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 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 UNIV. OF OAI.1F. ?,m*AWY>
 
 BEAUTY 
 
 AND 
 
 MARY BLAIR 
 A Novel 
 
 BY 
 ETHEL M. KELLEY 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 rerftf <EambritJ0e 
 1921
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1931, BY ETHEL M. KELLET 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR
 
 BEAUTY- 
 AMD MARY BLAIR 
 
 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MOTHER didn't speak. Of course, Father 
 did n't really put anything up to her, but the 
 general idea was there just the same. What 
 he wanted to know was, whether a family like 
 ours, consisting of one young married femin- 
 ist, one eligible though unsusceptible young 
 unfeminist, one incorrigible kid brother, and 
 a large, sentimental colored lady, could be 
 trusted to look after itself while the natural 
 guardians of it took a protracted business trip 
 into Canada. There was only one answer, of 
 course, but Mother did n't make it. Among 
 other things she did n't want to spend the 
 money. 
 
 "If you were looking for a nice athletic 
 young daughter now," I said, "I know of one 
 that would accompany your wanderings de- 
 lightedly."
 
 4 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "I'm not," Father said. "Not that I 
 would n't like to have you, Baby, but your 
 mother can drive, and she knows what to do 
 for me if I get the collywobbles and " 
 
 Bobby winked at Delia, who was moving 
 majestically around the table serving pie. 
 
 " Delia ate some bread, Delia ate some jelly, 
 Delia went to bed " Bobby says every- 
 thing that comes into his head without any 
 reference to time and place, or whoever else 
 happens to be speaking. 
 
 "I can drive almost as well as Mother, and 
 I could give you castor oil, if I can give it to 
 Rex." 
 
 Father smiled. 
 
 "You poured it on the puppy's head, I 
 understand, and he licked it off to get rid of it. 
 Peculiar as it may seem I 'd rather have your 
 mother." 
 
 But Mother hedged. 
 
 "I'd like to go," she said. "You know I 
 would, Robert." 
 
 "We could get a couple of weeks of camp," 
 Father suggested, "and it would set you up. 
 Oh ! I knew you would n't think of it se- 
 riously."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 5 
 
 "No," Mother said, "I can't leave." And 
 that ended it. 
 
 The Angel in the house tried to get us started 
 on some general conversation, with the coffee. 
 She 's a prohibitionist, and a communist, 
 sometimes. At other times, I believe, she's 
 a centrist or a left-winger ! and she won't 
 live in the same house with her perfectly good 
 husband, as it is n't done in those circles. 
 
 "It's only a question of a few weeks when 
 every State in the Union ratifies," she said. 
 
 "It's news to me that they haven't," 
 Father was momentarily interested. 
 
 "I was talking of suffrage," the Angel 
 her real name is Stella condescended. 
 
 Mother turned a rather intent look on 
 Stella. The women of our family are a great 
 puzzle to each other. Stella, with her braids 
 bound round that burning high-brow of hers, 
 and her unquenchable craving for intellectual 
 breakfast food, is a perpetual thorn in Mother's 
 flesh, dearly as she loves to have one there. 
 Father's, too, though Father is n't quite so 
 much given to kissing the bee that stings him, 
 as it were. Father and Mother are only going 
 on forty, anyway.
 
 6 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "I suppose if you had a family, you would 
 leave it to look after itself whenever it was 
 convenient," Mother said musingly. 
 
 Stella is going to have a family, but Mother's 
 social error did n't in the least ruffle her. 
 She 's so high-minded she does n't care 
 whether she has a family or not. I should have 
 very decided ideas for or against. I under- 
 stand that Mother did against. 
 
 "You know I believe in the rights of the 
 individual," Stella said gently. Well, so do I, 
 if he can get them. 
 
 Father looked so worried to me, as if some- 
 thing a good deal more important than 
 Mother's going or not going to Canada hung 
 in the balance, that I tackled him about it. 
 
 "Daddy," I said, "do you want me to make 
 Mother go with you or anything? Do you feel 
 awfully seedy? You know she does n't want 
 to spend the money." 
 
 "I know it," Father said. Then he spoke 
 between his teeth: "I want to spend the 
 money," he said; "what have I made it for?" 
 
 " You could n't, seriously, I mean, spend it 
 on me, Daddy? I'd love to go." 
 
 "Too much of a row. Besides, I want your
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 7 
 
 mother." I knew from his tone that he did 
 want her heaps, more than heaps. 
 
 "Daddy," I said, "do your children bore 
 you?" 
 
 "Sometimes. Why? Not you, Baby, ex- 
 cepting as such." 
 
 "Oh! I know that," I said; "well, they bore 
 me, too, rather. Mother does n't bore you?" 
 
 "Never." 
 
 "Don't you think that the fact that she is 
 so terribly good-looking has something to do 
 with that?" 
 
 "Probably," Father said; "and let me give 
 you a word of advice, Mary. If you really 
 want to keep a man keep him going, you 
 understand, and true to you utilize him; 
 use him, all the best there is in him, and even a 
 little of the worst if it comes to that. Use his 
 time, use his money. Make the most of him. 
 You can keep any man, you know, if you keep 
 him busy enough if you make the most of 
 him." 
 
 "Father," I said, "let me go to Canada with 
 you. I'd be better than nothing." 
 
 And I think I would have been. 
 
 I am one of those people to whom life is a
 
 8 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 very great puzzle. So many people seem to get 
 used to living, but I don't. I can't seem to get 
 up any really satisfying philosophy, or find any- 
 body or anything to help me about it. I want 
 everything, little and big, fixed up in my mind 
 before I can proceed. 
 
 Even as a very small child I always wanted 
 my plans made in advance. Once when 
 Mother had a bad sick headache, I sat on the 
 edge of her bed, and begged her to tell me if 
 she thought she was going to die, so if she was 
 I could plan to go and live with my Aunt 
 Margaret. I was an odious infant, but all the 
 same, I really wanted to know, and that's the 
 way I am to this day ! I want to know what 
 the probabilities are, in order to act accord- 
 ingly. I want to know about human beings, 
 and how they got into the fix they are in, and 
 what the possibilities are of their getting out 
 of it. I want-to know what life means, but 
 nobody wants to talk about it. 
 
 I pursue knowledge in various ways. I read 
 a good many books, more since I left school 
 than before. I 've waded through most of our 
 green cloth edition of the Popular Science 
 Library. It is n't very modern to read Dar-
 
 BEAUTY AND MAKY BLAIR 9 
 
 win and Huxley and John Stuart Mill, but I 
 don't know how to pick and choose better 
 things that is, better sound things. I am 
 handicapped by having a sister who knows 
 everything. She lightly acquired a classical 
 education, became a conspicuous banner- 
 bearing feminist, and married a notorious 
 radical editor, all before she was twenty. The 
 Angel 's a wonder. I always expect Mother to 
 peel off some little anecdote about her hav- 
 ing prepared her own baby food according to 
 formula, at the age of thirteen months. It's 
 awfully hard to imagine her ever having let 
 Mother do it. But Sister is n't much help to 
 me because she's an idea cannibal. If she 
 can't get her ration of raw human theory to 
 gorge on every day, she is n't quite the same 
 girl. If you won't be psycho analyzed, or read 
 books about Russia, or try to get up some 
 little private system of solving labor questions, 
 why, Sister's interest in you ceases. I hope 
 her unlucky infant will be born lisping the 
 Einstein theory of Relativity. I don't know 
 what it is, but that infant will have to be in- 
 formed on it if it expects either one of its 
 parents to take an intelligent interest in it. I
 
 10 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 can't live on Sister's diet. I'd get mental 
 hookworm. 
 
 Mother's literary tastes are again different. 
 Mother 's inclined to Spiritualism, and things 
 occult. She reads a lot of faintly Pollyannaish 
 novels with a Western setting if possible, and 
 she does n't care at all about books that show 
 you how the hero and the heroine connect up 
 with life. H. G. Wells and John Galsworthy 
 bore her stiff, for instance, and she used to cry 
 when her mother made her read George Eliot. 
 And I'd cry if she made me read all those 
 books about the Romances of the Insect 
 World, and What the Flowers Know, that 
 she's so fond of. The things I want to know 
 nobody but Carlyle and Stevenson and 
 Browning have had much to say about, and 
 they're dead, and much less companionable 
 for that reason. Sister 's cultured, and Mother 
 is n't, I suppose that 's the gist of it, and I 'm 
 stuck in between them somewhere, drowning 
 between the high-brows and the deep-blue sea 
 of ignorance. 
 
 Father is safely out of it all, because he 
 does n't read anything but the newspapers. 
 He's good looking enough not to need to be
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 11 
 
 cultured in the least. It's too bad that Sister 
 tried to look so much like him, and did n't 
 succeed. She's got the big blue eyes, and the 
 straight-cut profile, all the makings, but she 
 has n't got the look itself. Father is a charmer. 
 I am dark like Mother, but not so pretty, 
 though I am thankful to say that I look more 
 like myself than any one. My color is good 
 anyhow. Bobby looks like me. 
 
 If I could think what it was I wanted of life 
 I would be a whole lot better off. I have all 
 the opportunities there are, all the advantages 
 of a life in New York City in a two-hundred- 
 dollar apartment that we paid a hundred for 
 five years ago all the culture there is; but it 
 is n't culture I 'm after, some way. I want to 
 get the hang of things, and I don't know how 
 I 'm going to do it at present. 
 
 I'm the only one of the family who is very 
 much interested in people, well, as people, 
 though we all have a weird lot of friends. The 
 Angel fills the place with ladies in well-cut 
 tweeds, who are economically independent of 
 the race, and Byronic boys with records as 
 draft-dodgers. Friend husband is the best 
 friend she's got, but of course she won't take
 
 12 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 his name or anything. She 's still Miss Blair to 
 the born and unborn. Evangeline Tucker is 
 her closest woman friend, I should say. They 
 get together on the Jugo-Slavs, and exchange 
 confidences on personal subjects like the East- 
 ern question, and how to make a confirmed 
 aesthete of the poor working-girl. When I 
 sit in at one of these confabs I always feel 
 like taking up wrestling for a life work. A 
 wrestler uses the bony structure of his skull 
 as a weapon. He butts the other fellow in the 
 stomach with it. 
 
 Mother's friends consist of fat women who 
 look eighteen years older than she does, and 
 have n't half such good-looking families 
 and Ellery Howe. I don't know where Mother 
 picked him up, but she's had him for years. 
 He's a music hound and a picture sleuth. 
 Mother does n't care much for either music or 
 pictures, but she's used to Ellery, and so are 
 all the rest of us. At one time I thought that 
 Stella might marry him and get him out of the 
 way. He seemed to melt into some of the crev- 
 ices of her granite nature, but I don't think 
 Mother liked it very much. It seemed rather 
 a waste, too; like spattering an egg against a
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 13 
 
 stone wall. The wall does not absorb it, and 
 you lose the ingredient of a perfectly good 
 omelet. An ingredient is about what Ellery is. 
 
 Father and I are more alike about friends. 
 We don't have them so much to exchange sen- 
 timents with as we do for general purposes of 
 amusement. We both like fools, rather; that 
 is, people that are silly and healthy and good- 
 looking, and know their way about. That's 
 why I like the Webster girls and Tommy 
 Nevers, and that 's why Father is always having 
 lunch with ladies with earrings and green tur- 
 bans, and men like Jimmie Greer. I like Jim- 
 mie, but I defy any other member of our re- 
 fined family circle to find a good word to say 
 for him, except that he 's the friend of Father's 
 bosom. 
 
 It was Jimmie that Father thought he could 
 get to go with him on the Canadian trip. 
 Mother was dead against it because he drinks 
 so much, and when it turned out that Jimmie 
 could n't go anyway she was as pleased as if 
 somebody had handed her a present. 
 
 "I don't like Jimmie Greer," she said; "he's 
 coarse-fibred. Your father would n't get the 
 benefit of his trip if he were with him."
 
 14 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "I don't see how he's going to get the 
 benefit of his trip anyway," I argued; "he 
 hates to go alone so, and he's starting off so 
 unsatisfied." 
 
 "It's too bad he has to go at all," Mother 
 said. 
 
 "Men are very childish things, Mother. 
 You ought to know." 
 
 "It's too bad," Mother repeated. 
 
 "Too bad they're childish things?" 
 
 "Too bad he's got to go." 
 
 "But they are," I said. And they are. 
 Oh! dear me. 
 
 It seems to me that if Mother wanted to 
 know anything about Father, she'd just have 
 to get right down to brass tacks and study 
 Bobby. 
 
 The night that Father went away I felt 
 rather childish myself. The dinner was per- 
 fectly punk for one thing. We had veal which 
 Father hated, and macaroni, which he hates 
 worse, and corn fritters, which he never eats, 
 and rice pudding, which I don't think any man 
 ever eats. Delia is a pretty good cook, but 
 Mother ordered this dinner, and so she pro- 
 duced it. Father ate a little, and then went off
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 15 
 
 into the living-room and sulked. I put my 
 arms around him, but that only seemed to add 
 insult to injury. Mother tranquilly knitted, 
 and the Angel spoke lovingly of the Adriatic, 
 and Esthonia, whatever that is. 
 
 Then Ellery Howe was announced, and 
 Father quit cold. I cornered him in the hall 
 with his hat on. 
 
 "Whither away, Daddy?" I said. 
 
 "I'm going out to get something to eat." 
 
 "Take me." 
 
 "I don't think so." 
 
 But he would have if Tommy Nevers had n't 
 put in his appearance at that instant. 
 
 "You'll have to go away, Tommy," I said, 
 "because I'm going out with Father." 
 
 "She isn't, though," Father said. "Take her 
 off my hands, Tommy." 
 
 "It's Father's last night," I said. 
 
 Father's reply to this was merely to go out 
 and shut the door. 
 
 "Let's go into the dug-out," Tommy said, 
 meaning the lounging-hole I've made out of 
 my dressing-room. 
 
 "No, I want to go to walk," I said; "and if 
 you know anything that will take the taste of
 
 16 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 rice pudding out of my mouth I would be very 
 gratified to have some of it." 
 
 "We used to drink claret lemonade," 
 Tommy said regretfully. 
 
 "They used to raise live-stock right on 
 Broadway," I said. 
 
 We walked along the Drive for a while, and 
 Tommy told me what he thought about wo- 
 men. He certainly thinks a lot about them. 
 He likes a girl that knows where she gets off, 
 and that makes a fellow comfortable, and 
 that keeps herself right up to the mark. He 'd 
 prefer to have her have a permanent wave if 
 she gets it done right, and to have her be a 
 good sport without ever getting out beyond a 
 certain point where the ice is too thin. I know 
 it all by heart. 
 
 "Well, Tommy," I said briskly, "I think I 
 answer all those qualifications, except the 
 permanent wave." 
 
 "Oh! you do," Tommy assured me ear- 
 nestly. 
 
 "I strive to please," I said. He has n't any 
 sense of humor. "If you were a man," I 
 added hastily, "and you got the kind of a wife 
 that was n't all those things, and it kept drag-
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 17 
 
 ging on and on and everything going wrong, or 
 wrongish all the time, what do you think that 
 you'd finally come to do about it?" 
 
 "I don't know," Tommy said uncertainly; 
 "make the best of a bad bargain, I suppose." 
 
 "But just practically, what would you do?" 
 I said. "Supposing your wife would never go 
 with you anywhere or let you spend any 
 money on her or anything? Supposing she just 
 got to be kind of lackadaisical about you, and 
 sat around refusing to be a sport for no par- 
 ticular reason?" 
 
 "I'd find somebody that would be a sport, 
 then." 
 
 "But that would be rather hard on your 
 family, would n't it?" 
 
 " I would n't have a family under those 
 circumstances," Tommy argued. 
 
 "But you can't always pick and choose 
 whether you will have a family or not! Sup- 
 posing you had one first, and then this lack- 
 adaisical condition developed afterward, what 
 would you do?" 
 
 "Well, this is a man's world," Tommy said, 
 rather threateningly. 
 
 We wandered over to the Hotel La France a
 
 18 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 little later, and found our same little table 
 over against the side wall. I adore having the 
 same table, and Tommy is pretty adequate 
 about getting it for me. Tommy is so much 
 better than nothing that I often wonder what 
 I should ever do without him. I don't like 
 suitors, but then I don't very much like these 
 good old chums that let you pay for your own 
 refreshments. I don't know why it is that a 
 boy thinks more of you if you eat at his ex- 
 pense than at your own, but such indeed is the 
 case. The Angel is economically independent 
 on money that Grandfather earned for Grand- 
 mother, when she was parasitically bringing 
 eight children into the world. I have no such 
 advantages, so I can't marry anybody but a 
 conservative. 
 
 After we had been sitting there for a while 
 drinking ginger ale, and waiting for the Peach 
 Melbas we had ordered, in came Father with 
 Jimmie Greer, and one of those ladies in ear- 
 rings that Jimmie imports every little while. I 
 had a moment of real pang, because it would 
 have been so much more suitable if I had been 
 there with Daddy and all the others were 
 non est.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 19 
 
 "There's Mary," Jimmie Greer said, in- 
 dicating me. 
 
 Father consigned me to the nether regions 
 without an upward glance, and the lady 
 stretched in my direction. She was wearing an 
 imitation moleskin coat with a squirrel collar 
 of all things and an iridescent hat shaped like 
 a salad bowl, with a hearth-brush effect over 
 the right ear, the curved kind of hearth-brush 
 that gets into all the corners and crevices. 
 
 "There's your father," said Tommy. 
 
 "You've seen him before this evening." 
 
 "He wants us to go over to his table." 
 
 "He does n't; Jimmie Greer does." 
 
 "Who's the vamp?" 
 
 "She's Jimmie's vamp." 
 
 Father came over to speak to me. 
 
 "I ran into Jimmie and Mrs. Van der 
 Water, a friend of his. I '11 just have a sand- 
 wich and run home. Don't stay out too late 
 yourself, Kitten." 
 
 "Who is Mrs. Van der Water?" 
 
 "A Canadian woman, a friend of Jimmie's. 
 I never met her before." 
 
 When I got home Mother was sitting up 
 and waiting for Father. Stella was receiving
 
 20 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 one of her semi-weekly visits from her hus- 
 band, but they went off into her own room the 
 moment they saw me approaching. Cosgrove 
 had had his hair cut, which gave him a rather 
 bereft appearance. A man who has the habit of 
 wearing his hair long always looks so distrait 
 without it, some way. 
 
 What do you say to your mother when 
 you've just seen your father basking in the 
 smiles of a hand-painted siren, breaking the 
 prohibition laws with the aid of a concealed 
 flask and three bottles of White Rock? The 
 ash of Ellery Howe's Panatela was still smoking 
 in the jade ash-tray he brought her. Every- 
 body has a right to enjoy themselves in their 
 own way everybody who is decent, that is. 
 I hate to stir up anything. 
 
 "There's beer on the ice, dear," Mother 
 said to Father, when at last he did come in. 
 
 "I've had a drink," Father said, with a sus- 
 picious look at me. 
 
 "Where?" Mother asked. 
 
 "At the La France. Greer had it in his 
 pocket." 
 
 "He'll get arrested some of these days," 
 Mother said.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 21 
 
 "It's my last night, Helen," Father said 
 slowly. 
 
 "I know it. I must get to bed so as to be up 
 to get you off in the morning." 
 
 "I wish you were coming." 
 
 "I wish I were, Robert, but it's so much 
 money for such a short time." 
 
 "I wish you'd come with me, and spend it." 
 
 Then they kissed, and Father went off to 
 his room and Mother to hers. The voice of 
 Stella and her shorn radical could be heard 
 ever and anon echoing through the apart- 
 ment. There was a gorgeous and glorious 
 moon over the Drive. I could see it from my 
 window, and I stood there and cried. There 
 did n't seem to be anything about life our 
 my life to get your teeth in.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A FEW days after Father's departure Ellery 
 Howe took me to a picture show. Mother had 
 a headache, and he decided that I was better 
 than going alone. Stella would n't go for some 
 reason best known to Stella. I think the rea- 
 son that Mother had a headache was that 
 Father telegraphed her that morning, asking 
 her if she wanted him to get her a full-length 
 seal coat worth twelve hundred dollars for half- 
 price. Of course Mother wired in a panic that 
 she would n't wear it under any circumstances, 
 but the incident upset her. Poor Mother, she 
 grew up poor, and it about kills her to spread 
 out. She just can't seem to believe that our 
 income will bear our weight. She's got what 
 the Angel calls a complex about it. 
 
 I put on my crimson feather turban which I 
 am crazy about because it's the first mature- 
 looking hat I've ever had. A woman of forty 
 could wear it, and it's very smart, too. It 
 goes very well with my suit, which is beaver 
 color and trimmed with beaver. Ellery cast a 
 very slight look of satisfaction on me as we
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 23 
 
 started on our way. I ought to know more 
 about art, and so I am always glad of any 
 chance to look at pictures with anybody who 
 knows anything about them. Ellery talks too 
 much gibberish to be of much use, but some- 
 times I get a gleam. 
 
 "What are we going to see?", I asked en- 
 couragingly, as the bus conductor changed 
 Ellery's dollar bill into dimes and nickels. I 
 always like to put the fares into the automatic 
 collector, myself. Once I put in eight before 
 the conductor could stop me, but I would n't 
 tell Ellery anything like that for worlds. 
 
 "We are going to see" he fed in the two 
 dimes "mostly studies in abstract form. 
 There are to be a few portraits in the new 
 manner, but the color studies are the inter- 
 esting things." 
 
 "They are not Cubistic, are they?" 
 
 "Well, not exactly. This particular exhibi- 
 tion is by a group who are just about halfway 
 between the Cubists and the Vorticists." 
 
 "The which?" I said. I was watching the 
 automatic collector nibbling dimes. I always 
 feel as if somebody who was clumsy would get 
 a real nip if he did n't watch out.
 
 24 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "The Vorticists. You know what a vortex 
 is." 
 
 I could n't think what it was at the mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "Is that what they do, paint vortexes?" I 
 asked, to gain time. 
 
 "Well, no, not exactly. They see motion in 
 terms of static form, though sometimes they 
 convey the actual vibration by some effect 
 with color. Don't you remember seeing the 
 Primitives in the art museum with halos 
 about their heads, crudely representing scin- 
 tillation?" 
 
 "The entire class went to see the Italian 
 Primitives once. I liked them because they 
 looked like things I could have done myself." 
 
 "Exactly. That's the whole modern theory, 
 reversion to the simplest art expression we are 
 capable of." 
 
 " Why don't they draw pictures of cats and 
 dogs and houses?" 
 
 "They are trying to get away from the pres- 
 entation of any literal image, any concrete 
 idea." 
 
 "What are they trying to do?" I said. It 
 was hard to keep my mind on what he was
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 25 
 
 saying because, speaking of vortexes, that was 
 what Fifth Avenue was as we skimmed along 
 it, a whirling, swirling mass of color and per- 
 sonality and life. 
 
 "They are trying to appeal to the imagina- 
 tion by achieving a balance of abstract color 
 and form." 
 
 "But why?" I said. 
 
 When we got inside the gallery the interest- 
 ing thing was Ellery, though I admit the pic- 
 tures themselves were fearful and wonderful. 
 Seriously, that 's what they were fearful 
 and wonderful. After you studied them for a 
 while you got afraid. 
 
 "They all mean something," Ellery said. 
 
 "I can't see what this means." It was a 
 canvas covered with long curved things like 
 ladies' stockings, some with feet in them and 
 some just twisted once, all in the most gor- 
 geous and brilliant colors. 
 
 "It's just a design." 
 
 "But what 'sit for?" 
 
 "Just a study in color and form." 
 
 "You really like it?" I said. 
 
 "Better than anything else here." 
 
 "What do you get out of it?"
 
 26 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Beauty." 
 
 "But there is n't any there." 
 
 "Look again. Take a good five minutes." 
 
 I did, and I got sort of hypnotized. There 
 was a personality behind that picture just the 
 same as there is behind other pictures. I sud- 
 denly got awfully homesick for Whistler's 
 picture of his mother. 
 
 "It's better than I thought," I admitted; 
 "it might mean something to somebody, but 
 not to me." 
 
 "If any man is strong enough you feel him 
 through his medium," Ellery said. 
 
 I looked at him critically. He has big velvet- 
 brown eyes and a sweet smile, and he wears 
 putty-colored clothes with solid-color ties, 
 mostly in brilliant orange. 
 
 "What do you mean by Beauty?" I asked 
 him as we wended our way up the Avenue. 
 It suddenly occurred to me that he must mean 
 something by the way he goes about things. 
 There's milk in every cocoanut, they say. 
 
 "What do you mean by it?" 
 
 " I don't know very much about it." 
 
 "It's the thing behind every art im- 
 pulse."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 27 
 
 "But I have n't any," I said. 
 
 "Well, neither have I," Ellery acknowl- 
 edged; "but I think perhaps Beauty is my 
 religion just the same." 
 
 "I read a poem by Masefield the other day, 
 you know the one on growing old. 'Be with 
 me, Beauty, for the fire is dying.' Beauty 
 seems pretty real to him, does n't it? I think 
 when I get to be that age I '11 be more likely to 
 write a poem that says, 'Be with me, Amos or 
 Bessie,' or somebody." 
 
 Ellery did n't crack a smile. 
 
 "There are lots of poems about it," I mused. 
 "Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty, that is 
 all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know/ 
 Is that what you mean by having it for a reli- 
 gion?" 
 
 "Something like that." 
 
 "Do you like new poetry as well as you like 
 new art?" 
 
 "I don't understand it so well." 
 
 "I understand it better," I said; "when it's 
 idiotic I know it's idiotic. I don't get the art 
 so straight." 
 
 But Ellery had gone off into a sort of coma. 
 
 "Beauty," he said, "beauty. 'Helen, thy
 
 28 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 beauty is to me, like those Nicean barks of yore, 
 that dumpty o'er a dumpty sea!" I forget 
 his exact words; what I was struck with was 
 the fact that my mother's name is Helen. 
 
 We walked home practically in silence, 
 though I annoyed him somewhat by sing- 
 songing a poem I found in a collection of 
 modern verses the other day: 
 
 "We have a one room house, 
 you have a two room, three room, four room. 
 We have a one room house 
 because a one room house is all we have. 
 We have a one room house 
 because we do not want 
 a two room, three room, four room. 
 If we had a two room, three room, four room, 
 we would want more than a one room " 
 
 and so on ad infinitum. 
 
 Ellery knows a lot, and has got very high 
 ideals about life. I don't know why it is that 
 whenever I drop into serious human con- 
 versation with him, I always wish that I 
 had n't. I feel that same way about the Angel, 
 except that with her I never even try it on. 
 
 Mother was sitting up in a pale-blue hostess 
 gown when we got back to the house, looking 
 so stricken and motherish that she almost dis-
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 29 
 
 armed my suspicions, but not enough so that 
 I got out of the way. 
 
 "I hope your headache is better," Ellery 
 said; "we missed you, Mary and I.'* 
 
 "Uncle Ellery missed you," I said. I had 
 never "uncled" him before, and he looked a 
 little surprised. 
 
 "I did n't feel equal to it," Mother said. 
 
 "It's been some time since you complained 
 of a headache." Ellery looked at her anx- 
 iously. 
 
 "I don't always complain of them." 
 
 "I know," Ellery said. 
 
 "I've been a little troubled in some ways." 
 
 4 Poor Helen." 
 
 "Well, we all have our little problems." 
 Mother smiled bravely. A fat problem she had, 
 as to whether or not to decline a thousand 
 dollars' worth of furs besides having al- 
 ready declined them. I decided then and there 
 to write Father to get me a cross-fox set if he 
 could. 
 
 "Mother," I said suddenly/ "what do you 
 think about all this new art stuff? Do you 
 think it's going to get anybody anywhere?" 
 
 Mother smiled at Ellery.
 
 30 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "She's a terrible child," she said, indicating 
 me; "she always asks that about everything." 
 
 "Well, do you?" I insisted. 
 
 "It depends on where you are going," she 
 said, matronizing me. 
 
 "I don't know where I'm going," I said, 
 " but I 'm on my way . Are you?" 
 
 "I said she was a terrible child," Mother 
 sighed. She's really quite cute when she 
 kittens with Ellery. 
 
 Finally I took pity on them, and went out 
 into the kitchen to make them some cinna- 
 mon toast and tea, it being Delia's day out. 
 I like our kitchen, and I spend all the time 
 I can there when it is n't encumbered by 
 Delia. Mother has blue-and-white checked 
 gingham sash curtains, and blue-and-white 
 linoleum on the floor. The tubs and shelves 
 are all done in white oilcloth, and there is an 
 enamel-topped table, very convenient to sit 
 on and swing your feet, and a kitchen cabinet 
 that makes cooking an aesthetic delight. I love 
 order and immaculateness, though I am not 
 one of those who can reduce things to that 
 state unaided. Once aided, however, I can 
 keep them going. Cinnamon toast is quite an
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 31 
 
 art. You don't want it either crumbly or 
 gooey. Mother loves it. Anybody but Mother 
 would be fat on what she eats, but not she 
 not her. Age cannot wither her scrumptious 
 figure. 
 
 Ellery came out into the kitchen to say that 
 Mother would take lemon, instead of the 
 habitual cream, but personally he would stick 
 to the English manner. 
 
 "The English have milk," I reminded him. 
 
 "Well, I '11 have milk." 
 
 " Cream is what you usually have." 
 
 "Oh! is it? Well, I'll have that, then." 
 
 Personally I can't see why you 'd call having 
 milk "the English manner" even if you knew 
 the difference, which you so often don't. 
 
 "I'm really a little worried about your 
 mother," Ellery said. "She seems so distrait." 
 
 "She is," I said. 
 
 "I hate to have her begin those headaches 
 again." 
 
 "Well, maybe she is n't beginning." 
 
 "She looks well." 
 
 "She is. She had a chance to go to Canada 
 with Father, but she would n't. Father thought 
 that would set her up."
 
 32 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 Ellery looked conscientious. 
 
 "Maybe it would have been wiser for her,*' 
 he said. 
 
 "She could n't leave us. Stella might have 
 got the colic or something." The brown sugar 
 and cinnamon were acting up. I stirred them 
 frantically. 
 
 "Mary," Ellery said solemnly, "your mo- 
 ther is a very rare human being." 
 
 "Do you think so?" I said, waving the 
 saucepan in midair so the stuff would n't 
 granulate. 
 
 "She's very highly organized, and she 
 suffers from a million petty annoyances that a 
 less sensitive creature would n't even know 
 the existence of." 
 
 "Well, maybe," I said. The kettle boiled 
 over opportunely. Ellery helpfully began 
 spreading toast for me. 
 
 "She's succeeded in making a very beauti- 
 ful life for herself. I realize that, but in a 
 sense it is a life that is very hard for her. 
 She 's miscast, one might almost say. She was 
 made for a larger scope of existence." 
 
 "What do you mean larger scope?" 
 
 "A freer, more facile existence. One can
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 33 
 
 imagine her the mistress of a salon, or in a 
 European country the presiding genius of a 
 group of diplomats. She has great social gifts, 
 you know." 
 
 "You think she would n't have headaches if 
 she had a salon?" I said. 
 
 "She would be better poised physically if 
 she were in perfect accord mentally and 
 spiritually." 
 
 "Would n't we all?" I asked flippantly; but 
 there was something in Ellery's face that made 
 me add quickly, the way I do to Bobby when 
 he has n't been taken seriously enough, "I'm 
 going to think it all over." 
 
 We bore the tea-tray together back to the 
 living-room. Mother was poised in the big 
 carved Spanish chair, with her head drooping 
 a little, and one little silver shoe stuck out 
 from beneath her blue dress. She might have 
 been anything in the world excepting my 
 mother. 
 
 Ellery drew in a sharp breath of admiration. 
 
 "Helen, thy beauty is to me " I said to 
 myself. 
 
 It's just all I can do to think of the possi- 
 bility of my mother or father ever having
 
 34 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 married any one else. It's positively uncanny 
 to work back to a period where your respected 
 parents were thinking of breaking their en- 
 gagement to one another. It leaves you so out 
 in the cold. It makes my hair slowly rise any 
 day of the week to think of the Mayor of 
 Toledo, for instance, who once inquired of 
 Mother if she would be his wife. But this 
 Ellery business is something else again. I 
 wish I knew what to think. Mother is n't 
 Guinevere or anything. But does she know 
 where she's going? Does Ellery sweet soul 
 think he can go on forever watching over 
 Mother's head, and deploring the absence of 
 a gilded salon for her Mother who won't 
 take the sealskin offerings that the gods are 
 hankering to provide for her? 
 
 Maybe some other kind of life would have 
 brought her out more. I suppose she is a rav- 
 ing beauty. I for one would like to see her al- 
 ways in velvets with chiffon hangings and 
 silver slippers; but if all we've got to hold out 
 for is the kind of life for which we're best 
 fitted, why, I, as Stella so frequently remarks, 
 don't see the logic of it.
 
 CHAPTER in 
 
 THE Webster girls live in a house, a real 
 house with an upstairs and a downstairs, and a 
 back yard with a police dog chained in it. I 
 know the girls are rather silly, but I adore 
 going there. Their chief object in life is to get 
 out of doing anything that is expected of them. 
 For instance, they are supposed to get up to 
 breakfast, but they have all kinds of devices 
 to cheat their family, and bribe the cook into 
 letting them stay in bed. Sometimes one of 
 them pretends she is sick, and the other 
 Mertis usually brings enough breakfast for 
 both of them to her bedside. Or they get the 
 waitress to fill a thermos bottle full of coffee, 
 and then they drink it with zwieback or Lorna 
 Doones that they have smuggled in from the 
 grocer's. Of course, this does n't appeal to me 
 so much, because Bobby will bring in my 
 breakfast any time I ask for it, and he fixes it 
 very nicely, too. He never slops the coffee or 
 slides the things around on the tray. 
 
 "Excuse my pajamas, Sister," he says.
 
 36 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 Bobby is awfully cute when nobody is hound- 
 ing him into being a perfect gentleman. 
 
 Marion is the prettiest Webster, but I think 
 that Mertis has the most character, if you 
 can speak of character in connection with 
 either of them. They look a little like the 
 Dolly sisters, if you have ever seen them in 
 musical comedy, which I have n't. They are 
 not twins, but they dress alike. This winter 
 they both had gray-squirrel capes, the long 
 kind to the bottom of their dresses, with deep 
 yokes to their waists, and they wore black 
 hats with big orange pins in them. All their 
 clothes are cute. 
 
 Of course, they have n't an idea between 
 them. All they care about is making lingerie, 
 and going to shows and dancing, but I like 
 them. I spend whole days with them. Mrs. 
 Webster likes to have me because she thinks 
 I 'm a restraining influence. I 'm not. I like to 
 see them perform, and I'm pretty likely to 
 start them going again whenever they stop for 
 breath. 
 
 It 's curious that they are so gay and giddy, 
 with that kind, [white-haired father, and gen- 
 tle, frilly mother. I guess their parents were
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR S7 
 
 older than mine are now when they were born. 
 They've got a married brother that looks 
 positively patriarchal as compared with my 
 young daddy. 
 
 If I could get the parents of my friends to- 
 gether in one room sometime I 'd have the fun- 
 niest collection anybody ever saw. Tommy 
 Nevers's mother is the president of the Wo- 
 man's Civic Union, and she always wears a 
 uniform. Cosgrove's father has been in jail, 
 and I've got a girl friend whose mother dyes 
 her hair pink, and is married to a boy of 
 twenty-two. She is n't half bad either, and 
 Prunella is the lambiest lamb I almost ever 
 knew. Good old Southern family, and all 
 that. Stella says that it's the children that 
 educate their parents. Well, it's a lucky 
 thing that we don't have to have them all at 
 school together. Corporal punishment would 
 n't do for all alike, but some of them would 
 need it badly. 
 
 The most successful affair that the Websters 
 gave was that orchid tea in January, a real 
 th& dansant in their own house. The whole 
 place was banked with lavender flowers, 
 mostly mums, but the girls themselves wore
 
 38 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 orchids and pale mauve Georgette frocks 
 the most ravishing things I 've ever seen in my 
 life. They had their hair dressed at Richard- 
 son's, brushed back from their forehead and 
 pulled way out over their ears. They had a 
 string quartette, and the fattest caterer I ever 
 saw. Every one took him for a guest. I wore 
 peach color with my hair banded around my 
 head. Even Stella, whose general idea of eve- 
 ning dress is a Batik portiere, sans stockings, 
 thought I looked satisfactory, and said so. 
 
 I love the smell of a party, flowers and 
 chicken salad and ices and talcum powder; with 
 a kind of general odor of dressmaking estab- 
 lishments brooding over everything. When I 
 stood in the front hall I got my first whiff of it, 
 and often when I am with Carrington Chase, 
 whom I met there for the first time, the general 
 scent of that party comes back to me, just as 
 it smelled on my first entrance upon it. You 
 don't always have as good a time as you ex- 
 pect at parties, but I did at that one. 
 
 Carrington Chase is a peculiar person. I like 
 him better than almost any one I know, but a 
 lot of people can't stand him. He has n't the 
 conventional type of manners. When Mertis
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 39 
 
 introduced us, for instance, he just looked at 
 me, under his winglike eyebrows. 
 
 "This is Mary," Mertis said; "I've told 
 you all about her. Miss Blair, Mr. Chase." 
 
 "So it is," Carrington Chase said, "Mary." 
 
 "I've heard a good deal about you, too," I 
 said. 
 
 "I did n't know your eyes were going to be 
 gray," he said. 
 
 "They are n't going to be; they are," I re- 
 torted. 
 
 He has a quizzical, rather benign smile, and 
 hair that stands straight up on end. He's 
 quite young, and looks very old until you come 
 to examine him closely. What I like about 
 him is the downright way he says what he 
 thinks, and what he wants. 
 
 "Come and sit over here on this sofa," he 
 said, "and tell me about it." 
 
 "About what?" 
 
 "About Mary Blair and what she thinks of 
 the world." 
 
 "There's nothing much to tell." 
 
 "There's everything to tell," he said ear- 
 nestly. "I'll wager my lucky penny that I 
 know your reaction to this party, and all par-
 
 40 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 ties like it." I never heard anybody say 
 "wager" before. "You want to know what 
 the whole silly show is about." 
 
 "Why, yes," I said, "I do. Not that I think 
 this is a silly party." 
 
 "Oh! yes, you do." 
 
 "I don't," I maintained. 
 
 "But it's a part of the show that you can't 
 accept unthinkingly." 
 
 "Well, no, I can't." 
 
 "It's all in those big gray eyes of yours. 
 They've challenged life, I suppose, ever since 
 you first opened them on it." 
 
 " I 'm not exactly intellectual," I said. " My 
 sister Stella, Mrs. Cosgrove Worthington, is 
 the prominent member of our family." 
 
 " Mrs. Cosgrove Worthington Stella Blair 
 you mean. Is she your sister? My Lord!" 
 
 "Did n't Mertis tell you that?" 
 
 "No, she did n't. My Lord!" he said again. 
 
 " She 's my sister just the same," I said. 
 
 "Amazing!" 
 
 "I don't think you sound very flattering," 
 I said. "Stella is rather nice when you come 
 to know her." 
 
 "Oh! I suppose she is. But you are nicer."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 41 
 
 "I'm not generally supposed to be very 
 important, and she is." 
 
 "You're delicious," he said, "and she is n't. 
 I'll bet you never read a book on Political 
 Economy in your life." 
 
 "Well, I have n't. I got one out of the li- 
 brary once, but Father said if it was political it 
 was n't economy. Sometimes things like that 
 stick in my mind and spoil a subject for me." 
 
 "I'll wager you went to boarding-school." 
 
 "I did with Mertis and Marion." 
 
 "You play?" 
 
 "Yes, some. Not Beethoven. Not Scriabin." 
 
 He laughed. When he laughs he throws his 
 head up suddenly, and all his gleaming white 
 teeth show. His eye-teeth are rather fangy, 
 but not unpleasantly so. 
 
 "Are you an artist?" I asked. 
 
 "Not I. I'm in the export business." 
 
 "You don't look like a business man." 
 
 "I have the dilettante temperament." It 
 was the first time I had ever heard any one 
 say "dilettante." 
 
 "You look like an artist," I said. 
 
 "You look like a rose. Let's dance," he 
 said, and we did.
 
 42 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 It was n't that he danced so well as far as 
 the mere steps were concerned, but our danc- 
 ing together was just as if one person was mov- 
 ing, instead of two, not only moving but glid- 
 ing, swaying, and standing poised like one 
 human being. 
 
 "That was beautiful," he said, as we found 
 our seats again. 
 
 "Yes," I said. 
 
 "I'm going to break into this." Marion 
 pounced upon us, with a desiccated blond 
 thing in tow. "I'm going to dance with Car- 
 rington myself, and Mr. Miffen is crazy to 
 dance with you, Maisie. Mr. Miffen, Miss Blair. 
 Now, you know each other." 
 
 "How do you do, Miss Blair?" Mr. Miffen 
 was slightly cross-eyed. I had all I could do to 
 refrain from starting in by telling him that 
 French story of the lame man and the cross- 
 eyed lady: "Comment vous portez-vous?" 
 "Comme vous voyez." But fortunately he 
 expected me to dance. It was lucky I did n't 
 expect him to. 
 
 When he said good -night to me Carrington 
 asked if he could come to see me. He also 
 asked if I would go out with him and dance
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 43 
 
 at different places sometimes. That was n't 
 so easy to answer because, excepting going to 
 the Hotel La France, which is near home, with 
 Tommy Nevers, or the crowd, my public ap- 
 pearance with interesting young men has 
 been conscientiously frowned on. Mother had 
 such a hard time with Stella's professional 
 indiscretions, and they began so early, that 
 I've been kept more or less done up in ab- 
 sorbent cotton. Still I put up a front, and 
 accepted on the spot. I Ve never regretted it. 
 His first call on me was n't the most suc- 
 cessful thing on earth. In the first place, he 
 hates cats, and Omar Khayyam, fresh from 
 the coal, where she always goes when Bobby 
 takes her down to visit the janitor, made a 
 flying leap for his shoulders when he first 
 came in. After Omar Mrs. Omar she ought 
 to be Bobby came in eating something; 
 and Mother did n't look as nice as usual, and 
 was very expansive about spiritualism. I 
 don't think many people like to have seances 
 described out at length. It's all right to tip 
 tables, and make them lurch around the place 
 groaning and spelling out people's dead friends, 
 but I don't think a mere long recital of these
 
 44 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 manifestations is very interesting. After Mo- 
 ther, the Angel threw him a dissatisfied look, 
 and then settled down to do her duty by him. 
 Cosgrove does n't believe in talking to any one 
 unless you like them, and he carefully says so 
 to any one he does n't like, but Stella has n't 
 got Greenwich Village manners, only ideas. 
 
 After Stella had put him through his paces, 
 he soon went away, and the next time I saw 
 him I met him at the La France and we 
 danced. Since then I Ve seen him a good deal 
 at the Websters' too. 
 
 He was with us on the worst bat I ever went 
 on in my life, and I still remember it with the 
 cold shivers creeping up and down my spine. 
 Of course, it was just Marion's craziness, and 
 it came out all right in the end, but I thought 
 at one time that we should all end up in the 
 night court. It began more reasonably than 
 most things do, but it went on and on like a 
 nightmare. 
 
 We went to walk first, and we got so far 
 down the Avenue the girls preening and 
 strutting along the way they do, and not 
 flirting so hard that every decent-looking man 
 they met turned around to see why not that
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 45 
 
 they insisted on going home in a taxi. Now, 
 I'm not supposed to taxi much unless I go 
 with a guardian. Mother's read a lot of sto- 
 ries about taxi bandits, and she thinks I 'd be 
 drawn and quartered at the very least if I 
 dared to climb into a cab without a chaperon, 
 but the girls insisted, and there were three of 
 us, so I swallowed Mother's scruples and went 
 along. 
 
 We'd just given the chauffeur my address 
 when we saw Carrington loping along the 
 Avenue, and we got him in. While we were 
 arranging him in our midst Marion spoke 
 softly to the driver and told him to go out to- 
 wards the Drive instead of taking us home. 
 So he did. It was a long time before any of the 
 rest of us woke up to the fact, because we were 
 fooling over a box of caramels Mertis had in 
 her muff, and Carrington was holding her hand 
 and trying to make her give them up to him, or 
 else stroking her on the cheek and calling her a 
 nice little kitty. It 's curious that he seems to 
 like all that kind of palavering with the girls 
 when his attitude to me is so different. He 
 always talks to me about my philosophy and 
 the fineness of my sensibilities.
 
 46 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "You'd better put me down, somewhere," 
 he said warningly when he found out the true 
 state of things; "I've a dinner engagement 
 and it's five-thirty now." 
 
 "We'll put you down at the end of the sub- 
 way," Marion said daringly. 
 
 "Well, if you do it in less than half an hour." 
 
 We drove on and on. Marion got out once 
 and gave the chauffeur some instructions, and 
 finally Carrington demanded to know what 
 was happening. 
 
 "We're going to your old subway station 
 now," Marion said, "but if you have n't really 
 got a dinner engagement you may just as well 
 come along. We have n't got any money to 
 pay for the taxi, but we're going to keep on 
 beyond Yonkers where my uncle lives, and 
 get it of him." 
 
 "You little devil," Carrington said; "I 
 have n't money enough to pay for it." 
 
 He has n't very much money. His job is a 
 more important than lucrative one. I think 
 it is so nice of him spending so much on me for 
 teas and dancing. 
 
 "But have you a dinner engagement?" 
 Marion persisted.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 47 
 
 "I have." 
 
 "Could you break it?" 
 
 "If I don't turn up, my hostess will draw the 
 obvious conclusion, that I found something I 
 liked better." 
 
 "Please stay," I said; "I'm getting fright- 
 ened." 
 
 "All right," he said. 
 
 Well, to make a long story short, when we 
 got to Marion's uncle's the house was closed 
 up. The family had gone to Florida. By that 
 time the chauffeur was getting quite nasty. 
 We just told him to go back again that 
 was all. 
 
 In Yonkers Carrington got out and bought 
 about a million sandwiches and ginger ale 
 to go around. The meter went up in leaps 
 and bounds. It was seven dollars before we 
 turned around. Mertis was so frightened her 
 teeth were chattering, but Marion was be- 
 having like a sport. She always does when it 's 
 her funeral. She made the mistake of telling 
 the chauffeur not to go to her house address, 
 after all, but to go on downtown to another 
 uncle's. She had just remembered that her 
 father and mother were dining out, and she
 
 48 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 did n't want to tell the servants. The chauf- 
 feur was so suspicious that this was the finish- 
 ing straw, and he began threatening to have us 
 arrested, and everything. 
 
 "It's a good lesson for the girls," Carrington 
 whispered to me; "they do crazy things like 
 this all the time." 
 
 "You won't let it go too far, will you?" I 
 besought. 
 
 He made a little tunnel with his hands. 
 
 "No," he breathed through it. 
 
 At the end we did go back to the Webster 
 house, and we did n't find Mr. and Mrs. 
 Carrington took the money out of his pocket 
 and paid for the cab. He 'd had it all the time. 
 Of course, instead of being grateful the girls 
 were furious. 
 
 "I'll send it to you to-morrow morning," 
 Marion said, thinking he would decline it, but 
 he did n't. I guess he thought they needed 
 more of a lesson. 
 
 He walked home with me, and left me at my 
 door. He held my hand longer than he ever 
 held it before. I suppose he knew that I had 
 been frightened, though, of course, it was silly 
 to be when he was there all the time.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 49 
 
 "Your eyes are as big as saucers," he said, 
 examining them. 
 
 "You've got rather big eyes yourself," I 
 
 said. He has; they are a little like Omar's, 
 
 only much more beautiful, blue and sleepy. 
 
 "All the better to see you with, my child." 
 
 "Well, as long as you don't eat me up." 
 
 "I won't promise that," he said.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 WHENEVER I am inclined to think that there 
 are too many puzzling elements in my life, all I 
 have to do is to think how many more of them 
 Prunella Page has. Compared with hers my 
 life is as simple as a game of solitaire. After 
 all, I only have to play my own hand. Pru- 
 nella's mother drinks, and she's a vamp be- 
 sides. I 've always had the vague wish that we 
 had some really aristocratic blood in our fam- 
 ily. We have way back, but so far back that a 
 lot of grocers and ship captains and things got 
 in between us and it; but the Pages belong to 
 such a good old family that nobody till this 
 present generation ever worked for a living. 
 Mrs. Page was a famous Southern beauty, and 
 yet she's killing Prunella with the most out- 
 rageous antics. 
 
 Prunella is lovely. She has long slim legs 
 and ankles, and regular piano-playing hands 
 I could n't stretch an octave until two years 
 ago. Her face is a little too long, but she fluffs 
 her lovely light hair out over her temples, and
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 51 
 
 looks like a daughter of the gods, divinely tall, 
 and most divinely fair. I do like poetry. 
 
 She does n't talk much about her mother, 
 not about the real inwardness of her affairs, 
 but the mere facts she enumerates are often 
 blood-curdling. In the first place, this twenty- 
 two-year-old husband wants to get a job and 
 earn his living, and Mrs. Page won't let him. 
 She has n't got very much money, but she 's 
 afraid to let him out in the world for fear his 
 pristine innocence will be worn off, and also 
 that he won't have so much time to devote 
 to her and the Pekingese, Reggie. From the 
 time she gets up in the morning till she takes 
 down her henna hair at night (I call her the 
 Henna Madonna), Prunella and Guy are kept 
 on the rapid jump with soft pillows and smell- 
 ing-salts, and hot coffee and aromatic spirits of 
 ammonia. She is n't sick at all, only the kind 
 of delicate that women get when they've got 
 lots of vitality and won't take any exercise to 
 work it off. They make the other fellow take 
 the exercise from sheer joy in swift movement, 
 I think. Then, when she gets too awfully bored 
 even to have a tantrum without help from out- 
 side, she begins to drink a little until she winds
 
 52 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 up completely pickled, to put it inelegantly. 
 She'd be a peach to look at if she hadn't 
 roughened a naturally poor skin with rouge 
 and stuff, and if it were n't for that hair, 
 but Prunella and Guy evidently see past the 
 Cubistic decoration to the work of art itself. 
 Prunella speaks of her mother's looks with 
 bated breath. Well, so do I. 
 
 I was having my struggles with Bobby the 
 other day when Prunella came to see me. I 
 don't suppose I am specially fitted to pry 
 into Bobby's development along certain lines, 
 but there is nobody else in our family to do it. 
 He certainly does n't think that babies come 
 from cabbages, and I've seen a look in his 
 eyes when Mother was speaking guardedly of 
 Stella that made me think he ought to discuss 
 the matter with some member of his own fam- 
 ily. Mother certainly was n't much help to me, 
 though she would have been if she had thought 
 fit to time her discussion of the facts of life 
 about three and a half years earlier than she 
 did. Of course, Bobby is eleven. I have al- 
 ways meant to get up my nerve to tackle 
 Father about it, but I never did. I don't 
 think much of the school Bobby goes to. It's
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 53 
 
 a compromise between Mother and Stella 
 Montessori and water and a lot of bad little 
 boys go to it. I will say if Bobby could look 
 anybody in the face when they were talking to 
 him like a Dutch uncle it would be me. I was 
 glad to see Prunella in spite of the interrup- 
 tion. Bobby untied the bows on my shoes and 
 slid out toward the door, but when he met 
 Prunella coming in, he said: 
 
 " How do you do? I guess it 's going to rain," 
 very politely in passing. 
 
 "Maisie, I want to ask you something," 
 Prunella said, without many preliminaries. 
 "I can't think what is the right thing to do. 
 I know you have ideas on what is right and 
 wrong in certain situations." 
 
 "Well, sometimes, I have," I said, "but 
 not so often as you'd think." 
 
 "What I want to ask is whether or not you 
 think you have a right to suppress facts from 
 people that they might distress too much?" 
 
 "Yes," I said, "I do." 
 
 "What I mean is well, you know what 
 a highly nervous condition my mother is in. 
 She is n't quite normal. She does n't sleep 
 much, and what sleep she gets is n't really
 
 54 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 restful sleep. She tosses so much in bed. I have 
 to keep pulling the bedclothes over her all 
 night long." Nice job for Prunella, is n't it? 
 
 "I know," I said. 
 
 "Well, I saw somebody she loves doing 
 something she would n't like. Not a very 
 harmful thing, if you come to think of it, but 
 slightly deceptive. I don't know what to do 
 about it. He well, I may as well tell you it 
 was Guy does n't know that I saw him, so 
 that part's all right." 
 
 "Where did you see him?" 
 
 "At a restaurant." 
 
 "With a squab?" 
 
 "A a chicken," Prunella said explosively; 
 "would you tell?" 
 
 "No, I would n't," I said. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because you're the strongest." 
 
 "Stronger than who?" 
 
 "Stronger than both of them. You have to 
 use your judgment. They have n't got any to 
 
 use." 
 
 "I have n't got much. If it were you, why 
 would n't you tell?" 
 
 "Well," I said, "God does n't tell."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 55 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean that He if there is a He lets 
 things like that happen, and go right on hap- 
 pening to the end. He started this universe 
 with one general idea of letting human life 
 work itself out. He put evil and deceit and 
 everything in to keep it going. Otherwise it 
 would stop." 
 
 "You're too deep for me." 
 
 "Well, all I mean is that if God or Some- 
 thing started things going the way they are 
 going, and He has the courage to let them go 
 on that way, why, then I have." 
 
 "I don't see what that has to do with telling 
 or not telling Mother whether I saw her hus- 
 band buying lunch for a chicken." 
 
 "Well, it has. If you tell it will only com- 
 plicate matters further." 
 
 "I know it, but is it right not to? Is n't it 
 sneaky?" 
 
 I had an inspiration. 
 
 "If you were a doctor," I said, "and your 
 mother were your patient, would you let her 
 be told a thing like that?" 
 
 "No, I would n't." 
 
 "Well, always think of that, then. That's a
 
 56 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 good idea to hold on to. If you don't have an 
 idea like that in the back of your mind you 
 won't be any good in emergencies." 
 
 "Of course, you never have any such prob- 
 lems in your life." 
 
 " Yes, I have," I said, though I did n't want 
 to; "I don't tell." 
 
 Of course, you can't really help anybody un- 
 less you are willing to give them your con- 
 fidence when they've given you theirs, but 
 what you want to do is to keep your own 
 things under your hat mostly. 
 
 In addition to her other troubles Prunella 
 seemed to be getting interested in a man. I 
 could n't be sure, but she spoke about him in a 
 way that she has never spoken about anybody 
 else. He's older than she is, and his name is 
 Anthony Cowles; Tony she calls him. She has 
 known him for a good many years. 
 
 "I wonder if Tony would think it was all 
 right," she mused. 
 
 "No man approves of telling tales," I said, 
 which seemed to satisfy her. 
 
 "I don't think I shall ever get married," 
 Prunella said, apropos of the baby dress I be- 
 gan working on later when we were ensconced
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 57 
 
 in the dug-out. I usually begin with callers in 
 the living-room, and then work toward my 
 own quarters when the family begins to ac- 
 cumulate. 
 
 "I think I shall," I said. 
 
 "Do you ever think about eugenics? Don't 
 you think anybody ought to have an awfully 
 good inheritance in order to be married? " 
 
 "Well, very few people have," I said. 
 
 "Don't you think people ought to be bred 
 like cattle? Only the good specimens allowed 
 to perpetuate the race?" 
 
 "I used to think so, but now I don't think 
 it would work," I said. Stella has expounded 
 the subject so much that I've had to get up 
 some kind of a point of view on it. 
 
 "Why don't you?" 
 
 "Because people are n't cattle." 
 
 "Don't you think there ought to be a law 
 that forbade people who were n't physically 
 perfect, or who had a bad inheritance, to 
 marry?" 
 
 Then I did rather a tactless thing. I put my 
 finger right on the spot where her trouble was; 
 her whole face wore such a wretched expression 
 that I could n't help it.
 
 58 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Don't you go thinking you've got a bad 
 inheritance," I said; "nobody's physically 
 perfect, and nobody's family is above re- 
 proach. This offspring's grandfather" I 
 held up my handiwork "has been in jail for 
 aiding an enemy alien, but what difference 
 does it make? He or she won't be branded by 
 it or anything, and if it goes to jail itself for 
 the same or other crimes, it will be on its own 
 head. That's the way I look at it." 
 
 "But if its grandfather had any really bad 
 habits like drinking or anything?" Prunella 
 trembled. 
 
 "Yes, but if its mother and father did n't. 
 Look at it practically," I said; "wouldn't 
 you rather have a chance to be born into al- 
 most any nice family you know than not to 
 have it? Every family has its drawbacks, but 
 supposing they all refused to have children, 
 what would happen to the world then? What 
 would have happened to us if our mothers and 
 fathers had come to that decision?" 
 
 "Sometimes I wish that mine had," said 
 poor Prunella. 
 
 After she had cried a little on my shoulder 
 she felt better.
 
 BEAUTY - AND MARY BLAIR 59 
 
 Tommy Nevers came in and created a di- 
 version. He knows a man who knows Tony 
 Cowles, whom he calls "Scowls," and thinks 
 that he is about the finest fellow that ever 
 breathed, so they had a pow-wow about that, 
 and Prunella went home happier. As a matter 
 of fact, I don't think her mother's drinking is 
 very serious, considered as a menace to pos- 
 terity. It's just hard on Prunella. 
 
 Sometimes I think it 's a greater responsibil- 
 ity to have a mother than to be one. Maybe 
 Stella's oncoming offspring will find it so. 
 Stella believes in eugenics like anything, but 
 she does n't believe there is any mote in the 
 family eye. I'm not so sure. She's sort of 
 queer herself , and Father is n't a very strong 
 character, or very well when he is n't looked 
 after properly. He wrote Mother a very funny 
 kind of letter, which was brought in to her just 
 after Prunella's departure, when I was having 
 these reflections on the subject of perpetuity. 
 
 Mother did n't quite know what to make of 
 it, so she passed it around. It is a good idea 
 never to write Mother anything that you 
 would n't be willing to share with the janitor 
 and the elevator man.
 
 60 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Dear Helen:" he said, "Canada is a rotten 
 place, but I have thought seriously of never 
 leaving it. Could you, would you by any 
 chance think of joining me in Montreal before 
 I go farther West? If you would, please wire 
 me at once. We could go into camp for a week 
 as we planned. We could have quite a cheerful 
 time bumming around and seeing the sights. 
 
 "I don't feel very much married, and that's 
 the truth. I should be glad to have my wife 
 again, and to act as a general guide around the 
 country. I 've had a poor time so far, but you 
 could fix all that. Helen, will you come? 
 
 "I've had the collywobbles, but they're 
 better now. You know how these attacks go. 
 Miserable for a day; but next I don't know that 
 I 've got a stomach. Then the trouble all over 
 again. 
 
 "There are shows and all kinds of good 
 eating, and some drinking. We could be very 
 happy. I wish you would send me that wire. 
 It is n't a good idea to let a husband loose too 
 long. You 'd like it after you got started. I 've 
 got the money, and for God's sake let's spend 
 it together. ROBERT. 
 
 "P. S. For God's sake come."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 61 
 
 "You're going, aren't you, Mother?" I 
 asked anxiously. 
 
 "What would you children do?" 
 
 "What we always do. Stella and I can run 
 the house." 
 
 "You think you can?" 
 
 "We can." 
 
 "I can't leave," Mother said; "Robert 
 ought to realize." 
 
 "Why do you think he said, 'For God's 
 sake come?' Father doesn't say things 
 like that very often." 
 
 "No, he does n't," Mother said; "I suppose 
 he is n't feeling well. I am sorry he had to go. 
 I must send him some warmer things." 
 
 Even Stella thought the letter sounded a 
 little ominous. She said she thought Mother 
 ought to go and bring him home, and have 
 him go through a thorough examination by a 
 diagnostician. Mother said she 'd write him to 
 come home. I could imagine how the prospect 
 of a thorough diagnosis would cheer his wan- 
 ing spirits, and how likely it was that he would 
 hasten home to have it done, but there was n't 
 anything more I could say, so I did n't say 
 it. I got hold of Bobby again instead.
 
 62 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Bobby," I said, "we didn't finish talk- 
 ing." 
 
 "Talking about what?" 
 
 "You know about what," I said. 
 
 "I was n't talking about nothing." 
 
 "Well, I was," I said. 
 
 We paused. If I had n't been holding Bobby 
 by a button I should n't be able to speak in 
 the plural. 
 
 "What do you want me to say?" he asked 
 finally, after I had eyed him for a while; "that 
 I'11-always-be-a-good-little-boy-and-never-tell- 
 a-lie?" 
 
 "No, I don't," I said. "I don't want you to 
 say anything. I want to say something to you. 
 It isn't about Stella; we've talked about 
 Stella." 
 
 "Yes, we have!" he jeered. 
 
 "Well, I have; and I'm through with that 
 subject. Don't mutter," I said, shaking him, 
 "but listen to me. It's about school." 
 
 "What about school?" 
 
 "I know about it," I said, bluffing. 
 
 Bobby looked very scared. 
 
 "I just want you to remember that I know 
 about it."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 63 
 
 "All right. Let me go," Bobby said. "Ouch, 
 you '11 get that button off, and if a big bunch of 
 cloth comes I'll get the dickens." 
 
 "Bobby," I said, "did you hear me?" 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 "Those horridest boys will probably grow 
 up to be criminals. They are n't smart, they 
 are just horrid." I told him about horridness in 
 general as much as I dared, and how important 
 it was to think of such things and understand 
 hygiene and all that. 
 
 "I don't go round with that bunch much," he 
 said; "honest I don't. I wish you 'd let me go." 
 
 "But you listen to them," I said, hazarding 
 a guess. 
 
 "Not much." 
 
 "It's just common sense not to," I said; 
 "you think I'm just a girl and I don't know." 
 
 "Sure, you are." 
 
 "But all I want you to do is to stick around 
 with the decent boys." 
 
 "They are all about alike." 
 
 "No, they aren't." 
 
 "Who's going to tell the difference?" 
 
 " You are," I said unexpectedly; "you know 
 the difference as well as I do."
 
 64 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "All right, let me go." 
 
 "Bobby," I said, "you do know the differ- 
 ence, don't you?" 
 
 " You would n't think there was any differ- 
 ence," he muttered. 
 
 "I don't care what I'd think," I said, 
 "you've got to think!" 
 
 "All right," he said, squirming away for 
 good, but some way I did feel that I had made 
 a little impression.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 IT'S a curious thing about getting blue. You 
 get up in the morning and the sun is shining, 
 and there is lots of hot milk for your coffee, 
 and you get into a clean shirt-waist that makes 
 you look as if you had just been bought at a 
 department store that minute, and yet you feel 
 a general sense of being too discomfortable to 
 live. I don't think anybody ought to feel that 
 way, and I try not to, but I don't succeed. 
 
 It distresses me to death for Mother to be 
 blue, and it makes me equally depressed for 
 Stella to be so composed under all circum- 
 stances. I think if we ever shared any of our 
 moods it would be better, but there is very little 
 class spirit in this family. I cheer the things that 
 Sister jeers at, and Mother remains serenely 
 distressed at her own hallucinations. I think a 
 family ought to coordinate as one man. When 
 the head of it moves either parental head 
 the children ought to wiggle like so many 
 fingers and toes. Well, anyway, they ought to 
 feel some of the same things at the same time.
 
 66 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 Somebody ought to be responsive to some- 
 body. I positively feel grateful to Bobby 
 when he inquires, "What's eating you, Sis- 
 ter?" because he always selects the time when 
 something is. 
 
 I read a long article in the "Athenaeum" 
 on Hunger the other day. As far as I can find 
 out I have all the symptoms that an animal has 
 when it is hungry, only the great difference is 
 that I don't know what I am hungry for. I 
 suppose it's life, really. I am, it appears, in a 
 behavior cycle, which is a state you stay in until 
 you get your result, unless you are interrupted 
 by death or accident, or the intervention of 
 another behavior cycle. You get very restless 
 and uncomfortable, you agitate yourself till 
 you get what you want, and then you get it. 
 That 's the one encouraging thing you get it. 
 Still, it's considerably more abstract to be 
 hungry for life than for food. You get back to 
 the same old question what do you mean 
 life? You'd think that I had life enough with 
 all the people I know, and things I have to do, 
 but none of it seems very feeding, somehow. I 
 sympathize with Father whose great cry is to 
 be utilized.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 67 
 
 His letter from Canada, by the way, was 
 followed by a silence so deep that even Mother 
 got worried, and began wiring him. It was a 
 week before even the telegrams got any result. 
 I think perhaps this item added some edge to 
 my behavior cycle, which was cutting into me 
 most awfully chafing is the word. Every 
 night when I went to bed I cried before I could 
 get to sleep, and then I could n't most likely. 
 
 Carrington Chase did n't come near me for 
 over two weeks at a stretch while this was going 
 on. He did n't telephone me or anything. The 
 only thing I mind about not seeing Carrington 
 is that things get so flat when I 'm not talking 
 or dancing with him two or three times a week. 
 He has his faults, of course, but he makes 
 everything seem so interesting. When he did 
 turn up we had rather a funny evening. I de- 
 cided that he ought to come to the house more. 
 Of course, there is n't any harm in my meeting 
 him at the La France. I meet Tommy Nevers 
 there, and the time is past when you have to be 
 so excruciatingly conventional about your best 
 friends of either gender, but since I had n't 
 been telling Mother exactly the true status of 
 the case I began to feel rather squirmy about
 
 68 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 it. I don't lie to Mother. When she asks I al- 
 ways tell her, but she does n't very often ask. 
 There are a few general rules which she as- 
 sumes I keep inside of, and of course I 'm over 
 the legal age. Eighteen plus is being an adult 
 in these days. 
 
 Well, Mother had Ellery and I had Carring- 
 ton, and we sat off in our separate corners of 
 the living-room and talked earnestly, a part 
 of the time. 
 
 "I have n't seen you for ages," I told him. 
 " I suppose you 've been doing a lot of inter- 
 esting things." 
 
 "Quite interesting," he agreed. 
 
 "Have you been to many parties and 
 theaters?" 
 
 "I've been to some of the openings. I've 
 seen several very bad shows, and one good 
 
 one." 
 
 "What was the good one?" 
 
 "'Sacred and Profane Love.' It develops 
 rather disappointingly, but the first act where 
 the girl comes to the man's apartment is su- 
 perbly done. She has the subconscious in- 
 centive which the man does not understand, 
 and she works for the one result."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 69 
 
 "She has a behavior cycle, has n't she?" I 
 said. 
 
 "A what?" 
 
 I explained, but in rather different terms 
 from those of the "Athenaeum" author. When 
 I read the article it did n't sound suggestive 
 at all, but I suppose when you come to think 
 into it that it is like all science. 
 
 "You're a funny child," Carrington re- 
 marked thoughtfully, after I had elucidated. 
 "You have a very frank mind, and yet a very 
 excessive sensibility." 
 
 I always get sensibility and sensuality 
 mixed up. One means that you are sensitive, 
 and the other means that you are not, that 
 you are a little coarse, in fact. 
 
 " Have I ? " I said. Then I remembered which 
 was which. "I'm not sensitive in the sense of 
 being touchy," I added. 
 
 "I've never seen so much as a flash of tem- 
 per in you." 
 
 "You may some day," I said. 
 
 "Have you missed me all this time? It's 
 been a week or two, has n't it?" 
 
 "It's been two weeks and three days and 
 eleven hours to be exact," I said. "I know be-
 
 70 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 cause it was during the time when we were so 
 worried about my father. He was rather sick 
 in Canada, and we could n't seem to get any 
 news from him." 
 
 "Why did n't you telephone me?" 
 
 "I don't telephone to people much. Be- 
 sides, I thought you 'd telephone if you wanted 
 to see me." 
 
 "That does n't necessarily follow." 
 
 "Have you wanted to see me?" I said. 
 
 "Yes, my dear." 
 
 "Then why?" 
 
 "You know what happened to Little Red 
 Riding Hood?" 
 
 I did n't quite know what he meant by that. 
 He was only trying to get a rise, I suppose. 
 
 "Well, she didn't live to tell the tale," I 
 said. 
 
 "Have you seen Leonard Trask's exhibition 
 at Kncedler's this week?" Ellery asked, lifting 
 his voice across the intervening spaces betweer 
 the two tete-a-tetes. 
 
 "Yes, I saw them yesterday. Rather re- 
 markable studies." Carrington has a great 
 deal of presence of mind always. 
 
 'Now that I think of it I saw you there. 
 
 ..
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 71 
 
 You were with a lady with a long red feather, 
 were n't you?" 
 
 "Mrs. Harten Jones," Carrington explained. 
 "Trask is her cousin. He spent eight months 
 in Alaska doing the things. I think he man- 
 aged to bring away some pretty rugged im- 
 pressions." 
 
 "Big ideas compressed to a simplicity of 
 expression that's astounding." 
 
 " Yes, and on such small canvases, too." 
 
 I went to see them the next day, and I 
 thought they were simply funny. Three un- 
 easy icebergs the way Bobby would have 
 drawn them, and a wudge of cloud. A red 
 man, not really drawn, but horribly smeared 
 against a background of vermicelli stars. Give 
 me the Vorticists ! 
 
 " Would n't you like to get us some ginger 
 ale or White Rock, dear?" Mother said. 
 
 "I'll go," Ellery said. 
 
 "No, let Mary." 
 
 "May I come too?" Carrington asked. 
 
 I showed him the kitchen, and he was de- 
 lighted with it. 
 
 "Let's not hurry back," he said; "they 
 don't want us."
 
 72 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "They want their drinks," I said. 
 
 "They're having a good time. Who is Mr. 
 Howe?" 
 
 I explained. 
 
 "Your mother has known him a good 
 many years?" 
 
 "Why, yes," I said. 
 
 "I've never heard you mention Mrs. Har- 
 ten Jones," I said. 
 
 "Well, she's a friendly acquaintance with 
 whom I sometimes dine and go about a little." 
 
 "A widow?" I asked. 
 
 "Well, not exactly. One of these modern 
 affairs with a husband abroad most of the 
 time, you know." 
 
 "I shouldn't like that," I said; "I don't 
 like modern situations. If I took the trouble to 
 marry a husband I should n't want him to go 
 abroad." 
 
 "I don't think he'd be likely to. You said 
 your father was ill in Canada is he better 
 now?" 
 
 " Well, he was the last time we got any news 
 from him. He was n't really sick, only nerv- 
 ous and depressed. We've lost' him again 
 now, but the mails are so uncertain we don't
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 73 
 
 feel worried at all. Besides, it's nearly time 
 for him to start home again." 
 
 "Are you very fond of your father?" 
 
 "Why, yes," I said. 
 
 "Your mother is a very beautiful woman. 
 Mr. Howe is a fine fellow, too, is n't he?" 
 
 We got all the bottles and glasses together 
 on a tray, and then we sat down on the edge of 
 the table and swung our feet again. 
 
 Carrington slipped his arm over my shoul- 
 der, and we sat there watching the lights that 
 opened on the court, and the different people 
 or shadows on the shades that appeared at the 
 windows one after another. It was very rest- 
 ful. 
 
 Stella and Cosgrove were in the living-room 
 when we went back. The furniture consists 
 mostly of new mahogany and old stuffed 
 chairs; when Mother gets a new thing it has to 
 be good, but personally I 'd rather it would be 
 the other way round, old mahogany that is. 
 The Websters have lovely old highboys and 
 secretaries and things that could stand old 
 stuffed chairs. Still Mother does make a room 
 look cozy with everything the right distance 
 apart, and all that.
 
 74 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 Stella was wearing a cross between a smock 
 and a curtain, in bright green, and she looked 
 lovely. Cosgrove, on the contrary, looked like 
 Bobby before he has washed up after base- 
 ball, only Bobby never needs a shave. Carring- 
 ton had never met him before, and seemed 
 quite pleased to have done so until some- 
 body started something about the presidential 
 candidate. Ellery was for Hoover and Car- 
 rington for Wood, and Cosgrove, of course, 
 for the overthrow of the Government by his 
 dear friends the Reds. They were all of them 
 too well used to argument to get very violent, 
 but the general atmosphere was rather purple. 
 
 Carrington said that General Wood was a 
 gentleman and that all his friends were gen- 
 tlemen, and while that was n't all there was 
 to it, still it would help some. The word "gen- 
 tleman" is like a red rag to Cosgrove, but he 
 almost managed to behave like one under the 
 coercion of Stella's earnest gaze. He does like 
 Stella I'll say that for him. Ellery did n't 
 care who was president as long as it was 
 Hoover! Then they all started on President 
 Wilson, and got together in tearing him limb 
 from limb. Poor old Wilson, I can't help being
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 75 
 
 sorry for anybody that has as many people 
 down on him as he has. I can't help feeling 
 that he 's a good deal like the old lady I used 
 to buy eggs from in the country, who always 
 said that she would have been a very different 
 woman if she had had her health. 
 
 There was something quite humorous about 
 me and Mother and Stella all sitting up with 
 our eagle eyes on our own men, and quietly 
 disapproving of everything each other's man 
 said. Ellery is all right as far as he goes, but 
 that is n't very far when you come to think of 
 it. Cosgrove is all wrong, but he goes farther. 
 Carrington well, he's just fascinating, and 
 what he thinks does n't matter so much. The 
 other two are not in the least intuitive, but 
 Carrington knows everything that any one 
 thinks. 
 
 It must be a queer thing to be in love the 
 way Stella is. Mother and I are just romantic, 
 of course. Mother has a perfectly good hus- 
 band to whom she is devoted, but she likes to 
 have the other sex admire her just the same. 
 I like to admire the other sex. Admiration 
 does n't do me any good. I want to be the 
 admiree, if I can. But Stella, "so calm, so
 
 76 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 cool, so bright " with apologies to which- 
 ever poet it is is really devoted to her un- 
 kempt husband, and likes him as well as being 
 in love with him. They are n't exactly human, 
 of course Bolshevists never are, I guess 
 and it 's a little bit like a fish loving a crab, or 
 two cross-eyed people trying to look at one an- 
 other. Some people have a warm, ruddy glow 
 about them, like a lamp, but the Angel and 
 her cult have an indirect lighting system con- 
 cealed in their ceiling, as it were. 
 
 We sat around a table for a little while to 
 please Mother, who wants very much to get a 
 message from Sir Oliver Lodge's son Ray- 
 mond, and touched little fingers in the dark 
 until we almost fell asleep at least I did. 
 Carrington has a very strong magnetic cur- 
 rent that is shooting as well as stimulating. I 
 could feel the throbbing all through me like 
 somebody's heart beating near you, all from 
 a little pressure of his hand. The table heaved 
 and groaned a little, but it did n't do anything 
 else, and Cosgrove wanted so very much to 
 tell an unpleasant story about a man that was 
 murdered in Paris communicating the details 
 of his death to some friends in Greenwich
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 77 
 
 Village that he was finally encouraged to talk, 
 and the seance broke up. Stella had to keep 
 him in hand very firmly, because I think the 
 story was even more improper than it sounded. 
 Carrington did n't think he ought to tell it 
 anyway. 
 
 I had a little minute alone with him in the 
 hall when he said good-night. We were stand- 
 ing just out of sight by the door, and Mother 
 and Ellery were conversing in low tones on the 
 seat in the bend of the hall. 
 
 "Good-night, Little Red Riding Hood," he 
 said, and then he did a thing I did n't like, I 
 don't know why. He ran the tips of his fingers 
 from my elbow to my wrist. 
 
 "Good-night," I said, putting my hands be- 
 hind me. 
 
 "I was very glad to meet your sister," he 
 said. 
 
 "She is lovely looking, if she is my sister." 
 
 "I like those vine leaves she wears in her 
 hair," he said, "and your mother is very 
 lovely, too." 
 
 Mother's voice rose for a moment. 
 
 "I'm not an unhappy woman," she was 
 saying, "only perhaps a misplaced one."
 
 78 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 Ellery's answer was too low for us to hear. 
 
 "It's a curious family for a little girl like 
 you to be growing up in." 
 
 "I'm not a little girl/' I said; "I am older 
 than you think." 
 
 "You are pretty wise," he said; "you'd 
 have to be." He seemed to be weighing my 
 wisdom. "What do you think of it all, I won- 
 der," he said. 
 
 "What all?" 
 
 He did not answer. 
 
 His face was very close to mine, and sud- 
 denly a funny thing happened. I thought that 
 Mother kissed Ellery around the corner of the 
 wall. I could n't possibly have seen her if she 
 had, and I know now it was only my imagina- 
 tion, but I backed away from Carrington in- 
 voluntarily. 
 
 "What's the matter?" he said. 
 
 " I felt a little sick for a moment," I answered 
 truthfully. "I don't know why." 
 
 "You're a funny child," he said. 
 
 I am, I suppose, and sometimes I wish I 
 were a little funnier or less funny. I wish the 
 whole family were.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 I SAW the ambulance coming down the block, 
 and it beat me to the door. Even when I stood 
 aside to let the internes pass me I had no idea 
 of the real truth. It was only when I heard the 
 blond one asking the door man if Mrs. Blair 
 lived in the building that I began to get an 
 inkling of the facts. Mother was n't in for- 
 tunately, as emergencies are rather apt to take 
 it out of her. 
 
 Stella and Bobby and I got the room ready, 
 and by the time they had got Father into bed 
 with ice on his head, and hot-water bottles at 
 his feet to draw the blood down, he began to 
 show signs of regaining consciousness. I got 
 Stella out of the room as quickly as I could. 
 She was perfectly composed as usual, but she 
 began to turn terribly pale about the eyes, and 
 I was afraid that just physically she could n't 
 stand the racket. Bobby is the clumsiest boy 
 on earth when anybody 's looking at him, but 
 very quick with his hands when he is n't ob- 
 served and self-conscious. I found out what 
 to do, and Bobby and I did it.
 
 80 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 Then I sat on the edge of the bed very quietly 
 until Father opened his eyes. 
 
 "Well, Baby," he said, and shut them again. 
 
 "Well, Daddy," I said, and slipped down to 
 the floor, still holding his hand, and went to 
 sleep almost as soon as he did. The doctor had 
 told me he would drop off into a natural sleep 
 after he came to himself. 
 
 "I wish I had let you go," he said drowsily 
 once. 
 
 "I wish you had, Daddy." Then he was off 
 again. 
 
 It was some time before I got at the facts 
 hours that is. Mother did n't come in. She had 
 gone to a concert with Ellery, and then they 
 went somewhere to dinner. She tried to get 
 us by telephone, but the operator had told her, 
 in her usual convincing fashion, that there was 
 no such number as ours, and that the tele- 
 phone was out of order besides, which is the 
 usual way the telephone company adds insult 
 to injury. 
 
 "Were you sick like this all the time?" I 
 demanded, when my patient began to show 
 signs of We again. 
 
 "I was n't sick at all. I only kept on feeling
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 81 
 
 rottener and rottener. I was taken sick on the 
 train, and pretty nearly cashed in, I guess." 
 
 "But how did you even get home?" 
 
 "There was a doctor, and they tried to go 
 through my clothes for identification marks. 
 I came to enough to give them my address, 
 and tell them to shove me in a taxi and send 
 me to it." 
 
 " You did n't come home in a taxi, Daddy," 
 I said, and I described his entrance at length. 
 
 "Where was your mother?" 
 
 "Gone out to a concert with Ellery." 
 
 "What time is it now?" 
 
 I looked at my wrist-watch. 
 
 "Eight o'clock." 
 
 "She stayed out to dinner," he said. 
 
 I told Bobby to watch out and break it to 
 her gently. 
 
 "I don't want to see her to-night," he said. 
 
 "She she never goes out like this," I 
 said, " she does n't really. This is the first 
 time since you've been gone she was ever out 
 to dinner, without one of us anyway." 
 
 "That's all right," Father said; "I don't 
 care. Was that Bobby who put a water bottle 
 at my feet?"
 
 82 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 ic Yes, but I thought you were unconscious." 
 
 "It was pretty hot." Father smiled. 
 
 " Did he burn you? Bobby would be awfully 
 mortified." 
 
 "We won't tell him," Father said; "get him 
 in and let me look at him." 
 
 "Do you want to see Stella, too?" I said. 
 
 "Not unless it's absolutely necessary." 
 
 Bobby was sitting forlornly in the hall when 
 I called him. I had forgotten to report to him, 
 ancj, I guess he had been pretty scared sitting 
 all alone there. 
 
 " Is he worse? " he said in sepulchral tones. 
 
 "No, Son, I'm better," Father called from 
 the bed. 
 
 I put my arm around him, and found he was 
 shaking with nervousness, but he pushed me 
 away. "How are you, Father?" he said, ap- 
 proaching the snowy surface of counterpane, 
 under which stretched Father's limp contours; 
 "did you have a pleasant trip in Canada?" 
 
 "Very pleasant, thank you," Father smiled; 
 "sorry to come home in such bad shape." 
 
 "Oh! that was all right," Bobby said. 
 Father had never talked to him quite in that 
 vein before.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 83 
 
 "Thank you for looking out for me, you and 
 Mary." 
 
 "I did n't mind," said Bobby. 
 
 "I was pretty far gone for a while." 
 
 "Did n't you know it when you were riding 
 in the ambulance?" 
 
 "He did n't know he was in an ambulance," 
 I explained. 
 
 "Gee! "Bobby said. 
 
 I shooed him out when Father began to get 
 tired, but outside of the door he held me up. 
 
 "What's he got?" he asked in those same 
 deep tones. "Apoplexy or something?" 
 
 "No; just acute indigestion." 
 
 "Why, anybody has that!" 
 
 "Well, people can die of it just the same," 
 I said, not realizing that later we were going 
 to hear of somebody we knew who did. 
 
 Mother was more upset to find that Father 
 had come home sick without finding her on the 
 job than she was at the mere fact of his illness. 
 Of course, the worst of that was over when she 
 came back. I kept her from going in to see 
 him as long as I could, but she went just the 
 same. He put up his hands with a little hope- 
 less gesture, as if she had come too late, though
 
 84 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 it was a very good time for her to arrive, if she 
 had to arrive after the first excitement at all. 
 She stood looking at him with her little close 
 blue toque still draped about her head. 
 
 "I am so sorry," she said; "oh! Robert, 
 why did n't you telegraph?" 
 
 He made the same gesture with his hands, 
 palms up. 
 
 "Are you sure you're better now?" 
 
 "Yes, Helen," he said. 
 
 She sat down beside him and put her hand 
 on one of his. He let it stay there, but he did 
 not move one of his little fingers. 
 
 "Are you sure there is nothing I can do for 
 you?" 
 
 "Not now," he said. 
 
 "Has Mary done everything the doctor or- 
 dered? Would n't you like it if I slipped into 
 some different clothes, and then came back? 
 Would n't you like to have me stay with you? " 
 
 "Not any more," Father said heavily. 
 
 "I could just as well." 
 
 Father turned on his pillow and shut his 
 eyes, still with his hands open and the palms 
 turned upward. It was hard to understand his 
 not having anything to say to Mother.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 85 
 
 I would almost rather be sick myself than 
 have any one else be. When pains are racking 
 my slender frame I know their location, and 
 just exactly how well I am going to be able to 
 stand them. When anybody else is sick you 
 suffer for two, yourself and them. I suffered 
 for Father all that week, because his sickness, 
 as they say, was more of the soul than of the 
 body. Not that acute indigestion is any joke 
 it is n't. 
 
 He did n't have a nurse, so I was it, aided 
 and abetted by Stella, with Mother in charge, 
 of course. She is quite good in cases of sickness, 
 and she did her duty faithfully by Father, but 
 he did n't react to her, somehow. He liked to 
 have me or Bobby in the room, or just to lie 
 back and shut his eyes. He was wondering 
 most of the time what was the use of getting 
 well, and what particular excuse he had for 
 existence in the bright roomy apartment for 
 which he had hitherto so cheerfully paid the 
 rent. I knew. 
 
 He sent me to his office for his mail, twice, 
 and both times I brought him an accumulation 
 of pale lavender letters in a feminine hand- 
 writing, which he waited to read till he was
 
 86 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 alone. There is no doubt that it's uncanny 
 to have your father or mother philandering, 
 however innocently. I felt as if those laven- 
 der letters were positively snaky, and I hated 
 to bring them into the house as if they were 
 so much poison. With my head, of course, I 
 could only grant Father his right to a corre- 
 spondence with a lady. When I get a husband, 
 however, I hope to stand for all the elements 
 comprised in lavender note-paper, and long 
 red feathers, myself. The funny part of it is 
 that Stella is the only member of our family 
 who believes in the freedom of the sexes, and 
 neither she nor Cosgrove cares anything in the 
 world about philandering. 
 
 Sometimes I think Father tried to talk to 
 me about it all, but I just automatically stopped 
 him for some unknown reason. I can be of as- 
 sistance to him in other ways, but not that way. 
 
 I was helping him sort and classify his busi- 
 ness letters one day when I came upon a bill 
 for a thousand dollars for a Hudson seal coat. 
 
 "I did n't know you got Mother that coat," 
 I said. 
 
 "She wouldn't have it," Father said, not 
 noticing what I held in my hand.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 87 
 
 "But you got it for her just the same." 
 
 "I did not," said Father. 
 
 "Here's the bill." 
 
 "Let me have it," he said, sitting up sud- 
 denly, and putting out his hand for it. "That 
 was a mistake. I I countermanded the or- 
 der." 
 
 "What a pity when you had already paid 
 for it." He had, for the bill was receipted. 
 I had a vision of long, sweeping lines of rich 
 seal sweeping about my young form. "What 
 was it trimmed with?" 
 
 "Skunk," Father said briefly; "no, beaver. 
 It was changed for me." 
 
 "I wish you had brought it home to me." 
 
 " I wish I had," said Father, " but it would n't 
 have done. Don't don't say anything about 
 it to your mother. She had her chance at it." 
 
 Father adores women's clothes. He does n't 
 take such an interest in mine because he 
 does n't understand flapper garments so well. 
 Peter Pan collars and tam-o'-shanters discour- 
 age him, but let me put on sleeveless pink 
 chiffon or anything soft and trailly with a 
 waist-line he insists on waist-lines to Stella's 
 disgust and he 's my willing slave. I wish he
 
 88 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 liked to take me to places more, but he says he 
 can't talk like Tommy Nevers, and if he could 
 he would n't have the nerve. I think he is dis- 
 couraged with the memory of the night I took 
 him to the La France with the Webster girls. 
 They treated him the way they do anything 
 else masculine under ninety -five, and it rather 
 palled on him. He liked the way they looked, 
 but when he began his own little line of small 
 talk Marion interrupted him with baby stuff 
 all the time, and finally told him that if he was 
 good she would dance with him after she had 
 had another strawberry ice cream. Mertis re- 
 minded him that if he was good he would be 
 lonesome, whereupon with the muttered re- 
 mark that it would be a welcome change he 
 abandoned us to our fate, only reappearing 
 in time to pay our check. He wants to be 
 amused, Daddy does, but the thing that amuses 
 him the most is to be amusing to other people. 
 I don't quite fill the bill, because we've got 
 such a difference of taste in jokes, but he used 
 to be very funny and sweet to Mother and sim- 
 ply love talking to her. Now he does n't care. 
 I think her not going on the Canadian trip was 
 the mistake she made.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 89 
 
 As usually happens, my cogitations led me 
 to the subject of Carrington very often while I 
 was doing my duty to Father. I 'm not natu- 
 rally secretive, only discreet, and I'd rather 
 talk about the things I think about if I can. 
 Besides, I thought if Father knew what a good 
 friend I have it might vaguely cheer him up, 
 cheer him up to know that people did have 
 such relationships. Of course, Carrington is n't 
 only a friend, he's an ideal. He knows about 
 me, and what I think and feel. If Father only 
 had somebody like that he would n't be so 
 listless, so I began to dilate on Carrington's 
 good qualities. 
 
 "Where do you see him?" Father asked; 
 "in the bosom of the family?" 
 
 "Sometimes," I said, "but the bosom is so 
 full most of the time that I meet him places 
 like the La France and at the Webster girls'." 
 
 Father gave a reminiscent shudder. 
 
 * ' Anywhere else ? " 
 
 I named our dancing haunts, and Father 
 considered them. 
 
 "I would n't go to the Rotunde," he said, 
 "or Bealy's." 
 
 "Are the other places all right?"
 
 90 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "I should n't have said your mother would 
 have let you go to them." 
 
 "Mother doesn't know," I said; "do you 
 think I ought to tell her?" 
 
 "I think you ought," he said. 
 
 "She'll stop me going." 
 
 "I suppose she will. Why do you want to 
 go?" 
 
 "I like to dance, and I like to be with Car- 
 rington." 
 
 "Are you sure he is all right?" 
 
 "The Websters have known him for years, 
 and he goes about with all the girls I know. 
 Ellery knows him." 
 
 "Then your mother thinks he 's all right. He 
 probably is. Trot him in sometime, and I'll 
 look him over. Not that I 'm much of a judge." 
 
 "Father," I said, "I don't think I'll tell 
 Mother, if you don't mind." 
 
 "Oh! I don't mind," said Father; "I prob- 
 ably ought to, but I don't. You can't get any- 
 thing to drink any more. It's your mother's 
 lookout to see where you go. I don't think 
 your morals will suffer." 
 
 "You don't care much about my morals, do 
 you?" I said saucily.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 91 
 
 "I don't care much about anybody's morals 
 any more," he said. 
 
 I told Carrington about this whole conver- 
 sation. I have got into the habit of telling him 
 almost everything that is on my mind at all. 
 I like the philosophical slant he gets on me, 
 and the way he helps me to deal with my 
 problems. Some people might call him rather 
 cynical, but I like his kind of cynicism. It 
 seems so real. The other people I know take 
 life so much as a matter of course that it's 
 quite frightening life and death. 
 
 It was Prunella Page's stepfather who died, 
 the little young man that her mother married 
 before he was of age, and it was my first ex- 
 perience since I was a little girl of having any- 
 body die who was connected with my own 
 friends in any way. He died of acute indiges- 
 tion, suddenly and without any warning when 
 he was standing at the telephone trying to 
 telephone for the doctor for Mrs. Page who 
 thought she was getting sick. Well, I could n't 
 get over it, or get any help or comfort about 
 it till I saw Carrington. Everybody seems to 
 take death so coolly when it is n't their own 
 immediate connection. You 'd think that going
 
 92 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 out of the world was just one of the explained 
 things that people could be criticized for and 
 gossiped about. 
 
 "I understand why you wanted me," Car- 
 rington said; "you're frightened." 
 
 "Yes," I said, "I am, and I'm awfully 
 chilled too. It seems so strange that anybody 
 I know could die like that." 
 
 "That is the way it seems, isn't it?" he 
 said. 
 
 "Prunella is n't a very deep girl," I said, 
 "she's just sweet. I don't mean she's shallow, 
 but she can't seem to get any hold on her- 
 self." 
 
 "How did her mother take it?" I had told 
 him everything about her mother but one 
 thing. 
 
 " She is n't has n't been quite herself 
 since," I said. 
 
 "Does she seem to realize it?" 
 
 "I don't think she does," I said; "she does 
 n't see any one but Prunella." 
 
 "Poor kid." 
 
 "Prunella is fortunate in one thing, just the 
 way I am. She has one friend who under- 
 stands the way she feels."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 93 
 
 "A man friend?" 
 
 "Yes, Tony Cowles," I said. 
 
 "Do you know Tony Cowles?" 
 
 "I've never seen him." 
 
 "I went to college with him." 
 
 "Oh! is n't that exciting?" I said; "did you 
 like him?" 
 
 Carrington deliberated. 
 
 "He was all right," he said; "he had a su- 
 periority complex, but he was all right." 
 
 "I never heard of a superiority complex." 
 
 "Neither did I," Carrington laughed, "but 
 he had one." 
 
 "Prunella says that he's awfully quiet and 
 unassuming." 
 
 " He may be. He 's the pedagogic type, that's 
 all." 
 
 I don't know why it worried me to have 
 Tony Cowles called pedagogic, but I suppose 
 it was only because I knew he was being so 
 heavenly sweet to Prunella in her need. 
 
 "It is n't so much having Mrs. Page's hus- 
 band die," I said, "that has upset me. It's 
 it's people's attitude. They don't seem to 
 know." 
 
 "Know what?" said Carrington softly.
 
 94 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Know anything. They just talk and talk 
 and talk about it." 
 
 "They do." 
 
 "I think there is only one thing to realize 
 when people die, if you only could, but I 
 can't. I feel as if I were the only person in 
 the world that was even trying to realize this 
 about him." 
 
 "Realize what, dear?" 
 
 "That when you're dead you're dead," I 
 blurted out; "and he's dead." 
 
 "Yes," Carrington said, "he's dead." 
 
 "And he was n't fit to die," I said; "why, 
 I'm not fit to die. I have n't worked any- 
 thing out, and he why, he was really shallow 
 and uneducated and stupid." 
 
 "Poor little man," Carrington said. Then 
 he added, "Don't be frightened, dear, death 
 is the greatest adventure, you know." 
 
 "But he was n't an adventurer," I said. 
 
 He put his arm around my shoulders, and 
 we sat still meditating. It's very warming to 
 have any one who understands your inmost 
 thoughts the way he does mine. I don't think 
 that Tony Cowles is really pedagogic. 
 
 After a while I went on to tell him about
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 95 
 
 Father, and the fur coat that Mother would n't 
 let him buy her, and the way I felt when I 
 found the receipted bill among his letters. 
 
 He gave a little exclamation at this. 
 
 " You don't think that Father really bought 
 the coat for me, and is keeping it for a sur- 
 prise, do you?" 
 
 "No," Carrington said; "he didn't buy it 
 for you." 
 
 "It's a pity he didn't, isn't it? I should 
 have looked so well in it." 
 
 "You look very well now," he said; "all 
 these philosophical agitations are good for you. 
 To-night you are almost beautiful." 
 
 "That's nice," I said. He wouldn't say 
 beautiful even if he meant it. He does n't ex- 
 press himself that way. 
 
 "You understand," I said, "and nobody 
 else does. I can't just accept things the way 
 they come. I've got to work them out some- 
 how, or I can't stand it. My mind or my soul 
 or whatever it is grows more and more hun- 
 gry all the time. I 've got to know. You realize 
 that about me, don't you? I've got to find out 
 what it's all about." 
 
 "You certainly have," Carrington said. "I
 
 96 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 hope somebody will have the courage some 
 day to teach you beautifully." 
 
 "I've got to know," I repeated, "I've got 
 to know." 
 
 "You've got to feel," Carrington said, 
 gently.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 IT occurred to me that perhaps my relation 
 with Tommy Nevers might come under the 
 general head of philandering, and I got so wor- 
 ried about it that I sent for Tommy, and put 
 in a whole evening trying to find out. I will 
 say that I succeeded in mystifying Tommy 
 greatly. He 's a queer boy he cerebrates 
 so much, and with so little result, that it's 
 funny, when you come to think of it, that I 
 should have chosen him for the object of my 
 solicitations. 
 
 We settled down in the dug-out, and he 
 made the air of that semi-private retreat foggy 
 with his special brand of cigarettes. If any 
 one in the vicinity was having a few surrepti- 
 tious whiffs at the same time it was quite un- 
 noticeable. Anyway I never have smoked in 
 public places. 
 
 "I've had a rather hard day at the office," 
 Tommy said. He's been out of college six 
 months, and had his job six weeks. 
 
 "Have you? "I said.
 
 98 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "There's a great deal of red tape to be as- 
 similated in a big office like ou*s." 
 
 "I suppose there is," I said, wondering how 
 I could get the subject of our personal relations 
 uppermost. 
 
 "My day goes like this. I get up in the 
 morning, shave, dress, breakfast on the cus- 
 tomary orange juice, oatmeal, and eggs." 
 
 "The citric fruits are rather out of favor 
 just now," I said, quoting Stella. 
 
 "And coffee." Tommy did n't scorn the in- 
 terruption, it just did n't penetrate. "Then I 
 hustle to the subway. While I 'm in the train 
 I try to concentrate on the day's work. I go 
 over in my mind the possible emergencies I 
 will have to meet, and then I mentally attack 
 the day's routine. By the time I 'm actually at 
 Bowling Green I ' ve made a real beginning, by 
 getting a lot of preliminary thinking out of the 
 way." 
 
 "That's fine," I said. 
 
 "If you use the first fresh vigor of your 
 mind for planning the day's campaign you 
 have an advantage over the man who has n't." 
 
 "You are interested in business, are n't you, 
 Tommy?"
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 99 
 
 "Yes, I am. A young man starting out the 
 way I am brings his opportunity to his job. 
 It is n't the job that's the opportunity. The 
 opportunity is in himself." 
 
 "Well, I suppose it is," I said. "Do you 
 ever see Carrington Chase downtown? He's 
 in the export business, you know." 
 
 "My interests are all in concrete, nothing 
 else takes much of my attention." 
 
 "I thought you might meet him out to 
 lunch, or something." 
 
 "I have n't," Tommy said; "I thought he 
 was rather a tea hound and all that sort of 
 thing. I always meet him whenever I go any- 
 where to tea." 
 
 " He could say the same thing of you," I said, 
 "and you're not a tea hound." 
 
 "I don't pretend to be a ladies' man," said 
 Tommy. 
 
 "Neither does he." 
 
 "I thought he did," Tommy said; "look at 
 the way he hangs around the Webster girls." 
 
 "The Webster girls!" I said. Poor Tommy, 
 he has n't got a very fine caliber and he does 
 n't understand much about life. 
 
 "They are nice enough girls, but they don't
 
 100 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 carry any weight. I like a woman with some- 
 thing in her bean. Look at you, for instance; 
 I like to put in a lot of time with you, be- 
 cause you're such a good listener, and when 
 you do advance an idea it always agrees so 
 well with what I think myself." 
 
 "It seems to," I said with deep double 
 meaning. 
 
 ; ' You've got horse sense," Tommy said; 
 "I like a girl that makes a fellow comfort- 
 able, but that knows where she gets off just the 
 same; a girl that's a good sport, but does n't 
 want to get out where the ice is thin." 
 
 "And that's got a permanent wave if it's 
 done well enough," I supplemented. 
 
 "That's just a matter of appearance," 
 Tommy said. 
 
 "Why do you like to be at the beck and call 
 of a girl?" I asked. 
 
 "I don't know that I am," Tommy said. 
 I did n't remind him that he was at my beck 
 and call. "I like to sit around and talk about 
 things, and tell girls what I think of them, and 
 all that." 
 
 "What other girls do you like to do that 
 to?" I asked practically.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 101 
 
 "There aren't any others," Tommy said, 
 "specially." 
 
 " Well," I said, "if I were you I'd find a few." 
 
 We finished up the evening by going to make 
 a call on Prunella, poor lamb. Every time I 
 see her my heart begins like a toothache. Now 
 that she has n't her stepfather to bear the bur- 
 den with her Mrs. Page puts in all her time 
 vamping her, eating her up as if she was so 
 much good nourishment. I don't see how Pru- 
 nella lives, even in a hotel. 
 
 I was a little sorry we had come when I 
 found that we had interrupted a visit from 
 Tony Cowles. They were sitting together on 
 the couch in their small gimcracky sitting- 
 room, and she had evidently been telling her 
 troubles and having them sympathized with. 
 The door had been set ajar for us, and we went 
 right in without ringing the bell. Mrs. Page 
 of course I ought to call her by her latest mar- 
 ried name, which is Pemberton, but I never do 
 does n't like to have the bell rung. She was 
 not visible, but she was audible from time to 
 time. 
 
 Tony Cowles was an entirely different per- 
 son from anything I had expected. He was
 
 102 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 tall and blond and shy, with the best manners 
 I have almost ever seen. When I put my hand 
 in his he held it for a second, and looked at me 
 without smiling. I knew he was examining the 
 kind of girl Prunella had for her best friend in 
 her hour of trouble. I smiled at him to show 
 him that I wanted to do the best I could for 
 her, and his answering smile was like a flash of 
 light. Some people smile like that. 
 
 "I'm awfully glad you came," Prunella said. 
 
 "I'm awfully glad to be here," Tommy said 
 in a voice as solemn as Bobby's. 
 
 "I've been trying to persuade Prunella to 
 walk around the block with me," Tony Cowles 
 said, " but she does n't seem to be persuadable." 
 
 "There is nothing so refreshing as a little 
 fresh air," Tommy said. 
 
 I knew Tony Cowles knew that was funny. 
 
 "Mother does n't like to have me leave her." 
 A low moaning from the inner room seemed 
 to bear Prunella's testimony out. 
 
 "Tommy and I will stay," I said; "it will 
 only be a few minutes." 
 
 "Oh! I don't think I ought to," Prunella 
 said. She was so tired she did n't want to 
 start anything new with her mother.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 103 
 
 "The doctor says she must get out every 
 day," Tony Cowles said; "she hasn't been 
 out to-day." 
 
 "I'll go if Mother will let me," Prunella 
 said, but it took her fifteen minutes closeted 
 with that untold parent of hers to get it ar- 
 ranged. 
 
 Then it was decided that Tommy was to 
 take Prunella out, and Tony and I were to 
 keep guard outside her door. Tony being a 
 friend of the family could rush in and restore 
 her if she fainted, I suppose, but she did n't. 
 She just kept up a continuous murmur of 
 suffering. 
 
 "I'm very worried about Prunella," I said 
 to Tony Cowles, as the door closed on Tommy's 
 sweetly solemn invitation to Prunella to come 
 through it. 
 
 "What shall we do about her?" Tony 
 Cowles asked. 
 
 "Well," I said, "I don't know." 
 
 "If I can get Mrs. Pemberton into a san- 
 atorium could you put Prunella up with you 
 for a while?" 
 
 "Yes," I said, "but we have n't got a very 
 restful place, I am afraid. It's a fairly good-
 
 104 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 sized apartment, but it's got a lot of large 
 people in it." 
 
 "That would n't do." 
 
 "It might for a week or so." 
 
 "No," said Tony Cowles. I understood why 
 they called him "Scowls" then. "She needs 
 immediate rest. She ought to be somewhere 
 that she can relax. If I make some plan to 
 send her into the country, or even to turn over 
 my apartment in town to her for a while, could 
 you go with her?" 
 
 "Yes, I could," I said. I was rewarded by 
 another one of those smiles. Tony Cowles 
 likes people who don't shilly-shally, as well as 
 I do. 
 
 "We'll call that settled," he said, and we 
 shook hands on it. It is n't always true that a 
 handshake is an indication of character; at 
 least I don't think it is, for Carrington has 
 n't the kind of a grip that makes you realize 
 how sympathetic he is, but Tony Cowles, on 
 the contrary, has. His personality is certainly 
 very restful. 
 
 "Do you think you can handle Mrs. Pem- 
 berton?" I said, more straightforwardly than 
 I had meant to speak.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 105 
 
 "I do," he said, with a kind of click of the 
 jaw. 
 
 "Prunella won't think she ought to go, but 
 you think ?" I could n't finish my sentence 
 because I really did n't know what I wanted 
 to say. 
 
 "I think she ought to be " 
 
 "Choked," I finished for him. 
 
 He did n't seem quite so lover-like as I had 
 expected, but he was nicer than my wildest 
 dreams of him. In fact, I liked him better 
 than any man I had ever met, excepting Car- 
 rington. Carrington, of course, penetrates 
 your soul, and Tony Cowles merely weighs 
 you sort of judicially, and waits for you to 
 measure up. I should hate not to, but I think 
 I did. 
 
 Mrs. Pemberton made a noise at this junc- 
 ture, as if she had choked, but nothing further 
 until Prunella and Tommy came in; when 
 Nell had one more session with her, though 
 briefer than the last. 
 
 "There is nothing quite so refreshing as 
 fresh air," Tommy announced, when we were 
 all at last seated again. 
 
 "It is very refreshing," Prunella said; "I
 
 106 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 feel a lot better. I'm glad you made me go, 
 Tony." 
 
 " A brisk walk in good clear air always makes 
 me feel fine," Tommy said. 
 
 "It does me," said Prunella. 
 
 Tony Cowles looked too interested to be 
 true. Of course, he is at least twenty-five, and 
 Tommy is just of age, but I don't think he 
 was ever given to repeating himself the way 
 Tommy does. 
 
 "I think the air uptown in New York is 
 entirely different from the business districts. 
 It's so much purer the higher up you get." 
 
 "Yes, is n't it?" Prunella agreed. She likes 
 Tommy, though she does n't know him very 
 well. Probably his line of conversation is 
 very much like that of her dead stepfather. 
 Anyway, she seems to know how to encourage 
 it, without too much hard labor. I either work 
 too much or hedge with Tommy. 
 
 "New York air is like New York water, 
 surprisingly pure for a city of the size," Tony 
 Cowles said. I tremble to think of Carrington 
 in the midst of a prolonged conversation about 
 pure air. 
 
 "Now that the street-cleaning department
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 107 
 
 is in such a disgraceful condition, I don't see 
 how the air can be pure," said Prunella. 
 
 "Well, it is n't very," Tony Cowles said 
 unbrilliantly. 
 
 "Maybe a Soviet Government would do 
 more for it," I suggested, using Stella stuff. 
 
 "What?" said Tony Cowles. 
 
 "Well, it works in Russia," I said. 
 
 "Look out; he knows an awful lot about 
 Russia," Prunella said. 
 
 "Well, I don't," I said. 
 
 "Nobody does," said Tony Cowles, shutting 
 his jaw firmly. 
 
 I know he knows a lot about everything. I 
 can see it in him. 
 
 "Do you know Carrington Chase?" I said. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "He's a great friend of mine." 
 
 "He was at Yale when I was." 
 
 "He said he knew you." 
 
 There the conversation languished. If Car- 
 rington thought that Tony Cowles was peda- 
 gogic, why, Tony Cowles must have had some 
 kind of an opinion of Carrington. I wished 
 that I could make him express it, but I could 
 n't. Tony Cowles may be school-teachery, but I
 
 108 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 did n't see anything of it on my first meeting 
 with him. He is n't a philanderer, either. 
 
 "Tommy," I said to him on the way home, 
 "you once said to me that this is a man's 
 world. Do you really think it is?" 
 
 "Well," Tommy considered, "I think in a 
 great many instances the woman pays, but 
 then when you come to consider it so do men 
 very often." 
 
 "Prunella is paying, is n't she?" 
 
 "I am very sorry for that little girl," 
 Tommy said. 
 
 "So is Tony Cowles," I said; "how did you 
 like him?" 
 
 "A little stiff, but agreeable." 
 
 "I think it's pretty well distributed, after 
 all," I said. 
 
 "What? "said Tommy. 
 
 "The the world. Men pay, too," I said, 
 thinking of Father; "but whatever we do, 
 Tommy," I said as I bade him good-night at 
 my own door, "don't let's philander." 
 
 "Philander?" 
 
 "Well, I've been thinking," I said, "of the 
 people I know that do." 
 
 "Oh! you mean Carrington."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 109 
 "No," I said. 
 
 "Well, who do you mean?" 
 
 "Nobody in particular," I said, "really." 
 
 "You don't mean me," Tommy said; "all I 
 want of a girl is to have her a good old pal of 
 mine." 
 
 "Like the song," I said; "I know it. I really 
 did n't mean anything." 
 
 "Well, good-night," said Tommy, but he 
 made a few general passes in my direction that 
 might or might not have borne out my original 
 theory. 
 
 "Good-night," I said, ducking.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THINGS have been slightly complicated in the 
 family since Daddy staggered to his feet after 
 the illness that followed his Canadian trip, 
 and proceeded to ignore his home ties almost 
 entirely. I don't blame him. He's got this 
 grudge against Mother, and he does n't get 
 the things he likes to eat at home. He has a 
 big comfortable room of his own, but even so 
 the rest of the house is all littered up with 
 manifestations of a busy life Stella typing 
 articles on International Solidarity at his key- 
 hole, and all that. 
 
 I Ve tried to make him just as comfortable 
 as I could, but one daughter does n't make a 
 family, and he looks on most of my attempts 
 to liven him up with cold disfavor. He keeps 
 thinking he ought to tell me that I ought not 
 to go out with Carrington without Mother's 
 knowledge, and that worries him, too. Well, 
 the human soul is a very lonely thing, as Kip- 
 ling or somebody says, and we've all got one. 
 
 As for Mother, she ought to be looking after 
 me; I know that; but I was wondering the other
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 111 
 
 day whether I ought not to be looking after 
 Mother. She ought to find out where I go, and 
 why I go there. 
 
 Fortunately my reasons and motives for 
 what I do are perfectly sound, but suppos- 
 ing they were n't? I 'm an adult, but quite a 
 young adult, and sometimes I might be sin- 
 cerely in need of the administrations of a 
 mother, but Mother for some reason or other 
 is not among those present at time of writing. 
 She is n't attending to her business of mother- 
 ing. If her philandering with Ellery is at the 
 bottom of it, why, then, it ought to be looked 
 into. 
 
 "Mother," I said to her one night when 
 Father had just telephoned that he was n't 
 coming home to dinner mostly he does n't 
 even telephone " what do you think now 
 about Daddy and the Canadian trip?" 
 
 "I think it was very bad for him," she said. 
 
 "He seems a good deal changed," I ven- 
 tured. 
 
 "He looks badly, but then he had a good 
 deal of work to make up at the office." 
 
 "He doesn't spend much time with you." 
 
 "He has n't much time to spend."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "It seems too bad that two married people 
 can't be more comfortable together," I said; 
 "it's kind of discouraging to the young to see 
 matrimony so kind of discounted." 
 
 "Your father and I don't discount matri- 
 mony," Mother said; "we've been married a 
 good many years, and we understand one an- 
 other." 
 
 "But Father goes his way, and you go 
 yours," I said. 
 
 "Life is very complicated," Mother ad- 
 mitted, "and it gets more so as you grow 
 older." 
 
 "It ought not to, Mother; you know it 
 ought not to." 
 
 "I suppose I seem old to you," Mother said, 
 pursuing her own train of thought, "but I 
 don't seem very old to myself, or or to my 
 friends." 
 
 "You look very young," I said, "even to 
 my critical gaze. Carrington Chase says you 
 are the youngest-looking woman of your age 
 that he ever saw. Not that he knows it," I 
 added hastily. 
 
 "When my mother was my age I used to 
 think of her as a very mature woman," Mother
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 113 
 
 said, "a long way from the romance of youth, 
 but I suppose she was n't, any more than I 
 am." 
 
 "Did she have gentlemen friends?" I said. 
 
 Mother hardly ever hears any question 
 that 's addressed to her, and she did n't hear 
 this one. 
 
 "I suppose my trouble is," she mused, 
 "that I am miscast in life. I am not playing 
 the r6le for which nature intended me." 
 
 "Ellery told I mean, says that," I said; 
 "do you think he knows?" 
 
 "I think he knows me as well as any one," 
 Mother said, quite unaware of the inappro- 
 priateness of telling me so. 
 
 "He thinks you need a salon for a back- 
 ground." 
 
 "I know he does," Mother said fondly. 
 
 "What do you think Father needs for his 
 background?" 
 
 "Men are different," Mother said; "their 
 needs are more material. I try to attend to 
 all of your Father's material wants. I don't 
 think I fail in my duty to him. He cares less 
 and less for my society, you must remember 
 that, dear."
 
 114 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Mother," I said, "why don't you do some- 
 thing about it?" 
 
 She turned on me a look of such dewy in- 
 nocence that I was nonplussed. 
 
 "What is there to do about it, dear?" she 
 asked. 
 
 What, indeed? 
 
 The next thing I did was to tackle Ellery. 
 It seems very simple to get right at the root 
 of a matter like this, but when you come to 
 examine it you find out that it is n't. As 
 Browning says, it 's an awkward thing to play 
 with souls. 
 
 "Ellery," I said, "I don't think Mother is 
 in a very good state, do you?" 
 
 "Do you mean headaches?" Ellery asked 
 anxiously. 
 
 "No, she is n't having many of those, but 
 you know how lackadaisical she gets some- 
 times. Well, I think she's getting more and 
 more so." 
 
 "Lackadaisical?" said Ellery. 
 
 "I don't think it's a good idea for her to 
 follow the line of least resistance the way she 
 does." 
 
 "The line of least resistance?"
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 115 
 
 "Well," I said, "I don't suppose I can tell 
 you very much about Mother that you don't 
 know, but she seems to me to be softening 
 down considerably." 
 
 "You don't mean muscularly?" 
 
 "If you consider the soul to have any 
 muscles, I do." 
 
 "You mean that she is spiritually er 
 er " 
 
 "Out of condition," I said. 
 
 Ellery looked perfectly miserable. 
 
 "Did you have some special object in talk- 
 ing to me about it?" he asked. 
 
 " Well, I can't talk to any one else. I thought 
 I'd like to see what you thought, anyway. 
 Besides, Mother's interested in you, and she 
 is n't interested in me, so you might do her 
 some good." 
 
 "She says you are a terrible child," he said, 
 with that kind of worried smile that is his near- 
 est approach to a sense of humor. "In what 
 way did you think I might do her some good? " 
 
 "By leaving her alone," I said stoutly. 
 
 "I've thought of that," Ellery said unex- 
 pectedly; "but she hasn't got anybody but 
 me."
 
 116 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "She's got us," I said, but I knew what he 
 meant, just the same. 
 
 " She 's so fine," he said; " she needs so much." 
 
 "So does Father," I said. 
 
 Ellery wilted. 
 
 "So do I," I said; "she ought to look out for 
 me, and she does n't." 
 
 "She's an ideal mother," Ellery said hotly. 
 
 "Ideal, but not real," I said; "it is n't only 
 rice pudding that a young girl needs." 
 
 "She'll never leave you, you know," Ellery 
 said; "she would n't even stay away from you 
 for a single meal." 
 
 "She did the night that Father was taken 
 sick," I said, "and now it does n't make any 
 difference." 
 
 "What do you think I ought to do?" said 
 Ellery miserably. 
 
 "I don't know," I said; "just step out till 
 she gets her bearings or something." 
 
 "She won't let me," Ellery blurted out; 
 "she doesn't like it if I don't come. I've 
 been coming so many years." 
 
 "Don't you think that you and Mother 
 come under the general head of philandering?" 
 I said.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 117 
 
 "Not that," Ellery said briefly; "I don't 
 suppose you can understand my devotion to 
 your mother." 
 
 "I can, but I can't understand her devo- 
 tion to you." 
 
 "Oh! "Ellery said, "oh!" 
 
 "She ought to have gone to Canada with 
 Father." 
 
 Ellery won't talk about Father. 
 
 "Your mother is so rare," Ellery said; "you 
 can't judge her by ordinary standards." 
 
 "But there are n't any others." 
 
 "I want everything that's beautiful and 
 good for her," Ellery said. 
 
 "I know," I said; "Beauty. I want it, too, 
 but just practically how are you going to give 
 it to her with things mixed up the way they 
 are?" 
 
 "I don't know," said Ellery. 
 
 He feels about Mother the way I do about 
 Carrington. He wants to give her everything 
 that I want Carrington to give me. I don't 
 exactly know what I mean, but Carrington's 
 friendship is the one thing that solves all my 
 problems, and makes life seem like a wonder- 
 ful thing to me. If this is the case with Mother,
 
 118 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 what can I say? What I want is for Mother to 
 tell me how she connects it all up, instead of 
 my trying to figure her out like a little Miss 
 Fixit. Nothing much can be fixed, anyway, I 
 suppose. 
 
 I knew Stella did n't have any point of view 
 on it that would seem rational to me, but be- 
 ing a naturally thorough person, I did n't rest 
 until I had sounded her out also. 
 
 "Stella," I said, "don't you think that 
 Mother and Father are drifting apart?" 
 
 "I had n't thought about it," Stella said. 
 
 "Well, I wish you would think about it, 
 and tell me what you think." 
 
 "Of course, they have no common mental 
 interests," Stella said; "they married on the 
 old basis, ignorant of the episodic nature of 
 love." 
 
 "Do you regard Cosgrove as an episode?" 
 I said. 
 
 " Cosgrove and I are mated mentally as well 
 as physically." 
 
 "Well, supposing you weren't. Supposing 
 after you got all mated you found out that 
 your common mental interests were waning, 
 what then?"
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 119 
 
 "Why, then, we should dissolve our part- 
 nership." 
 
 "Get divorced, you mean?" 
 
 "Yes; we married with that understanding." 
 
 "But what about your offspring?" 
 
 "Our children will be individuals just as we 
 are individuals, with the individual right to 
 follow out their own development." 
 
 "It might be hard on them," I said; "chil- 
 dren need moral and mental support." 
 
 "I never did," said Stella. 
 
 "Don't you believe in families at all?" 
 
 "I believe in communities," Stella said. 
 
 "There have been a good many centuries 
 of families," I said; "do you really think it 
 would be a good idea to abolish them now?" 
 
 "The family as an institution is abolishing 
 itself." 
 
 "Our family seems to be," I said. 
 
 Stella's inconsistency in staying at home 
 with us so as not to set up an absolute institu- 
 tion of her own struck me afresh, but nothing 
 would make her see it that way. Her idea is to 
 shed your offspring the way a tree sheds its 
 leaves, I suppose, in the middle of a commu- 
 nity.
 
 120 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Ellery and Mother have common mental 
 interests in a way," I said; "I wish they 
 did n't." 
 
 "For Heaven's sake," said Stella, "you 
 don't object to that, I hope ! You don't ques- 
 tion the right of the individual to choose his 
 associates?" 
 
 "I don't believe in married women being 
 too much occupied with detached men," I said. 
 "I want Mother to look out for Father instead 
 of Ellerying around all over the place all the 
 time." 
 
 "Don't be morbid," Stella said; "that kind 
 of an attitude is pernicious. It's a relic of 
 the dark ages. You would n't interfere with 
 Mother's freedom in the choice of friends, 
 would you?" 
 
 "But it's all wrong," I said; "things ought 
 not to be that way." 
 
 I don't know that Stella's burst of silvery, 
 ringing laughter helped me much, but I can't 
 blame her. She does n't know that anybody 
 wants to be helped, ever. She's like a gold- 
 fish swimming in a bowl. 
 
 As much as I could communicate to Car- 
 rington of all this, I did. His point of view on
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 121 
 
 marriage is characteristic, but real like all the 
 other things he thinks. It's such a change to 
 go from him to Stella, who is "as passionless 
 as a bit of glass." I quote Carrington. He 
 believes that people should not marry until 
 they see their way clear to setting up a de- 
 cent regular establishment, and then only if 
 the impulse to do so is irresistible. In other 
 words, he believes in love, but he does n't 
 think you ought to let it hamper you. I think 
 that is perfectly fair, and I agree with him. 
 He won't be able to marry for some time yet, 
 I suppose. Meantime, I am the best woman 
 friend he has. 
 
 "Still bothering about the rights and wrongs 
 of things, aren't you?" he said; "you can't 
 rearrange the universe, dear." 
 
 "You know I don't want to rearrange the 
 universe," I said. "I just want to know what 
 to think of this particular instance." 
 
 " Why do you have to think anything at all ? " 
 "I don't know," I answered, "but I do." 
 "You want to hold your mother and father 
 together. To prevent a scandal?" 
 
 "There's no question of that," I said 
 quickly.
 
 122 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "People will talk, though I don't know what 
 people. You have n't a circle that you have to 
 be afraid of, not being society people." 
 
 Well, of course, we 're not society people. 
 
 "No," I said. 
 
 "Why do you bother? Your mother and 
 Mr. Howe may have a very beautiful friend- 
 ship." 
 
 "Oh! they have," I said; "I just want to 
 know what to do, and what to think." 
 
 "There are certain obligations of civilized 
 life," he said; "the question is always just how 
 civilized the life is. I 'd just let the show go on, 
 if I were you." 
 
 "I suppose I '11 have to," I said, " but do you 
 think I ought to?" 
 
 "I don't see how you could help yourself in 
 any case." 
 
 "What are you smiling at?" I said quickly. 
 
 "You," he said. 
 
 "Why at me?" 
 
 "It's an amusing situation, that's all." 
 
 "I can't decide what things mean," I said, 
 "and that always makes me miserable." 
 
 " Don't be miserable. Be happy. All that life 
 is worth is the happiness you can get out of it."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 123 
 
 "But without injuring anybody else," I 
 said. The idea was not original. 
 
 We were sitting in the dug-out, so he put his 
 arms around me and I rested my head on his 
 shoulder as the family were mercifully out. 
 Suddenly I felt as if the whole world were dis- 
 solving right before my eyes. I usually get so 
 much inspiration from him, and whenever I 
 am touching him I feel so safe. This time I be- 
 gan to feel farther and farther away from him, 
 and I knew if I could n't feel that he was really 
 near me, and really understanding me, that I 
 would not be able to bear it. 
 
 "Are you happy now?" he said. 
 
 "Yes," I said, "but tell me what to think." 
 
 "Don't think." 
 
 "I must," I said. 
 
 He only smiled, but I felt closer to him. 
 
 "It's all right, is n't it," I said, "about my 
 family? We are n't all drifting into chaos or 
 anything?" 
 
 He smiled again. 
 
 "Kiss me," I said, "kiss me." 
 
 I could n't bear being alone any longer.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 STELLA was going to the hospital to have her 
 neatly arranged baby according to scientific 
 schedule, but the stork anticipated her. Cos- 
 grove, Jr., arrived in our apartment one bliz- 
 zardy evening in early February, and I know 
 a good deal more about life now than I did 
 even the evening previous to that event. 
 
 I sat at the telephone and telephoned im- 
 partially for doctors and nurses and taxicabs. 
 Later I tried to get an ambulance, but I 
 could n't. The streets of New York have been 
 practically impassable for weeks, the snow has 
 been piled so high. So Cosgrove, Jr., decided 
 not to wait until these practical difficulties 
 were overcome, but joined the family group 
 in our already overcrowded apartment. 
 
 My first instinct was to drive Bobby out into 
 the night, blizzard or no blizzard, influenza or 
 not, but I thought better of that, and took 
 him off into his own room and stuffed cotton 
 into his ears. The house was full of Cosgrove 
 and Father, and three of the doctors I had
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 125 
 
 telephoned for, as well as a nurse or two, and 
 Stella. Ellery we sent away. 
 
 Mother was fine. I sometimes forget that 
 she once had Stella and me and Bobby, but 
 we all remembered it that night. She knew 
 exactly what to do. Cosgrove was scared stiff, 
 and Father walked him up and down the out- 
 side corridor and told him stories, just like any 
 nice avuncular kind of person might have done. 
 * "Do you feel sick, Bobby?" I asked him, as 
 the evening progressed and he got whiter and 
 whiter. 
 
 "No, I feel all right." 
 
 "It's most over," I said. 
 
 He began to cry after a while. 
 
 "Don't you worry, Bobby; Mother says it 
 is n't as bad as it seems to us." 
 
 "I ate so much of that lemon pie," Bobby 
 said, "I guess it was n't good for me." 
 
 I put my arm around him. 
 
 "I guess I'm going to be sick," he said, and 
 he was a little. 
 
 "Look here, Bobby," I said, to get his mind 
 off himself, "I'm the one that ought to mind 
 the most. You are going to grow up to be a 
 man, and it's only women "
 
 126 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 " You'd better not get married," Bobby said. 
 
 "Most every one does," I said. 
 
 "Foolish, then." 
 
 "Look here," I said, "how did you get into 
 this world? If people did n't get married, you 
 know, we should n't be here." 
 
 "Well," Bobby said, "I'm never going to 
 get married, I can tell you." 
 
 "Bobby, you ought to have a course in 
 hygiene. If I had a chart, and we were both 
 the same sex, I could give it to you." 
 
 "Well, you could n't," Bobby said. 
 
 I closed my eyes, and listened to all the 
 noises there were. Stella was the most pen- 
 etrating. 
 
 "Put that cotton back in your ears," I told 
 Bobby. 
 
 "You're sick yourself," Bobby said; "do 
 you feel as if you were going to be sick?" 
 
 I did, but I did n't tell him so. 
 
 He rubbed my head and let me kiss him two 
 or three times. I thought of everybody in the 
 world that I knew, excepting Carrington. I 
 postponed him because it was n't a matter of 
 actual mental help I needed; it was only an 
 endurance test.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 127 
 
 "I hear a goose quacking," Bobby said 
 later. 
 
 "Ducks quack," I said. 
 
 " Well, ducks, then. Don't you hear them? " 
 
 "Why, yes," I said. It was an awfully 
 funny sound. 
 
 "Do you suppose it's one that Cosgrove has 
 got Stella for a present?" Bobby said. 
 
 " Come away from that door, Bobby." 
 
 "If it's a duck I want to see it." 
 
 A great light broke over me. 
 
 "Well, it isn't a duck," I said; "it's a 
 member of the human species." 
 
 "Not the baby!" Bobby said, disappointed. 
 
 "Yes, the baby." 
 
 "Well, I don't think much of it, then." 
 
 Cosgrove and Father broke the glad news to 
 us. 
 
 "It was only two hours," Cosgrove said; 
 "it was like Stella to have a phenomenally 
 easy time." 
 
 Well, if she had had a hard time I think I 
 should have lost a really valuable little brother, 
 to say nothing of a year's growth and the use of 
 a fairly adequate mentality. Knowing all about 
 a thing, as I did after all my hygiene and the
 
 128 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 reading of Stella's literature on the subject, 
 is n't the same as knouring. I am certainly an 
 older and wiser woman. So is Bobby, so to 
 speak. 
 
 I never cared for little squalling babies very 
 much until Stella had this one. I used to like 
 little puppies, or even pigs, much better. Ba- 
 bies always seemed to be so unnecessarily un- 
 developed, but Squidgins with apologies to 
 nobody, because that 's my name for him 
 is a very superior specimen. He 's been a per- 
 son from the very beginning, with a wavy 
 pompadour and large blue wicked-looking 
 eyes. The first time he opened them on me I 
 nearly dropped him. He seemed to know so 
 much that put me entirely in the wrong. It's 
 the Romany gypsy look he has that especially 
 appeals to me. Anyhow, I winked back and 
 we were friends from that instant. I don't get 
 much chance at him, of course, but there are 
 scientific interims when he has to be held while 
 the nurse is sterilizing something or somebody, 
 that make it very pleasant for an interested 
 aunt. By the way, I don't see why uncles have 
 an adjective and aunts have n't. 
 
 At first, I could n't pick him up without the
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 129 
 
 most disastrous results. A small baby has to 
 be handled like a frog with a broken back. If 
 you don't look sharp they'll wiggle through 
 your fingers, and if you don't hold on to their 
 heads they are likely to fall off. Also there is a 
 soft spot on top to be reckoned with. It hard- 
 ens up in time, but it has to be scrupulously 
 avoided while they are new. I say to him : 
 
 "Squidgins, you are very little, 
 And your bones are very brittle," 
 
 and he always smiles. Of course, they tell you 
 that those smiles are merely digestional gri- 
 maces, but it seems curious to me that they 
 always have a digestional response ready at a 
 given time. 
 
 When I am very restless, and the back of 
 my neck aches from too much conjecturing 
 about the universe, or wondering why Carring- 
 ton does n't telephone of tener he does n't 
 need to see me half as often as I need him, but 
 I suppose that's because I need him of tener 
 and of tener why, getting Squidgins cuddled 
 up under my chin is quite a panacea. He 
 seems very warm and soft and mine. It 's 
 funny how a little fragment of a baby like that
 
 130 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 can seem to belong to you, especially when it 
 does n't. 
 
 Stella regards him with an interest not un- 
 mixed with surprise. After all, he is n't a 
 little goldfish swimming in a bowl, nor a Bol- 
 shevist, nor even a reasonable human being 
 like herself. He 's something undreamed of in 
 her philosophy a baby, a real live kicking 
 baby. I should think she would be wondering 
 herself crazy about this remarkable fact. 
 
 He certainly does n't make family life any 
 more complicated. I brought him out the 
 other night just after we were through dinner, 
 and went the rounds exhibiting him. Father 
 and Mother got together over him with quite 
 a little do-you-remember stun 7 that I 'd never 
 even heard before. It seems that when Stella 
 was born they were so young that they knew 
 practically nothing about what to do with her, 
 and had all kinds of experiences trying to 
 cover up their ignorance. 
 
 "Robert disowned her once," Mother said; 
 "we were going down to the beach for the sum- 
 mer, and she cried so much on the train that 
 he was ashamed of her, so he said in hearing of 
 all the passengers that he hoped my husband
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 131 
 
 would be there to meet me when the train got 
 in." 
 
 "Your mother got even with me, though," 
 Father said; "she told me that she hoped 
 they 'd let my wife out of the asylum before 
 long." 
 
 "That created a real sensation," Mother 
 said, and they both laughed. 
 
 "He does n't look like Stella," Father said. 
 "Stella was the calmest baby that ever lived." 
 
 "Except when we traveled with her," 
 Mother put in. 
 
 "He looks more like Bobby," Father de- 
 cided. 
 
 Bobby came over to see about this, but did 
 n't feel very flattered at the comparison. 
 
 " Gee, I bet I was never as red as that," he 
 said. 
 
 "You were the reddest baby I ever saw," 
 Mother said; "you were a regular little In- 
 dian." 
 
 "I'd rather look like a red Indian than an 
 old man." 
 
 "Squidgins does n't look like an old man," 
 I said. 
 
 "He does, too!"
 
 132 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "He does not!" 
 
 "Well, if I could get an old man, and have 
 him here, you 'd see." 
 
 "Luckily, you can't," I said; " wedon't want 
 any nasty germy old men around Squidgins." 
 
 "Well, if I could get one I'd show you," 
 said Bobby foolishly. "Look at him, he dou- 
 bled up his little fist and tried to pound me. 
 Take him away!" 
 
 "The next thing you know you'll get to like 
 him, Bobby," I said. 
 
 "I shan't either." 
 
 I caught Father and Mother actually ex- 
 changing glances over this. I wish they'd be 
 more interested in Bobby. There are ways in 
 which he is almost too bright, and then other 
 ways in which he seems actually stupid. Of 
 course, boy nature is a funny thing. Boys take 
 so much out in pretending to be rough and 
 coarse that it's hard to get right down to the 
 root of them and decide how much softening 
 influence to exert. '. I don't know that growing 
 up to be a boy is fraught with as many un- 
 certainties as growing up to be a girl is, but 
 it's certainly a more cantankerous process. 
 Boys resist everything that girls take as a
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 133 
 
 matter of course. I yearn and hunger for a 
 little demonstrativeness in hours of need, and 
 Bobby makes a big effort trying to avoid any 
 such thing. 
 
 Father does n't spend much more time at 
 home than he did, though. I had rather a har- 
 rowing encounter with him the other night. 
 I went to the Cafe de Boheme with Carrington 
 quite late, when Mother thought I was spend- 
 ing the night at the Webster girls'. I was, of 
 course, but not anything but the literal night 
 itself, as we danced till nearly half-past one. 
 I am a smooth dancer, if I do say it myself, 
 smooth and sensitive to the inclinations of my 
 partner. Carrington does n't need so much as 
 the littlest pressure of his hand to lead me. I 
 know what he is going to do as well as he knows 
 it himself. 
 
 As soon as we got inside of the place I saw 
 that Father was there with a lady, one of 
 the earringed variety. We were a little before 
 the theater crowd we'd been to a movie 
 and the place was practically deserted. You 
 could n't just bow to your own father when 
 he was one of the only other two couples in the 
 room, and pretend you had practically never
 
 134 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 seen him before. So Carrington and I reluc- 
 tantly sailed up to him, and he reluctantly re- 
 minded me that I had met Mrs. Van der Water, 
 and we all ordered ginger ale and club sand- 
 wiches, and talked a lot of feverish small talk 
 to hide our embarrassment and general cha- 
 grin. I was glad to have Father and Carring- 
 ton meet, but that was the only ray of light in 
 the situation. 
 
 Mrs. Van der Water shook her gory ear- 
 rings at Carrington, and smiled at me. 
 
 "So this is the little daughter," she said, not 
 meaning to accomplish so much unpleasant- 
 ness of tone. 
 
 " I 'm still growing,'* I said, " though I never 
 can make Father believe it. Do you like to 
 dance?" 
 
 "I enjoy looking on better." 
 
 "When the music begins perhaps you'll try 
 it with me," Carrington said. 
 
 "If Mr. Blair does n't mind." 
 
 "Oh! I don't mind," Father said; "I was 
 lucky enough to run into Mrs. Van der Water 
 at the Astor after dinner to-night, and she 
 kindly consented to er come across the 
 street for a bite to eat. At a business dinner I
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 135 
 
 never get enough to eat. Talking business is 
 hungry work." 
 
 Father was never so apologetic before. 
 
 "Is n't it?" said Mrs. Van der Water. She 
 does her hair like Valeska Suratt, combed 
 straight back like painted hair, and her eyes 
 are smudged with natural brownish shadows. 
 She was wearing a blue charmeuse trimmed 
 with lemon color. I always hate women that 
 wear lemon color. She had left her wrap with 
 the coat girl. I wondered if it was the same 
 imitation moleskin she had on the first time I 
 saw her that night she and Father were with 
 Jimmie Greer at the La France. 
 
 Garrington played up to her the way he 
 does to the Webster girls, only he treated her 
 as if she were a stage beauty or something. He 
 paid her every little attention there is, watch- 
 ing her glass to see if it was empty, lighting her 
 cigarette for her and all that. He has beautiful 
 manners even when we are alone together 
 he does n't forget the little courtesies that 
 make life so very much more pleasant. When 
 they got up to dance Father stared after them 
 gloomily, and so did I, too, I suppose. They 
 seemed to hit it off so awfully well.
 
 136 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "So that's your young man, is it?" Father 
 said. 
 
 "Yes; what do you think of him?" 
 
 "I don't think very much of him." 
 
 "Oh! "I said. 
 
 " Oh ! I suppose he 's all right. Where 's that 
 young Tommy Nevers you used to see so much 
 of?" 
 
 "I still see him," I said; "he seems so much 
 more childish than Carrington." 
 
 "Carrington is certainly not childish," he 
 said. 
 
 "Mrs. Van der Water is a very striking- 
 looking woman, is n't she? " 
 
 "I suppose so." 
 
 "She is, if you admire that type, but Mo- 
 ther is so wonderful-looking that I'm preju- 
 diced in favor of blondes." 
 
 Father answered with a snort of annoyance. 
 
 "We're going after this dance," he said, 
 "you'd better get home early yourself." 
 
 "I'm not going home," I said; "I 'm going to 
 the Websters'." 
 
 "Do they know who you are out with?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Carrington sailed by with his chin over Mrs.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 137 
 
 Van der Water's shoulder. She smells so much 
 of Mary Garden talcum powder the effect 
 could n't have been altogether gratifying. 
 
 "He's got a fishy eye," Father said; but 
 Father can't dance very well, and might have 
 been a little jaundiced by the fact. 
 
 Carrington and I sat and watched them go 
 out. Father was scowling as he stood by the 
 swinging door with his hat and stick in his 
 hand. 
 
 "He's a fine-looking man," Carrington said; 
 "look at the fur wrap on the lady." 
 
 Mrs. Van der Water was sporting a Hudson 
 seal coat with a deep shawl collar of beaver. 
 It was certainly a wonderful-looking garment. 
 
 "That coat," I said "why, it couldn't 
 be" 
 
 Carrington smiled. 
 
 "You think it is," I said. 
 
 "Oh! well," Carrington said, "don't be too 
 hard on him. Your mother would n't have it, 
 you know." 
 
 "I wish you had n't called my attention to 
 it," I said. 
 
 "I wish I hadn't. I did n't think. I was so 
 impressed by it."
 
 138 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Father never lied to me before," I said. 
 
 "He wouldn't have lied to you this time 
 if you had n't .caught him red-handed. He 's 
 very fond of you." 
 
 "He's fond of me, but I bore him, too." 
 
 "Well, you don't bore me," Carrington said. 
 
 But when I cried on the way home in the 
 taxicab, he made up for his seeming callous- 
 ness. He kissed away my tears one by one. 
 
 "Don't mind, little girl," he said, "don't 
 mind anything. Don't you know how dear you 
 are becoming to me? Don't you realize that 
 I hate to see you grieve?" 
 
 "Yes," I said, and I do know.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 "You'D better powder up your nose, darlin'," 
 Delia said; " there 's a perfectly new man to see 
 you in the parlor." 
 
 "A new man to see me?" I said; "what does 
 he look like?" 
 
 "He's a fine-looking man, honey, a big 
 light-haired man, with great blue eyes." 
 "Did he ask for me?" 
 "Yes, he asked for you, honey." 
 "Did n't he give you his name?" 
 "He gave me his name, but I forgot it, 
 darlin', I was so taken up just looking at him." 
 I was so curious to see who it could be that 
 had come to see me that way, without even 
 telephoning, and roused Delia's interest to 
 that extent, that I followed her right into the 
 sitting-room without a backward look at the 
 nose she made so much a point of. 
 
 Tony Cowles uncoiled himself from the 
 depths of the wing chair, and stood smiling at 
 me for a second before either of us said any- 
 thing. 
 
 "I canvassed this neighborhood for a tele-
 
 140 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 phone booth," he said, "until I had to choose 
 between taking my chances at trying to find 
 you without telephoning or using my last free 
 half -hour to get you on the wire." 
 
 "I'm glad you chose coming," I said, wish- 
 ing I had taken Delia's advice. 
 
 "I wanted particularly to see you to-day," 
 he said, "because Prunella's affairs have come 
 to the point where they won't wait. I am 
 bundling Mrs. Pemberton off to a sanatorium 
 to-morrow, and I have come to ask you if you 
 can join Prunella at my place to-morrow night. 
 She's not going out of town because Dr. 
 Hueston wants to keep her under observation. 
 She's going to my place because you'll both 
 be more comfortable there than anywhere else 
 I can find for you." 
 
 "But we'll be turning you out," I said. 
 
 "I can go to the club. I'm used to that. I 
 don't mind a bit, really." 
 
 "It will be great fun," I said. 
 
 "You think you can arrange it, then?" 
 
 "I know I can. I talked it over with Mother 
 when you first spoke of it that is, of my 
 being with Prunella while her mother was 
 away."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 141 
 
 "I asked for Mrs. Blair, too." 
 
 "She's gone to a concert," I said; "I'm 
 sorry. You would have liked seeing Mother." 
 
 "I think you'll be perfectly comfortable. 
 There 's a bed and a day bed in my room, and 
 plenty of chests and bureau drawers. There's 
 room enough for three men to store away their 
 outfits, so I imagine two girls would be just 
 about able to squeeze in. Miranda will take 
 care of you nicely. She's a funny old soul, 
 older than the maid who showed me in, but her 
 general appearance is very much like her. I 
 think you'll get on with her." 
 
 "Delia calls me darlin' most of the time," I 
 said. 
 
 "Miranda will be following her example very 
 soon, I am sure. It's settled, then? I will come 
 for you at about half -past five and you will be 
 there in time for dinner." 
 
 "Lovely," I said. 
 
 "I want to have a little talk with you about 
 Prunella sometime. One of these days when 
 she is taking her prescribed nap the doctor 
 is putting her on more or less of a regime, you 
 know we '11 take a turn about the park and 
 settle her affairs for her."
 
 142 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 ''You're awfully good to her," I said. 
 
 "She needs her friends," Tony Cowles said 
 soberly. 
 
 "I think girls need their friends oftener 
 than men do. I mean I think they have more 
 troubles." 
 
 "More troubles?" said Tony Cowles en- 
 couragingly. 
 
 "I mean I think they have more shocks," I 
 said; "they don't know what to expect of the 
 world as well as men seem to." 
 
 "Meaning?" said Tony Cowles. 
 
 "Well, men know what things are likely to 
 happen in a situation," I said; "girls just go 
 right on thinking that things that happen to 
 other people are n't going to happen to them, 
 that people they believe in can't really do 
 wrong, and then when they find out they get a 
 terrible shock." 
 
 "I suppose they do." 
 
 "Girls know there are horrid things in the 
 world, but they don't believe them, and then 
 when they have to it 's almost too hard to bear." 
 
 "I had a little sister," Tony Cowles said, 
 "who was just about your age, your age and 
 Prunella's. She died two years ago."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 143 
 
 "Did she?" I said; "perhaps you know 
 more about girls, then, for that reason." 
 
 "We were very close. She used to say she 
 had all her best jokes with me. That counts a 
 good deal, you know." 
 
 "Did she tell you her troubles, too?" 
 
 "When she had any." 
 
 "Did she have a father?" 
 
 "Yes, he's still living." 
 
 "Was he a young-looking father?" I asked. 
 
 "Not so very. I was a good deal older than 
 she. They were very good friends, though." 
 
 I was ashamed to find my eyes were filling 
 with tears. 
 
 "I Ve had some trouble," I said, "and some- 
 times when I think of it I get a little upset." 
 
 "I don't mind," said Tony Cowles, which 
 was, of course, just exactly what I wanted him 
 to say. 
 
 "It was n't anything but a shock," I said; 
 "I suppose every one has them." 
 
 "I've got a nice big handkerchief," said 
 Tony Cowles, as he began to realize that I 
 did n't have any. 
 
 "Thank you," I said, and began to smile 
 and not need it so much.
 
 144 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "How is the young man who thinks it's so 
 refreshing to be out in the fresh air?" he in- 
 quired presently. 
 
 "Very well," I said. 
 
 " He amuses Prunella, so we must have him 
 around while she's visiting me." 
 
 "He'll love to come," I said; "he thought 
 you had a very nice mind." 
 
 "A nice mind!" said Tony Cowles; "well, 
 that is n't the way I should have described it 
 myself." 
 
 "Is n't it nice?" I asked saucily. 
 
 "Probably, but 'nice' isn't my favorite 
 adjective, exactly." 
 
 "It is n't mine," I said. "I have n't any fa- 
 vorite adjective, but I have a favorite noun." 
 
 "Have you?" 
 
 " It 's ' beauty,' " I said. "I don't mean art 
 or anything like that by it. Well, I just mean 
 beauty, that's all." 
 
 "That's enough," said Tony Cowles so- 
 berly. 
 
 We shook hands at parting, and I stared at 
 the clear blondness of his hair, which he wears 
 sleeked down to his head in a way that almost 
 disguises its fine texture. Someway it makes
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 145 
 
 his head look very dependable. It turned out 
 that a dependable head to remember was the 
 one thing that could have been any help to 
 me. I thought I had suffered about Father, 
 but my suffering about that still left me a 
 world to live in. I have n't had one since I 
 went to dinner with Carrington that night. 
 All the time I was planning to go and visit with 
 Prunella I was hugging the idea of that dinner 
 to my breast. Poor old breast, it did n't know 
 what it was in for, but it knows now. It will 
 always know the same thing. 
 
 I never had dinner with Carrington before. 
 I had met him after dinner and danced or 
 gone to tea with him, but we had never met 
 and gone through the regular schedule of four 
 courses and a demitasse, and, of course, the 
 idea excited me. It is a good deal more grown- 
 up to go out to dinner with your men friends 
 than just to meet and dance with them, and a 
 lot more exciting some way. We went to a very 
 stunning place, too, the Butterfly Grill, which 
 is the downstairs of the Butterfly Restaurant, 
 and has squashed butterflies all over its walls, 
 and little stalls to sit in, and a peacock blue 
 velour carpet among its attractions.
 
 146 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 We began with grapefruit with a cherry in 
 it, and then we had sweetbreads and grilled 
 sweet potatoes, and a course of artichokes all 
 by themselves instead of a salad, I do love 
 Hollandaise sauce, and then we had ices 
 and coffee, strawberry ice cream, to be exact. 
 The dinner part of it was all lovely, but after 
 dinner we had our fatal conversation. Nobody 
 ever told me, and I never read anything about 
 it in any book, that you could sit looking 
 across a table at a person you loved best in all 
 the world, and be absolutely stabbed by a few 
 low-spoken words from him. I did n't know it 
 was possible at one moment to be alive, and 
 believing one thing about a person with all 
 your heart and soul, and the next moment to 
 be practically dead, and not believing in any- 
 thing any more. It does n't make any differ- 
 ence to me now what ideas I have about the 
 universe, I don't think there is any such thing 
 as beauty. Oh! I'm sure there is n't. 
 
 I began talking about Father a little. I 
 kept asking Carrington things about it just so 
 I could get a point of view on it. 
 
 "Mrs. Van der Water is typical," Carring- 
 ton said; "she's neither better nor worse than
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 147 
 
 her kind. Your father is probably able to take 
 care of himself. She '11 bleed him as long as she 
 can, and then she'll look elsewhere, that's all." 
 
 "You can't imagine how queer it makes 
 you feel when it's your own father," I said. 
 
 "I never cared what my father did," Car- 
 rington said; "he was an old rake." 
 
 "Did you ever find out anything like this 
 about him?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh! yes." 
 
 "Did n't you mind?" 
 
 "I don't remember minding." 
 
 " Somehow I 'd feel better about everything 
 if it was n't for Ellery," I said. 
 
 "A very harmless member of the human 
 family." 
 
 "But harmful in his effect," I said. "If 
 Mother would only not be so interested in 
 him, she might do something about Father." 
 
 "The modern daughter," Carrington said, 
 "intellectualizing about the sex affairs of her 
 parents." 
 
 "But Mother and Ellery have n't anything 
 to do with sex," I said, "not really. They're 
 just philandering." 
 
 "What is philandering?"
 
 148 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "You talk like Stella," I said. 
 
 " You don't," he said; "you've heard every- 
 thing in the world discussed. You must n't 
 pretend your eyes are shut." 
 
 "They are opening fast," I said. 
 
 "Does n't it occur to you, my dear, that 
 there is a little mote in your own eye, a little 
 beam of sex? " 
 
 "What do you mean?" I said. 
 
 "What do you think I mean?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "You know I love you very dearly," he 
 said, "don't you?" 
 
 "I suppose I do know." 
 
 "You know that I'm not a marrying man." 
 
 "I don't want you to marry me," I said 
 quickly; "I've never thought of such a thing. 
 I just want you to care about me the way you 
 do." 
 
 "I can't care about you the way I do. I've 
 either got to care about you more or less. You 
 know that." 
 
 "Why?" I said; "I just want you for my 
 friend, for the person I can tell everything to 
 and who will understand me. You can care 
 about me as much as that, can't you?"
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 149 
 
 "It seems simple, the way you put it," he 
 said, "but you know better." 
 
 "I don't think I do," I said; "you've never 
 talked like this before." 
 
 "It's time I did," he said. 
 
 "You you frighten me," I said. 
 
 "I mean to. You need frightening. You're 
 very young, but you are after all not quite so 
 young as you pretend to be. You know what 
 you are doing, dear. You know what you are 
 doing to me." 
 
 "I don't think I do," I said. 
 
 "I think you do. You've got too good a 
 head not to know. You know what I represent 
 to you." 
 
 "What do you represent?" I said. 
 
 "Emotion," he said, "life. Sex, if you want 
 to call it that." 
 
 "I thought it was something else," I said. 
 
 "Well," he said, "what are you going to do 
 about it? It's your responsibility as well as 
 mine, you know." 
 
 "What do you want me to do about it?" I 
 said. 
 
 "I have nothing to suggest," he said; "I 
 love you. You've led me on "
 
 150 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "I did n't know it was that," I said. 
 
 "What did you think it was?" 
 
 "I did n't think." 
 
 "Think now," he said; "what you want is 
 life. I can give it to you. You know too much 
 for your ignorance, dear. You ought to get 
 your balance young." 
 
 "I shall," I said. 
 
 It's embarrassing to sit in a restaurant 
 with the tears streaming down your face, 
 trying to talk airy nothings as if you did n't 
 know they were there. I had to change the 
 subject to something more trivial. 
 
 "Have you seen the Webster girls lately?" 
 
 "I went with Mertis to 'Look Who's Here,' 
 last night," he said; "some newspaper friend 
 sent them tickets." 
 
 "Did you like it?" 
 
 "Be a sport," he said; "I'm only trying to 
 put things straight. You'll be glad I did." 
 
 "I'm glad now," I said; "did you like 
 'Look Who's Here'?" 
 
 "Fairly. The girls weren't much, and the 
 costumes were both shocking and ugly." 
 
 "Like life," I said. 
 
 "Life is n't shocking and ugly. It's very
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 151 
 
 beautiful. I can show you how beautiful it is." 
 
 "Not now," I said; "I suppose you think 
 I'm a kind of baby vamp?" 
 
 " Yes and no," he said. 
 
 "You said I led you on." 
 
 "You did." 
 
 "I loved you," I said; "I did n't know it, but 
 I loved you." 
 
 "Why the past tense?" 
 
 "Because it is the past tense." 
 
 Then, because I could n't control the tears 
 that kept coming faster all the time, Carring- 
 ton called a taxicab and took me home. He 
 held my hand in the cab as usual. 
 
 "I should think you would be ashamed to 
 let me see what a cry-baby you are," he said 
 jokingly. 
 
 "I don't care," I said; "you might as well 
 see me cry. You've seen other things." 
 
 "I understand you better than you think," 
 he said; "I've just tried to show you my point 
 of view." 
 
 "You have," I said. 
 
 He kissed me good-night. 
 
 "Will you let me hear from you, dear?" he 
 said.
 
 152 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "I don't know," I said. 
 
 When I got into the house I saw Mother 
 kissing Ellery in the front hall. She knew that 
 I saw her, and called me in to talk about it 
 after Ellery was gone. 
 
 '' You must n't misunderstand, dear," she 
 said; "Ellery and I are very old friends, you 
 know. We've always had a more or less af- 
 fectionate relation." 
 
 "Well, I don't care," I said. 
 
 "That's not quite the way to speak to your 
 mother, Mary." 
 
 "I don't care," I said; "I think everything 
 is rotten. You don't have to apologize to me 
 for how rotten things are. I know." 
 
 And I left her standing at her dressing-table 
 with her hairbrush in her hand, and her eyes 
 wide open.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE first week of my being with Prunella in 
 Tony Cowles's apartment was like the blind 
 visiting the halt. I could hardly see some of 
 the time, because things got a peculiar habit of 
 darkening before my eyes, or the room would 
 tip itself up and then swing back again and 
 settle in a very giddy fashion. I had a pain 
 around my heart, which I thought was organic 
 too for a time. 
 
 Prunella was hardly any better off. She 
 was so used to the querulous sound of her 
 mother's voice that she shivered every time 
 she felt as if she was going to hear it. I kept 
 my own state of mind from her as well as I 
 could because I think you have to in the case of 
 a person being weaker than you are. Prunella 
 was all shot to pieces; there was no doubt of 
 that. I missed Squidgins. The top of his head, 
 soft spot and all, would have been a good thing 
 for my heart trouble. Of course, it was sex 
 that was responsible for his being in the world, 
 but you don't have to think of that with a
 
 154 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 baby because the baby itself does n't under- 
 stand anything about it. Anybody else may be 
 acting from not unmixed motives. According 
 to Carrington, I was. 
 
 The place turned out to be adorable 
 well, perhaps it was a little too bachelory to 
 be called that, but it was perfect. It was n't 
 done in mission furniture, though there were 
 big chairs and couches of carved dark wood 
 and Spanish leather in the living-room, which 
 was also a library, with low shelves running 
 all the way round it stuffed with all the most 
 heavenly books in the world. I felt almost 
 safe there. 
 
 Prunella, in a blue cap to match her eyes, 
 and her soft mouse-colored hair fluffed around 
 her face, had her breakfast served in bed, and I 
 had mine with her, sitting up in a high-backed 
 chair by the bedside table that Tony bought 
 especially for this function. 
 
 "Wouldn't this be fun/' Prunella said, 
 "if I were n't feeling so badly? Poor Maisie, 
 I am sorry for you with an invalid on your 
 hands." 
 
 "It's fun, anyway, is n't it?" I said, want- 
 ing her to believe it was.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 155 
 
 "I don't think anything 's fun any more," 
 Prunella said, "since Mr. Pemberton died. 
 I keep feeling that anybody might die, and 
 that I am probably going to. There is n't 
 much to live for, I don't think." 
 
 "You're just morbid," I said. 
 
 "I don't think this sanatorium is going to 
 do Mother any good, and if it does n't I can't 
 stand it." 
 
 "Do you love her so much, Prunella?" I 
 said. 
 
 "I don't know that it's love," Prunella said; 
 " I worry about her all the time whether I 'm 
 with her or not, and she can't bear me out of 
 her sight." 
 
 "She took Mr. Pemberton's death very 
 hard," I said. "Prunella, do you think she 
 would have been fond of him just the same if 
 your father had been living?" 
 
 "What a terrible question!" Prunella cried, 
 "how can you say such a thing, Maisie?" 
 
 "I just wondered," I said. 
 
 "Maisie, sometimes I don't think you seem 
 natural. You just walk around the house like 
 a person in a dream, and you say unnatural 
 things."
 
 156 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Maybe I'm a kind of monster," I said, 
 trying to be playful. "I was accused of being 
 a baby vamp once." 
 
 "Who accused you?" 
 
 " Carrington," I said. 
 
 "Well, he was just kidding you." 
 
 "Of course," I said, smiling. I can almost 
 always smile now. I 've only cried those two 
 times, once with Tony Cowles and again that 
 same night when Carrington took me to the 
 Butterfly Grill. 
 
 "Nobody ever called me a baby vamp," 
 Prunella said; "I don't see any boys, anyway. 
 I'm always running around with the smell- 
 ing salts. Oh dear, that's very wicked of me! 
 Sometimes I 'm afraid when I say a thing like 
 that I'll be punished for it." 
 
 "I don't think we are punished," I said; " if 
 I thought we were I should be glad." 
 
 "Why? "said Prunella. 
 
 "Well, I'd think there was Some One to 
 punish us. Some reason for it all." 
 
 "What do you think now?" 
 
 "I don't think there is much reason for any- 
 thing. I think most things are -"I was going 
 to say rotten, but I remembered that it was n't
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 157 
 
 a very good idea to share this feeling with poor 
 Prunella. 
 
 "When I make a remark about Mother, a 
 remark that shows tiredness or impatience, I 
 feel sometimes as if I were driving a nail into 
 her coffin." 
 
 "It's cigarettes," I said, "that drive nails 
 into people's coffins. Besides I think your 
 mother is better than you are, apart from her 
 grief at losing so young a husband." 
 
 "He was young," Prunella said, "but he 
 was awfully nice when you came to know him, 
 and very helpful too." 
 
 "Did you ever think, Prunella," I said, 
 "that he might have really hurt her feelings 
 worse if he had lived?" 
 
 " I think I could always have shielded her," 
 Prunella said, " but perhaps I could n't." 
 
 "Well, since he is dead, why don't you think 
 that?" I said; "it can't hurt any one." 
 
 "You mean that you think it would be all 
 right for me to decide that it's the best thing 
 that could have happened?" 
 
 "Yes, I do," I said. 
 
 "Don't you think that's a kind of heartless 
 way of looking at it?"
 
 158 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 " I think that dying would be the best thing 
 that could happen to lots of people." 
 
 "Something's got into you," Prunella said; 
 "I know it has. You've always been a kind of 
 backbone to me, and now I feel as if it were 
 giving way." 
 
 "Well, don't cry, Prunella," I said, com- 
 forting her; "backbones don't really give way. 
 Maybe I've just got a curvature of the spine 
 like Richard Third." 
 
 "Oh, don't!" said Prunella. 
 
 After that I tried not to distress her by any 
 allusions, covert or otherwise, to the things I 
 was thinking. However little you care to go 
 on living, you ought to keep it to yourself, I 
 suppose. Just because you've found out that 
 life is fundamentally evil and disgusting is no 
 reason why you should go around spreading 
 the glad tidings. 
 
 "Tony Cowles is very good to you," I ob- 
 served, to change the subject. 
 
 ;< Yes, he is," Prunella agreed. 
 
 ; * You have a kind of an ideal friendship with 
 him, have n't you?" 
 
 " Yes, I have. If it was n't for Tony I should 
 die, I think."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 159 
 
 My poor old eyes filled with tears, but 
 Prunella did n't see them. 
 
 "He's certainly an ideal host," I said. 
 "Miranda said that he ordered chicken and 
 waffles and Henri ice cream for to-night, and 
 he's going to take Tommy Nevers with us to 
 the theater if he can get him over the tele- 
 phone." 
 
 "I did n't know that," Prunella said, cheer- 
 ing up. 
 
 "You like Tommy, don't you, Prunella?" 
 
 "Well, you do, too. I like his ideas about 
 things. He's so sensible, and everything," 
 said Prunella. 
 
 "He likes fresh air," I said shyly. 
 
 "He likes sensible girls, too. Girls that are 
 good sports and don't flirt, you know. The 
 kind that are not always anxious to get out on 
 thin ice." 
 
 "Yes, I know he does." 
 
 "I don't think he really cares much for the 
 Webster girls. He practically described them 
 in telling me the kind of girls he did n't care 
 for." 
 
 "Well, Mertis is going to get a permanent 
 wave," I said.
 
 160 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "What do you mean by that?" 
 "He likes permanent waves." 
 "Oh! I don't think he does." 
 "Well, you ask him if you get a chance." 
 I gave her a chance that evening, when we 
 all went to "Ruddigore" together, after gorg- 
 ing on fried chicken and waffles. Or I did n't 
 exactly give her a chance; Tony did. He 
 planned it that I was to sit next to him, and 
 Prunella and Tommy together. When the 
 curtain went up his hand was lying on the 
 chair-arm, and I kept looking at it at inter- 
 vals, and wishing I could close my eyes and 
 hold it a few minutes instead of gazing at the 
 performance. I don't think anybody in the 
 world could help me, but I'd like to tell him 
 what I had found out about life, and see what 
 he 'd have to say about it. Maybe he 'd send 
 me to a sanatorium, or send me away from 
 Prunella so as to be sure that I would n't con- 
 taminate her. Of course, I can't be intrinsi- 
 cally very nice, considering the kind of things 
 that I am mixed up in and supposed to re- 
 semble. 
 
 "Are you devoted to Gilbert and Sullivan?" 
 Tony asked me when the lights went on. He
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 161 
 
 took his hand away and opened his programme 
 with it, and then let it fall on his overcoat 
 which he was holding. 
 
 "If this is it, I am," I said. 
 
 "This is it," he said seriously. 
 
 "Of course, I've played 'Pinafore,'" I said, 
 "but I've never seen any of them acted be- 
 fore." 
 
 "This is n't the best of them musically," he 
 said, "but it's one of the most delightful." 
 
 "It's got lovely tunes." 
 
 "Shall I send you a score to-morrow?" 
 
 "Yes, please," I said, and we both laughed. 
 
 "How do you think Prunella seems?" 
 
 "All right now" I said. 
 
 On the other side of me I heard Tommy 
 giving her an outline of his daily schedule. 
 He'd got as far as "When I'm in the subway 
 I begin to concentrate on the possible emer- 
 gencies I will have to meet " and Prunella 
 was listening to him eagerly. 
 
 "As a general thing do you think she is 
 gaining?" 
 
 "Yes, I do," I said. "Mr. Cowles, I'm not 
 altogether sure that I 'm the best influence for 
 her. I don't want to be visiting you under
 
 162 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 false pretenses. You know that I told you 
 that I was n't very cheerful." 
 
 "You said you had had a shock." 
 
 "I keep having shocks," I said, "and they 
 make me a little bit draggy. If you don't think 
 I am good for Prunella, you just have to say 
 so, and I will go away." 
 
 "Shocks?" Tony Cowles said invitingly. 
 
 But I did n't pursue the subject. 
 
 "I think you are the best possible influence 
 Prunella could have," he said; "if Miranda 
 does n't make you perfectly comfortable I 
 hope you will complain at headquarters." 
 
 "You know she does." 
 
 "I hoped she did." 
 
 "The opportunity is in himself," Tommy 
 was concluding. 
 
 "I think you are perfectly right about that," 
 Prunella agreed. 
 
 "A motto with that strange device," Tony 
 Cowles murmured, as the curtain rose on the 
 second act. Then he put his hand back where 
 I could look at it again. 
 
 It was not until after that night that I be- 
 gan to want to see Carrington again. I had 
 not supposed that I ever would want to. I
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 163 
 
 had thought seriously of killing myself, for I 
 agree with Stella that when an individual has 
 ceased to be of service to a community or to 
 himself he has a perfect right to self-destruc- 
 tion. It's a matter of your own conscience, 
 really. As long as you believe that you are put 
 in this world for a beneficent purpose, and 
 you follow out the laws of physical and mental 
 development accordingly, why, then you are 
 not a detrimental force, but when you begin 
 to deteriorate you are. Cosgrove says you 
 have a perfect right to be a destructive ele- 
 ment if you want to. But I don't want to. 
 
 I intended to wait until my visit with Pru- 
 nella was over, as it would n't be very nice of 
 me to leave her and Tony Cowles in the lurch 
 and then perhaps drown myself. I never 
 have thought that I wanted to turn on the gas. 
 I'd always be afraid that I would be resusci- 
 tated by mistaken friends, but drowning is 
 good clean business, and when you are dead you 
 are dead, and not disillusionized any longer. 
 
 It 's curious how your ideas of things change. 
 I was more frightened of death than of any- 
 thing when Mr. Pemberton died, and now it 
 is rather a welcome idea to me.
 
 164 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 I began to write notes and letters to Car- 
 rington every day when Prunella was taking 
 her nap. Of course I never sent any of them. 
 For one thing I did n't write them to send, and 
 for another I did n't want to make an ap- 
 pointment to see him while I was visiting 
 Tony Cowles. If I went out to meet Carring- 
 ton from there it would have seemed sneaky. 
 I don't know where I got my ethical point of 
 view from, but that was the way I felt. 
 
 Then one day I was all alone in the apart- 
 ment while Prunella and Tony were out walk- 
 ing, and I just went over to the desk and 
 wrote pages and pages without stopping. 
 -.., "Dear Carrington," I said, "you may be 
 surprised to get a letter from me, because I 
 have only written you notes before, but I 
 should like to tell you my point of view on our 
 friendship, and then to stop it forever if I 
 can. 
 
 "You see, I thought this was an entirely 
 different world from what it is. I was brought 
 up in a rather peculiar way, and I had to do 
 my thinking for myself. I did n't have brains 
 enough to get anything ' doped out ' right, ap- 
 parently. I probably did n't have the most
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 165 
 
 helpful kind of education to improve my 
 philosophy, and my bringing-up was eccentric 
 in some ways. Stella and Mother and Father 
 all have such diametrically opposed ways of 
 looking at things. I think it would be better to 
 have rules of conduct laid down for young 
 girls, and not so much left to their imagina- 
 tion. Your parents ought to tell you what is 
 right and wrong or good and bad, and if they 
 don't know, why, the State ought to have the 
 power to do it, like in the old days of the 
 Greeks. Some order might be brought out of 
 chaos this way, but perhaps it does n't matter. 
 " I just took the universe on trust, I suppose. 
 I took John Stuart Mill's word for it that evil 
 was put into the world so that there would 
 be something to keep the wheels going round. 
 It would be a static condition if there was 
 n't some elimination going on. That always 
 seemed very reasonable to me, and a great 
 comfort, when my sister was philosophizing 
 about the menace of modern civilization and 
 so on. Then I have found so much about 
 Beauty in the literature of the poets, and even 
 in the prevailing conversation of different 
 people, that I got to believe in it as a thing
 
 166 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 you could go on expecting to find beauty 
 and love. I don't know whether I am making 
 my ideas very clear. I am just trying to tell 
 you the things that may excuse me a little for 
 my attitude toward you. 
 
 "When I began to find out things about my 
 father and my mother that did n't seem quite 
 right, I could n't believe even then that there 
 was any explanation of their conduct but a 
 kind of sloppy or lackadaisical way they had of 
 looking at things. I should not have talked to 
 you about my fears on this subject if they had 
 been real fears or suspicions. I know you will 
 be inclined to scoff at my saying so, but I just 
 did n't know that things were like that. I 
 supposed in a dim way that your own relations 
 had to be like Csesar's wife, * above suspicion/ 
 
 "It was n't right for me to meet you out at 
 different places without telling my mother, or 
 it would n't have been right if I had had 
 the kind of mother that really minded such 
 things. Perhaps I am exaggerating the im- 
 portance of mothers. I don't know. This 
 was my first mistake. My second mistake was 
 a much more serious one. You know what that 
 was, as well as I do. Of course, it did n't seem
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 167 
 
 wrong to me because I did n't know what 
 things were like. I was silly enough to believe 
 that there could be tender and beautiful 
 friendships that could go on indefinitely, with 
 each trusting the other and giving the other 
 the comfort and affection that he craved. 
 
 "Of course, I knew about sex in a general 
 way, but I did n't seem to connect what I knew 
 with my devotion to you, or with the way it 
 made me happy to have you near me. I sup- 
 pose this is because it cloaks itself in the guise 
 of beauty, just as Nature cloaks the animals in 
 brilliant plumage to further her own ends. If 
 my mind had been more logical I should have 
 understood this before, but as it was I only 
 knew that I loved you. I suppose you will 
 think that I am making confused explana- 
 tions when I say that I knew that I loved you, 
 and I did n't know it at the same time. But it 
 seemed all right to me. I don't know whether 
 that is a thing you can believe or not. You 
 said I knew what I was doing. You said I was 
 a baby vamp. 
 
 "Well, I suppose I am a baby vamp. I 
 understand perfectly when you say you 
 love me what you mean, but I don't like it
 
 168 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 very much. I suppose that is not very con- 
 sistent of me. I loved you, and all I could ex- 
 pect was that you would point out to me what 
 I was doing. 
 
 "You said I knew what I was doing. I must 
 have known in a general way, but I can't un- 
 derstand yet why I was not warned by my 
 intuition that there was something else be- 
 neath it all. I did not expect that you would 
 ask me to marry you. I did n't want you to, 
 because I was so happy as I was. 
 
 "Now, I don't see how we can go on. I 
 should like to see you again and talk things 
 over, and perhaps I shall some day, but that is 
 all, and " 
 
 At this point I stopped, because I could see 
 that to his logical mind I would n't seem to be 
 getting anywhere. He would n't care so much 
 why it was that I felt the way I do. He would 
 only want to know whether I was going to do 
 anything about it or not. I don't want to do 
 anything about it, because it would be so ter- 
 rible to see him again with that one expression 
 on his face. So I tore up the letter. I tore it in 
 long scraggly pieces, and then I tore it in little 
 pieces, and burned it in Tony Cowles's grate,
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 169 
 
 and when he and Prunella came back from 
 their walk it was burning merrily. 
 
 "A bonfire?" Tony Cowles said interroga- 
 tively. 
 
 "A bonfire," I said. 
 
 "Nothing wrong?" he said with an intent 
 gaze into my face. 
 
 Then as I did n't answer he put one of his 
 nice friendly hands on my shoulder. 
 
 "I wrote a letter," I said, "and burnt it up." 
 
 "That is sometimes the best possible thing 
 to do with a letter," he answered quietly.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 I HAD forgotten that my visit in Tony Cowles's 
 apartment could n't last forever. It could have 
 gone on almost indefinitely, I suppose, if Mrs. 
 Pemberton had n't come frantically out of her 
 sanatorium one day when she was n't expected 
 to. Tony thought he had her sewed in too 
 tight for anything like that to happen, but 
 stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars 
 a cage. She came right through all of them, 
 and appeared to us one sunny morning slightly 
 lit up, though Prunella could n't imagine 
 where she got it. She probably bribed some- 
 body at the sanatorium. I shudder now when 
 I think of the expression on her face when she 
 held out her arms to Prunella, and cried in a 
 high, hysterical voice: 
 
 "Darling, aren't you glad to see your 
 
 mother?" 
 
 * 
 
 'Your hat is on crooked, Mother," Pru- 
 nella said, trying to straighten it. 
 
 Mrs. Pemberton pulled some of the strag- 
 gling henna locks down over her nose, and 
 blew at them inanely.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 171 
 
 4 'Don't want any hat on," she said; "take it 
 off, dearie." 
 
 So Prunella took it off, and finally got her 
 mother quieted and put to bed in Tony 
 Cowles's bed that she herself always slept in, 
 but before she went off to sleep she had ex- 
 tracted a sacred promise from Prunella that 
 she would never leave her again. It was all so 
 ghastly that I felt quite seasick. Mrs. Pember- 
 ton is a refined woman, of the very best family 
 and antecedents, but she looks and acts a good 
 deal like a park-bench woman. It is a strange 
 mystery to me that a lady like Prunella's 
 mother can be a regular pathological case that 
 the Charity Organization societies would be 
 after if she moved in a different social sphere. 
 She's like a piece of beautiful decaying fruit, 
 drenched in wine. 
 
 Tony Cowles was heartbroken at the failure 
 of his plan for Prunella's preservation, but the 
 best of his efforts failed to persuade her to 
 have her mother taken away from her again. 
 Prunella believes that she alone can stand be- 
 tween her mother and destruction, and even 
 the doctor won't admit that to tear them apart 
 is the way out of the difficulty. I think it is,
 
 172 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 myself, but men are a good deal more senti- 
 mental about family relations than women 
 are. They don't know so much about them 
 from the inside of the inside. 
 
 "The only thing I can do now," Tony 
 Cowles said, "is to have Mrs. Pemberton com- 
 mitted if she gets enough worse to warrant 
 such a step." 
 
 "She will," I said. 
 
 "Prunella has always listened to me before, 
 but this time she does n't think I know." 
 
 "She does n't think there is any escape," I 
 said, "and she can't stand the strain of pre- 
 tending there is, and then having her mother 
 pounce on her again." 
 
 "Do you think that is it?" Tony Cowles 
 asked wonderingly. 
 
 "I know it is," I said. 
 
 "Then the thing to do is to prove to her that 
 there is a way out once and for all." 
 
 "Yes," I said. 
 
 "We must think about that." 
 
 "We will," I said. 
 
 "I'm sorry to have my house party finish- 
 ing so abruptly." 
 
 "I'm sorry, too."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 173 
 
 "Are the shocks any better?" 
 
 "There are some kinds of shocks that never 
 get any better." 
 
 "No physician would agree with you." 
 
 "No physician would know," I said. 
 
 "I'm not only Prunella's friend in need, you 
 know," Tony said gravely. 
 
 "I know that," I said. 
 
 "I'm going to give you my downtown ad- 
 dress and telephone number. You know how to 
 reach me here, now, and if you don't find me 
 either here or there you could try the club." 
 
 "I don't suppose I shall ever be in need any 
 more," I said. 
 
 "I might be in need of you, at least," Tony 
 Cowles said. 
 
 "You have my telephone number." 
 
 "So don't throw mine away. Sometimes 
 unforeseen things happen like houses burning 
 down, or lovely ladies meeting a ruffian, 
 or" 
 
 "My house did burn down," I said. 
 
 "You mean your house of life," Tony 
 Cowles said swiftly. 
 
 "Yes," I said. ' 
 
 It was temporarily settled that when Mrs.
 
 174 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 Pemberton went back to the sanatorium Pru- 
 nella was to go with her, also as a patient. 
 It was a pretty good solution of a matter that 
 could n't be solved. Mrs. Pemberton would n't 
 go without her, but she did consent to take her 
 along, and at least Prunella would be being 
 built up by having good care herself, and 
 the nature of the treatment would keep her 
 away from her mother for good long intervals. 
 So I went home again to Stella and Mother 
 and Squidgins and Bobby, and my intermit- 
 tent father. I felt so many thousand years 
 older than I did when I went away that it was 
 hard to adjust myself to my old scale of living, 
 or to remember all the things that I was sup- 
 posed to think and feel under given circum- 
 stances. I felt like Rip Van Winkle, more than 
 anything, awake and alive after a long sleep 
 that had left me a thousand years old, and 
 everybody else entirely changed. Squidgins, 
 however, had only taken advantage of my ab- 
 sence to acquire a few parlor tricks, and to lose 
 about a square inch of hair from the back of 
 his head. I think he is going quite bald. The 
 nurse had just gone the first day I came home, 
 and I was allowed to take a good deal of the
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 175 
 
 care of him, and finally put him to bed at 
 night after changing him out of his ridiculous 
 day things into his equally ridiculous night 
 ones. I felt like making a prayer as I tucked 
 him under his pink eiderdown. 
 
 "God, if there is a God," I said (out of 
 some story, I can't remember what), "if Thou 
 knowest any comfort for an entirely desolate 
 girl, who does n't believe in anything, send it 
 to me. Help Thou mine unbelief. Bless this 
 little helpless baby, and bless me." 
 
 Then I kissed his pink and wiggling toes and 
 felt quite peaceful. I know Stella entirely dis- 
 approves of kissing, but I don't think a germ 
 could travel from an infant's head to his feet 
 without getting lost in transit, and he is n't 
 big enough to get his toes in his mouth yet. 
 
 Bobby was very glad to see me. He was 
 building an airplane in his own room, and the 
 place was entirely littered up with shavings 
 and whalebone and chamois skin, and all the 
 other things that he thought might be useful to 
 him. 
 
 "I was going to build a dirigible," he said, 
 "but I could n't find out anything to make it 
 of."
 
 176 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 " Why don't you make a kite? " I said; "and 
 then you could really fly it." 
 
 "If I wanted to make a kite, I would," he 
 said. 
 
 "Have you been all right?" I said. 
 
 "Sure, I have." 
 
 "Did you remember the things I told you 
 about school? " 
 
 "What things?" 
 
 "Did you remember them?" 
 
 "I don't know what things you mean." 
 
 "About keeping away from the worst boys." 
 
 "I don't know how you knew there was any 
 worst boys," he muttered in his teeth, whit- 
 tling industriously all the time. 
 
 "I knew," I said; and then, being reminded 
 of other things that won't stay buried in my 
 mind for more than a few minutes at a time, 
 my poor old eyes slopped over again. 
 
 Bobby looked up in consternation. 
 
 "What are you doing that for?" he said. 
 
 " I 'm very tired, Bobby," I said. 
 
 "Well, you make me tired," he said, in a 
 very shamefaced way. "If you knew how 
 good I behaved, you 'd know that you did n't 
 have any cause to worry about me. I keep
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 177 
 
 away from those boys. I have, ever since you 
 said to." 
 
 "Oh! Bobby," I said, "I wasn't crying 
 about that, but I am now," and I made some 
 passes at him. 
 
 "You act just like a girl," he said. 
 
 But he put his arms around me, and hugged 
 me, and breathed down my back a few times 
 just to show that his roughness was mostly 
 assumed. 
 
 At dinner every one was unexpectedly 
 cheerful. 
 
 "It seems like a month since you went 
 away, Mary," Mother said, "instead of a 
 bare two weeks." 
 
 "Delia has been quite disconsolate," Stella 
 said, and Delia, who was serving me with hot 
 corn bread, nearly dropped it in my lap while 
 she nudged me with her elbow. 
 
 Cosgrove, who was our guest that evening, 
 honored me with a penetrating glance. 
 
 "Mary is one of those people who is literally 
 conspicuously absent," he said, with his slow 
 drawl. 
 
 "Well, I'm glad you missed me," I said; 
 "did you miss me, Daddy?"
 
 178 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 Father came out of the trance in which he 
 lives, moves, and has his being. 
 
 : 'Yes," he said, "Cosgrove is right. Your 
 company is better than your room, any day." 
 
 "That's gratifying," I said; "there's some- 
 thing to be said for homes and families, Stella, 
 if you can react on them like that." 
 
 "I don't think I can," said Stella. 
 
 "What would you do to the home, if you 
 had your way, Stella; bust it entirely? " Father 
 asked. 
 
 "Not necessarily," Stella said; "in principle 
 all human habitations should be nationalities, 
 that's all." 
 
 "It seems simple," Father murmured. 
 
 "A man should possess as personal property 
 the house in which he lives," Cosgrove said 
 earnestly, "but that right should be contin- 
 gent upon his use of the place." 
 
 "What use ought he to put it to?" I said. 
 
 "He should make only one use of it, as an 
 abode for himself and family." 
 
 "But I thought you did n't believe in fami- 
 lies," I said. 
 
 "Personally I don't, but the soviet system 
 recognizes the family unit."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 179 
 
 "I should think you would be pro-family, 
 then, if you were pro-soviet," I said. 
 
 "You don't understand our personal atti- 
 tude," Stella said patiently. 
 
 "One reactionary daughter in a family 
 ought to be enough," Cosgrove said, meaning 
 it as a pleasantry; "you are pro-family for the 
 two of you." 
 
 "I don't know that I believe in families 
 any more than Stella does," I said; "only I 
 have a different reason for it." 
 
 "It's a matter of principle with me, en- 
 tirely," Stella said. " I think there is something 
 better to look forward to." 
 
 "What's your reason?" Cosgrove asked me 
 interestedly. 
 
 "I don't believe they are founded on any- 
 thing permanent," I said evasively. 
 
 "Keeping the home together is the ideal of a 
 great many women," Mother said; "the ideal 
 for which they are willing to sacrifice every- 
 thing." Father gave her a sharp look. 
 
 "A great many women who might be against 
 a much more spectacular background are will- 
 ing and glad to give themselves up to the mak- 
 ing of a home," she concluded.
 
 180 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "It's a pity," Father said briefly. 
 
 "Where's old Ellery?" Bobby put in. "I 
 have n't seen him around for quite a while." 
 
 "He has n't been here for a week," Mother 
 said, sighing. "That's no way to speak of our 
 friends, Bobby." 
 
 "He's not my friend," Father said. 
 
 " Ellery 's all right," Stella contributed pro- 
 foundly; "he lacks intellectual grasp/ that 's 
 all." 
 
 "He has a dainty nature," Cosgrove added. 
 
 Mother colored slightly, and Stella sup- 
 pressed her husband with that look of tran- 
 quil reproof that anybody else would find per- 
 fectly maddening. 
 
 "Ellery thinks of going to South America," 
 Mother said, sighing; "he thinks that the 
 voyage might benefit him." 
 
 "Why do you let him go?" Father asked 
 sharply. 
 
 "I have nothing to do with Ellery 's move- 
 ments," Mother said. 
 
 Bobby winked at me. 
 
 "Have n't you?" said Father; "why not?" 
 
 "Why should I have?" 
 
 "You know that better than I do."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 181 
 
 "I don't understand you," Mother said 
 shortly; "don't you like your dessert?" 
 
 "You know I never eat cornstarch." 
 
 "There's very little cornstarch in that pud- 
 ding. It's mostly thickened by the chocolate 
 itself." 
 
 "Why don't you have whipped cream if you 
 must have this chocolate stuff? " 
 
 "Do you realize that cream has gone up to 
 sixty cents a pint? " 
 
 "What do I care?" 
 
 "You would care when the bills began to 
 come in. The only way to cope with the high 
 cost of supplies is to eliminate the things that 
 have become extravagant luxuries." 
 
 "There was a little boy getting his hair cut 
 the other day," Bobby broke in, "and the 
 barber said to him, 'The price of haircuts has 
 gone up/ and the boy looked up at him and 
 said, *I don't care; my father is a lawyer, and 
 the price of law has gone up." 
 
 "Exactly," said Father, getting up abruptly. 
 
 "I wish your father wouldn't get injured 
 when I explain how I try to regulate my bud- 
 get," Mother said, as she looked after his re- 
 treating figure.
 
 182 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "But you don't need to, Mother," I said; 
 "you have more money than you spend all the 
 time." 
 
 "I don't any more; he's cut down my al- 
 lowance," Mother explained. " I really have to 
 manage now." 
 
 "He's left his cigar-case," I said. "I guess 
 I'll go and take it to him." 
 
 I knocked on his door softly, but got no 
 answer. Then thinking he was n't in there 
 after all I pushed the door open, meaning to 
 leave the case on his dressing-table. He was 
 lying on the bed face downward, and did not 
 hear me come in. 
 
 "Father!" I cried. "Father, what's the 
 matter, Father? " 
 
 He turned a ghastly face toward me, but did 
 not speak. 
 
 "What's the matter, Father?" I said again; 
 "are you ill?" 
 
 He shook his head, and I stood still, stupidly 
 watching him. 
 
 "Can't I do anything for you?" 
 
 He shook his head again, then he sat up on 
 the edge of his bed and began kneading his eyes 
 and his forehead with the palms of his hand.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 183 
 
 "Family life!" he burst out suddenly, "fam- 
 ily life! Oh! my God!" 
 
 And all I could do was to go out and leave 
 him sitting there.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE Webster girls, being the only people 
 I never expected anything from, naturally 
 could n't disillusionize me by falling down on 
 it. They are scatter-brained, but they keep 
 on the even tenor of their way, never getting 
 into any trouble that they can't get out of, 
 never getting too much disappointed or hurt 
 about anything, and living in a charming home 
 atmosphere which they take as a perfect mat- 
 ter of course. 
 
 They occupy the top floor of their house, 
 having two enormous bedrooms, connected 
 with a dressing-room, and every reasonable 
 luxury thrown in. Mertis's room is blue with 
 blue hangings, and decorated in that new way 
 they are doing bedrooms now, with flowered 
 wall-paper set in panels between the wood- 
 work. Her flowers are violets, and Marion's 
 are forget-me-nots on a rose background. 
 They each have eiderdown puffs folded corner- 
 wise across the filet lace counterpanes on their 
 beds, and ivory toilet sets with enameled vio- 
 lets and roses, respectively, and oh! every-
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 185 
 
 thing. My bedroom is a corner room that de- 
 bauches debauches is just what it does 
 on a busy corridor, and the dug-out is merely 
 the alcove of it. I've done my best to make 
 it peaceful, but the publicity of its situation 
 is something that is beyond my poor efforts to 
 rectify. It 's like sitting in the middle table in a 
 restaurant, and having the waiters walk round 
 and round and round you. 
 
 The Webster girls were both in Mertis's 
 room one day about a week after I got back 
 home, and I found them swimming in yards 
 of pale-colored Georgette and lace and satin 
 ribbon. Mertis was making herself a com- 
 plete set of orchid-colored lingerie, and Marion 
 one in rose. They had Paris patterns, and 
 every garment was a dream. 
 
 "It looks like a trousseau," I said. 
 
 "Not yet," Mertis said. 
 
 " No wedding bells for me," Marion measured 
 herself from her hip to her knee. 
 
 "I wouldn't waste these on a mere hus- 
 band," Mertis said. "I'm thinking of going 
 into musical comedy with them." 
 
 "I never saw such lovely things." 
 
 "There's a peach of a lingerie show at
 
 186 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 Wanamaker's." Marion continued to take 
 her dimensions serenely. I am accustomed to 
 think slightingly of the Webster brains, but I 
 can't attend to these little technicalities, and 
 keep up a rattling commentary on current 
 topics beside. When I sew, I stick my tongue 
 in my left cheek like Bobby at his carpenter- 
 ing, and knit my bushy brows. 
 
 "Their lingerie is always fascinating," I said. 
 
 "Like all good Methodists Mr. Wanamaker 
 runs to extremes at times," Mertis said. 
 
 "He is n't a Jlethodist," Marion said. 
 
 "Oh! is n't he? I thought he was." 
 :< The weather to-day will probably be 
 pleasant," Mertis quoted from the well- 
 known Wanamaker ads. 
 
 "I can't think whether to make a camisole 
 like the pattern, and a little pettie separately, 
 or whether to sew the two together and call it 
 a combination," Marion deliberated. 
 
 "It will be a combination if you do that to 
 it," Mertis said. "I'm going to make mine 
 separately, because there might be a time 
 when you wanted to wear some kind of a Turk- 
 ish effect and the pettie would be superfluous." 
 
 "On the other hand," Marion argued, "I
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 187 
 
 hate to have garments that can divide at the 
 waist-line. It makes the whole effect ugly." 
 
 "Oh! you two are such a comfort," I said, 
 "talking about things like this as if they were 
 the most important subjects in the world." 
 
 "Well, they are," Mertis said; "what have 
 you been doing with yourself lately?" 
 
 "Taking care of Stella's baby." 
 
 "Mercy!" 
 
 "I like it," I said. 
 
 "I think she does, Marion," Mertis said; 
 "don't you know some girls do?" 
 
 "Well, I like babies better than you do," 
 Marion agreed. "I don't mind them, if they 
 don't part with their milk suddenly, or any- 
 thing. What usually happens to me when I get 
 a baby in my arms is " 
 
 "Never mind," Mertis said; "but I don't 
 see how you can handle one of them, Maisie, 
 just as a labor of love." 
 
 "I like it," I said. "Squidgins is a particu- 
 larly nice one." 
 
 "And yet he has that eccentric father," 
 Marion mused. 
 
 "Stella is n't exactly the most normal per- 
 son, is she?"
 
 188 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "You aren't very polite about Maisie's 
 relations," Marion reminded her. 
 
 "I don't have to be," Mertis said. "Maisie 
 knows what I mean. I would n't say anything 
 derogatory to Stella." 
 
 " There is nothing derogatory to be said of 
 Stella," I said. "Stella's just Stella, that's all." 
 
 "And yet, this offspring is a perfect wonder. 
 Well, wonders will never cease. Have you seen 
 anything of Carrington lately, Maisie?" 
 
 I was n't expecting this. 
 
 "Well, no," I said. 
 
 "We haven't either. But we've heard of 
 him around with Red Feather a lot." 
 
 "Who is Red Feather?" I asked, though I 
 did n't have to ask. I knew. 
 
 "That's Mrs. Hyphen Something Jones, 
 you know." 
 
 "She's just a friendly acquaintance of his," 
 I said; "she has a husband." 
 
 "Yes, but he spends all of his time abroad." 
 
 "And Carrington spends most of his time 
 with her," Mertis contributed. 
 
 "Why do you let him get away with it, 
 Maisie?" Marion inquired. 
 
 "I what have I to do with it?"
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 189 
 
 " Oh ! you need n't play innocent. You know 
 he's crazy about you." 
 
 " Not any more," I said. 
 
 "What '11 you bet?" 
 
 "He is n't." 
 
 "What '11 you bet? Be a sport. Nut sun- 
 daes at Page's?" 
 
 "I don't want to bet on it?" I said. 
 
 "Well, you know he is, that's why. You've 
 probably started your hope chest already." 
 
 "Oh! don't, please," I said. 
 
 "Let her alone, Marion. You're bothering 
 her." 
 
 "Well, I'd put a quietus on Red Feather," 
 Marion said. 
 
 "How would you?" I said. 
 
 "By keeping him too busy myself for any 
 such nonsense." 
 
 "I don't think he wants to marry any one," 
 I said. 
 
 "Well, bring him round to another way of 
 thinking." 
 
 "I could n't," I said. 
 
 "Nonsense, any girl can. No man wants to 
 get married when you come right down to it." 
 
 "What do they want?"
 
 190 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Oh! just to fool around, and keep out of 
 the toils." 
 
 "You don't take things very seriously, do 
 you?" I said. 
 
 "Of course, we do. You don't have to take 
 men like Carrington seriously, though. If you 
 want them, you get them, that's all." 
 
 "Do you ever think about sex?" I said. 
 
 Mertis threw a sudden queer little look at 
 Marion, which seemed to say that I was on 
 the verge of a vulgar subject, so I hastily re- 
 trieved my error. 
 
 "I mean, what sex would you really rather 
 be? If you had your way a man or a wo- 
 man?" 
 
 "Oh! I'd rather be a woman," Marion said. 
 
 "I don't know," Mertis hesitated. "I think 
 you could have a lot of fun being a man. Men 
 can do anything they darn well please, and 
 never have to suffer from the consequences. 
 Think of being able to take in everything, and 
 have no blame attached to it." 
 
 "Women get more," Marion said; "after all, 
 it's the men that have to pay the bills." 
 
 "Well, I would n't want to be a poor man," 
 Marion said, " but if I had money enough, why,
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 191 
 
 that would be another story. Which would 
 you rather be, Maisie? What started you on 
 this, anyhow?" 
 
 "I don't know," I said, to both questions. 
 "I'd rather be a man probably. A man can 
 get away if he 's a square peg in a round hole. 
 A woman has to stick." 
 
 Suzanne, who is one of the prettiest maids 
 I ever saw, knocked on the door at this junc- 
 ture, and announced that Mertis was wanted 
 on the telephone. 
 
 "Father says we'd never come downstairs 
 at all if we had a connection up here," Mertis 
 pouted. 
 
 When she came back she had a long whis- 
 pered colloquy with her sister. I think it's 
 rude to hold private conversations like that 
 with a third person present, and I know 
 Marion and Mertis were brought up to think 
 so, but they don't care, and some way you don't 
 mind it in them. Their ideas of all human re- 
 lations are so simple. 
 
 "Let's all go downstairs," Mertis said, after 
 all this was over. 
 
 "You can't take your work down there," 
 I said.
 
 192 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "We've worked enough for a while." 
 
 "I thought you were going to sew all the 
 afternoon," I said. 
 
 "Well, let's go downstairs for a while any- 
 way." 
 
 We descended slowly, three abreast, with 
 our arms twined about each other. At the 
 drawing-room door the girls suddenly relaxed 
 their clasp and pushed me in ahead of them. 
 Then instead of following they closed the door 
 softly upon me. 
 
 Carrington was standing by the window, 
 gazing down into the street. He turned as I 
 came in. 
 
 "Well," he said. 
 
 "Was that you on the telephone?" I asked. 
 
 "No; Mertis was sitting in the hall tele- 
 phoning when I came in. When she told me 
 you were here I asked her to send you down to 
 see me alone." 
 
 "Well, she did," I said. 
 
 "Are n't you glad to see me?" 
 
 Of course my heart was pounding so hard 
 that it nearly suffocated me, and the strength 
 was oozing out of me like so much sawdust. 
 
 "Yes," I said.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 193 
 
 Then he put his arms full around me, and 
 kissed me, but not on the lips, because I would 
 not let him. 
 
 "Don't you love me?" 
 
 "Yes," I said. 
 
 "Enough? "he said. 
 
 "I --don't know." 
 
 "Don't you realize you've been torturing 
 me by your silence?" 
 
 "Yes, I think so." 
 
 "How could you, then?" he asked re- 
 proachfully. 
 
 "I don't care about that," I said. 
 
 "About what?" 
 
 "About what you want." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because I don't think it's very impor- 
 tant." 
 
 "What is important, then?" 
 
 "Nothing, I guess." 
 
 ''You're quibbling, dear. I've been honest 
 with you. It would have been easier not to be." 
 
 "I should think it might have been," I said. 
 "Carrington, why do you think why did 
 you think that you could put anything 
 up to me I mean like this? "
 
 194 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "In the first place, I'm not putting any- 
 thing up to you, dear. You're a free agent. 
 I could almost ask you the same question, for 
 it 's practically I who met you halfway, not the 
 other way around. In the second place, you 've 
 had unusual opportunities to observe Me 
 through vicarious experience." 
 
 "You mean my mother and father? Be- 
 cause they are like that you think I might just 
 as well be?" 
 
 "That's morbid, dear." 
 
 "No, it is n't morbid. That's the reason." 
 
 "You're talking nonsense." 
 
 "Well, I will," I said. 
 
 Carrington stared. 
 
 "You'll you'll come to me?" he said. 
 
 "Yes, I will." 
 
 "You understand what you are doing?" he 
 said. 
 
 "Yes," I said. 
 
 "You see it's like this, dear," he said; 
 "you've consciously or unconsciously brought 
 about a state of affairs between us to which 
 there is only one answer, if we are ever to see 
 one another again. If I were some men I would 
 lie to you about the possibilities of our being
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 195 
 
 married, and so on. I never have lied to a 
 woman yet." 
 
 "Have n't you? "I said. 
 
 "You won't marry young, and yet your na- 
 ture demands its fulfillment. I can give you 
 of happiness, and really not hurt you, I think. 
 You 're older at nineteen than most women of 
 twenty-five." 
 
 "I am old," I said. 
 
 "Will you come to my apartment to- 
 morrow night?" 
 
 "If you'll get me the address," I said. 
 
 "Oh! I'll meet you somewhere say, the 
 Butterfly Grill, and we'll dine." 
 
 "I don't want to have dinner with you," I 
 said; "if you give me the address, I'll come." 
 
 "Let me take you there. I'd feel better." 
 
 "I've met you everywhere else," I said; 
 "why should n't I meet you at your home?" 
 
 "Just as you wish, dear. You're sure you 
 want to? I'm not coercing you in any way?" 
 
 "I wish you were," I said. 
 
 "You're a strange little girl." 
 
 "Were n't the other women strange?" 
 
 "What other women?" 
 
 "The women that you never lied to?"
 
 196 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Dear," he said, "life is worth just one 
 thing, the happiness we can make it yield us. 
 The only tragedy is never having lived. It 
 takes some courage on my part to give you 
 life straight." 
 
 He looked very earnest and beautiful as he 
 spoke. I wished that I could believe in him 
 again, and I almost did for the moment, only 
 I had nothing left to believe with. I knew he 
 was right. If this was life I ought to take it, on 
 his terms. 
 
 "I don't see what else there is to be but a 
 sport," I said. 
 
 "Did you and Carrington patch it up?" 
 Mertis inquired, after he had gone away 
 again. 
 
 "Yes," I said. 
 
 "Weren't you surprised when you found 
 out who it was in the drawing-room?" 
 
 "Very surprised." 
 
 "Mertis winked at me," Marion said, "and 
 we both gave you a push at the same moment. 
 You thought there was something suspicious 
 about our leaving our labors upstairs, did n't 
 
 you?"
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 197 
 
 "Now, I know what you were doing it for." 
 
 " Guess what we are going to see to-morrow 
 night?" 
 
 "'The Follies'? "I said. 
 
 "No, * Hamlet.' Isn't it a scream? Did 
 you ever see it?" 
 
 "Tony Cowles took me and Prunella one 
 night." 
 
 "Did you like it?" 
 
 "Yes, I did," I said; "it seemed true to life 
 to me, if it is Shakespeare." 
 
 "What do you mean true to life?" 
 
 "Well, as if it might happen anywhere, at 
 any time." 
 
 "We haven't got many kings and queens 
 and things in New York." 
 
 "Well, we have family complications," I 
 said. 
 
 "What's it about?" Marion inquired; "I've 
 forgotten." 
 
 "Well, Hamlet discovers how rotten things 
 are in the State of Denmark, and " 
 
 "He can't stand the strain," Mertis put in, 
 "so he goes around making an awful fuss about 
 it, and throwing down his lady love, and doing 
 a lot of soliloquizing."
 
 198 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Yes, but how does it come out?" 
 "Oh! he goes all to pieces," I said; "it's a 
 tragedy." 
 
 "I see where we put in a wonderful eve- 
 ning," Marion groaned.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 I PUT Squidgins to bed and had my dinner as 
 usual, it was pot roast and canned lima 
 beans and bread pudding, and it did seem as 
 if it was a peculiarly unpalatable combina- 
 tion for anybody who might be leaving home 
 for the last time, and then I began to make 
 my plans for going away. My general idea 
 was not to come back, though I was n't sure 
 where I meant to go if I did n't hold to my 
 original idea of drowning myself. For once in 
 my life I could n't seem to make plans of any 
 sort or description. I suppose I really did n't 
 care what became of me. 
 
 I don't know why I said that I would go to 
 Carrington, except that when he put his arms 
 around me I almost forgot he had killed every- 
 thing that I thought was beautiful in the world. 
 Also, I wanted to be a sport. I hate people 
 that won't go through with a thing that 
 they have started, and Carrington said I had 
 started this. 
 
 I put some things together in my overnight 
 bag, and then I decided that I would n't take
 
 200 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 it. After all, I might be spending the night in 
 the park. I did n't know. There might not be 
 any night to spend. I tried to think of the 
 family consternation if they woke up in the 
 morning and did not find me there, but I was n't 
 able to picture it very vividly. There was no 
 need to be heroical, and write a note the way 
 they do in the movies. What I was going to do 
 was an old story to my father and mother. 
 Stella would n't be shocked because she would 
 have done the same thing if she happened to 
 want to. I felt squeamish when I thought of 
 Squidgins, that was all. I just felt as if I were 
 putting something over on somebody that 
 had n't had a chance to develop any theory of 
 life, and that might be hurt by mine. He 
 did n't know what things were like any more 
 than I had known. 
 
 I had put on my robin redbreast turban 
 and was getting into my coat when Bobby 
 came into my room. 
 
 " Can I go out with you, Sister? " he said. 
 
 "I'm only going to walk a little way," I 
 said; "that wouldn't be any fun for you." 
 
 "Yes, it would," he said; "I'll buy you an 
 ice-cream soda."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 201 
 
 "You have n't any money," I said. 
 
 "Yes, I have. I bet Noodle Paine that it 
 would snow yesterday, and I won." 
 
 "How much did you. win?" 
 
 "A quarter, and I had five cents." 
 
 "Well, I've got to go somewhere," I said. 
 
 "Out to meet your beau?" 
 
 "I have n't any beau." 
 
 "Yes, you haven't! Carrington Chase is 
 your beau." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Yes, he is. Ellery Howe is Mother's beau." 
 
 "Married women don't have beaux." 
 
 "Yes, they do. Mother 's got one." 
 
 "Bobby," I said, "you ought not to think 
 that way about things; you'll get mixed up 
 about life." 
 
 "Father's got a girl, too; a lady vamp with 
 earrings and a long fur coat." 
 
 "He has n't." 
 
 "Has, too; I've seen her." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "Walking down the street with her and 
 kind of quarreling with her." 
 
 "Did n't you think it was terrible?" 
 
 "What do I care?"
 
 202 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "I care terribly, Bobby," I said. 
 
 "Well, you 're a girl." 
 
 " Would you care if I went off with a 
 man the way they do in the movies?" 
 
 "I'd knock his block off." 
 
 "Why don't you knock Ellery's off, then?" 
 
 " Old Ellery's different." 
 
 "He's Mother's beau." 
 
 "Well, he does n't hurt anything." 
 
 "How about Father?" 
 
 "His old vamp does n't hurt." 
 
 "I don't see why you'd feel any different 
 about Car about my " 
 
 "Well, you're a girl, and my sister." 
 
 "Bobby," I said, "do you love me- do 
 you, really?" 
 
 "No," Bobby said, "nothing like that. I 
 would n't say so if I did, would I?" 
 
 "Kiss me, Bobby, will you?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 I had to start out with him in tow, because 
 I could n't shake him, but finally I induced him 
 to turn around and let me go on alone. I 
 watched his little figure sauntering along, and 
 thought how differently things worked out in 
 stories. That talk with my little brother
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 203 
 
 might have saved me if I had been a heroine in 
 a novel. In a novel I would have got that kiss, 
 too. 
 
 The building Carrington lived in was quite 
 old, and they had the push-button arrange- 
 ment where you ring, and then they open the 
 door from the apartment itself. I was going to 
 ring the bell when I discovered the outside 
 door was standing ajar, and I went on up. 
 Carrington lived on the fifth floor he had told 
 me. It was a stuffy building, and at the turn of 
 each staircase was a niche built for a statue or a 
 saint to stand in, but empty of occupants now. 
 It was no place for saints anyhow. The carpet 
 was red and plushy, and very full of dust. 
 Carrington's door had a neat little plate with 
 his name engraved on it. I sat in the niche on 
 his landing to get my breath. Then I rang the 
 bell. No one answered, and I rang again, and 
 went back to my niche thinking I would wait 
 for him. 
 
 As I sat there I went through that door in 
 my imagination. I saw Carrington's old young 
 face, with his upstanding hair, and his sleepy 
 eyes fixed on me. I felt him take me in his arms, 
 and kiss me. I heard his voice saying things
 
 204 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 that he had never said to me before. I saw 
 him open the door of his own room 
 
 It was all as if it had happened. I slipped to 
 my feet and made my way down the stairs 
 again, not saved I was n't that, because I 
 had eaten of the tree of good and evil. What 
 there was left of my guilelessness I left up there 
 enshrined in that niche like a devil instead of a 
 saint. I was n't a good woman or a bad woman. 
 I was just one that did n't have to take the 
 trouble to be either, that was all. I hated 
 Carrington, and the stuffy look of his stair 
 carpet, and the cracked enamel of his pinkish 
 walls. 
 
 I telephoned him as soon as I could find a 
 booth. 
 
 "I came," I said, "and I could n't get in. 
 I'm not coming back." 
 
 "You came?" 
 
 I explained to him. 
 
 "My doorbell does n't ring," he said, "but 
 the downstairs bell does. I did n't dream of 
 your failing to ring that. Why, I was inside 
 all the time." 
 
 "I knew you were," I said. 
 
 "You '11 come back?"
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 205 
 
 "No, I won't," I said; "I wouldn't have 
 not come, but I won't come back." 
 
 "You're a quitter." 
 
 "All right," I said, "I'm a quitter." 
 
 "You don't love me?" 
 
 "No, I don't. I know I said I did, but I 
 don't." 
 
 "Are you afraid?" 
 
 "If I were I would come back," I said, and 
 then I hung up the receiver on his plead- 
 ings. 
 
 I used another nickel to call up Tony 
 Cowles, but when I heard the sound of his 
 voice I hung up on him, because I could n't 
 think of one thing I had to say to him. 
 
 I went and sat in the park for a while, and 
 then I rode in the subway almost all night. 
 Along about six in the morning I let myself 
 into my own door with my latch-key, and 
 nobody knew the difference. I looked hollow- 
 eyed at breakfast, but so did Father, and so 
 did Stella, on account of Squidgins having had 
 a tummy-ache all night. Mother remarked 
 that she had thought I was staying all night 
 with the Webster girls, and Father asked in a 
 gruff voice what time I did come in, anyway.
 
 206 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 I lied composedly, being now so sure of my 
 moral degeneration that I did n't feel even 
 one little qualm about it. 
 
 It was rather a good thing that I did come 
 home that morning because before the day 
 was out things had happened in our family 
 that put even my own emotions in the shade, 
 for the time being. It seems to be the rule 
 about shocks that they keep on coming. In 
 fiction just about one big thing happens to 
 the characters at once, and the story deals with 
 that and disposes of it. In real life events pile 
 one on top of another without reason; one 
 knock-out blow seems to be a signal for all the 
 rest to come on. Sometimes I think I shall 
 never read any more novels, because they 
 don't give you any idea of life at all. 
 
 After breakfast, which was harmonious, 
 though rather pathetic, I did the regular 
 stunts of practicing a little, and mending up 
 my clothes and running fresh ribbons in things, 
 and helping with Squidgins. I felt as if my 
 whole body were asleep the way your foot is 
 sometimesjjbefore it begins to pain and prickle. 
 When Mother suggested that we go out to- 
 gether and do some shopping after lunch I
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 207 
 
 acquiesced, because I could n't think of any 
 adequate reason for not going. 
 
 We took a bus downtown, and then went 
 from one Fifth Avenue shop to another. I 
 don't care much for shopping with Mother, be- 
 cause she shops around among the bargains so 
 much, carefully examining price marks and 
 quality, but this time she was n't so bad. She 
 was almost reckless at moments. 
 
 "Please don't save money on the lace I put 
 into my underwear," I begged her automati- 
 cally, as we walked toward Macy's. "If you 
 don't get a good kind it does n't wash, or else 
 I have to have complete sets of things just for 
 thin dresses and parties." I like to dress very 
 daintily all the time, instead of having a lot 
 of best sets of things. I think it's in better 
 taste. 
 
 "We have n't got so much money to save," 
 Mother said cryptically. 
 
 "So you're not saving it so hard. Well, 
 that's good news." 
 
 "I don't know whether it is or not," Mother 
 said. 
 
 "Father is n't giving you so much?" 
 
 "No."
 
 208 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Because he has n't got it?" 
 
 "I don't know. I think if he had been mak- 
 ing less I should know. You don't know, do 
 you, dear? You're more in your father's con- 
 fidence than I am." 
 
 "I'm not really in his confidence," I said. 
 
 "I'm not," Mother said; "I used to be, but 
 I'm not now." 
 
 "But you don't care," I said. 
 
 "You mustn't jump at conclusions like 
 that. Of course I care; when you are married 
 you will understand these things better." 
 
 "I hope I shall never be married." 
 
 "When a man is the father of your children 
 it's a different matter." 
 
 "Well, he always was," I said, "and you 
 would n't go to Canada with him. That was 
 the beginning." 
 
 "The beginning of what? I don't under- 
 stand you." 
 
 "The beginning of everything." 
 
 "I had no right to go off on a pleasure trip 
 and leave my family." 
 
 "And Ellery," I supplemented. 
 
 Mother looked scared. 
 
 "You're only a child, and you know nothing
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 209 
 
 about life, and you have no right " Mother 
 began. 
 
 "I did n't say I had," I said; "only I can't 
 help thinking it would be better to come 
 right out flat with things and admit what they 
 are." 
 
 Jimmie Greer coming toward us with his 
 hand outstretched was a welcome interrup- 
 tion to the conversation. He had grown very 
 fat, and was wearing an overcoat with a mink 
 collar that made him look like the Secretary 
 of State or something. 
 
 "I am glad to see you," he said to Mother; 
 "aren't you looking unusually well, or do I 
 dream it?" 
 
 "You dream," I answered to this sotto 
 voce, but nobody heard me. 
 
 "I did n't know you in that luxurious coat," 
 Mother said. 
 
 "Where's your luxurious coat?" he asked. 
 "You know Robert got me this at the same 
 time he got the seal one for you. Don't you 
 wear it on these shopping expeditions?" 
 
 "Alas, I did n't get mine," Mother said. 
 
 "Why, it was sent to you. Mine came with 
 it."
 
 210 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Robert offered to get me a coat, but I 
 declined it." 
 
 "The more fo I mean, the more un- 
 fortunate for you. But I saw the bill for it. 
 Robert enclosed it with mine by mistake." 
 
 "It was no doubt all a mistake," Mother 
 said. 
 
 "Robert described the coat to me, it was 
 such a wonderful bargain. I would have bought 
 it for any lady friend I ' ve got." 
 
 "Perhaps Robert did," said Mother with no 
 inkling of the truth. 
 
 But the perception of it in Jimmie Greer's 
 face was unmistakable. 
 
 "Nothing like that," he said hastily, "of 
 course not." 
 
 "Maybe he did," Mother persisted. 
 
 "Nonsense," said Jimmie Greer, and even 
 Mother could see that he was kicking himself 
 mentally for the break he had made; "well, I 
 must be running along. So glad I caught sight 
 of you, and to see you looking so well. My 
 love to your father, Mary. Tell him I 'm sorry 
 his daughter did n't get her complexion from 
 him. Though it's evident where she did get 
 it." He bowed in Mother's direction.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 211 
 
 "Good-afternoon," Mother said soberly. 
 "Mary" she turned to me suddenly 
 " do you know whether your father bought that 
 coat for another woman or not?" 
 
 "How how should I?" I stammered. 
 
 "Do you know?" 
 
 "I don't know," I said. 
 
 "Well, I know, now. He did. That's the 
 explanation." 
 
 "The explanation of what?" 
 
 "Where his money goes." 
 
 "He wanted to spend it on you," I said; 
 "he does n't care anything about this woman." 
 
 "So you know there is a woman?" 
 
 "Yes," I said, "I've met her." 
 
 "Oh!" Mother said. "Oh! why didn't 
 you tell me?" 
 
 "I don't tell things," I said. 
 
 "Did did he buy her the fur coat? Do 
 you know that?" 
 
 "Yes," I said, "I've seen her in it." 
 
 "Oh!" said Mother again. Then, "I can't 
 believe it, Mary; are you sure?" 
 
 :< Yes, Mother," I said, "I am sure. Even 
 Bobby knows." 
 
 "Oh!" Mother cried, "my own children."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Perhaps I ought to have lied, and pre- 
 tended," I said, "but I would n't want any 
 one to do that to me." 
 
 "Get me into a bus or a cab. Take me 
 home," Mother said. 
 
 So I hailed a passing taxi and helped her in. 
 She lay back with her eyes closed for some 
 time, and I thought she was going to swoon, 
 or something. 
 
 "I shall leave him," she said faintly. 
 
 "Don't you think it's your own responsi- 
 bility some?" I said. 
 
 "You don't know what you are talking 
 about. How long has this been going on 
 do you know?" 
 
 "Ever since Canada, I think," I said. 
 
 "You haven't much natural feeling," Mo- 
 ther said bitterly. "You can talk as calmly 
 about your father's infidelity to me as you can 
 about the ribbons in your underclothes. What 
 kind of a daughter have I brought in the world 
 to help my hour of bitterness?" 
 
 "I told you everything was rotten," I said. 
 
 "I shall tell your father to-night what I am 
 going to do." 
 
 But she did n't, because when she did get
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 home she found a letter that had been brought 
 by messenger when she was out, that told her 
 everything she had just found out from me, in- 
 cluding one thing that even I had n't dreamed 
 of, and that was that Father himself was 
 through, and did n't intend to come back to 
 us again.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 I DON'T know what I thought Tony Cowles 
 could do about it, especially since I felt I 
 could tell him nothing about any of my trou- 
 bles, but I got obsessed with the idea of see- 
 ing him and feeling his nice warm handclasp 
 again. My own hands were as cold as if they 
 had died. I don't see why mental anguish 
 affects the extremities. 
 
 I telephoned him once at his office, but he 
 was out, and then I did n't have the courage 
 to call again on account of the fatal drawback 
 of having nothing to say. I took to walking up 
 and down on the Drive about a block away 
 from his house, just hoping I would meet him. 
 I did n't like to go any nearer, and yet I could 
 n't bear not to do something that might result 
 in my seeing him. Of course, when I actually 
 did catch a glimpse of him, I turned and 
 walked rapidly in another direction, and he 
 did n't see me at all. Finally one day I was 
 standing on the corner of Fifth Avenue wait- 
 ing for a bus, and he came up behind me.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 215 
 
 "I was thinking of you," he said. "I had a 
 letter from Prunella to-day full of all kinds of 
 messages for you. I was wondering if I was 
 going to be able to deliver them." 
 
 "I was thinking of you, but not in connec- 
 tion with Prunella," I said. "I telephoned 
 you the other day, but you were not in your 
 office." 
 
 "And then you did n't try again?" 
 
 "It was really nothing." 
 
 "More shocks?" 
 
 "Yes," I said. 
 i"Just life in general or particular?" 
 
 "Quite particular this time." 
 
 "More particular than before?" 
 
 "Well," I said, "the other time I kept find- 
 ing out how rotten things were one thing 
 after another. This time it's something that's 
 happened. My father has left my mother, 
 that's all. I suppose every one will know it 
 sometime, though I did n't mean to say any- 
 thing to any one, myself." 
 
 "I see," said Tony Cowles; "here comes an 
 inviting-looking hansom, have you got time 
 enough to jump in it and take a turn round the 
 park?"
 
 216 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Oh, yes," I said. 
 
 "Do you want the doors closed?" the driver 
 asked. He was red-nosed, but very pleasant. 
 
 "I think we do," Tony said; "it's cozier. 
 Nice fresh horse you have." 
 
 "Yes, sir, he gets the best of care, sir." 
 
 "He looks it." 
 
 I put my head back and closed my eyes for 
 a minute, but the tears forced them open. 
 
 "I never cry when I'm alone," I said. 
 
 "My little sister used to hold my hand 
 whenever she was in any kind of trouble." 
 
 I put my hand close to his, and then I 
 slipped it all the way in. 
 
 "Thank you," I said. 
 
 "You could have my apartment again, with 
 a mother or a sister, or a friend, or anybody 
 that needed resting up, or if you just wanted to 
 be there by yourself we could arrange that, I 
 think." 
 
 "I wish I could," I said, "I'm quite tired. 
 But I don't think so." 
 
 "If there is anything you can think of that 
 would make things easier?" 
 
 I curled my finger round his thumb. 
 
 "Can I talk to you?" I said, "a little?"
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 217 
 
 He just smiled. 
 
 "Well, the first thing that happened was 
 that I did n't believe in things any more. 
 There was some one I trusted, and then he 
 he told me how rotten things were. I mean, 
 that everything meant just one thing. You see, 
 I did n't know before that things were n't 
 ideal, some of the time. Young girls don't have 
 much chance to find out what life means. I 
 know Schopenhauer and all those people, even 
 Emerson, indicate it all quite plainly, but some- 
 how you don't believe it, or you dress it up." 
 
 "I see," said Tony Cowles. 
 
 "I just wanted beauty. I thought that 
 friendship was closer to it than anything. I 
 did n't understand that I was just acting like 
 well, just scientifically." 
 
 "Oh! "he said. 
 
 "It's awfully hard to believe that every- 
 thing is just one thing, is n't it?" 
 
 I took my hand out of Tony Cowles's hand. 
 
 "Everything is just one thing?" 
 
 "Well, you see, there was somebody that I 
 led on when I did n't understand I was do- 
 ing it." 
 
 "And so he told you?"
 
 218 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Well, yes; you see those things are just 
 progressive, and I did n't know it. It was my 
 responsibility, too." 
 
 Tony Cowles turned quite white. 
 
 "Oh! are n't you feeling well?" I said. 
 
 "No, not very." His jaw was set, and a 
 blue vein throbbed in his temple. " Oh ! I 'm all 
 right," he smiled, seeing my anxiety. 
 
 "Of course, I was n't very much of a sport," 
 I said; "anybody would think you could brace 
 up better. Of course, all that happened was 
 that I had a few perfectly simple things ex- 
 plained to me. I'm awfully thin-skinned, you 
 know. Well, that was the first shock; no, not 
 quite the first, but it was the biggest. I had 
 lost faith in my my father, you know, but 
 I had n't begun to see everything in that 
 light until after what I've told you about 
 happened. I think perhaps I am morally 
 degenerate, I don't know." 
 
 "What makes you think that?" 
 
 "Lots of things," I said evasively. "I 
 don't know that everybody isn't, except you," 
 I said; "I don't think you are." 
 
 "Put back your hand where you took it 
 from," said Tony Cowles, scowling.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 219 
 
 "Well, since then it has been just one " 
 
 "Damn shock after another?" 
 
 "Thank you," I said, squeezing his hand 
 hard. He knew I meant for the damn, too. 
 
 "Is there anything practical to be done?" 
 
 "You mean to go after Father?" 
 
 "I mean that, or money, or engaging a 
 trained nurse, any of those little things that 
 I'm so good at." 
 
 "I don't think so," I said. "Mother is n't 
 sick. She's just stupefied." 
 
 "Well, if there is, will you let me know?" 
 
 "Yes, I will this time." 
 
 "Well, every Tuesday and Friday I'm going 
 to telephone to you, and make an engagement 
 with you. We can go driving or walking or 
 teaing, and talk things over. In the intervals 
 if you have need of a friend will you call me?" 
 
 "Yes, I will." 
 
 "You '11 promise?" 
 
 "I'll promise," I said. 
 
 "About these shocks; I'm a pretty good 
 shock absorber, you know. You can just attach 
 me any time if you happen to feel one coming." 
 
 "The trouble is you never feel them coming." 
 
 "Well, if you should, or if you ever feel
 
 220 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 yourself in the mood to go out and meet one 
 halfway, come to me instead." 
 
 "I don't see how you knew that," I said; 
 "of course, it's only when I'm perfectly des- 
 perate. Most of the time I want to run the 
 other way." 
 
 "I know." 
 
 "I guess you do," I said. 
 
 "Prunella's coming home in about ten 
 days," he said presently, not really changing 
 the subject, but only putting it quietly aside. 
 
 "She has n't got much of a home to come 
 to," I said. 
 
 "I've found them a place that I think 
 they'll like. A nice sunny apartment looking 
 down on the park, with a capable French 
 woman in charge. It will be more like a home 
 than anything Prunella has had for some time." 
 
 "But she'll still have her mother eating her 
 up," I said. 
 
 "I've an idea that may work out. Mrs. 
 Pemberton has a sister, who is devoted to her. 
 She's plain, rather a coarser-grained woman, 
 that always idolized her beautiful sister, and 
 yet knew how to handle her better than any 
 one. Mrs. Pemberton has not wanted her
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 221 
 
 with her since her marriage, and before that 
 there was a delicate mother to look out 
 for." 
 
 "Would Mrs. Pemberton want her now?" 
 
 " She would if Prunella was not devoting all 
 her time to her. I have a sort of a plan about 
 Prunella that is n't developed enough yet to 
 talk about. What you said about the situa- 
 tion started me thinking. She won't believe 
 there is any escape until we prove to her that 
 there is one." 
 
 "But how can we?" I said. 
 
 "Well, we'll see," said Tony Cowles. 
 
 He landed me at my own door just in time 
 to meet Ellery going in, and I introduced them. 
 I could n't help being sorry for poor Ellery. 
 He had deep hollows underneath his eyes, and 
 he looked as if he had n't slept for weeks 
 much less eaten. He had n't been in the house 
 but once before, since Father left it. 
 
 "Mary," he said, without preliminary, after 
 the elevator had deposited us on our landing, 
 "what do you think I had better do?" 
 
 "I have n't thought much," I said. 
 
 "Your father your mother will she 
 get a divorce?"
 
 222 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "She's talking about it," I said; "whether 
 she'll do it or not is another story." 
 
 "It is, is n't it?" 
 
 "Do you love her yourself, Ellery?" 
 
 "What else, why else," he said miserably, 
 "would I have?" 
 
 "I suppose that does explain your actions. 
 Does it explain hers?" 
 
 "I I don't know." 
 
 "It seems to be Father she's concentrated 
 on now," I said. 
 
 "I know it," said Ellery; "what would you 
 do?" 
 
 "I'd go to South America," I said. 
 
 "And leave her?" 
 
 "Or take her," I said. 
 
 "That would be terrible for her," he said. 
 
 "I don't think she wants to go," I said, 
 "but I'd give her a chance." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Well, because she might come out of her 
 dream then, if she just had to say 'yes' or 
 'no.'" 
 
 "I suppose that's true," said Ellery. 
 
 "I would n't let her back and fill," I said. 
 
 " This is a strange way to talk with a daugh-
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 223 
 
 ter about her own mother the woman I - 
 I" 
 
 "I know you do, Ellery," I said; "I'm 
 awfully glad you do. It makes it better some 
 way." 
 
 "I've messed up her whole life." 
 
 "She's messed up her whole life. You could 
 have been friends," I said, "if she would 
 have." 
 
 "I never meant to let her know," said 
 Ellery. 
 
 "She wouldn't stand that," I said; "well, 
 I guess few women would. We can't stand 
 here talking in the hall all night," I reminded 
 him, applying the latch-key. 
 
 While Mother and Ellery were having it 
 out in the living-room, Stella and I went into 
 the matter ourselves at some length. Her bed- 
 room looks like a Greenwich theater stage set, 
 being all in dust-color and orange, with Squid- 
 gins sleeping in a cross between a chicken coop 
 and a workbox in the corner. 
 
 "What do you think about it, Stella?" I 
 said; "do you think Mother ought to divorce 
 him?" 
 
 "The divorce laws are archaic," Stella said;
 
 224 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "think of a State that has only one statutory 
 reason for setting aside the marriage con- 
 tract." 
 
 "Mother's got that reason," I said. 
 
 "It's the principle that affects me," said 
 Stella. 
 
 "But how do you apply it in this case? 
 Here's Mother with a good reason for divorc- 
 ing Father. Here's Father with a good reason 
 for leaving Mother. What good would looser 
 or tighter divorce laws do?" 
 
 " There 'd be no question of their freedom 
 then." 
 
 "But they don't want to be free," I said; 
 "not any more free than they are, that's their 
 trouble. They want to eat their cake and 
 have it too," I said. "Mother wants Father 
 to have a nice fresh loaf of it waiting when 
 she's through nibbling what Ellery provides." 
 
 "What do you think Father wants?" 
 
 "Father wants well, Father's more rea- 
 sonable. He wants things the way he's 
 made them impossible to be, or he wants to 
 quit cold." 
 
 "I don't think that's more reasonable," 
 Stella said seriously.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 225 
 
 "Well, it is n't, but men are fundamentally 
 more reasonable than women." 
 
 "I think I'm more reasonable than Cos- 
 grove." 
 
 "Does Cosgrove think so?" 
 
 "I don't know," said Stella. 
 
 "How would he feel if you had an Ellery 
 around all the time?" 
 
 "Perfectly calm, I think." 
 
 " How would you feel if Cosgrove had a 
 a lady?" 
 
 "Perfectly calm," said Stella. 
 
 "That isn't human," I said. "I suppose 
 the only reason you feel so is that it could n't 
 happen." 
 
 "When you live on an intellectual basis, 
 you live on a different plane." 
 
 "What do you think Mother and Father 
 ought to do?" I said. 
 
 "Whatever they like," said Stella; "we 
 can't arrange their life for them." 
 
 "Well, just practically. Keep this apartment, 
 and patch things up, and all stay together?" 
 
 "I've been thinking that I would talk to 
 you about that," Stella said; "you know I'm 
 thinking of leaving."
 
 226 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Of leaving?" 
 
 " Cosgrove needs me in his work. It is n't 
 convenient for him to work here in the eve- 
 nings with the baby. Neither of us believes in 
 a mutual establishment, it's against our prin- 
 ciples, but temporarily we think we'll have 
 to have one. Nothing else seems to work in our 
 present circumstances." 
 
 "So you're just going to set up like any- 
 body else housekeeping?" I said. 
 
 "Well, that's what it amounts to," Stella 
 said, "temporarily. There are better ways of 
 arranging for the family unit, but none of 
 these ideals have been perfected yet." 
 
 "I shall lose Squidgins," I said. 
 
 When I went to bed that night, the events of 
 the day passed in more or less rapid review be- 
 fore me. I did n't know what had happened 
 between Mother and Ellery; probably nothing, 
 or I should have known. Mother just let him 
 out of the door, sobbing faintly as she closed it 
 on him, and ten to one wondering all the time 
 where Father was. None of us had been able 
 to get him at the office since he announced he 
 was leaving us, though both Stella and I had
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 227 
 
 called him there to ask about perfectly practi- 
 cal matters like where to send the laundry, or 
 to readdress the rapidly accumulating bills, 
 for which there seemed to be no logical pro- 
 vision made. We all knew that Father would 
 n't leave us in the lurch financially, but we 
 wanted the technical arrangements disposed of. 
 I could n't help thinking of Stella and won- 
 dering if deep down in her soul the idea of 
 hanging on to her own man was n't beginning 
 to percolate, and if that was n't why she was 
 reconciled to the idea of abandoning her prin- 
 ciples. Eating Father's cake, and having 
 Cosgrove's too, never disturbed her. When 
 she was a working unit she gave her money 
 impartially to both of them in the form of 
 board and general contributions, but when 
 Squidgins was coming along she just decided 
 she was contributing him to the community 
 and that was enough for the time being. But 
 this standing for the perfect freedom and com- 
 plete homelessness of the otherwise married 
 was an ideal very dear to her heart. If Cos- 
 grove had n't been doing part of his work with 
 a cross-eyed girl in a blue-and-green smock, 
 would she have been quite so ready to set up a
 
 228 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 habitat with him? Was Stella some of these 
 things that she never suspected any one of be- 
 ing, or was it only my vicious mind running 
 around and around its circle? 
 
 The last thought that I had before I went to 
 sleep was this, and it came so suddenly that 
 it jerked me straight up in bed in the dark. 
 When Tony Cowles said that he had an idea 
 about Prunella's future, did he mean that he 
 was thinking of marrying her?
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 FATHER opened communication with me fi- 
 nally. He had been gone two weeks and three 
 days before he made any manifestation at all, 
 and Mother was nearly frantic. I think she 
 had even gone so far as to write him a let- 
 ter, which is an unheard-of demonstration on 
 Mother's part under any circumstances what- 
 ever. Her procedure is always to get me to 
 do it. 
 
 The office got me on the telephone, and 
 Father's secretary said that Mr. Blair would 
 like to have me meet him at the Manton Hotel 
 at twelve-thirty that noon. Mother could n't 
 bear to have me go or not to go, and we had 
 rather a dreadful scene about it. She was so 
 worn out with the whole situation that she had 
 to take it out of somebody, I suppose. She 
 never did anything like it before I '11 say 
 that for her. Her idea was that I made myself 
 a tacit champion of Father's by paying any 
 attention to his sudden demand for me. 
 
 By dint of all the persuasiveness I could
 
 230 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 summon I managed to make it possible to get 
 out of the house at the given time, without 
 her actually forbidding me to come back. I sup- 
 pose the worst of our quarrel could have been 
 avoided if I could have been a little more sym- 
 pathetic with her point of view, but I could n't 
 exactly see what it was. I could have, of 
 course, if it had n't been for Ellery, but cer- 
 tainly the goose got her sauce first, and the 
 gander only followed suit. Ganders always go 
 a good deal farther when they get started. 
 She ought to know that by this time, certainly. 
 Besides I had as many rice puddings against 
 her as Father had. She was suffering, and I 
 wished that I could have gone to her and put 
 my arms around her. Perhaps I could have if I 
 had n't suffered so much myself so recently, 
 and got so hardened by it. 
 
 It turned out that Father was living at the 
 Manton House, and had left word at the desk 
 that I was to be sent up to his room at once. 
 
 He was dictating to his office stenographer 
 when I went in, but he sent her away. 
 
 "I've had a touch of my old complaint," he 
 said as the door closed on her; "well, Baby, 
 are you going to kiss your father?"
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 231 
 
 "I was n't," I said, "but I am." 
 
 "I suppose you're on your mother's side in 
 this?" 
 
 "I'm not on anybody's side," I said. 
 
 "You're the only one of the family with any 
 sense of my position. You had eyes enough 
 to see what was going on." 
 
 "I have two eyes," I said. 
 
 "My home was not only undermined," 
 Father said bitterly, "it was comfortless." 
 
 "You left us in it," I said. 
 
 "I deserted you that's the only unfair- 
 ness I can see." 
 
 "How about Bobby?" 
 
 "He's a child." 
 
 "He knew just the same." 
 
 "Knew what?" 
 
 "About Mrs., Mrs. that woman." 
 
 "How do you know he knew?" 
 
 "He said you had a girl, a lady vamp with 
 earrings." 
 
 Father winced. 
 
 "It sounds rather raw when you put it like 
 that," he said. 
 
 "It is rather raw, is n't it, Daddy?" 
 
 "Oh! I'm no saint," he said.
 
 232 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "I guess nobody is," I said. 
 
 He looked at me closely. 
 
 "What do you mean, Mary?" he said. 
 
 "Well, I'm not much of a saint," I said; 
 "I'm different from what I was." 
 
 "What do you mean?" he said again. 
 
 "Nothing much. I know what to expect 
 from life, that's all." 
 
 " Do you mean that Carrington fellow 
 that Chase?" 
 
 "Yes, Father," I said; "he told me a few 
 things, and now I know them." 
 
 " Explain yourself," said Father roughly. 
 
 "Well," I said, "I got disillusioned, that's 
 all, the way everybody does. When Mother 
 would n't go with you to Canada, and all that, 
 and I found out about the fur coat being bought 
 for Mrs. Van der Water, and and the way 
 Mother was going on with Ellery, I got dis- 
 illusioned. I just sort of depended on Carring- 
 ton. I thought he was my best friend and, 
 well, you know, a kind of God. I really did n't 
 think of him in any way but that, only I let 
 him kiss me, and I kissed him sometimes, just 
 affectionately, you know, and he just told me 
 what I was doing."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 233 
 
 "What were you doing?" said Father. 
 
 "Leading him on. So he asked me to 
 measure up, and I was going to. Only when I 
 got to his rooms I did n't go in." 
 
 "Oh, my God!" said Father. 
 
 "I did n't go in," I said. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "I rang the bell, and it did n't ring. Then 
 I got sort of sick of it. It was n't a moral im- 
 pulse on my part. - 1 just got sort of sick." 
 
 "What's the matter with you, Mary?" 
 Father said. "Don't you realize what you're 
 saying? Do you mean that just at the first 
 suggestion of a man like that you were actually 
 going to him like any " 
 
 "I went," I said. 
 
 "But, my God! why why?" 
 
 " You did," I said. "Mother " 
 
 "But you're a young, innocent girl," Father 
 said; "you're not twenty yet. Your natural 
 instinct ought to warn you." 
 
 "It didn't," I said. "I don't see that it 
 makes any difference how young you are. 
 You've just got to take life as it is." 
 
 "This is your mother's fault," he said. 
 
 "I'm your daughter, too, Daddy," I said.
 
 234 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "That's right," he said. "I knew about 
 that young swine, and your mother did n't." 
 
 "Well, I hate him now," I said. 
 
 "This is a shock to me, Mary. I counted on 
 you, somehow." 
 
 "I counted on you, Daddy, " I said, "not 
 that I want to blame you. I don't blame any- 
 body, excepting Mother about the rice pud- 
 dings. Ellery's a pretty good sort, you know. 
 He 's just weak, like everybody. You 're weak, 
 Father, and I'm weak." 
 
 "Well, we ought to brace up, then." 
 
 "What's the use?" I said. "Father, are 
 you going to marry Mrs. Van der Water?" 
 
 "Heaven forbid!" 
 
 "Do you want Mother to divorce you?" 
 
 "It's her privilege. That's what I sent for 
 you for. I want to know what your mother 
 wishes in the matter." 
 
 "I don't think she has any," I said; "she's 
 just shocked and she does n't know how she 
 does feel." 
 
 "She doesn't care?" Father said incredu- 
 lously. 
 
 "Well, she's putting up a pretty good bluff 
 at it," I said.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 235 
 
 Father put his head down in his hands. 
 
 "Life is too much for me," he said. 
 
 "There's something rotten in the State of 
 Denmark, is n't there?" I said. 
 
 "I guess there is," Father agreed; "you 
 are not twenty yet, are you, Mary?" 
 
 "Not in years," I said. 
 
 "You are telling me everything that hap- 
 pened, are n't you?" 
 
 "Yes, Daddy," I said. 
 
 "Mary, I think I'll go and talk to your 
 mother." 
 
 "I think that would be the best thing to 
 do," I said; "there are a good many practical 
 things to be settled, anyway. We've got that 
 big apartment on our hands, and Stella is 
 going to leave." 
 
 "Stella is going to leave?" 
 
 "She's going to live with Cosgrove." 
 
 "The deuce she is!" 
 
 "She's not a very natural person, but I 
 think she's getting naturaler all the time." 
 
 "She's such an abnormal creature," Father 
 said. "I don't think your mother ever quite 
 understood why a daughter of that type was 
 wished on her."
 
 236 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 " It is hard to understand," I said. " Stella's 
 all right. She is n y t very intelligent, that's all." 
 
 "She's only educated," Father said. "I 
 suppose that's one of the reasons why you've 
 been neglected as you have been. There was 
 nothing to be done for Stella. She knew it all." 
 
 "There's something to be done for Bobby, 
 Father," I said, and I told him all about my 
 problem with Bobby, and how I had handled it. 
 
 "I suppose a parent has moral responsibili- 
 ties." 
 
 "Didn't you ever think of that before?" 
 I asked. 
 
 " I suppose I have n't cared much about 
 being a parent. It is n't very interesting, 
 Mary, unless you happen to like it." 
 
 "You liked Mother, did n't you?" 
 
 "I wanted a home," Father said; "I've al- 
 ways wanted a home. I suppose if I could 
 have got that fixed the rest would have been 
 simpler." 
 
 "Mother makes a place homelike." 
 
 " Yes, but as I 've always told you, Mary, a 
 man likes to be the central feature of a home. 
 If he is n't, things go wrong. A home ought 
 to be adjusted to the comfort and convenience
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 237 
 
 of the man who is paying the bills. Otherwise, 
 he feels he 's being cheated and if he 's a weak 
 character, he begins to cheat, in his turn." 
 
 "It doesn't seem fair to take everything 
 and give nothing," I said. 
 
 "A human partnership has got to be like 
 any other partnership, basically sound, or it 
 does n't hold." 
 
 "If there was something to believe in," I 
 said, "I suppose we'd all believe in it. Do you 
 hate to get up in the morning, Daddy, and face 
 your morning cup of coffee and realize there's 
 another day to be got through somehow? 
 I do." 
 
 "That's a wrong way for you to look at 
 things, Mary." 
 
 "It's just logical," I said. "I'm so tired, 
 Daddy." 
 
 Father put his arms around me. Then he led 
 me over to the gilt couch by the window, and 
 took me in his lap. 
 
 "My little girl," he said gently. 
 
 "We're awfully disorganized, aren't we, 
 Daddy?" I said with my head on his shoulder. 
 "It's all so rotten, and it might have been 
 so nice New York, and the sunshine, and
 
 238 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 people you love, and everything. I don't see 
 the use in being born when things get spoiled 
 so soon for you." 
 
 "I'm going to talk to your mother," Father 
 said. 
 
 "If it had n't been for that horrid fur coat. 
 Oh! dear, why did you buy it for her, Father?" 
 
 "Because I was a damned fool," Father ex- 
 plained succinctly. 
 
 I could n't report much of this conversation 
 to Mother, and what I could report did n't 
 assuage her much. I did n't want to commit 
 myself on anything that Father was going to 
 say to her, because in the first place I did n't 
 know, and in the second I wanted him to make 
 his own statements without my having an- 
 ticipated them. She was thinking of him as a 
 man who had committed an enormous crime 
 against her, and he was thinking of her as 
 a woman who had n't delivered the goods. 
 Neither of them could possibly fathom the 
 other's point of view, that I could see. 
 
 Tony Cowles came to see me the next after- 
 noon, and we took a long walk in the park. 
 There are some wonderful paths that I have 
 never explored before.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 239 
 
 " Would n't you like to live in the country? " 
 he asked me, as we sniffed the air for scents 
 of coming spring, faintly discernible through 
 other more urban odors. 
 
 "Yes, and no," I said. "I don't see what 
 there would be to do in the country, after you 
 had taken all the exercise in sight. I like 
 people, and excitement, don't you?" 
 
 "Yes, and no," said Tony Cowles, smiling. 
 "You never have had much country life, have 
 you?" 
 
 "Only boarding in summer places," I said. 
 
 "A home of your own would be different." 
 
 "I suppose it would," I said; "the only 
 really likable place in the country that I know 
 about belongs to a girl I went to school with. 
 It's all flowers and fireplaces and babies; all 
 the married daughters live at home, and have 
 a back yard full of children." 
 < "How is Squidgins?" Tony inquired. I've 
 told him a good deal about Squidgins from time 
 to time. 
 
 "Oh! Squidgins is all right. Stella is going 
 to move away, though, and I shan't have any 
 baby to play with." 
 
 "You'll mind?"
 
 240 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "I shall mind awfully," I said. 
 
 " Would you like to have a back yard full of 
 children?" 
 
 "I used to think I should, but I feel differ- 
 ently about it now." 
 
 "Differently?" 
 
 " I don't believe in having children. That is, 
 I don't think it's fair. They probably would 
 resent it, anyway." 
 
 "Do you resent living?" 
 
 "I hate it," I said. 
 
 "I'm sorry about that." 
 
 "Do you like it? "I said. 
 
 " I have a pretty good time. I can see, though, 
 that things are pretty mixed up for you." 
 
 "They are for Prunella, too. Prunella does 
 n't think it right to have children unless you 
 have a good heredity. I did n't use to think 
 that mattered. I thought it was all right for 
 them to take a sporting chance but now I 
 don't think there is any sport." 
 
 "Prunella does n't hate living." 
 
 "Well, Prunella has you," I said. 
 
 "You have me, too, have n't you?" 
 
 " Not the way Prunella has. ' Besides, I 
 did n't have you till afterwards!"
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 241 
 
 "You can have me just the way Prunella 
 has, if you want me." 
 
 But I knew I could n't, because Prunella has 
 him the way I had Carrington, and he is being 
 kind to me because I am her friend, and he is 
 kind. I don't want to get to depend on him at 
 all. 
 
 "Well, anyway, I don't want to kill myself 
 any more," I said; "if you hadn't taken an 
 interest in me I might not have given that up." 
 
 "So you thought of that?" said Tony 
 Cowles. 
 
 "I've thought of everything," I said. "I 
 can't live without ideals. The world is too 
 scientific for me, that's all." 
 
 "Perhaps it is n't as scientific as you think," 
 said Tony Cowles. 
 
 "Well, it's quite hopeless," I said. "I don't 
 want any more shocks, and I can't have any if 
 I don't get to believing in anything again." 
 
 "I'll race you to that farthest tree," said 
 Tony Cowles. 
 
 " That big one with the moss on it?" 
 
 "No, the maple just beyond." 
 
 "All right," I said, and I got there only a 
 second later than he did.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 ABOUT a week after Prunella 'came back to 
 town Tommy Nevers made a portentous call 
 upon me. Although he came at half -past seven, 
 and had n't been dining anywhere but at the 
 Automat, as he afterwards confessed, he wore 
 his Tuxedo, with the conventional black tie 
 and patent-leather pumps, which were rather 
 marred by a pair of far from immaculate tan 
 spats. 
 
 We discussed the weather, and the freshen- 
 ing effects of pure air for quite a while, and 
 then he switched to the peace treaty. 
 
 "I am very glad that I did n't take up the 
 law," Tommy said. " I should feel even more 
 of a participant in my country's disgrace if I 
 were a legal representative of it at this time." 
 
 "We have hemmed and hawed over it a 
 good deal," I said. "Tony Cowles says it's 
 because there are so many people in America 
 they have n't got a composite mind to make 
 up." 
 
 "Do you know that fellow?" Tommy asked.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 243 
 
 " Why, you know I do," I said. -"I took you 
 to call on Prunella when he was there one eve- 
 ning." 
 
 "Do you think he's a good influence on 
 Prunella?" 
 
 "Why, yes." 
 
 "Well, I am not sure that I think so. He's 
 always around there whenever I go." 
 
 "Prunella's only been back a week," I said. 
 
 "Yes, but he's always around there." 
 
 "He's her oldest friend." 
 
 "Well, what's the matter with her getting 
 some new ones, then?" 
 
 "Nothing seems to be," I admitted. 
 
 " He 's a good deal too old to be an intimate 
 friend, I should say." 
 
 "He's twenty-eight," I said. 
 
 "Well, that's old." 
 
 "It's a nice age, I think." 
 
 "Well, I don't like that fellow." 
 
 "Now, Tommy," I said. 
 
 "Well, you know yourself that twenty- 
 eight is too old for Prunella. She has her mo- 
 ther around all the time, anyway. I should 
 think he would be a depressing influence." 
 
 "He cheers me up a good deal."
 
 244 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Does he come to see you?" 
 
 "Yes, quite often." 
 
 "Well, maybe he's just got that habit of 
 hanging around young girls." 
 
 "He's a dear," I said. 
 
 "Is it so about your father and mother 
 separating?" Tommy asked, changing the 
 subject. "I'm mighty sorry to hear it." 
 
 "Yes, it's so," I said. 
 
 "Are you explaining the details to people, 
 or are you not?" 
 
 "I are not," I said; "besides there aren't 
 any details, just facts." 
 
 "It's a very sad situation," Tommy said, 
 "when a man and woman of comparative 
 middle age have lived together for twenty 
 years, and then cleave their lives apart. I 
 heard there was another woman on your 
 father's part." 
 
 "Well, you can hear most anything," I said. 
 
 "You and Prunella both seem to have 
 rather bitter burdens to bear. I said to Pru- 
 nella only the other night that I thought it 
 was a strange coincidence that you should 
 both have had troubles concerning the same 
 things that is, parents. I think it's com-
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 245 
 
 paratively rare that children have troubles 
 about their parents. It's so often the other 
 way." 
 
 "Well, we have you to cheer us up," I said. 
 
 "That's one of the things I came to talk to 
 you about; I want everything I do to be per- 
 fectly fair and aboveboard, and also I want 
 your advice. You know, I 've always told you 
 that the reason I liked to be with you was that 
 you were such a good sport, and understood 
 just how one meant things, and all that. I 
 know you never suspected me of any ulterior 
 motives no matter how often I called upon 
 you." 
 
 "No, I did n't," I said. 
 
 "Of course, I think you are an awfully at- 
 tractive girl, and there was a time when I 
 thought that perhaps well, you know you 
 are awfully attractive, and until I " 
 
 "Met Prunella," I said, "go on." 
 
 " Well, yes, until I met Prunella I I" 
 
 "I know all that, anyway," I said; "go on 
 with Prunella." 
 
 "Well, to put it briefly, I'm awfully sorry 
 for Prunella, and a man feels, when he's as 
 sorry for a girl as I am for Prunella, that he 'd
 
 246 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 like to do something for her take care of 
 her, you know, for the rest of her life. I 'd like 
 to lift Prunella right out of those painful sur- 
 roundings into a life of her own, in which she 
 could expand. That's the way you get to feel 
 when you get to be as sorry for a girl as I am 
 for her." 
 
 "I wonder how Prunella feels," I said. 
 
 "That's one of the things I wanted to ask 
 your advice about. How do you think she 
 feels, Maisie? You're such a keen judge of 
 human nature that I thought you might 
 know." 
 
 "Well, she likes you a lot," I said. 
 
 "I can do no more than put it to the test, I 
 suppose." 
 
 "Angels could do no more," I said. 
 
 "I'm far from an angel," he said, meaning 
 to be humorous, "but that little girl deserves 
 one after all she has been through." 
 
 "You've taken me a little by surprise," I 
 said; "it's odd to think of your old friends 
 wanting to get married. How did it ever occur 
 to you in the first place?" 
 
 " I don't know. You know what they say 
 pity is akin to. Well, when I began to realize
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 247 
 
 that little girl's situation in the world I began 
 to wish that I could help her out of it in some 
 way, and the wish grew, until now I I " 
 
 "You're in love with her," I said. "Have 
 you ever well have you ever tried to 
 well, say good-night or anything?" 
 
 "I don't think she's that kind of a girl," said 
 Tommy. 
 
 "You thought I was." 
 
 "You're different," Tommy said. 
 
 "Different?" 
 
 "You make anybody think of it quicker. 
 Prunella is more spirituelle than you are, in a 
 way." 
 
 "I guess you are right, Tommy," I said; 
 "there's something wrong about me, some- 
 where." 
 
 "I don't think there is. You're an awfully 
 attractive girl, you know, and you kind of 
 someway attract people, but you 're not 
 like Prunella." 
 
 "Nobody thinks I am," I said. 
 
 "Well, Prunella is spirituelle." 
 
 "I used to think I was, too." 
 
 "Oh, no!" said Tommy. "You are not 
 what I call spirituelle. "
 
 248 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "I suppose that means I'm not nice like 
 Prunella." 
 
 "Oh! I did n't mean that." 
 
 " I don't mind. I 'd really rather think there 
 was something wrong with me than with every- 
 thing else." 
 
 "Oh! I wouldn't," said Tommy; "that 
 would take away all my confidence in myself." 
 
 "How do you feel when you are in love?" I 
 said. 
 
 "Pretty good, only you are torn between 
 hope and fear. Do you think that Tony Cowles 
 is hanging around for any special reason?" 
 
 "I don't know," I said; "that's for you to 
 find out, is n't it?" 
 
 "I'll find out. I'm in a position to support 
 a wife in a modest way, you know. I have 
 some income outside of my position." 
 
 "Men don't always want to marry girls just 
 because the girls are in trouble about things. 
 A man might feel quite interested in a girl's 
 state of mind and yet not want to marry her." 
 
 "He might," said Tommy, "but unless 
 there was something wrong with the girl I 
 think his impulse would be to lift her out of 
 her misery."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 249 
 
 " He might want to lift her out of her misery 
 and not marry her," I said. 
 
 "That's only morbid," said Tommy; "y u 
 get those ideas from your sister, and that 
 Greenwich Village bunch. Don't think along 
 those lines, Maisie." 
 
 "I wish I knew what lines to think along," 
 I said; "Stella is not Greenwich Villagey," I 
 said, "not essentially." 
 
 "I know she is n't. She's quite celebrated, 
 but she has that trend of thought. I don't care 
 for that trend of thought. I don't believe in 
 psychoanalysis and Freud and all those things, 
 because of the morbid tendency they have." 
 
 "You've got to analyze the motives of 
 human life some way." 
 
 "No, I don't agree with you. The less you 
 analyze things the better off you are." 
 
 "But you've got to know what life means?" 
 
 "No," said Tommy; "you've just got to 
 live it according to the best of your ability. 
 Then you'll find it's all smooth sailing." 
 
 "It seems easy the way you put it," I said; 
 " well, maybe, it is like that. The State of Den- 
 mark was n't any more mixed up than Hamlet 
 was, was it?"
 
 250 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 I could n't sleep all that night for thinking 
 of different things. It seemed rather wonderful 
 that Tommy should want to marry Prunella 
 on what is really quite a slight acquaintance, 
 and just want to marry her because she's in so 
 much trouble. Carrington and I were very, 
 very intimate friends, and I gave him all my 
 most sacred and inmost confidence, and trusted 
 him more than I have ever trusted any one, 
 and all that happened was that he did n't 
 want to marry me, and blamed me for caring 
 for him so much. Then Tony Cowles cares 
 about Prunella too. He is willing to give up 
 all his own pleasure and comfort to make 
 things easier for her, and I suppose what he 
 means to do is to marry her, and take her 
 away from the terrible problem of her mother. 
 I've thought and thought about what else he 
 could mean by his hint to me of an idea that 
 might work out for her salvation, and I am 
 pretty sure he can't mean anything else. 
 
 Of course, Prunella can't marry both of 
 them, but looking at it from her point of view 
 it's perfectly wonderful to have things happen 
 like that. They both cherish her, and think 
 about the way things could be arranged to
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 251 
 
 make life easier for her. The pathetic thing 
 is that it takes so little to please her. I love 
 her very much, and she is the most intimate 
 friend I have, of course, and I am not be- 
 littling her at all when I say that either one of 
 them could make her equally happy. I would 
 n't dream of marrying Tommy Nevers. I 
 did n't even dream of marrying Carrington 
 only of a beautiful friendship with him, though 
 I suppose I dimly hoped for more to come; 
 but Tony Cowles is like a shining knight ouj: of 
 an Edwin Abbey painting, and it's a pity that 
 Prunella has n't the intelligence to know the 
 difference. 
 
 Also, it is painful to think of the complica- 
 tion of Prunella choosing between them. I 
 wish Tony Cowles had n't felt that he had to 
 be so fatherly about me and my affairs, be- 
 cause it 's going to be a wrench when I have to 
 give him up entirely. I know he'll always be 
 just as kind and helpful to me, but a man 
 does n't realize that a girl can't get much com- 
 fort and consolation out of a sympathy that's 
 merely left over from something he gives some- 
 body else. In other words charity. 
 
 It will be Tony, of course, and yet it will be
 
 252 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 an awful experience for Tommy, not to get 
 something that he wants. It's never hap- 
 pened to him so far. Tony won't mind know- 
 ing about Tommy, I suppose, and yet to think 
 of Prunella considering Tommy the way I know 
 she will consider him, quite seriously, without 
 any sense of values, makes my blood boil. 
 
 The effect of Tommy's revelation, though, 
 of course, it was a sacred confidence, sent me 
 to see Prunella the next afternoon. I had a 
 feeling that I should like to have a good look 
 at her to see if all these experiences that she 
 was the focus of had had any visible effect on 
 her; but they had n't. I asked her about Tony, 
 and she compared his usefulness to that of Mr. 
 Pemberton, and I spoke of Tommy, and she 
 said that he had introduced her to a new kind 
 of chocolate nougat that was n't too neutral 
 tasting, and yet had that lovely chewy quality 
 like a caramel. Her mother, who seemed quite 
 a lot improved, brought her knitting (which 
 Prunella says is a part of the prescribed treat- 
 ment at the sanatorium) and sat with us until 
 Tommy arrived promptly at five-thirty, with 
 his brief-case under his arm containing all the 
 business papers that go everywhere with him.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 253 
 
 To my surprise he seemed to get on famously 
 with Mrs. Pemberton. I suppose she treats any 
 young man of the late Mr. Pemberton's age in 
 a kind of reminiscent way, and it 's easy for them 
 to respond to it because it seems so habitual. 
 
 "Don't go, Maisie," Prunella said, in a per- 
 fectly sincere way, that made me get my hat 
 and coat at once. She really did n't want me 
 to go, only at the same time she thought it was 
 rather too bad I was there. 
 
 "I've got to," I said, and Tommy cast me a 
 grateful look. 
 
 "This is the hour for my treatment," Mrs. 
 Pemberton said; "you should come earlier, 
 Tommy." 
 
 "He can't leave the office any earlier, Mo- 
 ther dear. It's nice of him to come in every 
 day as soon as he can get away." 
 
 "I always like to be of service," Tommy 
 murmured. 
 
 As I stepped into the street I met Carring- 
 ton there face to face. 
 
 "Well? "he said. 
 
 "Well," I said. 
 
 " Could n't we have a cup of tea some- 
 where?"
 
 254 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "I'd rather walk," I said. 
 
 We turned toward Broadway. 
 
 "Maisie," he said, "don't you think I was 
 rather badly treated?" 
 
 "No," I said; "I think in a way I was." 
 
 "Do you blame me?" 
 
 * ' I have only myself to blame I know that . " 
 
 "Not that," Carrington said; "it's the 
 whole artificial civilization. You are only the 
 product of your generation seeking seeking 
 the solvent of life, and then with not courage 
 enough to take it when you find it." 
 . "What do you think the solvent of life is?" 
 
 "Beauty the beauty that comes through 
 the courage to experience." 
 
 "It might take some courage not to expe- 
 rience," I said. 
 
 "Do you mean that?" 
 
 "Not for you," I said. 
 
 "I loved you, but I left you free." 
 
 "What do you mean by love?" I said. 
 
 '' You know what I meant and what I do 
 mean." 
 
 "Just one thing," I said. 
 
 "And yet they say it is men who put things 
 bluntly."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 255 
 
 "Do you know what I think?" I said. "I 
 think that men like you ought to leave girls 
 like me alone." 
 
 "Well" 
 
 "Nice girls do have nice men that want to 
 marry them, and protect them." 
 
 "I've never claimed the contrary." 
 
 "Even if I am not naturally as nice as other 
 girls, I have nice instincts." 
 
 "You're nicer than other girls." 
 
 "I'm too demonstrative," I said. 
 
 "Just about right," Carrington said. 
 
 I shivered. 
 
 "The trouble with you is," Carrington went 
 on thoughtfully, "that you've got too good a 
 mind for your limitations. Your brain is not 
 immature, but your reactions are just as ar- 
 chaic as if you lacked a thinking organ." 
 
 "Thank you," I said sarcastically. 
 
 "Don't be nasty." 
 
 "You were," I said; "you ought to have let 
 me alone," I continued with my first train 
 of thought, "even if I did meet you halfway. 
 My halfway was n't the same thing as your 
 halfway." 
 
 "How was I to know that?"
 
 256 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Well, you'd had experience," I said, "and 
 I had n't." 
 
 "You were after experience." 
 
 His eyes widened and popped. His short 
 arms and little hands swung out at his side as 
 he walked. 
 
 " You 're just terrible," I said, without pre- 
 meditation "terrible!" 
 
 I ran wildly after a passing taxi and hailed 
 it. I jumped in it, pushing him off as I did so, 
 and slammed the door in his face. 
 
 "Go away, go away!" I said; "you make me 
 sick!" 
 
 And although he gave my address com- 
 posedly enough to the driver my last glimpse 
 of him was standing stock-still on the side- 
 walk with a strange, disconcerted look on his 
 face, and his hat pulled down over his eyes. 
 He looked more like a trick dog than any- 
 thing.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 MOTHER was nearly dead waiting for Father 
 to come and have his promised talk with her, 
 and the day he came we had all we could do 
 to keep her from going out. Even Stella ar- 
 gued with her quite hotly. All she would say 
 was that it had been so long now that she 
 did n't feel able to go through with it. You 
 could n't very well blame her, for he had taken 
 a long time about it. 
 
 They were closeted together over an hour, 
 and then they sent for me. Mother was sitting 
 on the couch looking very unmotherish in a 
 silk shirt-waist and skirt, her hair parted on 
 the side, and done low, and her little feet in 
 low-heeled pumps like a boy's. I'd noticed 
 without really taking it in that she had 
 changed a good deal since Father left 
 she 'd got younger and littler some way but 
 it was n't fully borne in upon me until I saw 
 her sitting there, waiting for me. 
 
 Father was standing and looking down at
 
 258 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 her. Neither of them spoke for a minute. 
 Then Father said: 
 
 "Well, Kitten." 
 
 And Mother said: 
 
 "Sit down, Maisie." 
 
 "All right," I said, making for a neutral 
 seat in the wing chair. But Father motioned 
 me to a place beside Mother. 
 
 "Your mother is very tired," he said. 
 
 "Your father has been telling me some 
 simple truths," she said; "at least they sound 
 simple, and they are truths." 
 
 "I've nearly killed her," Father said re- 
 morsefully. 
 
 " What have you done to her? " I said, and I 
 put my arm around her. 
 
 "I've just told her what she has done to us, 
 me, you all of us." 
 
 "It's you, Father," I said, "that have done 
 it to us." 
 
 "I've told her that, too," said Father; 
 "only it's her failure more than mine because 
 she's so much better than I am." 
 
 "I'm not very much good," said Mother, 
 " but I have n't been disloyal to you Robert 
 not literally."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 259 
 
 "Well, I have to you," said Father. 
 "The question is now what are we going to 
 do about it?" 
 
 "Yes, that is the question, isn't it? I've 
 been asking myself that question a good deal 
 lately. Do you want to patch it up and go on, 
 Robert? if I could, that is?" 
 
 "No, I don't want to patch it up," said 
 Father savagely, "I want a new deal." 
 
 "The old hand did n't play very well." It 
 was strange to hear Mother talking in meta- 
 phors with a queer little one-sided smile on 
 her face. "I have n't much to say in my own 
 defense, except that I was n't much interested 
 in my life. I was n't very close to you, Robert, 
 or my children. I don't know whose fault 
 that was. It just happens to be a fact. So I 
 neglected you to all intents and purposes, and 
 played around with Ellery. He made me feel 
 like a beautiful woman. That's all." 
 
 "You are," said Father, "you are." 
 
 " If you only would have said so to me some- 
 times. I did n't want to run around with Jim- 
 mie Greer, and those terrible people he knows. 
 I've got some Scotch blood in me, and I don't 
 like to squander money on those things."
 
 260 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Do you want to spend it for anything?" 
 Father said. 
 
 "I'd like to save a certain amount first. I 
 always thought when we had done that we 'd 
 squander it together on trips, and things." 
 
 " But you would n't go to Canada with me? " 
 
 "It was too late then. I was n't interested." 
 
 "What would have kept you interested?" 
 Father asked. 
 
 "What does keep a woman interested?" 
 
 "I don't know," said Father uncom- 
 fortably; "you know you're the only woman 
 there ever could be for me?" 
 
 "Am I?" said Mother; "if I could have 
 known that before I mean, really have 
 known it. Now, of course, it does n't mean 
 anything." 
 
 "It means everything," said Father quietly. 
 
 "Mary," Mother said, turning to me, "will 
 you answer me a few questions? Your father 
 accuses me of having neglected you. Do you 
 think I have?" 
 
 "Yes, Mother," I said. 
 
 "When you began to go out with this Car- 
 rington Chase, why could n't you come and 
 tell me about it at least?"
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 261 
 
 "You would have stopped it." 
 
 "The only reason that I didn't interfere 
 with your freedom, Mary, was that I trusted 
 you utterly." 
 
 "I know it," I said. 
 
 "You were not worthy of my trust." 
 
 "It was n't a question of that, Mother," I 
 said. "I needed somebody to talk to, so I 
 talked to Carrington the way you talked to 
 Ellery. It was all I had, and I was n't going to 
 have it stopped." 
 
 "You had me," Father said. 
 
 "No," I said. 
 
 "Your mother was the natural one " 
 
 "You weren't being the natural one," I 
 said; "you can't tell people the things that 
 are in your soul unless they realize you have a 
 soul." 
 
 "Mary's hit it," said Father. 
 
 "There is a difference between right and 
 wrong," Mother insisted. 
 
 :< Yes, but nobody in this house seemed to 
 know it," I said; "I did n't. I don't yet." 
 
 "I've always said she was a terrible child," 
 said Mother. 
 
 "Look at Stella," Father said ruefully; "it
 
 262 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 was Stella that discouraged us. We could n't 
 be expected to bring up a perfectly normal 
 daughter after that experience." 
 
 "Stella is extraordinary," Mother agreed; 
 "she's such a queer old person." 
 
 "But she's steadily getting younger," I said. 
 
 "Mary," Mother said, "have you told us 
 all the truth about your relation with Car- 
 rington Chase?" 
 
 "All that counts," I said. 
 
 "You went to his rooms, and you did n't 
 stay?" 
 
 I cringed. 
 
 "Yes," I said. 
 
 "Robert, you are right, it was my fault. 
 Mary is n't a child I can understand, but I see 
 where I've been wrong just the same." 
 
 "You ought to have held me to account," I 
 said. 
 
 "Mary's hit it again," Father said; "you 
 ought to have held me to account. Some- 
 body's got to keep the books." 
 
 "I thought I kept them only too well," 
 Mother said with her new crooked smile; 
 "we haven't reached any conclusion except 
 that we've all decided we were wrong."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 263 
 
 "Wrong as hell," Father said cheerfully. 
 
 "Will you give me a week, Robert, to de- 
 cide what I want to do?" 
 
 "As long as you decide my way." 
 
 "Where is Mrs. Mrs. Van der Water?" 
 
 " Gone to Canada." 
 
 "To stay?" 
 
 "With Jimmie Greer," said Father. 
 
 " Call in Bobby," I said, after a pause, "and 
 talk to him." 
 
 "What does Bobby know?" Mother said. 
 
 "Almost everything," I said. 
 
 Bobby looked as white as a sheet of pa- 
 per when he was summoned. Nobody realizes 
 what that child goes through in his head about 
 all the family difficulties. 
 
 "It's going to be all right, Bobby," I said, 
 as he appeared. 
 
 "It's getting fixed," Father said. 
 
 "Come here, Bobby." Mother smoothed 
 his hair back from his forehead, and he put his 
 head silently down on her shoulder. 
 
 "He needs a mother, too," I said, "don't 
 you, Bobby?" 
 
 He jerked his head twice, without lifting it. 
 
 "He's my baby," Mother said.
 
 264 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 " Well, I guess he is, if he '11 let you do that 
 to him," I said. "Come on, Bobby, let's have 
 a few minutes' conversation among ourselves 
 outside," I added as Mother released him and 
 looked helplessly about. I knew she'd have to 
 say something to Father about that fur coat 
 before they could part amicably. 
 
 "Are they going to come together again?" 
 Bobby asked me hoarsely after I had borne 
 him off to the dug-out. 
 
 "I think so," I said. 
 
 "What has become of the co-respondent?" 
 
 "Where did you pick up such a word, 
 Bobby?" I asked him severely. 
 
 "That's what they call them, is n't it?" 
 
 "We don't have to call this one anything," 
 I said; "she's gone off to Canada." 
 
 "I thought she looked kind of like Theda 
 Bara, did n't you?" 
 
 "No, I didn't," I said; "Theda Bara is 
 fat." 
 
 "Well, this one looked like her in the face," 
 Bobby insisted. "I don't see what a man 
 wants to make a fool of himself over a vamp 
 for. I can imagine falling in love with a nice 
 clean girl like Mary Pickford."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 265 
 
 " Well, don't you let me catch you falling in 
 love with anybody," I said. 
 
 " Is Mother 's beau going to South America? " 
 
 "Bobby, that is n't very respectful." 
 
 "Well, is he?" 
 
 "He is n't coming around here very much, 
 anyway." 
 
 "He was all right," Bobby said, "only he 
 hung around too much, I guess." 
 
 Mother expressed some interest in Tony 
 Cowles after this, because his keeping on 
 my trail so persistently suggested another in- 
 trigue to her. I explained to her that she 
 need n't bark up Tony Cowles's tree because 
 his interest was in Prunella, and I was only an 
 offshoot of that interest. It was a little bit 
 humiliating to keep on explaining that to 
 everybody, even myself all the time, but I kept 
 bravely to it. She finally decided that Tony 
 was a perfectly harmless friend for me to have, 
 and subsided. 
 
 Of course, it was wonderful for me to have 
 anybody like that. We took long walks to- 
 gether and drives in the park, and talked along 
 the lines that my hungry mind demanded. His
 
 266 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 point of view on everything almost exactly 
 coincides with mine, and when it does n't all I 
 have to do is to educate mine up to it. He is 
 so soothingly impersonal about everything. I 
 used to think that the personal note was the 
 only one it was really interesting to sound, but 
 Tony has taught me how to run the whole 
 scale, as it were. With Carrington the only 
 thing I liked to talk about was how things 
 affected me, and he liked to go on analyzing 
 the motivation of life and me with the 
 tacit idea in mind of something to come of it 
 that I took at its face value. 
 
 "I think we ought to hear some music to- 
 gether," Tony suggested one day when we 
 were sitting in the dug-out with the window 
 open and the strains of "Trovatore" oozing 
 through the crack from a hand-organ down 
 below; "your mother would n't mind an occa- 
 sional opera, would she? Even if they are late." 
 
 "I've done worse things than operas," I 
 said; "once I stayed out all night riding up 
 and down the subway." 
 
 "That's better than the Grand Central 
 Station. I stayed all night in the Grand Central 
 Station once when I could n't get a hotel."
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 267 
 
 "This wasn't because I couldn't get a 
 hotel," I said. 
 
 "Shocks? "he asked. 
 
 "Yes," I said, "the worst one. The one I 
 went to meet halfway." 
 
 "And did n't quite make?" 
 
 "I just as bad as made it," I said; "it was 
 only an accident that I came away. The bell 
 did n't ring." 
 
 "Didn't it?" said Tony encouragingly. 
 
 "It's just the same as if it had rung," I said, 
 "as far as my intentions went. There isn't 
 any reason why you or anybody should think 
 of me as an especially nice girl." 
 
 "I think we'll begin with the 'Coq d' Or,' " 
 Tony said frowningly, as if he had n't been 
 listening to my dissertation on myself. 
 
 "I've heard 'Boris' and 'Parsifal' and 
 'Faust,'" I said, "and that's all." 
 
 Tony laughed. 
 
 "Did you like them all equally?" 
 
 "Just about. The ' Meistersingers ' is my 
 great ambition, though. I don't know why, 
 but I've always dreamed about it." 
 
 "We'll hear it the first time it's given in 
 New York. Did you like 'Parsifal'?"
 
 268 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "It was hard to hear and hard to see, but I 
 acquired a taste for it," I said. "I went with 
 the Webster girls in their cousin's box, and it 
 drove them wild." 
 
 "I should think it might have," Tony 
 smiled. 
 
 He has met them once, and he feels about 
 them the way Father does, only amused be- 
 sides. They both made him button up their 
 white spats, which are about as long as my 
 best evening gloves. 
 
 "I love all operatic music," I said, "but the 
 only kind I really like is Wagner." 
 
 "You remind me of what George Mac- 
 Donald said of God," Tony said; "you are 
 easy to please and hard to satisfy." 
 
 "Well, I guess that's about it," I said, 
 "and you're like that yourself." 
 
 "Ami?" 
 
 "Yes, you are," I said; "especially so 
 more than anybody." 
 
 " You satisfy me," Tony said. 
 
 For my sake I thought we had better get 
 back to the subject of Prunella. 
 
 "Prunella is n't hard to satisfy," I said. 
 
 "She's delightfully easy to please. I took
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 269 
 
 her three pounds of caramels yesterday tied 
 up with a bow of blue ribbon, of this thin 
 cloudy stuff, you know, and she tied it in the 
 front of her blouse and has been wearing it ever 
 since." 
 
 "She likes those things," I said; "caramels 
 and attentions." 
 
 "Your young friend Tommy Nevers spends 
 all his spare time with her; did you know it?" 
 Tony asked. 
 
 "Well, he told me that he did." 
 
 "Did he tell you anything else?" 
 
 "He told me how much he liked Prunella." 
 
 "How much does he?" 
 
 "A lot." 
 
 "Do you think his attentions are seri- 
 ous?" 
 
 "On his part, yes." 
 
 "I think they are serious on her part," 
 said Tony, laughing at my grammatical con- 
 struction. 
 
 "Do you think she likes him?" I said. 
 
 "I think she does." 
 
 "Not really?" 
 
 "I think she's falling in love with him as 
 fast as she can."
 
 270 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Well," I said. 
 
 "I always regarded young Nevers as rather 
 your property." 
 
 "I always regarded Prunella "I said, and 
 stopped. 
 
 "Oh!" he said thoughtfully. 
 
 "Tommy told me that he would like to lift 
 her out of her misery," I began rapidly; "he 
 said he thought that when a man felt as sorry 
 for a girl as he did for Prunella that was what 
 he always wanted to do." 
 
 "Well, maybe. He's right about the fresh- 
 ening effects of fresh air, is n't he?" 
 
 "He's very sweet about Prunella," I said; 
 "differently 'so, from any way I've ever seen 
 him before." 
 
 "He's a thoroughly reliable boy. He's af- 
 flicted by an acute case of youth, that's all, 
 and that mends itself." 
 
 "I'm afflicted by youth, too," I said. 
 
 "It's becoming to you." 
 
 "I think my mother and my father are go- 
 ing to make friends again," I said, changing 
 the subject once more. 
 
 "I'm glad to hear that." 
 
 "I don't know that they are going to be
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 271 
 
 happy ever after," I said, "but they won't be 
 happy any other way." 
 
 "Love is a curious business," said Tony 
 Cowles. 
 
 I could n't help wondering how he knew. 
 
 The hand-organ switched to "That dear old 
 pal of mine." 
 
 "You believe that you can smash a thing to 
 bits, and then remould it nearer to the heart's 
 desire, don't you?" I said. 
 
 "I believe there is a destiny," he said, 
 smiling, "'that shapes our ends, rough hew 
 them how we will.' Also, I believe 'that the 
 world is so full of a number of things' that it's 
 our solemn duty to be as happy as the " 
 
 "Well-known kings," I finished for him. 
 
 :< Yes, don't you don't you really?" 
 
 "I've been awfully miserable," I said. 
 
 "I know." 
 
 "Do you believe in God?" I said, after a 
 silence. 
 
 "Yes, dear," said Tony Cowles gently.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 I WAS so popular for a few days after this that 
 I had hardly time to air out the dug-out be- 
 tween visitations. Prunella came and stitched 
 lingerie ruffles in a smiling state of abstraction, 
 talking a great deal about Tommy as if he 
 were a matter of course, but not allowing me 
 anything but generalizations on the subject. 
 The Webster girls came and announced Mer- 
 tis's engagement to Hanson Hollowell, whom 
 I don't think she has any intention of marry- 
 ing; she is so afraid it will get into the papers. 
 
 "When I come to think it all over I don't 
 think anything will induce me to leave Mar- 
 ion," she admitted, "but I want Marion to get 
 an entanglement of her own for the time being, 
 and then we can see how it works out." 
 
 "Hanson is rather nice, is n't he?" I said. 
 
 "He has a beastly temper," Mertis said; 
 "otherwise I might take him more seriously." 
 
 "You could n't take him more seriously on 
 the face of it," I said. 
 
 "Well, you know how those things are. You
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 273 
 
 sort of drift into them, and then you have to 
 say something to appease the poor man. If it's 
 no, you don't get any more parties and the 
 confectionery supply abruptly ceases." 
 
 "I will say he is n't a tight wad," Marion 
 said; "you know that's one thing I always 
 had against your acquisition, Maisie. He was 
 awfully careful with his money. He actually 
 let me pay for that taxicab that time, do you 
 remember?" 
 
 ' You insisted," I said. 
 
 "Well, why did I insist? To be resisted, of 
 course. I did n't want to fork out my money." 
 
 "Neither did he," said Marion. 
 
 "Well, you let him slip, didn't you, Mai- 
 sie?" 
 
 "Yes," I said, "I really did." 
 
 "You could have held on to him if you'd 
 wanted to." 
 
 "I know it," I said. 
 
 "I hear now that the hyphen lady's hus- 
 band is divorcing her, and she's going to 
 marry Carrington." 
 
 "What hyphen lady?" 
 
 "You know, Red Feathers." 
 
 "Do you think it's so?" I asked.
 
 274 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "Well, it's all over town; but you never can 
 tell, can you, Mertis?" 
 
 "You never can," Mertis answered coolly. 
 
 "Well," Marion said, "if you think of a 
 likely candidate for me, trot him along, and I '11 
 look him over. Meantime, I '11 do as much for 
 you." 
 
 "Maisie has a gentleman friend," Mertis 
 said slyly, "Anthony Cowles. Maisie knows 
 which side her bread is buttered on now." 
 
 "He's awfully good people," Marion said; 
 "as good as Hollowell, but is n't he frightfully 
 heavyweight?" 
 
 "No," I said, "he isn't. He's just about 
 right." 
 
 "Hollowell never had an idea in his life," 
 Mertis said; "that's why I like him. If you 
 took off the top of his head nothing but feath- 
 ers would fly out." 
 
 "I'm glad you think that's a recommenda- 
 tion," I said. 
 
 "It's the only one," Mertis said seriously, 
 " if you get a man who thinks he wants to do 
 your thinking for you." 
 
 It might be necessary in Mertis's case, but 
 there was no good telling her so.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 275 
 
 They had n't been out of the house five 
 minutes before Tommy arrived, bursting with 
 revelations. I steered him past my absent- 
 minded mother who had done her politest to 
 my butterfly friends, and had settled down 
 to comparative quiet again, writing a letter, to 
 Father I strongly suspected, as she'd had a 
 long one from him. 
 
 "Ought I to stop and speak to her?" 
 Tommy asked. "I'd rather not, if it can be 
 avoided. I'm so moved, in a great many 
 ways." 
 
 "Mercy, no," I said; "she has troubles of 
 her own." 
 
 "May I smoke? " Tommy said, as we settled. 
 
 He lit up ostentatiously to show me how his 
 hand was trembling. It really was, for that 
 matter. 
 
 "She's going to," he said finally. 
 
 "Marry you?" 
 
 "Think of it," Tommy said; "she wants a 
 week to think it over." 
 
 "Tell me about it," I demanded. 
 
 "Well, it's too sacred a matter to speak of 
 very much, but this is what happened. I went 
 around there this afternoon, and that Cowles
 
 276 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 fellow was there, but he saw that there was 
 something serious on and he went away. I like 
 that fellow." 
 
 "So do I," I said. 
 
 "He's been mighty white to Prunella. She 
 told me about him. Well, he went away, and 
 we sat down on the sofa together, and, well, 
 you know I told you how a fellow feels about 
 a girl that 's in the state of trouble Prunella is 
 in. You have an irresistible impulse to soothe 
 them. I don't mean that you think of them 
 in any any desecrating way " 
 
 "I know what you mean, Tommy," I said; 
 "go on." 
 
 "Well, I took her hand in mine, and then I 
 told her" 
 
 "What? "I said. 
 
 "What I've told you about wanting to lift 
 her out of her misery. She she is willing, it 
 seems, or will be when she has thought it over 
 for about a week. You know, I feel as if I 
 could get down on my knees and kiss the hem 
 of that little girl's garment." 
 
 "Why did n't you?" I inquired. 
 
 "I did," said Tommy reverently. 
 
 "What about her mother?" I said.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 277 
 
 "We did n't discuss her; but she knows that 
 I would do the right thing by her mother." 
 
 "She drinks, you know, Tommy." 
 
 "Well, I don't," Tommy said; "where does 
 she get it?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "All those things will settle themselves," 
 Tommy said; "the legislature of my country 
 has taken such a disgraceful turn that it makes 
 my blood boil when I think of it. I suppose 
 Mrs. Pemberton is forced to the same shame- 
 ful expedients that all other anti-prohibition- 
 ists are." 
 
 "Well, you aren't, Tommy, if you don't 
 drink." 
 
 "It's the principle of the thing," Tommy 
 said. "Weren't you surprised that Prunella 
 gave way so quickly?" 
 
 "Well, no," I said. "Tony Cowles told me 
 the other day that he thought Nella was get- 
 ting deeply interested in you." 
 
 " I like that fellow," said Tommy. "What do 
 I hear about your other friend Carrington 
 Chase? He's named as co-respondent in a 
 divorce case." 
 
 "I did n't know that," I said.
 
 278 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "That Mrs. Jones's husband is divorcing 
 her on Carrington's account. How's your 
 father, Maisie?" 
 
 "Mother isn't divorcing him," I said, "if 
 that's what you mean." 
 
 "I'm mighty glad to hear that." 
 
 "I'm mighty glad to hear about you and 
 Prunella," I said. 
 
 "You look a little white," Tommy said; "are 
 you tired or something? Had I better go?" 
 
 "If you don't mind, Tommy," I said. 
 
 " Oh ! I was going, anyway, in five minutes 
 excuse my looking at my watch. I only 
 came away long enough for Prunella to have a 
 consultation with the doctor about her mother. 
 She expects me back at half -past five. I 'm the 
 happiest man in the world," he said, rising. 
 "I shall never forget the help you've been to 
 me, little girl never." 
 
 "I'm glad of that," I said. 
 
 When the door closed on him, it left me 
 alone with quite a number of things. The look 
 on Mother's face, for instance, as she folded 
 and smoothed out her letter to my father, the 
 forgiveness look, I suppose it might be called, 
 because that was what it was, anyway.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 279 
 
 Then there was the thought of Tommy and 
 Prunella's happiness and Mertis's fake en- 
 gagement, and the news about Carrington. 
 
 I shut myself into the telephone booth in 
 the hall, and called Tony Cowles's home 
 number. 
 
 "I want to see you," I said. 
 
 "All right, I '11 be there." 
 
 "I don't want you to come here," I said; 
 "I want to come there." 
 
 "You get in a taxicab and come over here," 
 Tony said; "only don't get out and come up. 
 I'll be looking for you, and I'll come down." 
 
 "I don't care about its being proper," I 
 said, "or not." 
 
 "I '11 come down." 
 
 "All right," I said. 
 
 "The house stifled me," I said; "I could n't 
 stay in it." 
 
 "Drive through the park/ Tony told the 
 driver; " keep on driving till I tell you to stop." 
 
 "Carrington Chase is going to be the co- 
 respondent in a divorce case." 
 
 "Is he?" said Tony Cowles cheerfully. 
 
 "I never told you his name before," I said.
 
 280 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 "It's alliterative, is n't it?" 
 
 "Yes," I said; "he was perfectly horrid 
 really. I told him so one night, standing on a 
 street-corner. He'd never understand why I 
 thought so. But you do, don't you?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "A co-respondent always means somebody 
 that is that is n't " 
 
 "Yes, it does," said Tony Cowles quickly; 
 "of course, the case may not be proved." 
 
 "This case will be," I said. 
 
 "Does it matter?" Tony asked gently. 
 
 "Oh! does n't it? "I said. 
 
 "The lights are nice in this mist, aren't 
 they?" 
 
 "Yes," I said; "my father and mother 
 nearly got dragged into the divorce courts. 
 Oh! I can't see how such things are allowed 
 to happen." 
 
 "They do, but I don't think we need to 
 think about them to-night. We can drive 
 around for a while, and then I'll telephone 
 your mother and ask her if she is willing for 
 you to go to dinner with me." 
 
 "I don't see why you are so careful about 
 me," I said, "when I've told you everything.
 
 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 281 
 
 He did n't care what I did, or whether Mother 
 knew it or not." 
 
 "She might be anxious." 
 
 "Yes, she might be, now," I agreed; "the 
 lights are nice in the mist." 
 
 After a while I put my hand over his, and 
 then I put my arms around his neck, but I 
 jerked them away again, and covered my face 
 with them. 
 
 "Oh!" I said. "Oh! that's the way I am. 
 You see it is n't right. I'm too " 
 
 "Mary," Tony Cowles said, in a voice I had 
 never heard him use before, "do what you 
 started to do." 
 
 "I can't," I said. 
 
 "Put your arms around my neck, and kiss 
 me." 
 
 "It is n't right," I said; "there's something 
 about me I'm all wrong," I said. 
 
 "What makes you think so?" 
 
 "It's either that or that everything is 
 sex," I said. "I don't want to believe that. 
 You are n't like that." 
 
 "Mary," he said, "everybody is." 
 
 "What do you mean?" I said. 
 
 "There's just one big ideal in this world
 
 282 BEAUTY AND MARY BLAIR 
 
 and that's love," he said, "the fusion of two 
 beings into one. It's the truth that underlies 
 everything." 
 
 "People get awfully messed up," I said. 
 
 "Yes, but that does n't alter the fact that 
 it's love they are looking for." 
 
 "Like Parsifal," I said. 
 
 "Exactly." 
 
 "But it seemed to me so disgusting that 
 I should be looking for it," I said. "At first I 
 did n't know what it was I wanted, and then 
 Carrington, he told me " 
 
 "Yes, I know." 
 
 "I just thought it was beauty." 
 
 "It is," he said, "it is. Put your arms 
 around my neck, dear. Kiss me." 
 
 "Oh! is that all right?" I cried. 
 
 "Is it?" asked Tony Cowles. 
 
 I'm going to marry him as soon as Stella 
 gets out of the house and Father and Mother 
 get together again. I was willing to wait until 
 Prunella's aunt came out of the South and re- 
 lieved her of the worst of her troubles, but 
 Tony thinks that won't be necessary. He 's 
 he's beautiful.
 
 fttoeitfibe 
 
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