FELICITY 
 
 Clara E Laughlin 

 
 FELICITY 
 
 Of CALIF. LIBHABY, MS OGELSS
 
 She was playing her dual role in Mariaiina. 
 
 See page 145.
 
 FELICITY 
 
 The Making of a Comedienne 
 
 BY 
 
 CLARA E. LAUGHLIN 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 
 ALICE BARBER STEPHENS 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 NEW YORK:::::::::::::::::::: 1907
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published, March, 1907
 
 TO 
 
 LONELY FOLK, 
 ON THE HEIGHTS OR OTHERWHERES. 
 
 2131079
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART i 
 
 OPENING IN MILLVILLE, MASS., 
 IN JUNE, 1869 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. " THE PRINCE OF VAGABONDS "... 3 
 
 II. THE PAINS THAT NATURE WENT TO, TO 
 
 PROVIDE AN EXTRAORDINARY TYPE 20 
 
 III. Two DECIDE FOR CELEBRITY .... 33 
 
 IV. THE NEW LIFE BEGINS WITHOUT 
 
 "STRUTTING" 48 
 
 V. THE NEW LIFE GROWS TIRESOME, 
 
 WITHOUT u STRUTTING " .... 65 
 
 VI. THE MAKING OF A COMEDIENNE . . 76 
 VII. THE GIRL WITH THE 'WITCHING SMILE 92 
 
 VIII. VINCENT, THE DEBONAIR, DOES A GAL- 
 LANT THING THAT'S FRAUGHT WITH 
 DESTINY 100 
 
 IX. "THE BIG, OPEN ROAD, WHERE THE 
 
 PASSPORT is SYMPATHY" . . . .116 
 vii
 
 Contents 
 
 pARr ii 
 
 TWELVE YEARS LATER 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 X. ALL THAT GLITTERS is NOT HAPPINESS 133 
 
 XI. A MUMMER'S END 153 
 
 XII. SOME QUESTIONS THAT WERE NEVER 
 
 ANSWERED 169 
 
 XIII. " NOT WILLING TO BE FELT SORRY 
 
 FOR" 186 
 
 XIV. IN WHICH "STARRING," IT SEEMS, is 
 
 LONESOME BUSINESS 198 
 
 XV. "PEOPLE ALWAYS TALK" . . . .218 
 
 XVI. THE SHINING PATH TO THE MOON . 233 
 XVII. A STAGE LOVER MAKES REAL LOVE, 
 
 AND IT'S DIFFERENT 258 
 
 XVIII. FAME FRIGHTENS LOVE ; WANT Woos 
 
 HIM 276 
 
 XIX. "THE OTHER SIDE OF SUCCESS" . . 298 
 
 XX. VIGIL 324 
 
 XXI. VINCENT is " MADE SQUARE "... 349 
 
 PART III 
 OPENING AT BRIARWOOD, MISS., MARCH, 1898 
 
 XXII. SOMETHING SET APART 387 
 
 XXIII. "THE BRUSHWOOD PILES" . . . .413 
 
 viii
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 She was playing her dual role in Marianna. (See 
 
 page 145) Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Thus he rehearsed Felicity in her first part ... 63 
 
 For a woman in her position! Why, the world 
 
 was hers 183 
 
 " Vincent! " she entreated, " Vincent ! don't go ! " 380
 
 PART I 
 
 OPENING IN MILLVILLE, MASS., IN JUNE, 1869
 
 FELICITY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE PRINCE OF VAGABONDS " 
 
 "TT'S too bad, father, to thrust 'the shop' at 
 JL you the very first day of your vacation, but 
 you know you needn't go to the play if you don't 
 feel equal to it. The boys'll be disappointed, if 
 you don't, but they didn't really get this show up 
 for your benefit, though, of course, they'll be glad 
 to have you as guest of honor." 
 
 Mrs. Allston made her little, laughing apology 
 with the air of one who knew it would be hand- 
 somely received. She was a pleasant-faced young 
 woman, spoiled for beauty by the tendency of her 
 large, pale eyes to be of the variety her father 
 called " hard boiled " and by the wide mouth like 
 his; yet attractive in no small degree because of 
 the animation in her countenance and in her 
 manner. 
 
 " If it will bore you the least bit in the world," 
 she went on, " to sit in the barn for an hour and 
 watch your grandsons enact some ' bloogy ' vil- 
 
 3
 
 Felicity 
 
 lany, you mustn't think of doing it just to be 
 polite." 
 
 " Nonsense ! you know I'm never so polite as 
 to let myself be bored. And the theatre never 
 bores me. Let's see the play, by all means. 
 What's it to be Robinson Crusoe? " 
 
 " Not today; that's a favorite bill perhaps the 
 favorite bill but the leading lady balks at too 
 much of it. She's never been able to induce the 
 boys to admit a Mrs. Crusoe, and has had to con- 
 tent herself with playing the cannibals en masse. 
 You will see her today in her greatest role 
 Mary, Queen of Scots. She's fine as Queen 
 Philippa, sucking the poison from the wound of 
 her Crusading king; but, after all, that's only one 
 scene, you know, and beyond that there's nothing 
 in the part. And we've put a ban on Joan of 
 Arc ever since Adams got so worked up, as execu- 
 tioner, as to apply a real match to the faggot- 
 pile. There's to be ' executing ' today, of course, 
 but I hardly apprehend any catastrophes; I made 
 the dreadful axe myself out of cardboard, pasted 
 over with silver paper and I can guarantee its 
 safety in the most frenzied hands." 
 
 " Who wields the axe? " 
 
 " Morton; he's never had an * executing part ' 
 before, and he's very proud. Adams has always 
 seized the most bloodthirsty parts for himself, but 
 there was trouble over the last show, in which
 
 "The Prince of Vagabonds" 
 
 Adams did a lot of ' tommyhawking,' as they call 
 it, and Morton had to be ' tommyhawked,' so the 
 chopping, they tell me, falls to Morton today." 
 
 " I'd hate to be Queen Mary, and suffer the 
 full fervor of that pent-up longing to slay ! " 
 
 " Oh, Queen Mary likes ardent slaying; ' there's 
 naught that's timorous ' about her, as you'll see." 
 
 " And who is this young person ' of virtues and 
 of talents all compact ' ? " 
 
 " Our next-door neighbor, Felicity Fergus." 
 
 " What ! A New England child called Felicity ? 
 I've heard of 'em called Prudence and Content and 
 Charity, and all the meek virtues, but I never 
 thought to hear one called Happiness. I should 
 think that, in New England, such a name would be 
 considered tempting Providence." 
 
 " She's not all New England. I'll tell you about 
 her later; there's a story back of her. Just now 
 I've got to get out a sheet I've promised for a 
 curtain, and attend to other things ' not equally 
 made glorious by the claims of art.' In about 
 twenty minutes we'll proceed to the play, if you're 
 so inclined." 
 
 " Methinks, me lady, I could not well be other- 
 wise, after all you've told me." 
 
 Mrs. Allston shook her father gently by the 
 shoulders as she passed him on her way out of the 
 room. 
 
 " Ah, but it's good to have you here ! " she
 
 Felicity 
 
 cried. " You don't know how delicious the old, 
 stage nonsense talk seems to me, after months 
 of prosaic speaking. I've wondered, a thousand 
 times, what would happen if I were to unloose 
 a little of our dear old foolishness on these staid 
 new neighbors of mine. They've expected some- 
 thing queer of an actor's daughter, and I've fairly 
 itched to give it to 'em. But it wouldn't do; one 
 can't be queer and comfortable, and I've chosen 
 conformity and comfort. While you're here, 
 though, I feel as if I wanted to babble the nonsense 
 of the wise you taught me, all the time." 
 
 Her father pulled her face down to his and 
 tweaked her ears caressingly. 
 
 " I'm afraid we didn't give you a very good 
 raising for a work-a-day world, my dear. I've 
 often thought of that, and wondered if I oughtn't 
 to regret it." 
 
 " Don't you ever, again ! " was the happy re- 
 sponse. " I wouldn't take the wealth of Ind for 
 my blessedly peculiar training. I only hope I can 
 pass some measure of it on to the boys." 
 
 After his daughter was gone Phineas Morton 
 sat reflecting, whimsically, on what she had just 
 suggested to him rather than told him the 
 novelty of his situation lending lively color to his 
 thoughts. 
 
 Getting up, he walked to the window and looked 
 out at Federal Street, squinting quizzically at it 
 
 6
 
 "The Prince of Vagabonds" 
 
 as it stretched its prim length under a brilliant 
 June sky. 
 
 Hands deep in trousers pockets, the old man 
 studied the unaccustomed vista. As well as if he 
 had had magic sight, he could see the life that 
 went on behind those staid house fronts; as well, 
 almost, as if he had had the scales of final appraise- 
 ment, he could estimate the character that was 
 shaping itself to type in those orderly dwellings. 
 
 It was a strange place for Fate to set down his 
 child. It was a strange place for Fate to put 
 him, hailed the prince of all vagabond players, for 
 a vacation. He wanted to visit with Frances and 
 her children, but he doubted his ability to breathe 
 Millville air for a month. When the fret of the 
 road was on him he had thought the New England 
 village quiet promised peace. But when the peace 
 he had never learned to enjoy lay at hand, the life- 
 long habit of the road would not yield to exorcism, 
 and although he had arrived in Millville but that 
 morning, he was already irked with its unwonted- 
 ness. 
 
 His daughter had been here only a few months, 
 brought hither by a change in her husband's busi- 
 ness interests, and this was his first visit to her new 
 home. Her mother had died, early in the year, 
 and old Phineas felt impelled, in his loneliness, to 
 seek the comfort of kith and kin rather than the 
 distractions of Europe, where they had spent their 
 
 7
 
 Felicity 
 
 summers he and " Ma " for many years. But 
 his heart misgave him about Millville, at this very 
 outset. 
 
 " It's the price of the game," he soliloquized, 
 " that there's no let-up to it. When you begin, 
 you've got to go on to the end. Nature doesn't 
 provide any peaceful old age for mummers, with 
 their curse of the wandering foot. Peaceful old 
 age is for these folks, behind their green shutters 
 and fan-light doors. Ah, well ! I'm satisfied. Let 
 me die with my boots on, having known the joy 
 of the road ! " 
 
 The celebrated comedian was a spare little man 
 with agility still indicated in every move, despite 
 his sixty-four years. His complexion was delicately 
 ruddy; his thin hair had turned almost impercepti- 
 bly from ashen blond to silver and was now scarce 
 lighter than it had always been ; and his wide-apart, 
 pale-blue eyes were so deep-set that they frequently, 
 especially from a distance and when glowing with 
 strong feeling, gave the effect of being dark. They 
 were rather small eyes, but Phineas was wont to 
 observe that Nature had more than made. up to him 
 in the size of his mouth and his nose and his ears. 
 The latter were the big, generous ears of the big, 
 generous nature. The nose had that size supposed 
 to be inevitable with men of strong character. "If 
 I," said Phineas, " had lived a few years earlier, 
 the stage would have lost me : the Duke o' Welling- 
 
 8
 
 "The Prince of Vagabonds" 
 
 ton for whom the boots are named, y' know ! 
 would have seized me for generalship in his army." 
 The Duke of Wellington, on the contrary, would 
 have done no such thing; for if he was a student of 
 physiognomy enough to know that men likely to 
 prove good generals would have big noses like 
 his own he must have been student enough to 
 know that no man could have that mouth of 
 Phineas's and be a man of blood and battle. It 
 was the mouth of the mime, but it was more than 
 that it was distinctively the mouth of the come- 
 dian. There was something in its great width, in 
 the extreme length and mobility of the upper lip, 
 in the tucking in at the corners, that spelled comedy 
 to the least observing; there was something in the 
 peculiar line of compression that the thin, tight- 
 closing lips made, that was essentially not grim but 
 humorous, not at all ascetic but full of the enjoy- 
 ment of life. Sometimes, to amuse a child or a 
 crony, he would cover all the upper part of his face 
 with his hand, and with that wonderfully flexile 
 mouth alone would run the gamut of characters and 
 emotions so understandably that the littlest, least 
 intelligent beholder would shout with glee and the 
 oldest, most intelligent beholder would be lost in 
 dumb amaze. Perhaps his mouth had not pre- 
 destined him to comedy as he believed; perhaps a 
 lifetime of smiles had altered, not confirmed, the 
 natural habit of a mouth that might as easily have 
 
 9
 
 Felicity 
 
 been trained to tragic utterance. But there was 
 nothing equivocal about that mouth now. Withal, 
 with that roundness of countenance which age had 
 not worn upon, and that fairness of hair and blue- 
 ness of eyes and delicate ruddiness of complexion, 
 he had a delicious ability to simulate youthfulness, 
 nay, childishness, so that when he pulled one of 
 those sparse light locks down on his forehead and 
 gave you an imitation of a little boy speaking a 
 piece at a country-school exhibition, you had all 
 you could do to remember, if, indeed, you cared 
 to, that it was art and not nature you saw before 
 you. 
 
 " Ready, father? " Mrs. Allston stood in the 
 doorway. The sound of her voice breaking sud- 
 denly upon his revery made him remember, as he 
 mused on " the joy of the road," how he had, in 
 his best wisdom at the time, opposed that joy for 
 his daughter. Now, reckoning what heritage of 
 unrest he had given her, and recoiling from the 
 dozy peace of Millville, he wondered if he had 
 not, perchance, done her an irreparable injury. 
 
 The play was in the barn and the price of admis- 
 sion was a penny no pins taken for currency and 
 no credit extended. A pass was offered the pro- 
 fession, but the profession declined it and bought 
 a seat for a quarter, which was going ahead, he 
 remarked, of the rates paid to hear Jenny Lind, 
 nineteen years ago, or, more recently, to see the 
 
 10
 
 "The Prince of Vagabonds" 
 
 farewell performance of Mr. and Mrs. Charles 
 Kean. 
 
 Besides Phineas Morton and his daughter, there 
 were present nine children and four women one 
 of the latter the star's aunt and the other three 
 attracted by the rumor that the Allston boys' grand- 
 father would be present. None of them would 
 have gone to see him act, but they knew of no law 
 against going to watch him " look on." 
 
 The play was not Schiller's, Mrs. Allston ex- 
 plained when they were seated. The text used 
 was the star's own dramatization of history. 
 
 " It seems Queen Mary is her favorite heroine, 
 and that the story of the poor lady's sufferings has 
 been told and retold to her till she knows it by 
 heart. So she has constructed her own play, which 
 may lack a little in conversation but will be very 
 strong in action only the bloodiest scenes being 
 enacted." 
 
 In scene one, the Queen was disclosed with Riz- 
 zio. As Morton was to be " the killer " in the 
 great, final act, he was obliged to be killed in this 
 act. He wore a complete suit of winter under- 
 wear, a pair of slippers, and a sword, and struck 
 whanging chords, now and then, on a borrowed 
 guitar whose owner, it was to be hoped, was not 
 in the audience. 
 
 The queen wore a trailing robe of calico, tucked 
 up in front, and a long veil of white mosquito 
 
 ii
 
 Felicity 
 
 netting pinned to her done-up hair. She sewed on 
 a sampler which had once known the touch of her 
 Puritan grandmother's dutiful little fingers, and 
 cast now and then a glance, half shiveringly appre- 
 hensive, half impatiently managerial, toward the 
 door where Darnley ought, with less delay, to be 
 making his appearance. 
 
 Truth to tell, the play went a little slowly, while 
 Darnley tarried and Mary sewed and Rizzio 
 whanged the untuned guitar. But presently there 
 was a noise of stamping feet and a clattering 
 assault, the murder was accomplished and the mur- 
 derer retreated, grinning sheepishly and pursued 
 by the stricken queen's threat: 
 
 " I'll blow you up for this!" 
 
 The next act exploited a feature not known in 
 any previous production by this company and made 
 possible only by the extraordinarily heavy receipts. 
 The Fourth of July being but six days distant and 
 already prepared for by the " fore-handed," part 
 of a package of hoarded firecrackers was set off 
 under a tin can in an empty stall and Adams's 
 voice was heard proclaiming, " I'm killed ! " while 
 the queen told Bothwell (same costume as Rizzio 
 except for guitar) that " it serves him [Darnley] 
 right" 
 
 In the grand finale Adams was to be the Earl of 
 Shrewsbury, implacable representative of hate- 
 inspired Elizabeth. He had but one line to say, 
 
 12
 
 "The Prince of Vagabonds" 
 
 in lieu of a death warrant, which Felicity did not 
 know how to counterfeit: when the death march 
 reached the scene of execution, Adams was to 
 point to that chopping-block on which the All- 
 ston logs were regularly reduced to kindling, and 
 hiss : 
 
 " Unhappy queen ! Behold your doom ! " 
 
 But when they reached " the hall " he caught a 
 glimpse of his grandfather, whose cheeks were 
 still wet with the tears he had shed over the pre- 
 vious acts, and fearing they had been too fright- 
 fully realistic, Adams began to cry. 
 
 "Adams!" whispered the unhappy queen, 
 "what's the matter? Say your speech." And 
 she prompted him. 
 
 Snuffling miserably, the inexorable minister 
 pointed to the scarred block and murmured his 
 vengeful line. But worse was yet to come. 
 
 When the lovely, royal head, divested of its 
 mosquito bar, was on the block, and shivers of real 
 horror shook the juvenile part of the audience, 
 Morton stood transfixed, the axe uplifted in his 
 hands. 
 
 Nothing happening, the queen looked up, and 
 martyrdom gave place to indignation on her face. 
 
 "Chop, Morton!" she adjured; "why don't 
 you chop ? You wanted to be the killer; now why 
 don't you kill?" 
 
 Then, down went the meek eyes again, waiting
 
 Felicity 
 
 the end, but trembling in the corners of the queen's 
 mouth Phineas could see a heroically repressed 
 smile of comic appreciation. 
 
 The children clapped, rather fearsomely, when 
 the deadly blow had fallen; the ladies choked be- 
 hind their handkerchiefs; but Phineas Morton 
 roared loud and long and tears poured down his 
 face like rain. 
 
 " I want to meet the star," he begged; " I never 
 saw such dramatic instinct." 
 
 And when told that the star had never been to 
 a theatre and had derived all her ideas of things 
 theatrical from his grandsons, he was the more 
 interested. 
 
 " She has always impersonated her favorite 
 heroes and heroines," said her aunt, when ques- 
 tioned, " but all children do that, I suppose. I've 
 almost never known her when she didn't play part 
 after part by herself, with no audience but her 
 other self, so to speak. But when the boys came, 
 and she found that they liked to play, too, she was 
 quick to absorb their knowledge of the theatre 
 to have a curtain and stage and definite acts, and 
 try to play scenes instead of just vaguely playing be 
 somebody." 
 
 " She's a born actress, if I don't miss my guess," 
 said Phineas; and he was surprised that his remark 
 did not bring the look of resentment he had ex- 
 pected from Amelia Fergus. Instead, she was all 
 
 14
 
 "The Prince of Vagabonds" 
 
 eager interest and plied him with questions about 
 acting as a career. 
 
 " I've always felt she was a remarkable child," 
 said Amelia, " and that some day she would show 
 signs of special ability. When she does show an 
 inclination, I intend that she shall have every en- 
 couragement." 
 
 At this, Phineas, looking narrowly at the Yankee 
 spinster and noting the tell-tale compression of her 
 mouth, knew certainly that Amelia's own inclina- 
 tion had been crossed and that, with the world-old 
 passion of maturity for securing to youth those 
 things itself has failed of, she would fight with all 
 her strength for this child's opportunity. 
 
 " But I wonder where the child's parents are," 
 he mused, " and why this spare, spinsterly person 
 is so passionate about her. I must ask Frances." 
 
 Felicity herself, when presented, had little to 
 say. She was shy of strangers at all times, and 
 this afternoon was especially embarrassed by the 
 failure of her players to enter into the spirit of 
 their play. Like all children of extraordinarily 
 lively imagination, she suffered a great deal, either 
 of impatience or of chagrin, when the coaching 
 and exhorting she gave her friends failed to work 
 them up to anything like that vividness of pretence 
 which came so easily to her. 
 
 Phineas knew how she felt; in all the years since 
 he had suffered that way as a child, the feeling had 
 
 15
 
 Felicity 
 
 never become a memory with him every day 
 brought its fresh experience of the hurt. Only, as 
 the years went by, his wonderful grace of humor 
 came more and more surely to his rescue, so that 
 the net result of it all was neither bitterness nor 
 self-pity, but a constant enrichment of that comedy 
 sense which was his genius. He wondered if he 
 could get from the child's chagrin any glint of that 
 saving humor. If he could, he felt that he would 
 need no further confirmation of his estimate of her. 
 
 So he shook her hand gravely when she was pre- 
 sented to him and entered into a conversation in 
 which there was apparent no trace of grown-up 
 condescension to a child. 
 
 " I'm afraid you're feeling a little bad because 
 your players didn't do their best," he said, with a 
 fine air of " we-artists-have-like-sorrows," " but you 
 mustn't. You must remember that we all feel, at 
 times, the same way about the people who play 
 with us." 
 
 And then he told her, and the others standing 
 'round, of some funny things that had happened 
 to famous stars as they travelled from place to 
 place and played with resident stock companies. 
 Sometimes the stock company had to rehearse a 
 quite strange play very hurriedly, and ludicrous 
 things happened when the star tried to play his 
 finished impersonation in a company that stumbled, 
 half-comprehendingly, through the other parts. 
 
 16
 
 "The Prince of Vagabonds" 
 
 Listening, Felicity forgot her embarrassment 
 and laughed heartily, her eyes shining with the 
 excitement of that most delicious sensation that 
 ever comes to any of us, young or old: the sensa- 
 tion of being comprehended, of having met a soul 
 that's kin to ours and dreams our dreams. 
 
 " When," asked Amelia, with tremulous eager- 
 ness, " ought one to begin getting ready for the 
 stage? " 
 
 " As soon as one thinks of going on." 
 
 "Not in childhood?" 
 
 " Not unless it's too late to begin in babyhood. 
 If you had any thought of the stage for Felicity, 
 here, I'd say, put her on at once and let her play 
 for two or three years, to get used to the theatre. 
 Then, about the time she begins to spindle out and 
 get impossible for child parts, I'd put her to school 
 and give her the broadest general education she'd 
 take, with special attention to literature and the 
 history of the drama. She must have elocution, 
 too, and dancing, and music, if it's in her. Then 
 she'll be ready to begin that grind of actual expe- 
 rience in which she'll learn to know life and how 
 to reflect it. But don't forget health lots of it 
 and never lose a chance to develop her pluck; she'll 
 need all of that she can muster. And," with a 
 twinkle, " she needn't be at too much pains to accu- 
 mulate freckles, or get round-shouldered, or lose 
 her front teeth."
 
 Felicity 
 
 Amelia went home so evidently thoughtful that 
 Mrs. Allston chided her father, gently, for what 
 he had done. 
 
 " It would make less trouble for that poor soul," 
 she said, " if you persuaded her to become a what 
 do they call it ? a Nihilist, and blow up the Czar. 
 She knows no more of a stage career than she 
 knows of life in Borrioboola-Gha not so much, 
 because they learn about that in the missionary 
 society. She's always been taught that the theatre 
 is a sink-hole of iniquity, and while she doesn't 
 quite believe that now, she's as far from guessing 
 any of the real truth about it, from estimating the 
 strangeness of its life, as as my pussy is I " 
 
 " Well, you know, Frances, I never proselytize 
 for the stage that I'm like most of those on it, I 
 advise most of those off it to keep off. But, some- 
 how, today I had a queer, tugging feeling when I 
 watched that little, vivid thing, all fancy and fer- 
 vor, and tried to imagine her, world without end, 
 in Federal Street. I knew the road I've travelled 
 would be a rocky road for her tender feet, but it 
 came to me, all in a flash, how she would always be 
 feeling passions which her little world would not 
 share, any more than Adams and Morton shared 
 her feeling for Queen Mary. And, suddenly, the 
 joys of the rough old road seemed more than worth 
 all its perils and pains, and I held out my hand 
 to that little child, to come travel the world's 
 
 18
 
 "The Prince of Vagabonds" 
 
 highway. Next time I see her," he finished, whim- 
 sically, " I'll tell her not to come that the road is 
 full o' big, black bears! " 
 
 He rolled his eyes and assumed such an expres- 
 sion of terror that his daughter laughed away her 
 misgivings, just as he had meant she should. 
 
 " But me," he went on, " I'm so used to bears 
 I get lonesome where there aren't any. I suppose, 
 for instance, there isn't a poker game worth men- 
 tioning, nearer than Boston?"
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE PAINS THAT NATURE WENT TO, TO PROVIDE 
 AN EXTRAORDINARY TYPE 
 
 THE early tea, beloved of New England, was 
 over in the Allston home. Fortunately, it 
 disturbed no cherished habit of the guest, long 
 accustomed to eat early and lightly before his 
 evening's work. 
 
 The boys were playing in the street and in neigh- 
 boring yards, and their father had gone back to 
 the bank to put in some extra, undisturbed hours 
 on matters of importance. 
 
 " Now," said Phineas, smoking his pipe com- 
 fortably on the front porch in the long, lingering 
 dusk of nearly the longest day, " now tell me about 
 little Felicity, and how a child ever got the name 
 of Felicity in that awful house; it looks like a stray 
 piece of a cotton mill." 
 
 ' That's just what it is. It's not exactly stray, 
 for it was put there with full intent, but it is really 
 a piece of the Fergus mills, a mile away. Felicity's 
 grandfather Fergus built the mills in the early 
 fifties, not long before he died, and at the same 
 
 20
 
 An Extraordinary Type 
 
 time he seems to have ordered a certain number of 
 cubic feet of space enclosed for a home. The 
 architecture, if one may call it that, is the same in 
 the mills and in the home." 
 
 " Was he so fond of the mills he couldn't bear 
 to be away from them, even when he slept? Or 
 was it cheaper to build both alike? " 
 
 " Well, Millville lays it to the cheapness, but I 
 gather, from what I'm told about it, that a good 
 deal may be laid to sheer lack of imagination. I 
 suppose it never occurred to the old man or to his 
 wife that it could possibly matter what kind of a 
 house one had so long as it was substantial and of 
 sufficient size. They built the house on the same 
 principle as the mills, I tell you: the sturdiest 
 material obtainable at a reasonable price, enclos- 
 ing space enough to meet their working require- 
 ments. 
 
 " I want you to see the inside of that house; it's 
 a study. And I want you to meet Mrs. Fergus 
 though I don't see how it's to be brought about, 
 because she knows you're an actor, and she'd as 
 lief meet Apollyon. She won't have anything to 
 do with me, partly because I'm an actor's child and 
 partly because I'm a Unitarian. When we came 
 here and I went to the little Unitarian church, she's 
 reported to have said, ' Well, what else could any 
 one expect? ' I'm told she once got up and walked 
 majestically out of church because a visiting 
 
 21
 
 Felicity 
 
 preacher, too advanced in his views, quoted Emer- 
 son in the pulpit." 
 
 Mrs. Allston caught a twinkle in her father's 
 eye, which told her he meant to force acquaintance 
 with Jane Fergus by whatever assault or strategy 
 the conditions of the defence seemed to require. 
 
 " Don't look too confident," she laughed; 
 " you've never undertaken anything quite so diffi- 
 cult as that in your life." 
 
 " A terrible ogre, is she? " 
 
 " No; really a very good, kind woman, accord- 
 ing to her lights, but her lights are dim ; they don't 
 reach any distance at all into the outer darkness 
 that surrounds her way of thinking and living. 
 
 " You said you noticed the compression 'round 
 Miss Amelia's mouth. People say her brother 
 Robert, Felicity's father, had the same look, as if 
 he had habitually, on opening his mouth to speak, 
 shut it again on second thought, as safer. Jane 
 Fergus is dominating, and everybody who comes 
 in contact with her finds it less trouble to let her 
 dominate than to oppose her. It seems Amelia 
 was a clever girl, fond of reading and hungry for 
 any kind of culture that would widen the span of 
 her prison-house. When she was young she fell 
 in love with a Unitarian preacher who knew Mar- 
 garet Fuller and Emerson and Channing, and who 
 lived in a world of intellectual delights that dazzled 
 this poor Amelia with the promise of rare fellow- 
 
 22
 
 An Extraordinary Type 
 
 ships. But when it came to the issue and she was 
 bidden to choose between her preacher and all else 
 that belonged to her, she hadn't the courage to 
 emancipate herself. Poor thing ! She'd never 
 learned to call her soul her own. Later, she was 
 pretty nearly excommunicated or burned for a 
 witch, or whatever was the fashionable torture of 
 the time, for reading the dissolute poets Byron 
 and Shelley in particular and for trying to learn 
 German, which was held to be the rapid road to 
 materialism. After that, she gave up the struggle 
 on her own behalf, but renewed it later in behalf of 
 this child. 
 
 " The brother, Robert, had never struggled, but 
 he was like most persons who have repressed and 
 repressed: he had a lot of stored-up energy that 
 was bound to burst forth some time, and it did. 
 When he was nearly forty he fell in love, and then 
 there was no holding him back any more. 
 
 " He went abroad for the first time, in the sum- 
 mer of '59, and in Edinburgh fell in with a Scotch- 
 American named McClintock, who was travelling 
 with his daughter, Cecile. This girl was about 
 eighteen, a sunny, irresponsible, law-unto-herself 
 little creature, the only child of a Scotch Presby- 
 terian father and a French Catholic mother a 
 kind of union not uncommon in their part of the 
 world, I'm told. 
 
 " They lived in Mississippi, where Mr. McClin- 
 
 23
 
 Felicity 
 
 tock owned a big cotton plantation just south of 
 Vicksburg. Mrs. McClintock was quite recently 
 dead, and Mr. McClintock was trying to find com- 
 fort in a tour of his boyhood haunts the first 
 since he had left them to go to the new world. 
 
 " There couldn't possibly have been a more 
 impossible thing than that staid Robert Fergus 
 should have fallen madly in love with this child 
 of the slave-owning South, but Fate must have been 
 in an ironical mood, for that poor, rigid Round- 
 head, who had never been young, seems no more 
 than to have laid eyes on this capricious little 
 daughter of the gay, Cavalier South, than he be- 
 came willing to defy the whole world, his mother 
 included, to get her." 
 
 *' Of course ! Nothing could be more inevi- 
 table." 
 
 '' What surprises me, though, is that she was 
 persuaded to take him." 
 
 " Not at all; I know that type of child, and I 
 don't doubt that all she needed to make her declare 
 for Fergus, in the face of all odds, was one little 
 suggestion that she ought never to do so. There's 
 no obstinacy on earth like the obstinacy of a woman 
 born and bred as she was. You can't assail it, 
 because it never comes into the open to fight; and 
 you can't overwhelm it, because it thrives and 
 increases on opposition." 
 
 ' Well, whatever the reason, she took it into her 
 
 24
 
 An Extraordinary Type 
 
 head that Fergus was the man for her, and her 
 father, when he saw how things were, gave him- 
 self up to the situation with a great deal of good 
 grace, I'm told. Of course, Fergus was a North- 
 erner, but he was a Scotchman " 
 
 " And McClintock, very probably, had learned 
 to esteem Scotch staidness in his long association 
 with the men of his region. God knows I love the 
 Cavalier, even if he's a scamp and a vagabond! 
 But when it comes to marrying your daughter to 
 a man you think of more than your personal prefer- 
 ences. McClintock may easily have been not quite 
 inconsolable to give his little, winsome, wilful child 
 to a man who, whatever else he might be or not be, 
 would be true to her to his last breath." 
 
 " But I'll warrant you can't see how Jane Fergus 
 could be less than inconsolable to give her rigidly- 
 raised son to the daughter of a slave-owning French 
 Catholic! Why, they say Mrs. Fergus was the 
 hottest Abolitionist in town! Miss Amelia told 
 me that the day her brother announced his engage- 
 ment was a Sunday on which his mother had just 
 decided it was wrong to operate cotton mills and 
 make a livelihood off a product ' drenched with the 
 blood of slaves.' A visiting preacher had worked 
 her up to this fine frenzy where she wanted to close 
 the Fergus mills and throw several hundred opera- 
 tives out of employment in the dead of winter; 
 and when Robert wouldn't work up with her, and 
 
 25
 
 Felicity 
 
 she upbraided him, the dreadful truth he'd lacked 
 courage to tell before, came out." 
 
 " That must have been a scene ! " 
 
 "No; Miss Amelia says it wasn't. You know 
 your old contention, that the drama in real life 
 isn't dramatic, except in significance; but that on 
 the stage people have to act to make manifest 
 what they're feeling. Mrs. Fergus, it seems, never 
 said a word, but walked from the room in that 
 awful silence which hurts so, because your anger 
 and pleading and reason alike fall on unheeding 
 ears. When people pride themselves on silence 
 they make such a fetich of it, that they'd rather be 
 grilled over a slow fire than allow rhyme or reason 
 to break down their implacableness." 
 
 Phineas shot a keen look at his daughter. She 
 had grown very impassioned, for a mere recital of 
 neighborhood history, and he thought he knew, 
 now, more than he had been able to guess this 
 afternoon, of how things fared with her in the 
 even tenor of her life at Millville. 
 
 'Well, what happened next?" he prompted, 
 and Mrs. Allston's eyes lost their far-seeing look 
 as she resumed the thread of her story. 
 
 " It was a hard winter for them all, as you may 
 suppose. Mrs. Fergus never once referred to the 
 approaching marriage, her daughter says, but she 
 never lost an opportunity to express her hatred of 
 the South and all it contained and stood for. But 
 
 26
 
 An Extraordinary Type 
 
 when it came to a question of closing the mills, 
 Amelia sided with her brother against the proposi- 
 tion, and as the three were equal owners, a majority 
 ruled. But the lust for martyrdom was strong in 
 the old lady, and her third of the mills' earnings 
 remained untouched, until after the war. 
 
 " In the spring, Robert Fergus went down to 
 Briarwood Plantation and got his bride. They 
 had to be married very quietly, because there was 
 no more friendliness for Massachusetts in Missis- 
 sippi than t'other way 'round. 
 
 " It seems as if the Fates must have conspired 
 to make things as hard as possible for everybody, 
 for when little Cecile begged to take her mammy, 
 her black Zilianne, and Alec McClintock gave 
 the old woman her freedom papers, Robert Fergus 
 didn't have the heart to say No, and Millville was 
 treated to a grand sensation when the Fergus bride 
 came home, accompanied by her ' slave.' There 
 was so much commotion about it, that a curious 
 thing happened: old Jane Fergus took up the 
 cudgels in defence of her daughter-in-law ! " 
 
 "Oh, lovely!" 
 
 " I knew that would interest you." 
 
 "Interest me? It tickles me to death. There's 
 nothing more certain in human nature than the 
 appeal of the under dog. If Millville had pitied 
 that child Cecile, her mother-in-law would have 
 hated her. But the confounded village took the 
 
 27
 
 Felicity 
 
 one way to make that unrelenting old woman 
 soften to the poor child. Why will people never 
 learn that persecution is the most foolish practice 
 in the world, that it makes the victims stubborner 
 and makes their cause seem more just when seen 
 through pity? If I hated a man, I should try to 
 make him successful; I'd never seek to do him 
 injury. Load him with gifts, and the world will 
 hate him. Harm him while he's down, and the 
 world will hate you." 
 
 ' Well, early in January, you know, Mississippi 
 voted for secession. That was pretty terrible, in 
 Millville. Then, ten days later, her senators with- 
 drew from the United States Senate, and within a 
 month Jeff Davis, a neighbor and friend of the 
 McClintocks, was elected President of the rebel 
 Confederacy. Soon after that happened, little 
 Cecile Fergus was hissed on the streets of Mill- 
 ville. It was only children, voicing the table-talk 
 of their elders, who yelled ' Secesh 1 ' after her and 
 threatened her with snowballs they never threw. 
 But it was as terrifying to her as if it had been 
 the whole populace of Massachusetts, backed by 
 artillery. 
 
 " After that, she wouldn't venture out of the 
 house again, but sat in her room, weeping piteously 
 and begging to be taken home. But she was far 
 too frail to stand the journey. Robert tried to get 
 her father to come to her, but he couldn't ; he was 
 
 28
 
 An Extraordinary Type 
 
 deeply concerned in the affairs of his state, and the 
 annual high water was menacing his plantation. 
 
 " Miss Amelia says it was wonderful to see her 
 mother in those days unbending as ever, and not 
 able in her withered age to learn any of the sweet 
 graces of loving standing over that poor child, 
 trying to keep unhappiness at bay." 
 
 At this point in her recital, Frances Allston could 
 not forbear a tender smile at her father's enthusi- 
 asm; she knew what spot she had touched in his 
 great range of interests. If there was one thing 
 that, more than all others, kindled the fires in his 
 blue eyes and brought the glow to his face, it was 
 any shred of commentary on his kind that contra- 
 dicted all the ordinary evidence about a character 
 and showed the outcropping gentleness of the harsh 
 or heroism of the weak or heart-hunger of the 
 churlish. He nodded comprehension when she 
 told him about Jane Fergus's grim surrender. 
 
 " She used to tell Cecile she mustn't cry so. 
 ' You'll mark your baby with tears,' she used to 
 say. And Cecile was terrified by the mystery and 
 responsibility, but she kept on crying. 
 
 ' The baby came on the last day of March, 
 and when the only thought of the distraught house- 
 hold was that Cecile was slipping away from them, 
 she startled them by shaking herself free for an 
 instant from the haze of pain and weakness, and 
 calling, ' Is my baby safe ? ' They showed her her 
 
 29
 
 Felicity 
 
 baby and she seemed satisfied and drifted off again. 
 But it seems that even in her dreams she must 
 have apprehended awful things, for whenever she 
 saw the baby she would seem so anxious about it, 
 and usually cry. Then, one day, when Zili- 
 anne was holding it for her to look at, and 
 she murmured ' Poor li'l baby,' so piteously, 
 the old mammy swore it was the finest baby she'd 
 ever seen and caught it up and nodded and laughed 
 to it and babbled till its wee face dimpled into a 
 smile, or what looked like one. ' Oh, see ! ' cried 
 the little mother, ' she's a happy baby ! See her 
 smile ! Felicite ! Felicite ! ' 
 
 " She was so much comforted by that smile that 
 she rallied a good deal, but that very day came 
 the news that Sumter was fired on, and try as they 
 might to keep it from her, she heard of it, and the 
 excitement drove her wild again. 
 
 ' The Sixth Massachusetts, mustered at Lowell 
 only a few miles away, was mobbed in Baltimore 
 five days later, and that set this community wild. 
 It mustered a company for a local regiment, and 
 in the spring evenings the recruits marched to the 
 sound of the fife and drum, past here on their way 
 to the common. Every sound drove Cecile to 
 frenzy. She was tormented with visions of her 
 father and Robert shooting each other to pieces. 
 
 " But by and by she seemed not to notice the 
 marching feet any more, and her tongue babbled 
 
 30
 
 An Extraordinary Type 
 
 of Briarwood Plantation. ' Take me home, Rob- 
 ert! ' she'd cry. ' Take me home! ' It was the 
 last thing she said, and two days after she died 
 he took her home, in the face of incredible difficul- 
 ties. Alec McClintock was in command of a regi- 
 ment, but he got leave to be at Briarwood long 
 enough to see his little girl laid beside her mother 
 in the plantation burial plot. And then, when he 
 was leaving to go back to the defence of his con- 
 federacy, Robert Fergus grasped his hand and said, 
 ' We separate, Alec McClintock, to opposite sides 
 of a terrible struggle. I can't take up arms against 
 my country, but neither can I take up arms against 
 you and the country where Cecile lies.' He came 
 home and joined the Sanitary Commission, and 
 when the cotton business became paralyzed by the 
 war, he went into active service in the hospital 
 camps, and died in the fever swamps across from 
 Vicksburg a few days after the surrender nomi- 
 nally of fever, but more really of a broken heart. 
 Three years later Alec McClintock took his uncof- 
 fined body from the trench where it lay and buried 
 it beside Cecile's at Briarwood. McClintock and 
 Amelia Fergus were left co-guardians of the child." 
 
 " And the child of all that sorrow is called 
 Felicity?" 
 
 " It was the only thing her poor little mother 
 had ever called her, and when the time for her bap- 
 tism came her father would hear of no other name
 
 Felicity 
 
 for her. He compromised with his mother on the 
 ' ty ' spelling, but that was all. How she's to be 
 Felicity, though, in that grim household, is more 
 than I can see, although she seems to be a born 
 sunbeam. There! didn't I tell you there was a 
 story back of her? " 
 
 " Yes," said Phineas, wiping his eyes, quite 
 frankly unashamed of his tears, " and if I know 
 anything of this world's probabilities, there's a 
 story ahead of her, too. Nature doesn't go to 
 those extraordinary pains to produce ordinary 
 types.**
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 TWO DECIDE FOR CELEBRITY 
 
 PROBABLY only one thing could have kept 
 Phineas Morton in Millville all summer, 
 but that thing happened: he fell ill before he had 
 been with his daughter a week, and after a sharp 
 attack of gastric fever was convalescent for inter- 
 minable days which were chiefly beguiled by Felic- 
 ity. The child was completely fascinated by him, 
 and he found her the winsomest thing he had 
 ever known. 
 
 Hour after hour, day after day, the old man 
 and the little girl sat together and held converse 
 about things he knew and things she knew and 
 things that never were on land or sea. Some- 
 times the boys, his grandsons, stayed with them 
 for a while, but the pressure of their vacation play 
 was great and their interests were more active 
 than Felicity's. As for her, nothing was of suffi- 
 cient charm to take her away from this wondrous 
 being who dreamed her dreams and yet other 
 dreams which he taught her; who knew equally 
 well about the hobgoblins and Queen Mary, and 
 who understood perfectly when you told him how 
 
 33
 
 Felicity 
 
 hard it was to keep from laughing in church 
 because the precentor looked so much like the 
 Cheshire Cat in that entrancing " Alice in Wonder- 
 land," on which Phineas had promptly pounced 
 for his own delectation and which he had delight- 
 edly shared with this little friend. Gran'ma didn't 
 think the precentor looked the least like any kind 
 of a cat, and if he did, that was a misfortune 
 not to be laughed at at any time, least of all in 
 God's house. Even Aunt Amelia failed to see 
 the resemblance, though she had seen the book, 
 and, questioned as to whether God thought it 
 wrong to laugh " if you couldn't hardly help it," 
 said she didn't know, but if Gran'ma thought so, 
 that was enough. 
 
 But Phineas, when Felicity pointed out to him 
 the precentor passing the house, saw the likeness 
 instantly, roared with hearty laughter at Felicity's 
 representation of how funny he looked when he 
 sang, and opined with convincing assurance that 
 God liked people, especially little people, to laugh 
 whenever they could. 
 
 This heresy, repeated at home, precipitated a 
 tremendous crisis; such crises, it seems, are nearly 
 always precipitated by some ludicrous happening. 
 
 At supper in the Fergus home Felicity listened 
 for the twentieth time to her grandmother's dis- 
 pleased comment on where she had spent her after- 
 noon. 
 
 34
 
 Two Decide for Celebrity 
 
 " I tell you, that play-actor's no fit company for 
 a child," she reiterated, when Felicity had obedi- 
 ently given account of herself since dinner. 
 
 " I can't see that he's doing her a bit of harm," 
 Amelia retorted, as always. Though she was 
 Felicity's guardian, she felt obliged to justify her- 
 self to her mother. 
 
 "You'll not see it till it's too late to mend," 
 said Jane Fergus, severely. And Felicity won- 
 dered till she was weary what irreparable harm 
 could come to her through Mr. Morton, and why 
 Gran'ma could not be made to feel as she felt his 
 fascinations. 
 
 She was coming early through her first experi- 
 ence of that universal distress in which we battle 
 with the prejudice of our powers that be against 
 our dearest enchantment. No one of us, presum- 
 ably, grows to maturity without suffering some 
 degree of the resentment that comes when ruthless 
 hands try to break the bonds of our willing thrall- 
 dom and set us free when we are wishful only to 
 stay bound. 
 
 Meditating on the strange perversity of 
 Gran'ma and wishing delicacy did not forbid her 
 asking Mr. Morton about it, she slipped from her 
 chair, when permission was granted, and went into 
 the kitchen, unfailing distraction for childish wor- 
 ries, to fill in a too brief interval before evening 
 prayers. 
 
 35
 
 Felicity 
 
 Zilianne, who had been her nurse while she 
 needed one, was a fixture in the household and now 
 filled the offices of cook. In the course of the 
 supper hour she had gone into her pantry and 
 found a mouse-trap sprung and a tiny, long-sought 
 culprit inside. 
 
 Felicity greeted the mouse with eager interest. 
 " Oh, what you goin' to do with him, Zilly? " 
 she cried. 
 
 " Sho' gwine ter drown 'im, honey," said the 
 old woman, " he bin a-eatin' mah cohn-meal; now 
 I'se ketched 'im I'se gwine mek 'im sorry fer 'is 
 sins." 
 
 " He's sorry now," pleaded Felicity, promptly. 
 
 " Not so sorry as he'm gwine ter be," promised 
 Zilianne, grimly. 
 
 Felicity began to cry. " Please don't, Zilly 
 please don't drown him ! Give him to me. an' I'll 
 carry him mi-iles away, where he can't ever get 
 back any more." 
 
 " How kin I gi' 'im ter you? You ain't think 
 I'se gwine ter let you traipse off wid mah onlies' 
 mice-trap, is you? I sho' wouldn' nevah see hit 
 agin." 
 
 " Give him to me in a little box, then. 
 Wait " 
 
 She was upstairs and down again in a twinkling, 
 bringing with her a small pasteboard box hastily 
 emptied of some doll-rag hoardings. 
 
 36
 
 Two Decide for Celebrity 
 
 " Put him in here, please, and I'll carry him 
 a-wa-ay off," she urged. 
 
 So Zilianne put the box down close to the trap 
 and lifted the wire door, then clapped the box cover 
 on and handed over the reprieved, with many cau- 
 tions. 
 
 " First I must poke holes in his housey, so he 
 can breathe," said Felicity, kindling with the fine 
 emotion of the savior and the more primitive thrill 
 of handling danger. " And then I must put him 
 in some supper, so he won't starve." 
 
 " Ain't gwine ter starve ter-night," grunted Zili- 
 anne, " he des' bustin' full o' yo' Gran'ma's cheese 
 an' meal." 
 
 " Well, le's put him in a piece for breakfas' ; 
 maybe he won't know how to find breakfas', far 
 away like I'm goin' to take him." 
 
 The cheese thus eloquently begged was scarcely 
 crammed through the air holes somewhat to the 
 exclusion of air when the call to prayers sounded 
 peremptorily from the sitting-room. 
 
 Felicity meant to keep " Mr. Mouse " until the 
 morning; it was asking too much of human nature 
 to expect she would give him up sooner. And any- 
 way, she was not allowed out of the yard after 
 supper. 
 
 To prayers, therefore, went Mr. Mouse which 
 was no more than proper after his narrow escape 
 from the destroyer and in his queerly. riddled 
 
 37
 
 Felicity 
 
 cardboard home was stealthily deposited in the 
 obscurest corner of the sitting-room, beyond which 
 corner, if the truth be told, Felicity's thoughts did 
 not once soar during Scripture reading and hymn- 
 singing. Then Gran'ma, looking over the top of 
 her spectacles at Felicity, asked solemnly: 
 
 "What is sin?" 
 
 Felicity started guiltily as she thought of Mr. 
 Mouse, then answered glibly: 
 
 " Sin is any want of conformity unto or trans- 
 gression of the law of God." 
 
 It was strange that Gran'ma's evening question, 
 selected at random from "The Shorter Catechism" 
 to keep Felicity from forgetting any of it, should 
 have proved so disconcerting. But Felicity, who 
 knew in a way what the big words meant, assured 
 herself that if keeping a poor little mouse over- 
 night was any want of conformity unto or trans- 
 gression of the law of God, she'd never been 
 told so. 
 
 She was so thinking as she knelt while Gran'ma 
 prayed, when there was a shrill scream, the prayer 
 came abruptly to an end, and she jumped up to 
 find Gran'ma shaking her voluminous, crinolined 
 skirts excitedly and crying, " Scat ! Scat ! " 
 
 For a moment Felicity was scared; her 
 Gran'ma's panic was so very real. But when Mr. 
 Mouse had been shaken down and had made good 
 his escape, she burst into gleeful laughter and 
 
 38
 
 Two Decide for Celebrity 
 
 laughed until she cried at which Gran'ma was 
 sufficiently recovered to be indignant. 
 
 ' What do you mean? " she asked the culprit, 
 sternly. 
 
 " Please, Gran'ma, it was so funny! " 
 
 " Everything is funny to you, it seems. That's 
 what comes of association with a buffoon." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 " A buffoon is a person who sees nothing but 
 fun in the misfortunes of others." 
 
 " I didn't know it was a misfortune, Gran'ma. 
 I was just thinking Mr. Mouse must be be so 
 surprised. He must 'a' thought he was in the 
 bigges' trap in the world! " 
 
 " Did you turn him loose in here? " 
 
 " No'm; I was keepin' him tight, an' he must 'a' 
 got out." 
 
 " He very certainly did," grimly. " But what 
 I find most fault with is, not the fright you gave 
 me, but your disrespectful enjoyment of my dis- 
 tress. If I had behaved so at your age, I should 
 have been punished terribly." 
 
 " Couldn't you ever laugh? " 
 
 " I never laughed at my. elders that's sure." 
 
 " Mr. Morton says God likes folks to laugh 
 whenever they can." 
 
 " And what, if you'll tell me, does Mr. Morton 
 know about God? " 
 
 "Oh, a lot! He told me." 
 
 39
 
 Felicity 
 
 " I don't doubt ! He'll make an atheist of you 
 before he's through. I can see now that you dis- 
 count your church and home teachings by what 
 he says, and I'll have no more of it this traffick- 
 ing with evil-doers. You'll keep away from that 
 man in the future mark my words ! Amelia may 
 let you go to the devil, but I'll not stand by and 
 be a party to it. I'm your keeper before God, 
 whether your father made me such or not. You're 
 my son's child, and I'll save your soul for you if 
 I can." 
 
 Felicity began to cry and Amelia told her to 
 go upstairs. Then followed a stormy session about 
 Felicity's associations. 
 
 " I told you all this would come of letting her 
 act in plays and spend her time with mummers," 
 said Jane Fergus. 
 
 " And I say that's all antediluvian bigotry," 
 retorted Amelia, " and that it's a great privilege 
 for Felicity to have the companionship of a man 
 like Mr. Morton." 
 
 " It's a privilege she'll have to forego, then," 
 said Jane, " as long as she's under my roof." 
 
 Encouraged by her rebellion much as a child 
 is encouraged when he omits his prayers and meets 
 no cataclysmic consequences, Amelia retreated in 
 good order, her cheeks flushed and her mouth as 
 determinedly set as her mother's. She made no 
 reply to her mother's ultimatum; she wanted the 
 
 40
 
 Two Decide for Celebrity 
 
 night to think it over. But she was not cowed, 
 and she knew it. 
 
 Upstairs, Felicity was waiting to be " unbut- 
 toned in the back " and to have her silken-fine, 
 fair hair done up in rag curlers hideously uncom- 
 fortable to sleep in, but considered indispensable 
 by Amelia, who hoped thus to correct a deficiency 
 which gave her sore concern. 
 
 When the bedtime preparations were completed 
 and the little, night-gowned figure was outstretched 
 in the small bed beside Amelia's own, the woman 
 who was finding vent thus belatedly for her 
 maternal passion, on a child not her own, sat down 
 in the dark by the wide-open window, to look out 
 into the summer night and to make the great 
 decision of her life. 
 
 Amelia Fergus was fifty-one. Youth was long 
 gone; middle age middle age for a spinster in 
 those days was nearly gone ; there remained only 
 the long, slow end. Life, in so far as it held that 
 expectancy which makes life worth living, was over 
 for her. For herself she could entertain no more 
 eagerness, dream no more dreams could antici- 
 pate only release. And that, before she had lived 
 at all ! No, no ! It must not be ! God never 
 mocked one so. He had given her this child, this 
 wonderful child, to live in; they would realize 
 together, she and Felicity 
 
 It was midnight when she crept to bed to finish 
 
 41
 
 Felicity 
 
 a restless night. An hour or so later Felicity sat 
 up in her little bed crying out, sleepily: 
 
 "Aunt Elie! One's out!" 
 
 And Amelia reached over and re-wound the 
 undone curl. Felicity knew by bitter experience 
 how unbecoming was the effect of a head with 
 many bobbing ringlets and one long, straight wisp, 
 and oftener than not she woke at night and cried 
 out to fend off such a mishap. 
 
 Toward morning Amelia fell into an exhausted, 
 dreamful sleep from which she did not wake when 
 the rising bell rang, nor until Felicity went to 
 her and shook her gently by the shoulders. To be 
 late to meals in Jane Fergus's house was a car- 
 dinal offence even the child had a dread of com- 
 mitting. 
 
 Recalled to that pitiless knowledge of her situ- 
 ation which she had mercifully forgotten for a 
 while in sleep, Amelia sat up, conscious of keen 
 regret that it was day so soon. 
 
 Felicity backed up to have her little petticoats 
 buttoned and Amelia, when she had done this, took 
 the child by the shoulders and wheeled her round, 
 facing her; looking deep into the brown eyes as 
 if searching for an answer in their velvety depths, 
 she asked: 
 
 "Felicity, would you like to be an actress?" 
 
 "How could I? I'm so little." 
 ' They have little girls, sometimes. Mr. Mor- 
 42
 
 Two Decide for Celebrity 
 
 ton has little girls in his plays. I think maybe if 
 we ask him he'll take you to play with him right 
 now, and then when you're grown up you might 
 be celebrated like he is." 
 
 " Is he cekrbated?" 
 
 " Yes, very." 
 
 " What is celerbated? " 
 
 " Celebrated ! It's being famous, well known 
 having ever and ever so many people like you, 
 and when you play they go to see you and applaud, 
 and you make lots of money and travel all over 
 the world, and everywhere you go people know 
 about you and try to do lovely things for you, 
 and you meet other celebrated people kings and 
 queens, sometimes and great writers and painters 
 and musicians; and everybody envies you and 
 wishes they were in your place, instead of feeling 
 sorry for you because you've never called your 
 soul your own." 
 
 Amelia was quite breathless when she finished 
 her description of celebrity which often recurred 
 to Felicity years afterwards. 
 
 " I'd like that," said Felicity. Then, lapsing 
 into a quaint Scotch idiom of her grandmother's, 
 she repeated, " I'd like it fine! " 
 
 Amelia laughed. 
 
 " Does Mr. Morton know kings and queens? " 
 Felicity asked, after a moment. 
 
 u I don't know, but some actors do. They play 
 
 43
 
 Felicity 
 
 before kings and queens and the kings and queens 
 give them elegant presents." 
 
 " I'd like that," said Felicity, jumping up and 
 down in glee; " what kind o' presents? " 
 
 " Oh, jewels, mostly, I believe diamonds and 
 things like that." 
 
 Felicity knew about diamonds, because some- 
 times Amelia unlocked a drawer and took out 
 Cecile's little trinkets that were to be Felicity's 
 some day. 
 
 They were still talking of the glittering emolu- 
 ments of celebrity when Felicity shrugged her wee 
 shoulders, made scared, solemn eyes, and clapped 
 both hands to her mouth. 
 
 "What's the matter?" questioned Amelia, 
 looking furtively behind her; but no one was 
 there. 
 
 " Gran'ma ! " said Felicity, in a half-wicked, 
 half-frightened way. She looked at Amelia and 
 bit her lip. " Gran'ma wouldn't let us." 
 
 " No," agreed Amelia, soberly, " she wouldn't. 
 But would you do it anyway ? I mean, would you 
 want to? If Gran'ma wouldn't let you, but I 
 would, would you go? " 
 
 " What would Gran'ma do? " 
 
 " I don't know," bitterly, " turn us out, I sup- 
 pose certainly refuse to speak to us for a long, 
 long time." 
 
 " I wouldn't like that." 
 
 44
 
 Two Decide for Celebrity 
 
 " Neither would I, but if you want to do great 
 things you have to do hard things first. I've 
 read about a lot of people who did, and they 
 always had to make a hard beginning; there was 
 always somebody who didn't want them to do the 
 thing that they were born to do." 
 
 ' Would Gran'ma be mad for keeps? " 
 
 " I don't know; she might, I can't tell." 
 
 " Wouldn't it be wicked to make her that 
 mad?" 
 
 If Amelia had needed anything to establish her 
 in her revolt she could have had nothing better 
 than this. Old wounds broke out afresh within 
 her, and the pain of them drove her wild. 
 
 " Listen to me," she commanded the wondering 
 child. They had been dressing as they talked, but 
 now they were done. 
 
 " If you always ask yourself what your Gran'ma 
 will think, every time you want to do anything, 
 you'll never get anything done do you hear? 
 you'll never get anything done ! That's what I 
 did, and there was never a thing I wanted to do 
 that I didn't give it up because she'd be mad if 
 I did it. Now, you sha'n't begin that way. Do 
 you understand? You sha'n't do it." 
 
 * Yes'm," said Felicity, thoroughly awed by her 
 aunt's vehemence. 
 
 ;< Well, then, give me your hand and come to 
 breakfast; there's the bell." And hand in hand the 
 
 45
 
 Felicity 
 
 rebels descended the stairs and entered the dining- 
 room. 
 
 Amelia was no tactician. It was not in her to 
 sit at meat with her mother in all apparent filial- 
 ness while harboring the determination to revolt. 
 Last night, when the thing was a temptation 
 merely, and she had not succumbed, it was differ- 
 ent. In Amelia's simple code she was entitled to 
 silence until she had decided, and then she was 
 constrained to a declaration. 
 
 Jane Fergus was sitting at a window in the 
 dining-room, reading her morning paper. 
 
 " Good-morning," she said, without looking up. 
 Jane was never the first to bridge an unpleas- 
 antness. 
 
 Amelia, still holding Felicity by the hand, stood 
 before her mother, a mixture of fear and defiance 
 in her attitude. 
 
 " Mother," she said, " I have something very 
 very important to tell you." 
 
 Jane Fergus laid down her paper. There was 
 a curious ring in Amelia's voice that somehow 
 brought instantly to mind the night when Robert 
 had announced his approaching marriage. 
 
 "Well?" she said; and waited. 
 
 It was desperately hard to begin, but Amelia 
 had done with faltering. 
 
 " I'm sorry you feel the way you do about 
 Mr. Morton, but he thinks Felicity has a talent 
 
 46
 
 Two Decide for Celebrity 
 
 for acting; he says its development should begin 
 now. I know you won't approve, but I can't help 
 it; I'm going to see if he will take her on the stage 
 I think he will. If he does it will be a wonder- 
 ful chance for her. I she wants to go and I I 
 think we ought not to stand in her way." 
 
 Jane Fergus ignored her daughter and fixed her 
 searching gaze on Felicity. 
 
 " Is this true? Are you wanting to go? " 
 
 Felicity looked from the compressed mouth and 
 keen eyes before her, to the compressed mouth and 
 unflinching eyes above her. She wanted to cry, to 
 fling her arms about her Gran'ma's neck and say 
 she would never be an actress never ! But some- 
 thing in Amelia's face restrained her and she 
 choked down the lump in her throat and answered : 
 
 " Yes'm." 
 
 4 This is your doing," said Jane Fergus, turning 
 to Amelia. ' To satisfy your own wicked ambition 
 you traffic this child's soul to the devil. I wash 
 my hands of you. Her blood be upon your head ! " 
 
 With this terrible pronouncement she took off 
 her spectacles, folded them into their case, and left 
 the room. 
 
 There was no breakfast eaten in the Fergus 
 household that morning. 
 
 47
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE NEW LIFE BEGINS WITHOUT " STRUTTING 
 
 IT was an odd little deputation that presented 
 itself at Mrs. Allston's about ten o'clock and 
 asked for Mr. Morton. Felicity usually came 
 blithely on her visits to her friend, but this morn- 
 ing she reflected Amelia's almost terrible serious- 
 ness and partook in some measure of her fright, so 
 that Phineas at once scented something unusual. 
 
 Without more strategy in leading up to her 
 business than she had used a little earlier in break- 
 ing with her mother, Amelia plunged immediately 
 into the middle of things. 
 
 " Mr. Morton," she began, abruptly, almost as 
 soon as they had said good-morning, " will you 
 take Felicity and make an actress of her? " 
 
 Phineas was staggered for a moment. Since 
 learning Felicity's history and something of the 
 characteristics of the household dominated by Jane 
 Fergus, he had abandoned all thought of Felicity 
 as a possible recruit to the stage, in her childhood 
 at least. She might revolt when she was grown, 
 he thought, and the dull fret of Federal Street 
 had worn on her vivid nature oast endurance ; but 
 
 48
 
 The New Life 
 
 that she would be sharer in Amelia's long-overdue 
 assertion of her rights, he had never reckoned on. 
 The companionship of the fanciful little creature 
 had been very welcome to him in his convalescence, 
 but hardly since the day of the show in the barn 
 had he thought of her as a child of the road he 
 loved; always he seemed to see her chained to 
 Federal Street, and restless, fluttering. 
 
 He knew such things always leak out, and the 
 more quickly and surely when a child knows them 
 that Mrs. Fergus had discountenanced, all 
 along, Felicity's association with him, even with 
 his grandsons, and her participation in the plays 
 in the barn; and that Amelia had set her authority 
 against her mother's wishes and overruled. But 
 that the middle-aged woman, growing old in sub- 
 jection, would ever take such a step as this was so 
 far from likelihood that he had never for a mo- 
 ment contemplated it. 
 
 So, when Amelia asked him if he would take 
 Felicity and make an actress of her, Phineas 
 hesitated. 
 
 "Are you sure you want her to be one?" he 
 asked. 
 
 ' You said you thought she could," Amelia 
 answered, " and I'm sure I want her to have a 
 chance to be what she can; it's what I never had, 
 and I mean that she shall be allowed to do better 
 with her life than I have done with mine." 
 
 49
 
 Felicity 
 
 " But pardon me, dear lady you know so lit- 
 tle about the life of the theatre and what it entails. 
 I love the life, and am glad every day that I have 
 lived no other. But I kept my daughter from it 
 because I loved her so with what wisdom I am 
 not yet able to say and I shouldn't encourage one 
 of her children to go on the stage unless his bent 
 for it was so strong we couldn't keep him off. 
 Now, I couldn't even enter into a discussion of the 
 stage for Felicity, here, without warning you that 
 it's a hard life, a perilous life, and a life that'll be 
 terribly strange to you and to her. If you were to 
 take her and go to be a missionary to the cannibals, 
 you would hardly find yourselves in stranger sur- 
 roundings than you'll meet with in stageland. And 
 you may stake everything on this cast of the die 
 and find after all that she lacks some quality essen- 
 tial in an actress. It's a big step, dear lady." 
 
 " I know; but I want her to take a big step of 
 some sort before her will gets so paralyzed she 
 can't. If I let her wait until she's grown, she'll 
 have learned the habit of submission then and 
 if the old dominance is gone, she'll find a new one 
 to bow to. I don't care if she does have to fight ! 
 Fighting's better than brooding and regretting 
 anything's better than lifelong regretting! " 
 
 " But she might regret the very life you're 
 taking her from ! How would you bear her re- 
 proaches then? " 
 
 50
 
 The New Life 
 
 " She can go back to the old life if she wants to; 
 but if she stays there she'll never get out." 
 
 " The chances of her getting out are far, far 
 better than the chances of her getting back, dear 
 lady. There's not much going back in this vaga- 
 bond life of ours. We think, sometimes, we'd like 
 to, but we soon unlearn all the home-biding ways, 
 and it's precious hard to learn them again." 
 
 " But whether one goes or stays, one must take 
 chances of regret," insisted Amelia. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then, if you please, I'll venture on Felicity's 
 behalf." 
 
 " Good! I felt it was only square to warn you, 
 but I like your pluck. If it hadn't been for deter- 
 mination like yours the stage would have been a 
 pretty poor institution, for I don't suppose any one 
 ever went on it with the consent of his family 
 not even if they were actors themselves. I ran 
 away, myself, to be an actor, and was called a fool 
 and a disgrace to my family." 
 
 "Oh, did you?" 
 
 Phineas smiled tenderly at Amelia's eagerness. 
 ' There's nothing in the world," he used to say, 
 " like being able to say to the other fellow, ' I've 
 been through this same hard row you're travelling, 
 and I give you my word for it, it gets easier as you 
 get farther along.' It's worth all it costs, to be 
 able to say that, sometimes." 
 
 51
 
 Felicity 
 
 " Yes," he said, reminiscently, " I ran away, 
 when I was twenty, and got to London, somehow 
 my folks lived in Surrey, and I was bound out 
 there to a bookseller. But some strolling players, 
 with a taste for certain high-flavored old books, 
 used to frequent our place, and I heard them talk, 
 and saw them act, and learned from them some- 
 thing of actors' haunts and ways and one fine 
 morning there was an apprentice missing from his 
 work and a silly coot missing from his good, quiet 
 home, and a fair distance toward London on the 
 king's highway was a lad trudging along what he 
 called the Road to Fame. Ah, well ! it turned out 
 to be that, or something like it, but I had no reason 
 to expect that it would. There was everything 
 against me everything but a mouth as wide as 
 my face, almost, and an agile pair of heels. 
 
 " I went, in London, to that Light Horse tavern, 
 in Orange Court, which was known as the House 
 of Call for Actors, and there fell in with a merry 
 lot of jesters who belonged to the stage and mocked 
 the pretensions of aspirants. That was a great 
 place, and a great company. It was there I used 
 to see Charles Lamb and some of his cronies, come 
 to enjoy the hilarious fun. And it was there that 
 a strolling player induced me to pay all I had in the 
 world five pounds for the privilege of playing 
 Horatio (fancy me Horatio !) in a benefit perform- 
 ance he was getting up. The benefit was an- 
 
 52
 
 The New Life 
 
 nounced for the Widow of an Officer, but if there 
 was any such who benefited by it, she must have 
 been a prospective bride of my stroller, and that 
 was a doubtful benefit for any woman. He sold 
 off the parts to stage-struck hangers-on of the Light 
 Horse all but Hamlet, which he played himself 
 and we actually appeared at the Haymarket. 
 But no manager, seeing my Horatio, was struck 
 with my genius; I had paid all my capital for my 
 little hour upon the stage, and that seemed likely 
 to be the last as well as the first, until my light 
 heels got me some fame among the tavern folk, 
 and I discovered a grotesque value in my mouth. 
 It would take a week, dear lady, to tell you all 
 the things that befell me after that of my coming 
 to America, my years with the Black Face boys 
 God bless 'em! and all the rest. Forty-five 
 years, almost, I've trod the boards, and if there's 
 any vicissitude possible to a vagabond player that 
 I haven't known, I've never heard of it. But 
 there isn't a day of it I regret there isn't any 
 man on earth I'd change experiences with. 
 
 " Now, the ordinary thing for you to do with 
 Felicity would be to take her to Boston or New 
 York, and try to get the managers of resident com- 
 panies to give her a chance when they put on a 
 play that has a child part. That would give you 
 a quiet life, not necessarily very different from 
 what you know now. But there's no dearth of 
 
 53
 
 Felicity- 
 actors' children available for that sort of thing, 
 and you'd have a dickens of a time getting a 
 chance at it. It just happens that I am one of 
 the few, the very few, men who carry a company 
 that is, instead of travelling with only my stage 
 manager and playing with stock companies here 
 and there, I take all my own players with me. My 
 plays never call for a large cast, and I can do this, 
 though it's a lot of an undertaking and meets with 
 a good deal of prejudice. Jefferson does it, and I 
 do it, and there are two or three others who do it; 
 everybody else adheres to the old system, which is 
 more comfortable, perhaps, for the support, but 
 more precarious for the star. Now, I'll tell you : 
 my company begins rehearsals in Boston the last 
 Monday in this month, and we open in Providence 
 on the 1 6th of September. You get Felicity ready 
 and I'll take her along; I always have a child's 
 part in my plays, and I'll take personal interest in 
 seeing what I can do to break her in." 
 
 Amelia looked the thanks she could not speak. 
 
 " What is * ready '?" she asked. 
 
 " Oh, two or three little childish white dresses 
 for the stage, so she'll always have one clean; and 
 whatever you want her to have for fall and winter 
 wear off the stage. You'd better stock her up 
 pretty well, for she'll have to travel in the care of 
 the wardrobe woman, who is too busy to have much 
 time for her." 
 
 54
 
 The New Life 
 
 Phineas made this shot after having taken care- 
 ful aim, and he was gratified by unmistakable evi- 
 dence that it had gone straight to the mark. 
 Amelia's face instantly was the picture of despair. 
 
 " Where," she faltered, piteously, " where am 
 I to be?" 
 
 Phineas feigned surprise. " Why, I really 
 hadn't thought," he said, " but Felicity's part will 
 be small and her pay will not be nearly enough to 
 cover your expenses on the road. The wardrobe 
 woman in my company has not much to do, and 
 she is always hired with the understanding that 
 she's to have charge of any child or children in the 
 organization. It's a job, carrying children, but I've 
 had too many catastrophes trying strange ones." 
 
 Amelia seemed to be turning something of tre- 
 mendous importance over in her mind. 
 
 "What else," she asked with ill-concealed pur- 
 pose, " does the wardrobe woman do? " 
 
 " Sews, mostly; keeps the stage costumes in 
 order and sees that they are properly put on in 
 the case of the minor players." 
 
 Narrowly, from under half-closed lids which 
 seemed quite unobserving, Phineas watched the 
 emotions working in her face. 
 
 " Could I couldn't I be the wardrobe wo- 
 man?" she begged eagerly. Then, as if to 
 fend off the denial she feared, " I couldn't let 
 Felicity go out of my care. I want her to have her 
 
 55
 
 Felicity 
 
 chance, but I should die without her if I couldn't 
 care for her. I didn't know how you managed 
 things, but I never dreamed of letting her go with- 
 out me." 
 
 There was a quaver in her voice now, and 
 Phineas had no armor against tears. Although 
 he was only a dozen years Amelia's senior, he had 
 seen so much more than she, lived so much more 
 variously, that he felt like her grandsire, and there 
 was a grandfatherly benevolence in his touch and 
 in his tone as he laid his hand on her shoulder and 
 said: 
 
 " Well, well ! we'll see, dear lady, we'll see ! I'll 
 have to communicate with my business manager 
 and see if he has a wardrobe woman engaged. 
 But we'll be about this part of the world for some 
 weeks, so don't you worry yet about giving up 
 your little girl eh, Felicity? " 
 
 " No, sir," said Felicity, awed beyond the power 
 of thinking speech but answering mechanically as 
 she thought she was expected to. 
 
 " We have a little money, Felicity and I," 
 Amelia explained, " but it's not much, and I don't 
 know if any of it could be made available just now. 
 Grandfather McClintock, in Mississippi, is as poor 
 as a church mouse, after the war, and our mills 
 here are not worth what they were once. Felicity 
 owns her father's share and I own mine, but the 
 whole income last year net income, I mean 
 
 56
 
 The New Life 
 
 was only about three thousand dollars. We ought 
 to sell and let the mills have active, man's manage- 
 ment, but mother can't bear to think of the Fergus 
 mills operated by strangers. I can work, though ! 
 I can sew I can do anything but part from 
 Felicity!" 
 
 Then Felicity, still clinging, as when she came, 
 to Amelia's hand, sobbed heart-brokenly. 
 
 " I don't want to be a waitress without Aunt 
 Elie!" 
 
 " You sha'n't, dear child, you sha'n't," promised 
 Phineas, his own eyes brimming. 
 
 " Mercy me ! " he meditated, blowing his nose 
 vigorously after Amelia and Felicity had gone, 
 " seems to me I never was present at so solemn an 
 embarkation. I feel almost as excited as that poor 
 woman does more excited than I did the day I 
 ran away to be an actor. Blame me ! I was too 
 fool-young then to know what I was doing, and it 
 was easy to run. But this woman feels the wrench 
 to the limit, and, by gad ! it's tragic. I hope the 
 child's worth it ! " 
 
 Amelia went home in a state of mind familiar 
 to all who have lived long enough to learn that 
 pure exultation never comes after youth's unthink- 
 ingness is past. She had won her case, the heavy 
 doors of her prison-house stood open for her at 
 last, and the wide, wide world invited her. But 
 already she was so desperately homesick for 
 
 57
 
 Felicity 
 
 the old familiar frets, so compassionate of her 
 mother's suffering, that she could scarcely see 
 through her tears the outward-swinging gates. 
 
 She was in her room when she saw her mother 
 come home at noon from the mill; Jane Fergus 
 always spent the mornings at the mill, and this 
 day of wrath made no exception. It was cruelly 
 hot, this blazing August noonday, and whether 
 from the wilting heat or from other causes, Jane's 
 large figure seemed to droop pathetically. She 
 was an old woman, Amelia reflected past three 
 score and ten and she had suffered much. It was 
 hard, bitterly hard, to go away and leave her all 
 alone in the chill twilight of her life. 
 
 " It's not worth this price," she sobbed, " noth- 
 ing's worth this price; " and she went downstairs 
 to tell her mother they wouldn't go. 
 
 Jane Fergus had been to her room, off the sit- 
 ting-room, and had removed her widow's bonnet 
 and black henrietta-cloth dress (no persuasion 
 availed to make her appear in public less formally 
 gowned) and now wore an old black silk skirt and 
 a loose, white dimity sacque. Her face was very 
 red, but there was not a hair ruffled in her sleek 
 coiffure. She looked formidable again, in her 
 composure, and Amelia's courage, born of tender- 
 ness, oozed rapidly. But she lost no time. 
 
 " Mother," she began abruptly, " I we are 
 not going we've decided not to go." 
 
 58
 
 The New Life 
 
 " Why not? " The question was sharp, passion- 
 less, judicial. Amelia wavered. 
 
 " Why, we I I don't think we ought to, if 
 you disapprove so much." 
 
 " You never were imagining for one moment 
 I'd approve? " 
 
 " No, mother." 
 
 ' Then how do you find, so sudden, my disap- 
 proving hinders you? " 
 
 Amelia was silent, and her mother, scenting a 
 conciliation that was not defeat, said sharply: 
 
 " Don't try to deceive me ! I'd as lief you went 
 now as when my poor old bones are rotting." 
 
 It was such a bald statement of the very reason- 
 ing wherewith Amelia had salved the smarting of 
 delay that she started, guiltily. 
 
 " D'ye think," her mother went on, remorse- 
 lessly, " that I could live in the house with you the 
 remaining years of my life, knowing that the 
 minute my tongue is still ye'll be away to your 
 fleshpots ? Go your ways ! Ye've nursed rebellion 
 again me these many years d'ye think I've not 
 known it? now you can go and no coming 
 back, mind ! You make your bed, and you can lie 
 in it." 
 
 Phineas was one of the earliest of the comedians 
 to depart from the old standard comedies in which 
 there were, properly, no star parts, and act in plays 
 
 59
 
 Felicity 
 
 specially written for the exploitation of such a 
 modern spirit as he exemplified. He had been a 
 faithful student of the French method and de- 
 lighted in perfect ensemble playing so much that 
 he was one of the first to indulge in the expense 
 of a travelling support, but he contended that in 
 the most perfect picture an artist always concen- 
 trates attention on some one point, always focuses 
 on a central figure, always intends that some part 
 shall dominate, and the others, however perfectly 
 done, shall subordinate. And so, believing in him- 
 self as a superior artist, and knowing himself to be 
 a personality the public liked to applaud, he chose 
 his plays and his players, as he said, " to suit his 
 complexion." 
 
 Another of his theories about that art of the 
 drama to which he had given his life was that a 
 majority of actors are spoiled by a too-great con- 
 sciousness of their audiences and too-little absorp- 
 tion in their parts and in the play. He never went 
 so far as to contend that a player should forget 
 himself in his part; he knew the dangers of that, 
 both for the individual player and for the ensemble 
 work of the whole cast. But he hated alike playing 
 to the boxes and playing to the gallery, and be- 
 lieved that the more account an actor took of his 
 audience the worse he played. 
 
 " Of course you've got to remember there's an 
 audience there," he was wont to say, " and direct 
 
 60
 
 The New Life 
 
 your voice so it'll reach 'em, and omit, whenever 
 possible, to turn your back on 'em, and otherwise 
 keep in mind that you're a paid entertainer, and 
 not soliloquizing. But more people go on the 
 stage because they want to preen and prance for 
 people in the seats than go on because they believe 
 they've got a mimetic gift, and that's how we get 
 so much silly attitudinizing. We all know how 
 abominably a child acts when it becomes conscious 
 of being watched, and most actors behave worse. 
 It's the essence of good dramatic training to learn 
 how to be conscious but never to seem so." 
 
 For years he had wrestled, now more, now less 
 vainly, with people he played with, to bring them 
 to his way of thinking. Now, in his ripe age, 
 when he inclined to exact less and less of human 
 nature and to allow more and more for its essen- 
 tial weaknesses, he believed it was asking too much 
 to ask any but a born mime to step across the 
 footlights and not strut for those left behind. He 
 had worn himself weary in this asking; now he had 
 a new plan to interest him. 
 
 Felicity had never seen a play and had no notion 
 of the theatre, nor of acting for applause; the joy 
 of the pretence was all that animated her. He 
 was delighted with the prospect of experimenting 
 with her and revolved in his mind an infinite num- 
 ber of pleasant schemes. 
 
 Accordingly, when she and Amelia had estab- 
 61
 
 Felicity 
 
 lished themselves in their Boston boarding-house, 
 he called one day, before rehearsals had begun, 
 and took Felicity for a walk in the Common and 
 the Public Gardens. 
 
 Up and down the broad shaded avenues of the 
 good old Common they walked, hand clasped in 
 hand, Felicity skipping a little now and then as 
 with an occasional bubbling over of the pot of joy, 
 as he told her story after story about events these 
 places recalled. Everything was a story to Phin- 
 eas, and, Englishman though he was, he had a 
 great enthusiasm for many of the things the Com- 
 mon calls to mind. After they had walked until 
 they were tired, they sat down on a bench and fed 
 the squirrels and petted some puppies a man had 
 for sale. Then Felicity begged: 
 
 " Tell me another story, please." 
 
 And he began, in the most entrancing fashion 
 ever devised, " Once upon a time " and told her, 
 without intimating what it was, the story of his 
 new play, in which there was " a nice, nice, nice old 
 man, just like me, and a dear, dearer, dearest little 
 girl, just like you." 
 
 It was a beautiful story, and when Phineas asked 
 how she would like to play she was that little girl, 
 she nodded delightedly at him and said she would. 
 
 ; ' Well, when the little girl, Amy, hears the 
 strange man ask her Grandpa, ' Was there a 
 child? ' she runs in and throws her arms about her 
 
 62
 
 Thus he rehearsed Felicity in her first part.
 
 The New Life 
 
 Grandpa's neck and cries, ' Here I am, Grandpa ! ' 
 and Grandpa says, ' Here you are, dear little girl 1 ' 
 and holds you like this, while he talks to the man 
 and strokes your curls " 
 
 " Mine are not really curly," interrupted Fe- 
 licity, with painful honesty, " only rag curls what 
 Aunt Elie makes." 
 
 Phineas smiled. " Well, lots of things on the 
 stage aren't any realer. And, as I was saying, 
 while Grandpa strokes your curls you don't say 
 a word. Then he gets into an argument " 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 " Oh, I forgot you've never had any at your 
 house that it was no use," he answered, chuckling. 
 
 " No, sir," said Felicity, gravely, not in the 
 least knowing what an argument was or how one 
 got in it or what one did while in, " it wouldn't 
 have been any use to us; we " with sudden inspi- 
 ration " we didn't keep any horse." 
 
 Phineas laughed so loudly at this as to attract 
 the attention of some passers-by, and here and there 
 among them one nudged another and whispered. 
 But Phineas Morton was used to that. 
 
 Thus he rehearsed Felicity in her first part 
 now in the August sunshine on the Boston Com- 
 mon, now in the boarding-house parlor. Finally, 
 when the company was well under way with its 
 rehearsals, she went several times to the theatre 
 and learned her entrances and exits and got 
 
 63
 
 Felicity 
 
 acquainted with her fellow-players. There was 
 so much to see, so much to wonder at, on the occa- 
 sions of these visits to the big stage, that her 
 thoughts never once strayed across the cold foot- 
 lights to the interminable rows of shrouded chairs 
 which would hold their thousands and hundreds 
 of thousands come to see her, ere her day on the 
 stage was done. 
 
 The stage manager was more than dubious 
 about this experiment of The Old Man, as they 
 all called him. 
 
 " Ten to one, when she sees the audience she'll 
 walk right on over the footlights," he said, " or 
 turn and flee for the wings." 
 
 But The Old Man was willing to risk it, and 
 events proved him justified. In Providence, on the 
 first night, Felicity stood in the wings holding tight 
 to Amelia's hand until she heard her cue, then ran 
 on crying her little lines as gayly as if only Phineas 
 were on the stage. 
 
 The applause with which an audience invariably 
 greets a child performer startled her for an instant, 
 but Morton caught her as he had so often done in 
 their play-times and swung her high above his head 
 in gleeful greeting, so that she forgot the strange 
 sound of hands clapping and laughed in genuine 
 childish delight to be tossed so high. 
 
 Felicity's debut was accomplished, her new life 
 was begun. 
 
 64
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE NEW LIFE GROWS TIRESOME, WITHOUT 
 " STRUTTING " 
 
 " T SEE," said Frances Allston, reading from the 
 J. Lowell Citizen, " that ' Phineas Morton 
 opened his annual tour in Providence last night, 
 playing, as always, to a packed and enthusiastic 
 house. The star was in fine form, and his new 
 play, The Return, is admirably adapted to tfie 
 exploitation of those charming talents which have 
 made Mr. Morton one of the best loved men on 
 the American stage.' Now, is there another actor 
 in the world, do you suppose, who is so unfail- 
 ingly spoken of in terms of affection as father? I 
 think he ought to be the proudest and happiest man 
 alive." 
 
 ' You've heard him say, often enough, how far 
 from filling fame is." Herbert Allston would 
 not have been human had he felt no envy of the 
 admiration Frances lavished on her father. Him- 
 self a quiet, substantial business man about whose 
 charms or whose achievements no one could ever 
 have expatiated, he had moments of bitter resent- 
 ment that so much fuss should be made about 
 
 65
 
 Felicity 
 
 attractiveness and geniality and so little about 
 integrity and diligence. He knew himself for a 
 man infinitely more reliable than his father-in-law, 
 and innocent of a score of big and little failings 
 which marked that "prince of vagabonds"; but 
 the world, it seemed, and Frances in particular, 
 took small account of what you resisted and exag- 
 gerated account of the pleasure you gave it. It 
 was all very well for people who didn't know 
 any better about the obverse side of celebrity, but 
 Frances ought to have a better opinion of stability. 
 If she hadn't well, a woman shouldn't marry a 
 man unless she admired and desired his particular 
 gifts above those of any one else ! 
 
 But Frances, who followed with intense inter- 
 est every step in her father's career and lavished 
 on him an adoring love few women can feel for 
 two men, was quite oblivious to the wistfulness 
 of that plain man, her husband. 
 
 " Fame," she retorted, cheerily enough, " may 
 not be very filling to those that earn it, but it's 
 a heap of satisfaction to those that love them. I 
 dare say father's fame is more joy to me than it is 
 to him, and I'm sure mother was always prouder 
 of him than any human being could be of himself. 
 Father always says no one can be proud of himself, 
 because those who do things are so painfully con- 
 scious of the distance between what they have done 
 and what they tried to do." 
 
 66
 
 The New Life Grows Tiresome 
 
 " Does it say anything about Felicity? " asked 
 Morton, indicating the paper. 
 
 His mother laughed. " Strangely enough, not 
 a word." Then, " I hope Jane Fergus sees this," 
 she said, resentfully remembering how Jane had 
 considered Phineas unfit for Felicity's companion- 
 ship. 
 
 Over in the Fergus house was a strange situ- 
 ation : Jane Fergus was there alone with black 
 Zilianne, whose heart had broken with hers at 
 the departure of the twain seeking opportunity. 
 Every effort to excuse the rebels that poor Zilly 
 made, Jane sternly silenced but it was her one 
 comfort that Zilly continued to make them. 
 
 " I hears," said Zilly, " dat mos' ob de slabes 
 dat Abe Linkum made inter free niggers was glad 
 ter run erway but heap gladder ter run back agin. 
 If you-all is fotch up er slabe, hit's mighty hard ter 
 enjy bein' er free nigger. Dey'll come back, shore 
 nuff," she would conclude, with absolute innocence 
 of irony. 
 
 " I don't want them back," Jane Fergus would 
 declare, firmly. 
 
 ' Yes, you does, Ole Miss, yes, you does," Zilly 
 insisted, "you cain't fool God thataway! He 
 done know you better'n you know yo'se'f, an' He 
 gwine ter bring 'em back an' mek 'em eat yo' fat 
 calf like He say." 
 
 Jane did see the Lowell Citizen and put it in 
 
 67
 
 Felicity 
 
 the stove. She saw, too, a Boston paper of three 
 weeks' later date, containing a column account of 
 the metropolitan opening and granting a line to 
 Felicity Fergus, " who, as the child, Amy, was 
 winsome." 
 
 That line made a profounder impression on the 
 Allston boys than all they had ever seen in print 
 about their grandfather. Celebrity seemed the 
 inevitable thing for him, but when Felicity had 
 actually got her name in the paper it made them 
 feel that they had been very close to greatness. 
 
 The following Saturday they were taken in to 
 Boston " to see Felicity act " as they persisted 
 in saying. And, sitting with their mother in a 
 stage box, they were only with difficulty restrained 
 from calling out to Felicity, when she came run- 
 ning on. 
 
 After the matinee Grandfather gave a party, a 
 stage tea-party he called it, and had a beautiful 
 supper sent over from the Parker House and 
 served on the stage set with a country door-yard 
 scene for the first act. 
 
 Then the boys heard how Felicity " liked to 
 act " which was none too well, already and 
 Amelia plied Frances with questions about Jane 
 Fergus, concerning whom Mrs. Allston could only 
 report that she seemed to be well and that it was 
 said she never mentioned the seceders to any one in 
 Millville. 
 
 68
 
 The New Life Grows Tiresome 
 
 The boys told Felicity how they had tried to give 
 plays without her, and failed; how, after rejecting 
 all those plays wherein she had been the star, they 
 had settled upon one that called for very light 
 feminine support: " Settlers Crossing the Western 
 Plains." This required Indians, " horses," a set- 
 tler and his family, an express wagon, and a brave 
 scout. No one, needless to say, wished to be the 
 horses, and no one was anxious, to say the least, 
 to be the settler. Even the scout's role was appor- 
 tioned with some difficulty, so great was the desire 
 to be an Indian. But, alas ! these troubles were as 
 nothing when they came to look for a girl who 
 would trust herself and her family of dolls in 
 Morton's express wagon while Indians attacked her 
 and the horses pranced in fright and the brave 
 scout, riding on a stick bronco, came galloping up 
 to aid her husband's defence. No use to tell those 
 timorous little Sarahs and Sophias and Harriets 
 and Emilys who lived in the neighborhood, that 
 " Felicity would have been it ! " They were 
 stolidly unmoved in their determination not to be 
 " tommyhawked " and as no boy would take a 
 matronly part, the whole thing had to be aban- 
 doned in favor of a battle piece with scouts and 
 Indians only. It was a significant thing, by the 
 way, that none of the battles of the past few years 
 was ever re- fought in Millville, where, though any 
 boy would gladly " be " a screaming, scalping 
 
 69
 
 Felicity 
 
 Indian, no boy would consent for a moment to 
 " be " a gray-clad Confederate. 
 
 Phineas was much interested in the boys' account 
 of this dramatic endeavor, and more interested 
 to note its effect on Felicity, who already was 
 tired of the routine and the exactions of her new 
 life. 
 
 She was tired of saying her same little lines 
 over and over and doing always the same identical 
 things and no others under penalty. She missed 
 childish companionship and would have been glad, 
 many a time, to go back to Federal Street and play 
 settler's wife or cannibals en masse or any other 
 role, in the Allston barn. 
 
 She admitted as much to Phineas, after the boys 
 were gone. 
 
 " But just think how they envied you," ventured 
 Phineas, craftily, " how grand they think it is to 
 play in a real play as you do." 
 
 " Do they?" eagerly. 
 
 There was that in her manner which made Phin- 
 eas smile whimsically. "Alas, for the best laid 
 philosophies ! " he said, " human nature's stronger 
 than 'em all." 
 
 " Sir? " said Felicity, wonderingly. 
 
 ; ' Would you like to go back to Millville to 
 stay? " he asked, as if that were a re-wording of 
 his unintelligible remark. 
 
 " No, sir," promptly, " not to stay only for 
 70
 
 The New Life Grows Tiresome 
 
 sometimes, when I'm lonesome. But I s'pose I 
 can't if I want to be a waitress." 
 
 Phineas shook his head and looked at her with 
 that kind of smile he had which made one hesitate 
 whether to laugh or cry. " Already, poor baby," 
 he murmured, " already ! " 
 
 Felicity really had a good deal to stand. 
 Amelia's ambition for her was inexorable and her 
 ways, touching health, looks, and education, were 
 rigorous. 
 
 " I don't want to be so fine ! " Felicity wailed, 
 daily, in protest. But Amelia said, " You have to 
 be ! " as if that settled it which indeed it did. 
 She had become a past-mistress of beauty secrets 
 and Felicity was the object of all her experiments. 
 Every mouthful the child ate, she watched closely 
 and at least thrice daily would pounce on some 
 forbidden morsel half way to Felicity's mouth on 
 fork or spoon or in her fingers. " That'll ruin 
 your teeth!" she'd pronounce against one; and 
 ' That'll spoil your complexion ! " she'd declare 
 against another. 
 
 She had abandoned the curling-rags and taken, 
 instead, to making the child's hair more and more 
 silky, since it refused to be curly. It seemed to 
 Felicity that she spent hours, every day, having her 
 hair brushed ; that she never wanted to do anything 
 that she was not called away to scrub valiantly at 
 her teeth or to suffer some other species of boredom 
 
 71
 
 Felicity 
 
 in the interests of her good looks. There was 
 no keeping pace with Amelia's zeal for her and she 
 fretted a good deal under the constraint of trying; 
 so that poor Amelia had a heavy burden to bear, 
 what with her soreness of heart about her mother, 
 and her dislike of the roving life, and Felicity's 
 resentment of the measures taken, at so great cost, 
 in her behalf. 
 
 In December they reached New York, where 
 they could settle down, as the engagement was to 
 be a long one. Amelia and Felicity found a com- 
 fortable boarding place not far from Madison 
 Square and thither, every day, the child was taken 
 for exercise which, with her, had come to take the 
 place of romping, childish play. Amelia bought 
 her a " hoople " and taught her to roll it up and 
 down the smooth walks while she sat by and kept 
 the child in sight. But Felicity, after the novelty 
 wore off, hated her hoople as the lonely child hates 
 any kind of solitary sport and refused to roll it 
 save under compulsion. 
 
 Phineas, appealed to, said she must have some 
 childish companionship. " Try to find some lit- 
 tle girl who will be frankly impressed with Felic- 
 ity's ' acting,' " he said, " she needs the stimulus 
 of envy, poor baby." 
 
 " I was all wrong about strutting," he confided 
 to George Holland one day when he met that fine 
 comedian and stepped aside with him for a soul- 
 
 72
 
 The New Life Grows Tiresome 
 
 swopping. "Strut?" he went on, whimsically, 
 " why, we all strut, on and off the boards for 
 our other selves, if we have no better audience. I 
 guess it's the chance for strutting for some one that 
 keeps most of us up and doing; there must always 
 be somebody who seems impressed or we fall to 
 thinking about quietuses and bare bodkins." 
 
 As much interested in this as he had been, five 
 months ago, in the opposite theory, Phineas began 
 to devote himself to Felicity's need of applause. 
 The hand-clapping of strangers across the foot- 
 lights meant nothing to her. Neither did the 
 kindly comment of other actor-folk she met when 
 with him. What she needed was the wide-eyed, 
 open-mouthed envy of another little girl, Phineas 
 decided. 
 
 Accordingly, he took her to Madison Square one 
 afternoon and, singling out a girl he thought the 
 likeliest, he soon had her engaged in a race around 
 the Square with Felicity a hoople-chasing race, 
 from which they returned flushed, breathless, and 
 happy. 
 
 Then Phineas told them a story, while they 
 rested on the bench beside him, one on either side. 
 And he wrote a pass for the little girl and her 
 mother so she could go, Saturday afternoon, to see 
 Felicity act. 
 
 After that, he could leave the affair to itself 
 with proper cautioning of Amelia not to spoil it. 
 
 73
 
 Felicity 
 
 Amelia, poor soul, was delighted to see how 
 Felicity throve on this new happiness. But alas! 
 the new friend had no sooner become satisfyingly 
 familiar than she became a dissatisfying criterion. 
 
 " Ella don't have to do this ! " wailed Felicity, 
 when she was summoned from her doll play to have 
 her hair brushed or to take a nap. 
 
 " * Doesn't,' not ' don't,' " corrected Aunt Elie. 
 
 " Ella don't have to say doesn't," pleaded 
 Felicity. 
 
 " Ella doesn't play with Mr. Morton and have 
 all the little girls in the theatre look at her and say 
 how pretty her hair is and how they wish theirs 
 was like that," said Amelia who had been 
 coached to good purpose. 
 
 " Do they say my hair's pretty? " 
 
 "Well, I don't know; but you want them to, 
 don't you ? " 
 
 " I don't care ! I can't hear them if they do." 
 
 " No; but if you don't take care of yourself, and 
 look as well as you can, and study all the things 
 you're told to study, you can't be an actress. Do 
 you want to stop trying, and go back to Millville, 
 and grow up to be plain and old like I am, and die 
 without having amounted to anything in the 
 world?" 
 
 " No'm." 
 
 '* Well, then, there are no two ways about it. 
 If you want to have things that are worth while, 
 
 74
 
 The New Life Grows Tiresome 
 
 you've got to work for them, and give up other 
 things. It seems to me you're a big enough girl 
 to understand that aren't you ? " 
 
 " Yes'm," said Felicity. 
 
 And Phineas, when this was reported to him, 
 looked searchingly at Amelia, with a look she could 
 not understand. 
 
 " I wonder when anybody gets that ' big,' " he 
 ruminated, after she was gone.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE MAKING OF A COMEDIENNE 
 
 WITH such mild misgivings as his optimistic 
 nature was capable of, Phineas watched 
 Amelia's anxious hovering. Several times he 
 remonstrated, whimsically, but to no purpose. 
 Then he resigned himself to the inevitable, know- 
 ing that a change was imminent in the near future 
 and trusting to luck and to his persuasive powers 
 at the moment to turn it to the child's advantage. 
 
 After two years on the stage Felicity had begun 
 to lengthen out to that spindling awkwardness 
 which promised well for the future but made her 
 impossible for child parts. When this time came 
 Phineas persuaded Amelia to put the child in a 
 boarding-school in western Massachusetts. 
 
 " You've kept her too close," he said. " She 
 must have more independent contact with her kind. 
 A watched pot never boils, they say, and a child 
 that's watched too closely never boils over as it 
 should. We can't begin to educate Felicity until 
 she's been turned loose and we've seen what her 
 propensities are." 
 
 76
 
 The Making of a Comedienne 
 
 Amelia fought this at first, until Phineas 
 allowed himself a clinching argument. 
 
 " Dear lady," he said, laying a hand on her 
 shoulder and shaking her gently by it, " what 
 makes you think your dominance is good for the 
 child, when you are so sure the old dominance was 
 bad for her? You said you wanted to give her her 
 chance. I say you're not doing it! " 
 
 That settled the matter, and to school Felicity 
 went, while Amelia took a small house in Salem 
 and acquired a cat, and sat down by her swept and 
 lonely hearth to wait the passing of the years until 
 Felicity should be with her again. 
 
 The Hilldale School for Girls was in the Berk- 
 shires; it was in charge of the Reverend Henry 
 Candee Tutwiler, of the Congregational persua- 
 sion, who was ably seconded by Mrs. Tutwiler, 
 head of the department of consolation and cheer- 
 ing advice, and by a corps of teachers, exclusively 
 feminine and inclined to be middle-aged. 
 
 Felicity was looked upon with no little suspicion 
 when her application for entrance was filed. The 
 stage was rank in the nostrils of the Reverend Tut- 
 wiler, and he feared, moreover, that a majority 
 of his patrons would be incensed if their offspring 
 were brought in contact with a child of the theatre. 
 
 Amelia was enraged, and Felicity would never 
 have gone to the Hilldale School for Girls had 
 not the Reverend Tutwiler weakened when he 
 
 77
 
 Felicity 
 
 heard of Felicity's strictly orthodox upbringing, 
 and had not Amelia weakened when it was pointed 
 out to her not by the Reverend Tutwiler that 
 girls' schools inspired by a large world-wisdom 
 and presided over by a fine catholic spirit, were 
 so scarce that if she insisted on such an one, Felicity 
 bade fair to live and die uneducated. 
 
 So, early in September of '71, Felicity being in 
 her eleventh year, Amelia took her to Hilldale and 
 left her; and that night in her Salem home where 
 she arrived, unutterably weary and heart-sick, 
 about eleven o'clock, Amelia Fergus for the first 
 time since Cecile Fergus died went to sleep with- 
 out Felicity beside her and of all the hard things 
 she had lived through, that was the hardest. 
 
 Nor did the separation grow one whit easier as 
 the days went by. It seemed to Amelia that the 
 ache of her desire was almost physical, as if the 
 very nerves of her body cried out hungrily for the 
 child's presence. 
 
 Every month she went to spend a Saturday and 
 Sunday with Felicity, but the intervals between 
 seemed interminable and vacant of diversion, let 
 alone satisfaction; they were great voids, marked 
 only by Felicity's letters. 
 
 " Dear, darling, preshus Aunt Elie," the first 
 one read, " I perfecly abbominate this place. You 
 ought to see what they call appel sauce it is pieces 
 
 78
 
 The Making of a Comedienne 
 
 of appel floting a round in swetish water. When 
 anything is the matter with you Mrs. Tutwiler 
 comes and says its nothing and tells you how many 
 things has been the matter with her and Mr. Tut- 
 wiler and how brave they allways were. Ive cried 
 every night since you left me hear and Mrs. Tut- 
 wiler says when she was my age she cried becaus 
 their was no school for her to go to. I don't see 
 why she tells me such things becaus I dont beleave 
 them. Can't you write them a letter for me not 
 to learn arithmetick I don't see any sense in it. 
 ' Your darling child, 
 
 " FELICITY FERGUS." 
 
 " P. S. Mrs. Tutwiler says is Felicity all the 
 name youve got. I'm glad none of my name is 
 Tutwiler." 
 
 Gradually, however, the joys of companionship 
 began to balance Mrs. Tutwiler and the " appel 
 sauce." 
 
 ' Thear is a girl hear named Rosalie Beech she 
 has seen me act," said the second letter, " she is a 
 very nice girl. Some of the girls seam awful stupid 
 they know thear lessons but they never been any 
 place. They think I'm wonderfull becaus Ive 
 been so many places. They havent read much 
 either their is a big girl that never heard of Mary 
 Queen of Scots she says she ain't had Scotch histry 
 
 79
 
 Felicity 
 
 yet what do you think of that? " Letter number 
 three was superbly sarcastic. " It seams," this 
 letter read, " that its kind of a crime to laugh 
 hear. Im being kept in my room this whole lovely 
 long Saturday becaus I laughed last night. You 
 see Fridays we have a funny thing thats called the 
 elegunt deportmunt class we ware our best dresses 
 I wore my pink nunsvaleing and have a kind of 
 play although Mr. and Mrs. Tutwiler do not 
 aprove of plays. The kind of play we had was 
 that Mr. Tutwiler was the president of U. S. and 
 Mrs. Tutwiler was Mrs. Grant and the teachers 
 was cabinut ladys and we had to go in and act like 
 we was at the white House it was awfull funny. 
 Mr. Tutwiler didnt do right at all he called me 
 madam so grand at least I guess he thought it was 
 grand and I told him when I was at the real white 
 House the presidunt Grant called me chicken. 
 Mrs. Tutwiler was so funny I nearly died laugh- 
 ing and just for that I got sent to my room to stay 
 till Sunday. I dont see how I can ever stay in a 
 school whear its a crime to laugh. When I go 
 home 111 show you how they did and see if you 
 dont think its awfull funny." 
 
 Amelia sent this letter to Phineas, who laughed 
 over it till he cried. He was to be in Philadelphia 
 at the holiday time and he invited Amelia to bring 
 Felicity and join him there. 
 
 The company had Christmas dinner, as usual, 
 80
 
 The Making of a Comedienne 
 
 on the stage after the matinee, and tables were 
 spread for " all hands " from Phineas to the scene- 
 shifters and scrubwomen; and that there be no feel- 
 ing of caste on this happy day commemorating a 
 lowly birth, they drew dinner partners by lot and 
 were apportioned to the several tables by the color 
 of their flower favors. 
 
 Phineas was in his element. Like all great 
 comedians of all times, in whatever branch of art, 
 he was essentially and splendidly democratic. The 
 world has never loved those who laugh at it, but 
 to those who laugh with it it seldom refuses a palm. 
 The mind that laughs at the world is aloof from 
 the human comedy, an aristocrat in effect whatever 
 its actual principles. The mind that laughs with 
 the world must needs be of the world, touched with 
 the world's failings, spurred with the world's 
 desires. 
 
 Phineas's was such a mind and the democracy 
 of the Christmas dinner was therefore no sham 
 democracy, for the occasion only and like all 
 seldom-worn manners ill-fitting and unmanageable. 
 It was the kind of feast one never forgot though 
 he lived to set ten thousand scenes or to eat dinner 
 with all the world's celebrities. 
 
 When the last course was finished and the cigars 
 were lighted, there were loud calls for the host, 
 and deafening applause greeted him when he rose 
 to answer the shrill cries of " Speech! Speech! " 
 
 81
 
 Felicity 
 
 Then the juvenile lead sang, in a vigorous bary- 
 tone, a rollicking popular song in the chorus of 
 which all joined, the orchestra scrambling together 
 for the accompaniment. The leading lady gave 
 a take-off of a parlor elocutionist, and the little 
 girl who had succeeded to Felicity's place did a 
 fancy dance. 
 
 After this there were cries for Felicity, from 
 members of the company who had been with Mor- 
 ton the year before. She hung back, pleading 
 that she could do nothing, but Phineas suggested 
 that she ought to do her share, that she was, for 
 instance, perhaps the only one present who had 
 ever been taught elegant deportment. 
 
 " I believe it would be very improving to a lot 
 of vagabonds like us," he said, " if you would show 
 us how really good behavior is taught." 
 
 His eyes were dancing with the spirit of fun and 
 Felicity's flashed back at them in kind. 
 
 " If you'll be the little girl learning to behave," 
 she said, " I'll be all the people in the receiving 
 line, and show you how they did." 
 
 Whereupon Phineas pulled down on his fore- 
 head a long lock of that sparse, gray hair with 
 which he made feint to cover his bald head, and set 
 that wonderfully mobile face of his to so comical 
 a representation of a silly little girl, that every- 
 body shouted in gleeful appreciation before ever 
 he had begun to act at all. He had not removed 
 
 82
 
 The Making of a Comedienne 
 
 his make-up for the play, and as he went giggling 
 and simpering down the imaginary line of the 
 Tutwiler class in elegant deportment, he was so 
 funny as to reduce his guests nearly to hysterics. 
 
 Instantly her comedy sense was appealed to, 
 Felicity forgot everything else, and shyness fell 
 from her as quickly as the sense of reverence did in 
 church when the precentor looked like the Cheshire 
 Cat, or as the sense of discipline did in school when 
 the Reverend Tutwiler offered so comical a repre- 
 sentation of President Grant. 
 
 To-night, with Phineas to spur her on, she 
 abandoned herself to the mimicry of the Hilldale 
 class in elegant deportment with a completeness 
 which made her forget entirely where she was or 
 who, besides her old " Pardner," was watching 
 her. 
 
 First, she drew up her slender little person to 
 represent the slim Tutwiler, and rubbed her hands 
 in imitation of the unctuousness he could not lay 
 aside even in personating the least unctuous of men 
 so that Phineas, watching her narrowly all the 
 while he was playing his own part, marvelled at 
 the child's instinctive understanding of the two so 
 different personalities. 
 
 Then she puffed out in likeness of pudgy Mrs. 
 Tutwiler, professional consoler; and pursed her 
 lips as the ascetic Miss Hannah P. Bailey, instruc- 
 tor in mathematics, personating Mrs. Secretary of 
 
 83
 
 Felicity 
 
 State ; and folded her hands on her stomach as Miss 
 Cordelia Atwater, teacher of grammar and rheto- 
 ric, personating Mrs. Secretary of War. Chang- 
 ing from character to character in a twinkling, 
 her caricature was so perfect that one needed not 
 to have seen the originals to believe in its utter 
 faithfulness. As the juvenile lead and the director 
 of the orchestra agreed, she was " simply 
 immense." 
 
 When the applause had subsided, Phineas sum- 
 moned all hands to a Virginia reel which waxed 
 merrier and merrier until it wound up in a frolic 
 out of which all scurried, breathless, to wings 
 and dressing-rooms, at seven-thirty. 
 
 Phineas, being ready to go on, had no need to 
 hurry, and lingered for a while to talk with 
 Amelia and Felicity. 
 
 " Well, Pardner," he said to the latter, " I guess 
 we can make a comedienne out o' you, all right. 
 You seem to have the stuff in you. But you've a 
 long, hard row to hoe if you're going to develop it. 
 
 " Now, I'll tell you what I'll do: If you'll work 
 hard at school until June and learn what you 
 can if you don't like their deportment, see if 
 you can't learn to like the way they spell I'll take 
 you to Europe in the summer. We'll go to see 
 where your dear Queen Mary lived and where 
 she lies dead; and we'll ride on top of all the 
 'busses there are, and watch folks, and develop our 
 
 84
 
 The Making of a Comedienne 
 
 comedy sense all we can. Come, now, what do you 
 say? Is it a bargain?" 
 
 It was, and they sealed it with a kiss. 
 
 In June they went abroad. The summer before 
 Phineas had taken Frances Allston and her boys 
 and had delighted in giving his daughter a season 
 of the greatest possible change from Millville. 
 This summer he did a characteristic thing: He 
 wanted to take Felicity, he really coveted the pleas- 
 ure of her blithe young companionship in his ram- 
 bles about familiar places. But it was out of the 
 question to take her alone and assume responsibility 
 for her every minute. Phineas knew himself too 
 well even to contemplate that. Also, he chuckled 
 to find himself remembering, he could not take 
 Amelia and Felicity; it would not do, for Amelia, 
 and if it would, the arrangement would still have 
 come far from suiting him. Amelia was an excel- 
 lent woman, but the thought of trailing her about 
 Europe for two months was insupportable, and she 
 could not be left alone in hotels or pensions while 
 he and Felicity enjoyed things together. 
 
 The only way out of the dilemma was an expen- 
 sive way, but that never halted Phineas, whether 
 he had the money or whether he had not. So he 
 offered a trip to his widowed sister who had never 
 been " back home " since she left there a bride of 
 nineteen, and who accepted with an alacrity that 
 
 85
 
 Felicity 
 
 might have been a little less if she had known 
 that she was expected, besides lending countenance 
 to the expedition, to keep Amelia company on 
 mild, old lady-like excursions while Phineas 
 tramped over his happy hunting-grounds hand in 
 hand with sweet Felicity, or absented himself from 
 all his guests in search of adventure with " big, 
 black bears." 
 
 Nothing on earth was irksome to Phineas if he 
 could take it or leave it at will, but the moment 
 anything became obligatory, that moment he began 
 to lay plans for its evasion. So, before he started 
 for Europe, happy in the happiness he was giving, 
 he had fixed things so that whenever he felt he 
 must " slide out," he could, quite comfortably, 
 without the fret of fearing that he was causing 
 distress. 
 
 Thus fortified against the probability he dreaded 
 most, Phineas gave himself over to enjoyment with 
 all the ingenuous delight of a child. Nor did it 
 ever enter his head to wonder if Sister Emmeline 
 and Amelia would be congenial to each other, or 
 if they would mind companioning together while 
 he and Felicity went here and yon as fancy led 
 them. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Amelia was disappointed 
 not to have more of Felicity's company, and Sis- 
 ter Emmeline was disappointed not to be more 
 frequently her brother's companion. But Phineas 
 
 86
 
 The Making of a Comedienne 
 
 had a happy summer, and Felicity was the most 
 radiant little creature in all Europe. 
 
 Phineas took her to Queen Mary's room in Holy- 
 rood where the murder of Rizzio had taken place 
 and where, three centuries later, Robert Fergus 
 had faced suddenly about, one day, and caught 
 his first sight of Cecile McClintock. Amelia had 
 desired with all her heart to be with Felicity 
 when she first saw this room, but that happened 
 to be one of the days when she was left to 
 " sight see " in the company of Sister Emmeline. 
 When she expressed her disappointment, Felicity 
 promptly offered to go again " all alone " with 
 her Aunt Elie, but though they did this, it was not 
 an equivalent to Amelia, but only a concession to 
 Felicity's distress. 
 
 They followed the trail of Scott in Edinburgh 
 and Phineas told Felicity about Marjorie Fleming 
 and read her Dr. John Brown's essay. He told 
 her, too, of Scott's misfortunes and of his pluck 
 in meeting them. And he filled her full of Burns 
 as she could hold, for Phineas loved his Bobby as 
 all the brothers of the open road have ever done. 
 He told her of those things, as well as he could, 
 wherefor Burns had been blamed by the censori- 
 ous, and opined with splendid conviction that 
 before a juster Tribunal they would count for 
 naught beside his gifts of compassion and tender- 
 ness and the love of beauty, to humankind. 
 
 87
 
 Felicity 
 
 In Paris he gave her a liberal education far 
 too liberal for her to comprehend, yet in Balzac, 
 whose genius he adored and whose life he found 
 of interest paramount even to his work; and told 
 her tale after tale of Moliere good and bad of 
 him and of Racine and of Rachel, and took her 
 to the Comedie Franchise, where, among others, 
 she saw Sara Bernhardt act. 
 
 " That child doesn't understand a hundredth 
 part of what you tell her," said Sister Emmeline 
 one day after she had come upon them in one of 
 their " discussions." 
 
 " Why, of course she doesn't," answered 
 Phineas, as if surprised that any one should trouble 
 to make so obvious an observation, " but she will, 
 some day. Before her day's done, little Felicity 
 will understand a heap o' things, and I'm priding 
 myself that a good many times in the course of her 
 life, after I'm dead and gone, she'll say, ' This 
 reminds me of what The Old Man once said.' ' 
 
 And so he went on talking to her of the good 
 and bad in every one, of the deliciousness of the 
 human comedy, and the value of sorrow to the 
 world; and it was no wonder the child felt the 
 fascination of his talk, for it was full of a witchery 
 no one could have withstood. And all the while, 
 Phineas was delightedly conscious how mixed was 
 his pleasure in it how half of it was the yearning 
 tenderness of old age for youth, and half of it was
 
 The Making of a Comedienne 
 
 the sheer, selfish joy of recapitulation, the old 
 man's zest for dwelling in the past. Felicity had 
 a way of inspiring in him those moods in which 
 he most enjoyed himself, he reflected whimsically 
 and liked himself far better than if he had tried 
 to make himself think his interest in the child was 
 pure benevolence. 
 
 In London he took her over the Dickens haunts, 
 telling her a hundred stories of that great come- 
 dian, not long dead, who had been his boon friend; 
 and to the Bluecoat School and to the Charter- 
 house, and to the grave of a merry fellow named 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 Late in August they sailed for home and when 
 they landed got word of Jane Fergus's serious ill- 
 ness. Grandfather McClintock was in New York 
 to meet them and to see his Cecile's child for the 
 third time only, and he went with them at once 
 to Millville, where Zilianne was in charge of the 
 stark, silent house Jane Fergus lay dead in the 
 parlor, with the Covenanters looking down from 
 the whitewashed wall. 
 
 Amelia, in all she had suffered these three years 
 past, had never expected so agonizing a climax as 
 this; it had never seemed possible to her that her 
 mother should die estranged from her. None of 
 the moves she had made toward reconciliation had 
 met with the least encouragement; nevertheless she 
 had always been sustained by the belief that sooner 
 
 89
 
 Felicity 
 
 or later her mother would relent and be at peace 
 with them. Now that this hope was dead, Amelia 
 was racked by tortures of self-condemnation which 
 made her friends fear, for a while, that she would 
 lose her reason. 
 
 " I thought I was doing right when I went," 
 she sobbed, over and over again to every one to 
 whom she unbosomed herself, " I thought I owed 
 what I did to Felicity, and to Robert, and to poor 
 little Cecile. I'd never have done it if I'd thought 
 it was wrong. Oh, why isn't there always a 
 wrong way and a right way one all wrong and 
 one all right, and no mistaking them ? Why, when 
 we mean only the best and are willing to do 
 right at any cost, ought things like this to happen 
 to us?" 
 
 " The chances of the road ! " said Phineas, 
 when she asked him these torturing questions. 
 " It's taking the chances handsomely that makes 
 men and women of us. It's the brave spirit, unfal- 
 tering because the luck o' the road was rough, 
 that's kept the old world a good place to live in, 
 that's made the highway a road o' royal com- 
 pany. And if you expected Felicity to be great, 
 you ought to have expected things like this. No- 
 body's wafted to the heights, dear lady; the climb- 
 ing's rough and full o' perils." 
 
 There could be no question of separating Felic- 
 ity from Amelia that fall, and of all the plans they 
 
 90
 
 The Making of a Comedienne 
 
 discussed none seemed so feasible as Alec McClin- 
 tock's proposition to take them both to Briar- 
 wood for the winter. The plantation was to be 
 Felicity's some day, and it was high time she 
 was getting acquainted with it, he said. 
 
 So they locked up the grim, gray house on Fed- 
 eral Street, and with Zilianne weeping joyously 
 and sadly all at once, they turned their faces 
 toward that strangely different home which had 
 given Felicity one-half her heritage.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE GIRL WITH THE 'WITCHING SMILE 
 
 PHINEAS MORTON had that afternoon 
 addressed Harvard College on " The 
 Comedians," and had invited his grandsons, both 
 at Harvard, to dine with him at the Parker 
 House at five-thirty and occupy a box afterwards 
 at the play. 
 
 " Bring four fellows," he said, " and let's have 
 a good time." 
 
 The four fellows were easily persuaded, and 
 much as they enjoyed themselves not one of them 
 had so good a time as The Old Man. It was a 
 jolly little dinner in the public dining-room where 
 The Old Man nearly always ate, because he 
 frankly did not mind the interested stares of his 
 fellow-diners; people loved him, and he knew it, 
 and no evidence of it ever annoyed him. 
 
 As for the four fellows, they could hardly give 
 attention to the feast for watching the dining- 
 room door in the hope that among the early 
 comers would be some who would recognize them 
 and whose envy of their distinguished company 
 
 92
 
 The Girl with the 'Witching Smile 
 
 would make it trebly zestful. Phineas was keenly 
 aware of this, and almost chuckled aloud when 
 some one one of them did know, came in and was 
 greeted with a superb little nod, as from the 
 Olympian heights. 
 
 " You know," said Phineas, addressing Mor- 
 ton in a pause, " that Felicity is with me again? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " I tried to get them to dine with us, but it 
 seems they had asked some ancient crony of Miss 
 Amelia's from Salem to dine with them. Have 
 you seen Felicity? " 
 
 " No, sir; haven't seen her in two years, you 
 know not since she came up from Mississippi and 
 got ready to go abroad." 
 
 " Well, you're going to be surprised. She's 
 grown up, now." 
 
 " Why, she isn't sixteen, yet! " 
 
 " No, not till next March, but she looks a good 
 deal older. She's the prettiest thing I ever saw in 
 my life." 
 
 " Gee ! " All the boys were listening, and the 
 eager interest they showed when he spoke of pret- 
 tiness, gave Phineas immense delight. 
 
 Then he told the four fellows about the Mary 
 Stuart play, and raised a hearty, boyish laugh over 
 the scenes of blood so mildly played. 
 
 " Little brick, Felicity was," Adams commented, 
 " I remember when we tried to have a play after 
 
 93
 
 Felicity 
 
 she left, and no girl would be the settler's wife and 
 cross the ' Indian-harried plains ' in Mort's express 
 wagon." 
 
 " Well, she's still a little brick, but she takes life 
 very seriously now," said Phineas, his eyes twink- 
 ling. " She has arrived at the age where nothing 
 will make her quite happy but a great o'erwhelm- 
 ing misery. If she doesn't find one pretty soon, I 
 don't know what'll become o' the poor child. I 
 don't suppose any o' you young gentlemen feel a 
 chivalrous desire to provide her with the requisites 
 for an unrequited passion, do you? No! I can 
 see by your confused looks that every one of you 
 is fully occupied in that direction. Keep occupied, 
 boys! Falling in love's the best education a man 
 gets better than Harvard can give him. No 
 fellow ever learns anything worth shucks while 
 his heart's at ease ; it's what we find out when the 
 heart's anything but easy, that counts, in the long 
 run. Now I must get off to the theatre. Come 
 behind, after the play, and see Felicity. But if 
 I don't see you fellows again, remember me by 
 what I told you about hearts; there's nothing like 
 Love's misery for making men." 
 
 After he was gone the boys sat on and smoked 
 and talked, and there were one or two at least 
 who seemed to have a little surplus of romantic 
 interest not in service (as what man has not?) 
 for they plied Morton and Adams with questions 
 
 94
 
 The Girl with the 'Witching Smile 
 
 about Felicity. Was that her real name? How 
 did she get it? Was she really pretty? Did their 
 grandfather think she was going to be a great 
 actress? And so on. 
 
 ' We haven't seen her since she was thirteen," 
 said Morton, with all the superiority of twenty 
 years for the things of youth, " but she's said to 
 promise great beauty and great talent. She's been 
 in Europe for two years, studying and travelling, 
 and only came back in time to join Gran's company 
 in September. He's terribly interested in her and 
 wants to give her some practical stage training of 
 his own sort, so he hurried her back for fear 
 another year might not find him on the boards. 
 He's over seventy, you know." 
 
 On the way to the theatre, Morton stopped in 
 a florist's and bought some pink roses which he 
 sent back to Felicity " with the compliments of the 
 killer," and to his delight she had one of the roses 
 in her hair when she came on in her first scene, 
 which was not until the second act. 
 
 She was pretty! Not one of the six fellows 
 denied that, though three of them had sworn 
 eternal fealty to the brunette type and one was 
 thrall to eyes of blue. 
 
 Felicity's eyes were brown, deepest, sablest 
 brown, with no glints of gold in them, and her 
 skin was of the creamy tone that usually goes with 
 such eyes. Her hair was a light brown, neither 
 
 95
 
 Felicity 
 
 chestnut nor deepened blond, but a pale otter- 
 color, wonderfully even in tone and silken in 
 quality. 
 
 There was nothing vivid about her coloring, no 
 dancing lights in hair and eyes. She wore a little 
 stage-tint, of course, to keep her from looking 
 pallid across the footlights, but not even enough 
 of that to do more than nullify the rather ghastly 
 hue of the stage-lights and the tin reflectors. Be- 
 fore she spoke, she gave the effect of being almost 
 colorless, but when she smiled, one understood at 
 once why Phineas had so implicit faith in her 
 future. There was a witchery in that smile that 
 the dullest never failed to feel, and Phineas was 
 freshly delighted with every tribute to it. 
 
 " Nature is a great artist," he was wont to 
 observe, " and she planned with 'mazing subtlety 
 when she planned that child. Nothing more exqui- 
 site could be imagined than the way this little, pale 
 flower of a girl, looking for all the world like a 
 Botticelli Madonna, discloses a dancing, entranc- 
 ing comedy spirit the moment her face lights up 
 with a smile. Compared to the high-colored, 
 buxom lady who is there, you know, to make you 
 laugh, or the pale-colored, melancholy lady who is 
 there, you know, to make you cry, the surprising- 
 ness of this Felicity is the most delicious thing I 
 know. The little thrill of wonder she creates is 
 sort o' personal to each one in her audience each 
 
 96
 
 The Girl with the 'Witching Smile 
 
 has a flattering idea that he alone has felt the sub- 
 tlety of it. Oh, I tell you, it's great ! " 
 
 And, now that their attention had been called 
 to it, the boys found it so indeed, and after the 
 last curtain almost tumbled upon the stage through 
 the door just outside of their box; and all previous 
 fealties whensoever declared, faded from memory 
 while six fellows tried, collectively when must be, 
 individually when could be, to bring smiles to that 
 mouth that was made for smiles. 
 
 But Felicity was shy, even of Morton and 
 Adams which The Old Man, watching, thought 
 was a pity considering her girlishness, but emi- 
 nently fitting, considering her art. 
 
 " That shyness gives her complete cover while 
 she steals upon you unawares with her charm. I'd 
 hate like sin to have her get that kind of assurance 
 of her fascinations that would lead her to rise up 
 and hit you in the eye with them, as most women 
 do," he reflected. " It'll be an artistic pity, actu- 
 ally it will, when she becomes famous, as she's 
 bound to do, so that people will get to expecting 
 things of her instead of letting her take them 
 unawares." 
 
 That night six fellows dreamed of a slip of a 
 girl with the 'witchingest mouth in the whole wide 
 world and a pink rosebud in her pale brown hair. 
 
 Phineas, on request, had given each of the four 
 strangers a photograph of himself autographed 
 
 97
 
 Felicity 
 
 in his quaint, microscopic handwriting, and the next 
 day Morton had to constitute himself a deputa- 
 tion to wait on " Gran " with a request for pictures 
 of Felicity. Phineas, gravely concealing his 
 delight, showed a photograph belonging to him 
 and said he might be able to get six more like 
 it. Yes, certainly, if Morton wanted this one 
 very much he might take it, and Phineas would 
 get another out of the lot requested for the fel- 
 lows. 
 
 " It's so serious; it's not like her," objected one 
 of the fellows when Morton displayed his treasure. 
 Then Morton explained: 
 
 " Gran says she'll never have a smiling picture 
 taken if he can help it," he said, " not even if a 
 new Leonardo could paint her as a new Mona Lisa. 
 He says the instant a smile becomes fixed it becomes 
 odious." 
 
 This was a brand-new subtlety to Harvard 
 upper-classmen, and one at least of these six went 
 into his room, stared with positive resentment at 
 the picture of a rollicking girl showing a major 
 part of her fine teeth, and stuffed it behind a row 
 of books. Another was heard to express lively 
 impatience with a Cambridge young lady whose 
 name came up in the course of conversation. 
 " Silly little giggler! " he commented, ungallantly 
 forgetting that not a week ago he had lauded 
 her " vivacity." If Phineas could have known 
 
 98
 
 The Girl with the 'Witching Smile 
 
 these things his chuckling delight would have 
 passed all bounds. 
 
 In due time, the five other photographs came, 
 ornately autographed in flourishing letters, much 
 " shaded," and were prominently displayed and 
 much talked about, for a while. Then, also in 
 due time, the girl with the fine teeth came out from 
 behind the row of books again, and giggling re- 
 assumed its natural attractiveness in the eyes of 
 exuberant youth, while Felicity became a pale 
 memory, even to Adams and Morton, who had 
 fitful correspondence with her. Correspondence 
 counts for little compared with propinquity, when 
 the heart beats young; perhaps, too, when it beats 
 more soberly. 
 
 99
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 VINCENT, THE DEBONAIR, DOES A GALLANT THING 
 THAT'S FRAUGHT WITH DESTINY 
 
 "TTTELL," said Jack Ashley, of the Morton 
 
 V V company, " it never rains but it pours." 
 
 " What d'ye mean? " growled Vincent Delano, 
 
 juvenile lead of the same company and laid up with 
 
 a sharp attack of neuralgia in what he termed 
 
 " this beast of a Cincinnati." 
 
 " It's a good thing," Ashley went on, ignoring 
 the question, " that The Old Man's all the dear 
 public comes to see, and that it cares precious little 
 for anybody else, for there won't be much else 
 to-night." 
 
 "What d'ye mean?" reiterated Vincent, 
 through his ludicrous flannel swathings. ' Just 
 because I'm out? " 
 
 " No; Miss Fessenden's down and out, too 
 got a bronchial cold and can't speak above a whis- 
 per, and the little Fergus girl's got to play her 
 part rehearsal for all hands at four, even The 
 Old Man, I hear," he finished, looking at his 
 watch. 
 
 100
 
 Vincent Does a Gallant Thing 
 
 "Gad! That's a kettle o' fish!" 
 
 " Bet you ! As I say, though, except the girls, 
 nobody cares who's on or off if The Old Man's 
 there. But Crosby'll get all your incense. Gee ! 
 If some o' your crushes could see you now ! " 
 
 "Shut up!" invited Delano. Then, " No- 
 body'll ever know I'm out, I suppose, but I'm darn 
 sorry that nice little girl's got to play with that 
 infernal fool, Crosby. He'll be so swollen with 
 pride at a chance to disport himself in a real role, 
 he'll never do a thing to make it easy for her. 
 If I'd been playing I could have helped her a lot. 
 She'll be scared to death, poor young one ! And 
 that ass'll never care for a thing but the impres- 
 sion he'll think he's making." 
 
 " That's right," assented Ashley, " what'd the 
 Doc. say about you? " 
 
 " Said I mustn't put my fool face out o' the 
 house for a couple o' days. Did me up in these 
 blasted bandages. Say! " tearing them off with 
 an impatient hand, " how do I look? " 
 
 " Oh, you look all right your beauty's unim- 
 paired, so far. How d'ye feel? " 
 
 " Like a house afire never got a wink last 
 night, walked the floor till broad daylight." 
 
 " Awfully sorry, old man ! Anything I can do 
 for you? " 
 
 " Nope, thanks." 
 
 " Well, I've got to hustle. Ta-ta ! " 
 101
 
 Felicity 
 
 Rehearsal was in full progress, under the per- 
 sonal direction of Phineas as well as of his stage 
 manager, and Mr. Horace Crosby was standing 
 in his entrance muttering the lines of his principal 
 scene in Delano's part, when the stage door was 
 flung open and a tall gentleman, muffled to the eyes, 
 strode across the rear of the " set " and crowded 
 into the entrance occupied by Crosby. 
 
 " All right, Crosby," he said, sharply, " I guess 
 I can play." And when the cue came he went on, 
 still muffled. 
 
 " Delano! " said Phineas, surprised; but Delano 
 gave no sign of wishing to explain, and so the 
 rehearsal proceeded, much simplified by his pres- 
 ence, for now there were only two to work in 
 instead of four. He was on until the close of the 
 act, and there was no opportunity to question him 
 until then. 
 
 " I thought you were laid up, my boy," said 
 Phineas, kindly. 
 
 'Well, I was; but when I heard about Miss 
 Fessenden I came anyway thought maybe you'd 
 have a devil of a time with four understudies and 
 only one rehearsal." 
 
 Phineas looked a little grave. " It is a mix-up," 
 he said, " but they all seem to know their parts 
 pretty well and there's no need of your taking this 
 risk." 
 
 " Pshaw! " said Delano, " I guess I can stand 
 102
 
 Vincent Does a Gallant Thing 
 
 it. That leaves only Miss Fergus's part to be 
 filled how've you managed that? " 
 
 " The local manager got a little girl in town 
 she's hard at it," and he pointed to the wings. 
 
 ' Well, count me in I guess I'm good for it." 
 
 " I'm not sure I ought to let you," Phineas 
 began, but Delano was gone, into the wings to 
 encourage Felicity. 
 
 14 Now, you buck up, little girl," he told her, 
 " and I'll play into your hand all I can." 
 
 He was as good as his word, and the rehearsal 
 went off smoothly, heedless of Crosby's discom- 
 fiture. 
 
 Amelia, in Miss Fessenden's dressing-room, was 
 sewing for dear life, taking in the leading lady's 
 costumes to fit Felicity's far slenderer figure. A 
 dinner was brought to her from a near-by hotel, at 
 The Old Man's orders, and she snatched a bite 
 now and then while she worked. The young girl 
 hastily enlisted to play Felicity's part also dined 
 from a tray which looked as untouched when 
 she was done as when it was laid before her. But 
 Felicity went to the hotel with Phineas. 
 
 ' You know your lines and your cues," he said, 
 " now stop worrying; the rest'll come to you as you 
 need it, or it won't come at all; but worry won't 
 bring it, though it may keep it away." 
 
 Nevertheless Felicity worried. It was her first 
 appearance in a part of any prominence. She had 
 
 103
 
 Felicity 
 
 understudied Miss Fessenden faithfully, but never 
 till to-night had there been need of her services. 
 
 The play was a pretty one, of The Old Man's 
 usual type he playing an old inventor of quaint, 
 lovable character, and Felicity playing his elder 
 daughter who is loved by a young man sent to buy 
 for a pittance the patent in which his company sees 
 millions, but which the old inventor has no means 
 to develop for himself. 
 
 The inventor's younger daughter, who acci- 
 dentally finds out the mean mission of the young 
 man and tries to make her sister see him as he is, was 
 the part usually played by Felicity, and in addition 
 to her assumption of the more important role, 
 she had to coach the stranger in the minor one 
 and to rehearse with her many times the main 
 scene between the sisters. 
 
 No one in the great audience that greeted Mor- 
 ton that night had any suspicion of the flurry that 
 preceded the rising of the curtain, nor of the icy 
 coldness of the hand which his elder daughter laid 
 on the inventor's brow as she made her first 
 entrance saying, " How's my dear old daddy this 
 morning? " 
 
 It was The Old Man himself on whom all eyes 
 were riveted ; it was his voice, quavering, now, with 
 no simulation of age, but rich and vibrant still, 
 that filled the ears of the audience. Something 
 infinitely benign emanated from him, always 
 
 104
 
 Vincent Does a Gallant Thing 
 
 something that made the laughs he raised without 
 a sting and the tears he brought without bitterness, 
 and sent every one away from him with a kindlier 
 feeling toward the whole, wide world. 
 
 He was playing well, to-night, so well that even 
 Felicity forgot herself and her fright several times 
 in loving admiration of his perfect art art that 
 was so near to nature and so inevitable an expres- 
 sion of his own nature that one could not say where 
 the art left off and the nature began, and some peo- 
 ple denied him any art at all, because he only gave 
 expression to himself which was no trick at all, 
 they held, though still they went to see it done. 
 
 Poor Delano suffered tortures with his face, 
 but he played as if neuralgia were unknown until 
 after the third act when, to his immense disgust, 
 he fainted in his dressing-room. 
 
 Felicity heard of it while she was dressing for 
 the last act. 
 
 u Mr. Ashley says Mr. Delano insisted on play- 
 ing because he could make it easier for you, Miss 
 Fergus," said the dresser, who was serving Felic- 
 ity. " I'd never have thought it of him," the 
 woman went on, " and him so spoiled and run after 
 by the girls, and his head so turned by his good 
 looks. But it just goes to show you never can 
 tell," was the moral reflection. " I call it real 
 heroic of him." 
 
 For a few minutes it looked as if Horace 
 105
 
 Felicity 
 
 Crosby would have to go on in the last act in 
 Vincent's stead, but there was no scene for the 
 leading man until the latter part of the act, and 
 long before the cue came, Vincent was in his en- 
 trance, waiting. 
 
 It was the scene where all is righted and love 
 triumphs over all obstacles. It had been almost 
 funny, this afternoon, when the lover, wrapped to 
 the eyes to protect his aching face from the chill 
 of the draughty stage, had gone through the final 
 scene with Felicity. But now, there was something 
 underneath the pretty fervor of it that no one but 
 the two concerned knew. 
 
 In a moment when the lovers are supposed to 
 be talking earnestly apart, Felicity looked up into 
 Vincent's handsome face, pale under its cosmetic 
 flush, and with eyes shining like stars whispered: 
 
 " Oh, it was so good of you ! I can never thank 
 you enough to suffer so, and all to help me 
 through ! " 
 
 " Pshaw ! " said Vincent, lightly, in funny con- 
 trast to his pantomime of deep feeling, " you make 
 too much of it it was only the decent thing to do. 
 And besides," his old, unconquerable gallantry 
 rising in spite of him, " how do you know how 
 much I wanted to play the part with you ? " 
 
 Then their cue came, and the last scene where 
 the old inventor, properly rewarded and made 
 happy at last, seeing how matters are with the 
 
 106
 
 Vincent Does a Gallant Thing 
 
 lovers, slips quietly and half-wistfully away, clos- 
 ing the door very slowly, with a lingering look 
 full of the tenderness of ripe age on the rosy- 
 hued young love left behind, and after a tense 
 moment the curtain goes slowly down on the lovers, 
 locked in each other's arms. 
 
 It was, in Felicity's eyes, the chief of all the race 
 of heroes who held out his arms to her on the 
 stage that night. And there was something in the 
 wholly shy, yet wholly glad little move she made 
 toward him that thrilled the audience with the 
 sweetness of love's surrender. 
 
 When the curtain went down there was a brief 
 instant of waiting for it to rise again, a brief instant 
 in which Vincent, holding the slender little figure 
 to him, felt the arms that clasped his neck tremble 
 and, looking into the velvety brown eyes upraised 
 to his, saw in them a wonderful light of newly 
 awakened consciousness that smote him happy- 
 go-lucky, unthinking fellow that he was with a 
 sense of awe. 
 
 " Golly ! " he murmured to himself, " what's 
 come over the child? " 
 
 But in his heart he knew. 
 
 Miss Fessenden's cold kept her speechless for 
 two weeks. She was by no means ill enough to 
 stay behind the company when it left Cincinnati, 
 and every day she hoped the next would find her 
 
 107
 
 Felicity 
 
 better. But for a whole fortnight Felicity played 
 her part, and played it prettily. 
 
 Delano succumbed to his ailment for two per- 
 formances subsequent to that eventful night, and 
 Crosby fulfilled all expectations by making the 
 most of the occasion to display his own talents, 
 regardless of Felicity. But Felicity did not care 
 then. She pretended he was Vincent, and the 
 play went smoothly. She told herself she must 
 do her best for his sake who had suffered so much 
 for her ; and the thought lent unlimited zest to her 
 acting. 
 
 The second night of Vincent's absence, as she 
 and Amelia were leaving the theatre, Jack Ashley 
 overtook them. 
 
 " Going to see Delano," he said. " I'll tell him 
 how bully you've been doing, Miss Fergus. Any 
 message you'd like to send? " 
 
 ' Tell him," began Felicity, and her heart flut- 
 tered, " tell him, I hope he'll soon be well." 
 
 " Oh, all right ! I'm taking him his mail 
 see I " And he held up a bundle of thirty or forty 
 letters tied together with a stout string. " I can't 
 tell his friends' letters from his mash notes, so I 
 have to take 'em all." 
 
 " Does he does he get that many every day? " 
 
 " Oh, I guess ! These are two days' mail, but 
 he gets an awful lot. The women are crazy about 
 him, you know send him flowers and gold match- 
 
 108
 
 Vincent Does a Gallant Thing 
 
 safes, and scarf pins and cuff buttons, and what 
 not." 
 
 There was a bluff contempt in Ashley's tone 
 which Felicity was not shrewd enough to under- 
 stand. 
 
 " And does he does he like it? " 
 
 " Why, sure ! it's a kind o' nuisance sometimes, 
 but I guess he knows that it's what keeps him a 
 leading man. Well, ta-ta ! " And Ashley was 
 off, turning a sudden corner, where their ways 
 diverged. 
 
 " I think Mr. Delano's a fine actor," observed 
 Felicity, gravely, " and I don't believe he likes 
 those horrid letters." 
 
 It is not always credible to an outsider how 
 strange players in the same company may be to 
 one another. Felicity really knew as little about 
 Vincent Delano as the average city-bred house- 
 dweller of the better sort knows about his next- 
 door neighbors. 
 
 Her part in the play was small; indeed, as in 
 most companies where the star is so pre-eminent, 
 none of the other parts was extremely important, 
 notwithstanding Phineas's fine theories about the 
 value of his support. When Felicity was not on, 
 she was in her dressing-room with Amelia, who 
 never let her go to the theatre alone. In this 
 cluttered box of a place which she had to herself 
 
 109
 
 Felicity 
 
 only by the intervention of The Old Man, they 
 read, practised French conversation, sewed or 
 mended, or otherwise employed the time. 
 
 Vincent, in his dressing-room which he shared 
 with Ashley, played cards or shook dice or read 
 the daily and weekly papers, or even took cat naps 
 if he were what he termed " short on sleep." 
 
 When he and Felicity were on together, they 
 were strictly business; when they met and passed 
 in the wings they exchanged nods and smiles, some- 
 times, and at rehearsals, which were not frequent, 
 they chatted, now and then, in a desultory sort of 
 way. 
 
 It seldom happened that they went to the same 
 hotel or boarding-house, but if they did, they were 
 as little likely to meet as if they were under differ- 
 ent roofs. And when the company was travelling 
 (which was nearly always by night) Vincent was 
 usually either sleeping or smoking. Even Miss 
 Fessenden Felicity knew but slightly; she and a 
 Miss Croftleigh, who played old woman parts, 
 were chummy, with an inexhaustible fund of 
 mutual interest in stage gossip about a hundred 
 persons who were mere names, or less, to Amelia 
 and Felicity. 
 
 It was a lonely, almost an excessively lonely life 
 the two Ferguses led, and it seemed as if they would 
 never grow used to its lack of those tender ties and 
 associations which make life sweet to most women. 
 
 no
 
 Vincent Does a Gallant Thing 
 
 Amelia had never known many intimates; peo- 
 ple did not get intimate with the Ferguses, and for 
 the most part the Ferguses had not cared. Jane 
 had not, surely; nor Robert, who was too repressed 
 and shy for success in social intercourse, and knew 
 it. But Amelia had always cared. She had a 
 strongly developed social instinct, to which every- 
 thing in her experience had contributed denial. 
 
 Now, at nearly three score years, she had ceased 
 to hope for a life rich in relationships, and such 
 yearnings as she had for the common lot related 
 to places, not persons. She wanted a spot she 
 could call her own an abiding-place but she 
 knew that in all human probability she would never 
 have it. 
 
 And most of all she longed, with the wistful 
 longing of life's afternoon for the places where 
 it knew the morning shine, for the four-square 
 house on Federal Street, for the black horse-hair 
 suit in the chill-looking, whitewashed parlor with 
 the " Covenanters Worshipping in a Cave " look- 
 ing down from the wall. 
 
 But the old house belonged to strangers, now, 
 and was full of romping children. And out in 
 the Millville Cemetery, where Felicity had been 
 made to promise that Amelia should lie some day, 
 the turf was sunken on Jane Fergus's grave. 
 
 There was one little incident of that winter 
 Felicity never forgot. They were playing a pretty 
 
 in
 
 Felicity 
 
 long series of one-night stands and everybody was 
 fagged and more or less out of sorts when they 
 reached a small southern town one bleak morning 
 about six o'clock. Morton seldom played this 
 outlying circuit, but there had been an enormous 
 demand for him, and he was trying to meet it, as 
 it was certain he would not pass this way again. 
 And he had a romantic satisfaction in these tri- 
 umphs, for over this ground he had played in some 
 of his most despairing days. 
 
 The night before, they had been obliged to catch 
 a train at 12 .'45, after a performance on which the 
 curtain, owing to some unavoidable delay, did not 
 rise until nearly nine. Set by set as it served its 
 purpose, the scenery -was taken down and carted 
 to the train, and at the last there was a mad 
 scramble to get effects together and trunks packed, 
 so that most of the company still wore stage- 
 paint when they tumbled, wearily, into the station 
 at a quarter to one, with the prospect of changing 
 cars at four o'clock. Special trains for theatrical 
 companies were then unheard of. 
 
 At six, on a chill, gray morning, they arrived in 
 a town whose one fair-to-middling hotel had re- 
 cently burned, so that they were driven, for shelter, 
 to several small and no less than wretched hostelries 
 where hard beds and damp sheets were not enough 
 to keep the exhausted actors longer awake. 
 
 About ten o'clock Felicity woke to find that 
 112
 
 Vincent Does a Gallant Thing 
 
 Amelia had been up and stirring for some time and 
 had, undaunted by the utter meanness of their 
 room, made her usual effort to give it, even if only 
 for a few hours, some look of, as she said, " a 
 decent woman's abiding-place." 
 
 She had unpacked their hand satchels and 
 arranged their little toilet necessities on bureau 
 and washstand; had shoved the blatant cuspidor 
 out of sight, and hung up on wall-pegs their hats 
 and wraps, and laid out, ready for wear, Felicity's 
 slippers and dressing-gown. 
 
 These things done, she sat down by the window 
 to read. They never failed to carry a good book 
 or two with them, and whatever else Amelia 
 brought or left, she was seldom without her worn, 
 two-volume copy of the "Life and Letters of 
 Margaret Fuller Ossoli," published under the di- 
 rection of Emerson and Channing in 1852. This 
 was almost a Bible to her, and in the same spirit in 
 which she might have taken up the Bible she had 
 gone, now, to this outpouring of the heart of that 
 wonderful, wistful woman who was willing to 
 adventure so bravely in her quest for the highest 
 altitudes of love. 
 
 She closed the book as Felicity arose, marking 
 her place with a bit of paper. 
 
 " I'm dressed, so I'll go down and see what I 
 can do about some breakfast," she said. " There's 
 no such thing here as bell service."
 
 Felicity 
 
 She was gone a long time, and when Felicity 
 had washed as well as she could in a basin of 
 cold water, and donned her loose gown and slip- 
 pers, she sat down at the window in her aunt's 
 vacated chair, smiling a little sadly at the shabby 
 volume with its worn black binding. 
 
 Picking it up, she opened to her aunt's place 
 as indicated by the marker, and her eye fell on these 
 words : 
 
 " There comes a consciousness that I have no 
 real hold on life no real, permanent connection 
 with any soul. ... I do not know how I shall 
 go through this destiny. I can, if it is mine; but 
 I do not feel that I can." 
 
 " I wonder why Aunt Elie likes to read this 
 book so much," the girl pondered, " it makes me 
 feel so sad." 
 
 She was putting the marker back when she 
 noticed its look of age and the faded ink of the 
 writing it bore, so she picked it up again for a 
 closer scrutiny. It was headed " Rules for Right 
 Living," and in Amelia's younger and firmer hand- 
 writing was a schedule for what she had evidently 
 thought an ideal day. 
 
 "Six, arise," it said; "six to six-thirty, bathe 
 and dress; six-thirty to seven, morning reading 
 and reflection; seven, breakfast; seven-thirty, morn- 
 
 114
 
 Vincent Does a Gallant Thing 
 
 ing prayers; eight to ten, household duties; ten to 
 twelve, reading, study and correspondence ; twelve, 
 dinner; one to three, visit the sick and needy," and 
 so on. 
 
 While she was reading it, Amelia returned. 
 
 "What's this?" she asked. 
 
 Amelia flushed a little, and laughed. " A relic 
 of my proper young ladyhood," she said. " I had 
 just laid down those rules for myself when I got 
 this book, and I kept them in it. Every time I 
 see them they stir up such tender recollections of 
 ' all I aspired to be ' that I can never bear to throw 
 them away or put them elsewhere." 
 
 u Darling Aunt Elie ! " Felicity cried woe- 
 begone with the discomforts of their situation and 
 realizing in a degree she had not felt before what 
 those discomforts must mean to Amelia, " how 
 you love the orderly quiet life you left for me! 
 And, oh! I'm afraid it hasn't been worth the sacri- 
 fice ! The game hasn't been worth the candle ! " 
 
 " Yes, it has, dear," soothed the woman, holding 
 the girl to her and not knowing, as Phineas would 
 have known, that Felicity's tears were, inevitably, 
 more in self-pity than in compassion, " yes, it has, 
 dear. It's always worth the candle to have played 
 the game, I guess whether one wins or loses. But 
 we're going to win," she finished, with such con- 
 viction that Felicity believed her.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 " THE BIG OPEN ROAD, WHERE THE PASSPORT 
 IS SYMPATHY " 
 
 VINCENT DELANO sat at his dressing- 
 table, chin in hands and elbows on the table, 
 moodily reflectful. He was not altogether pleased 
 with life today, though evidences of his popularity 
 lay thick about him. Perfumed notes strewed the 
 floor like leaves in autumn; of bouquets, very ele- 
 gant in their lace-paper frills, he had no fewer than 
 a baker's dozen ("bad luck! " he had growled, 
 with an actor's ready superstition, when the thir- 
 teenth came; no use, then, to order it out some- 
 thing was after him!) and in the heap of their 
 tissue-paper wrappings, and other rubbish, were 
 a lot of silly girls' and women's photographs, torn, 
 each, in several bits, for Vincent was decently 
 scrupulous. That these women had no self- 
 respect never made him unchivalrous toward them, 
 whatever his secret contempt of their folly. 
 
 A small table at his right was littered with poker 
 chips, cards, cigar ashes, and two drained glasses 
 stood by a half-emptied bottle of rye whiskey. The 
 
 116
 
 "The Big Open Road" 
 
 narrow shelf in front of him bore a disorder of 
 make-up materials and toilet articles of a dandi- 
 fied elegance gifts of tribute, mostly. 
 
 Nevertheless, Vincent scowled darkly at the 
 debonair gentleman in the mirror, whose long, 
 curling black lashes scarcely needed the accentua- 
 tion of a pencil any more than his naturally ruddy 
 coloring really needed the offices of paint. 
 
 Nature had designed Vincent for just such a 
 role as he was filling. Those great Irish-blue eyes 
 and that dark, wavy hair were never intended to 
 adorn a sardonic temperament. Vincent was made 
 to gamble and to flirt, to sing merrily and spend 
 freely, to be generous yet selfish which is to say, 
 open-handed but vain. 
 
 " Dog-gone it! " he muttered, putting his hands 
 in his trousers pockets and stretching his long 
 length as far under the table as it would go. 
 
 The occasion for this momentary dissatisfaction 
 with life was an interview Vincent had had, a half 
 hour ago, with Miss Fessenden. 
 
 There was a flirtation on between the leading 
 lady and the juvenile lead. It wasn't serious, but 
 it was fairly beguiling. When one is knocking 
 around the world, here to-day and gone to-morrow, 
 it is comfortable to have some one of mutual inter- 
 ests, with-whom to take bite and sup now and then 
 in the absence of any royal entertainer who com- 
 bines the virtues of congeniality and willingness 
 
 117
 
 Felicity 
 
 to foot the bill; some one with whom to go to the 
 races, if there are any, or even to the art museum, 
 if worst comes to worst in a dull town. 
 
 Vincent played poker and billiards with Jack 
 Ashley, and played at being interested in Miss 
 Fessenden not because he particularly admired 
 her, but because she was there and the choice was 
 not great; Miss Croftleigh was peculiarly dis- 
 agreeable to him, and little Felicity was " not his 
 sort at all," as he put it. Still, since that night in 
 Cincinnati, Vincent could not help showing a de- 
 cent kindliness to the little ingenue who so sweetly 
 worshipped him. Heaven knew he did nothing to 
 encourage her, but one need not be a brute ! To- 
 day, though, Editha Fessenden had taunted him 
 about Felicity. It was her pet reproach to call 
 him a " curled darling." This afternoon, after a 
 failure on Vincent's part to measure up to her 
 expectations of ardent interest, she had had re- 
 course to her favorite upbraiding. 
 
 " Oh, very well ! " she had flung at him, hotly, 
 " it's no more than I might have looked for from 
 you. To get on with you, now, one must crawl 
 on all fours and lick your hand like a dog. But 
 you'll get none o' that from me! My name's not 
 Felicity Fergus ! " 
 
 ''What d'ye mean?" Vincent feigned a sur- 
 prise outweighing resentment. 
 
 " Huh ! You know well enough what I mean. 
 118
 
 "The Big Open Road" 
 
 But you can't get any o' that round-eyed worship 
 out o' me! You never ignored an attack of neu- 
 ralgia to help me, on a pinch, y' know ! " 
 
 And with that she had left him in a petty rage 
 the public little suspected when it saw them to- 
 gether in their principal love scene, a few minutes 
 later. 
 
 Now, in the first quiet moment he had had, Vin- 
 cent was trying to recapitulate. 
 
 Pshaw! Editha Fessenden couldn't sting him 
 with her jealous rages. But it was a shame that 
 Felicity's little girlish fancy should be obvious to 
 a woman like Editha. " It's all right for me to 
 know it," Vincent told himself; " I understand 
 what it's worth. She why, she's no more than 
 a child, a baby. I'm flattered by her liking, same 
 as I am when a youngster likes me, or a dog, or a 
 kitten It makes me feel kind of as if there must 
 be something good inside me. And I know it 
 won't hurt her, for I won't let it no sir! I may 
 be a ' curled darling,' but I know what's the decent 
 thing to do, and I do it! But Editha Fessenden 
 could hurt her so she'd never get over it yes, and 
 she will, too, some o' these days, if she gets a 
 chance; some day when I don't dance to suit her, 
 she'll take it out on that child. By George! It's 
 a shame! Confound her!" 
 
 " Your scene, Mr. Delano," said the call boy, 
 rapping. And still pondering a most unusual 
 
 119
 
 Felicity 
 
 occupation for him Vincent strode out, banging 
 the door to behind him. 
 
 Felicity was standing in the wings. She had an 
 exit and an entrance so close together that it did 
 not pay to go back to her dressing-room for the 
 interval. 
 
 " I've something to tell you," she whispered, as 
 he waited beside her for his cue. 
 
 "All right." He nodded, smiling, and went on. 
 
 Her eyes, smiling back at him, were so sweetly 
 worshipful that Vincent forgot to be flattered in 
 thinking how liable to hurt the innocent ingenuous- 
 ness of this thing made her. Something vague 
 stirred his memory, something about an actor who 
 was past master of the decent thing to do. Who 
 was it? Oh, yes Garrick! He'd seen Sothern 
 play it. Ought a fellow to do something like 
 that? 
 
 One of the things that contributed most to Vin- 
 cent's happiness was his ability to keep on good 
 terms with himself. His code might not have been 
 altogether an intelligible one to a good many peo- 
 ple, but it satisfied him thoroughly and gave him 
 as much pleasure when he lived up to it as if it 
 had been a great deal more elaborate and more 
 reasonable. He liked himself for the handsome- 
 ness of his attitude toward Felicity liked himself 
 so well that he forgot his irritation of a few mo- 
 ments before, and when he came off from his 
 
 120
 
 "The Big Open Road" 
 
 scene he was in high good humor on account of 
 what he meant to do. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" he asked Felicity, when 
 they were both at leisure for a few minutes. 
 "Good news?" 
 
 " No funny news. I've had an offer to head 
 a company." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 ' To head a company to play Lady Macbeth 
 and Fanchon the Cricket and Meg Merrilies and 
 The New Magdalen and and other assorted 
 roles, in Medicine Hat and Hushpuckena and Dead 
 Men's Gulch." 
 
 Her eyes were so full of shine and her voice 
 was so full of quaver that Vincent did not know, 
 for a moment, whether she was insulted or elated. 
 As a matter of fact, she was neither, but excited to 
 be talking to him, and trembling with the hope that 
 he would cry, "Don't go!" Instead, he remarked: 
 
 " That 'd be bully training, you know." 
 
 " I know; but I don't want to go." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Well, because I'd hate to leave The Old 
 Man." 
 
 Vincent could hardly keep from smiling at the 
 child's lack of artifice, but he ignored the telltale 
 look in her eyes, the tremulous little quivering at 
 the corners of the lovely mouth, and professed to 
 take her remark seriously. 
 
 121
 
 Felicity 
 
 " Oh, he wouldn't want you to let that stand in 
 your way." 
 
 "No, I know; but " 
 
 "Ah!" banteringly, "but you're afraid he 
 won't get on without you ! " 
 
 Felicity smiled, and Vincent remarked to him- 
 self that she looked so pretty when she smiled it 
 was a pity she did not do it oftener. Then, smitten 
 with a sudden inspiration of " the decent thing to 
 do," he said: 
 
 " Don't you think we'll forget you if you go. 
 Tell you what I'll do, if you want me to: I'll write 
 you a letter every week and keep you posted on 
 all that's happening." 
 
 "Will you?" 
 
 The eagerness of her tone made Vincent very 
 gratified to have been so magnanimous, for he 
 hated to write letters, and in a glow of fine feeling 
 he held out his hand. " Let's call it a bargain," 
 he said. 
 
 " It's a bargain," said Felicity, half happy and 
 half heart-broken, with the broken-heartedness of 
 sixteen in love. 
 
 Now, in consultation with Phineas and Amelia, 
 Felicity had exhibited a not unnatural disinclina- 
 tion to accept the offer made her so unexpectedly. 
 
 " I don't see how they ever came to pick you for 
 the purpose," said Phineas, untruthfully, for he 
 knew all about it had had a hand in it " for 
 
 122
 
 "The Big Open Road" 
 
 you're not altogether a likely lookin' chicken, yet, 
 and don't suggest, to me at least, the average lead- 
 ing lady of the frontier circuit. But there's no 
 doubt in the world that it's an opportunity for you, 
 and will do more toward the making of you than 
 a whole lifetime of playing polite little roles in a 
 company like mine. If I live longer 'n I have any 
 right to expect, and keep on acting, I might be 
 able to give you Miss Fessenden's place in a couple 
 o' years or so. But that's the best I could ever do 
 for you, and it would never help you to be a great 
 comedienne. You know what I've told you about 
 Dick Sheridan and Goldsmith and Balzac and 
 Moliere and other folks who knew the human 
 comedy. You know the school they learned it in. 
 Well, you can't learn the same lessons in any other 
 school. If you're going to be anybody, you've got 
 to get out and be it. If you're going to delineate 
 life, you've got to get out where life's elemental 
 and you can learn the A B C's of it." 
 
 " I don't know," said Felicity, who had seen 
 something of the terrors of the road this season, 
 " that I want to be anybody, after all." 
 
 ' Yes," commented Phineas, dryly, " we all feel 
 that way a good deal of the time. It's a lot o' 
 trouble, this being somebody, but those that can 
 be, don't often quit, and those that can't be, never 
 leave off wishing they could. Nobody's satisfied, 
 that I can find out, but those that come nearest to 
 
 123
 
 Felicity 
 
 it are the folks who have never tried to be any- 
 body, yet feel sure they could have been anything 
 they'd had a mind to. If what you want is satis- 
 faction, you'd better quit right now, and live out 
 your days in the smug conviction that you could 
 have been a great comedienne if you'd taken the 
 trouble." 
 
 The subtlety of this advice was beyond Felicity, 
 but she winced under its irony. 
 
 " I'll think about it," she said, soberly, as she 
 went her way. 
 
 That evening Amelia watched for an opportu- 
 nity to speak to Phineas. Sometimes for a week 
 at a time she and Felicity would see him at the 
 theatre only, and would have no more conversation 
 with him than with any other person in the com- 
 pany. Again, there might be several times in a 
 week when he would take them to dine or lunch 
 with him, or would come from his hotel to their 
 modest boarding-house and get Felicity for a ram- 
 ble or a visit to some place of interest, or take her 
 with him to some function given in his honor and 
 usually to his immense boredom unless he had 
 Felicity with him to see the comedy of the thing 
 with his eyes. 
 
 Lately, he seemed to have been bear-hunting, 
 as he called it, a good deal of the time. Twice 
 within a week, Amelia knew, the curtain had been 
 held until half-past eight because Phineas could 
 
 124
 
 "The Big Open Road" 
 
 not be found until nearly that hour. He was 
 never the least shamefaced about these delinquen- 
 cies, but would say quite frankly, with his delicious, 
 whimsical smile, that " the name of the bear was 
 * Jack-pot,' " or " John Barleycorn," or " Fast and 
 Furious," and remark whether " I got him " or 
 " he got me." 
 
 " Ten to one on ' Fast and Furious,' and made 
 a hundred," he'd call in cheerily to Delano and 
 Ashley, as he passed their dressing-room, half an 
 hour late. Or, " Just lost two hundred and fifty 
 on a full house, queens high ; that's what comes o' 
 betting on the ladies ! " 
 
 Amelia's attitude toward these things she was 
 born and bred to abhor, was interesting in the 
 extreme. Nothing in the roughness of the road 
 ever tempted her for an instant to " travel easy," 
 but while she still held certain things as unper- 
 missibJe as ever for herself, she was no longer per- 
 suaded that every one who practised those things 
 was wholly culpable. She regretted Phineas's 
 " bears," but she not only had by now a firm con- 
 viction in his goodness immesurably outweighing 
 his badness, she even had some apprehension of 
 his goodness being in a mysterious alchemy of 
 human nature an outcome of his badness, or 
 t'other way round, and was beginning to under- 
 stand for the first time in her life why God so 
 often chooses faulty men for His big purposes. 
 
 125
 
 Felicity 
 
 Phineas Morton had altered for her not only the 
 whole world that was, but the world that had been, 
 and had given her a comprehending delight in a 
 thousand great fellowships she could never have 
 enjoyed but for him. The world-old anomalies 
 of his character served an interpretative purpose 
 for her in a long range of human complexities 
 from Adam to Goethe; she knew them all better 
 for having known The Old Man. 
 
 " I'm worried about Felicity," she told him 
 when she had managed to find him alone. 
 
 "What about her?" 
 
 " Why " Amelia had the spinster delicacy 
 
 about such things, and she flushed a little as she 
 answered, " I think she's in love." 
 
 Phineas threw back his head and roared a 
 thing he seldom did, for his humor was essentially 
 of the quiet kind and expressed itself more readily 
 in chuckles than in roars. But Amelia was so 
 funny in her very real concern that he laughed 
 uproariously. 
 
 " The deuce you do ! " he exclaimed, tearful 
 with amusement. " And what else should she be, 
 at sixteen, I'd like to know? " 
 
 11 How can a girl of sixteen know what love is? " 
 
 " She can't, dear lady, she can't ! But there'll 
 never be another time in her life when she'll be so 
 sure she does know. And, mercy me ! they've got 
 to live through it, same as measles. Who's he? " 
 
 126
 
 "The Big Open Road" 
 
 " Mr. Delano. She sleeps with his picture under 
 her pillow." 
 
 " Bully! That'll do her a world o' good." 
 
 " I can't see how. It looks to me as if she were 
 breaking her heart about him." 
 
 " Well, what of it? Isn't it the chief business 
 of sweet sixteen to break its heart about somebody? 
 And isn't it the lifelong business of an actress to 
 keep her heart broken, somehow or other? " 
 
 " I didn't know that it was." 
 
 " Well, take my word for it. Women at ease 
 with their hearts if there's any such thing never 
 do anything. If Felicity's going to be a great 
 comedienne she's got to break her heart, not once, 
 but a good many times, and it's none too soon to 
 begin. There's no comedy in life more than a 
 hair's breadth removed from tears, and all the 
 best laughs the world has ever raised have been 
 raised by men and a few women who knew 
 sorrow better 'n they knew joy. I don't deny the 
 very real suffering of sixteen in hopeless love. But, 
 Ephraim Manasseh! there's nothing in life more 
 delicious than recalling those pangs, afterwards, 
 and watching other young things in the throes. 
 No one ought to miss that vital part of his educa- 
 tion. As between college and calf love, I always 
 say a man may be a good deal of a man without 
 college, but without calf love never! " 
 
 Amelia felt, as she often did in talking with 
 127
 
 Felicity 
 
 Phineas, a great self-pity for the rigid restrictions 
 of those early years when she, too, might have been 
 suffering and enjoying things that would have given 
 her an active membership in the everlasting com- 
 pany playing the comedie humaine. Those starved 
 years were doubly pitiful, for they not only passed 
 without eventfulness, but they had left her with- 
 out recollections such recollections as she ought 
 to have had to make her kin with the majority. 
 
 "Then you wouldn't do anything about it?" 
 she asked, less anxiously. 
 
 " Not a thing in the world, unless to encourage 
 it though, of course, opposition's the likeliest 
 way to do that. Delano's an ideal object for those 
 sighs which are as developing to character as a 
 baby's crying is to its lungs. He's a decent chap, 
 and he's safe. Oh, Lordy! he's safe, all right! 
 He's bored to death with sweet sixteen though 
 he wouldn't wish not to be, of course ! " 
 
 It was after this that Vincent gave his fillip to 
 the situation and Felicity exhibited, all of a sudden, 
 a mysterious willingness to go on that far adventur- 
 ing. She was to begin rehearsing in Boston, in 
 August, and in September would start for the far 
 western and southwestern circuit, playing reper- 
 toire. 
 
 Phineas tried his best to persuade Amelia to let 
 the girl go alone, but she would not hear of it. 
 
 " How'll she ever know if she can swim," he 
 128
 
 "The Big Open Road" 
 
 asked, " if you keep a life-preserving aunt tied 
 around her waist all the time? " 
 
 " How do I know she won't drown without 
 learning?" retorted Amelia. 
 
 " Well, perhaps you're right," said The Old 
 Man, " perhaps you're right. God knows it's a 
 rough life out there, but what I'm afraid of for her 
 is not that she'll get rough, but that she won't learn 
 to see through the roughness to the worth that's 
 always underneath. To be perfectly frank with 
 you, dear lady, I'm afraid that without meaning 
 to, you'll make her supercilious about the human 
 nature she'll be brought in contact with; that you'll 
 keep her aloof and read Emerson to her, instead 
 of letting her rub along cheek by jowl with human- 
 ity as she finds it in those unvarnished outposts. 
 Of course it's, a fly-by-night existence and you never 
 strike root anywhere, but even in flight you can 
 learn things, if you will. Now, I don't want Fe- 
 licity to lose contact with civilization, out yonder, 
 but I want you to promise me, cross-your-heart-and- 
 hope-to-die-if-you-don't-do-it, that you'll so far for- 
 get Federal Street as to keep in mind that although 
 Felicity was born there, she has elected to be a child 
 of the road, the big open road, where the passport 
 is sympathy and understanding, not criticism of the 
 way the other travellers limp along on tired feet 
 or dance for paltry joys. I want her to learn 
 to see past all the surface things to the thing that 
 
 129
 
 Felicity- 
 matters in each fellow-creature. I've put in seventy 
 years at that, and I know it's worth while. I'd 
 give her my knowledge for a heritage if I could, 
 but it wouldn't do her any good. More than any 
 other kind o' knowledge, it's the seeking of it 
 that counts for most. My heartbreaks won't help 
 her much, nor will yours. Don't forget that, 
 and don't try to deny her the right to break her own 
 heart." 
 
 " I won't," promised Amelia, knowing full well 
 how hard the promise would be to keep, but mean- 
 ing to keep it. 
 
 130
 
 PART II 
 
 TWELVE YEARS LATER
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT HAPPINESS 
 
 " T TGH ! what a day ! " said Felicity, shivering 
 
 \^J and withdrawing deeper into her fur 
 wrappings, even in the heated brougham. 
 
 February was holding high carnival of horrors 
 in Chicago where a gray day was waning into early 
 blackness. The sleety rain that had been falling 
 was turned, now, into slushy snow which spattered 
 in big blobs against everything, melting soon after- 
 wards and adding rapidly to the ankle-depth of 
 icy mire through which horses and pedestrians 
 splashed forlornly. 
 
 The billboards announcing Felicity Fergus were 
 soaked until they wore a blistered appearance, and 
 as the carriage turned into Michigan Avenue Felic- 
 ity noted that the lake was indistinguishable from 
 the pall of leaden sky. 
 
 She had played in Indianapolis Saturday and had 
 stayed over Sunday to rest and visit friends, her 
 company coming on by an early train Sunday 
 morning. 
 
 Her personal representative had met her at the 
 
 133
 
 Felicity- 
 train, seen to the immediate delivery of such bag- 
 gage as she had with her, and sent her maid ahead 
 in a cab with the hand satchels. 
 
 " Every seat sold for to-night, though, if the 
 weather is beastly," he answered. 
 
 " I think you'll find everything as you like it," 
 he said as they drew up to the hotel, " but if you 
 don't, we'll soon have it so. My room is 841, 
 and I'll stay within call until you say you don't 
 want me then go over to the theatre." 
 
 Celeste, the maid, had reached the rooms not 
 ten minutes before Miss Fergus, but was already 
 deftly unpacking dressing cases and putting things 
 to rights when Felicity came, and when Mr. Lef- 
 fler opened the door for her the place had begun 
 to have that air of homeliness which luxury so 
 sadly lacks until it has been adapted. 
 
 In the drawing-room a brilliant fire snapped and 
 sparkled, and drawn up before it was a big easy- 
 chair and a tabourette with a silver tea service 
 and a bundle of letters. For the rest, the room 
 seemed to be a bower of flowers which had been 
 coming all day and which Mr. Leffler had disposed 
 in innumerable vases requisitioned from the house- 
 keeper. 
 
 " I've left the cards by the vases until you saw 
 them," he said. " I'll gather them up and write 
 acknowledgments whenever you say." 
 
 * To-morrow will do, thank you." She was 
 
 134
 
 All that Glitters Is Not Happiness 
 
 moving about examining the cards before she took 
 her tea. Mr. Leffler had seldom seen her take 
 so much interest in this common occurrence of 
 being smothered in flowers. 
 
 ' Wasn't there a box of pink roses? " she asked, 
 " with a card from Mr. Allston? " 
 
 " I put them in yonder," he answered, indicating, 
 with a nod her bedroom. There, on her dressing- 
 table, where Celeste had her array of glittering 
 toilet silver spread on her own lace scarf, a tall 
 vase of splendid La France roses nodded at their 
 reflection in the big mirror. 
 
 " Dear old Morton ! " thought Felicity, " dear 
 old * killer ' ! He's a friend; these other people 
 are only acquaintances. I'd have been disap- 
 pointed if he'd forgoten me." 
 
 ' The other offerings to date," said Mr. Leffler, 
 preparing to withdraw, "are: seven varieties of 
 face cream, three hair tonics, two boxes of toilet 
 soap, a new breath perfume, and a patent bath- 
 mitt all ' come early to avoid the rush ' in appli- 
 cation for your indorsement." 
 
 Felicity laughed. " No tooth paste or pow- 
 der?" she said, "not a single reference to 'the 
 well-known charms of my celebrated smile ' ? " 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 " Dear me ! Business must be falling off, or the 
 press agent must have forgotten something." 
 
 "Oh, they'll come all right; never fear," 
 
 135
 
 Felicity 
 
 laughed the young man as he closed the door 
 behind him. 
 
 Yes, they would come! Felicity did not fear; 
 she had no hope of escaping them. What The Old 
 Man had dreaded had abundantly come true: her 
 smile was famous in two continents, and she had 
 grown so unutterably sick of hearing about it that 
 she felt sure the whole world must be sick of it 
 too. Public clamor about her charm had robbed 
 it of nearly all its subtlety, but she had now grown 
 shrewd enough to know that only an infinitesimal 
 part of the public cares for subtlety, anyway, and 
 kind enough to recognize that the intent in praising 
 her was good even if the results were, to her 
 notion, pretty dreadful. She winced under praise 
 far oftener than she glowed under it, but so did 
 every one, presumably. 
 
 An hour later, refreshed by her tea and her bath, 
 she was resting, before eating a light dinner, when 
 her maid answered a knock at the door and brought 
 her a note in a card envelope. 
 
 The pencil scrawl on the card was almost illegi- 
 ble in its wavering uncertainty, but she made out: 
 
 " I am very ill. Can you come to me ? 
 
 "ADELAIDE WALTERS." 
 
 " Tell Miss Walters ' Yes,' " she called, past 
 Celeste, to the page, " what number is her room ? " 
 ' Ten hundred and twelve," said the boy, with 
 136
 
 All that Glitters Is Not Happiness 
 
 the air so quickly acquired by menials in a big hos- 
 telry when referring to a cheap room. 
 
 " I'll be there directly," Felicity sent word. 
 
 When Celeste had feed him and closed the door, 
 Felicity looked inquiringly at her array and then 
 at the maid. 
 
 " I can't go through the halls like this," she 
 said, " and I don't want to wait till I dress." 
 
 " Madame can wear this," said the woman, 
 returning from the bedroom with a long, envelop- 
 ing black silk cloak which she laid about Felicity 
 over her negligee. 
 
 " Shall I accompany Madame? " 
 
 " No. And I'll not be long. I can't be ! " 
 
 Adelaide Walters was playing an old woman 
 part in the Fergus company. In her day she had 
 " played many parts," with a majority of the lead- 
 ing players of her time, and had been a much-feted 
 woman. Now she was old, and the generation of 
 play-goers that had lauded her prime was passed 
 to the shelter of the fireside, or to a more restful 
 shelter still; but she had little laid up for her old 
 age, and even if she had had much more the habit 
 of the road was strong in her and she was, on the 
 whole, happier wandering than she could have been 
 at rest. 
 
 One of the few indulgences she allowed herself 
 as her earning ability decreased to mere livelihood, 
 
 1,37
 
 Felicity- 
 
 was keeping up her old custom of staying at the 
 same hotel with the star. She had to take the 
 cheapest room, and more often than not ate at 
 dingy little cafes and restaurants and made street 
 cars serve where cabs had once been thought a 
 necessity. But she got her mail at the best 
 hotel in town and in its parlors received her few 
 friends and old-time admirers; and her pride was 
 kept tolerably alive by this pitiful little pretence. 
 She would have had more sheer comfort and a deal 
 more companionship in an actors' boarding-house, 
 but it was her little pet folly to despise them, and 
 everybody smiled at the folly and thought no whit 
 the less of her for cherishing it. 
 
 Felicity often asked the old lady to dinner, 
 pleading that she liked to " reminisce " with her 
 about The Old Man which was perfectly true 
 and on bad nights usually contrived to get Miss 
 Walters to share her cab to and from the theatre 
 without in any wise suggesting that benevolence 
 prompted her. 
 
 Indeed, it had not been benevolence, or at least 
 only faintly that. Felicity was kind, but she was 
 not less self-absorbed than most accomplishers, 
 and she did not always remember to do things 
 because they ought to be done; the things she did 
 were apt to be the things she wanted to do. 
 
 This winter was the first Aunt Elie had not 
 been with her. The sturdiness with which that 
 
 138
 
 All that Glitters Is Not Happiness 
 
 good woman had kept at her post was a marvel, 
 but a serious valvular affection was growing on 
 her so alarmingly that she had been persuaded to 
 forswear the rigors of the road this season and 
 stay quietly at Briarwood. Felicity, in her for- 
 lornness, had found Adelaide Walters the most 
 satisfactory refuge among all her travelling com- 
 panions and had been cheered and soothed a good 
 many times by the old woman's kindly philosophy. 
 It was in very real distress, then, that she responded 
 to Miss Walters's call. 
 
 Room 1012 was on the top floor but one; only 
 the servants slept higher. It was a mean little 
 room, long and narrow, with a single window 
 looking into a gray-bricked court. The last of the 
 dreary daylight had not quite faded, and Miss 
 Walters was lying in the gloom, dreading the turn- 
 ing on of the light, which hurt her eyes. 
 
 It was her habit, when she was well, to make 
 a cheerful domicile for herself in a few moments, 
 wherever she was set down. She had a little sew- 
 ing-basket which, of itself, with its fat tomato pin- 
 cushion and its flannel-leaved needle-book, its 
 scissors and thimble and dried garden squash for 
 darning over, was enough to make a place look 
 home-like. But yesterday she had been too 
 wretched, on arriving, to unpack anything but the 
 barest necessities. 
 
 The bureau, with an ink-stained towel for scarf, 
 
 139
 
 Felicity 
 
 bore the corrugated china match-safe which always 
 represented, to Adelaide Walters, the essence of 
 hotel dreariness it seemed so inescapable. Beside 
 it lay her " switch " and a litter of hair pins. On a 
 chair were her travelling clothes, removed in great 
 haste, for she could hardly wait to get her aching 
 bones to bed; and on the floor by the chair were her 
 shoes and stockings in a forlorn little huddle. 
 
 The whole scene smote most piteously on Felic- 
 ity as she opened the door. Involuntarily, she 
 dropped her black cloak and stood, a spot of 
 vivid color in that gray waste. She wore a negli- 
 gee of soft, lustrous silk that was delicate rose in 
 the woof and silvery gray in the warp, and that 
 seemed to shimmer with different tones and lights 
 with every move she made. The gown was exceed- 
 ingly voluminous and swirled about her in a glory 
 of tender color, the " angel sleeves " falling away 
 from her beautiful white arms. 
 
 It was the artist in her that made her drop her 
 cloak, instinctively, and lend her color-full pres- 
 ence to this dreary room. It was something finer 
 than the artist sense that made her feel, a moment 
 after, the blatant cruelty of her action. She had 
 not been conscious of her youth and strength and 
 success when she entered this dingy room where 
 age and weakness and decayed powers lay prone 
 in the last ditch, but the moment she was in, the 
 cruelty of it all smote her and she felt terribly ill 
 
 140
 
 All that Glitters Is Not Happiness 
 
 at ease. Her beauty and her brilliance seemed to 
 her an affront to this aged distress, and she had a 
 desire to be, for once, something better qualified 
 than she was to minister to this woman who needed 
 comfort so. 
 
 Miss Walters could give her but feeble greet- 
 ing, and Felicity went over and sat down by her 
 on the edge of the bed partly that she might bet- 
 ter hear the old woman's faint tones and partly 
 in an impulse of mute comfort. 
 
 A withered, stringy brown arm lay uncovered 
 on the white counterpane, and Felicity picked up 
 the fevered hand and patted it. 
 
 " How are you feeling now ? " she asked. 
 
 " Badly, dear, pretty badly. The doctor says 
 I've pneumonia, though I'm still hoping he's mis- 
 taken." 
 
 Then her eyes travelled, for the first time since 
 Felicity had entered the room, from the lovely 
 face above the rosy gown and fell on the exquisite 
 white hand patting her wrinkled, age-colored one, 
 and she lifted her hand and laid it on Felicity's 
 rounded, satiny white arm. 
 
 " I had arms like that, once," she said softly, 
 and seemed more happy in the reminiscence than 
 bitter over departed charms. 
 
 'Yes?" encouraged Felicity, realizing, some- 
 how, what a tonic this recollection was, and de- 
 lighted to help by her interest. 
 
 141
 
 Felicity 
 
 " Yes, indeed. They were much celebrated in 
 my day. It used to be quite a joke among my 
 friends that an enthusiastic young reporter, out 
 West, blossomed into verse, one day, with a poem 
 in which he claimed the lost arms of the Venus 
 of Milo were found, and that I had them. I had 
 that clipping for years, but I've lost it. I wish 
 I could show it to you." 
 
 " Oh, you don't need to show it to me," assured 
 Felicity, " don't you suppose I know all about it? " 
 More by her manner than by what she said she was 
 stretching a very little truth to its utmost limits; 
 but she was rewarded for her effort by the smile 
 of gratification that overspread Miss Walters's 
 age-lined countenance. 
 
 They fell to talking of The Old Man, then 
 or, rather, Felicity talked of him and the sick 
 woman followed her with eager interest, interject- 
 ing a few words now and then as her strength 
 allowed and the bright talk of happy days was 
 a better tonic than any doctor could have given. 
 
 " Now," said Felicity, as she got up to go, " this 
 may be only a cold, as we hope, but I'm going to 
 send you a nurse, because you must have some one 
 to wait on you. And you're not to worry about 
 your part; Miss Burton will manage very well, I'm 
 sure." Then, with a sudden inspiration, she 
 asked, " Is there any one you'd like me to send 
 for? If it should turn out that you have a little 
 
 142
 
 All that Glitters Is Not Happiness 
 
 pull ahead of you, it would be cheerier to have 
 some ' own folks,' wouldn't it? " 
 
 She did not know much of Miss Walters's per- 
 sonal history and was quite unprepared for the hag- 
 gard look which immediately came over the old 
 woman's face. 
 
 " There's no one to send for," she said the 
 big, self-pitying tears beginning to roll slowly 
 down her shrunken cheeks " there's no one to 
 send for! Ah, my dear, if I had it to do over 
 again I'd live my life differently; I wouldn't come 
 at last to this alone, all alone. Don't you do it, 
 dear. Give up something, give up everything, but 
 have some one to belong to, some one whose place 
 is with you when the world you're giving yourself 
 to cannot and will not comfort you. I don't regret 
 not having a husband. I guess I've seen too much 
 of the world to think very highly of husbands. 
 But, oh, my dear! I regret not having a child so 
 passionately I can hardly bear to die to die with- 
 out having lived, it seems to me. . . . Now you 
 must go, dear. You've a big night ahead of you, 
 and you must go and make folks laugh. They've 
 paid their money to see you, and you must send 
 them away smiling. Try not to think of me to- 
 night try not to remember that none of those 
 who smile with you would stand hand in hand with 
 you on on the dreaded brink. But some time 
 when an opportunity comes to you to do better than 
 
 143
 
 Felicity 
 
 I have done, think of me, and don't let your youth 
 go and leave you alone like me, alone ! " 
 
 For answer, Felicity put her bright head on the 
 pillow beside the gray one and wept, while the 
 wrinkled hand patted her white, soft hand com- 
 fortingly. 
 
 " There! I'm a selfish old woman to put such 
 desolation in your mind when you've your smiling 
 work ahead of you and all the world's at your feet 
 waiting to smile with you," she said, soothingly. 
 " Forgive me, and dry your eyes. I'll lie here and 
 reproach myself all night if you don't." 
 
 So Felicity made feint of being comforted, and 
 gathering her black cloak around her hurried back 
 to her rooms, where her dinner was waiting, all 
 daintily set out on a small table before the blazing 
 log fire. 
 
 Before sitting down to eat she despatched to 
 "1012" a tall vase of Jacque roses and a big 
 bunch of violets, and sent word to Mr. Leffler to 
 have a trained nurse take charge of Miss Walters 
 without delay. She wished she could move her out 
 of that cheerless room without hurting her pride, 
 but knew that to be impossible. 
 
 What dinner she managed to eat was got 
 through with in a deep preoccupation. 
 
 " Bring one of those pink roses, Celeste," she 
 said, when they were about to leave for the theatre. 
 " I'll wear it in my hair in the first act." 
 
 144
 
 All that Glitters Is Not Happiness 
 
 When she went on for the first act, the pink rose 
 in her hair, the applause that greeted her amounted 
 to a triumph. The theatre was packed, from 
 orchestra pit to topmost gallery seat, but Felicity's 
 eyes took in no more than the right-hand stage box 
 where she saw, as she had hoped to see, a man's 
 face light up with keen pleasure when he noticed 
 the pink rose. 
 
 She was playing her dual role in Marianna, the 
 play wherein she had won her greatest popular 
 acclaim. It was founded on an old, old theme, 
 which is ever fresh because it has its root in the 
 wistfulness of each of us to be that we are not. 
 Marianna was a gypsy girl, famed for her beauty 
 and for her resemblance to the young queen of her 
 country. Queen Marie had heard of Marianna; 
 Marianna lived on the current stories of her queen. 
 Marianna was tired of being a gypsy and eager to 
 be a queen. Marie was very tired of being a queen 
 and wistful to be gypsy-free. The exchange was 
 effected and Marianna, of course, fretted might- 
 ily under the restraints of queening, while Marie 
 as soon tired of the gypsy freedom. The noblesse 
 oblige that was, after all, paramount in the queen, 
 sent her back to her responsibilities; the lawless- 
 ness that was, after all, paramount in Marianna, 
 sent her back to her life without obligations. The 
 incidental comedy was deliciously human, and the 
 philosophy, trite as it was, was w T orked out with 
 
 145
 
 Felicity 
 
 great charm. Felicity, alternating the roles, was 
 lovely and behind all the efforts of queen and 
 gypsy to be other than they really were, one 
 glimpsed, always, that entrancing double conscious- 
 ness of Felicity's wherewith she seemed ever to see 
 herself as two persons, the two persons that are in 
 all of us : the person we are and the person we 
 would like to think ourselves. " One of me," 
 Felicity was wont to say of herself, " is always 
 watching ' the other of me ' with a tender, smiling 
 incredulity." Even so, as her Marie played at 
 being Marianna, one felt the failure of the young 
 queen's efforts to make her queenly self take seri- 
 ous account of her gypsyish efforts; and as her 
 Marianna played at being Marie, one felt under 
 the brave pretence the free girl's startled awe of 
 queenly obligations. Altogether, it was the kind 
 of pretty play into which one might read as 
 deeply as his philosophy of life made possible, 
 and which sent every auditor away with a sense 
 of better satisfaction in the life he was living, 
 whatever it might be, and yet kept sweet for 
 him, in a sort of separate consciousness, those 
 dreams he liked to cherish of a self he could 
 never be. 
 
 ' There's something uncommonly wistful, ap- 
 pealing, about her comedy to-night; don't you 
 feel it?" 
 
 It was a minute, at least, after the curtain had 
 
 146
 
 All that Glitters Is Not Happiness 
 
 gone down on the first act that Morton Allston 
 shook himself out of his revery sufficiently to 
 address this remark to his wife. 
 
 " I didn't notice anything unusual," said Sadie 
 Allston, a little crisply. It would not have been 
 in human nature for her to be other than jealous 
 of her husband's enthusiasm in the triumphs of his 
 one-time playmate. 
 
 " I wish The Old Man could see her to-night," 
 he murmured, more to himself than to Sadie. But 
 Sadie, absorbed in conversation with one of her 
 guests, did not seem to hear. 
 
 Morton was glad he sat far back in the box 
 where the shadows hid the tears in his eyes at the 
 close of the last act. The others who watched 
 Felicity had laughed with her and cried and 
 laughed again, and as the final curtain dropped 
 they were all smiling happily through their tears 
 and breathing little, ecstatic sighs of wonder at 
 the sweetness of her art and the completeness of 
 her triumph. But somehow, the impression that 
 stayed with Morton was one of pathos, deep pathos 
 not the pathos of the play, but the pathos of the 
 player. 
 
 ' There's something about her voice, her smile, 
 the very way she uses her wonderful hands, that 
 wrings my heart to-night," he mused. " I wish 
 I knew if she were in any trouble." 
 
 " Isn't she exquisite ! " cried one of his guests, 
 
 147
 
 Felicity 
 
 as he helped her with her cloak. " How proud 
 you must be of her." 
 
 " I am," he said, simply. 
 
 " Do you think you could take us back, Mor- 
 ton? " Sadie asked. " The girls are crazy to meet 
 her." 
 
 " And the men," supplemented a masculine 
 guest. 
 
 So they went back, and exchanged a few words 
 with Felicity, who welcomed them with that shy- 
 ness which all her rough schooling and all her 
 brilliant success alike had failed to alter, and which 
 was her chief charm to those who could appreci- 
 ate it. 
 
 An effusive or evidently easy Felicity would have 
 seemed a strange anomaly to her friends. Some 
 called her little effect of diffidence, of withdrawal, 
 the supremacy of art the art of coquetry and 
 no one could deny that she was too perfect an 
 artist in feeling to be unaware that it was the man- 
 ner most pre-eminently fitting her personality. But 
 also she was too perfect an artist in expression to 
 seem conscious of her art, and whether she was shy 
 by necessity or by selection, few ever came away 
 from meeting her without saying: 
 
 " Wonderful ! that shy, sweet manner in a 
 woman of her triumphs." 
 
 Felicity knew they said it, and it pleased her. 
 But she could not have been otherwise, in any 
 
 148
 
 All that Glitters Is Not Happiness 
 
 event, for like many another celebrity who com- 
 pels admiration from a distance, she was uncon- 
 querably timid with most people at close range. 
 
 " We'd love to have you take supper with us 
 if you can, Miss Fergus," said Sadie, whose heart- 
 was set on giving her four guests the kind of time 
 no one else in their acquaintance could give them 
 the kind of time they would talk about for many a 
 day while they told their friends anecdotes of 
 " when I had supper with Miss Fergus." 
 
 But Felicity shook her head, smiling. " I don't 
 eat supper," she said; "only a glass of hot milk 
 and a cracker, or something like that. Mrs. All- 
 ston never knew Aunt Elie, did she? " turning to 
 Morton, " or she'd know I never learned to eat 
 late suppers. I often wish I had learned; it looks 
 so jolly," she went on, apologetically, " but I'm 
 afraid I couldn't begin now without having to 
 pay the piper exorbitantly the next day. And 
 that's what we can't afford to do, you know. I've 
 heard of comedians whose comedy was dyspepsia- 
 proof and comedians incline to dyspepsia, as 
 the sparks fly upward but I'm afraid mine 
 wouldn't be." 
 
 At the supper-table in a gay cafe Morton told 
 his guests about the performance of Mary Stuart 
 that had inaugurated so much in Felicity's life, and 
 about his first sight of her across the footlights, 
 and the night in his college career when the six 
 
 149
 
 Felicity 
 
 fellows had gone daft about her smile and she had 
 worn in her hair the pink rose he sent her. 
 
 " And now, for old times' sake, whenever she 
 is playing in a town where I am, I send her a 
 few pink roses ' with the compliments of the 
 killer,' " he said, " and always, if the part allows, 
 she wears one in her hair." 
 
 Meanwhile, in her room at the hotel, Felicity 
 sat in the dark, by the embers of her wood fire, 
 alone. She had dismissed Celeste as soon as she 
 could, saying she would go to bed presently, when 
 she felt like it. And then, in her white night- 
 dress and down-wadded Japanese lounging-robe, 
 her long braids of silken-fine hair hanging Mar- 
 guerite-wise over her shoulders, she slipped from 
 her chair to the warm hearthrug and sat there in 
 a little, huddled heap, hugging her updrawn 
 knees. 
 
 She was thinking of the Allston supper party 
 wondering if she would have had a good time if 
 she had gone with them. But no! she doubted 
 whether she could have enjoyed it. That was not 
 what she yearned for, in these hours when tense, 
 still, with the effort of the evening, and wrought to 
 her highest pitch she returned to her rooms in 
 need of a rest that was not there. 
 
 The room was heavy with the fragrance of flow- 
 ers. The thunders of applause that had greeted 
 
 150
 
 All that Glitters Is Not Happiness 
 
 her might have echoed in her ears, had she but list- 
 ened. But she was not remembering her triumphs. 
 She was remembering Adelaide Walters upstairs 
 on her sick-bed; remembering the brown, stringy 
 arms that had once been likened to the lost arms 
 of the Venus of Milo; remembering the gray little 
 room and the desolate huddle of clothing on the 
 chair. There came back to her what Aunt Elie 
 had often told her about the days when Cecile Fer- 
 gus lay hovering on the borderland between two 
 worlds, and a little, crimson circular she had worn 
 hung on the hall-rack in the grim old house. Every 
 time one of the three Ferguses passed the hall- 
 rack the little circular brought a flood of feeling 
 almost too piteous to be borne. But no one would 
 imply the failure of hope by taking the crimson 
 cloak down, and so it hung, agonizing them all, 
 till Robert was gone, with his precious burden, to 
 the Southland. Then, when the morning after 
 the funeral came, and Amelia and her mother were 
 face to face with the unutterably heart-breaking 
 task of putting little Cecile's abandoned things 
 tenderly away, Amelia had gone into the hall and 
 found her mother standing by the hall-rack, her 
 head buried in the folds of that gay little circular, 
 her large form shaken with sobs. 
 
 That was sad, Felicity reflected, her eyes shin- 
 ing in the firelight, but that hastily discarded cloth- 
 ing on the chair upstairs was sadder, far sadder,
 
 Felicity 
 
 because there was no one but herself, almost a 
 stranger, whose heart ached at its piteousness. 
 
 Then she recalled, with what she would have 
 said was a strange inconsequence, had she thought 
 of it at all, how tenderly Morton had laid Sadie's 
 cloak about her shoulders on the draughty stage, 
 fastening it under her chin with no fumbling fin- 
 gers, but the deftness of one used to such service. 
 
 And again she looked down at her satiny white 
 arms encircling her knees, and tried to see them 
 brown and stringy with age, like Adelaide Wal- 
 ters's. Strange ! she had not thought of this before 
 had been too absorbed with her breathless climb- 
 ing to think of what lay beyond the summit, far 
 down on the other slope. One never thought of 
 anything but the top until it was reached; then, 
 immediately, before one had enjoyed it, one must 
 think of the descent. Why, oh why, had she come 
 this uncompanioned way? 
 
 And, sobbing with the keenest sense she had yet 
 known of the insufficiency of her triumphs to sat- 
 isfy, she crept to bed. 
 
 152
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A MUMMER'S END 
 
 ADELAIDE WALTERS died on Friday, and 
 Sunday they buried her in Graceland, 
 where she had said she would as lief lie as any- 
 where. Her parents and kinsfolk lay far overseas 
 in Germany, whence she had come in her young 
 girlhood, and there was no burial spot in America 
 that was sacred to her. 
 
 Felicity, who had watched with her to the end, 
 holding her hand, followed her to the grave. 
 
 Saturday there was brought to her in her dress- 
 ing-room at the theatre during the matinee a pen- 
 cilled note: 
 
 "Awfully sorry to hear about Aunt Adelaide's death. Can 
 I be of any service? I am playing at McVicker's. 
 
 "VINCENT DELANO." 
 
 She remembered, now, that Delano had for sev- 
 eral seasons lately played in an important star com- 
 pany with Miss Walters, and like many of the 
 younger men who played with her and benefited 
 by her quiet little friendlinesses, had taken to call- 
 
 153
 
 Felicity 
 
 ing her " Aunt Adelaide." So she scribbled him a 
 return note: 
 
 *' So glad to know you are in town. Yes, come to-morrow 
 
 and help with the last tribute. Be at 's undertaking 
 
 rooms at two o'clock. "F.F." 
 
 The next day, in the chapel of the undertaker, 
 beside the casket of their fellow-player, she met 
 Vincent Delano for the first time in several years. 
 They had not played in the same company since 
 that long, long ago time, a dozen years in fact, 
 but an eternity in seeming, when she had left 
 Morton's company at the close of the spring run 
 in New York and Vincent had buoyed up her 
 heavy heart with the promise of a weekly letter. 
 For a fortnight before they parted she had made 
 and re-made in her mind a question that should 
 appear casual and not betray the terrible moment- 
 ousness to her whether his letters were to begin 
 at once or not until the long tour of exile began. 
 But she had never mustered courage to ask. As 
 a matter of fact, the letters began immediately, 
 grew more and more intermittent through he short 
 summer vacation, and lapsed entirely before the 
 tour of exile was more than well under way. Vin- 
 ce'nt had meant to be faithful, when he made the 
 promise; Vincent always meant to be faithful at 
 the moment of promising. But events conspired 
 against him there could be no other way of 
 
 154
 
 explaining it, they really did ! He told Felicity so, 
 next time he saw her, which was not for a couple 
 of years. And he told it with such charming con- 
 trition very real, too, at the moment that she 
 forgave him heartily, though she had never, to 
 tell the truth, blamed him as she should, nor ever 
 taken him down for one rebellious instant from 
 his pedestal. 
 
 Their ways had not crossed much in the years 
 that had made her unrivalled in her art and that 
 were now threatening Vincent's supremacy as a 
 matinee idol. But if younger men inclined to 
 replace Vincent with the sweet sixteen of the 
 day, no one had ever replaced him with Felicity. 
 She no longer thought much about him, except at 
 semi-occasional times when he recurred to her in 
 some moment of sentimental need. But for the 
 most part, her energy was absorbed by her art and 
 she had almost forgotten the need of any other 
 idol forgotten what The Old Man had so often 
 said to her about an artist being always a wor- 
 shipper. 
 
 There was, therefore, little more consciousness 
 in her manner when she greeted Vincent than any 
 woman of eight-and-twenty is likely to feel in 
 greeting the man she worshipped at sixteen. Fe- 
 licity's sensibilities were too delicate for her to miss 
 the tenderness of the reminiscence Vincent inspired 
 the tenderness of maturity for the momentous 
 
 155
 
 Felicity 
 
 things of youth. She could never have been the 
 artist she was if the sight of Vincent, or the thought 
 of him, had given her only amusement, unmixed 
 with wistfulness for the little girl who had been. 
 And today she was doubly glad to see him, for she 
 was feeling lonely, very lonely, and he was part 
 of a yesterday that she loved and longed for; one 
 of the few living links of her present with that 
 vivid past dominated by The Old Man. 
 
 She asked Vincent to ride in her carriage to 
 the cemetery, and in the long drive on the bleak, 
 wintry day, they had opportunity for much talk 
 with which they tried to bridge the gaps in their 
 association. 
 
 Vincent was inclining to some girth at eight- 
 and-thirty, and his hair was thinning. The thin 
 hair was easily concealable, but not so the girth; 
 if that got greater he would be in a bad way. But 
 what was a man to do, when he had spent nearly 
 forty years in eating what pleased him and drink- 
 ing what was procurable and exercising when he 
 could not help it, and sleeping when there was 
 nothing better to do? A fellow could not begin 
 asceticism at forty. Ah, yes ! some had done it, 
 but he was not their sort. " When I'm too fat 
 to play Romeo, I'll be just right to play Falstaff 
 without padding, like Lemon and Hackett," said 
 Vincent, comfortably. 
 
 But the threatening girth did not diminish his 
 156
 
 A Mummer's End 
 
 charm. If he had been as fat as that obesest of 
 swashbucklers, Vincent would still have been 
 charming. Felicity felt the pleasureableness of 
 that charm as he talked, as he readjusted the car- 
 riage rug about her when it had slid off, and even 
 as he picked the dryest place for her to stand when 
 they got out. 
 
 The earth lay ankle-deep in slush which would 
 soon freeze solid in the icy wind sweeping bleakly 
 in from the lake and whipping the garments of the 
 little group about them as they stood reverently 
 by poor Adelaide Walters's grave. Felicity was 
 crying when she re-entered her carriage and was 
 driven away into the chill grayness, and when 
 she looked up at Vincent, who had not broken 
 the silence, she saw that his eyes were full of 
 tears. 
 
 " I'm all stove in," he said frankly, unashamed 
 of his emotion, as he wiped away the tears. 
 
 " I suppose that's a typical mummer's end," 
 said Felicity, bitterly. 
 
 Vincent looked startled; he had not thought of 
 that did not want to think of it. 
 
 u Oh, I don't know," he said, cheerily, " any- 
 way, let's hope not. Now, see here, little girl, 
 you've cried enough this week, I'll bet. You can't 
 help that poor soul any more, so what's the use 
 of stewing yourself sick over her lonely death? 
 Dry your eyes and come to dinner with your 
 
 157
 
 Felicity 
 
 uncle, here, and see if I can't do something to 
 draw out one of your ' justly celebrated smiles.' ' 
 
 It was hard to realize how much of a stranger 
 Vincent really was, the easy friendliness of his 
 manner was as perfect as if he had been seeing her 
 daily, all their lives; it lacked the least tinge of 
 familiarity, but it had all the apparent forgetful- 
 ness of her fame for which her heart hungered 
 then. 
 
 " He treats me like a human being," she 
 thought, gratefully, " and not like a ' star.' He 
 treats me just as if I were still little Felicity Fer- 
 gus, the ingenue of The Old Man's Company." 
 And her heart warmed to him. 
 
 It was five o'clock when they got back down- 
 town, and they drove at once to Kinsley's, where 
 Vincent picked a quietly-located table and got Fe- 
 licity a glass of sherry to drive her nervous chill 
 away, and with the least imaginable ado ordered 
 a beautiful little dinner an accomplishment in 
 which his artistry was never disputed. 
 
 Felicity, who was never gorgeous, but who loved 
 exquisite color and texture for stage and house 
 wear, maintained a simplicity of attire for the 
 street that seldom failed to cause comment; like her 
 manner, it was " so unactressy." To-night she 
 wore a close-fitting black gown, with the slightest 
 tournure possible short of conspicuousness in a day 
 when every woman's effort seemed to be to look 
 
 158
 
 A Mummer's End 
 
 more monstrous than her neighbors. Where the 
 dead black met her creamy skin at throat and 
 wrists there was a slender line of white lisse ruch- 
 ing. She had not a jewel about her, nor a trace of 
 color, but Vincent, who was naturally rather splen- 
 did in his tastes, could not help chuckling delight- 
 edly to himself as he watched woman after woman 
 sweep in, dressed, as he put it, " in all the finery the 
 law allows," and noted how tawdry they looked 
 beside the woman opposite him, with her masses 
 of shining, braided hair, and sweetly serious face, 
 where the famous smile played only so occasionally 
 as to keep one watching for it fascinatedly, fearful 
 lest a smile be lost. 
 
 " Got 'em all beat in a walk she has ! " he told 
 himself, and grew quite absorbed for Vincent 
 in wondering if she affected this simplicity with a 
 fine art that conceals art, or if it was the inevitable 
 outcropping of her Puritan blood that Puritan 
 blood which had always made her seem to Vincent 
 so distinctly not his kind. As for Felicity, she her- 
 self was not sure whether her sombre attire in 
 public was affected or not and she enjoyed her 
 own uncertainty. For she piqued her own inter- 
 est, even as she piqued other people's, and was as 
 often at a loss to understand herself as others were 
 to understand her. The thing that made her an 
 artist, though, was that she did not imagine this 
 dual feeling peculiar to herself; she knew it to be 
 
 159
 
 Felicity 
 
 a common human trait, and this knowledge was her 
 power. The Old Man had seen to that. " Tem- 
 perament," he had been wont to say, with his 
 twinkling smile, " is human nature only more 
 so." Perhaps, Felicity told herself, she wore those 
 plain clothes because she was really tired of 
 gorgeousness ; more probably, she thought, she 
 wore them because they surprised people, and she 
 had the same relish for doing that that a child 
 has " only more so." 
 
 They lingered over their dinner until nearly 
 seven o'clock, and then drove back to the hotel. 
 Vincent's company was playing that night, but 
 Felicity, though she had had to forget, or to seem 
 to forget, all about the Sabbath in her 'prentice 
 years, never played on that day after she reached 
 the time when she could dictate what she would 
 and would not do ; so her evening was free. 
 
 She wanted Vincent to get out of the cab as they 
 passed McVicker's, and let her go the few blocks 
 to her hotel alone ; but he would not hear to it. 
 
 " I don't suppose you'd care to come in and see 
 the play," he suggested, half deprecatingly. He 
 had said he did not think much of it. 
 
 " No, thank you. You'll smile when I tell you 
 that I promised Aunt Elie, long ago, when we just 
 had to break every Sunday into smithereens, that 
 when I got to where I could, I'd keep Sunday. 
 That seemed to comfort her, a little, in what was 
 
 1 60
 
 A Mummer's End 
 
 really a very terrible trial to her, and I felt it was 
 as little as I could do in return for all she sacrificed 
 for me." 
 
 " Certainly," said Vincent, refraining from com- 
 ment. But when he had seen her safely to her 
 hotel and had paid her the last little attention his 
 thoughtfulness could devise, he lighted a fresh 
 cigarette and settled back in the cab with a feeling 
 of amiable satisfaction that none of his forbears 
 had handed down any Puritan scruples to him. 
 
 " She's easily the most exquisite thing I ever 
 saw," he reflected, " but I'd hate like the deuce to 
 have to live up to her." 
 
 When Felicity reached her rooms, she found 
 that Morton Allston had been there, wanting to 
 take her back home with him to spend a quiet 
 evening. Of other callers there had been no lack, 
 but she regretted missing none of them. It would 
 have been a blessed relief, though, to sit down and 
 talk to Morton of the things that filled her mind. 
 
 It was not yet eight o'clock, and there was a 
 long, long evening to be got through, somehow; 
 she had no hope of getting sleepy before midnight. 
 People would call plenty of them but as she 
 ran over the list of probabilities she could not think 
 of one she wanted to see ; could not bear the thought 
 of ordinary " calling conversation " that night, 
 with the memory of a desolate grave so heavily 
 oppressing her. And there was no reason to expect 
 
 161
 
 Felicity 
 
 that anything diverting and enlivening would event- 
 uate from a strange quarter. 
 
 She wandered restlessly about her sitting-room 
 for a while, now sitting down to the desk to write 
 a letter, and in a moment pushing it impatiently 
 away, scarce begun; now picking up a magazine 
 and making an ineffectual effort to get interested 
 in a story. 
 
 The log fire snapped and sparkled cosily; there 
 was the usual profusion of freshly-cut flowers; the 
 room invited one to comfort, but Felicity only 
 fretted the more that there was no one there to 
 make comfort for her by enjoying it with her. If 
 only she could have drawn up two big chairs before 
 that fire, and turned the lights low, and sat there, 
 four-feet-on-a-fender fashion with somebody who 
 had recollections common with hers, who dreamed 
 her dreams ! With The Old Man, first choice of 
 all, though he was no " blood kin " of hers. But 
 The Old Man was sleeping in Mt. Auburn, these 
 six years, and had never seen her triumphs. With 
 Aunt Elie, for second choice or, no ! not for sec- 
 ond ; that was wrong. Aunt Elie should always be 
 first. The Old Man was the most charming human 
 being she had ever known, the most adorable, but 
 he had never sacrificed anything for her, and Aunt 
 Elie had sacrificed everything. Sacrifice was not 
 much the way of The Old Man, and it was not 
 right to want him first because he was so infinitely 
 
 162
 
 A Mummer's End 
 
 delightful. No, no! Aunt Elie was first choice 
 for that vacant chair, but Aunt Elie was eight 
 hundred miles away, where the peach trees were 
 blooming. She was lonesome, too, as Felicity was, 
 and there was little likelihood that they could be 
 much together again. Ah! this was a lonesome 
 world. 
 
 With her genius for make-believe, Felicity even 
 drew two chairs up to the fire and turned down the 
 lights, trying to feel the presence of some one oppo- 
 site who loved her and the things she loved; but to 
 no avail. She almost wished she had gone to the 
 theatre with Vincent, even to see a very mediocre 
 play. 
 
 Celeste brought another card. Felicity looked 
 at it, hesitated a moment, then, " Say Miss Fergus 
 has been to Miss Walters's funeral and is very 
 tired," she said, " and tell the boy to order a cab 
 for me at once." 
 
 "Will madame change her dress?" asked 
 Celeste, too perfectly trained to make comment or 
 show surprise. 
 
 " No; I'll go just as I am. Please look in the 
 address book on my desk and find Mr. Morton 
 Allston's house number. I'm going out to make a 
 call ; I may come right back, I may spend the even- 
 ing. You needn't wait for me. Do what you 
 like, to-night." 
 
 " Thank you, madame," murmured Celeste, 
 
 163
 
 Felicity- 
 
 helping her into her little black jacket and fastening 
 her furs. 
 
 Felicity felt a distinct sense of adventure and 
 laughed at herself for so feeling. 
 
 " To get into a stuffy cab, all ' by lones,' as I 
 used to say, and drive to the house of a quiet young 
 couple to make an ordinary, humdrum Sunday- 
 evening call, seems the height of excitement to me. 
 And yet, I suppose there's hardly a woman in this 
 town who doesn't think of my life as undoubtedly 
 the most deliriously exciting one imaginable ! " 
 
 She surprised Morton and his wife in the full 
 abandon of domestic ease on a wretched, bluster- 
 ing Sunday evening, when the likelihood of callers 
 was so small as to be no likelihood at all. 
 
 They had piled high the fire in their cosy sitting- 
 room and lit the reading lamp. Morton, in loung- 
 ing coat and slippers, was reading aloud, between 
 puffs at his pipe, and Sadie, in a fussy, bridey-look- 
 ing negligee, was curled up on a couch with a light 
 rug thrown over her. On a small table, pushed out 
 of the way, was a large tray, bespeaking a little 
 " picnic tea " they had eaten in here after getting 
 it themselves, on the servant's evening out. 
 
 Morton answered Felicity's ring, and was so 
 surprised to see her he could scarcely believe his 
 senses. 
 
 " Oh," she begged, when Sadie got up to bestir 
 herself, asking if she had had tea, and Morton was 
 
 164
 
 A Mummer's End 
 
 inquiring if she had overshoes and ought she not 
 to let him take them off, and would she not lay off 
 her hat, " Oh, please don't bother about me, or let 
 me break up your quiet evening! I was so lone- 
 some I couldn't stand it another minute, and I 
 thought maybe if I came out here and found you 
 having a cosy, happy time, you'd let me slip in and 
 share it without making any fuss about me. Some- 
 body's always making a fuss about me," she fin- 
 ished, with a weary little gesture, " and I get so 
 tired of it ! " 
 
 No, she would not have any tea, she would not 
 have anything. " If you'll just let me sit there," 
 she said, indicating a low chair in the shadow, 
 " and go on with your reading, and ' make out like 
 I'm folks,' I'd far rather have it than than an em- 
 pire! Yes, for I'm sure I wouldn't take an empire 
 for a gift," she laughed, " it would be such a 
 nuisance ! " 
 
 " I read in my paper this morning," Morton 
 told her, " about Miss Walters's funeral, and I 
 told Sadie I knew you'd be tired and sad, and I 
 was going down to get you and bring you out to 
 tea. I never dreamed of your going to Graceland 
 this awful day; I didn't suppose you'd 'be let.' 
 So I went down about the time I thought you'd 
 be back from the service at the undertaker's." 
 
 " Oh, my manager protested, of course, and 
 everybody told me it was too much for me to under- 
 
 165
 
 Felicity 
 
 take, and all that; but I get balky, sometimes, and 
 hate them all because I know they're considering 
 the box office only, and don't care whether I live 
 up to what seem to me my human obligations or 
 not. My heart ached so over that poor, lonely old 
 soul that I had to stay with her as long as I could, 
 even though I knew it was forever past time for 
 cheering her. I want some one to stay by me until 
 the inexorable last minute, some day," she finished, 
 with a quaver in her voice. 
 
 " When your time comes it'll be like The Old 
 Man's," assured Morton ; " thousands you never 
 saw will cry to think your light and laughter have 
 gone out of the world, and hundreds who loved 
 you personally will crowd around your bier." 
 
 " Mercy ! " cried Sadie, a little hysterically, 
 " let's talk of something more cheerful ! I'm blue 
 enough as it is." 
 
 Felicity thought Morton's face, sharply defined 
 in the strong reading light beside him, showed a, 
 faint trace of irritation, but he answered gently, as 
 to a sick child : 
 
 " All right. You lie down again and I'll start 
 another story." 
 
 But before he started it, he went over to her 
 couch and shook up her pillow for her, and when 
 she had settled herself on it he drew the rug up 
 over her and arranged a chair-back to screen her 
 eyes from the light. 
 
 166
 
 A Mummer's End . 
 
 Felicity had never seen Morton in this role be- 
 fore, and the strangeness of it made her observe 
 him closely. He hovered over her, too, for a 
 moment, to make sure that she was comfortable, 
 before going back to his chair by the lamp, refill- 
 ing his pipe, and beginning a bright little story. 
 
 Felicity closed her eyes and laid her head back 
 against the chair. She scarcely followed the story 
 at all, her mind was so busy with other things, but 
 she enjoyed the soothing sound of Morton's voice 
 and she was grateful for the ban it put on conver- 
 sation and for the opportunity it gave her to sit 
 here, in this atmosphere of snug companionship, 
 and think. 
 
 Morton had been married within the year. On 
 the occasion of her last annual engagement in Chi- 
 cago, he was on the eve of marriage and had 
 brought Sadie as his fiancee to see Felicity play. 
 After the last act they had " gone back," as on the 
 other evening, to speak with her for a minute, and 
 Sadie, inconcealably flustered at the meeting, had 
 proposed a luncheon for Miss Fergus, which 
 Felicity, who hated the functions of strangers, had 
 declined, thereby putting Sadie a little at odds with 
 her. Privately though not too privately Sadie 
 considered Morton's celebrated friend " stuck-up 
 and spoiled." 
 
 This was her first acquaintance with Felicity off 
 the stage, and the pale, tired, lonely woman in the 
 
 167
 
 Felicity- 
 
 simple black dress was an anomaly to Sadie, who 
 had no grasp of the complex, and struggled vainly 
 to associate this Felicity with the comedienne whose 
 smile was world-famous. 
 
 When Felicity's cab came, Morton apologized 
 for not going to the hotel with her, but the servant 
 had not come in and Sadie was afraid to stay in the 
 house alone. He seemed troubled by the situation, 
 but Felicity assured him she would not have 
 allowed him to go in any case. 
 
 " Come and lunch with me some day, and let's 
 talk about The Old Man, and the blessed old 
 days," she said. Then, " Let me know, some time 
 when Mrs. Allston is down town, and we'll arrange 
 a little party." 
 
 Morton thanked her, and said he would speak to 
 Sadie about it was sure she would be delighted. 
 Then he tucked the robe warmly about her knees, 
 closed the carriage door, and stood an instant on 
 the horse-block, in the sleety wind, waving her 
 good-by. 
 
 " Dear old Morton ! " mused Felicity, " it seems 
 so good to be with him. But oh ! how did he ever 
 come to marry that little nonentity? And how 
 can I hope ever to enjoy him in her depressing 
 presence? " 
 
 168
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 SOME QUESTIONS THAT WERE NEVER ANSWERED 
 
 IN April, Felicity settled in New York for a long 
 run that would last well on into the warm 
 weather ; and as soon as she was comfortably fixed, 
 Aunt Elie came up from Briarwood to be with her 
 until the Fall. After the season closed they would 
 go somewhere and take a cottage by the sea, and 
 play at keeping house. : ' We'll make toast for our 
 own tea, by the grate-fire, on chill evenings," Fe- 
 licity said, planning; that seemed delightfully 
 domestic to her, and she looked forward to it with 
 eager pleasure. She was tired of Europe, she said, 
 and would not have gone even if Aunt Elie's 
 strength had permitted. 
 
 In her dressing-room at the theatre, one evening 
 late in April, a card was brought her. 
 
 "Do you know," it said, "that this is the first time I've 
 ever seen you act? May I go back and tell you how perfectly- 
 bully you are? " V. D." 
 
 She sent word to him to come after the next act, 
 when she had no change of costume to make and 
 was not required on the stage until the third act 
 was well under way. 
 
 169
 
 Felicity 
 
 Vincent was looking wonderfully handsome, in 
 his immaculate evening dress not showing any- 
 thing of the commonplaceness of hastened middle- 
 age which already he had begun to show, at times, 
 in his street clothes and under garish daylight. And 
 he was frankly enthusiastic about Felicity's acting, 
 though he had not yet watched her strong scene 
 in the third act, which the critics called the most 
 charming bit of comedy the present generation had 
 ever witnessed. 
 
 " Our show went broke in Des Moines," he ex- 
 plained, " about a month after I saw you in Chi- 
 cago. Business kept getting thinner and thinner 
 and finally it was decided to ' withdraw ' the play 
 and cancel engagements. I stopped in Chicago on 
 my way east, because I'd heard of a piece that was 
 to be put on there for a summer run, in which I 
 might get something. But there was nothing doing 
 for me, and I knew pretty blessedly well there 
 wouldn't be anything in New York at this time o' 
 year, so I just loafed around in Chicago got a lot 
 of awfully jolly friends there and had a ripping 
 time. I hit little old New York Sunday, and the 
 first chance I got I posted over here to see you. 
 Haven't ever seen you before, you know. This is 
 the first time I've been out of an engagement since 
 well, since I went into The Old Man's company 
 in the fall of '75, nearly fourteen years ago." 
 
 Felicity wondered if he minded this first break 
 170
 
 Questions Never Answered 
 
 in his continued success as a matinee idol; won- 
 dered if he dreaded the encroachment of age that 
 promised little enough for a man who had never 
 been more than an acceptable support, save for the 
 ability of his debonair personality to draw large 
 houses of worshipping women and girls. 
 
 But Vincent, though Felicity wondered in vain 
 about him, did not mind; he was not of the kind 
 that gives much thought to the morrow, nor yet 
 of the kind that inquires too closely into the causes 
 of success and separates the success of youth and 
 beauty from the success of art. Other men in his 
 profession were no more than launched upon their 
 careers at forty, and Vincent never doubted that 
 the future would always hold a " part " for him 
 and that the world would always treat him well. 
 Felicity, who paid the inevitable price an artist pays 
 and was never able to satisfy herself, never so 
 lauded as to have her foreboding silenced, never 
 so triumphant as to lose the chill apprehension of 
 a day when triumphs would cease to be, need not 
 have worried about Vincent, who never worried 
 about anything. 
 
 ' When may I come and see you and have a real 
 talk? " he asked her, as her call came and he rose 
 to go back to his seat. 
 
 " Come to luncheon at one on let me see 
 Friday? That'll be delightful. Aunt Elie'll be 
 so glad to see you." 
 
 171
 
 Felicity 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 " I thought that went without saying," she said, 
 smiling, as she held out her hand. " We're at the 
 Sandringham. Good-night; it was so good of you 
 to come and see me." And she hurried away. 
 
 Watching her in her great scene in the third act 
 of 'Tolnette La Fontaine, Vincent could hardly 
 believe it was the woman he knew the quiet, shy 
 woman he had always thought was Felicity Fer- 
 gus who rose to those heights of teasing, bewitch- 
 ing comedy, more delicious comedy than he had 
 ever dreamed could be acted on a stage. No 
 wonder the world went mad about her, he mused. 
 And when he went out into Broadway, for the first 
 time in his life the spell of what he had left behind 
 went with him, and the glare and gayety he loved 
 so well had no power to eradicate that strange, new 
 fascination. 
 
 That night he dreamed of Felicity, dreamed that 
 she was beckoning him with her wonderful smile, 
 but that he could not seem to follow her and she 
 faded away into the unreachable distance and left 
 him alone. It was a curious dream for Vincent, 
 who was not very imaginative. 
 
 On Friday, at luncheon, he found himself ab- 
 sorbed in the effort to arouse in Felicity a replica 
 of that comedy which had so charmed him across 
 the footlights. He told story after story of his 
 mirthful experiences, which Felicity matched with 
 
 172
 
 Questions Never Answered 
 
 like tales of her own, until they were all three in a 
 gale of merriment. It was like old times, Felicity 
 said, wiping her eyes and breathing exhaustedly. 
 Once in a while when he found himself with 
 people of the right sort, people who knew this 
 mood was occasional instead of imagining it was 
 chronic The Old Man had given himself up 
 whole-heartedly to hilarity and made every one 
 around laugh until he could laugh no more. Had 
 Vincent ever heard him so? Yes two or three 
 times. And wasn't it something to remember? 
 Yes, indeed it was. It was good to laugh so, once 
 in a while. But on the whole, Felicity thought she 
 preferred The Old Man's chuckling moods to any 
 except his very serious moods, which were the most 
 wonderful of all. Vincent had never known him in 
 the latter? Ah, that was too bad! But he re- 
 vealed himself so only to a very few. 
 
 " But you knew him well in his waggish 
 moods ? " 
 
 "Yes, I should say I did!" 
 
 And there followed tale on tale of Phineas, who, 
 in travelling, had delighted in giving harrowing 
 accounts of this and that member of his company 
 to credulous and interested strangers. Once, on a 
 long, tiresome journey, he had immensely enter- 
 tained himself by telling a good soul with whom 
 he got into conversation, and who looked as if she 
 might be the president of a foreign missionary
 
 m 
 
 Felicity- 
 society going to visit a married daughter, that 
 Miss Fessenden was "an escaped nun"; encour- 
 aged by the good soul's gaping interest, he ampli- 
 fied the story, dwelt on details, suggested that Miss 
 Fessenden, properly approached, liked to talk of 
 her horrible experiences and could tell hair-raising 
 stories. He hardly dared to hope the good soul 
 would approach Miss Fessenden; he would have 
 been sufficiently rewarded in the enjoyment he had 
 in his own fictional powers, and in the play of emo- 
 tions on the good soul's countenance, testifying to 
 his powers as a story-teller; but she did venture to 
 get first-hand information, with results that gave 
 Phineas much joy. Incidentally, he had remarked 
 that Miss Fessenden knew the Catholics were pre- 
 paring another massacre like St. Bartholomew, 
 and the good soul, who had said she was a Metho- 
 dist, asked Miss Fessenden if this were true. Vin- 
 cent could never forget Miss Fessenden's fury; he 
 laughed till he cried, every time he thought of it. 
 
 " It was a great hobby of his, to what lengths 
 bigotry would lead people even in these days," 
 Felicity observed; "he was always trying such 
 things in jest and thinking them over in earnest. 
 
 " I remember one day when I was with him in 
 Boston," she went on, " and we stopped in front 
 of one of the newspaper offices on Washington 
 Street, to watch a young man write bulletins of the 
 latest news, on a big blackboard on the front of the
 
 Questions Never Answered 
 
 building. ' Cholera,' wrote the young man, stand- 
 ing on a step-ladder to reach, ' is raging in Vienna.' 
 With an intent interest The Old Man observed 
 to me, in a quite-audible undertone, ' He spells 
 " raging " with one g.' The young man turned 
 around, annoyed; there was a little group of by- 
 standers, all of whom looked puzzled. ' One g's 
 right,' said the young man, belligerently. The Old 
 Man's face was a study in inscrutability. ' I didn't 
 say it wasn't,' he remarked; ' I simply told my little 
 girl, here, that you did it with one g.' Somebody 
 in the little crowd tittered. ' Oh, well ! ' snarled 
 the young man, impatiently, and rubbed it out and 
 rewrote it with two g's. Then The Old Man and 
 I solemnly and silently stole away and looked for 
 a place to laugh. But he often recurred to that 
 episode as an illustration of how easily people are 
 discouraged, and, more particularly, of how little 
 positiveness most of us have about our knowl- 
 edge." 
 
 Felicity's story-telling was exquisite ; its mimicry 
 perfect, its understanding of human nature both 
 keen and kind. With her training, added to her 
 natural bent, everything in life was a story to her, 
 every day's experience was an unwritten book of 
 the Comedie Humaine. Vincent was entranced. 
 He had never known Felicity like this before, and 
 he was quite excited over his discovery. Her old 
 charm was new to Vincent, for all the years he had 
 
 175
 
 Felicity 
 
 known her, and though he did not analyze it to find 
 its essence, he felt the full flavor of its unexpected- 
 ness. 
 
 That night he was at the theatre to see her again, 
 feeling rather foolish about it, but unable to keep 
 away. And at the close of the third act he sent 
 back a box of white hyacinths and violets, with a 
 card: 
 
 "Just had to see it all over again; find it more wonderful than 
 before. "V." 
 
 Felicity, as she buried her face in the cool, sweet 
 flowers, seemed to see the little girl of long ago; to 
 feel the thrill that little girl felt when a tall hero 
 told her to " brace up " and he'd help her all he 
 could; to tremble again with the wonderful feeling 
 of her arms about that hero's neck. And when she 
 lifted her face from the flowers it was flushed with 
 the memory of a sweet consciousness that had gone 
 out of her life in the struggle, long ago, and had 
 never been replaced no, not in all her triumphs 
 by anything half so delicious. 
 
 That night, when she returned to her rooms at 
 the hotel, Aunt Elie was asleep, as usual, and every- 
 thing was very quiet. After Celeste had brushed 
 Felicity's hair and put away her clothes and done 
 the other little services of the bedtime hour, Felicity 
 dismissed her and, wrapping a dressing-gown 
 around her, sat down again, as on that night in 
 
 176
 
 Questions Never Answered 
 
 Chicago, before the log fire which the chill spring 
 night required for comfort. 
 
 There she sat, a long time, on the warm hearth- 
 rug, pondering. She wished Aunt Elie were 
 awake ; she wanted to ask her some questions. But 
 Aunt Elie was poorly, very poorly, and it would be 
 sheer cruelty to wake her. No ! the morning would 
 not do as well not nearly. There are some things 
 one asks and tells over the midnight embers that 
 one would never, never mention over the breakfast 
 table. 
 
 Felicity's days were very full; not ideally so, by 
 any means, but even the frets and the onerous obli- 
 gations were of a kind she could fight through by 
 herself pretty well. It was the quiet times the 
 nights, after the lights were out and the plaudits of 
 the theatre were gone from her ears ; the Sundays ; 
 the hours when she ceased, as it were, to be a busy 
 actress, and was only a woman that she was 
 lonely. All the times when the superficialities of 
 her life were laid aside and the real issues crowded 
 upon her, in those times she was without compan- 
 ionship. 
 
 She wondered if women ever found any satis- 
 faction in lives lived alone. What Adelaide Wal- 
 ters most passionately regretted on that pathetic 
 deathbed was not the mate but the child she had 
 never had. Felicity had never thought much about 
 motherhood for herself, save as she thought wist- 
 
 177
 
 Felicity 
 
 fully, at times, of all that appertained to the com- 
 mon lot and that seemed denied her; what she 
 longed for most was companionship. Perhaps in 
 old age, when one had ceased to believe in the 
 possibility of companionship, one cried out in bit- 
 ter regret for the child that had never been. Yes, 
 there must be a time when women cease hoping for 
 one who shall give them all, and find their happi- 
 ness in one to whom they can give all. It was 
 piteous to be defrauded of both delights. She 
 wondered if women who were not mothers always 
 felt as Adelaide Walters felt, when life was done. 
 Amelia, with the reticence of her race, had never 
 been communicative on such subjects as this, and 
 Felicity, hitherto, had not been sharply moved to 
 question her. 
 
 Restless, wide-eyed, wondering, she got up and 
 went into Amelia's room, with a vague, uncon- 
 fessed idea of waking her and putting these tortur- 
 ing questions to her. Perhaps she would not do 
 that; perhaps she would only get beneath the 
 covers with Aunt Elie and feel the warmth of her 
 presence and not try to speak; anything but the 
 cold silence of that room of hers, empty of love 
 and of the least evidence of human companion- 
 ship. 
 
 To Felicity in this mood, her silent, orderly, lux- 
 urious room was abhorrent, so she went into 
 Amelia's, drawn thither by a feeling that it would 
 
 178
 
 Questions Never Answered 
 
 be a comfort to be there, even if she did not speak. 
 Perhaps Aunt Elie would stir and ask her, sleepily, 
 what she wanted. But Aunt Elie did not. Then, 
 impelled by a wistfulness greater than her sense of 
 obligation to a sick old woman's rest, she put out 
 her hand in the dark and touched Amelia ; she was 
 cold, quite cold. With a low moan of utter deso- 
 lation, Felicity fell forward, prostrate, over the 
 uncomprehending form. 
 
 Felicity's first thought, when she rallied from 
 the shock sufficiently to think, was' that those ques- 
 tions she had come to ask must forever be unan- 
 swered, now. She would never know what Amelia 
 had missed out of life; what she had found, in all 
 despite, worth while. 
 
 She had no disposition, at first, to call any aid 
 or make any outcry; it seemed enough to sit there 
 by Aunt Elie sleeping, and try to realize what life 
 would be without her. She was conscious of a 
 shrinking from the excitement that would ensue, 
 of a wish that since Amelia was gone, she might 
 carry the deserted tabernacle away, stealthily, and 
 hide it and her grief alike from curious eyes. The 
 thought of the ordinary panoply of death was inex- 
 pressibly harrowing to her. There was no one who 
 really cared no one but herself. Why should she 
 have to let all the world into her confidence ? She 
 hated the thought of facing audiences acquainted 
 with her grief; hated the thought of being watched, 
 
 179
 
 Felicity 
 
 on and off the stage, by alien eyes, looking to see 
 how she bore it. 
 
 In this spirit of rebellion against intrusion, this 
 perfect abandonment to her sense of loneliness, she 
 kept her vigil by Amelia till the early dawn was 
 breaking. Then, chilled into rigidity, she waked 
 Celeste, very quietly, and went about the business 
 of summoning a physician and notifying the hotel 
 people. When that was done, she shut herself in 
 her room and refused to see any one but Mr. Lef- 
 fler, who at once assumed full charge of everything. 
 
 But after the undertakers had gone, she took 
 Vincent's white hyacinths and violets from the vase 
 where Celeste had put them last night, and laid 
 them in one waxen hand, and after that she sat by 
 the still, sheeted figure the interminable day 
 through, while hushed voices dictated a multitude 
 of affairs in her sitting-room. 
 
 About six o'clock Vincent called. He had read 
 in the evening papers that owing to the death of 
 Miss Fergus's only near relative, the theatre would 
 be closed. There had been no matinee and would 
 be no evening performance, but Monday night 
 Miss Fergus would appear. 
 
 Felicity had thought of Vincent more than once 
 during her vigil and several times had been on the 
 point of sending for him as the one person in New 
 York likely to be of comfort to her. But it seemed 
 to suit her better to wait and see if Vincent would 
 
 1 80
 
 Questions Never Answered 
 
 come to her. He did, very promptly on hearing 
 of her sorrow, for no heart could be tenderer than 
 Vincent's, no kindliness quicker to act. He hated 
 pain and the sight of suffering, and always avoided 
 them if, in his favorite phrase, he " decently " 
 could; but this was one of the times when he could 
 not, and with that quickness to act when necessity 
 demanded, which was part of his impulsive temper- 
 ament, Vincent hastened to Felicity, feeling sure, 
 somehow, that she would expect him, and tenderly 
 elated at the thought. 
 
 Felicity had given orders that he be admitted, 
 and he was shown at once up to her sitting-room, 
 where, amid a good deal of confusion incident to 
 getting off on the midnight train for Boston, he 
 found her. There was not much he could say, 
 there in that strange, subdued bustle, and he was 
 distinctly ill at ease, until, when he had asked Lef- 
 fler if he could be of any service, that harried young 
 man said, " Yes," fervently, " see if you can't get 
 her out of this and make her eat something some- 
 where. I can't budge her, and you can imagine 
 what she'll eat if I order dinner for her here. If 
 you could take care of her till train time you'd lift 
 a load off my mind." 
 
 Felicity demurred at first. " I can't go any- 
 where," she said, fretfully, " everywhere I go, peo- 
 ple stare at me." 
 
 " No, they won't," Vincent assured her, cheerily. 
 181
 
 Felicity 
 
 " I'll take you to some little old place where no- 
 body'll know you from a hole in the wall, and get 
 you a bottle of good Chianti and some Italian stuff 
 to eat. You've got to eat, you know," he charged, 
 more gravely, " you've a hard journey ahead of 
 you two nights on a sleeper, and then, Monday 
 night, back to work again. Come ! " 
 
 She went, hidden behind a thick black chiffon 
 veil glad to be taken charge of, glad to do as she 
 was bidden. 
 
 Vincent put her in a cab and gave an address far 
 downtown, south of Fourteenth Street and away 
 from the bohemian haunts of University Place 
 and its vicinity. Then he got in beside her and 
 dropped both the windows so the sweet spring air 
 might blow in refreshingly. 
 
 Fifth Avenue was crowded as they threaded 
 their way down through the maze of vehicles, and 
 for a while neither of them spoke, but both seemed 
 absorbed in watching the passing show. Presently 
 a little stifled sob escaped her. 
 
 "What Is it?" he asked, with awkward gen- 
 tleness. 
 
 For a moment she did not reply, then he re- 
 peated his query. 
 
 " So many people," she said, brokenly, " so 
 many people, and no one belongs to me." 
 
 " Oh, you've got any amount of friends," re- 
 minded Vincent, " and worshippers why, all these 
 
 182
 
 I 
 
 For a woman in her position! Why, the world was hers.
 
 Questions Never Answered 
 
 people are your worshippers. You've got every- 
 thing in the world a woman could possibly want 
 fame and beauty and money and charm every- 
 thing but a lot of relatives which most people 
 that've got 'em don't want and you can always 
 get those, you know ! " 
 
 " No, you can't; not the kind that really care. 
 There's nothing in this world so hard to get and 
 keep as some one that really cares for you. Aunt 
 Elie gave up everything for my sake, and there'll 
 never be any one who'll do a hundredth part as 
 much for me. It isn't that I want any one to do 
 things for me," she explained, smiling a little at 
 herself, " but just that I want to know they would 
 if I needed them." 
 
 Vincent felt that this was a subtlety too fine for 
 him, so he said nothing. His attitude toward the 
 world was essentially simple and comprehended a 
 liking for nearly every one who treated him pleas- 
 antly and a mild dislike of those who did not. If 
 some he had liked went over to the other class in 
 his scheme of things, why, there were always re- 
 cruits eligible for the vacant places. He could not 
 comprehend Felicity's woe, but he was sorry she 
 felt any. In a world so full of possible pleasant- 
 ness, it was a pity to have any kind of woe if one 
 could help it. And for a woman in her position! 
 Why, the world was hers; there wasn't anything 
 she could not have if she wanted it. 
 
 183
 
 Felicity 
 
 He set himself to the beguiling of her, and so 
 far succeeded that he got her to eat a very good 
 dinner the first food she had tasted that day. 
 
 If any one in the little Italian restaurant recog- 
 nized either of them, no one paid them any notice- 
 able attention, and reassured by this and physically 
 revived by the food and wine, Felicity showed an 
 encouraging appreciation of Vincent's efforts. 
 
 It was past time for the theatre crowds when 
 they left the little restaurant, and Vincent directed 
 the cabman to drive straight up Fifth Avenue and 
 avoid the Broadway district. 
 
 As they neared the Sandringham, Felicity began 
 to feel the pang of parting from him, to wish that 
 it might be possible for him to be with her to-mor- 
 row in Millville. But there was no plausible rea- 
 son for this. With so many to do for her, it would 
 be ridiculous to ask Vincent to go. Indeed, it 
 would not do at all, she knew and chafed against 
 the little conventions that made it impossible for 
 the one friend she found comforting to stand by 
 her at Amelia's grave without causing comment. 
 
 ' You've been very good to me," she said, when 
 their drive was almost over; " it seems you're 
 always being good to me. All my recollections of 
 you are of your kindness to me when I was dis- 
 tressed." 
 
 " Oh, pshaw ! " said Vincent, " I've done noth- 
 ing I wish I had ! " 
 
 184
 
 Questions Never Answered 
 
 She had not put on her gloves again, and he 
 found her hand, in the dark, and raised it to his 
 lips. And as she felt the touch of his reverent 
 caress there came to her an almost uncontrollable 
 impulse to lay her head down on him and feel his 
 arms enfold her as on that night so long, long ago, 
 the memory of which still stirred her sweetly. But 
 they were within a block of the hotel, and with that 
 curious sense of convention which robs the majority 
 of us of all abandon, she reflected that in a moment 
 the hotel footman would be opening the carriage 
 door; so she merely pressed the hand that held 
 hers, lightly, and made ready to step out as soon as 
 the cab stopped. 
 
 " Don't trouble to come up," she said, " there's 
 nothing you can do, and we'll start for the train in 
 a little while." 
 
 " May I look in, Monday, for a few minutes? " 
 
 " Yes, do, please. Good-night." 
 
 Vincent paid and dismissed the cabman, and 
 sauntered over in the direction of Broadway, light- 
 ing a cigarette as he started. The glare of the 
 Rialto was his panacea for all kinds of blues, but 
 to-night he seemed to have a fit of abstraction the 
 familiar seductions could not dissipate. 
 
 185
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 " NOT WILLING TO BE FELT SORRY FOR " * 
 
 FRANCES ALLSTON .learned early of the 
 death of Amelia and the coming of the little 
 funeral party to lay her beside her father and 
 mother, and telegraphed Felicity an offer of her 
 hospitality, which Felicity accepted, gratefully. 
 " Services from here if you wish," the message 
 said, and so Amelia's body was taken to Federal 
 Street, past the old stone house she had left twenty 
 years ago, and laid in Mrs. Allston's parlor. 
 
 Felicity wished it might have lain at last in the 
 parlor where the " Covenanters " had looked 
 down from the wall on other familiar landmarks 
 of Amelia's youth and maturity; she knew that, 
 brave as her Aunt Elie always was about the lot 
 she had chosen, nothing could have given her 
 poor, travel-tossed soul more pleasure than to 
 know that she would lie in the old stone house once 
 more, in the grim parlor where her father and 
 Cecile and Jane herself had lain. But, this being 
 impossible, Felicity was glad indeed that they could 
 go to Frances Allston's. 
 
 Standing on the porch of that home where she 
 186
 
 "Not Willing to be Felt Sorry for" 
 
 had spent so many entranced hours with The Old 
 Man, she remembered a hundred comforting things 
 he had told her just as he knew she would and 
 any bitterness of regret she might have felt in 
 Amelia's behalf faded as she reflected how he 
 would have said, " The luck o' the road, my dear, 
 the luck o' the road. You can't cultivate still gar- 
 dens and know the zest of the march at the same 
 time. It isn't honorable to regret your choice; the 
 only honor is to make the best of it." 
 
 They laid Amelia away in the early afternoon, 
 and afterwards Felicity returned to the Allstons' 
 for a rest and visit before leaving on the 6 130 train 
 for Boston. Adams was in business with his 
 father and living at home, and she enjoyed talking 
 with him of the old days. She told them all 
 of her evening in Morton's home, and when 
 she and Frances Allston were alone, that motherly 
 woman whispered to her a secret about Morton's 
 hopes. 
 
 It was train time in an incredibly short space, 
 and Felicity was gone, regretfully, from Mill- 
 ville. After she left, Frances sat alone in the twi- 
 light on her little side porch overlooking the old 
 stone house, and thought of many things, tending 
 chiefly to the same eager question. The little girl 
 she and her father had talked about, that long ago 
 day after the show in the barn, was now an exqui- 
 sitely beautiful and wonderfully gifted woman, to 
 
 187
 
 Felicity 
 
 whom art and beauty had brought all the rewards 
 the world can give a woman. And yet there was 
 nothing triumphant about Felicity; rather, she 
 seemed to incarnate a deep, unspeakable wistful- 
 ness. Frances wondered. She knew the artist 
 type too well to jump ignorantly as the unknowing 
 world does to the conclusion that Felicity must 
 have had great personal sorrow to make her so 
 pensively inclined. She knew that the very same 
 supersensitiveness which made her so keen to feel 
 the comedy of life made her equally keen to feel 
 its tragedy, and that a temperament so finely 
 pitched may be harassed to frenzy by things an- 
 other temperament would not notice, worn out by 
 sympathies another temperament would not feel. 
 She remembered her father illustrating this for 
 her, once in her girlhood, by breathing on a sur- 
 face of highly polished silver and then on a surface 
 of unpolished wood. " The lightest breath stains 
 bright surfaces," he said, " the tiniest clouds reflect 
 in sunny pools." Still, she wondered. He had 
 taught her to wonder deeply about everything; 
 to feel constantly that alert curiosity that gives life 
 its zest. 
 
 Monday night in her dressing-room before the 
 first act, Felicity fought the hardest fight of her 
 life thus far. She thought she had learned to 
 stifle all her own feelings and " go on game," as 
 
 188
 
 "Not Willing to be Felt Sorry for" 
 
 The Old Man used to say, whatever happened, 
 But to-night she had a shrinking from the audi- 
 ence she could hardly overcome. While she was 
 wrestling with it there came a telegram from Mor- 
 ton in Chicago : 
 
 " Thinking of you. Rease accept roses as expression of 
 sympathy." 
 
 Before her call came, the pink roses he had wired 
 for arrived, and gave her, somehow, the courage 
 she had needed. She had longed for The Old 
 Man to-night as never before in all her need of 
 him, and the familiar pink roses, the message from 
 Morton, seemed a wonderfully sweet substitute 
 for Phineas himself and all that he stood for in 
 her mind. 
 
 There was no mistaking the temper of the audi- 
 ence that night. Felicity was, perhaps, as little 
 conscious of her audience, generally, as an artist 
 could be, but she always felt its temper as any 
 mercurial thing feels fine gradations of heat or 
 cold, and to-night she was instantly conscious of 
 the attitude that bespoke acquaintance with her 
 grief and wonder whether she would be able to 
 win laughs in spite of it. 
 
 To one who so long had been envied, pity was a 
 new sensation and one she resented. The Old Man 
 would have shaken his head to think how far she 
 had yet to travel before she was a real comedienne, 
 
 189
 
 Felicity 
 
 worthy of the great company that has given the 
 world its sweetest smiles. 
 
 " Not willing to be laughed at? " he was wont 
 to say, " and yet keen to laugh at others! Not 
 willing to be felt sorry for? and yet proud to 
 call yourself sympathetic! Such snobbery! Such 
 aloofness ! " 
 
 Felicity had heard him say this a score of times, 
 but no recollection of it came to her, as it would, 
 later. Instead, something flashed over the foot- 
 lights from her to her audience that seemed to 
 say, " Keep your sympathy to yourselves; I want 
 none of it. And your laughter I can get, for that's 
 my business and I am equal to it." 
 
 She was equal to it, but after she had sent her 
 audience home smiling, it was a woman with a 
 strange new hardness in her heart who left the 
 theatre and was driven back to that silent suite of 
 rooms where Amelia's bed stood empty and her 
 favorite rocking chair in the sitting-room was as 
 eloquent as the riderless horse in a hero-general's 
 " last parade." 
 
 Mr. Leffler had tried to persuade Felicity not 
 to return to the Sandringham, but to go to some 
 hotel where she would be less reminded of Amelia, 
 but Felicity refused, with some show of obstinacy, 
 on the ground that after she left these rooms she 
 would never again have an abiding-place that 
 reminded her of Amelia except Briarwopd, where 
 
 190
 
 "Not Willing to be Felt Sorry for" 
 
 she could not hope to be very much and so she 
 would cling to this one as long as possible. In 
 the summer she would go abroad, instead of trying 
 the seashore cottage alone or with a hired com- 
 panion. 
 
 She had thought a good deal about the possi- 
 bilities of a companion. Somewhere in the wide, 
 wide world, it would seem, there must be a com- 
 panionable soul who would be willing, if not 
 glad, to live and travel with Felicity Fergus. But 
 was there one Felicity would be glad to have? 
 She could not think of one among the women 
 she knew, except Frances Allston; and Frances 
 Allston was bound by other ties. Probably every- 
 body worth having was bound by other ties; unat- 
 tached folks were pretty apt to be folks nobody 
 wanted, not even others who were equally unat- 
 tached. It was a hard world for a lone woman, 
 she reflected, as she crept into her bed and lay 
 there, thinking. The plaudits of the theatre 
 seemed worlds away, and, aching with self-pity 
 she recalled the lines in Aurora Leigh, her favor- 
 ite poem : 
 
 "How dreary 'tis for women to sit still 
 On winter nights by solitary fires, 
 And hear the nations praising them far off." 
 
 And in a passion of loneliness she cried herself 
 to sleep. 
 
 191
 
 Felicity 
 
 Vincent had meant to call Monday, but he for- 
 got. Sunday, he had chanced upon an old friend 
 in New York for a short stay, and together they 
 had started in to enjoy the sights. The way Vin- 
 cent happened to remember about Felicity was: 
 while he and the friend were at Niblo's Monday 
 night, seeing Mrs. Potter and Bellew, the friend 
 remarked, " I see Felicity Fergus is playing here. 
 I want to see her." 
 
 " Gee whiz ! " said Vincent. 
 
 "What's the matter?" 
 
 " Miss Fergus is an old friend o' mine we 
 played together years ago and last Friday night 
 her aunt died. The old lady was her only relative, 
 and Miss Fergus was terribly cut up. The funeral 
 was yesterday, in Massachusetts, and the poor 
 girl's playing again to-night. I promised to call 
 on her to-day to cheer her up, and I clean, plum 
 forgot it. I always forget things! Seems as if 
 I can never think of but one thing at a time, and 
 today it was you. But we'll see her to-morrow 
 night, and if she'll let me, I'll take you back to 
 meet her." 
 
 Vincent meant to get around to the Sandringham 
 Tuesday afternoon, but somehow he did not man- 
 age it. After the first act that night, though, he 
 sent her a card asking if he might take a friend 
 back. 
 
 Felicity was no little hurt by her failure to hear 
 192
 
 "Not Willing to be Felt Sorry for" 
 
 anything of Vincent these two days, but she sent 
 word that he might come, and received him and 
 his friend with her usual shy gentleness and sent 
 the friend away with the usual wonder about her 
 charm. 
 
 " You wouldn't think, to talk with her, that 
 she was the woman to make thousands laugh and 
 cry, would you?" commented the friend, when 
 they were back in their seats again. 
 
 " No," said Vincent, " not meeting her that way 
 you wouldn't. But you ought to see her when 
 she's worked up to one of her comedy moods in 
 conversation. People of her sort are all moods, 
 you know : sometimes 'way up, and sometimes 'way 
 down and much o' the time so tired out with the 
 last mood that they haven't any mood at all. But 
 it's worth waiting for, to see her in one of her 
 entrancing moods." 
 
 "Lively, then, eh?" 
 
 "Well, no; I wouldn't call it lively not even 
 vivacious, I guess. But it's something I'll bet you 
 never saw the like of in your life. I'll never for- 
 get her last Friday at luncheon. Seems as if, if 
 I knew her a thousand years, I'd always be watch- 
 ing for that mood to come 'round again. But you 
 can't coax her into 'em ; they just happen, or they 
 don't that's all." 
 
 " Kind o' capricious lady? " 
 
 " No ; it isn't caprice. Goshen, no ! she wouldn't 
 
 193
 
 Felicity 
 
 condescend to caprice, and you couldn't get so in- 
 terested in her if you thought she was coquetting 
 with you like the rank and file o' women folks. 
 It's well, I don't know what it is, but it's the 
 essence of fascination, as near as I can make out." 
 
 " Every man who sees her is crazy about her, I 
 suppose? " 
 
 " Never heard of any that was on the con- 
 trary. She isn't at all the sort men go crazy about, 
 except at a distance. She's too stand-offish for 
 many to get acquainted with, and when you do 
 know her, she piques your interest, but that's all. 
 I don't know what it is about her, unless it's her 
 Puritan blood, but she isn't a bit of a siren. I 
 guess if I was a word-splitter I'd say she appeals 
 to your mind but not to your senses something 
 like that. Anyway, she gives an ordinary, every- 
 day sort of human man the impression that she'd be 
 terribly uncomfortable to live up to and you know 
 how men like that ! A little of it goes a long way." 
 
 11 Well, I declare ! " exclaimed the friend, who 
 had never dreamed of a possible woman a man 
 might find infinitely fascinating and yet not desira- 
 ble. " Couldn't you ask her to go to supper 
 with us? " 
 
 " She never goes to supper; but I could ask her 
 to lunch. I don't know that she'd come, but I 
 could ask; she might." 
 
 And he did ask feeling a little mean about 
 194
 
 "Not Willing to be Felt Sorry for" 
 
 it, however, because it did not seem that his friend 
 could be in the least degree interesting to Felicity 
 and it was a shame to ask her just to show his 
 rich and lion-loving friend that he could. Vincent 
 was nearly " strapped," as he called it, and the 
 friend was in New York to have a big time, as big 
 as could be bought by his abundance. He had 
 wined and dined chorus girls and comic opera 
 singers without number, but he had never been 
 nearer than across the footlights to a woman of 
 Felicity's talent and distinction and he was willing 
 to pay well for the privilege of saying : " At a 
 little lunch I gave Miss Fergus, the other day " 
 willing to pay Vincent, not in coin, which would 
 have been intolerable, but in dinners and suppers 
 and lunches and drives throughout his stay in New 
 York. As well as if they had actually bargained 
 to this effect, Vincent knew it was so, and had 
 misgivings as to whether it was quite " the decent 
 thing to do." But, pshaw ! The fellow was all 
 right, and who knew? Felicity might find him 
 unexpectedly worth while from some of her many 
 points of view. So he asked her, and to his sur- 
 prise, she accepted. 
 
 His friend, elated by the unusualness of getting 
 Miss Fergus to lunch, wanted to ask other people 
 and make a function of it, but Vincent restrained 
 him. 
 
 " She's in deep sorrow," he said, " and not ac- 
 
 195
 
 Felicity 
 
 cepting any social courtesies. And besides, if you 
 want to show her off to your friends, you'd better 
 take 'em to the theatre; she's sure to be charming 
 there, and the chances of her appearing to advan- 
 tage at a table full of strangers are not worth 
 that," and Vincent snapped his fingers. 
 
 So they lunched together at Delmonico's in the 
 most casual manner Vincent could persuade his 
 friend into. '' The minute you begin to order a 
 world of stuff and make a fuss about it, you bore 
 her," he explained. The friend was incredulous, 
 but obedient. 
 
 Vincent was surprised at Felicity that day, and 
 never knew what made her so charming. How 
 could he know that when she felt a hundred recog- 
 nizing eyes upon her in her black dress, she deter- 
 mined that not one of those curious eyes should 
 see into the loneliness of her heart? The defiant 
 mood was still dominant. Her grief was her own 
 and the world should not take account of it. In 
 this spirit of bravado she had accepted the invita- 
 tion, and in this spirit she exercised all her art to 
 make the occasion memorable. She had few inter- 
 ests in common with Vincent's friend, but he was 
 frankly fascinated with the theatre and everything 
 that appertained to its life and its people, and when 
 she found that her reminiscences and Vincent's 
 delighted their host inexpressibly, she launched into 
 anecdote in a way in which she was inimitable. 
 
 196
 
 "Not Willing to be Felt Sorry for" 
 
 ' You see the funny side of everything, don't 
 you? " said her host, wiping his eyes, after laugh- 
 ing until he cried. 
 
 As if rebuked by this intended compliment, 
 Felicity answered quickly, " I have to; I feel the 
 sad side so deeply that if I didn't see the funny side 
 too, I'd die." 
 
 Her host looked baffled, and Felicity, after that 
 one outburst, saw the impossibility of making him 
 understand, and soon rose to go. 
 
 " My ! but that was like her," said Vincent, when 
 they had driven her where she desired to be left 
 to keep an appointment. " Gives you a curious 
 feeling, doesn't it, to have her slip up on you that 
 way? You think you're travelling neck and neck 
 with her, matched to a point, and the next thing 
 you know she's a lap ahead of you and running 
 like the wind. Nothing for you to do but slacken 
 down and call the race off. I can't get used to it." 
 
 It was no wonder poor Vincent was bewildered. 
 But if Felicity's art made her a more success- 
 ful experimenter with moods than the ordinary 
 woman, it was a difference only of degree; there 
 was a sheer femininity about her, after all, that 
 would have been delicious, if one could have under- 
 stood that it was the woman and not the " star " 
 who acted. But it was her penalty that people were 
 always trying to find her ordinariness extraordinary. 
 
 197
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 WHEN the warm, bright May days were 
 established and the fitfulness of April 
 was left behind, Felicity became possessed of a 
 great yearning for the country, and when she could 
 shake herself free of professional engagements 
 during the day, would take a train up to the neigh- 
 borhood of University Heights or cross on the 
 Weehawken ferry to the Jersey shore and plunge 
 into the freshly-green woods of the palisades. 
 But hers was not the spirit that could be happy 
 uncompanioned in the country; she wanted some 
 one by her, enjoying things as she enjoyed them, 
 hearing the same bird sing, in Stevenson's phrase, 
 entranced and transfigured in the same way as she. 
 The Old Man had taught her the intoxicating 
 sweetness of such companionship, and the deep 
 draughts she had drunk of it at his hand had left 
 her with a craving for more, always for more. 
 
 There was a girl in her company, a slip of a 
 young thing named Arline Prentiss, who played 
 very much such ingenue roles as Felicity herself 
 
 198
 
 Starring is Lonesome Business 
 
 had played a dozen years ago, in whom Felicity 
 felt a considerable interest. She encountered little 
 Miss Prentiss one warm evening as she was enter- 
 ing the theatre, and the girl held out to Felicity 
 a bunch of sweet, single violets she had just bought 
 from a street flower-seller. 
 
 " Smell my springtime," said Arline, shyly, 
 holding out her little bouquet. " I just had to 
 have something ' spring-y,' " she went on, as Felic- 
 ity buried her nose in the fragrant, wet violets, 
 " it seems stifling to come in out of all that fresh- 
 ness to the close, musty theatre, doesn't it?" 
 
 Felicity had never heard the girl express herself 
 in this wise before, and a touch of wistfulness in 
 Arline's manner arrested her star's attention more 
 effectually than anything else could have done. 
 The child must be lonely, too, she thought stage 
 life was so hard for a girl like that. Stopping 
 outside her dressing-room door she handed back 
 the violets and, moved by a sudden impulse, said : 
 
 " Don't you want to come to the country with 
 me to-morrow? Come to my hotel at ten, and 
 we'll go somewhere and see the real springtime." 
 
 Arline looked almost startled, for an instant, 
 then her delight overcame every other feeling and 
 she cried happily: 
 
 1 Yes, ma'am, oh, yes'm, I'd love to go! " and 
 was away, up the spiral iron staircase to her lofty 
 dressing-room. 
 
 199
 
 Felicity 
 
 Felicity found herself looking forward with 
 peculiar pleasure to the morrow. She was sur- 
 prised, when she came to think of it, that she had 
 never thought of asking Arline before. When 
 she remembered what The Old Man had been to 
 her when she was Arline's age, she marvelled that 
 she could so far have forgotten her decent obliga- 
 tions as to have no thought of passing on some 
 degree of like pleasure to a lonely little mummer 
 in her own company. Truth to tell, she had never 
 thought of herself as having anything to pass on 
 compared with what The Old Man had given her, 
 and she had not, of course nor yet of his lavish 
 winsomeness, and his content to keep giving and 
 giving in a quarter whence he could get little but 
 the spur of deep attention. But she had not, 
 either, come to that age where her loneliness, long 
 since despairing of anything like equable compan- 
 ionship, could be put to flight by the pleasure of 
 reminiscence and the benevolence of stimulating 
 youth. 
 
 " If only," she thought, as she laid her head on 
 her pillow that night, " that child shows some spirit 
 of willingness to accept me as a human being and 
 forget that I am a ' star,' I may have a happy day 
 to-morrow. / never was conscious of The Old 
 Man's celebrity. I rated him solely for what he 
 was to me, and I don't doubt that's why he liked my 
 company so well." 
 
 200
 
 Starring is Lonesome Business 
 
 But Arline, when she was shown into Felicity's 
 sitting-room the next morning at ten, was quite 
 evidently conscious she was going out with her 
 star, and showed a constraint of manner which 
 was only in a small degree her fault, and in greater 
 degree Felicity's, and in greatest degree the fault 
 of circumstance. It is a very delicate business, this 
 business of being famous of working like mad 
 to demonstrate that you are extraordinary, and 
 then exacting of people that degree of deference 
 that proves your power, nicely concealed under 
 that degree of friendliness which makes you com- 
 fortable. 
 
 Arline had never been to Miss Fergus's rooms, 
 the background of her unprofessional hours, be- 
 fore, and she was fascinated by their luxury and 
 the evidences of popularity they showed. Aspiring 
 girl that she was, she was seeing herself in like 
 situation, some day, and was so palpably impressed 
 by the emoluments of fame that Felicity, herself 
 impatient with the failure of the emoluments to 
 satisfy, was impatient, too, with the little eager 
 girl, for not knowing how ashy was the Dead 
 Sea fruit that hung above her reach. 
 
 They took a New York Central train and went 
 up the river as far as Yonkers, then wandered off 
 on foot toward the open country to the east. In 
 a grocery they passed on their way through town, 
 Felicity bought fruit and crackers and cheese, dal- 
 
 201
 
 Felicity 
 
 lying so delightedly over her purchases and show- 
 ing such interest in the stock that the grocer was 
 amused. 
 
 " How much cheese," she asked earnestly, " do 
 you suppose we two could eat? " 
 
 The grocer was not sure whether this was a 
 catch-question or a joke or mere young-housekeeper 
 ignorance, so he cross-questioned, Yankee-wise: 
 
 "When? At one time?" 
 
 " Yes, for a picnic luncheon." 
 
 " I should think half a pound would be plenty." 
 He indicated with his broad cheese knife about 
 how big a slice half a pound would be. Felicity 
 laughed. 
 
 " That's cheese rations for a month," she said. 
 " Can't you cut a littler piece cut a quarter? " 
 
 Then she made like estimates of their capacity 
 in sweet and soda crackers, in pickles and dried 
 dates, and deliberated about the purchase of a can 
 of sardines with a patented opening device. 
 
 She was so honestly enjoying herself that the 
 grocer waited on her with a relish he would not 
 have dreamed possible short of a big, general- 
 replenishing order. 
 
 " Wasn't that fun? " she cried to Arline, when 
 they were out upon their way, bundle-laden. But 
 Arline could not comprehend. 
 
 " I guess you never had to buy your real meals 
 that way," she said. 
 
 202
 
 Starring is Lonesome Business 
 
 " No," admitted Felicity, " I never did." 
 
 ' Well, I have," the girl answered, in a tone 
 that made Felicity stop and face her. 
 
 " You must think I'm crazy," she said, self- 
 reproachfully, " and I guess I am bringing you 
 out here on this queer orgy of mine to treat you to 
 a tramp on the roads and a lunch of crackers. 
 What I ought to have done to give you pleasure 
 was to take you for a long drive in Central Park, 
 in a victoria, behind a pair of horses with clank- 
 ing chains, and then given you a luncheon at 
 Delmonico's." 
 
 Arline protested, but so feebly that Felicity was 
 the more convinced. To abandon the jaunt would 
 have mortified the girl, keenly, so they kept on; 
 but Felicity had lost her zest for it, and after a 
 fair pretence at enjoying the country, they took 
 an early train for town. 
 
 " Now, you keep this cab," said Felicity, at the 
 door of the Sandringham, where they arrived about 
 half-past four, " and go home and dress up a bit 
 I know you'd rather and come back here within 
 an hour and we'll go to Delmonico's to dine. I'm 
 bound you sha'n't be starved, poor child, on the 
 day I dragged you off on one of my freakish fes- 
 tivities." 
 
 Accordingly, at a little before six the two went 
 into Delmonico's where, on Mr. Leffler's orders, a 
 table was in readiness for Miss Fergus, who was 
 
 203
 
 Felicity 
 
 shown to it with a marked deference that delighted 
 her guest. In accordance with the rule of the 
 restaurant, Leffler was " retained," but he had a 
 genius for being present and yet not present, which 
 made him one of the most sought-after men in his 
 exacting business. 
 
 Arline was radiant; early diners coming in rec- 
 ognized Felicity at once and their table was a 
 focus of interest which gave the aspiring girl 
 thrills of present satisfaction and foreshadowed 
 triumph. Felicity, fighting against her own disap- 
 pointment and striving, in real contrition for her 
 selfish mistake, to give her guest a happy time at 
 last, was charming, though conscious of a gracious- 
 ness in her manner which she hated. The Old 
 Man was never gracious, she reflected; he was 
 delightful because he wanted to be, could not help 
 being or he was not delightful at all, did not stay 
 in the vicinity. Why did she never seem to learn 
 his ways? 
 
 As they were finishing their dinner, Vincent came 
 in, with a party of eight. He was looking unusu- 
 ally handsome, even for him, and was in blithe 
 good spirits of the sort that Felicity had so often, 
 of late, found contagious. 
 
 ;< Well, well ! " he cried, gayly, coming over to 
 her table and grasping in the heartiest friendliness 
 the hand she held out to him, " what's up ? having 
 a party? " 
 
 204
 
 Starring is Lonesome Business 
 
 'Yes don't we look party-fied? Miss Pren- 
 tiss, Mr. Delano." 
 
 " Why, this is Caroline! " said Vincent, calling 
 her by the name she bore in the play, and shaking 
 her hand quite as heartily as he had shaken 
 Felicity's. 
 
 Arline flushed with pleasure. Vincent had not 
 ceased to thrill the hearts of sweet sixteen; his 
 fame as a popular idol was not yet dim by any 
 means, though there were younger men climbing 
 into his place, or toward it. 
 
 He chatted for a minute or two, then turned to 
 rejoin his party, but as he moved away Felicity 
 laid a detaining hand on his arm. 
 
 " I want to see you," she said. '' When can 
 you come and have a talk with me ? " 
 
 Vincent pondered. For an unoccupied man he 
 was extraordinarily busy, and though he did not 
 always keep the full quota of his engagements, he 
 always tried to always made an effort to remem- 
 ber what else he had promised before further 
 engaging any specific time. 
 
 " I could come Sunday evening," he said, after 
 a little thought, " would that do? " 
 
 " Admirably. Will you come to dinner? " 
 
 " No," said Vincent quickly, thinking of a 
 probable dinner in the sitting-room where he 
 had seen Aunt Elie lying, coffined, and dread- 
 ing a too quiet tete-a-tete. " No, I'll come for you 
 
 205
 
 Felicity 
 
 at seven and take you some place you never 
 were before." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " Sha'n't tell you it's to be a surprise; that's 
 the best part of it." 
 
 He moved off, laughing, leaving her laughing 
 too. Arline looked after him with shining eyes. 
 Nothing in Felicity's success so impressed her as 
 the terms on which she could meet Vincent Delano. 
 " Isn't he perfectly splendid? " she exclaimed with 
 girlish exuberance. And Felicity, smiling at her, 
 remembered a girl who had slept with Vincent's 
 picture under her pillow and worn his letters next 
 her heart. She told Arline of the night in Cin- 
 cinnati with reservations and enjoyed the girl's 
 enthusiasm for Vincent's chivalry more than she 
 had enjoyed anything in many a day. 
 
 " And how proud he must be of you now ! " 
 cried Arline, scenting a romance and not disingenu- 
 ous enough to give the lie to her suspicion. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know." Felicity shrugged her 
 shoulders in a manner intended to convey much 
 lightness of mind with regard to herself and Vin- 
 cent; but Arline was not deceived. 
 
 That was Thursday night of the last week but 
 one of her season. In ten days she would be free, 
 but she was without an idea of what she wanted to 
 do with her freedom. This was the first summer 
 
 206
 
 Starring is Lonesome Business 
 
 she had ever had to spend alone and she shrank 
 from every thought of it as if such shrinking would 
 keep her from the actuality. 
 
 As Sunday night drew near she fell to wondering 
 what she could say to Vincent that would seem like 
 a definite reason for wanting to talk with him and 
 would not betray her desire merely to see him 
 and enjoy him. Her unwillingness to bid him 
 come for the latter reason, ought to have warned 
 her that she was getting " deep in," but it did not, 
 and she continued, without suspecting herself, to 
 feel around in her mind for some matter-of-fact 
 topic wherewith to justify that detaining hand on 
 his arm, that urgent bidding to him to come. 
 
 When he arrived she was still without a shadow 
 of an excuse for having summoned him, but she 
 need not have worried; Vincent gave no sign of 
 expecting one, but acted as if it were the most 
 natural, inevitable thing in the world that Felicity 
 should ask him to come and see her, and that he 
 should come. His complete ease of manner put 
 her at once in a like mood, and she laughed as 
 happily as a child anticipating a treat, as he helped 
 her into her little coat. She teased to know where 
 they were going, but he only looked mysterious 
 and refused to answer. 
 
 " Do you mind a walk, or shall I call a cab? " 
 he asked when they reached the street. 
 
 " I'd rather walk," she assured him; and they 
 207
 
 Felicity 
 
 went through to Broadway and then down, on 
 that brilliant thoroughfare, to a restaurant much 
 patronized by lesser (and some few greater) the- 
 atrical and racing people and by that part of the 
 general public that dearly likes to look at its enter- 
 tainers at the close range of a neighboring table. 
 
 Felicity had never been here, had never felt any 
 desire to come, but to-night the glare of it, the blare 
 of the noisy orchestra, the self-conscious chatter 
 of the crowd, were by no means an unwel- 
 come novelty. Vincent was on his native heath; 
 he walked with a joyous step and, as Felicity said, 
 quoting her Lewis Carroll, " burbled as he came." 
 He loved the lilt of the air the orchestra was 
 playing Little Annie Rooney and hummed it 
 audibly as he followed the head waiter down 
 the long lines of people, many of whom he knew, 
 to a table reserved for him. He loved the ripple 
 of interest he always carried in his wake, and 
 to-night he was enjoying the whispered comments 
 that followed the general recognition of Felicity. 
 They were wondering how in the deuce he ever 
 came to be Miss Fergus's escort, and to this place, 
 he reflected, amusedly, and told Felicity about it 
 when they had settled themselves at their table. 
 
 "I wonder what these people think of me?" 
 she asked. " They think I'm queer don't they? 
 Or uppish? The Old Man could have come in 
 here and had every human being in the place beam 
 
 208
 
 Starring is Lonesome Business 
 
 benignly on him. I wonder why I never learn 
 any of his ways? " 
 
 " Oh," said Vincent, kindly, " it's pretty hard 
 for a woman, a young and beautiful woman, to 
 be hail-fellow-well-met without being well, too 
 easy, don't you know." 
 
 " It seems," she observed, thoughtfully, " that 
 democracy for women is a failure, and never 
 more so than for women on the stage. We have 
 to hold ourselves so stiff it's small wonder if people 
 think we're full of self-esteem and silly snobbery." 
 
 " I guess that's so," assented Vincent, who had 
 never thought of this thing in just this way before. 
 But experience, if not nature, had made Vincent 
 keen; what he lacked in natural depth was made 
 up for quite amply in some instances by the 
 breadth of his first-hand knowledge of life. He 
 knew Felicity was supersensitive on this subject 
 of her isolation; he knew that she could not talk 
 about it to many persons, and that her talking 
 about it to him was due not so much to her belief 
 that he would understand, as to the sheer necessity 
 of unbosoming herself to some one and her hope 
 that at least he would not, as so many others would, 
 misunderstand. 
 
 " It is hard for you, you poor child, isn't it? " 
 he broke out with sudden sympathy as the situation 
 dawned on him. And Felicity, undone by the 
 commiseration in his tone, felt her eyes fill. 
 
 209
 
 Felicity 
 
 Vincent did not miss that tell-tale shining, and 
 in the appeal it made to his protective instinct, he 
 forgot, as it were, the quite dizzy eminence of the 
 woman before him and talked to her as if she 
 were again a little ingenue of The Old Man's 
 company. 
 
 " Every now and then," he said, laughing, but 
 deeply serious under his banter, " some one gets 
 up a lot of talk about ameliorating the lot of the 
 chorus girls, but no one ever thinks of a society for 
 making life brighter for celebrated comediennes. 
 It's a shame, isn't it? No, really! I mean it! 
 People don't think how difficult things are for you, 
 and they are difficult, I can see. But you oughtn't 
 to keep comparing yourself with The Old Man 
 and feeling bad because you can't do as he did. 
 'Tisn't fair to yourself; he wasn't hampered as 
 you are." 
 
 " I know," she answered, gratefully, " but it 
 isn't that alone ; he had something about him that 
 was so well, so full of sweet humanness that no 
 one could ever misjudge him. I don't see any 
 reason to hope I'll ever have that about me, and 
 yet I try to be like him ! No ! don't comfort me 
 with sweet nothings; I know you mean well, but 
 that's not what I want. I don't want any one to 
 tell me my way's as good as his, because I know it 
 isn't. But I wish I knew if my way is as good 
 as it can be, * considering ' ! He'd know ! And 
 
 210
 
 Starring is Lonesome Business 
 
 he'd tell me, too. But you can't know and you 
 couldn't tell; you're too young, and too gallant. 
 Ah, that's just it! " she went on, finding comfort 
 for herself; " we haven't lived long enough to be 
 wise, and people know it. When I meet a cripple 
 on the street, for instance, I turn away lest he see 
 the pity in my eyes they must get so tired of pity ! 
 but when The Old Man met one, he had a way 
 of smiling into his face with a look of ' Well, pard- 
 ner, I see you're up against it, same's we all are, 
 each in our different way,' and he always got a 
 brave smile back. / can't do that! I suppose 
 because I'm young and people think I must be 
 hard because I happen to be successful. Age 
 hasn't many compensations for an actress, but I 
 hope that'll be one of mine." 
 
 " Yes," said Vincent, absently. Something at 
 a neighboring table had withdrawn his attention, 
 and Felicity smiled indulgently to see how soon 
 his brief mood for analysis faded. There was a 
 great deal of the child about Vincent, in spite of 
 his thirty-eight years, but Felicity liked him none 
 the less for having to humor him. 
 
 They did not resume their serious conversation, 
 but gave themselves over to watching the people 
 around them, about many of whom Vincent knew 
 interesting things, and nearly all of whom offered 
 opportunity for interesting conjecture. 
 
 " There's little Clo Det over there," said Vin- 
 
 211
 
 Felicity 
 
 cent, indicating with a nod, " Clorinda Detmar, 
 you remember. She was ingenue in our company 
 the season after you left, and married Jack Ashley, 
 the very last fellow on earth Clo ought to have 
 married. She was a jolly little soul, frisky as a 
 kitten, and meaning no more harm. I used to 
 be mighty sorry for her on the road; she'd get 
 so homesick she could hardly stand it, and well, 
 you know how those things go ! Ashley was there, 
 and he'd shown her a few little attentions, and they 
 won her, poor child. He was horribly jealous of 
 her, and they had the devil's own time. When 
 she couldn't stand it any more, she left him and 
 has been having the devil's own time ever since, 
 from all I hear. It's a shame, for there wasn't a 
 mean streak in her only, things got too much 
 for her." 
 
 There was genuine feeling in Vincent's voice, 
 and Felicity liked him better for it than for any- 
 thing else she had ever known about him. She was 
 absolutely without censoriousness herself and was 
 strongly appealed to by any evidence of like teii- 
 derness in others. She knew the hard, hard life 
 of the stage so well, she was always full of 
 pity for those who succumbed to its tempta- 
 tions. She could not often go to the theatre, 
 but when she did, it was more likely to be the 
 players that absorbed her than the play. At a 
 comic opera, when the stage was full of smiling, 
 
 212
 
 Starring is Lonesome Business 
 
 dancing girls in gay costumes, she would sit and 
 watch the scene through tears. " There are so 
 many tragedies behind those smiles," she would 
 say, " perhaps they're sordid, mean, but God 
 knows how easy it was to get into them, and how 
 hard it is to get out." 
 
 ' You know," said Vincent, still looking at Clo 
 Detmar, " how you'd feel if you knew some one 
 was driving that little Prentiss girl to the devil." 
 
 " Yes, indeed," said Felicity, little dreaming 
 how this remark would recur to her in connection 
 with the great tragedy of her life, years afterwards. 
 She told him about her experience with Arline 
 on Thursday, and laughed at herself for her 
 absurdity. Speaking of her leisure made Vincent 
 think to ask her what she was going to do for the 
 summer. 
 
 She did not know, she said; and told him some- 
 thing of her dilemma. Vincent was wise enough 
 to appreciate, and to marvel at, the entire lack of 
 coquetry wherewith Felicity described her alone- 
 ness ; he thought, not without reason, that Felicity 
 still liked him pretty well; he thought that per- 
 haps, if he asked her to marry him she might at 
 least consider it seriously. And yet, he reflected, 
 she talked to him in this way which other women 
 would almost certainly have made suggestive, with 
 a simple directness of which he should never dream 
 of taking advantage. Even if he had been burn- 
 
 213
 
 Felicity 
 
 ing with ardor to marry Felicity, he would not 
 have dared to broach the subject then; such a blun- 
 der would have cost him all his chances of success, 
 and would have hurt her irreparably. There was 
 something about her very frankness that gave her 
 protection something that kept a fellow con- 
 stantly in mind of " the decent thing to do." 
 
 He suggested one or two people she might take 
 abroad with her for company, but she shook her 
 head; none of them appealed to her as steady com- 
 pany for eight weeks. 
 
 " What's become of The Old Man's daughter 
 you used to be so fond of?" he asked, at his 
 wits' end. 
 
 " She's in Millville; we buried Aunt Elie from 
 her house, you know." 
 
 " That's so ; I remember. Well, why don't you 
 see if she wouldn't like to go to the Paris Exposi- 
 tion or to the seashore." 
 
 " I wonder if she would! I'd rather have her 
 than anybody." 
 
 " ' Present company excepted,' please ! " 
 
 Felicity flushed. That was too near the truth 
 to joke about, but Vincent's manner was so gayly 
 impersonal she could not resent it. 
 
 " I didn't know you had become available as a 
 chaperon," she said. 
 
 " Seems as if I ought to be, doesn't it? " he re- 
 turned, smiling whimsically, " but I don't believe 
 
 214
 
 Starring is Lonesome Business 
 
 any one has ever seriously considered me for the 
 role." 
 
 " No," she granted him, laughingly, " I don't 
 believe any one ever has." 
 
 ; ' Where are you going to spend your sum- 
 mer? " she asked, after they had reached the street 
 and were facing homeward. 
 
 " Don't know, I'm sure; haven't thought much 
 about it. Been enjoying my enforced vacation so 
 much I haven't looked ahead, to speak of." 
 
 " Have you made your plans for next year? " 
 
 " 'Nary plan." 
 
 Felicity was silent for some minutes as they 
 strolled up Broadway. Then, as they turned into 
 her cross-street to go through to Fifth Avenue 
 she said, quite abruptly, " Seaforth hasn't been re- 
 engaged for my company; would you care for his 
 place?" Arthur Seaforth had been her leading 
 man for two years. 
 
 Vincent was thoroughly surprised ; he had never 
 expected such an offer, and least of all that she 
 would make it. But again there was that about her 
 which forbade one's presuming on her frankness. 
 
 ' Why, sure I would," he answered, heartily. 
 Then, conscious of an impulse to make her feel 
 that he understood the offer to have been made in 
 a fine comradeship, he added, " It'd be like old 
 times, wouldn't it? " 
 
 " As near as we can ever get old times back, 
 215
 
 Felicity 
 
 I suppose. I don't know what Garvish may have 
 in mind I haven't mentioned the matter to him 
 for several days but I daresay he'd as lief please 
 me as not, if there's no reason why he shouldn't. 
 Here! let's sit down a minute and talk about it." 
 
 She indicated the tall, brown-stone stoop of a 
 house already boarded up for the summer. " I 
 can't ask you to my sitting-room at this hour of the 
 night," she explained, in amusement, " and we 
 can't stand on the corner, like folks whom nobody 
 observes. Isn't it ridiculous? Next year I'm 
 going to have a house in New York, if I'm only 
 in it a month. At present, let's occupy these lower 
 steps for a few minutes, and enjoy the gorgeous 
 night, while we talk things over." 
 
 The street was very quiet and none too well 
 lighted, so that they were in small danger of 
 recognition by any of the few people who passed. 
 The night was unusually warm, with a soft, warm 
 breeze blowing from the south and bringing with 
 it a caressing touch of the sea. High overhead 
 the nearly full moon rode, magnificent, above the 
 jagged line of roofs and chimneys; and although 
 cable cars clanged at the Broadway corner of the 
 long block, a really quite restful hush pervaded 
 the canon-like street of tall, dark houses so curi- 
 ously alike. 
 
 "Isn't this a great adventure!" said Felicity, 
 thoroughly enjoying both the mockery and the 
 
 216
 
 Starring is Lonesome Business 
 
 unusualness of it. And then they fell to discussing 
 her professional plans for next season, and how 
 Vincent might fit into them, quite as if neither of 
 them had an idea of the other save as a thespian. 
 It was an hour later when Vincent helped her 
 to her feet and they resumed their stroll to the 
 hotel. No fewer than a score of cards on her sit- 
 ting-room table told Felicity of callers she had 
 missed, but as she looked them over, half-inter- 
 estedly, she did not note one she regretted. She 
 was curiously well pleased with her evening. 
 
 217
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 " PEOPLE ALWAYS TALK " 
 
 DATING from that night at the actors' res- 
 taurant, it seemed as if all things conspired 
 to work Felicity's way and to promise her a pleas- 
 ant summer. 
 
 Frances Allston could, and would, accept her 
 invitation to spend a summer by the sea, some- 
 where where Mr. Allston and Adams could get 
 to them for Sundays, and straightway Mr. Leffler 
 was charged with finding a suitable place for occu- 
 pancy by June first. It must be convenient for the 
 Allstons, and quiet enough so that Felicity would 
 not be stared at by curious hordes, and there were 
 a lot of other stipulations. But the capable Mr. 
 Leffler managed to keep within them all per- 
 haps because he did not have to keep within any 
 particular price short of the fabulous and Felic- 
 ity's address for the summer became Fair View, 
 West Harbor Point, Massachusetts. 
 
 As she had surmised, Garvish had no objection 
 to pleasing her when there was no reason why 
 he should not; and while he might not himself have 
 picked Vincent for the place, he was by no means 
 
 218
 
 "People Always Talk" 
 
 unwilling, if the star wanted him, to engage Vin- 
 cent for leading man of the Fergus company, for 
 a season of forty weeks, opening in Philadelphia. 
 
 After that was decided, it seemed the inevita- 
 ble thing that Vincent should be with her a goodly 
 part of each beautiful May day, talking over the 
 plays and how to play them, as they drove or idled 
 in the Park or lunched at some favorite place. 
 No other leading man had ever done as much 
 but Felicity did not remember that. Vincent was 
 nothing if not a beau cavalier, and no woman ever 
 trailed in her wake a more attentive knight than 
 he was to whatever woman he was with. His 
 courtesy lacked nothing but discrimination; know- 
 ing it was the same for every woman, no woman 
 could feel as flattered by it as she might wish. 
 
 But Felicity was not quarrelling with Vincent 
 for what he was not. She had established a happy 
 companionship with him that robbed her days of 
 their worst lonesomeness and filled her nights with 
 pleasant anticipations of the morrow, and she was 
 too content with the mere sense of human fellow- 
 ship to be exacting. She stayed in New York 
 for a week after her season closed, attending to 
 business when must be, idling with Vincent when 
 possible. They went to the theatre together on 
 several nights, and attracted nearly as much atten- 
 tion as the players on the stage. Felicity's beauty, 
 in her black dress, was almost startling, and people 
 
 219
 
 Felicity 
 
 watched her fascinatedly, looking for the famous 
 smile which was not infrequent in Vincent's hearty 
 company. She had lost her morbid consciousness 
 of a month ago, and unwittingly was testifying to 
 the virtue of Vincent's cheerful philosophy, and so 
 engrossed in her pursuit of pleasure as not to think 
 what people might be saying or thinking about 
 her. 
 
 When she left New York, the first of June, it 
 was with the understanding that Vincent was to 
 run down to West Harbor Point some time before 
 long, and " see how she was fixed for the summer." 
 
 He put her aboard her train on the Monday 
 morning of her departure and stocked her drawing- 
 room with new magazines, candy, and flowers. 
 Vincent always had money to spend; no matter 
 how much he threw away, there always seemed 
 to be more to throw after it. No one quite knew 
 where he got it least of all Vincent himself, per- 
 haps but not many attempted to figure out Vin- 
 cent's finances. It was his fortune in life that 
 every one was amiably disposed to take him as he 
 was and indisposed to inquire into what he was not. 
 
 There was no one but themselves in the little 
 drawing-room, those few minutes before the train 
 pulled out ; Celeste was sedately ensconced without, 
 and the indefatigable Mr. Leffler was at Fair 
 View, seeing to the last touches of preparation. 
 Vincent had undertaken to see Felicity off, and to 
 
 220
 
 "People Always Talk" 
 
 do for her all the things Mr. Leffler would have 
 done had he been with her as usual. 
 
 " Sure you have everything? " he said, now, 
 towering splendidly above her in charming solici- 
 tude. " Let me see: your baggage's checked; I've 
 given your tickets to the conductor; I've wired 
 Leffler you're getting off all right; I've a memo, 
 of what you want me to tell Garvish. Was there 
 anything else? " 
 
 " Nothing I can think of, thank you. You're 
 a dear, to look after me so beautifully." 
 
 ' You're a dear, to let me," returned Vincent, 
 gallantly. 
 
 Outside, on the long platform, the conductor 
 waved his signal to the engineer; the wheels 
 beneath them began to turn. 
 
 " Oh, you must go ! " she cried, nervously. She 
 turned away her face as she spoke, but Vincent 
 saw that her eyes were full of tears and her lip was 
 quivering. 
 
 " I'm going," he said, bending over her, " but 
 I'm coming, pretty soon." And so whispering, 
 he laid an arm about her shoulders and, drawing 
 her to him, kissed her cheek, and in a twinkling 
 he was gone; and Felicity, looking out, mistily, 
 saw him waving to her from the platform. 
 
 Vincent was thoughtful, as he left the train- 
 shed and passed through the crowded waiting-room 
 
 221
 
 Felicity 
 
 where more than one recognizing glance followed 
 him, unheeded, and more than one worshipper 
 whispered " Delano! " excitedly as he passed. 
 Characteristically indisposed to effort, Vincent 
 always drifted with the current of events; but the 
 current had been pretty swift of late, and he won- 
 dered if he oughtn't to " beach his craft," for a bit, 
 and think over the direction he was taking. What 
 that direction was, he thought he knew; but that 
 he was satisfied with it he was not at all sure. Even 
 the most easy-going of men has learned, by the time 
 he is verging on forty, that it is easier to stop short 
 of some situations than to get out of them, and 
 Vincent knew that when he next saw Felicity he 
 would have either to live up to that kiss of a 
 moment ago, or to ignore it in a way which would 
 unmistakably mean retraction. Felicity was not 
 a woman one kissed just because she was kissable. 
 Vincent felt committed, and the feeling chafed 
 him. He wondered how he had been " such an 
 ass " as to do a thing like that without counting 
 the cost. How could he go on with his next sea- 
 son's work and ignore that parting which was so 
 full of promise? And, on the other hand, how 
 could he live up to it? Vincent could not help 
 feeling a comfortable complacency when he re- 
 flected that, rich and charming and successful and 
 evidently fond of him as Felicity was, he hesitated 
 about asking her to marry him until he was sure 
 
 222
 
 "People Always Talk" 
 
 just how he felt about her. There seemed to him 
 to be something " terribly decent " about his hesi- 
 tation, something of which not every fellow he 
 knew would have been capable, and he could not 
 help liking himself better than ever because of it. 
 That there might have been anything disingenuous 
 in his actions during the last six weeks, never 
 occurred to him. It was the little matter of the 
 kiss that bothered Vincent, that, as he expressed 
 it to himself, " put things in a devil of a mess." 
 
 But presently he came out upon Forty-second 
 Street with its familiar bustle and roar, and as he 
 swung along with his graceful, long-limbed stride, 
 his natural buoyancy reasserted itself. The June 
 sky was bright, the sun was not too warm, the 
 women were out in their nattiest light toggery: it 
 was Vincent's version of Pippa's song, his equiva- 
 lent for " the lark's on the wing and the hillside's 
 dew-pearled," and as the exercise of brisk walking 
 sent the blood pulsing more swiftly through his 
 veins, he took on again that normal mood of his in 
 which, had he known of Pippa, he might have 
 echoed " all's right with the world." 
 
 At the corner of Sixth Avenue, close under the 
 shadow of the Elevated, he met a theatrical 
 acquaintance. 
 
 " Hear you've signed with Garvish for the Fer- 
 gus company," said this man, after greetings had 
 been exchanged. " Pretty good berth, I guess?" 
 
 223
 
 Felicity 
 
 Yes, Vincent thought he would like it. Then 
 the acquaintance, eying him narrowly, ventured a 
 bit further. 
 
 " Rather strong in that quarter, aren't you ? " 
 
 " Oh," said Vincent, nonchalantly, " we've 
 known each other for a dozen years or more. I 
 did Miss Fergus a trifling service the night 
 she got her first chance, and she's never forgot- 
 ten it." 
 
 " Lucky dog ! All the people I've ever done 
 anything for are gone broke. Well, be good to 
 yourself 1 " 
 
 There was something in the inflection of that 
 parting speech, something in the look that accom- 
 panied it, that made Vincent hot with resentment. 
 For an instant he struggled with the desire to call 
 the fellow back and hit him. But you can hardly 
 hit a man for the expression in his eye, or because 
 you do not like his tone of voice ; and anyway, the 
 offender was a little wasp of a chap whom Vincent 
 would have scorned to strike, though he had been 
 known, once, to spank a fellow of like size just 
 regularly, under severe provocation, to turn him 
 dexterously over and paddle him. That would 
 hardly do on Sixth Avenue, however, and besides, 
 to resent the taunt was to make tacit admission 
 that it hurt. 
 
 So Vincent swung along on his way, but his 
 bright mood was gone again momentarily. Peo- 
 
 224
 
 "People Always Talk" 
 
 pie were talking about him and Felicity, were 
 they? They were saying, doubtless, that he was 
 making the most of her friendship for him to 
 further his own interests. It was not often that 
 Vincent found himself caring what people said; 
 but just now he was too perturbed to be philo- 
 sophical. He would show people ! Thought he 
 was a fortune-hunter, did they? Well, they should 
 see ! " I may be a matinee idol," said Vin- 
 cent, savagely, as if admitting a deep disgrace, 
 " but I've got some decency about me, and I'm 
 not the kind of man that hangs on to a woman's 
 skirts for a living. I'm not on my uppers, yet, I 
 guess, and if I" were, it wouldn't be from a woman 
 I'd go hunting a boost. No, sir! I why, hello, 
 Clo!" 
 
 As he turned the corner of Broadway to go 
 south he ran into Clo Detmar. She was looking 
 more than a trifle seedy, this morning, and, con- 
 scious as she was of her shabbiness, the cordiality 
 of Vincent's greeting halted her, when otherwise 
 she would have gone quickly by. The evident 
 willingness of Delano, the popular idol, to stand 
 talking with her in her conspicuous lack of sum- 
 mery attire, on that prominent corner, with half 
 their world parading by on its morning outing, 
 delighted her, and she responded eagerly to his 
 good-natured questions so eagerly that Vincent 
 felt his old, pleasureable conceit of himself return- 
 
 225
 
 Felicity 
 
 ing, and in a delicious suffusion of kindliness asked 
 Clorinda to lunch. 
 
 " I'm not dressed up," she faltered. 
 
 "Oh, pshaw! What d'you care? Everybody 
 knows you've got better clothes, and that's all that 
 matters." 
 
 Clorinda wished she knew if he really thought 
 so, or if he were lying gallantly to comfort her. 
 It would be nice to think that some one who knew 
 her in the old days still believed her prosperous; 
 it never occurred to Clo that there could be any one 
 who would still believe her good. But Vincent's 
 manner was non-committal charmingly free of 
 benevolent condescension, and as charmingly free 
 of that something which bespeaks the lack of 
 respect. 
 
 So to lunch they went, to a place chosen by Vin- 
 cent with rare tact a place not so fine that Clo 
 would feel uncomfortably shabby by contrast, but 
 fine enough so that she could have no suspicion he 
 was ashamed to be seen with her among his more 
 prosperous acquaintances. Her appreciation of 
 his choice was so evident that Vincent, enjoying 
 to the full his own kindliness, nearly forgot his 
 previous irritation. 
 
 " Saw you the other night," he said, looking up 
 from his attentive study of the bill of fare. 
 
 * Yes. My, but I was surprised to see you come 
 walking in with Felicity Fergus ! " 
 
 226
 
 "People Always Talk" 
 
 " I was kind o' surprised to see myself," he ad- 
 mitted. " She'd never been there before ; I thought 
 it'd do her good, so I took her." 
 
 " I suppose once was enough for her?" 
 
 " Oh, I don't know I think she enjoyed it. 
 She seemed to." 
 
 " It's a mystery to me how she went through 
 all they say she did in her climbing days and kept 
 so unearthly good." 
 
 " She isn't unearthly good! That is, I mean 
 she's good, but it doesn't strike you as unearthly, 
 when you know her. She's a tremendously 
 human sort o' person, when you get into her con- 
 fidence." 
 
 " None o' the Anderson chill about her? " 
 
 " Now, there you're mistaken again ! " Vincent 
 interposed. " I was in Miss Anderson's company 
 for two seasons, you know, and though I can't say 
 I ever got awfully well acquainted with her, I 
 did get to know she's a delightful woman and not 
 the least bit cold, as her critics say. She has a 
 jolly sense of humor, though it's nothing to Miss 
 Fergus's. But when you know Miss Fergus well, 
 what you mostly think about her is that she's a 
 kind of pathetic person." 
 
 Clo looked incredulous. 
 
 " Yes," said Vincent, " pathetic; that's just it 
 just the impression she gives you." 
 
 " She never gave it to me," retorted Clo, with 
 227
 
 Felicity 
 
 some bitterness. " She always gave me the impres- 
 sion of being a spoiled child of fortune of having 
 a lot more than one woman's fair share of things 
 that every woman wants." 
 
 " Well, you see you never knew her. You can't 
 tell what people are like at long range." 
 
 " We can't all get at close range, like you," said 
 Clo, in good-natured banter. 
 
 Vincent flushed. " I suppose you've heard 
 gossip, too," he said, resentfully. And then, not 
 stopping to think how strange a person Clo was 
 to pick for his confidences, nor to reflect that there 
 probably was not one of his friends in good and 
 regular standing to whom he would not have felt 
 it an indelicacy to mention his quandary about 
 Felicity, he began to plead his case before Clorinda 
 Detmar, who listened with warm sympathy. 
 
 " I wouldn't care what people say," she coun- 
 selled; no counsel comes easier to all of us to 
 give! " If she's a good friend of yours and wants 
 you in her company, and you like her and want 
 to be there, you'd be a fool not to go. People 
 may talk, but will they get you as good a place, 
 if you give this one up? That's the way I look 
 at it." 
 
 There was something in that, Vincent admitted, 
 but it did not cover the whole situation. 
 
 " I can get plenty of good places," he said, a 
 little loftily, " I've always been able to. But the 
 
 228
 
 "People Always Talk" 
 
 thing is, I don't want people talking about well, 
 thinking there's more between us than friendship, 
 when there isn't. It isn't fair to her." 
 
 Clo laughed. " You talk like a schoolboy," she 
 said. " People always talk. If you live in a nun- 
 nery, they say it's because you were disappointed 
 in love, and ten-to-one they concoct some affair 
 for you with the spiritual adviser. What do you 
 care what people think? They're bound to think 
 something about you, and it's bound not to be true. 
 You see, they think Mary Anderson's cold, and 
 they certainly don't know Felicity Fergus is 
 pathetic. You just have to go ahead and ignore 
 'em. I guess Miss Fergus is used to being talked 
 about, and thought about; a little more won't hurt 
 her. But if you think she might care, why don't 
 you tell her, and see what she says?" 
 
 Vincent did not answer immediately, and Clo, 
 looking up suddenly, caught a curious expression 
 on his face. 
 
 " I I wouldn't quite like to do that," he said, 
 lamely; "it well, it would hardly be the thing 
 to do, it seems to me." 
 
 She was about to question why, when something 
 drove all thought of Felicity from her mind: she 
 saw Jack Ashley coming toward them, and that he 
 had been drinking, though it was so early in the 
 day. His face was working horribly in one of his 
 jealous furies wherewith he still, on occasion, pur- 
 
 229
 
 Felicity 
 
 sued her, though their paths were supposed to lie 
 as far as the poles asunder. 
 
 Vincent's back being toward Ashley, he did not 
 see him until Clo's little choking cry of fright made 
 him turn in the direction of her startled gaze. As 
 he turned, Ashley struck him full in the face, and 
 without an instant's hesitation, Vincent returned 
 the blow, with interest. 
 
 " Don't, oh, don't! " begged Clo, rising to her 
 feet and tremblingly raising a hand in intervention. 
 But they paid no heed to her and clinched, only to 
 be separated immediately by waiters and patrons. 
 
 " He," said a waiter, indicating Ashley, " come 
 right up to the gentleman, here, an' hit 'im without 
 sayin' a word. I seen him." 
 
 ' Yes, damn him, that's my wife with him ! " 
 cried Ashley. 
 
 Furious as he was, Vincent could only forbear to 
 ask what crime it was to buy a lunch for Clo, to 
 whom Ashley had not given as much in five years. 
 There was nothing he could say in his own defence 
 that would not be unchivalrous to poor Clo, and 
 the realization of this maddened him more than 
 the smart of Jack Ashley's blows. 
 
 The proprietor came hurrying to the battle- 
 ground. " I can't have any fighting here, gentle- 
 men, or any scenes. If you can't settle this matter 
 peaceably, I'll have to ask you all to leave." 
 
 "The devil you will!" retorted Vincent his 
 230
 
 "People Always Talk" 
 
 choler rising past control. " Can you look at that 
 intoxicated brute and expect me to pacify him with 
 sweet words? It's your business to put him out 
 and preserve the peace, while I eat the meal I've 
 ordered and am willing to pay for." 
 
 Ashley, at this, lunged heavily and struck at the 
 proprietor his maudlin, insensate rage shifting 
 as causelessly to the man who interfered as it had 
 originally fastened itself on Vincent. Immediately, 
 the proprietor sent for the police, and Vincent's 
 little party ended at the Thirtieth Street Police 
 Station, where poor Clo begged in vain to have 
 Ashley released. " God knows what he'll do to 
 me when he gets out," she wept. "Oh, there ought 
 to be some kind of law to protect me and my 
 friends from such persecution ! " she cried. " Just 
 because I was fool enough, when I was nineteen, 
 to marry that beast, I oughtn't to have to spend 
 all my life in fear of rows like this ! What chance 
 has a woman in my case, I'd like to know." 
 
 Vincent said what he could to soothe her, but 
 the whole episode had nauseated him and he was 
 inwardly cursing the luck that had led him into it. 
 
 " And the papers ! " said Clo, " think of the 
 papers ! It'll get in 'em, of course." 
 
 It would, of course. Vincent could see the head- 
 lines now : " Actor Delano in Tenderloin Station. 
 Jealous Husband Uses Fists in Cafe Row." Ugh ! 
 It was hideous! As Clo said, there ought to be 
 
 231
 
 Felicity 
 
 some law which would protect an innocent person 
 from such happenings as this. 
 
 It was the silly season in Park Row, and every 
 paper had room to spare for the story. Vincent 
 reckoned, at the week's end, that he had answered 
 five thousand efforts at chaff on the subject, from 
 as many jocular acquaintances, and gnashed his 
 teeth in rage at his impotence in the whole affair. 
 
 What he did not know about it, however, was 
 that a woman in West Harbor Point read of that 
 episode with burning cheeks, and, not clearly con- 
 scious why she did so, thrust the New York paper 
 containing it into the fire before any one else in her 
 household had a chance to look it over. 
 
 232
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE SHINING PATH TO THE MOON 
 
 JUNE passed, at Fair View, without bringing 
 Vincent, but Felicity did not miss him 
 greatly. She was very happy with Frances 
 Allston and their common memories; very happy 
 with the sea and with her freedom from interrup- 
 tion and curious interest, and with her house. Fran- 
 ces declared she had never seen any one else get 
 such ecstatic satisfaction out of bargaining with 
 " the travelling meat market," as Felicity called 
 the butcher who made his tri-weekly rounds with 
 his stock in a canvas-covered wagon; never had 
 supposed it possible for a hot kitchen to be such 
 a palace of delights as it seemed to Felicity, who 
 had an insatiable desire to whisk eggs and sift 
 flour and roll pie crust and cut cookies and fry 
 doughnuts, and do a world of other things which, 
 to her starved wanderer's sense, seemed the most 
 enchanting, inner mysteries of that haloed thing, 
 the common lot. 
 
 " If you're so crazy about housekeeping," said 
 Frances, one day, " why don't you quit the stage 
 and marry and settle down? " 
 
 233
 
 Felicity 
 
 Felicity's eyes twinkled with humorous appreci- 
 ation. " Why don't I? " she echoed, whimsically. 
 " Maybe it's because I suspect that these fascinat- 
 ing butcher-men and egg-beaters might not con- 
 tinue so engrossing, if I made work of 'em, instead 
 of play. Maybe " she began, as if another prob- 
 ability occurred to her, but the expression of her 
 face changed suddenly and Frances knew she left 
 something unconfessed. 
 
 " I'm going to have a house in the fall," she 
 went on, " even if I only stay in it a few weeks 
 each year. I'm going to have a place where I 
 can accumulate things, and sit down and gloat over 
 my possessions. I've always had to travel light, 
 to live in a trunk, so to speak. While Aunt Elie 
 was with me I wouldn't let myself think of a 
 house, because she'd have made such a responsi- 
 bility of it, and she wasn't able to do it. And now 
 I'm so sorry I didn't have one anyway, and man- 
 age somehow about the responsibility. I wish I 
 had a house where Aunt Elie had lived and died 
 but I can't buy that now can I? I wish I had 
 a house where The Old Man had been, and left 
 memories! I'd rather have the littlest house on 
 earth where he had been, than the biggest, all 
 empty of him ! I can't buy a home, you see only 
 a house. If I'd only bought a year ago! so Aunt 
 Elie could have been in it but I was afraid she'd 
 take it too hard " 
 
 234
 
 The Shining Path to the Moon 
 
 " Somebody always has to make a responsibility 
 of housekeeping," said Frances, rather soberly. 
 " It takes positive generalship to run a house 
 agreeably." 
 
 Felicity looked dismayed. " I shall have to hire 
 a general," she said, dolefully, " as well as a com- 
 panion. I sha'n't mind the general, so much," she 
 went on, " because I can turn her loose and tell her 
 to run things and not to bother me " 
 
 Frances smiled. " You talk about housekeeping 
 just as a man does," she said, " as if you could 
 buy a flawless housekeeper as you buy a flawless 
 diamond, if you have the price." 
 
 " Well," returned Felicity, undaunted, " if she 
 isn't flawless I sha'n't mind, much. I can go out 
 to eat, or have in a caterer. You may laugh at 
 me, but I know I can get service it's one of the 
 things the price will buy. But I can't get com- 
 panionship not for money. I've got to have a 
 human being to travel with me next year some 
 kind of a fellow woman to be in my rooms, to 
 keep me from getting sick with loneliness. I need 
 her for propriety, really; it's not quite comfortable 
 to travel with only a maid. And I need her for 
 company. Anybody'll do for propriety, but where 
 am I to get company get some one whose strange- 
 ness and ' boughtenness ' won't drive me wild ? " 
 
 Frances shook her head despairingly. ' That's 
 a phase of your business I know little about," she 
 
 235
 
 Felicity 
 
 said. " Father's life was so different a man's 
 always is, of course. And in my days of knowing 
 theatre people well, nearly everybody belonged to 
 stock and lived like other folks. The stars trav- 
 elled, of course, but I never got well acquainted 
 with any of the women; they came so seldom and 
 stayed so short a time, and never were familiarly 
 at home in our house the way many of the big 
 men were. I suppose most of them had relatives 
 with them a mother or sister or somebody; I 
 remember that when Rachel was here everybody 
 thought she'd have been so much happier if she'd 
 only had a chance to be lonely ! Such a swarm of 
 family as that poor creature had to trail about! " 
 
 " I never heard of any of them the women 
 of the stage, I mean who was as alone in the 
 world as I am," said Felicity. " Why, nobody 
 on earth belongs to me that I know of ! " 
 
 Frances thought best to ignore the tragic aspect 
 of this. " Well," she observed, smiling, " there 
 are plenty who'd like to, I don't doubt." 
 
 Felicity kept her own counsel, partly from 
 womanly reticence, partly because it nettled her to 
 remember, of all the thousands who had raved 
 over her art, her beauty, her charm, of all the 
 hundreds who had called her adorable, how few 
 had laid themselves at her feet and how with 
 wounded pride rather than wounded love they had 
 taken their dismissal. One would think, Felicity 
 
 236
 
 The Shining Path to the Moon 
 
 in candor could not help admitting, that beauty 
 and sweetness and brilliance so universally extolled, 
 would have inspired great love in some one; that 
 from somewhere out of the wide, wide world that 
 knew her, a worshipper might have come who 
 would not be said nay. But, no ! Probably there 
 were a thousand men who would have been glad 
 to have had her if they knew they could, but there 
 was not one, evidently, who wanted her so that he 
 meant to have her whether or not. She had seen 
 men that determined about women with no tithe 
 of her world-acknowledged loveliness. Why was 
 it? Was The Old Man right, as he nearly always 
 was, when he said that no one was ever loved 
 because of what he was, but in spite of it? She 
 had seen women ardently worshipped in spite of 
 big obstacles ; had seen love thrive on what it over- 
 came. Was it, then, one of the cruelest phases 
 of the mockery of success that triumph held love 
 at bay? 
 
 It was a rainy morning, and she and Frances 
 after a beguiling hour in the kitchen had gone into 
 the sitting-room, where, with a log blazing on the 
 hearth, more for cheeriness than for warmth 
 (though the east wind was chill) , they were sewing 
 and chatting cosily in that sweet, confidential way 
 that women love. Felicity was a good needle- 
 woman, thanks to Amelia's teaching, and found 
 nothing more restful than the plying of her needle. 
 
 237
 
 Felicity 
 
 She could always think best as she sewed, she 
 said, and there was no time she talked better, if she 
 had an intimate rocking and sewing by her side. 
 How she and Amelia had sat and sewed, in all 
 sorts of queer nooks, years ago, to get her cos- 
 tumes together! And how, as their fingers flew, 
 their tongues had kept pace, and Felicity had 
 talked herself into her characters even while she 
 fashioned their habiliments. Those were, not- 
 withstanding many hardships, good old days. 
 Now, her costumes were designed and made by 
 artists, her frocks for private wear came from 
 great Paris houses, her lingerie was the product 
 of exquisite skill in convents where meek nuns pur- 
 veyed to vanities themselves had piously for- 
 sworn. There was no need at all for her to sew, 
 and the nice, leisurely habit did not fit in with 
 the life of the road as she travelled now when 
 luxury and fame complicated things for her as 
 privation and struggle had never done. Celeste 
 sewed now, if sewing needs be done. But this 
 was vacation beautiful, " different " vacation 
 and Felicity, besides sewing unneeded things for 
 herself, had been helping Frances make tiny gar- 
 ments for Sadie's baby that was to be. 
 
 She was sewing on one of these now, putting 
 the infinitesimal bit of lace about the bottom of a 
 wee sleeve, and wondering, wistfully, if she would 
 ever be thus employed with a tenderer interest, 
 
 238
 
 The Shining Path to the Moon 
 
 when a boy arrived from the Harbor with tele- 
 grams one for Frances, two for Felicity. 
 
 One of Felicity's was from Mr. Leffler, about 
 a house he had found and wanted her to come up 
 and look at. The other was from Vincent, who 
 said: " May I run down for over the Fourth? " 
 
 The boy had been told to wait for answers. 
 "Any answer to yours? " said Felicity to Frances. 
 Then, catching sight of the older woman's face she 
 marvelled at its transfigurement ; the eyes were full 
 of tears, but joy shone unmistakable in every 
 lineament. 
 
 "What is it?" cried Felicity, "has the baby 
 come? " 
 
 Frances nodded; she could not speak. Felicity, 
 understanding, went over and, bending above her, 
 gathered the gray head to her young bosom. 
 There it lay for a moment, then Frances raised 
 it and wiped her eyes. 
 
 "You don't know, dear," she whispered; "but 
 it's wonderful so wonderful ! " 
 
 " I do know ! " contended Felicity, refusing 
 to be shut out of this tenderest emotion of the 
 woman heart, " I do know I can feel every thrill 
 of it, just as if I held my own little, new baby 
 here ! " With unconscious dramatic expression she 
 clasped her arms against her breast as if she cud- 
 dled a baby there. 
 
 Then the waiting boy began to whistle sugges- 
 
 239
 
 Felicity 
 
 tively in the hall, and Felicity flew to her desk 
 to write her replies. 
 
 " I'm sending congratulations to Morton and 
 Sadie," she said, " do you want to dictate yours 
 tome?" 
 
 When the boy was despatched and they were 
 quiet once more, there seemed nothing to talk 
 about but the marvel of the new life out in Chi- 
 cago, the little girl-baby concerning whom her 
 proud father had wired: " Sarah Frances, weight 
 nine pounds, sends you greeting. Everything 
 favorable.'* 
 
 " Sarah Frances," murmured the grandmother, 
 continuing to reread the wonderful telegram, " is 
 not a very ornamental name " 
 
 " All the better for the wearer, however orna- 
 mental she may turn out to be," interposed Felicity 
 with decision in her tones,, To Frances's question- 
 ing look she answered, laughing, " Oh, I wouldn't 
 have any other name, any more than I'd have any 
 other profession ! But sometimes I think perhaps 
 I should have missed some of the irony of my life 
 if I'd been named Sarah Frances instead of Felic- 
 ity. People seem to feel that my being named 
 Felicity is all a part of my blissful, fabulously 
 felicitous existence. Sometimes I wish I were 
 named Ann Eliza so people might be willing to 
 believe I work for what I get, instead of believing 
 I pick it off a fairy tree. But of course I don't, 
 
 240
 
 The Shining Path to the Moon 
 
 really," she admitted in the same breath, as if 
 fearful of being taken by the unseen powers at 
 her word. " Oh, what a lot o' different people 
 each of us is in here ! " she cried, comically, striking 
 her breast with her hand in a conscious theatrical- 
 ism very unlike her gesture of a few moments 
 before when she had spoken in such passionate 
 earnestness about understanding mother-love. 
 
 Two days later, Vincent came, arriving by the 
 evening stage after " knocking around Beantown 
 for a few hours," as he expressed it. If he had 
 come a month ago, Vincent might have felt some 
 constraint, some consciousness on account of that 
 parting moment in the train-shed. But now he 
 had very nearly forgotten about it; at least he 
 had forgotten it sufficiently to carry no evident 
 remembrance of it in his manner as he greeted his 
 hostess. It seemed as if she had forgotten, too. 
 But no ! that was not like her. Vincent wondered. 
 
 West Harbor Point was at the unfashionable 
 end of Buzzard's Bay, and no railroad came nearer 
 to it than New Bedford or Fall River, each eigh- 
 teen miles away. Visitors had to take stage from 
 either of those points, and guests for Fair View 
 were dropped at a cross-roads a quarter of a mile 
 from town and there picked up by Felicity, driving 
 her surrey. 
 
 " Dashing trap, you've got here," laughed Vin- 
 cent, as he climbed up beside her on the front 
 
 241
 
 Felicity- 
 
 seat, " theatrical to the limit," and he flicked the 
 fringe that hung around the canopy. 
 
 " Hush ! " she whispered, though no one was 
 within shouting distance, " that fringe is part of 
 the disguise. Play-actors are not esteemed in these 
 parts and I'm masquerading as a human being. 
 That's one reason why I came; I think I'm tired 
 of being esteemed! " 
 
 Vincent grinned his incredulity, and Felicity 
 laughed, as she always did when any one, in Vin- 
 cent's phrase, " called her bluff." 
 
 " You know what I mean," she remonstrated, 
 " you know I like my glory, and I like to run away 
 from it. If you don't know it, I'm going to be so 
 disappointed in you ! For most people don't 
 understand it, and so, of course, they can't under- 
 stand me, and I hate being an enigma; it isn't 
 sociable." 
 
 ' The deuce you do! " thought Vincent, but he 
 didn't say how far he was from understanding her. 
 It was enough to look at her, today, without trying 
 or even caring to understand, he decided, as they 
 faced toward Fair View, the brilliant late sunshine 
 in their faces. 
 
 Felicity wore a dimity dress of an adorable 
 shade of pale pink, and a garden hat to match, 
 tied under her chin with pink dimity strings. The 
 sun seemed for the first few moments of their 
 drive to strike about the brim of her hat and, 
 
 242
 
 The Shining Path to the Moon 
 
 shining through, to cast a truly wonderful rose 
 glow over her face. She looked so different from 
 the woman in the black dress he had dined with 
 that wretched February night in Chicago, that 
 he sat staring at her reflectively, and forgot to 
 talk. 
 
 Felicity felt his scrutiny. " You're surprised at 
 my pink dress," she said, " but no one down here 
 knows I'm in mourning, except, of course, the All- 
 stons, and so I don't wear it. I've always hated it, 
 and wear it only as a concession one of the eternal 
 concessions to the people who don't understand. 
 Down here, where everything is so glorious with 
 color, I simply can't go around in black; it'd drive 
 me wild to be the one sombre note in a summer 
 world. So I live in blue, like the sea at noon, and 
 in pink, like the last of the afterglow, and in white, 
 like the moonlight on the sand-dunes, and some- 
 times I almost forget about the musty stage 
 until I'm honest with myself and own that 'way 
 down deep in me I'm searching every thrill I get 
 to make it yield me something for my art. Why, 
 I can't talk to an ancient mariner down at the 
 wharf, without finding myself thinking : ' Ah, ha ! 
 what did I tell So-and-So when he was rehearsing 
 that skipper part! Didn't I tell him he acted as 
 much like an Iowa country storekeeper as like a 
 Yankee salt who had sailed every navigable sea ! ' 
 
 " Three lengths ahead and running like the 
 
 243
 
 Felicity 
 
 wind," thought Vincent, enjoying his own humor- 
 ous appreciation of the thing, but saying nothing 
 except, " I'm with you on the mourning question ; 
 it can't do the dead any good and it keeps the 
 living in the perpetual ' willies.' It's bully to see 
 you looking so well ! " 
 
 Still not a trace of consciousness of that kiss! 
 Vincent, who had nearly forgotten it until he saw 
 her and then was anxious to forget entirely, was 
 piqued by the very ease he had hoped to find. In 
 any other woman, he reflected, he would not have 
 been so surprised; but in Felicity 
 
 They had two miles to drive, and Felicity, who 
 kept the reins, let the staid old horse saunter 
 through the leafy lanes where, as she remarked 
 with delicious unction, " ' the last lingering rays 
 of the setting sun were filtering through the trees ' 
 when, not l a solitary horseman was seen wending 
 his way across the plain the forest skirted,' but, 
 ' two play actors, in the disguise of hurnm^ beings, 
 were seen skulking through the unfrequented road- 
 way that approached a splendid castle. With out- 
 stretched arm, one pointed. " Look ! " she mur- 
 mured, " we draw near. Hist ! " 
 
 Her appreciation of crude melodrama was in- 
 tense; in books, in plays, in pictures, it always fas- 
 cinated her. She mimicked it inimitably, but she 
 was ever questioning it for the secret of its popu- 
 larity. " Somewhere in it," she declared, " there's 
 
 244
 
 The Shining Path to the Moon 
 
 a vital principle it behooves us all to learn." The 
 Old Man had taught her this, sitting with her in 
 the galleries of cheap theatres, when opportunity 
 allowed, and watching their neighboring gods as 
 keenly as they watched the play. 
 
 Vincent scorned melodrama, and felt sure, from 
 Felicity's mimicry, that she did, too. " At the 
 portcullis," he went on, as they drew up at the gate 
 to the Fair View grounds, " one of the disguised 
 dismounted and in ringing tones commanded it to 
 open. When the warder hesitated, our hero slew 
 him with one hand the left while with the other 
 he led his lady's charger through." 
 
 " Please close the gate," cautioned Felicity, out 
 of character, " so the cow won't make her escape." 
 
 " On what charge," demanded Vincent with the 
 air of a knight errant, " is the lady held prisoner? " 
 
 'What melancholy wights draw nigh?" 
 laughed Frances Allston, coming down the steps 
 to greet them. She had heard their laughter as 
 they approached, but was unprepared for the burst 
 of glee her hail incited. 
 
 " Oh, good, sweet Heaven! is it in the air?" 
 murmured Vincent. " What place is this that of 
 us all makes mummers as we come? that straight- 
 way twists the common tongue to actors' speech? " 
 
 Felicity threw up her hands in a despairing 
 gesture. " I tell you," she said, " if you're not care- 
 ful, you'll get us all surprised by night and whisked 
 
 245
 
 Felicity 
 
 away to Bedlam. If the servants overhear this 
 strange babbling, we'll be undone. They're 
 natives, all, and natives do not so; and as they do 
 not do themselves, they'll brook from no one else ; 
 what's not their way is heresy. For, look you, 
 sirs, they're of New England ! " 
 
 All through supper to which meal at evening 
 they told Vincent he'd have to get accustomed, as 
 the " help " refused to get accustomed to any 
 other they were childishly merry, with furtive 
 looks behind ere launching into stagey nonsense, 
 each trying to upset the others' gravity by sudden 
 changes of speech and countenance when the wait- 
 ress came and went. Vincent was delightfully 
 funny, dropping and reassuming " the disguise of 
 a human being," now acting wild melodrama in 
 Phemie's absence; now, on her return, arresting 
 a brandished fork midway, and sedately conveying 
 it to his mouth with an air of all his mind being 
 intent upon his manners. 
 
 Afterward, when he was smoking out on the 
 porch that overlooked the sea, they plied him with 
 questions about people they knew. They had the 
 New York and Boston papers every evening by the 
 stage, but newspapers are poor intelligencers, at 
 best, and there were a thousand things they wanted 
 to know " more authoritatively," Felicity said. 
 For instance, was it generally believed Mary 
 Anderson would not return to the stage? Did he 
 
 246
 
 The Shining Path to the Moon 
 
 know anything more than the papers printed about 
 the sale, to satisfy a mortgage, of John E. Owens's 
 famous place at Aigburth Vale? "What times 
 that place has seen ! " both women mused. Was 
 it true that Mrs. Langtry had been sued by her 
 French chef? Had he seen Dick Mansfield since 
 he returned from England, a few days ago, and 
 was his London triumph in Richard III much 
 talked about in New York? June had seen a 
 perfect epidemic in New York of benefits for the 
 Johnstown sufferers; Vincent had taken part in 
 three, they read " Who," said Felicity, " were 
 the ' also rans ' ? " 
 
 After a while, Frances remembered she had let- 
 ters to write time-honored excuse of the tactful ! 
 and begged to be excused for an hour or so. 
 Vincent went in with her, to open the door for 
 her, and to fetch a light shawl for Felicity. 
 
 " I'm not cold," she protested, when he wrapped 
 it round her with the charming solicitude habitual 
 with him. 
 
 " No, but it's damp; it's bound to be. And I 
 thought maybe you'd come for a stroll along the 
 beach. There's Madame Moon peeking up, now, 
 waiting for her cue to come on." 
 
 They walked along the shore in the direction 
 of the Harbor for a half mile or thereabouts, then 
 turned and retraced their steps to a point near 
 home, where a flat-bottomed rowboat, overturned 
 
 247
 
 Felicity 
 
 in the dry sands above tide-mark, invited them, and 
 they sat down. 
 
 So far, they had talked of everybody but them- 
 selves, of everything but their separate and mutual 
 concerns. Now, as they sat and looked out along 
 the silver path of the moonlight on the dark waters, 
 they fell silent. Felicity, one hand cupping her 
 chin and cheek, seemed lost on the trail of " long, 
 long thoughts," and Vincent, watching her, won- 
 dered what they were found himself wishing he 
 knew if she had heard of the cafe row over Clo 
 Detmar, and if she thought any less of him for it. 
 But he was afraid to ask. 
 
 " You're having a fine, restful time, aren't 
 you? " he said, presently. He was sifting the fine, 
 dry sand through and through his fingers as he 
 sat, wrapped in languorous content with this sil- 
 very, voluptuous night, this wholly pleasant situ- 
 ation. It seemed to him, as he watched Felicity, 
 and remembered the scenes of stress he had seen 
 her in twice this year now only in its zenith that 
 she must be revelling in this quiet. For himself, 
 Vincent was never rested by quiet, but by change; 
 but he knew Felicity to be different. 
 
 1 Yes," she answered, " this is the restfullest 
 time I can remember, since well, ever, I think! 
 I was going to say since the years at Briarwood, 
 but though the place, there, is full of soft laziness, 
 those were anything but soft, lazy years I spent 
 
 248
 
 The Shining Path to the Moon 
 
 there. I never saw anything in my life," she went 
 on, musingly, " like dear Aunt Elie's ambition for 
 me. It was unrelenting. All those times were 
 times of toil. . . . But, oh! they were all so 
 interesting! I look back at them now with the 
 keenest regret. . . . There was, for instance, 
 our old Witch of Endor a derelict old woman, 
 the weirdest creature, who drifted out of the vor- 
 tex at New Orleans and came, in some way, to be 
 floating from river town to river town, picking up 
 the most precarious living that ever was on land 
 or sea. And when she came to Briarwood, we 
 kept her. Such a looking thing as she was ! And 
 we never could improve her. She looked like 
 the mummy of a Rameses, done up in innumerable 
 swathings of prehistoric stuffs. She could take one 
 of Aunt Elie's prim gowns, and when she had put 
 it on, with such revisions and additions as her 
 taste dictated, you would have thought she was 
 fresh from an Egyptian tomb and that dissipa- 
 tion had reached a stage of high art among the 
 Egyptians! But such gifts! She spoke and wrote 
 seven or eight languages, fluently. She had been 
 everywhere in Christendom, and a good many 
 places that were not Christian to say the least. 
 She had encountered everybody that ever was 
 heard of in this century, it seemed political, 
 social, artistic, she knew them all! And how she 
 could play the piano ! She had studied with Clara 
 
 249
 
 Felicity 
 
 Schumann, and had been much in Liszt's house in 
 Vienna in the days of the Countess; she knew 
 Wagner in his years of bitterest struggle, and 
 could tell all about his anguish in putting a ballet 
 in Tannhauser to make the opera ' go ' in Paris. 
 She had known George Sand and De Musset, had 
 lived neighbor to the Felixes when Rachel was 
 enjoying her first triumphs; had well, I don't 
 know whom she hadn't known, or where she hadn't 
 been. And yet she was a poor old waif, living 
 on the kindly tolerance of anybody she could appeal 
 to in an alien land. We always thought she was 
 a political exile. We knew she was a victim of 
 drink and drugs; and whether she was hunted by 
 foreign government spies, as she imagined, or by 
 her own conscience and the horrid shapes of her 
 dissipations, didn't particularly matter. She taught 
 me French and German, and music, and and 
 other things ! Sometimes she would disappear and 
 be gone two or three weeks, or even longer to 
 New Orleans, on a spree. Always, when she came 
 back, ' they ' were ' after ' her, and we'd take her 
 in and make much show of hiding her, and in her 
 gratitude and remorse, combined, she'd nearly kill 
 me with overdoses of instruction! . . . Some- 
 times Aunt Elie and I would go to New Orleans 
 with her, and the queer places she took us! I 
 wouldn't take a great many thousand dollars for 
 what I saw of the French Quarter under old 
 
 250
 
 The Shining Path to the Moon 
 
 Madame's guidance and Aunt Elie's chaperonage. 
 Think of the combination! I learned fencing in 
 New Orleans, of the weirdest, witheredest old man, 
 as mysterious as Madame herself. He lived in a 
 room over a macaroni shop. How I remember 
 that dirty, entrancing shop, where the whole front 
 came out like a shutter, and one could stand on 
 the banquette and watch the old, blind white 
 horse turning the rude machinery that ground out 
 the long, white strings which two men cut off in 
 armfuls and hung up to the rafters to dry. And 
 there was hardly an acquaintance of Madame's 
 whom she could tell about save in a whisper, with 
 many frightened glances back and around, to make 
 sure her friends' pursuers were not listening. To 
 this day I'm burning with curiosity to know 
 whether all those queer people were really arch- 
 conspirators, guilty of high treason, or whether 
 they fancied themselves such, or only Madame so 
 mistook them." 
 
 " By Jove ! " said Vincent, " you never told me 
 any of this before. It's as interesting as the 
 4 Arabian Nights.' " 
 
 " It is, and just as foreign. We went to New 
 Orleans one winter when The Old Man was play- 
 ing there, at Carnival time, and he went so crazy 
 about our old Witch of Endor as Grandfather 
 McClintock used to call her that he insisted on 
 our taking her abroad with us when we went. But, 
 
 251
 
 Felicity 
 
 bless you ! she went quite wild when we suggested 
 it. Whether she'd poisoned a czar or stolen a 
 pocketbook, she was of no mind to go back to 
 Europe that was sure." 
 
 " You've had some experiences in your brief 
 day, haven't you? " 
 
 " Experience ! Why, I could write a portly 
 book of memoirs of this sort right now. You 
 see, The Old Man taught me to find experience. 
 Perhaps I was born with this passion for people, 
 this wild desire to ' see their wheels go wound,' as 
 Budge says; but The Old Man taught me how to 
 gratify my passion, and I can never be grateful 
 enough for the wide-eyed vagabondage of those 
 early years. Now, my success shuts me out from 
 all that. A horrid little fanfare goes before me 
 everywhere, and puts people ' on guard ' before I 
 come. There's nothing more pathetic about suc- 
 cess, I think, than the stiffening effect it has on 
 people we meet. And in our life here to-day and 
 gone to-morrow we have no time to impress on 
 those we meet that we're not different because 
 we've achieved; before we can win them to think- 
 ing of us as human beings and get them to acting 
 like such themselves, we're gone to meet other 
 strange, stiff people, who'll grasp us nervously by 
 the hand and say how they enjoyed our acting. 
 Do you know," Felicity laughed softly at the pict- 
 ure she drew, " some day I shall astonish the 
 
 252
 
 The Shining Path to the Moon 
 
 natives I feel that I shall by answering some 
 stilted citizen's remark about my acting with, ' Oh, 
 bother my acting ! Tell me how long you've been 
 married and if you're still in love with your wife.' ' 
 " Is that what you care most to know? " 
 " Oh, for one thing. In art we make a great 
 deal of love ; we presuppose that it's the most inter- 
 esting thing in the world to the great majority of 
 people. I always want the testimony of life on 
 this want to know if it's an old, old fallacy we're 
 keeping up, or if there's something divinely true 
 in the persistent love-ideals of art. Some of us 
 have expression; many haven't. Do we express 
 the majority we who act and write and paint? 
 that's what I want to know. I play love for people 
 all the time. Everybody says it's the one thing 
 people want, that no play can go without it. I 
 wonder! I wonder if the hunger for love is the 
 dominant passion in most lives, from start to finish. 
 Why, this spring, when we were considering plays 
 for next season, there was one I liked very much; 
 it was the freshest, finest-flavored thing I'd ever 
 had offered to me. But Garvish wouldn't listen 
 to me. ' It's no good,' he insisted, ' the heroine's 
 married twice, and the dear public never takes any 
 stock in second marriages. They believe in love 
 at first sight and one love only through all eternity 
 no chance of mistaking it, ever, or of going back 
 on it, or of taking up with a counterfeit. They 
 
 253
 
 Felicity 
 
 all know better they must but they don't want 
 to know better; they want the players and the 
 poets and the story-writers to contradict 'em, to 
 deny their own experience to take 'em out o' their 
 own experience, I guess.' Now, I want to know if 
 that's so. I want to ask every human being I 
 meet what he thinks about it, instead of listening 
 to his observations on the weather. But I can't! 
 They'd think I was crazy, or, worse, impertinent. 
 I've an almost uncontrollable desire to stop people 
 in the streets, on the cars, and ask them what they 
 want most. I'm green with envy of those fairies 
 who could give folks three wishes not so much 
 because I yearn to give them what they want 
 perhaps I'm too wise to wish to do that! as 
 because I want to know what they'd choose." 
 
 "Money most or all of 'em!" interjected 
 Vincent, with decision. 
 
 "Then I'd make 'em tell what for! When I 
 go down in lower New York, and see all those 
 thousands of men hurrying, skurrying, with anx- 
 ious faces, I want to know what each of them's 
 after money for whether some woman can't be 
 held unless she gets a pearl necklace, or some social 
 status can't be attained without a steam yacht, or 
 some enemy can't be crushed without the strategy 
 that makes other men chary of his stocks or 
 what! And when I see the women spending the 
 money, uptown, I want to know what they hope 
 
 254
 
 The Shining Path to the Moon 
 
 to accomplish. Is this gown to enchant a difficult 
 lover, or to make a rival envious, or to impress a 
 social leader or what? What do they all love, 
 those people? Power? Popularity? I have 
 power and popularity, and I know they don't fill 
 my heart, so why should I suppose they fill any- 
 body's? Then what is it that hearts hunger for? 
 That's what I want to ask these strange, stiff peo- 
 ple who say they like my acting. And that's what 
 I can't get at first hand any more, so I have to get 
 it as best I can in books. When I have my house, 
 where I can keep things, I'm going to have every 
 book I can buy that tells honestly what one heart 
 desired of life and what it got, and how it made 
 its compromise. Nobody could look at that, now," 
 indicating the broad path of silvered waters that 
 seemed to lead straight from their nest in the sand 
 to whatever glory the heart desired, " without 
 vague stirrings of wistfulness for something. To 
 every one who sits by any sea to-night, that path 
 leads straight from his feet, as from ours. Where 
 do those paths end for each? If we could only 
 know!" 
 
 "What good would it do?" Vincent was not 
 unmoved by her mood, but he felt that it was a 
 very impractical one, out of which she seemed to 
 get a most unrestful yearning that could never by 
 any chance be satisfied, and was, therefore, better 
 dismissed. 
 
 255
 
 Felicity 
 
 And she, when the question was put to her thus 
 bluntly, could not answer. The humor of apprais- 
 ing the thing that way appealed to her, though, 
 and she laughed. 
 
 When they went in, stepping quietly so as not 
 to wake the sleeping household, Vincent whispered, 
 holding her hand for a moment as he said good- 
 night, that no one in this house, evidently, had 
 been losing sleep, " wishing on the moon." And 
 Felicity, when her door was closed on his laughing 
 presence, and she had heard his door close at the 
 other end of the hall, sat down by her window 
 looking seaward and smiled in the moonlit dark 
 at Vincent's cheery matter-of-factness. 
 
 " I'm inclined to think he's right and I'm 
 wrong," she told herself. " I believe he represents 
 the big, human majority far better than I do. 
 He's nearer sane than I am, and wholesomer. I 
 ' moon ' too much. It was funny our coming in 
 at ten o'clock on this glorious night and finding 
 this household so far from wistfulness as to be 
 snoring, probably ! " 
 
 And laughing softly to herself she undressed 
 in the dark and went to bed to sleep soundly, 
 instead of sitting by the window for hours as she 
 so often did, wondering always wondering. 
 
 She did not know how could she? that 
 Frances had spent the evening by her window, 
 looking out across the shining path and thinking, 
 
 256
 
 The Shining Path to the Moon 
 
 with a full heart, of The Old Man,, her father; 
 and that the little Cape Cod girl, Phemie, who had 
 so stolidly waited on the supper table, cried her- 
 self to sleep thinking of the same moon shining 
 on her lover with his fellows of the mackerel fleet 
 off the Grand Banks. 
 
 257
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A STAGE LOVER MAKES REAL LOVE, AND IT'S 
 DIFFERENT 
 
 IT was not Vincent's way to lie long awake after 
 retiring, and to-night he was deliciously 
 drowsy hours before his usual bedtime, thanks to 
 the sea air. But before he dozed off he reflected 
 with amusement on his reply to Felicity's " moon- 
 shine," and the way circumstances upheld him 
 in the dark, silent house. 
 
 " That poor girl," Vincent mused, kindly, 
 " moons too much. She lives too much by herself. 
 It's pretty rough, the way her few folks have been 
 stripped from her, but land! actors are seldom 
 long on family, and if they are, they don't see much 
 of their folks. We have to learn to take up with 
 the companionship we can get as we go." 
 
 That Felicity could get almost any companion- 
 ship she chose, he knew. Remembering that, he 
 could but marvel that she chose so little and that 
 she continued to choose him so signally. Vincent 
 was not over modest the stage does not foster 
 that trait but he was fully sensible that at this 
 
 258
 
 A Stage Lover Makes Real Love 
 
 moment there were any number of younger and a 
 goodly number of abler men whom she might have 
 had under her rooftree, to whom she might have 
 poured out her charming confidence on the beach 
 by the moonlit sea. Why did she favor him? 
 Vincent wondered. Had she a lingering sentiment 
 for the old ardor of the fledgling ingenue? It 
 would be like her to cherish that. And there were 
 times when it seemed as if she but pshaw ! Vin- 
 cent was no " silly ass," he told himself, thanking 
 Heaven fervently therefor, to conclude that a 
 woman was " after him " because she showed him 
 friendliness for old times' sake. Still 
 
 But at this point Vincent fell asleep. When he 
 woke, it was with an unfamiliar sense of having 
 gone to sleep with some unsolved unpleasantness 
 on his mind. What the deuce was it? he won- 
 dered, as he lay blinking on a new day. He had 
 been told he need not get up until the spirit moved 
 him that breakfast could be had at any time, for 
 the asking. It was nice to visit and not have to 
 " lie awake listening for a blamed bell." But 
 what was it that ran, like a fretful undercurrent, 
 through his mind, and kept dozy peace at bay? 
 Oh, yes ! 
 
 Vincent wished he knew what Felicity thought 
 about him. He wanted to do the decent thing, and 
 he was not at all certain what that was. If Felicity 
 were really offering him her favor her more than 
 
 259
 
 Felicity 
 
 friendly favor he wanted to know it ; for not for 
 worlds would he embarrass her by misunderstand- 
 ing her offer, let alone slighting it. No, by Jove ! 
 he'd cut his tongue out before he'd let it say a word 
 that might send a flush of shamed affection to that 
 lovely face. Oh, gee! he should have figured all 
 this out before he left New York before he sent 
 the telegram. And he knew people were talking 
 about them, too. A month ago he had determined 
 to do something about it, and then there did not 
 seem to be anything to do. He had stayed away, 
 and not written, except on business, till by-and-by 
 he had almost forgotten what he was not writ- 
 ing for. 
 
 " Botheration ! " imprecated Vincent, swinging 
 half out of bed with a sigh for his spoiled second 
 nap, and sitting with his feet on the floor and his 
 head in his hands thinking. " I wish I knew ! I 
 wish I knew about myself, and then I could walk 
 up to her like a man and find out what she thinks ! 
 I'm fond of her, of course, and admire her tre- 
 mendously, and it wouldn't be any hardship to try 
 to make her happy. But would I do it if it was 
 hard, instead of easy? Seems as if that ought to 
 be the way a fellow could figure it out. I shouldn't 
 want to be the cur that'd marry a woman for her 
 money or her fame or what she could do for me; 
 I'd rather have my self-respect than all her bene- 
 fits. But how could a fellow ever feel that he'd 
 
 260
 
 married her for what she has? She's so charming, 
 so well, so much bigger than anything she's got ! 
 All the books and plays are as she says they 
 try to make you believe, if it's love, you'll know it 
 for sure at first sight. I don't feel like the lovers 
 I always play I'm sure of that. I don't feel any- 
 thing like I've felt a couple o' dozen times when I 
 thought I was in love and then felt sure I wasn't. 
 I've seen a number o' women I thought I couldn't 
 live without, but I've never seen one yet I was 
 sure I wanted to live with that's the trouble. It 
 doesn't prove anything that I know I can live with- 
 out Felicity Fergus either; I've thought the other 
 way too many times and learned it was false alarm. 
 Then what the dickens does prove anything? 
 How's a fellow to know ? Here I've been playing 
 love for twenty years, making a lot o' fool women 
 crazy with the way I did it, and I don't know a 
 bit more about the real thing than a baby. I only 
 know I wouldn't hurt that girl's feelings for for 
 a mint! " 
 
 Vincent had but one thought when he went 
 down stairs, immaculately dressed in cream flannels 
 and looking, as he could not help knowing, very 
 handsome: and that was to keep out of Felicity's 
 way until he got " a better hold on this thing." 
 This was easier than he had dared to hope, for 
 Felicity was away, an hour ago, to the harbor, in 
 search of freshly-caught lobsters. And when he 
 
 261
 
 Felicity 
 
 had been served with breakfast by Phemie, and 
 had exchanged a few remarks with Frances, who 
 was busy with housewifery, he was free to do as 
 he liked. 
 
 Mr. Allston and Adams would be down by 
 to-night's stage, to stay over the Fourth and finish 
 the week out, but there would be no other guests. 
 Felicity had said something last night about get- 
 ting a skipper to sail them over that afternoon to 
 where Joe Jefferson was building his new house 
 on the Bay. That would be pleasant. Meantime 
 well, he'd " go in " about eleven; till then 
 
 He lighted a cigarette and strolled to the beach, 
 where he found that same overturned boat in the 
 warm sand and sat down to think things out a 
 most unusual occupation for impulsive Vincent, 
 who always acted first and then, convinced that 
 after-thinking seldom mends matters, did not think 
 at all. 
 
 He was finding his effort arduous and without 
 promise of fruitfulness, when a diversion presented 
 itself in the person of a small boy, of seven, 
 perhaps. This person had his abbreviated trousers 
 unbuttoned at each knee and rolled half way up 
 his diminutive thighs, which, by the whiteness of 
 them, bespoke a brief practice of this exposure. He 
 carried a fishing pole, which bespoke well, a 
 whole, lively little comedy to Vincent. 
 
 The boy was surveying Vincent with a half 
 262
 
 A Stage Lover Makes Real Love 
 
 hopeful interest which he made haste to disguise 
 when Vincent returned the scrutiny in kind. 
 
 " Hello, bub," said Vincent 
 
 " H'lo," was the rather offish response. 
 
 " Lookin' for anybody?" 
 
 " Naw," with a fine assumption of toughness, 
 " there's nobody to look for." 
 
 " I sympathize with you," said Vincent', gravely; 
 " I'm in that fix myself." 
 
 " Do your folks live here? " 
 
 " No; but if they did, a fellow hardly comes to 
 the seashore to get acquainted with his folks 
 eh?" 
 
 " Naw; that's what I say. Can't see what my 
 folks wanted to come here for ain't a fellow in 
 miles. I just now went to the Harbor and some 
 boys got gay with me asked me 'f I was goin' to 
 ketch a whale. I'd like to see them try to ride a 
 bicycle." 
 
 " I don't suppose they ever saw a bicycle," said 
 Vincent, with feigned contempt. The boy was 
 delighted, but gave no sign, of course. 
 
 " You and I might go fishin' together," sug- 
 gested Vincent; " you can't catch anything close to 
 shore, except clams and crabs, but I'm thinkin' of 
 gettin' a sailboat and a skipper to sail it, and going 
 after bluefish deep-sea trolling, y' know. That's 
 the thing to do down here in the fishin' line." 
 
 "When you goin'?" 
 
 263
 
 Felicity 
 
 " Well, maybe this afternoon I don't know. 
 Where d' you live? " 
 
 The boy indicated with his head evidently 
 some place further along the beach, away from the 
 Harbor, than Fair View. " Where d' you? " he 
 inquired. 
 
 " I'm stopping at Fair View for a few days." 
 
 "Who lives there?" 
 
 " Miss Fergus and Mrs. Allston. You don't 
 seem to be very well acquainted 'round these 
 parts." 
 
 " I ain't. I just come this Monday. I never 
 been here before. I live in Peoria." 
 
 " Nice town Peoria," observed Vincent, po- 
 litely. 
 
 "Been there?" 
 
 " Yes, a lot o' times." 
 
 " I wish some o' the fellows was here," sighed 
 the boy; " we could have a bully time." 
 
 " Not given to solitude and the pleasures of con- 
 templation, are you ? " said Vincent, whimsically. 
 
 " Sir? " said Bub, startled into politeness. 
 
 Vincent laughed. " I said, you are like me, you 
 can't have a whalin' good time just lookin' at the 
 sad sea waves." 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " Well, let's get acquainted, and see if we can't 
 entertain each other. My name's Delano Vin- 
 cent Delano. What's yours? " 
 
 264
 
 A Stage Lover Makes Real Love 
 
 " Mine's Bill Saunders." 
 
 "Fine! I always like fellows named Bill 
 don't know why, but they're usually hot sports, and 
 I like 'em." 
 
 Bill tried not to look as pleased as he felt. To 
 be thought " a hot sport " ! Ah, that made life 
 seem worth living in this desert by the sea. 
 
 " Say," he remarked, emboldened by Vincent's 
 easy manner, " you talk kind o' funny. What na- 
 tionality are you?" Bill had just mastered this 
 imposing word. 
 
 "None," answered Vincent, gravely; "I'm an 
 actor." 
 
 Now, Bill was only seven, but he was sophisti- 
 cated. He knew, all things considered, a good 
 deal about actors, and he had respect for them. 
 
 " Gee ! " he exclaimed, almost deferentially. 
 Then, " Ever acted in a circus? " 
 
 " No; but a good many years ago I was in a 
 minstrel show." 
 
 Bill accepted the admission as a boast. ' Think 
 you'll ever get in a circus? " he pursued, anxiously. 
 
 " I don't know. I may." 
 
 "What'llyoube?" eagerly. 
 
 " Well, now, Bill, I don't know. It won't be 
 an acrobat, or a bareback rider " 
 
 " Ner a chariot-driver? " 
 
 " I'm afraid not nor a contortionist. I'm too 
 stiff in the joints for any of those. But I might 
 
 265
 
 Felicity- 
 
 no, I couldn't even be a clown; clowns have to tum- 
 ble too much. I could feed the elephants." 
 
 Bill looked disappointed. The prospect seemed 
 faint and not very alluring. " What d' ye act 
 now? " he said. 
 
 Vincent tried to explain, and was hugely amused 
 to feel himself shrinking in Bill's estimation to 
 know that he escaped positive contempt only be- 
 cause Bill did not quite understand his account of 
 himself. 
 
 " I hoped," said Bill, " you was a funny man. I 
 like those next to chariot-drivers and lion-tamers." 
 
 Vincent sighed that he was not, and seemed so 
 really cast down about it that Bill tactfully changed 
 the subject. 
 
 An hour later, when Felicity came along the 
 beach from the Harbor, they were deep in the dep- 
 redations of Captain Kidd and Lafitte, u the Black 
 Terror." 
 
 " Bill Saunders, Miss Fergus," said Vincent, 
 introducing his new friend. 
 
 Felicity was delighted with the swaggering 
 name, and with Bill's evident intent to live up to 
 it. But Bill, somehow, found Vincent less absorb- 
 ing after this interruption. 
 
 Felicity had a big, covered market-basket on 
 her arm. Setting it down, she swung off the cover 
 to show her lobsters. 
 
 " They were all out of red ones today," she 
 266
 
 A Stage Lover Makes Real Love 
 
 laughed and went on to explain that the first 
 time she went to the Harbor to buy lobsters she 
 had so delighted an old lobster-fisher by asking 
 anxiously for " red ones," that every time he saw 
 her thereafter he made haste to say that he had 
 just sold out his red lobsters and had only dark 
 ones left. 
 
 They poked at the crustaceans for a while, then 
 Felicity proposed that Bill dig a hole in the beach 
 and return the poor things to their native element 
 once more before they died. 
 
 This proposition struck Bill pleasantly, and he 
 set about the digging, in a location carefully chosen 
 so that each wave as it rolled in would leave a 
 little of the briny deep for the lobsters' refresh- 
 ment. 
 
 "Who's your friend?" asked Felicity, when 
 Bill was out of earshot. 
 
 Vincent explained. 
 
 " I didn't know you were fond of children," said 
 Felicity, a little surprised. 
 
 "Me? Why, I'm crazy about 'em! Wish I 
 had a dozen. But what's the use? It's not what 
 I was cut out for, I guess. Imagine me a suburban 
 paterfamilias, going home nights with a jug o' 
 molasses, a clothes-horse, a sack o' flour and a 
 section o' garden hose; and getting up early in 
 the morning to run the lawn-mower before taking 
 my seven-fifteen to town ! " 
 
 267
 
 Felicity 
 
 Felicity laughed. 
 
 " Well, that's the way to raise families, and to 
 enjoy 'em from all I can see. And I don't fit 
 into the scheme at all, somehow. When I meet up 
 with a fellow like Bill, I feel kind o' well, kind 
 o' like I was missing a good deal. But what's the 
 use o' feeling that way? Everybody's missing a 
 good deal, no matter how much he's got, and 
 everybody's just pluggin' ahead doing the best he 
 can, notwithstanding." 
 
 " You're a good deal of a philosopher, I see," 
 commented Felicity, and her look and tone said 
 plainly she had not expected as much. 
 
 " Oh, hang it ! Miss Fergus, even a fool has his 
 philosophy, and there's no one so foolish as the 
 wise man who doesn't know that. Everybody's 
 steering by some chart he's made or adopted and 
 some o' the charts the plain sea-dogs make for 
 themselves out of their experience are better 'n all 
 the hydrographic thingumbobs in creation. Jove! 
 that's a heavy speech for yours truly " 
 
 "It was a good one," said Felicity, gravely; 
 " it had a tang of The Old Man about it." 
 
 "Now I am ' sot up,'" laughed Vincent; "I 
 never expected to remind you of The Old Man 
 except, maybe, by contrast." 
 
 " I am foolish about him," admitted Felicity, 
 ignoring the chance for compliment; " but he made 
 life so infinitely delightful ! I resent having lost 
 
 268
 
 him before I really had sense to appreciate him. 
 I want him now! I want him all the time! I 
 challenge every one I meet, to see if I can't find 
 another of his sort. But I'm afraid ' I shall not 
 look upon his like again.' ' 
 
 ' Then," said Vincent, clinchingly, " why don't 
 you stop looking? I don't believe in looking for 
 what you can't find." 
 
 " No," she answered, deliberating, " you don't 
 but I'm not sure but that I do. There's some- 
 thing to be said for both philosophies. They're 
 both as old as the world, I guess, and both 
 have made men happy. There's a kind of zest 
 in my continual expectancy that balances the satis- 
 faction you manage to feel in what comes your 
 way." 
 
 " Say," called Bill, " I got the hole dug, but I 
 won't put 'em in ! " 
 
 Vincent went to help him, and as Felicity 
 watched them together, taking note of their fine 
 comradeship, she felt a sudden yearning over this 
 bonny man, with his admission about " missing 
 something." It was not often one could yearn 
 over Vincent, and she found the new sensation 
 very sweet. 
 
 The ungracious lobsters temporarily restored to 
 their element, Bill found the immediate prospect 
 unpromising, so he declared his intention of going 
 home, but softened the blow by adding that he 
 
 269
 
 Felicity 
 
 would " be around this afternoon, and if you want 
 me to go fishin', why, I will." 
 
 Vincent thanked him Bill wasn't quite sure for 
 what and when he was gone explained to Felicity 
 that if she didn't mind, he'd thought of " taking 
 the kid along this afternoon if we went sailing. 
 He's crazy to fish poor youngster, with that fool 
 perch pole ! and I thought we might troll. If we 
 should happen to catch a bluefish, it 'd tickle him 
 sick. But, of course, if you'd rather not be both- 
 ered, I can take him some other time." 
 
 " Why, I wouldn't miss taking him ! " she cried, 
 " I I like boys myself, and I I believe I like 
 you lots better with little boys than with joss-sticks 
 burning before you ! " 
 
 There was nothing in the little, half-teasing 
 speech, but there was everything in the tone, 
 the look that accompanied it. Vincent forgot he 
 had not come to any conclusion when Bill inter- 
 rupted his reflections; he forgot he had ever had 
 any reflections. Something in the expression of 
 the brown eyes, of the sweet, sensitive mouth, 
 moved him strangely, and before he knew what 
 he was doing, he was pouring out disjointed sen- 
 tences to Felicity telling her he would be a glad 
 man if he could only know she liked him a little, 
 for any reason. 
 
 It was not a romantic environment, on the hot 
 sands in the glare of noon, but both of them had 
 
 270
 
 A Stage Lover Makes Real Love 
 
 played at love-making in too many fake moon- 
 lights, by too many papier mdche sundials, in too 
 many painted-muslin gardens, to care about ex- 
 ternals. 
 
 On the stage, Vincent was a fluent lover; off 
 the stage, his facile gallantry had never deserted 
 him before. But today there seemed to be no 
 words for the situation. What he felt expressed 
 itself in murmurs, in little snatches of phrases, 
 now halting, now hurried. There was small cohe- 
 rence to it, but Felicity did not care, did not know. 
 She heard what he said far less than the tones 
 of his voice. Nor could she find words to an- 
 swer, but there was that something yielding in 
 the quality of her silence that gave him courage 
 to go on. 
 
 " There are " he said, not looking at her, but 
 delving industriously in the sand at his other side, 
 " I hate myself for remembering them, but you 
 know well, you have a lot of everything, you see, 
 and I there isn't really anything I can offer you. 
 I don't know why I should dare to to ask you, 
 you know only you well, you make it so easy 
 for a fellow to forget your your fame, and all 
 that. I don't suppose I'm the the kind of a man 
 a woman like you could have a great passion for. 
 I'm not well, not up to you in any way. But 
 I'm a happy sort of a fellow, and perhaps I could 
 could give you something, in my way. If you 
 
 271
 
 Felicity 
 
 would would take me for what I am, I'd do my 
 best for you Felicity ! " 
 
 Twice or thrice she essayed to speak, but found 
 herself tongue-tied. At last, after he had stopped 
 talking and had waited what seemed an inter- 
 minable while, during which he had not once 
 glanced at her but kept on looking, as she looked, 
 out to sea, she laid her face upon her updrawn 
 knees, enfolded it with her arms, and burst into 
 tears. In an instant Vincent was holding her in 
 his arms and crooning comfort to her. 
 
 " Oh," she sobbed, " I've been so lonely no- 
 body knows how lonely ! " 
 
 " Of course you have," he soothed, hushing her 
 with acquiescence and with gentle patting, as if she 
 had been a child. " You've worked too hard, and 
 haven't had enough other interests," he went on, 
 his easy good humor returning to him with his 
 command of the situation; "you've needed an 
 every-day, easy-going chap like me to take your 
 mind off your work and make you feel like a human 
 being." 
 
 " They're always crowding you," she mur- 
 mured, u you can't ever rest. There's always 
 somebody just behind you trying to snatch your 
 laurels. And the public always expects more and 
 more of you. It's such hard work to keep on top ; 
 if you don't keep keyed up every minute, you lose 
 your place." 
 
 272
 
 A Stage Lover Makes Real Love 
 
 "Oh, pshaw!" comforted Vincent, easily, 
 " there's nobody within hailing distance of you 
 you don't need to kill yourself keeping ahead." 
 
 " If I stayed out a single season, somebody'd 
 pass me," she insisted. 
 
 " Well! You don't want to stay out, do you? 
 You want to stay in, and get all the fun you can 
 out of winning." 
 
 She shook her head. " There isn't any fun in 
 it," she declared; "when you've won, you're too 
 tired to care." 
 
 " Then why run? " he protested. 
 
 " Because I have to! I don't know any other 
 way, now; it's all there is in me." 
 
 " Nonsense! " said Vincent, laughing at her and 
 shaking his head in mock despair, " don't you ever 
 believe it ! You've got more whimsies and contra- 
 dictions and delusions and snares about you than 
 would stock a whole new race o' womankind. Now, 
 if I'm not mistaken, that horn's blowing from your 
 front porch, and I suppose it means dinner. I 
 asked you a well, a rather large question, a while 
 ago. Before we go in, would you mind giving me 
 an answer? " 
 
 His raillery was full of embarrassment, but she 
 was grateful for it, even though it did not deceive 
 her. 
 
 "What more answer do you want?" she par- 
 ried; " didn't I let you hold me in your arms? " 
 
 273
 
 Felicity 
 
 " You didn't let me," he retorted, " I just 
 did it!" 
 
 " But you wouldn't have done it if you hadn't 
 known if I hadn't let you ? " 
 
 " No," he admitted, " I wouldn't have dared to 
 to take any very long chances." 
 
 " Then why do you want me to to make a for- 
 mal speech of acceptance?" 
 
 Vincent was sure he had never seen anything 
 lovelier than her blushing confusion. " I don't," 
 he pleaded, " I just want you to take my word for 
 it that there isn't a creature in sight except the 
 lobsters and you needn't mind the speech! " 
 
 He gave her his hand and helped her to her feet. 
 Then, with flaming cheeks and deeply conscious 
 eyes, she wound her arms around his neck again, 
 as on that wonderful night, so long, long ago, and 
 raised her face to his conscious, with all her soft 
 embarrassment, of the difference in the thrill of 
 that brief abandonment, but laying it to the years, 
 and to their experience. Enchantment was for 
 sweet sixteen; it was enough for eight-and-twenty 
 to feel hopefulness. 
 
 " We mustn't forget the lobsters," she cautioned. 
 And they both laughed heartily. 
 
 " Fancy the just-betrothed doing this in a play," 
 she said, as she stooped with him over Bill's briny 
 hole, trying to poke the lobsters back into the 
 basket with a crooked stick. 
 
 274
 
 A Stage Lover Makes Real Love 
 
 By tacit consent they talked shop the brief way 
 home; it brought them there so much better fitted 
 to face Frances nonchalantly and go about the very 
 mundane business of eating dinner. 
 
 They had to hurry a little, so as to get an early 
 start on their sail ; and while the ladies were getting 
 ready, Vincent went to the beach to look for Bill. 
 He was there with his fishing-pole! 
 
 " Come on, Sport ! " called Vincent, refraining 
 from comment on the pole. 
 
 And so Bill attached himself to the party, quite 
 naturally, as if he belonged there, and was no more 
 conscious than the others of his agency in the turn 
 of affairs that morning.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 FAME FRIGHTENS LOVE; WANT WOOS HIM 
 
 LIKE most women, Frances took a keen inter- 
 est in match-making, and she had her sus- 
 picions of something more than business more, 
 even, than long-founded friendship in the rela- 
 tions between Felicity and Vincent. She thought 
 these suspicions were confirmed by something in 
 Felicity's manner that night as she introduced Vin- 
 cent to Mr. Allston and Adams by something 
 in the look she flashed at Delano when she said, 
 " My leading man." 
 
 But there was no occasion to invite confidence 
 that evening. Usually, in the quiet midweek even- 
 ings of the past month, when only they two com- 
 prised the Fair View household, Felicity had come 
 into her room at the early bedtime and, sitting 
 there in her night-dress or lounging gown, had 
 talked of such things as one is not likely to discuss 
 in less intimate surroundings. But last night, 
 though she had been awake when Felicity came in, 
 and had lain listening for the tap on her door which 
 was meant not to disturb her if she slept, but to 
 
 276
 
 Fame Frightens Love 
 
 hail her if she did not, it never came. To-night 
 it would not nor the next, nor for several nights, 
 for Herbert Allston was to stay at Fair View until 
 Monday morning. 
 
 After supper the mail was to be had in the 
 grocery store at the Harbor where it was nip 
 and tuck whether the grocer eked out a living by 
 being also postmaster, or the postmaster supple- 
 mented a scant government income by selling gro- 
 ceries. The groceries took more of his time, but 
 he liked to be called The Postmaster. 
 
 Usually, the hired boy went for the mail and for 
 such supplies as came down by express, which the 
 stage also carried. But to-night he had leave to 
 attend the barbecue on the beach, three miles away, 
 and was told that he might go early Phemie 
 would feed the horse, and hitch up after supper. 
 
 There was a good deal to be brought over to- 
 night, in the way of supplies from Boston, and 
 Felicity would, herself, drive over to the Harbor 
 she said. " One of the gentlemen can drive over 
 with me," she announced, in planning how they 
 would manage. Adams volunteered, but Felicity 
 would not hear of it. 
 
 1 You three folkses want to visit, I know," she 
 said, " so I'll ask Mr. Delano to go. We'll surely 
 get you a letter from Morton." 
 
 " I hope so," returned Frances, anxiously. No 
 letter had yet come to supplement his telegram of 
 
 277
 
 Felicity 
 
 last Saturday. " It seems as if he'd have written 
 on Sunday." 
 
 " Well, even so," argued Felicity, " he probably 
 wouldn't mail it until Monday, and it couldn't get 
 here before to-night." 
 
 " Is that a ' go,' Mater? " asked Adams, watch- 
 ing Vincent and Felicity drive away. 
 
 " I don't know," she answered, " sometimes I'm 
 afraid so." 
 
 " Why ' afraid ' ? He seems to be a very decent 
 chap. Certainly he's terribly good-looking, and 
 I must say I never saw such charming manners." 
 
 " I know," murmured Frances, " I know all 
 that. He's a nice fellow, and I like him. But 
 he's not her sort at all not at all." 
 
 " Oh," observed Adams, philosophically, " you 
 never can tell. Attraction's a queer thing, and 
 defies all our rules for its reasonable operation. 
 I've seen matches that promised beautifully, turn 
 out abominably, and t'other way round just as 
 often." 
 
 " And it's always safe to gamble on a woman, 
 any woman, being caught by attractiveness," sup- 
 plemented his father. " There never was one of 
 them yet that married a man for his downright 
 worth, his integrity, his responsibility, his his 
 character. It's always for his looks or for his 
 charm the way he dances or sings or does parlor 
 tricks." 
 
 278
 
 Fame Frightens Love 
 
 " So different," said Frances, abstractedly, 
 " from the way men do. With them it's always 
 character that counts ! " 
 
 Her manner was so droll that even Herbert had 
 to laugh. 
 
 " Poor little Sadie," she sighed, with seeming 
 irrelevance. " I don't know why, but I'm worried 
 about her. I wish we had a letter telling us every- 
 thing's all right." 
 
 It was past nine when Vincent and Felicity got 
 back. There was a great deal of express stuff, 
 Felicity explained, and it took quite a while to 
 get their packages and boxes. 
 
 " But we didn't mind waiting; it's such fun to 
 watch the people at the store." 
 
 Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shining 
 as they always were with excitement, and Frances 
 wondered whether she had learned something new 
 in that everlasting quest of hers for the under- 
 standing of character, or if she had been learning 
 something about herself. And would she? Yes, 
 Frances decided she would be true to her birthright 
 of art even when love came to her, and would 
 have the same interest in it she had in other peo- 
 ple's the interest of the analyst to know how it 
 affected life. 
 
 But these wonderings about Felicity and her 
 shining eyes were soon put in abeyance by the deliv- 
 ery of Morton's letter, which Frances tore open 
 
 279
 
 Felicity 
 
 with an eagerness hardly to be accounted for even 
 in the circumstances. 
 
 " I can't help it," she said as if any one were 
 blaming her " but I have had a presentiment 
 that things were not going to go right with Sadie, 
 and I can't shake it off." 
 
 Alas ! the letter confirmed her fears. 
 
 " Sarah Frances is a bouncing young lady," 
 Morton wrote; " but I am distressed to say that 
 her mother does not seem to be doing as well as 
 the doctors think she should. There is oh, 
 Mater dearest, I wish you were here and could 
 tell me about things ; the doctors are so mysterious 
 and I am so anxious I don't know whether I am 
 too mistrustful or whether there is real danger 
 but there is some trouble about her eyes. Is this 
 usual? Is it likely to be serious? I am so igno- 
 rant, and so distressed." 
 
 " Poor darling! " said Frances, wiping her eyes; 
 and though she did not designate, they knew it 
 was her boy she meant her eldest-born, wrestling 
 alone with unknown terrors by the side of the 
 girl he had sworn to cherish. 
 
 After a few moments of sympathetic condo- 
 lence, Felicity slipped away to put her fruit and 
 vegetables on the ice and to see about getting the 
 horse stabled. Vincent followed her. Phemie 
 and the cook were abed folk of these parts went 
 to bed with the birds, it seemed and these two 
 
 280
 
 Fame Frightens Love 
 
 children of the road were delighted with the still- 
 ness of the big kitchen, lighted only by the moon- 
 rays until Felicity, groping, found a lamp. 
 
 Before she lighted it, though, Vincent laid down 
 his burden of goods for the ice-box and caught her 
 to him in a boyishly ardent embrace. 
 
 " Look out for the lamp ! " she cried. 
 
 " Oh, the lamp and the lobsters! " he protested, 
 " and our manners to the company, and and all 
 sorts of things ! Put the lamp down, Felicity Fer- 
 gus, and tell me you're happy to-night." 
 
 Without releasing her he led her toward the 
 kitchen table so she could free herself of the lamp. 
 Then, held close against him, she wound her arms 
 about his neck with a fervor of clinging, and laid 
 her face against his, drooped to meet it. 
 
 ' Vincent, dear," she whispered, " I feel almost 
 guilty I'm so glad to get away from those dear 
 people and their sad anxiety. I feel as if I wanted 
 to flee away from all the sadness in the world and 
 just be happy with you. You'll help me to be 
 happy, won't you? I've been sad so much, and 
 worked so hard, and happy is the one thing I've 
 never been. You're going to teach me to be happy, 
 aren't you? You won't let me be sad any more? 
 People seem to think I have so much because I 
 have fame and money and all that. But I always 
 feel there isn't anybody alive who needs so much 
 as I do not the things I've got, but the things that 
 
 281
 
 Felicity 
 
 that elude me. Sometimes I say to myself that 
 I've got everything in the world that I don't want ! 
 But that's because I'm so lonesome. It's going to 
 be different, now isn't it? You won't let me be 
 lonesome any more?" 
 
 Vincent was awed by the passion of her low-toned 
 plea. Also, he was intoxicated by the sweetness 
 of her, clinging to him in that lovely suppli- 
 cation. It did not seem possible he could ever have 
 had any doubt about wanting her; for now that 
 she was his he had an almost fierce joy in the pos- 
 session of her. Why, what he had recoiled from 
 was the chance of being that unmanned thing, a 
 consort to a wife who had need of nothing he could 
 give her; and here was the wonderfully different 
 reality, this exquisite " child within his arms " cry- 
 ing out to him for her happiness. Nothing in his 
 life before had ever so moved him, and his voice 
 was choked with feeling as he replied to her: 
 
 " God help me, darling I will! I was afraid 
 I hadn't much to offer you, but you oh, you make 
 me so happy. I've played at love these many 
 years, but I never knew there was anything in it 
 like this anything that could make a man feel 
 like I feel now." 
 
 After they had lit the lamp and safely bestowed 
 the perishables, Felicity constituted herself a " Lib- 
 erty enlightening the world," as she said, and held 
 aloft her little beacon for Vincent while he un- 
 
 282
 
 Fame Frightens Love 
 
 hitched the horse; there was nothing about horses 
 that Vincent did not know and delight in. 
 
 When they rejoined the Allstons, sitting on the 
 porch overlooking the sea, Felicity announced her 
 engagement. 
 
 44 Dear people," she said, timidly, tremulously, 
 " I want to invite you all to my wedding. I hope 
 to marry Mr. Delano in New York, early in Sep- 
 tember in my new house, if I have one. But 
 please keep it very ' dark.' I want it to be as quiet 
 as possible." 
 
 Hie next few days were quiet ones. The All- 
 stons tried not to be depressed about Morton, but 
 they could hardly be very gay, remembering his 
 anxiety. There was, however, no occasion for 
 gayety. It was tacitly understood that Vincent and 
 Felicity wanted a good deal of each other's exclu- 
 sive society, and the Allstons tactfully made this 
 possible for their hostess. To offset it that Felic- 
 ity might not feel conscious of her absorption in 
 one guest the whole party sailed every day for 
 several hours, the men fishing, sometimes (with Bill 
 for companion), and sometimes taking a hand at 
 the tiller under a swart sea-dog's guidance. They 
 drove often, too, and went each morning for a dip 
 in the surf and a sunning on the beach. Beyond 
 these things there was really nothing to do. On 
 the Fourth there had been a clambake in a grove 
 
 283
 
 Felicity 
 
 some miles away, and they had all gone. On 
 another day, their sail took them once more to 
 Mr. Jefferson's new home. But these were the 
 only " events " that marked the days. 
 
 Felicity was wonderfully content. She seemed 
 to have lost all that anxiousness about her work, 
 her life, for the coming season, which had fretted 
 her so, and to look forward radiantly to the future. 
 Everything in her prospect was changed by the 
 promise of Vincent's joyous presence. And as this 
 mood intensified, she grew more and more bewitch- 
 ing to Vincent, who marvelled that he could ever 
 have stood hesitant outside this happiness. He 
 was intoxicated with the charm of her as revealed 
 to him in their new relationship with the sweet- 
 ness of her dependence on him ; with the magic of 
 her smile ; with the ardor she showed to be happy 
 as he was happy, with what the moment brought; 
 with the thrill of her touch, the caress of her 
 hands on his brow, the clinging of her arms about 
 his neck. 
 
 Monday morning, early, the Allston men were 
 to take the stage for Fall River. A second letter 
 from Morton, received Saturday night, was no less 
 disquieting than the first, and all day Sunday, 
 although they said little about it except in strictly 
 family conference, the three Allstons sat in the 
 shadow of this thing that impended over Morton. 
 The men were inclined to think, hopefully, that 
 
 284
 
 Fame Frightens Love 
 
 Sadie's blindness was a merely temporary feature 
 of that crucial experience of womankind which, in 
 their idea of it, might easily comprehend all known 
 terrors, since it comprehended so many, and allow 
 recovery from all, since it allowed recovery from 
 some so grave. But Frances knew better, and her 
 anxiety communicated at last to them, and the three 
 sat talking in hushed tones of what poor Morton 
 would do if this awful thing came to pass. 
 
 Felicity knew what they must be feeling, and 
 shunned them as much as she could. 
 
 The day was a very warm one, and every one 
 in the Fair View household spent the torrid part 
 of the mid-afternoon in an attempt, at least, at a 
 siesta. About five o'clock, Felicity came down 
 stairs, wearing a simple little white gown of softest 
 India linen, cut slightly low at the neck and show- 
 ing the loveliness of her throat so alluringly that 
 Vincent, who was waiting for her in a shady cor- 
 ner of the porch, stooped, when he rose to greet 
 her, and kissed her where the line of beauty 
 began to curve upward toward her chin. He was 
 doubly rewarded for this little bit of lover's 
 daring, by the exquisite flush which mounted to 
 her very hair, and by the sweet consciousness in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " Felicity," he whispered, holding her close to 
 him for a passionate moment, " you are certainly 
 the loveliest thing alive! And what keeps me 
 
 285
 
 Felicity 
 
 astounded is, I never knew you were were like 
 this, until well, just recently, just since I came 
 down here. I've always thought you were beauti- 
 ful and fascinating, and all that, but I I could 
 think quite calmly about you. You've never been 
 the kind of woman thank God ! that sets every 
 man crazy, and I never dreamed, any more than 
 the rest did, I suppose, what you could be to a 
 man if you loved him." 
 
 They left the house and wandered toward the 
 beach aimless as to direction or distance, con- 
 scious only of a desire to be by themselves, safe 
 from interruption. Vincent had no compunctions 
 about this, so long as they were polite about it. 
 But Felicity felt she ought to give more of herself 
 to the Allstons more sympathy and more effort 
 to divert them. 
 
 " Vincent, dear," she said, as they strolled Har- 
 bor-wards, " I feel guilty about the Allstons. I 
 feel as if I had almost shunned them since they 
 have been feeling so sad and I have been feeling 
 so glad. But, oh! dear, I've been sad so much, 
 and I want to be happy now. Nobody ever wanted 
 to be happy as much as I do ! You keep me from 
 thinking about sad things; when I'm with you I 
 remember only the happiness of the moment. I 
 don't want to be selfish but I guess happiness 
 always makes people selfish " 
 
 " Felicity," he said, and there was a roughness 
 
 286
 
 Fame Frightens Love 
 
 in his voice which she knew was not for her, but 
 for the things that harassed her, " you listen to 
 me, dear girl: You owe yourself happiness; you 
 owe it to the public that delights in you. The 
 world likes happy people, needs happy people. 
 There are too many folks snuffling through this 
 vale of tears. Now, you make up your mind to 
 be happy. Stop looking back like Mrs. What's- 
 her-name, that turned to a pillar of salt. Good 
 idea! that of the salt; I never thought of it 
 before, but I see now it was the logical outcome 
 for a woman who wept too much over things she 
 couldn't help and ought to have left behind 1 " 
 
 Monday morning, after the stage left, Vincent 
 began to grow restless, and by Tuesday night was 
 possessed of but one desire : to get away from West 
 Harbor Point and take Felicity with him. There 
 was nothing to do there, and a week at a time of 
 doing nothing was enough. And with all his phi- 
 losophy of her debt to herself and to her public, he 
 had difficulty in persuading Felicity to leave 
 Frances much alone, and difficulty in making her 
 believe she was happy when she did it. 
 
 Mr. Leffler had written twice urging her to run 
 up to New York for a day or two and look at 
 houses, and Vincent felt convinced that was the 
 thing for her to do. He would get her to town 
 and absorbed in house-furnishing. And even in 
 
 287
 
 Felicity 
 
 July there was plenty to do in New York for recre- 
 ation, when one tired of shopping. 
 
 Accordingly, he proposed that they go by Fri- 
 day morning's stage, and catch the one o'clock 
 train from Boston. That would get them to New 
 York in time for dinner and afterwards they could 
 slip up to the Casino and sit a while on the roof 
 garden. Then, Saturday afternoon they could go 
 to Manhattan Beach, where Gilmore played and 
 Pain's fireworks illumined the destruction of some- 
 thing-or-other, and oh, the very thought of it 
 all made him homesick. 
 
 But Felicity needed to be coaxed into the notion, 
 and then coaxed into believing she could go and 
 leave Frances. She was happy here, with Vincent 
 much happier, her heart told her, than she would 
 be in New York. Then, she had no quarters there, 
 no maid she had let Celeste go home to the 
 Exposition, on full pay no companion, no any- 
 thing. She would go up some day in midweek 
 and take Frances with her, but she could not go and 
 leave her guest alone for days, especially now, 
 when she was so anxious about poor Sadie. Why 
 couldn't Vincent stay quietly there? He needed 
 the rest, and so did she, and they would proba- 
 bly never have another such opportunity to- 
 gether. Their honeymoon would have to be full 
 of hard work. Ahead of them stretched long 
 weeks of excitement, of constant change and flurry. 
 
 288
 
 Fame Frightens Love 
 
 It was so sweet here, the sweetest time Felicity 
 had ever known. Why couldn't Vincent be con- 
 tent? 
 
 Vincent couldn't, though. He fretted, and his 
 fretting spoiled her peace. In her dilemma feel- 
 ing she must go and wondering how she should 
 accomplish it she appealed to Frances and had 
 with her, one day when Vincent had gone fishing 
 with Bill, their first real, confidential talk since 
 Vincent's coming. 
 
 They were sewing on the side porch away from 
 the morning sun. " It looks," said Felicity, with 
 fine appearance of being casual, " as if I'd have to 
 run up to New York for a few days. I have to 
 look at houses and see about furnishings, and cable 
 over for a lot of French trousseau stuff, and do a 
 heap o' things. This deciding to get married," 
 she explained, with pretty confusion, " changes the 
 outlook a good deal for me." 
 
 Yes, Frances could readily see that it must. 
 Also, it was no secret to her, though she said 
 nothing about it, that Vincent was restless and, 
 doubtless, urging Felicity away. Frances won- 
 dered at Felicity a good deal, of late. But she 
 urged her to go, of course, saying she should not 
 mind being alone. 
 
 But, no ! Felicity would not hear to her being 
 alone. She must have some one here to visit her 
 for a week. Frances did not want any one to visit 
 
 289
 
 Felicity 
 
 her for a week; she did not feel like entertaining 
 any one and would far rather have been alone, 
 when her men-folks were not there. But she saw 
 that only on the terms that satisfied her would 
 Felicity rest content, and so promised to think up 
 some woman friend who would be likely to make 
 hurried preparations and rush to her on short 
 notice. Frances smiled, with all her secret annoy- 
 ance, to think how her father would have loved 
 the humanness of this situation, how whimsically 
 conscious he would have been of the times he had 
 done a like thing. 
 
 " Then," said Felicity, feeling, somehow, not 
 quite satisfied, " I've been thinking that probably, 
 when Morton's wife gets a little stronger, he'll 
 want to take her away from sweltering Chicago 
 for a change. And I want you to offer them Fair 
 View for as long as they'll stay here, with you and 
 me. Probably a month by the sea will quite restore 
 poor little Sadie." 
 
 Frances was grateful for this offer, really grate- 
 ful, though she was shrewdly aware to what she 
 owed it, in part at least. She would write Morton 
 today, she said, and whether they could come or 
 not, she knew how they would appreciate the 
 invitation. 
 
 ; ' Then I must wire Mr. Leffler today to hire 
 hotel quarters for me and to engage me a maid for 
 a week." 
 
 290
 
 Fame Frightens Love 
 
 "Will Mr. Delano come back with you?" 
 asked Frances. 
 
 Felicity did not know. " He may," she said, 
 " or he may run up to Saratoga or somewhere else 
 where it's livelier. We're a bit slow, down here, 
 for Vincent. He's been used to so much that's 
 rip-roaring, all his life, that he can't adjust himself 
 to our quiet." 
 
 " But you don't tire of it? " 
 
 " No, I don't. I love it." 
 
 " Being used to the quiet life, eh? " 
 
 Felicity laughed. " Well, some folks like quiet 
 for a change, and some don't. The Old Man 
 didn't, you know. He wouldn't have stayed here 
 a week without getting restless ! " 
 
 Frances wondered if Felicity saw no difference 
 between her father's restlessness and Vincent 
 Delano's. She even resented the coupling of their 
 names in this way. Vincent was a nice enough 
 fellow, but it was a kind of blasphemy to draw any 
 parallel between him and that Old Man who en- 
 riched life so infinitely for all who knew him. 
 Frances was so accustomed to thinking of her 
 father and to hearing him spoken of as " a 
 man, take him for all in all, I shall not look 
 upon his like again," that Adams said she could 
 never hear Hamlet so describe his father to Hora- 
 tio without feeling that he plagiarized her senti- 
 ments. 
 
 291
 
 Felicity 
 
 " Father's restlessness was different," she said, 
 a little stiffly. 
 
 Felicity's eyes filled. " Oh, don't I know it! " 
 she cried, and her voice had a quaver in it. She 
 laid down her sewing, went over to Frances and, 
 sitting on the porch step at her feet, laid her head 
 in the elder woman's lap. 
 
 " I haven't any mother," she said, plaintively, 
 " nor Aunt Elie, nor a soul to talk to about the 
 biggest step in my life. If The Old Man were 
 here I'd talk to him soonest of all, but he isn't 
 not as I want him, all alive. Some of the things 
 he said are a help to me now, as things he said 
 nearly always come to me to help me when I need 
 him. But I feel as if I'd never wanted him as 
 I do now. I don't know whether you can under- 
 stand, but perhaps you can. You see, I've been 
 so lonesome " 
 
 " Yes, I can understand that." 
 
 "And I I guess I'm queer; I've led a queer 
 life. I fell in love with Vincent, in a silly, little, 
 sighing-sixteen way, when I was just a child; and 
 while I don't imagine, now, it was real love, or 
 anything like it, I thought it was, then, and there 
 was something about the sentimentality of it that 
 seemed to fill my need and keep me from hunting 
 other vents while I slaved at my profession. I 
 wonder if you understand me now? If you can 
 see how I don't make light of that fancied love 
 
 292
 
 Fame Frightens Love 
 
 of mine? Next to The Old Man and to Aunt 
 Elie's devotion, I feel I owe it more than I owe 
 anything else in the world. I didn't know anything 
 about Vincent in those days; I thought of him as 
 a kind of god. But I know enough, now, to know 
 that that isn't so foolish as it sounds. Real love 
 is just as subjective, I guess has just as little to 
 do with the lovableness of the object and every- 
 thing to do with the subject's need of loving. I 
 used to sleep with Vincent's picture and letters 
 under my pillow when I had a pillow! and 
 carry them inside my dress by day. When my 
 ardor to be a great actress lagged and I tell you, 
 it took imagination, in those days, to believe in 
 greatness, to believe that it existed anywhere, let 
 alone for me; if I hadn't known The Old Man I'd 
 have lost my belief, I'm sure but when my ardor 
 lagged, as I say and not even The Old Man's 
 hope for me was enough to keep it from faintness 
 I could always whip it up with remembering 
 Vincent. When I began to stoop a little, and Aunt 
 Elie was terrified for fear I'd get round-shoul- 
 dered, I drew up a kind of solemn, secret document, 
 swearing to ' strive for a beautiful form for his 
 sake,' and wore it in a little bag tied round my 
 neck. Oh, they were delicious years, those, with 
 all their toil and privations and heartbreaks, and 
 their rosy, rosy dreams! Often, I think I'd give 
 all I've got to go back and live them over again. 
 
 293
 
 Felicity 
 
 But I couldn't not if I had all the world to give 
 and I suppose I wouldn't," she said, smiling, " if 
 it came to a test. There never could be any test, 
 though," she went on, reflectively, " because, even 
 if I could give up all that success has brought 
 to me, I couldn't give up with it my knowledge 
 of how little success satisfies. And so the working 
 and the dreaming could never be the same again, 
 because I could never imagine again that the thing 
 I was dreaming of and working for would make 
 me happy when I had it. Oh, the beautiful, beauti- 
 ful years when I believed that happiness lay just 
 ahead! And always Vincent was not only in it, 
 but the cause of it. I said I must be great for his 
 sake. I never suspected, though I'd often heard 
 The Old Man say so, that no man ever loved a 
 woman for her fame or her achievements that 
 love can't be bought even by honest worth, but 
 comes oftenest to succor, never to batten on suc- 
 cess. I know, now! I know that my fame has 
 cost me love, instead of bringing it to me." 
 
 Frances was so astonished at this admission that 
 a little gasp of surprise escaped her. Felicity 
 looked up into her face and smiled, through her 
 tears. 
 
 "Oh, you didn't understand!" she cried, "I 
 knew you couldn't. Nobody could, except The 
 Old Man! He'd know! He said it was sheer 
 churlishness to refuse everything because you can't 
 
 294
 
 Fame Frightens Love 
 
 have what you want most. He said great spirits 
 never had what they wanted that they wouldn't 
 have been great spirits if they could get what 
 they wanted! and that they always did the best 
 they could with what Fate allowed them. He 
 said the world is full o' folks doing the best they 
 can not what they want to do, but what they can 
 and that he wouldn't wish to live unless he 
 could know he belonged to that valorous army! 
 He oh, he would have understood me if I'd 
 confessed to him that I don't think Vincent is a 
 god any more. He wouldn't be shocked because 
 I'm not blind with love, not expecting perfect 
 happiness but just lonely, intolerably lonely, and 
 tired of my awful wishfulness. I'm fond of Vin- 
 cent, very fond of him, a little for what he is 
 for his care-freeness, his joy in living, his personal 
 charm and a great deal for what he has been to 
 me. I love him for what the ideal of him was to 
 that girl I used to be! More of my tenderest 
 recollections are bound up with him than with 
 anybody else alive. I couldn't begin now, with 
 my sad world-wisdom, to build about a demigod 
 such visions as I built about Vincent long ago. 
 And no other man has ever appealed to me for a 
 moment. I've dreamed of another, dreamed a 
 good deal more than was good for me of a possi- 
 ble man who might come into my life and irradiate 
 it, with understanding of me and wisdom far 
 
 295
 
 Felicity 
 
 beyond mine, as The Old Man irradiated my 
 youth, as the memory of him irradiates every day 
 I live. But no man I ever saw seemed the least 
 likely to do this, and I've needed companionship 
 so, I think perhaps I've been wrong to hold out 
 for it on my own terms that I ought to take it, 
 and be grateful for it, on the terms Fate offers 
 me. I thought of this the other morning, when 
 Vincent said what he did about Bill about every- 
 body missing something as he missed having a boy 
 like Bill, but everybody doing the best he can, 
 notwithstanding. Somehow, I loved Vincent for 
 that admission as I'd never loved the real Vincent 
 before, and when he asked me to marry him, I 
 said I would, and determined to be as happy as 
 circumstance allows. Tell me you're not shocked," 
 she pleaded, searching Frances' face for under- 
 standing sympathy. " I know this isn't what they 
 call love in the books and plays, but as nearly as 
 I can make out it's what most people have to 
 make shift with." 
 
 " I think it is," said Frances, quietly almost to 
 herself, or to a confessor, and not to a questioner 
 and yet with that in her voice which told Felic- 
 ity all she wanted to know about this one other 
 woman, at least. 
 
 It seemed to do Felicity a world of good to free 
 her mind in this way. Things looked less involved 
 when one could talk about them, and everybody 
 
 296
 
 Fame Frightens Love 
 
 knows it is easier to plead for one's self before 
 the most difficult second person than before that 
 alter ego at whose bar we are always trying our 
 case. 
 
 Frances wondered, as she listened, if Felicity 
 had no sense of being married for her money, her 
 fame, for what she could give. But that preying 
 distrust of small minds had never fastened itself 
 upon Felicity Fergus. She had not even so ab- 
 sorbed was she in analyzing her own attitude toward 
 this thing she was about to do reflected on what 
 people in general would probably say of it. Frances 
 knew the interpretation many would put on Vin- 
 cent's initiative; she could hardly conjecture what 
 they would say of Felicity's acquiescence. 
 
 " Have you told him all this? " she asked, nod- 
 ding toward Vincent, who, with Bill by his side, 
 was waving to them from the beach. 
 
 " Mercy, no ! " laughed Felicity, " Vincent's not 
 a hair-splitting person; he wouldn't understand.'* 
 
 297
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 " THE OTHER SIDE OF SUCCESS " 
 
 : T DON'T suppose you've changed your mind 
 A about going to Mt. Auburn? " 
 
 Felicity had opened the door of her husband's 
 room ever so softly and, finding him awake, put 
 her question. It was Decoration Day, the spring 
 after her marriage, and they were playing in Bos- 
 ton. The Old Man lay at rest in Mt. Auburn, 
 and the night before Felicity had announced her 
 intention of going over in the morning, before the 
 crowds got there, to decorate his grave; and had 
 asked Vincent to go with her. 
 
 " Oh, Felicity," he had pleaded, remonstrant, 
 " why do you think up such uncomfortable things 
 to do? You know I'm not keen about graveyards 
 at any time, and at ten in the morning, dearest, I 
 couldn't get up a reverent thought for any one that 
 ever lived." 
 
 This morning when she opened his door and 
 found him awake, he made haste to bury his head 
 in a pillow and simulate such sound-asleepness as 
 would have done credit to Rip Van Winkle. Felic- 
 ity went to him and shook him by the shoulder. 
 
 "Aren't you ashamed?" she said proper 
 298
 
 "The Other Side of Success" 
 
 reproach lost in the laughter his comically elabo- 
 rate feint inspired. 
 
 "Aren't you ashamed?" he retaliated, "coming 
 in here and waking me out of my beauty sleep! " 
 
 " You weren't asleep ! " 
 
 " I was just trying to get to sleep. Why, it's 
 no more than a decent bedtime; I'm just in." 
 
 " It's nine o'clock; you came in at half-past 
 three I heard you." 
 
 Vincent abandoned his feint. " You lie awake 
 half the night," he charged, " and yet, when I 
 want you to stay out after the show, you say you're 
 tired and must get your rest." 
 
 It was an old controversy now, and Felicity 
 always avoided it if she could. She leaned over 
 and kissed him by way of silencing, and Vincent 
 reached an arm around her and drew her to him in 
 a fervor of fondness she seldom failed to excite 
 in him, when he was with her. 
 
 " It's a glorious morning," she said, sugges- 
 tively. 
 
 " It was a bully evening," he answered, 
 laughing. 
 
 " At Bullfinch Place?" 
 
 " Yes. Fine crowd out last night. Never sat 
 at a livelier table." 
 
 " Well, I'm glad you had a nice time," she 
 said, without irony. 
 
 " And I hope you'll have a nice time at your 
 299
 
 Felicity 
 
 graveyard," he returned. " I'd go with you, dear- 
 est, if it wasn't so beastly early much as I dislike 
 bury ing-grounds. But you wouldn't enjoy my com- 
 pany if I did go. I'm not charming at nine in the 
 morning it may be hard to believe, but I'm not, 
 really. I'm much more myself at three but at 
 three you're never up to see me. Why," delight- 
 edly, as this whimsicality shaped itself in his mind, 
 " you'll live and die, my darling, and never know 
 how much you might have thought of me if you 
 hadn't insisted on sleeping when I'm just waked 
 up, and waking when I've just gone to sleep. You 
 have no idea the funny things I can think of at 
 2 A.M. the witty anecdotes I'm reminded of, the 
 'the general, all-round delightfulness of me when 
 the milk carts begin to rattle by! " 
 
 " Owl ! " she chided, shaking her head. 
 
 "Lark!" he retorted, gayly, adding: "I do 
 think, though, you might have called me a night- 
 ingale. It would have been so much more well, 
 polite not to say truthful! " 
 
 There was no use pleading with Vincent, and 
 less use getting out of patience with him. Vin- 
 cent was Vincent ! One could not blame him for 
 being himself least of all could Felicity, who 
 had married him knowing full well what he was, 
 and who was too honest with herself and with 
 him to reproach him for not changing when she 
 had declared she did not expect him to change. 
 
 300
 
 "The Other Side of Success" 
 
 So she kissed him again and left him to his 
 " beauty sleep," avowing that nothing could induce 
 her to interfere with what he needed so much. 
 
 " By Jove, dearest ! " he told her, " it's evident 
 enough that nobody ever interfered with yours. 
 You look like a flower, this minute like a June 
 rose." 
 
 ' June roses aren't pretty yet it's only May," 
 she called back to him as she left. But the com- 
 pliment pleased her. Vincent always had a way 
 of retrieving his deficiencies with his charm. 
 
 When Felicity had breakfasted and gone down- 
 stairs, she debated for a few moments as to whether 
 she would get a carriage or go out to Mt. Auburn 
 by the Cambridge car that passed the door of the 
 hotel and took one to the cemetery gate. The 
 carriage would be a nuisance while she was wander- 
 ing from place to place, so she decided in favor of 
 the car and, emerging from the Parker House with 
 her big box of flowers, she took up her stand on the 
 curb across Tremont Street and waited for her car. 
 
 She was quite at home in the beautiful ceme- 
 tery; it had been a favorite loitering place of The 
 Old Man's in the long ago days when few of the 
 illustrious that later made it a pilgrims' shrine were 
 numbered with the great majority. She had gone 
 with him many times to Charlotte Cushman's 
 grave, had climbed with him to the slope whereon 
 lay Booth's dear Mary Devlin, had stood before 
 
 301
 
 Felicity 
 
 the stone memorial to poor, drowned Margaret 
 Fuller. 
 
 They had stopped sometimes on these visits at 
 Craigie House and at Elmwood. Once, during 
 one of Felicity's vacations from " the frontier," 
 they had spent a day at Concord and gone to Sleepy 
 Hollow where Hawthorne and Thoreau and 
 Emerson and other great men lie ; and it had been 
 a charming day, but not like other days in Pere 
 la Chaise and Kensal Green and the Protestant 
 Cemetery at Rome, and the unkempt churchyard 
 at Edmonton. The great men of letters in New 
 England's glory time were seceders, all, from the 
 grim Puritanism that had held their fathers thrall, 
 but they were not much given to association with 
 actor-folk. The Old Man had never known them 
 well, as he had known Washington Irving and 
 poor, wild Edgar Poe and men of another sort 
 than the sage of Concord and " the white Mr. 
 Longfellow " ; had never known any of them as 
 he knew Charles Dickens, and Thackeray, and 
 Balzac, and George Sand none at all as he knew 
 the Kembles and the Keans and the Jeffersons and 
 his fellows of the road. 
 
 But he had always loved Mt. Auburn and had 
 chosen the sunny slope where he wanted to lie. 
 Felicity came here a great deal, when she was in 
 Boston. Everything about it appealed to her 
 the quiet, the beauty, the sacredness of association 
 
 302
 
 "The Other Side of Success" 
 
 with that memory which, as she said, irradiated 
 her life. 
 
 This morning it was glorious in the golden sun- 
 light; the wine-sweet air of May was intoxicating, 
 and the full-throated choristers of the feathered 
 choir were carolling as if the brilliance and the 
 fragrance had gone to their heads and made them 
 mad mad with the joy of living. Flags fluttered 
 on a multitude of graves holding soldier dead; 
 flowers were everywhere. The vivid fresh greens 
 of spring had not yet taken on any of the tones 
 of summer. In this city of the dead, even on 
 Memorial Day, it was hard to think of anything 
 but Life, but promise, but the constant renewal of 
 vigor that the old world sees. 
 
 On her way to The Old Man's grave Felicity 
 passed Mary Booth's and here, if she had flowers, 
 she always stopped to leave a few, for love of 
 the great tragedian whose heart had broken when 
 this girl-wife was buried here. 
 
 This morning as she neared the Booth plot she 
 saw a woman there, and was about to pass without 
 stopping when the woman rose and she saw it was 
 Clorinda Detmar. 
 
 Clorinda was playing a small part in Felicity's 
 company that season, and thereby hung a tale. 
 For when Felicity had gone to New York in July, 
 at Vincent's urging, part of her reluctance to go 
 had been though she but half confessed it to 
 
 303
 
 Felicity 
 
 herself on account of Clorinda. That news- 
 paper account of the restaurant row had not been 
 forgotten when Felicity promised to marry Vin- 
 cent it was only one of the things she had chosen, 
 to overlook. When he grew restless for New 
 York she had flinched before what she felt sure 
 was coming. There was a great deal in New 
 York for Vincent and she could not hope, even 
 in the first flush of their engagement, to be more 
 than a considerable part of it. He might always 
 think her the most charming of women but he 
 would always be interested, too, in other kinds of 
 charm; Felicity knew too much about human 
 nature not to know that. But this Clo Detmar? 
 Somehow, though she thought she had reconciled 
 herself to Vincent's other fancies in general, she 
 found herself balking at this first experience in 
 particular. She would have been glad to keep him 
 isolate by the sea all that brief summer if she could. 
 But she could not. And it was mere chance that 
 threw Clorinda across their path at Manhattan 
 Beach one night and made the whole story clear 
 to Felicity, who, in her unconfessed gratefulness 
 to have Vincent put in this heroic light, declared 
 her wish to give Clorinda a place in her company 
 if she desired it which, of course, Clorinda did, 
 as she was very nigh desperation. 
 
 " It's sheer nonsense for me," Felicity had told 
 herself that night before she went to sleep, " to 
 
 34
 
 "The Other Side of Success" 
 
 begin being afraid of Vincent now! If he's going 
 to stray, he'll stray; I can't keep him, if I lock him 
 in a safe ! I'll give that poor girl another chance, 
 and if Vincent shows himself faithless why, he'd 
 have done it anyway, no doubt." 
 
 But Vincent did not, and Felicity, who felt her- 
 self a very philosophical person indeed, grew quite 
 interested in Clorinda what little she saw of her. 
 It was a surprise, though, to find her here. 
 
 ' You, here ! " she exclaimed, as she recognized 
 Clorinda. 
 
 " My mother's buried in Mt. Auburn," Clo- 
 rinda explained, " and when I'm here I always 
 come to this grave, too, and lay a flower on it for 
 his sake. He's a saint ! " she cried, with sudden 
 passion. " I played in his company during the 
 worst of my trouble only little parts I was no- 
 body and he was the greatest living but he was 
 so sweet and kind to me ! " 
 
 " He's sweet and kind to everybody," said Felic- 
 ity, " I love him, too, and always come here for 
 his sake." 
 
 So, talking of Booth in the ardor of affection 
 with which his fellow-players always speak of him, 
 they came away, leaving, each, her little tribute to 
 him on the grave of the woman he loved. 
 
 Felicity would rather have gone alone to The 
 Old Man's, but when Clorinda said she was bound 
 thither, too, Felicity had not the heart to regret 
 
 305
 
 Felicity 
 
 her company. She knew how The Old Man would 
 have liked being remembered with affection by this 
 poor, ill-used girl who had once played a minor 
 part with him. Clorinda had brought a blossom 
 or two for him also, and she laid them with the 
 wealth of bloom Felicity had brought. 
 
 " I'm so glad to see you do that ! " Felicity said, 
 with enthusiasm. " I'm so jealous of his fame that 
 I can't understand how any man, woman, or child 
 can come in here and not bring a flower for him. 
 They must all not the children, perhaps, but all 
 the men and women have got more joy out of 
 living because he lived; he must have made them 
 smile many a time when their hearts were heavy. 
 I almost hate them for seeming to forget it ! " 
 
 " People forget all their debts," said Clorinda, 
 bitterly, " everything except their grievances." 
 
 Then it flashed on Felicity how The Old Man, 
 had he been here, would never have lei poor Clo- 
 rinda go back to her lonely struggle again with- 
 out trying, in his sweet, whimsical, wise way, to 
 give her a kindlier opinion of the human family. 
 That was his great gift if it were possible to dif- 
 ferentiate among so many one always came away 
 from him with a better feeling for " folks," as 
 he loved to call them. " Folks is folks," he had 
 been wont to say, " more alike than the unwise 
 person suspects. Don't you go charging any sins 
 against the human family that you're not willing 
 
 306
 
 "The Other Side of Success" 
 
 to own up to having yourself, for there's none of 
 us peculiar unless there's something wrong about 
 him. If we're all right, we're pretty much like 
 the rest o' folks." 
 
 Felicity remembered this now, and checked on 
 her very lips an answer to Clorinda's bitter charge. 
 How to contradict it, though, with anything like 
 the uncensorious wisdom of The Old Man ! 
 
 Like most unfortunate people, Clorinda was 
 defiant. She carried always with her that little air 
 which holds at bay a great deal of kindliness along 
 with the pity it is assumed against. Felicity felt 
 this in her every encounter with Clorinda, and was 
 none too patient with it. She would have been 
 amazed and indignant could she have known how 
 she, more than almost anybody else in the world, 
 excited this bridling in Clorinda. 
 
 " I don't know," she began, a little primly, for 
 all her good intentions, " perhaps we oughtn't 
 to blame them. People are pretty kind, pretty 
 faithful. Look around you ! Every grave, almost, 
 tells a story of loving remembrance." 
 
 " Oh," retorted Clorinda, lapsing into coarse- 
 ness of tone and manner with the sudden flaming 
 of her always-smouldering grievance, " you can 
 talk ! you're on the top of everything; what do you 
 know about people ? They all scrape and bow 
 down to you. Wait till you've asked favors of 
 them!" 
 
 307
 
 Felicity 
 
 There was a note of vindictive prophecy in her 
 voice, as if she foresaw the inevitableness of Felic- 
 ity's bitter knowledge, and rejoiced in it. Felicity 
 looked at her, across The Old Man's grave, in 
 astonishment; Clorinda met the look defiantly, and 
 a deep red began to burn in Felicity's cheeks. 
 
 " You you don't like me," she said, slowly, 
 feeling it a charge and suggesting as much by her 
 manner. 
 
 Clorinda looked as if she could have flashed 
 back an immediate assent to the charge, but was 
 mindful of Felicity's grasp on the purse-strings of 
 her present comfort, and forbore. She laughed, 
 the mirthless laugh of one who seeks to gain time 
 for making up a doubtful mind. Then the accusa- 
 tion in Felicity's manner outweighed all considera- 
 tions of prudence and she replied : 
 
 "I don't. Why should I?" 
 
 Felicity gasped under the frank brutality of Clo- 
 rinda's bearing. " I've never injured you," she 
 said, " I've done you every kindness I could. Why 
 should you dislike me? " 
 
 " Well, to be honest with you which hardly 
 any one is, I guess it's your success I don't like, 
 I suppose. We never like success we who 
 haven't got it. We may pretend friendship for 
 fortunate people, but we're always tickled sick to 
 see 'em tumble. Why should I like you? You 
 have everything; I have nothing. 'Tain't fair! " 
 
 308
 
 "The Other Side of Success" 
 
 " Clorinda Detmar," said Felicity, after a 
 moment's pause, " is it possible you haven't any 
 better sense than that? Can you, a grown woman, 
 with some experience of life, be so foolish as not 
 to know that things are evened up pretty well, 
 somehow? Do you suppose I don't pay dear for 
 everything I get? And don't you ever suspect that 
 when I've got it, I'm so exhausted with paying the 
 price that I can't enjoy the purchase? More than 
 half the time I hate the things I can't stop striving 
 for didn't you ever guess that? " 
 
 "No, I never did; nobody ever does, that I 
 know of, and nobody'll ever believe you do, not 
 if you swear to it. You're quick to tell us that 
 are down an' out that the things you have aren't 
 worth anything. But you never offer us the chance 
 to find out for ourselves whether we like those 
 things or not; you expect us to take your word 
 for it and let you keep the soft things ! " 
 
 What use to ask poor, impassioned Clorinda 
 how it might be possible for Felicity to hand over 
 to her for a trial of its benefits that eminence to 
 which years of incredible toil had brought her? 
 What use to reply at all to such an outburst? It 
 was a bitterness as old as the world, as old as the 
 hate that inspired the first murder. But the injus- 
 tice of it! 
 
 Silence fell between these two women so un- 
 able to make themselves clear to one another. 
 
 309
 
 Felicity 
 
 Then Clorinda said, with a harsh, forced little 
 laugh : 
 
 " I s'pose I'm as good as fired for my frank- 
 ness." 
 
 Felicity looked at her, first in surprise, then in 
 contempt. ' That also shows," she said, proudly, 
 " how little you understand me." 
 
 Clorinda turned to go. Felicity's manner, inti- 
 mating that it was of not the least consequence to 
 her whether Clo Detmar liked or disliked her, net- 
 tled the unfortunate woman more than anything 
 else could have done. " You think I'm queer," 
 she said, " but I'm not; there are heaps of people 
 like me." 
 
 It was a chance remark, intended as a parting 
 shot, not of vindication Clo did not care, espe- 
 cially, to vindicate herself but of irritation ; some- 
 thing to rankle after she was gone, and disturb this 
 Felicity Fergus for a long time to come. But it 
 shot straight to a mark Clo never dreamed of, and 
 immediately Felicity's personal interest merged in 
 her passionate general interest, her understanding 
 of character. 
 
 It was of trifling moment, anyway, what this 
 particular woman thought of her as a particular 
 woman. But Clo had never seen anything like 
 the avidity with which Felicity took her up on 
 that declaration of there being " heaps of people " 
 like her in the hatred of success. Felicity had 
 
 310
 
 "The Other Side of Success" 
 
 worked slavishly hard for her success, had sacri- 
 ficed much for it, but she had never been balked in 
 her pursuit of it and had never learned in personal 
 disappointment this destructive envy of the suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 " Do you really believe," she asked, with an 
 eagerness which almost surprised Clo out of her 
 animosity for the moment, " that that a lot of 
 people I've never harmed, never known, would 
 be glad if misfortune overtook me?" 
 
 Clo laughed. " Why, sure ! Don't you know 
 that yourself? " 
 
 "No, I didn't know; I suppose I should, 
 but I didn't. I never have felt that way. I've 
 always known successful people, and liked them; 
 it never occurred to me to hate any of them for 
 their success to grudge success to any one, even 
 if I didn't like them. Why," with a weary, little 
 laugh, " sometimes I feel so about success that I 
 wouldn't wish it for my dearest foe ! I've always 
 seen so much of the other side of it, the tragedy 
 of it, that I can't see how anybody can feel about 
 it the way you say you do. Haven't you read about 
 it? Don't you know it's all a story of heart- 
 break?" 
 
 " I guess all life is heart-break, all right," said 
 Clorinda, slowly, with not a trace of the passion of 
 a moment ago, " but," suddenly resentful again, 
 " some of you have the pleasure of triumph along
 
 Felicity 
 
 with the pain that's common to us all. And some 
 of us have only the pain nothing else! " 
 
 To this, Felicity had nothing to say. It was so 
 true, and then again, in a way she could never hope 
 to make plain to Clo, it was not true at all. In 
 the pause that followed, Clo stooped and rear- 
 ranged two or three long-stemmed carnations 
 among the flowering myrtle on The Old Man's 
 grave. Watching her, something flashed into 
 Felicity's mind. 
 
 u You didn't hate him for his success," she 
 said. 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 Felicity's eagerness made her seem so insist- 
 ent that Clorinda showed a disinclination to be 
 quizzed. Felicity read it quickly. 
 
 " Please ! " she entreated. " I don't mean to 
 be impertinent, to pry into your feelings, but I 
 want to know so much! You don't know," she 
 said, coming round to the same side of the grave 
 with Clo and laying a beseeching hand on her 
 arm, " how much you could do for me if you 
 would!" 
 
 Clo could not help looking the astonishment 
 she felt. 
 
 " Indeed you could," Felicity reiterated. " You 
 think the world's a lonely place for people who 
 don't succeed, but I tell you it's a far lonelier 
 
 312
 
 "The Other Side of Success" 
 
 place for people who do ! You think people hold 
 aloof from you because you've been unfortunate. 
 I tell you they hold more aloof from me because 
 I'm what they call fortunate! No! don't look 
 incredulous it's so ! You don't know how I 
 loathe people, most of the time, for their ever- 
 lasting consciousness of my success. I don't want 
 their adulation I'm cloyed with adulation I 
 want their comradeship. Now, tell me, Clo Det- 
 mar woman to woman why you didn't grudge 
 him his triumphs." She bent her head, indicating 
 where The Old Man lay. 
 
 Clo was silent for a few moments, but Felicity 
 knew it was the silence not of sullenness, but 
 of reflection. " Well," she said, presently, " I 
 don't know's I've ever figured the thing out 
 in any way that'd suit you, but maybe it was 
 because I can't exactly describe it, but because 
 he was a man, for one thing, and it didn't seem 
 as if he was cutting in on any of the things I'd 
 hoped to have for myself. A good many o' the 
 men of his profession had it in for him, I guess. 
 They started neck and neck with him, and ran even 
 for a while, and then he passed 'em, running like 
 the wind, and all the world yelled for him, while 
 they were nothing but ' also rans ' and they 
 thought they were just as good actors, or better. 
 Yes, the men, especially the comedy men, had it 
 in for him, all right not openly, you know, but 
 
 313
 
 Felicity 
 
 there was a lot o' them that couldn't help being 
 glad when he got a poor play, or a good roast. 
 And then, people get tired of hearing another 
 person praised, always praised, and even if they've 
 never seen you, they get a kind o' grudge against 
 you." 
 
 " Aristides the Just," murmured Felicity. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 She explained. 
 
 " The world's always been pretty much the 
 same, hasn't it?" said Clo, delighted with the 
 idea. 
 
 " And then," she went on,' when Felicity had 
 assented, " I think some people's success doesn't 
 rankle like others' because you know they're sad, 
 and you feel sorry for them. When I was a real 
 young girl I played in Miss Cushman's company, 
 and I didn't envy her, nor grudge her all she got, 
 because I knew how she suffered from that cancer 
 that was killing her eating into her breast like 
 fire. When the audiences applauded her, I was 
 glad ; they could never go wild enough to suit me, 
 I was so sorry for her, she was so plucky! But 
 you! There's something about your success that 
 makes me feel it's unjust for one woman to have 
 so much. You seem to have well, to have got 
 my share, too, somehow, and a lot o' other women's 
 share, and I keep crying inside o' me that it ain't 
 fair. Maybe you've got your troubles, too, like
 
 "The Other Side of Success" 
 
 the rest of us; but we can't see 'em, and so we can't 
 be sorry for you." 
 
 Felicity was about to reply when she gave, 
 instead, a glad little recognizing cry and in an 
 instant was running forward with welcoming hands 
 outstretched. 
 
 " Oh, oh, oh ! " she murmured in staccato 
 ecstasy, holding one hand of Frances Allston's and 
 one of Morton's, " I never dared to hope for this ! 
 You didn't answer my letter," addressing Frances, 
 " and I gave up all idea of having you." 
 
 "Letter?" Frances looked blank. "Did you 
 write?" 
 
 " I certainly did on Monday." 
 
 " I never got it." 
 
 "You didn't!" 
 
 And then a light broke upon Felicity. She 
 clapped her hand to her mouth and rolled her 
 eyes in a grimace so deliciously like her childhood 
 that these two who had known her in that child- 
 hood, laughed. They understood, without a word, 
 what had happened. Felicity seemed not at all 
 provoked, but highly amused. 
 
 " Could anything be more beautifully common- 
 place?" she cried, gayly. " Oh, I'm delighted 
 now that it's all turned out so well. I feel that 
 I've had another universal experience that I'm 
 married for sure, now, when I've given my hus- 
 band a letter to mail, and he hasn't mailed it ! " 
 
 315
 
 Felicity 
 
 She introduced Clorinda, and explanations fol- 
 lowed. Morton was in Boston on business had 
 arrived that morning and had written his mother 
 to meet him there on Decoration Day, knowing 
 how she would love to go to her father's grave 
 that day. 
 
 " I didn't know until I got here," he said, " that 
 you were playing here. Mother knew it, of 
 course, from the Boston papers. We called at your 
 hotel an hour ago and left our cards; we're at 
 Young's." 
 
 ' You must come back to lunch with me, and to 
 the play to-night, if you care to. I wish you'd 
 come to lunch, too," she said to Clo who declined, 
 however, and soon slipped away. 
 
 Left to themselves, these three who were knit 
 so close by their common memories of The Old 
 Man, had a happy half hour in his presence, as 
 it were, talking now of him, now of poor Sadie 
 and the baby, now of Felicity and what she was 
 doing. She told them something of her conversa- 
 tion with Clorinda, and they laughed at her, gently, 
 for the excitement she displayed over it. 
 
 " I can't help it," she said, laughing, too, " every 
 day, it seems to me, I make a tremendous discov- 
 ery of something everybody else in the world has 
 known all along, and I get so excited I can hardly 
 contain myself and all my knowledge! I go 
 around thinking * Ah, ha ! this explains that, which 
 
 316
 
 "The Other Side of Success" 
 
 has always been a mystery to me. Now, if I can 
 only play such-and-such a character again, I'll 
 know how to turn a regular calcium light on her 
 motives and what beset her ! ' People ask me, 
 sometimes, why I don't leave the stage. Why, 
 almost every day I have a new conviction that I 
 can never leave it until I've gone back and rein- 
 terpreted all the parts I've played wrong, and 
 put in all the delicate touches of understanding I 
 left out because I didn't know any better. It's 
 such an unrelenting passion, this passion to por- 
 tray ! And when one has found out a modicum of 
 what one yearns to know, then it's time to lie 
 here, and let the raw new generation come on and 
 make the same mistakes." 
 
 " Your zest for life is wonderful, Felicity." 
 Morton was without bitterness, but there was no 
 ardor about him any more only patience. 
 
 " I am zestful," she admitted, " I feel it every 
 day I live. My life is hard, in many ways, and 
 sometimes I think I've lost all love for it, but deep 
 down in my heart I know better, for it's interest- 
 ing my! but it's interesting. The minute I get 
 a scrap of knowledge I can feel it going into use 
 can feel how I've always needed it, and wonder 
 how I got along without it. It's like being a 
 painter and learning each day how to mix some 
 new color that was impossible to you yesterday, 
 and you can hardly wait to get at a canvas to try 
 
 317
 
 Felicity 
 
 it. Only, if you're a painter, you can go over the 
 old canvases and touch 'em up with your new 
 knowledge. I can't. When a performance is 
 played it is played, and become a memory hun- 
 dreds of memories! I can't recall it, and give it 
 a wiser interpretation. I may do the character bet- 
 ter for another occasion, but the same people won't 
 see it; today's knowledge is no use to last night's 
 audience. But that's only life, as The Old Man 
 used to remind me today's wisdom can't recall 
 the indiscretions of last week, he used to say, but 
 one must be a man about one's mistakes. Nobody 
 knows how often I've comforted myself with 
 that!" 
 
 As they were leaving the cemetery the incoming 
 crowds seemed to swarm over everything. The 
 early comers had been many, but all reverent 
 nearly all there to decorate some hallowed spot. 
 These later comers were the advance guard of 
 the holiday army, and they brought with them an 
 air of sight-seeing, of pleasure-seeking, that blew 
 harsh on delicate sensibilities. Romping children 
 chased each other in the paths and even among 
 the graves; elders chatted inconsequently, and 
 hunted for stones bearing well-known names, with 
 an idle curiosity that angered Felicity. 
 
 " I hate their coming here to gape and stare," 
 she said, resentfully. " I hate their laughter, in 
 this place where so many hearts have broken. And
 
 "The Other Side of Success" 
 
 yet," whimsically, tenderly, " I remember being 
 here with The Old Man, once, on Decoration Day, 
 and there were just such crowds, and I had just 
 such hate of them, and he wouldn't uphold me. 
 He said I wouldn't feel that way when I was 
 older that I'd be glad people could laugh and 
 be careless sometimes, when I knew how hard 
 their lives were most times. But I'm not that 
 old yet!" 
 
 When they got back to the Parker House, Felic- 
 ity ordered luncheon in her rooms and found there 
 Morton's card accompanying just such a box of 
 pink roses as he always sent her. 
 
 Vincent was up, and immaculate. He kept a 
 man, now, and was a greater dandy than ever 
 always in perfect taste, and the perfection of 
 grooming. He held the conference with the 
 waiter and gave explicit directions about the lunch. 
 Felicity never bothered about such things when 
 she could depute them to this past master. 
 
 He was charmingly contrite about the unmailed 
 letter, and promised to send it to Frances when 
 he found it which he did, late that afternoon, 
 and despatched it to her with a box of flowers and 
 tickets for a box at the play that night. 
 
 " Vincent Delano is a puzzle to me," Frances 
 told Morton when the messenger had delivered his 
 burden and gone. " When I'm with him, I can 
 understand why Felicity married him, but when 
 
 319
 
 Felicity 
 
 I'm away from him, I can only wonder how she 
 could do it." 
 
 " I don't believe I can see it any of the time," 
 returned Morton. " He's colossally selfish and 
 vain, and " 
 
 " Father was selfish in a way," Frances rumi- 
 nated, " he wasn't a man who sacrificed his com- 
 forts or his own way. But he always managed to 
 get what he wanted without seeming insistent about 
 it. I don't know how it was he never gave up 
 his way, but he could usually make his way so 
 desirable. He " 
 
 " Oh, rubbish, Mater dear ! Excuse me, but I 
 can't stand to hear you compare Gran with this 
 weakling Delano ! It infuriates me to see a sleek 
 fellow like that sliding through the world without 
 a care, and then, to cap it all, some exquisite 
 woman like Felicity comes along and pours all her 
 treasures at his dapper feet." 
 
 " That's the pity," commented Frances, " of a 
 situation like hers. A woman's cruelly placed, for 
 happiness, when she's on the heights. Only a very 
 big-souled man is fine enough to live with her 
 without jealousy or without deterioration and, 
 somehow, they're the men who are always stand- 
 ing back, silent, because they are afraid they have 
 nothing to offer; and ordinary men, such as make 
 ordinary women good husbands, are too vain, too 
 fond of dominance, to try it; so it leaves women 
 
 320
 
 "The Other Side of Success" 
 
 like Felicity to the mercy of such groundlings as 
 don't care what their relationships are if only 
 they're fed and and perfumed ! " 
 
 Morton's face wore a strange look, as if there 
 was much he wanted to say, but could not. 
 
 " Marriage is the great mystery," he said, gener- 
 alizing with evident effort as one not daring to 
 particularize, " either a wonderful Providence or 
 an unmerciful satirist must be back of it all and 
 it's hard to guess which! " 
 
 It was only in such indirect ways as this that 
 Morton ever revealed the hurt of his heart. His 
 resignation, his gentle devotion, had been wonder- 
 ful, as they always are in a young man full of zest 
 for life and success and the pleasures of his fellows, 
 and compelled to endure and not to achieve. 
 Frances had all a mother's intense yearning over 
 her child so cruelly afflicted, but she dared not 
 voice the questions that tortured her heart, dared 
 not probe to find if he were rebellious for Sadie 
 only, or for himself as well. That he could be 
 other than rebellious in his heart, Frances did not 
 even hope. How could he be other? So young, 
 and face to face with a life-long tragedy. If his 
 love for poor Sadie were great enough, this thing 
 might come in time to be a wonderful ennobling 
 to him. But if it were not greater than his self- 
 pity, she knew how all the chances were in favor 
 of his becoming hard or careless. His salvation 
 
 321
 
 Felicity 
 
 lay in his caring so much on Sadie's account that 
 he would forget to be self-pitying. But, vital as 
 she knew this matter to be, Frances dared not 
 broach it, save indirectly. There are some soul- 
 depths too sacred for even a mother to invade. 
 
 Felicity played in Marianna that night and 
 played it with a freshness, a zestfulness which 
 owed a great deal, Morton felt sure, to her inter- 
 view with Clorinda that day. After the play, he 
 and Frances went back for a few minutes' chat 
 with Felicity. While they were in her dressing- 
 room, Vincent came in, ready for the street ; Felic- 
 ity still wore her make-up, and was just as she had 
 come off the stage, in her regal gown and weight 
 of jewels. 
 
 " Dearest," said Vincent, " I see it's likely to 
 be a good while before you're ready to go, and 
 I'm going to ask these good friends to see that 
 you get to the hotel as it's on their way. I'm 
 awfully sorry, but I've a supper engagement. 
 Felicity'll never sup, you know," he added to the 
 Allstons. " And I have to make all my engage- 
 ments without her. It's no end of a pity, I'm 
 always telling her, that she can't give more peo- 
 ple the pleasure of her society but she's always 
 too tired." He kissed her, hoped to see the All- 
 stons to-morrow, and was gone. 
 
 They walked back to the hotel through the soft 
 322
 
 "The Other Side of Success" 
 
 May night, loitering past the Common while Felic- 
 ity recalled for them the scene of her first rehearsal, 
 there on a bench in the Mall. 
 
 " I'd ask you in," she said, at the hotel door, 
 " but I'm feeling very tired Mt. Auburn, I sup- 
 pose and to-morrow is my double work, you 
 know. I'll see you Sunday morning, and we'll 
 have a lovely, restful day in Millville. Good- 
 night." 
 
 Upstairs, overlooking King's Chapel with its 
 ancient burying-ground, Felicity had the finest 
 suite the hotel afforded, the suite that had housed 
 so many notables. But it was lonely, to-night; not 
 even the ghosts of other days could give it interest. 
 Morton's roses were more companionable than all 
 the rest. 
 
 Felicity had her dressing-gown and slippers put 
 on and her shining hair brushed to keep it shin- 
 ing. Then she dismissed Celeste. 
 
 When the woman was gone, she turned the 
 lights low and sat down by the window in a deep 
 armchair. The squat outlines of the historic 
 church were very nearly all her view but she was 
 not seeing them. 
 
 She was still sitting there, quite wide awake, 
 when Vincent came In, at past two o'clock. 
 
 323
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 VIGIL 
 
 " T TELL you, they all say the same thing : 
 
 J[ ' The dog towns may stand for it, but New 
 York won't.' " 
 
 Garvish was angry and excited, and his voice 
 had as much threatening in it as a manager might 
 dare to employ toward the most profitable star in 
 the country. 
 
 The final curtain had just fallen on the first night 
 of the Fergus season in New York. It was mid- 
 October, 1894 that year of financial panic in 
 which the theatres suffered so severely. Those 
 people who could pay to be beguiled of their wor- 
 ries, were still theatre-going; but every theatre that 
 did not yield the full worth of its charges in diver- 
 sion, was the scene of disaster. 
 
 The public was willing to spend of its dimin- 
 ished amusement allowance on Felicity. She always 
 beguiled it thoroughly, never gave it the hor- 
 rors, always made It laugh and sent it away with 
 a kindlier feeling toward the world as a place 
 to live in. Then, too, she had been playing abroad 
 a great deal, the last two years, and New York 
 
 324
 
 Vigil 
 
 had seen little of her. London had gone quite 
 mad over Felicity; honors were heaped upon her 
 almost to suffocation, and American critics abroad 
 wrote back reports of her great gain in depth of 
 power. Garvish congratulated himself, in the 
 furore of their return in August, that he was one 
 man whose prospects for the season were good. 
 
 Then came an altercation about a play. They 
 had played repertoire abroad, with an occasional 
 long run on some special and often quite unex- 
 pected favorite. The American public was eager 
 to see Felicity again in roles she had made famous ; 
 but she insisted on a new play, too. Garvish com- 
 plained bitterly of the hard times, the needless 
 expense, but Felicity was obdurate, as gently, im- 
 movably obdurate as ever her little mother had 
 been. She had a tremendous stock of inherited 
 obduracy to draw on, had Felicity. 
 
 Ordinarily, she cared little for management, 
 nothing for venture. She was anxious only to be 
 free of managerial cares, that she might give the 
 more time and energy to her personal work. She 
 was not greedy for money there were so few 
 things she cared for that money would buy and 
 was not carried away by the new fever for " pro- 
 ductions." She was true to the school she was 
 brought up in. People came to see her, she knew, 
 and though she had never been disposed to trifle 
 with them by offering herself in an unsuitable role, 
 
 325
 
 Felicity 
 
 she scorned such adventitious aids as those with 
 which her friends Irving and Terry had dazzled 
 America in the season previous. " As if," she said 
 to Miss Terry, " any one ever knows what's on the 
 stage, or off it, when you're playing ! " 
 
 " The best playing's possible only with the best 
 support," she contended, " but every other con- 
 sideration is folly. The illusion's in the art, or it's 
 not there at all." There had been some interest- 
 ing discussions in London before she sailed for 
 home. 
 
 As for Garvish, he would supply anything the 
 public would pay to see, from tank melodrama to 
 open-air " As You Like It," but if the public would 
 flock to see his star without other inducements 
 than her playing, he was content to save himself 
 worry and expense by accepting her theory of art. 
 
 Accordingly, they had fewer controversies to 
 put it politely than is commonly possible between 
 manager and star, especially between such on the 
 basis of Felicity's contract, which was a guarantee 
 practically amounting to salary: so that Garvish, 
 if a big season left him a bulk of the earnings, 
 would be the only loser by a poor one. This is 
 not a basis nicely calculated for peace, but in this 
 case it had never failed to satisfy Garvish, and 
 then ! it was the only one that Felicity, with her 
 dislike of uncertainties, would accept. 
 
 Now, in the opening weeks of what ought to be 
 326
 
 Vigil 
 
 their biggest season the panic notwithstanding 
 they were at daggers drawn. Felicity had insisted 
 on including in her repertoire a play which every- 
 body in her advising acquaintance had told her 
 frankly was no play for her. 
 
 ' Why, the star part's not a woman's part at 
 all, it's a man's! " Garvish had protested. 
 
 " I suppose I may be credited with sense enough 
 to see that," she had replied, " but you know how 
 little I care for what's technically considered the 
 centre of the stage. I hope I can be trusted to 
 make that part the centre where I am ! " 
 
 ' Trusted nothing! " muttered Garvish, out of 
 her hearing, " what she wants is to give that hus- 
 band of hers something to satisfy his vanity. I 
 see through her! And I won't stand for it not 
 on my money ! " 
 
 It was a continual grievance to Garvish, at 
 best, to have Vincent in the company, though 
 he liked him personally. He wanted a younger 
 leading man, and disapproved, according to 
 the traditions of his class, of married stars, 
 if possible; certainly of married couples in the 
 same company. But, of course, it was Vincent 
 or nothing, with Miss Fergus; that was settled 
 long ago. And as long as success continued at 
 high tide there was no possible excuse for urging 
 Vincent's removal; as long as all the seats were 
 sold, it would be useless to contend that with a 
 
 3 2 7
 
 Felicity- 
 younger man in Vincent's place they could turn 
 more people away. 
 
 Heretofore, though, Vincent had been, if not 
 content at least willing to play supporting roles, 
 usually the chief. But, like every other supporting 
 actor who ever lived, Vincent felt that only lack 
 of chance to show himself a star had kept him out 
 of the stellar heavens. Now, evidently, he had 
 prevailed upon his wife to jeopardize her own for- 
 tunes and other people's by insisting on a play 
 which would give him the part he wanted and prac- 
 tically subordinate her part to his. 
 
 " As if he could shine beside her if he had all 
 the lines in the play but three, and she had those ! " 
 growled Garvish to a sympathizing friend. 
 
 But the play she would play, and after a number 
 of tempests which wore out everybody but Vin- 
 cent, who was never in them, the play was added 
 to the repertoire and tried out on the smaller towns 
 where the first bookings were. 
 
 These towns were, in the vernacular of Garvish, 
 "easy." They were prepared to acclaim, and they 
 did acclaim, for the most part. Their critics said 
 little about the play and nothing about the other 
 players, but concentrated their efforts on " re- 
 hashes " of the cabled reports describing Felicity's 
 growth, her " pre-eminence as the most artistic 
 comedienne on the English-speaking stage with the 
 possible exception of Ellen Terry, who, however 
 
 328
 
 Vigil 
 
 we may think of her as born to be such, has 
 essayed so great diversity of roles that she cannot 
 be classed as strictly a comedienne," and so on. 
 From a box-office point of view they were satisfac- 
 tory efforts : they made the public feel that not to 
 have seen Felicity was next door to a crime of negli- 
 gence. But from her point of view glad as she 
 was to have her choice of play unattacked they 
 were like most of their class, concerning which she 
 had often said that they were one of the worst 
 trials of success. " Few things," she always con- 
 tended, " hurt me so much as slushy praise. I 
 think : Merciful Heaven ! what is the use of worry- 
 ing myself sick over the subtleties of art, if no 
 beholder has any more understanding of what I'm 
 trying to do than this? " 
 
 There came near not being any first night in 
 New York, as Vincent laughingly declared not 
 being any manager, or any star left by that time, 
 Felicity having declared for the new play to open 
 with. 
 
 Garvish had never seen such unyielding obsti- 
 nacy. " You're crazy ! " he shouted, casting gal- 
 lantry to the winds, " you're determined to ruin 
 yourself and me. There must be a law to 
 protect me, some injunction that 'will restrain 
 you You are mad ! You have lost your common- 
 sense ! " 
 
 329
 
 Felicity 
 
 " They know we gave the play to other places. 
 If we open in New York with an old play it'll be 
 a confession that the new one won't do, that we're 
 afraid of it! " 
 
 " Well! What of it? We are afraid of it! " 
 
 "I'm not!" 
 
 " You've lost your reason, I tell you or you 
 would be ! " 
 
 But they opened with it, none the less. And 
 Garvish's scout, circulating between the acts among 
 the critics in the foyer and at the nearest bar, 
 reported that the opinion was practically unani- 
 mous as to this being no play for Felicity. " They 
 say," the scout reported, " that it's pathetically 
 evident she has sacrificed herself to give Delano 
 a chance he's not fitted for." 
 
 Garvish dared not repeat this to Felicity, but he 
 bided confidently the time when she should see it 
 in print, either boldly stated or in innuendo, and 
 was almost glad to anticipate the criticism which 
 would confirm what he had told her. To-night, 
 he contented himself with repeating to her what 
 the critics had been overheard to say about the 
 play. 
 
 Felicity's brown eyes burned like black ; the dull 
 crimson flamed, beneath the make-up, over her 
 cheeks; but she said little; restraint was born in 
 her, she had no facile fury, easily aroused and as 
 easily appeased. Garvish wished she had. He 
 
 330
 
 Vigil 
 
 was used to that, better able to meet it and to fight 
 it than this quiet obstinacy which seldom came out 
 from under cover to return fusillade for fusil- 
 lade. 
 
 Garvish was not given to subtleties, but he could 
 not help reflecting no sane man could on how 
 " difficult " Miss Fergus had grown since her mar- 
 riage. He was not surprised; it only bore out his 
 idea, and other managers', that husband and 
 wife in the same company always made " the devil 
 to pay," and where one of the twain was the star 
 well ! 
 
 He spoke of Felicity to his confidants and they 
 were a great many as " continually having a 
 chip on her shoulder." She had! Garvish could 
 not understand why. He liked Vincent, person- 
 ally, very well much better than he liked Felic- 
 ity. And Vincent, Garvish argued, did not seem 
 to flirt with other women much; he was conspicu- 
 ously gallant to his wife, and they always appeared 
 to be on the most affectionate and good-natured 
 terms. That, notwithstanding all this, the mar- 
 riage might have proved a galling disappointment 
 to Felicity, Garvish did not dream, could not 
 have dreamed. He attributed many of the things 
 she did, the things that exasperated him, to 
 her being " spoiled," and told himself that mar- 
 riage had made her worse because Vincent was 
 " such a slave to her." 
 
 331
 
 Felicity 
 
 Garvish could testify to that slavery. He 
 had travelled with them, now, five years, and he 
 knew that Vincent never left his wife, when they 
 got aboard their private car, until he saw that she 
 was comfortably settled; only then would he join 
 the men of the staff and company, forward in the 
 Pullman smoker. When they reached each stop- 
 ping-place, Vincent was full of solicitude about the 
 hotel quarters engaged for them, and the reason- 
 able comfort of the theatre dressing-rooms. Only 
 when she expressed herself satisfied, would he leave 
 her, to knock around with the fellows and see a 
 little of the world outside the theatre the world 
 she seemed to care nothing about. According to 
 Garvish's idea, Vincent's manners toward his wife 
 were ridiculously fine ; he rose when she entered the 
 room, he opened doors for her and adjusted shawls 
 and rugs, and fetched and carried for her gener- 
 ally, in ways quite unnecessary, as she kept two 
 maids. All this had made Miss Fergus, in Gar- 
 vish's opinion, " very difficult." He thought her 
 the embodiment of self-worship, and was surprised 
 when she showed this obstinate eagerness to put on 
 a play which would give Vincent the " fat " part. 
 He hadn't thought her likely to reciprocate in that 
 way; it was hardly in human nature for any star 
 to do that. But much as he might have admired 
 the magnanimity in other circumstances, Garvish 
 was little concerned with motives in this particular 
 
 332
 
 Vigil 
 
 instance. He did not care why Felicity wanted 
 to do this thing; he cared only that she should be 
 kept from doing it. 
 
 Something of all these things was in his subcon- 
 sciousness to-night as he stood looking at her, in 
 her cluttered, close-smelling little dressing-room 
 hardly more than a booth, with none of the ele- 
 gance about it that the public might think befit- 
 ting so great a star. 
 
 Celeste and Justine, the second maid, were both 
 busy with the elegant costumes, jewels and other 
 accessories Felicity had worn during the evening. 
 They were tired to exhaustion, and moved wearily 
 in the restricted space, " stumping " in their broad, 
 heelless slippers. Any one less accustomed to them 
 than Garvish, would have grinned to note how lit- 
 tle they looked like the pictures of French maids in 
 the magazines, or like the French maids they them- 
 selves sometimes personated on the stage speak- 
 ing their line or two flirtatiously and then tripping 
 off to discard their high-heeled shoes, tiny, ruffled 
 aprons and butterfly caps, for gear better suited 
 to the hard work they had to do. 
 
 Felicity herself was almost ugly at such close 
 range in her make-up; the rouge and pencil her 
 delicate features and coloring made so necessary 
 for the stage, were quite grotesque, at a distance 
 of three feet. 
 
 " No ! " she said, sharply, as more cards were 
 
 333
 
 Felicity 
 
 brought her, " tell them all ' no,' I told you ! Why 
 do people insist on trying to see me on a first night? 
 Haven't they any sense? any decency? don't they 
 know I'm so nervous I'm sick? " 
 
 " Some o' these are newspaper men," said Gar- 
 vish, looking at the cards. 
 
 "Critics?" 
 
 "No; reporters, I guess." 
 
 " I won't see them. What do they want? " 
 
 Garvish shrugged. " Shall I ask them? " 
 
 ' Yes ; but don't bring them in here. I won't 
 see them." 
 
 While Garvish was at the stage door, Vincent 
 came over from his dressing-room across the stage. 
 He was giving a little supper after the play, and, 
 in evening dress, with his Inverness cloak across 
 his arm and his opera hat in hand, he looked 
 as if he might be about to step before an audience 
 in one of those polite comedy roles wherewith he 
 was so identified. It w r as a current observation in 
 stagedom that no other man on the boards wore 
 evening dress so elegantly as Vincent. " No one 
 would ever mistake him for a waiter," people 
 agreed, " he's the real thing, when it comes to fine 
 manners and fine clothes." Vincent was fully 
 aware of this opinion and it gave him, perhaps, a 
 deeper satisfaction than if he had been acclaimed 
 " the real thing " in art. 
 
 " Why, hello ! " he exclaimed, cheerily, looking 
 
 334
 
 Vigil 
 
 in on the confusion in his wife's dressing-room, 
 " just as you came off! What's the matter? " 
 
 " Oh," Felicity gave one glance at the two 
 weary maids, as if she could not speak her mind 
 before them. Vincent had a way of acting as if 
 servants had neither ears, tongues, nor understand- 
 ing, and it was a way by which Felicity, who 
 knew better, was often irritated. But, unable to 
 restrain herself longer, s.he laid her head on the 
 dressing-table in front of her and gave way to 
 tears. 
 
 " Oh, come, dearest, this won't do," soothed 
 Vincent, laying an arm about her shoulder and 
 bending low so his cheek lay against her hair. 
 "You're tired to death, poor child!" he said, "why 
 don't you just go home the way you are, without 
 bothering to undress and dress again? Justine can 
 finish here and let Celeste go with you. Come 
 on ! I'm terribly sorry I can't go with you if I'd 
 known you would be undone like this I'd never 
 have made an engagement, but I owe a lot to these 
 people and they're waiting for me at the Wal- 
 dorf " 
 
 He took her long cloak down from a peg and 
 hung it about her shoulders. Justine handed him 
 a lace scarf for her head. 
 
 " Come ! " He half led, half carried her out to 
 the stage door, where Garvish was still haranguing 
 the reporters, trying to make sure of favorable 
 
 335
 
 Felicity 
 
 space. Celeste followed, carrying Felicity's street 
 clothes. 
 
 The reporters, who had come to ask impertinent 
 questions, felt they would not need to ask them, 
 when they stood aside and watched Vincent put 
 his evidently weeping wife into her carriage 
 with her maid and heard him give the order 
 to drive home quickly. This done, he had 
 the doorkeeper call a cab for him, and urged the 
 driver to " hustle I've guests waiting at the 
 Waldorf." 
 
 Garvish had been asked to the supper, but ex- 
 pressed himself as " too tired of life to eat." 
 
 "Pshaw!" said Vincent, "have some sand 
 about you ! " 
 
 " I bet you change your tune in the morning," 
 was Garvish's unspoken prediction as the cab with 
 its blithe occupant rolled away. 
 
 When the reporters had been disposed of 
 " No," Garvish assured them, " there is posi- 
 tively no truth in the report that Miss Fergus is 
 playing a subordinate part and starring her hus- 
 band " Garvish betook himself moodily to a 
 favorite little resort unfrequented by theatrical 
 folk; and there, waiting for him by appointment, 
 was a crony of well-tried sympathy into whose ear 
 Garvish poured afresh all his grievances. 
 
 It was two o'clock when they left this place, but 
 Garvish declared himself so little inclined for 
 
 336
 
 Vigil 
 
 sleep that the very idea of trying made him 
 desperate. He proposed a walk, and the crony 
 agreed. 
 
 Already, in the quiet streets, the air was be- 
 ginning to have some of the freshness of the 
 dawn-breeze, though dawn was hours away. The 
 overcharged atmosphere of the day, with its dense, 
 hurrying throngs, had given place to an air that 
 blew refreshingly across ample, uncrowded spaces. 
 The city was like a room that has been suffocat- 
 ingly full and then is emptied and aired and sud- 
 denly seems spacious. The breaths one drew were 
 invigorating, and not all contaminated with smoke 
 and the waste gases of other lungs. It was possible 
 to swing along the pavements at a circulation- 
 stirring stride without running down pedestrians 
 like a Juggernaut. 
 
 Garvish, who always asserted that he could not 
 sleep till the sun was shining, loved his familiar, 
 home city at this hour. He even had a liking for 
 such humanity as he found abroad in these still, 
 small hours felt a brotherliness for any variety of 
 " owl " from a belated clubman to an all-night 
 cabby or " Sandwich Jack," from a newspaper man 
 going home late to a newspaper boy getting out 
 early. 
 
 Broadway was almost lively, for a Monday 
 night, as they strode up toward Forty-second 
 Street, and beyond. Coming back, they chose 
 
 337
 
 Felicity 
 
 Sixth Avenue, and stopped several times in all- 
 night resorts. It was past three when they reached 
 Herald Square, and damp, ink-smelling papers 
 were being loaded into wagons for the suburbs ; the 
 country edition had gone, an hour ago. 
 
 " Well," said Garvish, nervously, " here's one 
 paper; let's see what they do to us." 
 
 He had no undue reverence for newspaper com- 
 ment, but he knew that this was an unusually 
 " ticklish " time and an unusually difficult situation. 
 People were not spending money recklessly this 
 fall; if half a dozen critics agreed that the new 
 Fergus play was a poor vehicle for her, the public 
 would stay away not all of it, of course, but 
 that large body of it which makes the differ- 
 ence between poor business and big profits. Of 
 course they would withdraw the failure imme- 
 diately, but it was a mighty inauspicious way to 
 begin. 
 
 The Herald met all dire expectations: "Miss 
 Fergus opened last night to the most brilliant audi- 
 ence of the season, in a play so unsuited to her 
 talents as to make one marvel why it should ever 
 have been selected for their exploitation. We had 
 been keyed up, by cabled reports of her greatly 
 matured powers as a comedienne, to expect some- 
 thing extraordinarily gratifying, and were, there- 
 fore, the more keenly disappointed to see her in a 
 play that practically gave her no chance. The 
 
 338
 
 Vigil 
 
 play is not a bad one, but wholly unsuitable for 
 Miss Fergus. The stellar character is really a 
 male one, and gave Mr. Delano far more promi- 
 nence than Miss Fergus. If, as has been hinted, 
 Miss Fergus was well aware of this, she cannot 
 too soon be made to recognize her error. The 
 public goes to see her at her best, not to help her 
 launch a new favorite. Much has been written of 
 the selfishness of theatrical stars, but it has an 
 abundant justification in contrast with this action 
 of Miss Fergus's, which might, if one were in- 
 clined for brutal frankness, be called an outright 
 breach of good faith with a public that has lav- 
 ished favors on her and merits a better expression 
 of her gratitude." 
 
 There was a good deal more in the same vein; 
 the other papers took practically the same view. 
 Even the dean of dramatic critics, who had been 
 Felicity's friend from her childhood, as he had 
 been the ardent friend of The Old Man, did not 
 spare her, though there was more sorrow than 
 anger expressed in his comment. Several of the 
 younger men's critiques carried a fair implication 
 of malice, Garvish thought that little outcrop- 
 ping of mean spirit with which some persons always 
 hail any failure of the great. 
 
 Well the worst was come to worst! It re- 
 mained only to bury the dead, and not to raise a 
 monument ! 
 
 339
 
 Felicity 
 
 In her big, silent house on Thirty-eighth Street, 
 ast of Fifth Avenue, Felicity sat, wide awake and 
 alone more terribly alone than even she had ever 
 been, who was alone so much. 
 
 She had dismissed the fagged Celeste as soon as 
 possible, and in dressing-gown and slippers sat over 
 the log fire in her bedroom. It was a bitter 
 night for her. No one could ever know what she 
 had hoped from this mad venture least of all 
 Vincent, for whom it had been made. The world 
 would know she had done this thing to give him 
 satisfaction, but it would never know how much 
 besides a little professional reputation she had 
 risked, and to what ends. 
 
 Success was worth so little to her, she reflected, 
 she could well afford to throw a little of it away. 
 It brought her nothing she cared about. Certainly 
 it had proved no aid to her married happiness. 
 She knew, could not help knowing, there were 
 few women so beautiful as she, few so celebrated 
 for charm and talent, few on whom the world lav- 
 ished so much favor. Yet Vincent seemed unmind- 
 ful of all this. He showed no ardor for her 
 society, no devotion to her career; he took her for 
 granted, in his amiable, irresponsible, Vincent-way. 
 He had none of the yearning over her that men 
 showed for women who were plain and sick and 
 embittered and complaining; that Morton had 
 shown for poor Sadie, for instance, poor Sadie 
 
 340
 
 Vigil 
 
 who had fretted herself quite out a year ago and 
 left Morton how? Felicity had not seen him 
 since Sadie's death, and she wondered about him 
 a good deal. Her gaze travelled from the fire to 
 the vase of pink roses on her dresser his greet- 
 ings and good wishes for the return to America 
 and the new play. He never forgot ! How did he 
 feel? Felicity wondered. She had never seen 
 such tenderness as he showed Sadie. And yet ! 
 Felicity could recall a night in Chicago before she 
 went abroad two years ago last spring, another 
 Sunday night when she spent the evening in the 
 Allstons' sitting-room as on that long-ago night 
 of Adelaide Walters's funeral. Sadie was there, 
 blind and fretful, taking little part in the conversa- 
 tion save to interrupt it now and then with some 
 petulant request. Then, somehow, in spite of 
 Sadie, she and Morton got fairly launched on one 
 of those conversations that stand out sharply in 
 the memory forever after and haunt one with their 
 unforgetable wondrousness, tease one with their 
 rarity; soul revealed itself to soul, not in words, 
 wholly, but in tones, in looks, in gestures, in very 
 silences, and both became rapt with a sense of 
 companionship that was ecstasy. In the midst of 
 this, a chance question of Felicity's brought a look 
 to Morton's face such a look ! She shrank from 
 before it and he he bent his head in shame and 
 covered the tell-tale face with his hands, while 
 
 341
 
 Felicity 
 
 blind Sadie sat by, all unconscious. When she 
 broke the terrible silence with a request, he com- 
 plied with a passionate tenderness that seemed to 
 Felicity the acme of piteousness. It was all in the 
 briefest instant, and afterwards there was nothing 
 to show that it ever had been, but Felicity never 
 forgot the mute imploring of that look, never 
 ceased to thrill to the dramatic intensity of that 
 situation. 
 
 Oh, what a strange, weary, mixed-up world it 
 was ! Morton had said he owed more to Sadie 
 than he could ever pay. And she? what was the 
 state of her heart, touching Vincent? Felicity was 
 able to take pretty good account of herself was 
 used to searching her heart for the answers to many 
 burning questions about, not herself only, but 
 others whom she could not probe. She knew she 
 had decided to risk her own hold on success to give 
 Vincent the chance he always declared was all he 
 needed to establish his hold on a like success. She 
 knew she had been willing, since her triumphs did 
 not satisfy him, did not bind him to her, to venture 
 quite madly to give him, if possible, triumphs of 
 his own. Why? She wanted to see what differ- 
 ence it would make in him if, perchance, he did 
 succeed. She was tired of staying always above 
 him, in wealth, and preferment, and acclaim and 
 everything that Vincent cared about. It was a 
 piteous situation for a woman, and almost bound 
 
 342
 
 Vigil 
 
 to be debasing to the man. If Vincent could sud- 
 denly achieve even a cheap fame and a cheap one, 
 she knew, would satisfy him perfectly what alter- 
 ation in their life might it not make? At least she 
 owed it to him to try, she felt ; at least she ought to 
 give him an opportunity for the development of 
 those qualities success breeds in a man, especially 
 those qualities a dominant man shows to his mate. 
 Perhaps Vincent would be tender if he could feel 
 himself triumphant ! God knew she was willing 
 enough to take second place, if second place 
 brought the normal order of things, if it bred 
 happiness for the woman. God knew she had 
 found no happiness in first place. 
 
 That it was in quest of happiness for herself 
 much more than for Vincent, Felicity did not deny; 
 that it was what she hoped to gain from Vincent's 
 pleasure in success, more than any mere joy of see- 
 ing him gain it, she faced squarely wishing, the 
 while, that it were not so possible for her to do so. 
 And yet, she reflected, her motives were mixed 
 enough, since after five years of married life with 
 Vincent she could still scheme and devise in the 
 hope of finding the happiness she sought through 
 him rather than beyond him where every instinct 
 told her it must lie. 
 
 What was it? this mercilessly unidealistic under- 
 standing of Vincent and of herself, and of his atti- 
 tude toward her and her attitude toward him, and 
 
 343
 
 Felicity 
 
 yet, in spite of all, this continued effort to find 
 happiness with him even at great cost. 
 
 That she responded readily, nearly always, to 
 the magnetism of his personal charm, was a simple 
 enough matter for her understanding. Also, she 
 could see quite clearly how it was possible for 
 Vincent to feel when he was with her, as he cer- 
 tainly did, her charm, and yet feel other charms 
 just as enjoyably when they came his way. Felicity 
 did not grudge him this ability not now. She 
 was not jealous, which she took to be indisputable 
 evidence she was not in love. And yet, interest- 
 edly as she watched Vincent, and speculated about 
 him and learned through him, she was capable 
 of keen hurt every time he signally failed her as 
 he had to-night. It mattered not a whit to her 
 with whom he was, but that he was willing to 
 leave her alone in her defeat and chagrin ! that 
 was galling not because he could conceivably 
 have been of much comfort to her, but because 
 he showed no willingness, after all her sacrifice 
 for him, to do for her what he could. Yes! 
 and because people, a great many people, would 
 see him at the Waldorf with his gay party, of 
 which he would be the gayest, and in the morn- 
 ing they would know of the night's disaster, and 
 could deduce from his conduct only disrespect of 
 her of her ! whom all the world but her husband 
 honored. It was intolerable ! 
 
 344
 
 Vigil 
 
 When she was on the crest of the success wave, 
 Vincent's habitual appearance at gayeties without 
 her was marked enough, but people had grown 
 used to the idea that she hoarded her beauty and 
 cherished her strength with jealous care. And 
 they knew, as well, that Vincent was convivial. 
 They might whisper of disparity in tastes, but 
 there was plenty in Felicity's public life with Vin- 
 cent to give the lie to any suspicions of their 
 unhappiness. But to-night! How could any one 
 help pitying her to-night? And to-night, as on 
 only a few other occasions of her phenomenally 
 successful career, Felicity became aware how she 
 dreaded the public's pity. Clo Detmar's words 
 kept recurring to her: There were "heaps of 
 people" were there? who would be glad to 
 read of her ill-fated play. Ah ! that was horrible 
 enough, but one poor play made small havoc with 
 fortunes so great, fame so wide as hers. Every- 
 body met with misadventure in the choice of plays, 
 and the distressing fact was soon forgotten. The 
 horror that worse haunted her was that it should 
 be found out how she had made wreck of her life, 
 irreparable wreck she, who was so envied for all 
 that Fortune had lavished on her ! 
 
 Felicity was not without a whimsical sense of 
 her own inconsistency. She expressed impatience 
 with the world for its envy of her for not know- 
 ing that Fortune's gifts, like all others, must be 
 
 345
 
 Felicity 
 
 paid for in full and yet she shrank with quivering 
 horror from the world's knowledge of her great 
 defeat. She smiled at herself, sometimes, with 
 all the amused delight in the world for this beauti- 
 fully human inconsistency; she had learned early, 
 under The Old Man's teaching, that inconsistency 
 is the keynote of human nature, and the ability to 
 reckon with it as such the beginning of genius. 
 But to-night! Oh, to-night she was not in smil- 
 ing mood. To-night she was sitting with clenched 
 hands and her beautiful mouth piteously set, as 
 if by the very might of her imperious defiance 
 she would ward off that pity which to her was 
 ignominy. 
 
 "I won't have it!" she sobbed, "I won't 
 have it!" 
 
 Then she heard a cab roll up, heard Vincent's 
 key in the door, heard him coming up the stairs, 
 heard him talking to his man, who had been doz- 
 ing by the fire. In a few minutes she heard Peters 
 go upstairs to his own quarters. She opened the 
 door between Vincent's room and hers and went 
 in and sat on the edge of his bed. Vincent had 
 been drinking, of course, but he was not drunk 
 only very sleepy, after having been very gay. He 
 was almost asleep when Felicity touched him. 
 
 '' What is it? " he murmured, drowsily. 
 
 " Nothing," she said, u I was awake, and I 
 came in to say good-night." 
 
 346
 
 Vigil 
 
 " Good-night, dearest," returned Vincent, cheer- 
 fully, and dozed oft again. 
 
 Back in her room, Felicity debated whether she 
 should lay a fresh log on the embers, or creep into 
 bed. Oh, anything but bed to lie and stare into 
 the dark and see horrid shapes and toss in writhing 
 inability to escape from them ! So she laid two 
 logs on her fire and drew her big chair closer to it. 
 In the leaping flame-light she could see the clock- 
 face ; it was nearly four o'clock. 
 
 Her whole mind being on the thing she dreaded, 
 it occurred to her to wonder if Vincent had got 
 an early paper. He could not have been in the 
 Waldorf to this hour; he must have been over 
 among the all-night resorts where the newspaper 
 men stopped on their way uptown, bringing early 
 copies of the papers with them. 
 
 She got up and stole into Vincent's room again, 
 feeling about in the semi-dark of the firelight 
 until she found what she sought. Vincent did not 
 stir. 
 
 She turned up the light in her room. Yes, it 
 was The Herald, and it was refolded with the 
 dramatic comment outside. Vincent had read it, 
 evidently. Felicity read it twice the second time 
 as if to make sure she read aright. Then she 
 turned the gas down, away down, again the dark 
 seemed her first craving and threw herself, tense 
 with passion, full-length on the hearth-rug. With 
 
 347
 
 Felicity 
 
 an almost intolerable physical ache, her body re- 
 sponded to the anguish of her mind. 
 
 " I can't bear it! " Self-pity came first, and she 
 wept for herself in this vigil so piteous. Not a 
 soul on earth to stand by her in such an hour as 
 this! Then defiance flamed again. " I won't bear 
 it ! " she cried, through clenched teeth. 
 
 With this, she got up and bathed her tear- 
 swollen face, warming her cold hands in the same 
 act. Then she went resolutely to bed. Unim- 
 paired beauty, redoubled spirits these were the 
 bulwarks of her defence; with them, only, could 
 she keep at bay the enemy she dreaded worse than 
 death. 
 
 348
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 VINCENT IS " MADE SQUARE " 
 
 THE public memory for disaster is short-lived 
 and easily effaced by a little subsequent 
 success. Felicity found the nine-days' wonder 
 over her ill-starred venture hard to bear though 
 less so than she had anticipated and then a new 
 order came treading on its heels; her return to 
 the old repertoire met with loud acclaim, and the 
 whole incident of the unsuccessful play seemed 
 closed, all but forgotten. Even Vincent appeared 
 quite satisfied, quite unregretful, quite sure that, 
 somehow or other, the chance he had had was not 
 the chance he had needed that was still to come. 
 Felicity marvelled at his buoyancy, at his atti- 
 tude toward the whole thing as a trifle that mat- 
 tered little, one way or the other. But so did 
 Garvish marvel at Felicity herself. She seemed 
 to take the disaster almost flippantly, save that 
 underneath her shrugging disclaimer of hurt from 
 the mishap, Garvish felt sure he could detect a 
 determination even in excess of any she had ever 
 shown, to win her public with her resumption of the 
 old roles. 
 
 349
 
 Felicity 
 
 She did win. She played with such zest, such 
 understanding, such witchery of charm, as left 
 her quite exhausted after each performance but 
 brought the houses almost literally about her ears. 
 The audiences laughed, they cried, they laughed 
 again. She fairly shook them with pleasurable 
 emotions, and entranced them so with the famous 
 smile that they turned to her as the chief of all 
 delights that beguiled dull care away, that autumn 
 when panic was in the air and tainted every breath 
 one drew. 
 
 So Garvish smiled again, and even the most 
 grudging critics turned praiseful however they 
 qualified the praise they could not withhold, with 
 complaints against Felicity for things she was not 
 and never aspired to be. 
 
 " So-and-So can never forgive me for not essay- 
 ing Shakespearian comedy," she told Joe Jefferson 
 one day when she met him in Twenty-third Street, 
 and they turned into the Eden Musee, partly to 
 talk and partly to watch delightedly the wonder- 
 ing crowds among the waxworks, to stand agape 
 before " Ajeeb " and speculate where the chess 
 expert was who manipulated the cunning deception. 
 
 " The same fellow can never forgive me for not 
 playing (Edipus Tyrannus or The Baccha! Don't 
 you mind 'em, my dear! Look at what they 
 do to me for sticking to ' Rip ' and not trying Fal- 
 staff and Bluebeard ; for not dying, when they had 
 
 350
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 said, a year ago, that the public was probably enjoy- 
 ing its last opportunity to see me. Poor cusses! 
 how'd the public know they'd ever heard of Sopho- 
 cles and Shakespeare, if they didn't abuse you an' 
 me for not playing 'em? " 
 
 On the road, to which the company did not take 
 till nearly spring, the success of the tour amounted 
 to a series of triumphs. Everybody was in good 
 spirits, for it is fun to play to enthusiasm, and 
 even the continuous grumbling of actor-folk on 
 the road was punctuated with seasons of fine good 
 humor especially since they made few short 
 stands, skipping all such places as Vincent desig- 
 nated " Chocolate Eclair," " Fondle Lake," 
 and " Oshkosh, Wish.," and kept to the principal 
 cities where living was good and fun was plenty. 
 
 The bitter experience in New York seemed never 
 to have been heard of beyond Broadway, except 
 here and there by a critic who took a theatrical 
 journal or two, and who mentioned the New York 
 failure as proof of his unforgetting " postedness." 
 Only Felicity carried the scars of that fight. She 
 hid them jealously, but like many another with 
 unsuspected scars, she almost gloated over them in 
 secret. 
 
 The quickness, nay, the very eagerness, of those 
 who praised when they must, to blame when they 
 could, had hurt her cruelly. Artistically, she had 
 so quickly recovered herself as to leave scant room 
 
 351
 
 Felicity 
 
 for harsh criticism unless it were of the sort that 
 is obviously malicious, which she had been well 
 taught to despise. Here and there, always, was 
 some one she had refused to sup with, for the enter- 
 tainment of his friends, and who paid her for her 
 indifference or her weariness or her heaviness of 
 heart or frailty of health not caring for which 
 of many reasons she might have declined to pander 
 to his lion-hunting pride in contemptuous print. 
 But these things, save as they fretted Garvish, she 
 cared little about, being keen enough to know that 
 readers could and would discount them as readily 
 as she. 
 
 She had never been very much upraised or cast- 
 down by press comment on her work; The Old 
 Man had provided against that. The conscious- 
 ness that there were not a half dozen critics in 
 the country who knew a tithe of what she herself 
 knew of the things she essayed, made her interest 
 in either praise or blame very slight; the inexorable 
 judge for her, as for all artists, was the dream of 
 perfection she carried in her own breast the 
 dream, so much more wonderful, always, than its 
 best manifestation that its elusiveness was near to 
 torment. 
 
 But when public comment went past her work 
 and touched herself, her personality, her private 
 life, she flamed with all the world-old resentment 
 of the achieving when that fame they have fought 
 
 352
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 for will not nicely differentiate between desirable 
 and undesirable publicity, and the soul's sacredness 
 becomes pilloried on the same eminence that uplifts 
 successful talents to the world's view. 
 
 That any one should dare to probe beyond the 
 ill-choice of a play and ascribe its selection to her 
 desire to please her husband yes, even, in some 
 grosser instances, to hint at her need of pleasing 
 him that was a very agony of fame! And the 
 new knowledge of that spirit dogging her, follow- 
 ing with keen eyes her success as sharks follow a 
 ship hopeful of disaster, threatened to become an 
 obsession as, at other times in the inner history 
 of her ascendency, the horror of age and decay had 
 been, and the piteousness of being gay while sick 
 at heart, and the sense of cruel isolation from the 
 common lot that she might cater to the common 
 enjoyment. One by one she had suffered the pen- 
 alties of her success; and when she had learned to 
 be philosophical about one, another one grew unen- 
 durable as if that she might continue in her expe- 
 rience the long-ago sufficient evidence that hearts 
 at ease never attain heights. 
 
 In April, they arrived in Chicago to play a 
 month's engagement. There was a balm like 
 summer in the air, as there often is in April in 
 this capricious climate where birds and buds are 
 tricked into thinking the melancholy days are past 
 and then, presto ! in five minutes old Boreas blows 
 
 353
 
 Felicity 
 
 slantwise across the lake again, " the white sea 
 horses troop and roam " on the blue that just now 
 shimmered like satin on a woman's gently heaving 
 breast, and the weather man in his aerie croaks 
 " Frost, to-night ! " 
 
 Morton's floral greeting was in Felicity's rooms 
 when she arrived, late Sunday afternoon, from St. 
 Louis; and that evening he called. So, too, did a 
 lot of other people two or three dramatic critics, 
 the proprietor of a prominent newspaper, half a 
 dozen actor-folk playing in town, the manager of 
 the theatre Felicity was to play in, and so on, 
 including several " smart " people who wished to 
 tender functions to Felicity, and a college president 
 who looked incredulous when she refused his invi- 
 tation to address his college on " Woman and the 
 Comedy Spirit," saying she should die of fright if 
 she had to " stand up with my Sunday clothes on 
 and talk out in meeting." 
 
 There was not much opportunity for conversa- 
 tion with Morton, whom alone of all the little 
 crowd she cared to see and who, alone of all the 
 little crowd, cared anything for her aside from her 
 success. 
 
 " It's a beautiful night, isn't it? " she said, as he 
 held her hand a moment, in taking leave. 
 
 The question seemed a little irrelevant, a little 
 odd for Felicity, who was not given to talking 
 about the weather if the extent of her acquaintance 
 
 354
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 permitted anything more interesting. But Mor- 
 ton saw, and rightly interpreted her glance, which 
 roved restlessly over the brilliantly lighted rooms, 
 with their profusion of flowers and their chattering 
 groups. 
 
 " I wish," she whispered, " we could skip all this 
 and sit out on a park bench, ' under the wide and 
 starry sky,' and talk! " 
 
 " I wish we could ! " he echoed, smiling at the 
 hopelessness of it. 
 
 " I haven't seen you in years," she said, " and 
 and so much has happened." 
 
 ' To me, yes," he answered, soberly. 
 
 "And tome!" 
 
 " Ah, to you, yes ! More crowns, more incense, 
 more " 
 
 " Oh, please ! Et tu, Brute! I can't stand it 
 from you too." 
 
 " Forgive me ! I wish I could offer you some- 
 thing something out of this stifling, incense-heavy 
 air to make your stay here pleasant. But I don't 
 know what it could be " 
 
 " Come and see me, when you can. There's 
 not much time, I know you're busy all day and 
 I'm busy all the evening, but you might take early 
 dinner with us some night, or luncheon any day but 
 Saturday; and I'll try to avoid this," indicating 
 with the slightest nod of her head the crowded 
 rooms, " next Sunday." 
 
 355
 
 Felicity 
 
 Vincent clapped Morton heartily on the back 
 as he said good-night to him. He felt that Mor- 
 ton did not like him, but Vincent cherished no 
 grudges. So many people did like him that he 
 could only feel sorry for those who did not, as if 
 the fault must lie in their own churlishness since it 
 could not possibly lie in his good nature. 
 
 " Glad to've seen you, old man," Vincent 
 assured him, " you must dine with us some evening 
 soon." 
 
 Morton thanked him and was gone, with one 
 backward look at Felicity, who seemed, somehow, 
 so incongruously placed in the little throng of chat- 
 tering people Vincent loved to have about him. 
 All she ever asked for enjoyment was a bit of isola- 
 tion for two anywhere that conduced to " talk of 
 thee and me and this mad world, my masters," 
 and that thing alone Fate seemed to grudge her. 
 
 Vincent ordered supper at eleven o'clock and 
 asked the lingerers to stay. Felicity was very 
 tired, but felt she could not withdraw, so she sat 
 through the supper with what grace she could 
 summon, eating only a nibble of cracker now and 
 then and taking a sip of wine. 
 
 It was past midnight when the last guest left, 
 and their sitting-room was chokingly close with 
 cigarette smoke and heavy, thrice-breathed air. 
 Felicity directed the waiter who cleared away the 
 supper things, to throw both windows wide open. 
 
 356
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 A tide of cool, sweet air rushed in; even the heart 
 of the city, with the belching smokestacks of en- 
 gines not a block away, had a caressing softness in 
 its air to-night, and Felicity leaned out to enjoy the 
 freshness. Michigan Avenue was nearly deserted, 
 and from her bay window she could look far south 
 to where the long lines of boulevard lamps seemed 
 to converge on the edge of infinitude. Turning 
 from the window with a quick, nervous movement, 
 she confronted Vincent, who was lighting a fresh 
 cigarette. 
 
 " I want to go out," she said. 
 
 " Out where? " he asked, in surprise. 
 
 " For a walk anywhere, to get out of these 
 stuffy rooms! " 
 
 " But you said you were so tired you could 
 hardly breathe ! " 
 
 " I am ; but I can't sleep. All those people 
 made me wildly nervous. I niust get out." 
 
 Vincent looked dismayed. Felicity had some 
 uncomfortable habits when she got out on occa- 
 sions of this sort; she liked to go out on the Van 
 Buren Street viaduct, for instance, and hang over 
 the parapet by the half hour, watching the red and 
 green lights of the switches and the long lines of 
 steel rails shining dimly in the gloom or brightly 
 in the glare of an engine headlight; or she would 
 wander out past the multitudinous tracks to the 
 breakwater, and sit down by the lake, watching the 
 
 357
 
 Felicity 
 
 revolving lights in the Government lighthouse, and 
 the rhythmic riding at anchor of the fleet of tiny 
 yachts. Vincent cordially disliked both these 
 pastimes, and he tried to dissuade Felicity from 
 her present purpose, whatever it might be. But 
 she was insistent. She had, however, no such pur- 
 pose as Vincent dreaded; the very thought of trying 
 to enjoy those odd pleasures of hers with Vincent 
 chafing at her side would have been maddening. 
 All she wanted was air and movement mere out- 
 let for her restlessness, not such positive delights 
 of companionship as Vincent, she now knew too 
 well, could not give her. 
 
 " I'm dog-tired, dear girl," he pleaded. 
 
 " You never went to bed at this time in your 
 life," she declared. 
 
 11 Yes, I did at Fair View ! " 
 
 " But not before, nor since," she laughed. 
 " Please, Vincent," she went to him and laid a 
 hand on his arm, " I don't know what's the matter 
 with me, dear, but I feel as if I should smother 
 if I don't get out." 
 
 " Unhand me, wretch ! " he retorted, lightly, 
 lifting her hand to his lips; " you have no bowels 
 of mercy, woman ! You know that when you come 
 and lay your hand on your poor, old, ' wore-out ' 
 husband, you can make him do anything. I can't 
 see why you don't play Lady Macbeth you're so 
 persuasive. Hark ! * I hear a knocking ! ' He 
 
 358
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 mimicked Lady Macbeth's manner when Mac- 
 duff's persistent summons at the gate is heard, so 
 that Felicity shivered. 
 
 " Oh, don't," she begged, " you make me creep, 
 all over ! " Then they both laughed, and got their 
 hats and coats without waking either maid or man, 
 dozing on duty. 
 
 Out on the broad, deserted avenue they turned 
 south and wandered, at a straggling gait, for a 
 half mile or so, encountering fewer than a dozen 
 persons on the way. When they turned to go 
 back, Vincent said: 
 
 " Let's go over to Wabash, and walk back on 
 that; it's the border of the Tenderloin, but any- 
 thing's better than this graveyard ! " 
 
 She acquiesced, and they went through the first 
 cross street to Wabash Avenue, where a multitude 
 of saloons were still open and many other signs 
 indicated that the Red Light district was far from 
 somnolence. 
 
 Felicity should not have gone there; it interested 
 her intensely, but she always lay awake for hours 
 after a glimpse of sights like these. Used as she 
 was, in a way, to the squalid tragedies of a part 
 of stageland, and worldly-wise as her mental atti- 
 tude toward the besetting sins had been since her 
 very childhood, she retained a great deal of instinc- 
 tive horror, not of debased human nature so much 
 as over it. She did not wonder that flesh was 
 
 359
 
 Felicity 
 
 weak, did not incline to blame it for its weakness, 
 but the pitilessness of the fate that rewarded weak- 
 ness always left her with a sense as of having seen 
 foolish, helpless things mangled by a monster. 
 Once, after a tour of San Francisco's Chinatown, 
 she had a dream in which she seemed to see a head, 
 like that of a Chinese dragon colossally magni- 
 fied, filling the end of a short street down which 
 wandered, ceaselessly, a stream of young girls, each 
 of whom, as she reached him, the behemoth swal- 
 lowed with one click of his awful jaws. She had 
 waked up crying, " Oh, why don't they stop com- 
 ing? " And the dream was so vivid that it always 
 recurred to her when she saw into the underworld 
 of the engulfed. 
 
 Vincent saw her shudder as two very young girls, 
 probably the cheaper type of shop girls, lurched 
 past them, leering drunk, and in charge of two 
 evil-looking youths of nineteen or twenty. 
 
 " I oughtn't to have brought you here," he said, 
 penitently; " I ought to have remembered how it 
 hurts you! Come, we'll go back to Michigan 
 Avenue through the next street." 
 
 " I can't tell you how I feel," she said, " to have 
 such horror of these things and yet be able to do 
 nothing but shudder and be led gently away. It 
 seems as if a woman as old as I am, who's had as 
 much experience of the world as I have had, ought 
 to be able to do something more for a girl like that 
 
 360
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 than just to moan over her after she's brushed past 
 me on her way to God knows what ! " 
 
 " My God, no ! " Vincent answered, almost 
 roughly. ' You don't know anything about it, 
 and you couldn't do any more to stop it than you 
 could to dam Niagara. Forget it! That's all you 
 can do." 
 
 Felicity looked up at him as he spoke, and 
 thrilled, vaguely, to the tone of his voice, the look 
 in his face both expressing the sense of desecra- 
 tion he felt at the bare suggestion of her in contact 
 with that baser world he knew too well to be able 
 to think of without horror at her touching it. She 
 knew that Vincent was not always " up to her," as 
 he said; that there were times, a-plenty, when his 
 mood demanded freer company; but always he 
 was reverent of that in her which was better than 
 he aspired to be; always he was fiercely jealous of 
 that goodness in her which seemed to him to re- 
 flect honor back on him, too, in some mysterious 
 way. And since she had ceased looking, in Vin- 
 cent, for a continuous matching of his mood with 
 hers and alas ! in spite of all her professed philos- 
 ophy before marriage, she had done this very thing, 
 after marriage, for a piteous while she had 
 known a good deal of tender pride in these occa- 
 sional moments when she felt that notwithstanding 
 his well, his difference Vincent was bound to 
 her by a very great tie. He was not worthy of 
 
 361
 
 Felicity 
 
 her, he said quite frankly and often, and perhaps 
 he did not try to be. But in his own way he loved 
 her as he had never loved and never could love 
 any one else. It was not a ministering love ah, 
 dear no ! Poor Vincent had not even a suspicion 
 of what that might be, beyond opening doors and 
 fetching shawls, maybe ; it was not born of tender- 
 ness success had held tenderness at bay but it 
 was reverent. No woman will choose reverence 
 if she can get tenderness, but Felicity was glad to 
 get what she could, what her success allowed her, 
 and her eyes shone with happy tears as she looked 
 up at Vincent. He read the look and smiled down 
 at her, patting the hand that lay on his arm. Sud- 
 denly she clutched his sleeve. 
 
 "What is it? "he asked. 
 
 She seemed speechless with excitement for a 
 moment, then she said, " Ashley Jack Ashley; I 
 saw him go in there," she pointed, " and Arline 
 Prentiss was with him." 
 
 " Who was with him? " 
 
 " Arline Prentiss that little girl who played 
 with me once; she was the girl I took to Yonkers 
 that day you met her with me in Delmonico's." 
 
 " Well, I'm sorry for her if she's fallen in with 
 Jack Ashley," said Vincent, greatly relieved to 
 trace her agitation to nothing worse. 
 
 " I don't suppose she knows about him oh, 
 isn't it terrible that he should be at large in the 
 
 362
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 world, wrecking women's lives? Poor Clo told 
 me such awful things she suffered. And now, God 
 knows where she is in some Potter's Field, proba- 
 bly I and he's here with that nice girl ! " 
 
 "Oh, come, darling! I wouldn't worry about 
 it. The girl's old enough now to know what she's 
 doing it's six years since she was with you, remem- 
 ber. And everybody knows what Ashley is; she 
 can't be the one person alive who doesn't know 
 he's a villain." 
 
 This was soundly reasonable, yet Felicity lay 
 awake for hours, till the early dawn was breaking, 
 haunted by the horror of Arline Prentiss's undoing. 
 
 In the morning, early, she got Mr. Leffler by 
 'phone, and told him to find out if Arline was play- 
 ing with any company in town, and if he could 
 locate her to ask her if she would not call on Miss 
 Fergus. Then she went back to bed and slept till 
 noon. 
 
 Vincent joined her at luncheon his breakfast, 
 always, hers, too, today and she told him what 
 she had done. He was displeased. 
 
 " Hang it, Felicity," he began, crossly, " you 
 can't meddle in people's affairs like that ! They're 
 not minors, and you're not their guardian. I know 
 you mean well, but it's a confounded impertinence, 
 don't you know ! " 
 
 Her eyes flashed. " It would be a confounded 
 impertinence, I suppose, if I saw Arline driving 
 
 363
 
 Felicity 
 
 toward an open draw in the river, here, and called 
 to her to look out? " 
 
 "It isn't the same," he retorted; "the law 
 doesn't allow people to kill themselves you have 
 to stop them if you can but it grants them the 
 perfect right to go to the devil." 
 
 " Well, there's a law that doesn't a better law ! 
 I couldn't do anything for those poor creatures we 
 saw last night, but I can do something for Arline 
 I can save her from worse harm, if it's too late to 
 save her from harm altogether." 
 
 " You're probably too late, now, to save her 
 from anything, I tell you she wouldn't have been 
 in that district with a man of Ashley's reputation 
 at that hour of night, if she had any ' saving ' in 
 her. And you'll get your head in your hand, 
 probably, for meddling with Jack Ashley; you 
 know he's a nasty fellow, and loves a fight." 
 
 " I'm not afraid of him," defiantly; " are you? " 
 
 " You know I'm not ! I can lick two of him 
 with one hand. But you, who are always talking 
 about the responsibility you owe your managers 
 and your company and your public ! What right 
 do you figure out that you have to tamper with the 
 dirty passions of a brute like Ashley? " 
 
 Felicity had never seen Vincent easy-going, 
 habitually good-natured Vincent so angry. But 
 she persisted in her determination, and he went 
 out, raging. 
 
 364
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 ' This is what comes of marrying a woman with 
 money and fame and all the things that make her 
 perfectly independent of you," he told himself, as 
 he strode up Michigan Avenue; " if she were really 
 my wife, I could have some control of her, for her 
 own safety and good! As it is, I'm nothing but 
 a a kind of thing she tolerates as long as I don't 
 cross her like Leffler! I know Jack Ashley 
 dirty dog! And I know he's no man for her to 
 meddle with. My God ! " 
 
 He stopped, abruptly, as a horrible thought 
 struck him ; then retraced his steps, almost running, 
 and was back at the hotel before he reflected that 
 Jack Ashley could not possibly know, yet, what 
 Felicity designed, even if word had been got to 
 Arline Prentiss. 
 
 Angry at Felicity, rather than at himself, for 
 his needless terror, he thought, first, he would go 
 upstairs and " have it out with her " threaten 
 her with whatever authority he could muster, plead 
 with her, maybe, anything to make her see the 
 error of her resolve. But while he pondered, he 
 saw Arline Prentiss go up to the desk in the office 
 and, presumably, ask for Miss Fergus. 
 
 That determined him. There would be no time, 
 now, to argue with Felicity, with the Prentiss girl, 
 knocking at the door. So he turned on his heel, 
 angrily, and betook himself off to Rector's, to 
 see if any one he knew were lingering over a late 
 
 365
 
 Felicity 
 
 lunch there. As he had reason to expect, several 
 cronies of his were there, and he spent the after- 
 noon with them, there, until half-past three or so, 
 then playing billiards, having " a look in " on a 
 poolroom where special wire returns were coming 
 in from the New Orleans and Memphis races, and 
 drifting around in idle, actor fashion until it was 
 time to think of early dinner. 
 
 Vincent never felt constrained to dine with 
 Felicity. He was seldom with her in the before- 
 dinner hours, except on matinee days, and it was 
 usually pleasanter for him to dine with the people 
 he happened to be with. Whoever they were, they 
 were sure to make a pleasure of the meal and to 
 make something of an ado over him as a jovial din- 
 ner-mate. And with Felicity, dinner was scant and 
 simple for herself and a time of much preoccupa- 
 tion; she was " all theatre," and had no mind for 
 anything but the business of the evening. She 
 liked to talk, at dinner, if she talked at all, about 
 her character for the night's performance to talk 
 herself into it, as it were and this bored Vin- 
 cent, who was very tired of the whole repertoire 
 and liked to forget "the shop" when he could; 
 though he always drew a line sharply between the 
 shop as a forum of art and that gossip about shop 
 folks which was one of his favorite pastimes. 
 
 Felicity never expected him to dinner, never 
 waited for him that he was aware of so he 
 
 366
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 felt no compunction about staying away. He had 
 not relegated this omission to the category of 
 things " not the decent thing to do," like omit- 
 ting to rise when she entered the room, or to hold 
 the door for her when she passed out. 
 
 So he dined with friends, to-night, and promised, 
 when he hurried away from them at seven o'clock, 
 to join them and their party at supper after the 
 play. 
 
 As he left the restaurant, a man more than half- 
 intoxicated lurched toward him, making a futile 
 effort to clutch him. But some one pulled the man 
 back into his seat, with a sharp admonition to sit 
 still and keep out of trouble, and Vincent passed 
 out, unnoticing. 
 
 " I won't be still," cried Ashley, with drunken 
 shrillness; " he's got to 'pologize to me for that 
 
 wife of his! Look a' that!" he 
 
 ordered the casual acquaintance, who, seeing him 
 " in trouble," was trying to quiet him, " look a' 
 the letter I got f'm a friend o' mine, 'fusin' t' eat 
 dinner with me a gen'leman she owes ever'thing 
 to! because that Fergus woman poisoned her 
 agains' me. Says she mus' ' break wi' me for- 
 ever ' look a' that ! " 
 
 He thrust the letter forward for the inspection 
 his acquaintance was scrupulously trying to refrain 
 from giving it the frightened, tearful letter poor 
 Arline had written him after her interview with 
 
 367
 
 Felicity 
 
 Felicity, and sent by messenger to him instead of 
 keeping her appointment for an early dinner. 
 
 After some advice to " forget it " and keep 
 the peace, the acquaintance, an actor, hurried away 
 to his work, leaving Ashley, who was just now, as 
 usually, out of a job, sitting in the restaurant, mut- 
 tering. He was drunk, but not drunk enough to 
 have forgotten himself and told the acquaintance 
 how peculiarly distressing was this " break " with 
 the foolish girl who had been supplying him with 
 money out of her meagre earnings " sharing with 
 a comrade," she called it, and tried to believe it 
 was the bonhomie of " the road." But Ashley, 
 who cared no more for the girl than men ever care 
 for women who support them, was desperate about 
 the withdrawal of her money. 
 
 " Coin' see tha' woman 'n' make her undo wha' 
 she's done, 'r else make 'er good 'n' blame sorry 
 f'r it," he told himself, as he pulled himself to- 
 gether with a mighty effort, and lurched out. 
 
 Felicity was in her dressing-room when Vincent 
 reached the theatre, and he lounged in on his way 
 to his own room. There was a deal of bustle 
 behind the scenes, this opening night of the engage- 
 ment, and stage-manager, property-man, stage-car- 
 penter, electrician, wardrobe mistress and head 
 scene-shifter were all busy making finally sure that 
 their several responsibilities would be well dis- 
 
 368
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 charged. The manager of the theatre was in evi- 
 dence, too, and the director of the orchestra was 
 getting some final instructions about the inci- 
 dental music. 
 
 There was a litter of florists' boxes and tissue 
 paper outside Felicity's door, waiting to be carried 
 away, and he encountered Celeste coming out as 
 he went in; she was carrying an armful of flowers 
 for which there was no space in the small, cluttered 
 dressing-room, nor, apparently, anywhere else in 
 the maze of canvas and ropes and switchboards 
 and a hundred other contrivances that filled every 
 available inch of the stage. 
 
 Eventfulness was in the air, and even Vincent 
 felt it. Chicago was keenly anxious to see the 
 great comedienne for the first time in three years; 
 the house had been sold out for a week, almost, 
 the newspapers had column interviews, and in 
 every quarter there was an undeniable flutter of 
 expectation. The woman in whom it all centred 
 sat in her shabby dressing-room, unmindful of the 
 intricate machinery that was preparing for her ex- 
 ploitation mindful only of the favorite part she 
 was going to play. 
 
 The play, 'Toinette La Fontaine, had been 
 written for her, and suited her wonderfully in many 
 ways. She herself had directed every line of it, 
 and insisted on many dramatic heresies to empha- 
 size her peculiar charm. For one thing, she 
 
 369
 
 Felicity 
 
 entered with no blare of trumpets, no awkward 
 salvos of applause, "no hitting people in the eye 
 with the announcement that I am there and about 
 to charm them," as she expressed it, quoting an 
 oft-repeated remark of The Old Man's. When 
 the curtain went up, there were several persons on 
 the stage, she among them. None of the early 
 dialogue included her or took any note of her; she 
 might have been a " walking lady," flitting about 
 in the background, in her simple white dress and 
 hat with the flopping brim until she faced sud- 
 denly around, arrested by something in the conver- 
 sation going on, and smiled. There were always 
 in the audience enough people to whom the play 
 was new, to furnish the little gasp of surprise 
 which accompanied her recognition; and then 
 oh ! it were churlish to complain that so terrific a 
 burst of applause obliged one to " step out of char- 
 acter " in acknowledging it. The heart that would 
 not respond to such greeting is inconceivable. 
 
 Felicity already " looked the part " when Vin- 
 cent came in; her shining, pale-brown hair was 
 braided and bound coronet-wise about her lovely 
 head. Her eyes were dancing with girlish fun. 
 Her mouth, even as she directed her maids, had 
 " the corners tucked in," as if so to contain an over- 
 flowing mirthfulness. Vincent could by no means 
 be sure as he looked at her, whether her mood was 
 personal or artistic. Felicity herself was like this,
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 sometimes when she was not tired, nor fretted by 
 uncongenial company nor any one of a good many 
 other things. She had times, off the stage when, 
 as well as she always did on the stage, she could 
 entrance one with her dancing comedy sense of her 
 own delicious absurdity make one laugh to tears 
 with her realization of her own charming incon- 
 sistency. She was irresistible at such times, and she 
 knew it knew that she had only to have recourse 
 to this manner to make a worshipper of any one 
 who came in contact with her and to send him away 
 committed forevermore to the belief that she was 
 the most fascinating creature alive. But alas ! in 
 private life, in social intercourse, she could not 
 always, or often, don her fascination at will, as 
 she did when she went upon the boards which 
 was one of the many mysteries about her to Vin- 
 cent, who could always do as he wanted to do, and 
 nearly always did it. 
 
 "Well, Ladyship?" he remarked from the 
 doorway, his voice having an interrogative tone 
 quite expressive of his feelings. 
 
 She turned to him teasingly. " You bore me to 
 death, Vincent you do, really hanging on my 
 apron strings the whole day. Can't you find any- 
 thing to amuse yourself with? " 
 
 There seemed nothing but the highest good 
 nature in her banter, so he went in and kissed her. 
 " Some awfully jolly people asked me to dine,"
 
 Felicity 
 
 he explained, " and I knew you wouldn't know 
 whether I was with you or not " 
 
 She sniffed. " Your insignificance or my inap- 
 preciation? " she quizzed. 
 
 " Yours, of course," he answered, gayly. 
 
 She put her hands together as if praying and 
 rolled her eyes in her favorite mockery of him as 
 a matinee idol. He seized the hands and crushed 
 them till she cried out. 
 
 " Jealous wretch ! " he hissed, in fine pretence, 
 " you spoiled all that for me when you ' up an' 
 married me.' I knew how 'twould be, but you 
 would do it ! " 
 
 And before she could visit vengeance upon him, 
 he fled, laughing, to his own quarters. 
 
 The play went with a swing that night; Felicity 
 had never been in more exquisite humor, and no 
 one escaped the contagion of it. 
 
 Morton, sitting alone in an orchestra chair, mar- 
 velled at the lightness and exquisite sureness of her 
 touch, and scowled, unseen, at the ignorance of 
 the people behind him who gushed about her 
 " perfect naturalness you'd hardly know she was 
 acting." 
 
 " If they could only know," he thought, " how 
 poor a substitute Nature would be for Art what 
 perfection of Art it is that hides its elaborate 
 method under this apparent artlessness. But they 
 
 372
 
 Vincent is "Made Square'* 
 
 haven't an idea what this costs her probably 
 think she could do it in her sleep ! " 
 
 And the more his indignation burned, the more 
 he wondered that she could play, knowing, as she 
 must know, how little, even with all their applause, 
 the majority of those who watched her could ap- 
 preciate what she did. Sometimes a giggle was 
 raised, hysterically, where it had least right to be; 
 sometimes a point of exceeding fineness made no 
 mark whatever, and Morton writhed in chagrin 
 on her behalf. He thought how a single uncon- 
 genial personality i-n a little group, off the stage, 
 would freeze this wonderful Felicity into stiff 
 silence, and could not comprehend how the artist 
 passion that was in her could overleap all bounds 
 when she trod the boards; how the woman who 
 quailed before a parlorful, who shrank from a 
 misunderstanding dinner-partner, could forget 
 everything, when she was acting, but the part she 
 played. 
 
 When the final curtain fell, he hesitated a 
 moment, pondering whether he should go back 
 and speak to her, try to tell her how he had 
 thrilled with the wonder of her work, or go home, 
 and leave the telling for to-morrow when he might 
 lunch with her, perhaps. There was never any 
 chance of seeing her alone, after the play. 
 Always, some one was with her Vincent or 
 Celeste or Mr. Leffler, or some one else and con- 
 
 373
 
 Felicity 
 
 versation with her was general, never intimate. 
 That she was lonely, he knew, but there was no 
 getting at her in her loneliness; she could have no 
 recourse from it without inviting calumny. If she 
 could have cared for the noisy pleasures of her 
 garish world, she might have gone far without 
 causing censure. But the things she liked to do 
 were all impossible to her because they were, for 
 a great actress, unconventional. 
 
 She would have liked to go to the woods with 
 him, one of these warm, Spring days, and hunt for 
 hepaticas, and talk, and eat sandwiches out of a 
 paper box. Yes, she would have liked to stop in 
 some small, quiet German garden, as they came 
 in from the suburbs, and sit out at a white-painted 
 table under a tree and drink a glass of beer and 
 watch the people who came and went, and specu- 
 late about them as Balzac had speculated about 
 " the little men " of the rue Lesdigueres, the great 
 army of the unknown, each of whom was a maker 
 of history. 
 
 She would have liked ah ! Morton knew many 
 things she would have liked; the blood of The Old 
 Man was in his veins, and he understood; but 
 they were all taboo to her. 
 
 He could go back and see her now. He could 
 wait a minute at the stage entrance, while the 
 door-keeper took back his name and returned with 
 word bidding him come in. He could thread his 
 
 374
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 way across the stage with its seeming confusion 
 which was not confusion but the perfection of 
 order. He could stand outside her dressing-room 
 door while marble palaces and forest green-woods 
 vanished into the flies above his head, and watch 
 actors and actresses, " supers " and scene-shifters, 
 skurrying away from work as fast as they could, 
 away from the world of glamour which was work 
 to them, to the world of actuality and pleasure. 
 And by and by he could step into Felicity's clut- 
 tered room and hold her hand for a fraction of a 
 second, and Celeste would remove a big make-up 
 box from a wooden chair so he could sit down. 
 And there, while two maids folded and put away 
 the panoply of the stage, and the manager of the 
 theatre interrupted every minute with a request to 
 present somebody, and Mr. Leffler came in and 
 out with business messages, and Vincent stood by, 
 chatting with everybody, he could see Felicity, 
 and tell her he liked her play. No ! he would not 
 go; it was only an aggravation to him and could 
 not, presumably, be any pleasure to her. 
 
 Meanwhile, back of the drop curtain, precisely 
 those things were happening which Morton knew 
 so well. Finally, nearly every one was gone, and 
 Felicity was free to go too. Vincent had long 
 been waiting impatiently to keep his supper en- 
 gagement, but would not go and leave Felicity in 
 the theatre. She walked to the hotel when possi- 
 
 375
 
 Felicity 
 
 ble, by preference, and he usually walked with her 
 as far as the hotel door. To-night, however, she 
 was very tired, and said she would ride; so a cab 
 was waiting for her and Vincent lingered to put 
 her into it. There were half a dozen men still 
 present who could have done it just as well, and 
 would have done it gladly, but this was one of 
 Vincent's little niceties quite an article in his 
 strictly-observed code of " the decent thing to do." 
 It was not contrary to the spirit of the code, 
 though, to be rather fretfully in haste about 
 doing it. 
 
 Still, gayety was in the air to-night, and Vin- 
 cent, with all his impatience, was in overflowing 
 good spirits as he came down the short flight of 
 steps inside the stage entrance and stepped into 
 the dim alley, with its solitary light above the 
 theatre door. Felicity was immediately behind 
 him, and the cab was standing close to the curb. 
 As Vincent reached forward to open the carriage 
 door, he turned sharply to his right, instinctively, 
 as one scents danger, and caught the flash of steel 
 in the semi-darkness. With lightning quickness he 
 threw himself back a step, between Felicity and the 
 sinister thing, and in that same fraction of a second 
 there was a report, a puff of smoke that quickly 
 lost itself in the current of air blowing through the 
 alley, and Vincent sank heavily to the pavement. 
 
 In a twinkling, the driver was off his box and
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 grappling with Jack Ashley, and a dozen theatre 
 employes were on the scene. For a moment or 
 two, which seemed an eternity, the one idea was 
 directed toward the drunken assailant, to prevent 
 his escape. Then everybody seemed at once to 
 remember Vincent and his need, and turned to him. 
 Felicity, without uttering a sound but one low moan 
 of horror, had dropped on her knees and almost 
 caught him as he fell. There she knelt, when they 
 turned to him, holding his head on her knee, ap- 
 parently insensible of what had happened, or at 
 least of the full horror of it, and acting in pure 
 instinct in gathering him to her. 
 
 When they picked him up and carried him back 
 into the theatre, she followed mechanically, in a 
 daze. Celeste, meeting her, screamed that her 
 dress was soaked with blood, and Felicity, who 
 always had a sick terror at the sight of blood, 
 looked down at it unflinchingly. Celeste fainted, 
 and Felicity walked past her indifferently, leaving 
 who would to care for her, and followed the 
 bearers into Vincent's dressing-room, where they 
 laid him on the floor until one or two stage-hands, 
 hunting frantically for a couch in the property 
 room, should find him better comfort. 
 
 Police headquarters was not a stone's throw dis- 
 tant and guardians of the law swarmed over to 
 make sure of vengeance for the law's breaking. 
 When they arrived, Felicity was kneeling on the 
 
 377
 
 Felicity 
 
 floor beside her husband, trying to stanch the flow 
 of blood with towels. " If you were any good," 
 she flamed out at them, fiercely, unreasonably 
 her grief finding, as with so many gentle souls, its 
 only expression in rage " you wouldn't leave a 
 beast like that at large, to do a deed like this ! " 
 
 Within ten minutes there appeared the house 
 physician from a hotel near by. He said there was 
 no use in moving Vincent to a hospital; it would 
 only cause him great agony as he appeared to be 
 semi-conscious and could not do the least good. 
 " He can't live an hour," the doctor whispered to 
 the police sergeant. Felicity's keen ears caught the 
 whisper. 
 
 " Can't you do a thing? " she asked, quietly, 
 " not a thing? " 
 
 The doctor shook his head. " I'm sorry," he 
 said, lamely. 
 
 " Then please," she ordered rather than re- 
 quested, " clear all these people out of here all 
 of them. I want to be alone with him." 
 
 The doctor looked inquiringly at the officer, 
 who nodded acquiescence, and in silence they 
 withdrew, driving the little rabble that filled the 
 doorway before them, and closing the door of the 
 tiny room on the woman of the wondrous smile 
 and that debonair gentleman, her husband. 
 
 In a minute, the doctor knocked. " A couch has 
 been found," he said; " it may make him a little 
 
 378
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 more comfortable in any case, it is more 
 fitting " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 And when they had lifted him upon it, she 
 busied herself for a moment with adjusting the 
 cushions beneath his head. Then, when the door 
 was closed again, she slipped to the floor and, 
 crouching there, laid her head close to him, her 
 warm cheek touching his inert hand, and there 
 sat, marvelling at the strange matter-of-factness 
 of it all, the absence of hysteria, of all those feel- 
 ings and actions ordinarily described as dramatic. 
 This was her clearest consciousness the undra- 
 matic quality of the scene she was living through; 
 and beneath that, a wonder that she should think 
 of such a thing at such a time ! Did people never 
 really suffer in tremendous crises? Or did a mer- 
 ciful Providence dull them into insensibility like 
 this? Was it all a mistake, attributing poignant 
 feeling and expressive action to persons undergo- 
 ing great experiences? 
 
 Afterwards always afterwards Felicity 
 found herself unable to forget the curious insist- 
 ence of that strange questioning which seemed to 
 occupy her numbed brain while she sat there on the 
 floor of Vincent's dressing-room, with the motley 
 little throng just outside the door, and waited for 
 him to die. 
 
 Presently, she felt his hand flutter beneath her 
 
 379
 
 Felicity 
 
 cheek, and she looked up quickly, to find him look- 
 ing at her. He tried to smile, when he caught her 
 eager look, but it was a pitiful ghost of Vincent's 
 gay smile. Then her tears came in a flood. 
 
 " Oh, Vincent," she sobbed, burying her head 
 beside him, "why did you do it? how can you 
 forgive me? " 
 
 " It wasn't anything," he whispered, faintly. 
 " I'm glad I could do it for you. It wasn't 
 much don't cry it was only the decent thing 
 to do. It seems as if we fellows who are not 
 very steady or or good, I guess, get a chance 
 sometimes at the end. Maybe it counts 
 to us maybe it makes us square " 
 
 His eyes closed with the exhaustion of his effort, 
 and she thought he was gone. Rising hastily to her 
 feet, she bent over him in a passion of tenderness, 
 calling him back. 
 
 "Vincent!" she entreated, fondling his face, 
 raining kisses on his closed eyes, on his lips, on 
 his forehead, " Vincent! don't go! Stay with me 
 I need you so ! Oh, God ! let him stay with 
 me I need him so he's all I have I'm all 
 alone!" 
 
 The doctor tapped gently at the door. She was 
 so quiet he feared she might have succumbed to 
 the shock and fainted. 
 
 "Come!" she said, and he opened the door 
 softly. She was standing by the couch, looking 
 
 380
 
 "Vincent!" she entreated. "Vincent! don't go!"
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 down at Vincent; her face was tear-stained, but 
 she was very quiet. " I think he's gone," she said. 
 
 He lifted the hand her cheek had lain against 
 and felt for a pulsebeat; there was sufficient an- 
 swer to her fears in the reverence with which he 
 laid it down again. " Shall I send your maid, 
 Mrs. Delano?" he asked, with respectful solici- 
 tude. 
 
 That hurt. The suggestion that she could only 
 wish to leave him now, seemed cruel. 
 
 " I want to stay with him, please," she peti- 
 tioned, her mouth so tremulous she could scarcely 
 articulate. 
 
 " After a while," he replied, gently. 
 
 She understood, and yielded. Across the stage, 
 in her own dressing-room, she sat before the glass 
 and stared dully at her own reflection. Celeste was 
 snuffling miserably, and in tones of sharp irrita- 
 tion, Felicity ordered her to be quiet. 
 
 There was a magazine lying on her dressing 
 table, a dog-eared popular magazine the maids 
 had been reading, with pictures of actresses for its 
 chief illustrative feature; there was a picture of 
 herself among the lot, and Felicity looked at it 
 with an apparent interest deeper than she had ever 
 shown for anything of thp kind before. Then she 
 turned to a story and began to read, reading faith- 
 fully, every word, and clearly " sensing it " all, 
 after a fashion yet every moment acutely con-
 
 Felicity 
 
 scious of the ghostly stage just beyond, and the 
 stark figure across those silent reaches. 
 
 It was nearly two hours later when the doctor 
 came to her. Everything that could be done was 
 done, now. Peacefully, in his last sleep, lay the 
 blithe gentleman who had stood laughing in this 
 doorway of hers an incredibly short while or 
 was it an eternity? ago; across the street in a 
 cell at the Central Police Headquarters, Jack Ash- 
 ley sat with his head in his hands, staring into the 
 darkness and muttering regret that he hadn't u got 
 her." 
 
 Now the question was, what to do with Vincent's 
 body. Hotels are not kindly disposed toward the 
 dead, and the doctor suggested that the body be 
 taken to the chapel of the undertaker. But from 
 this Felicity shrank in tremendous protest. 
 
 " I want him where I can be with him all the 
 time all the time that's left," she said. 
 
 The doctor pondered. " Have you any friends 
 who might be willing to have him taken to their 
 house? " he asked. 
 
 Felicity thought, to no purpose for a few mo- 
 ments; she could hardly be sure, just at first, where 
 she was. Then, " There's Morton Allston," she 
 said, " he lives here and would yes, I'm sure 
 he would be willing." 
 
 Morton had no telephone, and there must needs 
 be a messenger sent to him. It was over an hour 
 
 382
 
 Vincent is "Made Square" 
 
 before the messenger returned, bringing Morton 
 with him. But Felicity, sitting by Vincent, was 
 unconscious of the passing of time. 
 
 The chill dawn was breaking when Morton led 
 her from the theatre and put her into a carriage 
 with Celeste to be driven to his home. Behind 
 them, travelling at a respectful pace, came the 
 undertaker's wagon with Vincent's body. 
 
 Upstairs in the quiet room where Sadie's spirit 
 had gone fluttering out and where her body had 
 lain at rest in the first hours of the separation, they 
 laid poor Vincent, sheeted and still. 
 
 When he was left alone, when the last alien 
 touch was withdrawn from him for a while, 
 Morton led Felicity to the door and, opening it 
 for her, closed it softly between him and her and 
 left her alone with her dead. 
 
 Downstairs, he talked with Celeste said the 
 house was at Mrs. Delano's disposal and that he 
 would be at her call, in his office or at his club. He 
 suggested that Felicity be persuaded, if possible, 
 to rest, and showed Celeste where to find wine and 
 brandy in case her mistress would take either. He 
 gave some last directions to his sleepy servants, 
 and was gone with the heaviest heart he had 
 ever known, because he could not comfort that 
 stricken woman upstairs in the shadow, the 
 Great Shadow. 
 
 383
 
 PART III 
 
 OPENING AT BRIARWOOD, MISSISSIPPI, IN 
 MARCH, I
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 SOMETHING SET APART 
 
 BRIARWOOD PLANTATION was looking 
 its loveliest for the mistress who so seldom 
 saw it. Three years ago she had come here and 
 brought her husband's body to lie beside her par- 
 ents in the tiny plantation burial plot; and here 
 she had rested and tried to recover from the shock 
 of his death. But her broken engagements, her 
 idle company, haunted her, and she dreamed, 
 nights, of the horrors to come of a murder trial 
 in which she must testify, of the visiting of justice 
 in a hideous form on the murderer, of the acute 
 pain of facing audiences again, of encountering 
 people with sad or merely curious knowledge in 
 their eyes. It was a nightmare, that visit, saved 
 from utter dreadfulness only by the hours she spent 
 at Vincent's grave, hours when he seemed far, 
 far nearer to her than ever he had seemed in the 
 laughing, care- free reality of life. 
 
 Since then, she had gone on, somehow, stag- 
 gering at first, groping, stumbling, but persistent, 
 incredibly persistent. There was nothing for her 
 in rest, in surcease of labors. " If I were happy I 
 
 387
 
 Felicity 
 
 might rest," was her reply to all entreaties, " but 
 I dare not stop. Work is all that's left to me." 
 
 So she had kept going, God only knew how; 
 had kept going until she found peace. Then, when 
 that tragic restlessness gave way to something 
 gentler, the power that had kept her active seemed 
 to be gone, and she collapsed. People only mar- 
 velled that she had kept the fateful hour at bay 
 so long. 
 
 First there was the hospital wonderful ! with 
 the insight it gave her into a great new world, the 
 World of Pain. And then there was the sani- 
 tarium wonderful, too, with its world of people 
 who suffered in body because they suffered in mind; 
 whose hearts, all; were ill at ease, and so the doc- 
 tors said they had " nerves." Felicity was keenly 
 interested in both places, so keenly that the doc- 
 tors were unanimous in declaring neither was the 
 place for her. She must get beyond the range of 
 these ardent human interests, if possible; she must 
 have rest. 
 
 This she sought at Briarwood, taking with her 
 Frances Allston and her charge, the little Sarah 
 Frances, now nearly nine years old. They went 
 down the river from Memphis by packet, debark- 
 ing at Briarwood landing just as Robert Fergus 
 had done when he went for his bride, nearly forty 
 years before. It was January, and such winter as 
 Mississippi knows, not more severe than North- 
 
 388
 
 Something Set Apart 
 
 ern springs, but chill enough, most days, for big 
 open fires on the hearths of Briarwood House, 
 though there was never a day when there were not 
 some flowers blooming in the sunny corners of the 
 old-fashioned gardens. 
 
 Felicity throve splendidly, with a grand- 
 daughter of Zilianne's to cook for her, and in 
 February, when Mardi Gras was over and New 
 Orleans had put on her Lenten ashes, they went 
 down to the charming old city and " lazed " hap- 
 pily up and down its quaint, historic streets, buying 
 curios with marvellous " hand-made histories," as 
 The Old Man used to say, acquiring white rabbits 
 and small green paroquets and fluffy sable and 
 white collie pups for which they had no immediate 
 housing, in the story-book-like animal shops on 
 Royal Street. They hunted for and, to their infi- 
 nite delight, found the macaroni factory over which 
 had lived that mysterious teacher of fencing; and 
 Felicity declared it was the same blind white horse 
 that turned the rude machinery; nor would hear 
 to the contrary. She was surprised, she said, not 
 to find her old master of the foils ; twenty-five years 
 could not have added appreciably to his age or his 
 " withered-upness," she maintained. 
 
 Once, in the golden, olden days she was re-liv- 
 ing, they had gone to Bay St. Louis, she and 
 Aunt Elie and " the Witch of Endor," and it had 
 been the sleepiest, restfullest time she had ever 
 
 389
 
 Felicity 
 
 known. There was a yellow dog, she said, who 
 was sleeping in the middle of the shell road along 
 which they were driving, close by the azure Gulf, 
 and they had to drive 'round him, at some incon- 
 venience, for he would not move. Felicity insisted 
 that she wanted to see that dog again. " Oh, I 
 know he's there! " she said; " still sleeping in that 
 warm sunshine! I've thought of him a thousand 
 times, I guess and envied him." So they went to 
 the Bay, and there was, if not the identical dog, at 
 least his great-great-great-great-grandson, Felicity 
 computed. 
 
 Early in March they returned to Briarwood and 
 found it looking its spring loveliest for their wel- 
 come. Narcissus, blooming in magnificent profu- 
 sion, bordered the uneven brick walks around the 
 house and glorified the jagged terraces of the old, 
 unkempt sunken garden whose heydey was half a 
 century in the past. Violets grew thick along the 
 trellises under the broad galleries, and already, in 
 the sunniest places, the peach trees were in bloom. 
 Coming up from the moss-hung live-oaks, the mam- 
 moth palms, the abysmal cypress swamps of the 
 far south, one felt a delicate loveliness about the 
 bloom at Briarwood that gave an exquisite delight. 
 
 They had been back but a few days when word 
 came from Morton that he was coming south on a 
 business trip, to Memphis and New Orleans, and 
 " if urged " would stop at Briarwood over Sunday. 
 
 390
 
 Something Set Apart 
 
 The urging must have been sufficient, for he 
 came Saturday morning, by the Valley train, and 
 they all met him and escorted him in state to the 
 house. It was his first visit to a plantation, and 
 Briarwood, managed by a capable, profit-sharing 
 planter and financed with Felicity's ample means, 
 was now one of the model plantations of the State. 
 The " quarters " were limited, in this latter-day 
 regime, to the cabins of the house servants and a 
 few others; the rest of the eight hundred blacks 
 who lived in feudal fief of the broad acres were 
 scattered broadcast over them, each on his own 
 holding. But the plantation store provided a 
 meeting place that left little to be desired on the 
 part of the stranger seeking sights of plantation 
 life; and altogether there was a good deal of the 
 old South to be experienced, for the blacks were 
 free in name more than in capacity for freedom, 
 and practically were the same care as if they had 
 been chattels. 
 
 All day Morton spent most interestedly going 
 over the place, now with the planter, now with 
 Felicity, always with Sarah Frances. In the even- 
 ing, after supper, while Mrs. Allston was giving 
 Sarah Frances her bath and putting her to bed, 
 Felicity took Morton to the store to see the sights 
 of that great trading time. Afterwards, they 
 strolled through the quarters and listened to the 
 plaintive twanging of a love-sick swain's guitar and 
 
 391
 
 Felicity 
 
 to the livelier whanging of negro dance music and 
 the rhythm of shuffling feet. Soft voices were 
 raised everywhere, in laughter and in conversation, 
 and in song; even the squealing pickaninnies had a 
 cry that was not harsh. 
 
 As they climbed the hill on which the stately 
 pillared old white house stood, they halted, near 
 the top, to gaze in ecstasy at the mighty Missis- 
 sippi, a glittering silver flood under the nearly full 
 moon. 
 
 Felicity caught at her breast with her clenched 
 hand in a little, peculiar gesture she had when her 
 delight, mounting into rapture, threatened almost 
 to suffocate her. " Oh," she whispered, " isn't it 
 wonderful? " 
 
 He did not answer; the sweetness of the night 
 intoxicated him beyond power of speech. The air 
 was warm, with a softness about it that was not 
 yet languorous, and full of an almost piercing 
 sweetness. At their feet, the old, sunken garden, 
 with its gleaming white narcissus, spoke eloquently 
 of a storied past. From the distant quarters, the 
 notes of song and of stringed instruments came 
 wafting in plaintive diminuendo, melted, all, into 
 that only half-sad minor strain so expressive of the 
 negro race. Above their heads, the pine trees whis- 
 pered, and the ghost of a breeze that was spent 
 far away, rustled the great bunches of mistletoe 
 in the bare branches of the monster oaks. 
 
 392
 
 Something Set Apart 
 
 Felicity sat down where she was, there could 
 be no better vantage point, and Morton, drop- 
 ping down beside her, kept silence for a long while. 
 Presently, watching her half-averted face intently 
 in the silvery light, he saw two tears trickle slowly 
 down. 
 
 ' What is it dear? " he asked, leaning toward 
 her. 
 
 " It's so beautiful it hurts," she said, laying 
 her closed hand again at her breast, as if the pain 
 were there. 
 
 " I wonder," he said, after a while, " if it can 
 be as beautiful There?" 
 
 She shook her head. " I don't know. I can't 
 imagine our human nature, however it's altered by 
 the great change, in the midst of continual beauty 
 like this. We I know so well how it's the fleet- 
 ingness, the rarity of moments like this, that give 
 them their ecstasy. You see how old I am! I'm 
 old enough not to wish this could last always." 
 
 " And old enough, aren't you? " he added, so- 
 berly, " / am not to regret any of the pain you've 
 suffered that's helped to make this moment won- 
 derful?" 
 
 She looked up at him quickly, intent, eager 
 confidence and questioning rushing at once to her 
 lips and struggling, each, for first expression. And 
 then she caught her breath, half fearfully, para- 
 lyzed with the sudden rapture of this realization r 
 
 393
 
 Felicity 
 
 Morton had his father's stature and was big of 
 frame and strongly built, but his features he owed 
 mostly to The Old Man, and never had Felicity 
 marked the resemblance as to-night ; as he sat there, 
 in that faint, fairy light, the dreams of long, wist- 
 ful years seemed to have come true and he who 
 had irradiated life for her seemed to have come 
 back to her, with a difference, a marvellous dif- 
 ference. 
 
 " Oh," she said, speaking less to him, really, 
 than to herself, as if she were tracing the steps 
 by which he had come to her, " you know the value 
 of pain, of hurt, of loneliness, of disappointment? 
 You have wrestled with all these angels and refused 
 to let them go until they blessed you? You feel 
 it's wonderful to have lived and found things 
 out? to have lived and learned to triumph? " 
 
 She spoke low, and brokenly, but the ring in 
 her voice at the end had a thrill in it like nothing 
 else that Morton could remember to have heard, 
 ever. He had not seen her in nearly a year, and 
 not often, all told, since Vincent's death. He had 
 known a little of the struggle she went through 
 after the tragedy, but more by hearsay and by 
 tacit understanding than by word of mouth to him. 
 There had never, really, been anything even border- 
 ing on confidence between them since that night, 
 six years ago, when she had taken him off guard 
 and wrung from him that look of anguished appeal. 
 
 394
 
 Something Set Apart 
 
 He had wondered wistfully all the time, wildly, 
 some of the time while he stood aloof and dared 
 not try to help her if she had interpreted that 
 look aright; but her manner was inscrutable. He 
 was a little surprised, to-night, at the quickness of 
 her response to his mood for confidence. 
 
 " It is wonderful," he said, speaking slowly, with 
 a stumbling sort of hesitancy in sharp contrast to 
 her quick eagerness, " I don't know that I have 
 triumphed don't feel that I have but I've 
 learned to endure and and even to be glad that 
 I was called on to do it. That is, not glad, exactly 
 that seems like forgetting her suffering but I 
 can see what it has done for me what I am that 
 I couldn't have been except for little Sadie and her 
 dependence on me. I did a little for her not 
 much, I'm afraid, but what I could yes, God 
 knows ! what I could but it wasn't anything like 
 what she did for me: my debt to her is all unpaid 
 unpayable." 
 
 " I know," she said, " it is one of the miracles 
 like what childhood does for us, only different, 
 quite different. It says, in the Bible, somewhere, 
 something about God having chosen the weak 
 things of the world to confound the mighty. I 
 think He does more He chooses them to develop 
 the mighty; they are His great illuminators of the 
 truths about the spirit. We despise them only if 
 we're blind, foolish, untaught. I've seen such 
 
 395
 
 Felicity 
 
 things, in the last year or two! Why, all the 
 bravery and sweetness in the world are born of the 
 weak things and their claim on the mighty! All 
 the resolute souls have been helped by the irreso- 
 lute! And I think yes, I believe I know that 
 God loves the irresolute souls and even honors 
 them, just as well. They do their work in the 
 world, they breed strength and foster tenderness 
 almost lay down their lives, we might say, that 
 others through them may live the more abundantly. 
 Oh, don't you believe it's all counted to them for 
 honor, somehow, somewhere ? That somehow it's 
 all made glorious to them for their vicarious sacri- 
 fice, and when we see them again, we shall under- 
 stand? " 
 
 Her tears were falling fast, now, and Morton's 
 own eyes were blinding full. 
 
 " Oh, these past two years," she went on, " what 
 they've been to me! First, I struggled so fiercely 
 not against suffering, so much as against having 
 the world know I suffered. I resented pity so ! I, 
 who was used only to well, to what I called tri- 
 umph. People pried into my private life, they dis- 
 cussed it in print you know! They shouted my 
 sacredest affairs from the housetops. It was hor- 
 rible! I hated the whole world! And then I 
 began to feel the difference in people; they showed 
 me, in spite of my sullenness, a side of themselves, 
 in my sorrow, they'd never shown me in my pros- 
 
 396
 
 Something Set Apart 
 
 perity. Lots of people did the tenderest things for 
 me people who had seemed, before, as if they'd 
 like nothing better than to see me lose my pitiful 
 eminence. You see, I did things for them in my 
 weakness and my hurt that I'd never been able to 
 do for them in my success I brought out their 
 sympathy, where before I'd brought out only their 
 envy ; I was worth more to them in my abasement 
 than in my pride did them a sweeter service. 
 And then it began to come home to me what The 
 Old Man had said to me, when I didn't under- 
 stand, about this very thing. I remembered the 
 summer of '81, when I was back north for my 
 vacation from the frontier circuit, and we were at 
 Nantucket, and the news came of Garfield's assas- 
 sination. We were sitting down on the sands, The 
 Old Man and I, and he said, * Well, if Garfield 
 dies, he'll owe his canonization to that poor fool's 
 bullet. Providence was kind even to mighty Lin- 
 coln and kinder to his uncomprehending coun- 
 try when poor, beautiful, misguided Wilkes 
 Booth sped that bullet into the greatest brain of 
 modern times. If Lincoln had lived, the North 
 would have turned and rended him, sure, for his 
 bigness of purpose toward the conquered South; 
 the very people who wept for him would have 
 cursed him for a magnanimity they couldn't under- 
 stand. That poor boy gave him, an idol, to the 
 nation, and saved him the greatest sorrow of his 
 
 397
 
 Felicity 
 
 life. It's always a wonderful gift to people to let 
 'em be sorry for you,' he went on. ' And it was a 
 great thing for the nation, just at that time, to have 
 that tremendous sorrow. Now, I'm not much on 
 religion by the preachers' way of thinking, but I've 
 seen with my own eyes most of the great truths 
 proved, and I know it's true of more than God 
 Almighty that it's true of the least of us all 
 that about " And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all 
 men unto me.' 1 You can't draw 'em any other 
 way; your triumphs only make 'em mean and en- 
 vious that's human nature and even your pri- 
 vate griefs don't move 'em. Gethsemane doesn't 
 count, to the world it isn't enough ; it's Golgotha 
 that moves hearts, and you've got to be willing, as 
 He was, to drink the whole cup, to the dregs, that 
 the world may weep with you and be saved. Not 
 all of us are chosen for " lifting up " though I 
 think all of us would pray to be, if we were wise. 
 I've never been chosen. The things I've suffered 
 have been things the world did not know about. 
 I've made people laugh, and I've made them cry, 
 but I've never made them sorry for me. I'd have 
 had it otherwise, if I could; I've envied Charles 
 Lamb the shadow of the madhouse the world 
 owes a great deal to that. Don't you shirk 'the 
 " lifting up " if it comes to you,' he said, ' be glad 
 if your sorrows can help others, instead of helping 
 only you. There's nothing you can do for the 
 
 398
 
 Something Set Apart 
 
 world like putting up a plucky fight against heavy 
 odds odds it can see, and understand! ' But 
 I wasn't glad, at first; I didn't understand. 
 Then, things began to come home to me. I remem- 
 bered Clo Detmar, that Memorial Day by his 
 grave. * Maybe you've got your troubles like the 
 rest of us,' she said, ' but we can't see 'em, and so 
 we can't be sorry for 'em.' I did have them, of 
 course, but I had so much superficial fortune that 
 people were blinded by the glitter of it and hated 
 me because I had so much. They didn't know how 
 the very temperament that made me famous, made 
 me suffer intolerably. They didn't know that my 
 success made me so lonely I could hardly bear it. 
 They didn't know any of these things they never 
 know them, somehow. But they knew I blamed 
 myself for Vincent's death and that softened all 
 hearts to me, it seemed. Since then, I've got 
 closer, oh! ever so much closer to the heart of 
 things. I know, now, how lonely everybody is 
 everybody ! each with his own heart hunger that's 
 never satisfied. And when I play to people now, 
 I play to lonely folks I send my heart out to 
 them across the footlights, and I can feel their 
 hearts reaching across to me; they know I'm sad 
 and lonely, too. But I'm not lonely, now, as I 
 used to be ! I have this new sense of belonging to 
 a big, human family of being, not apart, but just 
 one of the many, many. See," she finished, after a 
 
 399
 
 Felicity 
 
 little pause, " what Vincent did for me with his 
 great sacrifice ! " 
 
 Her face was uplifted as she spoke and, all tear- 
 stained as it was, Morton thought he had never 
 seen such a look of radiant happiness. 
 
 " Felicity," he whispered, and stole a hand, 
 almost fearsomely, to hers on the grass beside her. 
 That was all the understanding, the pleading, 
 the denial of worthiness and the expression of 
 great longing, were all in the tone. The hand over 
 which his closed, trembled, then lay still under his 
 clasp. The silence that fell on them was fuller 
 of understanding than any words could have been. 
 
 That night when Felicity went to her room she 
 paused at Frances' door and tapped, ever so lightly. 
 Bidden to " come in," she went over to the bed 
 and, bending over, said : 
 
 " Kiss me good-night Mother for I'm the 
 happiest woman in God's wide world to-night! " 
 
 Late Sunday afternoon Frances wound up a fine 
 long visit with Morton by saying: 
 
 " Now, go find her, dear. She slipped away to 
 give us this opportunity, but I know where she is, 
 and I know she's waiting for you. This is her 
 favorite hour of all the day, and I know she wants 
 you to enjoy it with her. You'll find her you 
 know where ? " 
 
 He nodded, kissed her, and was gone. It had 
 400
 
 Something Set Apart 
 
 been a glorious day, all sunshine and fragrance and 
 rapturous companionship. There was summer 
 warmth in the air and more than summer beauty in 
 the bloom, that thrilled Morton with its delicacy 
 as no luxuriance of full-leaved summer had ever 
 done. 
 
 They had risen betimes, that morning, and taken 
 an early train into Vicksburg along with a hun- 
 dred or so of the Briarwood negroes bent on a 
 holiday where they hired a trap and a driver- 
 guide and drove miles over the lines of investment 
 and defence which Congress was then considering 
 the advisability of making into the macadam road- 
 ways of a great National Park. 
 
 Morton was deeply interested in the natural 
 memorials of the siege, and Felicity loved the care- 
 ful explicitness with which he tried to make it all 
 plain to Sarah Frances. Poor Morton ! He was 
 almost a stranger to his own child, and Felicity's 
 heart ached as she noted his rather elaborate 
 courtesy to the little girl, so different from that 
 confidential companionship that should have been 
 theirs and that, alas ! seemed as little imminent as 
 ever. 
 
 There was a vast tangle of affairs that neither 
 she nor Morton had spoken of last night not 
 because they forgot them; they were not young 
 enough for that! but because they were fain to 
 snatch that evening's ecstasy clear of all question- 
 
 401
 
 Felicity 
 
 ing. If they had been very much younger, they 
 might have believed that all life would be like 
 those moonlit moments; if they had been only a 
 little less schooled than they were, they would have 
 felt so sure the joy could not last, they would have 
 killed it with their doubting. But they knew 
 these two that it was one of those transfigura- 
 tions, given at some time to most lives, that must be 
 received on the mountain-top, care-free and isolate, 
 even though one must come immediately down 
 and resume ministry to the less-inspired. Neither 
 of them had any expectation that life would repeat 
 for them the glory of those moments, yet to neither 
 of them would life ever again be the same as 
 before the memory of a little hour made their 
 union indissoluble; and, secure in that sense of 
 oneness, they were willing to take up, today, the 
 practical possibilities. 
 
 After their long drive they had caught a train 
 back to Briarwood in time for a late dinner at 
 home. Then, everybody took a nap, or pre- 
 tended to, and when Felicity came downstairs at 
 five o'clock, and found Morton and his mother and 
 daughter together, Sarah Frances on her father's 
 knee, she stole softly away without disturbing them, 
 and took her way along the hill-crest to the little 
 enclosure where Vincent lay at rest beside that 
 Robert Fergus to whom he would have been so 
 strange a creature. 
 
 402
 
 Something Set Apart 
 
 Alec McClintock had chosen this spot with 
 loving care, and had thrilled with a fierce joy it 
 was well Robert Fergus could not guess, when the 
 Confederate defence of the river chose a spot just 
 outside the burial enclosure to set one of its best 
 guns, commanding the mighty waterway for 
 several miles in each direction. It was no sac- 
 rilege to him that the cannon's roar should re- 
 verberate above Cecile's grave and her mother's. 
 God knew it was in defence of such sacred spots, 
 not for their niggers, nor even for their state 
 rights, that he and many another man were 
 fighting. 
 
 Up here, where the cannon had been set because 
 it commanded so great a sweep of river, one got a 
 view of whose glory Felicity never tired. She had 
 seen many, very many, of the world's storied 
 splendors, but none of them gave her the rapture 
 this stretch of country gave, seen from this sacred 
 spot. 
 
 She was sitting, when Morton came to find her, 
 not in the enclosure, but outside, on the very crest 
 of the hill, close beside the old gun which the Con- 
 federates had spiked and buried in the river be- 
 fore the narrowing investment lines had closed in 
 on them. Long after the war Alec McClintock 
 had the old gun dragged from the ooze beneath 
 the swift, swerving current, and restored to its 
 place of former command; and now, in this month 
 
 403
 
 Felicity 
 
 of March, '98, bluebirds were nesting in the 
 silenced cannon's mouth. 
 
 The air was vocal with the evensong of birds as 
 Felicity sat there. Mating was in its glory, new 
 nests were everywhere, maternal hovering and 
 paternal pride in new responsibility, were flaunt- 
 ing themselves on every hand. 
 
 Not a stone's throw south of where she sat, the 
 ground dipped suddenly, precipitously, into one of 
 the deep ravines or " bottoms " characteristic of 
 this countryside; and from far down in the cane- 
 brake that choked the lush bottom, she could hear 
 the musical tinkle of a cowbell as some soft-step- 
 ping bossy strayed homeward for milking time. 
 
 Other sounds there were none, though when a 
 river steamer passed, as it sometimes did at the 
 hour of the afterglow its red and green bow 
 lights reflected in long, wavering lines in the 
 glassy waters she could hear the " chug, chug " 
 of its escape valve and even, at times, the chant- 
 ing sing-song of the negro roustabouts. 
 
 Across the mighty current lay the Louisiana 
 shores, very flat and low, their dense woods freshly 
 green and growing greener almost by the minute. 
 Immediately below her, on the " flats," close to the 
 current with its unpredictable whimsies, was a strip 
 of land inconceivably rich in fertility but beyond all 
 words precarious, for no one could know at what 
 time the river would wipe it out of existence in 
 
 404
 
 Something Set Apart 
 
 a night, in an hour. Still, there were little, white- 
 washed cabins on its miry, cotton-furrowed land, 
 and tiny peach trees all a-bloom, and even a weep- 
 ing willow, vivid in its new emerald green which 
 showed sharply against the black, oozy earth and 
 the brown of the dead cottonstalks. 
 
 Morton said not a word as he came up and sat 
 beside her. There seemed, at times, so little need 
 of speech between them that words could only 
 spoil the perfection of their communion. 
 
 The majestic river appeared without a ripple, 
 so still it flowed seaward. The sun, slanting low 
 over the Louisiana tree-tops, seemed to decline 
 reluctantly on so perfect a day. From the cabins 
 below them, smoke spirals curled into the still air, 
 telling of wood thrown on smouldering fires for 
 the suppers of big and little blacks who had basked, 
 all day, in the warm sunshine. 
 
 " It hardly seems possible, does it," said Mor- 
 ton, after a while, his mind still dwelling on the 
 sights of the morning and the story of the great 
 siege, " that only a generation ago men climbed 
 these steep hillsides while cannon belched death 
 into their very faces ; and tunnelled underground to 
 blow up whole hills, with their batteries; and did 
 all those other things we know about. I don't 
 think I ever saw anything more eloquent of peace 
 than this " indicating with a motion of his head 
 the scene outspread before them. 
 
 405
 
 Felicity 
 
 " I suppose," she answered, slowly, 
 of the peace of it all is well, as great as it is, be- 
 cause we know what pain was here once what 
 blood flowed on these hillsides. Peace, great peace, 
 always comes out of great pain, I guess out of 
 strife, and pain, and and death. One under- 
 stands so many things when one has suf- 
 fered." 
 
 He put an arm around her and drew her close, 
 not trusting himself to answer. As they sat in 
 silence, the sun sank, leaving a sky brilliantly gold 
 and red. In a few moments, the silver flood 
 stretching mile on mile beneath them, was incarna- 
 dined, like a sea of blood. 
 
 " Look ! " she whispered. And he understood. 
 
 Then the crimson paled to rose, shading to ame- 
 thyst. The world was graying into the soft mono- 
 tone of dusk; only the pink of the peach-blossoms 
 was faintly colorful when one's gaze turned land- 
 ward from the Apocryphal glories of river and 
 sky. The birdsong was hushed, now, the straying 
 cows were all herded for the evening milking, the 
 stillness had become profound. Where the last 
 touches of color had faded from the west, the pale 
 stars were shining. 
 
 Then Sarah Frances came along the bluff call- 
 ing, "Father! Father!" 
 
 " Here, dear ! " said Felicity, answering for him. 
 And, holding a hand of each, Sarah Frances led 
 
 406
 
 Something Set Apart 
 
 them home to tea. On the front gallery she re- 
 leased their hands, to run in ahead of them and 
 announce their coming. 
 
 " I found 'em, Gran'ma," she cried, " out by 
 the cannon talking! " 
 
 In the long hall, just outside the dining-room 
 door, Felicity looked into Morton's eyes for one 
 instant. " We weren't talking," she said, " and 
 we should have been." 
 
 He understood. 
 
 " And you must go to-night? " 
 
 Morton nodded. He was not a man of many 
 words, but, somehow, one did not miss anything 
 that was necessary to his understanding his 
 silences were eloquent. And there was that in his 
 look as he met her inquiring glance, which thrilled 
 her that which said, as no words could have said, 
 " What matter? There are things to be said, and 
 I'm willing enough to say them, when a time comes ; 
 but you're mine, and nothing can keep you from me 
 so what is there to talk about, after all? " 
 
 After he was gone that night, Felicity and 
 Frances sat late talking. " I don't see what's 
 to become of us," said Felicity, very soberly. " I, 
 God knows how little I care for the the emolu- 
 ments of my work, how I hate many of the 
 things about it; but it's my life I have to do the 
 work, not for what it brings me, but for the sheer 
 
 407
 
 Felicity 
 
 necessity of doing it. Why, I'm restless now, 
 restless as I can be, because I've learned so much 
 this winter that I crave expression for. I've sim- 
 ply never played 'Toinette never played it! I 
 didn't know how! though the world thought I 
 did. And I've never more than half played 
 Marianna, or that wonderful creature, Ellen 
 Mary. I've got to play 'em! Not to put my 
 fresh knowledge into their portrayal would be 
 like like losing speech and the power to write, 
 at a time when you're bursting with great, new 
 ideas. I have to do it! If it costs me everything 
 else I care for on earth, I have to do it that's 
 the joy and the pity of this thing that's in me! I 
 want companionship more than I want anything 
 on this earth, or in Heaven, but I've got to do my 
 work. If I took companionship at the cost of my 
 work, I couldn't be happy no, nor if I took it 
 at the cost of Morton's work in the world. He 
 ought to have a home, for him and Sarah Frances, 
 and a chance to live his life in the blessed, familiar 
 way; he's earned it! But I can't give it to him 
 not now, anyway. I'm driven by this thing inside 
 me that's stronger than I am. Oh, it's cruel, this 
 way my feet are set in ! Other ways are not so 
 hard don't cost so much! Women who write 
 and paint and do other things, accomplishing 
 things, can have homes and husbands and and 
 children. But there's never been a time when I 
 
 408
 
 Something Set Apart 
 
 didn't belong to some one more than to myself 
 when I wasn't under contract to managers for 
 years ahead; when my retirement, even for a sea- 
 son, into home life, wouldn't have worked hard- 
 ship to scores of people whose very bread and 
 butter was dependent on my presence on the stage ! 
 Look what this winter has cost Garvish, and a host 
 of others! Now, even if I didn't have this thing 
 inside of me that makes me work, I'd feel as if I 
 owed my best efforts to Garvish for several years, 
 to repay him for this. I don't love Garvish, but 
 I love my own peace of mind too well to try to be 
 happy while I'm neglecting my obligations. Then 
 think of my marrying Morton and feeling I ought 
 to be making a home for him and his child 
 wanting to be with him, more than I want anything 
 else ! and going on with my work, because I have 
 to. Doesn't it seem as if Fate mocked me? I 
 don't expect to be happy, continuously happy! 
 Nobody is, that I know of, or ever has been. And 
 it isn't myself I'm thinking of it's Morton, and 
 Sarah Frances ! " 
 
 14 Don't you suppose Morton has thought of all 
 these things?" said Frances who knew that he 
 had. 
 
 " Yes, I know he must have thought of them." 
 
 " But they didn't deter him? " 
 
 " No." Felicity smiled exquisitely, as she shook 
 her head. 
 
 409
 
 Felicity 
 
 " And you know that he hasn't any idea of ask- 
 ing you to sacrifice everything for him? You 
 know that's not like Morton?" 
 
 "No, he won't ask anything; but I shall feel 
 the demand, even if he doesn't make it or 
 allow it." 
 
 " Oh, my dearie," cried Frances, " I'm too old 
 for such a hard nut ! " 
 
 " I wonder," mused Felicity, " what The Old 
 Man would have said." 
 
 " I don't think that's hard to guess." 
 
 " Please guess, then ! " 
 
 " Well, I think he would have said can't you 
 see how he would have narrowed his eyes, in that 
 quizzical way he had of looking at you, and drawn 
 in the corners of his mouth, as he said, ' The mean- 
 est sin is mistrust. Nothing that can happen to 
 you from over-reaching is so deadly as what hap- 
 pens to you from refusing to reach high for fear 
 you fall.' Can't you shut your eyes and hear him 
 say, in that peculiar, vibrant voice of his that made 
 his least remark seem memorable, ' The luck o' 
 the road, dear child! The vagabond spirit's the 
 spirit that enriches the world, and it takes what 
 comes, cheerily, and travels light. You can't make 
 to-morrow not with your best calculations; you 
 can only take it as it comes. The past is yours, 
 and one moment more the present. The future's 
 going to be rough, however carefully you plan, 
 
 410
 
 Something Set Apart 
 
 and the rough places when you come to them won't 
 be any easier because you can remember how dear 
 you paid in the hope of escaping them.' Don't 
 you feel he'd have said just this? Oh, my dear " 
 Frances broke down, sobbing; the fervor of her 
 pleading had been too much for her. 
 
 Felicity comforted her without speaking prob- 
 ably the best comfort, always. After a while she 
 said, " I didn't know you cared so much! " 
 
 " I never cared more about anything," returned 
 Frances, warmly, " and I can't tell whether I care 
 most for Morton's sake, or for yours, or for my 
 own or for father's. He would have loved it so 
 and never had a bit of patience with your hesi- 
 tation ! " 
 
 ' Yes," murmured Felicity, with a wonderful 
 look on her face, " and Morton will have none, 
 either! We haven't mentioned these things, but 
 I know perfectly well that not one of them makes 
 the smallest bit of difference to him that's the 
 glory of it ! Or to me," she added, archly. " I 
 guess I just talk about them to you so you'll know 
 I'm aware o' them. That was my New England 
 conscience that was talking," she went on, with 
 the delicious whimsicality of manner which always 
 characterized her keen findings about herself her 
 artistic appreciation of her human inconsistencies 
 " the part of me that would have been a Yankee 
 spinster, thriving on renunciation, like dear Aunt 
 
 411
 
 Felicity 
 
 Elie ! I'm glad for that part of me ! " she cried, 
 her eyes shining with unshed tears, u it has helped 
 me to understand great things great things! 
 But I'm glad for the other part of me, too for 
 the Cavalier spirit, the wonderful apprenticeship 
 in vagabondage under that great Old Man for 
 the part of me that loves and trusts and will not 
 be denied! " 
 
 There was something superb in her tone and 
 gesture in her beauty and her passionateness, in 
 the lovely traces of suffering she wore at once with 
 the triumph of love, of conscious power that 
 made Frances Allston's pulses throb. She was so 
 much alive, this rare, sweet Felicity! She called 
 to one's deadening sensibilities and made them 
 flame, again, into acute desire. 
 
 " Felicity," said Frances, looking at her, " you 
 are something set apart to a special purpose. You 
 make life more vivid, more desirable, than any one 
 I've ever known not even excepting father. You 
 you must go on with this great ministry of yours, 
 dear, as long as you can. You must sigh for the 
 common lot and not have it because it is your 
 exquisite gift to kindle the sharers of the common 
 lot like me with a new sense of what life may 
 be. We need you, dear it's so easy to grow unin- 
 spired! And it's worth a sacrifice, to be this to 
 the world ! " 
 
 412
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 " THE BRUSHWOOD PILES 
 
 FELICITY had been booked for a long spring 
 run in New York, concluding her season; 
 nearly every booking of the season had had to be 
 cancelled, after her collapse in November, but she 
 had written from Briarwood before leaving there 
 for New Orleans, early in February, that she felt 
 she could play the New York engagement of eight 
 weeks if the theatre were to be had, and Garvish 
 could assemble a suitable company and make other 
 arrangements. 
 
 Garvish could; it took manipulation to man- 
 age all this, but practically anything can be done 
 for the most profitable actress on the English- 
 speaking stage. 
 
 Accordingly, the last week of March found 
 Felicity " tempting Providence " with the New 
 York east winds, as her physician said. But she 
 only laughed, knowing that the things that had 
 made her frail and tired beyond endurance were 
 not such winds as doctors take note of; and that, 
 
 413
 
 Felicity 
 
 now she was so full of things to express, chance to 
 express herself meant health to her, whatever 
 winds might blow. 
 
 She opened, the first Monday in April, playing 
 her old, familiar 'Toinette with a verve that in- 
 deed made the character seem hitherto unknown. 
 
 " She makes you feel," said a woman, coming 
 out of the theatre that first night, " as if she'd 
 been inside of you, and learned things about you 
 that you thought God hardly knew about you, and 
 that then she got you here and showed yourself to 
 you yourself and herself and 'Toinette, and the 
 fat woman beside you, in the purple waist, and the 
 thin girl in front, with the plain face and passion- 
 ate eyes, and the lady in the box, with the blond 
 hair and the diamond breastplate, and all 
 human nature; so you never can look at any of 
 it again and see it single, in its meanness or its 
 might, but always see it double in its weakness and 
 its strength." 
 
 A man who knew Felicity, was just ahead 
 of this woman, in the slow, outpouring crush, 
 and he repeated the remark to her when he had a 
 chance. 
 
 " Yes," she said, smiling, " that's what I try 
 to do though I should never have been able to 
 describe it so fluently." Which was a bit of 
 charming hypocrisy, for Felicity was as fluent as 
 anybody, and knew it. 1 
 
 414
 
 "The Brushwood Piles" 
 
 She had promised Morton she would marry 
 htm " when work was over " in early June. Then 
 she could have her summer in Chicago, and well, 
 beyond that she would not try to think. 
 
 Then why, it was the very day after her open- 
 ing night her letters to him began to take on a 
 note of impatience that thrilled him with a deep, a 
 wonderful delight. 
 
 " I wish you could have seen my new 'Toinette," 
 she wrote, that Tuesday when she was telling him 
 of its triumphs, " there was so much in it that you, 
 better than any one else, could understand that 
 never would have been in it save for you and your 
 understanding! " 
 
 Next it was: " I am still re-investing Marianna 
 with new knowledge. I never did justice before to 
 Marie's superb love ; I always supposed that when 
 she went back to her queen's estate, the obligations 
 she saw she could not lay aside would outweigh 
 everything else with her, even her love. But 
 now I don't believe that, for I've come back into 
 my kingdom, you see, and instead of my responsi- 
 bilities crowding out love, they only give him a 
 greater field for his sway ; for whatever I do or sigh 
 to leave undone, I am conscious, always, of that 
 one who would understand." 
 
 Then : " I am having a very fine time, as fine 
 times go. There are a good many interesting peo- 
 ple in town and I'm seeing something of a num- 
 
 415
 
 Felicity 
 
 her of them in quite delightful ways, all informal. 
 But there's something so teasingly ' touch and go ' 
 about even the best social intercourse something 
 that scratches the surface of things so lightly 
 that it leaves one very unsatisfied. I doubt if more 
 than two persons can ever be concerned in any 
 real good time, any fellowship worth men- 
 tioning." 
 
 As the month wore on these little notes of half- 
 confessed longing for him, which thrilled him 
 more than her way of concluding a letter with " I 
 want you, every minute ! " grew more and more 
 wistful ; and toward the end of April Morton pre- 
 sented himself, unannounced, in New York on a 
 Friday, to spend Saturday and Sunday with her. 
 He saw her play 'Toinette Friday night, and after 
 the play went home with her. 
 
 The cab that came for her she sent away, say- 
 ing she preferred to walk; and together they 
 strolled up gaudy, glittering Broadway, full of 
 zest for its sights and sounds, its swarming human 
 comedy, but willing to leave it all when Felicity's 
 cross-street was reached, and to wander off into the 
 darkness that led eastward toward Fifth Ave- 
 nue talking of many things. 
 
 At home, in her beautiful dining-room, she had 
 a supper set out for him ostensibly for her, too, 
 but really for him, though he ate nearly as little 
 as she did. Talk across a table is always worth 
 
 416
 
 "The Brushwood Piles" 
 
 making a pretence for, however, and they both 
 enjoyed it, and thought of meals on meals to 
 come, when they would sit together in this cosy 
 companionship. He remembered, however, that 
 to-morrow was her day of double duty and he must 
 not keep her up late. 
 
 It was tantalizing! She seemed to belong to 
 the public so much and to him so little. But Mor- 
 ton refused to let himself think of this. If the time 
 ever came when he could have her more fully for 
 himself, he would rejoice; but until it came God 
 knew how grateful he was for the radiance she 
 lent his life whether he was with her or not. 
 
 It was delicious, though, to have her say, when 
 she went to the door with him to bid him good- 
 night, in sweet, simple fashion on the threshold, 
 " It's so glorious to have you, dear ! But how am 
 I ever going to give you up again? " 
 
 " Only for a month this time," he suggested, 
 trying to be hopeful. 
 
 " How can you say ' only ' a month ? " she asked 
 him, with pretty reproachfulness. 
 
 " I can say it because I've practised it so much, 
 I guess," he returned, laughing. " By talking 
 handsomely about ' only a month,' I almost make 
 myself believe that it's not such an awful long 
 time!" 
 
 " Morton," she said, suddenly changing the sub- 
 ject, and there was witchery in her face as she 
 
 417
 
 Felicity 
 
 laughed up at him, " what a summer it's going to 
 be ! I'm going to keep house for you, with such 
 a vengeance ! I'm going to wear little ' swiss-y ' 
 aprons, with pink bows on 'em, and every day I'm 
 going to make you a cherry pie; and when you 
 come home, evenings, I'll be sitting on the front 
 porch, with Sarah Frances in her little rocker beside 
 me, and both of us'll be crocheting! " 
 
 There was that beneath her conscious ridiculous- 
 ness which was so wistful it brought the tears to 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Oh, wonderful Felicity! " he murmured, hold- 
 ing her very close, " it doesn't seem possible ! " 
 
 "What doesn't?" 
 
 ' That you'll ever really be there, in my life 
 as you've been in my dreams. I've dreamed you 
 there so much, my Felicity, and waked, to find it 
 only a dream that I don't know; I try not to 
 be faint-hearted but I wonder if such exquisite 
 dreams ever come true? " 
 
 She raised her head suddenly from his breast. 
 " Have you that fear, too? " she asked, sharply. 
 
 " Have you? " he echoed. 
 
 " It haunts me night and day," she said, simply. 
 
 " Felicity," he said, with sudden inspiration, 
 "marry me now, dear; marry me to-morrow. It 
 can't be any harder to leave you when I know 
 you're my wife, and it maybe easier; that taunting, 
 tugging disbelief will leave me, perhaps. Maybe 
 
 418
 
 "The Brushwood Piles" 
 
 it's a strange request I'd have to leave you Mon- 
 day perhaps I oughtn't to ask you, but " 
 
 "But I want to," she whispered. 
 
 He asked her her preferences about their wed- 
 diiag, but she expressed few, save as to the place. 
 
 " I'd like it to be in The Little Church Around 
 the Corner," she said. " I know that it's become 
 ' common ' kind of a Gretna Green for ill-ad- 
 vised marriages among theatre-folk, and all that. 
 But I love it ! I was there with The Old Man in 
 the fall of '70 when George Holland was buried 
 from it, and it got its familiar name. I was 
 there, too, when dear Edwin Booth lay there. I 
 go there a great deal, when I'm in New York, and 
 sit in a quiet corner and think. I love it when 
 the afternoon sun comes pouring in the splendid 
 Transfiguration window, and the birds are twitter- 
 ing their vespers in the thick vines outside. I love 
 the Players' Club window to Booth, with its up- 
 lifting inscription to him ' as one, in suffering all, 
 that suffers nothing, A man that fortune's buffets 
 and rewards Hast ta'en with equal thanks.' If 
 you don't mind, I'd like to slip in there, after the 
 matinee, and come out, your wife ! " 
 
 She dreaded the inevitable publicity, but at least 
 the evening papers would not have it, and Sunday 
 they would spend in the country where, perhaps she 
 would not be recognized as Mrs. Allston. After 
 
 419
 
 Felicity 
 
 that well! one must "be a man" about what 
 one could not help, as The Old Man had said. 
 
 They spent a couple of hours in the morning, 
 wandering about the least-frequented malls and 
 pathways of the Park, without in the least know- 
 ing, or caring, where they were mindful, though, 
 of the impending matinee. Luncheon they ate at 
 her home, the half-companion, half-secretary, of 
 uncertain age and unmistakable propriety, not in- 
 truding. When it was over, they drove to the 
 theatre, where Morton left her at her request. 
 
 " I'd rather you'd be with me in the morning, 
 and not in the theatre in the afternoon," she said. 
 "It seems as if I couldn't bear the ecstasy of know- 
 ing you were there, across the footlights, waiting 
 for me. So, whatever arrangements you have to 
 make, please make them then." 
 
 " And in the evening? May I come and see you 
 act then?" 
 
 " Oh, in the evening we'll be old married folks, 
 and I'll expect you to see me home from my work," 
 she said, her divinely conscious look belying her 
 casual tone. 
 
 ' We shall have a honeymoon of about ninety 
 minutes," he reminded her, " most of which will 
 be consumed at dinner. Have you any suggestions 
 as to where you'd like to dine? "' 
 
 No; she had not. " So it's with you," she 
 said. 
 
 420
 
 "The Brushwood Piles" 
 
 He was at the stage door waiting for her, with 
 a carriage, when the last act was no more than 
 well under way. It was nearly an hour before 
 she appeared, sweet as a flower in her little spring 
 street gown of pale tan, with a pink rose at her 
 breast and another underneath the brim of her 
 black plumed hat. 
 
 The sunshine was streaming obliquely through 
 the glorious Transfiguration window as they took 
 their places before the altar; the birds were carol- 
 ling an evensong of spring joyousness outside, 
 among the new-leaving vines. The witnesses were 
 only the sexton and the organist, who interrupted 
 his practice for this brief service. 
 
 And when they stepped out of the sweetly-still 
 church into the quaint little yard, with the roar of 
 Fifth Avenue's six o'clock traffic only a few feet 
 away, Felicity said, with a look that matched her 
 words, 
 
 " It is the Church of the Transfiguration isn't 
 it?" 
 
 " Send the man away, we don't want him," 
 she begged, as the cabman, with unwonted cere- 
 mony, got down to open the door for them. 
 
 So they wandered out, into the spring sunset, 
 and melted into the human current flowing up 
 Fifth Avenue. A good many people recognized 
 Felicity, and turned to look after her. " But 
 
 421
 
 Felicity 
 
 none of them," she said, " knows how happy I am. 
 Oh, I hope other people are happy, too happier 
 than we can guess ! " 
 
 Once or twice they stopped to look into shop 
 windows now at a picture, now at some antique 
 silver, now at a splendid floral display. " Don't 
 you always," she said, " choose what you'd take 
 if the window broke, or if some one came along 
 and offered you your pick? I always do! I could 
 walk in and buy any of it, I suppose, but I never 
 think of that; they wouldn't interest me if I 
 remembered it." 
 
 She loved the swift-moving current of people, 
 the human tide loved to be in it and of it, to 
 watch it and wonder about it, and feel that she 
 understood it, and her eyes were so shining bright 
 with the pleasurableness of this drifting that Mor- 
 ton felt, as he watched her, more than he had ever 
 felt before, what that thing was in her which made 
 her great. 
 
 " It's so wonderful," she said, " to feel that you 
 like this, too that I don't seem like a crazy thing 
 to you because of my strange preferences as I 
 must seem to most people, I know. 
 
 " I'm glad I didn't try to choose my honey- 
 moon," she went on, presently, " Because I 
 couldn't ever have chosen between this and an- 
 other between this and riding on the river in a 
 ferry-boat! No one knows how I love the river 
 
 422
 
 "The Brushwood Piles" 
 
 at evening, when the sun makes the windows oppo- 
 site shine like burnished shields and whitens the 
 dingy canvas on the fishing boats and by and 
 by, the lights begin to blossom in the tall buildings, 
 and the red and green lanterns on the masts of 
 anchored ships shine out in the pale dusk, and the 
 ferry-boats, stealing across the big, black river, 
 throw long, wavering lines of light on the water 
 from their brilliant cabins and I hang, ecstatic, 
 over the guard rail, and am lonesome because no 
 one but me seems agape over these things. But 
 you would wouldn't you?" 
 
 At Felicity's corner they looked down toward 
 her house, and kept on. " Now I do begin to 
 realize I'm on my honeymoon," she said, de- 
 lighted as a child not to know where she was 
 going. A few minutes more, and they came to 
 one of the quiet, uptown hotels, patronized mostly 
 by families. Morton had his key in his pocket 
 and did not go to the desk. It was quietly evident, 
 however, that he was expected. 
 
 Felicity followed him down the long hall, after 
 they left the elevator on the fourth floor, with an 
 ecstatic sense of being led, of having her well-be- 
 ing supremely considered. Not her comfort, 
 merely some one always looked out for that; 
 nor her health and safety those were always 
 valuable assets to somebody besides herself. But 
 her happiness ! Morton understood what happi- 
 
 423
 
 Felicity 
 
 ness meant to her that was the great thing about 
 his companionship : the same things meant happi- 
 ness to them both. It was unspeakably delicious to 
 follow him, not knowing where he meant to go or 
 what he meant to do, but sure it would be what 
 made her happy, and, best of all, that what made 
 her happy was what made him happy, too ! 
 
 He unlocked a door and motioned her in. The 
 twilight was quite gray, but he did not turn on the 
 electric lights. On the hearth of the little sitting- 
 room not of necessity but because of things he 
 had heard her say a handful of fire burned; be- 
 fore it, two easy chairs were drawn up; through 
 the open door of the room beyond Felicity could 
 see her familiar dressing silver spread out to her 
 comfort by Celeste, who had been and gone. A 
 small table was laid for a simple dinner, and the 
 centre of the table was gay with a bunch of pink 
 roses. 
 
 Felicity stepped into the room, noting in a glance 
 its conventional " hotel " appointments like hun- 
 dreds of hotel sitting-rooms she had fretted lonely 
 hours in and this this wondrousness, in a 
 touch, a single, love-inspired forethought; sink- 
 ing into one of the deep chairs before the little fire, 
 she covered her eyes with her hand as if, somehow, 
 she feared to look again lest the vision be gone. 
 
 " ' The Brushwood Piles ! ' ' she murmured, 
 "Oh, ' The Brushwood Piles!'" 
 
 424
 
 "The Brushwood Piles" 
 
 He came and knelt beside her and took her hand 
 gently away from her face. 
 
 ' Truly? " he whispered. 
 
 " Truly ! It's all as I've dreamed it all here ! 
 
 " When I read the story the first time," she told 
 him, after a while, " I was in a hotel, in Balti- 
 more, and it was Christmas Eve the Christmas 
 after after Vincent died and I was all alone. 
 I laid my head down on the open pages of the 
 magazine and I couldn't cry, but the great ache 
 that filled my throat nearly choked me. And by 
 and by I got up and put the magazine in the fire. 
 ' A man has no business to write a thing like that! ' 
 I cried, ' It's hard enough and lonesome enough, 
 life is, without tormenting people with his Brush- 
 wood Boy! ' But afterwards I sent and bought 
 another copy, and kept it always by me, and by 
 and by I began to believe ! " 
 
 She was holding his face against her breast with 
 a divine tenderness. " Now," she went on, reso- 
 lutely but as if the resolution took all her strength, 
 " we've found each other, and nobody was ever, 
 ever, ever so happy as we are. And yet " 
 
 " And yet ? " he echoed. 
 
 " And yet there'll be so many heart-hungry 
 nights when my work is done and I want you, and 
 your work is done and you want me. I suppose 
 if it were not so we shouldn't have been given this, 
 this wonderful thing that's happened to us. It 
 
 425
 
 Felicity 
 
 wouldn't do, I guess, for us to have so much hap- 
 piness, such perfect companionship, and mock the 
 lonely world. It is a lonely world ! Nearly every- 
 body in it has an intolerable heart-hunger and I 
 suppose it's good to be hungry with them, some- 
 times they won't have our ministry unless we are. 
 I think I can see, dear, why why things are as 
 they are with you and me one keeps one's fellow- 
 ship with the world, so and one must do that! 
 Love dies when we deny other claims than its own ; 
 we'll deserve better for our love, we'll be true to 
 our work. Oh, give me courage to believe this, 
 darling courage to go on ! " 
 
 The little clock, inevitable belonging of her 
 dressing-case, chimed seven and startled them 
 from their firelight communion. 
 
 " You haven't had your dinner! " said Morton, 
 self-reproach fully. 
 
 " But I've had the most beautiful honeymoon 
 that ever was in all the world," she murmured, 
 standing up and reaching up her arms to wind 
 them 'round his neck, " and now, I'll try to make 
 other folks a little richer for my happiness." 
 
 THE END 
 
 426
 
 A '""iiiiiniiiillll 
 
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