly, when she 
 could no longer affect to ignore it, that the differ 
 ence was owing to the nature of her present employ 
 ment; that rewriting other people s stories was 
 deadly drudgery and that when she should be able 
 safely to walk without help of any kind and go
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 137 
 
 about her own business, she would find again all 
 the interest and self-absorption in her work it had 
 always had for her. 
 
 A letter that was lying upon her desk when she 
 got home one evening disabused her of this im 
 pression. At sight of the postmark and the 
 masculine dash of the address, she knew that it 
 held the only story in the world that could really 
 interest her now, and she locked the door before 
 tearing the envelope open, feeling as keen a desire 
 to be alone with it as though she feared someone 
 might be watching her self-betrayal. 
 
 Yet when she had finished reading it, she sat 
 still at the window, holding it in her hand and 
 looking thoughtfully before her, quite composed. 
 After all there was no necessity to lock the door, to 
 lock her features, to lock up her emotions. No 
 one dreamed of disturbing any of these, evidently. 
 A letter like this warranted no such apprehension. 
 She smiled scornfully as her eyes fell again to the 
 sheet in her hand and she read once more, 
 
 "Dear Jessie, 
 
 Your letter gave me that familiar feeling 
 of being tenderly laughed at, that I never ex 
 perienced till I met you and that I know so well 
 now. I see myself, after reading it, as a pompous 
 owl of great pretense and no performance setting 
 up to be a great deal better than my neighbors.
 
 138 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 I am always ashamed both of the big pretense and 
 the no performance, but not nearly so ashamed of 
 these as I am delighted and thankful for your 
 interest in me. 
 
 "There never was a lonelier fellow than myself, 
 never one more thoroughly adrift from all human 
 connection which makes my altruistic pretenses 
 all the funnier to you, no doubt, but which makes 
 me most grateful for and prone to treasure every 
 human tie that I am fortunate enough to make. 
 You have many friends which makes your adding 
 me to the number a further proof of your generous 
 nature. I have none few you. It is for this 
 very reason, for the value your friendship is to me 
 that I refrain from putting it to the test your good 
 ness suggests. I am not fit to live in your world, 
 Jessie. It would only trouble and perplex you 
 to try to fit me into the environment that suits you 
 so well. 
 
 "Thank you and no. I cannot come to San 
 Francisco to force upon you contrasts that might 
 shake your confidence in your judgment of me. I 
 cannot accept your kind offices with the Inquirer. 
 There is nothing of the journalist about me I 
 should only weary your patience, be an indictment 
 of your discernment. 
 
 "But I have no intention of remaining indefi 
 nitely up here. I shall wait till Donaghey is on 
 his feet, till he can manage things alone for himself 
 and Hilma and then I shall go back East to 
 work humbly, with no brass-band prospectus 
 for my ideal, in any small, homely way that pres- 
 sents itself. I shall be no important, sensational
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 139 
 
 crank, believe me. The newspapers will not find 
 me worth while, and a future Jessie Incell will 
 never dream of making me the subject of her 
 dissecting pen. 
 
 "It simply must be, though, that there is work 
 for a man to do who has no other tie than that 
 that binds him to humanity as a whole; who has 
 no duty greater than the chance duty nearest him; 
 who has no religion other than charity; who has 
 always time to help; who feels a sense of brother 
 hood to misery, a longing to struggle with it, a 
 desire to ease it that takes the place in him of 
 passion for a wife, of protection for children, of 
 ambition in society and religious devotion. The 
 reason why there is so little real charity in the 
 world is that the father cannot stop to heed the 
 call he is on his way to work; the mother is on 
 her way to her home; the children are on their 
 way to school. Even the sister of mercy is on her 
 way to obey a regulation, to fulfill some order. 
 And the warmer-hearted of the un-uniformed 
 sisters buy with a coin the substitute for personal 
 giving; as lukewarm patriots buy substitutes in 
 time of war. I shall be on my way to meet just 
 those whose need of me cries out to me a humble 
 enough, simple enough calling, isn t it ? I must 
 give time enough to work so that I shall not be a 
 burden no more; all the rest that I am or have 
 is a debt that I owe to weak humanity, to weary 
 and sick humanity. And every one that I can 
 raise up will be another one to fight the system that 
 has thrown them like refuse from a machine off 
 into the gutter of life to die or to be washed away.
 
 i 4 o ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 ". . . After all, you are right, Jessie. I am 
 a crank, a wearying one, a bore who never knows 
 the place to deny himself, nor the time to desist. 
 Forgive me. I never got a letter that carried with 
 it so unmistakably the personality of the writer 
 as this one of yours seems to. It bears your voice, 
 your laugh, your pretty little ways. It brings you 
 back so vividly that I must lift my head and stare 
 at it to realize that you are not lying on the lounge 
 yonder while I am talking to you. There is some 
 excuse, perhaps, for the bore who rides his hobby 
 madly in your presence, but he deserves not for 
 giveness who bores his helpless friend when he 
 has him at his mercy at the end of a letter. So 
 do forgive me, 
 
 " Before I go back east the date is not yet 
 settled may I come down to say good-bye to you ? 
 
 " Believe me, faithfully your friend, to whom 
 your letters carry the very sunshine of your 
 presence, Anthony Overman." 
 
 Miss Incell shook her head bitterly. No 
 nothing here which she might not have read in 
 anyone s presence; nothing but the composed 
 utterance of a self-contained man, a man who had 
 measured his strength and spoke with absolute 
 sincerity. Why, she might have opened this 
 envelope before the whole staff assembled in the 
 Inquirer s local room! And yet when, just at this 
 moment, someone knocked she started guiltily. 
 She must have been contemplating the plan that
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 141 
 
 sprang complete from her mind when she opened 
 the d6or to admit the lisping maid Lisbeth, for she 
 hardly listened to the girl s question as to whether 
 she needed anything more in the night, and spoke 
 quickly. 
 
 "Yes, just one thing more, Lisbeth can you 
 write ?" 
 
 "Me? You don t mean for the paper, Mith 
 Jetthie! . . . Oh! juth plain handwriting . . . 
 Oh, yeth. Thertainly." 
 
 "There s a newspaper story that I am going to 
 do," Miss Incell said uncertainly and with an 
 appearance of embarrassment that roused all the 
 maid s curiosity, " and you can help me, if you will, 
 by writing a line for me and addressing an enve 
 lope. Do you mind?" 
 
 Did Lisbeth mind ? A gasping, incredulous joy 
 filled her. She cherished a secret ambition that 
 she had not confided to a soul. She felt that in 
 herself were the desert and the capacity for ac 
 quiring just such a sensational notoriety of glory 
 as surrounded Miss Incell with a fascinating 
 halo. 
 
 She took from Jessie s hand a closely-written 
 page and wrote at the bottom of it at the place 
 pointed out to her these words under dictation: 
 "Miss Incell is very ill. She wishes to see you." 
 Then she addressed an envelope to Anthony Over-
 
 i 4 2 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 man, Little Gap, California, and sealed and 
 stamped it. 
 
 "And will my name be in the paper?" she 
 asked in blissful agitation. 
 
 "No we ll have pull enough to keep it out all 
 right," Miss Incell said smiling, all, unconscious 
 that she had extinguished the light of a great hope. 
 "And if you get out of the house and mail it, Lis- 
 beth, before I c-an call you back, you shall have 
 theatre tickets to any show in town. Fly!" 
 
 And Lisbeth flew to mail the unmailable letter.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 "T^HERE th a gentleman to thee you, Mith Jet- 
 
 thie." Lisbeth s face was a-dimple with 
 delight and her round eyes shone significantly. 
 
 An answering signal, a flame of red swept over 
 Miss Incell s face and her eyes too shone signifi 
 cantly. 
 
 "Is it " she whispered. 
 
 "Yeth. He told me to thay it wath Anthony 
 Overman it th the very thame name, Mith 
 Jetthie!" she squealed. 
 
 "Tell me, what does he look like, Lisbeth is 
 he short ?" 
 
 "Oh, no." 
 
 "Dark?" 
 
 "No, but " 
 
 "Dressed like a swell ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Big black eyes ? A squeaky voice ? Narrow 
 shoulders Say, Lisbeth!" 
 
 "Why no." 
 
 "Ah h! It can t be the man. Tell him I m 
 not at home, Lisbeth." 
 
 Every dimple went out of Lisbeth s face which 
 could not have expressed keener disappointment 
 and amazement, had cold water been dashed upon 
 it. Her eyes, which had beamed so expressively 
 
 143
 
 i 4 4 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 when she entered gave a bewildered, resentful 
 glance at the leading lady in journalism, whose 
 humble, unacknowledged understudy she believed 
 herself to be, and unwillingly she left the room 
 closing the door sorrowfully behind her. 
 
 Miss Incell preserved her dignified demeanor 
 just that long. Then she turned her flaming 
 face to the cushions and buried it there. She 
 dwelt for a second in the light of a land of desire 
 fulfilled. Then another knock at the door brought 
 her to her feet. But it was still Lisbeth. 
 
 "He wanted to know when you would be at 
 home." 
 
 "And you told him ?" 
 
 "I didn t know. I thaid I d athk my aunt." 
 
 "Hum!" Miss Incell s shining eyes looked 
 through the little maid with a glance that made 
 Lisbeth feel uncomfortably unimportant. "Well 
 tell him I ve just come in." 
 
 "Mith Jetthie!" 
 
 "Oh all right. If you don t like that tell him 
 I m always at home evenings on yes, to-day s 
 Friday. He he may know about the other man, 
 you know." 
 
 "Yeth," said Lisbeth vaguely comforted. 
 
 At eight that evening Miss Incell walked for the 
 first time since her accident, unaided by crutch or 
 cane, into her parlor which was also her study and
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 145 
 
 dining-room, and there Overman was waiting for 
 her. The soft folds of her only evening gown 
 trailed flimsily behind her. Her trim little figure 
 was most appropriately draped and she held her 
 self as women do when prettily dressed, with a 
 recognition of the carriage that finery obliges; a 
 cult no woman needs to be taught. Through the 
 modest decolletage of lace the warm tint of her 
 throat gleamed softly, and she was conscious in 
 every fibre of her body of being guilty of an absurd 
 and unworthy action, in receiving such a caller in 
 so pretentious a gown; all of which only made her 
 hold her small head very high to still the acknow 
 ledgment of the justice of her self-indictment, and 
 brought the blood warmly to her cheeks and lips 
 and an added sparkle of excitement to her eyes. 
 
 The sight of him opposite in tweeds, his soft 
 shirt with the low collar and flowing tie, his hat 
 still in his hand marked the thought she was trying 
 to escape, and at the same time sent an altogether 
 feminine thrill of rejoicing through her, that he 
 stood as straight and strong before her in this at 
 least half-conventional dress as he had in the 
 easier garments he wore when they first met. 
 
 "And you re not ill I m so glad," he said 
 holding her hand and looking down upon her as 
 upon something strange yet familiar, as though she 
 were a re-discovery and a new one at the same
 
 146 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 time. " I never knew you were beautiful 
 Jessie," he said slowly. 
 
 "I m not my gown may be. But I never 
 knew you were gallant." 
 
 "I m not, or I couldn t pay so clumsy a compli 
 ment. But it s good to see you looking so well and 
 walking, too. . . . What does your letter mean, 
 Jessie ?" 
 
 His directness sent a shiver through her. 
 
 "It s it s that silly Lisbeth s fault, " she stam 
 mered. "I ll explain it all. Sit down first and tell 
 me about Hilma and Donaghey. It seems months 
 since I saw them. But you re not looking well, 
 yourself. What is the matter ? Is the world grow 
 ing heavy, Anthony ? Can t you settle all the 
 doubts and distractions of humanity theoretically 
 and without getting thin and lanky ? Or have you 
 discovered, you great man, that you can t do it 
 all with one hand tied behind you?" 
 
 "It isn t the world " he laughed. 
 
 "But?" 
 
 r The flesh and the devil, I suppose. But I m 
 all right. So are they both up there. Hilma gave 
 me a dozen messages. But she told me at last to 
 forget all of them and remember only to bring you 
 back with me that she might nurse you. I had 
 told her you were ill. Your letter 
 
 "You ought to be grateful for it," she inter-
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 147 
 
 jected hurriedly and as pertly as possible, "for 
 bringing you down to see me, even if it was all the 
 maid s blunder. Let me see, what was in that 
 silly letter?" 
 
 "The real beating of a human heart," he cried 
 catching both her hands and holding them tight. 
 "Jessie you can t have forgotten a word of that 
 letter; I didn t write it, I have only read it a few 
 times, but it beats here against my heart like 
 something animate." 
 
 A softness that was like a veil fell over her face 
 and figure. She sat in silence for the barest second, 
 then she withdrew her hands from his and walked 
 away toward the window. Her step was sure. 
 So was her voice when she spoke. 
 
 "Did it strike you that way ?" she asked lightly. 
 "I have often wondered how much of the writer 
 the receiver himself puts into a letter. If you had 
 read such a letter written by a girl you had never 
 seen to some man, a friend of yours, what would 
 you have thought of it ? The thing was done, of 
 course, as a literary speculation. I present the 
 problem in a literary sense, you understand." 
 
 "And I am altogether unconcerned as to its 
 literary sense. Jessie 
 
 "That nonthenthical Lithbeth!" lisped Miss 
 Incell imitating the luckless maid with a lightness 
 and verve that seemed to increase with the vi-
 
 148 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 brant emotion in Overman s voice. " The de 
 fect in her speech seems to be accompanied by 
 another in her comprehension. She simply can t 
 get things straight. She will come in answer to 
 my bell though every time she does anything for 
 me it s as forceless and indefinite as the way she 
 talks. I said to her plainly Go to the desk and 
 take out a note I ve just written to Doctor Baum- 
 felder. Write at the bottom of it that I m not 
 real well and that I want to see him. Now, 
 would you believe that little goose could mistake 
 it for the long tirade, a mythical letter I had written 
 to a mythical Anthony, just as a tentative literary 
 effort you know, sometimes I think I could 
 write stories and and yet- 
 But he would not listen any longer. 
 "Oh, but you see," he cried, "you did write it 
 Jessie Incell! You did feel it. You must have, 
 or you couldn t have written like that. The 
 Anthony worthy of such a letter may be mythical 
 I know no man who deserves it but the girl 
 the girl is true, real, adorable! She 
 
 "The girl," her voice fluted with a gayety 
 that swept like a starling over the roof of his 
 earnestness and left him dazed behind and below, 
 "the girl is ten times, a hundred times more mythi 
 cal than the man. For she was a conscious myth. 
 She could feel the nothingness of herself as she
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 149 
 
 wrote, and the less than nothingness of the flimsy 
 soul she didn t have. She was a lark, a ca 
 price, a literary whim, the pen and ink shadow of 
 a mood, a sort of legible blot shaken on a white 
 paper by fancy, and just by chance crystallizing 
 into words. And chance sent the wordy picture 
 of that queer, unfeminine creature up to you. I m 
 amazed that she deceived you into taking her ser 
 iously for a moment that silly, hysterical nonen 
 tity, with all her exaggeration, her sentimentality, 
 her . . . Of course," she added glancing at 
 him over her shoulder, "there was a basis of truth 
 to work on. That s what helped the little fake to 
 impose upon you, I suppose. You knew, of 
 course, that another girl whose handwriting this 
 freak imitated did feel a warm friendship for a 
 man whom, even if he is an altruistic myth, she 
 would be sincerely glad to see. And so I am glad, 
 Anthony, to see you." 
 
 She turned from the window holding out a hand 
 with the cheeriest, calmest cordiality. 
 
 He did not take it. So she did herself and sat 
 down in the window seat, looking at the hand she 
 held with interest, as though it were something 
 new and of value. 
 
 He stood, intently looking down upon her as 
 she sat there. There was something capricious, 
 provoking about her very attitude, about the
 
 150 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 buckled slipper bedded in the ruffled edge of her 
 trailing gown; something altogether unlike any 
 mood of herself as he had known her, something 
 markedly, consciously, intentionally feminine, 
 something subtle and evasive and intangible that 
 made her seem strange to him yet did not repel 
 him, whatever her desire. 
 
 "And so you repudiate the letter?" he de 
 manded. 
 
 She looked up at him standing over her, a radi 
 ance of content in her face; then let her lids fall, 
 shrugged her shoulders and lightly assented. 
 
 "Well I am glad of it." 
 
 She almost started to her feet. 
 
 " For there is part of it which I, too, don t care to 
 accept. I don t want to share your sex, Jessie. 
 Nor would I have you share mine. I want- 
 He stopped and looked down as if begging for 
 pity from this gay girl, who seemed untouched by 
 the thing that had so changed him he hardly knew 
 himself. 
 
 "But you do want to come down to San Fran 
 cisco, don t you? I do hope you will," she said 
 in a quite friendly, patronizing voice. 
 
 "What should I come to San Francisco for?" 
 he cried. "What should I change the whole 
 course of my life for ? Why should I turn my 
 back on the things I intended to devote my whole
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 151 
 
 life to and but give to them only what s left over ? 
 Why should I put myself in a false position with 
 myself and try to fit myself into a place that was 
 not made for me nor for which I was intended ? 
 What for what for except for one thing!" 
 
 She put her hand to a pert little bow in her hair 
 and patted it pleasantly. In her attitude there was 
 gentle, polite attention, a distant patience that 
 came to him, though he hardly realized it then, as 
 the cold, sweet breath of a glacier. But he had 
 lost command of his impressions; it was expres 
 sion that he craved, that his whole being was bent 
 upon, that would not be turned aside nor stifled. 
 
 " Look at me, Jessie, look at me a fellow with 
 no home, no place, no future, no friends, no posi 
 tion. With not even himself to give to the making 
 of all these, for that self is vowed to other things 
 once, by will, but now, despite it, but still unalter 
 ably. A strayed idealist, an unballasted tramp, 
 at war with society and with not even a theory 
 that he dreams will correct it. A fellow that 
 comes from nowhere and doesn t know where he 
 is bound for. A credulous simpleton, too, or he 
 wouldn t have been taken in by a Senn. A re 
 former without a party, a crank without a definitely 
 besetting formula. If I had the world in my hands 
 to-day, I might set the Single Tax in operation 
 another man s solution, not mine and this fail-
 
 152 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 ing, I could but do for the individual as I would 
 to-day give myself up individually to him! 
 
 "And yet this man you ve made your friend- 
 can you realize of what he is dreaming ? Of 
 love, of marriage! Oh, laugh Jessie, laugh at 
 the presumptuous fool whose theories were not 
 madder than is his practice! He must fall in love, 
 this altruist who was to give himself and all he 
 hadn t to the world. And if his passions had been 
 stirred by the simplest, humblest creature, by that 
 maid who opened the door, he would owe her 
 apology, don t you think ? But no, he must love 
 one who is farther from him than an heiress to 
 millions would be, for she is a producer where 
 he is not. She is a success where he is nothing; 
 not even a failure for he has not even attempted. 
 Though younger than he, she has made a position 
 for herself. If if he were to try for a station 
 whence he might reach out hungering arms to 
 her, he would owe the very fulcrum he d place his 
 lever against, to herself. And he a man and she 
 a girl! A pitiable figure isn t he Jessie!" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The low word came gently, with an impersonal 
 sympathy. Miss Incell seemed to be listening 
 patiently while her eyes were occupied in watching 
 the pale bay beneath. 
 
 His hands fell to his side as though the word she
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 153 
 
 spoke had released a spring. He looked from the 
 small, well-set head below his eyes to the wide, 
 ocean fed water beyond. His face, older than his 
 years and thin now and grave, settled slowly into 
 heavily marked lines. And he stood looking out 
 for a moment that was like a long, hard year to 
 her. The palms of her hands bore the marks of 
 her fingernails, but she sat still, waiting. 
 
 His voice was very gentle when he spoke again. 
 
 "I love you with all my soul, Jessie. I didn t 
 know what it was that took other men out of them 
 selves and set their feet in strange paths they 
 hadn t willed to walk in, till you came up there. 
 And I never knew what despair can wring man s 
 selfish soul till you left. The balm went out of 
 the evening. The forest became hard and literal. 
 It lost not only the gracious glamor your 
 presence had given it, but the freshness and suc 
 couring strength it has had for me since, when a 
 boy, I first became conscious of it. I fainted for 
 lack of you, dear. I longed I longed for you in 
 shame, in agony of mind, in exultation. And the 
 poorest fellow whose hopes never soared above 
 his bed and food was not poorer than I I with 
 all my theories and plans and hopes! 
 
 "Then your letter came. You can see now 
 why I read into it the thing that possessed me, that 
 sat at table with me, that beckoned me out into
 
 154 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 the woods and laughed at me and yet came back 
 at night to lie down with me. You gave me only 
 your bright, cheery friendship and I, like a vain 
 fool, misunderstood. That s all. But I love 
 you. And I don t regret it. And you must not. 
 For it s a possession this love of mine for you, 
 dear that makes me rich and, though unhappy, 
 happy. So 
 
 He held out his hand. But she lifted up her 
 arms and pulled him down to her and, laying her 
 cheek beside his, she sobbed, 
 
 "Why didn t you say it all that night I left, 
 when I was just hungering for a word from 
 you!"
 
 Why didn t you say it all that night I left, when I was just hungering 
 for a word from you ! "
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 TIfHERE S Haydon?" asked the red-haired 
 office-boy who had just come in from 
 lunch. 
 
 As he spoke, he flipped a square of cardboard 
 with his little finger: one of those printed blanks 
 furnished the numerous people who wanted to see 
 the editor, in order that they might classify them 
 selves and save him the trouble. 
 
 "I m looking for the city editor," he went on 
 shrilly. " Man says assistant city won t do. " 
 
 "Don t look," said Morgan, not troubling him 
 self to glance up from the desk, while he stretched 
 out his hand. 
 
 The red-haired boy s eyes measured his superior. 
 He hesitated just an instant, then placed the card 
 in Morgan s outstretched hand. 
 
 "I congratulate ye, Mr. Morgan," he said in the 
 formal sing-song which he felt the occasion 
 demanded. "Mr. Haydon was on the desk, 
 though, when I went out to lunch. Pretty quick 
 work!" 
 
 "Mr. Haydon," said Morgan with deliberation, 
 "has got a a leave of absence 
 
 Thout asking for it, huh ?" grinned the boy. 
 
 "Get out of this, Jimmy, and send the gent in 
 to me. And you might take this with you." 
 
 55
 
 156 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 The new city editor handed the boy half a dollar. 
 "It s my day to treat. When you get to be city 
 editor I ll expect as much from you. Tell Mr. 
 Mclntosh I ll see him. Confound him!" he 
 added under his breath as he turned back to his 
 desk. 
 
 But Morgan s antipathy for Mclntosh, whom 
 the paper s demagogic policy brought often to the 
 office, was no secret. He detested the secretary 
 of the labor union for being a labor union 
 man, and secondly for being himself. All Morgan s 
 theories of the unfitness of the masses for power 
 and privilege jangled discordantly with the ideas 
 of this representative of the working people; 
 and all his personal distaste for slowness of body 
 and literal, wooden seriousness crystallized at 
 sight of the Scotchman, for whom all the world 
 was divided into union and anti-union. 
 
 He stopped at the door surprised when he saw 
 Morgan. 
 
 "I had told the boy especially that I wanted 
 to see no representative," he said with a clear 
 pronunciation of "r s" and a broad "a," which 
 was all there was in his speech to prove his origin. 
 "I have something to say to Mr. Hay don, the city 
 editor, pairsonally." 
 
 Morgan rose with a courtesy that was utterly 
 foreign to him in his journalistic dealings with
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 157 
 
 men. It was just his luck, he was exclaiming to 
 himself, that the first caller at the city editor s 
 desk after he had taken charge should be this 
 man. 
 
 "Won t you sit down, Mr. Mclntosh, now that 
 you are here?" He placed a chair cordially. 
 "The boys in the office are demoralized; they 
 can t be taught evidently to deliver a message 
 properly. Mr. Haydon is under the weather 
 this afternoon and 
 
 "I can wait till to-morrow;" Mclntosh stood 
 grimly ignoring the chair. 
 
 "And I really am afraid he ll not be on deck 
 for some time. Now if there s anything I can 
 do " 
 
 "No. No, thank ye. Mr. Haydon s not left 
 the paper?" he asked suspiciously. 
 
 "Left the paper?" repeated Morgan as though 
 he had not quite caught the words. 
 
 He marveled at Haydon s capacity for pla 
 cating this man and getting news out of him; 
 a capacity which he himself must develop if 
 he did not want the office to draw invidious com 
 parisons. 
 
 Mclntosh sniffed dryly; a sophisticated sniff 
 it was, signifying that the ways and wiles of jour 
 nalism were not strange to him. 
 
 "I thought perhaps he might have quit," he
 
 158 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 said sarcastically. "It make no difference. I 
 could trust Haydon," he added lingeringly. 
 
 Haydon s successor cursed him within his 
 heart. But he smiled blandly as he asked. 
 
 "And how do you know you can t trust me, Mr. 
 Mclntosh?" 
 
 "I don t," replied the labor union secretary. 
 "But neither do I." 
 
 "You ve come to a decision about whether to 
 declare a strike or not?" asked Morgan, coming 
 to a decision himself that he must strike now or 
 his visitor and his opportunity might be gone be 
 fore he could. 
 
 Mclntosh rubbed his sandy side-whiskers, while 
 he looked at Morgan out of narrowed, non 
 committal gray eyes. 
 
 "Ah ve no authority," he said cannily, "to 
 divulge the secrets of the union." 
 
 "No no, of course not." Morgan said to 
 himself that nothing would delight him more than 
 to take labor s representative and choke the truth 
 out of him. 
 
 "The union," said Mclntosh didactically, 
 "believes in treating all the newspapers alike. 
 The cause of labor" Morgan gritted his teeth. 
 "Eh ? The great cause which I have the honor 
 to represent is no light thing to lend itself to 
 unscrupulous purposes."
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 159 
 
 "I agree with you, Mr. Mclntosh, thoroughly," 
 declared Morgan. " But the Inquirer has been 
 a steadfast friend to labor and 
 
 "And why not?" demanded Mclntosh quickly. 
 "It lives by the nickels of the working class." 
 
 "And the working class," rejoined Morgan 
 angrily, "gets at least five cents worth for every 
 nickel invested." 
 
 Mclntosh stared at him a moment. 
 
 "Na doubt," he said rising slowly, "na doubt. 
 Ah ll bid ye good-day, sir, and I hope I haven t 
 taken up too much of your valuable time." 
 
 "Good-day not at all," said Morgan with an 
 emphasis that did not deceive his visitor. 
 
 The memory of his first detail came back to the 
 newspaperman. He had not wanted anything 
 as he wanted this man s confidence, since that 
 far-off first day of trial. But while he stood 
 hesitating yet helpless, Mclntosh himself opened 
 the door and brushed against a man just about to 
 knock. 
 
 "Why if it isn t Mr. Overmon," he exclaimed. 
 "Are ye on the Inquirer, too? Well, well if 
 I had known 
 
 Morgan caught at a straw. "You know Over 
 man ?" he cried. 
 
 Mclntosh smiled dryly. "Not as a reporter," 
 he said, "as a human being. I know pairsonally
 
 160 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 of the boys he has sent to the Refuge Home, for 
 my brother s carpenter there and has told me of 
 it." 
 
 "Good!" Morgan took Overman s arm, which 
 he pressed fondly as well as significantly. "Come 
 in, Overman. Perhaps you can persuade Mr. 
 Mclntosh that the paper s his very good friend. 
 Take a seat take a seat I m going out to see 
 Baxter and you can have the place to yourselves." 
 He made delightedly for the door. 
 
 "Excuse me, Mr. Morgan," Overman said try 
 ing to detain him," I wanted to explain to Mr. 
 Haydon, who sent me out to see the Reverend 
 Grant MacMillan, what a pitiful 
 
 "Never mind that"; Morgan waved all lesser 
 matters aside. "I ll tend to Haydon s end of it. 
 Convince Mclntosh that the Inquirer is to be 
 trusted that s your detail. " 
 
 He shut the door upon them and walked out 
 into the local room. 
 
 "Uneasy lies the head that wears a newspaper 
 crown, " commented the new assistant city editor 
 as Morgan passed his desk. 
 
 "I wouldn t care if the uneasy lies were effica 
 cious," Morgan laughed sitting sideways upon 
 his desk. 
 
 The assistant city editor looked up with quiz 
 zing sympathy. He was a man about fifty, stout,
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 161 
 
 pale, with a heavy mustache and a hopeless droop 
 to his broad shoulders. He knew no elation over 
 his new position. He had been assistant city 
 editor half a dozen times before. He had been 
 assistant Sunday editor and assistant night edi 
 tor. He w r as always assistant-something or other, 
 yet he never attained the office to which his deputy- 
 ship was the natural stepping-stone. Chiefs died, 
 resigned, or w r ere deposed, but chieftainship was 
 not for Baxter. Some younger man, some new 
 man, some unknown man was invariably put over 
 his head. And he had borne the insult so long 
 that neither he nor the office considered it such 
 any longer. He was a hopeless man, a pessimist, 
 of course, but he had grown to identify his mis 
 fortune with an abstract malice of Fate s, and he 
 never made an enemy of his new superior, for the 
 honest belief he had that the new man was but the 
 blameless instrument of the cruel goddess. He 
 looked at Morgan now with a smile that had no 
 malice in it. 
 
 "It was beastly luck, Dean, that your first visi 
 tor should be Mclntosh." 
 
 "Beastly?" exclaimed Morgan. "You weakly 
 understate, Baxter. The only man in town before 
 whom I didn t dare to flaunt my new title!" 
 
 Baxter laughed quietly. When he laughed 
 his pallid face became like a basin of dough,
 
 1 62 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 dimpled and wrinkled by the fermenting joke 
 below. 
 
 "Was he very nasty?" he chuckled. 
 
 "I just yearned to break his face. How do you 
 suppose Hay don managed him?" 
 
 Baxter shrugged his big, hopeless shoulders 
 beneath the dirty white of his shirt-sleeves. 
 
 "Did you give him up ?" he asked. 
 
 "I passed him over to Overman. God sent 
 Overman in at the very crisis. I believe He desires 
 that I remain city editor of the Inquirer. It 
 suits His editorial policy evidently. ... I say, 
 what s this about a Refuge Home and boys and 
 Overman and the rest of it." 
 
 Baxter spat leisurely; he was chewing. 
 
 " Didn t know you d heard that God-sent Over 
 man. It s what the boys call him," he went on 
 in answer to a negative gesture of Morgan s. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because he was sent to rescue Miss Incell 
 from marrying a certain newspaper man." 
 
 Morgan laughed, and flushed. 
 
 "Bah!" he said good-naturedly, "there s noth 
 ing in that. The fellow amuses her, keeps her 
 interested. He s such an out-and-out crank." 
 
 "That s what has taken him to the Refuge 
 Home. He picks up kids on the street when they re 
 dirty enough, vile enough, wretched enough to suit
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 163 
 
 his taste they get to like their misery highly 
 spiced, these cranks, in the same way that con 
 noisseurs like rotten cheese, you know. He has em 
 washed, the kids, and fed and dressed and then 
 sends em off for a term of years to various institu 
 tions. The term varies according to how much 
 he s got left over from last pay-day. Haydon 
 gave him the misery details always; sort of recog 
 nition, I suppose, of his ex-officio character. He s 
 just been sent out to see the Reverend Grant Mac- 
 Millan, who has landed at the city jail after a spree 
 once too often. This time he s held for theft. He 
 steals, you know, when he s full." 
 
 "Good story!" 
 
 "Yep. MacMillan wouldn t see anybody. 
 The city hall man telephoned in that the parson 
 sits shivering in his cell and positively won t see 
 one of the fellows out there. So Haydon sent 
 Overman out." 
 
 Morgan stared. 
 
 " You mean you don t know God-sent Overman* 
 in the role of a crack-a-jack," Baxter said trans 
 lating the other s attitude. "No he may not 
 have a record for scoops, but he s go-od with a 
 circumflex accent, as mothers say of their ugly 
 daughters, you know. But Haydon just sent 
 Overman out blind, hoping he d hit the trail 
 with blind luck. He didn t dare confide in him
 
 164 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 what he hoped of him for good and sufficient 
 reasons. What did he get?" 
 
 "Don t know. I wouldn t listen to him when 
 he started to tell me; just pushed him and Mcln- 
 tosh into each other s arms and left the rest to 
 God," said Morgan with that calm, unspecialized 
 irreverence that often characterized his informal 
 allusions to Deity. "There they come now. 
 Pray for me, Baxter. You ll be city editor if 
 I m scooped on this strike business." 
 
 "Not I." Baxter grinned sardonically. " Some 
 other fellow that s never handled a blue pencil in all 
 his life." 
 
 " Do you mean to insinuate, sir ! " roared Morgan 
 bombastically. 
 
 He waved a farewell to Mclntosh, who seemed 
 anxious to hurry away, and watched him eagerly 
 till he got out of the door. 
 
 "Well, Overman," he said anxiously, "what 
 did you get out of him ?" 
 
 "Nothing, but this. He suggested that I go up 
 to Sacramento to see Jared and tell him 
 
 "Oh, that s all, is it ?" Morgan s voice was oily 
 with happiness. "Scoot then, old man, the next 
 train let me see 
 
 "I wish, Mr. Morgan," Overman interrupted 
 impatiently, "that you would give me time 
 to talk to you about the Reverend Grant Mac-
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 165 
 
 Millan. It s a very important and pathetic case 
 and 
 
 "And this is even more important and might 
 have been fearfully pathetic for me, if you hadn t 
 just happened in. Overman, I ll owe you my 
 official head if we get a beat on this strike. No, I 
 can t listen. Your train leaves at three good. 
 That ll give you time to wire down your stuff be 
 fore midnight. Go, and may heaven speed your 
 footsteps." 
 
 Overman thought a moment. Then he yielded. 
 
 "All right," he said, "I ll have time to write a 
 note first. I can get to the ferry in ten minutes." 
 
 He hurried to his desk and pulling out a wad of 
 paper, began to write. 
 
 "Jessica, darlin , 
 
 I m off in five minutes to Sacramento to get 
 an interview with Jared. I particularly don t 
 want to go for there s a man out at the city prison 
 that needs help. You must go to him for me. 
 Ask for the Reverend Grant MacMillan and say 
 that I sent you, so that he will see you. Assure 
 him for me that the moment I get back I ll come 
 out to see him. Tell him that he can count ab 
 solutely on me, that I am thinking every moment 
 of his case, that he shall have the money to make 
 good what he has taken, that I have written 
 Donaghey and Hilma to expect him, and that after 
 he gets well up in the mountains, I shall find work
 
 166 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 for him through Mclntosh and that all I ask 
 of him, all that he owes me is not to despair. 
 
 "Dear Little Lady Love, do this for me, for my 
 heart is sore and my mind is terribly troubled for 
 this man, who is cursed beyond human nature s 
 capacity to withstand. 
 
 In a hurry O."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 TV TISS INCELL laid aside her Sunday story 
 most of her writing was done at home 
 and standing before her mirror reached for 
 her hat. But she withdrew her hat-pins in a 
 tentative, preoccupied way, and then re-read 
 Overman s note. She set the hat firmly on her 
 head and fastened her veil. And then she glanced 
 thoughtfully over the page again. After this she 
 slipped into her jacket and took up her gloves 
 when it seemed necessary that she should again 
 read Overman s letter. She walked to the door 
 with the air of one who does a thing with only half 
 one s mind, and then she retraced her steps, took 
 the letter up from the dressing-table and read it 
 still another time. 
 
 "Would you call that a love-letter, Miss Incell ?" 
 she said, disdainfully questioning her image in the 
 glass. "It s the first you ve got from him such 
 as it is. His heart is sore and his mind is terribly 
 troubled. About you ? No, you conceited miss. 
 About a drunken preacher that he never saw till 
 to-day. But . . ." She held the sheets of 
 copy paper, upon which the note had been 
 hastily scrawled, before her lips as though 
 breathing her words into it. "I d rather have 
 you with your two words of love from him than 
 
 167
 
 168 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 a volume of gush from any other man God 
 love him!" 
 
 She slipped the note into her satchel and sallied 
 forth on her mission, chuckling to herself at the 
 thought of a yellow journalist in the role of maid 
 of mercy. 
 
 She nodded amicably to the policeman at the 
 iron door before the prison. The police were 
 Miss Incell s very good friends. She was a huge 
 joke to them, her part in the dirty cases they 
 handled appearing to them like the role a piquant, 
 malicious wax doll might play in a cast of bulldogs. 
 
 "Good-evenin , Miss Incell!" grinned the police 
 man on guard. "Back again are ye ? My my 
 but tis a bad sign that ye can nivver kape long 
 out o jail!" 
 
 "Good-evening, Officer McNally. How in the 
 world do you expect a body to keep away from the 
 place where you are, tell me!" 
 
 "Oah!" A heave of laughter hoisted McNally s 
 belt-buckle, resting like a boat low on the horizon 
 of the capacious sea of his stomach. "Divvle a 
 wonder tis ye get what ye want, young leddy. " 
 
 The cachinnatory disturbance to McNally s 
 official formality subsided slowly. He was still 
 wheezing with appreciation when Miss Incell 
 hurried through the corridor and reached the desk. 
 
 "You ve struck the impossible this time, Miss
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 169 
 
 Incell," the sergeant said when she made her re 
 quest. "The preacher won t see you. He pos 
 itively refuses to talk to anybody except a queer 
 chap who actually 
 
 "Well, I come from that same queer chap," 
 she interrupted. "Tell Mr. MacMillan that I 
 come from Mr. Overman. He s a particular 
 friend of mine." 
 
 The sergeant looked at her a moment scratch 
 ing his chin gravely. Then a light seemed to dawn 
 upon him; a light that illumined the way of the 
 determined journalist. He winked a solemn, 
 experienced, appreciative wink and himself went 
 off with the message. 
 
 He returned followed by the minister. 
 "It will be pleasanter for you and Miss Incell 
 to talk here," he said in a carelessly official tone. 
 In an aside to Miss Incell, he said quickly, "Make 
 hay while the sun shines; he ll bolt the minute he 
 finds out you re a reporter." 
 
 Miss Incell thanked him and waved him away. 
 Her eyes were bent upon the thin, wretched look 
 ing man approaching and upon the great coat that 
 covered his shivering, nerve-racked body An 
 thony Overman s top coat, the one he had bought 
 just a week before. Miss Incell was observant; 
 she recognized it. It had been particularly dear 
 to her for it had given an air of comfortable, citi-
 
 1 70 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 fied largeness to her lover s figure. She experi 
 enced a feeling of wrathful impatience with the 
 giver and resentment for the recipient, but she 
 forgot both in the shock of hearing MacMillan s 
 voice. 
 
 "Pardon me, Madam, you see what a wretched 
 creature I am. My very wretchedness gives me 
 a claim, I think, upon your forbearance. Did I 
 hear the sergeant say you are a reporter ?" 
 
 It was such a voice, though weak and ragged, 
 as one hears in pulpits that are filled by excep 
 tional men; in drawing-rooms that are frequented 
 by people of leisure and culture; and on the stage 
 rarely when talent and grace of mind are joined. 
 It was the gentleman s voice, the unmistakable 
 accent with all that it connotes. 
 
 "I m Miss Incell of the Inquirer. But I was 
 sent here by Mr. Overman, a particular friend of 
 mine," she said gently. 
 
 "It is extremely painful to me to meet a lady." 
 With an eloquent gesture he included his shabbi- 
 ness, his unshaven face, his shame. 
 
 "One gets to think of oneself merely as a repor 
 ter, I assure you," she said quickly. "Mr. Over 
 man has been sent out of town unexpectedly on an 
 important detail, but he wrote me a hurried note 
 before he left imploring me to come out to assure 
 you that " She drew Overman s letter from her
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 171 
 
 satchel and read aloud the part that concerned 
 the abject creature before her, emphasizing the 
 last line "All that he owes me is not to despair." 
 
 It was habit, a method of work that had often 
 resulted satisfactorily, to make her answer some 
 what long. Almost mechanically, even as she 
 read, her mind was seizing and making note of the 
 characteristics of this man s face, of his attitude, 
 his manner, his voice, his clothing, his surround 
 ings. He sat listening to Overman s words, a 
 huddled heap of wretchedness, his unshaven face 
 with its beard of a week s growth gray and lifeless 
 in texture, his eyes dull and miserable, the lines 
 about his sensitive mouth cut deep with bodily and 
 mental agony. 
 
 "Not to despair. . . . Not to despair!" he 
 repeated after her. 
 
 "There must be something in a man, upon 
 which those who are helping him can build you 
 know," she suggested. Her voice had a trick of 
 taking the tone that seemed to the interviewed 
 one almost a continuation of his own thought. 
 
 "Yes I know," he said slowly. "But is 
 there that foundation in me ? Is there ? Others 
 have built on me, and for the seeming lack of it 
 that something in self the whole structure has 
 gone down like a card-house, like a thing planted 
 on quicksands. I have been honest with Mr.
 
 172 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 Overman. I have told him this. Yet his hope, 
 his hope for me has kindled something in me that 
 almost hopes, too." 
 
 Miss Incell sat looking at him. There was that 
 in the listening bend of her head, in her receptive 
 attitude that drew this man to confidence. She 
 was only studying him not unsympathetically. 
 But she was endowed with a capacity for tem 
 porarily putting herself in the place of her subject, 
 while he was her subject, that was unlimited by 
 difference in temperament or radical diversity of 
 circumstance. The intelligent light in her pretty 
 eyes, the mobility of her bright face (upon which a 
 speaker whose theme was anything like his life s 
 history, his honest thought, his unaffected belief 
 and unposed attitude, could note and gather the 
 impression he made, as a gardener gathers the 
 flowers from the seed he has sown) these played 
 upon him, drew him on. 
 
 To MacMillan, a man beneath his own con 
 tempt, a gentleman having before his eyes the 
 coarse prison sights and the vile prison sounds 
 classed in the minds of his keepers with the vulgar 
 criminals, whom he despised though he envied 
 them their impudent retention of self-respect; and 
 yet, in the terrible humility of his judgment upon 
 himself, held them, too, as better than a man of 
 opportunities, of education, of position, of a semi-
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 173 
 
 sacred standing fallen lower than they to the 
 minister, there v/as something irresistible in this 
 girl s readiness to listen. It soothed his esthetic 
 sense to address himself to the gentlewoman s 
 trim, self-respecting cleanliness of mind and body 
 and attire. It lifted him in his own estimation 
 if ever so little, that little was fearfully precious to 
 him in the depths where his bruised spirit lay to 
 be brought in contact with a cultivated mind, now 
 that the first shock of consciousness in his degrada 
 tion was past. In a way, it seemed for a moment 
 to modify that intolerable disgust of himself, his 
 declassed self, his shamed, unworthy self that was 
 to him now like some bestial, vile garment grown 
 into his very flesh, inescapable, close, stifling him 
 with the corruption of its near presence. And to 
 talk to her gave vent to the congested thoughts 
 thrown back upon themselves and pent within him. 
 
 "There is nothing to be said for me nothing. 
 I am a man without rights. I have not even the 
 right to object to the use men make of me as a 
 terrible example. I have had my chance and 
 another and another and again and after that. 
 Yet unspeakable wretch that I am there is one 
 thing about me that merits respect. Yes, respect." 
 
 For just a second he had thrown his head back 
 assertively; the ghost of some old trick of 
 gesture that painted him for just that fleeting
 
 174 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 instant upon his listener s consciousness, with the 
 unspoiled, potential aureole of youth about that 
 head. She saw, like something risen from the 
 dead past, the boy s well-shaped head, the thinking, 
 dreaming forehead, the idealizing eye and the 
 weak, pathetic chin and sensitive, unreliable 
 mouth. 
 
 "That one thing" his resumption of speech 
 seemed almost incongruous after the quick vision 
 she had seen "is that I try; that I do try; that 
 I atone when I can; that I am humble, humbly 
 eager in my passionate desire to regain not my 
 position but my own self-respect. This last 
 time, all I asked was obscurity merely to be let 
 alone in my poverty and the hard, hard work, 
 which was better than I deserve for it was re 
 creating me, body and soul. I was washing dishes 
 in a cheap restaurant . . . He put out 
 
 his hands, an unconscious gesture, and she saw 
 them trembling, roughened, bruised, but the 
 long-fingered, speaking hands of the gentleman. 
 
 "I am weak physically as well as morally," he 
 went on with a wry smile, "or rather, because 
 I am so morally it is my own fault. But I have 
 endured agony enough, standing in that narrow 
 box washing crates of heavy crockery, to satisfy 
 even those who are sinless, if it could be made 
 tangible to them. But a minister needs a topic
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 175 
 
 for a sensational sermon. He knows me I mean 
 he has known me, and he has heard what a wreck 
 I have made of my life. So, with an expression 
 of ineffable disgust on his righteous face, he lifts 
 his ex-brother minister out of the pool of vice and 
 sin; lifts him high upon a virtuous pitchfork of un- 
 charity and there, all reeking, dripping with the 
 loathsomeness of the fall, he dissects him for his 
 congregation and the papers, which the next day 
 report the sermon in full, with an added article 
 upon the present whereabouts of the shivering 
 beast in question. 
 
 "A minister, you see having relinquished by his 
 pretense of being able to show other men how to 
 live, the right of living as other men do, of being 
 human like other men his sin is not only a blot 
 upon his class, it is an aspersion upon that very 
 Divinity he dared to preach. Oh, I know I 
 know! Who should know better than I I, who 
 pretended to be better than the average man and 
 fell so pitiably far below him! 
 
 "But, you see, I was no longer a minister. 
 For years, the beast had not polluted the sanctuary. 
 I was nothing not even an example just then. 
 Just a dish-washer, two hands, two feet to stand 
 upon, endurance, consciousness, That is all I 
 was. I had not even vices. I was sober. And 
 then suddenly came this pillorying again. I
 
 176 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 have borne it before, but it was more vividly done, 
 more pretentiously, perhaps more artistically, 
 with both the pulpit and the press, the power of 
 intelligence and the power of sentiment reaching 
 down to drag this trembling wretch from his 
 pitiful obscurity and hold him up up in the 
 light of day, so that all men even those with 
 whom he worked, the boys who waited at table, 
 the Chinaman who cooked in the kitchen- 
 might see him pictured with the brush and pen as 
 he was as he is. 
 
 "And that he might see himself! . . . But, 
 do you know, there is one thing, that a man, fallen 
 like me, however great a wretch he may be, how 
 ever hardened he may appear, cannot bear and 
 that is to see himself as he looks to others, without 
 a single, redeeming grace, without a shred of 
 remorse or repentance, without despair as without 
 hope. 
 
 To shut that damning sight out of my eyes, 
 to hide from it, to drown my consciousness of it, 
 I drank. . . . And when I drink I I steal!" 
 
 Jessie Incell s lids had fallen. She saw the 
 cracks in the stone pavement at her feet, though 
 unaware of it, so distinctly that when she got out 
 into the sunshine the blue sky was printed like it. 
 A shiver of disgust, of indignation, of pity passed 
 over her. It was long before she looked up; when
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 177 
 
 she did she saw that his chin had fallen on his 
 breast and that he had forgotten her. 
 
 "I must go," she said rising. "Mr. Overman 
 will surely be back to-morrow. He will come out 
 to see you the moment he arrives, I know he will." 
 
 "Thank you." He rose with a courtesy at 
 which her womanhood revolted as at something 
 grotesquely out of place. "What is there in that 
 man that makes him Christlike ? There is not 
 a clergyman in town who would do anything for 
 me any more except in the way I have told 
 you." His lips writhed. "But this young man 
 a stranger I wear his coat. And my soul wears 
 his confidence, the knowledge of his interest, his 
 sympathy, as an exquisite comfort that is like re 
 ligion. You are his friend ?" He looked at her as 
 though he had just come to consider her as a per 
 sonality. "Tell me then shall I be too heavy 
 a load for his faith to carry ? The hope I should 
 relinquish is too slight, too unworthy a thing to be 
 weighed in the balance against a moment s dis 
 couragement for him, the smallest questioning of 
 the justification of optimism, the most fleeting 
 consciousness of defeat. Frankly dare I ac 
 cept what he offers?" 
 
 "I don t see how you can refuse it. He Mr. 
 Overman is not like anybody else." Her voice 
 faltered and she blushed at praising him. "His
 
 i 7 8 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 charity is independent of his hope or his belief, 
 you know. Failure itself could not alter it, I think. 
 But, you remember, he says you owe it to him not 
 to despair." 
 
 He turned back on his way to his cell and she 
 hurried as if for relief from a nightmare to the door. 
 
 As she passed the desk the sergeant touched 
 his cap in admiration, and a reporter from a rival 
 paper stepped forward. 
 
 "Do you mean to say, Miss Incell, that you ve 
 actually got MacMillan to talk ?" he asked with 
 good-natured envy. "Why, every paper in 
 town 
 
 "It s only one more little scoop," she said 
 smiling tormentingly; she could not resist it. 
 
 "Just the same the Inquirer office thinks it 
 the biggest thing yet," the sergeant said leaning 
 over the desk. 
 
 "How do you know?" demanded Miss Incell. 
 
 "Why Morgan, the new city editor telephoned 
 out ten minutes ago promising me anything from 
 the chief s office to a brindle pup if I d get a man 
 into MacMillan s cell. Can t be done, I phoned 
 back. He won t see a soul except the woman 
 reporter that s talking to him now. The woman 
 reporter, he yelled cursing like a pirate, what 
 woman reporter what paper? *I forget her 
 name , says I softly. Blank it, man, remember!
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 179 
 
 he yells. Seems to me it was Julie no Jessie. 
 Could it have been Jessie I whispers. In 
 cell! he roars fit to break the receiver and my 
 ear drum with it. Tell her she can have the 
 whole paper, he chortled. Tell her to come 
 straight to my room the minute she gets through. 
 Tell her And there I rung him off. The 
 
 chief don t allow us to deliver tender messages 
 like that it s against the rules." 
 
 Miss Incell smiled and thanked him and looked 
 thoughtful; but she got past McNally, who warned 
 her to "mind tis easier to get in jail than out" and 
 caught a car down town. 
 
 The next morning her interview with the Rev 
 erend Grant MacMillan with its flaring top line, 
 "What Charity Saints in the Ministry have for 
 Sinners," was spread over half the first page of 
 the Inquirer. The information that a strike of 
 teamsters had been decided upon held the other 
 half. 
 
 In the local room Morgan was receiving con 
 gratulations from the office assembled and was 
 affably assuring his friends that it was all due to 
 sheer luck, but that "the Boss, as well as God 
 himself, does love a lucky city editor." Miss 
 Incell was resting as rest the work-weary, who 
 fear to wake and face a conscience ; she had remem 
 bered just before she fell asleep that she had an
 
 i8o ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 engagement to be one of a theatre party the follow 
 ing evening and she was glad of it. Overman 
 was on the train bound back to the city and was 
 just opening the Inquirer the last the train boy 
 had for sale.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A DESPERATE flirtation was in progress 
 between Doctor Baumfelder and Mrs. 
 Eveson, the newspaper artist, during which Miss 
 Incell and the young violinist, Baumfelder s 
 protege, played the part of amused spectators, 
 dividing their time between the light opera on 
 the stage and the operatic love affair in the box. 
 
 The little artist, who naively reproduced her 
 own pretty face modified into various types of 
 beauty in every woman s picture which she drew 
 for the Inquirer, was a shallow, amiable, vain, 
 light-hearted coquette. She had "lost her hus 
 band in the shuffle" as she was wont to express it 
 when, with her faculty for making all pictured 
 women attractive, she invaded Bohemia. She 
 spoke of him lightly as " the very late Mr. Eveson, " 
 though divorce not death separated them. She 
 was as consistently conscienceless in her work as 
 in her personal relations, and looked at life as 
 merely another phase of the farce newspaper pro 
 prietors play, with a tricky, sensational insincerity 
 and plenty of false sentiment to sweeten the cyni 
 cal pill. 
 
 "She s light champagne very, very light and 
 dry, your friend," said Baumfelder in a pause, 
 leaning forward audaciously to pass on his impres- 
 
 181
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 sion to Miss Incell. "What atonement can Fate 
 provide for making a woman so pretty and such 
 an imbecile! Oh, full many a bottle of this for 
 bidden wine etc., etc.* ... If she only had 
 your wit, Miss Incell!" 
 
 "So good of you, Doctor!" Miss Incell 
 sneered. "But you insisted upon meeting her." 
 
 "Tut you re too clever not to know when a 
 man s sincere. No, as it is, the wine s too sweet 
 it cloys." 
 
 "And yet it s champagne?" She lifted her 
 eyebrows mockingly. 
 
 "And yet it s champagne," he murmurred 
 whimsically self-critical. 
 
 "Are you getting tired of the show?" Mrs. 
 Eveson bent forward, having caught the last word. 
 "Shall we go to supper?" 
 
 "Oh, you re not going!" All the musician in 
 young Wissner rebelled. "Why, Baumfelder, 
 you haven t heard that intermezzo we came 
 specially to hear." 
 
 "Suppose, Mrs. Eveson, you and the doctor 
 go to the cafe," Miss Incell suggested, "and Mr. 
 Wissner and I will join you after the intermezzo. 
 It s his own intermezzo and surely a man ought to 
 know whether his own work is worth listening to 
 or not." 
 
 "Oh, why didn t you tell me?" Mrs. Eveson
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 183 
 
 fixed her laughing, pretty eyes upon the young 
 violinist. "Of course we ll stay." 
 
 And while Wissner hastened to explain to her 
 how this first composition of his came to be inter 
 polated in the opera, Miss Incell turned to Baum- 
 felder. 
 
 "Don t you ever expect me," she said under 
 her breath, "to throw away opportunities upon 
 an ungrateful man again. Why didn t you go ?" 
 
 "Because I love music as well as champagne. 
 And Wissner here can put into melody such 
 emotion as as a woman like you could feel; if 
 she would permit herself." 
 
 "You think compliments in couplets, Doctor?" 
 
 "Not when I think of you. When I think of 
 
 you Ah, listen! There begins the intermezzo: 
 
 that is how I think of you." 
 
 As they walked away from the theatre Baum- 
 felder was expatiating upon the two themes dearest 
 to him music and women and the relation they 
 bore to each other in his thoughts. His powerful, 
 but well-proportioned figure in its somewhat 
 striking fur-lined coat, and the sonorous melody 
 of his deep bass made people pause upon the 
 street to look after him. Among others, they at 
 tracted the attention of Overman, just swinging 
 off a cable car at the corner of the street, and his 
 eye ran on from Baumfelder to Mrs. Eveson s
 
 1 84 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 winsome blondness and Jessie IncelPs alert face 
 beyond. 
 
 She caught his eye almost at the instant it 
 lighted upon her and stopped though some 
 where in the back of her consciousness fear 
 clutched her and held out her hand with a wel 
 coming gesture whose grace and fulness struck 
 the esthetic Baumfelder as something beautiful. 
 
 "We were on our way up to the flat, Mr. Over 
 man," she said. "You ll come? . . . I m 
 I m glad," she added with a breath of relief at his 
 assent. "We ve been listening to Mr. Wissner s 
 intermezzo. And after that," she rattled on gaily 
 now, "Doctor Baumfelder says nothing but a 
 welsh rarebit and beer will suffice." 
 
 "You ve never tasted a rarebit of mine, Over 
 man ?" said Baumfelder moving with Mrs. Eveson 
 to his side. "Well, it s my one vanity. No one 
 in the profession or out of it can make rarebit 
 as I do." 
 
 "I m such a primitive sort of savage, Doctor," 
 Overman laughed, "it s a pity to waste specialized 
 culinary talent on me." 
 
 "We ll see. Tell me,"- Baumfelder placed a 
 protecting palm over Mrs. Eveson s gloved hand 
 as it lay on his arm; he always felt tenderly apol 
 ogetic when he mentioned one woman admiringly 
 
 O * 
 
 in another s presence. "What has become of that
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 185 
 
 wonderful symphony of peace in woman s shape 
 I saw up in the woods when I met you." 
 
 He means Hilma," Miss Incell cried looking 
 back at them. The after effect of hard work with 
 her was a pleasurable sense of relaxation; her 
 light-heartedness of the evening had developed 
 into effervescent gayety since Overman had joined 
 them. "Why, she s still up there, Doctor. I 
 just sent off a big box of of things to Hilma to 
 day. If I had only known you remembered her, 
 you might have sent something pretty too." 
 
 She laughed as though at a joke she was sharing 
 with nobody. 
 
 "Remember her," repeated Baumfelder. 
 "Does anybody with an eye or an ear forget a 
 woman or a strain of music ? I was saying to Miss 
 Incell," he continued turning again to Overman, 
 whom he seemed desirous of studying, "that 
 Wissner s music almost expresses her; at least its 
 effect is that combination of wit, of malice, of 
 warm-heartedness, that pretended, mocking im- 
 perviousness to sentiment it is pretended, is it 
 not ?" He put the question suddenly. 
 
 "Altogether," responded Overman so promptly 
 that the inquisitive Doctor was disappointed. 
 "Witness the bond between her and Hilma." 
 
 "Hilma ah, that woman!" sighed the Doctor 
 sentimentally. "If she were my friend s wife,
 
 1 86 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 instead of your friend s, I d steal her from 
 him." 
 
 "Hilma!" exclaimed Overman. "Why, if I 
 had a sister she couldn t be more to me than 
 Hilma." 
 
 "Well, be glad that you haven t a sister like her," 
 said Baumfelder gravely. "Would you give up 
 half of your fingers because you have ten of them ? 
 Never limit possibilities; it s flying in the face of 
 Providence. Thank God, I haven t sisters. 
 No, that woman no one but a Schubert could 
 express the soul of such a creature, the warm, 
 deep, peaceful current of die Weiber Seele upon 
 which a man might rest his boat free of all care of 
 treacherous shoals, of restless " 
 
 "He met her just once, Mrs. Eveson," explain 
 ed Miss Incell ironically. 
 
 "The doctor is so susceptible," said Mrs. 
 Eveson. "Who is she an actress?" 
 
 "A born nurse. A healer of bodies as well as 
 souls," sighed the Doctor. 
 
 Mrs. Eveson pursed her pink little mouth. 
 
 "I am trying to find the music that symbolizes 
 you, Mrs. Eveson, " Baumfelder said irrelevantly ; 
 it seemed quite natural to him that she should 
 weary of this discussion of another woman. 
 
 Though there was a faintly ironical inflection in 
 his voice, unseizable by Mrs. Eveson s ear, he bent
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 187 
 
 over her with gallantry helping her to remove her 
 wraps. They had arrived at the little apartment 
 now and Miss Inceli was directing the lisping 
 Lisbeth as to chafing dishes and beer bottles. 
 Overman was listening to young Wissner, who had 
 taken his violin from its case, and was playing 
 softly the tarantelle of his loved intermezzo, his 
 boyish face flushed with pleasure. There was 
 something very attractive to Overman in this talent 
 ed boy, whom he knew well; in his ardor, his sim 
 plicity, his utter ignorance of the deeper meaning of 
 the world where others dwelt and his esoteric know 
 ledge of the world of art he himself lived in. 
 
 "If I could play like that," Anthony said when 
 he finished, "I d take my violin down to a room I 
 know on Tehama street where a crippled girl works 
 from six in the morning till eight at night. I d 
 play for her." 
 
 "If I could play like that," parodied Miss Inceli 
 saucily, as she laid the cloth, "I d take my violin 
 to the best market. I d sell my work to the high 
 est bidder and, with some very small portion of 
 what I made, I d lift the crippled girl out of necess 
 ity to work forever. " 
 
 "And if I could play like that," put in Baum- 
 felder, "I d take my violin into a boat with me at 
 sunset and I d play only to the lady of my love 
 who "
 
 1 88 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "A requisition for a score of boats, as many 
 violins and ditto in sunsets for Doctor Baum- 
 felder!" called Miss Incell in so authoritative a 
 tone that Lisbeth came hurrying in questioningly 
 from the next room, only to find the Doctor threat 
 ening her mistress with a wooden spoon with which 
 he was softening some cheese. 
 
 "Well, if I could play like that," Mrs. Eveson 
 said with a laugh, "I d certainly not waste my 
 music on an ignorant factory girl, crippled or 
 whole." 
 
 "But music is an emotion, not a faculty, " re 
 monstrated Overman. "I am as ignorant of 
 everything artistic as the girl down on Tehama 
 street, but I can feel a thing like that." 
 
 "Your suggestion is not very practical, Over 
 man. Miss Incell is right." Baumfelder looked 
 up from the chafing dish over which he had been 
 bending in seemingly scientific absorption. "To 
 appreciate ait one must be at peace. To your 
 crippled girl a suffering creature in body, in 
 mind the most beautiful sound or sight on earth 
 does not mean as much as a deep sleep, a moment 
 of comfortable relaxing of her twisted muscles. 
 Music poetry painting they are the joys of the 
 strong in spirit and in body. Only Nature s self 
 can move the sick as art affects the well." 
 
 "I can t agree with you, but I hadn t thought
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 189 
 
 it out," said Overman whose taste for argument 
 was limited to the things that interested him most. 
 "It was only an impulse, the instinct which 
 must be r right to give the most precious thing 
 one has." 
 
 Baumfelder was bending over Mrs. Eveson, 
 his eyes, his lips, his pose offering flattery. But a 
 hint of something more than a mere fancy in 
 Overman s words made him look up and glance 
 quickly from him to Jessie IncelPs face. 
 
 She caught his eye and held it defiantly. 
 
 "The most precious thing one has, Mr. Over 
 man, " Baumfelder said seriously " is altogether too 
 precious to 
 
 But the door opened just then and Lisbeth 
 showed Morgan in. 
 
 "My, it must be late if you can get away from 
 the office," cried Mrs. Eveson, nestling pleasurably 
 down in her chair; she was still new enough to life 
 to feel her spirits rise as the hours lenghtened. 
 "Dean, what time is it?" 
 
 "Time to get a taste of Baumfelder s rarebit, 
 that s all I know. Halloo, Overman, I bet you don t 
 know you got a raise for that strike scoop and for 
 putting Miss Incell on to the MacMillan story." 
 
 "Then that wasn t your own scoop?" Mrs. 
 Eveson turned to Miss Incell, who had stood for a 
 moment as though waiting.
 
 igo ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "No," said Morgan. "Overman really got that 
 for us. Jessie confessed the moment she met my 
 stern city-editorial eye. But it s all in the family." 
 
 Baumfelder looked again from Overman to 
 Miss Incell. But Jessie had gone to get a plate 
 and a glass for Morgan, and Overman was laugh 
 ing with young Wissner over a story of a student s 
 prank in Munich, of which he had been the hero. 
 There was something very boyish about Overman s 
 laugh, Baumfelder said to himself. He never re 
 membered to have heard it before. And there was 
 a pleasing humility and humanity to-night in the 
 manner of this dogmatic young fellow, the older 
 man thought; something that atoned for his 
 having set himself up to be so much more altruistic 
 than other people. 
 
 "You make me feel like a limited creature," 
 Overman was saying to the musician. "Here 
 you are, a boy, and you have seen the world and 
 laughed at it and with it. To myself I seem like 
 an animal at the end of a tether. A man s only 
 half a man who hasn t stood a stranger at the walls 
 of a city s life, and conquered it." 
 
 "That s the most human thing I ve ever heard 
 you say, Overman." Baumfelder lifted his glass, 
 pledging him, and then drank his beer with that 
 stately ceremony which makes a gracious rite of 
 appetite.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 191 
 
 The surgeon was not the only one who warmed 
 to Overman that night. Morgan said, in an aside 
 to Miss Incell, that newspaper life was making a 
 livable, human being out of her crank protege. 
 Wissner was frankly drawn to him and manifested 
 the pleasurable sense of nearing friendship by the 
 unconscious use of a special tone in his boyish 
 voice, when he spoke to Anthony. To Jessie herself, 
 subconsciously convicted of guilt in having fallen 
 from an ideal, her lover s pleasure in his surround 
 ings meant half-incredulous relief from apprehen 
 sion, half-unreasoning disappointment in him. 
 
 Anthony and the young German drifted into 
 a socialistic argument after a time, but it was an 
 optimistic, wholly ideal socialism they discussed; 
 a theory far removed from the danger of being put 
 into practice that this young German artist pro 
 posed; and the new mood that seemed to possess 
 Overman this evening, forbade the interjection of 
 anything like strenuous realities. Even Mrs. 
 Eveson lost her distrust of him. She was wont to 
 look at him, since he had joined the paper s staff, 
 as at some desperate dynamiting brigand, deter 
 mined to make rich people uncomfortable physi 
 cally and poor people like herself (poverty more 
 poignant than her own lack of furs and jewels she 
 could not conceive) uncomfortable mentally if 
 that were possible.
 
 i 9 2 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 It was after they had all sat chatting till late in 
 the night, with that comfortable ignoring of time 
 that Bohemia fosters, and had finally departed in 
 a body, that Miss Incell sent the sleepy Lisbeth to 
 recall Overman just as the others had begun to 
 run down the stairs. 
 
 "You have been so nice to-night." She held 
 out her hands to him. "So possible so so 
 easy so livable, so lovable, Anthony. I 
 couldn t let you go though you must stay just 
 a minute." 
 
 He took her hands and drew her to him and, 
 holding her little head to his breast, he stood 
 looking out with her upon the be-diamonded 
 bay. 
 
 "Life is so pleasant," she murmurred softly as 
 though musing aloud. "There is so much in it. 
 There are so many things to interest one and to 
 charm. Duty seems so simple a thing to me now. 
 Oh, dear, my life so contents me. Fortune seems to 
 have placed me just where I am best fitted to live. 
 My little work, my little play, my playmates- 
 Anthony, I am happy. Go now good-night." 
 
 She slipped away from him. But he bent down 
 and, with a passion that made her tremble, he 
 took her in his arms, kissing her lips again and 
 again with a thirsty, insatiate strength of desire 
 that left her weak and shattered.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 193 
 
 She fell upon her knees at the open window as 
 the door closed behind him, bowing her throbbing 
 head upon the casement and throwing her arms 
 out to the night. 
 
 "Oh, world," she cried, "I am so happy!"
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 OEE, Sweetheart, though it is morning, it 
 doesn t seem an hour since I left you," 
 Overman wrote. " I still feel on my mouth 
 the sweet fire of your lips. From the caress 
 which my arms still fall into of themselves, a 
 sculptor could mold the little, lovely figure they 
 seem yet to hold. The words that don t say them 
 selves readily for me when I am with you are 
 leaping from my very heart my love my love. 
 
 "But the end has come. I knew it last night. I 
 have spent the night trying not to know it. Listen. 
 I am sure you will understand me, however mad 
 and cranky I may appear to anyone else. 
 
 "But I cannot fit myself into your world, dear, 
 warm little heart. I don t belong there. That 
 life, that so contents you, I can play at living for an 
 evening so that our last memory of each other, as 
 we hoped to be to each other, might be good 
 to look back upon. But it is only playing. 
 And the Anthony whom you found possible 
 easy livable lovable that is not I; it is only 
 the pretense of a man who loves, trying to be for 
 an hour or two, what will please you. In other 
 words, it is only a temporary lover made by your 
 self, with all the real motive of his life buried be 
 neath a selfish happiness, a frivolous greed for 
 
 194
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 195 
 
 ease of mind and body such a man as you would 
 not long love, as you could not respect. 
 
 "I am the one to blame, beloved. The com 
 monplace attraction of commonplace women, the 
 eye-temptation that beauty is I can withstand 
 these. But I am so fashioned that I cannot fight 
 against you you all that you are; all that you 
 mean to a man. 
 
 "But it was shamelessly, selfishly cruel of me to 
 let you tangle your gay little life with mine. At 
 the best my future is an interrogation. I am not 
 a success in the profession you have loaned me. 
 You know I m not, you only hope I will be. And 
 you know that this absurd, little, temporary suc 
 cess, which will pass in a moment, is built on 
 chance and an unworthiness. 
 
 "Dear, I never could play the judge with you. 
 You could not have betrayed MacMillan s con 
 fidence and set him up again in the pillory, if you 
 had looked at the matter as it appears to me as 
 it must appear to him. But a profession in which 
 such a betrayal would not only be sanctioned but 
 applauded as a rarely skilful piece of journalistic 
 work Oh, Jessie, you know I am not a Pharisee 
 there can be no success for me in such a pro 
 fession, even if I were to aim at it with all my soul. 
 
 "So I am leaving the paper not immediately, 
 but before long. I we owe it to MacMillan to
 
 196 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 at least let his body benefit by the publicity that 
 must have seared his soul and perhaps wrecked 
 his confidence forever in humanity s charity. I 
 shall send him up to Hilma, and Donaghey will 
 find work for him when he is fit for it; and this 
 expense, with the amount of his debt which I have 
 promised to pay, will keep me working here a 
 little longer. 
 
 "After that Darling, I don t know. Isn t 
 this confession of incapacity enough to absolve 
 you from your promise to me and to yourself? 
 Would you let your daughter stake her future on a 
 man who had only this to say ? Would you wel 
 come a daughter-in-law if your son were such a 
 man ? 
 
 "Your life is too full, Jessie, your nature is too 
 sunny, you deserve too well from the world, you 
 clever, brave little working woman, for this or any 
 other outside influence to make you lastingly 
 unhappy. It has not hurt us irrevocably to be 
 together a while and to part. I have not spoiled 
 your life as I should have done if we had lived 
 our fairy tale instead of getting a bare glimpse of it. 
 I have only troubled it for a time. Forgive me. 
 You are and always will be to me a revelation of 
 such soul companionship, such cheer and charm 
 as I had no idea that life could hold. 
 
 "The longer I write the more unwilling I am
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 197 
 
 to end this and all that of which this is the end. 
 I said good-bye to you in my heart last night 
 when I had you in my arms. It seems to me I d 
 give my life to have you close to me once more. 
 But I should never have the courage to leave you 
 again and I am ashamed to stay. 
 ( "To men who part from the women they love, 
 must come the agonizing apprehension of the 
 beloved one s helplessness in time of ^stress or 
 suffering, the craving to watch over her-f-but, you 
 see, I am denied that tender pain. You are 
 stronger without me. You \vi\l be happier. 
 
 "My love my little love good bye. God 
 bless you, Jessie. A. O." 
 
 Overman sat looking at the last words he had 
 written. His face was white to the lips. And the 
 red-haired office-boy stood patiently looking at 
 him. But Overman had forgotten that he had 
 rung. He looked up with a start when the little 
 fellow coughed deprecatingly, and folded the 
 letter and put it in an envelope. But at the last 
 he had a foolish notion that the thing he held in his 
 hand was a thing that had lived and was dead, and 
 because he wanted to be alone with it for the last 
 moment before he put it away forever, he sent the 
 boy from the room, telling him that he would mail 
 the letter himself. 
 
 He left the office and slipped the letter into a
 
 198 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 box; then he took an uptown car. He was de 
 termined to fill the hours that came before time to 
 report at the office with a multitude of small de 
 tails requiring his closest attention. There was 
 but one thing he dared not do to think. It was 
 still early when he saw the Reverend Grant Mac- 
 Millan, presenting at the door of his cell a face 
 almost as haggard and hopeless as the minister s 
 own. MacMillan had attempted suicide in the 
 night. He was still weak, but the re-awakening 
 of his hope in one man, when Anthony unfolded 
 his plans for him, was like a new birth to him. 
 Overman effected his release; went with him to the 
 dirty, busy little restaurant where he had worked, 
 paid the sum MacMillan had stolen; bought him 
 clothes and a railroad ticket, sent a telegram to 
 Donaghey and put his charge on the train. Then 
 he hurried to the office. 
 
 Morgan gave him his detail and Overman made 
 a note of it. 
 
 "But I m leaving the paper, Mr. Morgan," he 
 said, "at the end of the week." 
 
 "What s up?" Morgan s young city-editorship 
 scented a rival s jealous hand. "Has that strike 
 scoop brought you an offer from the News ?" 
 
 "No San Francisco papers are not compet 
 ing for my services. But, as you know even better 
 than I, I am not fitted for newspaper work."
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 199 
 
 Morgan rubbed his chin as he sat curiously look 
 ing up at him. 
 
 "The retort open to you is obvious, of course, 
 but aren t you more of a crank, Overman, than 
 is altogether necessary ?" 
 
 " I suppose so or rather, I think not. At any 
 rate, thank you, but I must quit after this week. " 
 
 "Well all right. But if you should change 
 your mind I suppose cranks are like ordinary 
 men in some things the staff s elastic, you 
 know. There ll be room for you. " 
 
 Morgan felicitated himself upon his generosity 
 when Overman had left the room. 
 
 "That was uncommonly nice of you, Dean, old 
 man under the circumstances," he said appre 
 ciatively. "God will put a little thing like that 
 down on the lonesome side of your account. . . . 
 He will. Yes, of course, but will Jessie Incell ? 
 That s a more important point, as it s that elusive 
 Jessie you re sighing for, you love-sick turtle 
 dove! How to let her know how nice you are 
 there s the rub about falling in love with a girl that 
 isn t a fool; it s so darned hard to have all your wits 
 about you when she s robbed you of any sense you 
 once possessed. . . . Overman looked like 
 the devil, that he did. Now, when one is a 
 saint as well as a crank, one can t make him 
 self look like the devil by the usual journalistic
 
 200 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 process. It isn t a jag; it s Jessie. They ve 
 quarrelled." 
 
 His eye and his hand sought the telephone. 
 But he did not call up Miss Incell, nor did he 
 speak to her of Overman s resignation when he 
 met her out dining with Doctor Baumfelder and 
 Mrs. Eveson. She did not come to the office at 
 all that week, but sent her copy down by messenger 
 and when the Friday came on which her friends 
 usually spent the evening with her, Overman was 
 on his way to Little Gap. 
 
 He had not written to Donaghey to expect him. 
 He wanted, in the soreness and loneliness of his 
 heart, to glean all the tenderness that life yet held 
 for him by coming upon these two, to whom he still 
 was dear, by surprise. He arrived at evening and 
 walked down through the soft dusk of the late 
 autumn. The rains had begun and the dust was 
 packed fresh and tight on the familiar broad 
 roadway. The higher hills showed a fresh pow 
 dering of snow and the giant summits lifted 
 shoulders of purer white. It might have been on 
 such a. night as this, Overman said to himself 
 as he walked, that a girl had appeared out 
 of the darkness before him and Donaghey 
 and Hilma; a girl with a supple, light little body 
 and an impudent, bright face, with a wooing, 
 merry voice and a laugh that seemed to have
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 201 
 
 all the mirth in the world in it to flood the world 
 with again. 
 
 He looked back upon himself that steady, 
 secure, untried self and he thought with a pang 
 of pain and joy, how like a strong young faun the 
 old Anthony Overman had been till this girl 
 stranger roused something in him he had not 
 known he possessed. How straight the road had 
 looked before him; straight as this which was 
 leading him to the cottage he and Donaghey had 
 almost rebuilt. How simple and natural and easy 
 the life had looked that he once planned a 
 brotherhood of monks, he had dreamed, of which 
 himself should be abbot, prior and men. The 
 rules of this brotherhood were to be one: devo 
 tion, charity, self-sacrifice. And Anthony Over 
 man had not known what renunciation could be 
 made to signify! He knew now, he said to himself. 
 And he had been strong enough to make the 
 sacrifice; but it seemed to him, as he strode along, 
 that he had given up all his strength and hope and 
 interest in life with it; and that the sacrifice was 
 hardly worth while that left behind it such a 
 crippled, bewildered soul as this. 
 
 The light that shone out from Hilma s window, 
 as he entered the forest and neared the clearing 
 beyond, was like something sentient to him. It 
 was a voice from the past his past when he had
 
 202 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 asked nothing of the future, when he was inde 
 pendent of fate. It called him, that light, and 
 subtly it strengthened him. For it reminded 
 him how often he had travelled this road in confi 
 dent strength, in altruistic hope, in stress of struggle 
 with his soul and even starvation of his body, only 
 to find himself master of himself at the end, firm 
 in his purpose to devote all that he was to humanity 
 without regard to the littleness of his offer or the 
 greatness of the world s wants. 
 
 The door had been left open. From the road 
 Overman saw the warm, yellow light, now 
 brighter, now softened, streaming down the few 
 steps and out into the unfenced yard. The place 
 looked unreal to him all at once in the stillness, 
 now that he had reached it. He had been weary 
 ing for it day and night this past week in the city, 
 which his estrangement from Jessie had be 
 witched into a selfish, hurrying crowd of strangers. 
 Truly, a spell of silence seemed to be upon the 
 little cottage alone in the forest. Anthony was 
 listening for Donaghey s high-pitched voice and the 
 short laugh with which the Irishman punctuated 
 his speech; but a train went crashing through the 
 forest just then, sending its wild wail like a shriek 
 ing telegram apprising the mountains of its coming, 
 and Overman got up the steps and stood in the 
 doorway, unhearing and unheard.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 203 
 
 But he did not enter. He looked in. And 
 what he saw held him back. A conflict of emo 
 tions possessed his breast and clouded his mind. 
 A strange duality of feeling oppressed him. He 
 seemed to himself, while he stood there as though 
 paralyzed, to be two men, not one. And one of 
 these that young, confident, exalted, un-human 
 Anthony was the accuser, while the old, the 
 saddened, the beaten Anthony defended; yet, even 
 smiled appreciatively, with a new sense of the 
 humorous and envied. And, after all, what he 
 saw was the commonest sight. Yet Michaelangelo 
 saw it once and poured its passionate humanity 
 into marble a history of the making of races 
 as well as religions. 
 
 In the heart of the big fireplace, which Donaghey 
 had worked all these months to build in the west 
 wall, a great log lay burning, and in the glow of 
 its soft warmth that flooded the room and had 
 even run out upon the road to welcome him 
 Overman saw Hilma sitting in the low rocker 
 with her baby at her breast. 
 
 So long he stood there, so motionless was her 
 attitude, so secure she seemed and long-possessed 
 in her woman s inheritance that he had almost 
 come to believe he had never known her childless, 
 when suddenly a shower of sparks flying up from 
 the log made her lift her eyes, and she saw him.
 
 204 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 Instantly she rose and made as though to fly. 
 Instinct spoke in the way her arm hollowed to hold 
 and protect the child. Instinct put her remaining 
 hand as a shield between it and Anthony s eyes. 
 But the interfering precepts of the religion she had 
 professed, and a consciousness of how unworthy 
 she must appear in the eyes of the priest she had 
 herself selected flooded with a burning blush her 
 face and bare white breast. 
 
 "Hilma, you re not afraid of me!" he cried. 
 
 "Oh, Anthony," she gasped, a prey to shame 
 and pride. "Look at him so warm, so white, 
 so sweet! Sin it cannot be him to bring into the 
 world. I have prayed, Anthony, I have prayed 
 that you would know and forgive and " 
 
 "Hush, Hilma, what have I " he began. 
 
 "But I wish Will here was. Often and often 
 he has tried to you to write, but always it was too 
 hard. And so we kept it, hoping that when Jessie 
 all the pretty baby-clothes sent, in some way she 
 you. . ." Her voice trailed guiltily into 
 silence. 
 
 "Come Hilma, don t be so agitated," he said 
 leading her back to her chair. "See there once 
 was a Pharisee named Anthony, who could cheer 
 fully deny to others the things he himself did not 
 care for. He cuts a ridiculous figure, that young 
 fool Anthony, seen in some lights, and in others a
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 205 
 
 most contemptible one. The best thing to do is 
 not to look at him in any light at all. There 
 there, don t Hilma!" 
 
 She had caught his hand and pressed it in grati 
 tude and reverence. He took the sleeping child 
 from her and held it a moment in his arms, look 
 ing down upon it with tender curiosity. 
 
 "Even" Hilma whispered looking up, per 
 fect happiness in her face to see her saint hold her 
 child, "even it seems to make one better! Since 
 its birth Will (he is up in the town with Mr. Mac- 
 Millan) Will has not once his temper lost. He 
 says the child shall never its father see and him 
 remember as unworthy. And I oh Anthony 
 sanctification it is a woman feels when her 
 child is born!" 
 
 Overman stood in silence. He seemed now 
 clearly at last to realize what self-sacrifice means. 
 His eyes had wandered from the baby s face; they 
 were bitter and restless and longing, as though 
 they gazed beyond the mountains and valleys 
 and waters that separated him from Jessie Incell 
 and saw her, her head bowed upon her casement, 
 her arms outstretched to the night, crying desper 
 ately in her soul, 
 
 "Oh God, I am so miserable!"
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 /^VERMAN lingered on at Little Gap. He 
 ^"^ had not intended to spend more than 
 twenty-four hours there before taking the train 
 for the east. But a presence dwelt in the little 
 place that held him. It was his youth that 
 faced him, the youth of his spirit, buoyant though 
 full of thought, quick with hope and strength and 
 courage, unhindered in action and blessed with 
 such a simple philosophy that it seemed to go 
 straight toward its mark like a human arrow sent 
 from the great Bow s soul. 
 
 The self that he had become was more like a 
 flying thing tethered. And O, the tether was 
 sweet to him, and he loved it, he caressed it, feeling 
 always in his heart that the youth he had been 
 would have torn himself loose from it. And yet 
 he would permit no contempt to enter into that 
 reacting inward gaze which his old self returned 
 for the new one s impersonal sort of criticism. 
 This tethered creature was limited, compared with 
 the old self he had known, but how limited in 
 another sense was the idealist who had never taken 
 part in that selfish yet altruistic duet, in which two 
 souls melt for very faith and love and charity into 
 each other. There was something not quite 
 
 human, he admitted now, about that Idealist, 
 
 206
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 207 
 
 and Anthony in his pain looked back pityingly 
 upon him and envyingly. He wanted the Renun- 
 ciant s peace, his poise, his selfless strength that 
 permitted him to look upon himself as a mere 
 machine to carry out plans, to fulfill hopes and 
 promises. 
 
 And so he spent his days retracing that Idealist s 
 steps, putting himself physically in his place and 
 striving for the old point of view. The old relig 
 ious fervor that had upheld him when he worked 
 with all his might at primitive tasks, when he 
 fasted out on these hills for the prescribed forty 
 days, the sense of nearness that he had had to the 
 heart of things, to the simple solution of the world 
 riddle he had once been so sure of when he prayed 
 and meditated in the little prayer-houses set out 
 in the solitude he did not seek to revive all this. 
 He thought it as irrevocably dead as the immunity 
 from passion which had accompanied it. But 
 as he walked over the mountains it was as with a 
 companion by his side, a companion like, and yet 
 not himself, from whose serene strength he bor 
 rowed hourly. 
 
 When he came back from his long tramp one 
 evening at the end of the week, Donaghey handed 
 him a letter had come for him. It was from Mc- 
 Intosh, the labor union leader. 
 
 "I got your address from the Inquirer" he
 
 208 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 wrote. "I am glad you are free, for I want to 
 offer you an editorial position on the new Work- 
 in gm an s Weekly we start within a couple of weeks. 
 There is no fortune in it for you nor for the rest of 
 us, but there is a chance to do good work and be 
 decently paid for it. Will you come ? The 
 strike is on to stay and we want our own paper 
 and we want it now. If you intend to come, now s 
 the time." 
 
 It was after supper was over that they discussed 
 the proposition. Hilma, who got her strength 
 back very slowly, had gone to bed. The baby lay 
 on a pillow in the rocking-chair, on which the 
 Irishman s hand rested giving it a gentle swing 
 now and then that spun a tender woof for their 
 talk to weave itself upon. 
 
 "I can t see why you hesitate," Donaghey said, 
 his eyes following Overman curiously as he walked 
 up and down. "It ought to be just what you d 
 like, Anthony, and just what you can do well." 
 
 "If it was anywhere else than San Fran 
 cisco." 
 
 "That s not like you," Donaghey said quickly. 
 "What s the town got to do with it ? I wish twas 
 myself that had that bit of knack you ve got to 
 write. I d say yes mighty quick to an offer like 
 that." 
 
 Overman stopped behind the big rocker to look
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 209 
 
 at him; there was something in the Irishman s 
 voice that struck him peculiarly. 
 
 "You re not discontented ?" he asked, lowering 
 his voice as the baby stirred. "It s not much you 
 and Hilma have, but oh the peace there is up here, 
 Will!" 
 
 A queer half-smile flitted over the Irishman s 
 face. It was a determined face and yet there 
 lurked in it a subtle element of weakness. He 
 tugged at his short mustache for a moment before 
 he spoke. 
 
 "Just peace ain t what a man like me s got any 
 right to look for. I ve too good reasons for dis 
 content, Anthony. There they are. " He pointed 
 at the baby, whose lids were fluttering as though 
 sleep were hesitating on the very border of con 
 sciousness, and then to the next room to which 
 Hilma had withdrawn. "Since I got my senses 
 back I ve never been able to see rightly what 
 struck me when I threw up my job and followed 
 old Senn out here. It was natural enough in you, 
 for it was right in your line. But imagine a 
 Catholic and a workingman swallowing that hash 
 of religion and communism and playing early 
 Christian! It was hysteria with me. I d got into 
 the deuce of a mess with th s beastly temper of 
 mine just then and I d have enlisted, I suppose, 
 or gone to the devil if either Uncle Sam or his
 
 210 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 satanic majesty had happened to come a tempting 
 me as opportunely as Senn did. Well I m not 
 sorry, for two reasons again, the same two. But 
 the man that s got four hands clinging to him ain t 
 the same man that came up to the mountains to 
 build a new Jerusalem. The plain old world s 
 good enough for me if it gives me a chance to 
 do for Hilma and the child. I don t know exactly 
 the after-effect Senn s had on you I guess you 
 had it worse than I; but he s made me a better 
 Catholic than I ever was, and he s cured me once 
 and for all of nonsense. It s taken the conceit 
 out of me, Anthony. There s no kick left in me. 
 No more reforming the world from yours truly. 
 I want nothing to do with reformers, except you 
 devil take you; I can t cure myself of my 
 liking for you. I thought I hoped we d fall out, 
 you and I, over this." He chuckled grimly, his 
 open hand indicating the child. "But I realized 
 how sorry I d have been, if we had, by measuring 
 my relief when I found you d graciously deigned 
 to overlook it." 
 
 They both laughed softly so as not to wake the 
 sleeping child. 
 
 "But what with my experience with Senn," 
 Donaghey went on, "and what with my having a 
 wife now and a child, and something cross- 
 grained perhaps that I ve always had in me
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 211 
 
 you ll say it s narrowed me. Well it may be. 
 But all I want of the world is to give me a place in 
 it for me and Hilma and the baby. And that s 
 why I ought to quit this Home of Peace, " he 
 sneered. "And I would to-day if that fool strike 
 wasn t on down in the city, crippling a man s 
 every chance to make a start." 
 
 "Why, Will, you re in sympathy with the 
 strikers!" Overman exclaimed incredulously. 
 
 "Not I." Donaghey shook his head doggedly, 
 biting hard upon the pipe he had taken to smoking. 
 "Those strikers down yonder are only doing in a 
 body what I did when I joined Senn challenging 
 circumstances, throwing up a good job for a mad 
 hope; being swindled by a sort of socialistic cant 
 instead of the holy-holy kind; going in for some 
 thing they don t really understand, as I did, and 
 bound to come out at the little end of it with a clear 
 loss behind them of money and time. . . . not 
 to count the suffering of wives and children. And, 
 to come down to the real thing, Hilma isn t well. 
 She don t get well. That fellow," he nodded 
 toward the child with a glance half-proud, 
 half-resentful "just gets bigger and stronger 
 every day. But she I tell you, Anthony, 
 all the ideas in the world are nothing but 
 hot air, just empty breath, when your wife s 
 ailing and you know that that big city doc-
 
 212 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 tor could cure her and and you can t get to 
 him." 
 
 Overman looked down upon him as he sat, his 
 chin in his hands, his knitted brows and troubled 
 eyes bent fixedly on the rocking-chair that was 
 still now. It Vvas a new Donaghey that had 
 developed during the months of separation; 
 a man that seemed oddly strange and even an 
 tagonistic to all that Overman still held dear; 
 but who was as near to him, as intimately 
 connected with his life and his affections as 
 though the brotherly bonds which once held 
 these two who so literally and idealistically 
 had obeyed the spirit of communism were still 
 strong and unbroken. 
 
 "I ll take the thing Mclntosh offers, Will," he 
 said after a pause, "if you ll bring Hilma down 
 to the city after I ve got a place for you both, 
 and have Baumfelder cure her." 
 
 Donaghey looked up, a light in his small, heavily- 
 lashed eyes that made his twisted little face almost 
 lovable. "That s like you, Anthony. But you see 
 along with the things I ve turned my back on is 
 living off somebody else. I want to live regular I 
 want to be regular. Just so far as I went off the 
 beaten track, just that far have I to go over on the 
 other side. I m a conservative now I tell you, 
 a conservative, a regular who "
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 213 
 
 "Who d let his wife suffer rather than borrow 
 from his friend and hers." 
 
 Donaghey had jumped to his feet and was 
 wringing Overman s hand. 
 
 "No ^who s an ass to pretend for a minute 
 that he would. But it s a loan this time, Anthony, 
 if ye love me. And I ll get to work down there in 
 spite of those blamed, idiotic strikers and I ll pay 
 you back every cent you blessed crank!" 
 
 It was a different sort of San Francisco Overman 
 met and knew this time. The town was aflame 
 with the passion of the old, old war between 
 capital and labor. The economic machinery of 
 the whole state was clogged and awry, but in the 
 city itself the struggle was bitterest. 
 
 Overman felt himself caught up in what seemed 
 the expression of a mighty temperament at war 
 with itself. The mass of life compressed into a 
 single and uniform condition, the thousands of 
 workingmen whose desires and dreams had all 
 concentrated into a single hope came to appear 
 to him as a single individuality animated by such 
 diverse passions, capable of such varied emotions 
 that he who tried to realize it all, its form and es 
 sence, endured in himself all that its components 
 suffered. 
 
 He hammered with his pen and his tongue 
 for he was an orator of a simple, forthright kind
 
 214 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 at the national sin of privileging the predatory. 
 He pleaded with the wild passions let loose that 
 had begun to slake their righteous wrath in un 
 righteous retribution. The artist in him, of whose 
 existence he had been unaware, waked with the 
 right to work at congenial things and he experi 
 enced, for the first time, that keen, queer literary 
 pleasure in the right and fitting use of words that 
 was a joy apart from truth-telling; for it was telling 
 the truth well. All he had read and the bent 
 of his mind had always been toward the solution 
 of the problem of living, however idealistic had 
 been his interpretation of ways and means had 
 been stored and systematized by that automatic 
 process, with which the single-minded are gifted. 
 All he had thought bore now on the thing he had 
 to say. The unconventional form in which his 
 inexperience at first expressed itself betrayed an 
 awkwardness in handling his tools, but no crudity 
 of thought. For Overman at this period of his 
 life was merely living his inner life into literature. 
 There could not but be a response to sincerity 
 and strength such as this at a time when, in the 
 temporary disarrangement of social conditions, 
 men s minds were receptive to all theories bearing 
 upon the reorganization of the social strata. 
 Every thinker in the state the unbalanced and 
 irrational as well as the conscientious and re-
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 215 
 
 sponsible felt that force which put into words 
 something, some part of his own creed. 
 
 "Anthony s got a natural attraction for cranks 
 of all kin ds; he s a crank magnet," Donaghey 
 used to say. "And the reason is that there s 
 nothing so mad in the list of crank s diseases that 
 he hasn t had it." 
 
 That he would make a reputation with his pen 
 had not occurred to Overman. The personal 
 form of his utterance, which a sensational press 
 had made popular before his time, was due merely 
 to his unfamiliarity with any other form of ex 
 pression. His name at the head of his columns 
 was an idea of Macintosh s; it came to mean more 
 than the Scotchman had dreamed. But Overman 
 knew as little what to do with that reputation when 
 it came to him, as how or why it had come. He 
 had a sense of a sort of spurious renown at this 
 time; of being considered in a light that was 
 illegitimate, in a way that was somehow unde 
 served. In his heart he was as out of key with the 
 reformers each of whom was a specialist with 
 a patent nostrum for a particular sociological 
 ailment, but with not the least thought or care how 
 these remedies would affect other maladies of the 
 body politic as he was with the men who like 
 himself held editorial office; those purchasable 
 pen-and-ink preachers whose impassioned ser-
 
 2i6 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 mons for or against ^re for sale to the highest 
 bidder. But these, on the contrary, regarded 
 Overman as one of themselves who was shrewdly 
 catering to a present public taste, and at the same 
 time making a name that would be of use in 
 future contingencies. 
 
 But Overman was merely putting all his mind, 
 all the sinews of his being into the solution of a 
 problem. He was living, for the time, as though 
 existence for him had begun and would end with 
 this particular phase of the never-ending struggle. 
 He was honest because he was expressing with 
 simple strength the convictions of an almost 
 primitive mind, acted upon and acting for the first 
 time through realities, yet bulwarked by the best 
 thought of the great altruists. 
 
 He could not be self-seeking; he could not be 
 hampered by considerations that hold and belittle, 
 for the reason that he had no ambition, not even 
 a literary one. Power did not tempt him, com 
 munist as he was. He could not have borne 
 wealth, nor have held it but for so long as it took to 
 transfer it to those to whom, now and in trie same 
 proportion, he made over what he earned. 
 
 Hilma s health was the one personal considera 
 tion the world held for him. He lived, in the 
 midst of thought and action, more lonely than ha 
 had been in the cottage at Little Gap. From
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 217 
 
 Morgan, whom he met occasionally, he learned 
 that Jessie Incell had gone to Alaska with a party 
 of which Mrs. Eveson was one and Doctor Baum- 
 felder another, to escape the windy, foggy summer. 
 It was not till later that Donaghey brought Hilma 
 and the child to the city, when the surgeon had 
 returned to his practice, leaving the rest of the 
 party still sailing in an enchanted land of northern 
 lights, of glaciers like sleeping beauties of ice, 
 mountain ranges of frozen rivers whose mad 
 motion seemed to have been arrested by a spell, 
 and waited only a magic signal to release and 
 renew it.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 AUMFELDER parted the curtains of his 
 sumptuous offices. He waved aside the 
 black boy in buttons, who sprang forward 
 in surprise at the surgeon s appearance in the 
 crowded waiting-rooms where bells summoned 
 the wealthy afflicted to his presence and, holding 
 out a beautifully white hand to Hilma, led her and 
 Donaghey into an inner room. 
 
 The trained nurse who officiated there, spotless, 
 severe, shapely and official to the verge of carica 
 ture, lifted a supercilious brow, as she took the 
 baby from Donaghey s arms, and her expression- 
 lessly regular and experienced, unlined face wore 
 a puzzled look as she noted the great Baumfelder s 
 deferential and attentive air while he listened to 
 this simply, dowdily-dressed woman and the odd, 
 restless, bitter little Irishman who accompanied 
 her. 
 
 "I am sure I can help you, Mrs. Donaghey," 
 he said at last. "It is not serious. Yes, of 
 course, you shall be made well and " 
 
 "And what will it cost, Doctor?" 
 
 Baumfelder looked amiably at Donaghey wav 
 ing aside his question. "We need not speak of 
 that," he said graciously. 
 
 "Oh yes, we need! Hilma shan t beg and I can t 
 
 2x8
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 219 
 
 accept chanty." A perverse world seemed bent 
 upon ignoring Donaghey s craving for regularity. 
 
 "What has become of all your communistic 
 theories, Mr. Donaghey?" demanded Baumfelder 
 smiling. 
 
 "They ve gone a-glimmering and I ve got 
 sane." 
 
 "Let me have the pleasure of treating Miss 
 Incell s friend for the pleasure it will be to see her 
 well again." 
 
 "No thank you. We owe enough to Miss 
 Incell. She s more than out of our debt; every 
 stitch the child wears came from her. That s 
 enough." 
 
 Baumfelder turned from him to Hilma. 
 
 "And you ? Can t I prevail upon you to accept 
 my services ?" he asked. 
 
 She met his eyes with their revelation of the 
 complex being he was, with the too significant 
 tenderness for women, with the artistic qualities 
 and the self-indulgent ones of his nature, and the 
 keen glance of the surgeon piercing it all, in a 
 childlike spirit of utter repose and docility. 
 
 "As Will says so must it be," she said simply. 
 
 "Very well. I will let Mr. Donaghey know the 
 cost after my first visit to you. " 
 
 Baumfelder stood, his hand on the door, looking 
 after them as they went out into the hall. The
 
 220 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 Irishman had taken the baby in his arms, showing 
 that same quick deftness of touch that had made 
 the inside of Hilma s house in the mountains so 
 beautiful. 
 
 " Du list die Ruh der Friede Mild . " The 
 great surgeon hummed the German melody be 
 tween his white teeth, and turned back to his desk. 
 "And yet he is restless, eaten up with dissatis 
 faction, the husband. Ingrate!" 
 
 But Donaghey was no ingrate. Circumstances 
 were crowding him to a determination from which 
 he shrank, despite the self-justification he cease 
 lessly argued. He had been unable to find work 
 in the city; every inlet to business, to trade was 
 blocked. The strike had congested the market 
 and labor held out strong, willing, desperate hands 
 for the work it was denied. Fate seemed slowly 
 to be cornering Donaghey, and in the very pursuit 
 of the established, the conventional, he felt him 
 self being forced back step by step into the last 
 irregularity. 
 
 "There s no reason why I, who believe this 
 strike to be all wrong, should stay here paralyzed 
 and a pauper because of it," he groaned to Over 
 man. 
 
 "There s the reason that every man who is a 
 man must suffer personally rather than endanger 
 a great principle," declared Overman.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 221 
 
 " I ve got a right to work for my wife and child, " 
 growled Donaghey doggedly. 
 
 "No you haven t, if that right conflicts with the 
 moral rights of workmen fighting a battle against 
 desperate odds. The man who takes up the work 
 his fellowmen have laid down upon labor s sacri 
 ficial altar turns traitor in time of war. He de 
 serves no quarter." 
 
 "I ll ask none," Donaghey said stubbornly. 
 
 "But Hilma and the child are provided for, 
 Will." 
 
 "By you not by me. How long do you think 
 I can stand it ? I tell you, man, I ll go mad if 
 this thing goes on! Or rather, I won t go mad, 
 I ll put an end to it." 
 
 That afternoon Overman found work for Don 
 aghey in the printing office of the labor organ. 
 But the virulence of the Irishman s anti-strike 
 sentiments deepened under the influence of such 
 an atmosphere as pervaded the place. His un 
 controllable temper, slow to rouse but unheeding 
 of consequences when it was roused, broke bonds 
 at last there in the very sanctuary of union labor, 
 in a violent tirade against the word " scab " which a 
 fellow workman had used. And snarling, "Scab! 
 Scab! It s a scar on labor s honor, that word. 
 By God, I ll go and be a scab myself, before I ll be 
 a coward!" he put on his coat and left the place.
 
 222 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 Guarded by policemen, furnished on the de 
 mand of the employer s association, Donaghey 
 drove a dray the next day. It was loaded with 
 merchandise and was driven through the heart of 
 town. He heard the cries of contempt and mur 
 derous hate that union labor visits upon the scab. 
 But he reached his home at night, defiance in his 
 heart and five dollars in his pocket. 
 
 He offered the money to Anthony. "So much 
 off our debt to you," he said* a challenging note in 
 his voice. 
 
 Overman looked at the gold piece a moment; 
 then he put an arm about the Irishman s shoulders, 
 very gently pushing closed the hand that held the 
 money. 
 
 "I swear to you, Will, for me it seems to have 
 blood on it!" he said. 
 
 Donaghey stood stupefied. He looked from his 
 friend to the coin he had refused as though he 
 expected to see the stain upon it. Then he put 
 it in his pocket and savagely he turned upon Over 
 man. 
 
 "It s the end then between us," he cried. 
 "This blood-money is all the money your hellish 
 strike will let me earn. If you re too finicky to 
 take it, I can t help it, but I can help taking any 
 thing more from you. Hilma and I ll leave 
 
 to-morrow. *
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 223 
 
 "No, you d better let me leave," Overman said. 
 "It s easier for me to move; Hilma s not well 
 enough." 
 
 He did not attempt to reason with Donaghey; 
 the Irishman was past reason. So they separated 
 and Hilma, slowly recovering from a slight oper 
 ation, lived utterly alone save for her child, through 
 days of apprehension, cut off from companionship 
 by her timidity and the novelty and strangeness of 
 her new life, as well as by the damning fact that 
 she was wife to a scab. 
 
 When Jessie Incell came in upon her the day 
 after her return from Alaska, the Swedish girl felt 
 a sudden, swift release from the tension that had 
 held her and she fell to sobbing piteously. All 
 the slow, dull agony of apprehension seemed to 
 lift from her at sight of her friend s bright face, her 
 alert, smiling eyes, her bearing of sturdy, hopeful 
 independence. 
 
 Hilma s drank deep of the welcome presence. 
 She took in every detail of Miss Incell s erect, con 
 fident little figure. She gave to the jaunty jacket 
 Jessie slipped out of and she laid upon the bed, a 
 caress that was both for itself and its wearer. She 
 put the saucy little sailor hat aside with a glance of 
 loving intelligence for it. Then she took Jessie 
 by the hand and showed her her baby asleep in the 
 next room, his tumbled fair hair damp on the white
 
 224 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 forehead, his fine little animal body pregnant with 
 vitality; seemingly growing with its every breath 
 and exhaling a sane exuberance of development, 
 like that California soil under California skies 
 knows in springtime. 
 
 Donaghey s wife felt then her account with Miss 
 Incell was nearly balanced. 
 
 "And Anthony has him held in his own arms," 
 she said with soft rapture, laying the coverlet 
 again over the child. "And he has a blessing 
 looked upon him." 
 
 Miss Incell did not seem much impressed. 
 "Who could help a blessing looking upon a 
 husky little new man like that ?" she demanded. 
 
 "He has changed Anthony," said Hilma. 
 
 Miss Incell s eyes lost their tenderness. 
 
 "I haven t discovered it," she said curtly follow 
 ing Donaghey s wife back into the living room. 
 And then taking Hilma s hand in hers, she asked 
 sternly, "Why has he left you alone here in this 
 dingy place, tell me. How dared he!" 
 
 "The doctor has told you? They quarreled, 
 the two, and 
 
 "But he had no right to his anger, the faultless 
 Anthony Overman! . . . My poor Hilma!" 
 she exclaimed. 
 
 She was looking out upon the dirty little street 
 below and the dingy houses opposite, and con-
 
 "The two policemen one sitting beside hi 
 and slowly their fingi
 
 ic other standing watchfully behind, drew closer 
 losed upon their weapons." 
 
 Ste fage 229
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 225 
 
 trasting these with that gold and green out- 
 doorness which closed the view and opened the 
 fancy in the cottage at Little Gap. 
 
 The Swedish girl looked bewildered. 
 
 "It was not Anthony," she explained shocked. 
 "It was Will and his temper, poor Will! It is as 
 if he was sick sick with anger, Will. And the 
 more the world him hates, the more he the world 
 hates, poor Will!" 
 
 "Bosh!" said Miss Incell cheerily. "The world 
 doesn t hate anybody; it hasn t time." 
 
 "Oh yes, even me they hate for being his wife. 
 The children cry names after me. The store 
 keeper will nothing send us. I must carry all 
 things home with me." 
 
 "Oh, the imbeciles," Miss Incell set her teeth. 
 
 Hilma was vaguely comforted. "But Anthony 
 " she began. 
 
 "Oh, he s a crank!" ejaculated Miss Incell 
 impatiently. "Think of his leaving you to a life 
 like this." 
 
 " But he had to go or Will would us have taken 
 away so angered he is. But," Hilma s voice 
 fell, "he has been since and money he has offered 
 me, but that would not be right to Will." 
 
 "The ninny!" exclaimed Miss Incell quite con 
 fident that the Swedish girl would not mistake the 
 application. "Trust Anthony Overman to take
 
 226 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 a wrathful, wrong-headed man seriously instead of 
 laughing at him. And he s your only visitor, 
 Hilma?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "No one else?" Miss Incell eyed her sharply. 
 
 "No one." 
 
 "Not even Doctor Baumfelder?" 
 
 "Oh, the doctor? He is not a visitor." 
 
 "No? But he comes still often?" 
 
 "Yes, though I fear for the bill. But he is very 
 kind." 
 
 "Very." 
 
 Miss Incell sniffed. Hilma looked timidly at 
 her friend; everything she said seemed more and 
 more to anger her. Jessie caught the troubled, 
 questioning look in those clear, soft eyes and put an 
 arm remorsefully about Hilma s shoulders. 
 
 "It s nothing, dear," she said apologetically, 
 "only Anthony Overman is such a fool. One 
 would think he d have some sense if Donaghey 
 hasn t." 
 
 "You do not like him more Anthony?" 
 A horror of astonishment was revealed in 
 Hilma s voice. 
 
 "Like him!" She was putting on her jacket 
 which Donaghey s wife held for her; but she had 
 controlled her voice when she turned and pinned 
 on her hat with a firm hand, standing before the
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 227 
 
 little mirror. "Who could like a body of crank- 
 isms, like that ! " she went on more lightly. " He s 
 nothing but a house of abstractions no man; 
 only a theory box!" 
 
 The words were Greek to Hilma, but the tone 
 was unmistakeably contemptuous. 
 
 "Yet he a great editor has become," she ven 
 tured. 
 
 Miss IncelPs lip curled. She had an intimate 
 knowledge of great editors. 
 
 "And up at the cottage where we all so happy 
 were, you said often 
 
 But Jessie could not listen to this. 
 
 "A lot of nonsense, no doubt," she interrupted 
 hurriedly. " But there was one part of it that was 
 the truth, Hilma, the unshakable, perfect truth 
 my fondness for you, dear. Now after I have 
 gone home you must just keep thinking of me; 
 of nothing else. Every time you get to worrying 
 about Will and the strike that you, a shepher 
 dess from Arcady should bother about such things! 
 just you shift your mind to Jessie Incell. 
 And the first thing you know the hours will be 
 gone by and I ll be here again. I want to see 
 your Billy-boy with his eyes open. . . . Hadn t 
 you better change your mind, bundle him up and 
 come home to dinner with me ? Can t Will be 
 left to himself once? At the cottage I remem-
 
 228 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 her many a meal that he cooked. . . . Well, 
 to-morrow then, I ll take you away in spite of 
 yourself and courage Hilma! I ll see that Will 
 gets out of this strike mess; he shall have some 
 thing less dangerous to do, upon my honor as a 
 journalist. Good-bye then." 
 
 Down in the street she waved a hand and 
 smiled up to Hilma at the window, and Donaghey s 
 wife turned to her work surprised that the sun 
 was not shining into her little place, so flooded 
 it seemed with cheery, practical, loving helpful 
 ness. She got the supper and had her table 
 waiting. It seemed to her it waited longer than 
 usual, but then the baby waked and she bathed 
 and dressed it for the night and nursed it till it 
 fell asleep again, And she sat with it, at length, 
 lying across her knees, waiting patiently for her 
 husband to come that she might share her happi 
 ness with him. 
 
 Donaghey was on his way home. In his dray, 
 guarded by the two big policemen whose pistols 
 were carried significantly in sight, he had reached 
 the confluence of streets where three thorough 
 fares empty into the main traffic river. The 
 irregular space thus made was crowded at this 
 hour in the evening, but with every step his horses 
 took it became more and more blocked. Don 
 aghey drove on slowly, carefully picking his way,
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 229 
 
 an intent frown over his eyes that had not looked 
 clearly and happily on the world for many days. 
 The two policemen one sitting beside him, the 
 other standing watchfully behind, drew closer 
 and slowly their fingers closed upon their weapons. 
 When Donaghey (who had become accustomed 
 to being pilloried vocally on his homeward 
 journey, and who sat in affected stolidity that 
 hid, not fear, but rage) became conscious 
 that there was more than the usual verbal 
 menace in the murmurs that came up to him, 
 the two officers had their pistols already cocked, 
 their shining barrels pointing downward at the 
 mass. 
 
 "You re not going to shoot?" Donaghey mut 
 tered. 
 
 "Not unless they actually board us, and then 
 two cartridges are blank anyway," the man beside 
 him answered. 
 
 A sudden melting in the crowd permitted 
 Donaghey to turn his horses to the left just then, 
 but the moment he had done so he saw what had 
 caused it. A few paces ahead the street was torn 
 up and was being repaved, and the strikers, 
 strategically falling back to mislead him, were 
 now seizing upon the broken basalt blocks and, 
 having armed themselves, they closed in again 
 about the wagon.
 
 230 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "Come down, you scab!" A bit of gravel hit 
 Donaghey s cheek. 
 
 "Come down out o that wagon!" 
 
 "Hurry now, or you ll never drive another dray, 
 you coward-scab!" 
 
 Donahgey s eyes blazed. He set his teeth and 
 urged his horses on. 
 
 "Easy you re mad," growled the policeman 
 beside him. "Don t provoke them." 
 
 He caught the lines out of Donaghey s hands, 
 that had not the slightest tremor in them. He 
 looked curiously from the rigidity of the man 
 beside him to the mob swaying like a fluid 
 body. 
 
 "Get out of the way there, you fellows!" he 
 called. 
 
 His voice was big and young and jocular, and 
 he looked down upon the white threatening up 
 turned faces with a light of comradeship in his eye, 
 that was very unlike the expression it had for the 
 scab he was protecting. 
 
 "G wan!" he growled good naturedly. "Get 
 out, an don t look for throuble!" 
 
 With an ostentatious relaxing of his big muscles 
 he lifted the pistol he held that all might see it. 
 
 A short laugh came up from below; a laugh 
 that appreciatively differentiated the man from 
 his duty. But the mass crowded closer and
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 231 
 
 epithets and curses beat thick on Donaghey s ears. 
 His hands closed again on the reins, but his face 
 was utterly unmoved. 
 
 "He s no coward," whispered the officer be 
 hind to the one in front. 
 
 "More s the pity," said the other under his 
 breath. "If he was we d be like to get out o 
 this without using guns. . . . What re ye doin 
 there!" he exclaimed breaking off suddenly as 
 Donaghey laid down the reins and stood up. 
 
 " I m going down to face the cowards. " 
 
 "Ye re crazy. They ll tear you to pieces." 
 
 "But I ll be doing some tearing first," the Irish 
 man muttered. 
 
 A blind rage possessed him which clouded his 
 eyes and made his ears sing dizzily. He had his 
 foot on the wheel and was just about to jump 
 when the big policeman caught him around the 
 waist and dragged him back. 
 
 A gasp of disappointment went up from the 
 crowd. It was such a sigh as a wild beast might 
 give whose jaws had opened and shut again, 
 balked. 
 
 The first stone came quickly after that. It hit 
 Donaghey on the ankle, and he writhed and twisted 
 in the policeman s grasp, beyond himself now or 
 anyone else; blood-mad with rage and borne 
 down by the consciousness against which every
 
 232 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 fibre of his physical being revolted that he was 
 doomed, and doomed to passivity. 
 
 A rattle of stones followed. All of the three on 
 the wagon felt them and there came the quick 
 crack from the officer s pistols in answer. 
 
 The policeman who stood in front, his smoking 
 pistol in his hand, could see the effect of that first 
 report. It reminded him curiously of the time 
 when he was a child who played with motes of 
 dust dancing in the sunshine that streamed through 
 a knothole. A wavering splotch of humanity 
 broke and formed again and a heavy bit of basalt, 
 hurled with savage skill, broke the scab s arm at 
 the wrist. 
 
 Without a moan Donaghey bent, picked up the 
 stone as it rattled down upon the bed of the wagon 
 and rising, hurled it back with all his might. 
 He fell almost crushed beneath the shower 
 of stones after this, but his missile had done 
 execution and, if he felt at all, he experienced sat 
 isfaction. 
 
 Out on the ebbing border of the black sea of 
 strikers the relief squad of policemen were club 
 bing their way into the storm centre. The cr-rack, 
 cr-rack of the officers pistols rang out again, 
 when suddenly a man with his coat torn from him 
 and the blood dripping from a wound in his head, 
 fought his way to the wagon. In the very mouth
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 233 
 
 of the pistols pointed at him, he leaped into the 
 dray and in a second had his arms around Don- 
 aghey. 
 
 Both the mob and the amazed policemen mis 
 understood his purpose. A hungry howl of satis 
 faction went up from the strikers. The third car 
 tridge, the first real one, went off. The man shiv 
 ered but recovering, with a quick blow, knocked 
 the pistol that had wounded him down into the 
 street; yet he did not relax his hold on Dona- 
 ghey. 
 
 The Irishman opened his eyes. Through a 
 bloody haze he saw the face above him. 
 
 "Anthony man, God bless you! 
 Hilma promise. . . . The words rattled 
 and died in his throat. 
 
 Overman could not speak. He felt the slow 
 shiver that seemed to dissolve the very fibres of 
 Donaghey s being and, raising himself on his 
 elbow, he twisted his body till it shielded the 
 Irishman from the rain of stones. 
 
 A howl of rage came up from below; the mob 
 felt itself betrayed; cheated. Over the face of 
 the officer whose bullet was lodged in Overman s 
 shoulder, a grayish pallor came. Suddenly he 
 understood. But at that minute the press of men 
 immediately in front broke and the horses, shiver 
 ing and maddened, plunged and broke away.
 
 234 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 The sudden jolt of the wagon threw Overman 
 into the street and, with a cry of satisfaction that 
 seemed to burst like a living, exulting thing from 
 every throat, the mob flung itself upon him.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 twitch, they tear at it as they bite! 
 Can t you see them, Jessie ? It is as 
 though the fish were not satisfying their hunger 
 but a devilish instinct to rend. It is only a crumb 
 of bread it cannot feel it must not it can 
 not. . . . But see, it twitches like a living 
 thing in agony. It is sent by very reaction from 
 one cruel, greedy mouth that tears it to another 
 cruel, greedy mouth which cuts a bit from the 
 reeling, bleeding thing and sends it quivering 
 on to be torn and rent and bitten forever and 
 ever and ever and . . ." 
 
 Overman opened his eyes. He seemed to hear 
 his own voice singing out in an agonized crescendo 
 and dimuendo of delirium. 
 
 "What was I saying?" he asked. 
 
 Baumfelder s fingers lifted from his wrist. 
 
 That you could listen to Wissner s playing 
 forever, Mr. Overman," he responded pleas 
 antly. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Overman s dazed eyes wandered from the sur 
 geon s face to the nurse on the other side of the 
 hospital bed. He touched the bandage on his 
 head tentatively and looked perplexed at his hand 
 when it dropped trembling. 
 
 2 35
 
 236 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "Yes, I could," he repeated slowly, and fell 
 asleep. 
 
 A smile of victory transfigured the surgeon s 
 heavy, dark face. He walked from the ward to 
 the office with an elation in his every movement 
 that explained his success an elation that was 
 old but ever new to him; he walked like a material 
 istic, skilful god and he felt like one. When he 
 got to the office he took down the telephone re 
 ceiver and in a moment he heard Jessie Incell s 
 voice. 
 
 "Yes," he answered, "he will live surely." 
 
 His ear caught the jarring rattle as, without an 
 answering word, she hung up her receiver. And 
 Baumfelder sat for a moment without moving a 
 muscle, a smile on his full, sensuous lips. 
 
 At the other end of the line Jessie Incell, too, sat 
 smiling. It was a weak, uncertain smile in which 
 her eyes had no share. In them there still dwelt 
 the misery of that waiting terror of apprehension 
 that had almost paralyzed her when her bell had 
 rung. 
 
 She was still sitting, her hand lingering lovingly 
 on the receiver that had brought her such news, 
 when Hilma in her black dress came into the room, 
 despite her height and the slow grace of her long- 
 limbed body she looked like a bewildered child 
 caught up in a maelstrom of tragedy.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 237 
 
 "He will get well, Hilma. He will live," 
 Jessie gasped throwing herself into the Swedish 
 girl s arms. 
 
 And she wept as though her heart was broken 
 instead of being eased of an intolerable fear. 
 Hilma held her close and patted her shoulder 
 gently. Her own eyes were full, but about her 
 mouth the lines of patient sorrow deepened. 
 
 "A woman is such a a limited creature," 
 sighed Jessie at last. "The harp of her expression 
 of emotion has indeed but a single string. If 
 she s miserable she cries. If she s relieved, she 
 cries, too." 
 
 Her voice changed suddenly. Her utterance 
 lost its vehement happiness and she sought to 
 create a new impression; but she succeeded only in 
 fuller self-betrayal. Hilma though was uncon 
 scious of it. Subtlety was wasted upon a nature so 
 broadly, deeply simple as hers. And her own 
 grief still preoccupied her. 
 
 "God is good," she said with piteous resig 
 nation. 
 
 Jessie Incell shivered. In a fleeting, cold 
 breath of terror she realized this woman s agony 
 and felt again how nearly she too had been 
 widowed. The thought shamed her. At a time 
 when her world wa-s still shuddering from the 
 
 O 
 
 near presence of Death s icy presence, her hurt
 
 238 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 pride, her wounded feminine vanity seemed 
 pitifully mean and unworthy. 
 
 When the next day she was permitted to see 
 him, she entered Anthony s room at the hospital, 
 chastened and with something of that grace of 
 self-unconscious humility which breathed a bene 
 diction from the presence of poor Donaghey s 
 widow. 
 
 Even as she opened the door she heard him 
 say her name, though he was looking at the nurse 
 as he spoke, and in his eerie voice there was a sub 
 conscious expression of uncertainty. 
 
 "I m sane enough and strong enough to battle 
 against it, Jessie," he was saying argumenta- 
 tively, yet with a puzzled look in his eyes that 
 rested upon the nurse s placid features, "but I ve 
 not got sanity and strength enough to conquer 
 it. I know now the unreality of it, but I know as 
 surely that in a minute or the fraction of a second 
 I shall not know it. I shall see the fish darting at 
 the crumb of bread and shall lose my identity 
 again in that one helpless thing being torn to pieces 
 by a multitude. I shall cry that they are fish yet 
 I shall feel that they are men. I shall have the 
 consciousness of being rent limb from limb, yet 
 being still a crumb retaining wholeness enough to 
 float always within reach of hungry, gloating eyes 
 and cruel, greedy mouths. I shall feel the strain
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 239 
 
 of struggling against it, but more the terror of 
 yielding to the fancy. And this must go on 
 forever and ever and ever Why, Jessie!" 
 
 She had run forward with a cry, conquering her 
 momentary repulsion for his bewildered half- 
 sanity. She flung herself on her knees beside the 
 bed and caught his hands in hers. And at her 
 touch the cobwebs of delirium seemed to fall from 
 him and, looking with almost incredulous joy into 
 her face, he spoke her name again with such ten 
 derness, such a warmth of yearning love as 
 brought expression even to the nun-like face 
 of the trained nurse. She, looking up, saw 
 Doctor Baumfelder at the open door beckoning 
 to her and, obeying, she left the room and the 
 two alone. 
 
 "I have been wearying so for you, sweetheart," 
 he sighed. 
 
 "And I for you, Anthony." 
 
 He lifted her hands and pressed them to his 
 cheek, to his lips. 
 
 "The touch of them is balm," he whispered. 
 " I feel like some afflicted wretch whose sovereign s 
 hands have cured him. I ve been tortured by a 
 delirium, Jessie, that has become half-conscious 
 madness. It it 
 
 "We wont talk of it, dear. " 
 
 He laughed weakly, putting out his arm to draw
 
 2 4 o ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 her to him. She nestled down in its embrace with 
 a sigh of utter content. 
 
 "It can t come back, my darling. You are my 
 talisman. Our love is like something super 
 natural that s outside of us both and stands 
 on the threshold of illusion assuring sanity to 
 me. . . . My love forgive?" 
 
 His failing voice reached her like a sigh from 
 
 O o 
 
 paradise, and the little movement of her head in 
 reply was half assent, half denial of wrong. 
 
 As though it were an Industrial Monster re 
 quiring but a blood-sacrifice to appease it, the 
 strike which had reached its climax the day of 
 Donaghey s death, subsided quickly. By the end 
 of the week propositions of compromise were 
 being exchanged. Overman s name was men 
 tioned as one of the labor commissioners to ar 
 range the terms of settlement, but he had so 
 nearly yielded up his life between the pistols of 
 those in authority and the fists of those rebelling 
 against it, that the men were back at work, the 
 streets were quiet and busy and the state s com 
 merce was thriftily seeking its old channels by the 
 time he was permitted to sit out in the hospital 
 garden. 
 
 Morgan came to see him here one day, with an 
 offer from his managing editor. It was one of
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 241 
 
 those wonderful warm winter days given to San 
 Francisco instead of the spring she has never ex 
 perienced. After a week s rain the sun shone 
 out of a sky as warmly blue as late spring brings 
 in other climates. The world seemed in a very 
 rapture of creation. The bay below the garden, 
 new washed and sparkling like a pale emerald, 
 spread gaily out and the city s streets terraced 
 down to meet it. The peculiar delicacy and rich 
 ness of California roses, coaxed by the softness of 
 the climate to live outdoors, sent up a per 
 fume that hot-house flowers cannot yield. The 
 turf was of a thick, healthy, wet green, teeming 
 with life. The hills beyond were green as sum 
 mer in California cannot make them, and off to 
 the west against the tender sky the cross on Lone 
 Mountain was etched. 
 
 "It serves you right, of course, Overman," 
 said Morgan taking a seat at the table besides 
 which Anthony sat. "The fellow who interferes 
 between capital and labor deserves what he gets; 
 which is what anybody gets who tries to settle a 
 row between husband and wife. Capital s the 
 husband, of course, with all the marital rights, 
 with the experience, the judgment, the bigger 
 brain and the real values at stake. He s married 
 to Labor a somewhat irrational being as the 
 ladies are apt to be, but very useful, even indis-
 
 242 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 pensable, as they too are, though emotional, 
 quick-tempered and likely to act upon impulse. 
 Capital s is all the risk. Labor s is all the gain 
 on its own capital invested, which is merely two 
 hands, and the supply of hands will always exceed 
 the demand. Labor owes Capital obedience, 
 just as the good old marriage service knew what 
 was best for both husband and wife. They fall 
 out, of course, just as there are difficulties even in 
 well-regulated households where the husband 
 keeps the wife fairly under control. But, how 
 ever bitter the disagreement, there is no divorce 
 for these two; and the only thanks the outsider 
 gets who interferes is to get his head smashed 
 which doesn t prevent my being glad that yours 
 is mended again." 
 
 "Thank you. . . . Have some ?" said Over 
 man, pushing toward him a basket of fruit which, 
 with a pile of papers and magazines stood between 
 them. "The only exceptions I can take to all you 
 say are first, my head was smashed by mistake, 
 not by intention the mob took me for my friend, 
 poor fellow, whom I was trying to save. And 
 second, it is Labor and not Capital that s the hus 
 band of the industrial marriage. I m not so rigid 
 a sexualist as yourself, so I ll not impute all the 
 weaknesses to the wife and all the powers to the 
 husband. Labor s is the terrible risk of life and
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 243 
 
 time and strength. What more can a man give 
 but all that he has ? If Capital s risk is really 
 greater it is because she has stolen so much of 
 what was Labor s as to leave him beggared. 
 Capital s is the feminine portion to let others 
 work for her, to operate through others and 
 only . . . But yours is a clever figure of speech, 
 not a just one. As a matter of fact I believe you 
 to be as insincere, Morgan, in your pretense of 
 aristocratic prejudice as in your theory of wifely 
 subjugation. Your own wife 
 
 " My own wife, when I get her and I will get 
 her will be the hundredth woman." 
 
 "Every man s wife is to him. Mine will be 
 too." 
 
 "Yours Adonis?" Morgan leaned forward, 
 an ironical smile on his lips. "And all the creeds 
 of the Renunciants ? I thought it was the proper 
 Renunciant stunt to postpone matrimony till one 
 is ideally fit to be a father. Have you suddenly be 
 come worthy to be an ancestor purified through 
 pain, a smashed head say, and that sort of thing ?" 
 
 Overman laughed. 
 
 "I m not saying I m fit. I m merely fitter than 
 I was because I know more about myself 
 and others now. As to the creed, it s about as 
 full of errors and beauties as most, I suppose. 
 But really, if you ll think of it, is there anything
 
 244 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 more offensive that one man can call another than 
 - Adonis ?" 
 
 "Doesn t it occur to Adonises generally to 
 ascribe the name to envy?" demanded Morgan. 
 
 "Invariably when Adonis is an ass." 
 
 " Oh if you re going to take it seriously. . . " 
 
 "I m not." 
 
 There was a short silence. Morgan finished 
 his orange and put out his hand for more of the 
 fruit. The pomegranates that lay on top of the 
 basket reminded him of Jessie Incell; he knew no 
 one else who was fond of the fruit. 
 
 "I wonder if there s anything so unforgivable," 
 Overman xvent on, his hands resting on the open 
 book in his lap, "as the pretense of man in the 
 singular to a form of living which calls for strength 
 where most men are weak, and perhaps weakness 
 where men are usually strong. See how gleefully 
 you fellows in the world hunt a clergyman down; 
 how keen you are to scent any merely human mis 
 demeanor on his part, which you would so readily 
 overlook in yourselves; how joyously you give 
 tongue and set the world of dogs to bark at his 
 heels. And why ? Because 
 
 "Because he has pretended to greater holi 
 ness and ought to be made to live up to every 
 inch of his pretensions," Morgan interrupted sav 
 agely.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 245 
 
 "But he is human after all. He must be 
 tempted and troubled, even as you and I*. 
 
 "Then let him recant. Let him step down 
 publicly (as he went up) from the eminence of 
 Phariseeism and admit that he is no better than 
 other men but surely you don t mean you 
 orl l" 
 
 "You insist upon being sarcastic at the expense 
 of my former pretensions, do you ? Well, take 
 me as a case. There was no insinuation in any 
 thing I said or did of my being a perfectionist." 
 
 "Only by implication." 
 
 : Then every man who forms a theory of living 
 and tries to live up to it says to other men, I am 
 better than thou and must therefore, when he 
 himself discovers that he is sadly human, be ac 
 cused not only of sin but hypocrisy." 
 
 "It s a good old social law that the elect should 
 be held up to the very letter of the thing they pro 
 fess," declared Morgan. "There should be no 
 more quarter for the minister I m not includ 
 ing you among the frocked and faultless than 
 for the woman who defies the steel-clad law in 
 which the sex walks secure. He is a traitor to his 
 order; so is she. And both should suffer in the 
 proportion that both were privileged and pro 
 tected privileges and protection accepted under 
 false pretenses, if either renig."
 
 246 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "It sounds like the bitter old law of the savage 
 
 O 
 
 religions. What hide-bound moral conservatives 
 
 O 
 
 you men of the world are for other people! 
 Do you believe only in forgiveness of sinners sins 
 never of those of saints ? " 
 
 "For the lady who throws her bonnet over the 
 mill and elects to go without moral headgear, I 
 have as much charity as as Doctor Baumfelder 
 has, when once she has done with pretenses. For 
 the Reverend Grant MacMillan I suppose you 
 are thinking of him 
 
 "I was wondering if I could interest you in him 
 and get him down some day from Little Gap." 
 
 "Well, when once they are out of the church and 
 off their moral stilts why no, I ll admit I still 
 have it in for them for their old hypocritical main 
 tenance of a standard they knew, in their hearts, 
 neither they nor anyone else can or does live up to. 
 . Witness the humanizing of one Anthony 
 Overman!" 
 
 He got to his feet as he spoke. Overman rose 
 too. As he did so, the book that had lain on his 
 lap fell to the ground and Morgan, with a courteous 
 recognition of the other s semi-invalidism, bent to 
 pick it up. As he did so he saw Jessie IncelPs 
 name written in a busy, legible round hand across 
 the first page. 
 
 "I ll tell the Boss then that you re disposed to
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 247 
 
 accept his terms and will call to see him yourself 
 in a few days," he said coldly, quickly withdraw 
 ing his hand from Overman s and hurrying away. 
 
 At the gate, though, he looked back. Overman, 
 his back turned, was walking toward the hospital 
 building. Morgan felt an impulse, of which he 
 recognized the absurdity, to shake his fist in his 
 direction. But he contented himself with swear 
 ing vigorously as he said to himself: 
 
 "It sounds melodramatic which is why I ll 
 only think it but you shan t find things so easy 
 as they seem to be going, Adonis. I ll put up 
 something of a fight before I m done. . . . 
 You re too good, Jessie Incell, for such a perfect 
 man, damn him! You d better marry a sinner who 
 can appreciate you. . . . He ll graciously deign 
 to be human, will he ? Well, I ll give him a 
 chance before we get through. The impudence 
 of a fellow like that to aspire to Jessie Incell! 
 What the devil can she see in him! She might as 
 well take the living skeleton or the bearded lady 
 seriously as that freak!"
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 TT WAS in his character of freak that Overman 
 was offered an editorial position on the In 
 quirer. The paper, which was strongly demagogic, 
 counted upon gaining through his name the 
 clientele to which the Workingmen s Weekly, 
 suspended now that the strike was over, had 
 catered. 
 
 The Inquirer had always posed, more or less 
 sincerely according to the gain or loss in sight, as 
 the laboring man s champion. It had betrayed 
 the laboring man very recently because of the in 
 direct profit to be gained by so doing. But its 
 shrewd management, having eaten its capitalistic 
 cake, decided to regain all its old workingman s 
 circulation by making capital of Overman s name; 
 and by giving him a department of the editorial 
 page for his own, the paper counted, to some 
 extent, upon evading responsibility for his radical 
 views. 
 
 Overman found when he was strong enough to 
 go back into the world, that it had heard of him; 
 that it knew his name; that, in a way, he had be 
 come a nine-days hero for the risk he had run that 
 decisive last day of the strike and for the near 
 martyrdom that had been his. He also found that 
 the Inquirer had been making use, in its own 
 
 248
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 249 
 
 sensational way, of his former connection with the 
 paper, and had enterprisingly reprinted Miss 
 Incell s personal narrative of her discovery of him. 
 
 For Donaghey who had died beyond the pale of 
 regularity, a creature without caste, a victim to 
 that very irregularity which was forced upon him 
 because all his world had temporarily become 
 irregular, leaving him stranded in a minority and 
 minus that heroic uplifting principle which makes 
 minorities martyrs for Donaghey, resting in 
 unquestioned regularity at last, no tears save 
 Hilma s were shed. For Overman wounded by 
 a policeman s bullet, the reformed and now reg 
 ularized strikers had that species of extension of 
 self adoration which men feel for the man who 
 makes himself the type of their class, the active 
 embodiment of their passivity, the individual ex 
 pression of their composite state of feeling. And 
 for that same Overman, half-killed by his own 
 party in trying to protect the scab, whose very 
 name was unknown to them yet whose protest in 
 flesh and blood against the principle of strikes he 
 was, the employers association chose, in the era 
 of superficial good-feeling that ensued, to have a 
 special consideration; quite unlike that inspired 
 by the style and the context in which he had 
 written about them. 
 
 Overman, who knew not one of these kings of
 
 250 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 capital except by name and reputation, had but 
 one word for dishonesty, applicable alike to rich 
 and poor. Utterly without the territory which 
 their many, money-tentacled arms could reach, 
 with a mind untainted by the sophistries of specu 
 lation which grow to fit conditions as rites and 
 practices, those devotional weeds, spring up about 
 and choke out the simple religions that flowered 
 in human hearts Overman was absolutely un 
 hampered personally. 
 
 It suited the policy of the Inquirer just then to 
 turn over to him a column of a great newspaper, 
 giving him such liberty of speech as no trained and 
 experienced journalist on the staff enjoyed. And 
 Overman struck out boldly to preach his policy 
 not consciously regardless of consequences; simply 
 ignorant of them. His was a simple theory. He 
 believed in the possibility of applying the stand 
 ards of personal honor to business life and political 
 affairs. He reverenced no opinion for the sake of 
 those who held it. And for a time he meted out 
 the punishment of publicity to the guilty rich as 
 well as the guilty poor, handling his subject with 
 a clearness of vision and a determined strength 
 that was, at least, uninfluenced by the wealth and 
 standing of the one or the mob popularity of the 
 other. 
 
 Overman was the first to discover, when the
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 251 
 
 workingmen were back in the toils, that the fruit of 
 their supreme sacrifice had been wrested, quietly 
 and secretively from them; that once more they 
 had been betrayed into their enemy s hands. 
 Then he exposed the whole shameless bargain, by 
 means of which they were to be dazzled with a 
 form, while the substance of victory had again 
 been handed over to their employers. His expose 
 which held up the opposition paper to contumely, 
 the desert of the revealed hypocrisy of the 
 demagogue, was one of the most welcome articles 
 the Inquirer s proprietor had ever read in his own 
 paper. He called upon Overman to express his 
 gratification. And he called again the next day 
 to express his complete satisfaction. 
 
 "So complete, I may say," he added slowly, 
 "that I consider anything further on the Strike 
 Commission, Mr. Overman, quite unnecessary." 
 
 "But there ll be an investigation of course, 
 particularly if we insist upon one," said Overman 
 surprised. "Just another broadside from us will 
 result in victory." 
 
 It has, Mr. Overman, it has already." 
 
 "An investigating committee has been ap 
 pointed ?" 
 
 The proprietor of the Inquirer looked at him 
 steadily for a moment. 
 
 "No but we have won," he said at length,
 
 252 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "a victory that more nearly concerns the Inquirer 
 than any outside triumph. We have driven 
 Lenihan, proprietor of the News, into the fold of 
 the Newspaper Proprietor s League at last. We ve 
 been trying for years to do just this. After your 
 spread editorial of yesterday he threw up his 
 hands. He is now amenable to all the rules that 
 the rest of us have made for the common bene 
 fit. . . . And now, of course, we ll call it off. " 
 
 Overman sat flicking his pencil with his finger 
 nail. In spite of his years of thought he was very 
 young in hope, in enthusiasm, in intolerance of 
 dishonesty and of hypocrisy, and inexperienced in 
 contact with frankly cynical minds. 
 
 "I want to express my appreciation again," 
 said the gentleman, "and to repeat that the In 
 quirer owes this achievement, which is recognized 
 by every newspaper proprietor in town, to your 
 pen." 
 
 Overman rose and pushed back his chair. 
 
 "It s thoroughly undeserved then, Mr. Cor 
 coran," he said slowly. "For that same pen" 
 he threw his pencil from him "does good, 
 newspaper good, by such stealth that it is itself un 
 conscious of it. It is for this reason that I am lay 
 ing it down so far as your service is concerned. 
 It wins by a fluke when it is aimed at something 
 else. There s no trusting a pencil like that, nor the
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 253 
 
 fellow behind it, who is innocent enough to go to 
 work in good faith and fool enough to resent being 
 called off when an honest fight is at its critical 
 point." 
 
 Mr. Corcoran stared at him genially through 
 his glasses. It was first a stare of amusement, 
 then amazement, and then irritation. But he 
 controlled this irritation, for Overman s fame was 
 still of recent date and his prominence on the In 
 quirer would make him a valuable acquisition to a 
 rival journal. 
 
 "As you please," he said pleasantly, "but I 
 trust you ll not quit the paper altogether. I must 
 agree with you that unless controlled and directed 
 by a more practical mind, one with sound business 
 judgment, even so striking a talent as your own is 
 not available for the conservative and delicate 
 function of editorial expression. But your ex 
 perience must have shown you that no paper in 
 town can afford to give you freer scope than the 
 Inquirer. I hope you ll remain with us and in 
 some special capacity at the same salary I ll 
 discuss the matter with Mr. Larkin and Mr. 
 Morgan find yourself more agreeably situated." 
 
 "And I said nothing practically consented by 
 my silence," Overman concluded, after giving an 
 account of the affair the next day to Miss Incell. 
 
 "And you want me to pat you on the back ?"
 
 254 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 she demanded, "and say that you re not nearly 
 so big a crank as you once were ? Well you re 
 not. But oh, man Anthony, there s still room for 
 improvement. After all, the Inquirer belongs to 
 Corcoran; he has a right to say what he pleases in 
 it, through his editorial writers, and just as much 
 right not to say what he wishes to ignore. A 
 writer enlists under his boss s flag, but that 
 doesn t imply that the whole campaign may be 
 altered by the said writer, the troops turned 
 right about and set to righting Moors instead of 
 Turks." 
 
 "Such a bit of a philosopher it is!" Overman 
 said. "But what becomes of principle in it all?" 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "I do my duty in the humble sphere to which it 
 has pleased Mr. Corcoran to call me. I don t 
 have to do my boss s duty, too. If I owned the 
 Inquirer you should have such a debauch of truth- 
 telling, Anthony Overman, as would endow a bit 
 of hypocrisy with all the piquancy of novelty. 
 And between us we d probably make ducks and 
 drakes of the property and have to go to work 
 again for some other Corcoran." 
 
 O 
 
 He dropped his pencil and came over to her 
 desk. Since he had left the editorial room, a desk 
 had been placed for him in the room where three 
 special writers worked. Labadie, the third, never
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 255 
 
 appeared till late so they had the place to them 
 selves. 
 
 "I want the price I m selling myself for, Jessie," 
 he said softly. "I want it now to-day." 
 
 Her eyelids fluttered and she braced herself in 
 her chair. 
 
 "Well, I should say," she answered with a care 
 fully preoccupied air as she bent over ostensibly to 
 read what she had written, "that all the horde of 
 Overman beneficiaries will rise up and call you 
 blessed, if you insist. They re still too poor to pay 
 prices, aren t they ?" 
 
 He looked down upon the pretty pert poise of 
 her head; he looked so long that she glanced up 
 and met his eye. 
 
 "Now you know," she said with a quick blush, 
 "you didn t do it really for me. I m only an inci 
 dental. You did it for the Home for Dirty and 
 Detached Boys and the Refuge for Unattractive 
 and Uncertain Girls, the Reverend Grant Mac- 
 Millan up at Little Gap, and the crippled seams 
 tress down on Tehama Street, who s fallen heir 
 to all poor Hilma s things while Hilma wears her 
 trained nurse s rig as though it were a priestly 
 vestment, and the baby plays at Mrs. Connor s 
 feet and Anthony, you mustn t! No not 
 here!" 
 
 She slipped away from him rosy but determined.
 
 256 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "It s shocking of you, Anthony," she scolded. 
 "I ll complain to Mr. Corcoran." 
 
 "And you think you can keep putting me off 
 like this ?" he cried. 
 
 "I don t think of you too much," she an 
 swered saucily, "now that you are well." 
 
 "You don t trust me ?" 
 
 "I don t know you, quite. Do you your 
 self?" 
 
 "I know that I want you I want you so in 
 tensely that I am conscious of no other want in 
 the world beside." 
 
 An unholy light of triumph gleamed in her eyes; 
 she loved every break in his voice that betrayed 
 him. 
 
 "Oh, life s not to be considered solely as a 
 personal matter," she said retreating before him 
 with rebuking loftiness. "Consider, Anthony, 
 before it is too late 
 
 "I ll consider nothing. Come yield! There 
 is nothing in the world but you and me. When 
 this evening ?" 
 
 The shrill whistle of the tube interrupted him. 
 
 "Mr. Morgan wants t see ye, Mr. Overman, 
 bout a story," a boy s voice chanted into Over 
 man s ear and the two heard the click of the 
 mouthpiece. 
 
 Mr. Morgan wants t see ye, Mr. Overman
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 257 
 
 bout a story, " Miss Incell mimicked; a childish 
 gayety possessed her, she was so happy. 
 
 "Tell me first when ? Beloved this evening 
 
 J 5> 
 
 yes r 
 
 He had caught her hands but she tore them 
 from him. 
 
 "No no, don t touch me! Don t you see," 
 she cried shaken by emotion, "that I can t resist 
 that you make me weak ? Oh Anthony, be 
 merciful. I surrender. Now go!" 
 
 She sank down into her chair, throwing her arms 
 on the desk and burying her face. He stood for 
 a moment looking down upon her. He was 
 shaken by tenderness, by triumph. His very 
 soul lay obedient, grateful at her feet, yet his 
 mastery of this woman was sweeter to him than 
 he had ever dreamed passion might be. For 
 another minute he stood silent; then he touched 
 her hair with trembling fingers and left the room.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 TY 7"HEN Overman presented himself before 
 Morgan he had regained his self-control, 
 but his ears were ringing with the sweet plaint of 
 her voice. 
 
 "I m sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Morgan," 
 he said slowly. A formality unusual in the In 
 quirer office had crystallized between these two. 
 "I was much occupied. And, if it s possible 
 I d prefer not to go out on anything to-day. I 
 have a pressing personal matter to attend to." 
 
 Morgan s jealous eye scrutinized his face. 
 
 "But it isn t possible," he answered irritably. 
 "Colonel Geiger is in town for the first time sicne 
 the settlement of the strike. I m convinced that 
 with your knowledge of how that strike was 
 settled, you re the one man that can get an inter 
 view from him that will put his party, the em 
 ployers association in a beautiful hole." 
 
 "But Corcoran told me himself he didn t want 
 any more of that story." 
 
 "Corcoran doesn t want any more roasting of 
 the News. But if Geiger will tell the story, as he 
 knows it, the Inquirer must publish the news- 
 doctored a bit to belittle Lenihan s part in it. We 
 want the interview. Get it if you can." 
 
 He turned away mechanically; and Overman s 
 258
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 259 
 
 mind turned to his work. After all, why not ? he 
 asked himself. Nothing could make the hours pass 
 so quickly as work. He flung himself upon a west 
 bound car and arriving at the crest of a hill at a 
 half-mansion, half-chalet built of gray stone and 
 dark, polished redwood, he sent in his card to 
 Colonel Geiger a peace colonel and a war mil 
 lionaire. So sudden and complete had been this 
 man s prosperity during the war with Spain, that 
 it might have seemed as though men had been 
 transferred by tens of thousands from Maine to 
 California and the Philippines, merely to use the 
 steamships of this colonel on the governor s staff 
 and pour the nation s dollars into his capacious 
 pockets. He bore his good-fortune jovially, most 
 jovially; living in a haze of alcoholic exultation, 
 in which the world appeared to revolve pleasingly 
 about his own rotund personality. But this ten 
 dency never interfered with that keen eye for busi 
 ness for which he was justly famed (and which 
 had led to his selection as Strike Commissioner by 
 his fellow business men) for Colonel Geiger was a 
 most systematic man who believed that there w r as 
 a place for everything; the proper place for a man 
 to permit himself to be mentally incapacitated, he 
 conceived, was in his own home where he would 
 be surrounded by those whose natural interest 
 lay in safeguarding him; and not in the street
 
 2 6o ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 or in the office where, like a crab he was liable 
 to be swallowed piecemeal by the rapacious pluto 
 crats who delved, like himself, in the mud at the 
 bottom of deep financial waters. 
 
 "The Gunnel, Sah, is a trifle indisposed," 
 said the portly, very black negro who came back 
 to Overman with his card on the silver salver. 
 "He begs you to excuse him, sah, and hopes he 
 may have the pleasure of meeting you to-maw 
 aft noon Thank ye, sah." 
 
 To-morrow afternoon! Overman laughed. He 
 felt like a boy who laughs at all the world when 
 playtime comes. No, to-morrow afternoon would 
 not find him mounting Colonel Geiger s marble 
 steps. To-morrow afternoon but first, he would 
 telephone the office. 
 
 He got Morgan on the phone and told him that 
 Colonel Geiger would see an Inquirer reporter 
 the following afternoon. 
 
 "The deuce he will!" Morgan snarled. "Every 
 paper in town will have got an interview out of the 
 old duffer by then." 
 
 "What are you going to do about it ?" demanded 
 Overman. " * The Gunnel, sah, is indisposed 
 and " 
 
 "Oh h! Why didn t you say so!" A chuckle 
 sped over the wire. "There s a means of working 
 old Geiger s indisposition for all it s worth. I
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 261 
 
 happen to know what appeals to him when he s 
 indisposed. I ll send . . . Never mind all 
 right. Good-bye." 
 
 When life is too bitter or death too great or love 
 too sweet, man goes to Nature for sympathy. No 
 one else is wise enough, old enough, young enough 
 to give it to him. Out on a sandy point that juts 
 into the bay like a half-heralding, half-reverential 
 courtier bowing toward the Golden Gate, Over 
 man found his place and his hour. He had come 
 out after his simple preparations were done to find 
 the sun, which usually sets here in a smoky veil of 
 mist that swathes its end in mystery, riding regally 
 to death. In its ecstasy of dissolution it dyed the 
 heavens and the earth with the gorgeous sublimity 
 of disintegrated color. It splashed every wave 
 with brazen gold. It painted the clouds and re 
 painted them, and retouched and regilded and 
 added a shade here and threw a light there, chang 
 ing, shifting, with a brilliant fecundity of color 
 design that made the heavens too great a glory to 
 be looked upon. It transfigured the frail, absurd 
 little pleasure house that stands out on the cliff, 
 changing it into a fairy-castle built of marbled 
 rainbows. It threw out generous handfuls of 
 gold and tipped the masts of fishing smacks that 
 bobbed in a haze of golden sea and sky. And it 
 spent itself too upon Anthony Overman s face,
 
 262 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 already glowing with an inward light that flooded 
 his world. 
 
 He hardly planned as he lay there on the sandy 
 point. What he dreamed was a series of visions 
 in which he walked as though to strains of inspir 
 ing music and did not walk alone. He saw the 
 face of the girl he loved irradiated and, though all 
 the world was painted with gold, the light in her 
 eyes outshone all else. He saw himself speeding 
 with her up to the mountains, to the sweet solitude 
 of the log-cottage in the forest. He saw glorious 
 mornings in which they two were spectators of the 
 recreation of the world; and the pale, ascetic 
 figure of his old self, seeming to issue from the 
 prayer house after a vigil of fasting and supplica 
 tion, came out into the dawn and in a curious 
 miracle of sympathy accompanied them. He 
 saw days of exquisite, simple living. He saw 
 evenings of peace. He heard the sound of his 
 wife s voice and her laugh in the solemn solitudes 
 of the forest. He felt the glad comfort of her pre 
 sence close beside him. He knew the unutterable 
 delight of living with the mind and heart open to a 
 mind and heart attuned to fullest sympathy. And 
 he was conscious of a sense of such completion, of 
 such full possession of powers and faculties as 
 made him feel that he had just sprung into man 
 hood, and that only in the degree in which they
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 263 
 
 two lived together did his individual life gather 
 significance and strength. 
 
 The great red disk flattened on the waves semed 
 to become misshapen like something soluble. It 
 bulged out on either side and in this uncouth shape 
 it danced in globes of black upon the sky and 
 shore and sea, when Overman s protesting eye 
 turned away. When he looked again a line of 
 sea crossed its flaming, softening, blurring face. 
 The line mounted slowly, steadily, at the last 
 speedily, and when at last the gold crescent 
 splashed into the sea, Overman unconsciously 
 waited for that sputtering hiss; the old war-cry 
 with which water conquers fire. 
 
 He rose and turned his back upon it and, .walk 
 ing quickly as though now that the day was spent, 
 time had suddenly become precious, he hurried 
 to the top of the hill. So quickly the glory faded 
 that earth and sea and clear, unclouded sky were 
 all a somber gray. It was as though the exacting 
 hand of the Artist had, with a single gesture, wiped 
 out the painting that disappointed him. 
 
 Overman caught the train back to town. As it 
 sped from curve to curve he caught himself looking 
 back, hoping again to find that radiance of color 
 and form. But the sky darkened quickly and the 
 lights were twinkling in the town when he reached 
 it. It was the sight of one of them, the great crys-
 
 264 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 tal lantern that swung in front of Colonel Geiger s 
 door, that suddenly concentrated Overman s 
 thought. He looked at his watch. There were 
 still some hours to live through. Obeying a 
 whimsical impulse, he got off his car and made his 
 way again up those imposing steps. 
 
 He had given his card to the man and was al 
 ready seated in the beautiful entrance hall that 
 was half-library, half conservatory, when he 
 heard a husky, genial voice and the portieres at 
 the lower end of the series of chambers were pushed 
 aside. 
 
 "You re a desperately saucy girl, m dear," the 
 Colonel was saying in that unctuous tone begotten 
 of a subtle double intoxication to which he was 
 notoriously susceptible, "and a devilish cl 
 clever one. You ve made me ch chatter t you 
 like a ch chatter-box. And now for all I ve 
 given you, there s one thing you re going t give 
 me Oh yes, y are, m dear, you 
 
 A quick little figure darted past him out into the 
 hall and hurried toward the door. The portly 
 Colonel, looking like a white copy of his own 
 black servant, followed. And both stood aghast 
 at sight of Overman. Their irresolution seemed 
 only to stir in him a greater need for action. But 
 what emotion underlay that action Jessie Incell 
 had not time to realize while Colonel Geiger was
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 265 
 
 sent spinning back into the parlor from the blow 
 Overman dealt and she, caught up almost bodily 
 under his arm, was hurried out into the street. 
 It came to her, though, with an intolerable sense 
 of wrong, when he released her arm and faced her 
 there on the corner. 
 
 "Don t you dare to speak," she cried quickly. 
 " Don t dare to say to me what you re thinking ! " 
 
 "You knew what it meant when you went 
 there?" he demanded as though she had not 
 spoken. 
 
 She shut her lips and walked on without an 
 swering. 
 
 "Or did that scoundrel Morgan send you with 
 out telling you ?" 
 
 He walked on beside her looking down be 
 seechingly. But she tossed her head in tune to an 
 inward note of defiance. 
 
 "Then you knew? . . . And went pur 
 posely to that drunkard s house!" he exclaimed 
 wrathfully. "To take advantage of his drunken 
 ness and his weakness for women. My God, 
 Jessie ! I ll kill Dean Morgan for this ! " 
 
 "For " she began ironically. 
 
 And then she grew white about the lips, but shut 
 them resolutely. 
 
 "You could have left when you saw what 
 use was being made of you. . . . But you
 
 266 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 stayed, beguiling that wretch, letting him go so 
 far as to put his hands upon you, luring him 
 on as surely for your purposes as some 
 
 "/ got the story!" 
 
 There was a barely audible emphasis upon the 
 pronoun, a significance that struck Overman 
 dumb. In the flash of her contempt he saw him 
 self dreaming away the afternoon which this girl 
 had used for work, such as it was; and a nauseat 
 ing consciousness came to him of failure, of un- 
 fitness, of being shamed by the triumph of her sex 
 over his; a consciousness that did not belittle his 
 shame for her, nor the wound from her that left 
 him stabbed, yet incredulous. 
 
 She too was incredulous of her own cruelty. 
 Yet she had felt the blood rushing to her head with 
 the intimation in his voice and had known that she 
 must stop him or shriek for mercy. 
 
 "If if you had gotten it, I needn t have gone 
 there," she said after a time. But her voice had 
 more of appeal in it than reproach. 
 
 He did not speak and in her turn silence stung 
 her to speech. 
 
 "Suppose the old fool did put his hand on my 
 arm what of it ? There s no spot left on it 
 on me. Suppose I did match my wit and and 
 womanhood against his possession of facts that 
 shall shame and dishonor him and men like him,
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 267 
 
 hypocrites and scoundrels who have cheated the 
 people of their birthright! Suppose so! I ran no 
 risk; I m a woman, not a chit without experience. 
 And in what I did, I did more for the people you 
 preach about than than you did, Anthony 
 Overman, when you failed to wrest this weapon out 
 of the hands of their enemy. Bosh! It s the degen 
 erate who whines about methods. It s the de 
 generate who longs weakly and intends kindly 
 and fails. It s the degenerate who is incapable of 
 that ardor for the end that hides and atones for and 
 blesses the means. It s degenerate not to see in 
 the beginning all the chances one takes and 
 to abide by one s choice. It s degenerate to 
 enlist with faint-hearted scruples and if s and but s 
 and perhaps s. Anthony, I tell you the laboring 
 world whether one works for bread or the zest 
 of it is still a battle-field where he deserves to be 
 shot who falters, who refuses obedience. Success 
 is the flag and the reward and the achievement. 
 Nature built her world on martial law; and only 
 the degenerate indicts her wisdom. And his indict 
 ment is her vindication. Success! Success! Why, 
 Anthony her tone, which had been almost 
 flippant at first, had deepened into passion as she 
 spoke; but they had reached the busy street at 
 the foot of the hill and the sudden closing about 
 them of the commonplace, as well as the quiet of
 
 268 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 that still figure beside her, made her drop her 
 voice and moderate her gait. "Tell me, what 
 battle would be won in business, in law, in politics, 
 in real war if strategy were discredited ? And I m 
 a soldier. A working woman has no sex that 
 she s conscious of. If such creatures as Geiger 
 have an over-consciousness of it that s because of 
 their nastiness not mine." 
 
 She looked up at him but, though he walked 
 beside her, his eyes were set straight ahead and 
 there was an expression on his face that made her 
 almost doubt that he had heard all she said. But 
 that he had his first word testified. 
 
 "The degenerate," he said gravely, "the kind of 
 man you call degenerate knows how only life 
 may be made worth living. For he knows what 
 sacrifices are worth while. Must these things be 
 done in order to live ? Must one live ? T do not 
 see the necessity either. No, nor the good nor 
 the fitness nor the decency of such living! One 
 must not live; unless he live worthily. Better 
 a thousand times that life should be sacrificed 
 than the one thing infinitely greater principle. 
 Better that the degenerate should be pressed to the 
 wall by the bustling crowd that soils its soul and 
 bends its spirit for a little success or a great one, or 
 a mere temporary self-glorification, than become a 
 success-worshiper. ... So long as success is
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 269 
 
 the measure of man s unchristianity, so long will 
 there be what you call the degenerate. It is he, 
 and not those who so name him, who has the 
 keenest sense of the value of life, a sense so keen, 
 so strong, so true that a purblind world of deadened 
 consciences cannot even conceive of it. It is he 
 who struggles, struggles desperately, with tooth 
 and nail, untiringly, unconquerably for life 
 the life of the spirit. It is he who single-mindedly 
 concentrates all the powers of his being upon the 
 one point. It is he who fights for this in detail, 
 with arms, without them, with tenderness, with 
 savagery and it is he who survives in the spiri 
 tual world; the world of far-sighted intellect, the 
 world of imagination and ideality, of the pure brain 
 and the unselfish heart, the world of the elect of the 
 past and the future, the heaven of honor. For 
 for it is he who is fittest." 
 
 He paused and stood a moment facing her. A 
 great weakness had come upon her now and she 
 swayed with his every word like a candle-flame 
 upon which the wind blows. 
 
 "But not to mate with you," he said humbly, in 
 a voice that was soft but toneless. "Good-bye, 
 Jessie."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 "T^HE stir of mystery, the odor of romance, of 
 "* possibility, which not even steam and 
 wireless telegraphy can divorce from the sailing 
 of a ship, hung about the wharf. Overman 
 made his way through the singing of the 
 cranes, the snorting of donkey engines, the bust 
 ling of trucks and the heaps of barrels and boxes 
 and sacks which cumbered the black planks, 
 softened by wear, by the tread of horses feet bring 
 ing in the muck from the street in their traffic from 
 deck to dock. 
 
 "You sail in the morning?" he asked the 
 mate. 
 
 "Yes, if I can get these damn slow fellows to 
 move their legs." 
 
 "Where are you going?" 
 
 "New Orleans why?" 
 
 "I want to ship with you." 
 
 "You do! As what, might I ask ?" 
 
 "As anything," said Overman. 
 
 The mate looked at him curiously. He was 
 very tall, a man nearly fifty and awkwardly built 
 despite his height and breadth of shoulder. 
 
 "Never been to sea, I suppose ?" he asked. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well. " The mate scratched his stubby brown 
 270
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 271 
 
 gray mustache. "I guess you don t want to go 
 very bad. Better think it over and 
 
 " But I do want to go very bad and there s 
 nothing to think over." 
 
 "You surely don t want to do stoking; we ve 
 got men enough for anything else such as 
 they are," he growled. 
 
 "Yes, I want to do stoking," said Overman. 
 "And I want to work now. Can I help load ?" 
 
 "Can you help load! you re not a bit crazy ?" 
 asked the mate suspiciously. 
 
 Overman laughed. 
 
 "Nor running away from the police ?" the mate 
 went on. 
 
 "No. Call the officer up yonder and ask him 
 if a fellow my height and build and complexion is 
 wanted." 
 
 The mate s sharp eye took him in from head to 
 foot. 
 
 "Young fellow," he said slowly, "Jim Gallo 
 way that s me was once captain of a good 
 ship. He lost her and with her he lost every 
 hope in life except one; the hope of becoming 
 captain again. The day after the commission 
 put the blame on him he went down to the docks 
 to ask for work. He worked two lifetimes instead 
 of one to get the thing he wanted. He s mate 
 now and he ll be captain again. You needn t tell
 
 272 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 me, but I suppose you ve lost your ship, too. It s 
 none of my business, whatever it is. Take your 
 chance you ve got a right to it." 
 
 Overman threw off his coat. A passion for ac 
 tion possessed him, for legitimate output of human 
 energy which should have tangible results. The 
 burn of the rope as it sped along his hands was 
 welcome to him. The weight of the casks, the 
 strain on his shoulders, the awakening of his 
 muscles, the play of his strength, so long unused, 
 had something sanitary, wholesome about it. 
 With every pull and heave and tug and strain 
 that complicated mesh, which civilization weaves 
 between man and his soul, seemed to be torn into 
 shreds. Direct contact with real things, the sense 
 of physical aches, the simplicity of life when all it 
 consists of is pulling and hauling, of human 
 strength acting upon inanimate things all this 
 was as salt with freshening vigor to him as the 
 breezes from the bay. In the turmoil of his emo 
 tions, it rested him exquisitely to spend his every 
 atom of force upon material things. Here among 
 these sweating, smudged-faced fellows, whose 
 calloused hands were bleeding and torn, yet too 
 work-hardened to be sensible of their wounds, 
 Overman seemed to find himself again. It was 
 his own self, his old self; a creature beyond con 
 ventional promises and threats, worldly rewards
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 273 
 
 and punishments. It was an intelligence as un 
 hampered by longing for wordly advancement as 
 an animal s. It was a body as free from taint of 
 vice, of weakening self-indulgence as an anchor 
 ite s. It was a mind clear, if limited, and tuned 
 to a simplicity of existence which made nothing 
 of most things men value and everything of one 
 they find it comfortable to ignore. 
 
 His sleep that night cut day from day with a 
 completeness that few save children know. And 
 his work the first day down among the furnaces 
 left him physically so weak that he did not rightly 
 know whether his entity consisted of more than an 
 aching head, a blistered face and tortured back. 
 When his old strength came back to him, work 
 had become routine and the vessel was far out at 
 sea. By then it seemed to Overman that it was 
 more than miles of water and the passage of time 
 that separated him from San Francisco. And 
 there was in his mind a weakness that averted his 
 attention involuntarily when he would have 
 dwelt upon the past. It was as though he was 
 recovering from a severe illness and, as yet in 
 stinctively, felt himself unfit to receive full con 
 sciousness. 
 
 Galloway, who had watched him curiously, 
 called him on deck one day. The voyage had 
 been a singularly calm and peaceful one and a
 
 274 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 sense of being favorites of fate cheered the super 
 stitious souls of officers and men. 
 
 "D ye mind telling me just what s your graft ?" 
 the mate asked him. "Perhaps I could help 
 you a bit." 
 
 Overman met his keen, kind eyes. "There are 
 times," he said slowly, "when I hardly think I 
 have anything so tangible and reasonable and 
 expressible as a graft thank you, Mr. Galloway. 
 I did want new conditions that evening I came 
 to you 
 
 "You must have wanted em pretty bad to take 
 a stoker s place. It nearly killed you that first 
 week, didn t it ?" 
 
 "Yes. But I knew I was strong enough to bear 
 that or anything else. I have worked hard most 
 of my life. " 
 
 "And what ll you do when we get to New 
 Orleans ?" 
 
 "Go ashore and work on the levee." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Just because that s the place where two hands 
 and a big frame like mine are sure of being in 
 demand." 
 
 "If that s the best you re counting on, you d 
 better ship with us again. I ll throw Knowles out 
 when we make port and give you his job." 
 
 Overman shook his head. "No thank you. I
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 275 
 
 couldn t sleep nor eat nor breathe in Knowles s 
 job or anybody else s." 
 
 Galloway s grizzled eyebrows met in a frown, 
 and he shot a quick suspicious, glance at him 
 which Overman was not expected evidently to 
 intercept. 
 
 "No I was honest with you, I m not mad, 
 Mr. Galloway. And I ll tell you what my graft is 
 I ve just thought of a way to name it. It s a 
 refusal to live according to cannibalistic rules in a 
 man-eating world. I will not benefit by some 
 body else s misfortune. I will not go through life 
 with my fangs bared for a gash at a weaker man s 
 breast and my hands gory with the blood of his 
 opportunity. I will starve before I murder his 
 chance, before I cheat him, before I put my foot on 
 his head in order to mount." 
 
 Galloway took off his cap and scratched his 
 head. 
 
 "Just a crank then ?" he said inoffensively. 
 
 "That s all," agreed Overman smiling. 
 
 "Religion?" asked the mate. 
 
 "No sociology. It s the love of people that 
 possesses me. But did it ever occur to you what 
 a terrible indictment of man s moral status it is 
 that anyone who refuses to take his place in the 
 bad, blood-selfish lists, anyone whose first care is 
 not himself should be so incomprehensible to his
 
 276 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 neighbors that, in despair at classifying him, they 
 put him down as a denizen of that No-Man s land 
 where men walk about without their brains ?" 
 
 "It s a pretty selfish world," Galloway said 
 slowly. "But there s justice in it for the strong. 
 For the weak well, they go down with their ships, 
 but not in honor. And, considering it fairly, it s 
 not a bad idea. Who d want to be god of a weak 
 ling world ?" 
 
 "I I a thousand times rather than creator of 
 a cruelly bestial one, where men prey on each 
 other with their sharp wits and rend each other 
 with their cruel tongues; where they slay with a 
 system and devour with a custom; where each 
 stands perpetually on guard before the murder 
 in the other s eye and hugs and hides his weakness 
 for fear his enemy will tear his breast open and 
 discover it." 
 
 Galloway looked at him curiously, a slow smile 
 on his big mouth. 
 
 " What are you going to do about it ? " he asked. 
 
 "Change it for myself, and for everybody 
 whose manhood I can reach; be just a sort of 
 spiritual free-lance, ready to be hired in any cause 
 in which the wages are the kind of money that is 
 current in my country." 
 
 "And what do you promise your converts, I d 
 like to know ?"
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 277 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 Tis a great inducement," commented Gallo 
 way with slow irony. 
 
 "Nothing but their own self-respect," added 
 Overman, "and the possibility of meeting their 
 souls face to face without shuddering." 
 
 "There was a fellow once named Christ who had 
 in a way, plagiarized your notions, Overman- 
 innocently, of course. Great minds, you know 
 He promised life everlasting and the 
 glory of the Father s approbation, a pull with the 
 authorities and a reserved seat on Judgment Day, 
 where you could see the lava spouting and the 
 crater boiling as safely and comfortably as you 
 can down in Hawaii. And yet He shrugged 
 his clumsy, square shoulders; an expressive ges 
 ture. 
 
 But when they landed the mate offered Over 
 man his help and sang the praises of his dear love, 
 the sea, which had taken his strength, his hope, 
 his youth and flung them all away; only to receive 
 the greater devotion of his middle-age. 
 
 "At least," he said showing square, but white 
 teeth in a rare smile that made his stern face look 
 boyish and even lovable, "on the sea we re not 
 cannibals while actually on the voyage. And 
 here on the levee take care, little Jesus, the very 
 job ye re taking is rightly another s."
 
 278 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 Overman answered with a gesture that took in 
 the busy, crowded dock with its miles of waiting 
 merchandise. There was room for all comers 
 here, he said. Then he shook hands warmly 
 with the mate and they parted. 
 
 It did not occur to Overman that he was working 
 his way up the coast till he got to Charleston, 
 where he was helping to build the roadway. He 
 had hardly been conscious of the deep-seated 
 restlessness that possessed him. He had stayed 
 longest in New Orleans, for there he had picked 
 up a deserted infant and had worked till he had 
 enough to insure care and protection for it. 
 
 "You are not a Catholic, Monsieur," said the 
 old French nurse who received his last payment 
 and directions about the child. "What religion 
 shall the baby have ?" 
 
 "The only one you could consistently give her, 
 Sister Euphrosyne," he had answered to her relief. 
 
 Galloway, who hunted him up on his second 
 trip, taunted him. 
 
 "There are other children lying on other door 
 steps. There is misery that calls out for you, 
 Mr. Overman. Why pick and choose?" He had 
 made inquiries in San Francisco and knew An 
 thony s history now. 
 
 "I don t you know I don t, Galloway," he 
 said with a laugh. "I merely don t ignore what
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 279 
 
 I do see, that s all. If the rest of you would do 
 as much you d not find near so much to guy in 
 me. And / don t go on my way, calmly ignoring, 
 with a comforting feeling of pity, with a sense of 
 my own kind-heartedness and sensibility as you 
 would, Galloway, and without its costing you a 
 cent or an hour s work." 
 
 "It s all very well," remonstrated the mate 
 quizzically, "but how will you put by a penny 
 for a time when you yourself can t work and the 
 supply of Overmans ll be scarce ? What ll you 
 do in your old age?" 
 
 "My old age my old age," repeated Anthony 
 astonished. "I had never thought of that I 
 never do." 
 
 "No," grumbled Galloway, "likely not. Ex 
 pect to be taken up out of the way of economies 
 like that plagiarist I spoke to you of first trip." 
 
 Overman shivered the memory of his delirium 
 came back to him; though it seemed not a memory 
 but a prophecy. Still he laughed when he spoke. 
 
 "They don t make martyrs of ordinary, humble 
 cranks like me, Galloway. And for the old age- 
 it s far off anyway." 
 
 It seemed farther and farther ofF for, in the va 
 rieties of labor that Overman spent his body, every 
 muscle grew firmer and stronger. He was a lithe 
 thing of iron by the time he left a farm in west
 
 2 8o ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 Pennsylvania and got to New York. He worked 
 his way across the ocean then on a cattle steamer 
 and landed on the continent with a strange, new 
 stirring of his senses; the reawakening of estheti- 
 cism that had lain hidden beneath the purposeful 
 energy that had directed his life for these many 
 months. But he did no more than see the top of 
 the cathedral s spire from the docks, for the emi 
 grants were being herded into the steerage quar 
 ters of an outgoing steamer, and a passion of pity 
 for their unknowing terror and helplessness took 
 possession of him. 
 
 When the ship sailed he went with it in the 
 steerage, packed in with the rest in that floating 
 human cattle-car where misery rots and filth 
 festers; where the strong trample the weak, and 
 human eyes, dumb for lack of the foreign tongue, 
 have the accusing look that makes one turn away 
 as from a nightmare. 
 
 And because he was successful in a measure in 
 relieving misery, in enlightening ignorance, in 
 righting wrong and upholding a few who would 
 have sunk but for him, he made this his life for a 
 time; working his way across and re-crossing in 
 the steerage on the various steamship lines; labor 
 ing on the docks between voyages and occa 
 sionally even sparing himself the luxury of a day 
 in Edinburgh, a night in Lucerne, a few hours
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 281 
 
 in Amsterdam s galleries and once, when a ship s 
 doctor with whom he had crossed several times, 
 ordered it, he had walked for a week along the 
 
 Rhine. 
 
 But with the leisure to see new sights, to study 
 strange conditions, old civilizations and the effect 
 of religion upon them, came an awakening of 
 thought that could find no expression in the 
 isolated life he lived, intimately concerned as he 
 was with strangers most closely personal affairs. 
 When he began to summarize his impressions on 
 paper it was as nearly an involuntary act as men 
 tality is capable of. Had he analyzed the impulse, 
 he would have found as its basis the habit of seeing 
 his thought in words which his newspaper experi 
 ence had given him, lacking which now, he felt the 
 incompleteness of the mental process without 
 really being aware that he did.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 " TpO A MAN like me reared in no church, abso- 
 A lately uninfluenced by creed, and with no 
 interwoven, supernatural-sentimental memories of 
 childhood to such a man, who has unconsciously 
 belittled in his rare meditations on the subject, 
 the effect of and the place of established religions 
 in life, the great Church here is a revelation. The 
 church of stone and marble as well as the church 
 of sentiment and souls and power to uplift and 
 to torture and cast down. 
 
 "My reading did not prepare me for this. Nor 
 could such an imagination as mine, even though 
 fed upon the Inquisition records, realize to itself 
 what the sight of the confessionals in this Antwerp 
 Cathedral have brought home to me. I suppose 
 one must have had a religious childhood, which 
 is a sort of training school for the later assimila 
 tion of marvels, to be able to bear full knowledge 
 of what The Church means. 
 
 "These confessionals wring my heart. I feel a 
 living, present misery as I look on the wonder 
 fully carved figures on the threshold of each pen 
 itential cell. That old, black-brown wood pol 
 ished and almost petrified by the long pressure of 
 centuries how well the artist knew its fitness to 
 
 embody agony. No marble figure, no writhing 
 
 282
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 283 
 
 slave in bronze, no sculptured man in stone is 
 human to me; but these penitents not yet peni 
 tent are terribly symbolical of mental torment, 
 of soul conflicts, of the agony of ignorance and sin 
 that must have been endured here; and lived 
 through, conquered sometimes, for here and there 
 in the awful community is one whose face, whose 
 bearing is of a peacefulness, of a sudden freeing 
 from sin, a releasement of soul-burdens that takes 
 a weight too from the watcher s heart. 
 
 "But it falls again and deepens till I feel penned 
 in with the misery of mind that must have driven 
 the spiritual children of the seventeenth century 
 to the Church for refuge the Church which cre 
 ated, but allayed, it. 
 
 "Religions are made in the infancy of nations 
 and bear the mark of the spiritual child s crude 
 handwork. There is an old Portuguese synagogue 
 at the Hague where to-day the Jews worship 
 Indians still in emotional and esthetic capacity, 
 praying to a bigger injun. 
 
 "Yet the imagery of the more enlightened 
 churches Washed in the blood of the Lamb 
 . . . There is a fountain rilled with blood* 
 . . . Realize it, picture it! Isn t it the meta 
 phor of barbarism, of materiality ? 
 
 "It is disgust that one feels for the wielder of 
 such weapons, but how one aches for the poor,
 
 284 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 simple, credulous sinners who trembled at the 
 skull-and-cross-bones religion that terrified them 
 into amenability. Imagine how near to God 
 how almost God himself a Bishop in his robes of 
 state seated on his exquisitely carved and spired 
 throne a cathedral within a cathedral imagine 
 what this lord of the Church must have typified to 
 the peasant looking up for a dazzled moment from 
 his beads as he knelt in the obscure distance on the 
 marble floor. 
 
 "The man who has had a creedless childhood 
 will always experience a certain lack in feeling 
 what these great cathedrals mean. I am a re 
 ligious barbarian looking upon the glories of Rome, 
 saying to myself, A great religion a wonderful 
 one one to admire, to adore but I ache, I ache 
 for the dead sorrows of centuries of Dark Ages 
 Catholics. 
 
 "Look from the mailed marble figures of the 
 mighty Prankish Archbishops on their tombs of 
 stone and bronze and iron these greate.st repre 
 sentatives of the Church when Catholicism was 
 at its culminating point look from these men of 
 action, these warriors hardly disguised in priests 
 robes to the tortured, stripped, humbled body on 
 the Cross. And realize how far from its source an 
 organized religion may be deflected.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 285 
 
 "In this strange pilgrimage of mine an un 
 believer bound unbelievingly for a Mecca whose 
 sanctity he denies something in the Church 
 beckons yet forever eludes me. I haunt these old 
 cathedrals trying to tear from them the mystic 
 attraction they have for me. I have a sense of 
 physical depression in looking at the horrible sub 
 ject which this religion gave to art the material 
 ism of the religious conception that made artists 
 and the world for thousands of years see beauty 
 where there is none. The crucifixion is unbeauti- 
 ful. The Christ was not an Adonis. No man 
 whose mind is free can look with religiosity upon 
 this naked figure. He feels the human, masculine 
 shame the man Christ would feel could he see 
 these churches. I would not have my body bared 
 to the eyes of materialistic idol worshippers for all 
 the glory that is his. And who would not rather 
 not be Christ than the pretext for Saint Bartholo 
 mew s, whose tocsin rang out across the street 
 from where I am ? 
 
 "Yet I envy envy this man the victory that is 
 his. What a tremendous thing to make the sym 
 bol of shame (imagine a gallows instead of a cru 
 cifix and the strange inversion of ideas that could 
 associate holiness with the black cap, the rope, 
 handcuffs and the ball and chain!) what a very 
 miracle to make this a thing that women pray to,
 
 286 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 that babies take reverently in their tiny, praying 
 fingers, that old men look upon exalted when they 
 come to die and have but one last sight of the dear 
 familiar world they re leaving and give it to this 
 symbol of the malefactor s death." 
 
 " How strange it is that I who am not a Christian 
 cannot look without suffering on the Passion, upon 
 which millions of the devout gaze unmoved, with 
 placid, accustomed eyes and steady, serene lips 
 and unshaken equanimity. 
 
 "A sympathetic shock seizes one who looks 
 with the eye of the imagination the fearful pain in 
 one s side where the spear struck his; the numb, 
 dead agony in hands and feet; the tearing at one s 
 vitals; the maddening torture to one s brain! And 
 yet to me they are only morgue tableaux pictures 
 of fleshly corruption and decay; an agony with 
 nothing inherently lofty or soulful or religious 
 about it. I could laugh at the poor old grand- 
 fatherly god who holds in his arms a mass of 
 putrid flesh; kings cured by the very touch, but 
 this helpless, old bearded Jehovah is impotent. 
 
 "I weary of the oft-repeated butchery; it 
 sickens me. Not once but a thousand times is 
 Christ crucified; the churches over the continent 
 are a shambles that the materialistic mind may 
 revel in.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 287 
 
 "But the most terrible crucifix in the world 
 hangs in the oldest church at Cologne. It is a 
 bough of a tree grown Y-shaped and depending 
 from it hangs that triangular image of corrupted 
 and tortured flesh still in the shape of man, the 
 head fallen on the hollow shoulder, the meagre 
 body blood-drained and with the poor ribs showing 
 through. Horrible! 
 
 "The Church to-day is on a chronological level 
 with the style of art she fostered, which best ex 
 presses her. The spouting trunk of a beheaded 
 martyr, the tongue of another held by the hang 
 man s iron pincers and fed to a dog, the realistic 
 slaughter of innocents it is all materialism, gross, 
 crude, disgusting, and with a still more signifi 
 cant ignoring of the immaterial attributes of 
 super-humanity. 
 
 "And yet, one day, I heard a Capuchin monk 
 play the Ave Maria on the great organ at Lucerne 
 and it left me trembling. Oh, this wonderful 
 Church that has something in it for the very ones 
 who revile it! 
 
 "We myself and men whom I am like, fanatics, 
 philosophers, dreamers, cranks yes, we are all 
 of these; some of us more of one sort than we d 
 care to admit but we are as we are with no merit 
 nor blame to us for being so. For though I
 
 288 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 preach the gospel I have nothing to glory of; for 
 necessity is laid upon me. 
 
 "Christ himself the unread, unlearned, humble 
 Jewish socialist, or perhaps only the embodied 
 thought to still humbler communists whose bodies 
 lie unknown, unrecognized in a still lower stratum 
 of the coral island of man s ethical growth who 
 what is Christ ? 
 
 "I am one of the obscure Christs. (Were he God 
 if indeed He could make so impotent a confes 
 sion, so wasteful a delegation of force this 
 would not be irreverence.) And myself and 
 men like me are the insects of the spiritual 
 world whose ideals after death go to build up 
 the land of beliefs upon which higher organisms 
 may live. 
 
 "And that we are Christs is not indicative of 
 virtue or divinity. One can no more be other than 
 he is, nor feel otherwise than he must than the 
 humblest wheel in an engine can refuse to turn at 
 the bidding of the steam. We are what we are 
 and would more surely and terribly crucify our 
 natures by denying them than by submitting to 
 misapprehension or contempt. 
 
 "Christs! However false the religion that may 
 spring from our teachings however false the 
 teachings themselves may prove to be. For the
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 289 
 
 everlasting truth of unselfish intent and testimony 
 was in us and what we tried to teach. 
 
 " But what truth ? What teaching ? What end ? 
 "God knows. All man can guess is altruism. 
 
 "This is the third time that I have seen the 
 panorama Golgotha, a passion play in two tab 
 leaux. On one side in the light of noon-day is the 
 march up Calvary; on the other in the dusk of 
 evening, the crucifixion. The first a tragedy of 
 action; the second, the peace that follows it. I 
 see it as I write as plainly as I did in the hours I 
 spent looking at it the three Roman heralds 
 heading the procession; the High Priests, massive, 
 strong, arrogant; the Virgin really motherly and 
 human this time; the Magdalen a note of beauty; 
 the clear, light sky; the Roman villas; the temple; 
 the crowds finely draped old oriental figures; 
 the brooding, barren heat of the town the low- 
 set, straight lines of the houses, the roofs with their 
 rugs and amphorae; the contagion of excitement 
 and mystery in the air; the walls beyond that 
 shut in a people killing its hope. 
 
 "It is not a painting; it is a vision of life, pal 
 pitating; life with its mystery, its cruelty. And 
 it leads the eye on as resistlessly as though it held 
 its place in that multitude, following up over the
 
 290 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 low hills, till it turns to the west; to that hush of 
 darkness and death of motion on the other side, so 
 far, far off in the dusk that one s vision can reach 
 the heart of the tragedy only by distinguishing 
 the Magdalen huddled at the foot, where in an 
 appalling stillness and shadow one takes in finally 
 the majesty, the accusing tenderness and unen 
 durable power of symbolism in these tall crosses 
 a threat and a promise silhouetted against the 
 dark sky . . . And then the fleeing groups 
 below, like gusts of humanity driven before the 
 wind. 
 
 "Mine must be a crude, emotional nature for 
 this quasi-mechanical work has made the Christ- 
 legend more real to me than all the art of the 
 continent. 
 
 "I see now and I feel. Perhaps I shall even 
 believe. If I had power to make clear to you the 
 impression this has made upon me, you would 
 understand why I fancy that this may be my 
 farewell to the world."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 TESSIE INCELL sat with these sheets of paper 
 in her hand. She had read and re-read 
 all afternoon. It was obvious that this monody 
 had not been written for her eye; it was evident 
 that not till the last had Overman connected 
 her in his mind with this record of his inner 
 most thought. The handwriting of the address 
 was unfamiliar, but the package had been mailed 
 from St. Moritz, where the hermitage clings, as with 
 talons, to the sheer side of the mountain of rock. 
 
 She touched the sheets as though they had be 
 longed to someone who was dead, as she sat with 
 the scattered pages lying in her lap, looking out 
 upon a world that she did not see. Two fine lines 
 of pain were drawn between her brows and her 
 lips drooped in bitter curves. 
 
 When a knock came at the door she gathered 
 the papers languidly and was standing with her 
 back to the door when Dean Morgan entered. 
 
 "Surprised to see me?" he said. "Yes, I can 
 see you are. But I can t work and say you re 
 not sorry to see me, Jessie." 
 
 "No I m glad!" She put out a hand to wel 
 come him. "Your voice is full of strength and 
 courage and and cordiality, Dean. And I 
 
 have been listening to ghosts." 
 
 291
 
 292 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 She shivered as though from physical cold. 
 His eyes dwelt scrutinizingly upon her as he led 
 her to a seat in the window and sat down beside 
 her. 
 
 "For the cordiality that s a new name for it. 
 But I m glad about the strength and the courage 
 you make me need all I ve got. For I ve come 
 to put a formal question dear little girl and 
 to get my answer for good and all. Wait listen. 
 I want to make a plea if the Court please the 
 plea for an average life for an average man and 
 woman. You are you are an average woman, 
 thank God, Jessie not a whit too good for 
 human nature s daily wear and tear. I m average 
 minus; you re average plus. But the minus man 
 that I am loves the plus woman that you are with 
 his whole heart and soul and body; and has these 
 many, many years when you wouldn t give him a 
 chance. Come will you listen with an open 
 mind ? Will you consider what I have to say 
 on this very average topic dearest?" 
 
 He put the question with his old facetious accent, 
 but he took her cold hands in his and held them 
 with an earnest, hearty strength, 
 
 "I ll listen convince me," she murmured. 
 
 He laughed triumphant and lifted her hands to 
 his lips before he rose and stood before her. 
 
 "In the first place, may it please your Honor,"
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 293 
 
 he began, "I ask for the expunging of all records 
 that put me to the cruel and unusual test of 
 being compared with impossible ideals. I am 
 just a man not a bit better than other men, and 
 not so sure, besides, that other men are very bad. 
 I have strictly human standards. I have strictly 
 human hopes. My love oh, my love for you 
 is all human Jessie, darling!" 
 
 He looked down upon her curled up against the 
 pillows. She looked very small and her eyes, as 
 they met his and fell, had in them something 
 appealing, 
 
 " I have none of the arrogance of the reformer. 
 And you you, Jessie Incell, with the steadiest 
 head that ever graced a purely feminine pair of 
 shoulders, the merriest girl I know, the humanest 
 woman, the truest friend to a fellow how did 
 this spell for the unusual come over you! 
 
 "Come to me, little girl. Be my wife, my dar 
 ling, my dear little chum. Let us live happily and 
 naturally together we deserve happiness; we 
 two have worked for it. It is not our fault that 
 others haven t. We may be sorry for them we 
 can t help being, out of the fullness of our own 
 happiness but we need not be miserable with 
 them. That is silly and wasteful and not good 
 political economy, besides being against the form 
 of statues so made and . , . Oh, Jessie, Jessie,
 
 294 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 I shall be so happy if you say yes! I ll make you 
 forget he ever lived he really didn t; he only 
 dreamed, and you dreamed of a dream. I can 
 I know I can. I ll bring you in out of the shadow 
 of the isms into the simple sunshine of just ordi 
 nary life. Just ordinary joys we ll have, you and 
 I, just ordinary sorrows, and I ll love you and 
 take care of you and shield you from these last with 
 all that s man in me. I ll not let you work and 
 I ll not let you worry. You shall play and laugh 
 and enjoy the good of life that s coming to you. 
 We ll travel together and see the world what s 
 beautiful and wholesome and tempting in it. 
 I ll rise on stepping stones of my lazy self to 
 such average achievements as will make you proud 
 of me in just an ordinary, wifely way. We ll 
 live like thousands of other men and women. 
 We ll strive for what they do. We ll beat them 
 of course good-naturedly for how can we help 
 it, when you and I work together ? You with your 
 balance, your experience, your pluck and sweet 
 ness and merry winsomeness and I with with 
 you!" He laughed down at her and an answering 
 smile was in her eyes. 
 
 "That arrogant reformer! It was only the best 
 in the world that he wanted only a woman 
 with a man s tolerance and a manly brain its 
 quality is truly feminine, thank God! and the
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 295 
 
 sweetest, most spirited, jolliest little face in the 
 world! . . . Yes, I do I do resent him. If 
 he d gone about it to earn you, I should have 
 respected him though I d have felt like putting 
 a knife in him all right. If he d stripped for the 
 fight and bent his every energy to making a name 
 for himself and a place for you! Why, a girl like 
 you, Jessie Incell, is a prize that the big fellows 
 might enter for. . . . I m conscious, in an aver 
 age way, of my unworthiness myself. I ought to be a 
 millionaire with a stakein the world a power among 
 men to dare to aspire to you, but but it s his 
 very impudence that nerved me that wastrel! 
 
 "Oh, take me, Jessie, and give me a chance to 
 show what an average man can do for the woman 
 he loves. Shall I be a millionaire and all the rest 
 of it ? Shall I go in for politics or shall I just oust 
 old Larkin and be managing editor ? I ll do it 
 any of it, all of it. Only don t keep me waiting 
 any longer I can t wait. That lean, lank Adonis 
 has taken up too much of our time, too much of 
 our life. I want you while I m young, while all 
 the world is young with us two. I want to grow 
 gently middle-aged and later, if it s unavoidable, I 
 want to grow old with you beside me, close to me, 
 your heart open to me, my heart full of you, 
 my " 
 
 "You good fellow."
 
 296 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 Her simple words with their accent of gentle 
 grateful sincerity came like the flower of promise 
 to him, springing full-blown from the soil his 
 words had seeded. 
 
 Good ? Jessie!" 
 
 He dropped on the window seat beside her 
 taking her hands and putting an arm about her 
 whose warm strength caught and held her. 
 
 "I m not merely good, my lady," he laughed, 
 "I m great. I m big with happiness. Come, be 
 generous," he whispered seeking her lips. "The 
 Lord knows I love a cheerful giver and she gives 
 twice who gives quickly but I won t limit 
 you on that account. You can give both ways 
 and " 
 
 But she withdrew from his embrace, her face 
 rosy as though he had had his way. 
 
 "No please, not now. You ll go now, won t 
 you, like a good fellow ? A a girl doesn t do 
 this sort of thing lightly. No not to-night, 
 Dean. Isn t a yes enough for to-night ? Come 
 to-morrow in the morning and I ll I 11 be more 
 used to it. You deserve a loving wife. I pro 
 mise to be loving. But not now, you greedy, 
 insistent monster. Go now now. Good-night. 
 In the morning yes, early. Good-night. . . . 
 Good-night. " 
 
 She pushed him gently toward the door, he
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 297 
 
 stooping in a last merry protest to kiss the hands 
 that sent him forth. And when the door closed 
 behind him she turned the key swiftly and fell upon 
 the couch, her head buried in the pillows, the tears 
 streaming down her cheeks. 
 
 But she sat up after a time turning her wet, in 
 dignant eyes upward as upon one whose memory 
 reproached her. Her trembling lips set them 
 selves in a firm curve and she held her little head 
 haughtily. She went into her bed-room and 
 bathed her face and loosed her pretty brown hair, 
 its soft waves framing cheeks that were flushed 
 and eyes and lids still betraying emotion. She 
 dressed for the night, slipping over her gown a 
 light kimono, the femininity of whose shapeless 
 folds fell about her, an incongruously gentle set 
 ting for limbs that paced resolutely up and down 
 till she had quieted and conquered that unlooked- 
 for outburst of feeling. 
 
 She sat at last by the grate fire, looking into its 
 flames and assuring herself in a practical tone 
 (which she could hear although no word passed her 
 lips) that she had done a wise thing; that she was 
 glad of it; that she had always been fond of Dean 
 Morgan who was a Man, a real, flesh-and- 
 blood man, a man of courage and strength and 
 capacity. A dear fellow, too, an old, tried friend 
 for whose love she was very, very grateful; whose
 
 298 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 wife would be a contented, happy woman an 
 enviable woman one who 
 
 Despite herself she lost articulate control of her 
 thoughts. When she had sat down, she had 
 meant to be very calm, quite placidly happy. She 
 had said to herself that after all, such a decision as 
 hers in such a case did not call for extremes of 
 passion. She was not a romantic young girl. 
 She was a woman who had seen mudi of the world 
 and knew sincerity when it challenged her. Mor 
 gan loved her; she would love him, too. She 
 would. She would! In an average way she 
 smiled at the word, and her smile was tender 
 in the gentle, placid way women do love, taking 
 affection for granted and meeting it, returning it 
 amiably this she could do, too. It was absurd, 
 this perpetual plumbing of depths that should 
 remain unstirred, she said plaintively. In time 
 by simply ignoring what lay below in time 
 surely in time . . . 
 
 She looked yearningly into the fire. 
 
 "It ought to be peopled for me," she whispered 
 bending over it, "with pictures of all that is to 
 come. The night a woman promises what I have, 
 she should see herself and and her husband who 
 will be together there but I can t! I can t! 
 I don t see us two together there. I can t even 
 fancy Oh, God, that other-night!"
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 299 
 
 She hid her face in her hands. 
 
 From the next room came Hilma s passionless 
 voice, singing her boy to sleep with the tragic, old 
 Norwegian lullaby. 
 
 Sleep, babe, 
 
 Thy tiny moments are sped in pain, 
 
 Wake not again, 
 
 Life is hard sleep. 
 
 Sleep, child, 
 
 Already thine hours are sore with grief, 
 
 Sleep brings relief, 
 
 Life is hard sleep. 
 
 Sleep, maid, 
 
 Thy dreamful days are but bitter sweet, 
 
 Ere noon-day s heat. 
 
 Life is hard sleep. 
 
 Sleep wife, 
 
 Ere thou wak st to his unfaith, 
 
 Thy love a wraith. 
 
 Life is hard sleep. 
 
 Sleep, mother, 
 
 Before thy child has gone from thee, 
 
 Forget thy misery. 
 
 Life is hard sleep. 
 
 Sleep, aged one, 
 
 Thou knowest this wretched world of men, 
 
 Art weary then ? 
 
 Life is hard sleep. 
 
 And beginning more softly over again it took 
 long to get the child to sleep that night, Hilma 
 sang again "Sleep, babe- 
 There came a sharp peremptory ring at the 
 telephone. A quick flush flooded Jessie s face.
 
 300 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 It was Dean Morgan s call, she was as sure as 
 though she had heard his own positive voice. 
 
 The bell rang again before she answered it. 
 Then she rose and went to her desk with some 
 thing of that same decisive quality in her step. 
 
 "It s only myself," came Morgan s voice low 
 over the phone with its subtle suggestion of all he 
 might not say. "Just good-night once more. I 
 know you can t be asleep because well, I know. 
 Say good-night let me hear your voice." 
 
 "It s good-bye, Dean," she sobbed, "it s not 
 good-night it s good-bye. It s impossible. For 
 give me. Oh, do, do forgive me! No, no not to 
 morrow never, dear old fellow. No, nothing 
 has happened only something had happened 
 long ago, Oh, pity me No good-bye!"
 
 \ *\ 
 
 V \ W 
 i*T\ \\ 
 
 
 1 Oh, pity me No good-bye !
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 TT 7"OMEN do not often occupy editorial posi 
 tions on newspapers. They marry, die 
 or find a journalistic grave in a woman s page. 
 But Miss Incell had had and benefited by a jour 
 nalistic training that was rarely thorough, and 
 when she came at last to a desk position she had 
 so accustomed newspapermen to regard her as a 
 capable one of their number that the appoint 
 ment was not even jealously considered in the 
 light of an innovation. Jessie was merely an 
 honorable exception; a precedent which other 
 women might adduce but which they were not 
 likely to cause to be repeated. 
 
 Her new position gave her a certain standing 
 in the artistic and literary community which, added 
 to that friendly gregariousness that had always 
 marked her relationship with her fellow reporters, 
 made her a unique figure. She found herself an 
 unpretentious patroness of young women reporters, 
 who looked up to her as a feminine flag floating 
 high on the outposts of endeavor. While to the 
 lads who began their careers under her, falling 
 desperately in love with her during their first week 
 in the office, she used to say, "I ll consider all that 
 you say, my dear boy, but remember we measure 
 the growth and possibilities of green reporters in 
 
 301
 
 302 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 this office by the length of time it takes them not 
 to fall in love with the city editor but out of it." 
 
 It became the fashion for foreigners of distinc 
 tion, influenced to do unusual things in a strange 
 environment, to be presented at Miss IncelPs 
 thoroughly Bohemian little evenings and to write 
 back to Europe their impressions of this absurdly 
 natural, simple, good-natured, boyish Madame de 
 Sevigne, whom men treated as a good fellow and 
 whom she met on precisely the same footing; and 
 in whose salon an informal gathering hardly 
 recognizable under so pretentious a label men 
 and women, artists, actors, professional men, 
 musicians and journalists met on a footing 
 that was like a school s playground, so unham 
 pered was its equality, so fearless and simple and 
 straightforward its atmosphere, and so unaffecting 
 of either masculine airs or feminine graces was 
 its hostess. 
 
 Jessie Incell was a puzzle to strangers for she 
 held a social position that only married women 
 aspired to in their countries, and she treated the 
 world in her personal intercourse with it as a sex 
 less place in which men and women could have no 
 meeting point that was not platonic. The freedom 
 of speech she permitted, her lack of prejudice, 
 except an intolerant scorn of affectation and a 
 sarcastic impatience of sentimental duets in which
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 33 
 
 some mistaken visitor might choose her for a par 
 ticipant, and a charitable indisposition to judge 
 others these things were hardly comprehensible 
 to strangers. Yet they accepted them because of 
 the mental attitude of those familiar with her 
 character and her situation; and concluded that 
 the whole was a phenomenon of the West, peculiar 
 to the curious little city on the Pacific and due 
 to its literary and artistic isolation, as well as its 
 comparatively small population, which was yet 
 too large, too cosmopolitan and too Western to be 
 wholly provincial. 
 
 In the judgment of those who had known her 
 long Jessie Incell had developed a poise, a charity, 
 a largeness that was clearly traceable to the dream 
 she had dreamed and put away without bitterness. 
 
 She had a new aureole now in her landlady s 
 eyes. Old Mrs. Connor invariably alluded to her 
 as "The Editor," refusing to believe that any 
 other lesser mortal in the journalistic world might 
 wear a title so lofty as this. It was with an eye 
 to Miss Incell s editorial capacity that Mrs. Connor 
 revised her menu and sought to dignify her simple 
 manner of living to correspond with her elevated 
 office. When she found her excellent intentions 
 frustrated she attributed her defeat to Hilma, 
 upon whom she looked as something unhuman, 
 a sort of travesty, in her nurse s cap and apron,
 
 304 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 on a sister of charity which any good Catholic 
 must resent. But she adored Hilma s baby and 
 for the sake of that merry-tongued boy, ceaselessly 
 climbing the stairs to her own rooms and into 
 her sonless, man-worshiping heart, she lived on 
 terms of neutrality with the placid Swedish woman 
 who never so much as suspected Mrs. Connor s 
 sentiments. 
 
 Morgan, Jessie rarely saw. He was managing 
 editor of another paper, one whose semi- 
 aristocratic policy made his work much more con 
 genial than it had been. He never sought Miss 
 Incell in her home. A bitter resentment filled 
 him. He felt himself put aside unjustly for a 
 shadow. His pride, his love was wounded. A 
 self-sufficient man, lightly contemptuous of femi 
 ninity, he had looked upon but one woman with 
 reverential eyes. He remained unreconciled, un 
 forgiving. He thought of Jessie as one who held 
 back unfairly something that belonged of right to 
 him; something that he might honestly have won, 
 fully and fairly, had it not been for a fantasy 
 that possessed her to deny him his opportunity. 
 There was much that was masterful in the man, 
 developing strongly as he grew older, that 
 did not brook defeat; that regarded as insult 
 ing the denial of the thing he has asked for 
 and had so nearly possessed; the precious thing
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 305 
 
 he had so surely counted upon once as within his 
 very grasp. 
 
 Doctor Baumfelder was the only one who took 
 active and whimsical exception to Miss Incell s 
 state. 
 
 "I do not congratulate you I deplore your 
 promotion," he said in what Miss Incell had long 
 ago denominated his "grandfatherly-Lothario" 
 manner. He had brought Hilma home in his 
 brougham from the hospital for a rest and, with 
 Jessie beside him, was driving away from his 
 patients and out through the park to the ocean. 
 
 "For the reason?" she demanded lightly. 
 
 " For the reason that it puts you in a position to 
 consider your standing as a journalist established, 
 and on a higher, more permanent basis. Which 
 consequently makes you independent of other 
 ways of providing for the future." 
 
 "What other ways, Doctor?" 
 
 "The old-established one of working your 
 husband. In spite of all women like you have 
 done and dreamed it is still the best way for women. 
 And being best, it is the only way." 
 
 "Grandfather Baumfelder!" 
 
 " My dear little friend, " he returned attentively. 
 
 "After all the care and patience which we 
 Bohemians have spent upon your education!" 
 she exclaimed.
 
 306 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "Miss Jessie, you were a woman before you 
 became a Bohemian. And for woman what 
 ever she pretend to be, whatever she delude her 
 self into thinking she is, there is but one blessed 
 fate. And that fate even if it is not blessed, is 
 yet blest in that it is the one for which preemi 
 nently she is fitted. Wait now listen to me. I 
 don t often preach. And it is more than a theory 
 I wish to develop; it is the one liberty I permit 
 myself with you an interfering, impertinent, 
 heartfelt desire that you should be happy. I 
 should have tried to make you so myself," he 
 added with a touch of the old gallantry that was 
 not yet out of place though Baumfelder s temples 
 were graying, "if you hadn t so distinctly given 
 me to understand from the very beginning on 
 what terms we two could be friends." 
 
 "It s a fib you know it is," she fenced. 
 "You showed by your manner how delighted you 
 were to know one woman whom you were not 
 compelled by your reputation and her expecta 
 tions to make love to." 
 
 He laughed and pulling in the horses let them 
 walk slowly through the surf; they had reached 
 the beach. 
 
 "You shall not change the subject," he said 
 slowly. "Let me be grandfather and preach to 
 you this once. I truly and seriously regret when-
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 307 
 
 ever I see a woman whose vocation makes her 
 financially independent. For I know that then 
 she will lack one of the strongest incentives which 
 Nature has invented and civilization perfected, to 
 push her into a fate that is best for her. That 
 fillip which a man s passions are to him, woman s 
 dependence is to her and Nature provided both 
 with a wise idea of what is best. A happy mar 
 riage, Miss Jessie, is the best thing in the world 
 for a woman; a not so happy one is the next best. 
 And happy the woman who does not go disdain 
 fully through the forest to take up at last with a 
 crooked stick. Yet even she is happier, being a 
 woman, than the one who will accept no stick at 
 all. My dear friend, your success has deprived 
 you of the impulse toward matrimony that was 
 your birthright. Now forgive me won t you 
 let philosophy take its place temporarily ?" 
 
 "One doesn t marry for philosophy s sake, 
 Doctor," she said softly. 
 
 "One should if there is no other sake to 
 tempt one." 
 
 "Nonsense, Doctor! A woman who s nearer 
 thirty than twenty knows the advantages and the 
 disadvantages of celibacy." 
 
 "But a woman of forty knows better. Forty 
 the tragic age when woman regrets, and mother 
 hood, that seemed as beautifully, joyously in-
 
 3 o8 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 evitable as the passage of time, shuts the door of 
 hope in her wistful face and she sees herself sud 
 denly; it all seems to happen like a strong, swift 
 tragedy cut out of the stream of human life; 
 the waters of her individuality wasted in a desert, 
 while the full, riotous human stream flows past her. 
 Is such a woman as you are to be content with so 
 limited, so cramped, so dwarfed a part of human ex 
 perience, of what is humanity s only tangible taste 
 of immortality living in one s children ? My 
 dear little Miss Jessie, why will you not give Dean 
 Morgan what he has a right to demand from you ? 
 Why will you not complete his life and let him 
 fill yours full ? Is the alternative you are facing 
 worthier, wiser, nobler than what a woman like 
 you could make of a man like him ? Tell me, are 
 you going to let him throw himself away upon a 
 Mrs. Eveson ?" 
 
 "Is it to be Mrs. Eveson?" she asked slowly. 
 "I didn t know." 
 
 "Nor care?" 
 
 "Yes, I care. I m fond of him I ve always 
 liked him, but is the test of a woman s friendship 
 for a man her readiness to step in and rescue him 
 from the very jaws of matrimony by marrying him 
 herself? Must I marry every man I like," she 
 demanded merrily, "who shows symptoms of be 
 ing about to contract an unfortunate marriage ?
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 309 
 
 According to that theory, I might have married 
 you unnecessarily, wastefully, officiously have 
 become your wife to save you from the very fate 
 that threatens Dean Morgan; a fate which, it turns 
 out, you were perfectly well able to avoid for 
 yourself." 
 
 "It never threatened. You re clear-sighted 
 enough to know that. You know me pretty well. 
 In fact, at times I resent your knowing me as well 
 as you do. No man likes a woman to know him 
 too well particularly when he wants to make a 
 partisan of that woman. . . . Which brings me 
 to the second chapter. You won t talk to me of 
 yourself. Very well. But you will think of what 
 I have said; it is scientific truth all that I have 
 preached to you, with a very, sincerely affectionate 
 regard behind it all. And now, will you talk 
 to me of myself and Hilma ?" 
 
 Miss Incell looked up quickly into her com 
 panion s face. The horses had turned back and 
 were skimming over the wide, red roads which 
 make this park by the ocean one of the freest and 
 most natural in the world. 
 
 " Yes, " she said decidedly, " I ll be glad to. Just 
 what are your intentions, Doctor Baumfelder ? " 
 
 He laughed. "What are yours ?" he returned. 
 "I said I wanted to make a partisan of you. Are 
 you going to help me here ?"
 
 3IO ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 "Hilma has promised at last to come to the 
 office to take the nurse s place there. I want her 
 next to me. I want her to get accustomed to 
 living with me professionally so that when I shall 
 ask her after a time to come to me, she will put the 
 memory of that mad-headed little Irishman for 
 ever behind her and accompany my life with the 
 music of her presence." 
 
 " She never will. Hilma s faithful. " 
 
 "Oh yes, she will." Baumfelder s bearded 
 chin set firmly. "She will be my wife for I never 
 in all my life set my heart on a thing that I did not 
 ultimately get. When a man like me wooes a 
 woman, Miss Jessie, it is not with any intention of 
 accepting defeat. Half I glory in your refusal of 
 Morgan, for the contempt I have for him in abid 
 ing by a woman s adverse decision. Do you 
 suppose a message over the phone he has told 
 me, of course would have settled such a matter 
 between myself and the woman I want ?" 
 
 "I fail to see, Don Juan Baumfelder, what 
 other course would be open to you," she said 
 pertly. 
 
 "A dozen others. Any but that one. And I 
 would I would, I swear to you, tear the woman 
 I want such a woman as Hilma out of the 
 very heart of conventional life in the most shame-
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 311 
 
 lessly unconventional manner, if I could get her in 
 no other way. I would have her. I will have her. 
 But that part you can leave to me. What I 
 
 "I won t. I shall not permit an avowed cor 
 sair, a late-middle-aged corsair, stout and a bon- 
 vivant, to get his opportunity. Hilma shan t 
 work in your office." 
 
 "Ah yes, she shall. She has promised already. 
 I defy you to square Hilma s conscience with a 
 broken promise. You ll as soon find a false note 
 in a Schubert song. . . . Uber alien Gipfeln 
 ist Ruh " he sang in a clear, musical bass. "My 
 office will be pervaded by the melody that she 
 walks in and is, as by the perfume a vulgar woman 
 would disseminate, until at last we shall sing to 
 gether, BaUe ruhest du auch." 
 
 Miss Incell smiled unimpressed. 
 
 "A romantic, sentimental surgeon-pirate with 
 a strictly common-sense business head for fees, 
 music-mad and perversely bound to set his heart 
 upon one of the few women who would not be de 
 lighted to marry him. Come, Doctor, be reason 
 able. A wealthy pirate like yourself, with your 
 professional reputation and your social gifts 
 why make such a mesalliance ? A Swedish widow, 
 a trained nurse supporting her child and only 
 slowly mastering uninverted English. Let Hilma 
 alone, Doctor, do!"
 
 3 i2 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "I can t. I won t. I coveted her the moment 
 I saw her. I want her differently now I m older." 
 
 "You can t have her. You don t know the 
 quiet tenacity of passion love means and means 
 but once in such elemental women s natures." 
 
 "I do. That is why I want that tenacity of 
 passion to clothe my life as a garment. I ll not 
 believe such a fellow as Donaghey could have 
 evoked it. 
 
 "You d not make her happy," she pleaded. 
 
 "I would. Why not?" 
 
 "You know why." 
 
 A short silence fell upon them. They had en 
 tered the long "pan-handle" and the touch of 
 Baumfelder s whip just then made the horses 
 leap forward. 
 
 "What refuge would a simple heart like hers 
 have against unfaith in her husband ?" Jessie 
 said hurriedly. "She has none of the stock-in- 
 trade arguments, part-physiological, part-wordly, 
 part mock-philosophy with which women of the 
 world salve their hurts in public. She is simple 
 as tragedy, poor Hilma. Would you try the 
 old grotesque comfort on such a nature His 
 heart was true to Poll ?" 
 
 "You assume 
 
 "Let us not speak of it you see how impossi 
 ble it is for us to discuss. But Hilma is, in a sense,
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 313 
 
 the ward of my worldly wisdom. It is not very 
 great, but such as it is 
 
 "Listen, I am not admitting your assumption. 
 I tell you I love her. But granting all that you 
 imply, still still she must marry me because I 
 will have her and because it is best for her. Yes, 
 it is. In exactly the same sense that you would be 
 a greater and happier woman as Morgan s wife, 
 she will be as mine. You women that hitch your 
 wagons to a star, that fill your hearts with empty 
 ideals you are not noble but limited. Phari 
 saically selfish, you go through the world patting 
 your vanity on the back and calling your cold self- 
 repression virtue. Bah, you are mortal and 
 human, if you will only be yourselves. You may 
 worship a wraith, but I will prevent Hilma s doing 
 it. You two! Why you live like nuns adoring a 
 religion that is dead!" 
 
 They were making their way slowly through the 
 town. A feel-ing of fatigue oppressed Jessie. 
 She had that consciousness of powerlessness with 
 which Baumfelder s determination and vitality 
 re-acted upon those who opposed him. 
 
 " ( Icb babe geliebet und gelebet, Baumfelder 
 chanted softly. "It is still the beginning and the 
 end and all that comes between. Don t stand in 
 the way no, you won t. You will not dare to 
 influence Hilma s life to such an extent. The
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 sense of responsibility would weigh upon you and 
 haunt you. Will you be neutral yes ? No 
 human being has a right to be more. No finite 
 mind can truthfully decide where happiness for 
 another lies." 
 
 "Except in such negative instances as are in 
 volved in preaching the gospel of matrimony at all 
 hazards and for all comers." 
 
 He laughed. "That, as you say, is gospel. If 
 I could I would marry you this minute to Morgan, 
 if for nothing else but to set before Hilma the con 
 tagion of your example. You will be neutral?" 
 
 "One must do one s duty, Doctor." 
 
 "Damn duty you know I never swear. But 
 damn duty for yourself and shun virtue for others. 
 Be good and let us be happy. And have faith in 
 my love for her my reverence for her purity. Oh, 
 was ever woman in such humor wooed to let a man 
 woo his wife! A malediction upon you new women 
 who handle a question with the freedom of men 
 and the prejudices of girls!" 
 
 "Are you going to keep me waiting here at my 
 own door while you abuse me?" she asked. 
 
 "No, Fm going to drive on past the house and 
 out to the Presidio so that I can reason with 
 you." 
 
 "Don t" she pleaded, "I m tired." 
 
 "Well come, all I ask is a little judicious neu-
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 315 
 
 trality. Shut your preposterously virtuous eyes 
 and give me that for old friendship s sake." 
 
 "My friendship for Hilma ?" 
 
 "Yes," he answered stoutly. 
 
 "You would tire the most enthusiastic fighter. 
 I I " 
 
 "You yield!" he cried leaping out of the car 
 riage and lifting her with a strong swing to the 
 ground. "Of course you do. That s because 
 you re a warm-hearted woman masquerading as 
 a nun. Neutrality forever! Yes, that s all. But 
 congratulate me, my dear little friend."
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 "DAUMFELDER was right --Jessie Incell 
 would think of all he had said. She did 
 think of it long and seriously the evening of 
 their drive. But not in the relation the Doctor 
 had recommended. That cheery, easy way of 
 looking at one s own affairs as though they were 
 lightly to be borne as another s, that pleasing, 
 amiable philosophy of contenting oneself with the 
 next best thing, and of calmly ordering one s life 
 as though the thing one craved had never been 
 Jessie Incell had passed through this stage the 
 evening she had looked into the future and vainly 
 tried to see herself and Morgan journeying side by 
 side on their way through life. 
 
 But hers was not a mind to shirk consequences, 
 nor a cowardly heart that fed on illusions. She 
 was frank enough with herself to admit that all 
 her old friend had preached to her was possibly 
 true of others, might even come to be true of her 
 self strong as she felt herself now in her success, 
 her late and well-developed youth, her few, well- 
 beloved friends and the smiling band of acquain 
 tances that made her leisure light and swiftly- 
 passing. 
 
 Yet she knew that despite it all, with the very 
 vision confronting her of a desolate middle-aged
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 317 
 
 self that, summoned to existence by the Doctor s 
 words, seemed loth to quit the imaginative life 
 she had found and pertinaciously thrust her dry, 
 thin, limited little personality in her predecessor s 
 path despite it all, Jessie Incell could only accept 
 the threat the future held; she could not evade it. 
 
 She was a busy, broad-minded woman living 
 a free, cleanly and interesting life. She was not a 
 dreamer and she was too practical to spend her 
 days in useless regret. But she saw one man 
 haloed by the depth and fulness of her love for him; 
 and having known the joy of giving all that she 
 had she could not comprehend how one could 
 learn to give less. 
 
 There were times when she would have left her 
 work and all her sophisticated femininity behind 
 her; when she would have forfeited the esteem of 
 every other human being, and have followed him 
 another and quite as single-idead an Evangeline, 
 though her nature was neither simple nor primi 
 tive and circumstances had given her a life rarely 
 full of experience to the end of the world, con 
 tent if only she might find him at the last and 
 pillow his head upon her breast while he sighed 
 out her name at parting. 
 
 And there were times when all the pride, the 
 vanity of her nature, all her glorying sense of 
 achievement, of attainment over difficulties before
 
 3 i8 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 which other women had fallen vanquished, roused 
 in her a passion of resentment. Then she longed 
 to have him once again in her power that she 
 might staunch her own wounds in the pleasure 
 of inflicting others upon him. 
 
 And all of it her love, her pride, her suffering, 
 her despair gave a quickening growth to a side of 
 her nature which youthful success and lack of any 
 tender, close relation in life had almost atrophied. 
 
 When she went up alone for a short vacation to 
 Little Gap in the spring a tender, chastened 
 sort of pilgrimage disguised as a health measure 
 she looked back with a smile and a blush at the 
 girl who had once come up there "on a story." 
 
 "She was a crude, cruel girl," she said to 
 Grant MacMillan, who had buried his ci-devant 
 clerical character, as well as his later disrepute in 
 the long, lonely, quiet years he had lived on the 
 verge of the forest. " Her one good trait was her 
 lack of malice, real malice. She had a certain 
 sort of this quality, but it was a pseudo-malice 
 not the least liking in the world to see people 
 suffer, only only the spectator s role had been 
 hers so long in her short life that she looked upon 
 people as a species of flesh-and-blood marionettes 
 performing for the sole sake of a pair of curious, 
 unfeeling eyes and a smart, sarcastic tongue. She 
 had a sentimental consciousness of their reality, of
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 319 
 
 course, but it was the melodramatic, sensational 
 reality that was needed to make her story suffici 
 ently true to her readers. She fancied herself 
 very wise, very old, very experienced. As a 
 matter of fact, she was appallingly young, for she 
 had never felt. No one had ever told her how un 
 becoming pert cynicism is to youth. No doubt, if 
 anyone had taken the trouble, she would have had 
 some pert insincerity for an answer. . . . Not 
 that it was altogether insincere, though. She 
 was playing a part, you know, and she was true to 
 that part. Truly the beauty of gentleness and 
 patience and simple, cheery faith in one s fellows 
 was something that had not occurred to her. She 
 had been put in the position of critic of the faults 
 and follies of others. Her work, which had its 
 own fascination, for she was young, was to chroni 
 cle only the results of these faults and follies. I 
 must admit that something in her nature responded 
 pleasurably to the role that implied a superiority; 
 she was opinionated, she delivered snap judgments 
 upon all the problems of life, viewing them with 
 round, bird-like, eager eyes, which were not so 
 much unfeeling really as non-feeling. 
 
 "In short I have made it very long but I 
 see a difference now. And if I could walk up this 
 road she learned to know so well with that girl- 
 that poor, little, cock-sure girl who walked into
 
 320 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 people s holy of holies or most grisly skeletoned 
 closet with clicking heels and a cheerful uncon 
 sciousness of her own unhuman lack of both I 
 could explain it to her, if I haven t to you." 
 
 She experienced a grave sort of pleasure in Mac- 
 Millan s society. He had become a decent mem 
 ber of society whose worth was unquestioned in 
 this little mountain town. The simple, out of 
 door life he led, the knowledge he had that no one 
 knew either of his two widely-divergent past lives, 
 and the coming on of steadying years had re 
 deemed him. Jessie made him a sort of father 
 confessor in the days she spent up in the mountains, 
 yielding to the relief it was to say something of all 
 that filled her thoughts. 
 
 And it was sweet to his alienation from all that 
 the world means of the joy of battle for its prizes, 
 to watch the full current of her life from the far-off 
 banks of sympathy. His had been the education, 
 the ideals of the gentleman and the scholar. But 
 his fatal weakness had cut him out from among 
 his fellows and condemned him to a poverty of 
 mental existence that left him craving for asso 
 ciation with cultured minds. Yet he was still too 
 near the alternative to be ungrateful or unhappy, 
 and the sight of his resignation had in it something 
 that calmed and strengthened her. 
 
 Warte nur> she sang to herself in the
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 321 
 
 evening alone out in the forest, warte nur, 
 balde ruhest du aucb. 
 
 It was all she remembered of the poem the 
 Doctor loved to quote, and she chanted it over and 
 over to herself as she walked slowly up and down 
 the road in front of the cottage, till she came to 
 believe the message it held. And then suddenly, 
 all in a moment of intense, passionate feeling she 
 knew it was a lie that the world held for her no 
 such barren, untempted rest as this MacMillan 
 had found, for there before her at a turn in the road 
 stood Anthony Overman. 
 
 He caught her up in his arms as though the old 
 Arcadian days had come again. She was weak 
 with emotion, as she had been that day with suffer 
 ing when he had lifted her upon the old white 
 horse and brought her down from the hill along 
 this very road. And he carried her close pressed 
 to his breast across the little yard and up into the 
 the house. 
 
 "Oh Anthony Saint Anthony," she sobbed, 
 "save my pride. You pick me up and drop me 
 and find me in the road again and after 
 
 "There is no after, sweetheart, this is the end. 
 And pride pride is it?" he laughed joyously 
 depositing her in Hilma s low chair; "what were 
 the temptations of the poor old saint to all that I 
 have endured ! What in all "
 
 322 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 "What What made you come back?" she 
 murmured. 
 
 "You . . . You . . . You. I was weary 
 ing, soul-wearying, hungering, thirsting craving 
 a maid I knew. A maid the embodiec essence 
 of love and merriment and sweetness and all that s 
 brave and beautiful on earth. I wanted her her. 
 What were visions of women to that saint ab 
 stract flesh pictures to the feminine soul of me 
 that drew me home. Oh Jessie Jessie pride 
 is it ? I ve lost it all. The pride of all the spiritual 
 bastards of great men, the modesty of all th* 
 world of women could not have kept me longer 
 from you. " 
 
 He had changed. He was leaner even than 
 before and he looked forty, though his figure, as he 
 threw himself on his knees before her and put his 
 arms about her, had that same boyish lightness 
 and agility that had struck her the first time she 
 saw him. 
 
 She put both hands under his chin turning his 
 face up to hers. It was an older face, a quieter 
 one, a more satisfied one despite its lines, and his 
 eyes met hers frankly, contentedly for the moment 
 she sent hers deep into them searching the soul 
 behind it. 
 
 "What is it ?" he demanded. "Don t you like 
 it?"
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 323 
 
 "That s just it I always did like it. It 
 seemed so so like something that was meant 
 to be mine so like something that had never 
 been any other woman s. . . . Anthony, there s 
 so much for us to talk over." 
 
 "And so much time to talk all our life to 
 gether it is only one." 
 
 "But " 
 
 " MacMillan is likely to be back any minute, you 
 know. I saw him up in the village. I wonder if 
 that s he now!" He rose and hurried to the 
 window. "No, but he can t be much longer. 
 Aren t we semi-royal, sweet, to have our own 
 chaplain ?" 
 
 "Not " 
 
 "Oh yes, to-day this evening right away. 
 You daren t keep me waiting a moment longer- 
 after all these years." 
 
 "What would you do?" she asked a trembling 
 smile on her lips, "run away again ?" 
 
 "Yes, and carry you with me." 
 
 "Would they receive a pilgrimage a deux into 
 the monastery, do you think ?" 
 
 "About as far and for about as long as they re 
 ceived the pilgrimage of one, " he answered. " See 
 dear, what monasticism taught me Practically 
 to benefit humanity is the next step to loving and 
 pitying it; in fact, it is really the same step, for the
 
 324 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 one is incomplete, and so futile, without the other. 
 And the way to benefit mankind is not to suffer 
 for it but to work for it. The sane consequent 
 of desiring the uplifting of mankind is to put one 
 self in the position to effect it, if in ever so little. 
 To do this, and yet in the process of doing it, not 
 make oneself unworthy of the end for which it was 
 done this is what one learns from himself and the 
 monastery, Jessie. I grew nearer to you up there, 
 and down here the same miracle that kept your love 
 for me made you grow nearer to me. You re the 
 exquisite complement of my shortcomings, be 
 loved or I m the other side of your nature; the 
 later, fuller half of your life. Whichever it is we ll 
 live it together, this one life of ours. Oh, I knew, 
 I was always sure that at the end was your love for 
 me, sweetheart, but apart from love or perhaps 
 the core of it, was responsibility for you and justi 
 fication of myself in your eyes; those sane, prac 
 tical, wide-open eyes that looked uncomprehending 
 on Hilma and poor Will and me that day long ago, 
 and never realized that they, too, would grow 
 glamored by the ideal, and come to see a queer, 
 one-sided fellow like me through a haze that made 
 him whole and beloved!" 
 
 "Then all this time . . ." Her voice 
 trembled into silence. 
 
 "All this time I ve been working toward you.
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 325 
 
 Oh, you will find me practical and help me to 
 become more so. Let me tell you. Over in the 
 old world where misery is greatest and want most 
 clamoring and oppression greediest, there are 
 other renunciants real ones; cosmopolites to 
 whom nationality is no more a prison limiting 
 sympathies than a foreign language is a bar to 
 flexible tongues. There are men whose hearts are 
 as loving as mine to the common composite brother 
 of us all, but whose brains are big and fertile and 
 whose wits are keen in the cause of altruism as a 
 money king s who is egotistically petrified into self. 
 A fewmen such as these,banded together more irre 
 sistibly by the master-passion of their unselfish 
 lives than capitalistic pirates are whose booty is 
 better hunted in syndicates, I ve come across over 
 there in the different capitals. I went to them as 
 a disciple; they received me as a comrade, and it 
 is their strength that has knitted my weakness, my 
 limitations and my only half-profitable unworldli- 
 ness into the large, reasonable pattern they are 
 slowly weaving of the world s work, its tears and 
 its hopes. And then 
 
 "Work tears and hopes, * she commented 
 softly. "It s been just this and for so long. Will 
 it ever be more, Anthony?" 
 
 "Will it! Listen. The proof that we re not 
 mere dreamers lies in the fact that men who have
 
 326 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 fortunes to give as well as faith are backing our 
 press and our purpose. When you know Audif- 
 fred, you ll understand. Old Audiffred, Father 
 of the Future a Russian poet called him; his 
 mother was Russian, you know. He s the founder 
 of that great Catholic union of the discontented, 
 that broad new church of sociology in which re 
 formers of every variety and shade of idealism 
 are banded together at least temporarily and as 
 a war measure against the common enemy, con 
 servatism. In London we ve been preaching, in 
 print, to the Gentiles, he and I. But he goes to 
 St. Petersburg to take the place of one of us who 
 was killed in a riot, as soon as I as we get back. 
 Come! Help me there will you, comrade ? We ll 
 get the paper out together, sweetheart. " His 
 tone had changed; his heart was overflowing and 
 earnestness in him to-day was but for a moment. 
 "Will you be my managing editor, Jessie Incell?" 
 he demanded joyously. 
 
 "But Anthony," she was smiling up at him, 
 this is so sudden*. There s the celibacy of the 
 Reformer to be considered the new priesthood 
 I ve heard you talk about, un-uniformed, ungen- 
 eraled, unlimited; free as priests are from the 
 chains of selfish care for family or personal ad 
 vancement; the Order of Renunciants, say, but 
 spiritually superior to the monkish brotherhoods
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 327 
 
 in that it offers an even greater appeal to the 
 martyr in man, holding out, as it does, no 
 reward in this world or the next except only that 
 altruistic 
 
 "Yes, yes, Miss Incell." He caught her fingers 
 to his lips. "We ll consider all that, young lady 
 after we are married." 
 
 "You are frivolous, Mr. Overman." 
 
 "You are impertinent, Miss Incell, and as 
 you re not yet my wife you positively must observe 
 the proprieties for a few minutes longer and not 
 hector a man who is literally daft with happiness." 
 
 "Do you fancy, Anthony Overman," she de 
 manded, "that I m going to give up my prized 
 city editorship for a partnership in a freak weekly ?" 
 
 "Exactly. Just as you re going to give up 
 your independence for a partnership in a freak. 
 See love I have no ambition, no desire to 
 found a religion nor to establish a system. I am 
 not of the proselytizing kind but I must live 
 the life that seems best to me. If I fail as a pam 
 phleteer, a sort of bookish labor leader, I shall 
 succeed as a farm hand or a teamster. In the 
 expenditure of his own physical strength a man 
 may keep honest and keep wife and babies too. 
 Of what consequences can it be that I m this or 
 that during the course of my life ? That I be and 
 be myself, my limited, honest, single self this
 
 328 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 alone is vital. Whether I possess two neckties 
 instead of one and have three meals rather than 
 two is unimportant. But you. . . . " Again 
 he was on his knees before her, as though praying 
 her forgiveness for all his love required of her. 
 
 "If one can," she said softly, "two must." 
 
 He put her hands to his lips. "I know," he 
 said, "that to my wife superfluity would seem like 
 stealing what another woman lacked. And my 
 child even if she were yours should all but suf 
 fer that another s might not want. . . . Ought I 
 to let you do it ? That is what has occupied my 
 mind every moment I could spare from blissful 
 anticipation on the voyage out. Ought I 
 
 "We ll consider all that," she parodied softly, 
 "after we are married. . . I wonder, Anthony," 
 she added merrily, "if we haven t discovered a 
 new use, the real one, for the new woman to be 
 the practical, the working member of the family, 
 whose head is a recusant celibate, who owes him 
 self to a bigger family ?" 
 
 "A pretty figure your head of the family cuts!" 
 he cried with an appreciative chuckle; and then 
 more seriously, "of course you will be a working 
 member; not even your husband, Jessie, could be 
 arrogant enough to forbid your writing to say the 
 thing you feel but not to market your talent, 
 nor to deny the man who loves you the privilege
 
 ANTHONY OVERMAN 329 
 
 of working for you. No no, love for you has 
 taught me more than that. It is Christlike, not 
 to suffer material martyrdom for the world s 
 betterment, but to be possessed by thought of it; 
 to work and struggle and hope everlastingly for 
 it. And if one should die caught perhaps 
 like a living wedge between the upper and 
 the lower stones why then, to die know 
 ing that others as humble and obscure and 
 patient and strong will go on working and 
 struggling and hoping . . . you re not cold, 
 sweetheart ?" 
 
 She shook her head. In that quick shiver, the 
 revolt of her flesh, she seemed for the briefest 
 space of time so fleeting that she could only recog 
 nize it as something that had been and was no 
 longer except as a memory she seemed to see his 
 old delirium realized: a myriad of hungry cold 
 eyes and cruel, open mouths, and he alone, buf 
 feted, torn, rent piecemeal, swaying the very tide 
 of this school of destroying creatures by the 
 tenacious life that clung to what was left of him 
 and their desire to harm that remnant; to silence 
 it, to obliterate it. 
 
 "Jessie what is it?" he asked. 
 
 She did not answer. She had been holding 
 herself from him, though all her soul was melting 
 within her, but suddenly she drew his head down
 
 330 ANTHONY OVERMAN 
 
 till it rested on her breast, and folded her arms 
 close about him. 
 
 Her Calvary had begun the spiritual one that 
 even he, with his na ve and inexperienced recog 
 nition of the material sacrifices she must make, 
 had not an inkling of. Her face shone as he 
 looked up bewildered, worshipful, overwhelmed 
 by the maternal tenderness that made her divine, 
 and the exquisite yielding grace that left her all 
 human. 
 
 THE END
 
 A 000073168 7