( 
 
SPELLBINDERS 
 
 MARGARET CULKIN BANNING 
 
1 
 
SPELLBINDERS 
 
 BY 
 
 MARGARET CULKIN BANNING 
 
 NEW] Si WW YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1922, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY THE METROPOLITAN PUBLICATIONS, INC. 
 
 SPELLBINDERS. II 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
2-Z 
 
 8 
 
 s&J&SL 
 
 TO MY FATHER 
 
 WILLIAM E. CULKIN 
 
 WHO HAS TAUGHT ME OF POLITICS 
 AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ivi575153 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I AT THE BROWNLEYS* 11 
 
 II FREDA 30 
 
 III ON THE STUMP 36 
 
 IV CITY MICE 45 
 
 V A HUSBAND 64 
 
 VI MARGARET 76 
 
 VII AN UGLY GLIMPSE 87 
 
 VIII ADVENTURE 97 
 
 IX WORK FOR FREDA 108 
 
 X THE CLEAN WIND 116 
 
 XI NEWSPAPER CUTS 126 
 
 XII GREGORY LECTURES 135 
 
 XIII LIFE ENTRUSTED 141 
 
 XIV WHAT WAS TO BE EXPECTED . . . .152 
 XV THE CONVENTION 174 
 
 XVI MR. SABLE STARTS SOMETHING .... 188 
 
 XVII GAGE FINISHES IT 207 
 
 XVIII IN HOSPITAL 220 
 
 XIX MENTAL SURGERY 229 
 
 XX BARBARA BREAKS LOOSE 243 
 
 xxi Walter's solution ...... 259 
 
 XXII THE MOURNERS ....... 272 
 
 XXIII RESPITE 278 
 
SPELLBINDERS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 AT THE BROWNLEYS' 
 
 GAGE FLANDON put his wife's fur cloak around 
 her and stood back, watching her as she took a final 
 glance into the long mirror in the hall. 
 
 "I'm quite excited/' she said. "Margaret always ex- 
 cites me and I do want you to meet her. She really must 
 come to stay with us, Gage." 
 
 "If you like. I'm not so keen." 
 
 "Afraid of strong-minded women?" 
 
 "It's not their strong minds I'm afraid of, Helen." 
 
 'Their alluring personalities?" She slipped an arm 
 into his and led him to the door. 
 
 "Not even that. Their horrible consciousness — self- 
 consciousness. Their nervousness. Their aggressiveness. 
 Most of all, I hate the idea of their effect on you." 
 
 "You sound as if whole cohorts of strong-minded rapa- 
 cious women were storming the city instead of one old 
 college friend of mine come to bolster up the fortunes of 
 your own political party." 
 
 Flandon helped her into the automobile. 
 
 "You know what I mean," he said briefly. 
 
 He stayed silent and Helen Flandon left him to it. But 
 even in the darkness of the car he could feel her excite- 
 ment and his own irritation at it bothered him. There 
 
 ii 
 
12 Spellbinders 
 
 was no reason, he told himself, to have conceived this 
 prejudice against this friend of Helen's, this Margaret 
 Duffield. Except that he had heard so much about her. 
 Except that she was always being quoted to him, always 
 writing clever letters to his wife, producing exactly that 
 same nervous excitement which characterized her mood 
 to-night. An unhealthy mood. He hated fake women, he 
 told himself angrily, and was angry at himself for his 
 prejudice. 
 
 "It's too bad to drag you out to meet her. But I 
 couldn't go to the Brownleys', of all places, alone, 
 could I?" 
 
 "Of course not. I don't mind coming. I want to see 
 Brownley anyway. I don't mind meeting your friend, 
 Helen. Probably I'll like her. But I don't like to see you 
 excited and disturbed as she always makes you. Even in 
 letters." 
 
 "Nonsense." 
 
 "No — quite true. You're not real. You begin by won- 
 dering whether you've kept up to the college standard of 
 women again. You wonder if you've gone to seed and 
 begin worrying about it. You get different. Even to 
 me." 
 
 "How foolish, Gage." 
 
 Her voice was very sweet and she slipped along the 
 seat of the car until she was pressed close beside him. 
 He turned her face up to his. 
 
 "I don't care what the rest of the fool women do, 
 Helen. But I do so love you when you're real — tangible 
 — sweet." 
 
 "I'm always real, about five pounds too tangible and 
 invariably sweet." 
 
 "You're utterly unreliable, anyway. You promised me 
 you'd keep clear of this political stuff at least for a while. 
 You quite agreed with me that you were not the kind 
 
At the Brownleys' 13 
 
 of person for it. Then along comes this Duffield woman 
 to stir up things and you forget everything you said to 
 me and are off in Mrs. Brownley's train." 
 
 "I'm not in anybody's train, Gage." Mrs. Flandon 
 straightened up. "And I don't intend to be in anybody's 
 train. But it's a different thing to show decent interest 
 in what other women are thinking and doing. Perhaps 
 you don't want me to read the newspapers either." 
 
 "I merely want you to be consistent. I don't want you 
 to be one of these — " 
 
 "Fake women," supplied his wife. "You repeat your- 
 self badly, dear." 
 
 Entering the Brownley drawing-room a few minutes 
 after his wife, Gage found no difficulty in picking out the 
 Object of his intended dislike. She was standing beside 
 Helen and looked at him straightly at his entrance with a 
 level glance such as used to be the prerogative of men 
 alone. He had only a moment to appraise her as he 
 crossed the room. Rather prettier — well, he had been 
 warned of that, she had carried the famous Daisy Chain 
 in college, — cleverly dressed, like his own wife, but a 
 trifle more eccentric perhaps in what she was wearing. 
 Not as attractive as Helen — few women were that and 
 they usually paled a little beside her charm. A hard line 
 about her mouth — no, he admitted that it wasn't hard — 
 undeveloped perhaps. About Helen's age — she looked it 
 with a certain fairness — about thirty-one or two. 
 
 She met him with the same directness with which she 
 had regarded him, giving him her hand with a charming 
 smile which seemed to be deliberately purged of coquetry 
 and not quite friendly, he felt, though that, he quickly 
 told himself, must be the reflection of his own mood. 
 
 "And how do you find Helen ?" he asked her. 
 
 "Very beautiful — very dangerous, as usual." 
 
 "Dangerous?" 
 
14 Spellbinders 
 
 "Helen is always dangerous. She uses her power 
 without directing it." 
 
 He had a sense of relief. That was what he had been 
 feeling for. That was the trouble with Helen. But on 
 that thought came quickly irritation at the personal com- 
 ment, at the divination of the woman he disapproved 
 of. 
 
 "It is sometimes a relief ," he said, "to find some woman 
 who is not deliberately directing her powers." 
 
 "You make my idea crystallize into an ugly thought, 
 Mr. Flandon. It's hardly fair." 
 
 There she was, pulling him into heavy argument. He 
 felt that he had been awkward and that it was entirely 
 her fault. He took refuge in the commonplaces of gal- 
 lantry. 
 
 "Ugly thoughts are impossible in some company. 
 You're quite mistaken in my meaning." 
 
 She smiled, a half amused smile which did not so much 
 reject his compliment as show him how impervious she 
 was to such things. Deliberately she turned to Helen 
 who had been enveloped by the ponderous conversation of 
 the host. Mr. Brownley liked to talk to Helen and Helen 
 was giving him that absorbed attention which she usually 
 gave to any man. Gage and Margaret joined them, and 
 as if she wondered at the brevity of their initial exchange, 
 Helen gave them a swift glance. 
 
 "Well," she said, "have the feminist and the anti- 
 feminist found peace in each other?" 
 
 "She refuses to be complimented," grinned Gage, rather 
 sheepishly, immensely grateful to Helen for making a 
 joke of that momentary antagonism. 
 
 "Have women given up their liking for compliments ?" 
 Mr. Brownley beamed upon them beneficently, quite con- 
 scious of his ability to remain gallant in his own drawing- 
 room. "Not these women surely." 
 
At the Brownleys' 15 
 
 Gage flushed a little. It was almost what he himself 
 had said. It had been his tone. 
 
 "We have been given so much more than compliments, 
 Mj. Brownley," said Margaret Duffield, "that they seem 
 a little tasteless after stronger food." 
 
 "Not tasteless to most of us. Perhaps to a few, like 
 Margaret. But most of us, men and women, will like 
 then>as long as we have that passion for appearing to our- 
 selves' as we would like to be and not as we are. ,, 
 
 Over recovered ease of manner, Gage smiled at Helen. 
 She had taken that up neatly. She had penetration, not 
 a doubt of it. Why did she try then to subordinate her- 
 self to these other women, people like this Duffield girl, 
 these arrogant spinsters? He greeted his hostess, who 
 came from the library, where a group of people were al- 
 ready settled about the card tables. 
 
 "Will you make a fourth with the Stantons and Emily 
 Haight, please, Gage? You like a good game and Emily 
 can furnish it." 
 
 Mrs. Brownley was a tall, elaborately marcelled woman 
 of about fifty. Handsome, people said, as they do say it 
 of a woman who commands their eyes even when the sex 
 attraction has gone. She had the ease of a woman whose 
 social position is of long standing, the graciousness of 
 one who has nothing to gain and the slight aggressive- 
 ness of one who has much to bestow. Gage liked her. 
 He remembered distinctly the time of her reign as one 
 of the "younger matrons" — he had been a boy home from 
 college when, at thirty-five, Mrs. Brownley, successfully 
 the mother of two children, was dominating the gayety 
 of the city's social life. Just as now — her hair gray and 
 marcelled, and her dancing vivacity cleverly changed into 
 an eagerness of interest in "welfare work" or "civic 
 activity" — she released energies more in keeping with her 
 age. 
 
16 Spellbinders 
 
 'Til go anywhere you want me to," he said, 'Til play 
 checkers or casino. I'll do anything — except talk to 
 feminist females." 
 
 "Well, Emily's surely no feminist — go along then — " 
 
 It was a very small party, a dinner of ten to which 
 the Flandons had not been able to come because of a 
 late afternoon meeting at Gage's office. So he and Helen 
 had come along later, informally, to meet the guest of 
 honor, now sitting with Helen on a divan, out of the range 
 Of the card players. 
 
 "Have you begun operations yet?" Helen was asking. 
 
 "Oh, no. It's a very vague job I have and you mustn't 
 expect too much. I am not supposed to interfere with 
 any local activities — just lend a hand in getting new 
 women interested, speaking a bit, that sort of thing, rous- 
 ing up women like you who ought to be something more 
 than agreeable dilettantes." 
 
 "If I'm agreeable — " began Helen. 
 
 "I won't be put off. You write that nonsense in your 
 letters. Why aren't you interested in all this?" 
 
 "I truly am. Very noticeably. I'm secretary to this 
 and treasurer to that — all the women's things in town. 
 On boards of directors — no end." 
 
 "And you care about them as much as your tone 
 shows. Are you submerged in your husband then?" 
 
 "He'd love to hear you say that. Love you for the 
 suspicion and hate you for the utterance. No — hardly 
 submerged. He's a very fascinating person and I'd go 
 almost any lengths — but hardly submerged. Where did 
 you get the word anyway? Ultra-modern for subju- 
 gated? Gage is good to me. Lets me go and come, 
 unchallenged — doesn't read my letters — " 
 
 "Stop being an idiot. I'm not insinuating things 
 against Gage. What I'm trying to find out is what 
 you are interested in." 
 
At the Brownleys' 17 
 
 "I'm interested in so many things I couldn't begin to 
 tell you. Psychoanalysis — novels — penny lunches — you / 
 — Mrs. Brownley's career as a politician — my beloved 
 babies — isn't that enough ?" 
 
 "I'm not at all sure that it is enough." 
 
 "Well, then you shall find me a new job and I'll chuck 
 the old ones. Tell me about yourself. I hardly had a 
 chance to hear the other day. So the great Harriet 
 Thompson sent you out to inspire the Middle West with 
 love of the Republican party ? It's hardly like you, Mar- 
 garet, to be campaigning for anything so shopworn as 
 the Republican party." 
 
 "I do that on the side. What I do primarily is to 
 stir up people to believe in women — especially women in 
 women." 
 
 "Then you don't believe in the G. O. P." 
 
 "I'm not a campaign speaker, Helen. I'm an organizer. 
 Of course I think I'd rather have the Republicans in 
 than the Democrats for certain obvious reasons but if 
 you mean that I think the Republican candidate will 
 be a Messiah — I don't. Gage is a Republican — how 
 about you ?" 
 
 "Half Republican— half Socialist." 
 
 "The extent of your Socialism is probably a subscrip- 
 tion to a couple of magazines." 
 
 "About." 
 
 "You ought to focus on something, I think." 
 
 "Go on. It does me good. After years of hearing 
 mouthing nonsense," Helen spoke with sudden heat, "of 
 hearing people say 'How wonderful you are, Mrs. Flan- 
 don' and 'How do you manage to do so much, Mrs. 
 Flandon?' and all sorts of blithering compliments, it's 
 wonderful to listen to you. Though I'm not sure I could 
 focus if I wanted to — at least for any definite period. 
 I do, for a while, and then I swing back to being very 
 
18 Spellbinders 
 
 desperately married or extremely interested in something 
 else. You can't put Gage in a corner like some hus- 
 bands, you know, Margaret." 
 
 "I should imagine not." 
 
 "Suppose," said Mrs. Brownley, coming up to them, 
 now that her other guests were disposed of, "that we 
 have a little talk while the others are busy and plan our 
 work a little. You don't really mean to carry Miss Duf- 
 field off, do you, Helen?" 
 
 "I must, Mrs. Brownley. I've been trying for years to 
 get this young woman to visit me and, now that she is in 
 the city, I couldn't let her stay with any one else. I didn't 
 have any idea that she was going to be the organizer 
 sent by the Women's Republican Committee." 
 
 "I wouldn't have been sent either, if Mrs. Thompson 
 hadn't been dreadfully short of workers. But she was, 
 and I know her very well and though she knows I only 
 go with her part way, I promised to do the best I could 
 to organize things for her and get the women interested, 
 even if I couldn't speak in behalf of the party and its 
 candidates. You see, Mrs. Brownley, we've done so much 
 organization for suffrage work among women that it 
 comes pretty naturally to us to do this other work, just 
 as it does to you." 
 
 Mrs. Brownley nodded. 
 
 "You'll be an immense help, Miss Duffield. What I 
 had sketchily planned was a series of small meetings in 
 the city, lasting over a period of a couple of weeks and 
 then a big rally of all the women. You assure yourself 
 of your audience for the big meeting by working up the 
 small ones." 
 
 "We must have some good speakers," said Margaret, 
 "I am sure the National Committee will send us those 
 from time to time." 
 
 "The heavy work will be in the country districts." 
 
At the Brownleys' 19 
 
 "I suppose so. The women there will have to be 
 rounded up and we should have some women of influence 
 from the country districts to work with us. Can you find 
 some?" 
 
 'There are some," answered Mrs. Brownley, "who've 
 done a good deal of club work. There's a Mrs. Ellsmith 
 and there's a new district chairman for the Federated 
 Clubs who seems to be a bright little woman — a Mrs. 
 Eric Thorstad. She comes from Mohawk, about seventy 
 miles out of the city. It's a Normal School town, quite 
 a little center for the surrounding villages. We might 
 write to her." 
 
 "We ought to see her," answered Margaret, "it works 
 better. The more personal contact you get with the 
 women now, the better. Why can't we go to Mohawk 
 i — is that what you called it? — and some of the sur- 
 rounding towns and do a little rounding up?" 
 
 "We could — very easily. Mr. Brownley would let us 
 have the Etta — that's the special car on his railroad 
 which runs through all that country." 
 
 "I think it would be better not. That identifies us 
 too much, if you don't mind my saying it, with the rail- 
 road. No — let's take the regular trains. And make 
 this person come with us to do a little talking." She. 
 indicated Helen with a laugh. 
 
 "I'll come," said Helen, "of course." 
 
 She sat back, as Margaret Duffield went on talking* 
 in her deft, sure way, outlining the work to be done. 
 It seemed to Helen that Margaret had hardly changed 
 in eight years. She had been just like this in college, 
 eager, competent, doing things for suffrage, talking fem- 
 inism. Well, so had Helen, herself. But something had 
 changed her point of view subtly. Was it being married, 
 she wondered ? She couldn't rouse her enthusiasms really 
 over all this woman business any more. Was it laziness ? 
 
20 Spellbinders 
 
 Was it lack of inspiration? Had she been making too 
 many concessions to Gage's ideas ? She must have Mar- 
 garet at her house. She wanted to see her and Gage in 
 action. How they would row! She laughed a little to 
 herself, thinking of Gage. The warm little feeling crept 
 over her that always returned as she thought of him. 
 How foolish Margaret was to miss all that — living with 
 a man. Suddenly she felt expanded, experienced. She 
 wanted to do something to show that all her discon- 
 tents had vanished. She had been nervous and dissatis- 
 fied since Margaret had come. Well, she had come, and 
 Helen had measured herself up beside her, fearful of 
 shrinkage in her own stature. What was it that to-night 
 had reassured her, made her feel that Margaret had not 
 really gone beyond her, that she was not really jealous of 
 Margaret's kind of life? 
 
 The others were still talking of projected trips into the 
 country. "Let's go then," said Helen, leaning forward, 
 "and get them so stirred up that we leave all the old 
 farmers gasping. Let's start a rebellion of country 
 women. Let's get them thinking!" 
 
 Margaret stared at her. 
 
 "That sounds more like you!" she exclaimed. 
 
 "I'm full of energy," said Helen, on her feet now. 
 "Margaret, you must come to my house within three days 
 or I'll send a policeman for you. And now I'm going to 
 break up Gage's bridge game." 
 
 She could break it up. Gage was immediately con- 
 scious of her. As she sat beside him, pretending quiet 
 and interest, he could feel that she was neither quiet nor 
 interested. He was pleased that she had broken away 
 from the Duffield girl to come to him. He wanted to 
 acknowledge it. To throw down his cards and put his 
 arms about her. Since he couldn't do that he kept on 
 thinking of it. 
 
At the Brownley s' 21 
 
 "You bring us bad luck, Mrs. Flandon," said Gage's 
 partner, with a flavor of tartness. 
 
 She rose again, laying her hand lightly on her hus- 
 band's shoulder. 
 
 "Driven away from the serious minded everywhere. 
 If I go into the music room and shut the door tightly, 
 may I play ?" 
 
 That she knew would disturb Gage too. And she 
 couldn't help disturbing him. She would play the things 
 that held especial meanings for him and her. She would 
 play the things which she had used to play in college for 
 Margaret on Sunday evenings, set her by the ears too, 
 startle her out of her seriousness as she had used to startle 
 her. She would arouse in Margaret some of those emo- 
 tions which couldn't be dead. She would find out if she 
 had those emotions still. 
 
 Then over the first notes she forgot what she meant to 
 do. She was alone with herself — she had forgotten the 
 others. And because she had forgotten, the things hap- 
 pened to the others as she had meant them to happen. 
 Gage, bidding deliberately to make his hand the dummy r 
 left the card table and outside the door of the music 
 room found Margaret, also listening. They took refuge 
 in immediate conversation. 
 
 "So she keeps up her music," said Margaret. 
 
 "Yes. She works several hours a day. And we have 
 an excellent teacher out here in the wilderness." 
 
 With a formal excuse, he returned to his bridge game. 
 
 At midnight Mrs. Brownley broke up the bridge by 
 summoning the players to the dining room where there 
 were iced drinks and sandwiches. Mrs. Brownley did 
 that sort of thing extremely well. Men used to say with 
 
22 Spellbinders 
 
 gratitude that she knew enough not to keep them up all 
 night, and her informal buffet suppers closed the eve- 
 ning comfortably for them. It was a "young" crowd 
 to-night — not young according to the standards of the de- 
 butante Brownleys but people between thirty and forty. 
 The Stantons, whom everybody had everywhere because 
 they were good company and perfectly fitting in any 
 group. Emily Haight, who had become ash-blond and a 
 little caustic with the decreasing possibilities of a good 
 marriage but whom every one conceded had a good 
 mind, who "read everything" and played a master hand of 
 bridge. She had sat next to Walter Carpenter at dinner, 
 as she inevitably was placed when they were in the same 
 company, because they had known each other so well and 
 long and because it seemed to be in the back of people's 
 mind that steady propinquity ought to produce results 
 in emotion. He was quite the person for Emily — about 
 her age, well-to-do, popular, keen-minded. But to-night 
 at dinner he had devoted himself almost pointedly to Mar- 
 garet Duffield. They had rallied him afterwards at the 
 card table about his sudden interest in feminism and he 
 had smiled his self-controlled smile and let them have 
 their joke. He had played cards with Jerrold Haynes, 
 another of Mrs. Brownley's "intellectuals," who had 
 written a book once, and had it published (though never 
 another), and who managed to concoct, with the help 
 of Helen Flandon, almost all the clever remarks which 
 were au courant in their particular circle. He and Car- 
 penter had tried to make Margaret play bridge but she 
 had told them that she couldn't, reducing them to a 
 three-handed game which they were ready to abandon 
 at twelve o'clock. 
 
 Jerrold went as usual to Helen's side. There was a 
 friendship between them which bathed in a kind of half- 
 serious worship on his part and a bantering comrade- 
 
At the Brownleys' 23 
 
 ship on hers. They sat together in a corner of the long, 
 oak-paneled dining room and made conversation about 
 the others, conversation for the sake of clever words. 
 
 "Walter has made his way to the candle flame again. 
 He seems to have been captured," said Jerrold. 
 
 Helen looked across the room curiously. Gage and 
 Walter were both talking to Margaret who was standing 
 in a little glow of electric candle light. Helen remembered 
 that in college Margaret had done her hair that same 
 way, in a loose knot modeled after some sculptured 
 Psyche. 
 
 "Don't you think she is lovely ?" she asked more in 
 comment than question. 
 
 "Do you mean beautiful ?" 
 
 "Well— what do you think?" 
 
 "I don't quite think of her as a woman." 
 
 "Silly stuff—" 
 
 "No, truly. Most women you sense. They either try 
 to use their sex to allure or impress you or else they re- 
 press it for any one of a dozen reasons. She — some- 
 how seems to lack it." 
 
 "It's not so easy as that, Jerrold, you phrase-maker. 
 I've known her a long while and I have no idea whether 
 she's in love, has been in love, yearns after or fights 
 against it. You guess boldly, but probably not well." 
 
 "Maybe not. You must tell me if I am right and you 
 find it out." 
 
 There was a sound of motors in the drive outside, 
 then high pitched voices, and Mrs. Brownley went out 
 into the hall. 
 
 "Isn't this early for the youngsters?" asked Gage. 
 
 They all laughed but though the conversation went on 
 as before, an anticipation rested on them all. Against 
 the background of the chattering voices in the hall, 
 they seemed a little subdued, waiting. 
 
24 Spellbinders 
 
 Allison Brownley pushed her escort in. He seemed 
 to be reluctant but she had her hands on his back and 
 he came through the door, stumbling. 
 
 "We can come to the high brow party, can't we?" 
 cried Allison. "Can't we have some food? We're 
 perfectly starved and there wasn't a table to be had at 
 the Rose Garden." 
 
 "I knew you must have been driven out of every- 
 where to come home this early," called Gage, "though 
 of course young men in the banking business might 
 benefit by somewhat earlier hours." 
 
 The young man laughed awkwardly. He was a rather 
 pale, small young man, badly dwarfed by Gage's unusual 
 bulk and suggesting a consciousness of it when he tried 
 to draw Allison to the other end of the room. But she 
 preferred Gage for the moment. She was not a pretty 
 girl though she made that negligible. What was impor- 
 tant about her was her vigor and her insolent youngness. 
 Her hair was cut just below her ears and curled under 
 in an outstanding shock and her scarlet evening dress 
 and touches of rouge made Margaret, as she stood beside 
 her, seem paler, older, without vigor. But she stood 
 there only a moment, poised. Then the others, six of 
 them, had invaded the dining room. Giggling, spurting 
 into noisy laughter at unrevealed jokes, eating greedily, 
 separating from the older people as if nothing in common 
 could be conceived among them, they went to the farther 
 end of the room, Allison with some youthfully insolent 
 remark hurled back at Gage. 
 
 The others seemed suddenly conscious that it was mid- 
 night — the time when only extreme youth had a right 
 to be enjoying itself. They took upon themselves the 
 preliminary airs of departure. But Helen, separating 
 herself from the group, went down the room to the 
 young people. 
 
At the Brownleys' 25 
 
 They had settled into chairs and began to rise a little 
 awkwardly but she did not let them, sitting down herself 
 on the arm of Allison's chair and bending to talk to them 
 all. They burst into gales of laughter at something she 
 said. Gage and Jerrold watched her from the other end 
 of the room. 
 
 It was wonderful, thought Gage, how even beside 
 those young faces, her beauty stood out as more brilliant. 
 How her hair shone under those soft lights! How 
 golden, mellow, she was in every gesture ! 
 
 Jerrold, in need of some one to whom to comment, 
 isolated Margaret. 
 
 "Watch your amazing friend/' he said, "those children 
 made us feel old and stiff muscled. See how she is 
 showing us that they are raw and full of angles." 
 
 "Is it important ?" asked Margaret. 
 
 "I suppose not. Except that it is a time when youth 
 seems to be pretty securely on the throne of things. 
 And I like to see it get a jolt." 
 
 m 
 
 All the way home, Gage had wanted to say something 
 to his wife, something in appreciation of her beauty, 
 something to still somehow the desire to express his love. 
 As they stood for a moment in their hallway he sought 
 for but could not find the words. There was in him a 
 conflicting, a very definite enmity to her consciousness 
 of her powers. He did not want to increase it. It 
 seemed to him that to have her know her charm meant 
 that she would lose it. He had seen her lose it so. 
 When he felt that she was deliberate — 
 
 "You were very charming to-night, dearest." 
 "The first duty of a woman," she laughed, "is to be 
 charming, if she can." 
 
26 Spellbinders 
 
 There it was. She had set him back. He felt it 
 cruelly. Why hadn't she simply turned and thanked him, 
 given him the caress he was waiting for? Why had she 
 made it all what he suspected? She had planned every 
 move. Probably planning now — he became stubborn, 
 thwarted, angry. 
 
 "I didn't care much for your friend, ,, he said, lighting 
 his cigarette. 
 
 "No? But you won't mind my having her here." 
 
 "Well, as you know, I'd much prefer not. I don't 
 think that sort of woman a healthy influence." 
 
 "And yet you know, Gage, I might be getting a little 
 tired of merely healthy influences. The change might 
 set me up." 
 
 She too was strangely angry. She had been thrilled 
 all evening by the thought of this home-coming. She 
 had been saving up emotions to throw her into Gage's 
 arms. She wanted to feel — to tell him she loved him. 
 He was making it impossible. 
 
 They stood there, longing for each other, yet on guard 
 mentally, afraid of the other's thrust, the other's mockery. 
 
 "Of course I can't refuse to let you have any friend 
 of yours here at the house. Only if she comes, I do 
 wish you'd excuse me as much as possible. I do not 
 want to be rude and I certainly shall be if she involves 
 me in these feminist arguments." 
 
 "I don't believe Margaret would argue with you, 
 Gage." She said it lightly, her insinuation that he was 
 beyond the pale of argument flicking him with a little 
 sting. 
 
 "Possibly not. However, I should not care to waste 
 her time. And as I said to you to-night I don't like her 
 effect on you." 
 
 "I am not particularly under her influence, Gage. I 
 have my own ideas. What you probably mean is that 
 
At the Brownleys' 27 
 
 you object to my doing the things which are interesting 
 women all over the world." 
 
 "When have I ever objected to anything you've done?'' 
 
 "I've done nothing, have I? Been secretary to a few 
 small town clubs. Kept house. Tended my babies. 
 That's all I've done except play the piano." 
 
 "Did that dissatisfy you as much as your tone implies ?" 
 
 "It's not enough to satisfy women now." 
 
 He shrugged. 
 
 "Well — do anything you please, my dear. I certainly 
 won't stop you if you run for office." 
 
 She was very cold. 
 
 "You're sneering at me, Gage." 
 
 He tossed away his cigarette and came up to her where 
 she stood, still muffled in the cloak she had worn. She 
 was fast in his embrace and it gave her the moment of 
 relief she had sought. She closed her eyes and lay 
 relaxed against his shoulder. And then came the creeping 
 little fear. He had managed her like that. He couldn't 
 respect her. 
 
 "Darling Helen—" 
 
 Her thought spoke. 
 
 "Margaret would never have let herself go off the point 
 like this—" 
 
 "Oh, damn Margaret!" said Gage, letting her go, 
 angrily. 
 
 Helen looked at him in disgust and went upstairs. 
 
 It wasn't, thought Gage, pacing up and down the 
 living room, as if he were a reactionary. Helen knew 
 that. He had no objection to women doing anything. 
 He'd said so. He'd shown it. He'd put women on his 
 local Republican committee. And sized them up pretty 
 well too, he told himself. They worked well enough on 
 certain things. Some of them had good minds. But 
 
28 Spellbinders 
 
 the issue with him and Helen had nothing to do with 
 granting women a concession here and there. That was 
 all right. The trouble was with this woman, these 
 women who made Helen so restless, so unsettled for no 
 particular reason, with no particular object. He hated, 
 as he had said, the self-consciousness of it all. He 
 hated this self-conscious talk, this delving into emotions, 
 * this analysis of psychical states and actions, this setting 
 of sex against sex. It ate into emotions. It had made 
 women like that Margaret. He measured his dislike of 
 her, bitterly. Even on their wedding trip she had 
 interfered. He remembered the first flagging in Helen's 
 abandonment to her love for him. That letter from 
 Margaret, outwardly kind, he felt, outwardly all right, 
 but suggesting things had brought it about. Helen had 
 shown it to him. 
 
 "She's afraid we'll become commonplace married 
 people," she said, "but we won't, will we ?" 
 
 There, at the start, it had begun. Discussion when 
 there should have been no discussion — feelings pried 
 into. How he hated college women. It should be 
 prohibited somehow — these girls getting together and 
 talking about things. Forming these alliances. All 
 along the line, for six years, and this was the first time 
 he'd even met her, this Margaret had been held up to 
 him. Margaret's letters had come and with each of them 
 would sweep over Helen that fear that she was becoming 
 dull — sliding backward — those little reactions against him 
 — those pull-backs. At the time Bennett was born the 
 same thing had happened. First the natural beauty, then 
 /that fear of being swept under by "domesticity." The 
 way they used the word as if it were a shame, a disgrace. 
 He felt he had never told Helen the half he felt about 
 these things. And now that rotten oath had put him in 
 the wrong. He'd have to apologize. He'd have to begin 
 
At the Brownleys' 29 
 
 with an apology and there he would be put in the entire 
 wrong again. It wasn't as if women didn't have to be 
 handled like children anyhow. They did. What could 
 you do with them when they got into moods except coax 
 them out of it? There was Helen upstairs now, probably 
 hating him — wishing she were free — envying that spinster 
 friend of hers. 
 
 His thoughts took a sudden turn. She couldn't quite 
 wish that. Surely she didn't want not to be married to 
 him. She'd never said anything like that. He didn't 
 really think she had ever for a minute wished it. She 
 was crazy about Bennett and Peggy. She loved him 
 too. 
 
 On that thought he went upstairs, his apology on his 
 lips, his mind tangled, but his need of peace with Helen 
 very great. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 FREDA 
 
 FREDA met her father on the street three blocks from 
 home. She saw him coming, laden as usual with 
 books, a package of papers from the psychology class to 
 correct — and the meat. The collar of his ulster was 
 turned up around his ears but Freda knew him even in 
 the gathering twilight, a block away. There was a de- 
 pendency about Eric Thorstad's figure — about the meat — 
 that was part of her life. 
 
 "Liver or veal ?" she asked gayly, taking the fat package 
 from under his arm. 
 
 "It's a secret." 
 
 "Sausage," she said, "I can tell by the feel and the 
 smell." 
 
 "Aren't you late, Freda ?" 
 ' "I went to the movies." 
 
 "Again? I wish you wouldn't go so often. What 
 do you get out of them?" 
 
 "Thrills, father dear." 
 
 "All unreal." 
 
 She skipped into a stride that matched his. 
 
 "A thrill is a shiver of romance," she declared, "it's 
 never unreal." 
 
 "And what gives the shiver? The white sheet?" 
 
 "I'm open minded. Could be a well tailored garden, 
 Nazimova's gown, a murder on a mountain." 
 
 He laughed and they went along briskly until they 
 came to the third in a row of small yellow frame houses, 
 
 30 
 
Freda 31 
 
 and turned in at the scrap of cement walk which led up 
 to the porch. 
 
 In the kitchen Mrs. Thorstad turned from the stove to 
 kiss them both. 
 
 "How was your meeting?" asked her husband. 
 
 A kind of glow came over Adeline Thorstad's face. 
 
 "It was a lovely meeting. I am sure that it is signifi- 
 cant that so many women, even women like old Mrs. 
 Reece will come to hear a talk on their civic responsi- 
 bilities. You should have managed to come, Freda." 
 
 Freda put an arm about her mother's shoulders. 
 
 "I couldn't," she said. "I'd have spoiled the circle 
 of thought. I don't care whether women vote or not." 
 
 She was six inches taller than her mother's neat 
 prettiness and at first glance not nearly so attractive. 
 Her rather coarse hair was too thick and pulled back into 
 a loose low knot and her features were heavier than those 
 of her mother's, her skin less delicate. The neat pyramid 
 of her mother's blond hair, her smooth, fair skin were 
 almost as they had been fifteen years before. But Freda 
 showed more promise for fifteen years hence. Her hair 
 shaded from # yellow to orange red, her eyes were deep 
 blue and her loose-hung, badly managed figure showed a 
 broad gracefulness that her mother's lacked. 
 
 She had somehow taken the little qualities of her 
 mother's prettiness and made them grander, so that she 
 seemed to have been modeled from an imperfect idea 
 rather than a standard type. In her father was the 
 largeness of build which might have accounted for her, 
 though not too obviously for Mr. Thorstad stooped a 
 little and days in the classroom had drained his face of 
 much natural color. Still he had carried over from 
 some ancestor a suggestion of power which he and his 
 daughter shared. 
 
32 Spellbinders 
 
 "Don't talk like that, Freda. It's so reactionary. 
 Women nowadays — " 
 
 "I know. But I don't especially approve of women 
 nowadays," teased Freda. "I think that maybe we were 
 a lot more interesting or delightful or romantic as we 
 were when we didn't pretend to have brains." 
 
 But her mother ignored her. 
 
 "Don't talk nonsense," she said. "Set the table and 
 then I must tell you my news." 
 
 They were used to news from Mrs. Thorstad. She 
 was full of the indomitable energy that created little 
 events and situations and exulted in them. Victories in 
 the intrigues of the district federated clubs, small 
 entanglements, intricate machinations were common- 
 places to her husband and daughter since Mrs. Thorstad 
 had become district vice-president. 
 
 So now when the sausage, flanked by its mound of 
 mashed potatoes, came sizzling to the table and Freda 
 had satisfied her soul by putting three sprays of red marsh- 
 berries in a dull green bowl in the middle, they looked 
 forward to dinner with more anticipation than to Mrs. 
 Thorstad's surprise. But she began impressively, and 
 without delay. 
 
 "I think that this entrance of women into politics may 
 alter the whole course of our lives." 
 
 Freda and her father exchanged a whimsical friendly 
 glance in which no disrespect blended. 
 
 "No doubt," said Mr. Thorstad. 
 
 "If I were called to public office, think what a differ- 
 ence it would make !" 
 
 "What difference ?" asked Freda. 
 
 "Why — there'd be more money, more chances to better 
 ourselves." 
 
 Her husband seemed to shrink at the cheaply aspiring 
 
Freda 33 
 
 phrase, then looked at her with something like the patience 
 of one who refuses to be hurt. 
 
 "So now you want to be the breadwinner too, my; 
 dear?" 
 
 Perhaps she took that for jocosity. She did not 
 answer directly. 
 
 "I met Mrs. Brownley — the Mrs. Brownley — at a 
 meeting not long ago. She said she thought there would 
 be a future for me." 
 
 "No doubt," said her husband, again. 
 
 He gazed into the sausage platter reflectively. 
 
 Twenty years ago, he might have remembered, Adeline 
 Miller had thought there was a future for him. She had 
 intended to better herself through him. She was teach- 
 ing then in a little town and he was county superintendent. 
 They had met and been attracted and after a little she 
 had condoned the fact of his Swedish name and of the 
 two parents who spoke no English. She had exchanged 
 the name of Miller for Thorstad, soberly, definitely 
 determined to better herself and profit by the change. 
 
 Then there came Freda. Freda, who had stimulated 
 them both as healthy promising babies are likely to 
 stimulate their parents. Thorstad had become a High 
 School instructor, then had left that position after eight 
 years to come as assistant to the professor of psychology 
 in the Mohawk State Normal School, at a slightly lower 
 salary, but "bettering himself." Ten years ago, that was. 
 He was head of his department now — at three thousand 
 a year. It was his natural height and he had attained 
 it — not a prospector in his work, but a good instructor 
 always. It had taken much labor to have come so far, 
 nights of study, summers spent in boarding houses near 
 the University that he might get his degrees. And 
 Adeline had gone along her own path. During all these 
 
34 Spellbinders 
 
 years in Mohawk she had been busy too. First with 
 little literary clubs, later with civic councils, state federa- 
 tions, all the intricate machinery of woman's clubdom. 
 
 She had her rewards. Federation meetings in the 
 cities, little speeches which she made with increasing skill. 
 She had been "speaking" for a long time now. During 
 the war she fortified her position with volunteer speaking 
 for Liberty Loans, War Saving Stamps. All this in the 
 name of "bettering others." All this with that guiding 
 impulse to "better herself." 
 
 Her husband made no demands on her time which 
 interfered with any public work. If it was necessary he 
 could cook his own meals, make his own bed, even do 
 his own washing, and there had been times when he had 
 done all this for himself and Freda. Not that Mrs. 
 Thorstad ever neglected her family. The Family, like 
 Democracy and the Cradle, were three strong talking 
 points always. She was a fair cook and a good house- 
 keeper, a little mechanical in her routine but always 
 adequate. And when she was away she always left a 
 batch of bread and doughnuts and cookies. It was never 
 hard on Eric and he, unlike some men, was handy around 
 the house. He was handy with Freda too from the time 
 he dressed her as a baby until now. Now he was handy 
 with her moods, with her incomprehensible unwillingness 
 to better herself by sharing in her mother's plans. 
 
 Leaning a little toward her mother now, Freda brought 
 the conversation off generalities. 
 
 "But the news? We are all agog." 
 
 "The news is that we are to have distinguished guests 
 on Thursday. Mrs. Brownley, Mrs. Gage Flandon, and 
 Miss Margaret Duffield of New York are making a tour 
 of the country and they are to stop here for a day. I am 
 to arrange everything for them. There is no telling to 
 what it may lead." 
 
Freda 35 
 
 'They're coming here?" Freda's tone was disgusted. 
 "A lot of women spellbinders. Oh, Lord, save us. I'm 
 going camping." 
 
 "It is a great privilege," said her mother, with a tight 
 little motion of her lips. "I shall need you, Freda." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ON THE STUMP 
 
 ST. PIERRE was the big city of the state. Around it a 
 host of little towns, farming, manufacturing, farther 
 away even mining, made it their center and paid it tribute 
 by mail-order and otherwise. It was one of the Middle 
 West cities at which every big theatrical star, every big 
 musical "attraction," every well booked lecturer spent at 
 least one night. It boasted branch establishments of 
 exclusive New York and Chicago shops. It had its 
 paragraph in the marriage, birth and death section in 
 Vogue. Altogether it was not at all to be ignored. 
 
 Harriet Thompson had known what she was doing 
 when she sent Margaret Duffield West to organize the 
 women of the St. Pierre section in groups which could 
 be manipulated for the Republican party. 
 
 Margaret stayed with Mrs. Brownley for a few days 
 and then spent a week with Helen, during which time 
 she found a pleasant room and bath which she leased by 
 the month, and to which she insisted on going. 
 
 Helen's remonstrances had no effect. 
 
 "You're foolish to think of such a thing as my camping 
 on you. Why I may be here for several months. No, 
 I couldn't. Besides we'll have a really better time if we 
 don't have to be guesting each other. And I get a 
 reasonable amount for expenses which really needn't be 
 added on to your grocery bill. Gage has party expense 
 enough." 
 
 36 
 
On the Stump 37 
 
 Gage was very cordial, particularly as he saw that her 
 visit was not to be indefinite. It hurried him perhaps 
 into greater gallantry than he might have otherwise 
 shown. He did everything to be the obliging host and 
 to his surprise enjoyed himself immensely. Margaret 
 was more than a good talker. She gave him inside 
 talk on some things that had happened in Washington. 
 She could discuss politicians with him. No one spoke 
 of the deteriorating influences of marriage and the home 
 on women. Margaret was delightful with the children. 
 She did not hint at a desire to see him psychoanalyzed. 
 He found himself rather more cooperative than antago- 
 nistic and on the day of Margaret's definite removal to 
 her new room he was even sorry. 
 
 Helen found the new room most attractive. It was 
 a one-room and bath apartment, so-called, furnished 
 rather badly but with a great deal of air and light. 
 
 "It feels like college," she said, sinking down on a 
 cretonne covered couch bed. "Atrocious furniture but so 
 delightfully independent. What fun it must be to feel 
 so solidly on your own, Margaret." 
 
 "Not always fun, but satisfying," said Margaret, 
 making a few passes at straightening furniture. 
 
 Helen sighed faintly and then lost the sigh in a little 
 laugh. 
 
 "I'm actually afraid to ask you some things," she 
 admitted, "I'm afraid of what you'll say. Would you 
 really sooner not be married ?" 
 
 "I think so. Emotional moments of course. On the 
 whole I think I'd rather not be." 
 
 "But you didn't always feel that way." 
 
 "No — not six years ago." 
 
 "Then was there a man you wanted?" 
 
 "There were several men. But I didn't want them 
 hard enough or they didn't want me simultaneously." 
 
38 Spellbinders 
 
 "Where are they now?" 
 
 "God knows — quarreling with their wives, perhaps." 
 
 "And you don't care?" 
 
 "Truly — not a bit." Margaret's eyes were level and 
 quite frank. "It's all dreadful nonsense, this magazine 
 story stuff about the spinsters with their secret yearnings 
 covered up all the time. I'm going to do something to 
 prick that bubble before I die. Of course the conceit of 
 married people is endless but at least spinsters have a 
 right to as much dignity as bachelors." 
 
 "All right," said Helen, "I'll respect you. I know I'm 
 going home and that you aren't following me with wist- 
 ful eyes wishing you could caress my babies. Is that it ? 
 You comb your hair without a qualm and go down to 
 dinner." 
 
 "Exactly. Only before you go I want you to promise 
 to go with us on this trip to the country towns. We'll 
 be gone three days only. Gage can spare you." 
 
 "I don't quite see what use I'd be." 
 
 "I do. I want you to talk to them and charm them. 
 I can organize. Mrs. Brownley can give them Republican 
 gospel. What I want you to do is to give them a little 
 of the charm of being a Republican. Borrow some of 
 Gage's arguments and use your own manner in giving 
 them and the result will be what I want." 
 
 "Don't I seem rather superfluous?" 
 
 "We couldn't do it without you. Mrs. Brownley for 
 name — you for charm — and I'll do the rest of the work." 
 
 Helen looked at her watch. 
 
 "Gage will beat me," she declared, "I'm late for dinner 
 again." 
 
 ii 
 
 The train bumped along for several hours. Mrs. 
 Brownley read, her book adjusted at a proper distance 
 
On the Stump 39 
 
 from her leveled eye-glasses. Helen and Margaret fell 
 into one of those interminable conversations on what 
 was worth while a woman's doing. They were unexcited, 
 but at Mohawk, Mrs. Thorstad arrived thirty minutes 
 early at the railroad station, with Mrs. Watson's car, 
 which she had commandeered. Mrs. Watson had also 
 offered lunch but at the last minute her Hilda had become 
 sick and thrown her into such confusion that Mrs. 
 Thorstad, brightly rising to the occasion, had taken lunch 
 upon herself and even now Freda was putting a pan of 
 scalloped potatoes into the oven and anxiously testing the 
 baking ham. 
 
 It had fallen naturally to Mrs. Thorstad to arrange 
 the meeting in Mohawk, Mrs. Brownley writing her that 
 she need not consider it a partisan meeting, that its object 
 was merely educative, to explain to the women what the 
 Republican party meant. And Mrs. Thorstad had few 
 scruples about using her influence to get as large a group 
 together for the meeting as she could. To have these 
 three celebrities for a whole day had been a matter of 
 absorbing thought to her. They were to have a luncheon 
 at her home, then to have an afternoon meeting at the 
 Library and a further meeting in the evening. Mrs. 
 Thorstad knew she could get a crowd out. She always 
 could. 
 
 Freda had not minded getting lunch. She didn't mind 
 cooking, especially when they could lay themselves out 
 in expense as was considered proper to-day. But she 
 hated meeting these strange, serious-minded women. 
 She had looked in the glass at herself and decided several 
 times that she was altogether out of place. She had 
 tried to bribe her mother into pretending she was a 
 servant. But that was in vain. So Freda had put on 
 the black taffeta dress which she had made from a Vogue 
 pattern and was hoping they had missed their train. 
 
40 Spellbinders 
 
 Coming to the kitchen door her mother called her and 
 she went in reluctantly. Then she saw Helen and her 
 face lit up with interest. Her mother had said Mrs. 
 Flandon was nice looking but she had pictured some 
 earnest looking youngish woman. This — this picture of 
 soft gray fur and dull gold hair ! She was like a maga- 
 zine cover. She was what Freda had thought existed 
 but what she couldn't prove. And it was proven. 
 
 Speeding on the heels of her delight came shyness. 
 She shook hands awkwardly, trying to back out im- 
 mediately. But Helen did not let her go at once. 
 
 "We are a lot of trouble, I'm afraid, Miss Thorstad." 
 
 "Oh, no you're not. It's not a bit of trouble. I'll 
 have lunch ready soon, but it will be very simple," said 
 Freda. 
 
 Her voice, thought Freda, is like her clothes. It's 
 luxurious. 
 
 The lunch was ready soon and to the visitors it was 
 very pleasant as they went into the little dining-room. 
 It was so small that the chairs on one side had to be 
 careful not to back up against the sideboard. The rug 
 was worn to thinness but the straight curtains at the 
 windows, which did not shut out the sun, were daffodil 
 yellow and on the table the little pottery bowl with three 
 blossoming daffodils picked out the same note of defiant 
 sunlight again. Helen looked around her appreciatively. 
 
 Freda served them quietly, slipping into her own chair, 
 nearest the door to the kitchen, only after the dishes were 
 all in place and every one eating. She took her own 
 plate from her mother absently. The others were talking. 
 She listened to them, the throaty, assured voice of Mrs. 
 Brownley, Miss Duffield's clear, definite tones and the 
 voice of Mrs. Flandon, with a note of laughter in it 
 always, as if she mocked at the things she said. Yet 
 always with light laughter. 
 
On the Stump 41 
 
 "Are you interested in all this political business?" 
 asked Mrs. Flandon of her, suddenly. 
 
 "No," said Freda, "Not especially. But mother is, so 
 I hear a great deal of it." 
 
 Her mother laughed a little reprovingly. 
 
 "Freda has been too busy to give these things time and 
 thought." 
 
 "How are you busy? At home?" 
 
 She let her mother answer that. 
 
 "Freda graduated from the Normal last year. We 
 hoped there would be a teaching opening here for her 
 but as there wasn't, we persuaded her to stay home with 
 us and take a little special work at the Normal." 
 
 Helen kept her eyes on the girl's face. Keenly sensitive 
 to beauty as she was, she had felt that it was the girl 
 rather than the mother who created the atmosphere of 
 this house with which she felt in sympathy. She wanted 
 to talk to her. As the meal progressed she kept her 
 talking, drew her out little by little, and confidence began 
 to come back to Freda's face and frankness to her tongue. 
 
 "She's beautiful," thought Helen, "such a stunning 
 creature." 
 
 But it was later that she got the key to Freda. 
 
 They were in the living room and she picked up some 
 of the books on the table. They interested her. It was 
 a kind of reading which showed some taste and con- 
 temporary interest. There was the last thin little gray- 
 brown "Poetry," there was "The Tree of Heaven," "Miss 
 Lulu Bett," Louis Untermeyer's poems. Those must 
 be Freda's. There was also what you might expect of 
 Mrs. Thorstad. Side by side lay the "Education of 
 Henry Adams" and "The Economic Consequences of the 
 Peace." 
 
 "Of course the mother reads those," thought Helen, 
 "after she's sure they're so much discussed that they're 
 
42 Spellbinders 
 
 not dangerous any longer. But the mother never reads 
 'Poetry.' " 
 
 "Your daughter likes poetry ?" she asked Mrs. Thor- 
 stad. 
 
 "She reads a great deal of it. I wish I could make 
 her like more solid things. But of course she's young." 
 
 Mrs. Flandon went out to the kitchen where Freda 
 was vigorously clearing up. 
 
 "You're doing all the work," she protested. 
 
 "Very sketchily," confessed Freda, "I can cook better 
 than I clear up, mother tells me." 
 
 "That may be a virtue," said Helen. She stood lean- 
 ing against the door, watching Freda. 
 
 "Who reads poetry with you ?" 
 
 "Father — sometimes. Oh, you mustn't think because 
 you see some things I'm reading that I'm that sort. I'm 
 not at all. I'm really not clever especially. I just like 
 things. All kinds of things." 
 
 "But what kinds?" 
 
 "Just so they are alive, that's all I care. So I scatter — 
 awfully. I can't get very much worked up about women 
 in politics. It seems to me as if women were wasting a 
 lot of time sometimes." 
 
 "You are like me — a natural born dilettante." 
 
 "Are you that?" asked Freda. Her shyness had gone. 
 Here was some one to whom she could talk. 
 
 "I'm afraid I am. I like things just as you do — if 
 they're alive. It's a bad way to be. It's hard to con- 
 centrate because some new beautiful thing or emotion 
 keeps dragging you off and destroys your continuity. 
 And in this world of earnest women — " 
 
 "You criticize yourself. You feel that you don't 
 measure up to the women who do things. I know. But 
 don't you think, Mrs. Flandon, that something's being 
 lost somewhere? Aren't women losing — oh, the quality 
 
On the Stump 43 
 
 that made poets write such things about them — I don't 
 know, it's partly physical — they aren't relaxed — " 
 
 She stood, pouring her words out in unfinished phrases 
 as if trying desperately to make a confession or ask her 
 questions before anything interrupted, her face lit up 
 with eagerness, its fine, unfinished beauty diffused with 
 half- felt desires. As she stopped, Helen let her stop, 
 only nodding. 
 
 "I know what you mean. You're right. It's all mixed 
 up. It's what is puzzling the men too. We must talk, 
 my dear." 
 
 Helen was quite honest about that. She meant to 
 talk with Freda. But there was no time that afternoon. 
 In the Library club-room, crowded with women who had 
 come at Mrs. Thorstad's bidding for a "fresh inspir- 
 ation," Helen found her hands full. She gave her talk, 
 toning it up a bit because she saw that Freda was 
 expecting things of her and so wandering off the point 
 a little. But the charm that Margaret wanted was in 
 action and Margaret, quickly sensing the possibilities of 
 Mrs. Thorstad's town, settled down to some thorough 
 organization work. 
 
 It was after the meeting that night that Helen saw 
 Freda again. And then not in the hall. She had noticed 
 the girl slip out after her own talk, as Mrs. Brownley 
 rose to "address" the meeting, and wondered where she 
 was going. To her discomfiture she had found that she 
 was billeted on Mrs. Watson for the night as befitted 
 their respective social dignities, and that Margaret was 
 to spend the night at the Thorstad house. 
 
 But it was from Mrs. Watson's spare room window 
 that she saw Freda. 
 
 The skating rink, a square of land, flooded with water 
 and frozen, lay below. As she went to pull down the 
 shade in her bed-room window — she had escaped from 
 
44 Spellbinders 
 
 Mrs. Watson as promptly as possible — Helen's eyes fell 
 on the skaters, skimming swiftly about under arc lights 
 which, flickering bright and then dim, made the scene 
 beautiful. And then she saw Freda. She was wearing 
 the red tam-o'-shanter which Mrs. Flandon had already 
 seen and a short red mackinaw and as she flashed past 
 under the light, it was unmistakably she — not alone. 
 There was a young man with her. 
 
 Helen watched her come and go, hands crossed with her 
 partner, watched the swing of her graceful body as it 
 swayed so easily towards the man's and was in perfect 
 tune with it. 
 
 "That's one way you get the alive and beautiful, is 
 it?" thought Helen. 
 
 Then, after a little, by some signal, the rink was 
 declared closed. The skaters, at the sides of the rink, sat 
 on little benches and took off their skates. The young 
 man knelt beside Freda and loosened the straps, a pretty 
 bit of gallantry in the moonlight. 
 
 He had her arm. They were going home, walking a 
 little more close to each other than was necessary, looking 
 up, bending down. Helen could almost feel what they 
 were feeling, excitement, vigor, intimacy. A little shiver 
 went over her as she pulled down the shade at last and 
 looked around at the walls with their brown scrolls and 
 mottoed injunction to 
 
 "Sleep sweetly in this quiet room, 
 Oh, thou, whoe'er thou art." 
 
T 
 
 CHAPTER IV, 
 
 CITY MICE 
 
 HE dismay of the young Brownleys was as great 
 as that of Freda. But their indomitable mothers 
 won. 
 
 "But, mother, ,, cried Allison Brownley, "you don't 
 mean you'd ask that — that little Swede girl here to the 
 house? For a month? Why, I should think you'd see 
 how impossible that is. We can't treat her as a servant, 
 can we?" 
 
 "No," said Mrs. Brownley, "you can't — not at all. 
 She's a very clever girl — Normal School graduate." 
 
 Allison sank on a divan, her short skirts shorter than 
 ever in her abandonment, her face a picture of horrified 
 dismay. 
 
 "Normal School — you know what they are! Pimples 
 and plaid skirts two inches from the ground, — China silk 
 white waists. Oh, mother dear, it's very sweet of you 
 to think of her, but it couldn't be done. What would we 
 do with her? Why, the days are just full! All kinds 
 of things planned now that Easter's over. We couldn't 
 take her about, and we couldn't leave her at home. The 
 Brownley girls and their little Swede friend ! Mother, I 
 do think you ought to keep politics out of the home." 
 
 Barbara joined in now. That was always her policy. 
 To let Allie state the case and get excited over it and then 
 to go after her mother reasonably if her mother didn't 
 
 45 
 
46 Spellbinders 
 
 give in. She was a more languorous type than Allie. 
 "Bed-room eyes" one of the boys had said, at the height 
 of his puppy wit. 
 
 "If you had to ask them, mother, Lent would have 
 been the time. It just can't be managed now. As a 
 matter of fact I've practically asked Delia Underwood to 
 spend three weeks here." That was a lie and she knew 
 her mother would know it, but it gave her mother a 
 graceful way out of the difficulty. 
 
 But unfortunately Mrs. Brownley did not seem to be 
 looking for loop-holes. She sat serenely at her desk, 
 her eye-glasses poised upon the bills she was auditing. 
 
 "I think you will like Miss Thorstad," she answered, 
 ignoring all the protests. "You see it's really quite 
 important for me to have her here. The mother is a 
 very clever little woman and with a possible political 
 future. Miss Duffield thinks very highly of her. While 
 we are doing this active campaign work she will be 
 invaluable here in the city. She's a good organizer — 
 and she's a plain woman. She can handle plain women, 
 Miss Duffield insists, better than we can. I wish you 
 girls would understand that there is a great deal involved 
 in this campaign. If we stand well out here it will be 
 important for the district — in Washington." 
 
 "Yes, mother — but why the daughter?" 
 
 "For the simple reason that Mrs. Thorstad said she 
 didn't like to leave her at home alone. It put me in the 
 position of having to ask her. She is, as I remember, 
 a pretty well-appearing girl. Mrs. Flandon, whom you 
 admire so much, Allie, was immensely taken with her. 
 At any rate, they have been asked, they will accept and 
 they arrive next week." 
 
 Allie looked dark. 
 
 "Well, mother," she said, with a fair imitation of her 
 mother's tone, "if you expect me to give up everything 
 
City Mice 47 
 
 for the sake of this little Swede, you're mistaken. The 
 men will just howl when they see her." 
 
 "Cheer up, Allie, ,, said Barbara, "they may fall in love 
 with her. Brunhilde, you know — and all of that. I 
 think it's a shame, mother." 
 
 The girls looked at each other. They weren't ordinari- 
 ly allies, but this mess was one they both would have to 
 worry over. Their mother rose. 
 
 "Of course, girls," she said, "it is an inconvenience. 
 But it's a good thing to do. It means more than you may 
 guess. Be nice to Miss Thorstad and you'll not be sorry. 
 It might mean that platinum bracelet for you, Barbara, 
 and for Allie— " 
 
 "Mother," exclaimed Allie, "if I'm an angel to your 
 little Swede would you let me have a new runabout — a 
 Pierce, painted any color I like?" 
 
 Her mother merely smiled at her but Allie knew her 
 claim was good. She turned to her sister as her mother 
 left the room. 
 
 "She's going to do it, Bobbie, and we might just as 
 well get something out of it, I'll tell the girls I'm getting 
 my new car that way and they'll all help. We'll give 
 little Miss Olson the time of her life." 
 
 "You get more out of it than I do, I notice." Barbara 
 was inspecting herself in the mirror of her vanity case 
 from which she allowed nothing except sleep to separate 
 her. 
 
 "That's all right, Bob. I'll do most of the heavy work, 
 I'll bet." 
 
 "I shan't be able to do much, I'll tell you that. Miss 
 Burns wants me for fittings every day next week and I've 
 a lot of dates, for evenings." 
 
 "Ted's giving you quite a rush, isn't he darling? Do 
 you think he's landed this time or is it just that it's your 
 turn?" 
 
48 Spellbinders 
 
 Barbara did not blush. She looked straight at her 
 sister, her slim face disgusted. 
 
 "Pretty raw, aren't you? As a matter of fact I think 
 he could be landed if I had the slightest desire to do it. 
 I'm not at all sure that I want him." 
 
 Allie grinned. 
 
 "That's all right. That's what they all say, all the 
 ones he gives a rush and leaves lamenting. I am sort of 
 surprised that you'd fall for him so hard. Even if he 
 is the ideal lover, every one who isn't cross-eyed knows 
 how he does it. I'd like a little more originality, myself." 
 
 "I tell you this, Allie. That man has been misunder- 
 stood. Because he's so rich and good looking every one's 
 chased after him and then when he was decently civil 
 they've taken advantage of him by spreading stories about 
 his flirtations. He's told me some things about girls — " 
 
 "Dirty cad," said Allie, cheerfully. 
 
 "All right, if you want to be insulting, I won't talk to 
 you." 
 
 "Well, tell me what he said. I won't think about his 
 being a dirty cad until afterwards." 
 
 What humor there was was lost on Barbara. 
 
 "I don't care to talk any more about him." 
 
 Barbara looked at her watch to conclude matters. 
 
 "And by the way, Allie, mother said I could use the 
 limousine. I've got a lot of things to do and I'll need 
 Chester all afternoon. Mrs. Watts is taking mother to 
 the Morley reception and I'm calling for her. She said 
 you could have the electric." 
 
 "My God !" said Allie. "Why doesn't she offer me a 
 hearse? Thanks, I'd sooner take old 1898 out again. 
 And think about that Pierce I'm going to earn." 
 
 She was out of the room in a minute, flying up the 
 stairs, some grotesque words to a dance tune floating 
 behind her. The Packard runabout, "old 1898," was 
 
City Mice 49 
 
 humming down the garage drive half an hour later. 
 Stopping at two houses impressive as her own, she regaled 
 the girls who were her friends with accounts of the 
 "Swedish invasion." It was a good story, especially with 
 the promise of the reward tacked on the end. 
 
 But it was three days before Freda had capitulated. 
 Her first reaction had been an angry shame at her 
 mother's inclusion of her in her own invitation. She had 
 simply flatly refused to go. A little later it was possible 
 to regard the business with some humor, and the shame 
 had lost its sting. She had never known those people 
 anyhow — never would know them — it didn't matter what 
 they thought. When she saw that the matter was not 
 ended and sensed the depth of determination in her 
 mother's mind that her daughter should go with her to 
 the Brownley's she tried to be more definite even than 
 before in her refusal. Her mother did not seem to hear 
 her. She insisted on keeping the subject open, never 
 admitting for a minute that it was or could be closed. 
 She dwelt endlessly on the advantages of the visit — on 
 the fact that the chance for Freda had come at last. 
 
 "Chance !" stormed Freda, "why it isn't a chance to do 
 anything except sponge on a few rich people whom I've 
 never seen before in my life. You don't really suppose, 
 mother, that I'd go down there and let those Brownley 
 girls make my life miserable. You don't seem to realize, 
 mother, that those two Brownleys are a very gay lot. 
 They must be about my age — the older one anyway. 
 Why, I wouldn't think of it. What on earth would I do? 
 What on earth would I wear? What would I say? 
 What on earth would I be there anyhow? I'm no 
 politician. I'm not helping Mrs. Brownley strengthen 
 
50 Spellbinders 
 
 her fences or anything. If you ask me, mother, I 
 wouldn't think of going if I were you. Don't you know 
 she's just making a play to the gallery by having you? 
 Probably bragging about her great sense of democracy! 
 Why, mother !" 
 
 "You don't seem to realize," — Mrs. Thorstad always 
 began that way by assuming that you had missed her 
 point, a point which was and always would be in accord 
 with Right Living and Democracy and the Family and 
 the Home, "that these social distinctions are of no value 
 in my estimation. In this great country — " 
 
 Freda led her mother away from the brink of oratory. 
 
 "Look here," she said, "if they aren't a lot more 
 important than we are — if you don't think they are — what 
 is this wonderful chance you are talking about?" 
 
 Just at what point Freda gave in, just at what point 
 she felt that the possibilities of her trip outweighed its 
 impossibilities she did not know. It was certain that the 
 young Brownleys gave way to no noisier public mockery 
 of the proposed visit than did Freda. She was even a 
 little shrill. She told everybody how she "hated it," how 
 she was going along to the homes of the idle rich to 
 chaperon her mother, that she was "breaking into high 
 society," that she was gathering material for a book on 
 "how the other half lives," that she would probably be 
 mistaken for a housemaid and asked to dust the bed- 
 rooms, that mother was trying to "marry her off," that 
 she "didn't have an idea what to wear." She talked to 
 almost every one she met, somewhat unnecessarily, some- 
 what defiantly, as if determined to let any one know about 
 her reasons for going, as if defending herself against any 
 accusations concerning her motive in making such a visit, 
 perhaps making sure that no later discomfiture on her 
 own part could be made more severe by any suspicion 
 of pleasurable anticipation. 
 
City Mice 51 
 
 She planned her clothes for St. Pierre with mocking but 
 intense deliberation. A dark blue tricotine dress — she 
 bought that at the ladies' specialty shop and taking it 
 home ripped off all the trimming substituting the flattest 
 and darkest of braid. That was safe, she knew. She 
 might not be startling but she would be inoffensive, she 
 told her mother. There was a dress made by Miss Peter- 
 son, who sewed by the day, from a remnant of bronze 
 georgette, and half shamefacedly Freda came home one 
 night with a piece of flame colored satin and made it 
 herself into a gown which hung from the shoulders very 
 straightly and was caught at the waist with silver cord 
 (from the drapery department). And there was an 
 evening dress at which Freda scoffed but she and Miss 
 Peterson spent some fascinated hours over it, making 
 pale green taffetas and tulle fit her lovely shoulders. 
 
 "Though what I'm getting these clothes for is a 
 mystery to me," grumbled Freda. "They probably 
 won't even ask me to go out. Probably suggest that I 
 eat with the servants." 
 
 Yet she tried on the evening dress in the privacy of 
 her room parading before her bureau mirror, which could 
 not be induced to show both halves of her at once. And 
 as she looked in the glass there came back the reflection 
 of a girl a little flushed, excited, eager, as if in spite of 
 all her mockery there was a dream that she would conquer 
 unknown people and things — a hope that wonders were 
 about to happen. 
 
 Never was there a trace of that before her mother. 
 Having agreed to go, Freda was, on the whole, com- 
 plaisant, but on principle unenthusiastic. 
 
 Her father gave her two hundred dollars the night 
 before she went away. Mrs. Thorstad was at a neigh- 
 bor's house and the gift was made in her absence without 
 comment on that fact. Freda, whose idea of a sizable 
 
52 Spellbinders 
 
 check for her spending money was five dollars and of an 
 exceptionally large one, ten, gasped. 
 
 "But what do I need this for?" 
 
 "You'll find ways, my dear. It's — for some of the 
 little things which these other young ladies may have and 
 you may lack. To put you at ease." 
 
 "Yes, but it's too much, father dear. For three or 
 four weeks. You can't possibly afford it." 
 
 "Oh, yes, my dear. Only try to be happy, won't you? 
 Remember that it's always worth while to learn and that 
 there are very few people in the world who aren't friendly 
 by nature." 
 
 That thought carried Freda through the next twenty- 
 four hours, beginning with worry when she got on the 
 train as to whether they were expecting her after all, 
 through a flurry of excitement at the sense of "city" in 
 St. Pierre, the luxury of the limousine which had been 
 sent to meet them, through the embarrassment of hearing 
 her mother begin to orate in a mild fashion on the beauty 
 of Mrs. Brownley's home and the "real home spirit" 
 which she felt in it. Freda felt sure that such conversa- 
 tion was not only out of place but bad taste anyway. She 
 was divided between a desire to carry the visit off 
 properly, showing the Brownleys that she was not gauche 
 and stupid, and an impulse to stalk through the days 
 coldly, showing her disdain for mere material things and 
 the impossibility of impressing her. Yet the deep soft- 
 ness of the hall rugs, the broad noiseless stair carpets, 
 the glimpses through doorways into long quiet rooms 
 seemingly full of softly upholstered furniture, lamps with 
 wonderfully colored shades, pictures which had deep rich 
 colors like the colors in the rugs, made her eyes shine, 
 her color heighten. 
 
 Mrs. Brownley met them at the house and took them 
 to their rooms herself. Mrs. Thorstad had a big pleasant 
 
City Mice 53 
 
 room in a wing of the house given up to guest chambers 
 and Freda's was a small one connected with it. 
 
 "My daughters are looking forward so much to meeting 
 you," Mrs. Brownley said easily to Freda. "They are 
 out just now, but when you come down for dinner they 
 will be home. We usually dine at seven, Mrs. Thorstad. 
 It isn't at all necessary to dress." 
 
 "She is nice, isn't she ?" said Freda, as the door closed 
 after their hostess, "maybe it won't be so bad. Anyway, 
 all experience is good. Glad I remember that much 
 Nietzsche. It often helps." 
 
 Mrs. Thorstad put her trim little hat on the closet 
 shelf and began to unpack her suit-case. Freda explored 
 the bath. 
 
 "It's like a movie," she came back to say, "I feel just 
 like the second reel when the heroine is seduced by luxury 
 into giving herself — " 
 
 "Freda!" 
 
 "Truly I do. She always takes a look into the closet at 
 rows of clothes and closes the door virtuously, gazes 
 rapturously at the chaise longue all lumpy with pillows 
 and stiffens herself. But she never can resist the look 
 into the bath room — monogramed towels, scented soap, 
 bath salts. I know just exactly how the poor girls feel. 
 Certain kinds of baths are for cleanliness — others make 
 a lady out of a sow's ear — you know." 
 
 "Why are you wearing that dress?" asked her mother, 
 rousing from her nap fifteen minutes later. "I was 
 going down in my waist and skirt." 
 
 "Mother — you can't. That wasn't what she meant by 
 not dressing. She meant not evening dress. You'll have 
 to put on your blue silk." 
 
 "I wanted to save that for afternoon affairs." 
 
 "You won't wear it put to-night. Come, mother, I'll 
 hook you up." 
 
54 Spellbinders 
 
 They were down at five minutes before seven. Barbara 
 was not visible but Allie and her mother and father waited 
 for them in the drawing-room. Crossing the threshold 
 of that room seemed to take all Freda's courage. If her 
 mother had not been so absorbed in thinking of the way 
 she meant to interest Mr. Brownley in her career, she 
 would have heard the quick little catch of breath in 
 Freda's throat as she came through the velvet curtains 
 behind her. She did see the quickened interest on Allie's 
 face and Mrs. Brownley's measured glance of approval 
 at Freda. Freda had been right. The Brownleys were 
 dressed for dinner, quite elaborately it seemed to her. 
 She made no note of the discrimination in evening clothes, 
 that Mrs. Brownley's velvet dress was high at the neck 
 and Mr. Brownley's tie black instead of white. Allie 
 came forward with her rough and tumble welcome, 
 shaking hands casually with Mrs. Thorstad and frankly 
 admiring Freda. Allie herself had dressed in a hurry 
 and was noticeable chiefly for the high spots of rouge on 
 each cheek. 
 
 "Sorry I wasn't home when you came. I had to go to 
 a luncheon and then to the theater. Couldn't get out of 
 it. It was a party for a friend of mine who is to be 
 married and I'm in the bridal party, you see. She's an 
 awfully nice girl — marrying the most awful lemon you 
 ever saw." 
 
 Freda knew all about that marriage. It had been 
 heralded even in Mohawk. Gratia Allen and Peter 
 Ward. But she gave no sign of knowing about it. 
 
 "Isn't it funny," she answered, getting Allie's note with 
 amazing accuracy, "how often that happens? The nicest 
 girls get the queerest men." 
 
 "Not enough decent men to go around any more." 
 
 So it was all right until Barbara came in. A little 
 party gathered in the meantime — the Gage Flandons, 
 
City Mice 55 
 
 and Margaret Duffield with Walter Carpenter. Margaret 
 was beginning to be asked as a dinner companion for 
 Walter fairly often now. And as a concession to the 
 young people Mrs. Brownley had asked three young men, 
 Ted Smillie and the Bates boys, who traveled in pairs, 
 Allie always said. They were all there when Barbara 
 came in. Obviously she had some one, either the un- 
 known guest or her friend Ted, in mind when she dressed, 
 for she was perfectly done. Smoothly marcelled hair, 
 black lace dress carrying out the latest vagaries in fashion, 
 black slippers with jeweled buckles. As she gave her 
 hand to Freda with the smile which held a faint hint of 
 condescension, Freda bent her knuckles to hide the nail 
 she had torn yesterday closing the trunk. She felt over 
 dressed, obvious, a splash of ugly color. Ted had been 
 talking to her but by a simple assumption that Freda 
 could have nothing of interest to say, Barbara took up 
 the thread of talk with him, speaking of incidents, people 
 that were unknown to Freda. The Bates boys were 
 talking to Allie. Freda stood alone for a moment — an 
 interminable awkward moment, in which no one seemed 
 to notice her. Then Gage Flandon crossed to her side 
 and she gave him a smile which made him her friend at 
 once, a smile of utter gratitude without a trace of pose. 
 
 "How nice of you/' she said, simply, "to come to talk 
 to me. I feel so strange." 
 
 "My wife says you've never met any of us before. No 
 wonder." 
 
 "It isn't just that. I'm a little afraid I'm here without 
 much reason. Mother brought me but Fm not a political 
 woman and I'm not" — with a rueful little glance at 
 Barbara — "a society girl at all. I'm afraid I'll be in 
 everybody's way." 
 
 She said it without any coquetry and it came out clearly 
 so — as the plain little worry it was. Gage, who had 
 
56 Spellbinders 
 
 found himself a little touched by the obvious situation of 
 the girl felt further attracted by her frankness. She 
 seemed an unspoiled, handsome person. That was what 
 Helen had told him, but he had grown so used to sophisti- 
 cation and measured innocence that he had not expected 
 anything from the daughter of this little political speaker. 
 He had come to size up Mrs. Thorstad, for her name had 
 been presented as a possibility in a discussion with some 
 of his own friends as they went over the matter of 
 recognizing women in the political field. As Mrs. Thor- 
 stad gave her hand to him he had seen what he came to 
 see. She had brains. She had the politician's smile. 
 She could be used — and doubtless managed as far as 
 was necessary. But the daughter was different. He 
 liked that dress she was wearing. It showed her slim- 
 ness, suppleness, but it didn't make her indecent like that 
 lace thing on Bob Brownley. 
 
 "I often feel like that," he answered her, "I'm not 
 much of a society person either and I can't keep up with 
 these wonderful women we're seeing everywhere. 
 Women with a lot of brains frighten me." 
 
 Idle talk, with his real, little prejudice back it, which 
 Freda by accident uncovered immediately. She was 
 talking against time so he would not leave her unguarded, 
 and it was chance that she pleased him so much. 
 jr "Women have a lot of brains now," she said, "in 
 politics and — society too, I suppose. But I wonder if 
 we weren't more attractive when we weren't quite so 
 brilliant. I don't mean when we had huge families and 
 did the washing and made the butter. I mean when we 
 were more romantic and not quite so — " 
 
 She stumbled a little. She was conscious of being 
 historically at sea, vague in her definition of romance. 
 But she had said that several times before and it came 
 
City Mice 57 
 
 easily to her tongue. She stopped, feeling awkward 
 and then amazed at Mr. Flandon's enthusiasm. 
 
 "That's it!" he exclaimed, "that's what I miss. 
 Women have stopped being romantic. They've done 
 worse. They've penetrated our souls and dug out the 
 romance and analyzed it among themselves." 
 
 But she could not answer. Some one announced 
 dinner and Freda moved with the rest to get her first 
 enchanted sight of the Brownley dining table with its 
 wedgewood vases full of roses and narcissus, its shining 
 perfection of detail. 
 
 She was near her hostess' end of the table, Mr. Flandon 
 at her left and one of the Bates boys at her right. Mrs. 
 Brownley had wanted to talk to Gage and had decided, 
 as she placed the cards, that Freda would take as little of 
 his attention as any one present. She started in after 
 the consomme to find out what Gage thought about the 
 Republican committee. It was most unsatisfactory for 
 he seemed to be absorbed in telling something to Miss 
 Thorstad and gave answers to his hostess as if his mind 
 were on something else. As for Gage, he was talking 
 more animatedly than he had talked to any woman in 
 years, thought his wife, watching him. 
 
 "What heresy is my husband pouring into your ears, 
 Miss Thorstad?" she asked, leaning forward. 
 
 Freda blushed a little as the attention turned to her. 
 
 "He is telling me the arguments I've been wanting to 
 hear — against being a perfectly modern woman." 
 
 "Proselytizing!" said Margaret. "Wait a bit, Miss 
 Thorstad. Let me get the other ear after dinner." 
 
 "Freda likes to tease," explained her mother to their 
 host. 
 
 Barbara looked a little disdainful, making some 
 remark sotto voce to Ted. But he was not listening. 
 
58 Spellbinders 
 
 Freda had, in the rise of her spirits, given him a smile 
 across the table, the kind of come-there smile she gave 
 David Grant of Mohawk when she wanted to skate with 
 him or dance with him — a smile of perfectly frank allure. 
 He returned it with interest. 
 
 Helen did not follow up her remark. It had been 
 scattered in the comments. Gage caught her eye and she 
 gave him a look which said, "I told you there was some- 
 thing in that girl." Gage immediately wanted to leave 
 the table and tell Helen all about it. But Mrs. Brownley 
 wanted to know something again. He turned to her. 
 
 It was fairly easy for Freda after all, in spite of Bar- 
 bara, whose measuring eyes made her nervous whenever 
 they were turned on her. She had a difficult time con- 
 cealing the broken finger-nail and she was not at all sure 
 whether to lift the finger bowl off the fruit plate with 
 the lace doily or to leave the doily. Otherwise there 
 were no great difficulties. There was a bad moment after 
 dinner when it became clear to her that there was some 
 altercation among the young people which concerned her. 
 She could not guess what it was, but she saw Allie and 
 Barbara in heated conclave. Then, with a little toss of 
 her head, Allie came to her. 
 
 "We thought that you and I and Fred and Tony would 
 go down to the Majestic. We had six tickets but Bob 
 seems to think she and Ted have another date." 
 
 And then Ted ruined things. He turned from where 
 he and Tony Bates were smoking by the mantelpiece 
 and strolled over to Freda. 
 
 "We're going to the Majestic — and I'm going to sit 
 next to you," he announced. 
 
City Mice 59 
 
 in 
 
 The Majestic was a vaudeville house, presenting its 
 seven acts weekly for the delectation of its patrons, 
 servant girls, business men, impecunious boys in the 
 gallery, suburbanites, shop girls with their young men, 
 traveling men, idle people, parties of young people like 
 the Brownley girls, one of those heterogeneous crowds 
 that a dollar and a half price for a best seat can bring 
 in America. When the young Brownleys arrived, the 
 acrobatic act which led the bill was over and the two 
 poorest comedians, put on near the beginning of the bill 
 before the audience grew too wearily critical, were doing 
 a buck and wing dance to the accompaniment of some 
 quite ununderstandable words. 
 
 With a great deal of noise and mysterious laughter 
 the late arrivals became seated finally, taking their places 
 with the lack of consideration for the people behind them 
 which was characteristic of their arrogance, making 
 audible and derogatory comments about the act on the 
 stage and curiously enough not seeming to anger any 
 one. The girls with their fur coats, hatless, well dressed 
 hair, the sleek dinner coated young men interested the 
 people around them far more than they bothered them 
 by their noisiness. 
 
 They left during the last act and before the moving 
 picture of "Current Events," all six of them getting 
 into the Bates' sedan and speeding at forty miles an 
 hour out to the Roadside Inn which was kept open only 
 until midnight. 
 
 The Roadside Inn was a brown mockery of Elizabethan 
 architecture, about thirty miles out of the city on a good 
 road. The door opened invitingly on a long low room 
 full of chintz-covered chairs and wicker tables and at 
 this time of year there was always a good open fire to 
 
60 Spellbinders 
 
 welcome any comers. Back of that a dining room and, 
 parallel with the two, a long dance room, where three 
 enforcedly gay negroes pounded out melodies in jungle 
 time hour after hour every evening. Upstairs there 
 were half a dozen small bed rooms for transient auto- 
 mobilists who wanted to stay in the country for some 
 reason or other or whose cars had broken down. 
 
 The place was on the fence between decency and 
 shadowy repute. It was frequented by people of all 
 kinds, people who were respectable and people suspected 
 of not being so. The landlady ignored any distinc- 
 tions. She had made the place into a well-paying 
 institution, had put its decoration into the hands of a 
 good architect with whom she always quarreled about 
 his charges and she asked no questions if her customers 
 paid their bills. Probably she saw no difference between 
 those of her guests who were of one kind and those of 
 another. They all danced in much the same manner, 
 were equally noisy, equally critical of the extremely good 
 food and that was as far as her contact or comment 
 went. If the food had not been so good, the place 
 would have suffered in patronage, but that was unfailing. 
 The cook was ready now at five minutes' notice to concoct 
 chicken a la king and make coffee for the Brownley 
 party and as they came back from the dance room after 
 having tried out the floor and the music, their supper 
 was ready. 
 
 Freda had not acquitted herself badly there either. 
 Without having all the tricks of the Brownley s, she had 
 a grace and sense of rhythm which helped her to adapt 
 herself. Besides she had the first dance with Ted. He 
 held her close, hardly looking at her. That was his way 
 in dancing. 
 
 "You must be very gay in Mohawk," said Barbara 
 when they were all at the table in the dining room again. 
 
City Mice 61 
 
 The edge of her malice was lost on Freda. 
 
 "No— not at all. Why?" 
 
 "You seem very experienced." 
 
 A little glimmer of amusement came into Freda's eyes. 
 
 "Well — not first hand experience. We read — we go 
 to moving pictures." 
 
 "I suppose lots of people are picking up ideas from 
 the moving pictures/' Barbara commented carelessly. 
 
 One of the Bates boys was drawing something from 
 his pocket. Barbara looked at it indifferently, Allie with 
 a frown of annoyance. 
 
 "Didn't I tell you, Tony, to cut that stuff out?" 
 
 "We'll all be cutting it out soon enough," said Tony. 
 "Won't be any. This is all right. Tapped father's 
 supply. A taste for every one and a swallow for me." 
 
 He was a sallow thin young person whom the sight 
 of his own flask seemed to have waked into sudden 
 joviality. 
 
 "I don't want any," said Allie. "Don't waste it." 
 
 Then as Tony Bates ignored her protest, she drained 
 her glass accustomedly. 
 
 Barbara took her highball without a change of expres- 
 sion or color. Freda tried to refuse but they laughed 
 at her. 
 
 "Come. You came to the city to have a good time." 
 
 She felt that she couldn't refuse without seeming 
 prudish. She has a fear of what the liquor might do to 
 her, a desire to do what the rest did. 
 
 Her head felt a little light, but that was all, and that 
 only for a moment. It wasn't unpleasant. 
 
 They all finished the flask. They danced again, Freda 
 with Tony Bates, Barbara with Ted. Then Ted sought 
 Freda again. He danced as he had the first time but 
 he held her even closer, more firmly, making his position 
 into an embrace, and yet dancing perfectly. From over 
 
62 Spellbinders 
 
 one of the young men's shoulders, Barbara saw it. Her 
 face did not show any feeling. 
 
 On the way home the embracing was a little promiscu- 
 ous. Allie, dull from the liquor, lay sprawling against 
 Tony's rather indifferent shoulder. Bob let the other 
 Bates boy paw her lazily and Freda found herself rather 
 absorbed in keeping Ted from going to lengths which 
 she felt were hardly justified even by three or four high- 
 balls. 
 
 It was when they were home again after the young 
 men had left that Freda felt the dislike of the other girl. 
 It was as if Barbara had been waiting for the young men 
 to go to make Freda uncomfortable. 
 
 "I hope Ted didn't embarrass you, Miss Thorstad?" 
 
 "Embarrass me?" 
 
 "Ted is such a scandalous flirt that he is apt, I think, 
 to embarrass people who aren't used to him. I always 
 keep him at a distance because he talks about girls most 
 awfully." 
 
 "Oh, does he?" 
 
 "I'm glad he didn't bother you. Don't let him think 
 you like him. He makes the most terrific game of 
 people who let themselves in for it." 
 
 "Lots of people do let themselves in for it too," said 
 Allie with meaning. 
 
 Barbara steered away from the dangers of that subject. 
 
 "I hope you're going to enjoy yourself, Miss Thorstad. 
 There are no end of things going on." 
 
 "You mustn't bother about me," said Freda, "I'm 
 afraid that I am going to be a burden." 
 
 Barbara let a minute pass, a minute of insult. 
 
 "No— not at all." 
 
 "Nonsense," said Allie, "everybody'll be crazy about 
 you. You dance stunningly and the Bateses and Ted 
 were nutty about you. You don't have to worry." 
 
City Mice 63 
 
 Freda said good night and left them. She went slowly 
 up the staircase, thinking what fun it would be to climb 
 that staircase every night, to go down it by natural 
 right, to belong to it. 
 
 The sense of Barbara's dislike pervaded everything 
 else. She felt that she must have made a fool of her- 
 self with that young fellow. He must have thought her 
 a dreadful idiot. Ah, well, the first evening was over 
 and she'd had some experience. She had been at a 
 dinner where there was an entree, she had used a fish 
 fork, she had danced at a roadhouse. She laughed at 
 herself a little. 
 
 "I've been draining the fleshpots of Egypt," she said, 
 sitting on the bottom of her mother's bed. Her mother's 
 prim little braids of hair against the pillow were sil- 
 houetted in the moonlight. 
 
 "You were very nice to-night," said her mother prac- 
 tically. "Mrs. Flandon wants us both to go there for 
 dinner Thursday night." 
 
 "I like Mr. Flandon a lot." 
 
 "Very little idealism," commented Mrs. Thorstad, 
 wisely. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 A HUSBAND 
 
 YET something was hurting Gage Flandon. He had 
 tried to decide that he was not getting enough 
 exercise, that he was smoking too much, not sleeping 
 enough. But petty reforms in those things did not 
 help him. He felt surging through him, strange restless- 
 ness, curious probing dissatisfactions. He was angry at 
 himself because he was in such a state; he was morbidly 
 angry with his wife because she could not assuage what 
 he was feeling nor share it with him. 
 
 Everywhere he was baffled by his passion for Helen. 
 After six years of married life, after they had been 
 through birth, parenthood together, surely this state was 
 neurotic. Affection, yes, that was proper. But not this 
 constant sense of her, this desire to absorb her, own her 
 completely and segregate her completely. He knew the 
 feeling had been growing on him lately since her friend 
 had come to the city, but his resentment was not against 
 Margaret. It was directed against his wife and that 
 he could not reason this into justice gnawed at him. 
 
 He was spending a great deal of time thinking about 
 what was wrong with women. He would hit upon a 
 phrase, a clever sentence that solved everything. And 
 then he was back where he had begun. He could resolve 
 nothing in phrases. He and Helen would discuss femin- 
 ism, masculinism, sex, endlessly, and always end as 
 antagonists — or as lovers, hiding from their own antagon- 
 ism. But they could not leave the subjects alone. They 
 tossed them back and forth, wearily, impatiently. 
 
 64 
 
A Husband 65 
 
 Always over the love for each other which they could 
 not deny, hung this cloud of discussion, making every 
 caress suspected of a motive, a "reaction." 
 
 When Gage had been sent at twelve years of age to a 
 boys' military preparatory school, it had been definitely 
 done to "harden him." He was a dreamy little boy, not 
 in the least delicate, but with a roving imagination, a 
 tendency to say "queer things" which had not suited 
 his healthy perfectly grown body, his father felt. Some 
 one had suspected him of having hidden artistic abilities. 
 His parents were intelligent people and they tried that 
 out. He was given instructions in music on the piano 
 and the violin. Nothing came of them but ridges on 
 the piano where he had kicked it in his impatience at 
 being able to draw no melodies from it. With infinite 
 patience they tried to see if he had talent for drawing. 
 He had none. So, having exhausted their researches for 
 artistic talent, his parents decided that there was a flaw 
 in his make-up which a few years contact with "more 
 manly boys" might correct. They prided themselves on 
 the result. He succumbed utterly to all the conventions 
 of what makes a manly boy and came home true to form. 
 
 In college the quirk came out again once in a while. 
 But Gage never became markedly queer. Impossible for 
 an all-American half-back to do that. And he never 
 mixed with the "queer ones." What eccentricities he 
 had, what flights of imagination he took were strictly 
 on his own. 
 
 In due course he was admitted to the bar and on the 
 heels of that came Helen. Those who saw him in his 
 pursuit of Helen said that he seemed possessed. For 
 once his imagination had found an outlet. For once all 
 those desires which rose above his daily life and his 
 usual companions had found a channel through which 
 they could pour themselves. Eager for life as Helen 
 
66 Spellbinders 
 
 was, full of dreams, independences, fresh from her years 
 at college, she could not help being swept under by the 
 torrent of desire and worship that he became. They 
 soared away together — they lost themselves in marriage, 
 in the marvel of child creation. 
 
 The war came. Gage met it gravely, a little less spread- 
 eagle than most of his friends. He had a year in France 
 and came back with a fallen enthusiasm. He never 
 talked about that. He had plunged into money making. 
 The small fortune his father had given him on his 
 marriage had been absorbed in starting a home and Helen 
 had nothing of her own. They needed a great deal of 
 money and Gage got it, trampling into politics, into 
 business, practicing law well all the time. He was now 
 thirty-eight and had accumulated a remarkable store of 
 influence and power. Very close to the Congressman 
 * from his district, keen and far sighted, as honest in 
 keeping promises as he was ruthless in dealing with 
 political obstructionists, he was recognized as the key 
 man to his very important district. He knew politics 
 as he knew law but he built no ideals on it. It was 
 perhaps his very thorough knowledge of the deviousness 
 of its methods which made him reluctant to have Helen 
 meddle with it. For although he had accepted the 
 suffrage of women as a political phenomenon which 
 had to be taken in hand and dealt with, he had no belief 
 that the old game would change much. 
 
 He nearly always looked his full age. His face was 
 one of those into which deep lines come early, well 
 modeled, but with no fineness of detail. And his large 
 built body, always carelessly dressed, was the same. Yet 
 there were times, Helen knew, when his eyes became 
 plaintive and wondering and he looked as the little boy 
 who was sent away to be "hardened" must have looked. 
 Only he was learning to cover those times with a scowl. 
 
A Husband 67 
 
 He was finding that he could not quiet all the mental 
 nightmares he had with his love for Helen. Because 
 that love itself was infested by this strange new "woman 
 problem." What securities of opinion had been swept 
 away by study, by war, what questions in him were left 
 unsatisfied — those things were hidden in him. He had 
 clung to love and faith in marriage. And now that 
 stronghold was being attacked. He was hearing people 
 who called it all fake, all false psychology. And he did 
 not know how much Helen believed these people. He 
 felt her restlessness in horror. He saw no direction in 
 which she might go away from him where she would 
 not meet destruction, where false, incomplete ideas would 
 not ruin her. It was making him a reactionary. 
 
 For, because he had no solution himself, he was forced 
 to fall back on negations. He denied everything, sank 
 back into an idealism of the past. 
 
 "I liked that girl," he said to his wife about Freda, 
 "no fake." 
 
 "None," answered Helen. "I hoped you'd like her, 
 Gage." 
 
 "She says that the trouble with women is that they've 
 lost the spirit of romance and that they've dug the 
 romance out of men's souls too." 
 
 It was what he himself had said but it was easier to 
 put to Helen in that way. 
 
 "Young thing — full of phrases." His wife laughed 
 lightly. 
 
 It was the night on which Freda and her mother were 
 to dine with them. Gage, dressed before his wife, had 
 dropped in to watch her. He loved to see her do her 
 hair. She seemed exquisitely beautiful to him when she 
 deftly parted and coiled the loose masses of it — more 
 than beautiful — exquisitely woman. He loved to see the 
 woman quality in her, not to awaken passion or desire 
 
68 Spellbinders 
 
 but for the sense of wonder it gave him. He loved to 
 cherish her. 
 
 "We're all full of phrases," he said, a little hurt already. 
 "But she has something behind her phrases. She's un- 
 spoiled yet by ideas." 
 
 "She's full of ideas. You should see the things that 
 young modern reads. She's without experience — without 
 dogmas yet. But she'll acquire those. At present she's 
 looking for beauty. You might show it to her, she may 
 find it in Margaret; perhaps she'll find it in her canting 
 little mother." 
 
 "She would find it in you if you'd let her see you." 
 
 "Do you think I'm anything to copy? You seem 
 dissatisfied so often, Gage." 
 
 "Don't, Helen." He came over to where she sat and 
 bent to lay his cheek against her hair. Her hand caressed 
 his cheek and his eyes closed. 
 
 She wanted to ask him what would happen to them 
 if they could not bury argument in a caress but she knew 
 the torch that would be to his anger. He felt her lack 
 of response. 
 
 "I'm not dissatisfied with you. I'm dissatisfied be- 
 cause I can't have you completely to myself. I'm dis- 
 satisfied because you can't sit beside me, above and 
 indifferent to a host of silly men and women parading 
 false ideas." 
 
 "I'm not so sure they are false. I can't get your 
 conviction about everything modern. I want to try 
 things out." 
 
 "But, Helen, it's not your game. Look — since Mar- 
 garet came you've been dabbling in this — that — politics, 
 clubs, what not. You are bored with me." 
 
 "Impossible, darling. But you really mustn't expect 
 the good, old-fashioned, clinging vine stuff from me. I'm 
 not any good at it. Now please hurry down, dear, and 
 
A Husband 69 
 
 see if there are cigars and cigarettes, will you? And 
 you'll have to have your cocktail alone because if I had 
 one before Mrs. Thorstad she'd think I was a Scarlet 
 Woman.' ' 
 
 There was nothing for Gage to do but go with that 
 familiar sense of failure. 
 
 After he had gone, Helen's face lost some of its light- 
 ness and she sat looking at herself in the glass. Without 
 admiration — without calculation. She was wondering 
 how much of love was sex — wondering how she could 
 fortify herself against the passing of the charms of sex 
 — wondering why Gage had such a frantic dislike of 
 women like Margaret who hadn't succumbed to sex — 
 wondering if that was the reason. She thought of the 
 pretty Thorstad child. Gage liked her. That too might 
 be a manifestation of vague unadmitted desire. She 
 shivered a little. Such thoughts made her very cold. 
 Then with a conscience smitten glance at her little 
 porcelain clock she slipped into her dress and rang for 
 the maid to hook it. 
 
 The nurse maid came and entertained Helen, as she 
 helped her, with an account of the afternoon she had 
 spent with Bennett and Peggy. Peggy had learned to 
 count up to ten and Bennett was trying to imitate her. 
 Helen wished she had heard them. She hated to miss 
 any bit of the development of her fascinating children. 
 It was a feeling that Margaret had told her she had better 
 steel herself against. 
 
 It was a wonderful evening for Freda. In the 
 thoroughly friendly atmosphere she expanded. She 
 made it wonderful for Gage too. He had the sense of 
 an atmosphere freed from all censoriousness of analysis. 
 
70 Spellbinders 
 
 Freda was drinking in impressions, finding her way by 
 feeling alone. He basked in the warm worshipful ad- 
 miration she gave his wife. 
 
 They left early and Gage drove them home, leaving 
 Freda at her hostess* door with a promise to give her 
 a real drive some day and an admonition not to fall in 
 love with any young wastrel. Part of their bantering 
 conversation had been about Freda's falling in love and 
 how completely she was to do it. 
 
 "I'll let you look him over if you will, Mr. Flandon." 
 
 "Fine," he said, 'Til see if he's the right sort." 
 
 He had told Helen he was going to drop in at the club 
 for a few minutes and see if he could find a man he 
 wanted to see. But the object of his search was not to 
 be seen and Gage was about to leave the lounge when 
 Walter Carpenter called him. Carpenter lived at the 
 club. He was stretched in one of the long soft chairs 
 before the fire, his back to the rest of the room. Gage 
 stopped beside him. 
 
 "How's everything?" 
 
 "So-so." 
 
 Walter offered a cigar, and indicated a chair. 
 
 "No — I think I'll go on home," said Gage, taking the 
 cigar. 
 
 "Better smoke it here." 
 
 For all his casualness it was clear that Walter wanted 
 company. Gage dropped into the nearby chair and they 
 talked for a few minutes, without focusing on anything. 
 Then Walter began. 
 
 "Wonderful girl, that Vassar friend of Helen's." 
 
 "Margaret Duffield ? Think so ?" 
 
 "I've never seen a girl I liked as much," said Walter. 
 
 He said it in the cool, dispassionate way that he said 
 most things, without any embarrassment. Embarrass- 
 ments of all sorts had been sloughed off during the fifteen 
 
A Husband 71 
 
 years of Walter's business and social achievements. 
 Gage looked at him frowningly. 
 
 "You don't mean you're serious — you?" 
 
 "Why not — I?" repeated Carpenter, grinning im- 
 perturably. 
 
 He didn't look serious or at least impassioned, Gage 
 might have said. His long figure was stretched out 
 comfortably. It was slightly thickened about the waist,^ 
 and his sleek hair was thinning as his waist was thicken- 
 ing. His calm, well-shaven face was as good looking as 
 that of a well-kept, well-fed man of thirty-seven is apt 
 to be. It was losing the sharpness and the vitality of 
 youth but it did not yet have the permanent contours of 
 its middle age. And it bore all the signs of healthy 
 living and living that was not only for the sake of satisfy- 
 ing his appetites. 
 
 "Why — it never occurred to me," said Gage, puffing 
 a little harder at his cigar. 
 
 "That I might get married?" 
 
 "I don't know. I rather thought that if you married 
 you'd pick a different sort of a girl." 
 
 "I might have done that a long time ago. I've seen 
 enough sorts. No — I never have seen one before who 
 really— " 
 
 He paused reflectively, unaccustomed in the language 
 of emotion. 
 
 "She's a fine looking girl." Gage felt he must pay 
 some tribute. 
 
 "She is fine looking. She has a face that you can't 
 forget — not for a minute." 
 
 "But," said Gage, "you must know that she's the 
 rankest kind of a woman's righter — a feminist." 
 
 "What's a feminist?" asked Walter calmly. 
 
 "Damned if I know. It means anything any woman 
 wants it to mean. It's driven everybody to incoherence. 
 
72 Spellbinders 
 
 But what I mean is that that kind of woman doesn't 
 make any concessions to— sex." 
 
 They lifted the conversation away from Margaret into 
 a generalization. Both of them wanted to talk about her 
 but it couldn't be done with her as an openly acknowl- 
 edged example. 
 
 "Well," answered Carpenter, "perhaps that was coming 
 to us. Perhaps we were expecting women to make too 
 many concessions to sex. There are a lot of uncultivated 
 qualities in women you know. They can't devote all their 
 time to our meals and our children." 
 
 "I don't object to their devoting their time to anything 
 they like. I do object to their scattering themselves, 
 wearing themselves out on a lot of damned nonsense. 
 Let them vote. Granted we've got to have a few female 
 political hacks like this Thorstad woman. It won't hurt 
 her any. It's all right for Mrs. Brownley — and that 
 type of wise old girl — to play at politics. But for a 
 woman — a young woman who ought to be finding out 
 all the things in life that belong to her, who ought to be 
 — letting herself go naturally — being a woman — for her 
 to go in for a spellbinder's career is depressing and 
 worse." 
 
 Walter smiled quizzically. 
 
 "Haven't women always been just that, spellbinders? 
 Isn't that the job we gave them long ago? Haven't 
 women been spellbinders for thousands of years ?" 
 
 "God knows they have," said Gage. 
 
 He was silent for a moment, recollecting his argument, 
 then plunged on. 
 V "It was all right when it was instinctive and natural 
 
 but now it's so damned self-conscious. They're picking 
 all their instincts to pieces, reading Freud on sex, analyz- 
 ing every honest caress, worrying about being submerged 
 in homes and husbands. It's wrecking, I tell you, Walter. 
 
A Husband 73 
 
 It's spoiling their grain. And I'll tell you another thing. 
 It's the women's colleges that start it all. If I had my 
 way I'd burn the things to the ground. They start all 
 the trouble." 
 
 Walter broke the silence again. 
 
 "The reason I wanted to talk to you was because some 
 of the difficulties you suggest were simmering in my own 
 mind. And it always seemed to me that you and Helen 
 got away with the whole business so well. You've had 
 children — you've managed to keep everything — haven't 
 you worked it out for yourself anyway?" 
 
 "You can't work it out," said Gage, impatiently, "by 
 just having children. It doesn't end the chapter." 
 
 "It's a difficult time." 
 
 "It's a rotten time. You know I can't help feeling, 
 Walter, that the women of this generation are potentially 
 all that they claim to be actually. It isn't that I'd deny 
 them any chance. But to let them be guided by fakirs 
 or by their own inexperience will land them in a worse 
 mess than ever. Look at some of them who have 
 achieved prominence-pictures in the New York Times 
 anyway. Their very pictures show they are neurasthenic. 
 Look at the books written about them that they feed on. 
 Books which won't allow a single natural normal impulse 
 or fact of sex to go unanalyzed. Books which question 
 every duty. Books which are merely tracts in favor of 
 barrenness. Books written almost always by people who 
 live abnormally. After a diet of that, can any woman 
 live with a man wholesomely — can she keep her mind 
 clear and fine ?" 
 
 Walter shook his head — then laughed. 
 
 "Well — what are you going to do about it ?" 
 
 "I'm not going to do a damned thing but growl about 
 it, I suppose. As a matter of fact I don't care what 
 most women do. But when I see the fakirs lay their 
 
74 Spellbinders 
 
 hands on Helen — Helen, who is about as perfect a woman 
 — " he stopped abruptly, and then went on. "I'm not a 
 very good person to talk to on this woman question. 
 I'm balled up, you see. I only know that the trend is 
 dangerous. They got their inch of political equality. 
 Now they want an ell. They don't want to be women 
 any longer." 
 
 "It's all interesting," answered Walter. "Of course, 
 it's difficult not to think in terms of one's own experiences. 
 Now I never have seen a woman like Miss Duffield. Of 
 course I haven't an idea that she'll have me. But per- 
 sonally I'd be quite willing to trust to her terms if she 
 did. I've never seen a woman of more essential honesty." 
 
 They were disinclined to talk further. Gage, after a 
 few trivialities, left Walter to his dream, conscious that 
 what he had said had produced no disturbance or real 
 question in the other's mind. It was easy for one to 
 transcend generalities with the wonderful possibilities 
 of any particular case, Gage knew. He'd done it him- 
 self. " 
 
 ni 
 
 Unconsciously as he went toward his home, he was 
 doing it again. He had never lost the magic of going 
 home to his wife. Entering the still hall, where the 
 single lamp cast tiny pools of light through the crystal 
 chandelier, he was pervaded by her presence. Some- 
 where, awake or asleep, above that stairway, was Helen. 
 The gentle fact of it put him at peace. 
 
 Her door was closed and he went softly past it to his 
 own room. Then, in a dressing gown, he settled him- 
 self in an easy chair by a reading lamp, no book before 
 him, cherishing that mental quiet which surrounded him. 
 
 Down the hall he heard her door open quietly and her 
 footfall on the soft rug. She had heard him come in 
 
A Husband 75 
 
 and was come to say good night. With a quick motion 
 he turned out the light beside him and waited. 
 
 "Asleep, Gage?" She spoke softly, not to awaken 
 him, if he were asleep. 
 
 "No — resting — here by the window." 
 
 She found her way to him and he gathered her up in 
 his arms. 
 
 "You wonderful bundle of relaxation ! Have you any 
 idea how I love you like this ?" 
 
 "Do you know, Gage, I think that for all our bad 
 moments that we are really happier than most people ?" 
 
 "There's no one in the world, dear, as happy as I am 
 at this moment." 
 
 "And it isn't just because I'm — " 
 
 He bent his head to her, stifling her sentence. 
 
 "You mustn't talk — don't say it. It isn't because of 
 anything. It just is." 
 
 "I know. And when it is — it swallows up the times 
 when it isn't." 
 
 "Hush, sweetheart. Let's not — talk. Let's just rest." 
 
 He felt her grow even easier in his arms. All the 
 instinct for poetry in him, starved, without vehicle, 
 sought to dominate the relentlessness of her mind, work- 
 ing, working in its tangles of thought. The meaning of 
 his inexpressible love for her must come through his 
 arms, must be compelling, tender. They sat together in 
 the big chair enfolded in peace. And the same little 
 secret thought ran from one to the other, comforting 
 them. This is the best. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 MARGARET 
 
 MARGARET made the faintest little grimace of dis- 
 • may at the long florist's box for which she had 
 just signed the receipt presented by the messenger. It 
 wasn't a grimace of displeasure but a puzzled look as if 
 the particular calculation involved was an unresolved 
 doubt. Then she cut the pale green string and lifted 
 the flowers out. 
 
 There were flowers for every corner, fresia, daffodils, 
 narcissus — everything that the florist's windows were 
 blooming with during this second week of May. She 
 touched them with delight, sorted them, placed them in 
 every bit of crockery she could find. But Mrs. Thorstad 
 sat in a chair drawn up before the mission oak table in 
 Margaret's little rented apartment and waited. She was 
 impatient that the flowers should have come at a moment 
 when their discussion hinged on a crisis. And as if her 
 respect for Margaret had fallen a little, she eyed the 
 display without appreciation. Margaret talked, as she 
 placed the flowers, however, as if she could separate her 
 mental reactions from her esthetic. 
 
 "Well," she said, "you saw the way the thing went. 
 It was absolutely cut and dried. I knew there was no 
 chance of getting a woman elected as one of the regular 
 delegates to the National Convention. Pratt and Abbott 
 were the slate from the beginning. Every one knew 
 Gage Flandon wanted them and every one knew that 
 meant they were Joyce's choice if Flandon wanted them. 
 
 76 
 
Margaret 77 
 
 I had talked to Mr. Flandon about it but he wouldn't 
 tell me anything really revealing. Except that the slate 
 was made up and while they were very glad to have the 
 women as voters that it might be better to wait another 
 four years before they gave mem a chance to sit in at a 
 National Convention. He didn't intend to have a woman 
 and especially he didn't intend to have one because he 
 knew there was some agitation to send his own wife." 
 
 "That was what the mistake was, I think, Miss Duffield. 
 I think another candidate might have done better." 
 
 "But they never even mentioned any woman," ex- 
 claimed Margaret. Then as if she got the other woman's 
 meaning, she gave her a searching look. 
 
 Mrs. Thorstad talked blandly on. Margaret finished 
 her work of beauty and came back to the table, tapping 
 the surface of it with her regained pencil. 
 
 "What we must propose is a woman with a national 
 ideal, a woman thoroughly interested in the district, 
 conversant with its needs and with a democratic per- 
 sonality." 
 
 Thus definitely did Mrs. Thorstad outline what she 
 believed to be her virtues, but Margaret did not seem to 
 understand them as solely hers. 
 
 "Helen Flandon combines all those things." 
 
 "Personally," broke in the other woman, "I have 
 always admired Mrs. Flandon immensely. But I have 
 always felt that her interest in all these matters was 
 perhaps a little transitory. That is no reflection on her, 
 of course" (Margaret nodded acquiescence) "but a 
 woman with so many domestic duties and with so much 
 society life must necessarily not be able to give her whole 
 mind to the work." 
 
 "She'd give her whole mind if she got interested 
 enough and I think she is nearly interested enough now. 
 Helen Flandon is big material, Mrs. Thorstad. She has 
 
78 Spellbinders 
 
 the genius of leadership. It's a bit banked with ashes 
 just now but it could be fanned into flame." 
 
 "Won't the fact that she is Gage Flandon's wife work 
 against her ?" 
 
 "Not materially, I think. Of course that's one thing 
 that bothers Gage. He thinks he'll be accused of using 
 influence to get his wife in. Told me the thing was 
 impossible on that account. Let him be accused of it. 
 It doesn't matter. Her name will please the men. 
 They'll think they're pleasing Flandon by letting her in 
 and that's of course a thing he can't deny." 
 
 Mrs. Thorstad apparently did not get all the subtleties 
 of those statements. A settled darkness had come over 
 her face — a kind of clouded vision. 
 
 Margaret went blithely on. 
 
 She talked easily, wisely, giving the wounded hopes of 
 Mrs. Thorstad a chance to get over their first bleeding, 
 giving her a chance to get her hopes fixed a little on that 
 political future which, although she was apparently not 
 to be made delegate at large, still loomed ahead. She 
 suggested that Mrs. Thorstad should surely be at the 
 Convention in some capacity. And she went on, telling 
 of the Washington leaders, the section leaders, of the 
 general plans for work and education in politics among 
 women. Then she spoke of Freda. 
 
 "Is she going to stay here after all ? I do hope so." 
 
 "Well, I go home to-morrow. Mrs. Flandon has been 
 interested in Freda's staying. She thought there must be 
 things Freda could do here and Freda wants to stay. 
 Freda doesn't typewrite but at the Republican headquar- 
 ters there may be a place for her. Mr. Flandon has 
 promised to speak to the chairman about taking Freda 
 on as secretary. At first there'd be only a certain small 
 amount of correspondence but later they say they could 
 
Margaret 79 
 
 put her in the campaign headquarters. I must go back to 
 Mohawk. Freda stays for a day or so at Mrs. Brown- 
 ley's — then if she takes this position, Mrs. Flandon will 
 help her find a place to live. It's extremely kind of all 
 of you to be so interested in Freda." 
 
 "She's a very wonderful young person. I only hope 
 she gets more interested in us." 
 
 "She has all the irresponsibility of youth," said her 
 mother, sententiously. 
 
 "Oh, by the way," said Margaret, "I promised to lend 
 your Freda a book. Here it is." She took a book from 
 the table and gave it to Mrs. Thorstad who eyed it a 
 little questioningly. 
 
 "It's very stimulating if not altogether found," said 
 Margaret. 
 
 "So much of our literature is that." The older woman 
 compressed her lips a little. "Not that I am not a 
 Modern. But we are a little inclined to lose sight of the 
 fact that our fathers and mothers — " 
 
 This time her little platform manner was interrupted 
 by the ringing of the house phone. Margaret spoke into 
 it, briefly. 
 
 "Why, yes, I'm nearly ready. I didn't realize it was 
 so late. No, indeed not. Come in and wait for me." 
 
 "Don't hurry, Mrs. Thorstad," she added, hanging up 
 the receiver. "Mr. Carpenter can wait." 
 
 But Mrs. Thorstad did hurry. And as she went out 
 she met Walter Carpenter going in. She gave him her 
 reserved little bow. 
 
 The two Thorstads were still at the Brownley house. 
 The visit had turned out so much better than Freda had 
 feared that two weeks had slipped away quickly for her 
 while her mother was working and planning and making 
 speeches to small clubs and circles along the lines her 
 
80 Spellbinders 
 
 hostess desired. Freda was out with Allison Brownley 
 on this particular afternoon and the two guest rooms 
 were empty as Mrs. Thorstad entered them. 
 
 She sat down in a straight chair (the habit of relaxing 
 had long since failed her) and fell into thought, idly 
 turning the pages of the book she had borrowed from 
 Miss Duffield. A letter slipped out and fell to the floor. 
 It had no envelope and as Mrs. Thorstad picked it up 
 she read clearly the scrawl of writing in black, heavy 
 masculine characters across the back of the page. It was 
 a love letter to Margaret signed with a black sprawling 
 male signature, "Gregory." So Mrs. Thorstad would 
 phrase it with a little repression of her lips. There were 
 words of passion — there was a flavor of intimacy — 
 
 She read no more than that back page. Then, holding 
 the letter as if it offended her, she placed it in one of 
 Mrs. Brownley's envelopes and addressed it to Margaret. 
 
 "Did I drive away a visitor ?" asked Walter. 
 
 "No — she was through with me. You're rather a 
 relief." 
 
 Margaret could smile with the most complete friend- 
 liness of any woman he had ever seen, thought her 
 visitor. She lifted her head and smiled straight at you. 
 L There were no evasions in her way of showing that she 
 was glad to see you. She didn't hold her gladness as a 
 prize, but made you a straight gift of it. He liked the 
 dress she was wearing — a fawn colored cloth dress that 
 outlined the straight lines of her figure — he liked the 
 way her hair grew away from its boyish side parting 
 with a little curve here and there. 
 
 "I think I am a little early," he said, looking at his 
 
Margaret 81 
 
 watch, "but I thought since I was through at the office 
 I'd come up, and you might be willing to come out for, 
 a ride before we dine. It's just five o'clock/' 
 
 "That sounds very nice. Sit down and amuse your- 
 self while I get my hat." 
 
 He obeyed, finding a book which did not seem to 
 interest him at all but which gave him a chance to turn 
 pages while she put on her hat and piled the papers on 
 her desk. She turned to him as she was doing that. 
 
 "You spoil me." 
 
 "I'd like to spoil you." 
 
 "Spoil me by treating me like a human being — 
 forgetting that I'm a woman and that you've been taught 
 to flatter women." 
 
 "If I do that I can't remind you that I'm a man and 
 it might be I'd like you to think of that." 
 
 It was very light. Their tones were the perfectly 
 controlled tones of those who have emotions thoroughly 
 in check. But the note of seriousness was there and 
 they were both too wise to pretend that it wasn't. 
 
 "I'm quite ready to go," said Margaret. 
 
 He helped her with her cloak and they went down the 
 stairway. Once in the car, with Margaret bundled in 
 robes he turned to the boulevards and they fell into talk 
 again. They liked to talk to each other. They eluci- 
 dated things between them. They liked the calmness 
 of each other's reactions, the sense of mutual control 
 they had as they held a subject poised on their reflections, 
 as they explored the sensitive delicacy of some thought. 
 Politics, people, books — but always their talk strayed back 
 to men and women. As if in that kind of talk they got 
 most pleasure from each other, as if the subject were 
 inexhaustible. 
 
 Walter had told Margaret a great deal about himself 
 
82 Spellbinders 
 
 and she had listened with interest. Then little by little 
 under that cloak of the impersonal she had told him some- 
 thing of herself, her interest in women. "Not that I 
 idealize them. I don't. But they are far more interest- 
 ing than any work — their problems are the biggest in 
 the world." 
 
 "Are you looking for still further concessions ?" 
 
 "You mustn't use that word. We're looking for the 
 truth in the situation. You think because we vote that 
 the game's up, don't you? It's not. If women are ever 
 going to be — women, Mr. Carpenter, they've got to 
 develop all the qualities they've been letting rot and decay 
 for hundreds of years. A few women have preserved 
 the strength all women should have. But most of them — 
 Do you dream that most of them have an idea of doing 
 any real work — want any real work? Do you think 
 they're going to give up their security of support without 
 a struggle? They don't want independence in the 
 majority of cases. They want certain rules relaxed for 
 their convenience. But do you think that basically they 
 want to give up their claim developed through ages as a 
 'weaker sex'?" 
 
 She stopped, at the little smile in his eyes. "You think 
 I'm as oratorical as Mrs. Thorstad, don't you ?" 
 
 "I do not, but I was thinking that it was time we had 
 some dinner." 
 
 They stopped at one of the hotels and maneuvered 
 their way through a crowded, ornate dining-room to a 
 little table on the side of the room, Walter bowing 
 gravely to a great many people as they went along. 
 
 "You're a very solid citizen, aren't you?" asked 
 Margaret. 
 
 "I like solid citizens," he answered, "are they too on 
 your list of obnoxious people and things?" 
 
Margaret 83 
 
 "Of course they are not." 
 
 "I was a little worried after that list began developing. 
 I don't want to be on the list of people you don't like." 
 
 But it was not until they had finished dinner and were 
 drinking coffee that he developed that thought. 
 
 "I wonder if you know how hard you women are 
 making things for men," he said, not abruptly but as if 
 stating his brief. 
 
 "Perhaps it was too easy before." 
 
 "Perhaps. But you make it so difficult — you stand so 
 aggressively strong — so independent of us that we can't 
 find a thing with which to recommend ourselves. You 
 don't want our protection — our support — you mistrust 
 our motives." 
 
 "I told you this afternoon that I thought most women 
 did cling to protection and support." 
 
 "Not the women we may want. You don't want the 
 things I have to offer." 
 
 His tones had hardly raised. In her first moment of 
 embarrassment Margaret fumbled for words but he went 
 on in that same quiet tone. 
 
 "I thought it was as well to be frank with you. I 
 couldn't see that I would gain anything by conventional- 
 ities of courtship. And I'm a little old to indulge in 
 certain forms of wooing anyhow. I have never seen any 
 woman I wanted to marry so much. I like your mind.. 
 'And I mention it first because it is the thing which: 
 matters least. I like more than that the way you smile. 
 I would always have the greatest enjoyment from you 
 as a woman of intellect. But the real reason I want 
 you to marry me is because you are a woman of flesh 
 and blood — and all that that means." 
 
 She had flushed a little and as he ended in that 
 controlled way, though for all his control he could not 
 conceal the huskiness in his voice, she leaned forward 
 
84 Spellbinders 
 
 a little to him, as if in sympathy. But she did not speak. 
 Her eyes fell away from his. 
 
 "I care for you just as all men have a way of caring 
 for women, Margaret — I love you very much." 
 
 "I'm a very poor person to love," she answered, slowly. 
 
 "You're a wonderful person to love. Do you think 
 you could care for me — ever? After you'd trained me 
 a bit?" 
 
 "I like you to talk to — to be with as much as any one 
 I've ever known," she said at last. " We've had a great 
 deal of sympathy for each other. Of course I guessed 
 you liked me. I rather hoped you wouldn't love me. 
 Because" — and curiously enough her voice dropped as if 
 in shame, almost to a whisper — "I'm so cold, Walter. 
 I don't feel things like most women." 
 
 "Let's get out of here," said Walter, rising abruptly. 
 
 But he was unlucky. At the very door they were 
 hailed by a passing automobile and discovered the Flan- 
 dons, Jerrold Haynes and three other people, had seen 
 them. They were invited to come along to the theater 
 where there were a couple of vacant seats in the boxes the 
 Flandons had taken. It seemed ridiculous to refuse. 
 The play was conspicuously good, it was too cold a night 
 for driving and they all knew that Margaret had no 
 home to which they were going. So, unwillingly, Walter 
 found himself made part of the larger group. For the 
 rest of the evening he heard Margaret arguing with 
 Gage, whom Walter noted, seemed very bitter on the 
 matter of his wife's discussed entry into politics. He 
 heard Helen say, suddenly and very quietly, after some 
 rather blustering declaration of Gage's, "If the women 
 want me, I shall go, Gage." Walter was conscious that 
 there seemed an altercation beneath the surface, that the 
 geniality of relation between Helen and Gage was 
 
Margaret 85 
 
 lessened. For a few minutes he thought Helen was 
 flirting rather badly with that ass of a Jerrold Haynes. 
 
 As he took Margaret home she talked at length of 
 sending Helen to the Convention. 
 
 "You've shelved me, haven't you?" he asked as they 
 entered the tiny apartment so fragrant with his flowers. 
 
 "I didn't mean to. Come in and we'll talk about you.' , 
 
 "About you and me." He came in, readily. 
 
 "I didn't understand that was what you wanted." 
 
 She did not let him touch her and in the isolation of 
 her room he could not persist. For a while he sat silent 
 and she told him about herself and her lack of feeling. 
 She had fine, clear, experienced phrases to tell of it. Yet 
 she was conscious of making no impression. 
 
 "I've passed the marrying time," she said. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "It involves things which have passed me by — that I. 
 no longer need." 
 
 "You mean — children?" 
 
 "No — I haven't a lot of sentimental yearnings about 
 them. But of course I would like to have children. 
 There's an instinct to do one's duty by the race, in every 
 woman." 
 
 He actually laughed. 
 
 "You chilled young woman. Well — what then has 
 passed by you?" 
 
 She did not tell him. Perhaps there were no words, 
 no definite thoughts in her own mind. She must have 
 been full of strange inhibitions. Analysis crowded so 
 close on the heels of feeling with her that she never could 
 have the one without the other. All her study, her watch- 
 ing of men, all her study and analysis of women had 
 made her mind a laboratory with her own emotions for 
 victims of analysis. 
 
 Gregory had told her that in that sprawlingly written 
 
86 Spellbinders 
 
 letter, now in the post office, being sent back to her from 
 Mrs. Thorstad. 
 
 Gregory held her thought for a moment. Then she 
 looked at Walter with fresh appreciation. She liked to 
 be with Walter. He didn't oppress her. His mind met 
 hers without pushing. She felt protected in his com- 
 panionship from that rude forcing of emotion which had 
 been so hard on her. 
 
 He was going now. At the door he held her hand. 
 
 "I could be very good to you," he said, quietly. "Let 
 me try." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 AN UGLY GLIMPSE 
 
 TV/f RS. THORSTAD went back to Mohawk a few days 
 *■**- later, leaving behind her a trail of increased 
 prestige and carrying with her many assurances of 
 appreciation which she could cogitate at her leisure. Her 
 husband met her at the station, quietly, graciously pleased 
 as he always was at a home-coming. 
 
 "So Freda stayed for a while," he said, as they went 
 down the street his arm hanging heavy with her suit- 
 case. 
 
 "Yes. It will be nice for her. Pleasant young girls, 
 Mrs. Brownley's girls, although they haven't a great 
 deal of mentality. Freda attracted quite a little atten- 
 tion. Miss Duffield is very anxious for her to stay in 
 St. Pierre but of course Miss Duffield is an outsider and 
 cannot exert any influence. Mrs. Flandon had some 
 very sensible suggestions. They were going to see if 
 there was a chance for Freda to get a place as secretary 
 to the general Republican district committee and later 
 do some work for the campaign committee. She can't 
 typewrite and that's a drawback but they thought they 
 might get around that. She'll know in a day or so. 
 It needs the consent of the chairman and he's out of the 
 city. But he'll probably do just what Mrs. Flandon 
 asks." 
 
 "In the meantime Freda stays at Mrs. Brownley's?" 
 
 87 
 
88 Spellbinders 
 
 ''Yes, and if she stays for a definite work, Mrs. Flan- 
 don will find her a place to live." 
 
 'The Flandons are nice people?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, a worldly sort, but very good. Mrs. Flandon 
 is to be made delegate at large from the state if they can 
 manage it." 
 
 "That's good stuff." 
 
 "She's hardly the person for it," said Mrs. Thorstad. 
 "As a matter of fact I am convinced that if this visiting 
 organizer, Miss Duffield, who after all is in a most 
 anomalous position, had not urged it (she is an intimate 
 friend of Mrs. Flandon's) — well, if she had not interfered 
 I might have been made the delegate at large myself. As 
 it is, I'll have to try to get the Federated clubs to send 
 me. I ought to be there. It's important for the future. 
 I should have been the candidate for delegate at large." 
 
 Her husband whistled and shifted the bag to his other 
 arm. 
 
 "I'm very glad you were saved that grave responsibility, 
 Addie," he said, with his unfailing tact. 
 
 "Yes — there is that side, of course. But this Miss 
 Duffield is a person who'll bear watching. I never can 
 see the point in sending these unsettled young women 
 about the country organizing. They're dangerous in 
 some ways. Now I happen to know that Miss Duffield 
 is the sort of young woman who receives men in her 
 rooms — it's only one room and there's a bed in it even if 
 it has a cretonne cover — " 
 
 "Addie— Addie— !" 
 
 "But that's not all. At the same time she does receive 
 men in her room — of course it may be all right and just 
 a modern way — but she also gets passionate, very 
 suspicious letters from other men." 
 
 Mr. Thorstad frowned. But they reached the house 
 just then and in the business of entering and commenting 
 
An Ugly Glimpse 89 
 
 on his housekeeping Mrs. Thorstad let the matter drop. 
 She flew about efficiently and her husband sat back in 
 his armchair and watched her. There was no doubt of 
 his gladness at her return. His pleasant gray eyes were 
 contented, a little sad perhaps, but contented. 
 
 "Freda isn't involved with any young men ?" he asked. 
 
 "No — they tease her about young Smillie — that's H. T. 
 Smillie, First National Bank, you know, but she says that's 
 just nonsense." 
 
 n 
 
 Yet it was that very night after the Thorstads had 
 gone to bed and were sleeping in the pale light of a quiet 
 moonlit sky, that Freda was forced to admit that it 
 wasn't nonsense. 
 
 All along she had hated staying without her mother, 
 who after all was her reason for being here. She had 
 to do it, however, or else abandon the chance of getting 
 the job as secretary to the committee. Freda herself 
 was a little homesick under all her excitement but, steady- 
 ing her, there had come letters from her father which 
 urged her to make the most of any opportunities which 
 might come to her, which bade her make suitable and 
 wise friends and learn as much as she could. 
 
 One or two of the young men Freda met stood out, 
 as being more interesting than the others. Ted Smillie, 
 because he was so attracted to her from the first, had 
 more or less intrigued her. Barbara's obvious dislike of 
 the situation had forced both Ted and Freda into some- 
 what closer acquaintanceship than would have naturally 
 developed, but they both worked against Barbara's inter- 
 ference. There was in Ted, for all his amorousness, 
 a real feeling for health and beauty. That drew him 
 to Freda and her to him and there was enough in the 
 
90 Spellbinders 
 
 glamour of being chosen by the most competed- for man 
 as worthy of attention, to make Freda feel rather strongly 
 in his favor. If he had been rude to her, as he might 
 have been to the country guest of the Brownley's, she 
 would have seen him more clearly, seen his weakness, 
 his impressionability, read the laziness of his mind, seen 
 the signs of self-indulgence which were already beginning 
 to show on his handsome face. She would have seen 
 him as too "soft" of mind and body. But he was frankly 
 at her feet and it would have taken an older head than 
 Freda's to analyze too clearly past that during those first 
 few weeks. 
 
 It was not the first attention she had had, of course. 
 There were always young men who were ready to be nice 
 to Freda in Mohawk. But much as they had liked her 
 they had not, as she would have said, "made love to 
 her." Ted did that. In his own way, he was good at 
 it and Freda was collecting experiences and naive in spite 
 of her power to get a perspective on her own situation. 
 He had singled Freda out as capable of giving him a 
 fresher thrill than any of the girls of his own "crowd." 
 And he had ended by being pushed a little more than 
 he expected by his own emotions. The prospect of 
 Freda's return to Mohawk had annoyed him. He had 
 felt that if she went now, it would be an incomplete 
 experience. He wanted more than he had had. Freda 
 had been pleasant, had been more than pleasant, been 
 frank enough in showing how much she liked him. But 
 he was used to more abandonment in the girls he knew — 
 more freedom of caresses. He wasn't quite sure how 
 far he wanted to go and of course he had no intention 
 of marrying anybody, certainly not Freda. But he was 
 unsatisfied. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Brownley had gone to Chicago the day 
 after Mrs. Thorstad had gone home and the three girls 
 
An Ugly Glimpse 91 
 
 were alone in the house with the servants. There had 
 been a gay party at a hotel ballroom and at one o'clock 
 the three girls had left the hotel with their escorts. Ted 
 had his small car and Freda had wanted him to take 
 Barbara home. But Barbara had demurred, strangely 
 enough. She was going in the big car with the others, 
 she said. 
 
 Barbara had been making life hard for Freda all day. 
 Wherever they had been she had managed to make Freda 
 miserable. When the older Brownleys were home, and 
 when her mother was with her, Freda had never been so 
 completely at Barbara's mercy as she was to-day. Allie, 
 her usual ally, had suddenly fallen away too. The fact 
 was that Allie, having pressed her mother for the purchase 
 of the new runabout, had been put off on the ground that 
 her father said it was too expensive and on the further 
 ground that Freda's visit was not over and that anyway 
 Mrs. Brownley had made no definite promise. Allie 
 was disgruntled and the enthusiasm she had had for 
 Freda having run its brief course, like most of Allie's 
 enthusiasms, she was willing to lend some slight support 
 to Barbara's evident ennui with their guest. All through 
 luncheon Barbara had engineered an extremely rude 
 conversation about things and places which were entirely 
 foreign to Freda. Not once had she let her guest slip 
 into the conversation. She had misled Freda deliberately 
 into wearing her flame colored satin dress to a very 
 informal afternoon affair and appeared herself, like 
 every one else, in the most simple suit, making Freda feel 
 foolishly over dressed. It was a little thing but it pricked 
 Freda. At dinner she had asked some people to come in 
 whom she knew would follow her lead and they had 
 again left Freda high and dry on the conversational 
 sands. It had not been a pleasant day and even as they 
 danced, she and Ted, that evening, Freda felt Barbara's 
 
92 Spellbinders 
 
 eyes rather scornfully on her and guessed at the little tide 
 of innuendo that was being set in motion. She knew 
 Barbara's ways by this time. She could not stand it 
 another day, she vowed. In the morning she would see 
 Mrs. Flandon or go to a hotel or back to Mohawk. 
 
 It was clear that the others had not arrived when they 
 drove up under the Brownley porte-cochere where a 
 single light was burning. Freda did not want Ted to 
 come in. She wanted to make her escape to bed before 
 Barbara might arrive and make her a further target. 
 Besides it was clear that Ted had been drinking and that 
 he was most amorous. But he was insistent. The 
 others would be along in a minute and he wanted to see 
 one of the boys, he said. 
 
 They went into the long drawing-room. A single 
 standing lamp was lit beside a big divan and at Freda's 
 gesture as if she would turn on more, Ted caught her 
 hand. 
 
 "Quite enough light," he said. "Come sit down." 
 
 His methods were not as subtle as usual and they 
 frightened Freda. But she thought it wiser not to 
 quarrel with him and sat down obediently beside him on 
 the divan — much too close for her taste. 
 
 "You aren't really going away, are you, Freda?" 
 
 "I can't stay forever. My welcome's wearing a little 
 thin." 
 
 She tried to pull away from that encircling arm but 
 he would not have it. His strength had surprised her 
 before, and she had not before minded his demonstra- 
 tions. To-night she felt them as different, vaguely 
 repellent. 
 
 "Please don't, Ted." 
 
 "I'm crazy about you, Freda. I've never seen a girl 
 like you. There aren't any girls like you. Never have 
 
An Ugly Glimpse 93 
 
 been any. I never knew what it meant to be in love 
 before." 
 
 And all the time that arm tighter, heavier. His face 
 seemed to Freda to thicken. She discovered that she 
 hated it. Abruptly she wrenched herself free. But he 
 followed her and unfortunately she had gone to an even 
 darker corner. 
 
 He pulled her to him and kissed her. It was the first 
 time he had done it and it seemed to exhilarate him. 
 
 There followed one of the worst half hours of Freda's 
 life. She kept wondering what had happened to the 
 others. She was conscious of herself growing disheveled. 
 She realized that he was in earnest, that he was excited 
 past his own control. 
 
 In desperation she cried at him — 
 
 "But I don't care for you at all/* 
 
 "That makes it more interesting to a man," said Ted, 
 gallantly. "Anyway, I'll never give up." 
 
 "And," thought Freda, suddenly, with directness, "he 
 hasn't said one word about marrying." With a kind 
 of vague desire to sound the situation fully, she said — 
 
 "Do you really want me to marry you?" 
 
 The drinking that Ted had done had not improved his 
 keenness of wit. He laughed. 
 
 "I think you could almost make me do that," he 
 answered, "but what's the use of marrying? What we 
 want is love — you know. I sized you up at the start. 
 Freda — you wonderful girl — let me tell you — " 
 
 What he told her, the outlines of his plan, struck Freda 
 with impersonal clearness. She had an odd sense of 
 watching the scene from the outside, as an observer who 
 jeered at her a little for being implicated. Similar scenes 
 she had read about ran through her mind. She thought 
 of Ann Veronica and Mr. Ramage. "He hasn't gone 
 
94 Spellbinders 
 
 quite far enough for me to actually fight him," she 
 thought — and then — "I ought to ring for a servant or 
 something — that's what's always done. I'm being 
 insulted. I ought to either faint or beat him. I'm 
 interested. Isn't it shocking !" , 
 
 Above all these almost subconscious thoughts her mind 
 dealt with practicalities. She wondered where the others 
 were. She must get out of the house early in the 
 morning. She wondered if Ted would keep this up even 
 if the others came in. 
 
 She tried to get to the door but her movement towards 
 escape roused him further. It had evidently never en- 
 tered his head that she really meant to rebuff him. He 
 caught her in his arms. 
 
 "So you see, beautiful, how easy the whole thing will 
 be—" " 
 
 He was growing noisy and she realized that she did 
 not want the servants to hear. After all it wasn't her 
 house. She saw that they had been alone for an hour. 
 It was past two. And then to her immense relief she 
 heard the limousine outside. 
 
 "The others are here," she said to him. 
 
 "Damn the others," he said mumblingly, and, without 
 apology, forced himself into his overcoat. In the hall 
 he seemed to recover himself. Perhaps his sense of 
 social convention struggled and overcame his amorous- 
 ness temporarily. He went out, past the entering girls, 
 vaguely speaking rather at them than to them. 
 
 Nothing of what happened after that seemed quite 
 real to Freda. She was fairly worn out from her trying 
 day and hour of struggle and embarrassment. As she 
 stood for a minute by a long window trying to collect 
 her thoughts, she heard the girls at the door and it flashed 
 through her mind to ease the disgust from her own mind 
 
An Ugly Glimpse 95 
 
 by telling the whole business. She knew how frankly 
 these girls talked of such things among themselves. 
 
 They came in, Barbara leading. With a quick, sharp 
 movement Barbara turned on all the lights and as if in 
 a spotlight the disarrayed parts of the room seemed to 
 stand out, the rug in which Ted's foot had caught and 
 which he had kicked aside, the several chairs at unfamiliar 
 angles, the divan all tossed, with pillows crushed — most 
 of all Freda herself, hair somewhat disheveled, cheeks 
 angrily flushed. Allie looked a little queer as she gazed 
 around. Barbara, after one scornful glance, never took 
 her eyes off Freda. 
 
 "So you brought him here?" 
 
 "Brought him? Ted? Where were the rest of you?" 
 
 "You knew where we were. We said where we were 
 going. We waited and waited at the Hebley's. Every 
 one was wondering where you'd gone. You and Ted 
 Smillie — at two o'clock. But I didn't really think you'd 
 have the audacity to make my mother's house the scene 
 of your — " 
 
 The awful thing, thought Freda, is that she doesn't 
 believe that. But she's going to pretend she believes it 
 and it's just as bad as if she did. Some one had let her 
 in for this. It looks exactly as if — she looked around 
 and the color swept her face again. 
 
 "You shameless girl!" Barbara went viciously on. 
 "If my mother was here you wouldn't dare have done it. 
 To think that we have to stay in the same house — to think 
 — come Allie — " 
 
 But Freda was roused, infuriated. The scorn of her 
 own position, a position which allowed her to be insulted 
 by such a person, rose above all else. She flung her cloak 
 around her. 
 
96 Spellbinders 
 
 "I wouldn't stay in your house another night," she 
 cried, "if I have to sleep on a park bench all night." 
 
 The front door closed after her. As she reached the 
 sidewalk she heard the door open again, her name called 
 cautiously, heard the latch slipped. They were leaving 
 the door open. As if she would go back — 
 
 She went through the streets swiftly. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ADVENTURE 
 
 ALL the time, under that motivating anger and 
 determination not to go back, ran the two threads 
 of thought — one quickly sifting the practicalities of a 
 situation for a bare headed young girl in the streets of 
 a city at two o'clock in the morning, the other analyzing, 
 jeering at the melodrama of her position. 
 
 "It's a warm night," she thought, "I'll probably get 
 nothing but a terrific cold in my head if I do sit in 
 Lincoln Park all night. That young devil ! She planned 
 all that. She deliberately didn't tell Ted they were not 
 coming straight home. There's no way of proving it. 
 I'd like to bring her to her knees. I'll probably meet 
 some fool policeman. How it will embarrass mother if 
 this gets about. It's an ugly mess if I don't do things 
 right. Nice ending to this visit. I knew the whole thing 
 was bound to be disastrous. It was all a fake trip. That 
 girl hated me from the start. As if I wanted that young 
 fool." 
 
 She was walking in the direction of the park, past 
 the long iron fences, the smooth sloping terraces which 
 characterized the Brownley part of the city. The street 
 was absolutely quiet. Street lamps seemed very bright 
 as she passed them. Here and there a light gleamed in 
 a house, a night light behind an iron grilled door. Her 
 footsteps seemed to resound with disastrous noise. She 
 felt the sound of her walking was a disturbance of the 
 
 97 
 
98 Spellbinders 
 
 peace, an affront to the quiet of everything about her. 
 She hurried, trying to feel as if she were called out by 
 illness, imagining what she would say if accosted, a little 
 cooler of anger and beginning to be enthralled and 
 intrigued by her own adventure. 
 
 Angry as she was, there was a thrill in the circum- 
 stances. She was sure she would not go back to the 
 Brownley house and that resolve was backed perhaps 
 by her interest in what might happen — what adventure 
 might be awaiting her. Quite fearless and untroubled 
 by any physical nervousness, her only anxiety was that 
 she was not quite sure of how to meet any eventuality. 
 But the night was hers. For a few hours she was 
 thrown upon its mercy, and it exhilarated her, as if she 
 had been released from annoying restraints. In her rush 
 from the Brownley house she had satisfied a host of 
 petty feelings which had been accumulating for weeks. 
 It was as if she had broken through a horde of petty 
 conventions which had been gaining a hold on her. She 
 felt more herself than she had yet felt in the city. As 
 she went along she almost forgot Barbara. 
 
 The park was still. The iron benches had long ago 
 been deserted by even the last of the romantic couples. 
 The policeman had evidently left the park for the night. 
 Freda sat on a bench under a tree and tucked her feet 
 under her to keep warm. 
 
 ^Good thing mother insisted on an interlining in this 
 coat," she said to herself. 
 
 She heard the clock in Trinity High School sound 
 half past two, after what seemed a long time. She was 
 already chilled and cramped. Then she heard a sound 
 of voices and looked up to see two men on the far side 
 of the park, half a block away. It made her a little 
 apprehensive. She suddenly felt a little unable to cope 
 
Adventure 99 
 
 with two of them. Two had no romantic possibilities. 
 If it had been one wanderer — 
 
 Hurriedly getting up, she slipped through the shadows 
 and cleared the park, thankful that her coat was dark. 
 
 "Well, then, I must walk," she said, trying to reassure 
 herself by her own voice. Her feet were very cold and 
 a little damp in their thin slippers. They hurt. 
 
 For a minute she considered going to Mrs. Flandon's 
 house. But she abandoned that idea. Mrs. Flandon 
 wasn't the sort of person she wanted to know about all 
 this. She'd think she was such a fool. It might hurt 
 her chances of getting that place. Did she want that 
 place, she queried and kept her mind fixed on that for a 
 little, sliding into a dream of what she might do and 
 how she might confound Barbara Brownley. 
 
 By this time her walking had become fairly aimless. 
 She had come through the residence district where she 
 had been living, into a street of tall apartment houses. 
 Here and there in the windows of these buildings lights 
 still gleamed. Freda tried to amuse herself by wonder- 
 ing what was happening there, tried to forget her painful 
 feet. Then she met her second adventurer. 
 
 He was walking very fast, his head up, and he rounded 
 a corner so abruptly that she had no time to avoid him. 
 As if he had hardly sensed her presence he passed her, 
 then she heard his steps cease to resound and knew he 
 was turning to look at her. He did more, he followed 
 her. In a few strides he had caught up with her and 
 Freda, turning her head, gave him a look meant to be 
 fraught with dignity but which turned out to be only 
 very angry. The man laughed. 
 
 "Oh, all right," he said, "if you look like that, maybe 
 there is something I can do for you. I wasn't sure of 
 what sort of person you were. But I see now." 
 
100 Spellbinders 
 
 His voice was rich and clear and pleasant. Freda 
 could not see what he looked like but she could tell he 
 was young, and he did not sound dangerous. 
 
 "Please don't bother me," she said, "I'm just — out 
 for a walk." 
 
 "I hope you're near home," he answered. 
 
 Freda couldn't resist it. 
 
 "I'm just exactly a hundred and thirty-nine miles 
 from home." 
 
 He tried to see her closely but her head was down. 
 
 "No, you're not crazy," he commented, "so there 
 must be a story or a mystery to you. Can I walk home 
 with you — the hundred and thirty-nine miles?" 
 
 "It's too far — and I'm really better alone." 
 
 "Please. I'm not in the least dangerous and I don't 
 want to annoy you. But you must admit that a young 
 woman at three o'clock in the morning ought to let some- 
 body accompany her on such prodigious walks. I'm 
 out for one myself. I'd enjoy it." 
 
 He talked like an Englishman — or an Irishman, thought 
 Freda. And why shouldn't she talk to him. It was all 
 too ridiculous anyway. But rather exciting. 
 
 "I'm in a very silly mess," she told him, "and I haven't 
 any place to go to-night." 
 
 "And you wish I'd mind my own business?" 
 
 "No — but there's nothing you can do. I'm not in 
 the least a tragedy. In the morning I can straighten 
 things out. I haven't committed any murders or any- 
 thing like that. But I said I wouldn't go back to-night, 
 and I won't." 
 
 The young man considered. 
 
 "Is it by any chance a husband to whom you made 
 that statement?" 
 
 "Oh, no," Freda laughed. "It wasn't a husband or 
 even a father. It was just a girl." 
 
Adventure 101 
 
 "Well, you're a bit thinly clad to carry out your high 
 resolve." 
 
 She shivered. 
 
 "Nights are longer than I thought." 
 
 "Oh, you're right there," said he, "nights can stretch 
 themselves out to infinity. However, we must shorten 
 this one for you. I'd just as soon do it by conversation 
 but your slippers — don't you think you'd better go back 
 — for this one night?" 
 
 "I couldn't." 
 
 "Well, I approve of high resolves myself. I'm used 
 to them and seeing people offer themselves up on their 
 altar. There's no real reason why you should give in 
 on any position you took, just because the sun is on the 
 other side of the world. Could you tell me a bit more, 
 maybe? If names mean anything to you at this hour 
 of the night, mine's Gregory Macmillan. I don't live 
 here. I'm staying at some hotel or other and I came 
 here on business — that's what you always say in the 
 States, isn't it, when you give an account of yourself?" 
 
 "You're English." 
 
 "Oh, God forbid," he cried, "English ! You insult me 
 — but you don't mean to. No — Irish, Irish, Irish — I 
 should have said it first and have been spared that 
 accusation." 
 
 "I'm sorry. I didn't know what your accent was. I 
 see now. It was stupid of me." 
 
 He laughed at her. "It's no matter. You're a very 
 young woman, aren't you? I can tell from your voice. 
 Well, you don't want to wander further with an Irish 
 adventurer, do you ?" 
 
 "I can't help myself." 
 
 "Let's get down to facts. You quarreled." 
 
 "Hardly that. I tell you it's a silly business. A 
 drunk young man — a vicious girl who chanced to be my 
 
102 Spellbinders 
 
 hostess said things. So I walked out of her house. I 
 can't go back without crawling back, can I?" 
 
 "No — you can't go back if you'd have to crawl. But 
 where else can you go? Haven't you some friend — 
 some intimate?" 
 
 "No — I can't disturb families at this hour — and I 
 only know people here a little." 
 
 "Isn't there perhaps some single lady? Some un- 
 married woman to whom you could turn ? At this hour 
 of the night it may be easier, you know, than at dawn. 
 And you're dressed for the evening. Of course we 
 might go back to my hotel. Let's see — a motor accident 
 might do. No — that would involve things. You're sure 
 you don't know some discreet spinster?" 
 
 She thought. 
 
 "I've only been here three weeks. Only perhaps Miss 
 Duffield— ?" 
 
 He started. 
 
 "You don't mean Margaret Duffield? You know her? 
 Why, of course, she's the very one. Do you mean her?" 
 
 "And you know her too ?" 
 
 "Know her? I have been talking with her until an 
 hour ago. You mystic child, of course you'd know 
 Margaret. Come, let's go to her and she'll tell me about 
 you — and I'll get a chance to see her again to-night 
 even — and perhaps, with you in charge, she'll want to 
 see me." 
 
 Freda was enchanted. Her feet were forgotten. 
 Barbara was forgotten. The night, the delicious hour, 
 the stranger who was chivalric and mysterious and knew 
 Margaret Duffield, — all of it was rounding out a perfect 
 adventure. She laughed in sheer delight. 
 
 "Isn't it marvelous?" she asked, "this meeting you — 
 you knowing the only person I could go to, isn't it curious 
 and like a well-made dream?" 
 
Adventure 103 
 
 He took her by the arm, holding her up a little as they 
 crossed the cobbled street. 
 
 "Life at its best is only a well-made dream/' he 
 answered. 
 
 In all her life Freda had never met any one who dared 
 to talk like that. 
 
 It was three o'clock but the light in Margaret's apart- 
 ment still burned. Little lines of it streamed out from 
 the curtain edges. At sight of the light Gregory stopped. 
 
 "Lucky it's on the ground floor," he said, "she can 
 let us in without any of the others hearing us tramp by." 
 
 Freda hung back a little. 
 
 "It's rather an outrageous thing to do. I wonder if 
 I should." 
 
 "Nonsense. Anyway, you've no choice. I'm bringing 
 my refugee here myself." 
 
 They tiptoed into the little hallway and rang her bell — 
 then went over by her door. It was characteristic of 
 Margaret that she did not call, "Who's there?" from 
 behind the door. She opened her door a little and looked 
 out. 
 
 "It's I," said Gregory, softly, "and a distressed lady, 
 whom you know. Can we come in?" 
 
 The door opened wider and Margaret put out her 
 hand as Freda shrunk back a little. 
 
 "Why, Freda — where did you come from ?" Margaret 
 looked at Gregory, but he waited for Freda to tell her 
 own story, perhaps not knowing how much she wanted 
 to tell. 
 
 In the light again, Freda had blushed scarlet and then 
 turned pale, her cheeks wonderfully waxen and lustrous 
 from the night air. Under her eyes there were circles of 
 fatigue and her hair had clung to her head, damp from 
 moisture. She looked at Margaret and seemed to 
 remember that her adventure had begun in disaster. 
 
104 Spellbinders 
 
 "I'm so sorry to bother you like this — I'm so sorry. 
 But he said I'd better." 
 
 Again Margaret exchanged glances with Gregory. 
 Gregory was looking at Margaret now as if he were 
 conscious of the picture she made in the blue Grecian 
 negligee which suited that slim, straight figure so well. 
 But if she noticed his glance, she was impatient of it. 
 
 "Of course it's no question of bother — but what is it?" 
 
 Freda had made no move to drop her cloak. She held 
 it close around her as she stood against the inside of the 
 door. 
 
 She told them as much as she could. 
 
 "I couldn't go back." 
 
 The eyes of her hearers were angry. 
 
 "Of course you couldn't," said Margaret, simply. 
 "And you can perfectly well spend the night here. In 
 the morning I'll send for your clothes." 
 
 She drew Freda, who was shivering now, over on the 
 couch, then turned to Gregory. 
 
 "Good night, Gregory — again. You bring adventure 
 with you." 
 
 There was a smile in her eyes which he seemed to 
 answer by a look in his own. Then he looked past her 
 to Freda. 
 
 "Good night, little wanderer. I'll see you to-morrow." 
 
 Freda saw him fully now. He was tall and thin and 
 ugly. His dark eyes seemed to flash from caverns above 
 his high cheekbones. But he had a wide Irish mouth and 
 it smiled very tenderly at them both as he softly went out. 
 
 Freda would not take Margaret's little couch bed for 
 herself so Margaret had to improvise a bed on the floor 
 for her guest, a bed of blankets and coats and Freda slept 
 in Margaret's warm bath robe. Oddly, she slept far 
 better than did Margaret, who, for a long while, held 
 herself stiffly on one side that her turning might not 
 disturb Freda. 
 
Adventure 105 
 
 They both wakened early. Freda found the taste of 
 stale adventure in her mind a little flat and disagreeable. 
 There were a number of things to be done. Margaret 
 telephoned briefly to the Brownley house, left word with 
 a servant that Miss Thorstad had spent the night with 
 her. 
 
 "I'll go up there after we have some breakfast," she 
 said to Freda, "and get you some clothes. Then I think 
 you'd better stay here with me. I'll ask the landlady to 
 put an extra cot in here and we can be comfortable for 
 a few days. And please don't talk of inconvenience" — 
 she forestalled Freda's objections with her smile — "I'll 
 love to have company. If you stay in town we'll see if 
 you can't get a place of your own in the building here. 
 Lots of apartments have a vacant room to let." 
 
 She was preparing breakfast with Freda's help and the 
 younger girl's spirits were rising steadily even though the 
 thought of an interview with Barbara remained dragging. 
 It was great fun for Freda — the freedom of this tiny 
 apartment with its bed already made into a daytime couch, 
 the eggs cooking over a little electric grill on the table 
 and the table set with a scanty supply of dishes — two 
 tall glasses of milk, rolls and marmalade. 
 
 "It's so nice, living like this," she exclaimed. 
 
 Margaret laughed. 
 
 "Then the Brownley luxury hasn't quite seduced you?" 
 
 "I was excited by it. I'm afraid it did seduce me 
 temporarily. But for the last week something's been 
 wrong with me. And this was it. I wanted to get out 
 of the machinery. They leave you alone and all that — 
 but it's so ordered — so planned. Everything's planned 
 from the menus to the social life. They try to do novel 
 things by standing on their heads sometimes in their own 
 
106 Spellbinders 
 
 grooves — at least the girls do — but really they get no 
 freshness or freedom, do they ?" 
 
 "I should say that particular crowd didn't. Of course 
 you mustn't confound all wealthy people with them. 
 They're better than some but a great deal less interesting 
 than the best of the wealthy. And of course just because 
 their life doesn't happen to appeal to your temperament — 
 or mine — " 
 
 "Are you always so perfectly balanced?" asked Freda, 
 so admiringly as to escape impertinence. 
 
 "I wish I were ever balanced," answered Margaret. 
 "And now suppose you tell me a little more about what 
 happened so I'll be sure how I had better take things up 
 with the Brownley girls." 
 
 Freda had been thinking. 
 
 "It really began with me," she said. "Ted Smillie was 
 Barbara's man and I was flattered when he noticed me. 
 And of course I liked him — then — so I let it go on and 
 she hated me for that." 
 
 "Stop me if I pry — but do you care for the young man 
 now ?" 
 
 "Oh — no!" cried Freda. "I'm just mortally ashamed 
 of myself for letting myself in as much as I did." 
 
 "Everybody does." 
 
 Margaret's remark brought other ideas into Freda's 
 mind. She remembered Gregory Macmillan and his 
 apparent intimacy with Margaret. But she asked noth- 
 ing, going on, under Margaret's questioning, with her 
 tale of the night before, and as they came to the part 
 of Gregory's intervention, Margaret vouchsafed no 
 information. 
 
 An hour later, she came back from the Brownley house, 
 with Freda's suitcase beside her in a taxi. 
 
 "You did give them a bad night," she said to Freda, 
 "Bob Brownley looks a wreck. It appears that later they 
 
Adventure 107 
 
 went out to search the park — scared stiff for you. And 
 you had gone. They saw some men and were terrified." 
 
 "Are they very angry ?" 
 
 "Barbara tried to stay on her high horse. Said that 
 although it was possible she had misunderstood the 
 situation it looked very compromising and she thought 
 it her duty in her mother's absence — . Of course, she 
 said, she was sorry that matters had developed as they 
 had. Poor Allie'd evidently been thinking you'd been 
 sewed up in a bag and dropped in the river. They both 
 want to let the thing drop quickly and I said they could 
 say that you were staying with me for the remainder 
 of your visit. I also told Barbara a few home truths 
 about herself, and advised her to be very careful what 
 she said to her mother or I might take it up with her 
 parents." 
 
 "All this trouble for me!" cried Freda. "I am 
 ashamed !" 
 
 "Nonsense. But I must go along quickly now. I've 
 a meeting. Your trunk will be along sometime this 
 morning. Put it wherever you like and the landlady will 
 send the janitor up with a cot. And — by the way — if 
 Gregory Macmillan drops in, tell him I'm engaged for 
 lunch, will you? You might have lunch with him, if you 
 don't mind." 
 
 "I feel aghast at meeting him." 
 
 "Don't let any lack of conventions bother you with 
 Gregory. The lack of them is the best recommendation 
 in his eyes. He's a wild Irish poet. I'll tell you about 
 him to-night. I think you'll like him, Freda. He's the 
 kindest person I know — and as truthful as his imagination 
 will let him be." 
 
 "What is he in St. Pierre for?" 
 
 "Oh, ask him — " said Margaret, departing. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 WORK FOR FREDA 
 
 IT was on that morning that Gage Flandon made his 
 last appeal to his wife not to let herself be named 
 as a candidate for Chicago at the State Convention. 
 He had been somewhat grim since the district conven- 
 tion. As Margaret had realized would happen, certain 
 men had approached him, thinking to please him by- 
 sounding the rumor about sending his wife to the 
 National Convention. Many of them felt and Gage 
 knew they felt that he had started, or arranged to have 
 started, a rumor that his wife would be a candidate and 
 that he meant to capitalize the entrance of women into 
 politics by placing his own wife at the head of the 
 woman's group in the State. It was a natural enough 
 conclusion and its very naturalness made Gage burn with 
 a slow, violent anger that was becoming an obsession. It 
 began of course with the revolt against that suspicion of 
 baseness that he could capitalize the position of his wife — 
 that he could use a relation, which was to him so sacred, 
 to strengthen his own position. Yet, when these men 
 <came with their flattery he could not cry down Helen 
 without seeming to insult her. There was only one way, 
 he saw, and that was for Helen herself to withdraw. If 
 she did not, it was clear that she would be sent. 
 
 So he had besought and seemed to always beseech her 
 with the wrong arguments. He knew he had said trite 
 things, things about women staying out of politics, the 
 
 108 
 
Work for Freda 109 
 
 unsuitability of her nature for such things, but he had 
 felt their triteness infused with such painful conviction 
 in his own mind that it continually amazed him to see 
 how little response he awoke in her. 
 
 She had said to him, "You exaggerate it so, Gage. 
 Why make such a mountain out of a molehole? I'm 
 not going to neglect you or the children. I'll probably 
 not be elected anyhow. But why not regard it as a 
 privilege and an honor and let me try?" 
 
 "But why do you want to try?" 
 
 She looked as if she too were trying vainly to make 
 him understand. 
 
 "I'd like to do something myself, Gage — something as 
 myself." 
 
 "You were content without politics two months ago." 
 
 "I've changed — why begrudge me my enthusiasm?" 
 
 "Because I can't bear to see you a waster like the rest 
 of the women. Because you're so different. Everything 
 about you is true and sound, dear, and when you start 
 deliberately using yourself for political effect, don't you 
 see how you become untrue? There's nothing in it, I 
 tell you. The whole thing's cut and dried. There's no 
 big issue. If the women want to send some one, let them 
 choose some other figurehead!" 
 
 He had not meant it so but of course he seemed dis- 
 paraging her. 
 
 "Perhaps," she said rather frigidly, "perhaps I'll not 
 be such a figurehead as you think." 
 
 "But I didn't mean to say that to hurt you." 
 
 "I'm not sure what you do mean. It seems to me 
 we're actually childish. You've chosen, quite deliberately, 
 to be a reactionary in all this woman's progress movement. 
 I'm sorry. But there is a loyalty one has to women, 
 Gage, beside the loyalty one has to a husband and I really 
 
110 Spellbinders 
 
 cannot share your prejudice against progress, as it applies 
 to women/' 
 
 The unexpressed things in Gage's mind fairly tore at 
 him. 
 
 "If you really had one sensible objection, Gage — " 
 
 "There's just one objection," he said, doggedly, "you 
 desecrate yourself. Not by entering politics particularly. 
 But by using yourself that way. You mutilate your 
 sex." 
 
 She did not get angry. But she put one hand on his 
 shoulder and they looked at each other helplessly. 
 
 "Don't you see," said Helen, "that I want, like these 
 other women, to once in a while do something that's 
 clean of sex? That's just me — without sex?" 
 
 His eyes grew very hard. She struck almost mortally 
 at the very thing he loved most. And he moved away, 
 as if to remove himself definitely. 
 
 "I'm sorry you feel so. It's a pleasant remark for a 
 man's wife to fling at him." 
 
 Irony was so unusual in Gage that Helen stood looking 
 after him after he went out of the room. Her mind 
 ached with the struggle, ached from the assertion of this 
 new determination of hers. Never had she wanted so 
 to give him comfort and be comforted herself. She saw 
 the weeks ahead — weeks of estrangement — possibly a 
 permanent estrangement. Yet she knew she would go 
 on. It wasn't just wanting to go on. She had to go 
 on. There was a principle involved even if he could not 
 see it. Clearer and clearer she had seen her necessity 
 in these past two weeks. She had to waken her own 
 individuality. She had to live to herself alone for a little. 
 She had to begin to build defences against sex. 
 
 Gage was right. Margaret had sown the seed in his 
 wife. Helen had not watched her for nothing. She had 
 seen the way that Margaret made no concessions to her- 
 
Work for Freda 111 
 
 self as a woman, fiercely as she was working for the 
 establishment of woman's position. It seemed paradox- 
 ical but there it was. If you were truly to work for 
 woman's welfare you had to abandon all the cushions of 
 woman's protected position, thought Helen — you couldn't 
 rest back on either wifehood or motherhood. You 
 couldn't be lazy. You had to make yourself fully your- 
 self. 
 
 Here was her chance. She hadn't wanted it but they 
 had insisted. The women wanted her to go to Chicago — 
 not because she was Mrs. Flandon but because she, was 
 Helen Flandon, herself. A little quiver of delight ran 
 through Helen as she thought of it. She would see it 
 through. Gage would surely not persist in his feeling. 
 Surely he would change. He would be glad when she 
 proved more than just his wife. 
 
 She had a strange feeling of having doffed all the years 
 which had passed since she had left college, a feeling of 
 youth and energy which had often dominated her then 
 but which had changed in the seven years of her marriage. 
 Since her marriage she had walked only with Gage and 
 the children — shared life with them very completely. 
 Now it was not that she cared less for them (she kept 
 making that very clear to herself) but there was none 
 the less a new independence and new vigor about her. 
 She felt with them but she felt without them too. 
 
 It hurt her that Gage should feel so injured. But her 
 exhilaration was greater even than the hurt, because she 
 could not sound the depths of her husband's suffering. 
 
 Gage went out of the house with no more words. He 
 managed to focus his mind on the work of the day which 
 was before him but the basic feeling of pain and anger 
 persisted. 
 
 In the middle of the morning Helen called him, remind- 
 ing him of his promise to see if Freda Thorstad could be 
 
112 Spellbinders 
 
 placed. She ignored, as she had a way of doing, any 
 difference between them. 
 
 "Are you going to drag that child in too?" he asked, 
 ungraciously, and then conscious of his unfairness for he 
 knew quite well that the object was to place Freda so she 
 could earn her own living, he capitulated. 
 
 "Drummond gets back this afternoon. Send Miss 
 Thorstad in about four and I'll take her to see him." 
 
 "You're a dear, Gage," Helen rang off. 
 
 Gage tried to figure out whether something had been 
 put over him or not. There he let it go and sat in at the 
 club with a chosen crowd before lunch. It pleased him 
 immensely to see Harry Harris stuck for the lunch. He 
 kidded him, his great laugh rising and falling. 
 
 II 
 
 At four Freda came and at her, "You're sure I'm not 
 too early, Mr. Flandon?" Gage felt further ashamed of 
 his ungraciousness. Freda was a little pale, after her 
 difficult night, and it made her rather more attractive 
 than ever to Gage. He thought she might be worrying 
 over the chance of getting the new work and was eager 
 to make it easy for her. 
 
 "So you want to get into politics like all the rest?" he 
 asked, but smilingly. 
 
 "I want some work to do," said Freda, "I'd just as 
 soon do anything else. But I really will have to work 
 or go back to Mohawk and there isn't anything for me to 
 do in Mohawk. I don't much care what I do, to tell you 
 the truth, Mr. Flandon, so it is work. And I've a theory 
 that I might be better at washing windows than doing 
 anything else." 
 
 "This isn't much of a job, you know." 
 
 "Probably it's all I could handle. I'm really a little 
 
Work for Freda 113 
 
 nervous. Will they ask for all kinds of qualifications?" 
 
 "There's no 'they.' There's only one man and I think 
 all he is looking for is some one who is discreet and 
 pleasant and can do ordinary secretarial work." 
 
 "I'm going to learn typewriting evenings," said Freda. 
 
 It was so pleasant to be free from controversial con- 
 versation, or from conversation which glossed over 
 controversy that Gage found himself feeling much 
 warmer and more cheerful than he had for days. 
 Together they walked over to the office of the man who 
 had the district chairmanship. Mr. Drummond was 
 embarrassed. Clearly he was embarrassed by the neces- 
 sity of refusing a favor Flandon asked. But he was put 
 to it. 
 
 They left the office and at the street corner Freda 
 stopped and held out her hand. 
 
 "Pretty lucky for them that young Whitelaw got there 
 first, I fancy." 
 
 "Have you something else in mind?" 
 
 "I'll try to find something. Maybe I can get a place 
 as somebody's companion. Or maybe Miss Duffield will 
 know — " 
 
 A tight little line came around Gage's mouth. He 
 didn't want Margaret Duffield running this girl. His 
 dislike was becoming an obsession. 
 
 "I wonder," he said slowly, "if you'd like to come into 
 my office. I could use another clerk, as a matter of 
 fact. I'm away a great deal and I find that since my 
 assistant has been handling more law work he is too busy 
 to do things around the office — handling clients, sorting 
 correspondence and such things. The ordinary stenogra- 
 pher just messes up everything except a sheet of carbon 
 paper, and the last good one I had got married, of course. 
 There wouldn't be much in it — maybe sixty a month, say 
 — but if you'd like to try — " 
 
114 Spellbinders 
 
 Freda looked at him straightly. 
 
 "If you're just trying to find a job for me, I'd rather 
 not, Mr. Flandon." 
 
 He liked that, and gave her back honesty. 
 
 "Of course I would like to see you fixed. I thought 
 this other thing would work out better. But in all 
 seriousness I could use another clerk in my office and 
 I've been wondering whom I could get. What do you 
 say to trying it for a month — " 
 
 "Let me try it for two weeks and then if I fail, fire 
 me then. Only you'll surely fire me if I don't earn my 
 money ?" 
 
 "Surely." 
 
 in 
 
 Gage went home that night more cheerful than he had 
 been for some time. He had a mischievous sensation 
 of having rescued a brand from Margaret Duffield. At 
 dinner Helen asked him if he had attended to Freda's 
 case. 
 
 "Drummond had other arrangements already." 
 
 "What a shame," she said, "I wonder where we can 
 place that girl. She is too good to go back and do 
 nothing in Mohawk. And she really wants to earn money 
 badly." 
 
 "I placed her," said Gage, hugging his mischief to 
 himself. 
 
 "You did? Where?" 
 
 "I took her into my office." 
 
 Helen looked at him in surprise. 
 
 "You know that she can't typewrite?" 
 
 "I know. But I can use her. She has a good head 
 and — a nice influence. I think I'll like to have her 
 around. Since she has to work she'd be better there than 
 grubbing in politics." 
 
Work for Freda 115 
 
 "As if your office wasn't full of politics !" 
 "Well they're not Duffield-politics." 
 "Whatever you mean by that is obscure," said Helen, 
 'but don't eat the child's head off, will you?" 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE CLEAN WIND 
 
 FREDA felt that night that all her dreams, all her 
 vague anticipations of doing were suddenly trans- 
 lated into activity and reality. In the strangest way in 
 the world, it seemed to her, so naive was she about the 
 obscure ways of most things, she had a room of her 
 own and a job in St. Pierre. Margaret Duffield had 
 smiled a little at the news of her job but at Freda's quick 
 challenge as to whether she were really imposing on Mr. 
 Flandon, Margaret insisted that she merely found Gage 
 himself humorous. She did not say why that was so. 
 Together she and Freda went to see the landlady about 
 a room for Freda. There was one, it appeared, in an 
 apartment on the third floor. Freda could have it, if 
 she took it at once, and so it was arranged. 
 
 It was a plain little room with one window, long and 
 thin like the shape of the room, furnished sparsely and 
 without grace, but Freda stood in the midst of it with 
 her head high and a look of wondering delight in her 
 eyes, fingering her door key. 
 
 Later she went down to Margaret's apartment to carry 
 up her suitcase. She found Gregory there. He had not 
 come for lunch as Margaret had warned her. Seeing him 
 now more clearly than she had the night before, Freda 
 saw how cadaverous his face was, how little color there 
 was in his cheeks. She thought he looked almost ill. 
 
 They did not hear her come in. Gregory was sitting 
 with his eyes on Margaret, telling her something and 
 
 116 
 
The Clean Wind 117 
 
 she was listening in a protesting way. It occurred to 
 Freda that of course they were in love. She had 
 suspected it vaguely from their attitude. Now she was 
 sure. 
 
 She coughed and they looked up. 
 
 "It's my damsel in distress," said Gregory, rising, "did 
 everything clear up? Is the ogress destroyed?" 
 
 "If she is, poor Miss Duffield had to do it." ¥ 
 
 "She wouldn't mind. She likes cruelties. She's the 
 most cruel person — " 
 
 "Hush, Gregory, don't reveal all my soul on the spot." 
 
 "Cruel — and over modest. As if a soul isn't always 
 better revealed — " 
 
 "You can go as far as you like later. Just now you 
 might carry Freda's suitcase upstairs." 
 
 He took the suitcase and followed them, entering 
 Freda's little room which he seemed to fill and crowd. 
 
 "So this is where you take refuge from the ogress?" 
 
 "It's more than a refuge — it's a tower of independence." 
 
 He looked at her appreciatively. 
 
 "We'll agree on many things." 
 
 Margaret asked Freda to come down with them and 
 she went, a little reluctantly wondering if she were not 
 crowding their kindness. But Gregory insisted as well 
 as Margaret. 
 
 Margaret sat beside a vase of roses on her table and 
 Gregory and Freda faced her, sitting on the couch-bed. 
 The roses were yellow, pink — delicate, aloof, like Mar- 
 garet herself and she made a lovely picture. Gregory's 
 eyes rested on her a little wearily as if he had failed to 
 find what he sought for in the picture. He was silent at 
 first — then, deftly, Margaret drew him out little by little 
 about the Irish Republic, and he became different, a man 
 on fire with an idea. Fascinated, stirred, Freda watched 
 him, broke into eager questioning here and there and was 
 
118 Spellbinders 
 
 answered as eagerly. They were hot in discussion when 
 Walter Carpenter came. 
 
 There was a moment of embarrassment as if each of 
 the men studied the other to find out his purpose. Then 
 Margaret spoke lightly. 
 
 "Do you want to hear about the Irish question from 
 an expert, Walter ?" 
 
 "Is Mr. Macmillan an expert ?" 
 
 "He's to lecture about it on Friday night." 
 
 "It's a dangerous subject for a lecture." 
 
 "It's a dangerous subject to live with," answered 
 Gregory a little defiantly. 
 
 "Are you a Sinn Feiner, Macmillan?" 
 
 "I'm an Irish Republican." 
 
 There was a dignity in his tone which made Walter 
 feel his half -bantering tone ill judged. He changed at 
 once. 
 
 "We're very ignorant of the whole question over here," 
 he said, "all we have to judge from is partisan literature. 
 We never get both sides." 
 
 "There is only one side fit to be heard." 
 
 Freda gave a little gasp of joy at that statement. It 
 brushed away all the conventions of polite discussion in 
 its unequivocal clearness of conviction. 
 
 "I was sure of it," she said. 
 
 Gregory turned and smiled at her. The four of them 
 stood, as they had stood to greet Walter, Margaret by 
 the side of her last guest, looking somehow fitting there, 
 Gregory and Freda together as if in alliance against the 
 others. Then conversation, civilities enveloped them all 
 again. But the alliances remained. Freda made no 
 secret of her admiration for Gregory. The openness 
 of his mind, the way his convictions flashed through the 
 talk seemed to her to demand an answer as fair. Her 
 mind leapt to meet his. 
 
The Clean Wind 119 
 
 Gregory Macmillan was Irish born, of a stock which 
 was not pure Irish for his mother was an Englishwoman. 
 It had been her people who were responsible for Gregory's 
 education, his public school and early Oxford life. But 
 in his later years at Oxford his restlessness and dis- 
 contents had become extreme. Ireland with its tangle 
 of desires, its heating patriotism, heating on the old altars 
 already holy with martyrs, had captured his imagination 
 and ambition. He had gone to Ireland and interested 
 himself entirely in the study of Celtic literature and the 
 Celtic language, living in Connacht and helping edit a 
 Gaelic Weekly. Then had come the war, and conflict 
 for Gregory. The fight for Irish freedom, try as he did 
 to make it his only end, had become smaller beside the 
 great world confusion and, conquering his revulsion at 
 fighting with English forces he had enlisted. 
 
 Before the war Gregory's verse had had much favor- 
 able comment. He came out of the war to find himself 
 notable among the younger poets, acclaimed even in the 
 United States. It seemed preposterous to him. The 
 machinations of the Irish Republican party absorbed him. 
 Intrigue, plotting, all the melodrama, all the tragedy of 
 the Sinn Fein policy was known to him, fostered by 
 him. He had been in prison and after his release had 
 fallen ill. They had sent him to convalesce in Wales. 
 It was while he was there that there had come an offer 
 from an American lecture bureau to go on tour in the 
 States telling of Irish literature and reading his own 
 verse. He laughed at the idea but others who heard the 
 offer had not laughed. He was to come to the States, 
 lecture on poetry and incidentally see and talk to various 
 important Americans who might have Irish sympathies. 
 The Republic needed friends. 
 
 He came leluctantly and yet, once in New York, he 
 had found so many young literati to welcome him, to give 
 
120 Spellbinders 
 
 him sympathy and hearing if not counsel that his spirits 
 had risen. And he had met Margaret Duffield and drawn 
 by her mental beauty, her curious cold virginity, he had 
 fallen in love with her and told her he loved her. For a 
 few ardent weeks he wooed her, she explaining away his 
 love, denying it. Then she had come West and he had 
 sought his lecture bureau, making them include a lecture 
 in this city which held her. He had come and found her 
 colder, more aloof than ever, and now sitting in this 
 room of hers he found a quiet, controlled, cultivated, 
 middle-aged man who seemed to be on terms of easy 
 and intimate friendship such as he had not attained. 
 
 After a little they divided their conversation. Mar- 
 garet wanted to talk to Walter about some complication 
 in local politics — something affecting Helen's election. 
 And Freda wanted to hear Gregory talk. 
 
 He told her about Ireland, of the men and women who 
 plotted secretly and constantly to throw off every yoke 
 of sovereignty. He told of the beauty of the Gaelic 
 tongue, translating a phrase or two for her — talked of the 
 Irish poets and his friends and she responded, finding use 
 now for all the thoughts that had filled her mind, the 
 poems she had read and loved. The light in his deep set 
 eyes grew brighter as he looked at the face turned to his, 
 meeting his own enthusiasm so unquestioningly. Once 
 he looked at Margaret curiously. She was deep in her 
 discussion and with a glimmer of a smile in his eyes he 
 turned again to Freda. 
 
 At eleven he took her to her room. They went up the 
 stairs to the door of her apartment. 
 
 "Shall I see you between now and Friday night ?" 
 
 "I'm going to work to-morrow." Freda came back 
 to that thought with a jolt. "I don't know." 
 
 "To-morrow night? Just remember that I'm alone 
 here — I don't know any one but you and Miss Duffield 
 
The Clean Wind 121 
 
 and I don't want the people in charge of my lecture to 
 lay hands on me until it's necessary. You've no idea 
 what they do to visiting lecturers in the provinces?" 
 
 "But hasn't Miss Duffield plans for you?" 
 
 "I hoped she might have. But she's busy, as you see." 
 His tone had many implications. "So I really am lonely 
 and you made me feel warm and welcome to-night. You 
 aren't full of foolish ideas about friendships that progress 
 like flights of stairs — step by step, are you?" 
 
 "Friendships are — or they aren't," said Freda. 
 
 "And this one is, I hope?" 
 
 They heard a sigh within the apartment as if a weary 
 soul on the other side of the partition were at the end of 
 its patience. Gregory held out his hand and turned to 
 go. 
 
 But Freda could not let him go. She was swept by a 
 sense of the cruel loneliness of this strange beautiful soul, 
 in a country he did not know, pursuing a woman he did 
 not win. She felt unbearably pent up. 
 
 Catching his hand in both of hers, she held it against 
 her breast, lifted her face to his and suddenly surprisingly 
 kissed him. And, turning, she marched into her room 
 with her cheeks aflame and her head held high. Groping 
 for the unfamiliar switch she turned on her light and 
 began mechanically to undress. It seemed to her that 
 she was walking in one of her own storied imaginings. 
 So many things had happened in the last twenty-four 
 hours which she had often dreamed would happen to her. 
 Adventures, romantic moments, meetings of strange 
 intimate congeniality like this with Gregory Macmillan. 
 She thought of him as Gregory. 
 
 Gregory went down the stairs quickly, pausing at 
 Margaret's door to say good night. The other man was 
 leaving too and they walked together as far as Gregory's 
 hotel. They were a little constrained and kept their 
 
122 Spellbinders 
 
 conversation on the most general of subjects. Gregory 
 was absent minded in his comments but as he entered the 
 hotel lobby he was smiling a little, the immensely cheered 
 smile of the person who has found what he thought was 
 lost. 
 
 Freda reported for work at the office of Sable and 
 Flandon at half past eight the next morning. She had 
 not been sure at what time a lawyer's office began 
 operations and thought it best to be early so she had 
 to wait a full hour before Mr. Flandon came in. The 
 offices were a large, well-furnished suite of rooms. There 
 were three young lawyers in the office, associated with 
 Mr. Sable and Mr. Flandon, and three stenographers, in 
 addition to a young woman, with an air of attainment, 
 who had a desk in Mr. Sable's office and was known as 
 Mr. Sable's personal secretary. Freda got some idea 
 of the organization, watching the girls come in and take 
 up their work. She became a little dubious as to where 
 she could fit into this extremely well-oiled machinery and 
 wondering more and more as to the quixotic whim which 
 had made Mr. Flandon employ her, was almost ready to 
 get up and go out when Gage came in. 
 
 He saw her in a minute and showed no surprise. 
 Instead he seemed to be anxious to cover up any ambiguity 
 in the position by making it very clear what her duties 
 were to be. He introduced her to the rest of the office 
 force as my "personal secretary" at which the Miss 
 Brewster who held a like position in Mr. Sable's employ 
 lifted her eyebrows a little. She was given a desk in a 
 little ante-room outside of Gage's own office and Gage, 
 with a stenographer who had done most of his work, 
 went over her duties. She was to relieve the stenographer 
 of all the sorting of his correspondence, take all his tele- 
 phone messages, familiarize herself with all of his affairs 
 and interests in so far as she could do so by consulting 
 
The Clean Wind 123 
 
 current files and be ready to relieve him of any routine 
 business she could, correcting and signing his letters as 
 soon as possible. 
 
 At five o'clock she hurried back to her little room to find 
 a letter in her mail box. It was from her father and at 
 the sight of it she was saddened by the sense of separation 
 between them. Every word in it, counsel, affection, 
 humor breathed his love and thought for her. She was 
 still poring over it when Gregory came to take her to 
 dinner, and forgot to be embarrassed about the night 
 before. 
 
 Gregory had never intended to be embarrassed 
 evidently. He considered that they were on a footing 
 of delightful intimacy. His voice had more exuberance 
 in it to-night than she had previously heard. As they 
 went past Margaret's door they looked up at her transom. 
 It was dark. 
 
 "I hoped she was coming with us," said Freda. 
 
 "She doesn't want to come with me," answered 
 Gregory, "and that has hurt me for a long time, it seems 
 to me, although perhaps it is only weeks. But it may 
 be just as well. For I could never make her happy." 
 
 "Would it be so hard?" 
 
 "I could never make any woman happy," said Gregory 
 with extraordinary violence. "Happiness is a state of 
 sloth. But I could live through ecstasy and through pain 
 with some one who was not afraid. For this serene 
 stagnancy which seems to be the end-all of most people, 
 I'm no good. I couldn't do it, that's all." 
 
 His head was in the air and he looked, thought Freda, 
 as if he would be extremely likely to forget about any 
 woman or anything else and go sailing off in some 
 fantasy of his own, at any time. She remembered him 
 as he had been, despondent, when she had first met him, 
 last night full of blazing enthusiasms, to-night blithely 
 
124 Spellbinders 
 
 independent. It delighted her. She had never before 
 met a person who adjusted to no routine. 
 
 "Let's walk in peace and watch the clouds and I'll tell 
 you what an old Irish poet said of them." 
 
 He could see her chin lift as she listened. 
 
 "To have in your mind such a wealth of beauty — what 
 it must mean — to feel that things do not starve within 
 you for lack of utterance — " Her voice was blurred into 
 appreciations. 
 
 "Why let them starve?" asked Gregory. 
 
 "Perhaps because practical meat-and-drink body needs 
 always claim the nourishment the things of your mind 
 need — and you let the mind go hungry." 
 
 "That's it — that's what people do — but you won't. I 
 hear it in your voice — see it in your face. The things 
 in you are too vital to be starved. You can cripple them 
 but you can't kill them." 
 
 "I do not know." 
 
 "You must set yourself free." 
 
 Freda smiled ruefully. 
 
 "That's what women are always talking about and what 
 they mean is a washing machine." 
 
 "That's no freedom — that's just being given the run of 
 the prison. Don't you see that what I mean is to keep 
 yourself free from all the petty desires — the little peeping 
 conventions — free for the great desires and pains that will 
 rush through you some day? You have to be strong to 
 do that. You can put up wind breaks for emotion so 
 easily. And you don't want them." 
 
 "It means being very fearless." 
 
 "I have never yet met anything worth fearing except 
 cowardice." 
 
 He stopped. They were in the middle of some side- 
 walk, neither of them noticed where. 
 
 "Why did you kiss me last night ?" 
 
The Clean Wind 125 
 
 "I wanted to. I've not been sorry," answered Freda. 
 "By all the rules I've learned I ought to be abashed, but 
 you don't live by rules, so why waste them on you ?" 
 
 Her smile was faintly tremulous. His strange, un- 
 familiar eyes looked into hers and rested there. 
 
 "And we won't have to spend time talking about love," 
 he said, half to himself, "we shan't wear it threadbare 
 with trying to test its fabric. It comes like the wind — 
 like God." 
 
 Again they breasted the wind and her hand was fast 
 in his. It was a clean, cool clasp. Freda felt oddly that 
 she had saved her soul, that she had met an ultimate. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 NEWSPAPER CUTS 
 
 THE State Convention was imminent. In the vast 
 barrenness of the Auditorium rows upon rows of 
 ticketed chairs were filling up with delegates, sectional 
 banners waved in the various parts of the big hall, flags 
 made the background for the speakers, chairs and table. 
 
 "The machinery for creating a government is in 
 progress," said Margaret, "what do you think of it?" 
 
 Helen shook her head. 
 
 "Inadequate. When you think why they have come, 
 how they have come, what destinies they hold in their 
 hands. Would women do it better I wonder, Margaret ?" 
 
 "Women are more serious. Perhaps. Anyway we 
 must try it. If we don't like that machinery we'll have 
 to invent another kind." 
 
 "Funny male gathering. Think they all have their 
 women — and their feeling towards their own women 
 must influence their feeling towards all of us. Their own 
 women to treat cruelly or kindly — or possessively." 
 
 "They're on the last lap of their possession," answered 
 Margaret. 
 
 The gallery was filling with women, reporters, specta- 
 tors with one interest or another. The men were taking 
 their places, formality settling on the assembly. The 
 temporary chairman was on the platform, welcoming 
 them, bowing grandiloquently with a compliment that was 
 inevitable to the ladies in the gallery. Nominations for 
 
 126 
 
Newspaper Cuts 127 
 
 a chairman were in order. The temporary chairman 
 retained his place as he had expected. The committees 
 on credentials, resolutions, organization, retired and the 
 delegation heard with some restlessness further exhort- 
 ation as to the duties which lay before them and the 
 splendor of opportunity awaiting the party in the 
 immediate future. 
 
 The platform was read. Cheers, a little too well 
 organized and not too freely spontaneous, punctuated it. 
 The women listened to it attentively, Margaret frowning 
 now and then at some of its clauses. 
 
 It was a long task. On its consummation the conven- 
 tion adjourned for lunch. 
 
 It was mid-afternoon before the business of electing 
 the delegates at large to the National Convention had been 
 reached. Helen felt her face grow hot and her heart go 
 a little faster even while she mocked at herself for those 
 signs of nervousness. Margaret watched as if her ringer 
 was on the pulse of a patient. 
 
 Hedley's name went through nomination as every one 
 had expected. Then Jensen was on his feet. 
 
 He was good. The women admitted that after his 
 first words. He dwelt upon the fact of suffrage, on the 
 practical differences it made in the electorate. He spoke 
 of the recognition of women as a privilege. Then with 
 a reference which Helen had feared must come he spoke 
 of the one woman whose name is "familiar to us through 
 the fine party loyalty of her husband" and who is herself 
 "the unspoken choice of hundreds and thousands of 
 women of this State" as their delegate. Helen heard her 
 name come forth un familiarly, heard the burst of 
 clapping, faced the barricade of glances with a smile. 
 
 There was little doubt about it from the start. What 
 opposition there was. must have decided it unsafe to show 
 its teeth. An hour later a discomfited man, pushed off 
 
128 Spellbinders 
 
 the party slate by a woman, edged his way out of the 
 back of the gallery and the woman was surrounded by a 
 group of men and women, all anxious to be early in their 
 congratulations, some from sheer enthusiasm, others from 
 motives more questionable. 
 
 "And where is Gage passing the cigars ?" asked one 
 man jocularly. 
 
 Helen looked around as if in surprise that he was not 
 there. 
 
 "He isn't here, is he?" 
 
 She knew he wasn't. She had known he wouldn't come, 
 even while she could not quite kill the hope that he would. 
 
 At the door were photographers, even a moving picture 
 man waiting for the new woman delegates. Margaret 
 dropped Helen's hand and Helen, on Mrs. Brownley's 
 arm, moved past the range of picture-takers with an air 
 of complete composure. In a moment she was in her car 
 and moving out of sight. Margaret turned to walk back 
 to her own apartment, complete satisfaction on her face. 
 
 Helen entered the house quietly and leaving her gloves 
 and wrap on the hall bench, went into the kitchen to see 
 how things were going there. There was a pleasant air 
 of competence about it. The maids were busy and the 
 dinner in active preparation. Upstairs the nurse had the 
 children. She played with them a little, a warm sense of 
 satisfaction at her heart. It was so absurd to choose — to 
 fake a choice. This other work, this other business could 
 be done without sacrificing anything. Gage was absurd. 
 She was no less a mother, not a bit less good a housewife 
 because she was a delegate to the Republican Convention. 
 It took a bit of management, that was all. If she was 
 treating Gage badly she would feel different. 
 
Newspaper Cuts 129 
 
 But there was a guilty feeling which she could not 
 control. He was unhappy and she the cause. They had 
 been too close for that not to hurt. 
 
 At seven o'clock, a little late for dinner, came Gage, a 
 guarded courtesy in his manner. He asked her pardon 
 for not dressing and handed her a sheaf of evening papers. 
 She was thankful that they had been issued too early to 
 contain the news of her triumph. It postponed certain 
 altercations. She thought suddenly of her barrage of 
 photographers and of what she had completely forgotten, 
 Gage's tremendous dislike of having her picture in the 
 papers. 
 
 "I can't bear the thought of your picture tossed about 
 the country — looked at casually for an hour and then 
 used as old newspapers are used — to wrap a package — 
 line a stair-rug — heaven knows what !" 
 
 Of course it had appeared occasionally for all of that 
 but Helen had made the occasions infrequent. She had 
 always liked that prejudice of his. As she looked at him 
 to-night she thought he looked tired. There were 
 strained lines around his eyes, and he was very silent. 
 
 She said several little things and then, because avoid- 
 ance of the big topic seemed impossible, joined him in 
 his silence. He looked at her at last, smiling a little. It 
 was not the smile of a rancorous man but rather a hurt 
 smile, a forced smile of one who is going to go through 
 pain wearing it. 
 
 "I have been congratulated all the way home on your 
 account, Helen. It seems to have been a landslide for 
 you." 
 
 "There was hardly any opposition." It was meager 
 but she could not go on without seeming to run into a 
 forbidden or aching subject. 
 
 There they had to stop. Helen had a vision of the 
 closed topics between them, a sudden horror of this 
 
130 Spellbinders 
 
 cleavage. Suppose he didn't see that he was foolish, that 
 she was not treating him badly, that she must lay up 
 something for herself as a person against the day when 
 he himself might weary of her as a woman. Fiercely 
 she recast her arguments in her own mind. Yet there 
 was that tired look in his eyes. You can fight rancor 
 but not weariness. 
 
 "How is Miss Thorstad getting on?" 
 
 "Fine. It was a great hunch. You know she actually 
 saves me a lot of thinking. It shows that a girl with wits 
 is worth half a dozen expert stenographers. She has an 
 air about her that is dignified and calm and yet she's not 
 a stick." 
 
 "I imagine there's a volcanic soul under that rather calm 
 exterior." 
 
 "Perhaps." 
 
 "Gage, you look tired." 
 
 He made a visible effort to rouse himself. 
 
 "Tired ? Why, no, dear. Not especially." 
 
 "What are we to do to-night ?" 
 
 "I have some work to-night." 
 
 She looked somewhat baffled as the door closed after 
 him a half hour later. Then going to the telephone she 
 called Margaret. Margaret was not at home. Helen 
 read for an hour and went to bed early. 
 
 Gage had meant to work. But he was not working. 
 He was fighting on through a cloud of bitterness and of 
 thoughts which he knew were not wholly unreasonable. 
 He was sitting at his littered desk, all the paraphernalia 
 of work strewn about him and a picture of Helen on his 
 desk confronting him, accenting his trouble. There she 
 was. He had only to close his eyes and he saw her even 
 more clearly, breaking through the clouded doubts of his 
 mind as she had done in the first days of his marriage — 
 clearness, peace, the one real beauty in the world, the one 
 
Newspaper Cuts 131 
 
 real truth in the world — Helen — love. And she had said 
 she wanted to be "clean of sex!" He scowled at the 
 thought but it danced before him defiling his memories. 
 It would not go! From those early days, those days of 
 the "hardening process" there had persisted always in 
 Gage secret faith, fading now to a hope, flaring now to a 
 conviction that sex was clean, was beautiful until some 
 other agency defiled it. He remembered still his tortured 
 adolescent mind revolving around the problems of the 
 mysteries of birth, stirring him to wonder and the leering 
 clandestine ugly talk which seemed an ugly wrapping 
 around the wonder. He had always thought that his son 
 would have no such tortures. His own proven conviction 
 would carry the boy through all doubts. Now he 
 seemed cast back in the mire of his own old doubts. 
 Had Helen always felt defiled? Had all their life been 
 a hideous mixture of shame and complacencies and hidden 
 revulsions? Had they really conquered nothing? Or 
 was there nothing to conquer? Was he over-fastidious, 
 unmanly ? Was the necessary thing to blunt once more, 
 this time permanently, these illusions of his — to go home 
 to Helen and play the part of the demanding husband, 
 demanding concession in return for concession? Laugh 
 at her whims, her fads, quarrel with her if necessary. If 
 she must run to her conventions, let her go. And let him 
 coarsen his feeling so it was willing to take what was 
 left of her. 
 
 He wiped his forehead impatiently. It was damp and 
 that sign of his intensity shamed him. He had learned 
 that the revealing of emotion was man's shame, to be 
 hidden at all costs. Helen had given him a final lesson in 
 that. Angrily he flung himself into his work, con- 
 centrating actually with his will for hours, mastering 
 the intricacies of the question on which he must give an 
 opinion in the morning. When he had done his notes lay 
 
132 Spellbinders 
 
 ready. He cleaned up the litter of papers, a little frown 
 on his face and looked at his watch. Nearly midnight. 
 He must go home. 
 
 All the practical machinery of locking up, starting the 
 car, steering, driving into the garage, locking the garage, 
 turning out the lights in the library. Nothing was 
 different from other nights. He was a man in his own 
 house. But over the formalism of his actions and his 
 deliberate definiteness of conscious thought his mind was 
 in battle. He was trying to kill the part of him that cried 
 out against going to his wife in such a mood. He was 
 trying deliberately to kill it with a blunt edged thought 
 which read "Be a man — not a neurasthenic." He cursed 
 himself under his breath. He was no damned tempera- 
 mental actor to carry on like this (Always, always, that 
 choking necessity for repressing these feelings, concealing 
 the fact of feeling). A married man — seven years — 
 rights — duties — nature — foolish whims — but above that 
 persisted the almost tortured cry of his spirit, strug- 
 gling with the hotness of desire, begging, for its life — 
 "Don't go home like a beast to her I" 
 
 in 
 
 In the morning Helen was again worried by his 
 appearance. 
 
 "What time did you come in, Gage?" 
 
 "About midnight." 
 
 "You look as if you'd slept wretchedly. Did you?" 
 
 "Well, enough." His tone was surly. He could not 
 bear to look at her, shining haired, head held high, 
 confidence, strength, balance of mind, justice, radiating 
 from her. He knew what a contrast he made — she did 
 not need to tell him of his heavy, encircled eyes, his 
 depressed mouth. 
 
Newspaper Cuts 133 
 
 She pushed his hair back from his forehead, standing 
 beside his chair. It was a familiar gesture between them. 
 
 "Gage, you mean more than anything else to me. 
 You know that?" 
 
 He mumbled an answer. 
 
 "But don't resent it so awfully because I can't believe 
 that loving is a woman's only job. We mustn't absorb 
 each other." 
 
 Quoted, he thought bitterly, from Margaret Duffield. 
 Quite reasonable too. Very reasonable. He suddenly 
 hated her for her reasoning which was denied to his 
 struggling instincts. All desire, all love in his heart had 
 curdled to a sodden lump of resentment. 
 
 He picked up the paper. There was Helen, marching 
 across the page, smiling into the camera's eyes. Curious 
 men with hats and crowding women showed in the 
 blurred background. He looked from the picture to the 
 real Helen. 
 
 "Very good picture." 
 
 His tone was disagreeable. And he had not answered 
 her appeal. 
 
 "Be fair, Gage." 
 
 Very well, he would be fair. 
 
 "I haven't the smallest sympathy with all this, Helen. 
 I know you regard that as unreasonable. It may be that 
 I am. But I don't believe you're bigger or better because 
 of all this. You've done it from no spirit of conviction 
 but because you were flattered into doing it. The Duffield 
 girl is simply using you for her own convictions. With 
 her they at least are convictions. But with you they're 
 not." 
 
 "That's quite enough, thanks, Gage." 
 
 He was cruelly glad he had hurt her. How it helped 
 the ache in his own heart 1 
 
 Helen thought : "He's jealous of Margaret. Terribly 
 
134 Spellbinders 
 
 jealous. It's abnormal and disgusting. What has 
 happened to him?" She let him leave the house with 
 what was almost a little life of spirits when he had gone. 
 She had not time to sift these feelings of Gage now. 
 Later, if they persisted. She wondered if he should see 
 a doctor, thought for a moment of psycho-analysis, 
 speculating as to whether that might set him straight. 
 But the telephone began ringing frantically. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 GREGORY LECTURES 
 
 THE committee on entertainment of visiting lecturers 
 had called upon Gregory at his hotel and been 
 pleased. He had the ear-marks of eccentricity, to be 
 sure, but in their capacity of hostesses they were used to 
 that. Geniuses might not live in St. Pierre but they were 
 frequently imported thither and as a matter of fact several 
 had grown there, though their wings had been only 
 budding when they had taken themselves to the denser 
 air of the great cities. 
 
 They had met him now and he pleased them. His fine 
 courtesy, the slight exaggeration of his manner, his 
 deference to their arrangements and his lack of pompous- 
 ness charmed them. They withdrew after he had politely 
 but firmly refused invitations for either lunch or dinner 
 saying that he must concentrate before his talk. He 
 neglected to mention that he was concentrating on Freda 
 and was planning to meet her at a lunch room outside her 
 office where she had said they would have a chance to talk. 
 
 A clean, white table needing no cloths to Cover its 
 shining metal surface with two bowls of oyster stew, 
 steaming very hot, furnished him and Freda their 
 occasion. 
 
 She told him Margaret had asked for him. 
 
 "And you told her?" 
 
 "That I was having dinner with you to-night. I didn't 
 mention lunch. Wasn't that ridiculously secretive ?" 
 
 135 
 
136 Spellbinders 
 
 "It was deliciously secret." 
 
 "I don't think I should monopolize all your time, 
 though," she demurred. 
 
 "Freda !" He was frowning now. "You aren't going 
 to waste time like that, are you? You aren't going to 
 hint at cheapness and little crippled conventions, are you?" 
 
 "No, I'm not. I was just saying — words. I wasn't 
 thinking. I suppose I was trying to hold you off for a 
 minute for some obscure reason." 
 
 He glanced at her very tenderly. 
 
 "You needn't hold me off, darling. But it's such a 
 short time. And there's nothing in the world as wise as 
 to seize the cup of joy when it's full. There's an undis- 
 coverable leak in that cup and it empties if you dawdle 
 over it. It may be accident — death — or human perversity 
 — almost anything. I'm so sure our cup is full now that 
 I want to drink it with you quickly. Listen — there's 
 nothing in the world against it except that some person 
 whom neither of us cares about at all might say we 
 weren't considered — were too hasty. For the sake of 
 that obscure person whom we don't know, you aren't 
 going to send me away, are you?" 
 
 She was hesitant. 
 
 "It doesn't trouble you longer that I came out here to 
 see Margaret Duffield, does it?" 
 
 "A little," she answered honestly. 
 
 "It shouldn't. It shouldn't and it mustn't. With her 
 it was all argument and all tangle — with you it was like a 
 flash of light." 
 
 "I don't want her to matter," said Freda, "I always 
 have wanted my love to come like this. Without question. 
 Fearlessly." 
 
 "Then you will, darling?" 
 
 "I don't care about the rest, but there's father. I hate 
 to not tell him." 
 
Gregory Lectures 137 
 
 "Will he hate it when you're happy?" 
 
 "He'll love it" 
 
 "Then— listen. I shall tell him— later. I'll tell him 
 that I always prayed that when I married I wouldn't have 
 to have the eyes of the world on the coming of my bride. 
 That my wedding should be secret and holy. If we could 
 tell him without the rest knowing — but he would tell your 
 mother, wouldn't he ?" 
 
 "And mother would want a wedding," said Freda, a 
 little drearily. 
 
 He leaned across to touch her hand. 
 
 "You don't think it's furtive — clandestine?" 
 
 "Oh, no!" 
 
 "Do you want me to go ?" 
 
 "No—" 
 
 "I must go on, you see — those damned lectures. I must 
 have the money. And I must go through to Spokane. 
 I could ask you to wait until I got back but, darling — 
 what's the use of waiting? What's the use of waiting? 
 We could be married to-morrow — and have Sunday 
 together. Then — then — we could wait for each other. 
 Or you could come with me — " 
 
 "No, we couldn't, Gregory. It's too expensive. You 
 know we couldn't." 
 
 She was so definite that his face fell. At the sight of 
 it she smiled and reassured him. 
 
 "I shan't mind a bit not having any money." 
 
 "Money's a nuisance. But I want enough of it — I'll 
 earn enough of it to take you to Ireland with me, when 
 I come back in six weeks." 
 
 Her forehead was a little knit. He went on eagerly. 
 
 "I've never been so practical. You wouldn't believe 
 what a man of affairs — American affairs — I've been. I 
 looked up the name of a little hamlet where we could go 
 to-morrow afternoon and be married by sundown. And 
 
138 Spellbinders 
 
 then, sweetheart, an eternity of a day before us — and 
 immortality to look forward to." 
 
 "And no one to know." 
 
 "Unless you wish it — no one." 
 
 "I don't wish it. It sounds dangerous and mad — but 
 if I don't, Gregory, I know I'll regret it all the rest of my 
 life. It's my chance to prove life. It's not as if I had 
 the faintest doubt of you — " 
 
 "Never have I been married," he laughed, "I'm poor 
 and that's the worst of me. You can read all about me in 
 the papers to-day. They tell the worst." 
 
 "Freda, darling, I've always wanted to steal the secret 
 of life. Come with me — and we can do it." 
 
 There was a flame in her eyes — a response as urgent as 
 his call. 
 
 "That's what I've wanted too — all my life." 
 
 The waitress at their table glanced at them impatiently. 
 They dallied too long — this gawky, skinny, black haired 
 young fellow and the girl in the dark blue cape. Making 
 love, all right. She was a pretty girl too, but no style. 
 All that heavy, yellow hair half slipping down her neck. 
 She'd do with a bob. 
 
 She had a still greater impatience as she searched the 
 table in vain for the tip they had forgotten. 
 
 ii 
 
 The committee in the ante-room glanced cheerfully in at 
 the crowd gathering for Gregory's lecture. They had 
 hoped for a big audience but it was a bad week. The 
 town was full of the Convention delegates and in little 
 mood for lectures, they had feared. But people came. 
 Fully a thousand people had gathered to hear the lecture 
 on Ireland and its Poetry. 
 
 They wondered a little at some of the people who bought 
 
Gregory Lectures 139 
 
 tickets at the door — men whom they were sure never had 
 attended any lecture under their auspices before. That 
 was because they did not know that Gregory Macmillan's 
 name was one familiar to other circles than the literary 
 poetic ones — that his vigor in the Irish Republican cause 
 had been told even on this side of the Atlantic. There 
 were those who would have come to hear a lecture of no 
 other subject — Irishmen who had heard his name and 
 subject announced at their meeting of the Knights of 
 Columbus. The literary-minded, the students, the people 
 who patronized the lectures of the Collegiate Alumnae as 
 they did all semi-social affairs, sat side by side in the hall 
 and watched Gregory as he came out from the faded 
 wings at one side of the amateur stage. 
 
 Margaret Duffield, Carpenter, Helen and a rather 
 unwilling Gage had adjoining seats. Gage had been 
 extremely disrespectful in his characterization of the 
 lecture, the society which gave it and the presumable 
 character of the man who was to give it, especially as he 
 learned that he was a friend of Margaret's. 
 
 Yet it was Gage who enjoyed the lecture most. From 
 the opening sentence it was clear that the discussion of 
 Irish Poetry was to Gregory merely a discussion of 
 Ireland. In Ireland to be a poet meant that one thought 
 deeply enough to be a patriot. All his poets were patriots. 
 
 He made no specific indictment of England except as 
 he read with passionate fervor the translation of Padraic 
 Pearse from the old Irish — 
 
 "The world hath conquered, the wind hath scattered 
 like dust 
 
 Alexander, Caesar, and all that shared their sway. 
 
 Tara is grass, and behold how Troy lieth low, 
 
 And even the English, perchance their hour will come !" 
 
140 Spellbinders 
 
 It was a quotation and he did not comment on its 
 content. But he sketched the lives of some of his poets — 
 his friends — his leaders. He made their dream clear — 
 their simple idealism — their ignoring of the politics of 
 expediency — their lives so chaste and beautiful. He told 
 of their homes, their schools, — and sometimes when he 
 
 ended simply, "He was killed in the attack of , 
 
 shot by the military" — or more briefly, "He was executed 
 on ," a shudder ran through his audience. 
 
 He would show the gayety of Ireland, the joy of the 
 people, their exuberance — and end with a simple "Of 
 course it is not like that now. There is much grief and 
 mourning." 
 
 It was not politics. It was a prose poem composed by a 
 poet. One could not take exception to it as political but 
 the hearers would forever have their standpoints colored 
 by what he said. It was like a picture which, once seen, 
 could never be forgotten. 
 
 Margaret listened, her ready mind taking exception to 
 some of the things he said, seeing how he played upon his 
 audience — Walter and Helen listened with intellectual 
 appreciation. But Gage, ' slouched down in his seat felt 
 envy grow in him. There was before him what he had 
 always wanted. A man who had something indestruct- 
 ible, something immortal to care for. A conviction — and 
 an ideal — an outlet for his soul. He felt himself cheated. 
 
 He liked too to listen to the poems about women. No 
 controversial tirades these poems — but verses soft and 
 sweet and pliable as the essence of women — once had been. 
 He checked his running thoughts and looked at his wife, 
 sitting beside him with her head high, "conscious of her- 
 self, every minute now," he thought bitterly. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 LIFE ENTRUSTED 
 
 FREDA worked until noon the next day. Saturday 
 was a half holiday with the employees of the firm so 
 there was no question of her remaining in the office longer. 
 All morning she worked steadily, almost absorbedly. It 
 was as if she held her ecstasy off from her, unwilling to 
 even think about it yet. 
 
 She had spent the night before, after the lecture to 
 which she went alone, in writing a letter to her father. 
 It was a long intimate letter, telling of the kind of work 
 she was doing, the way she was living and of what she 
 was thinking. She wrote as if she were talking to him, 
 on and on, and her ending was like the conclusion of a 
 talk, as if she asked for his blessing. "So you see, father 
 dear, I'm all right. And I want you to know that I never 
 forget what you've said to me — that I must live so that 
 I'll never be ashamed of having had life entrusted to me." 
 
 She was really not afraid at all. Her demurring had 
 been only the mechanical reactions of conventions which 
 sat lightly on her. In her heart she knew that she was 
 at home with Gregory and that the completeness of their 
 mutual understanding could mean only that they belonged 
 together. Gregory, like her father, reassured her. In 
 the midst of his impetuousness, his driving thinking, she 
 felt the purity without which he could not have been 
 quite so free. She felt his kindness too, and the gentle- 
 ness of his hands. He was like her father, she thought. 
 
 141 
 
142 Spellbinders 
 
 Her father had perhaps had the glory of adventure in 
 him too once, but it had been made submissive to circum- 
 stance. It had left its residue of understanding. She 
 felt very sure that when he knew he would be glad. 
 
 Physically her fine fearlessness and eager nerves kept 
 her from any reaction, or from any of the terrors, real 
 or assumed, which women have come to believe right and 
 modest at the approach of marriage. And minor faults 
 of Gregory she never paused to consider. It would not 
 have occurred to her that it was a fitting time to look for 
 them. Little problems, living difficulties troubled her 
 serene health not at all. She would have been ashamed 
 to measure them up against her love. The latent spirit 
 of adventure in her, her fine romantic training, taken from 
 books and preserved because of her limited knowledge of 
 people, were like winds blowing her on to the heart of 
 her romance. 
 
 With all this strength and surety, this Ali Baba's cave 
 of beauty to explore, it was yet characteristic of her that 
 she could work. She had been in the office four days and 
 already her place was made. It was easy to see that she 
 was intelligently competent and to know that her efficiency 
 was not a matter of making a first impression. They all 
 liked her and she already was beginning to lighten work 
 for various people. 
 
 Flandon was not at the office at all on Saturday. He 
 called up in the course of the morning and speaking briefly 
 to Freda told her to tell Mr. Sable that he was going out 
 of town over the week-end and would be back for the 
 hearing of the Kraker case on Monday morning. That 
 made it easier for Freda. She had a little fear that there 
 might have been some extra duty for her on this Saturday 
 afternoon which would wreck the golden plans. So at 
 noon she put her desk in order — she was beginning to feel 
 
Life Entrusted 143 
 
 her proprietorship in a desk now — and went back to her 
 room to get her bag, packed the night before. 
 
 She had meant to leave a note for Miss Duffield, but 
 by chance she met her on the stairs. Margaret looked at 
 the bag and made her own quick deduction. 
 
 "Going home for the week-end?" 
 
 "I'll be back Monday," said Freda, feeling rather rotten 
 as she let Margaret's misunderstanding pass. 
 
 But she forgot about that. She forgot everything as 
 she went out in the street full of May sunshine and ran 
 for the street-car which would take her to the railway 
 station. There, in the noon crowd, she put her bag 
 between her feet and hung on to the strap above her head, 
 unable to keep the smile from her face any longer. 
 
 Gregory was there waiting for her. And at the first 
 word he spoke, his spirit of exalted happiness carried 
 Freda up into the heights. He had a word of endearment 
 for her and then with her bag and his held in one hand, 
 he managed with the other to hold her close to his side 
 and they went to find their train. 
 
 There was an empty seat. That was the first piece of 
 luck, when the train already looked impossibly full of men 
 and women and families, setting out with baggage which 
 overflowed from the seats to the aisles. But there was 
 the seat, at the end of the coach, undiscovered yet, or 
 perhaps miraculously set apart for them — made invisible 
 to other searchers — its red plush surface cleanly brushed 
 for the journey and a streak of sunlight like a benison 
 across the back of it. 
 
 Freda slipped in beside the window and, placing their 
 baggage in the little rack, with a touch that was almost 
 reverent for Freda's bag, Gregory sat down beside her. 
 
 "We have an hour and forty minutes," he declared, 
 "and look, my darling." He took out of his pocket a tiny 
 
144 Spellbinders 
 
 white box, but, as she stretched her hand, he put it away 
 again. 
 
 "You mustn't see it. Not yet. But I wanted you to 
 know I had it. It's the most divine circlet of gold you 
 ever saw. The halo of my wife." 
 
 His voice was very soft and tender, the contact of his 
 body against hers caressing. 
 
 A boy went by with sandwiches. They surprised each 
 other by regarding him intently and then it occurred to 
 Freda why they did so. 
 
 "Did you forget lunch too ?" she cried. 
 
 So they lunched on ham sandwiches and Peters' milk 
 chocolate and water in sanitary paper cups and the train 
 creaked into action, joltingly, as befitted a day coach in a 
 local train. 
 
 Little stations twinkled by with sudden life and between 
 them lay fields and valleys where life pushed quietly to 
 the sun. They watched the villages with tenderness. 
 Each one unexplored was a regret. There were so 
 many things to be happy with. A child came running 
 up to get a drink of water and leaned on the edge 
 of their seat, staring at them curiously. They liked that. 
 It seemed as if the child guessed their riot of joy and 
 peace. 
 
 They had found that it was necessary for the haste of 
 their marriage to go over the borderline of the state, a 
 matter of forty miles. And they alighted in a little town 
 of which they knew nothing. It was impressive as they 
 looked about. Straight neat roads led away from the red 
 roofed station. 
 
 "I'd like to walk into the country," said Freda. 
 
 "So we shall. But first we must be married." 
 
 He left her in the parlor of the little hotel while he 
 went to find the justice of the peace. In half an hour he 
 was back, exultant. 
 
Life Entrusted 145 
 
 "Nothing dares to hamper us," he declared. "Now, 
 beloved." 
 
 So they were married, in the little bare office of the 
 justice of the peace, with a clerk from the court called in 
 to witness that they were made man and wife by law. 
 Gregory slipped the "circlet of gold" on the finger of his 
 wife and as he made answers to the questions put to him, 
 his eyes were on Freda as if he spoke to her alone, as if 
 to her alone was he making this pledge of faith and 
 loyalty and love. Freda did not look at him. For the 
 moment she was fulfilling her pledge to life and Gregory 
 was its instrument. 
 
 Then they were out again in the sunlight, choked with 
 emotion, silent. Vaguely they walked back to the hotel. 
 It was mid-afternoon. 
 
 "Shall we stay at the hotel?" asked Gregory. 
 
 "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. Only it 
 would be nicer in the country, wouldn't it?" 
 
 "There should be inns," said Gregory, frowning for the 
 first time that day as he looked at the square, ugly, frame 
 building which was before them, a knot of curious loafers 
 on the porch. "In Ireland we have inns. They're some- 
 how different." 
 
 "I truly don't care where we are," smiled Freda and for 
 that his eyes glanced down to hers with admiration. 
 
 None the less he went to inspect the little rooms of the 
 hotel and came down depressed. 
 
 "I don't want you to go up there, darling. Let's see 
 if there isn't some other place." 
 
 The hotel keeper, clerk and manager, reflected on the 
 inquiry which Gregory tried to make polite. 
 
 "Of course there's the Roadside Inn if you're looking 
 for style. Five miles out. Jitney take you there." 
 
 "I know that place," said Freda, "That's lovely, 
 
146 Spellbinders 
 
 Gregory. Oh, I think you'd like it. Only it may be 
 noisy. They dance there at night." 
 
 The proprietor misunderstood. 
 
 "So far as dancing goes here we dance here till mid- 
 night too/' he said, full of pride. 
 
 Gregory laughed. 
 
 "Well, sir, we think we'd like to be in the country 
 to-day We'll try the inn you so kindly speak of." 
 
 The jitney ride gave them further sense of adventure 
 and when they stopped in front of the little inn with its 
 quiet air and its stiff little flowerbeds aglow with red 
 geraniums, they were enchanted. Their room pleased 
 them too. A little low-ceilinged room with bright 
 chintzes and painted furniture and a casement window 
 that stood a little open. The colored man who played the 
 fiddle at night, carried up their bags. When he had left 
 them, Gregory kissed his wife. 
 
 Ten minutes later they went down the brown road 
 where the dust lay soft under their feet. White birches 
 and young elders all fresh and green with early summer 
 foliage surrounded them. Then from the road a little 
 trodden path slipped back into the woods. 
 
 "Shall we try it?" 
 
 The woods closed behind them. The little path led a 
 faltering way between trees where long streams of sun- 
 light fell. Under their feet grass rustled. Branches 
 leaned to touch them. All the woods seemed to know 
 that lovers were passing and whispered tremulously. 
 
 Gregory heard the whispers and turned to the girl at 
 his side. Each heart heard the other as he stopped to 
 hold her in his embrace until they grew faint with joy. 
 
 "I love you, Freda," said the man, ever restless. 
 
 Freda smiled at him. It was all she could do. 
 Demonstrations of love were new to her. She was 
 
Life Entrusted 147 
 
 unbent, ready for caresses but not yet quite responsive 
 except in the fine clarity of her mind. It was Gregory 
 who must stop to bring her hand to his lips, to hold her 
 against him for a silent moment. 
 
 The woods grew thinner. 
 
 "Ah, look," cried Freda, "the enchanted woods end in 
 a farmhouse yard !" She was standing on a little knoll 
 and beneath them could be seen the farmhouse and its 
 buildings, a group of children, perhaps the very ones who 
 had trodden the path on their daily way to school. 
 
 "I like it," said Gregory. "It's love bending into life. 
 Don't you like to see it from here — like a pastoral picture ? 
 Children, kittens, the thin woman going to carry the 
 scraps to the chickens. See, Freda — isn't life beautiful?" 
 Freda saw it through his poet's vision for a moment. It 
 was truly beautiful — the group held together by the 
 common interest of procreation and maintenance — but 
 she saw that more beautiful still were the eyes of Gregory. 
 She had a sudden feeling that she must never dim his 
 vision. Whatever might come she must protect that 
 vision even though, as now, she might see that the farm 
 below was full of signs of neglect and that the children 
 quarreled. 
 
 They turned back and sat on the trunk of a fallen tree- 
 and he took off her hat and stroked her hair gently as she: 
 lay against his arm. They did not talk much. Incom- 
 plete little phrases in constant reiteration of their own 
 happiness. Those were all. 
 
 The dusk came early and damply in the woods. They 
 went back to the Inn, a little chilled, and Freda brushed 
 her hair into neatness and went down to meet her husband 
 in the dining-room. It was a strange and familiar feeling 
 to see him standing by the door waiting for her. They 
 were very hungry and talkative now. With the darkness 
 
148 Spellbinders 
 
 outside, intimacy pressed closer upon them and they were 
 shy of it, deliciously shy, enticing it closer to them by their 
 evasion of it. 
 
 So after their dinner they sat in the little guest parlor 
 of the Inn and watched each other, talking about irrelevan- 
 cies until the whiz of a motor outside made Freda start. 
 
 "You know, Gregory, I'd sooner go upstairs. I know 
 some of the people who sometimes come here. I'd rather 
 not see them to-night." 
 
 "Yes, darling." 
 
 In their bedroom the muslin curtains were tugging at 
 their sashes, trying to pull themselves free. A breeze of 
 thick soft coolness came through the room. Freda felt as 
 if her heart would burst with very wonder. Life to be 
 known so deeply — so soon. And, as was strange and 
 frequent with her she lost the sense of everything except 
 Life, a strange mystery, a strange progress, of which she 
 was an inevitable part, spreading about her, caressing her, 
 absorbing her. She was not thinking of Gregory, until 
 he came, knocking so absurdly, so humbly on the fragile 
 door that her mind leapt into sudden pity, and personal 
 love. 
 
 "You are like a white taper before the altar of love," 
 breathed Gregory. 
 
 Around them in the soft darkness the breeze played 
 lightly. Beneath was the sound of dance music, of 
 occasional laughter. They heard nothing to distress them 
 in their complete isolation. Only when the music became 
 tender, falling into the languorous delicacy of a waltz it 
 added witchery to their rapture. 
 
 ii 
 
 In the morning it was Gregory who was the practical 
 one — Freda the mystic. Her mind was filled with 
 
Life Entrusted 149 
 
 mystery and dulled with the pervading sense of her hus- 
 band. He was inconceivably more to her than he had 
 been. She was infinitely rich with thought and revelation 
 and too languorous to think. Gregory overwhelmed her. 
 In his spirited tenderness, declaring her the miracle bride 
 of the world, talking an unending poem of love to her, he 
 was active now — she dreamy and spent. He brought her 
 breakfast and sat beside her while she ate it. And 
 suddenly it became clear to them that their time was 
 slipping quickly by. 
 
 It had been the plan to return to the city that night but 
 they found it impossible to leave each other. 
 
 "If we rose with the bawn, we could motor back," said 
 Gregory, "and I could take the train of abomination that 
 is bearing me somewhere or other into a barren country 
 and you could be rid of me for a little. Oh, my darling,, 
 the eternity of the next weeks I" 
 
 "The eternity that will come after !" she said smiling. ' 
 
 So they decided to spend another night in the little inn. 
 There were several other guests there but they had a 
 feeling of owning the place. The lean, colored waiter in 
 the dining-room smiled at them and their absorption, and 
 gave them the attention he usually reserved for those too 
 drunk to tip wisely. The chambermaid found pins for 
 a forgetful Freda and smirked at her as she gave them, 
 with full knowledge of the honeymoon. Even the 
 manager on being told they would stay another night, 
 smiled. 
 
 Every one smiled. They went for a long walk in the 
 evening and a carter gave them a ride back to the inn. 
 What was that but the charm of luck which was upon 
 them? 
 
 It was Sunday night but though there was no dancing, 
 people dropped in on motoring parties, ready to be warmed 
 by hot suppers before they took the last stretch of the ride 
 
150 Spellbinders 
 
 back to the city. And it was as Freda was going upstairs, 
 still in that rapt absorption which had held her day that 
 one of the incomers saw her and stopped still in amaze- 
 ment. She was in profile before him, her head held high 
 and she was turning the curve of the stairs, walking 
 slowly. 
 
 The observer walked up to the desk and spoke to the 
 manager who sat making out bills behind it. There was 
 no visible register, though his eyes cast about for one. 
 
 "Who was the lady who was going upstairs ?" he asked 
 unwisely. 
 
 His manner did not recommend him. 
 
 "A lady who is stopping here," said the Swedish lady 
 with some hostility, affronted by the casual question of 
 this young gay fellow. She had observed Freda and was 
 unlikely to give out information to young loafers. 
 
 "I thought I knew her." Ted Smillie tried to get on 
 firmer ground. 
 
 His interlocutor seemed to grunt in dubiousness. 
 
 He gave it up and went into the dining-room, trying to 
 find out more from the waiter. But the waiter was not 
 too free. He had not been in a roadhouse inn three years 
 without learning a kind of discretion. 
 
 "Lady and her husbun', suh. Several couples here. 
 Couldn't make sure, suh." 
 
 But Ted knew whom he had seen. He knew there had 
 been no mistake. After all, except for a flare of 
 jealousy, even that not too keen in his increasingly taste- 
 less emotions, he would have felt that the man did not 
 matter. But if she was that kind, why on earth had she 
 turned him down ? That would be his reasoning. And, 
 flavoring the whole, that vitiated detective instinct which 
 makes gossips of little minded men, was interested, and he 
 was anxious to tell his story. He did not choose the two 
 men with whom he was supping for confidants. He 
 
Life Entrusted 151 
 
 managed to get one of them to ask to see the register, just 
 on the chance that it might throw light on Freda's 
 companion. But it did not help him. A party of young 
 men and women had sprawled twenty or thirty names on 
 the register last night. Ted did not know them and where 
 that party began or ended he could not tell. There was 
 not a recorded name familiar to him for the last three 
 days. He went back to the city with his friends and the 
 Roadside Inn grew quiet. 
 
 Freda and Gregory could not sleep. There seemed a 
 million new thoughts in the mind of each of them, con- 
 tending with the few hours they were to be together. 
 
 "I can't bear to have morning come — and the end — •" 
 said Freda softly. She was more dependent now. 
 
 "Say the word and I'll cancel the contracts." 
 
 "You couldn't. You know you said there'd be a 
 forfeit. We'd be paying your bureau the rest of our 
 lives. No — you must go. And I'll be happy. But when 
 you come back you'll never go again. I'll be no modern 
 woman, I feel. I'll be the sort of woman who cries when 
 her husband goes to work." 
 
 It was delightful nonsense. 
 
 "I don't understand modern woman," said Gregory, 
 "you're not modern. Modern is fashionable — that's the 
 most of it. You are eternal, darling. You only happen 
 once in a thousand years and then only in the dream of a 
 poet. I hate your modern woman, living by her little 
 codebook of what she shall give and what she shall not 
 give — what children she will bear, what income she must 
 have — who shall earn it. One can't measure life that 
 way. It's got to be measured by freedom or slavery. 
 Either you're free and brave, ready to sound depths of life 
 if they're worth sounding or you're a slave and too 
 cowardly to do anything but obey the rules." 
 
 She did not answer. She was in no mood for discus- 
 sion. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 WHAT WAS TO BE EXPECTED 
 
 MONDAY was busy in Sable and Flandon's office. 
 Conferences, a dinning of telephones, a vast open- 
 ing of mail. Every one was conscious of important work 
 in transaction. The Laidlaw case was having its first 
 hearing before the District Court and it was under- 
 stood to be worrying, ticklish business. The Judge was 
 irascible and his point of view of the case important 
 from this first hearing. Both the partners were at the 
 office by half past nine and left together, one of the 
 younger lawyers accompanying them, much as young 
 doctors are present at a skillful operation, to learn and 
 observe. 
 
 Freda, watching and hearing much of the office talk, 
 discreet as it was, wished she could have gone along too. 
 She was feeling very fit, buoyed up by the first strength 
 of separation when it is a delight to feel one's capacity 
 for cheerfulness and bravery in the midst of loneliness. 
 She wanted to plunge very hard into work, to do some- 
 thing important, to get thoroughly absorbed in her work 
 and not to dawdle into dreams. So she told herself 
 strongly. At night, when she was alone, she would live 
 with her memories and her dreams. It was youth's 
 swagger in the presence of emotion. She was busy until 
 Flandon left the office, making memoranda of things to be 
 done, getting papers for him, keeping him from telephone 
 interruptions. But after ten o'clock the office settled 
 
 152 
 
What Was To Be Expected 153 
 
 down and became quiet. The clerks were hammering 
 away endlessly at their typewriters, the few clients who 
 came in were quickly taken care of, and Freda found her- 
 self harder to control. She was looking up a list of 
 references that Mr. Flandon wanted ready by noon and 
 answering his telephone. It was not absorbing work. 
 Try as she would, her mind slipped away from her and 
 concentrated on amazing facts. 
 
 She was a married woman. A week ago she had been 
 a girl visiting at the home of the Brownleys\ Rapid 
 enough the events which had led to her working here — 
 but this other secret whirlwind — how strange it all was. 
 She wondered if lives were like that. Going along 
 placidly enough until they struck the edge of the waterfall 
 of circumstance and then — . All lives must have secret 
 strange places. She had loved, in Mohawk, to reflect on 
 those sometimes. Spoon River had never quite gone out 
 of her mind. She had always, since she had read it, seen 
 people as other than the reflection of their acts and 
 seeming — speculating on the curious contradictions of 
 appearances and motives. Here she sat, working, Gage 
 Flandon's clerk, Eric Thorstad's daughter. And those 
 two things mattered not at all — gave no key to her. It 
 mattered only that she was the wife, the secret wife of a 
 man whom she had known six days. Physically, 
 chemically, actually she was altered. That was life. 
 When you found it, you held it to you secretly. You 
 never told. That was why you couldn't tell about people. 
 Life might be caressing them, making itself known to 
 them, biting them. Over it all the vast illusion of action. 
 It was illusion. 
 
 The morning drifted by. At a little after twelve Mr. 
 Sable and Mr. Flandon came in together. It was easy 
 to see that things had not gone well. They were self- 
 contained, sober, but the lines of Gage's face were ugly 
 
154 Spellbinders 
 
 and those of his partner disapprovingly set. They went 
 into Mr. Sable's office and closed the door. Freda, 
 getting on her hat and coat, heard the young lawyer who 
 had accompanied them, speaking to a colleague. 
 
 "Didn't go well. Flandon got Judge Pratt mad. 
 Something got under Flandon's skin and he didn't play 
 the old judge very well." 
 
 That was all she heard. 
 
 At the moment Gage was hearing the same thing. 
 Sable was walking about the office in some irritation 
 explaining it. 
 
 Gage had continued to handle his work badly at the 
 office. Like many a man with a hobby he took his hobby 
 into business hours. But the concession which might be 
 made to a man on account of golf, on account of curling, 
 were not to be made for a man who had a boresome way 
 of bringing in the eternal question of whether women were 
 progressing or "actually retrogressing," "whether all this 
 woman movement weren't a mistake," — and so on. 
 Needing support, comfort, consolation, encouragement 
 and direction, Gage, as he felt about for them, only be- 
 came somewhat absurd. 
 
 Men are not tolerant of those who bore them, except 
 sometimes in the family, where such things are endured 
 for practical reasons. They moved away from Gage, so 
 to speak, while he talked on. 
 
 Sable noticed it. He had his own irritation, growing 
 more focused each day. To begin with, they would lose 
 the Laidlaw case and it was all, Sable thought, due to that 
 false start which Gage had made. He had rather 
 decisively taken the matter out of Gage's hands towards 
 the end but the thing had been lost already — or he 
 preferred to think so. Sable could bear to lose cases but 
 not a case which involved so much money. It frightened 
 off the right sort of clients. 
 
What Was To Be Expected 155 
 
 When Gage was a cub lawyer, arguing cases with 
 flaring energy in the local courts, Sable had picked him 
 out as a bright young man. He had kept his eye on him 
 and his progress, with sheer admiration for the practical 
 genius with which he picked up important clients and 
 gained and held their confidence. He edged in on politics 
 after a little — and in Mr. Sable's own party. Then King 
 and Sable had made a proposition to young Flandon — 
 that he join them, bringing his clients, of course, and 
 coming in, not as an ordinary apprentice lawyer but as 
 the colleague of Mr. Sable. It was an amazing offer to 
 be made to so young a man. Gage accepted it. Two 
 years later King, rather elderly now and ready to retire, 
 went to Congress and the firm name changed from King 
 and Sable to Sable and Flandon. Flandon made good. 
 He made important alliances for Mr. Sable, he played the 
 political end for Mr. King, he made money for himself. 
 
 These things were not to be passed lightly over and Mr. 
 Sable had them all docketed somewhere in his mind. He 
 was fond of Gage too, in his own restrained way. But 
 Sable was fifty-eight. He had seen many a brilliant start 
 end in disaster, many a man with ability fail. He knew 
 most of the signs of failure in men. He knew further 
 exactly what steps Gage should take to achieve eminence. 
 They were broad and fair before him. Instead it was 
 increasingly clear that Gage was not keeping his mind 
 on his work — that he was letting his nerves get the better 
 of his judgment. For some reason or other he was 
 making a fool of himself. When a man made a fool of 
 himself, there were, in Sable's experience, one of three 
 things back of it — a woman, liquor or speculation. He 
 was watching Gage to see which of these things it might 
 be in his case. 
 
 All this talk which Flandon was always getting off 
 about women now — thought the senior partner — that was 
 
156 Spellbinders 
 
 camouflage. He felt fairly convinced that Gage must be 
 playing the fool with some woman. Irregular and dis- 
 appointing, with a lovely, fine looking, distinguished wife 
 like Mrs. Flandon. Rotten streak in Flandon probably. 
 Sable chose the woman solution rather definitely. Gage 
 drank when he could get it of course. And he nearly 
 always had a supply on hand. But he used his head about 
 it pretty well. It didn't seem like liquor trouble. As for 
 speculation — surely he wouldn't play the fool there. 
 There was plenty of money coming to Gage, and he always 
 could get more. 
 
 It must be a woman. Probably Flandon was trying 
 to keep it from his wife and that was what was on his 
 nerves. Some little — Sable characterized Gage's vision- 
 ary lady impolitely. He thought on, his mind lighting, 
 for no apparent reason, on Freda. And there it stopped. 
 Queer, Flandon's bringing that girl into the office. Bright 
 enough but no experience. Unlike him too, considering 
 his usual impatience with inexpert assistance. He 
 wondered — 
 
 So while the Brownley girls gossiped in ugly, furtive, 
 rather lustful conversations and Ted Smillie told his little 
 discovery on occasion as being an instance of what those 
 "smooth touch-me-not girls were usually up to" — while 
 Mr. Sable, his mouth tight in repression and his eyes keen, 
 watched and noted Freda. Freda went on her serene 
 way. She was serene and she was happy. At times her 
 happiness seemed to shut her completely off from every 
 one — even in her thoughts from her father. She never 
 tired of exploring her memory for the sound of Gregory's 
 voice, the touch of his hands, the mystery of love. More 
 and more as the days went by she hugged her secret to 
 herself. She could not have shared a vestige of it. Its 
 exquisite privacy was part of its quality. She had the 
 vaguest notions of what might be waiting her as Gregory's 
 
What Was To Be Expected 157 
 
 wife. Certainly she might have a baby — normally that 
 probably would happen to her in the next nine months. 
 Gregory was poor. They'd have to work. And there 
 might be hard things. She thought once or twice that it 
 might be an ugly sort of proposition if she did not have 
 the particular feeling she did for Gregory. But there it 
 was. It wasn't a matter of the mind — nor of physiology 
 either. She didn't believe it was physiology which made 
 her deliciously faint and weak as she read Gregory's 
 strange letters — letters so frequent, so irregular, so 
 curiously timed and written — on the back of a menu, on 
 a scrap of envelope, on a dozen sheets of hotel paper. 
 Each message, beating, alive, forcing its entrance. This 
 was the love that according to Margaret was the undoing 
 of her sex. She knew she would go anywhere Gregory 
 wanted her to go, to be with him. That she knew her 
 life with him would have its independence completely in so 
 far as her own love allowed it, did not make it less clear 
 to her that even if the independence had been less, if she 
 had found him a man of convention she would none the 
 less — but would she? 
 
 She was immensely interested in possibly having a 
 baby, and anxious to know about it. She wanted to tell 
 Gregory. She wrote him letters in which she spent the 
 deepest of her thought. She said things in her letters 
 which would have astounded her if she had read them 
 over. But she never did read them after she had written 
 them. It would have seemed almost like cheating to read 
 them as if for criticism. 
 
 But to-day she had not had a letter from Gregory and 
 several unpleasant things broke in upon her absorbed 
 happiness. She missed his letter which she usually went 
 home at noon to get. In the afternoon as she sat at her 
 desk working and trying to feel that she could fill up the 
 time until she went home that night to see if there was a 
 
158 Spellbinders 
 
 letter, Bob and Allison Brownley came in with another 
 young girl. They were as resplendent as usual and Freda 
 judged that they were collecting for some fashionable 
 charity, from their intrusion with pencils and notebooks. 
 She had seen women invade these offices almost every day 
 for some such reason but it was her first encounter with 
 Bob since that night on which she had left her house. 
 To her horror she found herself flushing, and hoping that 
 Barbara would not notice her and that thought enraged 
 her so that she raised her head and looked full at the girls 
 coming towards Mr. Flandon's office, evidently referred 
 to her. 
 
 She expected some embarrassment in Barbara and 
 instead met a glance of insolence and surprise. She 
 looked at Allie but Allie looked away and left it to 
 Barbara. 
 
 "Can I take your message ?" asked Freda with a little 
 hauteur. 
 
 "We prefer to see Mr. Flandon personally," said 
 Barbara, and went by. It was in Freda's mind to stop 
 them but Barbara was swift. Freda could hear Mr. 
 Flandon's voice greeting her and judged it was too late 
 to do anything. She sat down at her desk frowningly 
 and was further surprised when the door opened very 
 shortly and the girls went out. They, especially Barbara, 
 had heads unpleasantly held, angrily tilted. The buzzer 
 sounded for Freda. 
 
 She found her employer sitting at his desk looking as 
 angry as his departing guests. 
 
 "Sit down a moment, Miss Thorstad, will you?" 
 
 She did as he told her. It was evident that he had 
 something important and difficult to say. She watched 
 him. He looked nervous, tired too, she thought. 
 
 "That young lady made some unpleasant remarks about 
 you and I asked her to leave the office," he said. 
 
What Was To Be Expected 159 
 
 "Oh — I'm sorry," answered Freda. "She's been 
 abominable, Mr. Flandon. But it's too bad you should 
 have been involved." 
 
 "Don't let that bother you," said Gage grimly; "it's of 
 no consequence. But I wonder if you ought to let her 
 be quite so broadcast in her remarks. It could be 
 stopped." 
 
 "It doesn't matter — truly it doesn't. Let her say what 
 she pleases. If any one wants to know the truth of the 
 matter I always can tell it, you see." 
 
 "Would you think it infernal impudence if I asked you 
 what the truth was?" 
 
 She hesitated and then laughed a little. 
 
 "You know the funny thing is that I had almost 
 completely forgotten the whole business. It seemed 
 important at the time but it was really trivial. Except 
 for the fact that it opened up other things to me. Of 
 course I'll tell you, if you want to know." 
 
 She did tell him in outline, stressing the fact of the 
 misunderstanding all around, on the whole, dealing rather 
 gently with Barbara, now that anger had gone out of her. 
 
 "I had made rather a fool of myself you see," she 
 finished. 
 
 He looked at her as if waiting for her to go on. 
 
 "That's all." 
 
 "I see. She— well— ." He let that pass. "Now ordi- 
 narily it is easy to say that gossip and slander don't make 
 any difference to a high minded person. I think you are 
 high minded. I do feel however that she has made this 
 incident a basis for a kind of slander that is dangerous. 
 Her accusations against you are, from what I hear, 
 absolutely libelous. It wouldn't take ten minutes to shut 
 her mouth if I could talk to her. But I want you to fully 
 refute her specific attacks." 
 
 "I know. I imagine she might say almost anything." 
 
160 Spellbinders 
 
 "Well, then, you have never stayed at the Roadside 
 Inn, have you ?" 
 
 To his amazement the face of the girl in front of him 
 changed. She had been calm and half smiling. Now 
 astonishment, consciousness, and something like panic 
 showed in her eyes, her suddenly taut body. 
 
 "Does she say that ? How did she know ?" There was 
 a little moan of dismay in Freda's answer. 
 
 Gage's face grew stern. He sat looking at the girl 
 across from him, whose eyes were closed as if in pain. 
 
 "To lay her hands on that," said Freda, under her 
 breath. 
 
 "I don't understand you," said Gage rather curtly. 
 
 She lifted her face. 
 
 "It hurts to have any one know that — but for her to 
 know it most of all." 
 
 "Such things are usually public knowledge sooner or 
 later, my dear young lady. Clandestine — " 
 
 "Don't say that," cried Freda, her voice rising, "don't! 
 use that word." 
 
 And then as if some gate had been opened her words 
 poured out. "Can't you understand something being too 
 beautiful to be anything except secret ? It was something 
 I couldn't have let even those who love me know about. 
 And to have her ugly devastating hands on it! It soils 
 it. I feel her ringer marks all over me. It was mine 
 and she's stolen it." 
 
 Her head went down on her arms on the desk in front 
 of her. Gage watched her with curiosity, embarrassment 
 and pity. To his mind this love affair was a shady busi- 
 ness but she didn't see it so. That was evident. Her 
 abandonment touched a chord of sympathy in him. He 
 knew how she was being rent by pain. 
 
 "My dear girl," he told her, more gently, "I'm afraid 
 you've been very unwise." 
 
What Was To Be Expected 161 
 
 "No — not unwise." She raised her head and smiled 
 unsteadily. "I've been quite wise. It's just bad luck — 
 that's all." 
 
 "Could you tell me about it?" 
 
 She got up and walked to the window, evidently trying 
 to compose herself. "It's nothing that matters to any 
 one but me. And I suppose you are thinking things that, 
 even if they don't matter, had better be set straight. For 
 perhaps you think they matter. There's nothing that 
 I've done that I shouldn't have done. I was there at 
 that Inn — with — with my husband. It was just that we 
 wanted — he even more than I at first until I learned 
 why — to keep that little bit of life for ourselves. We 
 didn't want people to know — we didn't want to share with 
 any one except each other. I know you won't understand 
 but there's nothing to condemn except that we had our 
 own way of — caring." 
 
 "But I do understand," answered Gage, "and I'm glad 
 you told me. I do most entirely understand. Because 
 I've felt that way. Is your husband here?" 
 
 "He's gone," said Freda, "but he'll come back. You 
 see I married Gregory Macmillan." 
 
 A memory of that slim, gaunt young poet came to 
 Gage. Yes, this was how he would do it. And how 
 perfect they were — how beautiful it all was. 
 
 "Mr. Flandon," said Freda, "let them say what they 
 please about me. Let them talk — they don't know about 
 Gregory — or do they?" 
 
 "No— they don't." 
 
 "Then don't tell them, will you? Don't tell any one. 
 I don't care what they say now if they don't lay their 
 hands on the truth. I can't bear to have the truth in 
 their mouths. Please — what do I care what any one 
 says? I don't know any one. I never see those people. 
 He will be back and we'll go away and they'll forget me." 
 
162 Spellbinders 
 
 She was very beautiful as she pleaded with him, eyes 
 fresh from their tears, her face full of resolution. 
 
 "It's all right, my dear," said Gage, "no one shall 
 know. You are right. Keep your memories to yourself. 
 What they say doesn't matter." 
 
 He was standing by her at the window now, looking 
 down at her with a tenderness that was unmistakable. It 
 was unfortunate that at that moment Mr. Sable entered 
 without notice. 
 
 ii 
 
 There was an argument that night. Sable had forced 
 it. He had said that Gage had to "cut it out in his own 
 office." 
 
 Gage had asked him what he meant by cutting it out 
 and his partner said that he definitely meant getting that 
 girl out of the office at once. 
 
 "And my advice to you is to keep away from her after 
 she is out." 
 
 The upshot was that Gage had refused. He had 
 simply said that there was no reason why he should turn 
 out a useful employee simply because any one disliked 
 her or thought evilly of her. Miss Thorstad was 
 extremely useful to him and there was nothing further 
 to say. At which Sable had snorted in disdain. 
 
 But, seeing Gage's stubbornness he had possibly guessed 
 at what might be the depth of it and grown milder. 
 
 "It's a difficult business for me, Gage," he said, "but 
 I've got to go through with it. She must leave the office. 
 We can't afford scandal." 
 
 "Suppose I won't discharge her?" 
 
 "I'm not supposing any such nonsense. You aren't 
 going to act that way unless you're crazy." 
 
 "But if I did?" 
 
What Was To Be Expected 163 
 
 Sable looked at him. 
 
 "It means a smash probably. Don't let's talk foolish- 
 ness. You know you've got too much tied up in this 
 business to let it go. You couldn't afford to say you 
 smashed up your business for a woman. That's not the 
 way things are done. I can't insist on your giving up the 
 girl but I can ask you to remove the scandal from an 
 pffice in which not alone your name is involved." 
 
 "Such rotten minds," thought Gage, almost without 
 anger. He was feeling curiously clear and light and deft. 
 He had felt that way ever since he had found how Freda 
 felt. Something had been strengthened in his own 
 philosophy by her simple refusal to share her secret with 
 every one. She put other things higher than the opinion 
 of gossip. So must he. 
 
 They let the thing ride for a few days. Gage thought 
 of nothing else and found himself dreaming a great deal 
 when he should have been working, according to Sable. 
 He also found that Helen was becoming almost anti- 
 pathetic to him. She was to make the seconding speech 
 for one of the candidates at Chicago and was busy with 
 its preparation. There were conferences constantly, and 
 she had allowed a picture of herself with her children to 
 be syndicated. Gage found it before him everywhere 
 and it enraged him. He felt it on his raw mind as an 
 advertisement of the result of their love, as a dragging 
 into publicity of the last bond between them. 
 
 "I feel like the husband of a moving picture actress," 
 he told her, viciously, one day. 
 
 She said what she had never meant to say. She was 
 tired and full of worrying and important matters. Gage 
 and his brooding seemed childish and morbid. And she 
 had her own secret grievance. 
 
 "From what I hear of your escapades at the Roadside 
 Inn you act like the husband of one," she retorted. 
 
164 Spellbinders 
 
 She had not meant to say that. But when the gossip 
 about Freda had reached her there had come an ugly 
 coupling in her mind of that gossip and Gage's interest 
 in the girl. During that very week-end Gage had been 
 absent from the city — on political business — he had said 
 vaguely. Yet she had tried to control her suspicions, 
 convince herself that there was no cause for investigation 
 or accusation. This flare of hers was unexpected and 
 unguarded — dangerous too. 
 
 A shudder of misery shot through both of them at 
 their own coarseness. But they were launched. And it 
 was clear to Gage that in some way or other not only 
 Sable but Helen had thought him involved with Freda. 
 It did not make him particularly angry. He rather 
 courted the injustice of the suspicion because it justified 
 him in his own position. This was where this business 
 of Helen's had landed them then. Alienated, loveless, 
 suspicious — this was the natural outcome of the whole 
 thing. Minds running on sex all the time — that was 
 what happened to these women — yet without delicacy, 
 without reserve. So 3he thought he was like that, did 
 she? She was thinking that sort of viciousness while 
 he'd been trying to protect her even from himself. What 
 was the use of it all ? 
 
 "I don't know what you hear of my escapades as you 
 call them," he answered. "Possibly you might inform 
 me?" 
 
 She was sick with shame at her own impulse but 
 perhaps it had been at the bottom of her mind corroding 
 it more than she knew. 
 
 "I didn't mean to say that, Gage." 
 
 "You must have meant something." 
 
 He was insistent, brutal. He would have the truth 
 out of her. He wanted the inside of her mind, to torture 
 himself with it if he could. He wanted it over with. 
 
What Was To Be Expected 165 
 
 "Not to-night, Gage. I'm tired. Let's talk over some 
 of these things when we are both fresh. I — I apologize." 
 
 She moved towards the door of the living-room on her 
 way upstairs. But Gage caught her hand. He stood 
 looking down at her and as she met his eyes she saw that 
 his face was almost strange. His eyes looked queer. 
 They were brutal, excited, strange glints. His mouth 
 seemed to hang loose and heavy. 
 
 "Not to-night, Gage," she repeated. In her voice was 
 a droop of weariness that was unmistakable. 
 
 "Why not to-nigiht ? Because you want to save your- 
 self fresh for your public to-morrow? You don't want 
 to be bothered with a husband and his annoyances?" 
 
 "Not to-night because you aren't in the right mood." 
 
 He still held her hand. 
 
 "But suppose I want to go into it to-night. There'll 
 be no better time. Day after to-morrow my wife goes to 
 the National Convention to dazzle the American public. 
 Suppose she sets her house in order first. Every good 
 politician does that, Helen." 
 
 "There's a devil in you, Gage, isn't there?" 
 
 "A hundred, and every one bred by you. Tell me, 
 what you were referring to as my escapades? Tell me." 
 
 He shook her a little. She felt a hairpin loosened and 
 the indignity suddenly made her furious. 
 
 "Let me go." 
 
 "I will not let you go. I want you to tell me." 
 
 "I'll tell you," sihe said bitterly, her words coming as 
 if anger pushed them out. "Heaven knows I've tried to 
 conceal it even from myself. But your viciousness shows 
 you've got a rotten conscience. When you took that 
 Thorstad girl into your office I wondered why — and then 
 after I told you she'd been seen at that place with a man, 
 your silly defence of her might have told me what was 
 the situation. You talk of her — all the time — all the 
 
166 Spellbinders 
 
 time. You were away that week-end. Where were you 
 if you weren't with her?" 
 
 He let her go then. She had said it. It was said, as 
 he had wanted it said. He felt triumphant. And he 
 would give her no satisfaction. He would hurt her — 
 and hurt her. 
 
 She went on in a tumbled burst of words. 
 
 "I don't blame the girl, though she's a little fool. But 
 I won't stand having her let in for that sort of thing." 
 
 "Why not ?" asked Gage, lighting a cigarette. "Isn't it 
 a perfectly proper thing for a modern woman to choose 
 her lovers where she will?" 
 
 Helen felt herself grow dizzy, not at his question but 
 at the admission it made. She drew herself up and Gage 
 wondered at her beauty with a hot surge of desire even 
 while he wanted to torture her more. It was such a 
 relief to have found a weapon. 
 
 "Come," he went on, "we won't discuss that young 
 lady. There's not a thing in the world against her. If 
 you have been bending your ear to the ground and heard 
 a lot of rotten gossip I'm not responsible. If the people 
 who talk about her had half her quality — " 
 
 "I warn you, Gage, you're going to pieces," interrupted 
 Helen. "I can't stop you if you're determined to ruin 
 yourself. But you've acted like a pettish child for months 
 about the fact that I wanted to do some work you didn't 
 approve of, apparently you've run off and got mixed up 
 with this girl, you've been drinking far too much — you 
 had whisky before breakfast this morning — it's beginning 
 to tell on you." 
 
 "I miss you, Helen," said Gage with a kind of sinister 
 sarcasm. 
 
 She shivered. 
 
 "I'm going upstairs." 
 
 "We're not through." 
 
What Was To Be Expected 167 
 
 "Yes, we are." 
 
 "Aren't you going to divorce me — or would that hurt 
 your career?" 
 
 "You're not yourself, Gage," said Helen. She had 
 regained a loose hold on herself. "I'd sooner not talk 
 to you any more to-night." 
 
 He flattened the end of his lighted cigarette and pulled 
 the chain of the table light. 
 
 "Then we'll talk upstairs." 
 
 "Not to-night." 
 
 "Yes, we will, Helen. I'm lonely for you." He came 
 to where she stood. "Come along, my dear." 
 
 There was not a tone in his voice that Helen could 
 recognize. A kind of ugly caress — she shuddered. 
 
 He put his arm around her shoulders. 
 
 "Gage — you mustn't touch me like this." 
 
 He laughed at her. 
 
 "It's quite the new way, as I understand it, my dear, 
 isn't it ? Nature — openness — no false modesties, no false 
 sentiments. After all we are married — or to be more 
 modern, we're openly living together. The pictures in 
 the paper prove it. There's no use being silly. You've 
 had your way a lot lately — now how about mine ?" 
 
 He pulled her close to him and pushing back her head 
 sought her lips roughly, as if he were dying of thirst and 
 cared little what healthy or unhealthy drink he had found. 
 
 in 
 
 "You know," said Cele Nesbitt to Freda, "I think Mr. 
 Flandon acts kind of queer, don't you?" 
 
 "He's tired, probably," she told Cele. 
 
 "Doesn't look tired. He seems so excited. I thought 
 he and old Sable must be having a row. I went into 
 Sable's office with some papers to-day and there they were 
 
168 Spellbinders 
 
 glowering at each other and mum as oysters all the time 
 I was in the room. They don't stop talking business 
 when I'm around." 
 
 "Well, don't worry about them," answered Freda, 
 "Mr. Flandon is the kindest person I know and there's 
 something wrong with people who can't agree with him." 
 
 "Hate him, don't you?" Cele teased her. "Isn't it a 
 pity he's married. And such a stunning wife and 
 children. Did you see her picture on Sunday? She 
 ought to be in the movies instead of politics with that 
 hair." 
 
 Except for Margaret Freda saw only one other person 
 at very close range. That was Gage's stenographer, 
 Cecilia Nesbitt, commonly known as Cele. Cele was a 
 joyous soul who had taken a liking to Freda and shortly 
 invited her to come home for dinner. Freda had gone 
 and been made happy and intimate at once. There were 
 all the traces of the cottage that the Nesbitts had before 
 they moved to St. Pierre — old rattan rocking chairs and 
 scroll topped beds. Over everything, invading every- 
 thing was the Church. There was a little holy water font 
 inside the door, there were pictures and holy cards framed 
 and unframed everywhere, crucifixes over the beds, holy 
 pictures in the bureau frames and rosaries on the bed 
 posts. To Freda in her sparsely religious home, God had 
 been a matter of church on Sunday and not much more 
 than that except a Bible for reference and a general 
 astronomical warder at the enormity of God's achieve- 
 ments. This difference — this delightful easy intimacy 
 with God was all fascinating. This was the comfort of 
 religion, religion by your bedside and at your table. She 
 expanded under it. There was a plenitude of Nesbitts, 
 sleeping rather thickly in the four bedrooms — two 
 brothers, young men of twenty or thereabouts — there was 
 Cele after them and then two younger girls of ten and 
 
What Was To Be Expected 169 
 
 thirteen and stepping rapidly downward the twins of nine, 
 Mrs. Nesbitt having finished her family with a climax, 
 especially as the twins were boys and made up for being 
 altar boys on Sunday by being far from holy on all other 
 occasions. Still their serving of Mass endowed them in 
 the eyes of Mrs. Nesbitt with peculiar virtues. She had 
 a gently conciliatory Irish way towards her sons rather 
 different from her tone to her daughters. Freda con- 
 trasted it with some amusement with the cold classicism 
 of Margaret's attitude. To Mrs. Nesbitt they were 
 obviously slightly inferior in the sight of God and man, 
 being female, to be cherished indeed, frail perhaps, and 
 yet not made in the exact image of the Creator. 
 
 They were headed for the Nesbitt flat. Freda had no 
 letter from Gregory, had had none for two days and her 
 heart felt as if it were thickening and sinking. She 
 would not let it be so. She set to work to make herself 
 interested. She would not mope. It was not in her to 
 mope. But she did not know where Gregory was, for 
 his last letter had said he was waiting advice from the 
 bureau — one of his talks having been cancelled — and that 
 he didn't know where he would go now. It did not 
 make her worried or nervous but she had been drugging 
 her emotions with his letters and the sudden deprivation 
 hurt her cruelly. So she was going home with Cele to 
 forget it. 
 
 They got on the street car and hung from their straps 
 with the nonchalance of working girls who have no hopes 
 or wishes that men will give up their seats to them, their 
 attitude strangely different from that of some of the 
 women, obviously middle class housewives, who com- 
 mandeered seats with searching, disapproving, nagging 
 eyes. Freda loved this time of day — the sense of being 
 with people all going to their places of living, fraught 
 with mystery and possibility. Her spirits rose. She was 
 
170 Spellbinders 
 
 not thinking sadly of Gregory. She thought of how her 
 intimate thought and knowledge of him reached out, over 
 her un familiarity with these others, touching him 
 wherever he was, in some place unknown to her. The 
 thought put new vigor into her loneliness. 
 
 It was an oppressively hot evening for June. They 
 climbed the three flights to the Nesbitt flat with diminish- 
 ing energy and Cele sank on one of the living-room chairs 
 in exhaustion as she went in. 
 
 "Hot as hell," she breathed. "Let's sit down a minute 
 before we wash, Freda." 
 
 Freda took off her hat and brushed her hair back with 
 her hand. 
 
 "Pretty hot all right. Bad weather for dispositions." 
 
 "My idea of this kind of weather is that it's pre- 
 paration for the hereafter." 
 
 Mrs. Nesbitt opened the door to the kitchen and hot 
 heavy smells from the cooking food came through to the 
 girls. But Mrs. Nesbitt herself, mopping great hanging 
 drops of sweat from her forehead, was serene enough. 
 She shook hands with Freda with vast smiling cordiality. 
 
 "You're as cool looking as the dawn," she said to her. 
 "Are you tired, dear?" 
 
 "Not a bit." 
 
 "There's a little droop to your eyes, dear. I thought 
 maybe it was bad news now." 
 
 Freda had a sudden impulse to confidence, a leap of the 
 mind towards it. But she drew back. 
 
 "No — not bad news at all." 
 
 "Your mother and father's well?" 
 
 "My mother is coming to see me for a few days, I 
 think. She's going to Chicago for the Convention for 
 the clubs and she'll come back this way to see me." 
 
 "Now, isn't that the blessing for you," said Mrs. 
 Nesbitt rejoicingly. 
 
What Was To Be Expected 171 
 
 The family streamed in, the boys from their work and 
 the twins from school. Last came Mr. Nesbitt, his tin 
 lunch pail in his hand, his feet dragging with weariness. 
 They talked of the heat, all of them, making it even 
 more oppressive than it was by their inability to escape the 
 thought of it. And Mrs. Nesbitt who knew nothing of 
 salads and iced tea, or such hot weather reliefs stirred the 
 flour for her gravy and set the steaming pot roast before 
 her husband. They ate heavily. Freda tried to keep 
 her mind on what she was doing. She talked to the boys 
 and let Mrs. Nesbitt press more food on her unwilling 
 appetite. It was very unwilling. She did not want to 
 eat. She wanted to sit down and close her eyes and 
 forget food and heat and everything else — except 
 Gregory. 
 
 Vaguely she was aware of Mr. Nesbitt talking. 
 
 "It was in the paper and no more stir made of it than 
 if a stray dog was run over by an automobile — shot down 
 they were, martyrs to Ireland." His voice was oratori- 
 cal, funereal, heavy with resentment. 
 
 "Who?" asked Freda. 
 
 "Fine young Irishmen with the grace of God in their 
 hearts shot down by the hired wastrels of the Tyrants. 
 Gentlemen and patriots." 
 
 "What an outrage it is," she answered. 
 
 He burst into invective at her sympathy, rolling his 
 mighty syllabled words in denunciation, and his family 
 sat around and listened in agreement yet in amusement. 
 
 "Come now, pop, you'll be going back, if you get as 
 hot under your shirt as all that," said Mike. 
 
 "It's too hot for excitement, pa," Mrs. Nesbitt con- 
 tributed equably. "Pass him the mustard, do you, Cele." 
 
 "I'll show you a true account of it in The Irish News," 
 said Mr. Nesbitt, to Freda, ignoring his family. 
 
 He wiped his mouth noisily and abandoned the table, 
 
172 Spellbinders 
 
 coming back to press into Freda's hands his Irish News, 
 a little out of fold with much handling. 
 
 "The city papers tell you nothing but lies," he said, 
 "read this." 
 
 To please him, Freda read. She read the account of 
 the shooting of three young men poets and patriots, whose 
 names struck her as familiar. And then she read : 
 
 "These young martyrs were part of the group who 
 banded together for restoration of the Gaelic tongue to 
 Ireland. They with Seumas, McDermitt and Gregory 
 Macmillan now on tour in this country — " 
 
 She read it again. It gave her a sense of wonder to 
 come on his name here, his name so secretly dear, in this 
 cold print. And then came more than that. This was 
 Gregory — her Gregory who might have been killed too 
 if he had been there — who might be killed when he 
 returned to Ireland. She didn't know where he was. 
 Perhaps — perhaps he had heard of this and gone back. 
 Perhaps he had forgotten, forgotten about her — about 
 them. This was so big — 
 
 She had to take her thought away from the presence 
 of all these people. She wanted to con it over — she must 
 get away. Suddenly she stood up and the heat and 
 distaste for food — the accurate sight of a piece of brown 
 stringy meat, embedded in lifeless gravy, sickened her. 
 She pressed her hand before her eyes and swayed a little. 
 
 Mrs. Nesbitt jumped up with Cele. 
 
 "She's sick — poor dear. The heat now has quite 
 overcome her." 
 
 They helped her into the least hot of the little bed- 
 rooms and she found herself very sick — nauseated — 
 chilled even while she was conscious of the heat that 
 oppressed while it did not warm her. The family was all 
 astir. Mr. Nesbitt underwent censure for having 
 bothered her. But when Freda, apologetic and recovered, 
 
What Was To Be Expected 173 
 
 went home on Mike's arm, getting the first breath of air 
 which came as a relief to the hot city, Mrs. Nesbitt came 
 into the room where Cele hung half out of the window 
 trying to catch the breeze. 
 
 "Sick she was, poor thing." 
 
 "Rotten heat got her. She's not used to working, 
 either, I think. She felt a lot better. Her stomach got 
 upset too." 
 
 Mrs. Nesbitt pressed her lips together. 
 
 "It was a funny way she was taken. If she was a 
 married woman I should have said the cause was not the 
 heat." 
 
 "Huh ?" said Cele, pulling herself in. "What's that you 
 mean ?" 
 
 "I mean nothing," said Mrs. Nesbitt. "Nothing at all. 
 Only I would have you always be sure to make sure your 
 friends are good girls, my darlin'. Mind ye, I say nothing 
 against the young lady. But she's a pretty and dangerous 
 face and she's away from her home where by rights should 
 every girl be." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE CONVENTION 
 
 THE Convention gathered. It was an event signal 
 enough to make an impress even on the great city. 
 Convention Week was recognized by every one, hotel men, 
 shop keepers, railroad men, newspapers, pickpockets, 
 police, students in the great universities at the city's 
 gates, and the great subordinate multitude which read the 
 newspapers and accepted the ruling of politics or com- 
 merce, as to which days should be held apart — Labor Day, 
 Mother's Day, Convention Week. 
 
 The streets were hung with banners, great, swinging 
 canvas pieces of propaganda, bearing crude likenesses of 
 candidates and still cruder catchwords supposed to 
 represent their opinions or those of their opinions likely 
 to excite popular pleasure. In the hotel lobbies men 
 swarmed. Desk clerks, sated with patronage, gave 
 smiling and condescending negations to those who applied 
 for rooms. The girls at the cigar counters and newspaper 
 stands worked steadily, throwing back saucy rejoinders 
 to the occasional impudences of the men. 
 
 It was mostly a gathering of men, a smoky, hot, 
 sweating collection of men who had a certain kind of 
 training in this game of conventions and politics. They 
 flung themselves into their parts, gossiping, joking, 
 occasionally forceful, immensely knowing. No one of 
 them was there who did not feel himself a commissioned 
 prophet — perhaps not as to ultimate but as to tendencies 
 anyhow. They spoke the great names with a jesting 
 
 174 
 
The Convention 175 
 
 respect, the lesser ones with camaraderie or a fillip of 
 scorn — but for any suggestion of political idealists or of 
 women they had a smile. They admitted the fact that 
 women had been put in the show but it wasn't going to 
 change the show any. They knew. 
 
 Here and there in the hotels were groups of women, 
 well dressed for the most part, some of them handsome, 
 all of them more alert, less careless than the men — talking 
 wisely too but with more imagination, with a kind of 
 excited doubt as to the outcome, and despite themselves 
 showing a delighted naivete in their bearing towards the 
 whole event. That was on the first day before the heat 
 had really lowered over the city. 
 
 Helen and Margaret had been well provided for. 
 They had long before engaged rooms in one of the most 
 comfortable hotels where previous patronage made Helen 
 able to choose her accommodations. Gage who had come 
 after all, had no reservations anywhere and apparently no 
 particular worry about them. He could always get in 
 somewhere and he had no intention of staying at the same 
 hotel with Helen and Margaret. He breakfasted with 
 them on the train and enjoyed it in spite of himself, 
 enjoyed being able to watch Helen and to bait Margaret 
 with political pessimism and a jocular scorn as to the 
 effect of women on the Convention. When they arrived 
 he saw them to their hotel and left Helen to her "glory" 
 he said, a little mockingly. 
 
 "It's hot," he said. "Don't try to make over the whole 
 Party to-day, my dear." 
 
 "I won't," said Helen. Her eyes met his. For thirty- 
 six hours every glance, every gesture towards him had 
 been unreal, mechanically controlled. She was not ap- 
 parently angry — nor cold. It was rather as if when she 
 spoke to him she had no feeling. Deep in himself, Gage 
 was frightened. He guessed the fact that anger is often 
 
176 Spellbinders 
 
 a denial of loss of illusion and that in Helen's utter lack 
 of response there was something deadly, ominous. A 
 glimmer of respect for her work came as he first saw her, 
 the morning after their catastrophic night, not moping 
 or storming, but studying notes for her seconding speech. 
 But the glimmer faded. It was because she really didn't 
 care. Shallow feelings, easy to suppress, he told himself. 
 She had probably told Margaret about the whole thing 
 and Margaret had tipped her off as to how to behave. 
 That thought struck him and made him curdle with 
 anger again. 
 
 If it had not been for Helen there was no doubt that he 
 would have regarded the women with a kind of tolerance 
 and with some speculation regarding their usefulness. 
 There was a chance that they might be useful. But the 
 intensity of his feelings, starting from his invaded love 
 for his wife, from that sense of exterior influences over 
 which he had no control and which he did not trust coming 
 into the privacy of their relations, mauling those delicacies 
 by weighing, appraising emotions and loyalties, chipping 
 off a bit here and a bit there, bargaining, discussing, 
 leaving a great imprint of self-consciousness of the whole, 
 had spoiled all that. Gage was confused. He was in 
 revolt against a hundred, a thousand things, and that he 
 was not quite sure of the justice of his revolt made it none 
 the easier for him. 
 
 He was in the lobby of the Congress Hotel, turning 
 away from the cigar counter, alone for the minute, when 
 he felt a touch on his arm and turned to see Mrs. 
 Thorstad. She was dressed in a neat dark suit and a 
 tan sailor hat, rimmed precisely with white daisies, looking 
 very competent and attractive. 
 
 "How do you do, Mr. Flandon?" she asked. 
 
 He gazed down at her, smiling. She amused him and 
 intrigued him. When he watched Mrs. Thorstad he felt 
 convinced that all his protest against the progress of 
 
The Convention 177 
 
 women was somehow justified. It was his quarrel with 
 Margaret and the foundation of his dislike of her that 
 he could not get the same feeling with her and had to build 
 it up with anger. 
 
 "I hope you're well, ,, he answered, as he shook hands 
 with her. 
 
 "I want to thank you for all your kindness to Freda. 
 You've given her a great opportunity to find herself." 
 
 Word slinging, thought Gage. What did she mean by 
 "finding herself?" 
 
 "She's a great addition to my office force." He 
 wondered what this little person would say if she knew, 
 as she so obviously did not, of the tumultuous marriage 
 of her daughter, of the ugly stream of gossip that was 
 pouring about her feet. 
 
 "I have the greatest respect for the woman in business," 
 went on Mrs. Thorstad. "Of course I confess I had 
 hoped that Freda would interest herself in something 
 possibly a little more humanitarian, something perhaps a 
 little more idealistic — oh, I don't mean to decry the law, 
 Mr. Flandon, but we can't help feeling that the business 
 world lacks certain great ideals — " 
 
 Gage grinned, looking like a great humorous puppy. 
 
 "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to excuse me, if you 
 will. I see a man over there I must speak to." 
 
 Mrs. Thorstad smiled in acquiescence, leaving her chair 
 herself. She sent a dutiful postal to Mr. Thorstad and 
 went out on the Avenue in front of the hotel. She had 
 calls to make. The galling sense of the fact that her 
 impress on the Convention must be a slight one was 
 undoubtedly under her gallant, moral little smile. To be 
 sure she had come to the Convention, she had a seat 
 reserved, she was, as she always would be, taking what 
 she could get, but if Margaret Duffield had not come West 
 it might have been more. 
 
 None the less she called on Miss Duffield and Mrs. 
 
178 Spellbinders 
 
 Flandon. She found them at their hotel where con- 
 gregated a brilliant circle. Harriet Thompson, renowned 
 from coast to coast as a leader of women, was there. 
 She was a rather plain woman of forty-five, lean faced 
 with good brown eyes and a rather disconcerting way of 
 seeming to leap at you intimately to discover what sort 
 of person you were. And there were Grace Hawlett, 
 the novelist, and the wives and sisters of famous 
 politicians. It was a gay, knowledgeable group. Most 
 of the women knew Margaret and were instantly attracted 
 by Helen's beauty and charm of manner. Margaret 
 introduced Mrs. Thorstad as "one of the best woman 
 organizers in the Middle West," and they were all cordial. 
 Mrs. Thompson took the Mohawk leader aside for a little 
 talk. It was astonishing how much Mrs. Thompson knew 
 about the situation in St. Pierre — how she had her finger 
 on the strength of the women and the strength of the 
 organization in the entire state. She put rapid questions 
 to Mrs. Thorstad and checked her a little abruptly in the 
 middle of some generalities. 
 
 "How did you all like Miss Duffield ?" she asked. 
 
 "Very much indeed," answered Mrs. Thorstad, with 
 the slightest pursing of lips. The keen brown eyes looked 
 at her for a minute. It was not the answer usually made 
 to a question about Margaret Duffield. 
 
 Mrs. Thorstad departed to find her own kind. She 
 knew she was not at home in that particular group which 
 while it awed her by its sparkle of mind and personality, 
 yet left her resentful, and she went on the round of her 
 further calls. She found women with petty lobbying to 
 do, with little reputations which they wished to secure, 
 airing their platitudes and generalities to each other in 
 heavy agreement, talking of the new day and denouncing 
 the vagaries of modernity with a fervor that was half 
 jealous, half fearful. 
 
The Convention 179 
 
 Harriet Thompson looked at Margaret after Mrs. 
 Thorstad had left them. She always liked to look at 
 Margaret. The serenity in her calm face, the touch of 
 austerity which kept it from becoming placid, pleased her. 
 She crossed to where she was sitting. 
 
 "What did you do to that little person, Margaret?" 
 
 "I? I didn't do anything. She rather wanted to be 
 delegate at large in Helen's place, I think. Don't speak 
 of it to Helen. I told Helen there was no one else even 
 willing to do it." 
 
 "Your Mrs. Flandon is a lovely person." 
 
 She wondered, as she said that, at the soft flush of 
 enthusiasm which came over Margaret's face. 
 
 "Isn't she? She's just what you want, too. I hope 
 she keeps interested." 
 
 "Isn't she very much interested?" 
 
 "Yes — but it's not too easy for her. Her husband's 
 rather opposed — makes it difficult." 
 
 "Odd that a woman like that should be married to a 
 reactionary." 
 
 "He isn't at all an ordinary reactionary," said 
 Margaret. "He's a politician, without any illusions. 
 Hates all the publicity she gets. I think he wants her 
 to himself you see — most awfully in love." 
 
 "He'll never have her to himself if she gets into this 
 game. She's the sort of woman, from the little I've 
 seen of her that we need. Brains and personality — not 
 a wild woman or an old fashioned suffragist. Did she 
 reconcile the husband ?" 
 
 "Not a bit. He's here. You ought to meet him. 
 But better carry a weapon." 
 
 "He might be rather interesting." 
 
 "He is all of that." 
 
 "After all, Margaret, it is rather hard on some of these 
 men. I've seen it before. They suddenly have so little 
 
180 Spellbinders 
 
 of their wives to themselves. It affects them like the 
 income tax. They hate to give up so large a share of 
 their property." 
 
 "To a government they distrust. That's it with Gage. 
 He doesn't mind Helen doing any amount of music. But 
 he hates all kinds and forms of modern feminism. 
 Thinks it's shameless and corrupting." 
 
 "It is pretty shameless and sometimes a little corrupting. 
 There's a lot in the man's point of view that you never 
 saw, Margaret. They're fighting for themselves of 
 course but they're fighting for the sex too. It's all right, 
 too. Man is, I sometimes think, the natural preserver 
 of sex. Women get along very well without it, or with 
 enough of it to decently populate the earth. But men are 
 the real sentimentalists. A woman's ruthless when she 
 begins to houseclean her sentiments. A man never likes 
 to throw anything away, you know, according to the 
 tradition. He doesn't like to throw away sex. He's 
 used it badly, spotted it up and all that — in his lucid 
 moments he'll even admit it. But none the less it's very 
 often the one thing which can excite his tenderness and 
 reverence and when he sees us invade the home, as he 
 says, it isn't that he's afraid the dishes won't get washed. 
 He says that, but what he is afraid of is that we'll find 
 the secret places of his sentiment and ravish them. I'm 
 awfully sorry for some of the men. They're going 
 through a lot just now. They seem to feel so left out, 
 under all their loud jocosity and foolish talk — you know," 
 she ended a little weakly. 
 
 "I know. I've been sorry for Gage myself. Terribly 
 sorry for him. But I don't see how one can make con- 
 cessions. What I'm afraid of is that in his bitterness he'll 
 break Helen down. And she might give in but she'd 
 never forgive him now." 
 
 "You've done some speedy work, haven't you? 
 
The Convention 181 
 
 Smashed up homes and everything. What happened to 
 your own pet Sinn Feiner?" 
 
 "He's lecturing somewhere or other." 
 
 "Is that all off?" 
 
 "It never was on." 
 
 "You couldn't get absorbed in his enthusiasm because 
 you've got one of your own, haven't you?" 
 
 "I have yours." 
 
 Mrs. Thompson patted her affectionately on the arm. 
 Her contacts were all warm and intimate. With men and 
 women alike, she seemed to get inside their minds and 
 look out on the world as they saw it. 
 
 "You're a dear girl," she told her, "but you must 
 remember that humanity is a bigger thing even than 
 feminism, Margaret. Be a little more tender towards the 
 poor men. After all, they can't all be transported." 
 
 All afternoon the crowds swelled. In the evening the 
 great hotel dining-rooms were filled with people who 
 represented almost everything — pow^r, wealth, notoriety, 
 ambition. Headquarters were established. Newspaper 
 men idled to and fro, joking, prophesying, gossiping. 
 Underneath the fatuousness of much of the pretense that 
 this was a great popular meeting, most of the people knew 
 that the rules were already laid down and things would 
 take their course — must take their course. And yet there 
 was a certain amount of fair speculation as to whether 
 in some way the great leaders might not be outwitted 
 after all — whether some new element might not show 
 sudden strength, whether the unorganized, half formu- 
 lated hopes and ideals of millions of ordinary people might 
 this time put themselves across and lead instead of follow. 
 The Convention, like the world, was attuned to surprises, 
 revolts, inexplicable overturnings. 
 
 Helen was more than excited. A little less than two 
 days ago she had felt that she could not go on with this — 
 
182 Spellbinders 
 
 that the personal agony had to be fought out first. To 
 her amazement she found that Margaret had been right. 
 Helen had always agreed with her that women were really 
 not dependent on emotion but that had been because 
 Margaret's contention seemed reasonable and to take the 
 other side hardly worthy. An inner feeling had persisted 
 that after all Margaret was unmarried and didn't — 
 couldn't know the strength of the emotional pull. But 
 now she found herself breaking through personal 
 emotional wreckage to impersonal interest — or if not 
 impersonal interest at least interest in which sex played 
 no part. She had at first kept up the signs of control 
 because she must. Now she no longer needed the signs. 
 She thought of Gage almost dispassionately. Now and 
 then the tragedy of the ruined feeling between them shook 
 her violently. But she could see their situation spread out 
 before her. She could see it in relation to the children, 
 to other work. She could see where things must be 
 stopped in that they did not improve. And most of the 
 time she hardly thought of Gage at all. She was respond- 
 ing to all the excitement and interest and admiration 
 around her. She felt part of a great organization about 
 to act in ways which would affect the world. The great 
 sensibility of her woman's imagination, undulled by much 
 experience in the direction of things beyond her contact, 
 was played upon by a vision of great power which she 
 might help direct. 
 
 For the first time she understood what Margaret meant 
 by the freedom of women and why she was not content 
 with the formal letting down of the gates. She under- 
 stood what some of the others meant when they talked 
 of the easy contemporary victories as obscuring the real 
 things which women needed. 
 
 The best of them did not talk the lingo of the "new 
 day." They knew that any day was not new long enough 
 
The Convention 183 
 
 to get used to its title. They talked of adjustment of 
 contemporary circumstances to an evolution as old as 
 that of civilization, as old as that of man — merged with 
 male development and yet distinct from it again. They 
 avoided catch words and the flattery which was sprinkled 
 so thickly, avoided it not pedantically but with humorous 
 knowledge of its purpose. 
 
 They dined with Mrs. Thompson and three other 
 women and held a kind of informal court afterwards in 
 one of the parlors of the hotel. Every notable man who 
 came into the hotel seemed to want a word with Mrs. 
 Thompson. She had a way with them that they all liked, 
 a kind of keen camaraderie, especially effective in a woman 
 who, like Mrs. Thompson, could never be accused of 
 trying out any arts of sex attraction. They liked her 
 company and her brisk tongue and there was added 
 interest in finding such company in a woman. Helen met 
 the Senators — the men whose names the party conjured 
 with and handled them as she handled most people — 
 skillfully. 
 
 It was a little after nine when Helen saw Gage at the 
 end of the room. She had been talking with a gray 
 haired, affable Senator who was telling her what a bene- 
 ficient influence the women were to have on the Conven- 
 tion and she was excited, amused and sparkling. She 
 was wearing a dinner dress of black lace that Gage had 
 always liked and as she caught his eyes on her that was 
 the first thought which flashed through her mind. It was 
 followed by a quick appraisal of Gage himself. He was 
 looking a little untidy and showing clearly the signs of 
 recent strain and worry. 
 
 He did not make his way to her at once. He stopped 
 to talk casually to some men whom he knew. Helen 
 thought suddenly that Gage was not a big man politically. 
 He did not have nearly as much prestige as Mrs. 
 
184 Spellbinders 
 
 Thompson of course, not nearly as much strength as she 
 herself might have — . She saw Margaret introducing 
 him to Mrs. Thompson. His manners were bad. He 
 had none of the easy pleasant way with which the other 
 men had come up to her. He must be making an 
 extremely bad impression. It humiliated her somewhat. 
 They were still too close for her not to feel that. 
 
 She joined the group where were Gage and Mrs. 
 Thompson and Margaret. 
 
 "Have you had a good day, Gage? I called up the 
 house and the children are fine. Not a trace of their 
 colds, Esther said." 
 
 He nodded gravely. Their eyes met, denying any 
 intimacies of exchange, coldly, a little cruelly. 
 
 "I hear your wife is to make the prize seconding speech 
 to-morrow, Mr. Flandon," said Harriet Thompson, 
 bending towards him. 
 
 "I have no doubt of it," said Gage. 
 
 "Do your views agree ?" asked the older woman lightly. 
 
 "Very seldom," answered Gage. He had not made it 
 light. It was like the flick of a whip. 
 
 Margaret interposed. 
 
 "Gage doesn't believe in women's progress, Harriet — 
 don't get him started, please." 
 
 "I wish he would get started. There are plenty of 
 times when I think we're all talking balderdash and it 
 would be a relief to hear some one give testimony against 
 us. What is the matter with women, Mr. Flandon?" 
 
 Gage's tired, half-haunted eyes looked at her as if he 
 suspected mockery but he found none. 
 
 "According to most belief, there is nothing the matter 
 with them. They are supremely successful. They've got 
 what they wanted. If they don't like the taste of their 
 little mess of pottage as they eat it, it will be unfortunate." 
 
 "You don't think they will like it?" 
 
The Convention 185 
 
 "I may be mistaken. It may suit their taste." 
 
 "I'm afraid it won't but it's the best food we're able to 
 provide so far. Perhaps we've overpaid for it." 
 
 "You have." 
 
 He stopped, abruptly conscious of being drawn into 
 discussion in public. Margaret and Helen had been 
 listening to the brief dialogue, and he stiffened to the sense 
 of their presence. 
 
 "I can't stay, Helen — I've an appointment. Is there 
 anything I can do?" 
 
 She walked with him to the end of the room, impelled 
 by a desire to preserve what she could of appearances but 
 more by an unexpected pain at having him leave her. 
 She did not want him to stay — she was clear about that, 
 but she hated to have him go away in that lonely fashion. 
 The gentleness that welled up only lasted for a moment. 
 He was ugly still. She could tell by the set of his lips. 
 It brought back her terribly painful memories. 
 
 "Good night, Gage." 
 
 That was all. Towards morning Gage went to bed. 
 He had been drinking other people's whisky and he 
 was ill enough to suspect it had not been good stuff. 
 
 He did not go to the great Auditorium until the next 
 afternoon. It took some time to get himself into shape. 
 The heat had begun, heat which settled thickly on the city 
 for three days and played its own part in making possible 
 agreements and compromises. By noon the smart look, 
 the brisk look had gone from everything and everybody 
 and the sticky battle with the weather had begun. Gage 
 had met some men from his own part of the country and 
 they entered the great hall where the banners hung limp 
 from the ceiling and the delegates were already coming 
 
186 Spellbinders 
 
 back to their places after the noon recess. Gage did not 
 look for his wife but after a while he saw her — as usual 
 looking the mistress of herself. His head was hot and 
 thick and he hated her for the fine mastery of her health 
 and beauty. He wanted to see her in tears — prostrate — 
 and because he knew his desire was ugly he slipped down 
 in his own self-respect, which already was becoming such 
 a frail reed to cling to. 
 
 All that day he did not go near her. He watched her 
 furtively sometimes while he was in the auditorium but 
 most of the time he spent with other men in hotel rooms 
 which grew hotter in spite of the efforts of electric fans 
 and all the time the whisky which he drank made his brain 
 hot and seething with misconceptions and desires and 
 hatreds. 
 
 By the afternoon of the second day it had settled down 
 to an endurance meeting. 
 
 Watching the restless, heated crowd, going through the 
 same old formalities, Gage wondered whether Helen was 
 aware now what kind of game this was she had chosen 
 to sit in — whether the farce of it was clear. He did not 
 wonder clearly. It was a kind of vindictive spite which 
 pricked a muddled brain. 
 
 He had not intend to be there when she spoke but in 
 the end he stayed. He heard the round commonplace 
 phrases of the man who was nominating the candidate she 
 was working for — a good man, as Gage admitted — better 
 caliber than most, but without a ghost of a show for 
 nomination. He listened with irritation to the outburst 
 of applause. Then he saw his wife before the great 
 crowd. It seemed quite unreal. 
 
 He had not guessed her voice would carry like that. 
 He had not known she would show up like that. She 
 came like a breath of cool air into that heated place. In 
 her blue linen gown and white feather hat she looked cool, 
 
The Convention 187 
 
 fresh, immaculate. When she spoke they listened to her 
 and for a few minutes Gage caught himself listening 
 eagerly. She was talking well. No nonsense. It was 
 to the point. Just then he heard a man behind him. 
 
 "Some looker, isn't she? That's the kind of dames 
 we ought to have in politics all right." 
 
 Blind rage swept over Gage again. He wanted to turn 
 on the man and fight. But he did nothing of the sort, 
 being held by a thousand inhibitions. Instead he watched 
 his wife and as she talked he seemed to see her offering 
 her beauty to the crowd, seemed to see in every man's 
 face — as they watched her — amusement, desire, lust. 
 
 He heard the burst of applause when she finished, 
 applause with real enthusiasm and at every hand clap he 
 felt fury rising. Getting up, he found his way to the 
 door. 
 
 If Helen had expected a tribute from him, piled on the 
 many she received that night, she was mistaken. Men, 
 women, newspapers all congratulated her on having put 
 some real fire into the speeches. Her speech, printed and 
 flashed all over the country was given its own share of 
 praise. It was clear, forceful, new in its outlook. The 
 women of the country had chosen a good spokesman, said 
 the papers. But from Gage there was only a note at the 
 hotel, saying briefly that he had thought it best to return 
 to St. Pierre — the convention was the usual farce. 
 
 Helen twisted his note in her hands. 
 
 "So he couldn't stay away from Freda Thorstad even 
 that long," she thought. "Well,—" 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 MR. SABLE STARTS SOMETHING 
 
 WHAT Mr. Sable had counted on was that Gage, once 
 away for the Convention, with his wife travelling 
 with him, would stay away for a week or so. In any case, 
 he had taken matters rather summarily into his own hands 
 in the case of Freda Thorstad. The presence of the girl 
 in the office was to him like an open scandal. He knew 
 that she had to get out of the office and the time to get 
 her out was while Gage was away. Of course Flandon 
 might raise trouble when he came back but there would 
 be no scene with the girl and he could put it flatly and 
 finally that amours had to be conducted outside of the 
 office if at all. He was extremely correct and secure in 
 his own position and he felt he was most delicate. 
 
 So he was at the office a little earlier than usual the 
 morning after Gage left for the Convention. Freda was 
 at her desk sorting the first batch of mail. She looked 
 very neat and capable, in her white blouse open a little 
 at the throat, her thick golden red hair pulled back 
 smoothly from her forehead, and her head industriously 
 bent over her letters. 
 
 "Will you come in my office for a moment, Miss 
 Thorstad?" 
 
 Freda followed him obediently. He closed the door 
 and, taking his arm chair, left her standing a little 
 dubiously before him. 
 
 "Miss Thorstad, ,, he said, "I think— er— that it will be 
 best for you to sever your connection with this office. ,, 
 
 188 
 
Mr. Sable Starts Something 189 
 
 His tone, wholly disapproving, weighted with meaning, 
 told his reasons with almost comic flatness. 
 
 Freda's brow contracted and she looked sharply at him. 
 Then she laughed. A brazen laugh, he would have said. 
 Truly a laugh with no more fear or care or apprehension 
 in it than the laugh of any child who comes upon some- 
 thing ridiculous. 
 
 Mr. Sable frowned. She was a hussy, he thought. 
 Might try to bulldoze him a little — he became increasingly 
 stern. 
 
 "I have no desire to go into our reasons for this but I 
 think it will be best for you to simply leave at once. You 
 may find the work too heavy for you. I am sure you 
 understand that no office of this kind could take the 
 situation differently.' ' 
 
 "Wouldn't it be better for me to wait until Mr. 
 Flandon's return?" she asked. 
 
 He had feared that. 
 
 "Surely you understand that your presence here is 
 embarrassing to Mr. Flandon," he said sharply. 
 
 If she had guessed what he suspected she might have 
 contended. But all that he said struck her as true. She 
 evidently was being gossiped about and if it did make it 
 embarrassing for Mr. Flandon — Perhaps that was why 
 he had been so over courteous, to conceal a deep embar- 
 rassment. 
 
 "Very well, Mr. Sable," — she straightened her 
 shoulders a little — "I shall not go on with my work here." 
 
 "Exactly." With victory so easily accomplished, Mr. 
 Sable became different, adept at smoothing things over. 
 "Of course when a young lady cannot typewrite, an office 
 like this has hardly the right kind of work — " 
 
 "I know that. I told Mr. Flandon that at the start." 
 
 "Mr. Flandon being absent, I will give you a check for 
 this week's work." 
 
190 Spellbinders 
 
 "I've done only one day's work, Mr. Sable. It is only" 
 — she calculated — "two and a half dollars." 
 
 She took his check for that — he did not dare press the 
 point — and left his office. Mr. Sable smoothed his little 
 white mustache, straightened his papers with the air of 
 having* done a good day's work already, and pressed the 
 buzzer for his own secretary. 
 
 It was only half past nine o'clock. Freda got her hat 
 and coat from the tiny dressing-room. Her desk was in 
 order and there was no use in fussing over it. She 
 wanted to get out into the clean air. The pompous little 
 lawyer's insinuations while they did not strike deep 
 enough to insult her, made her feel soiled and dirty. 
 
 Cele followed her into the dressing-room. 
 
 "Where you going?" 
 
 "Going out to look for a job." 
 
 "He let you out?" 
 
 "That's the substance of his message." 
 
 "Well— I call that—" Cele stopped, a veil of thought 
 coming over her eyes. "Look here," she went on, "if 
 there's anything I can do — " She stressed the last word 
 violently, as if the need for action pressed upon her. 
 
 "Not a thing." 
 
 "You aren't going back to — what-you-may-call-it ? 
 The place you came from?" 
 
 "Mohawk? No — mother's coming here in a day or 
 two. I'll wait, and look for a job." 
 
 "A job," said Cele, reflectively, "don't worry too much, 
 will you? Say — I'll be around to see you to-night. I 
 think it's rotten." 
 
 Freda went out, wondering if the slanderous tongues 
 had found even Cele's ear. 
 
 But she did not linger on thoughts of her dismissal. 
 She was sorry to leave Mr. Flandon so, but after all he 
 
Mr. Sable Starts Something 191 
 
 knew and understood and the whole business was so tem- 
 porary anyway. Gregory should be back any day now — 
 and they would go away and never think of such ugliness 
 any more. It was like her that no thought of personal 
 justification, of setting people straight on the gossip, ever 
 entered her head. She wanted to shake them off — that 
 was all. She wanted to get away into light and clearness 
 and cleanness with Gregory. And it seemed to her that 
 merely being with Gregory would make an atmosphere 
 like that. 
 
 She had received no letter from him in five or six days 
 now and she missed one sadly. She needed that written 
 touch of vigor and sweetness which set her days aflame 
 with happiness. Especially now, with the knowledge 
 that she was probably to bear his child. The lack of an 
 address so she might send him that delightful information 
 was distressing. She could have reached him through 
 his lecture bureau but she had a dread of the letter going 
 astray if it were not sent directly to him. Not a word or 
 thought of resentment did she allow to penetrate her 
 love. She kept herself free from that. It was harder 
 to keep fear away. 
 
 She was strolling along, passing through the shopping 
 jdistrict, now and then stopping to look idly at something 
 in the window when she heard herself greeted. Looking 
 up she saw Ted Smillie. He was quietly affable and there 
 seemed no escape from speaking to him. 
 
 "How are you, Freda ?" he asked calmly. 
 
 She resented his use of her name though he had come 
 to using it before their disastrous evening. 
 
 "Quite well," she said, and looked at him evenly, 
 waiting for him to pass her. 
 
 He did not pass. He lingered, showing in his face 
 the return of that avid attraction which he had felt so 
 
192 Spellbinders 
 
 strongly before. She was thinner than she had been when 
 he had seen her last and the shadows under her eyes made 
 her face more delicate — more interesting ! 
 
 "I wanted to see you again and luck's come my way. 
 You know that I did call on you the next day at the 
 Brownleys' and found you'd gone. I'm afraid I acted 
 like an awful fool that night. Didn't I?" 
 
 "Worse than that." 
 
 "But it truly wasn't my fault. I had been drinking. 
 I know I can't stand the stuff. And you made me quite 
 lose my head." 
 
 She reflected that of course it hadn't been his fault as 
 much as Barbara's. And not knowing or dreaming that 
 he was the agency which had violated the privacy of those 
 two days at the Roadside Inn, she did not persist in great 
 resentment. She disliked him of course but she was very 
 idle and ready for distraction. 
 
 He went on talking, eagerly. 
 
 "It's been on my mind ever since. I hated to let you 
 think I was like that. Look here, Freda, I've got a free 
 afternoon. Come in and have a cool drink somewhere 
 with me — won't you?" 
 
 "I don't think so," said Freda. 
 
 "Please." 
 
 "I might hurt your reputation," she said, with a scorn- 
 ful little laugh. "I understand I'm causing a lot of talk 
 among your frienas." 
 
 "They always talk about every one — especially if a girl 
 has the courage not to be conventional — " 
 
 She did not trust him in the least. Nor did she like 
 him. It was sheer ennui which made her consent. She 
 needed company. 
 
 They went to the tea room of a hotel, a cool place, 
 furnished with abundant white willow and great palms. 
 Freda had not been in such a place before and she, as ever, 
 
Mr. Sable Starts Something 193 
 
 was esthetically responsive to the oasis of comfort and 
 coolness it made in the sweltering city. Ted ordered for 
 her — a tall glass of cool Russian tea with mint leaves and 
 thin lettuce edged sandwiches. His solicitude for her 
 comfort dulled the edge of whatever resentment she had 
 towards him — she had never bothered to preserve much. 
 
 "And what are you doing? Did I hear you were work- 
 ing — like all modern women?" 
 
 "Working I was — like all women who need the 
 money," she answered, "but I'm not working now." 
 
 "You're not going back to Mohawk?" 
 
 She remembered part of his proposition that she need 
 not go back to Mohawk, made some weeks ago, glancing 
 at him guardedly, thinking with a certain amount of 
 interest that this was the very young man who had made 
 suggestions which should have barred him permanently 
 from her presence. Here she was, taking his iced tea. 
 Things were queer. She didn't even feel particularly 
 angry at him. There wasn't any use pretending false 
 rigors. 
 
 "I don't know," she said, as she had said before. 
 
 "I'm glad you left the Brownleys' anyhow. Are you 
 living with other friends?" 
 
 "No — I've a room by myself." 
 
 Obviously he liked that and the visible signs of his 
 liking amused her. 
 
 "Can I come to see you once in a while?" 
 
 "Oh, no, indeed. I shouldn't in the least like you as a 
 caller." 
 
 He was undisturbed. 
 
 "I'll have to make you change your mind somehow." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders slightly, delicately, in 
 negation. 
 
 "Do you know how much I've thought about you since 
 that night?" he asked, bending a little closer to her. 
 
194 Spellbinders 
 
 "How much?" 
 
 "All the time." 
 
 She pushed her glass away from her. 
 
 "Don't be silly. I'm not a half-wit, Ted. I think you 
 ought to be ashamed of yourself. You know quite well 
 you're engaged to Barbara Brownley. Her mother told 
 Miss Duffield that." 
 
 His face darkened. 
 
 "Well," he said, "I thought you were above a lot of 
 silly conventions." 
 
 She smiled serenely. "I am." 
 
 "Then — just because a man is engaged to a woman is 
 no reason why he should never speak to any one else." 
 
 "No — that would put a pretty high penalty on such 
 things, wouldn't it?" 
 
 "People are getting over their old fashioned notions 
 about such things. Men and women aren't simpletons as 
 they used to be, you know. We're regarding these things 
 in a modern way. More like the French," he said largely. 
 
 "The French — oh, yes," said Freda, gravely, "you 
 mean having wives and mistresses too. I've often won- 
 dered if the French couldn't sue us for libel for the things 
 provincial Americans think about them." 
 
 He flushed. "Are you making fun of me?" 
 
 "Gracious, no." But he knew from her laugh that 
 she was. "Why should I make fun of you ?" 
 
 She was enjoying herself. She felt so secure, so 
 strong. It was fun to bait this temperish young man, 
 make him scuttle about for phrases which had no effect 
 on her at all. 
 
 "Anyway you know how I feel." He pushed aside the 
 glasses and plates between them and bent himself over 
 the tiny table towards her. She sat back in her chair 
 promptly. 
 
Mr. Sable Starts Something 195 
 
 "You know how I feel," he persisted, "I never cared for 
 a girl as I've cared for you." 
 
 "Then," said Freda, with an air of great simplicity, 
 "why not ask me to marry you ?" 
 
 He threw out his hands in a theatrical gesture of 
 despondency. 
 
 "I'm tied hand and foot. This marriage of mine has 
 been cooked up by our families. It's all arranged for 
 us." 
 
 "I know," said Freda wisely, "as in France." 
 
 He glanced sharply at her. 
 
 "But," said Freda, "the modern way is not to let your 
 parents put that sort of thing over. Truly. One simply 
 says, 'Mother — I will wed the girl of my choice.' " 
 
 "You are making fun of me." 
 
 "Well — who wouldn't?" Freda collapsed into a laugh. 
 "Here I sit, listening to you make the funniest clandestine 
 love in the world. You feel you've got to do it — to 
 uphold your reputation as a — Frenchman! And if you 
 slipped into a serious situation you'd be aghast. You 
 don't care a thing about me and you know it." 
 
 "Ah, don't I?" He looked for a moment as if he did. 
 
 "You probably care a little about corrupting me. Now 
 look here, Ted, please stop talking such nonsense. You 
 can't shock me and it's pretty hard to insult me — I am a 
 little ashamed of not being more insulted — but you 
 probably could make me very angry by persisting in 
 trying to involve me in petty vice. In the first place I 
 don't like it. In the second place, if I ever went In for 
 vice, it would be on a larger scale than you could dream 
 of. I haven't the slightest intention of — being French! 
 You'd better go along and make love to Bob Brownley. 
 She'll bring some excitement into your life, I think. The 
 reason I'm not more angry with you is that you were, 
 
196 Spellbinders 
 
 indirectly, the cause of the greatest bit of luck that ever 
 happened to me." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I wouldn't dream of telling you. But I'm awfully 
 obliged for the tea — truly. It set me up. Shall we go?" 
 
 He was not so easy to repulse. He got up and pulled 
 his chair around to her side of the table. 
 
 "Freda," he tried to take her hand, "if I gave up Bob 
 would you let me see you ?" 
 
 "I wouldn't if you gave up the world." 
 
 She rose a little impatiently, feeling that this was 
 going too far, and started for the door of the dining- 
 room. 
 
 "At least you'll tell me where you live ?" he pressed her. 
 "Let me go home with you now." 
 
 "Don't you have to work in the middle of the after- 
 noon ?" 
 
 "Nobody's working much. It's too hot." 
 
 "Then go play with Barbara. I've other things to do." 
 
 Possibly it was the heat and the sense of effort which 
 got nowhere that made Ted's face intense and angry. 
 He saw her about to slip away again. 
 
 "You can't go like this, Freda, I've only just found 
 you." 
 
 "You'd better let me," answered Freda, "because I see 
 Maud Dubonnet looking at you and she knows you and 
 obviously isn't intending to speak to me though I lunched 
 at her house, so you see it will be hot with you when 
 Barbara hears this." 
 
 Against his will Ted looked up and saw Maud truly, 
 with two other girls and three young men coming into 
 the room. They had to pass Ted and Freda as they stood 
 there, discussing. Maud Dubonnet was the only one of 
 the group whom Freda knew. The others all evidently 
 knew Ted and glanced at him with some interest. Maud 
 
Mr. Sable Starts Something 197 
 
 did not look at Freda. She held her head stiffly as she 
 passed, then said something to the others which made 
 them turn with an attempt at casualness to look at the 
 man and girl. Ted delayed no longer. He followed 
 Freda out. 
 
 "You see it doesn't pay to do things Barbara won't 
 like. This will get back to her before to-morrow and she 
 won't be pleasant." 
 
 Ted's mouth set in an rather ugly line. 
 
 "I'll manage Bob all right." He looked at Freda. 
 Her face under the plain white hat she wore was mocking, 
 insubordinate, fascinating. "But I want to see you again. 
 To-night?" 
 
 "Nonsense. Good-by, Ted. Be good and make your 
 peace with Bob." 
 
 She turned and went in the opposite direction from the 
 one in which they had started, going into the first big 
 department store and retiring to the ladies' waiting-room 
 where she wrote a letter to her father, and mailed it. 
 Then, having made sure she was rid of Ted she went 
 home. The afternoon dragged along. She read and 
 thought and on an impulse went out again to go to the 
 railway station and get some time tables. She wanted 
 to see just how far Gregory had been away from her 
 when he last wrote. 
 
 Each time the postman approached the house there was 
 a leap of her heart. Four times a day he came and each 
 time he brought fresh hope. She would play tricks on 
 herself as she went down to look in the mail box she 
 shared with the people who rented the apartment in which 
 she stayed. Each time she put her hand in the box she 
 hesitated before she looked, then looked quickly as if to 
 catch fate before it tricked her. But it would be an 
 advertisement of a corset firm for Mrs. Miller, an envelope 
 with unmistakable savor of a bill about it, a postcard, a 
 
198 Spellbinders 
 
 white Louisine envelope with a woman's handwriting on 
 it. How she hated all the flatness of the Miller mail. 
 
 Each envelope she took in her hands seemed to be 
 mischievously metamorphosed into one of these stupid 
 envelopes which represented such dull contact with the 
 outside world. Nothing to do but to go upstairs and read 
 all over again the old messages of love from him — to wear 
 her wedding ring in the privacy of her room — to make 
 endless computations on the presumable date of her child's 
 birth — to read with unfailing zest and yet slight nausea 
 the rather mawkish pages of "What Every Mother 
 Should Know" which she had shamefacedly but defiantly 
 bought at a book shop, feeling the necessity for some 
 practical knowledge of marriage. 
 
 The next day, breaking through her apprehension and 
 her waiting, cutting across her vague fears, came the 
 letter. It lay between an announcement of the opening 
 of a new hair dressing parlor and Mr. Miller's water and 
 light bill. How could she hope that the other white 
 envelope would be anything more interesting ? Then she 
 turned it over and the address stared at her blackly. It 
 was addressed to Mrs. Gregory Macmillan, in an 
 unfamiliar hand, postmarked at the town from which 
 Gregory had last written. Gregory always addressed her 
 letters to Freda Thorstad to avoid any explanations to the 
 Millers. A quick faint fear came over her. She almost 
 crushed the letter as she flew up the stairs and with her 
 back against her door faced the envelope again. 
 
 Then steeling her mind and her heart, presenting only 
 outer senses to what blow it might contain, she opened it. 
 The written words made their sense clear, like some 
 amazingly vital story that thrilled every nerve. 
 
Mr. Sable Starts Something 199 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Macmillan : 
 
 I obtained your address from your husband and I am writing 
 you to tell you that he is extremely ill. We have done our 
 best for him and he has a nurse with him constantly but I feel 
 that you should come to him if it is at all possible. I do not 
 know what responsibilities of family may hold you but I think 
 it my duty to inform you that your husband is very sick. He 
 lectured here on the fourteenth and the next morning the pro- 
 prietor of this hotel called me to attend him. I found him in 
 the first stages of typhoid and had him removed to a hospital 
 here which is comfortable and where we have given him every 
 attention. At a time like this his family should be with him. 
 I regret that I must be the agent of such distressing news. 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 L. D. Merritt, M.D." 
 
 She read it through twice carefully. The thing struck 
 her as quite unreal, although she had speculated on the 
 possibility of his illness. 
 
 Then her mind, working reasonably, went on. She 
 thought of trains and money. She had fifty — no forty- 
 nine dollars and seventy-five cents. It wasn't enough, 
 she knew. 
 
 She had the time tables which she had obtained the day 
 before. She studied them, her body held tautly, her face 
 calm, showing a control which had come unconsciously. 
 She could leave at three fifteen that afternoon. She'd 
 have to change trains at midnight. She'd get there at 
 noon next day. There was money. She must have 
 money. No one to get it from unless she wired her 
 father — better not — Miss Duffield away — Mr. Flandon 
 away — Cele had none. She thought even of Ted Smillie. 
 Better not — she'd pawn something. That was what 
 people did when they needed money. 
 
 Like most girls she had a small collection of semi- 
 precious jewelry — nothing of great value. She opened 
 
200 Spellbinders 
 
 the little mock-ivory box on her dressing table and con- 
 sidered the contents carefully. Then she closed it, put on 
 her hat and stuck the box in her pocket. 
 
 Pawning was unlike any experience she had ever had 
 and not as exciting as books had led her to believe. She 
 felt no shame — only a vague hostility to the pawnbroker. 
 She hated his having so obviously the best of the transac- 
 tion. He was scornful in her array of articles to sell — 
 the gold bracelet that had cost her father thirty-five 
 dollars — the little one carat diamond ring that had been 
 her mother's — the opal ring — the seal ring — the little 
 silver locket. 
 
 In the end he gave her thirty-three dollars, and with the 
 money in her hands she immediately got his point of view. 
 She had exchanged a lot of things which meant little to 
 her for the boundless power of thirty-three dollars which 
 added to forty-nine made eighty-two. 
 
 She bought a ticket to Fairmount, Montana. It cost 
 her twenty-eight dollars and sixty-four cents. She put 
 it in her purse and went home, a splendid sense of action 
 stirring her. 
 
 It took her a very short time to pack her bag. There 
 remained two hours before the train. She spent it sitting 
 in her room and letting the knowledge of what she was 
 doing penetrate her mind. It occurred to her that she 
 should let some one know where she was going but in the 
 face of Gregory's illness it seemed even less possible to 
 confide the news of her marriage. That was to have 
 been a glorious revelation to a few people. She could not 
 turn it into tragedy, so she decided to tell no one. 
 
 To her father she wrote a letter. 
 
 Yet even to him she could not tell the facts. It seemed 
 now when circumstances seemed to imperil her secret that 
 she clutched it even more tightly to herself. She could 
 not bear the thought of comment breaking in like a 
 
Mr. Sable Starts Something 201 
 
 destructive barrage on the secret glory and beauty she 
 cherished. In her absorption she did not think much of 
 consequences or possible worry for any one. Only as 
 she told Mrs. Miller that she wanted to pay up for her 
 week and that she had been called out of town, did it 
 occur to her from a comment of Mrs. Miller's, that her 
 mother was coming in a day or two. The complication 
 puzzled her — then she overrode it boldly. It was one of 
 the things that had to be. So she wrote a note for her 
 mother and entrusted it to Mrs. Miller. It was only a 
 few lines to tell her that she had left the city — "I'm sorry 
 that I can't be more definite about my plans. There's 
 nothing to worry you, mother. It's quite all right and 
 I'm not doing anything I shouldn't. So please don't 
 worry about me. Only trust me, won't you? I know 
 you will." She sent her love and for all her assurances 
 on paper that she knew her mother would trust her she 
 sealed it with a dubious look. 
 
 In the letter to her father she was, if not more inform- 
 ative, at least more expansive. 
 
 It was incoherent, reassuring, happy, sad — the kind of 
 letter that carries with it great fear to the one who reads 
 it and who sees how delicate the balance is on which the 
 future is being weighed. 
 
 Freda mailed the note to her father, left the one for 
 her mother with Mrs. Miller and went to the station. 
 Almost before she knew it the long train, with a jerk of 
 its loose hung body had gathered itself together and moved 
 out of the yards through the scattering, blackened rail- 
 road district. She watched the little houses and let her 
 mind sink into a blur of remembrance and anticipation. 
 She was going to Gregory. No more waiting for letters, 
 no more dreams. Whatever it was that was to come, it 
 was reality — something to feel and to do — not to wait 
 for. 
 
202 Spellbinders 
 
 She slipped her wedding ring on her finger and dis- 
 played her hand a little absurdly on the edge of the window 
 casing. Marvelous symbol — that ring, she thought. 
 Too bad that people had come to regard it so disdainfully. 
 How ill it must have been treated to have sunk into such 
 disrepute. Across the aisle of the day coach she saw a 
 like ring on the hand of a woman. It was a fleshy hand 
 and the coarse pink skin pushed itself up on either side of 
 the encircling band but Freda felt kinship and friendliness. 
 With this unknown woman, with the unintelligent face 
 she almost felt it possible to converse intimately — as if 
 she might cross to her and say, "I am Mrs. Gregory Mac- 
 millan. Are you going far ?" 
 
 When the shadows fell thick across the prairie and a 
 white-coated waiter, a shade more important in his 
 manner that he had been in passing through the Pull- 
 mans, had intrigued a fair number of the day-coach 
 passengers into the diner, Freda rose a little stiffly. Her 
 chin had red marks on it where she had cupped it in her 
 hand for so long and there were streaks of coal dust 
 under her eyes. She made a perfunctory and inadequate 
 attempt to look presentable and faced a new adventure. 
 She had never eaten on a train in her life. 
 
 The warm bustle and luxury of the place stirred her 
 senses and brought her out of her lonely rhapsody into an 
 appreciation of what went on around her. The adventure 
 spirit came to the surface. Freda Thorstad — sitting at 
 a tidy table in a dining-car, on the way to her husband. 
 There was no disloyalty to Gregory's illness that she 
 could not resist the enchantment of shining dishes which 
 looked like silver and warm and savory smells and 
 smiling, interesting travelers, with above and around it 
 all the clatter and rush of the train, moving on to a 
 hundred destinations, a hundred tragedies and comedies 
 
Mr. Sable Starts Something 203 
 
 and romances. Her thoughts at least admitted no state- 
 ness as a possibility. 
 
 The meal stood out in her memory. She never forgot 
 it. Tentatively she ordered, tea, biscuits and lamb chops. 
 When the lamb chops came they lay on a platter with 
 little sprigs of parsley offering them up and made her 
 very hungry. They looked delightful but inadequate. 
 She ate hungrily, for these last few days she had had little 
 food. 
 
 Four — five — dragging hours. She bought a magazine 
 with a flaring girl on its cover and read avidly, her mind 
 sinking into its soporific fiction with weariness, getting 
 respite from her own sharp and vivid thoughts. 
 
 The conductor came to tell her that this was her sta- 
 tion. He lifted her heavy bag for her and carried it to 
 the foot of the steps of the coach. 
 
 Then came the excitement of the swoop and pause of 
 the Flyer. Freda was bundled aboard, hat awry, 
 nervously watching for her bag, taken from her hands 
 by some one, porter or conductor. The curtains swung 
 from all the berths. The porter's voice was low and lazy. 
 He showed her to lower six — a little cubby hole with cur- 
 tains drawn aside, revealing the delightful neatness of the 
 berth. Freda knew even less of sleeping on trains than 
 she did of eating there. Awkwardly she managed to 
 undress and crept in between the thick white sheets. In 
 the darkness she lay awake, wondering. Wondering at 
 the rush and sound and the mysteries shrouded behind 
 green swinging curtains. When the train shrieked a 
 signal or stopped lurchingly at some station she pushed 
 up the curtain beside her and, propped on her pillows, 
 lay looking into the night tasting the full delight of 
 inexperience. At last she fell asleep and dreamed of 
 Gregory. It was a frightening dream. He did not know 
 
204 Spellbinders 
 
 who she was, did not remember her. Towards dawn she 
 pushed her way out of it and woke up to see the rain 
 falling lightly over the even country and to realize that 
 she was begrimed with the coal dust and sticky with 
 heat. 
 
 At noon she reached Fairmount and stood in the station 
 looking about her for information. The excitement of 
 the last lap and approaching climax of her journey over- 
 came her fatigue and her eyes were brilliant. She decided 
 to take a taxi to the hospital and chose at random one 
 from a row of disheveled looking "For Hire" machines 
 waiting for the daily debouch of passengers from the 
 Flyer. She climbed in with her bag and closed the shaky 
 door, and the driver started his motor. Freda's heart 
 was racing. The cab could not go fast enough — nor 
 slow enough. It seemed to her as if she could not bear 
 what might be waiting of joy or sorrow, as if emotion 
 was welling up so strong that it would burst its bounds 
 and overcome her. Through the dusty cab windows she 
 saw Fairmount — ill developed wooden houses with 
 unhealthy looking trees giving little shade — a business 
 district of twelve or fifteen squares with all the machinery 
 of business being conducted as it was at this hour in 
 hundreds of other First National Banks and Gilt Edge 
 Stores and Greek Restaurants and brick office buildings. 
 The cab whisked through it rapidly and came to a section 
 of broader streets where more impressive looking houses 
 of brick or stone appeared at leisurely intervals. A little 
 park with a dusty looking playground adjoining it. A 
 row of apartments and there on the corner where a 
 "Silent Zone" sign, awry and disregarded by a group of 
 boys playing in the street made a vain appeal, was St. 
 Agatha's Hospital. 
 
 Inside the little entry was an office with three or four 
 
Mr. Sable Starts Something 205 
 
 glass windows, behind which she looked for an informant. 
 A slim, weary looking nun came at last, looking at her 
 from behind steel rimmed glasses without curiosity. 
 
 "Macmillan — yes," she said, "you're — ?" 
 
 "I'm his wife." 
 
 The nun accepted the fact simply and as if she yielded 
 Freda certain rights and privileges. Freda felt fright- 
 ened. She wanted to go into Gregory's room, kneel down 
 by his bed and tell him to get well. She could see it 
 wasn't going to be as direct as that. 
 
 A buzzing, muffled bell, sounded by the nun, had 
 summoned a nurse, who came into the office thumping 
 heavily on her flat rubber-heeled shoes. She was com- 
 missioned to take Freda to the last room in corridor "A" 
 — the "typhoid case." Freda left her bag in the office 
 and followed the nurse, as she clumped indifferently along. 
 The presence of the nurse bothered her. She wanted to 
 get rid of her — tell her she would go on alone but she did 
 not dare. In corridor "A" the nurse gave her a chair. 
 
 "I'll find his nurse and see if you can see him now." 
 
 "I'm his wife," said Freda. 
 
 The nurse nodded. 
 
 "I'll get the nurse first. She wouldn't like me to bring 
 any one in without calling her first, you see." She smiled 
 a little as she explained this convention of the hospital and 
 her smile angered Freda. It seemed an intrusion. 
 
 Gregory's nurse came to her. She held out a friendly 
 hand. 
 
 "I'm glad you've come. We're doing our best but I 
 was glad when the doctor wrote you," she said simply. 
 
 Something in her tone pricked the adventure spirit in 
 Freda. It lay flat, useless, a bit of torn balloon. She 
 saw herself as this other woman saw her — a wife, come in 
 time of stress to a sick husband, not a lover to a meeting. 
 
206 Spellbinders 
 
 That was what she herself had colored her worry with. 
 
 Panic seized her. She followed almost resistingly. 
 The door, with its printed "No Visitors" sign was opened 
 softly. She had to accustom her eyes to the darkness. 
 A smell of disinfectants, clean and pungent, came to her. 
 There was the bed, white and high. She made her way 
 towards it falteringly. The head, bandaged for coolness, 
 did not turn to her. It was only when she stood by the 
 bedside that it moved a little, restlessly. He did not look 
 real to her, not like himself. 
 
 "Gregory," she said mechanically. 
 
 His fever-dulled eyes looked up at her — lighted. He 
 made one motion permeating his whole body as if he 
 would rise in spite of the quickly detaining hand of the 
 nurse. 
 
 "Angel," he said huskily, "you angel of God — Freda." 
 
 The sound of his voice was a release. All her 
 frightened feelings, reassured, warmed into life, flooded 
 Freda. She sank down by his side, her head bent over 
 the hot hand, which lay so impotent on the gray blanket. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 GAGE FINISHES IT 
 
 THE Convention went on as Gage had predicted. It 
 held few surprises. Here and there a wave of new 
 sentiment was perceptible but the old rules held good. 
 The tremendous heat was a factor. It made many of 
 the delegates relapse very easily into the political fatalism 
 which is the breath of life to party control. 
 
 To the women it was more interesting and more dis- 
 appointing than it was to the men. They were interested 
 because it was all new. They were disappointed because 
 every one seemed to give in to the obvious so readily. 
 Harriet Thompson and her group were somewhat grim — 
 humorous enough. They had not expected anything else 
 really. 
 
 It was an exhausting week. There was a threat that 
 the Convention might go over into the succeeding week 
 but that was unfulfilled. Saturday night Margaret and 
 Helen went back to St. Pierre too tired and worn to even 
 talk much to each other, thoughtful, depressed a little 
 and revolving new enthusiasms at the same time. But 
 now that they were emerging from the impersonal world 
 in which they had been they felt the pressure of the per- 
 sonal responsibilities they both were speeding toward, 
 perhaps, for they sat in silence in their compartment, each 
 full of her own reflections. Younger and less experienced 
 women would have welcomed the egotism of their own 
 visions — the anticipations of scenes in which they would 
 be central. Helen and Margaret, fresh from the lift of 
 
 207 
 
208 Spellbinders 
 
 experience which was largely intellectual, did not look 
 anticipative, or particularly happy. 
 
 Helen had wired Gage that she was coming and he met 
 her at the station. One glance at his dark face told her 
 all she needed to know of his mood. He took her bags, 
 not offering to kiss her and she and Margaret, oddly con- 
 strained, got into the waiting car. Margaret was dropped 
 at her apartment and there, at the door, Gage vouchsafed 
 his only conversation. He asked them briefly if they 
 "were satisfied with the show" and his voice was heavy 
 with ridicule. 
 
 "1 think we were," said Helen, "we didn't expect as 
 much as you did, perhaps, Gage." 
 
 A light answer, ringing sharply. Margaret went into 
 her room and flung open the windows to air it. At the 
 window she looked down the street but the Flandon mo- 
 tor had disappeared. 
 
 Helen kept wishing that it were not Sunday. Sunday 
 was such a long, intimate, family day. She meant to have 
 been very definite with herself about what her mode of 
 approach to Gage would be. She found herself flounder- 
 ing again. Of course there could be no compromise now. 
 This business with this girl had to be sifted through, ad- 
 mitted — faced. She supposed there was nothing at all 
 left of any feeling for Gage. He had been outrageous 
 and, even as she thought that, she worried about him. 
 He did look so very badly. Other people must be notic- 
 ing it too. 
 
 He said nothing. At the house he helped her out and 
 went into the house with her. She sought the children. 
 They were delightful and welcoming, full of questions, 
 of tales about the fun they had while she was away, 
 eager for presents. Helen kept the children with her, 
 nervously, postponing the encounter with Gage, wishing 
 he would go down to the city. But he did not. He hung 
 
Gage Finishes It 209 
 
 about, ominous, smoking, reading, yet not reading with 
 absorption, suddenly throwing book or paper aside and 
 restlessly trying some new one, watching Helen. 
 
 She was pent up. There was such a contrast between 
 the easy interchange of yesterday and the constraint of 
 to-day. The house didn't seem big enough to hold her 
 and Gage. She went about her work trying to be normal, 
 directing the maids, playing with the children, unpacking 
 her bags. All the time she felt him watching her even if 
 she were not in the same room, felt his brooding concen- 
 tration on her, knew he was wondering what she thought 
 about, whether she was glad to be back, what she was 
 going to do about Freda Thorstad. For the first time in 
 her married life, she had the sense of marriage as a trap. 
 It had never been that. There were times when she had 
 been a little restive, but she had always been building on 
 a rock of belief in marriage, joy in it. It was different 
 to-day. She felt as if she had come in out of the fresh 
 air of clean discourse, free intercourse, into a narrow 
 room where she was shut up with a growling man — a 
 room heavy with discord, enmity, suspicion. 
 
 The morning passed somehow. They had finished din- 
 ner and she was waiting for Gage to propose something. 
 He usually took the children for country drives on Sun- 
 day. They were in the big sunroom, shady now with its 
 awnings let down, and Helen was stretched out on a 
 white willow chaise longue trying to believe she was ri- 
 diculous and making mountains out of molehills when a 
 maid came in to announce a caller. 
 
 "There's a lady and gentleman to see Mr. Flandon." 
 
 "You hear, Gage?" 
 
 "Who is it?" asked Gage. 
 
 "I think it's a lady who's been here before." 
 
 Gage's face was interested. He rose from his chair 
 and followed the maid. Helen heard a brief colloquy of 
 
210 Spellbinders 
 
 voices then Gage saying, "Come out here where my wife 
 is, Mrs. Thorstad." 
 
 He reappeared through the French doors with the little 
 Mohawk lady behind him, and behind her a man, a rather 
 stooping, pleasant- faced gentleman with well poised head 
 and an air of mingled anxiety and embarrassment. His 
 manner was unlike that of his wife which was definite, 
 sharp, assertive, even before she spoke. As she saw them 
 Helen had the quick perception of a cfisis. The parents 
 of this girl here together could mean only complications 
 of trouble. Her mind stiffened itself for whatever might 
 be coming, as she rose and greeted Mrs. Thorstad with 
 easy cordiality and accepted the introduction to her hus- 
 band graciously. 
 
 "Did you enjoy the convention ? I didn't see you again 
 after Wednesday." 
 
 "No," answered Mrs. Thorstad, "I came up to St. 
 Pierre on Friday night." 
 
 She seated herself in the chair Gage brought for her, 
 a little uneasily, with a righteous wriggle of her thin 
 body. Her husband and Gage stood together exchanging 
 a few commonplace remarks. The air was electric. 
 
 Surprisingly, it was Mr. Thorstad who began. 
 
 "We are sorry to intrude upon you on this Sunday 
 afternoon but our errand is pressing and it will be best 
 to make it clear at once. My daughter has been employed 
 in your office, Mr. Flandon." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "My wife came from Chicago to pay her a brief visit. 
 She found that Freda had gone away, leaving no address 
 with any one. We are very much concerned — greatly 
 disturbed. My wife went at once to your office and 
 there saw your partner — Mr. Sable, is it?" Gage in- 
 clined his head — "You were not there. I believe Freda 
 was directly in your employ. Mr. Sable tells my wife 
 
Gage Finishes It 211 
 
 that Freda resigned her place on Friday morning. Ques- 
 tioning him we find that she was asked to resign — that," 
 he paused and spoke with difficulty, though still calmly, 
 "that rumors subversive to her character have been afloat. 
 She has disappeared, Mr. Flandon." The stoop in his 
 shoulders had somehow straightened. He was as tall 
 as Gage as he looked at him with restraint and yet with 
 indictment. "Do you know where my daughter is, Mr. 
 Flandon?" 
 
 He stopped. Mrs. Thorstad edged to the side of her 
 chair, foot tapping nervously on the floor, eyes on Gage. 
 Helen's eyes were on him too, though there was no 
 change in her attitude. She had not paled or flushed. It 
 might have been the most casual of conversations. 
 
 The second before Gage's answer weighed on all of 
 them. He looked as if he were pondering something — \ 
 then back at Mr. Thorstad. His voice was even and con- 
 trolled. 
 
 "No, Mr. Thorstad, I don't know where your daugh- 
 ter is." 
 
 "Why did she leave your office?" 
 
 "She was discharged by my partner in my absence, 
 most unjustly, for preposterous suspicions. I shall do, 
 my best to reinstate her." 
 
 "It will not be necessary, sir." 
 
 Mrs. Thorstad could bear it no longer. 
 
 "And what were these suspicions?" She waited for 
 no answer, turning quickly on Helen. "I went to see 
 Mrs. Brownley to find out if she could tell me and her 
 attitude is most peculiar — most peculiar. She insinuated 
 that I should give up my work to keep watch over my 
 daughter. She cast reflections on me as a mother. I 
 told her that I had always upheld the strictest doctrines 
 of the home and the family, that I had always insisted 
 on a moral purity before everything else. That I should 
 
212 Spellbinders 
 
 be so treated amazed me! My daughter has always had 
 the strictest upbringing. What ideas of modern license 
 she had absorbed from contact with this Miss Duffield I 
 am sure I don't know. I always objected to that woman. 
 I asked Miss Duffield about it this morning. She doesn't 
 know where Freda is — at least, she says she doesn't. 
 Well — who does? You took her into your office, Mr. 
 Flandon, you exposed her to this gossip — " 
 
 "Please, Adeline—" 
 
 "I need not tell you, Mr. Thorstad, that this unwar- 
 ranted action of my partner has incensed me beyond 
 measure. I have the greatest respect for your daughter." 
 
 Mr. Thorstad inclined his head a little. 
 
 "We wish to find her, Mr. Flandon. We are greatly 
 disturbed. My daughter went away of her own free 
 will, according to a letter I had from her. She was evi- 
 dently drawn by some enthusiasm of emotion." 
 
 "She wrote you that?" 
 
 "To that effect." 
 
 Mrs. Thorstad broke in again. 
 
 "Even before your wife, Mr. Flandon, I think we 
 should tell you that we know that your name has been 
 coupled with our daughter's name. Mr. Sable let us infer 
 it. I'm sorry, Mrs. Flandon — " 
 
 She did not look sorry. She looked vindictive. 
 
 "I know," said Helen, "I believe, Gage, that you could 
 throw some light on all this. I don't know that you 
 could but Miss Thorstad's parents should be relieved of 
 anxiety if possible." 
 
 Gage looked at his wife. Her eyes met his levelly, 
 seemingly void of feeling, empty even of anger. Her re- 
 sistance to pain woke admiration — then cruelty. So that 
 was all she cared, was it ? New woman — modern stuff ! 
 
 "I do not know where Miss Thorstad is," he repeated, 
 
Gage Finishes It 213 
 
 "I think, however, that a girl with her strength and con- 
 trol is safe wherever she may be. She may think it best 
 to keep her plans to herself for the time being — " 
 
 "You speak with curious confidence, Mr. Flandon," 
 said Mrs. Thorstad sharply. "This matter involves my 
 daughter's reputation.' , 
 
 "From what I have seen of your daughter she is above 
 gossip," answered Gage. He turned to the other man. 
 "I am sorry I cannot help you. I am more sorry than 
 I can say that she was treated unfairly in my office and 
 I shall do my best to adjust that. If I should hear from 
 her of course you will be informed." 
 
 Mr. Thorstad looked a little tired. He had perhaps 
 keyed himself to this encounter and found it exhausting 
 to have it end in futility. 
 
 "I shall pursue my inquiries, of course. It is not a 
 matter which we care to have handled through any or- 
 dinary channels of search as we are informed by her 
 that she left voluntarily. It may be that she will com- 
 municate with me to-morrow." 
 
 An embarrassed pause came. 
 
 "Come, Adeline," said her husband, still initiative. 
 
 Mrs. Thorstad felt and looked frustrated. She frowned 
 at him, tight lips compressed. It was clear that she was 
 neither pleased nor satisfied, that she wished to ferret 
 further and the presence of her husband restrained her. 
 
 "The affair shall be probed," she said somewhat ab- 
 surdly. 
 
 "You mustn't go out in this heat without a cool drink. 
 Let me give you a glass of lemonade, won't you?" 
 
 Helen rang the bell before Mrs. Thorstad could pro- 
 test. 
 
 "It's very good of you, Mrs. Flandon," she subsided* 
 stiffly. 
 
214 Spellbinders 
 
 Gage seized his opportunity. 
 
 "I'll get you a real drink, Thorstad. Come out in the 
 dining-room, won't you?" 
 
 Mr. Thorstad, on the point of refusal, checked him- 
 self. Gage's face was significant. He wanted to see 
 him alone. 
 
 In the dining-room they were out of earshot. Gage 
 poured two small glasses of whisky, his companion's re- 
 straining hand dictating the amount. Even then Mr. 
 Thorstad waited. He raised his glass perfunctorily but 
 did not drink. 
 
 "I'm sorry for this mess, Thorstad. I don't believe 
 in taking notice of gossip ordinarily and you can't help 
 what a lot of small people think. But I saw something 
 of your daughter in my office. I admired her character, 
 her idealism immensely. I — am not involved in any way 
 with her. I believe wherever she is that she is happy — 
 and safe." 
 
 "Did she leave the city because of that dismissal from 
 your office ?" 
 
 Gage strode up and down the room. 
 
 "That's it ! I don't know. It might be. I was in Chi- 
 cago. My partner took it on himself to let her go. How 
 deeply he wounded her I don't know. I was appalled 
 when I heard what he had done. I am going to make 
 reparation to her in some way, I assure you. It's the sort 
 •of thing that is hard to repair but I shall do my best when 
 I know where she is." 
 
 "Why did they talk about her in connection with you, 
 Flandon, if there's nothing to it?' 
 
 "Fools. I shan't contradict them." 
 
 "It might be wise to contradict them." 
 
 "No." A gleam of hysteria was in Gage's smile. "Let 
 them say what they please as long as it doesn't hurt Miss 
 Thorstad." 
 
Gage Finishes It 215 
 
 "It may do that." 
 
 "Then we stop it. But there's no point in statements 
 now that there is no possible connection between our 
 names. The thing is to find her if you feel she ought not 
 to be left alone." 
 
 "Why should she be left alone? She may be in dis- 
 tress." 
 
 "I don't think so," Gage was guarding Freda's secret 
 as best he could and trying to reassure her father who 
 so inspired sympathy and respect. "She is so con- 
 trolled — so high minded that she would act wisely, I'm 
 sure." 
 
 Mr. Thorstad looked at him curiously. 
 
 "Then you have no further information?" 
 
 "No — only I hope you'll take my word that I'm not 
 involved." 
 
 "I am inclined to do so." Mr. Thorstad put down his 
 untasted glass on the table and accepted Gage's out- 
 stretched hand. "I do not feel exactly as her mother does 
 about the matter. Of course Mrs. Thorstad is actuated 
 by a mother's great anxiety. I am a little more inclined 
 to trust to Freda's judgments. She is, as you say, not a 
 person to be the victim of any easy emotion or to yield 
 to any false persuasion. She has great perception of the 
 alliance between true things and beautiful things." 
 
 "I saw that," said Gage. "You're very wise, Mr. 
 Thorstad. It's too bad she can't be left alone to work 
 this out." 
 
 "Personally," went on the other, "the scandal doesn't 
 perturb me at all. It is for her mother's sake that I feel 
 obliged to overstep my own inclination to let Freda have 
 her own time to make her confidence. I felt it necessary 
 to trace any possible connection you might have with her 
 disappearance. I — I am apt to take the word of a gen- 
 tleman as truth, Mr. Flandon." 
 
216 Spellbinders 
 
 "You are very good," said Gage. "Very good. I am 
 deeply grateful." 
 
 "Shall we return to the others ?" 
 
 The two women were sitting silently, making no pre- 
 tense at casual talk, their curiosity as to what the two 
 men had said to each other indisguisable. 
 
 "We must go now, Adeline." 
 
 She rose, evidently torn by a desire to be easy and 
 complaisant and a disgruntled lack of satisfaction in the 
 interview. 
 
 "Very well," she said, "I'm sure I shall not be able 
 to rest for a second until my daughter is safe and with 
 me once more." 
 
 They were courteous to the little outbreak of melo- 
 drama but not too responsive. 
 
 Helen and Gage accompanied their visitors to the door 
 and saw them walk down the street, the sunlight bring- 
 ing out the shiny seams in Mr. Thorstad's coat, beating 
 unmercifully on the defiant little daisies in his wife's hat. 
 
 Helen turned to her husband. 
 
 "Why didn't I hear of this?" 
 
 "I didn't know you'd be interested. You've been so 
 interested in national affairs I couldn't suppose you had 
 time for little local troubles." 
 
 She set her lips in anger. 
 
 "You gain nothing by viciousness, Gage. Where is 
 that girl?" 
 
 "Haven't I said I didn't know?" 
 
 "I don't believe you." 
 
 "That's quite in line with your other theories of wifely 
 conduct." 
 
 "I'm not interested in quarreling with you, Gage. I 
 simply want to know for my own protection what is go- 
 ing on. Is it true that George Sable discharged that girl 
 while you were away?" 
 
Gage Finishes It 217 
 
 "Quite true." 
 
 "For what reason?" 
 
 Gage lighted a swaggering cigarette. 
 
 "His mind runs along with yours, Helen. He had 
 the same delicate ideas you have." 
 
 "Where did the girl go?" 
 
 "Didn't you hear me say I didn't know ?" 
 
 "Has she run away from you too? Have you got 
 that girl into trouble?" 
 
 "I always hated that phrase," answered Gage, non- 
 chalantly. 
 
 "Why did you come back from Chicago so soon?" 
 
 "Why should I stay? A fifth wheel? The entirely 
 superfluous husband of one of the great feminist suc- 
 cesses ?" 
 
 "I asked you why you came back." She framed each 
 word with an artificial calmness. 
 
 "You haven't taken so much interest in me for years, 
 Helen. It's true, isn't it? All a man has to do is to 
 get involved in a scandal to have the women after 
 him." 
 
 She pressed her hand to her face as if to shut out the 
 sight of him. 
 
 "You're a madman, Gage." 
 
 "I shouldn't be surprised." 
 
 Then she dropped into a chair, weeping long sobs, 
 drawn from emotion controlled beyond her strength. 
 
 "Why do you torture me so, Gage ? What devil pos- 
 sesses you ?" 
 
 He had always had a horror of seeing her weep. He 
 took a step towards her. 
 
 "I'm tired — I'm tired," sobbed Helen. 
 
 Gage stiffened. "And why are you tired? Because 
 you've been running around Chicago. I didn't tire you. 
 You tire yourself. Then you come back exhausted and 
 
218 Spellbinders 
 
 blame me because you are exhausted. If you were more 
 a wife — less a public character — " 
 
 She had risen and stood looking at him angrily again, 
 eyes wide with hurt and disappointment. 
 
 "You jealous fool — you're on the point of becoming 
 a degenerate. If even Sable has to watch over your ac- 
 tions — publicly reprove you — " 
 
 "He won't do it again," said Gage, "not again. I am 
 severing my connection with the upright Sable. He'll 
 never pry into my business again. I'll tell you that for 
 certain." 
 
 She stopped considering the personal trouble in sheer 
 amazement. 
 
 "You're not going to break with Sable?" 
 
 "I told him yesterday I was through. In fact I told 
 him cordially to go to hell. He can't play the black 
 mammy to me, you know." 
 
 "But — what are you to do ?" 
 
 "Oh, I'll do something. I'll show him whether I have 
 to sit and take dictation from him." 
 
 "You're going to practice by yourself?" 
 
 "When my plans are ready, you'll hear them, Helen." 
 
 She shivered. 
 
 "I wonder if you're headed for destruction." 
 
 "You told me I was a degenerate. Well, we'll see." 
 
 Looking at him she saw, underneath the mask of 
 tawdry control, the agitation he was in and the ravages 
 of nervousness. His eyes were not steady — they were 
 too bright and he had a way of biting at his lower lip 
 which she could not remember. 
 
 She straightened her hair mechanically and went past 
 him toward the sunroom. As she went she heard him 
 return to the dining-room and stood with clenched hands 
 trying not to interfere until she had thought things out. 
 
 Lying down in the same chair she had occupied before 
 
Gage Finishes It 219 
 
 she tried to get some order into her thoughts. The prob- 
 lem of Freda, so overwhelmingly great a moment ago, 
 was matched if not overcome by her realization that Gage 
 was going from bad to worse — that he seemed to be on 
 the loose mentally — tearing from catastrophe to catas- 
 trophe. The significance of a quarrel with Sable grew 
 upon her — the probability of all the financial trouble that 
 Gage might be letting himself in for. And the thing that 
 she came back to time after time as her thoughts went 
 around in circles was that Gage did not seem to care any 
 more — that he was so recklessly indifferent to what she 
 thought — to what was wise for the children and for her. 
 
 For the moment she had passed beyond the point of 
 thinking of rights and wrongs. She was concentrated 
 on immediate necessities. She almost forgot the compli- 
 cation of Freda and was shocked at herself when that 
 came back to her. 
 
 She heard the sound of Gage's car starting down the 
 driveway. He was going out then. All her feelings, 
 her thoughts bore on one question. Where was he going? 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 IN HOSPITAL 
 
 AFTER the first twenty-four hours with Gregory- 
 nothing seemed real to Freda outside of the hos- 
 pital. She had found for herself a hotel room, a shabby 
 little room in a second rate hotel, a room with scarred 
 brown maple bureau and iron bed from which the paint 
 had peeled. It looked out on a fire escape and a narrow 
 court, helplessly trapped between tall brick walls. 
 
 To that room she went for her periods of rest, for the 
 hospital had no vacant room or even bed, where she might 
 relax. After she had gone to the hotel from the hospital 
 several times the way seemed curiously familiar. Two 
 blocks to the east, across the street car line, past the drug 
 store with its structure of Tanlac in the window — one 
 block to the north and there was the entrance of the ho- 
 tel with seven or eight broad cement steps leading up to 
 it. There was not one thing which she passed which im- 
 pressed itself in the least on her imagination — not one 
 image that was vivid enough to penetrate. Night and 
 day it was the same — like moving blindfolded through 
 still air. It was only when she went back to the hospital 
 that her mind seemed to stir from its lethargy. 
 
 The hardest moments were those of Gregory's lucidity 
 — when the sight of her made him flame with a passion 
 which leapt through his restricted and suffering body, 
 when phrases came to his hot lips which made her quiver 
 with the sense of him. She would kneel beside his bed 
 and tell him softly reassuring things and with his head 
 turned on his pillow he would regard her from the depths 
 
 220 
 
In Hospital 221 
 
 of those eyes, always haggardly set, but now far sunken. 
 
 She had no faintest doubts as to her past or present 
 actions. That was Freda's great triumph over most of 
 the women she knew. She did not doubt; she did not 
 worry. Most of them had carried over into their new 
 self-confidence and their new chances a habit of worry 
 born of ingrowing responsibilities in the past and now 
 fostered by general self-consciousness. It was unnatural 
 to Freda to mope over her actions or to analyze them. 
 She knew how to go ahead and there always was absence 
 of self-consciousness about what she did, simplicity of 
 manner, dignity of step. It was as if she had somehow 
 stepped over the phase of altercation, doubt and experi- 
 ment into a manner which did the unusual easily, but only 
 if the unusual came in her path, which accepted new rules, 
 new customs without a flush, and most of all was able 
 to merge the best of feminism into a fine yet unchris- 
 tened ease of sex. She did not need either the little fears 
 or defenses of her mother or the larger ones of Margaret 
 Duffield. It did not occur to her that she was very com- 
 plete in herself and satisfying to herself. She bothered 
 with no altercations or analysis. 
 
 It was not a wholly sad time for all the deepening anx- 
 iety and danger — it was not a time for depression. Freda 
 knew that she had come to grips with life and she was 
 glad to feel her full strength called to battle. 
 
 While they wondered about her in St. Pierre, while her 
 name ran like a little germ of gossip spreading contagion 
 from lip to lip in St. Pierre, she sat most of the time in 
 the hospital, in the chair beside Gregory's bed, touching 
 his hot, tense wrist with the coolness of her fingers — she 
 sat outside his room in the recess of the bay windows on 
 a curved window seat and watched people come and go — 
 and once in a while she slipped into the hospital library 
 and got hold of a book on pregnancy which fascinated 
 
222 Spellbinders 
 
 her. Skillfully manipulated conversation with the nurse 
 had given her enough information so that she had been 
 able to control a great part of her own present liability 
 to sickness and she felt better than she had for several 
 weeks. 
 
 Three days after her arrival Gregory came success- 
 fully through the first crisis of his illness. Freda walked 
 on air the next day. The doctor was cheerful and jocose. 
 
 "We'll have that young Irishman of yours out of the 
 woods in ten days," he said to Freda, and she had no 
 doubt of it. 
 
 The difficulty was not in the progress of the disease 
 but in Gregory's own debility. He was not so well a few 
 days later. The doctor talked gravely of exhaustion and 
 Freda picked up from the reluctant nurse that exhaustion 
 during the third week was dangerous — that one might 
 die because of it. 
 
 For the first time she was fearful. Here was nothing 
 you could combat for him. Here was a slow slipping 
 away. He did not often talk now. Almost all the time 
 he lay, incredibly thin, mournfully haggard against his 
 pillow, too tired even for Freda to call back. 
 
 She thought about death. One day she passed a room 
 in which a man was dying. She heard the raucous gasp 
 from the filling lungs and trembled. They brought a 
 priest. She wondered. If Gregory should die, would 
 he too have a priest to guide him out ? She supposed that 
 usually you sent for a minister or priest. A month be- 
 fore the mere suggestion that a soul needed ushering into 
 immortality would have seemed absurd to her healthy 
 pagan young mind, but now, with the severing of the 
 thread so possible, with the limits of the unknown reced- 
 ing even while they grew close she wondered. Gregory 
 was not formally religious but in his poems he had 
 seemed so conscious of God. 
 
In Hospital 223 
 
 "Most poets write of women — but you write only of 
 God and Ireland." So she had said to him, she remem- 
 bered, and he had answered. 
 
 "I shall write of woman now, dear heart." 
 
 She went softly to his door. No change. Well, she 
 would go to the hotel for an hour — But the nurse 
 stopped her. 
 
 "Mrs. Macmillan, he is not so well. The doctor thinks 
 these next twelve hours will be the worst. If you wish 
 to leave I think it will be all right. If not, I can see that 
 you get a supper tray and if he is better in the night you 
 can take my cot." 
 
 Freda felt a strange chill rushing over her. 
 
 'Til stay." She looked at Gregory. "Worse? He 
 looks just the same." 
 
 "He is weaker — " 
 
 The stillness of the phrase — the helplessness. She sat 
 down in the chair by him again. It seemed so absurd 
 not to call him back — so impotent. He looked unguarded. 
 If — if he should die he would go — wherever it was — 
 there must be a future for a soul like Gregory's some- 
 where — he would go alone. Cruel. She thought of the 
 child growing within her. How much more gentle was 
 birth than death. Gentle and gradual and kind. It was 
 shared, but this horrible singleness of dying — 
 
 She had supper in the nurse's kitchen. The nurses 
 were kind to her, faintly curious, preoccupied, full of 
 that gayety so characteristic of nurses when for an hour 
 they can slip out of the technique of the manner which 
 they affect and become informal, unrestrained. The 
 shadow of Gregory's crisis rested on them not at all, 
 Freda thought. She was not resentful. But she ate to 
 please the nurse who had managed to get the supper for 
 her and then went quickly back to Gregory. If it should 
 happen when she was away! It must not. She must 
 
224 Spellbinders 
 
 go there to keep it from happening. Surely she could. 
 Surely she could. 
 
 She did not sleep. The nurse watched on one side, she 
 on the other, the nurse nodding a little and Freda shaking 
 off the fearful drowsiness that came over her too. She 
 did not want to sleep. She was afraid that if she slept, 
 it might happen. It was like sentry duty. As long as 
 she was awake such a thing would not happen. She did 
 not name death in her thoughts. It was like invoking a 
 presence. She understood trite phrases as she thought — i 
 the triteness of "he has left us," "passed on," "was 
 called." How those phrases irked her in the newspapers 
 sometimes. But they were true. It was like that. She 
 heard the soft rise and fall of the nurse's breathing. She 
 was asleep — no, not quite. 
 
 Now and then he moved a little. His troubled breath- 
 ing seemed to sigh, slight, weary sighs. Freda bent close 
 over him. Here we are, she thought, he and I and him 
 within me. We must stay close, closer than death can 
 come. 
 
 Three hours later, with the gray light coming so early 
 into the room, the nurse, who had slept a little, roused 
 herself, busy immediately with the routine of temperature 
 taking, her cap a little askew, her face puffed with un- 
 completed sleep. 
 
 "Well, we got through that night all right," she said 
 cheerfully, softly. "And our patient looks better, Mrs. 
 Macmillan. Look at him — doesn't he?" 
 
 Freda looked shakily at him. It seemed almost true. 
 He seemed to be sleeping almost naturally. 
 
 "Then you think he's come through?" she ventured. 
 
 The nurse straightened her cap professionally. 
 
 "Well, I should say that bad turn he took last night 
 would be the last. He'll be coming along now. We'll 
 get some nourishment into him pretty soon. You go over 
 
In Hospital 225 
 
 to the hotel and get some sleep — no, lie down here on 
 my cot. You look weak." 
 
 And now it was a new atmosphere — an atmosphere of 
 convalescence, of Gregory coming slowly back to life, 
 visibly changing for the better, smiling, joking feebly, 
 watching her wonderingly and devotedly, talking when 
 he was allowed. 
 
 "It's such a ridiculous way to begin housekeeping," 
 Freda would tease him, gently. 
 
 "It's a maddening way and a marvelous way — to have 
 all day to watch you and adore you and not to dare to 
 pull you into my arms for fear a nurse will pop out on 
 me. 
 
 "You may be sure one would." 
 
 "How long do I have to stay here?" 
 
 "A wheeled chair next week if you are good and don't 
 get excited." 
 
 "A wheeled chair — when I want a highway with you 
 beside me — " 
 
 "If you're impatient — " she stopped to smile at him. 
 
 "Listen, Freda — we go straight off together, don't 
 we?" 
 
 "Off where?" 
 
 "Back home." 
 
 "We should stop to see my father and my mother. 
 Do you know, Gregory, I didn't even tell any one where 
 I was going. I just came. I suppose they're all mystified 
 and probably worried. Though I wrote them not to be." 
 
 "Well, we'll stop to tell your parents. And then off 
 for Ireland." 
 
 "Have we enough money?" asked Freda. 
 
 "Plenty. I have it somewhere. Let me see. It was 
 a black bill case — maybe you could find it for me. Black 
 bill case with an elastic band around it. There's about 
 
226 Spellbinders 
 
 five hundred. They paid me in notes — (bills, you say) 
 — at these last places and I meant to get post office orders. 
 Much safer. Hunt it up, will you, darling? And you 
 might be looking up passage." 
 
 "Passage for weeks from now," she said sternly. But 
 she was as eager as he and they smiled at each other, 
 doubled, trebled in happiness now that their storm had 
 come and they had been able to weather it together. 
 
 She went on the trail of the black bill case and found 
 it easily enough. It was, with Gregory's few valuables, 
 in the possession of the hospital office. In it were some 
 papers, some letters and twenty-three dollars. Her heart 
 fell with a thump. 
 
 "Is this all there was?" 
 
 "His watch too — we never leave valuables with sick 
 patients who have no relatives about. They might get 
 picked up and the hospital be considered responsible." 
 
 "I mean all the money ?" 
 
 The nurse in charge of the office wrinkled her fore- 
 head and looked at the note regarding Gregory on her 
 record. 
 
 "Black bill case — letters — papers — twenty-three dollars 
 in currency. That's what he brought here. Is that cor- 
 rect? We've kept the bill case in our safe, of course." 
 
 She looked questioningly at Freda. 
 
 "That's what is here," said Freda, "but you see my 
 husband thought there was more — quite a lot more. I 
 wonder was he sick in the hotel long?" 
 
 But the hotel was a blind trail and a suspicious one. 
 The chambermaid who had called the doctor for Gregory- 
 had left the town — strangely enough two days after he 
 was taken sick. She had never been a competent girl — 
 The hotel courteously disclaimed all responsibility and 
 hoped the loss was not great. There was a safe in the 
 office — guests were requested and so forth — . 
 
In Hospital 227 
 
 "Of course," said Freda, "I quite understand." She 
 did. She understood that the money had vanished and 
 that it was not coming back to her or to Gregory. She 
 went back to her hotel room and counted what money 
 she had. With Gregory's present resources they had fifty 
 dollars between them. And there was an unpaid nurse 
 at five dollars a day — hospital bills, doctor bills, doubtless 
 bills for all the medicines. All those things and no money 
 to meet them, she pondered. Besides she must not tell 
 Gregory. She must not worry him just now or disap- 
 point him. The nurse wanted him kept calm and cheer- 
 ful. But in the meantime, what was she to do? 
 
 It was hard going back to the hospital and facing the 
 nurse. The nurse was so good to her and Freda felt 
 miserably that to let her be so good when there was no 
 money to pay her was deceiving. She herself was hot 
 and troubled. Her clothes were an annoyance. She had 
 only three blouses and one of those was torn at the neck 
 irremediably. It was hard to keep cheerful when you 
 needed fresh clothes so badly and had hardly enough 
 money to pay the hotel bill mounting up against you. 
 But she forgot all that in the presence of Gregory. He 
 was feeling better this afternoon than he had up to that 
 time, his convalescence taking one of those quick strides 
 so encouraging to those who watch. The nurse had 
 propped him up on his pillows and he wanted Freda be- 
 side him. 
 
 So she let the matter drift and when he asked if she 
 had found the bill case she told him "yes." 
 
 Then that's all right," he said gaily, and saved her 
 the lie she had ready. Nor did he waste more time on 
 money. He wanted to talk of other things, to ask her 
 questions and it was that afternoon that she dared to 
 tell him that she expected their child, and to let herself 
 
228 Spellbinders 
 
 relax a little in the companionship of his happiness and 
 the comfort of his reverence. 
 
 But when she went back to the hotel she could not 
 bring herself to order supper. The menu stared at her — 
 with ducklings and roasts and table d'hotes. Figure as 
 she would, she could not order a supper for less than a 
 dollar. So she pleaded a headache to the waiter and left 
 the table to go supperless to her room and then to bed, 
 for the nurse had said Gregory must be quiet that evening. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 MENTAL SURGERY 
 
 VTARGARET knew all about it now. From her 
 *■*-*■ point of view certain conventions of non-interfer- 
 ence between husband and wife were so many links in 
 the pld chain. Undoubtedly it was not that she wanted 
 to force Helen's confidence. But to come upon Helen 
 the Monday after that exhausting Sunday, come to her 
 to say good-by and make plans for the future, and to 
 find the splendid dignity and poise of the Helen she had 
 been with in Chicago destroyed angered her. Helen had 
 told her the facts. She had to tell some one, she told 
 herself in a justification she felt bound to make in secret, 
 and Margaret was at least a stranger in the city and 
 moreover the only woman she knew who would not make 
 the slightest impulse to carry her story to other ears. 
 
 Margaret, in immaculate white linen, looking as cool 
 and competent as an operating surgeon, had listened. 
 She heard the whole of the story, how Gage had changed 
 — for that Helen insisted upon. 
 
 "He's simply not himself. I suppose it's the feeling 
 he has towards the girl." 
 
 "Don't 'the girl' her, Helen. I'm not a bit sure of that 
 part of the story. Somehow it's too preposterous that 
 Freda should be languishing somewhere waiting for 
 Gage's casual attention. I tell you that girl doesn't lan- 
 guish. She's not that kind. She's the most magnificently 
 unconscious modern you ever saw. She wouldn't be any 
 one's mistress. She hasn't that much dependence in her. 
 Not for a minute. I simply don't believe it" 
 
 229 
 
230 Spellbinders 
 
 "She disappeared the day after he came back from the 
 convention. And then he was away that week-end she 
 was seen at the Roadside Inn." 
 
 "I don't believe she was ever seen there,' ' said Mar- 
 garet. 
 
 Helen put her hand to her head. 
 
 "I don't want to believe it, but if he won't deny it — 
 and isn't it possible that the poor child's run away even 
 from him? If she should be going to have — oh, damn, 
 I can't say it even — " She broke off a little hysterically. 
 
 "No— I don't believe that either." But for all her 
 stout words, Margaret sounded a little more dubious this 
 time. "Let's leave her out of it. What is there to do 
 about you and Gage?" 
 
 "I despise my own incompetence of decision," said 
 Helen. "But I don't know. I don't know how to go 
 through the business. It seems impossible that we've 
 come to the edge of divorce but I can't go on living with 
 a man who acts as Gage does. I can't, that is, with any 
 measure of self-respect. And yet I look around and the 
 very weight of detail — the tremendous business of un- 
 winding a marriage — it seems then as if the quick flare- 
 up of partings that you read about — the separations that 
 never involve themselves with the machinery of com- 
 plaints and retaining lawyers and distributing property 
 and — moving vans — are quite fantastic. I wonder if it's 
 laziness which keeps me so fearful of the mass of de- 
 tail, Margaret — " 
 
 "Of course you're trivial on purpose, I suppose," an- 
 swered Margaret. "The things you speak of don't really 
 bother you." 
 
 "Yes. Translated into more serious terms I suppose 
 the thing that hurts is the terrible pain of cleavage be- 
 tween two people who have grown into each other for 
 years." 
 
Mental Surgery 231 
 
 "More likely. Helen, I don't want to probe, but do 
 you want to live without Gage?" 
 
 Helen pondered. 
 
 "I don't want to lose him. I feel dreadfully cheated — 
 put upon. I didn't want any of this. If I'd known that 
 he was going to feel so outraged at the political venture 
 I'd have stopped, I think, before I let it get to an impasse. 
 But I'm afraid it's that now. He and I were — well, 
 there's no use debauching myself with memories. No — 
 I don't think I want to lose him but even aside from this 
 question of his disloyalty — this business with Freda 
 Thorstad — he's becoming impossible to live with. The 
 children are noticing it. He doesn't play with them as he 
 used to. Goes off by himself. There's no free and easy 
 interchange between us at all. Of course he's often flatly 
 rude to me before the servants." 
 
 "Suppose you gave up all the things he doesn't like 
 now, would that solve things?" 
 
 Helen shook her head. 
 
 "Not now. The thing has gone too far. We've been 
 ugly to each other and we wouldn't forget that. Besides 
 I'm afraid I'd be resentful. There's no reason why I 
 should be completely subject to Gage's slightest word. 
 We can't build on that basis." 
 
 "What he wants," said Margaret astutely, "is to have 
 you subject to his dream." 
 
 Helen smiled rather ruefully. 
 
 "He might wake up from his dream !" 
 
 "That's the chance women have always taken — even 
 the luckiest ones." 
 
 "I don't see that it's any use for me to think over 
 causes and rake up a justification here and a justification 
 there anyway," said Helen. "The only thing of vital 
 importance is to decide whether I'm going to let events 
 
232 Spellbinders 
 
 come as they will and be passive under them or whether 
 I'm going to try to manage the events." 
 
 "I shouldn't think there'd be much choice there." 
 
 "There is though. It's so easy to sit back and say, 
 'I'm trapped. I'll just have to take whatever fate sends. 
 There's nothing I can do.' " 
 
 "But you won't, for there are no ends of things you 
 could do. It's complicated of course. If you leave Gage, 
 of course it puts a crimp in your political possibilities just 
 now, not that the fact of separation would much matter 
 but of course up to this point your political reputation 
 has been partly builded on Gage's name." 
 
 "And I can't trade on his name and not live with him. 
 But then I can't trade on his name anyway. I must de- 
 fine a position and take what is coming to me as an indi- 
 vidual and give up the rest." 
 
 "No. It's complicated too by money. I haven't any, 
 you know, Margaret — and Gage has made a lot but we've 
 lived rather up to the limit of it. I don't believe he stands 
 awfully well financially. If we are to separate things 
 would go pretty much to pieces in every direction." 
 
 "Very much," said Gage. He had come in quietly 
 and stood looking at them in a kind of derisive anger. 
 "I'm sorry to break in on your conference, and on this 
 delightful exhibition of my wife's loyalty but since we 
 are all here, let's talk it over." 
 
 He sat down elaborately, his eyes on Margaret, ignor- 
 ing his wife fixedly. 
 
 "Have you made up your mind what we should do, 
 Miss Duffield?" 
 
 "Don't be insulting, Gage," said Margaret, "it's so un- 
 necessary. I haven't been interfering with your affairs 
 any more than was necessary." 
 
 "Than was necessary to release Helen from the chains 
 of marriage ?" Gage laughed. "Well, your work is done. 
 
Mental Surgery 233 
 
 As far as I'm concerned she's released. You may tell 
 her, since you are in charge of our affairs, that I will 
 leave her as soon as possible — and that is very soon — and 
 that whatever financial arrangement is possible shall be 
 made for her and the children. She is correct in saying 
 that my affairs are in a bad way. Mr. Sable, from whom 
 I have just separated in business, can tell her more about 
 that. She might care to engage him to represent her in 
 any action you might see fit for her to take." 
 
 Helen had risen to her feet, quite white. 
 
 "Stop !" she cried. "Don't you dare keep on insulting 
 me. You're mad — abnormal — " 
 
 Gage bowed vaguely in her direction and continued 
 speaking to Margaret. 
 
 "Tell her that she is right. I am mad and abnormal 
 and that she has made me so, instigated by you. Excuse 
 me now, won't you?" 
 
 He went upstairs but he could hear through the floor 
 the swift, staccato, shrieking sobs of Helen's hysteria, 
 hear the whisper of a maid to the nurse in the back hall, 
 hear a murmur which must be the calming voice of 
 Margaret. He paced viciously up and down — up and 
 down. 
 
 Yet he had come home, driven by an invigorating im- 
 pulse which had come to him inexplicably, perhaps born 
 of pity and sudden insight into Helen's mind, come home 
 to ask her forgiveness, explain what Freda Thorstad had 
 told him and ask her to go away with him for a little 
 while until their minds both cleared. The impulse had 
 risen in his throat — it had choked him with delight and 
 fear lest she should not be home. And then through 
 the sunroom doors he saw them, two calm women, talk- 
 ing together, making and receiving confidences, uncover- 
 ing him, dissecting him, and as he stood still and let the 
 blackness of rage sweep over him again he had heard 
 
234 Spellbinders 
 
 Helen tell this stranger, this inimical stranger, of his 
 financial condition. The sense of outrage overmastered 
 him. 
 
 After a little it was quiet downstairs and he decided 
 to go to the city again, going downstairs, looking straight 
 ahead of him. He wanted to see the children, to have 
 their reception of him ease this last sharp hurt. They 
 were in the garden of course, and they greeted him with 
 their usual shouts of delight. 
 
 "Well," he thought, as he bent down to caress them, 
 "I can't stop now. I can't stop now." 
 
 He sat down on the garden bench and took the children 
 on his knees, the boy and girl, so sturdy and happy, with 
 fat brown knees and thick soft hair. They were full of 
 comments and questions. Peggy was three and Bennett 
 just eighteen months older. It was going to hurt terribly 
 to break away from them. Sable had said, "You can't act 
 as though you didn't have a family dependent on you." 
 He had shown Sable that he could act that way, that the 
 family dependent on him was not going to force him to 
 knuckle under. He stroked Peggy's hair. How restful 
 it was — if he could only stay here in this sheltered little 
 garden with the children who had no tangles in their 
 minds — if Helen would come out as she used to come out 
 last summer and sit with him while they talked and 
 planned of the beautiful things ahead for the children 
 and their initiations into living. 
 
 Helen had deserted. She had gone off notoriety seek- 
 ing. She preferred to sit in that room talking disloyalty 
 to that woman to whose hard influence she had subjected 
 herself — Helen was driving him out. 
 
 He kissed the children sternly and went back through 
 the house. In the hall Helen met him. Her face was 
 ravaged by hysterics, red hollows under her eyes, mouth 
 pulled out of shape. It hurt to regard it. 
 
Mental Surgery 235 
 
 "Where are you going, Gage?" 
 
 For a moment he was gentle. 
 
 "Downtown. I'll not be back till late. There's no 
 use trying to talk. We are killing each other.' ' Then 
 he thought of Margaret Duffield, listening perhaps and 
 loosening his wife's hands from his shoulders, where she 
 had placed them, he went out. 
 
 But that was not the only crisis Margaret had to meet 
 that day. She was eager to go back to New York. There 
 was no possible work left for her to do and she wanted to 
 get away from St. Pierre. She did not tell Helen that 
 she was planning to go in a few days as she had told her 
 landlady that morning. When she left the Flandon house 
 Helen was quite calm. With her fine power of organiza- 
 tion she had already decided that the best temporary 
 thing to do was to accept Gage's actions and see how far 
 he would go, allowing her action to be modified by that 
 later. Margaret looked rather pale. The reasonableness 
 of her own mind was bound to be affected somehow by 
 this drama through which she had passed and in which 
 she had been forced to play so disagreeable a part. Per- 
 haps it showed chiefly in the slight hardness of her atti- 
 tude toward Walter Carpenter that night. 
 
 She never seemed to attack that decision squarely. She 
 seemed to try to deny it a right to confront her. And 
 yet, definitely, constantly, with less impatience than a 
 younger lover and vastly more skill than a less intellec- 
 tual one, Carpenter made himself felt. Now and then in 
 their discussions and in their arguments, he destroyed 
 some reason against their marriage. Her defenses had 
 been made very weak. She had no argument against 
 the lack of liberty in marriage which he could not destroy. 
 He would grant anything. Indeed he asked only for the 
 simplest, most unadorned marriage bond — and compan- 
 
236 Spellbinders 
 
 ionship which she had admitted she enjoyed with him. 
 She might retain her own name if she liked without any 
 altercation — might leave him for months at a time — he 
 let her frighten him with no such threats. He offered 
 too, more leisure for thought than she had ever had in 
 the pressure of earning her own living. She had told 
 him a little of what it meant to always need all the money 
 she had in the bank — to do many things and yet never 
 have any feeling of ease, to fear dependency. "It would 
 mean a charitable hospital or going to a remote little 
 Pennsylvania town to an aunt who lived with my mother 
 until she died and who lives on in the almost worthless 
 little place where I was born." When she told Walter 
 that, he had almost won her, so absorbed were they both 
 in the pity and dread of her loneliness. Then again there 
 leapt between them some deep-rooted fear, some instinct, 
 some dread pulling Margaret back to her little island of 
 celibacy. 
 
 It was far from an unpleasant, bickering companion- 
 ship that they had. Margaret, at thirty, past all the de- 
 sires of adolescence, informed without experience, had 
 given Gregory nothing and had only been disturbed and 
 made nervous by him, even while she appreciated his fine 
 fire and ardors. Carpenter satisfied, soothed her. They 
 had the same shynesses, the same dread of absurdities in 
 themselves. And Margaret was afraid that she might 
 be lonely without him and that too worried her. She 
 did not want to be lonely for any one. So she told him 
 and he laughed and ventured to bring her hand to his 
 lips and hold it there. She did not draw it away, per- 
 haps because she was reasonable, perhaps because she 
 was not. 
 
 To-night he talked of Gage, reflecting the gossip of 
 the men of Gage's acquaintance. With them the fact of 
 the severing of the firm of Sable and Flandon was a sub- 
 
Mental Surgery 237 
 
 ject of much speculation. Walter was worried about it, 
 in his own quiet fashion. Gage and Helen were both his 
 close friends. 
 
 "Talking won't do any good,' , advised Margaret. 
 
 "Talking never did do any good with a man. It drives 
 him into himself, and that's usually unhealthy. I mean 
 the sort of talking which is full of advice, of course — or 
 of prohibition." 
 
 "Yet some of you ought to do something with Gage 
 Flandon before he goes straight to pieces." Margaret 
 said nothing of what had happened that afternoon. 
 
 "Yes," said Walter absently, "he's been going to pieces 
 obviously. But let's not talk about him. Let's talk about 
 ourselves, Margaret." 
 
 They were driving through the summer night, trying 
 to get all the coolness possible. It was soft warm dark- 
 ness but the swift car made a wind which blew back upon 
 them, laden with clover smells, deeply sweet. All the 
 elaborate mental approaches which Walter had made to 
 the girl he wanted to marry were abandoned. He stopped 
 the car and put his arm around her, not supplicating but 
 as if the time had come for concession. 
 
 "About ourselves. We talk too much impersonal stuff, 
 Margaret. It's great fun but there's more to be done 
 than talk. We must begin on the other things. We know 
 each other's minds now. Let's know each other's feel- 
 ings." 
 
 It may have been the night, the darkness, the remote- 
 ness of the country road which made him so bold. He 
 tipped her face up to his and kissed her eagerly, quite 
 different now from the calm mannered man who had sat 
 so calmly in discission with her night after night, who 
 had squired her so formally, who had made love to her 
 mind and tried to capture her intellect but never more, 
 except for those two easily restrained outbreaks. 
 
238 Spellbinders 
 
 She stiffened like an embarrassed school girl, her hands 
 pressed against his chest — 
 
 "Please don't, Walter—" 
 
 "Foolish girl," he said gently, "you mustn't tie your- 
 self up so. Let your mind ride for a minute and just 
 remember that we love each other, just as every one in 
 the world wants to love and be loved." 
 
 All the while he talked, urging her, demanding her, 
 he held her against him, unrelaxed. 
 
 "I love you," he told her. "And I want to be — oh, un- 
 speakably commonplace about it. I want to indulge my- 
 self in a lot of emotions that are as old as the hills and 
 as glorious. But I want you with me, darling." 
 
 Still she did not speak. He let her go a little and held 
 her shoulders, searching for her eyes in the dim- 
 ness. 
 
 "You do love me, don't you? Why, I've seen it for 
 weeks. I've seen a look in your face when I've come 
 in — it isn't boasting, lear, it's just a wonderful confi- 
 dence I have to-night." 
 
 She freed her hands and clasped them tightly in each 
 other. They seemed the index of some passionate inhi- 
 bition, some repression, which was charged with nervous- 
 ness. Her easy freedom had deserted her, and every 
 muscle seemed drawn taut. 
 
 "Oh, my dear," he pressed her, "don't be so afraid. I 
 won't take advantage of the fact you care for me. Is it 
 that which holds you back — that worry about making 
 concessions to a man? Everything I've ever said I've 
 meant. I respect every militant inch of you. I love you 
 just as you are and for it. But above all that — beyond 
 it — there's more and hasn't the time come for the least 
 bit of abandonment?" 
 
Mental Surgery 239 
 
 "Why?" Her voice was low, not as firm in its tones 
 as it was wont to be. 
 
 "Why?" Carpenter repeated her question, "Why? 
 Because we love each other or we don't. And we can't 
 love at arms' length, dear. We've got to be close, trust- 
 ful, together. You do like me, don't you, Margaret?" 
 
 "You know I do." 
 
 "And you know I love you. Won't you come a little 
 way to meet me? I'm so sure you can trust me. I'm 
 so sure we could be happy. Just let your mind rest. Let 
 yourself go a little." 
 
 Her mood was chilling his. He tried to gather up the 
 shreds of the impetuosity that had first driven him to 
 embrace her. 
 
 "Let's not talk," he said again, almost plaintively, 
 "Can't we just — rest in each other?" 
 
 "But why are you afraid of talk?" she protested. 
 
 He dropped his hands from her shoulders. 
 
 "Have I been afraid? Haven't we talked on every 
 conceivable subject? Haven't we said enough to under- 
 stand each other perfectly?" 
 
 "Then—" 
 
 "Margaret, dear, we're at it again. This is what I 
 protest — dragging argument into every natural emotion. 
 I don't want to be mind to your mind to-night. I don't 
 want to reason or even think — I just want to be man to 
 your woman and caress you without thought." 
 
 But the verve had gone out of his words and as it 
 went she seemed to regain her confidence. He made a 
 last attempt to bring back his spirit. But his embrace 
 seemed to stiffen her. He withdrew his arm and sat 
 tapping on the steering wheel. 
 
 "When will you marry me, Margaret?" 
 
 No impetuousness in his voice now, no romance. It 
 met hers in calmness. 
 
240 Spellbinders 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "You must know. I can't stand it any longer. You 
 must or you must drive me away. There's no sense in 
 further talk. You know I'll exact nothing but the right 
 to be near you. But I must have that. I must know. It 
 isn't as if I were younger and could rebound from one 
 love into another. You've got me. I don't think of any- 
 thing else. You color every bit of work I do — every bit 
 of thinking. I'll trust to your terms. I've spent weeks 
 building up my theory of marriage to suit your desires 
 and visions. I don't want to play upon your sympathies 
 but I've got to have you, Margaret — or not." 
 
 He sounded very discouraged, very humble, very des- 
 perate. 
 
 "I think I'd disappoint you, Walter." 
 
 The pity in her voice and her own discouragement 
 made him turn to her again but she held out a hand to 
 meet his and he stayed, letting her clasp his hand loosely. 
 
 "I'd be just like this all the time. You think I'd 
 change — under emotion — when we were married. I don't 
 think I would. You don't know how all the things I've 
 thought and seen have influenced me. I couldn't go into 
 marriage believing in it much. I couldn't — go through 
 it — trusting it much. And when I was cold and I'd 
 nearly always be that way, you'd be disappointed if not 
 angry. And if I did do as you say — relax — I'd be spoil- 
 ing it by not trusting my own feeling. Don't you think I 
 know? Don't you think I almost give in and then some 
 devil of analysis comes and prods me into a watch on 
 myself ? I haven't anything to give, Walter — except just 
 what you've had. And the reason I can't marry you is 
 because while you say and I say that companionship is 
 enough we both know it isn't all you'd want. And it's 
 all you'd find. It's all I can give to any man." 
 
Mental Surgery 241 
 
 "But, my God, Margaret, women and men have to 
 marry — ." 
 
 "I know. It's all right for other women — most other 
 women. I'm not speaking for them now. They can 
 keep reasonable and still have enough feeling to tran- 
 scend reason now and then — carry them through it." She 
 still held his hand in a kind of cold comfort and he could 
 feel her fingers tighten. "I've tried to have feeling lately, 
 Walter — tried to see if I could find enough — and that 
 kind of feeling isn't there. I can't — I can't — don't ask 
 me. 
 
 She withdrew her hand now and sat looking straight 
 ahead of her. A cloud slipped past the moon and as the 
 earth brightened in the cold white light Walter, turning 
 to look at her saw her quiet and rigid, tears in her open 
 eyes, a slim statue of what she claimed to be, sterility 
 of feeling for him or any man. 
 
 "I'm afraid that it's true," he said. "Perhaps you 
 can t. 
 
 At that, coming as a terribly dreary acceptance, she 
 let the sobs come and for a long while she wept, her 
 head in her own hands. Perhaps she wept for him, per- 
 haps for herself. He did not offer to touch her again — 
 as if her dearth of feeling had spread to him in those 
 few minutes. When at last she straightened herself 
 again, he started the car and they sped silently back 
 through the country towards St. Pierre. 
 
 "Good-by, then," he said, as they reached her door 
 and he unlocked it. 
 
 "Good-by." 
 
 She saw his face, heavy and lined and stern and it 
 seemed to hurt her cruelly. 
 
 "I've cheated vou," she said pitifully, "but it's been 
 myself too. It is myself." 
 
 He hesitated. For a moment he seemed ready to try 
 
242 Spellbinders 
 
 again and then he saw the pity in her face stiffen into 
 resistance. Bending, he kissed her lightly. 
 
 "Nothing I can do for you?" 
 
 "Nothing, thank you." 
 
 She heard his car back away from the door. As long 
 as she could hear it she stood listening. Then with swift 
 definiteness she went to her closet and pulled out the 
 trunk standing there. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 BARBARA BREAKS LOOSE 
 
 A glaze settled over the surface of events for the next 
 few weeks in the Flandon household. Both Gage 
 and Helen were torn away from too much indulgence in 
 their own thoughts by the implacability of the things 
 which they must do. Having broken up his legal con- 
 nections with his own hands, Gage was confronted with 
 the necessity of in some way making his next steps jus- 
 tify his past action and an unholy pride made him de- 
 termined to show a doubting business world that he had 
 been actuated by deep and skillful motives. There was 
 the alternative of leaving St. Pierre and that he was dis- 
 inclined to do. He wanted to start an office of his own 
 and demonstrate with the greatest possible rapidity that 
 nothing but benefit had accrued to him from his break 
 with Sable. He guessed what he did not hear of the 
 doubts about his move, and he wanted to put the world 
 in the wrong if possible. 
 
 It was true, while he had found Sable's intervention 
 in the matter of Freda the unbearable breaking point, that 
 he had a kind of long deferred zest in contemplating his 
 new business freedom. Sable's offer had been, in the be- 
 ginning, far too lucrative and too flattering to lose but 
 there was a cautiousness, a lack of independence in many 
 of their mutual actions which had galled Gage. He was 
 tired of the connection. He was at odds with the po- 
 litical clique to which his close connection with the Con- 
 gressman held him. He was disgusted with the result 
 of the convention — not that he had hoped for much but 
 
 243 
 
244 Spellbinders 
 
 the flatness of the political outlook, the beating of the 
 old drums irritated him. There were times when the 
 exhilaration of the chance he was taking lifted him up 
 and if he had been drinking less steadily he might have 
 turned the exhilaration to much advantage. But his 
 mind was too nervous to plan steadily or well. It shot 
 restlessly past immediacies into dreams of a future when 
 he would have justified every action to himself and the 
 world and particularly to Helen. 
 
 He ignored and avoided Helen's several attempts to 
 come to an understanding on the question of money. She 
 knew enough about their affairs to feel that this change 
 of Gage must make a great difference in their income 
 temporarily, even if he should ultimately succeed. It 
 worried her greatly. She had made up her mind to a 
 separation from Gage but mere independence did not 
 solve the money question for them all. She wanted very 
 much to know exactly where they stood and she was 
 convinced that the spendthrift, financial optimism of 
 Gage, characteristic always, but most marked now, was 
 getting them into deeper waters constantly. Temporarily 
 she and Gage had dropped their personal problem. In 
 one brief, cold conversation Gage had suggested that, 
 pending a settlement of his affairs and his new ventures, 
 they waive the personal matters and Helen had very 
 gladly agreed. 
 
 So the days adjusted themselves to a routine so smooth 
 and orderly that sometimes even to Helen it seemed un- 
 believable that it was not the expression of ease and 
 happiness. Only at times, however, for as she looked 
 at Gage it was impossible not to be conscious of the strain 
 under which he was laboring. He was often out nights, 
 working or not — she did not know. She knew that the 
 supply of whisky in the sideboard was replenished far too 
 often to serve moderate drinking and she knew that Gage 
 
Barbara Breaks Loose 245 
 
 slept badly, for she could often see the light reflected 
 from his windows in the early hours of the morning. 
 
 He never molested her now but left her to her own 
 activities with hardly a jeer at them. Now and then 
 some scathing remark escaped him and fell blunted from 
 the armor of her indifference. But for the most part his 
 early chafing under her prominence was gone. The flood 
 of letters which came for her in every mail aroused no 
 comment from him. He saw her at work on the organ- 
 ization of her section of the country and hardly seemed 
 to notice what she did. Intent as she was on learning 
 what she could do, how she could do it, always with the 
 thought in the back of her mind that she needed to find 
 a kind of work that would earn her independence as well 
 as notoriety she put an entirely new seriousness into the 
 work she was doing. The old dilettantism was gone and 
 with the death of that half-mocking dilettante spirit came 
 an entirely new zest for the work she did. 
 
 Mrs. Brownley was full of a glorious naivete. She 
 wanted to organize everybody. Politics fairly dripped 
 from her impressive, deliberately moulded lips. She 
 wanted to pin a small white elephant badge on every one 
 she met. She had a practical eye that liked to translate 
 enthusiasm into badges, buttons and costumes. Jerrold 
 Haynes, rather indispensable now and then to Helen, said 
 that he was sure that the end of the campaign would see 
 Mrs. Brownley in full elephant's costume. Jerrold 
 laughed at Helen too. He told her frankly that she was 
 ruining herself for an observer. 
 
 "A year ago you were in a fair way to become the 
 most beautiful philosopher of the twentieth century. Now 
 you're like all the rest of the women — a good looking 
 hustler. You've become ordinary in appealing to your 
 big audience. You should have been content to charm 
 Gage and me." 
 
246 Spellbinders 
 
 "I was. But I wasn't allowed to remain in my sloth." 
 
 "No — that serpent of a Duffield girl. I seem to re- 
 member Gage didn't like her either. I didn't, but un- 
 doubtedly Gage and I wouldn't agree on reasons, would 
 we? Well, where is she now?" 
 
 "Down on Long Island somewhere with Harriet 
 Thompson, resting. She was pretty well fagged out with 
 the months here." 
 
 "Didn't marry Carpenter, did she?" 
 
 "'No. Apparently she didn't or we might have heard 
 of it." 
 
 "Carpenter saved himself from the yoke of feminism 
 just in time, perhaps." 
 
 "I haven't seen him lately." 
 
 "He sits around the club all day and cools himself in 
 case he should decide to keep an evening engagement 
 and need to look fresh. I see him off and on. Doesn't 
 look happy, for a fact." 
 
 "Anyway it's none of our business, is it?" 
 
 Jerrold laughed. 
 
 "Not a whit and therefore interesting. I hate talking 
 about what is my business." 
 
 "That's a common failing," said Helen a little bitterly. 
 "I never realized how epidemic until lately, since Gage 
 has decided to go in for himself. People ask me about 
 everything except my bank balance." 
 
 "The penalty of being in the limelight, Helen." 
 
 She shrugged lightly, a tinge of weariness in her 
 manner. 
 
 "Don't you like the limelight then?" he urged teas- 
 ingly. 
 
 Impatiently she turned on him. 
 
 "Oh, more or less, I suppose. But I shan't like it six 
 months from now. I'll be tired to death of it if it still 
 keeps coming. You get fed up on it pretty quickly." 
 
Barbara Breaks Loose 247 
 
 "So skeptical— " 
 
 "You needn't mock at me, Jerrold. You ought to ad- 
 mire me because I'm honest enough not to say that I 
 weep every time my picture is in the paper. I go further. 
 I am quite miserable when I realize that my limelight is 
 directed mostly not at the inner workings of my mind 
 but at my dress and my name and the fact that I take 
 a marcel well." 
 
 "So you know that too, do you?" 
 
 "I know everything about it," Helen boasted mock- 
 ingly. "I even admit the necessity for keeping my clothes 
 pretty well pressed and clean. I may scoff with the rest 
 of you at Mrs. Brownley's methods of organizing a Jun- 
 ior Republican Club but I know that she's the finest real- 
 ist of us all. She is willing to admit that women love 
 white elephant badges, and appeals to them as the vir- 
 tuous sex, and fashionable Junior Republican Clubs, 
 which are Junior Leagues in action. I can see myself 
 developing a philosophy just like Mrs. Brownley and 
 learning to speak of democracy and the home with her 
 impressiveness and Mrs. Thorstad's italics and bending 
 my energies to making the Republican party sought after 
 by women because after all it includes all the best people." 
 
 "You're a great woman. I think I'll write a book 
 about you." 
 
 She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. 
 
 "You'll never write a book about anything, Jerrold. 
 You're too dilettante to ever get started. I know. I was 
 the same way until Margaret hurled me into all this ac- 
 tion. Now I am, as you say, spoiled for a good dilet- 
 tante. I'm spoiled for a lot of things, in fact. For be- 
 ing an easy going comfortable wife. I'm a poor wreck 
 of a woman politician." She laughed at him and looked 
 so mockingly pretty under the big gray chiffon hat she 
 wore that Jerrold's eyes were lit with enthusiasm. Jer- 
 
248 Spellbinders 
 
 rold had motored Helen down to the Brownleys' summer 
 home for a conference with Mrs. Brownley, who had the 
 Junior Republican Club on her hands at the moment and 
 wanted to talk it over with Helen. Mrs. Brownley had 
 done a great deal of organizing and much of it was ex- 
 tremely effective along the lines suggested by Margaret 
 and Mrs. Thorstad. But Mrs. Brownley knew that the 
 lure of the social column was great and she had pressed 
 Bob and Allie into action. The Junior Republican Club, 
 composed of girls just preparing for the vote, was to be 
 one of the educational features of the campaign. They 
 would be useful, she pointed out, in helping when the 
 Republican women had headquarters, later — and useful 
 or not they ought to be interested. 
 
 So the Junior Republican Club was formed amid much 
 enthusiasm on the piazza of the Redding Hotel at Lake 
 Nokomis where St. Pierre sent its fashionable colony 
 during the summer months. They had a president, and 
 several news agencies had already taken pictures of them 
 "reading from left to right and from right to left — 
 standing in the back row, etc." One of the agencies had 
 been acting for a New York paper and the girls were 
 somewhat stirred over the novelty. As Allie said, "It 
 was time some one did something. Look what happened 
 to Russia where the Bolsheviks drove you out of your 
 homes and took everything you'd got. If they'd been 
 organized it might have been different." Besides her 
 father said he thought women, especially educated women, 
 (Allie spoke with personal feeling, having spent four 
 thousand a year at the Elm Grove School) were to be 
 the salvation of the country. 
 
 She had plenty of support and enthusiasm. Even in 
 these spoiled and under nourished little minds a tiny 
 flame of enthusiasm for the new possibilities of women's 
 lives were burning. They interpreted the new freedom 
 
Barbara Breaks Loose 249 
 
 to suit themselves as did most other women. To them it 
 meant a good deal of license, a cool impudence and cama- 
 raderie towards men, a definite claiming of all the rights 
 of men in so far as they contributed to the fun of exist- 
 ence. "Women aren't as they used to be" was a handy 
 peg for them to hang escapades upon, a blanket reason 
 for refusing to accept any discipline. That was the sub- 
 stance of their feminism. 
 
 As for their politics they were hewed from the politics 
 of their fathers and their class. They were defensive for 
 the most part. They had heard of the exigent demands 
 of labor, they had seen their fathers irritant under "Bol- 
 shevik legislation" — in their own shrewd minds (and 
 many of them had the shrewdness common to smallness) 
 they knew that all their luxury and their personal license, 
 their expensive clothes and schools and motors and un- 
 limited charge accounts were based on an order whose 
 right to exist was being challenged. They roused to its 
 defense, boisterously, giggling, and yet class conscious. 
 
 Helen did what she could to palliate any trouble the 
 club might cause. 
 
 She pressed on Mrs. Brownley the need of not antag- 
 onizing possible and prospective members of the party 
 by anything that appeared as snobbishness. Mrs. Brown- 
 ley agreed astutely, starting post haste on a scheme for 
 organizing the stenographers of the city and mapping out 
 a scheme whereby the employees of the large department 
 stores might be drawn into Republican groups. She 
 urged Helen to talk to the Junior Republicans and Helen 
 did it. 
 
 She noted Barbara among the rest, handsome in yel- 
 low linen and yet looking tired and worn. The artificial 
 penciling under her eyes was circled by deeper yellow 
 brown hollows, and her restlessness and lack of interest 
 in the whole proceeding were conspicuous. 
 
250 Spellbinders 
 
 "What a world weary face that child has!" thought 
 Helen. 
 
 She remembered one of Mrs. Brownley's confidences 
 about Barbara's engagement and idly asked Allie about it. 
 
 "Is Bob engaged to Ted?" 
 
 "Oh, Lord, who knows!" said Allie. "She's had an 
 awful row with him, but she's got his ring. I don't 
 know what they fought about. And she's such a fool, 
 for she really is crazy about him and he knows it so 
 he doesn't pay much attention when she rows." 
 
 She stopped as Barbara came towards them. 
 
 "I'm going up to town over night. I wonder if you 
 and Mr. Haynes would take me up ? Have you an extra 
 seat? I'll be a fine chaperon." 
 
 Helen frowned a little. She disliked the insinuation, 
 just as she disliked Barbara, but the girl's request could 
 not be refused gracefully. 
 
 "I'm sure Jerrold will be glad," she said rather coldly. 
 
 "When'd you decide to go to town, Bob?" asked Allie. 
 
 Another girl joined the group, overhearing the last 
 remark. 
 
 "I think she's going up to keep a watch on Ted. One 
 of the girls saw him with that pretty Thorstad girl one 
 day at a hotel — the girl there's been such a lot of talk 
 about." 
 
 Helen felt herself change color and as she tried to get 
 quick control caught sight of Barbara's face. It was 
 almost white, but not as if white from shock or pain — 
 rather an ugly white, lips compressed, eyes lifted angrily. 
 
 "I don't consider myself in the least responsible for 
 Ted's company, Mildred," she said sharply. 
 
 "Aren't you afraid to stay alone in the house with just 
 Mathilda?" went on Allie. 
 
 Barbara looked her contempt. 
 
 "If you are there," Allie went on, "call up Mrs. Wil- 
 
Barbara Breaks Loose 251 
 
 kins and tell her I've got to have those new white skirts 
 by noon Wednesday. If she doesn't get them here I won't 
 pay for them." 
 
 "Write her your grouch," said Bob, graciously, "I've 
 got my own errands." 
 
 They left Barbara at the portico of the big stone house 
 where the shades were drawn down and the windows 
 closed. 
 
 "Are you sure you'll be all right here?" asked Helen. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Bob, "the housekeeper's here and 
 father's going to take me back to-morrow night after I 
 get my shopping done. Thanks so much for taking me 
 up. And I do feel so guilty — " 
 
 But Jerrold speeded the motor and the sound of her 
 voice was lost. 
 
 "What a lascivious little mind she has," he remarked 
 as they drove on to Helen's house. 
 
 "And malicious, I think. It's odd. Her parents are 
 really kindly on the whole. And Allie's just a nice 
 clumsy child." 
 
 "Whatever hereditary influences might have made this 
 girl, they've been completely choked," said Jerrold. 
 "She's pure and simple environment — rotted by it just 
 as she might have rotted in a slum somewhere. The only 
 thing that has survived her complete subordination to 
 money and luxury is old Brownley's acquisitive instinct 
 — and God help the person who thwarts that!" 
 
 It was a considerate invocation if it had done any good, 
 for at that moment Barbara was preparing to destroy 
 any obstacles which lay in the path of her acquiring Ted. 
 
 She went to the telephone in her mother's room and 
 called Ted Smillie's house. He was not in. She tried 
 two clubs and finally located him. 
 
 "Yes, it is Bob. I came up — oh, to see a dressmaker. 
 
252 Spellbinders 
 
 No — just to-night. No — I'm tired and hot. I don't 
 want to dance. You come over here. Why, of course 
 it's all right. Do come. Well, I'll make you some lem- 
 onade and we'll have a talk. Of course. Eight — that's 
 fine." 
 
 But it was nearly nine before he came. Barbara had 
 found a black dinner dress which became her, and she 
 had thrown open the windows of the second floor library 
 to the cooling evening air. She had found some supper 
 for herself, a casual, icebox supper but for her guest she 
 had made sandwiches. Also she had hunted long and 
 wearily for some key which would open the wine cellar 
 and failed to find any. But there were lemons fortu- 
 nately and she had, as she promised, made the lemonade. 
 By eight she was all ready for him — waiting, in repose. 
 By nine she was tense. In that empty hour she had much 
 time for thinking and her thoughts did not rest her. 
 They roused her to a nervous tension which was manifest 
 in the quick gestures so unlike her usual pose of lazy in- 
 difference. 
 
 He rang at last and she slipped down the stairs to let 
 him in. A single light burned in the hall cluster. 
 
 He looked down at her from his admired height, 
 smiling without eagerness. 
 
 "Where did you drop from ? Nowhere ? I was going 
 to go down to see you next week." 
 
 "I had to come up to town to see about some clothes." 
 
 He laid down his hat and turned to her. 
 
 "All alone?" 
 
 "All alone," answered Bob coolly. "Even the house- 
 keeper's gone to see a sick sister and won't be back until 
 morning. I guess the caretaker's in the basement — at 
 least I told him to stay there." 
 
 "You going to stay here alone all night?" 
 
 "Why not? It's safe as a clock. Bars on mother's 
 
Barbara Breaks Loose 253 
 
 windows and all the front of the house. Safety locks on 
 the doors. Nothing stealable in the house and a telephone 
 and house phone in my room." 
 
 "All the same it's—" 
 
 "Unconventional? By this time you ought to know 
 I'm the most unconventional person on earth. Women 
 don't bother about conventions as they used to. We 
 don't need chaperons at our elbows, thank goodness !" 
 
 He smiled appreciatively. 
 
 "Let's go upstairs to the library," said Bob, "and tell 
 me what you've been doing." 
 
 He followed her obediently and they settled themselves 
 in two great soft leather chairs drawn up to a little table, 
 the tray of sandwiches and lemonade between them. 
 
 "What's new?" said Bob. 
 
 "It's dull as can be. Nothing stirring." 
 
 "Who've you been seeing?" 
 
 "Pretty much of nobody. A few stalemates around 
 the club. That's all." 
 
 "Then why stay in town ? Why don't you come down 
 to join your mother? It's really not bad at Nokomis 
 this year. Dot Lodge has two girls from New York vis- 
 iting her that are pretty snappy. And we've gone in for 
 politics. Formed a Republican club." 
 
 "Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Ted. "Torchlight processions 
 and all that ? Going to purify politics ?" 
 
 "Maybe— can't tell." 
 
 "Maybe not, probably." 
 
 They scuffed around in tawdry repartee, going swiftly 
 through a few motions of convention that seemed to cling 
 to them. But shortly he was sitting on the arm of her 
 chair and then he had her held more closely. For a while 
 she let him fondle her, her cheeks growing hot. Then 
 she returned to her line of attack. 
 
254 Spellbinders 
 
 "If it's as dull as you say here you ought to be in the 
 country where we can make it less dull." 
 
 "Can't. Lose my job if I do. The old man said that 
 he'd make no distinction in the office this summer. Me 
 and the hallroom boys — we've got to do our eight 
 hours." 
 
 "Sure it's that? Sure it's not some girl holding you 
 up here?" 
 
 That pleased him. 
 
 "So you came up to see me because you're jealous, did 
 you? Little cat!" 
 
 He caressed her as he spoke and she did not seem to 
 mind what he said. 
 
 "No — I'm not jealous. But perhaps I'm lonesome." 
 
 "Not this minute you aren't." 
 
 She seemed to purr. 
 
 "Well, this is nice," he repeated. 
 
 "I wish we could stay this way forever. Isn't it fun 
 to be away from every one?" 
 
 For answer he kissed her. 
 
 "I suppose you're dreadfully shocked by my uncon- 
 ventionally," said Bob, "but I don't care. I despise con- 
 ventions. I think women have a right to do as they 
 please. Anything they please. Women aren't slaves as 
 they used to be." 
 
 She lay back, invoking her vulgar license in the name 
 of the hard won liberties of women, corrupting the words 
 she spoke. 
 
 "Look out what you say," said Ted. "Look out, 
 young woman and don't get me to take you at your 
 word." 
 
 She shivered ecstatically. 
 
 "Ted," — the time seemed ripe, no doubt — "do you care 
 for that Thorstad girl ?" 
 
 -Who— Freda Thorstad?" 
 
Barbara Breaks Loose 255 
 
 "All the girls are talking because you were seen at 
 some hotel with her." 
 
 "Let them talk, the silly fools." 
 
 She released herself a little. 
 
 "Where is she, Ted?" 
 
 "Why?" He began to tease her, and her lack of con- 
 trol showed instantly. 
 
 "You know she's disappeared. Why did she go and 
 where did she go?" 
 
 "Why should I know?" 
 
 "You do know," she countered. 
 
 "I said nothing of the sort." 
 
 Pulling herself loose, she confronted him. Every 
 thwarted undisciplined desire in her raged at the frail 
 control maintained by habit. Her eyes, no longer sleepy, 
 blazed at him. 
 
 "You know where she is. The creature has gone off 
 somewhere to hide herself and her shame, I suppose. 
 The abandoned hussy. I know all about it, Ted. I 
 found out all about it." 
 
 He became a little surly and yet curiosity seemed to 
 pique him. 
 
 "You know all about what, Bob?" 
 
 She was losing control completely now. The confes- 
 sion, abasement, she had worked up to was not forth- 
 coming. 
 
 "Where is she?" she stormed. "Where are you keeping 
 that girl?" 
 
 Her face had changed from that of a pretty girl to 
 that of a furious, uncontrolled shrew. Her shrill voice 
 tore through the empty room, struck against the silence. 
 
 "Hush," he said sharply, "don't yell like that, Bob. 
 Don't be a fool." 
 
 "I won't have it. I won't have you making a laugh- 
 ing stock out of me. Before everybody — everybody's 
 
256 Spellbinders 
 
 talking, laughing at you — at me. You've got to give that 
 girl up. You've got to ! Pay her off and let her go away 
 and hide till it's over." 
 
 The vein of caddishness was rich in Ted. He looked 
 at her coolly — calculated her hysteria, made her mad- 
 deningly conscious of his imperturbability. Turning 
 away, he lit a cigarette. 
 
 "So you won't answer me!" 
 
 "I really don't know what you mean, Bob. You hurl 
 a lot of accusations at me and in the same breath you 
 want a lot of promises. I don't know what you're driv- 
 ing at, my dear." 
 
 "Then I'm through with you," she said, viciously. 
 
 An impolite smile glimmered at the corners of his 
 mouth. 
 
 "Oh, in that case — " He turned to the door. 
 
 But she did not have strength enough to let him go. 
 She followed him, distressing now in her abandonment 
 which was not even held together by anger. 
 
 "Ted — you know I care — how can you — how can 
 you?" 
 
 He turned and appraised her. It was obvious now how 
 much of her charm was in that thrown aside pose of in- 
 difference, lazy mockery. 
 
 "You told me you were through with me." 
 
 His voice was quite cold, stiff. It brought her to him 
 with a rush, her arms thrown about his neck, cheek 
 against his, hot, panting. 
 
 "I didn't mean it, Ted. Really, I was just about crazy. 
 I won't talk about that girl — about anything. Let's just 
 be as we were when you first came in." 
 
 "I didn't start all this," he answered sullenly. 
 
 She urged him back to his chair, pulled things into 
 some semblance of order. 
 
 "There, let's be comfortable after all the melodrama. 
 
Barbara Breaks Loose 257 
 
 Here you must eat some of these sandwiches. I made 
 them myself." 
 
 She poised herself on the arm of his chair and played 
 with him. 
 
 "You can't understand how a girl feels," she told him, 
 "under a lot of foolish teasing. They all know I'm fond 
 of you — a little anyway" (that fell cold) — "and they 
 take it out of me because I'm honest and not a flirt." 
 
 Ted chuckled. "Not a flirt." 
 
 "You know what I mean. A girl who has been brought 
 up as I have — can't let herself go the way other girls of 
 a different class can. I can see that those girls have an 
 advantage. We're just as — we're just like they are only 
 they've been brought up differently." 
 
 She paused for a moment in her fumbling, in the plead- 
 ing to be admitted to the class of women of easy virtue 
 whom she fancied held her lover in their toils, trying to 
 convince him that she was ripe for abandonment. But 
 he would not help her. He looked at her rather curiously 
 — that was all. 
 
 Sighing she rested her head on his shoulder. 
 
 "It's so nice to have you here." 
 
 "But it's getting late, Bob. I'll really have to go." 
 
 She threw a restraining arm across his chest. 
 
 "Go where?" 
 
 "I have to get back — " he said vaguely. 
 
 It was time for her last card. Actuated by that vivid 
 fear of his possible destination, perhaps, she relaxed com- 
 pletely in his rather unwilling arms. 
 
 "Don't go — don't go at all to-night. Let's just stay 
 here — together." 
 
 She could feel him stiffen and looked up slowly, lan- 
 guorously, slyly at him. But she should have known 
 what she would see — should have known that so easily 
 played a game would not be worth the candle of compro- 
 
258 Spellbinders 
 
 mise which would bind him so much more to her. He 
 was too sophisticated to be attracted by unsought aban- 
 donment. 
 
 "Look here, Bob," he almost shook himself to be free 
 of her, "you're not quite yourself to-night. You're a bit 
 tired and you'll be better for a night's sleep. I'll have to 
 run along now. Don't come down. Good night." 
 
 She made a swift movement — then seemed checked by 
 a vision of its futility. The other door closed quietly 
 and heavily. Stripped of the pose that served her for 
 strength, the vanity which served her for modesty, Bar- 
 bara sat in the leather chair which Ted had abandoned 
 and let her ugly imaginings consume her. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 Walter's solution 
 
 THE Thorstads had not gone back to Mohawk. Mrs. 
 Thorstad had said that she would stay in St. 
 Pierre until they heard further from Freda and since it 
 was the school vacation her husband had agreed. After 
 the first shock of disappearance they had accepted Freda's 
 letter at its face value and decided to wait for news from 
 her. It was all they could do, in fact. One alternative, 
 publicity, advertising her disappearance, would have done 
 only harm and have looked cruelly unnecessary in view 
 of her farewell letter to her father. The other alterna- 
 tive, setting private detectives to work, would have been 
 too expensive and again her letters did not justify that. 
 They must wait. Mrs. Thorstad, after a bit, did not 
 brood, nor indeed appear to worry greatly. She was 
 quickly allied with clubdom and petty politics and was 
 busy. Her husband, trying to interest himself in stray 
 free lectures at the University and in the second hand 
 bookstores, grew rather pallid and thin. 
 
 They stopped at an inexpensive boarding house on the 
 West Side. It was a place of adequate food, adequate 
 cleanliness and no grace. Mrs. Thorstad's reputation as 
 a prominent club woman stood her in good stead in these 
 rather constricted surroundings where most of the guests 
 were men of sapped masculinity, high busted women 
 dividing their time between small shopping and moving 
 pictures. The men were persons of petty importance and 
 men of small independence, but there was one strangely 
 incongruous person in the company. He was the editor of 
 
 259 
 
260 Spellbinders 
 
 the scandal paper of the city, a thin, elderly, eye-glassed 
 person of fifty, who had maintained, in spite of his scav- 
 enging for scandals, some strange insistence on and de- 
 light in his own respectability. He was personally so 
 polite, so gentlemanly, so apparently innocuous that it was 
 almost incredible to think of him as the editor of the sheet 
 which sold itself so completely on the strength of its scan- 
 dal that it needed no advertising to float its circulation. 
 
 There was a natural attraction between him and Ade- 
 line Thorstad. They had mutually a flare for politics 
 and intense personal prejudices complicating that instinc- 
 tive liking. They often ran upon the same moral catch 
 words in their conversation. Robinson began to be a 
 "booster" for Mrs. Thorstad. He saw her political pos- 
 sibilities and commenced to call attention to her here 
 and there in his columns. 
 
 It was one of Mr. Thorstad's few occasions of protest. 
 
 "Shall you tell him to keep your name out of his paper 
 or shall I?" 
 
 "But he's said nothing that isn't awfully friendly, 
 Eric. I hate to hurt his feelings. I'm sure he meant to 
 be kind." 
 
 "You don't want to be featured in The Town Re- 
 porter,' Adeline. It doesn't — it isn't right." 
 
 She let the stubborn lines settle over her face. 
 
 "I don't think the Town Reporter' is as corrupt as 
 almost any of the others." 
 
 "Look at the stuff it prints!" 
 
 "But, my dear, if it's true, isn't there a kind of courage 
 in printing it?" 
 
 He looked at her in exasperation, measuring her and 
 his own futility. 
 
 "So you want to let that go?" 
 
 "I think it's better not to hurt him, Eric." 
 
 He shut the door of their room sharply and yet when 
 
Walter's Solution 261 
 
 she saw him again he had regained his quiet indifference 
 to her doings. The friendship between her and the 
 editor continued to flourish. 
 
 They were in the dining-room on Tuesday, the third 
 of August, when the morning papers were brought in. 
 It was a sticky, hot, lifeless morning. Halves of grape- 
 fruit tipped wearily on the warmish plates. No one 
 spoke much. The head of the silk department in Green's 
 was hurrying through his breakfast in order to get down 
 to inspect the window trim. The stenographer at Bailey 
 and Marshall's had slipped into her place. Mrs. Thorstad 
 was alert determinedly, Mr. Thorstad sagging a little 
 beside her. Robinson picked up his paper first, casually, 
 and uttered a low whistle. 
 
 "That's a bit of news," he said. 
 
 Several people craned and reached for the papers they 
 had been too indolent to open. A headline ran across 
 the page. 
 
 PROMINENT CLUBMAN KILLS HIMSELF IN 
 FASHIONABLE CLUB 
 
 WALTER GRANGE CARPENTER, CAPITALIST, SHOOTS SELF 
 
 FATALLY IN EARLY MORNING HOURS. CAUSE 
 
 OF SUICIDE MYSTERY. 
 
 They gathered around the news without a particle of 
 sympathy. No one cared. He was a mystery and sen- 
 sation — that was all. 
 
 "Funny thing," said Robinson. "I wonder what was 
 at the bottom of that." 
 
 "I shouldn't be surprised if it was the Dufneld girl," 
 Mrs. Thorstad said rather casually. 
 
 "Who was that?" 
 
262 Spellbinders 
 
 "You know — the political organizer who was sent here 
 for the Republican women." 
 
 "Was Carpenter in love with her?" 
 
 "I think so. I saw him — well, perhaps I shouldn't 
 say—" 
 
 Robinson gave her a keen glance and let the matter 
 drop. But that night after dinner he sought her out 
 again, segregating her from the rest of the people. Mr. 
 Thorstad was not there. 
 
 "What was it you were saying about that Miss Duf- 
 field?" 
 
 She hedged a little. 
 
 "Oh, I don't like to talk scandal, Mr. Robinson. I'm 
 no gossip. I never liked the woman. I always believed 
 she made a great deal of trouble and I know she was 
 not a good influence on my daughter. But I have no 
 wish to malign her. If she is responsible for this tragedy, 
 she and her free love doctrines have indeed wrought 
 havoc — " 
 
 She paused abruptly. 
 
 "I wish you'd tell me what you know," said Robinson. 
 "I'll confide in you, Mrs. Thorstad. I heard from a 
 certain source to-day that Carpenter left this Dufifield 
 women everything he possessed. Every one seems to 
 know they were seen around town constantly until she 
 went away. There seems to have been considerable 
 expectation that they would marry — surprise that they 
 did not. Well — you can see that any information 
 added—" 
 
 "But what good would it do?" She pressed him, her 
 utilitarian little mind anxious for results. 
 
 "I'd rather like to know why Carpenter shot himself. 
 So would other people. If this woman is a menace she 
 should be exposed." 
 
Walter's Solution 263 
 
 "She should indeed. An interloper, making trouble, 
 trying to run politics — " 
 
 He surveyed her amusedly, familiar with outbreaks of 
 spite, waiting for his point to win itself. 
 
 "You knew her well." 
 
 "I worked with her closely. A brilliant person — 
 clever, modern. Modern in the way that these Eastern 
 young women are modern. I did not approve of many 
 things she did. I did not approve of some of the things 
 she said. Then there was an incident which convinced 
 me. 
 
 She went on, a little deft prodding keeping her in 
 motion, telling the story of having seen Walter Car- 
 penter come to Margaret's room and of having seen the 
 letter from Gregory with its protestation that he must 
 see her, that he wanted "to unloose her emotions — not 
 fetter her in marriage." How those words had imprinted 
 themselves on Mrs. Thorstad's mind! There was great 
 satisfaction in Robinson's face. 
 
 "And this Gregory?" 
 
 She had thought that out too. 
 
 "Why it must have been that Gregory Macmillan. He 
 came here later and she talked of knowing him. I heard 
 Mrs. Flandon speak of it." 
 
 "Ah, the Sinn Feiner ! Why, it's perfect." 
 
 She had a moment of fearful doubt. 
 
 "You wouldn't quote me? There'd be no libel — ?" 
 
 "My dear lady, I've no money to spend on libel suits. 
 I'll never get mixed up in one. Every bit of my stuff 
 is looked over by a lawyer before it sees the light of 
 print. Don't you worry. I'd never implicate a lady. 
 Scourging a vampire" — he fell into his grandiloquent 
 press language again — "is an entirely different matter." 
 
 "There's such a thing as justice," said Mrs. Thorstad 
 bridling. 
 
264 Spellbinders 
 
 He nodded with gravity. They might have been, from 
 their appearance, two kindly middle-aged persons discus- 
 sing a kindly principle, so well did their faces deceive 
 their minds. 
 
 So it happened that the next issue of the "Town Re- 
 porter" carried in its headlines on the following day — 
 
 WAS MYSTERY OF SUICIDE OF RICH CLUBMAN ENTANGLED 
 IN FREE LOVE PROBLEM? 
 
 There followed an article of subtle insinuation written 
 by the hand of an adept. It crept around the edge of 
 libel, telling only the facts that every one knew, but in 
 such proximity that the train of thought must be com- 
 plete — that one who knew anything of the people impli- 
 cated could see that Margaret Duffield (never named) 
 believer in all "doctrines of free madness" had "perhaps 
 preyed upon the soul of the man." And then after a 
 little the "Sinn Feiner" came into the article, he too 
 coming from groups who knew no "law but license." 
 Ugly intrigue — all of it — dragging its stain across the 
 corpse of Walter Carpenter. 
 
 The news had come to the Flandons at breakfast too. 
 Gage had come down first and picked up the newspaper 
 While he was waiting for Helen and the children. He 
 read it at a glance and the blow made him a little dizzy. 
 Like a flood there came over him the quick sense of the 
 utter blackness of Walter's mind — more than any sense 
 of loss or pity came horror at the baffled intellect which 
 had caused the tragedy. He stood, reading, moistening 
 his lips as Helen entered and lifted the children to their 
 chairs. 
 
 "Any news, Gage?" 
 
 He handed it to her silently. 
 
Walter's Solution 265 
 
 "Oh, my God!" said Helen, "How terrible! How 
 awful, Gage!" 
 
 He nodded and sat down in his chair, putting his head 
 in his hands. She read the article through. 
 
 "But why, do you suppose?" 
 
 Then she stopped, knowing the thought that must have 
 come to him as it came to her. 
 
 "Poor, poor Walter!" 
 
 She went around the table to Gage. 
 
 "You'll go down of course, but take a cup of coffee 
 first," she said, her hand on his shoulder. 
 
 He roused himself. 
 
 "All right." 
 
 Some one telephoned for Gage and he said he would 
 come at once to the club. They went on with the form 
 of breakfast. The children chattered. The room shone 
 with sunlight. Helen, through her shock and grief, 
 caught a glimpse of the shrinking of their trouble against 
 this terrific final snuffing out of life. Abashed at the 
 comfort it gave her, she drew away from the thought. 
 
 But it made her tender to Gage. It kept persisting, 
 that thought. "It wasn't Gage. It might have been 
 Gage. It might have been us. People like us do go that 
 far then. How horribly selfish this is. Poor Walter !* 
 She suddenly stopped short. She must telegraph Mar- 
 garet. Margaret would have to know. Whatever there 
 had been between her and Carpenter, she must know. 
 Doubtless — perhaps — she would want to come to see 
 him — Or would she? 
 
 She telegraphed Margaret as compassionately as pos- 
 sible. Yet it seemed a little absurd to be too compas- 
 sionate. Margaret wouldn't like the shock "broken." 
 She would want to know the facts. 
 
 The sun seemed brighter than it had been for days. 
 Despite the grave weight of sorrow on her spirit, Helen 
 
266 Spellbinders 
 
 was calmed, attended by peace. She was feeling the vast 
 relief attendant on becoming absorbed in a trouble not 
 her own. It was not that her grief was not deep for 
 Carpenter. He had been Gage's good friend and hers. 
 And yet — it was almost as if in dying he had deflected 
 a tragedy from her, as if he had bought immunity for 
 her with his terrific price. She dared not tamper with 
 the thought of what this might do to Gage. 
 
 The mail man in his blue coat was coming up the 
 steps. She opened the door for him, anxious to do some- 
 thing, wondering if there would be a letter from Mar- 
 garet. There was. She laid the others aside and read 
 that first. It was a long letter full of thought, which at 
 another time would have been interesting. Margaret had 
 wearied of Republicanism. She and many other women 
 were talking of the "League" again. 
 
 And Walter Carpenter lay dead. Was it relevant ? 
 
 Helen put down the letter and looked through her 
 others. There was one from some hotel in Montana. 
 She ripped it open and the first words startled her so that 
 she looked for the signature. It was signed by Freda 
 Thorstad. 
 
 A swooning excitement came over Helen. She hardly 
 dared read it. Then, holding it crushed tightly, she 
 went up to her own room. As she went the children called 
 to her. They wanted her to come and see the castle in 
 the sandbox. 
 
 "Soon," she called to them, "I'll be down soon. 
 Mother's busy — don't call me for a few minutes." 
 
 She locked her door and read the letter. What had 
 startled her was that abrupt beginning "Asking for money 
 is the hardest thing in the world — at least nothing has 
 ever been so hard before." It went on "But I don't 
 know what else to do, and I must do something. I can't 
 write any one else, partly because no one else I know has 
 
Walter's Solution 267 
 
 enough money to send me and also because I haven't 
 told any one except your husband about myself — and I 
 suppose he has told you. If he hasn't he'll tell you now 
 that it is the truth. It's this way. My husband has been 
 terribly sick and what money he had was stolen while he 
 was at the hotel before I got here. He's still weak and of 
 course he wants to go home. But I haven't dared tell 
 him we haven't any money because he doesn't know the 
 maid picked his pockets while he was ill. We have to 
 get away from the hospital now that he's well enough 
 to travel — we don't know anybody in the city and there 
 are his hospital bills to pay. The doctor told me he 
 would wait, but I can't ask the nurses to do that. It 
 seems almost ridiculous for an able bodied person to be 
 asking for money but we owe so much more than I can 
 earn that I must borrow. There doesn't seem to be any 
 way to get money sometimes except by borrowing. I 
 know I could pay it back as soon as Gregory gets well 
 again. I suppose you'll wonder why I don't ask father. 
 Well — he hasn't as much money as we need. We need 
 nearly six hundred dollars to take Gregory to Ireland 
 and pay the bills here. Perhaps it would be better to get 
 it from Gregory's friends in Ireland. But I know from 
 what he's told me that they all are trying so hard to do 
 things for the country with what little money they have 
 that it would worry him to ask them. And it would 
 take too long. He mustn't be worried, the doctors say, 
 and he must get back to his home soon. You know 
 something about him for I remember that I saw you at 
 his lecture. He is really very wonderful and ... It 
 isn't as if I had a right to ask you either, except perhaps 
 a kind of human right. . . . You've been so kind to 
 me, you and Mr. Flandon. ..." 
 
 Helen finished the letter with a rueful, very tired smile. 
 Then she took it into Gage's room and laid it on his 
 
268 Spellbinders 
 
 bureau where he would see it, when he came in. He 
 telephoned at noon to tell her that he was coming out; 
 she kept out of the way so that he would read the letter 
 before she saw him. 
 
 He brought it to her and gave it back, folded. 
 
 "I suppose I should have told you that business but it 
 was the girl's secret. She didn't want it known and I 
 stumbled on it" 
 
 "I see," she answered, inadequately. 
 
 "Looks like a bad situation for them, doesn't it? I 
 didn't know, by the way, where she had gone. I assumed 
 she had gone to join him but I did think Sable had 
 driven her to do it. Evidently he sent for her." 
 
 "And he nearly died." 
 
 They paused in embarrassment. Helen held herself 
 tautly. 
 
 "There's an apology due you," she began. 
 
 He held his hand out, deprecating it. 
 
 "No, please — you had every reason." He changed the 
 subject abruptly. 
 
 "Do we let her have the money?" He smiled for a 
 minute. "Money's tight as hell. I haven't got much 
 in cash you know. But I don't see how we can refuse 
 the girl." 
 
 "We won't," said Helen. 
 
 "By the way, what I came out to say was that Walter's 
 lawyer thinks we should send for Margaret Duffield. 
 There's a rumor that she is his legatee. He had no 
 family — his mother died last year. From what Pratt 
 said he left it all to Margaret. She'll be rich." 
 
 "I did wire her," answered Helen, "an hour ago. I 
 thought she ought to know." 
 
 "That's good." 
 
 "Tell me about it." 
 
 "It was all in the paper. He shot himself a little after 
 
Walter's Solution 269 
 
 midnight. He was alone in his room. It was evidently 
 quite premeditated. There was a sealed letter for his 
 lawyer with instructions.undoubtedly and everything was 
 in perfect order. He — he had simply decided to do it. 
 And he has done it. Something made him lie down — 
 that's all." 
 
 He spoke reflectively, with a degree of abstraction that 
 was surprising. 
 
 "Why do they think he did it?" 
 
 "Heat — not well physically. That's what goes to the 
 papers. Better spread that. If the girl is involved, we'll 
 keep her name clear." 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "For Walter's sake," Gage went on. And then very 
 slowly, he added, "I wouldn't like people to know that 
 she got him." 
 
 "Yet if it comes out that he left her everything, won't 
 people guess?" 
 
 "They won't know. Nor do we know. Nobody 
 knows except Walter and he's dead." 
 
 They sent a second wire to Margaret requesting her 
 presence for urgent reasons and by night they had heard 
 that she would come. The funeral was to be on Friday. 
 
 It was Thursday evening when the "Town Reporter" 
 bristled with ugly headlines on the streets of St. Pierre. 
 Walter's body lay in the undertaking "parlors" those 
 ineffective substitutes for homes for those who die home- 
 less, in the brief period between their last hours among 
 human kind and the grave. No place except a home can 
 indeed truly shelter the dead. Walter lay inscrutably 
 lonely, in the public parlor, mysterious in the death which 
 was a refusal to go on with life, a relinquishment so 
 brave and so cowardly that it always shocks observers into 
 awe. As he lay there, a raucous voiced newsboy outside 
 the window ran down toward the main through fare, a 
 
270 Spellbinders 
 
 bunch of "Town Reporters" under his arm, shouting, "All 
 the noos about the sooicide" — and in half an hour his 
 papers were gone, some bought openly, some bought 
 hurriedly and shamefacedly. Hundreds of people now 
 knew the reason Elihu Robinson gave for the death of 
 Walter Carpenter, his version of the struggle in the 
 stilled brain of the man he had not known except by 
 sight and hundreds of people as intimate with the tragedy 
 as he, wagged their heads and said wisely that this "was 
 about the truth of it," with other and sundry comments 
 on the corruption of the age and particularly of the rich. 
 
 The Flandons read it with mixed disgust and anger. 
 They knew it was the kind of stain that only time could 
 scrub away. It did not matter much to Walter now that 
 he was slandered. His suicide was a defiance of slander. 
 They were sorry for Margaret but not too much bothered 
 by her reception of such scandal if it came to her. It 
 was only local scandal. 
 
 "The worst of it," said Helen to Gage, "is tying 
 Gregory Macmillan up that way just as they were about 
 to announce his marriage. I telephoned Freda's father 
 this afternoon for I was going to tell him you had had a 
 business letter from her and knew where she was. It 
 seemed wise. But anyway he had just heard from her 
 too. He was so happy, poor fellow. Now to have this 
 nasty scandal about his son-in-law will be another blow. 
 I shall go to see him and tell him that it's an utter lie. 
 I know from what Margaret told me that there never 
 was a thing between her and Macmillan." 
 
 Mr. Thorstad had already taken the matter up with 
 Elihu Robinson. He had called him what he was and his 
 white faced indignation was something the editor pre- 
 ferred to submit to without resistance. But he was not 
 without trumps as usual. 
 
Walter's Solution 271 
 
 "But who is your authority for saying that Macmillan 
 was implicated with this lady?" asked Mr. Thorstad, 
 angrily. 
 
 He had not told that Macmillan was his son-in-law and 
 the editor wondered at his defense of Macmillan. 
 
 "My dear fellow," he said with that touch of apologetic 
 and righteous concern with which he always met such 
 attacks. "My dear fellow, your wife told me that." 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE MOURNERS 
 
 MARGARET came, calm and yet clearly distressed 
 beyond measure. It was pathetic to see her con- 
 trol, to see that she could not even break through it to 
 the relief of abandonment. She was very white during 
 the day of the funeral and the ones succeeding it and her 
 eyes met other eyes somewhat reluctantly. She came on 
 Friday morning and Helen had not been able to persuade 
 her to stay with them. She had gone to a hotel and from 
 there, quite simply to the parlors of the undertakers. 
 
 "Don't wait for me, Helen — and I'd sooner be alone. 
 I'll be here a long while, probably." 
 
 Perhaps after all Walter and Margaret found relief 
 in each other when the grim parlor door was shut. At 
 least at the funeral Margaret sat very quietly, though the 
 well-bred curious eyes of the little group of people strayed 
 unceasingly toward her. She went through it as she 
 went through the following days. It was soon known, 
 before the will was probated, that she was Walter's 
 legatee. There was a great deal of business to be done. 
 Walter had decided no doubt that the brief embarrass- 
 ment of inheriting his fortune was better than the re- 
 current fear of cramping poverty which had always pur- 
 sued her and of which she had told him. She saw the 
 lawyers and his business associates and discussed with 
 them the best way of disposing of Walter's interests, and 
 word of her coldness spread around rather quickly and 
 was considered to justify Mr. Robinson's deductions. 
 
 Gage saw her at the funeral. He had not looked for 
 
 272 
 
The Mourners 273 
 
 her — had not felt ready to see her. But in the semicircle 
 of chairs facing the gray satin coffin, he was so placed 
 that his eyes met hers unexpectedly. When they did, 
 hostility glinted in his. "You got him," they seemed to 
 say — and hers looked back steady, unrepentant, even 
 though her mouth was drawn with pain and sorrow. 
 
 It had hit Gage as it had Helen. The lightning had 
 been drawn from him. Walter's death had roused in 
 him an instinct of resistance which had been dormant. 
 He had no certain idea of what had passed between 
 Walter and Margaret but he knew what Carpenter's point 
 of view had been — how far he had gone, how willing he 
 had been to yield every concession to a woman — to Mar- 
 garet — in the belief that it would then be possible to 
 build love on a basis of comradeship. Walter had found 
 failure, just how or why no one knew except perhaps 
 Margaret herself. Gage's mind stumbled along nerv- 
 ously, trying to analyze his and Walter's failure. He 
 remembered how they had talked together about women, 
 how Walter had said he would be "willing to trust to 
 their terms." For some reason he lay dead of their 
 terms. And he himself — he had looked at himself in 
 the glass an hour ago with a kind of horror as if he 
 saw himself for the first time in weeks. There was a 
 softening of his features it seemed to him, a look of dis- 
 sipation, of untrimmed thought, brooding. The memory 
 of his face haunted him. That was what came of being 
 unwilling to trust to the terms of women. Either way — 
 
 He looked across at Margaret again, quiet, firm, per- 
 sistent through tragedy, through all emotional upheaval, 
 and a grim admiration shot through his hostility. After 
 all she was consistent. With all his admiration for 
 women, even at the height of his passion for Helen, he 
 had never connected her or any woman with ability to 
 follow a line of action with such consistency. He had 
 
274 Spellbinders 
 
 some sense of what was going on in Margaret's mind — 
 an apperception of her refusal to let this tragedy break 
 her down. 
 
 He became conscious of Helen's sigh. She sat beside 
 him, her hands folded loosely in her lap. The minister 
 talked on, performing with decent civility and entangle- 
 ment of phrase, the rites of last courtesy for the dead. 
 Gage wondered what he and Helen would do. He was 
 glad that the mess about Freda Thorstad was cleared 
 up. Not that it made any grave difference except in a 
 certain clearness of atmosphere. If she got a divorce she 
 couldn't get it on those grounds. He wondered how their 
 painfully sore minds could be explained in a divorce court 
 which was accustomed to dealing with brutal incidents. 
 Perhaps a separation would be better. He wondered how 
 he was going to provide for her decently. It was going 
 to be a long job building up the new practice. Things 
 were breaking badly. 
 
 Some emphatic phrase of the minister, starting out of 
 his droning talk, brought Gage's eyes back to the coffin. 
 Strange how the sense of that silent form within it gave 
 him fresh energy. Life had got Walter. Women had 
 got him, in some obscure way. He felt his shoulders 
 straighten with stubborn impulse. They wouldn't get 
 him. Deftly and logically his thought became practical. 
 He would cut out all this thinking about women. He 
 would — perhaps he would get the Thornton business. It 
 meant a big retainer. He could have done it a few months 
 ago. Now — he visualized old Thornton's tight mouth, 
 keen eyes. He'd want value received. Have to get in 
 shape — cut out the booze — concentrate on business — • 
 men's business. The actual phrase took shape in his 
 mind. Men's business. By God, that was how women 
 got you. They got you thinking about them until you 
 became obsessed, obsessed with them and their business. 
 
The Mourners 275 
 
 It was so and it had always been so. These new prob- 
 lems were not what people thought they were. They 
 were not sex stuff. Perhaps they altered the grain of 
 woman — changed her — but the adjustment of sex was as 
 it always had been, between each man and each woman. 
 Let the women go on, be what they wanted, do what they 
 wanted. It made some of them better, some of them 
 worse — put new figures in the dance but it was the same 
 dance. Even if it wasn't the minuet or the waltz there 
 was still dancing. And there was choosing of partners. 
 
 Every one stood up. Gage was standing too, with the 
 rest, his vagrant thoughts brought back from their wan- 
 derings to the ever shocking realization that he was help- 
 ing in the laying away of this friend of his and the in- 
 evitable feeling that life was a short business for him and 
 every one. He fell back into triteness. You must play 
 the game. 
 
 After it was all over he was standing beside Helen. 
 
 "I want to go to see Margaret," said Helen. "I'll go 
 to her hotel now, Gage." 
 
 "Bring her home if you like," answered Gage. 
 
 The ease of his tone startled Helen. She looked at 
 him in quick surprise, meeting his unexpected smile. 
 
 "I merely meant I thought I could be reasonably civil,"' 
 he said — and with impulse, "I feel rather cleaned out,, 
 Helen. I'll run down town now and see what I can do 
 before dinner." 
 
 She thought, "He hasn't had anything to drink for two 
 days," placing the responsibility for his unwonted pleas- 
 antness on a practical basis. It cheered her. She went to 
 Margaret's hotel and found her in her room, lying on her 
 bed and her head buried in the counterpane. It was the 
 nearest to abandonment that Helen had ever seen in her 
 friend so she ventured to try to comfort. 
 
 "It's the awful blackness of his mind that I can't bear," 
 
276 Spellbinders 
 
 said Margaret, "the feeling he must have had that there 
 was no way out." She sat up and looked at Helen 
 somewhat wildly. "It frightens me too. For he had 
 such a good mind. He saw things straight. Perhaps 
 there isn't any way out. Perhaps we are battering our 
 heads against life and each other like helpless fools." 
 
 "Did you love him?" asked Helen. It seemed to her 
 the only vital point just then. 
 
 Margaret threw her hands out futilely. 
 
 "I don't know. I was afraid of what might happen 
 if we married. Either way it looked too dangerous. I 
 was afraid of softening too much — of lapsing into too 
 much caring — or of not being able to care at all. He 
 wasn't afraid — but I was. And — the rotten part is, 
 Helen, that I wasn't afraid for him but for myself." 
 
 She was hushed for a moment and then broke out 
 again. 
 
 "It wasn't for myself as myself. It was just that if 
 our marriage hadn't been a miracle of success, it would 
 have proved the case against women again." 
 
 "You mustn't think any more than you can help," said 
 Helen. "It wasn't like Walter to want to cause you pain 
 and I know he wouldn't want you to suffer now." 
 
 "No, he was willing to do all the suffering," said Mar- 
 garet in bitter self-mockery. "He did it too." 
 
 She got hold of herself by one swift motion of her 
 well-controlled mind and stood up, brushing her hair 
 back with the gesture Walter loved. "It's not your 
 burden, poor girl. You have enough." 
 
 "Not so many," said Helen. "By the way, Margaret, 
 you haven't heard about Freda Thorstad, have you?" 
 
 "Did she come back?" 
 
 "No — she wrote. She had married Gregory Mac- 
 millan secretly when he was here. They sent her word 
 
The Mourners 277 
 
 that he had typhoid out West and she went to him. 
 Why she didn't tell people is still a mystery." 
 
 "Married him — Gregory? But she'd only known him 
 four days." 
 
 Helen nodded. "That's just it Isn't it — " she 
 stopped, fearing to wound. 
 
 "Magnificent — brave — foolish — " finished Margaret. 
 Her voice broke unaccustomedly. "It's wonderful. 
 Gregory will be a strange husband but if she shares him 
 with Ireland and — oh, it's rather perfect. And so all 
 that nonsense about Gage being involved — " 
 
 "Was nonsense." 
 
 'Margaret did not ask further about Gage. She re- 
 verted to Freda and Gregory. The news left her mar- 
 veling, an envy that was wonder in her remarks. She 
 made no comparisons between Freda and herself and yet 
 it was clear that Freda wrought herself to another phase 
 — a step on towards some solution of thought. 
 
 Helen urged her to come to dinner. 
 
 "I'd rather not, I think. I'll have a rest perhaps." 
 
 "Then you'll go out with us for a ride to-night?" 
 
 "Gage wouldn't like it, would he?" 
 
 "He suggested your coming to dinner, my dear." 
 
 They smiled at each other. 
 
 "Then I'll go." She turned swiftly to Helen, "Oh, 
 work it out if you can, Helen. Not working it out — is 
 horrible." 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 RESPITE 
 
 FREDA was trying to mend a blouse. Her unskillful 
 fingers pricked themselves and it was obvious that 
 even her laborious efforts could do little to make the 
 waist presentable. Its frayed cuffs were beyond repair- 
 ing. However, it would do until they got to Mohawk 
 and she could get the clothes which she had there. She 
 had not written her mother to send her anything. Nor 
 had she spent any of the money the Flandons had sent 
 for such luxuries as new clothes. She had been uplifted 
 when that check for a thousand dollars — not for six 
 hundred — had slipped out of the envelope with Mrs. 
 Flandon's kind, congratulatory letter. Gregory's three 
 hundred had been put back in his purse and then, as it 
 gradually came over her impractical mind that such a sum 
 was totally inadequate to their need she had told him 
 that she had some money of her own — a little reserve 
 which had been sent to her. Naturally he had assumed 
 her father had sent it and later she thought she would 
 tell him that it was a debt they had assumed and make 
 arrangements for paying it. Not now. He must not 
 worry now about the money. She looked across the 
 room at him — their shabby little hotel room, with its lace 
 curtains pinned back for air and the shaky table desk 
 dragged up before the window. He had not been quite 
 fit enough to travel when they left the hospital, and she 
 had insisted that he must try his strength before they 
 made the journey to Mohawk, the first lap on the way 
 back to Ireland. How eager he was to be off now — how 
 
 278 
 
Respite 279 
 
 impossible it was to check him! She forgot the blouse 
 and sat looking at him, sitting there unconscious of 
 her regard. His profile was outlined against the blank 
 window opening, still so thin, and yet so restored. 
 
 "It's getting dark. You ought to stop now, Gregory. 
 You'll be worn out." 
 
 He did not hear her. That was one of the things she 
 had found out could happen. Especially since this lot 
 of mail had been forwarded from his bureau, letters full 
 of such terrible news for him from Ireland. His friends 
 were in prison — were killed. Devastation was spreading. 
 
 She rose, with a new air of maturity and crossed to 
 him. 
 
 "It's growing late." This time she came behind his 
 chair and bent her cheek to his. 
 
 He moved absently. 
 
 "Yes, sweetheart — I'll be soon through. I was writing 
 to Larry's widow, poor girl. There seemed so much to 
 say." 
 
 "I know, but you must stop." She used the appeal 
 she had already learned to use when he was bound to tax 
 his fragile strength. "You'll never get back there unless 
 you rest more." 
 
 "Oh, yes I will. And when I do get back — how I'm 
 going to start some things in motion. It will be a ter- 
 rible swift motion too. I've lost a sad amount of time." 
 
 Freda laughed and he looked at her. It was a laugh 
 of pure amusement, and so contagious that he joined 
 her, jumping up from the letter to kiss her. 
 
 M No — you laughing rogue — not time lost in winning 
 my bride. Mocker." 
 
 Freda held him at arms length teasingly. 
 
 "I have you for a minute now, haven't I?" 
 
 "You always have me. You don't mind, darling, that 
 they need me? You wouldn't — not share it with me?" 
 
280 Spellbinders 
 
 "Of course I share it. And I know I have you — when 
 you remember me." 
 
 He buried his lips in her hair and then drew her to 
 his knees. 
 
 "Sweetheart, if you could know how they suffer — 
 when you see — " 
 
 She composed herself to listen, knowing how it would 
 be. He would hold her close like this and tighter and 
 tighter his arms would feel as he explained and related. 
 Then, in his excitement, he would loose her and leave 
 her, gently, while he paced up and down the room and 
 forgot the tenants in the next room and herself and 
 everything in his impassioned oratory. 
 
 So he was. That was Gregory. When he put her 
 down she turned on the light and picked up her sewing. 
 It was not that she did not listen willingly. She did. 
 If she could not kindle in his flame she was warmed in 
 the glow of it. She too had come to care. Perhaps when 
 they reached Ireland and she saw for herself she would 
 kindle too — she rather hoped so. 
 
 He stopped talking and his mind, relaxed, shot back 
 to her. 
 
 "Do you feel well to-night, darling?" 
 
 "Of course. I'm the most indomitably healthy person 
 you ever knew. I can't help it." 
 
 "You're so sweetly healthy that I keep forgetting to 
 take care of you." 
 
 She tossed the blouse from her restlessly and stretched 
 her long arms back of her head to make a cushion. 
 
 "It doesn't bother me when you forget," she told him. 
 "I'm very glad that it doesn't, too. I'm glad I haven't 
 begun marriage by learning habits of dependency. I 
 think we're rather lucky, Greg. Being us, as we are, 
 with a two day wedding trip and a crowning episode 
 of typhoid and now a baby and an Irish question ahead 
 
Respite 281 
 
 of us, we've learned how to stand alone. Mind our own 
 business instead of crowding into each other's, you 
 know." 
 
 He did not know. A great deal of modern difficulty 
 and problem making had slipped by him. "You are an 
 obscure young person," he told her, "and most divinely 
 beautiful. I am going to get Francis Hart to paint 
 you — like that, with your head thrown back. I want a 
 hundred paintings of you just to compare with you, so 
 that I can show that no painting can be as lovely as you 
 are." 
 
 They spent a week in Mohawk and because Gregory 
 found that Mr. Thorstad knew Irish history with un- 
 expected profundity and sympathy he was content to 
 spend much time with his father-in-law. They met on 
 many points, in the simplicity of their minds, the way 
 they wound their thoughts around simple philosophies 
 instead of allowing the skeins of thought to tangle — 
 in the uncorrupted and untempted goodness of them both 
 and their fine appreciation of freedom — the freedom 
 which in Mr. Thorstad had bade his daughter seek life 
 and in Gregory had tried to unloose the rigors of Mar- 
 garet Duffield. Gregory did not talk so much to Mrs. 
 Thorstad. He was apt, in the midst of some flight of 
 hers, to look a little bewildered and then become inatten- 
 tive. She, however, took it for genius. The chastening 
 which she had suffered after that mistake of blackening 
 Gregory's name in connection with Margaret had still 
 some effect. She was anxious to wipe that error out 
 and to that end she worked very hard to establish the 
 fame and name of Gregory. His books were spread over 
 the library table and she had already, in characteristic 
 method, started a book of clippings about him. 
 
 She spent a good deal of time with Freda. Freda was 
 
282 Spellbinders 
 
 rather more gentle than she had been, and interested 
 honestly in many of the details of child bearing that her 
 mother dragged up from her memory on being ques- 
 tioned. If Mrs. Thorstad felt disappointment in Freda, 
 she tried very honestly to conceal it but now and again 
 there cropped out an involuntary trace of the superiority 
 which she as a modern woman was bound to feel over a 
 daughter who took so little interest in the progress of 
 politics and listened so much to her husband's talk. She 
 spoke of it once only and most tactfully. 
 
 "You must be careful not to be a reactionary, my dear. 
 You are going from the land of freedom and the land in 
 which women are rising to every dignity, to a country 
 which may be — of course is bound to be — comparatively 
 unenlightened. I hope indeed that you have your chil- 
 dren. Two— or even three children — are very desirable. 
 But you must not forget that every woman owes a duty 
 to herself in development and in keeping abreast of the 
 times which may not be neglected. I don't want to hurt 
 you, dear. Of course I myself am perhaps a little excep- 
 tional in the breadth of my outlook. But it is not per- 
 sonal ambition. It is for the sex. Did I tell you that 
 Mrs. Flandon talked to me when she saw me in St. Pierre 
 about doing much of the state organizing for the Repub- 
 lican women? She says she needs some of my organiz- 
 ing ability. I shall help her of course. In fact I hope 
 I may be able to prevail upon your father to apply for 
 a position at the University in St. Pierre. I feel we have 
 rather outgrown Mohawk." 
 
 "But, mother, that means an instructorship again for 
 father, and it's a step backward." 
 
 "Not exactly that. Think of the advantages of living 
 in the city — the cultural advantages. And there is a 
 great field open in municipal politics. I have some strong 
 friends there — and one gentleman — an editor — even went 
 
Respite 283 
 
 so far as to say there might be a demand for me in 
 public life in St. Pierre, if I established residence there." 
 
 "It would be pretty rough on father to pull up stakes 
 here—" 
 
 The hint came again. 
 
 "My dear child, you must not be a reactionary. I do 
 not like to see you start out your married life with the 
 idea of subordinating your life as an individual to a 
 husband, no matter how beloved he may be. It is not 
 wise and it is not necessary. Look back over our life. 
 Have I ever for one moment failed in my duty towards 
 the home or towards my husband or child and has it not 
 been possible at the same time for me to keep progress 
 before me always and to remember that the modern 
 woman owes it to herself to go out of the home and keep 
 abreast with the times ?" 
 
 But it was not a question. It was a statement. Freda 
 made no reply and her mother changed the subject with 
 the satisfied air of the sower of seed. 
 
 "When you come to Ireland," she told her father 
 laughingly that night, "you will sit on the doorstep and 
 learn to smoke a pipe. And Gregory will be president 
 of the Republic. And I will be — (ask mother) — a model 
 housewife, chasing the pigs — " 
 
 They laughed with an abandonment which indicated 
 some joke deeper than the banality about the pigs. 
 
 "It's a worthy task," said her father. "I'll come — and 
 I'll enjoy learning to smoke a pipe and see Gregory run 
 the government — and as for you — whatever you do 
 you'll be doing it with spirit." 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "I've just begun to break my trail." 
 
 Then the day came when they must leave the little 
 frame house and after the excitement of getting ex- 
 tremely long railway tickets at the station and checking 
 
284 Spellbinders 
 
 all Freda's luggage through to New York, they said 
 good-by to the Thorstads and left them standing to- 
 gether, incongruous even in their farewells to their 
 daughter. 
 
 They were to stop at St. Pierre over night. Mrs. 
 Flandon had written to urge them to do so and Freda 
 would not have refused, if she had been inclined to, 
 bearing the sense of her obligation to them. She had 
 not told her father of that. It amused her to think that 
 her father and Gregory each felt the other responsible 
 for those Fortunatus strings of railway ticket. But she 
 wanted Gregory to meet the Flandons again that the debt 
 might be more explainable later on. 
 
 St. Pierre was familiar this time when they entered it 
 in mid-afternoon as she had on that first arrival with her 
 mother. It was pleasant to see Mrs. Flandon again and 
 to taste just for a moment the comfortable luxury of 
 the Flandon house. Freda felt in Mrs. Flandon a 
 warmth of friendliness which made it easy to speak of 
 the money and assure her of Gregory's ability to pay it 
 a little later. 
 
 "You're not to bother," said Helen, "until you're quite 
 ready. We were more glad to send it than I can tell you. 
 It's a hostage to fortune for us." 
 
 Then she changed the subject quickly. 
 
 "I wonder if you'll mind that I asked a few people 
 for dinner to-night. You married a celebrity and you 
 want to get used to it. So many people were interested 
 in the news item about your marriage and wanted to 
 meet Gregory and you. I warned them not to dress so 
 that's all right." 
 
 "It's very nice," said Freda, "I'll enjoy it and I think 
 i — though I never dare to speak for Gregory — that he will 
 too. I remember having a beautiful time at dinner here 
 
Respite 285 
 
 before. When I was here visiting the Brownleys you 
 asked me — do you remember ?" 
 
 "I asked the Brownleys to-night. They were in town 
 — all but Allie. I asked the elder two and Bob and her 
 young man — Ted Smillie, you know." 
 
 She looked at Freda a little quizzically and Freda 
 looked back, wondering how much she knew. 
 
 "Think they'll want to meet me?" she asked straight- 
 forwardly. 
 
 "I do, very much. I think it's better, Freda, just to 
 put an end to any silly talk. It may not matter to you 
 but you know I liked your father so much and it occurred 
 to me that it might matter to him if any untrue gossip 
 were not killed. And it's so very easy to kill it." 
 
 "You take a great deal of trouble for me," protested 
 Freda. 
 
 Helen hesitated. She was on the verge of greater con- 
 fidence and decided against it. 
 
 "Let me do as I please then, will you?" she said smil- 
 ingly and Freda agreed. 
 
 Helen felt a little dishonest about it. The dinner was 
 another hostage to fortune. It was gathering up the 
 loose ends neatly — it was brushing out of sight bits of 
 unsightly thought — establishing a basis which would 
 enable her later to do other things. 
 
 She had an idea that it would please Gage, though he 
 had been non-committal when she had broached the idea 
 of having Gregory and his wife for a brief visit. Helen 
 had seen but little of Gage of late. She knew he was 
 working hard and badly worried about money. They 
 had sold a piece of property to raise that thousand for 
 the Macmillans and he had told her definitely of bad 
 times ahead for him. She offered to reduce the expenses 
 of the household and he had agreed in the necessity. 
 
286 Spellbinders 
 
 They must shave every expense. But it invigorated 
 Helen. She had amends to make to Gage and the more 
 practical the form the easier it was to make them. 
 Neither of them desired to unnecessarily trouble those 
 dark waters of mental conflict now. Helen guessed that 
 Gage's mind was not on her and that the bad tangle of 
 his business life absorbed him. Brusque, haggard, ab- 
 sorbed, never attempting or apparently needing affection, 
 he came and went. Never since Carpenter's death had 
 they even discussed the question of separation. That 
 possibility was there. They had beaten a path to it. But 
 hysteria was too thoroughly weeded out of Gage to press 
 toward it. Without mutual reproach they both saw that 
 separation in the immediate future was the last advan- 
 tageous thing for the work of either of them and flimsy 
 as that foundation seemed for life together, yet it held 
 them. They turned their backs upon what they had lost 
 or given up and looked ahead. Helen heard Gage refer 
 some political question to her for the first time, with a 
 kind of wonder. She suspected irony, then dropped her 
 own self-consciousness as it became apparent that he 
 really did not have any twisted motive behind the query. 
 She began to see that in great measure he had swung 
 loose from her, substituting some new strength for his 
 dependence on her love. And, when some moment of 
 emotional sorrow at the loss of their ardors came over 
 her, she turned as neatly as did he from disturbing 
 thought to the work, which piled in on her by letter and 
 by conference. 
 
 They sat at dinner in the long white-paneled dining- 
 room, twelve men and women. The three Brownleys 
 and young Ted Smillie — Jerrold Haynes because Helen 
 wanted to have him meet Freda and Emily Haight be- 
 
Respite 287 
 
 cause she fitted in with Jerrold now that Walter Car- 
 penter was gone. To these Helen had added the young 
 Harold Spencers because they were the leaders of that 
 group of young people who made or destroyed gossip. 
 It was a dinner party made up hurriedly on the excuse 
 of Gregory's celebrity and such little intrigue as was 
 hidden in its inception made it no less a pleasant com- 
 pany. 
 
 Interest was concentrated on Freda and Gregory of 
 course and under Helen's deft manipulation the story of 
 their marriage and its secrecy was told, lightly, but with 
 a clearness of detail that sent Ted's eyes rather con- 
 sciously to his plate once or twice as he avoided Barbara's 
 glance. Ted was sitting beside Freda and paying her 
 open homage when he could get her attention. But Gage 
 had much to say to her. 
 
 "Are you still chasing romance ?" he asked. "I always 
 remember your startling me with your belief that women 
 were more attractive when they believed in romance." 
 
 "Yes — I'm still after it. I feel the least bit guilty 
 towards Gregory. Because while he goes back to Ireland 
 with his heart in his hands ready to offer it to the coun- 
 try, the whole revolution is to me not as great tragedy 
 as it is adventure. It is tragedy intellectually but not 
 emotionally as far as I am concerned while to Gregory" 
 ( — she turned her head to glance at Gregory. 
 
 "And marriage is adventure too, isn't it?" 
 
 She forgot Ted and leaned a confidential elbow to- 
 wards Gage, resting her chin in her cupped hand. 
 
 "I wouldn't dare say it in the hearing of my mother 
 or the feminist feminists but that's what it is. They talk 
 of partnerships and new contracts — but they can't analyze 
 away or starve the adventure of it. All this talk — all the 
 development of women changes things, but its chief 
 
288 Spellbinders 
 
 change is in making the women type different — stronger, 
 finer, you know, like your wife and Margaret Duffield. 
 But even with women like that when it comes to love 
 and to marriage it is adventure, isn't it? You can't ra- 
 tionalize things which aren't rational and you can't mod- 
 ernize the things that are eternal." She became a little 
 shy, afraid of her words. "Mother thinks I'm a reac- 
 tionary. I don't think I am. I want women to be 
 stronger, finer — I'll work for that — but that's one thing, 
 Mr. Flandon. It hasn't anything to do with the adven- 
 ture between men and women, really." 
 
 He started at that. But Ted claimed Freda's attention 
 and reluctantly she turned to him. 
 
 "I think you treated me rather badly not telling me you 
 were married. I thought all along that I had a chance, 
 you know." 
 
 The brazenness did not make her angry. Nothing 
 could anger her to-night. She was all warm vigor, per- 
 vading every contact between her and every one else. 
 
 "Barbara looks very well to-night," she answered with 
 cool irrelevance. 
 
 Barbara did. She had dressed with her customary 
 skill but with the wit to avoid her usual look of sophis- 
 tication. To-night she was playing the artless simple 
 girl for Gregory's benefit, listening to him with only an 
 appreciative comment now and then. It was clear that 
 Gregory was talking to her as he talked to one in whom 
 he felt there was intelligence. 
 
 "And how clever she is," added Freda reflectively. 
 
 The talk grew more general. Barbara called the atten- 
 tion of every one to something Gregory had said, a con- 
 cession for one who did not usually share her dinner 
 partners or else a successful attempt to break up other 
 conversations. Irish problems led to a discussion of gen- 
 
Respite 289 
 
 eral politics. Helen was in the talk now — vigorously. 
 Mrs. Brownley gave the retailed opinion of Mr. Brown- 
 ley before he could quote himself. 
 
 Gage heard without contributing to what was being 
 said. He was listening with amusement to Mrs. Brown- 
 ley's platitudes and half unconsciously letting his admira- 
 tion rise at the clarity of Helen's thought and the deft- 
 ness of her phrases. What presence she had! In the 
 contemplation of her he felt the problems which had 
 been harassing him all day — deadlocks in plans, money 
 shortage, fall away. As they had used to — he slipped 
 into memories and amazingly they did not cause him 
 pain, though even as he looked he saw upon her the 
 marks of the work she had done and would do, the new 
 definiteness, the look of being headed somewhere. But 
 his rancor seemed to have burned itself out and with it 
 had gone the old possessive passion. He stirred rest- 
 lessly. Some phoenix was rising. 
 
 Mr. Brownley turned at his movement, offering sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 "Nothing for us to do, Gage," he chuckled tritely, 
 "except to talk about recipes. The women talk politics 
 now." 
 
 Gage did not laugh at the old joke. 
 
 "Women and men may get together on a subject yet," 
 he answered, with heavy awkwardness. 
 
 Instantly it seemed to him that it was what he had 
 meant to say for a long time. He caught the incredulous, 
 almost pitiful look on Helen's face as she heard and 
 pretended not to hear, met the quick, wondering glance 
 she snatched away from him. 
 
 Her tremulousness gave him confidence. Impatient of 
 his guests now, he looked across at her, his eyes kindling. 
 Whether they could work it out through his storms and 
 
290 Spellbinders 
 
 hers ceased to gnaw at his thought of her. He saw her 
 strong, self-sufficient, felt his own strength rising to 
 meet hers, also self-sufficient. The delight of the adven- 
 ture, the indestructible adventure between man and 
 woman remained. His mind moored there. 
 
 THE END 
 
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