JULIET 
 
 WILBOR. 
 
 TOMPRINS

 
 EVER AFTER
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 PLEASURES AND PALACES 
 MOTHERS AND FATHERS 
 OPEN HOUSES 
 THE TOP OF THE MORNING 
 DOCTOB ELLEN
 
 
 "7 thought I was willing to pay the price"
 
 EVER AFTER 
 
 BY 
 
 JULIET WILBOR TOMPKINS 
 
 FRONTISPIECE 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLED AY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1913
 
 Copyright, 1913, by 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of 
 
 translation into foreign languages 
 
 including the Scandinavian
 
 EVER AFTER 
 
 2229457
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 CANDACE WARE stood on the veranda enjoying 
 the sense of finished work. It was the first morning 
 in months that had given her leisure to stand in the 
 sun with her arms folded, and all her square, strong 
 figure, relaxed against a pillar, showed her satis- 
 faction in the moment. Candace's slow, close- 
 lipped smile curled up at the corners, and her little 
 brown eyes took the same curl when she was pleased, 
 giving the hardy, boyish face an impersonal sort of 
 charm, a promise of good fellowship and of a massive, 
 almost an immoral, tolerance. But for this mellow 
 quality, she showed the undated youthfulness of 
 mind and body that the modern woman of forty has 
 so suddenly and remarkably acquired. Candace's 
 mother, at her age, had worn caps and considered 
 it more graceful and fitting not to dress in the im- 
 mediate fashion. Her daughter, trimly shirt waisted, 
 with three good inches of daylight above her man- 
 nish Oxfords, could still be seriously referred to as 
 a girl. 
 
 The old farmhouse stood on a great, rounded 
 knob of land that thrust it well up into a sky of 
 
 3
 
 4 EVER AFTER 
 
 noble breadth. It was sky that one saw there before 
 anything else, vasty deeps of cloud-billowed sky, an 
 azure immensity that overwhelmed the little world 
 of farms and woods, reducing it to a pebble lying 
 under a mighty palm. Clear green meadow rolled 
 away from the house indefinitely in front, but on the 
 sides and back it broke against jutting capes and 
 islands of compact woodland. Well down the 
 slopes, four pine shacks, rough but charming, each 
 with a high window to the north to explain its call- 
 ing, hid from one another behind shoulders and 
 curves of hill : to the east, where the tangled sumach 
 merged into the woods, another roof might be made 
 out, and from the deeper growth to the west came 
 the faint notes of a piano, implying a sixth cabin. 
 In this hidden retreat a theme was being tried, over 
 and over, with minute variations. Presently the 
 experimenting fingers found what they wanted, and 
 the strain, after many repetitions, rippled into joy- 
 ous certainty and ended in a triumphant chord. 
 A few moments later a young man came out into the 
 open. Candace's smile deepened as she watched his 
 approach. Dana Malone, like his cabin, was part of 
 her work. 
 
 There were broad streaks of gray in his heavy 
 black hair: his eyes, deep set and darkly earnest, 
 seemed to have looked on many things, and the 
 irregular, cleft chin had the thrust of one who had
 
 EVER AFTER 5 
 
 needed all his determination; and yet he was a boy. 
 Some magic preservative the West in his blood, or 
 the streak of genius had kept his spirit at nineteen 
 while his years were at twenty-nine. He carried 
 an air of unsnubbed good will, suggestive of frank, 
 new civilizations, and his speech came tumbling out 
 on a note of excited discovery the moment it could 
 be heard. 
 
 "You can always do it if you want to!" he de- 
 clared. "It's only a matter of wanting to enough 
 and sitting. I tell you, Candy, if you sit faithfully, 
 you can do anything on earth." He dropped down 
 on the step with a slight gasp for breath. 
 
 "I've got a pupil who has been sitting for thirty 
 years, and she can't paint yet," said Candace. 
 
 "Oh, well, if she hasn't got it in her that's 
 different. But if it's there, I mean. This going 
 round waiting for it to come to you is all nonsense. 
 You must sit it out. That's the way you train it to 
 come, by jinks! It's the way I do, anyway." He 
 looked off over the rolling land, then stretched his 
 long arms above his head. "I'm so happy, I'm so 
 happy," he chanted. 
 
 She smiled her understanding. "Life hasn't 
 spoiled us very much, has it?" she observed. 
 
 He answered with an emphatic, "Not so that you 
 would notice it;" then reconsidered. "I don't know. 
 I've got a good deal."
 
 6 EVER AFTER 
 
 "Inside you," she assented. "I believe I am 
 coming to the age when I like a little something 
 outside, myself." 
 
 Again he burst into song, chanting on a high key: 
 "I have escaped the subway, I am done with the 
 elevated, I have hills and fields and a great sky over 
 all, and a pi-a-no Praised by Thy Name!" 
 The solemn invocation was followed by a shout, evi- 
 dently a necessity to his dangerously expanded heart. 
 
 "You're a queer child, Dana." She was looking 
 down at him with never-ending amusement at the 
 contrast between his simple, boyish personality and 
 the delicate subtlety of his music. "I don't under- 
 stand your talent; I am not sure you have a right 
 to it." 
 
 "It's California," he explained gravely. "She 
 puts a gift into your cradle as a matter of course 
 lovely, big, brown thing!" His rugged face turned 
 hungrily toward the west. "Oh, I'm homesick; 
 I want to go back don't you?" 
 
 " Calif ornians are always homesick;" her tone was 
 cheerfully practical. "I want to make this school a 
 success now. The first pupil comes this afternoon." 
 
 "Can she paint?" without much interest. 
 
 Candace considered. "If she weren't ten genera- 
 tions or so of straight New England she might; she 
 has talent of a sort she sees. But she can't let go. 
 She's too careful, some way, ever to get very far."
 
 EVER AFTER 7 
 
 "But what will the poor girl do?" he asked wor- 
 riedly. She laughed at him. 
 
 "Lucy Cuyler won't starve," she said drily. 
 "She isn't entirely dependent on her painting." 
 
 "That's so: people here do have incomes," he 
 admitted. "I'm always forgetting it. No one at 
 home ever seemed to have a cent except the mil- 
 lionaires, of course." 
 
 "But they all had had it twenty years before," 
 she reminded him. "It is our fine, free-handed, 
 damn-the-expense attitude that has done for us, my 
 boy. A little New England carefulness " 
 
 " W'f ! " he burst in. "Not much. Money mean- 
 ness is the ugliest sin on earth." 
 
 "Don't you find penury rather ugly, too?" 
 
 Dana ignored that. "I've seen fellows who 
 parted with a dollar as they would with a tooth," he 
 declaimed. "Fellows who always let the other per- 
 son pay, don't you know? and who lie awake nights 
 if they think they have been overcharged ten cents. 
 I am poor enough, God knows, but I would chuck 
 fifty dollars in the gutter before I'd haggle over it!" 
 
 "You are a survival, Dana," she derided him. 
 "You belong to the days when they threw down a 
 bag of gold dust to pay for a drink, and no gentleman 
 would stoop to take change." 
 
 "Well, that is better than counting your nickels. 
 I tell you, Candy, money meanness is a big, black
 
 8 EVER AFTER 
 
 sin. It can make people do more cruel, ugly things 
 than any vice I know." 
 
 "Oh, nonsense. I could show you delightful 
 people who will give anything except money. It's 
 an idiosyncrasy, not a vice." 
 
 His headshake was violent. "Don't go back on 
 your Western blood, Candy." 
 
 "One starts out like that," she admitted; "but 
 I don't know. Money's money." 
 
 "Then why do you spend a large part of yours on 
 other people?" 
 
 She laughed. "Bad habit. I can't seem to be- 
 lieve my own experience." Dana frowned. 
 
 "What's the sense of always talking like a pirate 
 when you always act like a guardian angel? It 
 doesn't fool any one." 
 
 "Then where's the harm?" she asked. 
 
 "The trouble with you, Candy," he began with 
 the assurance of old acquaintance, but she cut in 
 with a good humoured, 
 
 "The trouble with you, Dana Malone, is that you 
 haven't found yourself out." She stretched her 
 tired arms, then let them drop, and turned to the 
 open door behind them. "Come and see how nice 
 the house looks. Everthing is ready." 
 
 Candace had scooped out the first floor of the 
 farmhouse like a hallo we'en pumpkin. The old 
 entry, parlour and sitting-room were now one long,
 
 EVER AFTER 9 
 
 generous apartment, broadside to the south, while 
 kitchen, buttery, and best bedchamber had been 
 turned into an equally long room to the north. The 
 latter was bare but for easels, camp chairs, and a 
 small platform, but to the other had been added 
 every homely charm compatible with its uses. It 
 gave a sunny impression of buttercup yellow and 
 clear white; there was a sober gleam of pewter, 
 the blond shine of deep willow chairs, and rag rugs 
 lay like blurred rainbows on the brown floor. A 
 narrow dinner table of dark oak ran half its length, 
 and against the west wall stood an aged sideboard 
 laden with china, primitive but richly green: the 
 other end was given up to fireplace and bookshelves. 
 The rooms upstairs, including the space over the 
 new kitchen addition, had been multiplied into many 
 small, fresh, white bedrooms. Dana was pro- 
 foundly impressed. He was always a satisfactory 
 audience for achievements, having an endless ca- 
 pacity for astonishment. "Well, what do you think 
 of that!" was his constant comment as Candace 
 showed him her various devices for neatness, space, 
 and charm. 
 
 "Why, your fortune's made. You can't help it," 
 he exclaimed, as they came downstairs again. "Pupils 
 will fall over each other to come. You will have to 
 add on more " 
 
 "But only the land is mine, you know," she inter-
 
 10 EVER AFTER 
 
 rupted. "That and the idea. My angel backer 
 won't take interest, but I mean to pay her the princi- 
 pal before I do any more building, let me tell you." 
 
 "And the cabins for us poor devils that was 
 your idea, too, wasn't it?" 
 
 Candace smiled shrewdly. "That's the way I 
 got her interested. That is the philanthropy part, 
 don't you see? My summer school is just an inci- 
 dent to her." 
 
 "Well, God bless the old lady and keep her pros- 
 perous," said Dana solemnly. A laugh escaped 
 Candace, but she did not explain. 
 
 Although the lunch gong could not be expected 
 for half an hour yet, the "poor devils" of the cabins 
 were already coming hopefully back from wood and 
 field, some with canvases and camp-stools under 
 their arms. Serious but struggling talent and the 
 ability to pay a modest sum for board were the only 
 stated requirements for admission to Sky Farm; and 
 admission meant three months' right to a delicious 
 pine cabin and the freedom of a region still half wild 
 and rich in beauty. If there were other require- 
 ments, Candace did not mention them; but a notice- 
 able sobriety marked these first tenants, and one 
 of them, who had brought a prim and somewhat 
 hungry looking wife, had been given a marked con- 
 cession in his board rate. Candace realized that, 
 with her summer school open, she was approaching
 
 EVER AFTER 11 
 
 fire to gunpowder, but she felt an amused adequacy 
 to the situation especially when she reviewed her 
 cottagers. Dana Malone was the only one who sug- 
 gested combustible properties, and she had no mis- 
 giving about her ability to deal with him. The fact 
 that they had both been born in Oakland seemed 
 to give her an elder-sisterly authority, and his 
 struggle, as well as his talent, was appealingly 
 genuine. 
 
 At the first clang of the iron triangle hung on the 
 porch they came hurrying up the green slopes, 
 Dabney, with his wife's hand under his arm, well in 
 advance. The struggle was ending for these two, 
 for the poetic quality, the elusive delicacy and mys- 
 tery, of Dabney's etchings was at last being dis- 
 covered; but it was ending too late for anything but 
 relief. About their patient mouths lay ineffaceable 
 grooves of weariness, the shadow of lost children. 
 They walked with their heads bent toward each 
 other, but did not talk. Behind them, streaming 
 conversation, came Palmer Jacks, large, blooming, 
 handsome, a big gray moustache sweeping the 
 seasoned ruddiness of his cheeks, carrying his thin 
 old serge suit with an easy air of having bought it in 
 London, wearing a Panama of fifteen years back as 
 though he had chosen it in aristocratic preference 
 over twenty new ones. After half a lifetime of 
 cheerful failure in business, Palmer Jacks had sud-
 
 12 EVER AFTER 
 
 \ 
 
 denly entered on a middle age of cheerful success 
 as a painter. His landscapes were not of a high 
 order, but they made a naive appeal to the romantic 
 and the young in heart. From the very first people 
 had stopped to look; now they were actually be- 
 ginning to buy. 
 
 "But do we want you encouraged?" Candace had 
 objected when he begged admission. "Why a bat- 
 tered old worldling like you should paint nooks and 
 grottos and dingles, I don't see! Your nature al- 
 ways looks as if it were meant to flirt in. In another 
 year you'll be painting best sellers." 
 
 "Well, for God's sake, let me get a square meal 
 this year," he had persisted with his subterranean 
 chuckle. 
 
 "You ought to do kittens coming out of slippers 
 and little girls giving doll tea-parties," Candace 
 had grumbled, but she had let him in. Ludlam was 
 with him, a complacent young fellow with a pointed 
 blond beard, who looked out from under his eyelids 
 like a girl when he conversed, and who was becoming 
 known as a painter of skies, great, bold, sweeping 
 skies in every mood, the land beneath being little 
 more than a purple shadow or a watery gleam. Near 
 them, yet apart, Adamovitch, a fragile young Russian 
 Jew, followed with bent head. Adamovitch had 
 been forbidden his violin for the present, but the 
 cabin in the sumach bushes occasionally found its
 
 EVER AFTER 13 
 
 voice and cried out its master's secrets the eternal 
 secrets of youth, of the alien, of the mounting spirit 
 held down by the lagging body to the placid June 
 dusk. A lame decorator named Willing came hob- 
 bling in on a crutch after the rest were seated. Will- 
 ing was also forbidden to work, but his cabin, in its 
 vocal moments, gave out only a cheerful whistle. 
 "Just my luck," in his vocabulary, meant a special 
 brand of good fortune. He was an ageless little 
 man, somewhere between a withered thirty and a 
 juvenile fifty, and Palmer Jacks cherished a theory 
 that his brain was under some pressure and had not 
 grown up. 
 
 "Gad! Wouldn't it be fun to trepan him, and see 
 him wake up to what rotten luck he's really got," he 
 had exclaimed to Candace the first night. "His 
 is the kind of cheerfulness that drives strong men to 
 drink. You haven't any beer, have you?" 
 
 "Now look here, Palmer, if he drives you to beer 
 in twelve hours, what will it be at the end of twelve 
 weeks?" 
 
 "I'd hate to tell you," with a sigh. "If you could 
 only publish Willing, what a ten-cent magazine he'd 
 make! He'd have a circulation of a million and a 
 quarter in two weeks. He's just what the public 
 wants." 
 
 Willing dropped into his place with a hopeful 
 glance toward the long stretch of empty table.
 
 14 EVER AFTER 
 
 "School opens to-morrow, doesn't it, Miss Ware?" 
 he began happily. 
 
 "It does." Candace's tone had a good-humoured 
 finality before which Willing looked ingenuously 
 abashed. 
 
 "In other words, what's that to us?" interpreted 
 Palmer Jacks. 
 
 "I might as well tell you now about meals," 
 Candace went on, ignoring him. "You people will 
 have to breakfast and lunch a quarter of an hour 
 later; that will give us time to have the school meals 
 over and cleared away before you come up. Dinner 
 will be at the usual time, but the girls will want the 
 room afterward, so I can't urge you to linger in the 
 evenings." 
 
 "I am sure we never do. We always go straight 
 to our cabin," Mrs. Dabney hurriedly put in. 
 Palmer Jacks's eyes were twinkling. 
 
 "Aren't we to see these houris at all?" he de- 
 manded. 
 
 "You will meet them at dinner," was the firm 
 answer. "They are coming here for hard work, and 
 they don't want interruptions." 
 
 "Gad! I never worked so hard I wasn't glad to 
 be interrupted," muttered Jacks. 
 
 "I don't see how you can say that," Dana 
 Malone broke in. "When I'm working in earnest, 
 a knock on the door feels like a blow in the face."
 
 EVER AFTER 15 
 
 Dana had not been there twenty-four hours, but 
 already he objected to Jacks as only the young and 
 reverential can object to him whom they term a 
 scoffer. 
 
 "Ah, I probably have not your secret of working in 
 earnest," Palmer returned with mischievous humil- 
 ity. He was well aware of Dana's irritation, and 
 rather liked him for it. "I was a solemn young 
 ass myself once," he admitted to Candace, later. 
 "Teach him to laugh and he'll be all right. There's a 
 good job for your missionary instincts this summer." 
 
 She shook her head. "He doesn't need to laugh 
 yet; he's perfectly happy," she explained. 
 
 Lucy Cuyler stepped down from the train with 
 the hard-won ease of a shy person who has been 
 early forced into social responsibility. It was evi- 
 dent that seeing her trunk put off and finding her 
 vehicle would have worried her painfully if she had 
 not had to do it so often; and, even as it was, her 
 mouth looked a little too responsible over the busi- 
 ness, her eyes too earnest. A trunk seemed to her a 
 thing of fearsome weight. She had an air of strained 
 muscles as the station master received hers into 
 brawny arms, disdaining a truck. 
 
 "It is far too heavy," she murmured, with a faint 
 gasp for his effort. He smiled down paternally at 
 the disturbed face. Its mature gravity was amus-
 
 16 EVER AFTER 
 
 ingly tempered by the curves of childhood that still 
 lingered in the rounded cheeks, and people were apt 
 to smile at it when it was most responsible. Very 
 old ladies were fond of telling Lucy that she was 
 like her Great Aunt Betty, whose spirit had left an 
 aroma that still lingered in old corners of her native 
 town. She had the same soft colourings blue and 
 brown and rose as the portrait in the Museum, 
 but was saved from its picture-book prettiness by 
 the look of race, of inherited meaning, that the 
 artist had thought best to soften in Great Aunt 
 Betty's thoughtful brow and dignified little nose. 
 
 "Ho! That's nothing." The man gave the 
 trunk an extra twirl, to reassure her. "If you're 
 one of them art students, she told Jim Lee to have a 
 rig here for you," he added. "That's him, with the 
 white horse. I'll bring this." 
 
 Jim Lee, roused from contemplation of the sky 
 line, looked the questioner well over before answer- 
 ing that the fare would be a dollar and a half. Jim 
 always looked a stranger over before answering, and 
 a dollar and a half was the regular rate; but his 
 deliberation suggested a calculated extortion, based 
 on appearances, and Lucy's lips straightened, obliter- 
 ating the youthful softness of the moment before 
 and bringing out a faint suggestion of her Grand- 
 father Cuyler. Old Adrian Cuyler, by his shrewd- 
 ness and his minute caution, had lifted his large
 
 EVER AFTER 17 
 
 family from affluence to wealth, but money was not 
 the only thing that he had handed down to his 
 descendants. 
 
 "That is too much," said Lucy, timid but stern. 
 "It is only three miles." 
 
 "It's uphill all the way, lady. Can't take you for 
 less." Then, seeing another wagon edging up, Jim 
 relented a little. "Tell you what," he confided; "I 
 won't charge you nothing extra for your trunk." 
 
 That sounded reasonable, and Grandfather Cuyler, 
 having no means of knowing that the trunk always 
 went for nothing, felt free to withdraw his influence, 
 leaving Lucy to climb happily into the back seat of 
 the battered surrey. She had another distressed 
 moment wondering whether she should fee the pater- 
 nal station master, and watched him uneasily, a 
 furtive quarter in her hand, as he swung her trunk 
 into Jim Lee's languid grasp. He paused for a 
 remark on the weather, his hand resting on the wheel 
 in friendly equality, and, seeing by his straight 
 American glance that a tip would be offensive, she 
 responded with the radiance of deep relief. Offer- 
 ing gratuities was always misery to her, a misery 
 compounded of a subtle shame for the other person 
 and a great dread of wounding. And, then, a quarter 
 was a quarter! She dropped it into her purse with 
 unconscious satisfaction as they drove off. 
 
 The divided influences of Lucy Cuyler's inheri-
 
 18 EVER AFTER 
 
 tance were quaintly reflected in her appearance. 
 With a suit that was the perfection of tailoring, a 
 plain serge of plutocratic distinction, she wore a 
 pleasant, flowered hat that any modest shopgirl 
 might have chosen. Her gloves were fresh and ex- 
 travagantly delicate, her little tan shoes shabby and 
 unpolished, with worn heels, while against her aris- 
 tocratic pigskin bag leaned a not-quite-silk umbrella 
 with a bunch of artificial cherries on the handle. 
 But, if her belongings were undiscriminated, her love 
 and knowledge of natural things were evidently 
 strong and discerning. As they wound up the great, 
 broad-backed green hills, she sat forward in her 
 eagerness, studying every gracious curve and dip of 
 the land with vivid satisfaction, lifting her face to 
 the sunny odours of the fields and the cool breath of 
 the woods. Two thirds of the journey had been 
 made in absorbed happiness when her glance hap- 
 pened to fall on the horse, and so brought her joy 
 to an end; for she saw that he was limping. She 
 bent forward for a better look. 
 
 "Your horse is lame," she exclaimed, troubled 
 and reproachful. 
 
 "Oh, he's just kind of footsore," Jim Lee ex- 
 plained, as though that made it all right. "Too 
 much road work, that's all." 
 
 "Couldn't you turn him out for a rest?" 
 
 "No, lady; not at this time of year."
 
 EVER AFTER 19 
 
 She watched the old fellow trot wincingly down a 
 slope, then attack the next hill with a deep sigh in- 
 flating his slatted sides. "I'll walk up this," she 
 said suddenly, and was on the ground before the 
 carriage could be stopped. "Couldn't you walk, 
 too?" she added diffidently. 
 
 "Well, you see, it's like this, lady;" Jim Lee, 
 sprawled in his corner, turned a languid head to ex- 
 plain. "You're likely to meet an automobile any 
 time on these roads. He don't mind them if you've 
 got him in hand; but down on the ground you 
 couldn't do nothing at all." 
 
 The steep-pitched, rutted road did not suggest 
 frequent motors, but Lucy was too polite to say so, 
 and followed in clouded silence. The unprotesting, 
 painful tugging of the aged beast wrung her. She 
 would gladly have carried her trunk to ease his load. 
 That being impossible, she pulled off her gloves, put 
 her two small hands on back of the surrey and 
 began to push. 
 
 It was so that Dana Malone, coming out on a 
 high bank over the road, first saw them the limp- 
 ing horse, the lolling man half dozing on the front 
 seat, the girl, flushed and lovely with compassion, 
 pushing with all her touching little might. And 
 Dana, whose heart broke over dumb suffering and 
 flamed up for a generous act Dana, who could cry 
 any day over newspaper heroics, and never heard
 
 20 EVER AFTER 
 
 the national anthem without a swelling desire to die 
 for his country, and believed that man was created 
 to serve, protect and cherish woman Dana Malone 
 was not one to see the absurdity of the group. 
 
 "Well, what do you think of that!" he muttered. 
 A moment later he had scrambled down the bank 
 to meet them. 
 
 "You mustn't do that! Let me," he exclaimed, 
 so authoritatively that Lucy yielded up her place 
 in startled docility. 
 
 "The driver couldn't get out because we might 
 meet a motor," she explained, kindly anxious that 
 not even Jim Lee should make too poor an appear- 
 ance. A skeptical "H'h ! " and a push that surprised 
 the horse relieved Dana's overcharged feelings. 
 
 "Please get in again. You won't make any dif- 
 ference," he urged, but she would not. 
 
 "I like to walk," she insisted, still a little short of 
 breath. "We must be nearly there." 
 
 Dana, pushing lustily, his face turned toward her, 
 could have wished the distance indefinite; the weight 
 on his arms felt chivalrously good. It did not occur 
 to him to make conversation or to explain himself. 
 Shyness was to him an unknown state, and, with all 
 his generous youth still vibrating from that first 
 glimpse of her, he could not descend to the triviali- 
 ties of convention and treat her like an unintroduced 
 young lady. So he simply looked at her out of
 
 EVER AFTER 21 
 
 darkly lit eyes and rejoiced. Not having the key 
 to his mood, Lucy grew shy, then uncomfortable. 
 Her stolen glances could not explain this rough figure 
 with his shabby clothes and perfect ease of bearing, 
 his look of youth and the streaks of gray in his black 
 hair. Her lips moved uneasily, and her face turned 
 more and more to the sun-flecked beech trunks and 
 the deep beds of bracken beside the road. The June 
 green that nearly met above their heads was still 
 frail and young in this high world, the day's warmth 
 had a vivid freshness, and the ardour of spring 
 stirred in unseen wings and bubbling throats. Under 
 pretence of a second look for a hidden songster, 
 Lucy fell a few steps behind; and so roused Dana 
 to speech. 
 
 "When .I'm rich," he declared, looking back with 
 his air of intent discovery, "you know what I'm 
 going to do?" No other beginning could have so 
 interested and reassured her. She came closer. 
 "I'm going to buy up every poor old beast I come 
 across and either kill or cure him. Just to get him 
 off my mind. Wouldn't that be great?" 
 
 It was hard for Lucy to enter into conversation; 
 but she was ruled by a very earnest desire to be 
 "big," and she had long ago decided that it was little 
 to admit human intercourse only through the front 
 door. So she met the advance with a conscientious 
 effort to match his directness and simplicity.
 
 22 EVER AFTER 
 
 "But won't that be rather individual, just to 
 help the ones you see?" she objected, out of her 
 modern training. "Shouldn't you find a way to 
 help them all?" 
 
 That was a new idea to Dana. " I suppose so," he 
 admitted reluctantly. "Well, I'd do that, too. 
 But it's the one I saw that I'd get my fun out of! 
 Shouldn't you?" 
 
 The question troubled her. "I hadn't thought of 
 either as fun, exactly," she admitted. "It is all 
 such a such a terrible worry." 
 
 "Oh, every good feeling is fun," he explained 
 largely. "Why, the best fun I ever had in my life 
 was hauling a half-drowned pup out of the East 
 River. I wish you could have seen the love feast! 
 He was so grateful, and so glad to be alive, it just 
 broke your heart. Nice pup," he added with a 
 reminiscent shake of his head. 
 
 Lucy was rapidly coming to a real ease before 
 his almost primeval unconsciousness. 
 
 "Yes, that was fun," she said with the smile that 
 had made Great Aunt Betty famous. Dana's stare 
 deepened: he thought he had never in his life seen 
 anything so lovely as that generous lighting, the shine 
 of a pitying and loving spirit through the delicate 
 mask of shy reserve. For a moment the traces of 
 Jim Lee's horse hung slack, though the hill was at its 
 steepest. Then they paused on an artificial resting-
 
 EVER AFTER 23 
 
 place, and Lucy saw how heavily her knight-errant 
 was breathing. 
 
 "You are doing too much," she said distressfully. 
 "We ought to be there by this time. Do you know 
 Miss Ware's farm?" 
 
 The knowledge of who she was flashed into Dana's 
 consciousness before his unpractical mind had 
 reached the question, and startled him into joyous 
 exclamation. 
 
 "Oh! Why, of course! Why, you are the first 
 pupil you're Miss Cuyler! I'm staying there, 
 in one of the cabins." 
 
 "You are?" It was a vivid response, yet even 
 vanity could not have taken it personally, and Dana 
 
 had none. "Tell me " she paused, hesitating 
 
 over the question. 
 
 "I came yesterday," he volunteered. "You 
 know, there are six cabins, put up by some old lady, 
 a friend of Miss Ware's; and any poor artist can 
 have one free for the summer. I'm a musician my- 
 self, and so there's a piano in mine. Did you ever 
 hear of anything like that?" 
 
 She was suddenly constrained. "So you like it 
 here?" she asked, her face averted. 
 
 "Like it?" They were emerging from the woods, 
 and he looked out over the rolling land with the 
 deep breath of an expanding spirit. "Like it? 
 Now look here, Miss Cuyler! Suppose you lodged
 
 24 EVER AFTER 
 
 in the Black Hole of Calcutta, and dined in a cellar, 
 and took your outing in a subway; and then suppose 
 an angel out of heaven handed you all this free and 
 threw in a piano do you think 'like it' would be 
 the word?" She flushed, so deeply that he thought 
 his vehemence had been too aggressive, and hastened 
 to soften it. "I have just come, so I'm half 
 cracked," he apologized. "Please don't mind if I 
 rave. See, there is the house now." 
 
 They had rounded the hilltop, and only a brief 
 dip lay between them and the last climb up to the 
 spreading old farmhouse set in an immensity of sky. 
 Lucy gave it a quick look, then stopped the carriage. 
 
 "I will get in now," she said. "Thank you for 
 helping." Her nod of dismissal was so oblivious of 
 him that Dana turned into a side path with a sur- 
 prising consciousness of hurt feelings. Lucy, mean- 
 while, had turned to Jim Lee and nervously opened 
 negotiations. When they pulled up at the door, 
 she had bought the old white horse for thirty dollars. 
 
 Candace showed the house to the new pupil before 
 she had taken off her hat, pointing out the cabins to 
 her from the upstairs windows. 
 
 "Well, what do you think of your job?" she asked, 
 cheerfully confident, as they came to the end in 
 Lucy's room. 
 
 "O Candy!" Lucy turned hastily to shut the open 
 door. " If some one had heard you ! "
 
 EVER AFTER 25 
 
 "They'd have heard only the pure, white truth," 
 was the serene answer. Lucy, still holding the door, 
 faced her with a worried question growing in her 
 eyes. 
 
 "Do you think I ought to tell? " she finaily brought 
 it out. 
 
 "No, my dear, I don't." 
 
 "Still, if it involved you in any lies " 
 
 "It won't. And I shouldn't mind if it did. But 
 I wish you had put up one cabin less and got your- 
 self a decent umbrella." 
 
 "I didn't care for that, myself;" Lucy appeared 
 surprised at the coincidence of tastes. "But the 
 woman told me it was an unusual bargain; and I do 
 lose them so often, Candy." She was begging for 
 approval, but Candace was relentless. 
 
 "See that you lose this as soon as possible, then," 
 she said. "How can you make people think you're 
 an artist with such an atrocity in your possession?" 
 
 Lucy, at bay, had courage. "I don't think it is 
 so bad as all that," she said stoutly, putting it out 
 of sight. "It does very well for what I want." She 
 took off her hat, brushing the dust from its un- 
 distinguished trimmings with a care that made 
 Candace smile. "I have found such a nice little 
 milliner," she confided. "You wouldn't dream how 
 cheap this was." 
 
 "Oh, yes, I would," was the firm answer.
 
 26 EVER AFTER 
 
 Lucy looked disconcerted. "Don't you think it is 
 pretty and becoming?" 
 
 "Yes, I do." 
 
 "Then why isn't that enough?" She was almost 
 offended. 
 
 "Well, if you like a Mary Ann hat with a Queen 
 Anne suit, it is," was the drawling answer, uttered 
 so good humouredly that Lucy suddenly laughed 
 and flung the hat on a shelf. 
 
 "I am glad you approve of something," she said. 
 "Oh, by the way, I have just bought a horse he 
 limped, and it worried me. You will have to do 
 something with him." 
 
 "Upon my word!" Candace's hand fell with 
 affectionate heaviness on the girl's shoulder. 
 "Lucy, you are a duck." 
 
 "Don't tell any one I did it," Lucy urged. "Oh, 
 I should so hate it if they found it all out! I simply 
 could not stay. And I want to stay." 
 
 "Pretty lonely, down there?" 
 
 "Oh, no." She would have stopped there with 
 any one else, but Candace had long ago trampled 
 a breach in the wall of Lucy's reserve, and been 
 rewarded with a confidence that sometimes touched 
 and startled her. "No, not lonely, but responsible. 
 I am always doing such hard things, like addressing 
 committees and meeting boards. There is some- 
 thing to screw up courage for every day, Candy!
 
 EVER AFTER 27 
 
 Even buying a railroad ticket takes an effort, don't 
 you think?" 
 
 Candace 's sleepy smile curled her lips and the 
 corners of her eyes. "I suppose it does for you. 
 You don't need a protector for the big moments of 
 life, Lucy, but you do need some one to help you 
 across streets, don't you?" 
 
 "Not up here! I haven't felt so free in years. 
 Candy, do you think it was very selfish of me to 
 rent the North Shore house? " 
 
 "Why, child?" 
 
 " Why, there are so many people who have always 
 been asked to it every year: they must have counted 
 on it for this summer. I have had them just the 
 same, ever since I have been alone, but you have 
 
 no idea " Loyalty to her guests stopped her, 
 
 and she ended the sentence with a sigh. "I couldn't 
 be expected to invite any one here, could I?" she 
 added, looking contentedly about her narrow white 
 cell. " Isn't it dreadful to be so glad ! " 
 
 "Shocking," said Candace. 
 
 Lucy's advance to meet the introductions of 
 dinner time and her brave plunge into social relations 
 led Dana Malone to one of his inspired discoveries. 
 When she had excused herself, at the end of the 
 meal, to finish her unpacking, he beckoned Candace 
 aside. 
 
 "You know what she's like?" he burst out.
 
 28 EVER AFTER 
 
 "Queen Victoria! No, wait a moment" his lifted 
 hand forbade her rising laughter "I don't mean 
 in looks ! But don't you know how, when the Queen 
 was young and had to make a speech from the 
 throne or something, she would be so frightened, 
 yet so perfectly composed? She was too royal to 
 notice her own timidity: her poor little paws might 
 be like ice, but she spoke with the tongues of the 
 Queen of Great Britain and Empress of India. 
 I've read about it. Well, don't you see what I 
 mean?" 
 
 Candace considered him with good-humoured 
 severity. "Look here, Dana, if you go to discover- 
 ing queens among my pupils, there's going to be an 
 empty cabin in the wild wood." 
 
 "Oh, come off!" And Dana turned disgustedly 
 away. 
 
 "Is she one of the Boston Cuylers?" asked 
 Palmer Jacks from the doorway. 
 
 "She lives in Milton," Candace answered, after 
 an almost imperceptible hesitation. 
 
 "Poor relation, maybe. I shan't ask her. It's 
 the bitterness of death to be asked if you're one of 
 the Boston So-and-sos when you aren't. I knew 
 a woman who went there from St. Louis with the 
 name of Adams, and the question spoiled her life. 
 She finally married a man named Jones, to end it." 
 Palmer stepped out, and paused on the porch to
 
 EVER AFTER 29 
 
 light a pipe. "Well, since we're not urged to linger 
 any more, good night ! " he said. " Stroll, Ludlam? " 
 
 Ludlam followed with his peculiar gracefulness 
 of motion. He ran to long points fingers, feet, 
 and even nose as well as blond beard, and his coats 
 fitted at the waist, thus cutting him off instantly 
 and forever from Dana Malone's sympathies. 
 Jacks, however, was not troubled by prejudices, and 
 the two wandered away together in companionable 
 silence. 
 
 "I am wondering if I shall tell you something," 
 began Ludlam presently, speaking through his 
 favourite smile, a small, clever smile of a cosmo- 
 politan significance. Palmer's love of gossip was 
 as shameless as it was sincere. He removed his 
 pipe and cocked his head for better attention. 
 
 "Go ahead," he commanded. 
 
 "It begins with a slight adventure of mine, three 
 years ago, down on the North Shore;" Ludlam 
 took up the tale with a visible relish for the pleasures 
 of conversation. "There was a most wonderful 
 bit of coast, entirely cut off by stone walls and 
 'private property* signs. You know, Jacks, I'm 
 a peculiar person in some ways: I respect other 
 people's rights, even their preferences. I am made 
 that way I can't be otherwise. But the temp- 
 tation was overwhelming, and there was no one in 
 sight, so the scrupulous Ludlam dropped over the
 
 30 EVER AFTER 
 
 wall like any apple thief and began sketching. You 
 remember my picture in the Academy, two winters 
 ago? It was catalogued as 'Earth and Sky and 
 Sea.' Of course, I don't care for that sort of 
 literary tag to me it was just a happy develop- 
 ment of green paint; but they like a title. It made 
 a good deal of a sensation : there was always a crowd 
 about it. That was its beginning, and a cross 
 gardener came near being the end of it. He quite 
 ordered me off. I can't row with such people, so 
 I was meekly going when a delightful young woman 
 in deep mourning came to the rescue, and I was 
 told very shyly, yet with an air, you understand 
 
 that I might sketch there day and night if it so 
 pleased me." 
 
 "Well?" Palmer prompted. "I suppose in the 
 second act you saved her life, and in the third you 
 married her?" 
 
 Ludlam's smile became very knowing. "You 
 might say that the second act was just beginning. 
 I found out that she was Miss Lucy Cuyler, grand- 
 daughter of old Adrian, and sole owner of the place 
 
 her mother had recently died. After that, I 
 frankly averaged eight hours a day within sight 
 of her verandas, until I discovered that she had 
 gone away on a visit. I never saw her again until 
 to-night." 
 
 Palmer replaced his pipe and smoked thoughtfully
 
 EVER AFTER 31 
 
 over the news. "So we have an heiress in our 
 midst," he mused. 
 
 "That is the mystery of it. Why should she 
 come off here for the summer? Of course, it's a 
 delightful farm, and all that; but, as a man of the 
 world, Jacks, you know as well as I do that such 
 a life is a pis aller, a makeshift, a tiding over till 
 more fortunate times. And for a girl who could 
 have anything she chose 
 
 "If she is old Adrian Cuyler's grandchild she 
 came here to save money you can bet on that," 
 Palmer began with emphasis, then looked apologetic. 
 "Not but that she seems a very charming young 
 lady," he added with a bow, as if she stood bodily 
 before them. 
 
 "We might as well keep it to ourselves, don't 
 you think?" Ludlam suggested with his sidelong, 
 almost coy, glance. 
 
 "Gad, yes. Can't you see little Willing gawping 
 up at an heiress and asking her how it felt?" 
 Palmer's chuckle was not unkind. "I don't sup- 
 pose she can paint, do you?" 
 
 "Why should she?" returned Ludlam with a 
 shrug. 
 
 Dana Malone, meanwhile, had gone back very 
 soberly to his cabin. He was troubled, restless, 
 full of sudden despair at the hopeless limitations 
 of his chosen career. Ever since he had left Lucy
 
 32 EVER AFTER 
 
 that afternoon, a choking sense of loneliness had 
 dragged at his throat. And now, since dinner, 
 seeing her so friendly and so remote, he felt like 
 a beggar in rags outside a palace gate, gazing up at 
 a balcony where a princess sat and did not even 
 know he existed. She would never be aware of 
 him, fine, sweet, shy gentlewoman, queen and little 
 girl in one yet how she had pushed for that old 
 horse! The thrill of his first sight of her stung him 
 again and again: no repetition of the vision could 
 weaken its poignancy. It kept her human for him, 
 brought her for a flying second within his reach. 
 He even laughed over it those poor, dear arms ! 
 and stretched his own big muscles, longing to use 
 them again in her service. The thought that per- 
 haps he could play to her came at last like an inspi- 
 ration. The thick growth about his cabin had 
 already shut out the twilight, but he groped his 
 way to the piano and laid unerring hands on the 
 keys. 
 
 Yet he did not play that night. As though the 
 first chord had been a signal, the barrier between 
 himself and the amazing truth fell away, and his 
 hands faltered. Understanding in words had not 
 yet come, but his ready heart leaped to full knowl- 
 edge. The cabin became a haunted place; the 
 darkness was all a great, warm Presence, and he 
 felt the precious weight of arms on his shoulders,
 
 EVER AFTER 33 
 
 the moth-touch of lips on his upturned face. When 
 the vision faded he arose, chilled and stiffened, 
 to find the night half gone. His face, as he struck 
 a light, was white and frightened. 
 
 "Love at first sight," he muttered, as though the 
 phrase had for the first time reached his under- 
 standing. "Love at first sight. My God, it's 
 really true!"
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 IT WOULD have been a blessing to Lucy Cuyler's 
 girlhood if her mother had been a poor woman and 
 had been forced to turn her great executive abilities 
 to business purposes. Being denied this outlet, Mrs. 
 Cuyler ran her household with a terrible efficiency. 
 Since she could not rule the private school to which 
 all the "nice girls" of the day went, she had Lucy 
 taught at home; and so the shy child grew to a shy 
 girl with almost no young companionship. Occa- 
 sionally her cousins swept her off, in an indignant 
 attempt to "rescue" her, but these escapes were 
 not wholly successful. Lucy did her courageous 
 best and looked her prettiest, but there was always 
 a lack of fundamental ease, a sense that the con- 
 versation was made, not born. When some brave 
 young man ventured to call, Mrs. Cuyler received 
 him and gave him her vigorous, intelligent views 
 on the topics of the day, while Lucy sat at one side, 
 glad to be relieved of the responsibility and very 
 little interested in the affair. Her paints and the 
 garden, books and dreams and the hunger for beauty 
 made up her rich, secret life, and though a vague, 
 
 34
 
 EVER AFTER 35 
 
 roseate cloud that she called love lay gloriously 
 along the horizon, she never dreamed of connecting 
 it with any of these calling young men, nervously 
 correct under her mother's eye. 
 
 No one had ever come close to her until the 
 secure bulwark of her mother's presence had been 
 swept away, three years before, leaving her stricken 
 and in terror at the inundation of her kindly, sorry 
 world. She had finally run away to elderly rela- 
 tives down on Long Island, and there, on the white, 
 rolling sand dunes, with the wind sweeping in, keen 
 and salty, from the open sea, she had found Candace 
 Ware. The very tolerance of Candace's smile had 
 been a revelation to her. Lucy had lived with an 
 unrebellious acceptance of shut doors on every side; 
 Candace's tranquil, "But why not?" seemed to 
 set them trembling on their hinges, swinging magi- 
 cally open. What she learned about painting in 
 those laborious weeks under Candace's guidance 
 was as nothing beside what she learned about 
 human companionship and individual liberty. She 
 implored Candace to come and live with her, but 
 could not move her. 
 
 "I've got my work to do, child," was her good- 
 humoured ultimatum. But she had promised and 
 made a yearly visit, and their eight weeks in Europe 
 together had been the happiest time of Lucy's life. 
 Candace had paid every penny of her own way,
 
 36 EVER AFTER 
 
 insisting that Lucy should live down to her level 
 and twinkling amusedly when she saw that the 
 other really enjoyed their scrimping. It was the 
 poor teacher who insisted on cabs and comforts when 
 they were travel-tired. Candace laughed at her 
 without mercy, yet the girl's faith and devotion had 
 grown to be one of the pleasantest facts of her life. 
 
 The cottagers were lingering about the breakfast 
 table when Lucy came down the next morning. 
 Mrs. Dabney rose at once, with a nervous murmur 
 to her husband, and drew him away, but the others 
 chose to consider that school had not yet begun. 
 Ludlam sprang to pull back her chair, and Willing's 
 ingenuous, 
 
 "Oh, why didn't I do that!" roused a shout of 
 laughter. Lucy's blue and rose and brown had a 
 lovely morning freshness above her blue cotton 
 frock, and they all turned to her. 
 
 "I was just telling them what a queer thing 
 happened overnight, Miss Cuyler," Palmer Jacks 
 explained. "A white horse has sprung up from 
 the meadow, like Venus out of the foam." 
 
 "It looked to me as if it came out of a horsecar," 
 said Willing, so seriously that they laughed again. 
 
 "I think it's a poet in disguise, myself," Palmer 
 went on. "But there's no use asking Miss Ware: 
 she just sits there and smiles." 
 
 "I don't see why I shouldn't take a horse to
 
 EVER AFTER 37 
 
 board," Candace protested. "It won't be half so 
 much trouble as the rest of you." 
 
 "I'll bet Venus doesn't pay rent," returned Jacks. 
 "You'll pauperize him just as you are pauperizing 
 us. Miss Cuyler, did you know that Miss Ware 
 is doing actual moral harm in the world that she 
 is undermining our financial independence and 
 weakening our moral fibre by giving us luxuries we 
 can't pay for?" 
 
 "Oh, come!" broke in Dana Malone, starting from 
 an abstracted silence. "What rot!" 
 
 Lucy had flushed, but she returned Candace's 
 stolen glance with one of amusement. "I shouldn't 
 think a pine cabin could hurt any one's moral fibre," 
 she said. 
 
 "Anything for nothing is bad," Palmer insisted. 
 "Some one once gave me five hundred dollars, in a 
 burst of good will or insanity, perhaps; and, 
 I can tell you, I was pauperized on the spot. I 
 went about for two years trying to find some one 
 else in the same mood. It's a bad job that is 
 being done here on this farm you mark my 
 words." 
 
 "But, if you can't take, you can't give!" Dana 
 was explosive with protest. "You believe in giving, 
 don't you? When I see what this place does for 
 one, every hour why, it's a big, definite gain in 
 moral fibre to be here. I think Miss Ware and
 
 38 EVER AFTER 
 
 the bully old lady back of her are doing as fine 
 a piece of work as I ever heard of!" 
 
 There was a deep murmur of assent from the 
 young Russian and a perfunctory echo from Ludlam, 
 who looked annoyed at having his status at the 
 farm so publicly referred to. Willing also sprang to 
 the defence with a bald : 
 
 "If you feel that way, I don't see why you stay!" 
 
 Jacks chuckled. "My dear young friends," he 
 said, rising, "there are moments when preserving 
 one's moral fibre is not the first consideration. Miss 
 Cuyler, if you care to see one of these breeding 
 places of pauperism, I shall be charmed to have 
 you inspect my cabin any time." 
 
 "I am going to show Miss Cuyler all the cabins 
 this morning, so you'd better have them in order," 
 Candace warned them, and the men, being their 
 own housemaids, left in some haste. Not till they 
 were well down the hill did the two women dare 
 look at each other. Then Lucy broke into a 
 smothered laugh. 
 
 "Oh, if they ever found out!" she cried, her face 
 pressed against Candace's shoulder. Then a sober- 
 ing thought lifted her head. "You don't think 
 there is anything in what Mr. Jacks said, do you? " 
 she asked anxiously. 
 
 "Of course not, and neither does Palmer himself. 
 He was just talking. No; I agree with Dana
 
 EVER AFTER 39 
 
 Malone, my dear I consider you a bully old 
 lady." Lucy's laughter ran over again, yet she 
 was not wholly reassured. 
 
 "I suppose that free homes might do harm," she 
 persisted. 
 
 "Yes, they might. You always run that risk 
 when you try to do good. You must watch and 
 judge that for yourself this summer, Lucy." 
 
 "But you had been considering the idea for years, 
 hadn't you?" 
 
 "Well, I had been feeling sorry for years, wishing 
 that various poor things I knew could get a com- 
 fortable chance at the country. I haven't put 
 any deep, economic thought into it, I'm afraid." 
 
 Lucy sighed. "Giving is so terribly respon- 
 sible!" 
 
 "Yes; but so is not giving," said Candace mildly. 
 
 "Every one does give, at home, enormous sums, 
 for everything." And Lucy sighed again, as though 
 the future lay heavily upon her. 
 
 They went down the hill an hour later, and Lucy 
 yearned to live in each of the pine cabins in turn. 
 Realization of what these aromatic little homes must 
 mean to cramped refugees from the city struggle 
 made her glow with the joy of giving. As Dana 
 Malone had said, a rescue was "fun." She was 
 eager to put up more cabins, to make more people 
 utterly happy. Most of the tenants were out, but
 
 40 EVER AFTER 
 
 they found Mr. Dabney on his knees, planting ferns 
 against his front wall. 
 
 "My wife thinks it looks so bare and new," he 
 explained. "Do you suppose they will grow?" 
 His tone was patiently hopeless, and Candace 
 paused to consider their chances, letting Lucy go in 
 alone to Mrs. Dabney, who always sat indoors, 
 no matter what lure the day outside might offer. 
 She was sewing, and gathered up the white breadths 
 of her work with nervous apology. 
 
 "I hate to have any one see the place looking as 
 it does, anyway," she sighed. "But there is no 
 place to put anything. I spend half my time picking 
 up, but it doesn't do any good." 
 
 Lucy could see no disorder, and said so. This was 
 the largest of the cabins, boasting a room and a 
 half as well as a fireplace, and the streaming sun- 
 light suffused the fresh pine walls with a golden 
 glow. Casement windows framed broad pictures of 
 rolling green land and blue sky. The desire to move 
 in at once made the visitor exclaim aloud: 
 
 "Oh, I do envy you, Mrs. Dabney!" 
 
 "It could be very nice," Mrs. Dabney admitted. 
 "But can you imagine building a place with no 
 more closet room than that?" She lowered her 
 voice, with a cautious glance toward the two out- 
 side. "A shelf with a curtain and nine hooks that 
 is positively all. It is so stupidly planned, anyway.
 
 EVER AFTER 41 
 
 If you have that window open at night, there is a 
 gale on you; and if you close it, you don't get air 
 enough. I spend half the night opening and shut- 
 ting things." 
 
 Lucy was troubled. "Couldn't you arrange a 
 screen?" she suggested. 
 
 "Oh, it's hardly worth while to do anything." 
 Mrs. Dabney pressed her thin fingers across her 
 big, white forehead. "Miss Ware wants us to stay 
 all summer, but I don't believe we shall. I hate 
 living with my trunk in the room but it is full 
 of our things. As I tell Mr. Dabney, I shall be 
 more tired by trying to keep picked up than rested 
 by the outing. I hope you will come again," she 
 added, as Lucy rose. "The days are so long in a 
 place like this." 
 
 Lucy could scarcely contain her protest until 
 they were out of earshot. 
 
 "Candy, she does nothing but complain!" She 
 was hurt as well as indignant. "It is a darling 
 place, and she can't talk of anything but closets. 
 Do let her go, and give it to some one who will get 
 the good of it." 
 
 Candace's smile had never been more lazily 
 tolerant. "She's getting the good of it, child. She 
 has gained five pounds at least since she came, and 
 her voice has gone down two keys." 
 
 "But she isn't appreciative "
 
 42 EVER AFTER 
 
 "Ho! You're thinking of gratitude, are you? 
 Enjoy that when it comes, little Lucy, but don't 
 concern yourself about it when it doesn't. You do 
 such things because you think they're needed: 
 thanks don't alter the results." 
 
 "But but no, I think it is a failure, Candy, 
 when a person takes it like that. She ought to pay 
 rent, that woman! I should make her." 
 
 "Well, this tenant is appreciative, anyway," said 
 Candace soothingly as they turned into the path 
 that led to Dana Malone's hidden dwelling. 
 
 Dana had swept and ordered his cabin in a glory 
 of zeal. The joy of the present had suddenly sub- 
 merged the cold dismay to which he had wakened. 
 It was warm, bright June and she was coming: 
 that was enough for the hour. His bed became a 
 couch, by day, and a green burlap screen hid the 
 washstand: the rest was rough pine beams and 
 casement windows opening widely into the woods, 
 and a bare stick or two of furniture, too unobtrusive 
 to take away from the wildwood charm of the little 
 place. When all was in order, Dana brought in 
 lavish armfuls of ferns and pine boughs, fastening 
 them up against the walls, and dug up a great, flat 
 white stone to serve as a doorstep to her feet. He 
 would have brought in the whole woodland for her 
 had she not ended his labours by coming. 
 
 She paused on the new doorstone with a surprised,
 
 EVER AFTER 43 
 
 "Oh! Oh, lovely!" that brought Candace up 
 beside her. 
 
 "Well, Dana! You look like the ice-cream booth 
 at the county fair," the latter said admiringly. 
 
 "More like Peter Pan's cottage," said the kindly 
 Lucy. "Aren't we interrupting your work?" His 
 protest was cut short by Candice's emphatic: 
 
 "I'm glad we did interrupt it. You will find 
 those young pine trees on your board bill next 
 Saturday." 
 
 "Oh, come! I only took branches that didn't 
 show," he declared joyously. "Won't you both 
 sit down and visit me? I never before was a real 
 host, in a home of my own. It's a tremendous feel- 
 ing. Miss Cuyler, are you, here in the East, born 
 just yearning to entertain, as we are in California?" 
 
 "I don't know." Lucy's honesty was reluctant. 
 "I always think of it myself as something rather 
 worrying and responsible." 
 
 "Oh, I don't. It's the dream of my life to come 
 out into my own front hall in a big white waistcoat 
 and welcome a lot of splendid people who've come 
 to dinner!" He laughed, tilting back on the piano 
 stool with a knee in his clasped hands. 
 
 "And you'd show them all over the house," 
 Candace derided him. 
 
 "Oh, yes the new bathrooms and the old 
 mahogany and the O Candy, how could you
 
 44 EVER AFTER 
 
 help it?" he pleaded. "Think what it would mean! 
 By jinks!" 
 
 "Well, if you want to begin on the mahogany, 
 there is actually some left, about here," Candace 
 suggested. "The collectors haven't found it all 
 out, for some reason. I got that old sideboard did 
 you notice it, Lucy? from a farm over here a 
 little way, and they had a lovely table possibly 
 other things." 
 
 "Were they expensive?" Lucy asked with interest. 
 
 "Dirt cheap, a month ago. But the people may 
 have learned better by this time. Or been cleaned 
 out. Play something for us, Dana something of 
 your own." 
 
 He turned readily about, and it was then, with 
 his face bent over the keys, that Lucy Cuyler really 
 saw him for the first time. Her eyes kept returning 
 to him with a sense of startled discovery. It was 
 not a handsome face, yet about the idealistic brows, 
 the irregular, jutting chin and wide, thin-lipped 
 mouth touched with sweetness at the corners, she 
 found a latent nobility that was very close to 
 beauty that really was beauty, she decided, with 
 a consciousness of caught breath, when, at the end, 
 he looked across to her with a smile. She had 
 scarcely heard what he played, but the response 
 in her face satisfied him. Dana took his music 
 very simply. He knew, without vanity, that it
 
 EVER AFTER 45 
 
 was good, and loved it frankly, but exacted nothing 
 from others. 
 
 "You'll like this, too," he said, and this time 
 Lucy heard, a haunted, Celtic melody full of 
 ghosts and dreams. "I got that from something 
 my Grandfather Malone used to play to me on his 
 violin, when I was a kid," he explained. "He 
 called it 'Mary Alone.' He'd have been a great 
 musician if he had ever had a chance." He would 
 have risen, but Lucy begged for it again. There 
 was an eerie call running through it that set her 
 heart beating: she waited for its repetitions with 
 thirsty eagerness, and heard it end each time with 
 a sad sense that she could never have enough of it. 
 It called and called her until the cabin was as rich 
 in glamour as the garden of her secret girlhood. 
 Oh, the longing of it, the weird pain of its moonlit 
 cry! 
 
 "Dana, if you play that insane thing again, I 
 shall howl like a lost dog," exclaimed Candace, 
 rising. "Thank you for your hospitality. You 
 will make a perfectly good host when the time comes. 
 Lucy, do you want to come back to the house? 
 You have seen all the cabins." 
 
 Lucy roused herself to the practical present with 
 a faint sigh. " Can't we go and look at that woman's 
 old furniture?" she asked. Candace consulted 
 her watch*
 
 46 EVER AFTER 
 
 "I don't dare. The girls will be here in less 
 than an hour. But I could tell you how to go." 
 
 "Let me show her;" Dana had started up. "I 
 know: it's the Barrow farm, where you get your 
 eggs. May I, Miss Cuyler do you mind? " Lucy, 
 with a smile, did not "mind," and Candace went 
 serenely back to her duties, not dreaming that she 
 left behind her anything more interesting or dan- 
 gerous than the pursuit of old furniture. 
 
 Lucy would have turned shy without Candace's 
 protecting presence, but Dana's absolute ease seemed 
 to bestow on her some of his freedom of spirit. For 
 he was never free and easy there was nothing to 
 repel: he was simply incapable of understanding 
 the involuntary barriers that may hamper willing 
 spirits. The happiness of the present was still 
 overflowing in his voice and gait and his solicitous 
 care for her as they followed a path through the 
 woods. 
 
 "I'm glad you liked that Celtic thing," he began. 
 "I have some others that I must play for you. I 
 got them all from my grandfather hints of them, 
 you know, and the words so I am going to 
 publish them under his name, Brian Malone." 
 
 "That is very generous," said Lucy, and some- 
 thing in her secretly added, "and just what you 
 would do!" with an intensity that brought a glow 
 to her face.
 
 EVER AFTER 47 
 
 "Oh, it's a better name for the songs, anyway," 
 he demurred. "My name is a half-breed. The 
 Malones were coming up in the world as the Danas 
 were coming down, so they met, you see. I'd 
 change my name to Brian, only well, my mother 
 did care such a lot about the Danas!" with a laugh 
 of comprehending affection. 
 
 "Oh, and doesn't it matter what they cared 
 about afterward!" It was a momentous burst 
 of confidence from Lucy. "At the time you don't 
 think much about it: you want to do your own way. 
 But when they are " 
 
 He nodded understandingly. "Yes; then you 
 don't see how you could have gone against them so 
 brutally, every chance you had." 
 
 "And so you try to be more what they wanted," 
 she took it up. "My mother cared so about com- 
 mittees and board meetings and charities" the 
 path had brought them up against a rail fence, and 
 Lucy leaned on the bars, looking out across the 
 open fields with misty eyes "and I never even 
 really listened when she wanted to tell me about 
 them. I never asked questions or went with her 
 of my own accord. Never, once." She had told the 
 aching secret of her life to an absolute stranger; 
 and yet she was conscious only that the moment was, 
 for some reason, big. Dana's arms rested beside 
 hers on the fence rail, his eyes, touched and respon-
 
 48 EVER AFTER 
 
 sive, followed hers to the shining clouds of the far 
 horizon. 
 
 "Don't you think they understand fathers and 
 mothers?" he urged. "Don't you suppose they 
 remember how they went against their own parents, 
 and then broke their hearts over it? Perhaps that 
 is why they were so everlastingly patient and for- 
 giving: they knew how it was all going to wrench 
 us, some day, and that then we'd at least remember 
 what they wanted. I think they knew!" 
 
 "Do you?" The tremulous hope in her voice 
 wrung him. "If I could only be sure of that!" 
 
 "Well, just think back;" he was burning to help 
 her. " Can't you remember, when you were awfully 
 cussed and trying, how, suddenly, they would stop 
 being furious, and just give you the sorriest kind of 
 smile, a sort of, 'Oh, you poor child!' look? That 
 was it: they were remembering, and realizing how 
 you'd pay in your turn. Oh, of course they knew!" 
 
 Lucy stood transfixed before a memory, her last 
 memory of her mother able-bodied and active, 
 though perhaps the softening of the end had already 
 touched her militant spirit; for, before Lucy's open 
 reluctance to accept a charitable secretaryship, she 
 had laid her large, strong hand on her daughter's 
 shoulder with a tolerant smile. "Never mind, 
 dear, the time will come," she had said. Until this 
 moment, that memory had been a piercing pain:
 
 EVER AFTER 49 
 
 now she saw it lightened of its reproach, transfused 
 with a beauty of meaning before which her hurt 
 spirit rose up like the healed Lazarus. 
 
 "Oh, I didn't dream " she murmured; "I 
 
 didn't dream " She forgot to go on, and Dana 
 
 waited patiently beside her, motionless lest he 
 disturb the big thoughts reflected in her rapt 
 face. 
 
 A thrush sang, suddenly, over their heads, clear- 
 ing the air like a silver shower. They looked up, 
 smiling, to find him. Dana boyishly vaulted the 
 bars before letting them down for her; he had to 
 do something with his brimming vitality. The 
 glistening pillars of cloud on the far horizon had 
 begun to show black on their under sides, and a 
 breeze of mischievous meaning came dipping over 
 the young wheat. 
 
 "Shower," he announced joyously, and she laughed 
 as at good news. 
 
 "We must hurry," she said. 
 
 The track along the edge of the wheat sloped 
 temptingly before them. Neither knew which 
 began to run first: perhaps the spirit in their feet 
 ran away with both at once. They flew at top 
 speed, miraculously without labour: it was like 
 flight in dreams, when one skims the grass tops, high 
 breasted and arms streaming. A prosaic ending 
 loomed ahead in a stile and a public highway, but,
 
 50 EVER AFTER 
 
 before they had slackened, Lucy's ankle faltered, and 
 she stumbled wildly forward. 
 
 .As though his arms had been waiting for this 
 moment, Dana caught her, caught her up, warm 
 and panting, in a clasp that was like a shout of 
 joy. She was instantly freed: not a finger pressure 
 did she need lor her release, there was not even time 
 for a thought of escape. Yet she had been there, 
 in his arms, and they both knew it in every fibre 
 as she laughed over the accident, and assured him 
 she was not hurt, and steadied her loosened hair. 
 She crossed the stile with great decorum, even with 
 formality, as though to atone for that outburst 
 of youth, and Dana saw again his young Queen and 
 the throne. He did not offer her even the tips of 
 his fingers. 
 
 The Barrow farm lay just across the highway, 
 a dreary, unkempt place, overrun with chickens. 
 The fine old white-pillared house was rotting with 
 neglect, the barns sagged threateningly, the yard 
 they crossed was strewn with rubbish. The Bar- 
 rows had gone down in the world. A slatternly 
 figure of discouraged middle age opened the back 
 door to them and heard their request with apathetic 
 eyes. 
 
 "There's a table in there," she admitted. "You 
 can go look at it if you like." Beyond a nod toward 
 a door, she did not offer to show them the way.
 
 EVER AFTER 51 
 
 They crossed a broad hall, of beautiful propor- 
 tions, but unspeakably dirty and airless, and opened 
 the door of a big room that must have been handsome 
 in its day, but was squalid and stained now, bare 
 but for a table in the centre and nearly dark because 
 of the grime on the window-panes. Dana, shudder- 
 ing, tried to let in some fresh air, but the windows 
 were nailed fast. Lucy had turned eagerly to the 
 table. 
 
 "O Mr. Malone!" she cried, excited, but cau- 
 tious. "It is one of the old hundred-legged tables! 
 Why, they are rare, aren't they?" 
 
 "So it is," he exclaimed, bending down to examine 
 the many slender, fluted legs that supported the 
 broad leaves of the top. "And it is in pretty good 
 order, too. What a find!" He discovered a rag 
 and rubbed away some of the dust, and they rejoiced 
 over it until Lucy was seized by a panic fear that 
 another purchaser might even now be at the door, 
 and hurried him back to the kitchen. The question 
 of price was always dreadful to her, and she met 
 it with a quaint mixture of sternness and timidity, 
 nerved by the blood of old Adrian Cuyler even while 
 Great Aunt Betty's softness would have begged off. 
 
 "I like the table, Mrs. Barrow," she said. "What 
 did you what will you sell it for? " 
 
 The woman was patching a man's shoe, tugging 
 painfully as the needle stuck in the heavy leather.
 
 52 EVER AFTER 
 
 "There's a kind of demand for them things now," 
 she said wearily. "We had a lot once I wisht 
 we'd kep' 'em. I'll have to ask you nine dollars." 
 
 Dana gasped audibly, but Lucy met the price 
 with a grave little nod. 
 
 "Will that include boxing it for shipping?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "We couldn't box it very well; but he'll deliver 
 it anywheres about here." She was dully anxious 
 not to lose the sale. Lucy appeared to debate 
 before conceding the point. 
 
 "Very well. If your husband will bring it up 
 to Miss Ware's, I will give him the money: nine 
 dollars." For the first time, the woman showed a 
 spark of human feeling. Her hands paused, and 
 she lifted her head. 
 
 "No: you pay me," she said sternly. "Bring 
 it when you like; but you give it to me." The clos- 
 ing of her lips told bitter truths. Then the spark 
 died out and she went on doggedly stabbing the 
 needle through the harsh leather. 
 
 They got away with a sense of escape, breathing 
 deep the clean June air, feeling as if their garments 
 and hands still held the smell of stale poverty. 
 Lucy would have been gay over her bargain, but 
 Dana was unresponsive, and his face was so down- 
 cast that she fell silent, wondering. When he 
 turned to help her over the stile, their eyes met.
 
 EVER AFTER 53 
 
 "You think it is a good table, don't you?" she 
 asked, timid again before his change of mood. 
 
 "That's just it!" He rested an elbow on the top 
 step, facing her eagerly, yet breathing nervously 
 with the difficulty of explaining. "You don't 
 know, of course; but down in New York I'm always 
 prowling about the antique shops, and I know 
 that a table like that, put in order, would sell 
 for seventy or eighty dollars, easily more on 
 Fifth Avenue." 
 
 "Yes?" Her clear eyes showed only puzzled ques- 
 tion, and his colour rose. 
 
 "Don't you see? Any dealer would give her 
 twenty dollars or even twenty-five like a shot if she 
 knew enough to ask it. And she's so horribly poor! 
 You couldn't be expected to know about prices;" his 
 voice caressed her; "but I do, and I was wondering 
 if you wouldn't let me oh, you know, suppose I 
 bought half of it, and we gave her twenty dollars? 
 I could perfectly well don't hate me ! Only she's 
 so horribly poor!" 
 
 Her eyes were still lifted, but they looked strained 
 and frightened, and the colour was rushing to her 
 very hair. He could not know that Lucy, lover of 
 every aspect of beauty, and so open at that moment 
 to new influence that the voices of the past in her 
 were feeble that Lucy, ashamed, and yet moved 
 beyond minding her shame, was in spirit swept to
 
 54 EVER AFTER 
 
 her knees before him. He struck the step with a 
 desperate fist. 
 
 "I'm a fool, I'm a fool," he muttered. 
 
 "Oh, you are right!" He saw rather than heard 
 the choked whisper. "You are beautifully right! 
 I'll do it not you I will pay her well. Oh, I 
 am so glad you said that!" The last words were 
 audible, and brought her hands into his. 
 
 "You're so lovely," he stammered. 
 
 "I hadn't realized " 
 
 "No, of course not you couldn't! But I had 
 to say it " 
 
 "I am so glad you " 
 
 A splash of water in their faces brought them back 
 to earth with a shock that ended in startled laughter. 
 The shower was close upon them. They hurried 
 up the hill and dived, breathless, into the shelter 
 of the woods just in time to escape drenching. The 
 path was still dry, but the rush of rain over their 
 green roof showed that it would not stay dry long. 
 They were both thinking of the broad sweep of open 
 meadow between Lucy and the house. Presently 
 Dana hurried ahead to plunge into his cabin, coming 
 out with an old raincoat over his shoulders. 
 
 "You wait in there," he commanded, as imperi- 
 ously as he had ordered her away from the carriage, 
 at first sight. "I'm going up to get your things." 
 
 "But if I took the coat " she began. The
 
 EVER AFTER 55 
 
 idea of that old rubber garment touching her was 
 impossible to him. 
 
 "Oh, no;" with a quick frown. "Besides, you 
 must have rubbers and an umbrella. I won't be 
 long." 
 
 He wasted no time waiting for her consent, and 
 Lucy, warned by a cold splash on her thin sleeve, 
 stepped into the cabin. She was glad to be by 
 herself for a moment, to catch her breath spiritually 
 as well as bodily. Yet she did not succeed very 
 well. The little green-bo wered place was still 
 echoing to her of "Mary Alone." All the warm, 
 stirring experiences of the morning came back to her 
 set to that longing call. She sat with her head in 
 her hands, her ears so filled by inner voices that 
 she did not hear a light step running along the 
 path, and started violently as some one came through 
 the open door with a jump. 
 
 Ludlam also started, but quickly recovered him- 
 self. 
 
 "Ah, Miss Cuyler! So you are a refugee, too?" 
 he exclaimed, setting a large canvas carefully against 
 the wall. "Where is our host?" 
 
 "He has very kindly gone up to the house for 
 my things;" Lucy spoke with a gentle formality 
 that, for some unrecognized reason, kept Ludlam 
 from taking a seat. He leaned gracefully against 
 the doorpost.
 
 56 EVER AFTER 
 
 "What a lot of real sacrifice the conventions 
 demand of us," he observed through his smallest 
 smile. "In a simpler world he could have had 
 the great pleasure of sheltering you until the shower 
 had passed." 
 
 Lucy decided, quite suddenly, that she did not 
 like this blond man with his glances and his little 
 pointed beard and his long, pointed elbows. 
 
 "In a simpler world one might not mind getting 
 wet," she said with a quiet dignity that was wholly 
 Victorian. Ludlam felt her unreasonable. He knew 
 that he had charm, and was irritated when others 
 were too perverse to recognize it. He would waste 
 no more of what he called "Ludlam at his best" 
 on this stiff little person from Massachusetts, but 
 would descend at once to commonplace methods. 
 So he told her what he had meant to reserve for a 
 surprise, a delicate climax to a series of charming 
 effects in conversation. 
 
 "Ever since you came, Miss Cuyler, I have been 
 cherishing a wild hope that you might recognize 
 me," he began. He had at least roused her interest: 
 her eyes questioned. 
 
 "Have we met?" she asked, as he did not explain. 
 
 "Not met, exactly. I was an unknown tres- 
 passer stealing a sketch, you were the lady of the 
 manor, who delivered me out of the hands of an 
 angry gardener. It was three summers ago." He
 
 EVER AFTER 57 
 
 paused hopefully for her recognition, but she looked 
 only politely regretful. 
 
 "So many artists have sketched on our point," 
 she apologized. That gave him pause, very much 
 as if she had said that photographers often gathered 
 there. A visible moment for recovery was needed 
 before he went on. 
 
 "I simply wanted you to know that I owe to 
 you and your point what many people have con- 
 sidered my best work. The picture was in the 
 Academy two winters ago and made rather a 
 sensation." He was beginning to get back his 
 usual tone. "It is a good thing to shake New York 
 up once hi a while set the critics praising and 
 scolding, and fighting one another. Echoes of it 
 may have reached you." 
 
 Lucy's vague murmur might have been taken 
 for assent had it not stood so much more plainly 
 for inattention. Ludlam's vanity was not of the 
 dull kind. He withdrew into a bored silence, which 
 lasted until the touch of a fern on his ear drew his 
 glance to the walls. Their carefully massed greenery 
 brought a startled frown. He had tactfully absented 
 himself when his own cabin was visited that morn- 
 ing, but he had first strewn it with interesting 
 sketches, and had brought up from the bottom of 
 his trunk various volumes of distinction Verlaine, 
 St. Francis, Walter Pater which he threw on
 
 58 EVER AFTER 
 
 table and couch. Obviously, this wild Westerner 
 had also been moved to decorate for his guest; and 
 had done it with a crude openness that should have 
 offended a girl of sensitive perceptions. Obviously, 
 too, Lucy Cuyler's position in the world was not 
 the secret up here that he had imagined it. The 
 rawness of the performance made him shiver dis- 
 gustedly. 
 
 "Malone seems to have passed a busy morning," 
 he observed. "I feel very remiss; I should at least 
 have put 'Welcome* over my door." He could not 
 tell whether she ignored or quite missed the covert 
 derision of his tone. 
 
 "I thought yours looked very charming," she 
 said simply. 
 
 "If you like this sort of thing;" he shrugged 
 expressively. "The sylvan does not appeal to me. 
 You know, I am above all things urban. You may 
 think that strange, considering the character of my 
 work; but it is true." In the joy of self-expression, 
 he articulated more and more beautifully; his teeth 
 were slightly bared, as though to bite the words 
 off more neatly. "It comes from what I sometimes 
 call my duality. As a painter, I get everything from 
 nature; but, the moment my work is done, the man 
 Ludlam asserts himself and demands civilization. 
 Frankly, Miss Cuyler, don't you find this life here 
 a hideous bore?"
 
 EVER AFTER 59 
 
 "You find it so?" 
 
 "Oh, depressing beyond words! One makes use 
 of the place. It is here, it saves money I quite 
 frankly find that desirable, just at this moment. 
 It does well enough. But the people aren't exactly 
 our sort you must admit that. One feels kindly, 
 of course; but a girl like you can't find it satisfying." 
 
 "I should scarcely stay -if I did not." Lucy 
 spoke indifferently, but for a second time that 
 morning she was hot with protest. Her gift was 
 being exploited, used with contempt: for a second 
 time she saw it as a failure. 
 
 "Oh, 'stay'! One stays because it is easy. But 
 when I hear raptures over it ' 
 
 Through the open window Lucy saw Dana coming, 
 and started up with a relief that was unconsciously 
 frank. 
 
 "Here are my things," she exclaimed. "O Mr. 
 Malone, you are drenched! I am so sorry." 
 
 Dana shook the water from his hair with a laugh. 
 
 "It doesn't matter. Oh, hello, Ludlam!" His 
 voice changed as he saw the other man, but he was 
 too innately hospitable to remember prejudices 
 under his own roof -tree. " Make yourself comfort- 
 able. Now, Miss Cuyler!" He knelt and put on 
 her overshoes, then, after holding her raincoat for 
 her, opened the near-silk umbrella with the cherries 
 on the handle. Lucy sensitively glanced up to see
 
 60 EVER AFTER 
 
 if he were scorning it; then dropped her eyes with 
 a quickened colour, the look she met was so little 
 akin to scorn. He kept the umbrella in his own 
 hand. "I'll take you home," he said. 
 
 She protested, would not hear of it, but Dana 
 simply waited for her to come, smiling instead of 
 arguing, and she went off outwardly annoyed at 
 his obstinacy, inwardly rejoicing in his strength. 
 They had both forgotten Ludlam, who looked after 
 them from the window with a smile that was very 
 small indeed. 
 
 The rest of that day had a curious quality for 
 Lucy. A bright haze seemed to lie between her and 
 all reality, and only by determined effort could 
 she keep her eyes clear and her ears open. The 
 moment she was alone, it rolled about her until she 
 sat fixed in the centre of a shining web, motionless, 
 uncurious, and marvellously glad. Conscientious 
 habit drove her down to the others, and her surface 
 self gave and took impressions just as usual; yet 
 she felt as if her soul had sent forth her body to 
 do its work, while it remained aloof, busied with 
 its own glorious affairs. 
 
 The rain soon passed over, and the old farmhouse 
 opened to let out a stream of girls. They spread 
 down the sunny meadows with laughter and cries 
 of delight and little aimless runs, and an auburn- 
 haired young woman was promptly mounted on
 
 EVER AFTER 61 
 
 the white horse. They all knew one another, and 
 to Lucy their comradely ease was a little terrifying. 
 Though several had reached her own twenty-three 
 years and two were distinctly older, they seemed 
 to have kept a schoolgirl quality that she had never 
 known. Her impulsive first thought was that she 
 did not like them; then she told herself that that was 
 not "big," and set out with a reflection of Great 
 Aunt Betty's shy loveliness in her face to make 
 friends. They met her cordially, considered her 
 "perfectly sweet,'* and presently forgot all about 
 her in the excitement of organizing a game of base- 
 ball. She slipped away unnoticed. 
 
 The strange glamour rolled up about her again 
 as soon as she was free of them. She wandered 
 vaguely about the fields, climbing little hills and 
 sitting down beside running water, utterly happy 
 and unquestioning. The smell of sweet fern was 
 destined to stir her heart for years to come, because 
 she held a piece of it in her hand all that dream- 
 haunted afternoon. 
 
 Dinner had been a pleasant occasion to Lucy the 
 night before, but to-night she felt herself swamped 
 in numbers, and ate in shy silence. At her first 
 glance toward the other end of the table she met 
 Dana Malone's dark gaze, and did not dare look 
 that way again. As soon as the meal was 
 done, she escaped to her room; yet some veiled
 
 62 EVER AFTER 
 
 instinct told her that the day was not over for 
 her. 
 
 The cloudless western sky, rising from still white 
 depths of luminous pearl through the dawning green 
 of curling sea-waves to a frail echo of some far-off 
 flush, drew her to the window and held her there 
 on her knees. Beauty was to her a mighty voice, 
 never heard without an awed response. The cares 
 that infested her town days had shrivelled away 
 like coarse outer petals no longer needed: she felt 
 herself expanding into something white and lovely 
 and fragrant, floating on the vast, still pool of night. 
 
 She had come upstairs trembling before a dim 
 consciousness that something was happening. She 
 tried to explain the sudden rush of happiness by 
 its obvious causes: it was blessed to be with Candace 
 and to catch a little of her amazing ease in human 
 relations by sheer wonder at it; it was interesting 
 to meet a new world and make new friends; it 
 was beyond everything good to be free of ordeals, 
 with beauty for her daily companion and the effort 
 to reproduce it her only task. Yet there was more. 
 Some new wine was distilled in this high air, some 
 stirring, opening quality that lay like a glint of gold 
 dust over all her surroundings and gave her a magic 
 sense of impending joy. The namable satisfactions 
 were forgotten, or, rather, fused into a great, word- 
 less jubilation as she knelt before the wide night.
 
 EVER AFTER 63 
 
 All her fresh young soul strained up and up to meet 
 its benediction. 
 
 A sound brought her back to earth, but so gently, 
 so graciously, she was scarcely conscious of the 
 return. The woodland below took on a voice, and 
 a faint echo of "Mary Alone" rose from its shadow. 
 No building was to be seen from Lucy's window, but 
 the mouth of the path leading to Dana's cabin 
 could be made out at the wood's edge. It was a 
 composer's touch on the piano, not technically 
 masterful, but warm, intimate, creative. Again and 
 again the longing strain drew itself out just beyond 
 reach: soft pedal or distance kept it tantalizingly 
 blurred. The need to hear it wholly and satisfy- 
 ingly drew Lucy like thirst, first down to the deserted 
 side porch, then down the hill to the edge of the 
 woodland, then, a step at a time, along the dark 
 tunnel of the path that led to the cabin. She did 
 not smile over the adventure, there was no mischief 
 in her silent approach. Something stronger than 
 music was drawing her. In all her cool, quiet girl- 
 hood she had never before heard that summons, and 
 now, hearing it suddenly at full strength, though 
 without a glimmer of understanding, she obeyed it 
 as simply as wise men follow a star. 
 
 Dana, in his unlighted cabin, was playing to her, 
 consciously calling and calling her through the 
 recurring strain, letting its lonely plaint grow to
 
 64 EVER AFTER 
 
 hunger and appeal, and finally rise to a bolder cry, 
 before which Lucy woke with a frightened start 
 and fled noiselessly away. After that Dana sat 
 for a long time with his arms crossed on the music- 
 rest and his forehead pressed against them. For, 
 through the open window, he had seen the gleam 
 of her white gown.
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 No EARTHLY power could stop it. Lucy might 
 withdraw behind her shyness, spend her days work- 
 ing with the busy class, keep her eyes on her plate 
 at dinner, Dana might prostrate himself nightly 
 before the grim facts of his hopeless poverty and his 
 general un worthiness; yet the stolen tide swept 
 steadily on until "all the world was in the sea," and 
 not fright nor honour nor any mortal barrier could 
 keep their eyes from leaping together when they 
 met. After that, Lucy took to wandering away 
 from the class; and, as she was a privileged pupil, 
 the absorbed Candace never thought of questioning 
 her. There was no understanding, spoken or tacit, 
 with Dana Malone, and yet, the first time she 
 deserted the earnest colony of camp stools, within 
 five minutes she had come upon him, leaning over 
 the rail of a little bridge. The radiance of his un- 
 spoken welcome drove her to a hasty refuge in words. 
 
 "I ran away from work," she explained. 
 
 "So did I. How can one work!" The exclama- 
 tion acknowledged so much that again Lucy 
 scrambled to shelter. 
 
 65
 
 66 EVER AFTER 
 
 "What are you working at?" she asked, dropping 
 pebbles upon her reflection in the pool below. 
 
 "I'll tell you some time. Please don't you 
 make me feel as if some one were hitting you in 
 the face." 
 
 She laughed, and tossed a pebble that shattered 
 his image. 
 
 "Now some one is hitting you in the face," 
 she said. "How does an Irishman take that? " 
 
 "Ah, if it's a lady, he begs her to keep right on!" 
 
 Lucy, of course, desisted. Presently the two 
 images were looking gravely up at them again from 
 the stilled pool. 
 
 "I think we ought to introduce them," she ob- 
 served. "To be in such a little pool together and 
 not know each other must be awkward, don't 
 you think?" 
 
 "But we weren't introduced until hours after 
 we met. Suppose some one had dropped into that 
 road and said, 'Mr. Malone, Miss Cuyler' oh, 
 it wouldn't have been half so wonderful. Let them 
 find each other out." Their eyes met, laughing 
 acknowledgment of the deliciousness of "fooling." 
 
 "We will come here to-morrow and see how they 
 are getting on," she said. "Then, if they seem stiff 
 or embarrassed, we can help them out." 
 
 "They won't be stiff after twenty -four hours- of 
 June," he assured her, stretching out his arms as
 
 EVER AFTER 67 
 
 though to take in all the day's loveliness. "I 
 think, if you don't mind, Miss Cuyler, we'd better 
 knock on the bridge to-morrow before we look 
 over." 
 
 It was hard to keep a straight face, but Lucy 
 achieved it. "I don't see why," she said. 
 
 "No, I don't either," he amended, so hastily 
 that the lady in the pool would have shown a tiny 
 crescent moon risen in either cheek had the light 
 been strong enough. "Did you hear about our 
 young Russian friend?" he added, penitently eager 
 for a safe topic. 
 
 "No what?" 
 
 "He lit out this morning without a word to any 
 one packed his dishes and went home. Miss 
 Ware has found out that he took the early train 
 for town, so she isn't worried about him. But it was 
 a cool performance, wasn't it!" He was surprised 
 at the feeling Lucy showed. Her eyes quite flashed. 
 
 "I think it was abominable," she exclaimed. 
 "How can people be so so unappreciative! He 
 might at least have said good-bye." She turned 
 away from the pool as though its charm were 
 broken for her. "I wonder if you really can help 
 people!" 
 
 "I tried to make friends with him," Dana ex- 
 plained as they left the road, taking a path that 
 wound steeply up through the woods. "But he
 
 68 EVER AFTER 
 
 was a queer, dismal chap, and he had so little 
 English. I couldn't get anywhere." 
 
 "No; but I am thinking of these cabins." Lucy 
 was mounting with an energy that was still indig- 
 nant. "They were meant evidently to make 
 people so very happy; and they seem such a failure. 
 No one really " 
 
 "They have made one man very happy," Dana 
 interrupted, holding out his hand to help her up a 
 steep pitch. Lucy caught the stem of a sapling 
 and drew herself up unaided. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Willing," she admitted. Her griev- 
 ance had suddenly evaporated, and her eyes were full 
 of laughter. 
 
 "Oh, Willing would be happy anyway. That 
 is 'his luck.'" 
 
 "You would, too, wouldn't you? Aren't you 
 a happy person?" 
 
 "At this minute, yes." 
 
 "No, but usually?" 
 
 "I have been or thought I was. I didn't 
 know what they really were happiness and 
 unhappiness till I came here." His hand went 
 out again, and though the path was easy enough 
 at the moment, hers sprang to meet it. With that 
 soft treasure in his possession, Dana forgot every- 
 thing: he stood holding it in both hands against 
 his coat as he might have held a frightened, throb-
 
 EVER AFTER 69 
 
 bing bird. The instant it struggled, he opened his 
 hands and let it dart away. They went on in silence, 
 Lucy springing ahead. Presently the woods ended, 
 bringing them out on a stony hilltop, crowned with 
 an aged, weather-beaten oak. They sat down in its 
 shade, their eyes, grave enough now, following the 
 contours of the big, rolling land before them. 
 
 "I'll tell you now what I am doing," Dana began, 
 leaning back on one elbow. "I can write music, you 
 know. I mean, I'm trained: I'm not an amateur. 
 There was a mislaid genuis who lived next to us, at 
 home, when I was little heavens, but that man 
 had gift! His music was light, too, and popular: 
 his waltzes waltzed and his polkas polked and his 
 songs sang warm, good melody, easily under- 
 stood, but never cheap or thin. Poor old Sam 
 Bynner! He ought to be a millionaire with three 
 shows going on Broadway, and instead he's an 
 obscure music teacher with a sick wife and no money 
 and no chance. He took me in hand when I was 
 a small boy and taught me for love: I worked with 
 him, off and on, for over seventeen years. He taught 
 me things that I should have been half my life fum- 
 bling out, without him. And he knew. I am telling 
 you this so that you will know I'm well grounded: 
 that it isn't presumptuous of me to try a big thing. 
 
 "Well, do you remember the Children's Crusade, 
 back in the early part of the thirteenth century?
 
 70 EVER AFTER 
 
 That is my theme. A boy had a vision: Christ 
 appeared to him and told him to gather all the 
 children and make a crusade to the Holy Land. 
 The boy obeyed, and thirty thousand children set 
 out and there, with all their joy and marching 
 courage, you hear the motive of the mothers who 
 let them go" he hummed a strain "I can't 
 give you any idea of it, of course. It's a wail, but 
 submissive. Can't you see them streaming over a 
 hilltop, the thirty thousand, with banners? I have 
 kept the child quality in it all through, a note of 
 bright innocence, though I suppose they were little 
 devils, all right, those thirteenth-century boys! 
 Well, you remember what happened. The vision 
 had said that the sea would dry and let them cross, 
 but, when they came to the Mediterranean, natur- 
 ally, it didn't. They were footsore and worn out 
 and broken by this time you get a frightened- 
 children quality, and the mother theme comes in. 
 Then the treacherous merchants offer to take them 
 over free, for the sake of the cause, and they embark; 
 and then all who aren't lost in the storm are sold 
 into slavery. But the boy who had the vision - 
 this isn't quite history, but never mind he escapes 
 from slavery, and at last gets to the Holy Sepul- 
 chre, all alone crawls there, dying. You hear the 
 mother theme again, horribly sad, this time. Then 
 the vision music comes in against it, overcomes it:
 
 EVER AFTER 71 
 
 Christ appears in glory and accepts the crusade 
 from this one boy as from them all, and the chil- 
 dren's voices are heard, ghostly at first, but presently 
 in streaming triumph. Ah, I wish you could hear 
 the violins on that as I hear them ! Telling it makes 
 it sound like an imitation of Tannhauser, but it is 
 so totally different, musically; the whole conception 
 and treatment is of another era. And the spring 
 youngness of it! Oh, I wish I could play it to you! 
 Only it needs a whole orchestra, of course. Do you 
 like it?" He scarcely needed her answer, her face 
 was so lighted. 
 
 "Oh, I love it!" 
 
 "I am so glad! It isn't literal, of course. I hate 
 these tone poems that make the waves dash and the 
 horses gallop: you won't have to follow any fine 
 print on the programme. It will simply appear 
 as 'The Children's Crusade Suite.' Those two 
 words, children and crusade, give you the whole 
 thing." 
 
 "And when will it be played?" she asked eagerly. 
 
 "Who knows? After I'm dead, probably. You 
 usually have to die to get recognized in my pro- 
 fession." 
 
 "But Miss Ware says " 
 
 "Oh, yes, I have been unusually fortunate. I 
 have had songs published, and even sung in concerts. 
 I've been patted on the head, noticed and encour-
 
 72 EVER AFTER 
 
 aged." A bitter note sounded in his voice, and it 
 was that she answered. 
 
 "Well, then- - ?" 
 
 He sat up to face her. "Miss Cuyler! Publish- 
 ing a song means laying it on a counter: if any one 
 wants to go and buy it, they can. If they do, my 
 royalty is six cents. Do you realize what that 
 means to a man without a penny how many 
 copies he must sell to pay even his carfares? I 
 have been working over this suite for two years, on 
 and off. The mere printing of it will cost hundreds 
 of dollars. What publisher is going to take that 
 risk? But suppose some firm does, and suppose I get 
 it played by good orchestras what then? If it 
 earns for me eighteen dollars a year, it will be doing 
 exceedingly well. I can't write ragtime or comic 
 opera, and there is absolutely nothing else that pays, 
 for an American. I shall do a lyric opera some day, 
 but nobody will produce it; there is no room, no 
 desire for it. A musician of my class is a beggar for 
 life." He thrust that at her, with all it meant; and 
 his heart nearly broke at seeing her so undisturbed. 
 
 "But how do you live now?" she asked. 
 
 "I do musical reporting for a daily and a weekly, 
 and I have some pupils, as few as possible. I earn 
 about twenty-seven dollars a week. And I am one 
 of the fortunate ones!" He dropped his head on 
 his arms with a despairing sigh. "I never cared
 
 EVER AFTER 73 
 
 before. The joy of the work was reward enough; 
 I thought I was willing to pay the price. But now" 
 his voice became almost inaudible "I think 
 perhaps it's too horrible." 
 
 Lucy's eyes were on his rough head, smiling won- 
 derfully, but she said nothing. Her serene cheer- 
 fulness on the way home left Dana in utter desolation. 
 She did not care whether he could marry a wife or 
 not. He was a fool, a fool, a fool. He shut himself 
 into his cabin all the afternoon, and worked as 
 though that were the one thing on earth left to him. 
 
 They always met at the bridge and went up the 
 same steep path through the woods, and that was 
 why, for so long, no one saw them; the stony hilltop 
 offered nothing to painters. Candace made fun of 
 Lucy's laziness, but on the whole approved of it. 
 She was always pleased when Lucy showed signs 
 of not living entirely according to the dictates of 
 conscience. Idleness was agreeing with the girl. 
 She blossomed visibly before them, showing them a 
 daily loveliness of colour and spirit that made them 
 all turn to her Palmer Jacks with a shrewd, 
 questioning twinkle, little Willing with round-eyed 
 adoration, Ludlam with quickened energies. To 
 Ludlam, the girl behind the fortune was beginning 
 to emerge, to take on personality, and though his 
 preference was for fine ladies in trailing gowns with 
 bored, sophisticated eyes and worldly backgrounds,
 
 74 EVER AFTER 
 
 he recognized that this youthful heiress had her own 
 type of aristocracy as well as a very tangible charm. 
 And no doubt she would pick up smartness if she 
 lived in New York. So he dropped the aloofness 
 with which he had been punishing her since their 
 encounter in Dana's cabin, breaking his silence 
 with a woodland offering. Lucy, friendly now to 
 all the world, accepted the cluster of wild straw- 
 berries with encouraging cordiality, and was sharing 
 them with him when Palmer Jacks appeared. 
 Jacks passed on into the living-room where Candace 
 happened to be alone, and something in his expres- 
 sion made her ask: 
 
 "What's the matter, Palmer?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing." He rubbed his hand over fore- 
 head and eyes, as though to obliterate the look. 
 "That's a mighty nice little girl out there, Candy," 
 he added, with a nod toward the veranda. "She 
 has a fairly level head, hasn't she?" 
 
 "I think so. Why?" 
 
 "Doesn't any one need it? Especially a girl who 
 isn't poor, I understand." 
 
 "Yes, Lucy isn't poor." 
 
 "So Ludlam told me;" Palmer spoke with 
 significance. "I like Ludlam well enough; he's 
 a clever chap. But it wouldn't be very safe to hurt 
 his vanity. He might get even." 
 
 "You don't think Lucy is going to hurt it, do you ?"
 
 EVER AFTER 75 
 
 "She is very likely to, if he takes it into his head 
 to fall in love with her." 
 
 "O Palmer, be still!" Candace spoke with 
 affectionate impatience. "Nobody is going to fall 
 in love with anybody. I can't be bothered with it." 
 
 " Oh, ho ! They're not, eh? What will you bet? " 
 
 "I'll bet that any one who does goes back by the 
 next train." 
 
 His handsome, ruddy face looked humorously 
 wise. "Gad! You'll have to charter a special," 
 he observed; but Candace would not listen to him. 
 
 "When a girl is as truly indifferent to men as 
 Lucy is " she began. 
 
 * * Pshaw ! " he interrupted . * ' There isn't a woman 
 living who is indifferent to men. Don't talk that 
 to me. I move we break up this tete-a-tete, myself." 
 
 He strolled back to the door, and Lucy welcomed 
 him with a cordiality that betrayed a touch of relief. 
 This Mr. Ludlam had an inexplicable way of getting 
 on one's nerves. 
 
 "Do you know birds, Mr. Jacks?" she began. 
 
 "I know a few down on Broadway," Palmer mur- 
 mured for Candace's benefit. "What is it, Miss 
 Cuyler? I can tell a humming-bird from a rooster, 
 if that is what you mean." 
 
 "Miss Cuyler is so optimistic," Ludlam explained 
 in his soft drawl. "If a paint rag blows into a tree, 
 she sees a scarlet tanager."
 
 76 EVER AFTER 
 
 "But it was a bird all red on the underside," 
 Lucy insisted. 
 
 "All red on the inside is the way I know them 
 best," said Palmer, settling himself comfortably 
 against the doorpost. "No, Miss Cuyler, I have 
 rather a prejudice against birds at large. When 
 I was young I was deeply smitten with a young 
 lady, and we used to walk in the woods. And 
 whenever I grew particularly interesting and fluent, 
 or was leading a story up to some fine climax, she 
 would break in with, 'Oh, wait just a moment - 
 there's a yellow-hammered bill-sticker!' or some- 
 thing to that effect. And then we'd have to stand 
 gawping up till she got a good view of it. It was 
 awful. I look on the birds as the real cause of my 
 single and solitary life." 
 
 Lucy was laughing, but Ludlam was annoyed. 
 The interruption seemed to him tactless, even a 
 breach of good faith, considering how much he had 
 tacitly confided to Jacks when he told him of Lucy's 
 position in the world. 
 
 "I suspect that in your heart you are grateful 
 to them," said Candace amusedly from behind the 
 screen door. 
 
 "Not I. By the way, Candy," Palmer went on, 
 moved by an unfortunate impulse to extend the 
 teasing of Ludlam, who hated any reference to 
 their free quarters, "I have a new scheme of charita-
 
 EVER AFTER 77 
 
 ble graft for you. Put it up to your backer that 
 there is no use providing us with roofs in summer, 
 only to leave us unsheltered in the rigours of a New 
 York winter. I shouldn't wonder if you could work 
 her for apartments all round." 
 
 There was an awkward pause, though Palmer 
 was happily unaware of its significance. Lucy's 
 eyes were on a leaf she was pulling to bits. 
 
 "Why call it graft?" Candace asked with her 
 unfailing good humour. "These cottages are given 
 freely and openly; why pretend that you get them 
 by crookedness?" 
 
 "Exactly!" muttered Ludlam irritably. 
 
 "Because, my dear woman, something for noth- 
 ing leads to crookedness." Jacks was twinkling 
 wickedly, though he was careful not to look at his 
 victim. "Now I am an able-bodied man; so is 
 Ludlam. We could tide over our times of financial 
 depression by driving cabs or selling theatre tickets, 
 while there would be a fine living for either of us 
 in directing ladies three aisles over to the left and 
 explaining that the lingerie blouses are on the 
 third floor. But if we can get housed for noth- 
 ing, do you think we are going to provide for 
 ourselves? Not much! Every day I stay here 
 makes me more averse to the idea of rent. 
 It's beginning to seem an imposition to me. 
 It's like getting the dead-head habit in theatre-
 
 78 EVER AFTER 
 
 going: you never again can pay out good money 
 for a ticket.'* 
 
 "But, Mr. Jacks" Lucy spoke with difficulty, 
 deepened colour in her cheeks "if you can't help 
 artists, serious artists who are doing good work, 
 whom can you help?" 
 
 "W-e-11," Jacks considered, "I should say that 
 any one under five years of age or over seventy-five 
 could receive financial aid without injury to the 
 character. But I want it understood, Candy," he 
 added hastily, "that my character is so far gone, 
 no further aid can damage it. And I dare say the 
 same is true of Ludlam. So if you do see your way 
 to a free apartment house " 
 
 "Dinner is coming on the table," said Candace 
 with relief. She had no wish to shield Lucy from 
 any aspect of a philanthropic undertaking, but 
 judged that the dose had been enough for one night. 
 
 The flush lingered in Lucy's face. She had given 
 the thousands necessary to Candace's scheme with 
 impulsive generosity, and half her anticipation of 
 the summer's happiness had lain in the prospect 
 of seeing difficult lives gladdened under her eyes. 
 She had not dreamed of meeting anything sordid 
 and ugly. Mr. Jacks spoke half in jest, of course; 
 yet there was truth in his tirades. Mrs. Dabney's 
 complaints and Adamovitch's ungracious flight, 
 Ludlam's contemptuous admission that he made
 
 EVER AFTER 79 
 
 use of the place, all lent their dingy colour to that 
 dark word, graft. Willing seemed to take the gift 
 in the expected spirit, and Dana Malone but, 
 at Dana Malone, Lucy's thoughts broke up, leaving 
 only a confused radiance. She stole a glance at 
 his rugged face, and, seeing it rather sad, could not 
 resist sending a little smile to cheer it. The quick, 
 glorifying smile that answered caught at her breath 
 like a sudden embrace. She dared not look toward 
 that response again; but, all the evening, she saw 
 nothing else. 
 
 It was inevitable that the morning meetings at 
 the bridge should be discovered; and the discoverer, 
 unfortunately, was Ludlam. He had brought Lucy 
 further offerings of fruit and flowers, and had sup- 
 posed that he was making rapid progress; for the 
 heiress smiled on him so pleasantly, no one could 
 have suspected how little she heard of his abundant 
 conversation. He was in a high state of com- 
 placence, and was mentally designing and decorating 
 the studio of his affluent future at the very moment 
 when a turn of the road along which he was strolling 
 brought his dreams to an end. Lucy and Dana were 
 leaning over the rail of the little bridge, and, though 
 their images in the pool beneath were still looking 
 up in unbroken propriety, no jealous watcher could 
 miss the meaning of the scene. Their at-homeness 
 together, in contrast to the formal courtesy of
 
 80 EVER AFTER 
 
 their public meetings, stung Ludlam with a sense 
 of having been made a fool of. He was not in love 
 with her, and, in sight of their abounding happiness, 
 he might have forgiven; but, though he had a sensi- 
 tive appreciation of beauty in art or nature, he had 
 been left stone-blind to beauty of action. For 
 several days he watched, seeing always the same 
 meeting. Then, one shining morning, when Lucy 
 came running out, half an hour after the class had 
 gone forth, she found him sketching on the broad 
 slope just below the veranda. 
 
 "Will you see if you like this, Miss Cuyler?" 
 he asked with his flattering deference. 
 
 The sketch, rough though it was, had wonderfully 
 caught the relation here between the mighty arch 
 of the sky and the land it encompassed: heaven was 
 truly the throne and the earth its footstool. Lucy's 
 thrilled enthusiasm might have softened him 
 if he had had any doubts about the value of his 
 work. 
 
 "So good of you," he said, touching the canvas 
 with swift, sure strokes. "I think I shall make 
 something out of it. This is only a preliminary 
 study, of course. Would you mind sitting down for 
 a moment? I want you to look at it when it is 
 further along." 
 
 Lucy, already late, was in a fever to be off. But 
 there was no ostensible errand to call her; she had
 
 EVER AFTER 81 
 
 come out without even a paint brush that might 
 serve as an excuse. So she reluctantly sat down, 
 and called silent messages of reassurance to Dana, 
 waiting far below at the bridge. 
 
 "I should think it would try you to have people 
 about when you are working," her impatience goaded 
 her into saying. "I can't bear it when I am trying 
 to sketch." 
 
 "We have to get used to that," he assured her, 
 and the grace with which he sat his stool, the fluent 
 motions of his long arm, betrayed that an audience 
 might not be wholly a penance. "We painters 
 have to get used to a great many difficult things, 
 Miss Cuyler. But it is not so hard a career as a 
 musician's; we at least can hope for fortune as well 
 as fame. As Malone says, a serious musician in 
 this country can scarcely support himself unless he 
 gives the best part of his day to teaching, or has the 
 technique for public performance. And your born 
 composer seldom has this technique." 
 
 "It is very hard," said Lucy vaguely, wondering 
 if a moving figure, far below, could be Dana. 
 
 "Now, in a few years, I shall be a fairly rich man 
 for an artist," Ludlam went on; "while Malone 
 is a beggar for life unless he marries for money. As 
 he himself says, that is the only future open to 
 him." He paused, bending close to the canvas for 
 a fine touch, then leaning far back on his stool to
 
 82 EVER AFTER 
 
 judge the effect. " We were discussing this the night 
 before you came," he added. 
 
 It was not literally a lie. Candace, listening to 
 their discussion, had humorously offered a rich wife 
 as a solution, and Dana had laughed a careless 
 assent. Lucy, seated in the grass with her arms 
 about her knees, made no answer at all. Whether 
 she were struck or merely bored, he had no means 
 of knowing. The one sign vouchsafed was that, 
 when he presently let her go, she did not take the 
 direction of the bridge; and this might be merely 
 caution. Yet he knew, instinctively, without signs, 
 that his blow had not wholly missed. He watched 
 her go with a small, vindictive smile behind his 
 eyelids; then, as the morning light was flattening out 
 the landscape, he gathered up his belongings and 
 went down the hill with the stroll of one well satisfied 
 with his morning's work. Across the back of the 
 sketch he wrote the name under which the finished 
 picture was destined to win for him fame and for- 
 tune "The Heavens Declare the Glory of God." 
 
 Lucy was first merely repelled; then frightened, 
 then sorely hurt. That she might be "married for 
 her money" was the bugbear that a well-meaning 
 aunt had conscientiously held up to her for the past 
 three years. It always followed a gentle prelimi- 
 nary to the effect that she could not be expected to 
 understand men. The fine gradations of such mar-
 
 EVER AFTER 83 
 
 riages, the possible mixture of motives and induce- 
 ments, were all unknown to her: either a man loved, 
 or he coldly, basely, married for money. Against 
 her passionate faith in Dana rose the chilling facts 
 that she had known him only a few weeks, and that 
 she could not be expected to understand men. 
 That Ludlam might have spoken with a motive did 
 not occur to her, and, coming on top of Dana's 
 recognized speeches, the quoted words carried truth. 
 She forgot all about Ludlam before the leaden 
 knowledge of what Dana had publicly admitted, 
 the night before she came. She had innocently 
 supposed that he did not know about her money; 
 but she was only an ignorant girl, with no one to 
 warn or guide her. Perhaps she had been a fool. 
 
 She did not go near the bridge, and Dana, whose 
 impatience had taken him to the foot of the hill, had 
 seen her up there, a blue dot in the grass beside 
 Ludlam, and so would make no advances when the 
 miserable day ended and the dinner hour brought 
 them together. He was at the bridge again the 
 next morning, and the next, but only one forlorn 
 image stared up at him from the pool. Lucy had 
 returned to the class, and was working all day long. 
 For three days they did not exchange one word. 
 
 On the fourth day, late in the afternoon, Candace 
 firmly took away Lucy's brushes. 
 
 "Go for a walk," she commanded. "You are
 
 84 EVER AFTER 
 
 working yourself to death you're getting a little 
 lost-cat look about your chin. The girls are playing 
 baseball, if you want exercise." 
 
 Lucy wished neither exercise nor company, and 
 she slipped away in another direction. A brook 
 on the edge of the woodland ran and tumbled before 
 her like some little shining creature trying to win 
 a smile; but she saw only her misery. If Dana 
 had really loved her, he would not have let her 
 go like this: he would have insisted on seeing her, 
 gloriously righted himself. Lucy believed that 
 only a fundamental indifference could explain 
 his passivity, and with all her crushed heart she 
 wished herself lying face down in the careless 
 water. 
 
 The brook frolicked as though it were leading her 
 on to some good fortune, but, turning a sharp corner, 
 it brought her upon a huddled image of dejection 
 that startled her own trouble out of sight. Willing 
 sat at the foot of a bank, down which he obviously 
 had tumbled, studying the two pieces of his broken 
 crutch. His happy relief at sight of her nearly 
 made her cry. 
 
 "O Miss Cuyler! Now isn't this too wonder- 
 ful?" he burst out. "No, I'm not hurt in the least, 
 but just look at my crutch! And there isn't a good 
 stick in sight. I was going to set out on my hands 
 and knees that very moment, and then you came!
 
 EVER AFTER 85 
 
 Isn't that just my luck? Do you think you could 
 find me a stick?" 
 
 She was already looking. "But will a stick be 
 enough?" she asked. 
 
 "Oh, I can manage," he assured her cheerily. 
 "Perhaps two sticks would be better, though. 
 I can mend this crutch all right, once I get back 
 to my house. I declare, I never was so glad to see 
 any one in my life. It was just like a miracle, to 
 look up and find you there." 
 
 "Oh, I know!" Lucy had caught his animation. 
 "I will bring you the horse, and you can ride home. 
 He is the gentlest old creature would you mind?" 
 
 "I think that would be too lovely for words! 
 Of course, I didn't mind hobbling if I had to but 
 that would be perfect. Can't you tell some one else 
 to bring him? Malone is awfully obliging he'd 
 do it." 
 
 "But the horse is right up here a little way," 
 said Lucy quickly. "I should love to do it." And 
 she hurried off. The errand had brought a momen- 
 tary respite from pain. 
 
 A string hung about the old beast's neck, left 
 there by the girls, who indiscriminately rode and 
 sketched him, and he followed his guide as willingly 
 as though he recognized the debt he owed her. 
 Lucy brought him up to a stone and made Willing 
 use her shoulder until he was safely mounted.
 
 86 EVER AFTER 
 
 Then she took the leading string, and they went 
 slowly up by way of the open meadow. Willing's 
 relief bubbled over in conversation, as cheerfully 
 unmodulated as a child's. 
 
 "I feel just like Joan of Arc," he declared. " I 
 suppose it's the white horse. Or like who was 
 it that had an angel go in front of him to show the 
 way? Oh, I guess I'm thinking of the Sherman 
 monument you know, at the entrance to the Park. 
 Oh, you don't live in New York, do you? But you 
 must come there sometimes: every one does. I wish 
 you'd visit my studio, next time you're there. You 
 know I'm a decorator, but I do pottery on the side. 
 I'd love to know what you thought of my pottery. 
 Miss Ware has been perfectly lovely about it; she 
 has got me no end of orders. People do seem 
 to like it. Dear me, this is comfortable. I 
 hope you aren't getting tired? This is another 
 lesson for me against worrying. I used to 
 worry about my old age; but I never shall any 
 more. Some one will give me a cottage and bring 
 me a horse." 
 
 Lucy looked up with a troubled forehead. "One 
 must not be improvident," she ventured. 
 
 "Well, that's what I used to think. But things 
 do come to me, Miss Cuyler just like this cabin. 
 Why not recognize it and be happy?" 
 
 She shook her head. "So it has hurt you, too,"
 
 EVER AFTER 87 
 
 she said, but so low that he did not hear. He had 
 caught sight of the baseball game. 
 
 "There are all those girls," he exclaimed. "What 
 will they think of us?" But he laughed, evidently 
 not much caring. 
 
 The girls were too absorbed in their game to 
 notice anything else, but Palmer Jacks stared from 
 his window, then came to his door for a better look. 
 
 "I suppose he thinks you're just giving me a ride 
 for fun," Willing laughed. "I hope I'll have a 
 chance to do you a good turn some day, Miss Cuyler. 
 I'd do anything for you. I guess most of us would. 
 Hasn't it been a happy time, up here? We'll miss 
 Malone, won't we!" 
 
 The horse stopped, surprised at the jerk on his 
 string halter. 
 
 "Miss him?" Lucy stammered. "Is he 
 going?" 
 
 "Why, didn't you know? Oh, dear, maybe it's 
 a secret. I heard him talking to Miss Ware about 
 it after lunch. They must have seen I was right 
 there. I'm sorry if I oughtn't to have told, 
 but- -" 
 
 "When is he going?" Lucy's voice was hoarse 
 and tremulous, but Willing noticed nothing. 
 
 "On the early train in the morning. He said 
 something about work a newspaper wanting him, 
 or something. I suppose he'll say good-bye at
 
 88 EVER AFTER 
 
 dinner. Maybe he hates saying good-bye, though. 
 I knew a fellow who was like that he wouldn't 
 say good-bye to his own mother when he was going 
 out to South Africa. But, then, she had heart 
 disease: that may have had something to do with it. 
 Malone is a nice fellow, isn't he he's so kind. 
 Well, here we are. I just don't know how to thank 
 you. There's a long stick behind the door: if you'll 
 get me that I shall be all right. That's it. I declare, 
 I wish I could do something for you." 
 
 She gave him a wan little smile. "You have," 
 was her puzzling answer as she turned away. 
 Willing thought about it for several minutes 
 as he got out his tools and prepared to mend his 
 crutch. 
 
 "I suppose she means because I'm so cheerful," 
 he concluded aloud. "They're always saying that 
 at the boarding-house that I'm so cheerful, 
 I do them good. I don't see why I shouldn't be 
 cheerful, with my luck. To think of her turning up 
 in that out-of-the-way place just that particular 
 minute! Didyouererf" 
 
 Lucy went slowly along the edge of the woodland, 
 still leading the old horse. She wanted to think it 
 all out, very clearly and reasonably, but the con- 
 fusion of great disaster seemed to be deafening her 
 ears and blinding her eyes. It was like trying to 
 sit still and think in the panic of shipwreck. She
 
 EVER AFTER 89 
 
 could only act, blindly, instinctively, as men clutch 
 at spars before the engulfing sea. 
 
 The placid summer afternoon was fading, and, 
 though the fields were still golden, the woods looked 
 dusky. A second time, Lucy stole noiselessly 
 along the path that led to Dana's cabin. Through 
 the window she saw him sitting idly before the piano, 
 but she came to the very door without his hearing 
 her. He had been studying a sheet of manuscript 
 music, set up before him, but evidently his sombre 
 thoughts had wandered far from work. The droop 
 of his head and shoulders made her gasp with love 
 and pity. 
 
 Perhaps he heard. He turned a startled face, 
 and stared as though he could not believe. 
 
 "Lucy!" he stammered. "Lucy!" 
 
 She did not know what to say or do under his 
 staring, so she smiled, a frightened, pleading, breath- 
 less smile that struck away the bewilderment that 
 held him and brought him across to her in two 
 strides. He caught her up bodily into his arms, 
 pressing her to him again and again, kissing the 
 curve of her cheek, her forehead, her closed eyes 
 and passive lips. Then he dropped down on his 
 knees before her, burying his face in her hands. 
 
 "Oh, forgive me!" he muttered. "My dear, 
 dear love, forgive me!" 
 
 She crouched down on the floor beside him,
 
 90 EVER AFTER 
 
 pressing her face into his coat, twining her arms 
 tightly about his neck. 
 
 "You do love me," she sobbed gladly. "Oh, 
 you do love me, Dana!" 
 
 "Love you, Lucy? I'm half dead with loving 
 you! But what right has a beggar like me? I 
 thought you saw it, too, and I tried to be glad that 
 
 you threw me over O Lucy, it has been so 
 
 horrible!" The catch in his voice echoed her sob. 
 They clung to each other as though disaster were 
 again upon them. 
 
 "But you do love me," she repeated, as though 
 to reassure him. 
 
 "Love you, my sweetheart! If that were all! 
 How can I make you understand how poor I am, 
 how hopelessly poor? Lucy, I couldn't hire the 
 cheapest kind of a flat for you, I couldn't pay one 
 rough servant to wait on you; and it's going to be 
 so for years to come. Even if I gave up all idea of 
 writing music, I couldn't earn these for you within 
 oh, it's too humiliating!" 
 
 "But I have some money," she whispered. He 
 laughed a little. 
 
 "I couldn't come and live on your poor little 
 money, dear girl ! And even if I were willing to - 
 marriage takes so much. You have been living 
 with other people, you see. Suppose you had to 
 pay rent for a flat "
 
 EVER AFTER 91 
 
 "But I have a house," the smothered voice per- 
 sisted. "I have two houses, Dana. And the one 
 in town has a music room looking over the Back 
 Bay such a lovely big room ! And the other house 
 has a great, wonderful seacoast, all its own, and 
 a garden. O Dana, you would love my garden. 
 The little house in Milton is mine too; Cousin 
 Susie was living with me. So, you see, we needn't 
 worry about flats, need we?" 
 
 He had drawn away from her, risen slowly to his 
 feet. The gravity of his face frightened her. 
 
 "You mean that you are rich?" 
 
 "Not dreadfully rich," she pleaded. "Not 
 millions and millions. But we needn't think about 
 money, that's all, Dana. And even if I am 
 
 rich ' : Her voice failed her for sheer terror 
 
 of the barrier that every word might be raising be- 
 tween them. 
 
 But the soul of Dana Malone knew neither con- 
 ventionality nor pretence. He threw up his arms 
 with a shout of joy. "To think of that!" he cried. 
 Then his arms dropped, and he stared down at her 
 with awed intensity. 
 
 "What wonderful luck!" he uttered solemnly. 
 "What astounding, wonderful luck!" 
 
 After dinner that night a strange, oblivious 
 pretence of dinner they drew Candace into the
 
 92 EVER AFTER 
 
 empty workroom. The world's attitude had by 
 this time thrust itself upon Dana's recognition, and 
 he told the news gravely, braced for her dismay. 
 She sank down on the platform, facing them in 
 bewildered reproach. 
 
 "O my children," she exclaimed, "how did 
 this happen?" 
 
 "How could it help happening?" Dana returned. 
 Lucy curled down against her friend, a hand on her 
 knee. 
 
 "It had to be," she whispered. 
 
 "But your people!" Candace exploded. "Dana, 
 a girl in Lucy's position can't be just married up 
 like some little art student. It is an alliance you're 
 proposing to make, you 
 
 "Wild Westerner without a cent to his name," 
 he finished for her. "Candy, if I hadn't something 
 I considered real to offer Lucy besides what 
 I feel I should consider myself a hound if I 
 looked at her. But don't you think that in the 
 long run, after years of work, my music will balance 
 her money and and position, or whatever you 
 call it?" 
 
 "So much more than balance it?" Lucy breathed 
 at her shoulder. 
 
 "But it isn't the long run we are facing." Can- 
 dace firmly put away Lucy's cajoling hand, then 
 weakly left her own on the girl's knee. "It's the
 
 EVER AFTER 93 
 
 short run that we have to consider. What are 
 Lucy's people going to say to me?" There was 
 a gleam of rueful humour through the last words, 
 and they brightened before it. 
 
 "There isn't anybody who will take it very hard," 
 Lucy urged. "And when they realize Dana's 
 genius " 
 
 "And besides," he broke in, "honestly and 
 truly, Candy, do you think any one could 
 know me and go on believing that I was a fortune 
 hunter? " 
 
 She dropped her eyes from his straight, dark, 
 eager glance with a sigh of reluctant honesty. 
 
 "No, I don't," she admitted. In an instant he, 
 too, was down on the platform beside her. Their 
 arms met about her shoulders. 
 
 "O Candy, be good to us!" they cried. 
 
 She was good to them, of course. She even 
 grew genial over the situation before their long 
 conference was over. When, at last, they left her, 
 she had forgotten the worldly difficulties, and sat 
 smiling to herself in the dark at the combination 
 they made. Not till the glow of their fervour 
 had died away did she realize all the elements 
 of that combination. Then for a startled 
 moment she confronted Lucy and Dana as 
 they were in cool reality, shorn of the glamour 
 of infinite concession that their love shed
 
 94 EVER AFTER 
 
 about them. A dismayed exclamation, pitying 
 and yet humorous, brought her hands over her 
 face. 
 
 "And they haven't learned to laugh yet," she 
 murmured. "Oh, poor little children, they can't 
 even laugh!"
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 "Lucy, Lucy! I can't wait!" Dana spoke with 
 a laugh and a tightening of the arm that held his 
 wife. "At first you will see a big, brown land, 
 very dusty and withery if the fall rains haven't 
 begun, and you'll think it hasn't trees enough, and 
 you'll miss the natural grass, and you'll want more 
 rivers, and more finish to things it's rough on the 
 edges. And then presently you will begin to get it, 
 the charm, the feeling, the smell of it the great, 
 brown backs of the foothills, old Tamalpais cut- 
 ting into blue, blue sky the bay, and the 
 gardens all heaped up and running over oh, my 
 dear!" 
 
 She smiled up at him, looking like a sleepy and 
 much loved little girl in her deep content. 
 
 "It is so beautiful that I never went before," 
 she said murmurously. 
 
 "I couldn't bear it if you had! Outsiders see it 
 like Cook's tourists doing a cathedral; but you're 
 going with a true believer and a devout heart. Lucy, 
 how do you pronounce Los A-n-g-e-1-e-s?" 
 
 She gave it the hard g and the "lees" ending of 
 
 95
 
 96 EVER AFTER 
 
 the Eastern resident, and he came down on her 
 with joyous severity. 
 
 "Never let me hear that sound from your lips 
 again. You want to say it just as you say * angelus,' 
 soft g and all. It isn't correct, of course neither 
 way is correct; but it's native, it's the old Calif ornian 
 way. The other is parvenu. Do look off there! 
 Had you any idea. the desert was so beautiful? Oh, 
 this West!" 
 
 Their train lay like a tiny dark snake in a vast 
 waste of mottled desert, gray-green and tawny. 
 Sage, sand and alkali spread unbroken to the far 
 horizon, drenched with gold and glow in the trans- 
 forming light of late afternoon. The strange land, 
 forbidding and desolate under the glaring noon, had 
 come into its daily hour of magic loveliness. Other 
 passengers had gone forward to inspect the burned 
 culvert that held them, so for the moment they 
 had the observation vestibule back platform of 
 less luxurious days to themselves. The great 
 stillness, the quivering tide of light, set Dana's 
 Western blood racing. 
 
 "I've got to do something about it," he exclaimed 
 from his full heart. 
 
 Lucy, beauty drugged and drifting, curled closer 
 against him. 
 
 "Write lovely music," she said. 
 
 "That isn't half enough. I want to go about the
 
 EVER AFTER 97 
 
 earth helping other people to marry people who 
 love each other like this." 
 
 "O Dana, do you suppose they really do?" 
 
 "Yes, little Lucy, I think it is very likely. And 
 sometimes they can't have it. Some people can't 
 have much of anything, and I get all this! Doesn't 
 that make you sit up and wonder?" 
 
 Nothing, at that moment, could make Lucy sit 
 up or wonder, or draw from her anything but a 
 caressing murmur, and Dana fell silent, staring with 
 astonished intentness at his lot. 
 
 "If I were rich, you know what?" he began sud- 
 denly, in the familiar phrase of years. 
 
 "You are rich." The calm statement drew from 
 him a startled laugh. 
 
 "I?" It proved overwhelming: he could not 
 go on. All that chaotic summer he had rejoiced 
 in Lucy's money as the amazing piece of good luck 
 that would allow him to marry her and to make 
 lovely music; and during the five days since he had 
 carried her off, the abundant money in his pockets 
 had been a pleasant, though somewhat remote, 
 consciousness. He enjoyed it as he enjoyed his 
 excellent clothes, with little direct attention to spare 
 for it. That Lucy's husband might be considered 
 a rich man, with a rich man's powers and responsi- 
 bilities, was a suggestion almost terrifying. Presently 
 he protested.
 
 98 EVER AFTER 
 
 "It's all yours. I am only prince consort." 
 
 "No, sir. By a special Act of Parliament, they 
 ascended the throne together and reigned as Dana 
 and Lucy for many happy and prosperous years." 
 
 "What were the chief events of their reign?" he 
 asked with the air of a schoolmaster. The little 
 games they played were her dear delight. Until 
 Candace had discovered her, no one had ever 
 dreamed that Lucy could be mischievous and 
 merry. 
 
 "Many notable reforms were inaugurated," she 
 took it up. "No one ever hurt anybody. There 
 were no lost puppies, or frightened children, or poor 
 men out of work, or bewildered foreigners with 
 bundles who get on wrong trains and the conductors 
 are cross to them and they haven't money for another 
 fare and they can't understand Dana, doesn't 
 that nearly kill you? And all true lovers were 
 married and were almost as happy as their beloved 
 sovereigns." 
 
 "A very good recitation, Miss Lucy. But 
 you have left out the wonderful development of 
 music during this period. Musical fellowships were 
 founded, don't you remember? And all genuine 
 talent got a generous public hearing. Ah, those 
 were the halcyon days!" 
 
 "Silly!" observed Lucy, and they laughed, then 
 slipped away from each other as fellow passengers
 
 EVER AFTER 99 
 
 were heard returning. Dana rose and leaned casu- 
 ally against the rail. 
 
 "You remember the last time we crossed, Lucy, 
 what a sandstorm there was about here?" he was 
 saying as their platform was invaded. Her eye- 
 brows reproached him for the deception even while 
 her lips betrayed unlawful enjoyment. "Suppose 
 we go forward and see what the prospects are," 
 he added hastily, as she refused to play up to him. 
 
 "They say we're going to stay here all night," 
 a passenger volunteered as they moved away. 
 An overheard, "I thought they were bride and 
 groom ! " gave them an absurd delight. Dana swung 
 his wife to the ground, then struck his chest a 
 resounding blow. 
 
 "I want to strut," he confided. 
 
 "You do, dear," said Lucy, and they laughed 
 until it was necessary to sit down on the sandy bank 
 for breath. The gayety of love, the godlike merri- 
 ment of its lighter moments, was still threatening 
 their decorum as they passed the group gathered 
 about the engine. They paid scant attention to 
 the burned culvert, except to wonder that a little 
 dry gulley, so easily crossed by them, should be 
 impassable to a great, clever train. 
 
 "You know, Lucy, there is something in that 
 fellowships idea," Dana presently began, as they 
 strolled on toward the flaming West.
 
 100 EVER AFTER 
 
 " Music fellowships ? ' ' 
 
 "Yes: for men of genuine talent to give them 
 a decent chance to do original work. And fine pub- 
 lic hearings arranged for them. We really could 
 do that, you and I together. It would mean loads 
 of work and money, but we could get big people 
 interested, or work through one of the composers' 
 associations. It would be rather fine! Do you 
 know that the man who wrote * Carmen' committed 
 suicide, through discouragement and hunger? Why, 
 Schubert never had a chance to hear some of his 
 own greatest orchestral pieces: and it was over 
 forty years before the 'Unfinished' symphony was 
 even printed. It is so brutal, the way the world 
 leaves them to starve to death, and then goes mad 
 over their works. Or else it never discovers them at 
 all, like poor old Sam Bynner, out in California. 
 I've told you about him: how he taught me for 
 love all those years. He had born gift, in his line; 
 but he couldn't get heard. Well, he needed help. 
 Lucy, there is a bully chance for us to stand by 
 and help genius, to make people listen! O, my 
 child!" 
 
 "Dana! What a wonderful idea!" 
 
 To their excited spirits the plan seemed as simple 
 as it was great. They fell upon it with pencil and 
 paper, developing its possibilities, noting down the 
 men whose judgment and influence must help, the
 
 EVER AFTER 101 
 
 societies that might cooperate, and handing over 
 to it their thousands with a lavishness that should 
 have brought Grandfather Cuyler scurrying back 
 to earth; but only the loving and giving spirit of 
 Great Aunt Betty manifested itself. Lucy's face 
 was aglow. They felt as though they had unlocked 
 the grim gate between genius and the blundering world 
 when at last they came back to the land about them. 
 
 In their absorption, they had not observed that 
 the ground under their feet rose and then gradually 
 fell again, putting a scarcely noticeable mound 
 between them and the helpless train; and so a big 
 moment was prepared for them. For suddenly 
 they found themselves standing alone in the desert. 
 North, south, east, and west it rolled up to the 
 horizon rim, apparently unbroken, rigidly still and 
 silent. Not a sage leaf fluttered nor an insect 
 called: there was not even the shadow of a bird to 
 move over the waste. The last sunbeams, streaming 
 level from the west, spread a gold and amethyst en- 
 chantment: the earth was turned to a great jewel 
 dipped in yellow wine, and the breath of the desert, 
 dry, sunned and aromatic, was the wine's heady 
 fragrance. They stood with clinging hands and 
 lifted faces, like Adam and Eve newly created, 
 wondering and exultant. 
 
 The sun vanished and the colours began to fade. 
 Dana turned solemn eyes on his wife.
 
 102 EVER AFTER 
 
 "We ought to have died, right then," he said. 
 
 "Yes," she assented; but her hand in his confided 
 that she was glad they had not. 
 
 They turned back faintly saddened at the change. 
 The glamour had died with the sunlight, and 
 already the blank face of the desert showed harsh 
 and repellent. A sudden desire for the train and 
 their own safe little shut-in drawing-room, for lights 
 and books and the sound of human voices, made 
 them hasten up the slope that hid the scene of 
 their delay. Perhaps a subconscious memory of the 
 whistles which their outer ears had ignored was 
 coming to them, for presently they ran, smiling at 
 themselves, but with worried eyes. 
 
 "There is really nothing to hurry about," 
 Lucy panted. 
 
 "Of course not," said Dana, quickening his pace. 
 
 Their pause at the top had the shocked suddenness 
 of a cry or a fall. For a dreadful moment they stood 
 blankly still, trying not to believe their eyes. Below 
 them they saw the burned culvert, the trodden sand 
 where the passengers had gathered, but, far away 
 to the east, a receding line of black stood for their 
 train. This time they were truly alone in the desert; 
 and the discovery was not exalting. 
 
 Dana instinctively flung out a shout and waved 
 his hat. Then they sat down on the railway ties, 
 conscious of weak knees.
 
 EVER AFTER 103 
 
 "Well, what do you think of that!" he muttered. 
 
 "And they said they would stay here all night," 
 Lucy protested, with rising indignation. 
 
 "Perhaps they've gone to send for the wrecking 
 crew, and are coming back," Dana suggested, but 
 his tone was not hopeful. The desert looked very 
 big and grim, and they drew close together, like 
 lost children. 
 
 "Isn't it more likely that they are going round 
 another way?" Lucy asked, quietly putting herself 
 out of the category of those who must be cheered 
 at any cost. 
 
 "I don't know, dear. Ah, I ought to be killed ! " 
 He was tragic with remorse. "Why don't you jump 
 all over me for not taking better care of you?" 
 
 "It was as much my fault as yours. Dana, how 
 far is it to where?" 
 
 "That is what I am wondering. Wasn't there a 
 station let me see since lunch, certainly!" 
 
 "But if we were going thirty or forty miles an 
 hour " 
 
 "Lucy, stop it!" Dana had lost colour. "Arith- 
 metic is bad for the soul; don't do any more of it. 
 They'll send back when they find us missing, and 
 a few hours in the desert won't hurt us. It's an 
 adventure, my dear girl. People enjoy adventures." 
 
 "Yes, so they do." Lucy valiantly straightened 
 up. "Well, then, we will enjoy it."
 
 104 EVER AFTER 
 
 "Hooray for adventure," said Dana feebly, follow- 
 ing the attempt with a hearty and spontaneous, "Oh, 
 damn!" She relaxed into laughter, so genuine that 
 he smiled a reluctant response. 
 
 "You little brick!" he exclaimed, his hand falling 
 on her shoulder. "Well, shall we walk to meet 
 it?" 
 
 Walking to meet a train that was going rapidly 
 in the other direction was not a hopeful prospect, 
 but there was nothing else to do. They felt curi- 
 ously tall and exposed as they set out across this 
 flat land, where nothing else stood up except the 
 telegraph poles, stalking in solemn file beside the 
 track. Thoughts of crawling dangers kept Dana's 
 eyes alert, but Lucy mused in trustful security. 
 
 "You know, Dana," she said finally, "if we had 
 died then, when you said, it would have been the 
 perfect moment in one sense, because our life 
 together was absolutely unmarred, and because 
 oh, everything that you meant. It was the climax 
 of perfect things. But it takes imperfect things, 
 too struggles and hard things overcome, to 
 to " 
 
 "Make a salad?" 
 
 "Exactly. We want seasoned happiness, tested 
 love, for our real climax. I can't actually believe 
 that we shall ever hurt each other, but we shall, 
 you know. Every one knows that." She looked as
 
 EVER AFTER 105 
 
 grieved as though it had already happened. "Then 
 we shall learn better, and after that will come the 
 time to die if we must." 
 
 " There is only one way on earth that you can 
 hurt me, little Lucy;" the superb confidence of 
 youth in love straightened his shoulders and lifted 
 his head. "So long as you care for me " 
 
 "That will be always and forever, Dana!" 
 
 "Then there is nothing else that could matter. 
 Besides," he presently went on, "if we are going to 
 die now, there will be a bigger moment for it on 
 Tuesday." 
 
 "When we arrive?" 
 
 "When we stand on the front deck of the ferry- 
 boat, with the city cut out like a silhouette against 
 the sunset, and the ships " 
 
 A distant whistle interrupted. Rescue was sig- 
 nalling from the east, where their train was rapidly 
 growing larger. They ran toward it, waving glori- 
 ously. In a very short time they were being 
 hurried on board by an indignant conductor and a 
 chuckling, exulting black porter. 
 
 "Ah thought you was left, sir," he bubbled over 
 in the intervals of the conductor's severe comments 
 on wandering away from the train and not heed- 
 ing whistles. "Ah looked and looked and Ah 
 couldn' find you nowhar, so Ah made 'em 
 come back for you, sir. Pretty lonesome place
 
 106 EVER AFTER 
 
 to be left yas, sir! Ah'm mighty glad Ah looked 
 you up!" 
 
 "I'm mighty glad he did," Dana exclaimed when 
 at last the stateroom door was shut on the excited 
 welcome. Lucy sank down drooping with weariness 
 and relief. 
 
 "I should say so! I hope you gave him a good 
 reward five dollars, at least." 
 
 He paused in the act of throwing off his coat. 
 "Why, darling, I gave him fifty," he explained with 
 a laugh. 
 
 "Fifty dollars?" 
 
 "Of course. Think what he did for us, dear 
 girl, what he saved us from." Dana was still half 
 laughing, but about Lucy's mouth had come a look 
 that any member of old Adrian Cuyler's large 
 family would have recognized at once. 
 
 "But that was absurd," she protested gravely. 
 "Twenty would have been lavish, but perhaps 
 justified. But fifty! We can't fling money about 
 like that, Dana." 
 
 He was as grave as she, now, and a little pale. 
 
 " It was very lavish," he said quietly. "I thought 
 we ought to be very lavish. He is a good fel- 
 low, Lucy. He is saving money to buy a home, 
 he told me, and fifty dollars is a long jump to- 
 ward it, for him. He almost cried, he was so 
 pleased. I thought it was right to do him a good
 
 EVER AFTER 107 
 
 turn when you realize the good turn he has done 
 us." 
 
 Lucy was nervously overwrought, and the appeal 
 did not reach her. A vulgar spirit would have 
 shown irritation; but she was only distressed. 
 
 "Why not give him five hundred, then?" she 
 argued. "He would have been still more pleased. 
 Things have to be in proportion, dear!" 
 
 He drew a quick breath for speech, then brought 
 his lips together again and turned away. 
 
 "I'm sorry," he said from the door of the dressing- 
 room. "I made a mistake. We must brush up 
 now, if we want any dinner." 
 
 With the door closed between them, he stood for 
 several moments staring blindly into the mirror. 
 The dark eyes that stared back at him were hurt 
 and dismayed. Then he plunged his face into the 
 cold water. 
 
 "She's tired, poor little soul," he muttered. 
 
 Ten minutes of separation brought them together 
 in such a fervour of loving forgiveness that neither 
 noticed the other's serene lack of self-blame. Dana 
 chivalrously put the incident aside, as something 
 to be forgotten as quickly as possible, and though 
 Lucy was not hungry, and hated to pay out a dollar 
 for six courses which she could not possibly eat, 
 she repressed her longing to suggest a dinner of 
 chocolate and biscuits, lest it seem a reproach to
 
 108 EVER AFTER 
 
 his extravagance. All was right with their world 
 that night, and Dana sent a long letter to Candace, 
 telling her about their musical mission. If Lucy 
 was a little less enthusiastic about it, now that the 
 sunset was gone, his own mounting excitement kept 
 him from realizing this. 
 
 "I feel a little the way I did when I pulled the 
 pup out of the East River," he confided, when he 
 had read her the letter. "Isn't it fun to be rich, 
 Lucy!" 
 
 Her smile was faintly worried. "And not to be 
 lost in the desert," she added quickly. 
 
 "And to be young, and in love, and wearing 
 diamonds." They laughed at that. Kind old John 
 Malone, commission merchant and political lord 
 of half a city, had sent his nephew a generous check, 
 with the suggestion that a diamond scarfpin would 
 be a suitable possession for a young man making a 
 distinguished connection. The picture of himself 
 so adorned had given Dana endless joy. Being 
 left free in the matter, he had spent over half of 
 the money on a jewel for Lucy, then, with the rest 
 in his hand, he had hunted up Palmer Jacks. 
 
 "You know about clothes," he had declared with 
 worried simplicity, his old antagonism forgotten. 
 "What can I get with that?" 
 
 No other call could have so roused Palmer's 
 sympathies. He took entire charge of the situation,
 
 EVER AFTER 109 
 
 introduced Dana to concealed tailors and private 
 haberdashers, chose his materials for him, and 
 managed the fund with a diplomacy and skill that 
 resulted in an astonishingly good outfit. He then 
 presented the groom with a handsome leather bag, 
 took him to Boston and put him correctly through 
 the dazing ordeal of the wedding, engaged their 
 drawing-room on the train, equipped it with flowers 
 and magazines, saw the pair off and borrowed five 
 dollars to take him back to New York, well satisfied 
 with his exertions, and leaving Dana in a state of 
 breathless gratitude that had rapidly solidified into 
 devotion. 
 
 "Good old Palmer," he murmured, smiling over 
 the memory of it all. "Oh, good old world, Looshy !" 
 
 The train slipped on without further hindrance. 
 Presently the Truckee River tumbled and foamed 
 for them, and a dizzying glimmer of Sierra pines and 
 lakes was flashed on them, biograph fashion, through 
 the cracks of the snow sheds. Then the broad 
 western slopes of vineyard and orchard led them 
 down into the land that was to Dana mother and 
 father, home and religion, his beloved, generous, 
 sunbrowned California. The very breath of the 
 fields, he insisted, had a special odour, known to no 
 other state, and Lucy, obediently testing it, con- 
 vinced herself that she, too, caught it. 
 
 Passing the tule marshes of the lower Sacramento,
 
 110 EVER AFTER 
 
 Dana fell into the staring silence which his wife 
 had already learned to respect. Presently he took 
 out a small ruled notebook and began rapidly to 
 write in the mysterious alphabet of music. After 
 a brief spurt, he paused, pencil suspended, humming 
 in dumb show, then again the notes seemed to 
 spring from his pencil point. When he put the 
 book away again, he discovered that Lucy had 
 dressed for arriving, even to veil and gloves, and 
 was sitting up opposite him beside a strapped bag, 
 making so proper and charming a picture of a lady 
 arriving that he laughed out. 
 
 "It wasn't anything," he said, in answer to her 
 questioning smile. "Only it does seem so funny 
 for me to be coming home with a wife and luggage! 
 And such a complete wife, some way. You're so 
 rounded and finished, Lucy : sometimes I feel shaggy 
 beside you, like a wild ass of the desert beside a 
 a water lily." 
 
 "Beside a white rabbit," she said with a touch 
 of self-scorn. "O Dana, I hoped marriage would 
 make me braver, but it hasn't a bit." She leaned 
 toward him with lowered voice in the earnestness 
 of her confession. "Do you know, when I want 
 to ask the conductor the right time, or the name 
 of a station, I have to clear my throat first, and 
 my heart goes quicker? Isn't that absurd? What 
 can I do?"
 
 EVER AFTER 111 
 
 He bent down to kiss the gloved hands folded 
 on her knee. "You can tell me to ask him. That's 
 what I am here for." 
 
 "Ah, but I can't give in to it like that. Of 
 course, you do make it vastly easier. I don't 
 mind walking into the dining-car at all with you. 
 That used to be such an ordeal ! I have gone hungry 
 many a time, just because I couldn't make myself 
 start. Tell me, truly and honestly, don't you 
 just a little hate to walk down a car aisle by 
 yourself?" 
 
 He shook his head, smiling at the troubled inten- 
 sity of her face. "I'm afraid I never gave it a 
 thought in my life." She sighed. 
 
 "That is how one should be. Dana, do you think 
 I ought to make myself face it more go out now 
 and walk the length of the train?" She was rising, 
 all ready to do it at his word: but he drew her 
 down again. 
 
 "I forbid it," he said, with vast enjoyment of the 
 word. "Remember, Lucy, if ever you are tempted 
 to martyrize your darling self like that, your husband 
 forbids it and that settles it for you." She 
 enjoyed the word, too, as the corners of her mouth 
 betrayed; but she was not reassured. 
 
 "That is far too easy," she objected. "But you 
 are a great comfort, Dana. And one is so blessedly 
 at home with you."
 
 112 EVER AFTER 
 
 "You don't have to clear your throat before ad- 
 dressing me?" 
 
 She gave the absurd question serious thought. 
 "It would be hard to say something that you might 
 not like," she admitted. "If I had to criticise 
 you oh, my heart would be very loud indeed!" 
 
 "But you would walk right up to it like a little 
 major?" 
 
 "Yes. How would you face it if you had to 
 criticise me? " 
 
 "I would call you to me, quietly but firmly, and 
 I would say, 'Lucy, why can't you realize that it 
 takes you twenty minutes longer to dress than 
 you think it does? Then you would not always be 
 exactly twenty minutes late.' Then I would dry 
 your tears and " 
 
 "I am not," she protested, her eyes drowned in 
 laughter. 
 
 "That was merely an example. It had nothing 
 to do with the facts, of course. Besides, it was 
 only fifteen minutes this morning. For once, I 
 didn't have to keep the diner open by main force." 
 He glanced out of the window, then started forward 
 to look more closely. "Why, it's raining," he cried. 
 "Oh, no fair! Oh, we can't have that, Lucy!" 
 
 "We won't get wet," she reassured him, startled 
 at his dismay. 
 
 "Get wet! It isn't that. It's your first sight
 
 EVER AFTER 113 
 
 of San Francisco old Telegraph Hill and Russian 
 Hill and Nob Hill and the sun going down behind 
 them in a blaze of glory. Why, Lucy, that was to 
 be the perfect climax, when we might as well die 
 as not don't you remember?" He was thrusting 
 things into his bag with grieved obliviousness. "I 
 could hardly wait to get here, thinking of it. And 
 now this dum'd old rain oh, I must say!" 
 
 They were sweeping along the margin of the bay, 
 beaten flat just now by the clean, strong downpour. 
 The ground showed that rain had been falling for 
 several hours, and the growing light in the west was 
 promising; but big drops were still running down the 
 windows when the train ended its long run at the 
 ferry and the laden passengers streamed to the 
 boat. Dana was gloomy with disappointment. 
 
 "But I like rain, Dana," Lucy urged. 
 
 Passengers from local trains were coming on 
 board, and apparently they, too, liked rain. Few 
 had umbrellas, and there were many wet coats and 
 damaged hats, yet all carried an air of holiday gayety. 
 There were broad smiles everywhere; acquaintances 
 greeted one another with laughter and sounds of 
 congratulation, hearty hands were laid on damp 
 shoulders; strangers seemed to fall into conversation 
 at any pretext. Lucy stared at them. 
 
 "I never saw such a merry people," she finally 
 protested. "Are they always like this?"
 
 114 EVER AFTER 
 
 Sudden understanding brought Dana to his feet 
 with a jump. 
 
 "It's the first rain," he cried. "Oh, jinks and 
 to think that I complained ! Me ! " 
 
 He left her without ceremony, turning eagerly 
 to the nearest group of men. The breaking of the 
 long summer drought had been a yearly romance to 
 his childhood; and to the least imaginative of them 
 it meant more than local prosperity and vanquished 
 dust. They held out their hands to the dwindling 
 drops, and told Dana to a day how long it had been 
 since the last rain, late in May, and even invited 
 him below to celebrate the event when he explained 
 that he was a native. He came back to his wife 
 radiant with the sense of home and welcome. 
 
 "You don't know what that rain means you 
 can't," he told her. "You're only a tourist. Come 
 up forward: we are going to get our sunset, after 
 all. I can manage everything, dear; you take the 
 umbrellas. I hope they still have hacks at the 
 station," he added with a reminiscent laugh. "It 
 was the dream of my childhood to ride in one, and 
 I never did. Wouldn't you rather have a hack than 
 atari?" 
 
 She smiled constrainedly. "The hotel is near, 
 isn't it?" she asked. 
 
 "Oh, yes. Ten minutes or so. It's clearing, 
 dear. Look look, there she is ! "
 
 EVER AFTER 115 
 
 The clouds were breaking, and already the hills 
 of the city, rising steeply before them, were taking 
 on purple and mystery against the gold of the west. 
 Dana, leaning on the forward rail, was Jason coming 
 home with the Golden Fleece, Parsifal approaching 
 the Grail. He turned to his wife in silent recogni- 
 tion of their great moment. But Lucy's face was 
 troubled, and about her mouth lay a faint compres- 
 sion that had come down to her from old Adrian 
 Cuyler. Meeting his glance, she spoke impulsively. 
 
 "Dana!" 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 She had to clear her throat. "Don't the cars 
 run past the hotel?" 
 
 "Why, yes." 
 
 It was evident that her heart was very loud 
 indeed, but she bravely went on. "Then why not 
 just jump on a car? We haven't much luggage, 
 and I could take a bag perfectly well." 
 
 In the pause that followed, her colour rose, but 
 her lips were worriedly firm. 
 
 <! As you please." Dana spoke in his usual voice, 
 but his eyes avoided hers. 
 
 "It is silly to take carriages all the time when the 
 cars are so quick and nice," she urged, breathlessly 
 relieved that that was off her mind. "Don't you 
 think so, dear? And cab drivers are such pirates. 
 O Dana, this is very beautiful!"
 
 116 EVER AFTER 
 
 "Yes," he assented. 
 
 "I don't wonder chat you love it. And I know 
 a little what showing it to me means, because I 
 know what it will be to take you up to the North 
 Shore place. Sometimes I can hardly wait for that." 
 
 "Yes," he said again. 
 
 "If we could only have had this alone," she went 
 on. "That was what made the desert so wonderful. 
 Now please let me take a bag. If you knew how 
 my arms ache when you carry them all!" 
 
 Their perfect moment had passed, and the boat 
 was gliding into its slip. Dana gathered up the 
 luggage and led the way in silence. The car was 
 crowded, and passengers climbed or fell over their 
 bags with good-humoured endurance. Getting them 
 off at the hotel proved an operation little short of 
 surgery, though every one helped. 
 
 "How friendly and obliging they are," Lucy 
 exclaimed, but Dana still said nothing. Once in 
 their comfortable rooms the Cuylers always took 
 the best of rooms she looked intently into his face. 
 
 "You are tired," she said. 
 
 "A little," he admitted, trying to smile. "I will 
 go down and have a smoke, if you don't mind." 
 
 He was gone before she could remind him that it 
 was dinner time. It was an orderly retreat without, 
 but within a panic flight; for Dana assumed gener- 
 osity as simply and inexorably as he assumed virtue
 
 EVER AFTER 117 
 
 in the woman he loved. Before the door had closed, 
 his loyalty was crying shame on his fear, assuring 
 him hotly that he had misunderstood, that it could 
 not be that; but he fled that he might hide his coun- 
 tenance from her until its foolish darkening had 
 passed. 
 
 He was allowed no time for brooding. As he 
 stepped out of the elevator on the ground floor 
 an alert little elderly man, who had been sitting 
 in upright patience on a bench near by, rose and 
 stood smiling before him. 
 
 "I thought I might get a glimpse of you, Dana;" 
 there was a charming serenity in his welcome. "I 
 wouldn't interrupt you, but I did want a glimpse." 
 
 Dana had been so submerged in frowning thought 
 that he could not come instantly to the surface. 
 He glanced remotely at the fragile face, the clean- 
 shaven, aged smile set between two neat patches 
 of grizzled whisker, at the slight, wasted form held 
 gallantly upright, the well-brushed and buttoned 
 shabbiness; then he put out both hands with a 
 joyous exclamation: 
 
 "Sam Bynner! Why, you dear old Why 
 
 on earth didn't you send up word?" 
 
 "Well, I didn't like to disturb you." There was 
 a mild twinkle in the eyes that were beaming up 
 at Dana. "And when you had just arrived, too. 
 But I was passing. Now we will sit down here, if
 
 118 EVER AFTER 
 
 you have a moment to spare. I am not very good 
 at standing." 
 
 Dana had had time to realize and be shocked 
 at the change in his old friend: he seemed to have 
 aged out of all proportion to his years. There was 
 a change of the spirit, too. He had always been a 
 diffident and patient soul, too afraid of wounding 
 to elbow his way very successfully, yet trying most 
 earnestly to do all that could be expected of him. 
 That he seemed in some way to have "graduated" 
 was Dana's first impression: the strain that had 
 carved his face into hollows was over. Then the 
 wide sweetness of his smile, the selfless shining 
 of his kind eyes, seemed to deserve a bigger word. 
 The little man had really taken on something angelic. 
 
 "You have been ill," Dana accused him. 
 
 "Ah, yes, more or less." 
 
 "But that won't do. Why " Then Dana 
 
 saw the band of crepe on the old-fashioned top hat, 
 and stopped short. Mr. Bynner nodded, still faintly 
 smiling. 
 
 "Yes, I am alone now." He spoke as detachedly 
 as he had about his own health, yet with a gentle 
 air of closing the topic. "Dana, I wanted you to 
 know that I had meant to leave my piano to you. 
 Of course, you won't need it, now. But you were 
 always kind to what it produced " 
 
 Dana's forbidden sympathy seized the outlet.
 
 EVER AFTER 119 
 
 "Kind!" he interrupted hotly. "I've heard every- 
 thing since I went East, popular music and all, 
 and there hasn't been a man who could touch you 
 in your line. You ought to be rich and famous, 
 Sam Bynner. Why aren't you? Did you really 
 try hard enough to get heard?" 
 
 "Try hard enough?" Mr. Bynner might have 
 been a disembodied spirit, smiling over the little 
 woes of mankind. "Why, Dana, for thirty years 
 I had only one other thought in life. You remember 
 my opera? And poor Ned Hilliard's libretto? It 
 was pretty good, pretty good; but they wouldn't 
 listen." 
 
 "Who wouldn't?" 
 
 "The managers. For years and years we were 
 after them, Ned and I. You remember how I went 
 to New York? But they never listened, not once. 
 They made appointments now and then, but they 
 never kept them." He laughed to himself. "We 
 got up an amateur production, and they said they 
 would come, but they didn't. They wouldn't listen." 
 
 Dana winced. "What a young egotist I must 
 have been! I didn't realize all this." 
 
 "Ah, you were young. And I didn't want to 
 discourage you. As poor Ned used to say, they won't 
 give you a hearing till you've succeeded, and you 
 can't succeed till they've heard you. It is a hard 
 game. I am glad to be done with it."
 
 120 EVER AFTER 
 
 "But you are not done with it. Now look here!" 
 Dana's hand closed on the other's shoulder with 
 touched force. "You are right in line for a scheme 
 Lucy and I are working out. Why, you're just 
 what we want a dog to try it on. Now, listen." 
 He set forth his plan for a simpler relation be- 
 tween the composer of music and a music-hun- 
 gry world, and Mr. Bynner listened in shining 
 approbation. 
 
 "Fine, fine!" he declared. "Ah, then there is 
 something that you can do for me." 
 
 "That's just what " 
 
 "No, no! Not that. It is for a gifted little 
 fellow who lives out in the Mission: I am on my 
 way to give him a lesson now. Such born talent, 
 Dana! No money, ignorant parents, but running 
 over with music, the little scamp. I discovered him 
 just as I did you. I will carry him as far as I can, 
 
 and then perhaps you Ah, little Dana Malone, 
 
 it's queer to think of you as a rich man!" It was 
 only the second time that that term had been 
 offered Dana, but he accepted it as a matter of course. 
 
 "Isn't it?" he assented seriously. "But it is 
 your music " 
 
 Again the lifted hand stopped him. "I have 
 done. Not mine. But Luis Valdez don't forget 
 him. Here is the address. You can pass it on 
 to him, if you like to call it that."
 
 EVER AFTER 121 
 
 "I promise you I will. But no one can ever do 
 for anybody what you did for me." 
 
 "You were a great joy." The kind, amused eyes 
 caressed him. "I have been very proud of my 
 pupil. Do you remember the Sam Bynner waltz 
 which you wrote for my birthday? I have treasured 
 that funny little manuscript, I can tell you." 
 
 Dana laughed. "The Sam Bynner waltz? Of 
 course I remember it. Don't get up. Won't you 
 stay to dinner and meet Lucy?" 
 
 "Not to-night. Ah, I must hurry. It has been 
 good to see you, Dana." They walked together 
 to the door, and Dana realized again how feeble his 
 old friend had grown. 
 
 "I wish I could do something for you," he ex- 
 claimed, a question in his voice. Mr. Bynner pressed 
 his hand. 
 
 "Do it for Luis," he said. "I have no needs, 
 dear boy." 
 
 As Dana turned back, he saw Lucy coming in 
 search of him. She had put on a delicate crepe 
 gown that accented the blue and rose and brown of 
 her lovely colouring, and though she had neglected 
 to change her stout little travelling shoes, Dana 
 was blind to such distinctions. Love for her, amazed 
 pride that so exquisite a lady should belong to him, 
 swept through him like a clean wind, driving out 
 a lurking cloud of troubled thought. Facing the
 
 122 EVER AFTER 
 
 peopled hall, where men turned and gave her long, 
 cool looks, was misery to Lucy, but she kept her 
 eyes serene, her step unhurried : only her compressed 
 lips hinted at effort. But the light of relief in her 
 face as she saw Dana, the sudden, relaxed smile, 
 very nearly landed her in his arms. 
 
 "I kept you waiting. I am sorry," he exclaimed. 
 "But dear old Sam Bynner was here. I have adopted 
 a son, Lucy." 
 
 She glanced up anxiously, but, meeting his smile, 
 smiled back. "I hope it was a nice one," she said 
 as they turned to the dining-room. 
 
 "I haven't seen him yet. It is a musical god- 
 child. Luis Valdez don't forget that name. I am 
 to look out for him when Sam Bynner has done 
 all he can." Lucy was more interested in the menu. 
 
 "I would rather he were a little girl," she said 
 inattentively. 
 
 "Well, perhaps we can pick up a little girl, too." 
 They smiled over that. "We must see this boy. 
 Dear me, the things we are going to do in this 
 town!" He took from his pocket a list of names 
 and laid it before her. "There is a dinner party we 
 must give." She glanced at it with a disturbed 
 frown. 
 
 "But they will invite us to dinner," she protested. 
 "People always do when you are newly married. 
 We don't need to do anything."
 
 EVER AFTER 123 
 
 "Oh, this is just for the fun of the thing," he 
 explained blithely. "I chose the very nicest people 
 I knew, without regard to age, sex, or station. Such 
 bully people, Lucy ! Some of them are so poor, they 
 couldn't ask us to dinner, anyway." Her troubled 
 eyes were on the list. 
 
 "I know several of these names," she said absently. 
 
 "Oh, yes. You've heard me speak of the Will 
 Merriams: he's an associate professor at the uni- 
 versity. I used to go there to Sunday supper when 
 I was in college, and help them wash the dishes 
 afterward. And Mary Haden she has the won- 
 derful music room I told you about. And Leila 
 Stevenson good old Leila she sings; and Mor- 
 gan Dwight has the voice of seven angels, but is 
 too everlastingly lazy to cultivate it. We'll get in 
 a piano and sing between the courses. We will 
 have a private dining-room, of course." The thrill 
 of hospitality, the joy of coming back to his home 
 with the power to give his friends an unstinted 
 welcome, expanded his chest. "Oh, won't it be 
 fun, Looshy!" he burst out. 
 
 "Yes, oh, yes! But suppose Miss Haden had 
 planned to do it she would, wouldn't she? Won't 
 she be disappointed if we cut in ahead of her?" 
 
 "We'll go to her, too. And she won't have just 
 the same crowd. No, she will love it, dear. They 
 all will. And they'll love you. You won't feel
 
 124 EVER AFTER 
 
 shy with them, little Lucy." He smiled his under- 
 standing of her secret reluctance. "You can't, 
 after ten minutes. And I'll be right there. What 
 night shall we set?" 
 
 "Don't decide it now," she said quickly: then 
 her colour rose. "I am so tired," she apologized. 
 
 "Of course you are, far too tired for plans!" 
 
 He put away the list at once, and his very voice 
 caressed and cared for her. After dinner he insisted 
 that she should go straight to bed and be read to 
 sleep. After he had tucked her in, he shaded the 
 light from her eyes and drew up a chair close beside 
 her. . 
 
 "It is such fun to take care of you," he confided. 
 
 The happiness of being taken care of shone up 
 at him. "I don't think I am very well fitted to 
 take care of myself," she admitted. "I have 
 carried such a load, Dana : it has all been so worrying." 
 
 "And now?" 
 
 "Ah, now it is so blessed that I am half afraid 
 of it. Perhaps I ought not to give myself up to it 
 so. Isn't it cowardly to feel so relieved? Shouldn't 
 
 I " Then she saw that he was smiling deeply, 
 
 and broke off, hiding her face in his sleeve. "Jeering 
 at me!" she complained. His laugh admitted it as 
 he bent down to her. 
 
 "God bless Lucy and make her a good girl," he 
 murmured.
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 DANA was awakened early the next morning by 
 a new and joyful consciousness. It had lain, an 
 elusive brightness, along the edge of his dreams all 
 night, as it had touched his waking thoughts with 
 indirect pleasantness for the past two days; but, 
 until this morning, the definite, powerful, delightful 
 reality that he was a rich man had been an abstract 
 idea rather than a concrete force. Had he awak- 
 ened with a pair of stout wings on his shoulders, he 
 could scarcely have been more suddenly initiated 
 into a new state. The fun of it, the amazing fun! 
 Brilliant plans, little and big, raced across his 
 excited vision : to give, to help, to have, to do the 
 dizzying freedom took a dozen aspects a minute, 
 and a plan of a white marble concert hall was inter- 
 rupted by the thought that he could have a new 
 sweater without a hint of incongruity. He knew 
 that a stream of money from Lucy's abundant 
 resources flowed into a reservoir, that they might 
 both dip freely into it; and the desire romantic 
 rather than vulgar to go forth and spend set his 
 heart pounding in his side. The only flaw in his 
 
 125
 
 126 EVER AFTER 
 
 happiness was that Lucy could not share it with 
 him. She was so used to being rich, poor girl ! 
 
 Excitement made staying still an impossibility. 
 He stole out, and presently stood in the cool October 
 brightness of the early morning, choosing his direc- 
 tion. He had brought his new check book as well as 
 a pocketful of money, but the shops would not be 
 open for two hours yet, and, after a cup of coffee, 
 he was free to wander. He had come flying back 
 to his city in the time of her great disaster and had 
 worked for her until his scanty resources were used 
 up, so he was spared now the fresh pain of her loss: 
 it was the inspired courage of her uprising that 
 gripped him and made him long to cheer as he 
 went swiftly up the empty streets. And he had 
 come back a rich man. He could do something for 
 the many gaping needs that lurked behind this 
 bravely prosperous front. 
 
 "My God, it's good!" he said aloud, his eyes 
 dark before the revelation. 
 
 The haunts of his exploring youth tempted him. 
 Little Italy, the Barbary Coast, the steep streets 
 of Chinatown, were snares to his feet, but he would 
 not look at them without Lucy. He strode on until 
 he came to a forgotten remnant of the old city, a tiny 
 house perched on a cliff and reached by a flight of 
 steps so long that the whole suggested a pigeon 
 house set on a stick. It had once been a thriftily
 
 EVER AFTER 127 
 
 respectable little home, as its dormer roof and long 
 French windows suggested, but squalor had over- 
 taken its later years. The porch sagged, the un- 
 painted wood visibly rotted; even the "For Sale" 
 signs looked draggled and without hope. Dana 
 mounted the steps as one having a right, and, near 
 the top, turned to look down on a wonderful vista 
 of bay and distant mountain. The greater part 
 of his childhood had been passed on those steps, 
 scrambling up them, tumbling or coasting down, 
 playing games on the landing, with little apparent 
 heed for the view; yet it was the view that seemed 
 to stand for all those happy years, rather than 
 their meagre setting. And he had come back a 
 capitalist little Dana Malone ! The thought made 
 him laugh out as he turned for a second look at his 
 old home. 
 
 It was startling to find that a silent group had been 
 staring at his back. A young woman with a coffee- 
 pot clutched in one unconscious hand stood hi the 
 doorway, two half-dressed children at her side, and 
 behind her a tall, sickly looking man with a shawl 
 about his shoulders. The stillness of the group, its 
 rigid expectancy, puzzled Dana as he caught off 
 his hat and smiled apology. 
 
 "I beg your pardon! I used to live here when 
 I was a small boy, so I came up to take a look." 
 
 Expectancy vanished and the group fell apart.
 
 128 EVER AFTER 
 
 The man turned away with a sigh, the very children 
 seemed to droop with disappointment. The young 
 woman's face had saddened, but she stayed by her 
 hope. 
 
 "You didn't think of buying?" she ventured. 
 
 "Oh, no." Then the meaning of their disappoint- 
 ment reached and touched him. "I'm sorry you 
 thought that." 
 
 "Annie!" called the man impatiently from within, 
 but she still lingered. "You don't know any one 
 who'd buy it, I suppose?" she went on in a quick 
 undertone. She had a gentle little face, and Dana 
 fancied that there was a look of Lucy about it - 
 Lucy pale, worn and in trouble. 
 
 "You want to sell?" 
 
 "It's his health. If we could go South and get 
 started before the winter, the doctor says and 
 he could work down there we'd sell it " 
 
 "Annie!" repeated the irritable voice. 
 
 "Yes, Ed. If you did hear of any one " 
 
 She was turning away. 
 
 Dana's heart, already big with new emotions, 
 seemed to open in his breast, letting out a warm 
 rush of human love and pity. 
 
 "What would you sell it for?" he asked. 
 
 The price sounded pitifully small, for the relief 
 it would purchase. And he was a rich man! No 
 prince consort, but an equal dispenser of the power,
 
 EVER AFTER 129 
 
 by the decree of his dear sovereign lady. All the 
 morning's joyous desire seemed meant for just 
 this climax. 
 
 "I'll buy it," he said. 
 
 Her cry brought back the others, and the tears 
 on her cheeks strengthened and steadied the im- 
 pulse that had made him speak. What he had done 
 was as inevitable as to pull a drowning creature out 
 of the river, and left the same afterglow of warmth 
 and joy. The man tried to meet the news with 
 the offhand, businesslike coolness of an American 
 and a property owner, but his thin hand trembled 
 as he got out his papers and showed Dana the present 
 boundaries of his purchase. 
 
 "The agent lives right up here a block or two: 
 he won't have gone to his office yet," he ventured, 
 evidently half afraid of putting this romantic buyer 
 to the test of reality. Dana, understanding, drew 
 out his new check book. 
 
 "That's good," he said. "I can leave a check 
 with him, and he can send me the papers as soon as 
 they're made out." The woman caught his hand 
 and laid her wet cheek on it. 
 
 "Oh, now, Annie!" remonstrated her husband; 
 but the two men smiled at each other, in humorous 
 understanding of the ways of wives. 
 
 The agent was found and the check writ- 
 ten: a hearty handshake concluded the business.
 
 130 EVER AFTER 
 
 The man tried to say something, hesitated and 
 flushed. 
 
 "It's worth that much, anyhow," he brought out. 
 
 "Fully worth it," agreed Dana. The other looked 
 relieved at the admission. 
 
 "Hope you'll sell it for a lot more some day," he 
 said, offering his hand again. 
 
 "I like that fellow," was Dana's thought as he 
 hurried to the nearest car line. Then he laughed 
 aloud, with a slap at his breast pocket. What fun 
 it was! 
 
 Lucy was awake and wondering when he came in, 
 carrying a great sheath of roses. He held their 
 faces to hers as she cried out in delight. 
 
 " O Dana ! Who sent them? " 
 
 "California. With love and a kiss." 
 
 "You, of course. The darlings!" She revelled 
 in them, touching, caressing them, while he happily 
 looked on. "I suppose you got them for almost 
 nothing," she added, with a sigh for what roses 
 meant at home. He smiled to himself, for the land of 
 flowers does not give away its blossoms in the streets 
 of San Francisco, and he had gone deep in this first 
 glorious plunge after beauty; but he said nothing. 
 A bellboy brought jars and pitchers to hold them, 
 and Dana arranged them under Lucy's orders. 
 He had come racing home with the tale of his won- 
 derful morning, yet, now that he was here, he could
 
 EVER AFTER 131 
 
 not seem to begin it; a curious reluctance was 
 quenching his eagerness. Lucy would love the 
 adventure as he did, of course. Why should telling 
 her suddenly appear formidable? 
 
 "I suppose I'm hungry," he said aloud. "Why, 
 of course I am. I've been up for hours with nothing 
 but a cup of coffee." 
 
 "My dear! Go down at once and " 
 
 "Not at all. We will breakfast up here." And 
 Dana rang the bell as if he had been summoning 
 waiters and ordering just what he wanted all his 
 life. Lucy, offered an a la carte menu, always lost her 
 appetite, and she hesitated among the dishes so 
 worriedly that he took the matter into his own 
 hands. 
 
 "You leave it to me. You'll be hungry when 
 you see it," he assured her, writing the order with 
 a bold pencil. "Go and tub your darling self while 
 it is coming, and I'll get everything ready." 
 
 His easy authority relieved her of responsibility, 
 and she yielded to it in happy relief. Could Dana 
 have remained unaware of Grandfather Cuyler, 
 that unlovely spirit would never have walked to 
 blight their happiness; but already his unconscious- 
 ness was touched. Individual glimpses might be 
 denied or explained away, but they left behind an 
 unworded knowledge. When Lucy came back, 
 little damp rings of hair about her ears, heelless,
 
 132 EVER AFTER 
 
 unformidable and altogether sweet, he still shrank 
 from telling what he had done, and the splendid 
 tale was taking on in his mind a ridiculous and 
 irritating aspect of confession. 
 
 "After breakfast," he reassured himself as the 
 laden tray entered. He had drawn up a table beside 
 the bed, and so surrounded it with roses that they 
 might have been sitting in an arbour. She smiled 
 reminiscence. 
 
 "Do you remember the time you decorated your 
 cabin for me?" 
 
 "Do I!" 
 
 "And then you played 'Mary Alone/" 
 
 "And then you stumbled." They laughed, drop- 
 ping forks and spoons to clasp hands across the 
 table. "The morning and the evening were the first 
 day. Do you remember the evening, little Lucy?" 
 
 She could still flush over that strange, involuntary 
 pilgrimage through the June dusk to his hidden 
 cabin. "How could you be so sure it was I? 
 Several of the girls had on white." 
 
 "How could I be so sure my heart was in my left 
 side?" 
 
 "Weren't we happy and weren't we miserable. 
 That horrid Mr. Ludlam!" She shivered and went 
 back to her breakfast. 
 
 "Aren't you ever going to tell me how he made 
 trouble? What he said or did? "
 
 EVER AFTER 138 
 
 "Yes. I'll tell you on your sixty -fifth birthday." 
 
 "But perhaps I couldn't go and hit him for it, 
 then. He might be dead." 
 
 "Oh, never mind him. He can't hurt us again. 
 Isn't it wonderful to be so close that no one 
 nothing could get in between?" 
 
 "And to have done it in twenty-four hours! 
 For you know, Lucy, we were just pretending that 
 we weren't married, after that night. We knew 
 we really were." 
 
 "Indeed we did not. I didn't know anything 
 except that it was nice weather. Why, Dana 
 Malone, if any one had said to you, that first day, 
 'Four months from now, this shy, stiff girl from 
 Massachusetts ' ' 
 
 " 'This inaccessible princess in a porcelain tower,' ' 
 he broke in, "'will be eating breakfast with you in 
 San Francisco, with her hair in two blessed pigtails, 
 one over each ear, and her appetite exceedingly 
 good for a young woman who didn't want anything 
 but toast,' I should have fainted, Miss Lucy. But, 
 oh, I should have come to again!" 
 
 "Four months!" The shocking brevity of their 
 acquaintance was a delight to her. "And we have 
 only known each other in the country, too. We 
 may be quite different in town. I know I am." 
 
 "I suppose you turn haughty and ask about 
 grandfathers?" He could have told his tale
 
 134 EVER AFTER 
 
 in happy confidence now, but he would not in- 
 terrupt. 
 
 "Yes, of course. And I suppose you turn 
 bohemian." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "I don't know, if you don't." 
 
 "I know what some people think it is loathly 
 beasts they are," said Dana, serenely buttering 
 toast. "Your aunts will probably call me that." 
 
 "But, just between ourselves, Dana, are you?" 
 
 "Lord, no. Je suis bon bourgeons, moi. Pere 
 de famille" He laughed expansively. "I wonder 
 if you will consider our dinner party bohemian? 
 I never thought of the horrid word, myself." 
 
 "Oh, our dinner " she began vaguely. 
 
 "We must write the notes to-day, dear girl. 
 You'll enjoy them: you can't help it," he added 
 reassuringly, seeing how her face had clouded. He 
 rambled on about these dear and charming friends, 
 not dreaming that something had to be said, 
 and that Lucy, in a misery of dread, was nerving 
 herself to "walk up to it like a little major." It 
 came quite suddenly. 
 
 "Dana! About these people why not have 
 them to tea instead of to dinner? " 
 
 "To tea?" he repeated blankly. 
 
 "Yes. In the afternoon. It would be so much 
 simpler than a great dinner and I should really
 
 EVER AFTER 135 
 
 meet them better. It isn't as if they would expect 
 anything like a dinner from us: the obligation is all 
 the other way. What do you think, dear? " 
 
 It was Dana who had to clear his throat. In his 
 averted eyes was a look of bewildered fright. "Do 
 you mean because of the expense, Lucy?" 
 
 "Well, it would cost absurdly, a private dining- 
 room and a piano. And when we can get the same 
 thing, can meet them all just as well at a tea 
 don't you see?" 
 
 * ' Are we spending too much ? I supposed 
 
 "Oh, there is plenty, of course. But, Dana 
 dear," she lowered her voice confidentially, "I 
 thought it would be so very nice if the rent of the 
 Shore house for the summer just balanced this 
 trip. Don't you think it would?" 
 
 "Why, Lucy?" 
 
 "Oh, it would be like getting all this for nothing. 
 The old place was never rented before." 
 
 "Do you" the question came hard, but he 
 dragged it out by main force, miserably bent on 
 understanding "do you spend much of your 
 income?" 
 
 "A good deal. There are those two big houses 
 to keep up, besides all that one has to give away. 
 My grandfather used to say that one should live 
 on the income of one's income: invest the income, 
 you see, and live on the interest of that; but I have
 
 136 EVER AFTER 
 
 never tried it. I shouldn't quite want to, I think." 
 And yet Lucy's voice was wistful, and about her 
 mouth lay the faint compression that had come 
 down to her with her thousands. Dana saw it, for 
 the first time, and an ashamed colour swept up to 
 his forehead. "It is so foolish to throw money 
 about," Lucy was saying, vastly relieved that that 
 was over. " Of course, if you really cared about it 
 being a dinner ' 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Then that is settled. And I think the tea will 
 be very pleasant. What are we going to do to-day? " 
 
 Dana rose. "Suppose I let you dress now? 
 We've finished, haven't we? Then we can go out 
 and do something." 
 
 He abruptly left her, shutting the door between 
 the two rooms. He knew, now; and all that he had 
 explained away came back to reinforce his knowl- 
 edge. His princess in the porcelain tower was 
 clay, like other people. He had laughed at Lucy, 
 teased her for small foibles; but his idealistic youth 
 had accepted her, simply and without wonder, as 
 flawless. And now, with the ugly flaw past denial, 
 he had as yet no thought for how it must affect him. 
 He could see only his heartsickening disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 "Oh, no, no!" he protested aloud, but the denial 
 was only mechanical. He knew.
 
 EVER AFTER 137 
 
 Fortunately, Lucy was a long time dressing. 
 Chivalry presently rose up to combat the desolating 
 sense of loss. Before she opened the door, he was 
 sorry for her, tender over her, humbly apologetic 
 that he, so full of vital flaws, should have judged her 
 for this single defect. His one thought was to hide 
 his bruise from the merry, challenging eyes that 
 sought his from the doorway. Lucy had made 
 herself very handsome, and knew it. 
 
 "Being married is really a tremendous lark," 
 she confided to him as they went out together. 
 "What did you do this morning when you were 
 out so early?'* 
 
 Memory of what he had done came back with an 
 appalling shock. He drew breath, nervously, to 
 tell her; but the elevator was not a suitable place, 
 and in the courtyard below they were stopped by 
 an old acquaintance. After that, there seemed 
 to be no time, Lucy was so eager to see the city, so 
 absorbed in its vivid history. 
 
 "I'll tell her at lunch," he decided, irritated and 
 ashamed at his own reluctance, but when, at last, 
 hunger drove them into a cafe, a new aspect of the 
 affair kept him silent. For a dismal conviction that 
 he had made a fool of himself, that radiant morning, 
 had been steadily gaining ground under his cheerful 
 conversation. He had taken a goodly handful of 
 his wife's money and bought with it an inaccessible
 
 138 EVER AFTER 
 
 cliff in an undesirable neighbourhood. Large sums 
 spent in blasting and grading might bring the tiny 
 lot within reach; but even then it would be of little 
 value until that down-at-the-heel corner of town 
 had suffered a change. To have bought it without 
 her consent might well make her anxious as to what 
 he would do another time; and, at the thought of 
 worried strictures, his chin went up and his lips 
 stiffened. By every instinct of his being, Dana 
 Malone was the head of his family, and the head 
 of a family may not be put in the position of a 
 schoolboy who has overdrawn his allowance. No, 
 not even if he is in the wrong. 
 
 "You don't seem hungry," observed Lucy. 
 
 "Curious after that breakfast!" He forced 
 himself back to cheerful attentiveness. Lucy's 
 gayety proved to him how well he had succeeded 
 in it, that interminable morning. Her cheeks were 
 flushed, and her eyes, usually so gently blue, had 
 a new glint and sparkle. 
 
 "You know, Dana, I am not going to be utterly 
 selfish, out here," she presently assured him, with 
 the earnestness that made people want to smile 
 at her. "You must go about with your old friends, 
 too. They will be hurt if you don't. And I shall 
 be tired and want to rest in the afternoons. So you 
 will be perfectly free." 
 
 "I don't know that I want to be free, little
 
 EVER AFTER 139 
 
 Lucy." He spoke more soberly than the occasion 
 warranted, his eyes on his plate. Her glance 
 passed like a secret caress from his rough black hair, 
 so oddly touched with gray, to the broad, over- 
 hanging forehead, and the jutting chin with its 
 deep cleft. To any one who loved Dana, his irreg- 
 ular brown face had an appealing beauty. 
 
 "I know. But you must remember that you are," 
 she insisted. "I never have little hurt feelings, 
 you know. I could have very big ones, if anything 
 were meant unkindly, but the little ones are only 
 vanity and egotism. Did you know that, Dana? 
 I found it out, once, and so I pulled them all up by 
 the roots. There isn't one left." 
 
 He managed to smile at her. "If you see any 
 in me, will you pull them up, too?" 
 
 "Ah, you were born big, dearest, big and uncon- 
 scious: you didn't have to grow big, inch by inch, 
 all by yourself. Not that I have done it, yet; but 
 I am going to be before I die." And she nodded 
 reassuringly, as though to say, "Just wait!" A 
 startled thought that she might have seen how she 
 had hurt his ideal of her, that morning, sharpened 
 his glance. 
 
 "What made you think of that now?" he de- 
 manded. 
 
 "Nothing. I am always thinking about it, one 
 way or another about bigness and beauty."
 
 140 EVER AFTER 
 
 The waiter interrupted with the card, but she shook 
 her head. "We don't want anything more, do we?" 
 
 "I don't." Dana glanced indifferently at the 
 score offered him, then put down a bill with the 
 gesture that is answered by a gratified bow. 
 
 "You know what I wish?" he exclaimed. "That 
 your nice brown hair lifted on a hinge, so that one 
 could look inside now and then and find out just 
 what was going on. It might save us a lot of trouble, 
 Miss Lucy. For I don't suppose you will ever really 
 tell me." 
 
 "I will tell you what is going on this minute," 
 she said, putting on her gloves. "I think that you 
 ought to have added up the score, to see if it was 
 right, and I think you gave too large a tip for a little 
 lunch." She smiled to show that it did not really 
 matter, this time, but Dana was too deeply dis- 
 appointed to respond. Whatever might be in her 
 thoughts, she evidently had no conception of what 
 was lying so heavily in his. 
 
 "And now the Chinese shops," she demanded, 
 rising. "Don't you think it would be nice if we 
 took a present to Candy?" 
 
 His agreement was so radiant, so lit with relief, 
 that she wondered over it. 
 
 "You are very fond of Candy, aren't you?" she 
 said, a little wistfully, as they went up the street. 
 
 "Well, when you think !" he reminded her.
 
 EVER AFTER 141 
 
 "But she knows you better than I do." Lucy 
 sighed, then laughed at herself. "I married you, 
 anyway," she said. 
 
 "You certainly did," he assented gravely. He 
 could not play the little game of love to-day. 
 
 As Lucy had said, they had known each other only 
 in the country, where there was no buying and 
 selling. Their hour in the Chinese shops was 
 a period of torture to Dana; for Lucy simply 
 could not buy. She was like a timid wayfarer 
 with a chasm to jump she came again and again 
 to the edge, but her heart always failed her before 
 the leap could be taken. The ancestral voice 
 thundered in her ears, and, believing that it 
 spoke wisdom and duty, she gave troubled heed. 
 From an embroidered silken robe, tinted like an 
 opal, that would have been a joy to the end of 
 Candace's days, she came down, lingeringly, dis- 
 tressfully, through hangings and table squares, to 
 a modest cushion cover, and Dana, who yesterday 
 could have run the affair with joyous authority, 
 to-day stood at one side and took no part. 
 
 "You don't help me at all," she complained. 
 "Don't you think she would like that?" 
 
 The cover was pretty enough, and he said so, dryly, 
 then stood at the shop door until she joined him, 
 the little package in her hand. 
 
 "Poor dear, he doesn't like shopping," she mur-
 
 142 EVER AFTER 
 
 mured, and her cheek contrived to brush his shoulder 
 as they went out. 
 
 He would have told Lucy what he had to tell her 
 on their return to the hotel, but recollection of an 
 appointment with Sam Bynner made him hurry off 
 to his old friend's rooms with the " Children's Cru- 
 sade" music under his arm. There, for two absorbed, 
 utterly happy hours, he was conscious only of his 
 work and of his master's enthusiasm. Fragile as 
 Mr. Bynner was, obviously breaking, his spirit rose 
 up luminously to meet this call. The keen chal- 
 lenge of his criticism, the breadth and certainty 
 of his knowledge, gave Dana a thrilled sense that 
 the key to greatness lay there between them in that 
 shabby old room. 
 
 "What a wonder you are, Sam Bynner," he 
 exclaimed, when at last a striking clock startled 
 him to his feet. "And where should I be if you 
 
 hadn't " He laid his hands on the other's 
 
 shoulders, leaving the sentence unfinished in words. 
 
 Age was visibly creeping back over the upright 
 figure that had cast it off for two triumphant hours. 
 Mr. Bynner slipped into the nearest chair, letting 
 his head drop with a fine air of casualness against 
 its back. 
 
 "It was a great privilege. And this afternoon 
 well, I feel that I can go in peace, Dana. We have 
 succeeded, you and I."
 
 EVER AFTER 143 
 
 "Don't talk of going!" 
 
 "No, of course not, dear boy." The remote, 
 detached smile of the day before was in his eyes. 
 "But when I do, you will remember about Luis?" 
 
 "I will give him the chance that you gave me." 
 
 "Good, good. He's worth it. We will have him 
 here some afternoon. And we'll have another session 
 with the music?" 
 
 "All you can stand. And you must meet Lucy." 
 The forgotten day reasserted itself, chilling his joy. 
 "I must be off," he said. "Good night, Sam 
 Bynner." They smiled over the name: the small 
 Dana had never called his teacher anything else. 
 
 "Come soon, Dana. The time is so short." 
 
 "Oh, we may stay several weeks," said Dana 
 reassuringly from the stairs. 
 
 He went back by the same car line that he had 
 taken after his morning's adventure. That was 
 not nine hours ago; and yet he felt as if a year had 
 elapsed since a crazy sentimentalist had bought 
 inaccessible real estate with his wife's resources. 
 
 "Rich man? I'm not. I'm a boy with money 
 in his pocket," he decided wearily. Then his hand 
 tightened on the package of music. "I've got 
 that," he muttered. 
 
 He opened his door nerved to make his confession 
 and to take without flinching the surprise, the 
 questions, the troubled warnings that he had so
 
 144 EVER AFTER 
 
 richly earned. Lucy was lying down, with windows 
 darkened, one arm across her eyes, but she waved 
 her hand to show that she was awake. Dana spoke 
 abruptly from the middle of the room. 
 
 "Lucy, I made an idiot of myself this morning. 
 I have hated to tell you. I went off before break- 
 fast for a look at my old home. It's a shanty now, 
 perched up on a cliff of no earthly value. And 
 I bought it." Her eyes were fixed on him with 
 strained intentness from under her arm, but she said 
 nothing. He plunged on, his tone dry, almost 
 hostile. "The people who owned it saw me coming 
 and thought I was a buyer; they had old 'For Sale* 
 signs about. There was a sick-looking man and his 
 wife and two children. When I explained why 
 I was there, they seemed cut up. They wanted 
 to sell it and go to live in the South for his health. 
 The doctor had said well, I guess he had to go 
 before winter, if it was to be any use. The woman 
 was unhappy. Anyway, I made a crazy fool of 
 myself. I left a check with the agent and he's 
 making out the papers. I can't go back on it now.'* 
 
 Lucy had risen on one elbow. " Why, you did 
 right, you did exactly right," she cried. ' You 
 couldn't have done otherwise. Tell me more tell 
 me every thing." 
 
 "Lucy, you love! I thought you'd hate me!" 
 He flung himself down beside her, all impetuous
 
 EVER AFTER 145 
 
 boy again. " You see, I was so happy, and I felt 
 so so I never had had any money before, and 
 it had all gone to my head. And they were desper- 
 ate, Lucy. If you had seen them when I said I 
 hadn't come to buy! Even the kids. And they 
 were so nice the man didn't say a word. Just 
 went back into the house. But the poor woman 
 couldn't help telling me, and some way, I felt as if 
 it might be you she was rounded, and gentle, and 
 just breaking with trouble. A few hundred dollars 
 did seem so little. And if you could have seen her 
 afterward! But, my dearest, it was a very bad 
 purchase from any other standpoint. You realize 
 that?" He lifted his head to look into her eyes, 
 and found them wet. 
 
 "What does that matter, Dana! I am glad, 
 glad you did it. And you worried about that? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 She drew him to her with an intensity that startled 
 him. Then he felt her tremble, and a sob shook 
 her from head to foot. 
 
 "Lucy! What is it?" He held her close, wrung 
 with distress. "Tell me, love. Oh, don't, don't!" 
 
 "O Dana!" She had mastered herself in a 
 moment, but she could not wait till her voice was 
 steady. "All day long you have been so so 
 depressed, down underneath oh, you were so 
 dear and cheerful on top, it nearly killed me! For
 
 146 EVER AFTER 
 
 I thought that perhaps you were bored; that taking 
 me about wasn't as much fun as you had thought 
 it would be; that perhaps you wanted to be alone 
 or to go to your old friends. Oh, I didn't know 
 what to think! I wouldn't face it until I was here 
 by myself. I pretended everything was all right; 
 but after you had gone and I couldn't pretend any 
 more O Dana, I nearly died!" 
 
 Her misery so tore him that he took refuge in 
 indignant words, spoken between tokens of abject 
 tenderness. "I never heard anything so silly. 
 Lucy Cuyler, you ought to be shaken! Don't you 
 know, don't you know ?" She drew a long, broken 
 sigh. 
 
 "I knew this morning, but it didn't help me a 
 bit when you changed. And to think that it 
 was all that absurd lot ! Dana ! " 
 
 Guilty knowledge that it was not all the absurd 
 lot made him hide his face in her dress, lest it betray 
 him. An older man, or one less in love, might have 
 found words then to tell her everything; but Dana 
 could as easily have struck her. 
 
 "Don't think about it any more," he implored; 
 but Lucy could not forget her terror. 
 
 "I wish we could run away," she exclaimed. 
 "The idea of going out into those same streets 
 to-morrow couldn't we go away now and come 
 back later? Would that be too cowardly? "
 
 EVER AFTER 147 
 
 He looked at his watch. "How long would it 
 take you to pack ? " 
 
 "Why, dearest, I haven't unpacked yet." She 
 had started up, shining with eagerness. 
 
 "All right. Get ready while I look up trains." 
 
 They sprang to their feet, and Dana hurried down 
 to the office, so moved at the way Lucy had taken 
 his rash act that he forgot to wonder how he might 
 have fared had he told his tale in the first enthusi- 
 asm of the morning. He was glad to run away 
 with her, glad to do anything on earth that would 
 make her happy: they could come back later in the 
 trip for their real visit to the beloved town. In 
 twenty short minutes, gay with the rush of their 
 preparations, they and their luggage and an armful 
 of roses were being whirled to the southern express. 
 
 They had planned to "do" the South like other 
 travellers, but, after a few days' wandering, fate, 
 knowing a better thing than that, led them into 
 the Garden of Eden and left them there for their 
 real honeymoon. A cottage, perched between a 
 blue-black mountain and a radiant sea, complete 
 even to a piano and a cook, offered itself to them 
 for a month. Twenty-four hours later Dana was 
 working at music in the big living-room and Lucy 
 was painting in the garden, and the world of cities 
 and of mortal hurts was wiped out and forgotten. 
 Cool nights, crisp mornings, hot noons, evenings silver
 
 148 EVER AFTER 
 
 splashed with stars without, ruddy with firelight 
 within, swept them round the seasons in miniature 
 every twenty -four hours: work cleverly drew them 
 apart in the morning, that they might come together 
 with a new rush of joy. They strolled in the garden 
 and planned excursions that they were too happy 
 to take; they brought out books and were too happy 
 to read them; and the great St. Bernard, who com- 
 pleted the perfection of their setting, thumped his 
 tail on the porch beside them or laid his heavy head 
 on their knees and loved them unspeakably. Day 
 after day, life stood still at one glorious point, and 
 they forgot that Paradise had every known a serpent. 
 
 A minute velocipede in a corner of the porch, 
 games, and picture books, a battered rag doll and 
 an appealing little bed in the room off theirs, recon- 
 structed for them a small personage whom Dana 
 called little Frederick and Lucy as persistently 
 referred to as little Susan. They argued the case 
 daily, considering it a point of honour not to ask the 
 cook nor to examine the fly leaves of the picture 
 books. The lack of a second small bed denied the 
 possibility of both. 
 
 "Who ever heard of giving a girl a velocipede?" 
 Dana was loud in his certainty. "She might ride 
 an old one of her brother's; but there is no sign of 
 a big brother, is there?" 
 
 "But the doll! The doll!" Lucy protested,
 
 EVER AFTER 149 
 
 her eyes gleaming with laughter, but her mouth 
 as firm as his. 
 
 "That might be left over from babyhood. Why, 
 I had one myself, and loved it without shame 
 slept with it until I was three years old. My mother 
 has often said so. You know where we found it, 
 forgotten in an old bottom drawer." 
 
 "But how do you explain the pink hair ribbon 
 I found in the lilac bushes?" 
 
 "And how do you explain the broken cellar win- 
 dow and the ball inside? Does a girl throw balls 
 at windows? I ask you that!" 
 
 Lucy turned to the St. Bernard, stretched in the 
 path at their feet. 
 
 "Sahib, if it is a little girl, wag your tail," she 
 coaxed, and of course the tail responded. 
 
 "Sahib, if it is a boy, speak!" commanded Dana 
 with a suddenness that brought an obedient 
 "W'f!" from the great throat. Then they both 
 broke down into laughter. " I'll tell you what," 
 Dana went on; "suppose we make a surprise for 
 little Frederick down in the garden. We might 
 build a cave where those stones are, below the 
 Norfolk Island pine.'* 
 
 "I think little Susan would rather have a rockery," 
 Lucy objected, "with ferns growing on it." 
 
 "Oh, no, she wouldn't. Girls like caves." 
 Dana lifted her bodily from the steps where they had
 
 150 EVER AFTER 
 
 been sitting. "She can call it a grotto; she'll love 
 that. Come on!" 
 
 They ran down the garden with an enthusiasm 
 that roused Sahib to mammoth gambols. Under 
 the flat, layered branches of the pine a thin ledge 
 of rock jutted out, suggesting wonderful cave possi- 
 bilities, and they joyfully fell to work digging out 
 the ground beneath and building up the sides with 
 stones. Lucy was forbidden to touch the heavy 
 slabs, but was allowed to pave the cave's floor, and 
 started a charming mosaic of light and dark stones, 
 lying flat on the sunned earth with arms bare to 
 the elbow and amusingly dirty. Dana, bare-armed 
 also and presently collarless, toiled over his walls 
 with single-minded absorption. Far below them, 
 through pine branches, glimmered the sea, 
 and behind them loomed the treeless, lifeless 
 mountain, purple black in the waning after- 
 noon. The world was all their own, and labour was 
 good. 
 
 "I wish we had some moss to plant about the 
 edge," Lucy said, after a long, busy silence. "Little 
 girls always love moss. And they love tiny paths. 
 We can make one of pine needles, and border it 
 with white stones, leading into the cave." 
 
 "Oh, no. The way in must be secret, almost 
 unfindable," Dana declared. "There must be a pile 
 of brush against the outside."
 
 EVER AFTER 151 
 
 "Frederick would use that for a bonfire, first 
 thing you knew." 
 
 "Then Frederick would get spanked." 
 
 "Oh, no, Dana." She straightened up in sudden 
 earnestness. "People don't punish children bodily 
 any more. It isn't necessary, and it isn't right. 
 That is all being done away with. Why, I never 
 was struck in my life!" 
 
 "Imagine slapping you!" He laughed, and, all 
 earthy as he was, took her into his arms, kissing 
 every gentle curve of her upturned face. "It 
 would be like boxing the ears of the Sistine Madonna. 
 But, just the same, a little Frederick has to mind 
 his daddy without arguing," he added, going back 
 to his work. Lucy, suddenly idle, sat watching 
 him as he loosened the edges of a stone and pried 
 it up with strong, sure movements. The very frown 
 on his absorbed face seemed to mark him the master 
 - master of earth and stones, master of the heart 
 that loved him. She bent her head and secretly 
 kissed her wedding ring. 
 
 There was a boyish shout of triumph. Dana let 
 his stone drop back and dived for a small object 
 that had rolled out from under its edge. "Well, 
 what do you think of that! Now, Miss Lucy, what 
 do you say is it Frederick or Susan?" And he 
 held up before her a weather-beaten lead soldier. 
 
 " Girls can play with soldiers," said Lucy, but feebly.
 
 152 EVER AFTER 
 
 "They can, but they don't. I'm going to put 
 this up in your room, to cure you of obstinacy and 
 of arguing against your husband. Little Susan and 
 lead soldiers! I think not." 
 
 "Pink hair ribbons!" insisted Lucy, in the tone 
 of one who, though drowning, still cries, "Scissors!" 
 It was all very foolish, and untranslatably good. 
 
 The nights grew sharper. Black clouds full of 
 rain occasionally came down over the mountain and 
 kept them prisoners for a day. The last roses were 
 blown from their stalks. The time for city pave- 
 ments and city lights was coming, but they shrank 
 from acknowledging it, dimly aware that they should 
 leave paradise behind. 
 
 "If we are going to Mexico " Lucy finally 
 
 attacked the subject. Dana was experimenting 
 with chords on the piano, and did not answer until 
 he had achieved what he wanted. Then he spoke 
 without looking round. 
 
 "Why go to Mexico?" 
 
 "Suppose we don't!" But her look of bright 
 relief faded as he added, "I'd rather have the extra 
 time in San Francisco myself." 
 
 "It would be simpler to go straight home from 
 here," she said impulsively. 
 
 "And not visit the city at all?" He faced her 
 in such consternation that she had to retract and 
 explain.
 
 EVER AFTER 153 
 
 "Of course not, dear! We can't miss that for 
 anything. Only it seemed a pity to go back on our 
 tracks that long way. And one does spend so much, 
 living in hotels." 
 
 The gate through which they were to pass out was 
 swinging back. Nothing more was said that night, 
 but their lease of the cottage was nearly over, and 
 to Lucy the subject was by no means closed. The 
 secret dread of walking up to it again lay upon her 
 so heavily, for twenty-four hours, that she did not 
 realize how Dana's high spirits had dropped. They 
 separated as usual for the morning, but little work 
 was done. After lunch Lucy made an excuse for 
 not following him into the garden, but presently 
 laid down her pretence of sewing and marched 
 herself out with stern reproaches for her cowardice. 
 A swaying in the branches of an aged pepper tree 
 and a sound of hammering showed where Dana was. 
 
 "I thought I'd make a seat for little Frederick," 
 he explained, as she paused beneath. "Come up 
 and see how nice it is." Bodily work had pushed 
 aside depression. He held down his hand to her, 
 and Lucy mounted to the place where a fork in the 
 tough, slender limbs, bridged across, made a rocking 
 seat, half reclining, hung about with clusters of 
 pungent, rose-red berries and milky, bright green 
 leaves. She was established in the seat, and swayed 
 approvingly.
 
 154 EVER AFTER 
 
 "Little Susan will love it," she said, and they 
 smiled over the challenge. "Suppose we go up to 
 the house and settle it now," she added. 
 
 Dana had an inspiration. "Suppose we never 
 find out at all ! A family ought to keep one healthy, 
 impersonal quarrel on hand: it saves them from 
 quarrelling about nearer things. When I get on 
 your nerves, you can attack me about Frederick 
 and relieve your mind to any extent. What do you 
 say?" 
 
 Lucy's heart was thudding so uneasily over her 
 errand that her assent was rather breathless. 
 
 "I think that would be beautiful. I couldn't 
 bear to give up little Susan: she is such a dear 
 little girl." 
 
 "Frederick's a nice kid," said Dana, and then 
 a pause gave her the dreaded opportunity. She 
 took it bravely. 
 
 "Dearest! I have been thinking and thinking 
 about when we leave here. You know, our lease 
 is up in three days." He nodded, seating him- 
 self on a neighbouring branch, but said nothing. 
 "Should you mind very much if we went straight 
 home?" 
 
 He was pulling off thin scales of bark with minute 
 care. " It seems rather a pity to leave out the 
 chief thing we came to see," he said gravely, almost 
 indifferently.
 
 EVER AFTER 155 
 
 "Yes; but we can come back another year 
 perhaps next year and make it a visit all to itself. 
 And, of course, I did see it a little. We might come 
 out some time and take a house; and then we should 
 see everything, and meet your friends so comfortably. 
 If they are as nice as Candy, I have got to know 
 them, sooner or later. But now I truly think we 
 ought to go home." 
 
 "Just as you say, Lucy." 
 
 She was flushed with relief at his easy acquies- 
 cence. "That is dear of you! You see, there is 
 that big house, full of idle servants, and the horses 
 being boarded; it's bills, bills, all the time. And 
 
 when one stays at hotels " She broke off 
 
 with a sigh, in her face a strained, anxious look, the 
 meaning of which he had already learned. He 
 knew now that she did not spend a fourth of her 
 big income; but there was nothing to say. He 
 started up. 
 
 "I will go down and telegraph about mail," he 
 said. "If you have any messages 
 
 Ten minutes later he strode off, Sahib at his heels. 
 It was three hours before they came back, dusty 
 and weary. 
 
 "We took a long tramp," he explained. "Oh, 
 and I engaged our passage while I was at the station. 
 Have I time for a bath?" 
 
 His face was grave and tired, and Lucy, troubled,
 
 156 EVER AFTER 
 
 only half understanding either herself or him, believ- 
 ing what she had done to be right and neces- 
 sary, fell eagerly on the little chance to serve his 
 comfort. 
 
 "I will have dinner kept back," she said, "as 
 long as you like. Don't hurry, dear ! "
 
 CHAPTER SIX 
 
 THE music room offered a wide stretch of glass 
 to the swirling snow, but its panes had been care- 
 fully doubled, and below it ran an array of heating 
 pipes that would have seemed exaggerated to any 
 one unacquainted with the wind that comes over 
 the Back Bay. Heavy velvet curtains hung ready 
 to be pulled across as soon as the light failed, and 
 generous logs in the open fireplace were prepared 
 to add their picture of warmth to the hardly won 
 fact. It was a pleasant room, made harmonious 
 by use and time, though its furnishings would have 
 warred had they been new. No Cuyler ever gave 
 up or, if possible, moved a piece of furniture, 
 so the taste of several generations was represented, 
 buttoned satin and gold legs lying down with puffy 
 leather on spiral springs, carved Renaissance neigh- 
 bouring peacefully with weathered Mission. If a 
 decorator would have shuddered, any home-lover 
 must have felt it mellow and inviting, imbued with 
 a reality impossible to rooms that are made up on 
 paper and carried out by rule. Four o'clock had 
 just struck, but the light was already so dim that 
 
 157
 
 158 EVER AFTER 
 
 Dana, working at a table drawn up beside the 
 piano, had to bend close to his manuscript. He 
 glanced vaguely at the lamp, but would not stop 
 to light it. His eyes looked tired, but his mouth 
 had taken a line of dogged persistence. 
 
 The last two months had wrought a subtle change 
 in Dana Malone. Candace, watching him keenly 
 during a brief visit, had realized that one familiar 
 trait had disappeared: he no longer made excited 
 discoveries. His old, "Do you know, Candy!" and 
 the, "I tell you!" with emphatic forefinger had 
 vanished, and in their place had come a new abstract- 
 edness. It was as if one absorbing major discovery 
 had swallowed all the minor ones. Lucy com- 
 plained to her family that he worked all the time, 
 but was obviously a little proud of her grievance. 
 They had accepted Dana with a better grace than 
 might have been expected perhaps from a general 
 conviction that Lucy was bound to do something 
 queer, anyway; and though the younger members 
 privately referred to her as Mrs. Mulloney and 
 found therein much cause for laughter, they all 
 liked Dana as well as they could have liked any 
 one who had grown up in a different tradition 
 and whose forebears had not attended school 
 with their forebears. Yet neither their well- 
 meant tolerance nor the friendly advances of 
 brother musicians could reach Dana's submerged
 
 EVER AFTER 159 
 
 attention: he seemed to have no interest for new 
 ties. 
 
 The door opened to admit a head and a protest. 
 
 "Are you never going to stop, Dana?" Then, 
 seeing how dim the light was, Lucy came in to take 
 charge of the situation. Her arms were full of 
 packages, which she dropped on a sofa. "My dear 
 boy, you can't see! Wait till I light a lamp. Do 
 you want to ruin your eyes?" 
 
 Lucy was changed, too. As she busied herself 
 with the lamp, her cheerfulness was uneasy, as 
 though it stoutly denied an inner fear; her briskness 
 could not hide the fact that she was covertly watch- 
 ing him. He leaned back with a stretch of weary 
 arms, letting his eyelids drop defensively over his 
 eyes. 
 
 "It is dark," he admitted. tr 
 
 When she had arranged the L^hts to suit her, 
 she paused by his chair, pretending to study the 
 manuscript. 
 
 "How goes it?" she asked. She had picked up 
 several of his phrases, and they contrasted so 
 curiously with her superfine personality and gently 
 bred voice that Candace, during, her visit, had more 
 than once been moved to unexplained laughter. 
 
 "All right, I suppose." He dropped his head 
 against her arm. "I'm too tired to know." 
 
 "Why do you work so hard?" The question was
 
 160 EVER AFTER 
 
 only a reproach at first, but, when he did not answer, 
 she repeated it with startled emphasis: "Dana, 
 why do you work so hard?" His eyes fell away 
 from her troubled look. 
 
 "Well, for one thing, I think I ought to have some 
 output to show soon," he offered tentatively. 
 "Don't you think yourself that I'd better let the 
 family see ?" 
 
 "But the famil - is all right. Why, they have 
 been so nice to yoa, Dana!" 
 
 "No have they?" with a feeble attempt at 
 humour. 
 
 "Why, my dear,i they have all had us to dinner, 
 and asked you to , play I think they have been 
 very nice indeed."? 
 
 "So they have Only well, we do it a little 
 differently at hoi le: that's all. It would be per- 
 fectly natural if tuey hated me," he added indiffer- 
 ently. "I should think they would." 
 
 "Cousin Susie said you had a very charming 
 smile and manner," Lucy insisted. "Aunt Mar- 
 garet was a little short, but, Dana dear, that was 
 your own fault." - 
 
 "I only said that,Mt. Vernon Street was steep!" 
 
 "I know; but she has lived on Mt. Vernon Street 
 all her life, and her people before her, and it was 
 like criticising her own home to her, don't you see?" 
 
 "But but " Then Dana choked down his
 
 EVER AFTER 161 
 
 sputtering protest. "I'm a Yahoo," he murmured 
 contritely. What else mustn't I say?" 
 
 "You shall say anything on earth you like!" 
 She was suddenly all on his side. "I am so proud 
 of you, Dana. And when you play, you are so 
 beautiful, I can't take my eyes off you!" 
 
 The outburst moved him to laughter, but it 
 also cheered and refreshed him. Presently they lit 
 the fire there were four able-bodied servants gos- 
 siping in the basement, but Lucy rarely rang a 
 bell and sat down on the hearth rug with her 
 packages between them. She had been Christmas 
 shopping, and displayed her gifts with a satisfaction 
 too secure to be critical of his response. A bank- 
 rupt sale had furnished Irish lace for several cousins, 
 an unimportant defect had made a bronze inkstand 
 exactly the thing for Aunt Lizzie, while a chocolate 
 pot of Royal Worcester, miraculously reduced, had 
 been discovered for Cousin Susie, who was devoted 
 to china. 
 
 "I had to give her something very nice, she was 
 so dear about living with me," Lucy explained, 
 holding up the pot for admiration. "Wasn't it 
 luck that they would sell it without the cups?" 
 
 "But I should think it needed the cups;" Dana 
 spoke worriedly. 
 
 "Oh, but they are very expensive. Perhaps I 
 will give them to her next year." And she turned
 
 162 EVER AFTER 
 
 contentedly to a big parcel in which many small 
 articles had been sent. There were swirling paper 
 knives of greenish metal that left a brassy odour on 
 the hands, crudely embroidered neckwear sewn into 
 unlaunderable shapes, blue and green jewellery of 
 the kind that has been called home-made, glass 
 bottles with thin silver-gilt tops, brocade frames for 
 photographs a lapful of the things that must be 
 created solely as gifts, since no man or woman 
 would ever dream of buying them for personal 
 use. 
 
 "They are only Christmas tokens, you see;" she 
 was beginning to be depressed by his lack of enthu- 
 siasm. "They don't pretend to be anything else." 
 
 "But why not?" he asked impulsively. "It 
 would be so much more fun to give them things 
 they'd love, Lucy!" 
 
 "But, my dear boy, you don't realize the number 
 of them. Look at that!" She held up a long list 
 before him, and believed him convinced, since he 
 said nothing further. "I have a little thing here 
 for Candy," she went on. "Of course, the cushion 
 cover was her real present: she wouldn't expect 
 anything more. But I wanted something for 
 Christmas Day. Here it is. Shall I say it is from 
 us both?" 
 
 Dana took the little red blotting pad, still marked 
 $1.10, and slowly turned it over before eyes that
 
 EVER AFTER 163 
 
 did not seem to be looking at it. Then he laid it 
 down and rose to his feet. 
 
 "No, don't say it is from me, too," he said, return- 
 ing to his work. "I'll find her something or 
 write her a letter." 
 
 "If there is anything here that you would like 
 
 to give " Lucy motioned generously to her 
 
 whole assortment, but he would not look. 
 
 "Thanks, I'll find something," he said absently. 
 Believing that genius burned, she sat very still, 
 not even gathering up her possessions lest the sound 
 disturb him. She held his work always in passionate 
 respect. 
 
 Dana had lately put aside his ambitious suite 
 and thrown himself headlong into the Celtic songs 
 that had come down to him with his talent from 
 his grandfather. They had grown wonderfully 
 under his hand, taking on a depth and richness that 
 would have startled old Brian Malone, fiddling with 
 easy sentiment for an earnestly staring little boy. 
 Perhaps, if Dana had been wholly happy, he could 
 not have done so well. He was bent over the 
 manuscript now, but he was not working. From 
 behind his hand he could see Lucy's unconscious 
 profile, rosy with firelight, the earnest sweetness 
 of her mouth, the gravity and beauty that lay 
 about her eyes and, over all, some new shadow. 
 Even sitting on a hearth rug, she kept her youthful-
 
 164 EVER AFTER 
 
 princess quality, her beloved little air of decorum: 
 so fine she looked, so fragrant, so ennobled with 
 high meanings, and yet, someway, so touched with 
 pathos, that presently he came abruptly back to 
 her. 
 
 "What can I do for you, on all the earth?" he 
 asked, his hands on her shoulders. She lifted 
 smiling lips, and the troubled question, the secret 
 strain of a dread stoutly denied, faded as he kissed 
 her. 
 
 "You do love me," she said quickly. 
 
 "Yes." Oaths could not have made the simple 
 assent more convincing. She clung to him with 
 breathless intensity. Then, 
 
 "Play 'Mary Alone,'" she whispered. 
 
 She did not ask for it often: it had meant too 
 much to both of them. At the first bar, she could 
 feel the cool breath of dark June woods on her face 
 and her heart throbbing against her side; the dim 
 path that had led her to the full glory of life was 
 under her daring feet. As Dana played it, its wild 
 melancholy usually fell on her ears like an exquisite 
 refinement of joy, a longing that is on the verge 
 of fulfilment, and she leaned back now with closed 
 eyes to let it take her where it would. But presently 
 her eyes opened with a start. He was playing it 
 with new meaning, and its sadness was no longer 
 the mere veil of joy. Deep was calling unto deep,
 
 EVER AFTER 165 
 
 and Lucy, hearing, grew frightened at the blind 
 appeal. A darkness that she had never before 
 fully seen lay on his face. 
 
 "Dana! Nothing is as sad as that!" she cried 
 as his hands fell away from the keys. "Oh, don't 
 play it that way don't! Oh, what is it?" 
 
 The look vanished and he laughed at her, swinging 
 into an Irish jig. 
 
 "I only tried it in another key, little Lucy," 
 he apologized. "I won't do it again." 
 
 He was so cheerful, so contrite, that she had to 
 accept his explanation; but the moment was not 
 obliterated. She wrapped her packages in silence, 
 then laid them down with a sigh. 
 
 "What shall we give each other for Christmas?" 
 she asked idly. 
 
 "Silver and gold. Jewels. Fur coats and auto- 
 mobiles. Everything heart can wish." He flung 
 it out with a laugh that hid a touch of impatience. 
 
 "No; but I mean seriously," she urged. "Do 
 you like fur-lined gloves?" 
 
 "No," said Dana, turning back to the piano. 
 
 "You should say, 'No, thank you, Lucy.' Isn't 
 there some music you want? " 
 
 "I don't believe so thank you, Lucy." 
 
 "You are very unsatisfactory. Do give me a 
 suggestion." 
 
 Dana was making discordant sounds with the
 
 166 EVER AFTER 
 
 keys. "Why not a necktie?" lie asked, and then 
 was ashamed of himself. 
 
 "But you have so many," she answered quite 
 simply. "Besides, that would not be enough. 
 What shall you give me?" 
 
 "A bottle of cologne and a box of candy." 
 
 "Is that a joke?" 
 
 He rose. "My dear Lucy," he explained, trying 
 to speak lightly, "giving you handsome presents 
 with your own money doesn't seem to be quite 
 suitable; and I have exactly twelve dollars of my 
 very own in the world. It came from the sale of 
 my furniture and effects, after I left New York. 
 You are therefore going to get exactly twelve dollars' 
 worth of Christmas from me no more and no less." 
 
 "Twelve dollars will buy a very nice present 
 indeed," she declared. "But the money is yours, 
 dearest, just as much as it is mine. You must not 
 speak as if it weren't. You have only to take what 
 you want." 
 
 "Good little Lucy," was the vague answer, and 
 he turned as though to leave the room, then came 
 slowly back. "Do you know, my dear," he began, 
 standing over her with hands in his pockets, " I 
 think perhaps a man has to earn his own living? 
 I didn't suppose it would matter, so long as I 
 worked, and we loved each other. But I'm afraid 
 it does." No casual tone or careless attitude could
 
 EVER AFTER 167 
 
 mask the momentousness of what he said; and the 
 secret fright was out in Lucy's lifted face. 
 
 "But that isn't fair, Dana!" she broke in, so 
 hotly that he paused in surprise. "No, it is not 
 fair! My dear boy, you don't always know the 
 value of money; and because I do, because I've 
 had to speak about it ah, it is not fair to be so 
 sensitive, to make that a barrier between us! I 
 have learned a hundred things from you, so gladly. 
 Why shouldn't you learn that one thing from me?" 
 The protest must have been long in her heart, to 
 come rushing out so fluently. Dana stood helpless 
 and miserable before it. 
 
 "We see things differently, Lucy. We can't 
 help it. I want to go to work. Don't make it 
 hard for me." His gentleness, and the note of pain 
 in his voice, took the fight out of her for the moment. 
 She drooped bodily. 
 
 "What would you do?" she asked when the 
 silence had become unbearable. 
 
 "Nothing very big or conspicuous. Perhaps I 
 can get music criticism to do for one of the papers 
 and you would like going to the concerts. I might 
 take a pupil or two. I shan't try to help you run 
 the house!" He tried to lighten the tension with 
 a laugh. "But I must at least fill my own pockets. 
 I guess it's a law of nature, dear, and we're up 
 against it."
 
 168 EVER AFTER 
 
 "And all the time you weren't doing those things, 
 you would be at your music," she said heavily. "1 
 should see nothing at all of you." 
 
 He dropped down beside her, taking her into his 
 arms. "But, when we are together, won't it be 
 better than it has been lately?" he asked against 
 her cheek. " We haven't been very happy, have 
 we? With things frank and settled between us" 
 he drew her closer and closer "isn't three minutes 
 of this better than half a day of strained politeness? " 
 
 She turned her face away from his. "It is not 
 fair," she said unsteadily. "It isn't big of you. 
 If you can't take, you can't give you said that 
 yourself. And I won't consent to it I won't 
 forgive it." She broke away from him and ran 
 out of the room. 
 
 Dana did not go to work. For three days the 
 issue lay silent between them, taking the light out of 
 the sunshine, the savour out of their food, the joy 
 out of their love. Lucy was very cheerful, very 
 interested in everything that came up, determined 
 to prove that she stood firmly planted on common 
 sense and that the heart in her side was not one 
 fathomless ache. Dana, not belonging to the sex 
 that pretends, was frankly melancholy, and gave 
 her little help in her effort after a bright surface. It 
 was she who opened the topic again, marching herself 
 bravely up to it after dinner on the third night.
 
 EVER AFTER 169 
 
 "Have you given up that idea of going to work, 
 Dana?" she asked, standing in front of him, her 
 coffee cup in her hand. 
 
 "Oh, no. I have looked about a little," he 
 admitted. "I haven't found anything yet." 
 
 "But have you realized all sides of it?" She was 
 determined to appear entirely calm and logical and 
 mature. "For one thing, dear, we have a number of 
 engagements ahead. Suppose we had to throw over 
 some one's dinner because you had a concert to write 
 up? They wouldn't understand: they couldn't." 
 
 "No, I suppose not," he assented, so spiritlessly 
 that she grew bolder. 
 
 "And the wastefulness of it, Dana! Why, when 
 you worked nearly all the time in New York what 
 did you earn? Wasn't it just a few dollars?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then, with only a part of your time can't 
 you see that it wouldn't be worth while?" 
 
 "Perhaps;" he seemed to have physical difficulty 
 in producing his voice. "Not worth while as a 
 financial proposition, I admit. But, Lucy" for an 
 instant his clouded eyes looked straight into hers 
 "I want to." 
 
 The flesh visibly softened toward him, but her 
 mind stood firm. 
 
 "But you can't want to do things when you know 
 better, can you, my dearest boy?"
 
 170 EVER AFTER 
 
 "I don't know better. I think it would be good 
 for me. I'd be nicer about the house." 
 
 "But that is absurd. And it's unkind." Her 
 voice quivered. "Refusing to use what I have to 
 give you it's refusing me, don't you see?" The 
 troubled woman in her suddenly overrode the calm 
 logician. Turning swiftly from him, she put down 
 her cup and walked away, her palms driven against 
 her cheeks. " I'm losing you ! " 
 
 The frightened whisper broke through his apathy 
 and touched him on the quick. He could not stand 
 out against it. Shame at having so hurt her swept 
 him to his feet, and he drew her back to the big 
 chair with remorseful vehemence. 
 
 "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he stammered, his face 
 buried in her dress. **I love you, Lucy I'm 
 sorry. I won't do anything you hate. Please 
 forgive me." 
 
 Though she clung to him, she would not accept 
 victory except as a triumph of the right. 
 
 "It isn't because I hate it," she insisted. "That 
 would be no reason oh, I love you; I would die 
 for you! But because it would be foolish and 
 wrong-headed, Dana." 
 
 "All right, dear," he assented humbly, his lips 
 against hers. 
 
 The sunshine was back in the world for Lucy, 
 but Dana, after a day or two of restored cheerfulness,
 
 EVER AFTER 171 
 
 began to feel dissatisfied, even a little ashamed. 
 He could not have done differently; yet his manhood 
 was resentful. The shears of Delilah seemed to be 
 sounding in his ears. A desire to assert himself 
 interfered with his work and made him restless. 
 Two days before Christmas he went downtown 
 with determination in his gait; yet, after all, he 
 came back empty-handed. For how could he send 
 Candace a lovely old necklace when Lucy had 
 already sent her a small red blotting pad? And the 
 same restraint held him with others : an outer loyalty 
 to his wife's acts was demanded of him, and tied 
 his hands. He relieved his feelings by giving a 
 dollar to a whining beggar woman at his own door, 
 and was not sorry that Lucy, coming out, should 
 catch him in the act. 
 
 "My dear boy!" she protested from the step 
 above him. "She is an old impostor. I have seen 
 her begging for years." 
 
 "Of course she is," he assented cheerfully. "But 
 don't you suppose that even impostors get cold 
 and hungry sometimes, just like honest people?" 
 To his surprise, she laughed. 
 
 "I think that woman probably owns blocks of 
 houses; but you are a love," she said, smiling down 
 on him so warmly that he was ashamed of his 
 petulant act, ashamed that she should read beauty 
 into it. He put his hands into her muff.
 
 172 EVER AFTER 
 
 "Where are you going?" he asked. 
 
 "To sit with Aunt Lizzie. She is so forlorn; 
 her rheumatism hasn't let her out for a week." 
 
 "Come and sit with me instead." 
 
 "Ah, I can't disappoint her, sweetheart. She 
 counts on me." 
 
 " So do I. I'm lonely. And I want a good time." 
 
 "What kind of a good time?" 
 
 "I want to do something loud and spectacular 
 for somebody who needs it awfully." 
 
 "My dear! It has been subscriptions and dona- 
 tions and S! 
 
 "Oh, I know: checks by mail. For institutions. 
 That is great, of course. But I mean something 
 close up, to one person, so that we get a glow out 
 of it. I want to feel Christmasy." 
 
 "Do you mean the ragged child with its nose 
 against the shop window?" 
 
 "Not at all. I propose that we dash on to New 
 York and buy a picture of Palmer Jacks and all 
 of little Willing's pottery. What do you say? " 
 
 She did not dream that he really meant it. "I say 
 that you are quite mad, but a love, just the same," 
 she assured him. 
 
 "But, Lucy, really, why couldn't we?" he per- 
 sisted. "If the things are too bad to give away, 
 we can put them in a guest-room, you know!" 
 There was a gentle gibe in that, but she did not heed
 
 EVER AFTER 173 
 
 it. A worried line was creeping about her lips. 
 "Just think how bursting happy it would make 
 them," he begged. "Can't you see little Will- 
 ing ? I know he has an awful time. Oh, 
 
 come on, Looshy!" 
 
 Her brightness had faded. "But so many people 
 have awful times, Dana. There is no sense in 
 helping one individual;" she spoke almost impa- 
 tiently. "If we could do something for all the 
 Willings but we can't. Now I must go, dear. 
 Will you come with me?" 
 
 "No, I think not," he said, and shut the door 
 on her in troubled humility. 
 
 "Am I a fool? A crazy sentimentalist? " he asked 
 of his silent, sober home. "People who know how 
 to be rich don't they ever go out and make one 
 person roaring happy, just for the joy of it? Isn't 
 that legitimate?" The house had no answer for 
 him; big as it was, it seemed to cramp him. He 
 foresaw years in it with his real self pacing behind 
 bars, silent but unsubdued, and a despairing anger 
 swept over him. "I want to be my kind! I want 
 to do things my way!" he muttered. 
 
 Lucy's parents had always taken Christmas dinner 
 with the Stephen Cuylers. Other branches of the 
 family assembled at the Mortimer Cuylers', where 
 there was more youth and merriment, but Lucy
 
 174 EVER AFTER 
 
 was unquestioningly loyal to the tradition of the 
 past. The dinner was held at the somewhat un- 
 genial hour of three o'clock, and they turned reluc- 
 tantly from the bells and brightness outside to the 
 engulfing gloom of the lofty front hall. The dark, 
 solemn old house had put a prim wreath or two 
 in its windows, where they hung like a respectful 
 echo of Aunt Margaret's earrings. The older, 
 more conservative element of the family was repre- 
 sented, for the more brilliant or worldly members 
 went firmly to the Mortimer Cuylers', and, but for 
 two "girls" of withered youth, only Dana and Lucy 
 were under forty. The assembled guests, sitting 
 or standing about the drawing-room, showed to 
 Western eyes a curious shyness with one another. 
 They were all related and had grown up or old 
 together, yet a pall of self-consciousness lay over 
 them. They went out to dinner awkwardly, over- 
 smiling, with repeated steppings on trailing skirts. 
 After the stimulation of finding their places was 
 used up, silences settled chillingly down at every 
 pause. 
 
 Aunt Margaret always sat like a policeman at 
 the gates of conversation, challenging, correcting, 
 and rebuking, an attitude which would naturally 
 check its flow in her immediate neighbourhood; 
 but, even at a safe distance, there was no movement. 
 Brief remarks were offered, shy questions and smiling
 
 EVER AFTER 175 
 
 answers, but no social fluid was generated to blend 
 the company; the elements stayed dry and distinct. 
 Lucy, obliged to speak across the table, blushed to 
 her eyes. For the most part, with slightly bent 
 heads and constrained elbows, they ate. 
 
 Had it been a rural shyness, Dana, out of his 
 good humour and his inborn ease, could have caught 
 hold, flung topics and gayety right and left until 
 everybody was taking part and the day was saved. 
 But instinct told him that this urban shyness was 
 of another breed, and that the young outsider who 
 attempted to come to its aid would be smartly put 
 in his place and frozen there. It might even be 
 a part of the firm, "We do it," which had more than 
 once dropped squarely across the path of his in- 
 quiries. He tried to content his soul with the 
 excellence of the food, but the desire to do some- 
 thing even to break something grew on him 
 intolerably. 
 
 Aunt Lizzie, on his right, had her deaf ear toward 
 him, so, after the whole table had heard him repeat 
 three times the hope that her rheumatism was 
 better, he turned exasperatedly to Cousin Amy on 
 his left. But Cousin Amy considered it queer for 
 a man to be a musician, and much worse than queer 
 for him to have no producible antecedents, and 
 though she responded pleasantly enough, she main- 
 tained her principles by keeping her face averted.
 
 176 EVER AFTER 
 
 It is hard to talk with enthusiasm to a profile, and 
 Dana, abandoning that, sent a glance of despair 
 down the table to Lucy. 
 
 It was in that moment that a new knowledge was 
 given to Dana Malone: he saw with his own eyes 
 the solidarity of Family. Lucy sat as the others 
 sat, her shyness was their shyness, her reserves, 
 scruples, complications were woven through them 
 all: her relation to him was incidental compared to 
 the bond that held her to them. Between him 
 and them lay a hopeless gulf: they could never 
 really understand one another; what meant an 
 anguish of boredom to him had some obscure cere- 
 monial value to them, and his natural methods of 
 enjoyment would be wholly alien to their sympathies. 
 Lucy had crossed to his side for a few free and 
 joyous months, but, to his dismayed glance, it seemed 
 now that they were inexorably taking her back to 
 themselves. This repressed, anxious, dutiful guest 
 bore no relation to the blossoming, expanding girl 
 to whom he had made love on the hills of Sky 
 Farm. She was not comfortable, but she was not 
 finding the occasion horrible, as he was. She felt 
 no rebellion. Twenty years from now she would 
 be sitting there, just as timidly sweet and dutiful, 
 
 and he But there his smothered protest 
 
 burst up through the impassive surface. Without 
 realizing what he did, he sprang to his feet.
 
 EVER AFTER 177 
 
 "A toast?'* said Aunt Margaret blandly, a hand 
 toward her glass. Her voice and the startled faces 
 about him brought him back to his senses. It was 
 a dreadful moment, but he managed to take up 
 a glass. 
 
 "Merry Christmas!" he said feebly, and dropped 
 down into his seat again, holding back a blush by 
 sheer force of will. 
 
 They responded courteously, a little surprised, 
 yet ready to accept differences of custom from him. 
 And the ceremony amused and relaxed them. 
 Conversation flowed more easily after that. By 
 dessert, they were all talking, except Dana, who 
 wearily leaned back and watched them with apa- 
 thetic eyes. 
 
 It was evening when they left, other relatives 
 setting them down at their door. Lucy, still fresh 
 and alert, kept her air of content even when they 
 were free and alone again. 
 
 "It went off very well, didn't it?" she said, 
 preceding him up the stairs. Dana turned aside 
 into the music room on a muttered excuse and shut 
 the door. 
 
 "I'm common," he said with shut teeth. "Com- 
 mon! There are Irish jigs in my blood. My God, 
 if I have to sit through that again, I'll die!" 
 
 The domestic life that he had foreseen, the easy 
 hospitality, the singing and laughter, the spon-
 
 178 EVER AFTER 
 
 taneous pushing back of rugs for a dance, the times 
 of intensified care and tenderness and the joyous 
 baby presences "my son," "my little girl,'* 
 all his dream of home came back in mocking con- 
 trast to the smothering formality of that afternoon. 
 The silence of his own house seemed to foreshadow 
 years as socially arid, as secretly melancholy. He 
 began to play, so stormily that presently he found 
 a figure in a kimono standing anxiously beside him. 
 The question in his wife's eyes had to be met. He 
 was ashamed when he saw how he had troubled her. 
 
 "Lucy, where's our little Frederick? And our 
 little Susan?" he asked. 
 
 "I know! They are very slow about it, aren't 
 they!" She curled down relievedly on the bench 
 beside him. 
 
 "Some way or other, there has got to be a Christ- 
 mas tree in this house by next year," Dana an- 
 nounced with authority. 
 
 "With dollies on it," she assented dreamily. 
 
 "No; lead soldiers." 
 
 They laughed at that. "Ah, weren't we happy, 
 out there?" she added, with a little movement of 
 body and breath that meant regret. 
 
 "They always tell you that marriage isn't so 
 easy as it looks;" Dana was answering the sigh. 
 "I guess there's something in it, my dear." The 
 doors between them seemed to be wide open: they
 
 EVER AFTER 179 
 
 were suddenly as close in spirit as they were in 
 body. 
 
 "If only one weren't so puzzled," she said eagerly. 
 * 'If one could know just what the other and what 
 was right and fair ah, if one knew!" 
 
 A startled vision of a new possibility, of everything 
 between them put bravely into words, held him 
 silent. Moved and open as he was, he might have 
 made the attempt then, for good or ill, if a house- 
 maid had not interrupted with wood for the fire. 
 Lucy watched her build it up with an uneasy frown. 
 
 "Not so much, Kate," she exclaimed. "Look, 
 you can make it burn with half that." She took 
 active charge, rescuing several sticks for future use. 
 When the modest blaze was started and the maid 
 had gone, she came back to Dana, dusting her hands. 
 
 "Servants are so wasteful," she protested. Dana's 
 mind admitted the truth of the complaint, but his 
 heart chilled before its distressed utterance. For 
 an instant the grinding spirit of old Adrian Cuyler 
 had looked out at him. 
 
 Christmas was not over with the passing of the 
 day. For a week afterward, a new frostiness, faint 
 but unmistakable, was exhaled from the older 
 members of the family in Dana's presence. He 
 could scarcely go down the street without meeting 
 a Cuyler, and nearly all of them showed if only 
 by the emphasized friendliness of the partisan
 
 180 EVER AFTER 
 
 that he was being talked over. When he tried to 
 pay Aunt Margaret's carfare, her caustic, "Don't 
 trouble save your money. I prefer to pay for 
 myself," left him helpless and puzzled. Cousin 
 Susie finally let out the secret. The family was 
 surprised that Dana, so kindly received, had not 
 troubled to send so much as a rose or a calendar 
 to his new relatives. The gift was unimportant, 
 but its omission showed a lack of recognition on his 
 part, a want of well-bred graciousness. Each had 
 thought nothing of it until she discovered that 
 the others had been passed over, too; and it was 
 for the others that she felt the neglect. Kind 
 Cousin Susie was sure that customs varied in differ- 
 ent parts of the country and that Christmas presents 
 were not usual where Dana came from, so that he 
 could not be expected to know their significance; 
 but she had thought that perhaps a few New Year's 
 cards and a potted fern for Aunt Margaret might 
 ease the situation, and that was why she had told 
 her dear Lucy. Her dear Lucy, quite pale with 
 anger, had declared that everything she had sent 
 was "from us both, of course" she had supposed 
 that every one would understand that; and not until 
 Cousin Susie had hurried off with the explanation 
 did she realize that perhaps it was not quite true. 
 
 "Why didn't you send a few flowers, Dana?" 
 she asked when she had told him the trouble. "I
 
 EVER AFTER 181 
 
 hate to have them think you ungracious or ungen- 
 erous. Don't you think you should have?" 
 
 Dana made no answer at all. She had yearned 
 to share his anger, but, if he felt resentment, he 
 kept it to himself. The family, slightly reactionary 
 after Cousin Susie's zealous round, returned to a 
 charitable tolerance, unconcerned as to what might 
 lie behind the passive courtesy of his response. 
 And Dana, ardent, lonely, wounded, shut himself 
 up in his work and tried to assert that that was the 
 only thing in life that really mattered. As Palmer 
 Jacks had once said, he had not yet learned to 
 laugh. 
 
 Truly, the gadflies were out after Dana Malone. 
 Before that sting could be forgotten, a letter from 
 Candace brought a fresh attack. She enclosed a 
 letter from California. 
 
 "I thought you ought to see this," she had written. 
 "I hate passing on unpleasant things; but I am 
 so certain there is some good explanation. Write 
 Leila or let me. Of course, I knew there was some- 
 thing, when you wouldn't talk about San Francisco. 
 Now don't retreat into a proud silence, my boy. 
 That is a very bad trick of yours. Good old friends 
 have to be conciliated, even at the cost of explaining 
 to them that you are not an utter fool." 
 
 Dana knew with miserable certainty what was 
 coming as he turned to the marked page:
 
 182 EVER AFTER 
 
 "I don't suppose you see anything of Dana 
 Malone, now that he has married into the first 
 Boston circles. Do you know that he was out here 
 on his wedding trip people saw him on the street, 
 spoke to him and he didn't send word to one of 
 his old friends? We can't help being hurt about it. 
 We had heard he was coming, and had planned to 
 give him the warmest kind of a welcome, but 
 evidently it wasn't wanted. It is hard to believe 
 of Dana. I don't see how even money could have 
 changed him like that. Still, there doesn't seem 
 to be any other explanation. If he had wanted to 
 see us, we were right there, and waiting. I must 
 confess, I feel rather sick about it. East is East 
 and West is West how can you stay in a place that 
 can make people so cold blooded? Come back to 
 us, Candy, before you, too, are spoiled." 
 
 Dana read the sheet again and again, and if his 
 old friends could have seen his face, they would have 
 had no room left for their own hurt. Then he put 
 it away and went back to his work. He said nothing 
 about it to Lucy, and he wrote neither to Candace 
 nor to California.
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 DANA'S naturally expansive spirit, having re- 
 treated into itself, made the dangerous discovery 
 that it was easier to stay there. He did everything 
 that Lucy suggested with a spiritless assent that 
 nearly broke her heart: he seemed to have neither 
 impulses nor preferences, so long as he was allowed 
 to work undisturbed. Lucy belonged to her family, 
 not to him. He was a mere incident, a footnote in 
 the family history, and could not expect to affect 
 its course. His own attitude to wealth was maturing. 
 The desire to spend and to give was still in the fore- 
 ground, but under it was growing a new under- 
 standing of the power that lay, unused, in his wife's 
 hands. He had tried, once or twice, to show her 
 what he saw, but, at the first words, Lucy 
 had retreated so uneasily that he had given up. 
 It was better to keep to his role of passive out- 
 sider. He knew, dimly, that he was not be- 
 having very well, but he was young and hurt, 
 and there was solace in the specious dignity of 
 his attitude. The Celtic songs were finished, 
 but he did not send them to his publisher, some 
 
 183
 
 184 EVER AFTER 
 
 vague premonition impelling him to "keep them on 
 hand." 
 
 "I'll take them to New York myself some day," 
 he explained to Lucy. "I may want to make some 
 different arrangement about them sell them out- 
 right or something. You can't tell." Laid in a 
 drawer, they were tangible assets, convertible prop- 
 erty. He turned a key on them with grave satis- 
 faction, and buried himself in his "Children's Cru- 
 sade" without a day's holiday. He would have 
 stayed buried in it indefinitely if a belated notice of 
 a thousand-dollar prize, offered for an orchestral 
 piece by an American composer, had not roused 
 Lucy to excited hope. 
 
 "It isn't the money," she urged, fighting bravely 
 against his apathy. "Think of having it played 
 by one of the finest orchestras in the country! 
 O Dana, the night we went on to hear it 
 wouldn't you nearly die of joy?" 
 
 "But nobody ever wins in competitions," he 
 objected. "Nobody you know, that is. Besides, 
 it closes in let me see ten days." 
 
 "Well, you have practically finished it. You 
 could potter over it for twenty years longer, but it 
 is really done, isn't it? " 
 
 "I suppose it is, after a fashion." 
 
 "And you can get help on the mechanical work. 
 Come and play it," she insisted.
 
 EVER AFTER 185 
 
 Dana obeyed unwillingly, but presently the music 
 stirred his reluctant hopes. It was good! The 
 childish pilgrims streamed brightly forth, all youth 
 and faith and innocent splendour, and the mothers 
 at home wailed in vain. When the little host, 
 broken and beaten on earth, had been taken up 
 into heavenly glory, Dana saw with fresh eyes what 
 he had done, and was amazed. "Did I write that?" 
 was his solemn thought. 
 
 "It is the most beautiful thing in the world!" 
 Lucy had tears on her eyelashes. "O my dear, 
 the night they play it!" 
 
 Her faith moved him more than he would show. 
 "All right, I'll try it," he assented. "It will be 
 a stiff week." 
 
 "I will do everything I can to make it easier," 
 she promised. And she kept her word, putting 
 herself aside with whole-hearted devotion. If Dana 
 did not come to a meal, the meal unobtrusively 
 came to him: engagements were deferred or refused 
 for him: the music room was put in order before 
 breakfast, and no one went near it on any pretext 
 afterward. At first the joy of defending him kept 
 her gay, but toward the end of the week it grew to 
 be lonely work. Dana emerged too absorbed and 
 tired for human intercourse. On the last night, 
 it was after midnight when the music room door 
 opened.
 
 186 EVER AFTER 
 
 "Hello!" he said surprisedly, for his wife sat 
 curled down against the doorpost, her head resting 
 on her knees. Beside her, on a chair, was a tray 
 holding a thermos bottle, a cup and some sponge 
 cakes. 
 
 "I had some hot chocolate made for you you 
 ate so little dinner," she explained, rising. "Will 
 you drink it?" 
 
 "I certainly will," he assented, remotely touched 
 and grateful, though too spent to produce the feelings 
 with any conviction. " Why didn't you bring it in? " 
 
 "My dear! I wouldn't have interrupted you if 
 the house had been on fire," she assured him seriously. 
 "At least, not if I thought we could get it out." 
 
 "Good little Lucy!" He tried to rouse his jaded 
 spirit to a proper response. "What have you been 
 doing with yourself all this week?" 
 
 "Oh, the usual things." She filled his cup, then 
 stood leaning against the table, looking thought- 
 fully down on him. "Your life is ever so much 
 nicer than mine," she complained. "I have been 
 thinking about it all the week." 
 
 The chocolate was reviving him; the moment had 
 become pleasant and homelike. "How do you 
 mean?" he asked comfortably. 
 
 "The thing you want to do most of all is the thing 
 you must do;" she was almost scolding him for it. 
 "When you have had a perfect orgie of happiness,
 
 EVER AFTER 187 
 
 you have been fulfilling your highest duty. My 
 days are all spent in doing what I don't want to." 
 
 "But why are they?" 
 
 "Because those are the things that must be done. 
 I have had two committee meetings to-day, and I 
 have visited the Diet Kitchen, and I've sat with 
 a lame aunt only, of course, I didn't mind that," 
 with a note of apology; "and I have had four 
 requests for donations; and I had to telephone to 
 a man I didn't know and ask him to do something 
 he didn't want to; and I've oh, it is ordeals all 
 the time. I do get so tired of screwing myself up, 
 Dana! And yet it isn't half what my mother used 
 to do every day of her life." 
 
 "Poor girl! What would you do if you could 
 choose? Without any conscience at all?" There 
 was a mocking intonation for "conscience," but 
 she did not heed it. 
 
 "Paint, of course. I am not good enough to 
 make it a real vocation, with rights of its own, but 
 it is what I want. I would work at painting, and 
 see pictures, and read lovely things; and go for 
 long walks with you; and see Candy oftener; and not 
 do anything formal ever again," she ended with 
 impatient emphasis. 
 
 Dana finished his chocolate in thoughtful silence. 
 "I'll tell you what," he said presently; "we'll take 
 a vacation, and for two months you shall do exactly
 
 188 EVER AFTER 
 
 as you please. We'll go to New York and sublet 
 a studio apartment; you can always get them at 
 this time of the year. You shall have a big duplex 
 workroom, and you can go to classes if you like, and 
 see all the exhibitions. And we'll be as near Candy 
 as possible; everything just as you want it. Why 
 not?" 
 
 For a moment her face had lit at the prospect; 
 then the light slowly faded. "I couldn't. It would 
 not be right," she said worriedly. She admitted 
 that her place could be filled on the committees. 
 "I am not really very good on them," she explained; 
 yet the objection persisted. "We don't do things 
 in a moment, like that," she assured him. "I 
 might plan it for next winter; but there isn't time 
 now." 
 
 The "we don't do it" echoed of Aunt Margaret, 
 and struck irritatingly on Dana's strained nerves. 
 In the freedom of Sky Farm, Lucy had exulted in 
 doing things on a moment's notice. Again he saw 
 the family inexorably reclaiming her. 
 
 "Why take half a year to plan a thing as simple 
 as a b c ?" he exclaimed. "You tell me your heart's 
 desire, and I show you how you can have a try at it. 
 Why not simply rid your soul of scruples that don't 
 mean a thing and take your chance?" 
 
 His force was persuasive. And she had heard 
 about her scruples before, heard enough to disturb
 
 EVER AFTER 189 
 
 her implicit faith in them, even if she could not 
 check their rising. "You think I ought?" she 
 hesitated. 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "W-e-11 It was the slow beginning of 
 
 concession, but she broke off to ask, "What would 
 the rent be?" 
 
 "Oh, three hundred a month, perhaps." 
 
 "Three hundred dollars a month!" She could 
 not believe that she had heard aright. 
 
 "But you get their linen and silver and furniture. 
 It would probably be more. People always expect 
 a good profit when they sublet." 
 
 "Three hundred a month!" It had a downward 
 inflection, this time. "I think that is perfectly 
 iniquitous. I supposed you were going to say fifty 
 dollars a month." 
 
 "You couldn't get a duplex hencoop for that 
 in New York. You would never feel it," Dana 
 added, rising. 
 
 "It is the principle," said Lucy with tightened 
 lips. 
 
 "Is it?" he asked, his tone carefully meaningless, 
 though his eyes searched hers. "The principle that 
 you couldn't spend so much for pleasure when you 
 might be doing active good with the money?" 
 
 "I suppose so." Some faint emphasis on that 
 "active good" made her voice falter for an instant.
 
 190 EVER AFTER 
 
 "Anyway, it is too much," she concluded firmly. 
 "When we have this big house here." 
 
 "True: we have this big house here," he said, 
 waiting with his hand at the light for her to leave 
 the room. She went slowly, troubled and rebellious 
 at the unspoken criticism in his attitude. Half- 
 way up the stairs, she turned and waited for him. 
 
 "Do you realize that three hundred a month 
 means an investment of seventy two thousand 
 dollars?" she demanded. "If you knew more 
 about the earning capacity of money, my dear 
 boy my grandfather taught me that when I was 
 a little child. He used to say, 'When you spend 
 a dollar, remember that a dollar is all that twenty 
 dollars can earn in a year.' That taught me more!" 
 In the fear that she might seem to be disapproving 
 of him, she laid her hand on his shoulder. "We 
 think nothing of five cents, and yet, after all, it takes 
 a dollar twelve months to earn even that. If you had 
 only learned to see it that way when you were little ! " 
 
 "Thank God, I didn't!" sprang to Dana's lips, 
 but he crushed back the words, with only an im- 
 patient movement of his shoulder to betray them. 
 
 "We don't think it right to waste money," she 
 went on. "We look on people who inherit fortunes 
 as the stewards of them rather than the owners." 
 
 "Fine old gag," Dana murmured, but she was 
 too intent on her explanation to heed.
 
 EVER AFTER 191 
 
 "It is our business to use them wisely and pass 
 them on whole larger rather than smaller. Can't 
 you see that, dear?" 
 
 "Yes, I see that." 
 
 "Then mustn't that control our spending?" 
 
 The answer was to him childishly obvious. He 
 had only to say, "It is right to save, it is often 
 wrong to spend, but to love to save, to hate to 
 spend that is evil;" and the whole question would 
 lie open between them. But he was tired, body 
 and soul. 
 
 "I'm Irish, Lucy," he said. "You can't change 
 me, I'm afraid. Now I must go to bed." 
 
 "Ah, of course you are tired out;" she hurried 
 on ahead of him. "I forgot for the moment. I'm 
 sorry ! Can't I do something for you? " 
 
 "Nothing, thanks." He turned to his own room 
 and, after an instant's hesitation, shut the door. 
 Much may be expressed in the closing of a door: 
 that it will not open again that night, for instance; 
 and that he who shuts it, though heartsick himself, 
 is sorry that he must hurt the one on the other side. 
 
 The struggle between them was perilously close 
 to the surface; but a forlorn sense that words were 
 of no use still kept Dana silent. The difference lay 
 in their blood and bones, far beyond the reach of 
 argument. He reproached himself for letting this 
 one thing bulk so darkly between them when in
 
 192 EVER AFTER 
 
 every other way Lucy was so darling a person, yet, 
 no matter in what mood he came to her, some petty 
 aspect of their difference presently blotted out the 
 light. It seemed to him sometimes as though every 
 breath drawn involved the hideous factor of money. 
 
 "All that twenty dollars can earn in a year," 
 he found himself muttering that night as he tried 
 to go to sleep, and no wrathful turning from the 
 phrase could get it out of his head. He awoke the 
 next morning to find it still nagging at him : " When 
 you spend a dollar all that twenty dollars can 
 earn in a year " 
 
 "We can't go on like this," he exclaimed, starting 
 up; and Lucy, on the other side of the closed door, 
 desolate and frightened, was saying the same words : 
 "We can't go on like this." But neither foresaw 
 the alternative. 
 
 Late that afternoon Dana carried his manuscript 
 to the express office. 
 
 "Well, there is a thousand dollars coming to me, 
 anyway," he told himself. He was not flushed or 
 elated: it was a calm statement of fact. "There 
 isn't a man in America who can beat that. One 
 thousand dollars all mine." It was a reviving 
 thought. 
 
 The next day he would have set to work on a new 
 theme if Lucy had not objected. 
 
 "You are tired to death," she declared, trying
 
 EVER AFTER 193 
 
 to scold him heartily, after the manner of happy 
 and confident wives. "It is all nonsense, to slave 
 so. I am going to have the music room locked up 
 until next week." 
 
 If he would only have objected aloud, scolded 
 back, called her names, she could have lost her 
 point with a glad heart. His, "Well all right," 
 was a discouraging victory. 
 
 "What should you like to do?" she asked, rising 
 from the breakfast table for a look at the cold, gray, 
 still morning. "Shall we go out to the Country 
 Club and skate?" 
 
 "Have you joined?" 
 
 "No, dear, not yet. But Uncle Mortimer doesn't 
 mind putting us up. He said to ask him whenever 
 we wanted." 
 
 "I think we ought to join before we go again, 
 Lucy." 
 
 "But the skating will so soon be over;" she 
 looked unhappy. "I never have gone there for 
 anything else. And if next year we have a warm 
 winter " 
 
 "True, "he assented dryly, and turned to the mail 
 that had just been brought in. Presently an "O 
 Lucy!" in a very different tone brought her back 
 to him. He was reading a marked newspaper with 
 startled, grieved eyes. "Poor old Sam Bynner," 
 he exclaimed. "He has gone and all his lovely
 
 194 EVER AFTER 
 
 gift with him. Ah, I'm sorry. He was the best 
 friend I ever had." 
 
 His spirit was unlocked by the touch of sorrow; 
 he wanted to talk about his boyhood and Sam 
 Bynner's place in it, and the rush of touched remi- 
 niscence awoke a mighty homesickness. He dwelt 
 yearningly on his open, sunny land, on the welcome 
 and gayety of life there, on marvellous days spent 
 under redwoods or by the sea or on the gaunt moun- 
 tain never dreaming how he was wounding his 
 silent listener. Every glowing word put the knife 
 in deeper; a caged creature, given speech, would 
 have poured out just such a tale of his past. For 
 a newly married man to betray so poignant a home- 
 sickness was to betray the hopeless failure of his 
 marriage. Lucy sat with her face resting on her 
 hands, cold with a deathly chill from head to foot. 
 
 "And there's my adopted son," Dana went on. 
 "Luis Valdez you remember about him, Lucy? 
 I must give him every human chance. That is all 
 I can do for Sam Bynner." 
 
 "You didn't see him?" she managed to say, as 
 he seemed to expect an answer. 
 
 "No. We must go out there and look him up. 
 I have an idea that his people are pretty worthless, 
 but I shouldn't want to take him away from them 
 without being very sure." 
 
 She looked up, startled. "Take him away? "
 
 EVER AFTER 195 
 
 "Yes, dear. I want to teach him myself; or over- 
 see his work, anyway. I promised I would. Will 
 you go out there with me?" 
 
 "We might go next autumn;" she spoke unwill- 
 ingly, secretly swept by a hot hatred of the place 
 that was so dear to him. 
 
 "But I can't neglect the little chap for so long, 
 Lucy." 
 
 She was breaking open her own letters. "Can't 
 you get some teacher there to look him up and 
 give him lessons?" 
 
 "That isn't my idea of fulfilling a trust." 
 
 "But there must be very good teachers in San 
 Francisco. (Do you want to go to a dance at the 
 Holdens'?) It would be absurd and quixotic to 
 rush right back again: we might better spend all 
 that money on the boy himself. If he is worth it." 
 
 They were dangerously near to open hostility. 
 Lucy read her letters with an irritating air of interest, 
 and Dana, not guessing how he had stabbed her, 
 felt her aloofness with a resentment that pulsed for 
 violent expression. He curled his hands tightly 
 into his pockets and forced himself to a reasonable 
 tone. 
 
 "How about our big scheme for helping genius 
 to get heard and recognized?" he began. "It 
 seems to me that this is right in the line of it for 
 I have perfect faith in Sam Bynner's judgment.
 
 196 EVER AFTER 
 
 You remember all the plans we made? I have never 
 been able to get you to talk about it since we came 
 back. Have you lost faith in it? " 
 
 The hard edge in his voice roused the pride which, 
 though seldom visible, was a part of her inheritance. 
 Her glance seemed almost to question his right to 
 question her. 
 
 "I think that was all rather a wild dream," she 
 said coolly. "It is almost impossible to help people 
 without doing more harm than good. Especially 
 artists." 
 
 "Why do you think that?" 
 
 "Look at last summer. That was an honest 
 attempt to help. I was really interested and 
 enthusiastic. I gave Candace all the money she 
 wanted, and I went there with an open mind. But 
 it was just as Mr. Jacks said : something for nothing 
 is ruinous to anybody. You were the only one who 
 didn't seem to me definitely hurt by it." 
 
 "That is a short-sighted view, Lucy. There 
 are dozens of known cases when the right sort of 
 help has kept genius from going under. Take 
 Wagner " 
 
 "I have to believe what I have seen," she inter- 
 rupted. "I shall suggest to Candy that she use 
 the cottages as part of her school next summer." 
 The plan was formed that instant, under the bitter 
 need to wound. "She can pay me a small rent if
 
 EVER AFTER 197 
 
 she is prospering. I know she would rather." 
 Lucy gathered up her letters and rose. "I think 
 I won't go out this morning. I have some com- 
 mittee business to see to." She crossed the room 
 with a gentle dignity that seemed to put miles 
 between them. At the door his voice stopped her. 
 
 "Lucy is there any reason I should not go to 
 California myself now and attend to this?" 
 
 Had he proposed to go back to an old love, he 
 could not have struck more sharply. There was 
 a moment's silence, then, "You are free to do as 
 you please," she said with a faint shrug, and passed 
 out. 
 
 The masculine refuge of out of doors drew Dana 
 as imperatively as her own room called to Lucy. 
 Half that gray morning he tramped, but he could 
 not walk away from his bitterness. Though his 
 anger cooled, it was still a righteous anger; what he 
 had encountered was mean and ugly, and he did 
 right to cry shame on it. 
 
 "Something has got to happen," he said harshly 
 as he came back to his wife's house; but he had made 
 no conscious plan. Habit took him to the music 
 room, and, finding it dim and chilly, he put a match 
 to the fire and drew a chair close to the blaze. 
 
 Lucy came slowly down from the room above 
 and paused in the doorway, a colourless, exhausted 
 presence that was to haunt him later, though at the
 
 198 EVER AFTER 
 
 time he saw only his grievance. Her forehead drew 
 to a faint frown as she noticed the crackling logs. 
 
 "There is a fire going to waste in the morning 
 room," she said wearily. "Why didn't you sit 
 there, Dana, since you are not working?" 
 
 The question was largely automatic, and came 
 from a painful sense that she must act as usual, but 
 it was just the tiny touch for which the great disaster 
 hung waiting. Every protest that Dana had ever 
 crushed down rose up now to cry judgment on her. 
 He stood up and spoke with a deadly quietness. 
 
 "I can't stand this any longer. It is too hideous. 
 My wife has got to live with me in my house. 
 A man can't be subjected to I am going back to 
 New York. As soon as I can, I will have a home 
 there for you. You may come to it or not, as you 
 please. I don't care what you do with your own 
 money, but, if you live with me at all, you shall live 
 in my way." 
 
 She had put a fumbling hand on the back of a 
 chair, but her wide eyes did not falter from the dark 
 blaze in his, and, though she had grown painfully 
 white, the line of her mouth stayed firm. "Why, 
 Dana?" The question had no sound, but he saw 
 it, and answered with words that had long been 
 gathering. 
 
 "Because you are a miser. You are a beautiful 
 and lovely woman with a streak of the meanest sin
 
 EVER AFTER 199 
 
 on earth running right through the centre of you. 
 You love money. You hoard it. Look what your 
 income is and what you spend. If you saved it 
 for a purpose any purpose I shouldn't care. 
 But you save it for its own sake. You hate to give. 
 You can do it with gladness when your imagination 
 is really waked up, but it never stays awake for the 
 next case. You forget. I have heard you bargain 
 with a charwoman. I've seen you jubilant over a 
 dollar saved for what? In God's name, for what? 
 You have warned and reproved me until I hate the 
 sight and sound of your money. I can't live on it 
 another day. This is death to me, too, but it had 
 to come. I'm going now." 
 
 He waited for her to speak, but she stood as 
 though turned to ice until he had gone. When he 
 had packed trunk and bag and summoned a cab, he 
 came back to the open door. She sat where he had 
 sat by the fire, very still, her face turned from him, 
 but her head erect. 
 
 "Good-bye, Lucy." His voice was strained and 
 hard and he waited there for some response, but she 
 did not move or speak. With a shrug for his help- 
 lessness, he turned away.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 DANA left the house as he might have left a 
 battlefield. There was a sense of past horror, a dull 
 relief at his escape, and a weariness of body and 
 soul that wiped out all desires and regrets. He was 
 not unhappy until an acquaintance joined him on 
 the train: then the casual companionship awakened 
 an obscure anguish. His nerves secretly screamed 
 at every demand for response: his repulsion from 
 speech was like the sick body's repulsion from good. 
 The man got off at Providence, and again the dull 
 sense of peace and relief took possession. He 
 neither questioned his act nor made plans for the 
 future. Things had happened of themselves, and 
 would continue to happen. He arrived in New 
 York too late to take any active measures, and 
 went to a small hotel for the night. It was not a 
 white night: he slept, did not consciously suffer; and 
 yet the sight or name of that hotel, for years after- 
 ward, came like a sudden blotting out of the sun. 
 
 There was a little money due him at his music 
 publishers. Thirty-one dollars seemed an ample 
 cornerstone for fortune as Dana signed for it the 
 
 200
 
 EVER AFTER 201 
 
 next morning and went on upstairs to the editorial 
 offices. A dusty little fatherly man, peering 
 over his spectacles, held out a stubby hand 
 to him, smiling from the depths of a square brown 
 beard. 
 
 "Well, Malone, how's genius?" he asked. It was 
 their customary opening, and Dana smiled in answer, 
 laying down a package on the desk. 
 
 "I have brought you some Irish songs. Mr. Dick- 
 son," he explained. "And I want you to buy them 
 outright. Let me play them to you." 
 
 "Are they any good?" That also was a cus- 
 tomary joke between them. 
 
 "You listen and see." 
 
 A piano stood in the room, and, as Dana played, 
 silence fell on the adjoining offices. "Mary Alone" 
 brought a group outside the open door. Mr. Dick- 
 son sat with a hand on either knee, his bushy head 
 tipped back for closer attention, his eyes nearly hid- 
 den under dropped lids. When the songs had all 
 been played and the audience had melted away, 
 he took the manuscript and inattentively turned 
 the pages. Suddenly he spoke. 
 
 "Malone, you're a fool to sell these outright. 
 We can't give you more than oh, seventy, eighty 
 dollars for all six of them. We never do. And if 
 they're as good as they seem to me they may go on 
 selling all your life. We will publish them, of course;
 
 202 EVER AFTER 
 
 but you shouldn't let them get out of your own 
 hands." 
 
 "I have to have the money," said Dana. 
 
 "Why, but I thought " Mr. Dickson checked 
 
 himself, puzzled and uncertain. Dana felt his 
 questioning look, but made no effort at explanation. 
 The meaningful pause did not even embarrass him, 
 for, with the inner truth so dreadful, outer scrutiny 
 and wonder seemed then of small consequence. 
 He recognized the awkwardness with a silent, tired, 
 "I can't bother about that!" and waited apatheti- 
 cally for the moment to pass. 
 
 "Of course, acting for the firm, I ought to jump 
 at them," Mr. Dickson concluded. 
 
 "Give me eighty dollars and lend me a piano," 
 said Dana, rising. "I shall be perfectly satisfied. 
 But I must have the money to-day." 
 
 "I shall have to talk it over with the Chief, but 
 
 I don't think there will be any You are in 
 
 New York now?" 
 
 "Yes; and I want work, a lot of it. Any kind." 
 
 "You do?" There was a promising inflection 
 in Mr. Dickson's voice that brought their eyes 
 together. "Well, there may be something. Come 
 back this afternoon," he temporized. "I will do 
 what I can about the check." His handshake 
 expressed trust and sympathy, but there was no 
 response in Dana's sombre face.
 
 EVER AFTER 203 
 
 "As soon as I can, I will have a home there for 
 you;" his own words, flung out in anger, became 
 a simple guiding law to Dana, now that he was cold 
 and passive and a thousand years old. "My wife 
 has got to live with me, in my house." His course 
 had been laid down, and he bent himself doggedly 
 to following it. He knew the city well, and knew 
 where to look for his first home. The pleasant 
 apartments made of old, remodelled houses would 
 all be taken at this time of year: his best hope lay 
 in some new building that had been finished too late 
 for the autumn renting. By noon he had found a 
 bright little hole in the air, high up, streaming with 
 south sun and still smelling faintly of fresh plaster, 
 which he might have at a moderate rental for the 
 balance of the year. After October, the rent would 
 be higher; but October was a long way off. There 
 was one large room with three tiny appendages, 
 labelled bedroom, bath and kitchen, and the lines 
 were pleasant to the eye, the windows well grouped. 
 He intrepidly paid down thirty dollars to bind the 
 bargain, and lunched off as much of the remaining 
 dollar as his carfares had left him. 
 
 Mr. Dickson had a check for eighty dollars 
 weighted down on his desk when Dana came in. 
 
 "We've got a piano for you," he said, but made 
 no motion to rise and show it. His meditative 
 silence finally ended in an abrupt, "Schmidt is
 
 204 EVER AFTER 
 
 leaving us. How should you like to come in here 
 in his place?" 
 
 Dana was startled, more reluctant than pleased. 
 Eight hours a day over the manuscript music of 
 others was not an appealing prospect, and the 
 limitations of twenty-five dollars a week, the salary 
 offered, were well known to him. 
 
 "I suppose it is the best solution," he admitted, 
 when they had talked it over. "I'm no end grateful 
 to you, Mr. Dickson," he added on a note of apology. 
 
 "Oh, that's all right. We are lucky to get you," 
 was the kindly answer. 
 
 Dana left the office both troubled and relieved. 
 He had sold all of his daylight for what, with good 
 fortune, he might have earned with half of it; yet 
 he was spared the immediate necessity of waiting 
 on fortune. The angry pride that had sent him off 
 with only a night's expenses in his pocket might have 
 had humiliating consequences. Out of his eighty 
 dollars he bought a cot and bedding, a table, a couple 
 of chairs and a few kitchen utensils, and by persuasive- 
 ness succeeded in getting them delivered at once. 
 That night he sat down in his new home and wrote 
 two letters. He was bent over the first half the eve- 
 ning, yet, when it was written, it was only three lines: 
 
 DEAR LUCY: Please send letters here. I have taken a small 
 apartment and hope soon to have it ready for you. 
 
 Yours always, DANA.
 
 EVER AFTER 205 
 
 The second, though longer, took only a few 
 moments: 
 
 DEAR Luis VALDEZ : My friend Mr. Bynner told me about 
 you, and I promised him that I would try to help you to become 
 a musician. Mr. Bynner was as good to me when I was a boy as 
 he has been to you, and I owe him such a debt of gratitude that 
 I want to pay it to you. Just now I have no money and can't 
 do anything, but I want you to keep up your courage, work at 
 your music all you can, and remember that I shall help you the 
 first possible moment. I believe in you because Mr. Bynner did, 
 and I mean to be your friend. 
 
 DANA MALONE. 
 
 Then he went to bed on his hard little cot, spread- 
 ing his overcoat for extra warmth, and telling him- 
 self surprisedly that he was not especially unhappy. 
 
 "I don't seem to have any heart," he concluded. 
 
 The few days before he went to work Dana spent in 
 close imitation of the man who sold his straw and 
 lay on grass to buy his wife a looking-glass. Heart 
 and mind stayed shut against Lucy, but every cent 
 he had or could raise went toward getting the little 
 place ready for her. His habit of prowling about 
 odd corners of the city had made him friends among 
 antique dealers of all classes, and they welcomed 
 him back, genially bargaining with themselves 
 when he had told them what he wanted, and freely 
 giving him credit. A dignified chest of drawers, 
 a curious old mirror, a grandfatherly rocking-chair, 
 and a table with an oval top were found for the
 
 206 EVER AFTER 
 
 little bedroom, and then Dana added a white bed, 
 and put all his remaining money into the whitest, 
 softest blankets that the city offered. Nothing less 
 fine would be good enough for Lucy. His own 
 plebeian cot stayed in the main room with a piece of 
 burlap for a cover, and he prepared most of his 
 meals, choosing what was cheapest and easiest and 
 swallowing it with blank indifference. The bed- 
 room was at least habitable by Saturday night, but 
 the big room remained stark and ridiculous, with its 
 ornate piano and practically nothing else. 
 
 "How do poor people do it? How do they ever 
 get whole houses furnished?" he wondered, sitting 
 on the edge of his cot, tired and discouraged. His 
 need angered and humiliated him. Brooding in 
 the growing darkness, Dana suddenly understood 
 why men commit crimes for money. But there was 
 no crime to his hand only a dreary possibility 
 of music pupils. Several of his old students had 
 shown a boyish devotion to their teacher, and 
 might be willing to come back to him, even at the 
 cost of evening lessons. They had known nothing 
 of his marriage, and would not question his return; 
 and any course would be better than sitting there, 
 facing figures. He set out at once to hunt up the 
 most probable. That there might be an element of 
 absurdity in working himself to death to support an 
 heir to the Cuyler millions did not once occur to him.
 
 EVER AFTER 207 
 
 The elevators were at the front of the building, 
 which faced the north, and was given over to studio 
 apartments. Tenants were moving in on every 
 floor, and, as Dana waited by the shaft, a new card 
 on the door nearest caught his attention. He read 
 it at first unseeingly, then with a quick shrinking 
 back. 
 
 "Ludlam!" he muttered. 
 
 He had thought of a meeting with an old friend 
 as the disaster most to be dreaded, but this discovery 
 of Ludlam within a few steps of his door, Ludlam 
 the hostile, the gossip loving, was overwhelmingly 
 worse. Eleven flights of stairs lay between him and 
 the street, but Dana walked down them all rather 
 than risk a meeting. 
 
 Evidently his neighbour kept different hours. 
 Dana came and went without an encounter until, 
 absorbed in his new work, he almost forgot the 
 danger. He liked his busy office, the rough and 
 ready world of men, his plain fare and bald quarters; 
 soft conditions had become associated in his mind 
 with inner misery. He was not happy, but relief 
 at having asserted his rightful self, taken manful 
 action, was still his foremost feeling, and he gave 
 himself no time to realize what lay in the back- 
 ground. Two pupils had come back to him and a 
 third was promised; and Adrian Cuyler himself 
 never heaped up his thousands more jealously than
 
 208 EVER AFTER 
 
 Dana scraped together his scanty dollars. He had 
 been working for several weeks before he indulged 
 in a top gallery seat at a concert. 
 
 The music left him stirred and excited. The 
 creator in him, held down by care and routine, had 
 suddenly broken loose, filling him with new splen- 
 dours of sound. All the creation of the years to come 
 seemed to rise up before him, barely veiled from his 
 senses, throwing out faint echoes and reverberations, 
 like a flutter of beckoning white hands. He followed 
 them about the dark streets till the fever of exalta- 
 tion died down, and a prosaic forethought for the 
 morning's work turned him toward home. Before 
 the glory should be wholly gone, he stopped under 
 a street lamp and set down musical notes as obliv- 
 iously as if he were in his own rooms. 
 
 The curtain of sound that shut him in could not 
 shut out the world. Presently a surprised, "Upon 
 my word ! " threw it aside. Dana, startled, shrinking 
 as though his garments had been clutched away, 
 found himself face to face with Ludlam. It was 
 a fatter, more prosperous looking Ludlam, but his 
 pointed blond beard still failed to hide the smallness 
 of his mouth, and his coat fitted at the waist, and 
 Dana hated him with a hatred that felt murderous. 
 
 "So genius still burns?" Ludlam had put out his 
 hand, and Dana had to take it. "What is it 
 an Arclight Sonata? "
 
 EVER AFTER 209 
 
 "Oh, how are you, Ludlam?" Dana had unsmil- 
 ingly put away his notebook. To Ludlam his 
 unresponsiveness could mean only the natural and 
 proper hauteur of the rich, and gave him a marked 
 increase in value. 
 
 "It is good to see you again." He studied Dana 
 with tilted head and dropped lids, as though he 
 were a work of art, then glanced down complacently 
 at his own opulent effect. "Things have changed 
 a bit since we were castaways together on a desert 
 farm," he admitted, with a small, amused smile 
 for the secret of their scanty past. "How is Mrs. 
 Malone?" 
 
 "Well, thank you." Dana's shortness seemed 
 to mark him a billionaire at the least, and Ludlam's 
 approval increased. 
 
 "It has been an interesting winter," he said 
 confidentially. "I am coming into my own, as I 
 suppose you have heard. I never doubted; but 
 that is purely a matter of temperament. I have 
 known excellent men who had no self-confidence 
 at all. * Ludlam is so cocksure,' they used to say. 
 'Is he a conceited ass, or does he know what he is 
 about?'" He laughed delicately, taking out a 
 cigarette case. "Well, we don't hear that question 
 any longer. Will you smoke?" 
 
 "Thanks, no." 
 
 "Wise man. I am smoking myself to death,
 
 210 EVER AFTER 
 
 they tell me." He lit a cigarette with the long- 
 armed, fluent gestures that Dana had always re- 
 sented. "I've got a little place just round the corner 
 here, in the Dartmoor Studios; it's not bad. Won't 
 you come up?" 
 
 "I can't to-night, thanks." Dana was backing 
 restlessly, but the suave voice still held him. 
 
 "Ah, to be sure: these married men! I wish you 
 would bring Mrs. Malone in some afternoon. I 
 should like to show her one or two things. Are you 
 in town for long? " 
 
 The desire to escape had become an anguish. 
 Heedless of consequences, Dana burst through the 
 delicate web of courtesy that had been cast over him. 
 
 "I can't say. Well, I must be off. Good-night," 
 he jerked out, his hands thrust defiantly into his 
 pockets, and strode away as though bound for the 
 other end of town. Ten cooling blocks lay between 
 him and the encounter before he realized the awk- 
 ward moment he had prepared for himself, when 
 he and Ludlam should meet in their own halls. 
 
 "I'll move, then," he said irritably as he turned 
 and came slowly back. "No, by jinks, I won't;" 
 with rising rage. "I'll look him in the eye and I 
 won't give a damn!" And he entered the building 
 with a savage desire that the encounter might take 
 place then, feeling that his part in it would be a re- 
 lief in the unmitigated, hateful dreariness of existence.
 
 CHAPTER NINE 
 
 PEOPLE carried trouble any one's trouble 
 to Candace Ware. Not that she met it with any 
 marked signs of compassion. She was baldly 
 unsentimental, and she had no capacity whatever 
 for righteous rage: the wrongdoer's side was as 
 comprehensible as the victim's to her humorous 
 tolerance. Once Dana, in a white heat over an 
 act of cruelty to a dog, had turned on her and 
 demanded a responsive anger. 
 
 "Well, I kicked a parrot once myself," she had ob- 
 jected in her easy drawl, "and I've never been sorry." 
 
 His wrath had gone down in laughter, and "I 
 kicked a parrot," had lived like a proverb. But, 
 if she would not condemn, she would take endless 
 trouble for any one in "hard luck"; and, if she was 
 not soft-hearted after the traditional fashion, she 
 was at least genial, and her sleepy little brown eyes 
 curled up at the corners in a mellow smile. She was 
 never seen to take up a book. In the rare moments 
 when she was not occupied, she lay back in a deep 
 chair, as motionless in her content as a lizard in 
 the sun. 
 
 211
 
 212 EVER AFTER 
 
 Such a moment of Sunday afternoon peace was 
 broken in on by the doorbell and the sound of a 
 bustling entrance. 
 
 "Hello, Palmer," she said placidly, without turn- 
 ing her head. 
 
 Palmer Jacks had no attention to spare for greet- 
 ings. He came in radiating news. 
 
 "What's all this about the Dana Malones?" he 
 began, drawing a chair to the hearth and seating 
 himself with head tilted for closer attention, his 
 handsome, ruddy face all a concentrated question. 
 Candace had straightened up. 
 
 "The Dana Malones?" she repeated. "I haven't 
 heard from them in ages," she added. 
 
 "Then you don't know that he is living here, 
 by himself?" 
 
 "No!" 
 
 Palmer nodded grave affirmation. He was con- 
 cerned and sorry, but he was undeniably enjoying 
 himself. "I just heard about it from Ludlam," 
 he explained. "It's a queer business. Malone is 
 living in the same building, though Ludlam has only 
 just found it out. And you didn't know it? " 
 
 "Not a word of it. You are sure? " 
 
 Palmer's eyebrows and shoulders admitted the 
 fallibility of all evidence. "I wouldn't stake my 
 life on Ludlam's word; but I don't see why he should 
 invent this particular tale. Now if he had told me
 
 EVER AFTER 213 
 
 that a Russian princess had shot herself on his 
 account gad, wouldn't he enjoy that? or that 
 a dealer had given him fifteen thousand dollars for 
 a picture, I might have my private doubts. But 
 this sounds pretty straight." 
 
 Candace was frowning at him. "Tell me what 
 you know," she commanded. 
 
 "Well, Ludlam met him first on the street, night 
 before last, and asked him to his rooms; but Malone 
 wouldn't come. Went off as though he lived at the 
 other end of town. The next morning the two 
 came face to face at the elevator. Ludlam naturally 
 supposed that Malone was looking him up, and 
 greeted him as a man and a brother or, rather, 
 as a man and a millionaire. You know Luddy! 
 Whereupon Malone scowled at him and said, *I am 
 not looking for you. I live here, on this floor.' 
 Then he marched into the elevator, and Ludlam was 
 too surprised to follow him. But he asked a few 
 questions he wasn't too surprised for that and 
 found out that Malone has been there nearly a 
 month, evidently alone, and downtown working 
 every day. Now what do you make of it?" 
 
 Candace nodded, as at something she might have 
 known. "Hard luck," she admitted. There was 
 understanding in her voice, and he pounced on it. 
 
 "What has happened? Nice young fellow like 
 that what has he done? "
 
 214 EVER AFTER 
 
 "He hasn't done anything. It's geography, 
 Palmer. 'As far as the East is from the West.' 
 I ought to have kept an eye on them. I knew 
 they'd hurt each other, but I didn't suppose it 
 would come to this. Did Ludlam say anything 
 more?" 
 
 "Well, he pointed out his own great delicacy in 
 not following up the matter. That is, he hasn't 
 knocked on Malone's door and asked him why he 
 left his wife. It's a great thing to have these refined 
 instincts, Candy." 
 
 "No, it isn't. I intend to knock on Dana's door 
 and ask him that very question." Candace half 
 rose, then deferred action for the moment. "It 
 must have been pretty bad!" 
 
 "You know something you're not telling me," 
 he complained. 
 
 "Only their two characters." 
 
 Palmer meditated on the two characters, his head 
 cocked like a wise bird's. " She was a mighty sweet 
 little girl," he finally admitted; "but I'm afraid that 
 marrying her would be rather like living with a 
 museum piece. Most of us would prefer to enjoy 
 the museum piece in the museum." 
 
 "Oh, Lucy is human enough." 
 
 "Um perhaps. But you know, Candy, as long 
 as she lived, she'd never really enjoy a vulgar joke!" 
 
 Candace smiled comprehendingly at the indict-
 
 EVER AFTER 215 
 
 ment. "They don't either of them know how to 
 laugh at the saving moment. And now they have 
 to learn. Well, it's time, I suppose. I'll go round 
 there and see what I can do." 
 
 Palmer's eyes twinkled with a suppressed gibe. 
 "Why haven't you ever married, Candy?" he asked. 
 
 "Why, I have," was the placid answer. 
 
 He could only stare and stutter. "You you 
 have?" 
 
 "Yes once." 
 
 "Gad! once is generally enough!" He drew 
 a long breath and unconsciously wiped his forehead 
 with his handkerchief. "Why haven't you ever 
 told me?" 
 
 Candace frankly pondered. "I don't know; 
 I suppose I had sort of forgotten about it. I was 
 only seventeen, and it didn't last. He wasn't a 
 bad sort, either," she added musingly. "I don't 
 see that he could help but my family hauled me 
 out of it. You see, we had eloped." She rose, 
 with purpose this time. "I'll get on my things," 
 she said. 
 
 When she came back, Palmer was still too stupe- 
 fied for speech. He went down to the street 
 beside her in silence, and put her on her car with 
 a dazed handclasp. 
 
 "I won't speak of it to a soul," he said, and Can- 
 dace, in the car, laughed to herself, realizing that
 
 216 EVER AFTER 
 
 friendship could scarcely have wrung from him a 
 more oppressive vow. 
 
 Dana went through his week days well enough, 
 but Sundays were increasingly difficult. He could 
 crowd the morning with work; but the afternoon 
 always brought an hour when his tired brain and 
 body refused to help him any longer, and despair was 
 very close. He still kept Lucy sternly shut out; 
 but there came a Sunday when he went into her 
 closed room and sat down in the grandfatherly rocker, 
 burying his face in her bed. Great wheels seemed 
 to roll slowly over him, crushing out hope and 
 strength and rebellion. A longing to be very little 
 and to have some one take him up on her lap filled 
 his eyes with tears. He was, after all, only an 
 ignorant little boy, very lost and frightened. This 
 matter of being a grown man was all a bluff. 
 
 "I do need help," he said desolately. 
 
 Help knocked at his outer door, but Dana, not 
 recognizing the signal, muttered imprecations, and 
 carefully closed the little room before he answered. 
 Face to face with Candace, he was once more the 
 grown man, cool and defensive. 
 
 "Hello, Candy!" He spoke with cheerful sur- 
 prise. "Come in. Glad to see you." 
 
 Candace was not to be held at arm's length. "I 
 am not at all glad to see you," she returned. After
 
 EVER AFTER 217 
 
 a quick glance about the bare room, her eyes came 
 back to his face, and discovered its secret haggard- 
 ness, the look that was both tragic and boyish under 
 its smiling defence. She laid a comradely hand on 
 his arm. "Couldn't it have been helped?" she 
 asked. 
 
 He moved away from the hand, but dropped the 
 cheerfulness. "I'm afraid not. Here's a chair. 
 Or you can sit on my bed, if you prefer. They're 
 equally hard." 
 
 She took the couch and deliberately drew off her 
 gloves. "Nice room," she said. "I have more 
 furniture than I can use. I'll send you over one 
 or two things. Have you a kitchen? " 
 
 "Oh, yes." He showed her the kitchen, but made 
 no motion to open the door of the bedroom. They 
 talked at hazard about light housekeeping and 
 furniture, then Candace let a silence preface a fresh 
 attack. Dana did not wait for it. 
 
 "A man has to earn his own living, Candy," he 
 said dryly. "It's a law of nature. I learned it 
 fairly hard, but I learned it." 
 
 "Does he at any cost?" 
 
 "Yes. The cost of not earning it is always 
 greater. I have done nothing hurriedly, or that I 
 could escape." He turned away with a nervous 
 jerk, hooking his elbow over the back of his chair. 
 "I hope to have Lucy here some day," he explained.
 
 218 EVER AFTER 
 
 Candace bent toward him, her elbows digging 
 into her knees, a smile of human understanding 
 lighting the hardy brown face between her fists. 
 "See here, Dana; couldn't you have laughed?" 
 
 "Laughed!" 
 
 "U'mh'm. I did. All through Europe." 
 
 "I don't know what you mean." He spoke 
 exasperatedly, but she continued to smile on him 
 from between her fists. 
 
 "Well, I'll tell you. Haven't you ever noticed 
 how, when it is an ordinarily hot day, we grumble 
 at it; but when the heat becomes abnormal, when 
 the thermometer goes up and up and the ambulances 
 are clanging all day long and people dropping in the 
 streets a joke element comes into it? Nobody 
 grumbles then: they laugh as they meet. It is so 
 bad, it's funny. There's a wild sort of good humour 
 bred by the very extremity of it. You've seen that? 
 Well, it's the same way with other things. For 
 instance, when a person has eight or nine thousand 
 a year and worries about carfares, that may be 
 necessary or it may be dead mean; but in either case 
 it's annoying. But when a person with eighty or 
 ninety thousand a year worries over a carfare, it is 
 just funny. It is nature gone mad. It's a hundred 
 and two in the shade. You've got to laugh." 
 
 Dana had listened with frowning intentness. 
 "I think you're talking rot," he decided.
 
 EVER AFTER 219 
 
 "No, I'm not. Let me show you. Just as an 
 instance, one day in Paris we bought a dozen peaches 
 out of our common-expenses fund, Lucy and I; and 
 then Lucy wasn't well and didn't eat any of them. 
 Presently I discovered that it worried her that 
 she had paid hah*. So I put an extra franc into the 
 fund, and I secretly yelled. For she couldn't help 
 it, poor lamb: it was just Grandpa Cuyler. If he 
 had poked his head up over his monument, it 
 couldn't have been clearer or funnier." 
 
 Dana shivered. "No, I couldn't have laughed," 
 he muttered, a look of shame on his face. 
 
 "Not if the extra franc were of any earthly use 
 to her!" 
 
 "Not anyway." 
 
 "Well, perhaps not if she were like that all 
 through," Candace conceded. "But that's just 
 it: she is so ridiculously generous about everything 
 else. Did you ever know any one who would give 
 her time as Lucy does? And her pity? " 
 
 She had at last let a ray of light into his darkness. 
 Lucy sitting for hours with a dull old lady in a 
 furnace-heated room, jealously sealed against fresh 
 air Lucy toiling over committee work Lucy 
 caught on the street with a heavy, dirty baby in her 
 arms, that a poor woman's load might be lightened 
 a hundred pictures of a loving and giving Lucy 
 rose up before his startled sight.
 
 220 EVER AFTER 
 
 "Anybody can give money. That is easy," 
 Candace added. "But to give everything else, 
 without stint, and then balk at that one little thing 
 can't you see the joke?" 
 
 He threw out despairing arms. "Oh, perhaps, 
 perhaps. But the money is there, all the time, 
 in everything. You can't get away from it. You 
 can't use it, and you can't avoid it. Every depart- 
 ment of life is smeared all over with it. It can hurt 
 you in four hundred places in a single day. You 
 might get along without, for yourself; but when it 
 comes to deciding that you can't help other people 
 He was telling more than he meant to, 
 and pulled himself up. Candace answered only 
 the last sentence. 
 
 "Every one who gives much has to think that now 
 and then," she said reasonably. "There is some- 
 thing in it. You know, Dana, with unlimited 
 money, a person like you can do no end of harm in 
 this cranky world." 
 
 He did not like that. " I am not quite a fool ! " 
 
 "No," she admitted; "and, of course, having it 
 would modify you. Nobody is ever quite so lavish 
 as the man who hasn't a cent. Besides, one gets 
 so many blows, trying to help, they tame that wild 
 native generosity. Half the things one attempts 
 seem to turn out worse than wasted effort." 
 
 "Do you really believe that?"
 
 EVER AFTER 221 
 
 "My dear boy, I know it. I'll tell you a case, 
 a man I discovered with a wonderful gift for illus- 
 tration. He had been too poor to study enough, 
 so I got people interested, and we managed two years 
 at the League for him, and private lessons, and then 
 a room and board till he should get on his feet, 
 and letters to art editors, and dear knows what. 
 Sounds legitimate, doesn't it? Wouldn't you have 
 contributed? Well. After several months, I looked 
 him up, expecting to find him well under way. Do 
 you know what he was doing? Sitting down on his 
 board and lodging, writing a sonnet cycle, which he 
 planned to illustrate later. He had ^done abso- 
 lutely nothing else." 
 
 Dana managed a smile. "How were the son- 
 nets?" 
 
 "Not much worse than commonplace. If he 
 could have given ten years to literary composition, 
 he might have turned out printable. Perhaps. 
 Oh, I understood, of course. He had been praised 
 till he thought he could do anything; and his literary 
 impulse felt as real to him as the other. But I had 
 to say a few direct words, and there was a frightful 
 case of hurt feelings. We had completely ruined 
 him. He proudly withdrew from the board and 
 lodging, and I don't know what he is doing now 
 learning a little sense, I hope. He hasn't emerged as 
 an illustrator. But that is what you have to expect,
 
 222 EVER AFTER 
 
 half the time: as much harm as good. Only, of 
 course, that doesn't let you off from trying. And 
 from wanting to try. I'm so used to it now, it 
 doesn't even discourage me." She rose, pulling on 
 her gloves. "It's a funny world, Dana. Better 
 learn to laugh. It helps." 
 
 He shook his head. "You don't understand." 
 
 "Oh, don't I?" Her brown eyes twinkled. 
 "I know what happened as well as if I had been 
 there: Lucy with her worried Grandpa look, Dana 
 proud and sensitive and thinking it right to be proud 
 and sensitive, poor fool of a man! Now come and 
 have supper with me and tell me what you are 
 doing." 
 
 He was too forlorn to resist, so she bore him off, 
 and the homelike meal, the easy companionship, 
 brought a dim comfort. But they weakened his 
 defences. The numbness that had made the days 
 possible was threatened. He stayed as late as he 
 dared in dread of what solitude might bring, then 
 tramped himself into apathy before he turned home. 
 
 Spring was in the air as he walked uptown late 
 the next afternoon. The inexorable opening was 
 at hand. City squares hinted it in their swelling 
 green, city birds chirped it, city eyes glanced it into 
 his moody face. The joy of the pavements was as 
 dead for Dana as all other joy, but he caught the 
 day's suspense, the sense of coming riches, and grew
 
 EVER AFTER 223 
 
 alert for whom or what he might pass. A figure half 
 seen in the crowd, a gently rounded girl who lifted 
 sudden blue eyes, sent a shock through all his being 
 and roused an insane hope. He could angrily assert 
 that there was no one on earth he wanted to see; 
 but he could not put back the coming season. 
 
 An art dealer's window displayed a single picture, 
 set forth with an air of consequence. Dana, seeing 
 others pause, threw it a careless glance; and so 
 brought down upon himself the waiting torrent of 
 spring. The picture showed a single rounded wave 
 of land heaving up into a sky of noble breadth. 
 It was the sky that dominated, a vast, overarching 
 splendour of sky beneath which the little world of 
 farm and wood was only a streaming summer green- 
 ness and a blur of woodland shadow; but its outlines 
 were unmistakable. "The Heavens Declare the 
 Glory of God" was written on the card beneath. 
 As Ludlam had explained, "They like a title." 
 His name was not needed to set Dana's feet on the 
 hills of Sky Farm. He stood with the June wind 
 on his face and the shimmer of June romance in 
 his eyes, the bleak present forgotten. When others 
 began to glance at him and to crowd about the 
 picture, he strode on; but he was no longer alone. 
 He would never be alone again, so long as he walked 
 this earth. The love that had come to him under 
 that great sky was for life, and Lucy would be
 
 224 EVER AFTER 
 
 there against his arm until the arm withered. His 
 defences were down. 
 
 A premonition of coming pain, pain too horrible 
 to be borne, drove him savagely on. He tried to 
 remember only the girl of Sky Farm, but, before 
 he could turn from it, he saw Lucy's face as he had 
 last seen it, wide-eyed, stricken, yet, some way, 
 brave: the lips had kept their line, the throat had 
 not bent. 
 
 "Don't!" he breathed. He had feared that an 
 hour must come when he realized his own hurt, but 
 he had not reckoned with the hour that should show 
 him how he had hurt his wife. Lucy warm and 
 colourful, wide open to love and merriment and 
 then this frozen woman, with her stabbed look and 
 her proud stillness. 
 
 "It couldn't be helped," he flung out. "I did 
 my best. It had to be." But flinging hard facts 
 at it could not drive away the vision. 
 
 Till now his own apathy had been a surprise to 
 Dana, sometimes a reproach; a dull, bleak, miserable 
 boredom did not seem enough to pay for the wreck 
 of his married life, and the absence of acute anguish 
 had suggested to him more than once that, after 
 all, he had very little heart. To-night he learned 
 better. His dazed heart awoke to its depths and 
 proved itself as great in pain as it had been in 
 joy. There was no suffering due that he had not
 
 EVER AFTER 225 
 
 paid in full before the dawn touched his haggard 
 face. 
 
 By breakfast time he was at Candace's door. 
 
 "What can I do?" he asked. He was as unself- 
 conscious as a child in his helplessness and his 
 despair. "Candy, tell me what to do." She laid 
 her friendly hand on his arm, and he clung to it. 
 
 "Go to Boston," she counselled. 
 
 "But how can I? I can't ask her to come yet, 
 even if she would. And I can't go back to what 
 was. Never! Not for anything on earth. So 
 what can I say to her?" 
 
 "Say that. Or don't say anything. Just go 
 to her. You'll find a way when you have seen 
 each other." She smiled faintly into the gaunt 
 tragedy of his face. "Come and have some coffee, 
 and then I'll show you the things I am sending over 
 to you," she added. 
 
 If Dana had not been so drowned in trouble, he 
 would have wondered how Candace could spare so 
 many furnishings. She had them together in a 
 corner of the studio, ready for the express several 
 delightful chairs, an old carved table, a rug or two, 
 a brass lamp, a pile of cushions. 
 
 "I was getting too crowded here," she explained 
 casually. "You will have almost enough to begin 
 on, now." 
 
 He looked at them vaguely, yet with a desolate
 
 226 EVER AFTER 
 
 gratitude. " You're so good to me," he muttered. 
 " If I only knew what to do ! " 
 
 "Go and ask Lucy," was her parting advice. 
 The words rang in his ears all day. He could 
 reason down the advice, point out the hopelessness 
 of going to a deeply offended woman with nothing 
 tangible to offer, not even a whole-hearted, "I was 
 wrong;" yet the idea presented itself over and over 
 with undiscouraged freshness. "Go and ask Lucy." 
 Mr. Dickson heard him murmur the words over his 
 work, and broke out with affectionate testiness. 
 
 "Malone, you look like a ghost. What are you 
 saying there? What on earth is the matter? " 
 
 Dana stared at him as from another planet; then 
 laid down his pen and rose. 
 
 "I'm afraid I must go to Boston," he said. "If 
 I take the five o'clock, I can have two or three hours 
 there and be back in the morning." 
 
 "Don't do that: stay all night. If you are here 
 Wednesday morning, that will do." 
 
 Dana thanked him and hurried uptown to his 
 rooms. There was relief in taking action; and there 
 was a sudden, unlocked for, mighty joy in going 
 to Lucy. For the first time, he entered his building 
 with the step and bearing of a young man. 
 
 A dark bundle lay against his door. Suspecting 
 an offering from Candace, Dana went alertly toward 
 it, then stopped with an astonished, "Hello!" For
 
 EVER AFTER 227 
 
 the bundle proved to be a very dirty, ragged boy, 
 asleep with his face on his arm. At Dana's excla- 
 mation, he lifted his head, and the eyes of old 
 Spain, mournfully brown, set in blue-white and 
 rimmed with dense black fringe, looked drowsily 
 up from a dark face that seemed to have been rubbed 
 in coal. As he scrambled to his feet, his age, by 
 his height, might have been eight or nine, but there 
 were probably several more years concealed about 
 his meagre little person. The face had a pinched 
 maturity. He said nothing, but stared up into 
 Dana's face with a tense expectancy somewhat 
 trying to a man in a hurry. Dana unlocked the 
 door. 
 
 "Are you waiting for me Dana Malone?" he 
 asked. "I haven't much time. Come in and tell 
 me what you want." 
 
 The boy stood just within the door, but he still 
 did not seem able to speak. If Dana had not been 
 more interested in getting down his bag, he would 
 have seen that the little figure shook in its scarecrow 
 clothes, and that the jaw was clenched to control 
 its trembling. The bag had proved full of odds and 
 ends, and Dana was tumbling them out. "What 
 is your name?" he added without looking up. A 
 faint whisper came from over by the door. "Oh, 
 speak up like a man," he threw out good-humouredly. 
 "Do I know you?"
 
 228 EVER AFTER 
 
 The boy tugged at an envelope that was wedged 
 in a pocket. When he had it out, he came slowly 
 forward, and Dana, glancing up, saw that it was not 
 timidity that hampered him. The expectant eyes 
 showed even the spark of a smile. 
 
 "I'm Luis," he whispered, as one who tells a glad 
 secret. Then he melted down on the floor as if his 
 little spine had been withdrawn. The envelope 
 fell beside him, face up, and Dana read in his own 
 handwriting the name of Luis Valdez. For the mo- 
 ment he was too astonished to move. 
 
 "For the Lord's sake!" he muttered; and then, 
 "Well, what do you think of that!" 
 
 There was no time to confront the problem. 
 When a few drops of spirits had revived the boy, 
 Dana lifted him to the couch, gave him a cup of 
 water, and beat up raw eggs in milk with frowning 
 haste. 
 
 "Pretty hungry?" he asked. Luis's eyes were 
 fixed on the bowl with a devouring intentness that 
 needed no words. Dana fed him slow spoonfuls, 
 and, in spite of his dismay, the joy of rescue began 
 to warm his eyes and voice as strength visibly came 
 back to his tattered guest. When he had set down 
 the bowl, he passed an investigating hand along the 
 thin arms and legs. 
 
 "Well, did you walk from California?" 
 
 "Oh, no." Luis smiled over the joke. "Only
 
 EVER AFTER 229 
 
 from what was it? The big animal Buffalo. 
 And I got lots of rides." 
 
 "Only from Buffalo," Dana repeated. "And 
 you did all that to find me?" 
 
 "You will make me a musician," said Luis con- 
 fidently. "You will be good to me like Mr. Bynner 
 was to you." 
 
 "Oh, I see." Dana hesitated, then firmly went 
 on: "But, you know, Luis, I haven't any money 
 now. I wrote you that." 
 
 "Oh, I will get you some," Luis reassured him. 
 "I can earn all I want. Have you got an old flute 
 or anything?" 
 
 "A flute?" 
 
 "I will play it on the street, so." Luis curled his 
 hands to the left of his grimy face, and looked up 
 over the imaginary instrument with eyes so mournful, 
 so appealing, so rich in old-world mystery, that Dana 
 could almost hear some little wailing air. Then he 
 dropped the instrument and winked without shame. 
 "That gets 'em," he explained. 
 
 "My Lord!" murmured Dana, and fell into 
 appalled silence. Luis reached out for the bowl 
 and finished its contents without ceremony. 
 
 "Got any more?" he asked. 
 
 Dana roused himself with a sigh. A city clock 
 had just struck five. "By and by," he said. "Tell 
 me, did you earn the money to get to Buffalo?"
 
 230 EVER AFTER 
 
 A startling change came over the pinched face, 
 so cheerfully impudent the moment before. Its 
 flash into anger was like the drawing of a knife. 
 
 "It was mine," he declared shrilly, rising up in a 
 fury of self-defence. "Mine! Father Murphy said 
 so. Mr. Bynner left it to me, 'my piano to my 
 little friend Luis Valdez* like that, in writing. 
 It was mine!" 
 
 Dana put a quieting hand on his shoulder, pushing 
 him gently down again. "Who took it away from 
 
 you?" 
 
 "My father and mother." Luis spat like an angry 
 cat. "Pigs! I told them, *I will kill you if you sell 
 it!' And they sold it that very day. Pigs! They 
 hid the money under the stove. I was three nights 
 finding it. They caught me looking, but they were 
 so drunk they only laughed. Pigs! Pigs!" His 
 passion of hate was distressing. Dana tried to 
 divert him from it. 
 
 "How could you get a ticket, a little chap like 
 you? They wouldn't sell it to you, would they? " 
 
 Luis dropped back at once into his normal com- 
 placency. "Oh, I always get along. I can do any- 
 thing: it is quite re-markable. I told a man a story 
 about being an orphan and my uncle sending for me, 
 so he bought the ticket, and his wife gave me things 
 to eat out of her basket; it was fine till we got to 
 Chicago. That was all the far they went."
 
 EVER AFTER 231 
 
 "But that was a lie," said Dana. 
 
 "Oh, yes. I can tell a better lie than any boy 
 in my school;" and Luis smiled in simple pride. 
 "Have you got a piece of bread?" Dana rose in 
 silence and shut the kitchen door between himself 
 and his acquisition. He felt an exhausted need 
 of solitude. 
 
 He was not left very long to confront his problem. 
 Luis unceremoniously followed. 
 
 "Did you find that piece of bread?" he demanded, 
 and seemed so restored that Dana set out a supper 
 for him. He wanted to resent the intruder, whose 
 coming had so intolerably upset his plans, but for 
 the life of him he could not. The little fellow's 
 melancholy, old-world eyes, his perfect assurance, 
 and his dangling rags combined to give him an 
 absurd charm. Dana found himself on the verge 
 of a laugh as he cut the desired piece of bread. 
 
 "Perhaps you would like to wash before you eat," 
 he suggested. 
 
 "No," was the positive answer. "But I will 
 wash afterward," Luis conceded, after a mouthful 
 pause. "I take a bath at Father Murphy's every 
 Saturday; that is how I pay him for letting me 
 practise on his piano. My father and mother do 
 not wash at all. They are pigs." 
 
 Dana hastened to change the subject. "Father 
 Murphy has been good to you," he said.
 
 232 EVER AFTER 
 
 "Oh, yes, Father Murphy and Mr. Bynner. 
 They were my two friends. They learned me my 
 English; my father and mother are so ignorant, they 
 talk nothing but Spanish. That is why I speak so 
 good. Not like other boys." 
 
 "And does Father Murphy know where you are?'* 
 
 Luis shook his head, being beyond speech at the 
 moment. "You will write him a letter," he ex- 
 plained when he could. "You tell him that when 
 I am a great musician, I will go back to see him; 
 but if my father and mother come after me, I will 
 kill them with a knife." He looked quite capable 
 of trying it, with the bread knife caught up in his 
 fist and the sudden glint in his brown eyes. Dana 
 rose from the corner of the table with a distracted 
 gesture. 
 
 "What in thunder am I going to do with you?" 
 he exclaimed. 
 
 The doorbell roused a fervent hope of Candace; 
 but it was her furniture to which he opened. He was 
 touched when he realized how much she had sent. 
 There were even books and a sketch or two. The 
 room looked pleasantly inhabited when he and Luis 
 had everything in place. The glow of the work and 
 of the hope that lay back of it had cleared Dana's 
 face of its habitual shadow. 
 
 "And now, young man, you for the bathtub," 
 he said genially, and went to turn on the water.
 
 EVER AFTER 233 
 
 When he came back, Luis was standing in the door- 
 way of the little room. "Here, come out of there!'* 
 Dana spoke so sharply that the boy started. "You 
 mustn't go in there," he added more gently, closing 
 the door. "That is my wife's room." 
 
 Luis kicked off his clothes with undampened 
 cheerfulness. "Will she sleep there to-night?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "No, not to-night." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 "I can't say. Run along now and see that you 
 get clean." 
 
 Luis, emerging several shades lighter, found a bed 
 made up of cushions and a rug, and a clean garment 
 for him to sleep in. He settled himself with wriggles 
 of satisfaction, and his mysterious eyes, already 
 heavy with sleep, fixed themselves on his host with 
 an intensity that presently made Dana pause by 
 the improvised bed. 
 
 "Well?" he asked. Luis put up two fairly clean 
 hands and curled them tightly about his fingers. 
 
 "I'll earn money for you," he said earnestly, "and 
 run your errands, and I can cook for you; I can do 
 anything. And when I am bad, you can lick me." 
 
 Dana gave the hands a comradely pressure. 
 "All right, old boy," he said gravely. And so the 
 compact of lasting affection was signed and sealed 
 between them.
 
 234 EVER AFTER a 
 
 After Luis was asleep, Dana sat for a long time 
 over a letter to Father Murphy. 
 
 "I am not well placed for taking the responsibility," he wrote, 
 "but he is here, and I want to carry out my promise to Mr. 
 Bynner. I will" he paused, staring darkly into the future, 
 then wrote on "legally adopt the boy, if you think it best, and 
 can get his parents' consent. And I will see that he grows up 
 in the church that has been so good to him. I shall probably 
 not keep him in my home there are others to be consulted. 
 But I will be responsible for him. I realize the seriousness of 
 what I am undertaking and the difficulties, just now, are 
 especially great; but it is the only way of paying the greatest 
 debt of my life. And I like the little chap." 
 
 It was not a letter to mail on first impulse. Dana 
 put it by and sent a telegram to Father Murphy, 
 saying that the boy was safe. He longed to go to 
 Candace, but he had run to her with his troubles 
 once that day, and pride withheld him. He did 
 go to the mother of one of his pupils, a generous 
 woman with a family of boys, who laughed up- 
 roariously over his dilemma, and gave him enough 
 clothes to set up Luis in overwhelming respectability. 
 Being a good Catholic, she also gave him a note 
 to a kindly priest in his neighbourhood. So Dana 
 went on to Father Grant, and made him also chuckle 
 over the tale of Luis. He could laugh at it himself 
 now. As Candy had said, it was a funny world. 
 
 "Bring the boy round to me;'* Father Grant was 
 shaking Dana's hand with shrewd liking. "We
 
 EVER AFTER 235 
 
 i 
 
 must clap him into school that's the first thing. 
 Malone Malone," he added ruminatingly. "By 
 the sound of that name, you should be one of us." 
 He seemed so secure, so content, so unharassed by 
 life, this hardy little man, that Dana's heart went 
 out to him. 
 
 "I wish I were," he said; then, seeing a spark of 
 interest in the other's eyes, he added a smiling, 
 "But my wife is a Boston Unitarian, Father. So 
 it wouldn't do." 
 
 "Ah so there's a wife?" 
 
 Dana flushed, and for an instant his trouble 
 looked out of his sombre eyes. "She is not with 
 me just at present," he said, turning away. 
 
 "If she were a good Catholic she would be," 
 said the Father with a disciplinary nod. 
 
 There was no question of going to Boston now. 
 Dana devoted the morning to Luis's affairs, testing 
 his musical gift, which was remarkable, and taking 
 him, a little subdued by his whole and neat clothes, 
 to see his new spiritual director. In the afternoon 
 he went back to his office, mailing his letter to 
 Father Murphy on the way. 
 
 "It is only a matter of earning a little more," he 
 asserted with a brave front. 
 
 Luis, left to himself, had none of the well brought 
 up child's helplessness. When he had practised as 
 long as his restless body would permit, he went out
 
 236 EVER AFTER 
 
 into the streets and investigated the neighbourhood 
 with the thoroughness of a detective or a fox terrier. 
 He discovered the Park, found a nearly whole 
 cigarette and smoked it, murmured outrageous 
 Spanish epithets at an unconscious policeman, lured 
 a cat from an area wall with ardent blandishments 
 and caressed it with half shut eyes of ecstasy, then 
 frightened it almost into hysterics by a sudden leap 
 and yell; and paused before every sheet of glass 
 he could find to study his well-clad person. This 
 pleased him so much that he begged a broken carna- 
 tion from a flower stand and strutted home with 
 a decorated buttonhole, triumphal music streaming 
 through his curiously aged little soul. 
 
 A studio door by the elevator was open, and Luis 
 paused to look in. Within, two men stood before 
 a large canvas, one with a hat in his hand, in the 
 attitude of departure. The other threw him a 
 quick, irritable glance. 
 
 "I don't want any models," he said over his 
 shoulder. 
 
 "I haven't got any, if you did," said Luis com- 
 posedly. The larger man turned at that, showing 
 a ruddy, handsome face swept by a big gray mous- 
 tache, and eyes twinkling with laughter. 
 
 "Just calling?" he asked. 
 
 "Well, I thought I'd look in," Luis explained, 
 turning away with a bored air.
 
 EVER AFTER 237 
 
 "Interested in art, perhaps?" 
 
 "I wouldn't encourage him, Jacks," Ludlam 
 threw in. 
 
 "I am a musician;" Luis answered exclusively 
 to Jacks. "I have re-markable talent. They all 
 say that." 
 
 "Delighted to hear it," said Jacks. "Are you 
 living in these parts?" 
 
 "I live on this floor, at the back." 
 
 Ludlam turned at that. "Who are you, any- 
 way?" he asked. 
 
 "Mr. Malone's Luis." 
 
 The two men glanced surprise at each other. 
 "I didn't know he had a Luis," Jacks said jokingly. 
 
 "Oh, yes. I have come from California to live 
 with him and become a great musician." Luis 
 strolled away with Castilian dignity. "I will play 
 for you some time," he threw back over his shoulder 
 to Palmer; "but not to him." 
 
 Palmer had lost his air of imminent departure. 
 "That's a queer business," he exclaimed. "Though 
 it is some pupil, of course," he added. 
 
 "No doubt," said Ludlam, a smile that was very 
 small half hidden in his blond beard. "It fits in 
 curiously, though, with what one heard about the 
 Malones' wedding trip." 
 
 "You mean that they cut it short?" 
 
 "I mean that something happened to make them
 
 238 EVER AFTER 
 
 leave San Francisco a few hours after they got 
 there." 
 
 "Everybody knows everything," Palmer muttered 
 with a short sigh. " Who told you? " 
 
 Ludlam forbore to say that it was Jacks himself. 
 "Oh, one hears," he explained. 
 
 Palmer straightened up bluffly, clapping on his 
 hat. "Miss Ware will know all about it. I will 
 
 just drop in there He paused, shaking his 
 
 head. "Every Calif ornian has a past," he observed 
 humorously. "You're always stumbling on it unex- 
 pectedly. They don't mind it. Gad when a 
 New England woman has a history, it's written all 
 over her; but it shakes off a Westerner like water 
 off a duck." He started to go, then paused in the 
 doorway. "How long have you known Miss Ware?" 
 
 " Oh, only a few years. Never well." 
 
 Palmer visibly wrestled with temptation, and 
 conquered. "Well, she's a mighty fine woman," 
 he said, with a sigh for what he might not reveal. 
 "I'll ask her about 'Mr. Malone's Luis.'" 
 
 "I am just running down to Boston myself. 
 I may hear something there," Ludlam said, a dis- 
 agreeable satisfaction in his sidelong glance.
 
 CHAPTER TEN 
 
 THE front door had closed and Dana had gone, but 
 Lucy still sat stiffly erect by the blaze that had 
 wrought so much havoc. In all her gentle life, she 
 had never before been absolutely angry, and her 
 anger was to her a terrible and sickening thing 
 that hardened her soul to granite, but set her 
 body trembling and shaking as though dissolu- 
 tion were at hand. She gave no heed then 
 to the charge Dana had made merely flung it 
 from her as she might have flung off a noisome 
 insect: the bitter failure of his love was all that she 
 could see. 
 
 "He is not worth bothering about," she said with 
 a gesture of dismissal; but still the humiliating physi- 
 cal weakness held her. 
 
 Presently a maid's entrance with letters acted like 
 a call to arms, steadying her nerves and giving 
 her back her composure. She announced, with a 
 coolness that startled herself, that Mr. Malone .had 
 been called to New York; and so took up again the 
 interrupted business of living. She had to make 
 the announcement many times in the weeks that 
 
 239
 
 240 EVER AFTER 
 
 followed; and never before had she been so brave 
 with the family, so bold with circumstances. 
 
 "Lucy is developing quite a manner," Aunt Mar- 
 garet conceded. "Marriage is bringing her out." 
 Mrs. Mortimer Cuyler was "at home," and Lucy 
 was pouring tea for her, and talking merrily from 
 behind the urn. 
 
 "Yes, she really has it is," Cousin Susie agreed. 
 The family were touchingly accordant when Aunt 
 Margaret praised. "And how pretty she looks ! " 
 
 "Happiness is a great beautifier," was the bland 
 answer. Being in a benignant mood, Aunt Mar- 
 garet presently repeated this to Lucy: "Susie 
 and I have just agreed, my dear, that happiness 
 is a great beautifier." Lucy's eyes, clear and 
 smiling, met hers without flinching. 
 
 "Ah, I wish you would let me give you another 
 cup of tea," she returned. 
 
 She had quite a success that afternoon, and, in 
 a hard, new fashion, she enjoyed it. Her spirit, 
 sternly forbidden sorrow, turned passionately to 
 excitement. The young men of the family hovered 
 about her, visibly surprised. Mortimer, Jr., insisted on 
 having the chair beside her whenever it was vacant. 
 
 "Why don't you like us?" he demanded, when 
 the calls on her had slackened. At her protest, he 
 explained with boyish bluntness that she always 
 went with "the poky side of the family."
 
 EVER AFTER 241 
 
 "But I never supposed that the gay side would 
 like me," she said, so naively that he shouted. 
 
 "I used to be deathly afraid of you," he confided. 
 "I'm not a bit now. Suppose we have a tearing old 
 flirtation while Dana is away?'* 
 
 "Suppose we do," said Lucy. "Only you will 
 have to show me how. I haven't the least idea." 
 
 "Oh, I will!" he promised. Then an older rela- 
 tive displaced him, bringing up some one who had 
 begged an introduction. Others followed. If they 
 were discovering her, she was also discovering them. 
 She had not dreamed that she could be so at home 
 with this "gay side" of her family. What nice 
 people they were! And she had only to show her- 
 self willing, to turn them all into friends. 
 
 "I shall need friends," she admitted, then shiv- 
 ered away from what lay back of the thought. 
 She saw the rooms emptying with a regret that was 
 half terror. 
 
 Mrs. Mortimer Cuyler, handsome and resplen- 
 dent, paused amusedly to lay a finger on her burning 
 cheek. 
 
 "Why, Lucy, you are coming out," she said. 
 "I had no idea you were such a flirt." 
 
 "Don't let them go, Aunt Frances," Lucy begged. 
 "Make Laura sing." 
 
 Others, overhearing, took up the request, and 
 the daughter of the house was presently led to the
 
 242 EVER AFTER 
 
 piano. Her contralto voice swept richly through 
 the rooms, silencing the few scattered groups that 
 remained. The demand for an encore was insistent, 
 and Mrs. Cuyler, with a smiling glance at Lucy, 
 murmured a request. 
 
 "I am not sure I know it," Laura objected; "I'll 
 try, though. It is an Irish song of Cousin Dana's," 
 she added to those about her. "I have seen it only 
 in manuscript." 
 
 She struck a chord, and Lucy, standing in the 
 doorway, felt the ground shake and open under her 
 feet. She glanced about for a way of escape; 
 but some one was placing a chair for her, and 
 there was no clear way out. So she sat down, 
 bravely erect, her hands folded together on her 
 knee. 
 
 "Ah, Mother of Christ, who trod this path 
 You were Mary, too, like me " 
 
 The rich voice was thinned to evoke wild images 
 ghosts and dreams and a loneness that rose to a 
 haunting cry. 
 
 "It is fortunate that I am too angry to have any 
 heart;" Lucy spoke as quietly to her soul as she 
 might have to a neighbour. "Otherwise, this song 
 would have broken it. I am glad that I don't feel 
 things any longer. It is a great gain. I never
 
 EVER AFTER 243 
 
 supposed that I could sit through this and not care 
 in the least. I am very proud of myself." 
 
 "You were Mary Alone like me!" 
 
 crooned the longing voice. 
 
 "I'd better keep on talking to myself; it is safer," 
 went on the silent monologue over by the door. 
 "I am a coward in many ways, but a good soldier 
 under fire. I don't go to pieces. That isn't 
 boasting it is merely reminding myself. It takes 
 a good soldier to sit like this where every one can 
 look, and let herself be torn to bits without giving 
 a sign. And I am not really minding it; I don't 
 think she sings it very well. Oh, if she would only 
 stop! Lucy, Lucy! I was called a flirt to-day. 
 Isn't that too funny? I didn't know it was flirting 
 till Aunt Frances said so, but it was very amusing. 
 I must do it again. She is mixing up the words: 
 it is the 'lone white mist' that is to her knee. Still, 
 I never thought much about the words the music 
 was what I cared about. That was a hundred years 
 ago, before I had died and the worms had eaten me. 
 O God, if she would only stop! I tell you, I don't 
 care. He has gone out of my life. That part of 
 it is done. I can do without love. I am going to be 
 big and wise and calm : I must expect to be hurt like 
 this very often, and sitting here is splendid training.
 
 244 EVER AFTER 
 
 I am glad to prove that I can do it. I wouldn't cry 
 if it cost me my oh, will it never end? I am not 
 really in pain I only think I am. My heart is 
 nothing but a little cold piece of granite, with a crack 
 in it. It is good to be done with the whole thing. 
 I must plan how I shall fill my days. If I had 
 pencil and paper, it would be easier. Dana always 
 planned everything on the backs of envelopes. 
 Lucy, Lucy, don't! I must keep up. If I could 
 only die of it. I am so ill. Oh, the walls look - 
 here they come! If I am killed, I can cry all I 
 want to. Dana, love, I tried not to break down - 
 I did try - - " 
 
 As the song came to an end, a startled movement 
 about the doorway checked the applause. Mrs. 
 Dana Malone had fainted. She was quickly lifted 
 into the next room, and in a few moments Mrs. Cuy- 
 ler came out to reassure the guests. It was nothing : 
 Lucy had been overexcited, and was all right now, 
 though her nerves were upset. There was a little 
 invisible smiling among the older women, and eye- 
 brows were imperceptibly lifted. These faintings 
 of young married women were not usually fatal, 
 they implied. Then Aunt Frances went back to 
 Lucy, who lay with her face to the wall, and sobbed 
 and sobbed. 
 
 "It's nothing; I can't help it," she stammered. 
 "Oh, please let me, just this once!"
 
 EVER AFTER 245 
 
 Aunt Frances sent away the others and let her 
 have it out, sitting beside her in graceful silence. 
 She would have kept her all night, but Lucy, white 
 and spent, insisted on going home. Her aunt kissed 
 her lightly on both cheeks. 
 
 "We don't see half enough of each other in this 
 great family," she said. "I am coming in to have 
 a little visit with you in the morning." Lucy 
 pressed gratefully against her, but said nothing. 
 
 To give herself up to pain, to forget pride and 
 admit that she was hurt even unto death, was a wild 
 relief, after those frozen days and nights. Lucy 
 was too fevered and exhausted to give thought to 
 what had wrecked their happiness: she could only 
 cry out blindly for what was lost, and at last con- 
 jure up a presence that took her into comforting 
 arms and let her fall asleep with her cheek on a dream 
 shoulder. 
 
 In the morning she felt curiously blank and ill. 
 The anguish of the night before seemed as unreal as 
 a nightmare. The only realities were her bodily 
 misery, and the fact that Aunt Frances was coming 
 to find out what was the matter. Dread of the 
 visit goaded her into dragging herself from bed and 
 dressing. The one clear thought in her confused 
 mind was that she must escape it. Before Mrs. 
 Mortimer Cuyler could set out she was told over 
 the telephone that Mrs. Malone had run up to the
 
 246 EVER AFTER 
 
 Shore house for a few days, and would call up her 
 aunt when she came back. 
 
 Sleet had fallen along the coast, and the bare 
 trees were clashing their icy twigs in a glitter of 
 strong sunlight. Beyond the great house the sea 
 was living sapphire, and its cold, salt breath came 
 up the cliffs like a burst of health. An aged collie 
 trotted out to question the arrival, then wept aloud 
 for joy, and tried to gambol with a dear ridiculous- 
 ness that made his mistress laugh. The caretaker 
 stood beaming in the doorway. 
 
 "If I'd had more time, mem," she was apologizing. 
 
 Her daughter, scarlet with haste, was scurrying 
 out of sight with brushes and cloths. The greater 
 part of the house was closed, but a downstairs suite 
 had been put in readiness, and big fires lighted 
 the newly polished andirons. In the bedroom the 
 sunlight fell squarely across the bed, and just below, 
 at the foot of the cliffs, the surf foamed over black 
 rocks. Lucy bent her face to the pillow. 
 
 "Oh, I want to go to bed!" she exclaimed. 
 
 She lay there all day with her eyes on the sea, the 
 collie beside her, the two kind women zealous to 
 serve. She had come home, and, for the moment, 
 was dully content. But, in the night, a misery of 
 pain awoke her. What had once been the dearest 
 hope of her life had come to her unheeded and 
 unrecognized, and now it went away again. For
 
 EVER AFTER 247 
 
 a week afterward she lay in the square of sunlight 
 and watched the sea, and sorrowfully wished that 
 her life had been the one to go out. 
 
 Health was breathed up at her out of the Atlantic 
 and a new softness in the wind called her out. 
 Interesting things were going on in the greenhouses 
 and the garden, and presently she began to show 
 earthy hands and an interest in seed catalogues. 
 But with bodily health came the mind's inevitable 
 awakening. Lucy had a remorseless moral intelli- 
 gence. She could not walk down a street without 
 holding a secret court of justice on every block: 
 this nursemaid was unfair to her charge, that one 
 showed sense in a crisis; this chauffeur was selfishly 
 snatching a right of way not his and should be 
 spoken to, that chauffeur was so courteous and 
 considerate that one quite longed to smile at him. 
 The moment was coming when she must face the 
 charge that she had flung aside in her anger, and 
 give impartial verdict. 
 
 The gardener begged a word with her, and set 
 forth at length the powers of a new fertilizer, recom- 
 mended at Washington. Lucy listened with a 
 worried frown. 
 
 "But it is twice as expensive as the old; and you 
 have always had good results," she reminded him. 
 Then, inexplicably to him, she flushed up to her very 
 hair. "Still, suppose you try it, if you are con-
 
 248 EVER AFTER 
 
 vinced it is better," she conceded, and went hastily 
 indoors. The unforgettable words were hurtling 
 about her ears: "You are a miser. You love 
 money. You hoard it. In God's name, for what?" 
 
 The charge was there, written in living letters 
 before her shrinking sight, and she bravely walked 
 herself up to it. Passionate denial could not serve 
 her now: it was a case for grave justice. She closed 
 her door, shutting out the wistful collie, and regis- 
 tered a breathless vow : 
 
 "I will be big in this if I die of it!" Then she 
 seated herself, very erect in a straight chair, and 
 invited all the witnesses of the past to bring in 
 their evidence. 
 
 The defence crowded forward. There was her 
 grandfather, her practical, careful mother, the 
 family tone before the Mortimer Cuylers had broken 
 away and introduced reckless new standards: there 
 was prudence with her strict facts about the yearly 
 earning power of a dollar; there was righteous 
 example in a spendthrift age. Then, when the 
 clamour of justification died down, other voices began 
 to make themselves heard. They were, at first, 
 mere whispers unheeded comments and smiles, 
 some words under an ancient cartoon of Adrian 
 Cuyler, shown squeezing a coin until it dripped, 
 Candace's gibes, and then, in dreary succession, the 
 little tragedies of her married life. She remembered
 
 EVER AFTER 249 
 
 every one, even that wretched moment of arrival 
 in San Francisco; and things only half understood 
 before, signs of hurt valiantly argued away, became 
 horribly plain in the searching light of those last 
 words. * You save it for its own sake. You hate 
 to give. The meanest sin on earth 
 
 Suddenly she rose from her chair, looking about 
 her with startled eyes, as though on changed sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 "It is true!" she said aloud. 
 
 The verdict was "Guilty." It remained only 
 to pronounce sentence. Day after day Lucy loi- 
 tered about the beautiful old place with absent, 
 haunted eyes. Her face lost its childish curve, but 
 took on a spirituality that deepened its loveliness 
 to a rare beauty. Then, one morning, she came out 
 dressed for departure, an exalted light in her face, 
 as of a soul that has received its orders. 
 
 She had sent word that she was coming, and her 
 own coachman was waiting for her, a greeting ready; 
 but Lucy, usually the most courteous of mistresses, 
 seemed to forget that she had been away. 
 
 "Not home yet to Mr. Battle's office," she 
 said briefly. 
 
 All Lucy's affairs were cared for in the office of 
 Stanley Battle; and her manner of business dealings, 
 the sweetness and shyness and desire not to give 
 trouble, and the sudden compressions of her lips,
 
 250 EVER AFTER 
 
 their power of anxious sternness, were an endless 
 amusement to an observant gentleman who had 
 known both her Grandfather Cuyler and her Great 
 Aunt Betty. But the latent glimmer in Mr. Battle's 
 eyes was quenched this morning when Lucy had 
 seated herself facing him in the private office. The 
 usual friendly preliminaries were abruptly cut out. 
 
 "Well, Lucy?" he asked, and took up the paper 
 knife that always served to engage his glance when 
 clients had difficult things to say. In spite of her 
 white cheeks, it was easier for her to speak than it 
 often had been about some trivial matter. What 
 she had gone through had swept aside the little fears 
 and hesitations. 
 
 "Mr. Battle, I have made a discovery," she 
 began slowly. "I suppose every one else has known 
 it; but I have only just found it out. I am a miser." 
 
 He visibly started, then drew breath to protest, 
 but she checked him. 
 
 "No. Let me say it all, for it is not easy. Only 
 you have got to understand. A miser loves money, 
 hates to part with it, saves it for its own sake not 
 for what he can do with it. And that is what I have 
 been. It is a mean sin one of the meanest on 
 earth. It has nearly wrecked my married life. 
 Dana didn't want the money; it wasn't that. But, 
 don't you know, if you commit a mean sin over and 
 over in a person's sight, he is so hurt that he can't
 
 EVER AFTER 251 
 
 stand it? Suppose he had lied to me, for instance, 
 every day: I must have shrunk from him, grown 
 frightfully sensitive, don't you see? Oh, you must 
 understand, you must follow what I am trying to 
 tell you!" She wrung her hands in sudden desper- 
 ation, but his quiet, "Yes, Lucy, I understand," 
 steadied her again. 
 
 "I didn't dream it. I thought he simply wasn't 
 very wise about money. And he isn't, you know" 
 -a faint smile showed for an instant "but the 
 real wrong was all mine. And, at last, weeks ago, 
 he went away. He said he had to earn his own 
 living. I had humiliated him. He said he would 
 never again live on my money." The pain 
 of the words caught at her breath, but her eyes were 
 clear as blue flames. 
 
 "You had to know everything," she went on, 
 before he could speak. "What I have gone through 
 since then never mind that. But here is where 
 I have come out. It all lies in, 'If thy right hand 
 
 offend thee ' There is no other solution. 
 
 I can not trust myself to be different to stay 
 different. It is like a birthmark" she drew her 
 hand across her breast "a part of me. I could 
 always be made generous for the moment; but my 
 imagination never stays awake for the next case. 
 So I am going to make over the bulk of my property 
 to my husband. Don't protest don't warn and
 
 252 EVER AFTER 
 
 advise me. I want this done now, in secret, without 
 letting Dana know." 
 
 Mr Battle needed the paper knife for his own sake. 
 
 "Might not some compromise ?" he threw 
 
 out. 
 
 "Yes: there is one compromise. I was coming 
 to that. I will keep the Shore house, and ten thou- 
 sand a year, which you are to turn over to charity. 
 Not a cent of that is to go through my hands now. 
 But if Dana should lose all the rest and he may, 
 you know" again that rare little newborn smile 
 flashed out "we can retreat there and have 
 enough to live on. No other compromise. I have 
 been through them all; I began that way. Will you 
 do it, right now?" He looked into the white glow 
 of her face, and took her hand between his. 
 
 "I have heard nothing but good of your husband, 
 Lucy. I believe that he is an honourable and up- 
 right young fellow; I could see that he was. But 
 have you thought what your family will say?" 
 
 There was no aspect that Lucy had not faced. 
 "But you are to keep it absolutely secret," she 
 explained. "They are not to find out until it is 
 such an old story, it doesn't matter. And that 
 won't be hard there is so little real estate. Most 
 of it will be just a matter of signatures mine now, 
 and Dana's when I have told him." Her hand 
 clung to his. "You can make it hard or easy; but
 
 EVER AFTER 253 
 
 it is going to happen. I am keeping the greater 
 thing, Mr. Battle." 
 
 He was not yet won over; but Lucy's affairs were 
 in her own control, and she was quietly ready to 
 take them out of his office that very day if he did not 
 carry out her wishes. At last he literally threw 
 up his hands. 
 
 "And if some day you come back to rate me for 
 
 this " he said, rising. She was pulling off her 
 
 gloves. 
 
 "Let me sign everything right now," she said. 
 
 The horses grew very restless and the coachman 
 very hungry before Lucy at last came out. 
 
 "Oh, I am sorry, Nichols. I forgot you were 
 waiting," she exclaimed, and there was a light in her 
 face, a beauty of peace, that even a hungry coach- 
 man might not miss. 
 
 "It's all right, Miss Lucy," he said, reverting to the 
 name under which he had driven her for twenty years. 
 
 It seemed to Lucy that her only task now was to 
 wait. Dana would come or send. Since she had 
 climbed the barrier and seen things with his eyes, 
 she was as sure of his love as she was of the breath 
 of life in her own body. Sooner or later, it would 
 bring him back. Her spirit ached for him, strug- 
 gling alone in his hurt pride, but she knew that he 
 must succeed, must come to her on his own terms. 
 Nothing less would satisfy him.
 
 254 EVER AFTER 
 
 There were begging letters in Lucy's mail the next 
 morning. She started worriedly to consider them, 
 then tore them across with a laugh. 
 
 "That is Dana's business now!" was her thought. 
 A Ways and Means Committee reminded her that 
 a very important meeting was to be held that morn- 
 ing, and urged her attendance; Lucy laughed again, 
 as mischievously as the girl of Sky Farm, and ran 
 upstairs to get out her paints. For two happy hours 
 she laboured, and sent invisible messages of love and 
 hope to Dana, and sang under her breath. 
 
 "I'd better slave," she warned herself. "I may 
 have to sell my works, if Dana doesn't allow me 
 enough." Then she laughed aloud, and put out 
 her arms to him, heedless of palette and brushes. 
 "Darling boy, do hurry," she breathed. 
 
 A slow step and a rustle on the stairs brought 
 a craven desire to hide. She had not told any one 
 that she was back, but, of course, the family knew 
 it. They always knew. And no one but an aunt 
 could mount quite so like an approaching doom. 
 A tiny clanking told that, at least, it was not Aunt 
 Margaret; Mrs. Stephen Cuyler had no use for 
 lorgnons and vanity boxes 
 
 "Well, Lucy, I took the liberty of coming up;" 
 Mrs. Mortimer Cuyler was sufficiently worldly 
 to make a cheerful entrance, even if her errand 
 might be uncheerful, and Lucy was grateful for the
 
 EVER AFTER 255 
 
 respite. As a younger woman, Aunt Frances had 
 been big and plain, but with maturity and white 
 hair had come an unexpected gift of beauty. People 
 stared at her on the street, jumped to serve her in 
 cars; and though she bore this belated flowering 
 with dignity, as a large woman must, her enjoyment 
 of it crept out in little gestures and turns of her well- 
 carried head and in the gay assurance of her smile. 
 Even a trying errand could not quite dim her 
 consciousness of the delightful miracle. 
 
 "I haven't forgotten that I promised to call you 
 up, Aunt Frances," Lucy said. "I am only just 
 back." 
 
 Mrs. Cuyler looked at the sketch and was pleas- 
 antly appreciative, then went on to family news 
 and questions about the country. Lucy's alarmed 
 heart was quieting down when, without warning, 
 the attack came. 
 
 "Lucy, I have just heard some annoying gossip. 
 I don't believe a word of it, but I think you ought 
 to know that it is being said." To emphasize the 
 unimportance of the communication, Mrs. Cuyler 
 produced a tiny round mirror on a gold handle and 
 looked critically at one fine eye. Lucy's thought 
 had leaped to Mr. Battle, and she stiffened in a 
 panic of dread and anger. "It is about Dana," 
 Aunt Frances added. 
 
 Lucy's colour came back in a relieved rush and
 
 256 EVER AFTER 
 
 she sank down on the nearest chair. "Then it 
 isn't true," she said, so convincingly that Mrs. Cuy- 
 ler felt free to drop the mirror and settle back. 
 
 "I was sure of that. It was too absurd. (Lucy, 
 don't you like these shoes? I am trying a new man.) 
 But then, who is the child?" 
 
 "The child?" 
 
 "The little boy who is living with him. People 
 are saying ah, one can't repeat such things to 
 you." Aunt Frances again had recourse to the little 
 mirror. "But you must expect gossip, Lucy, if you 
 two stay apart so long." 
 
 Lucy's downcast face told nothing. "I want to 
 know just what is being said," she insisted. 
 
 "Why, it came through a friend of Laura's, whose 
 brother sat next a New York painter at a dinner 
 the other night. Ludlow was that the name?" 
 
 "Ludlam!" Lucy spoke so sharply that the other 
 paused inquiringly. "A hateful little man. He 
 doesn't like Dana, Aunt Frances. Please go on." 
 
 "I haven't it very clearly. The tale was that 
 something unpleasant had happened in San Fran- 
 cisco, and that, as a result, Dana was living perma- 
 nently hi New York with this boy." 
 
 "And people suppose that it is his?" Lucy was 
 aghast. "Why, it is some music pupil, of course. 
 I never in my life heard anything so silly, so out- 
 rageous. That Ludlam -
 
 EVER AFTER 257 
 
 "You can't scold down gossip, my dear Lucy." 
 Mrs. Cuyler glanced at her watch and rose. "I 
 must run my masseuse comes at eleven. I wish 
 you would try her; your colour isn't what it was. 
 Of course, I don't know what is keeping Dana in 
 New York; but, if he can't leave, you would do well 
 to go there, if you will forgive my saying it." 
 
 Lucy was pulling off her painting apron. 
 
 "I'll take the one o'clock," she said, breathless 
 with indignation. "How can people tell such 
 wicked lies! Ho wean they!" 
 
 Mrs. Cuyler had a delicate shrug. "If you will 
 live apart ! " she might have said. But she had 
 struck that note once, and, getting no explanation, 
 would not try again. Lucy was not sufficiently 
 modern to be attacked with plain questions. 
 
 Long before she had reached New York, Lucy had 
 forgotten the cause of her going. Perhaps, after 
 all, her righteous wrath had been largely the soul's 
 pretext for running to him. It was there, a vague 
 support, to .serve her if she found herself unwelcome 
 but at that word she laughed, and her fingers 
 curled tightly into her palms. She planned no intro- 
 ductory sentences. It would be just an opening 
 door, then "Lucy!" and "Dana!" and a close 
 silence. No need of words. She was glad that she 
 was making the first move, glad of everything, even 
 of past pain. Since her interview with Mr. Battle,
 
 258 EVER AFTER 
 
 her spirit had felt a marvellous lightness. She 
 seemed to be skimming over the awakening country 
 on poised wings. 
 
 Providence, New London, New Haven, New York; 
 a dream consciousness of streaming human crowds 
 and the crash of streets; then a sudden, dreadful 
 awakening at big, new portals, clumsily ornate. 
 Lucy stood helpless before them, terror stricken, 
 bodily unable to move. Dana might not want her. 
 She set down her bag, and made her glove an excuse 
 for delay. 
 
 "I really am not very well fitted for this world," 
 she admitted, with a gasp for breath. Then she 
 cried shame on herself so effectually that, three 
 minutes later, she was at Dana's door. 
 
 From within came the stodgy beat of a piano 
 study, broken at frequent intervals by little flights 
 of notes, escaping in runs and trills. Lucy's knock 
 was a bare touch, but sharp ears heard it, and the 
 music stopped. The door was opened by a small, 
 dark-skinned boy, whose mournfully brown eyes, by 
 the mere act of being lifted, gave a misleading effect 
 of pathos. Lucy shrank back. 
 
 "I thought this was Mr. Malone's apartment," 
 she apologized. 
 
 "It is, but he's not here." The boy hesitated, 
 then opened the door wider. "Did you want 
 music lessons?" he suggested. "Because I can tell
 
 EVER AFTER 259 
 
 you when he can give them to you. I know all 
 about his affairs." 
 
 Lucy smiled a little and came in, her glance 
 passing quickly about the room. In spite of Can- 
 dace's offerings, it seemed to her touchingly bare, 
 and her fear was swallowed up in mothering com- 
 passion. She turned to the uncurtained windows, 
 that she might hide her face. 
 
 "When will he be back?" she asked obliviously 
 of Luis. He hesitated, craftily considering. 
 
 "Mr. Malone is a most re-markable teacher," 
 he announced, standing before her with hands deep 
 in his pockets. "Everybody wants to be taught 
 by him; he has only a little time left. Two, three 
 evenings. I can write your name down; and then 
 perhaps he will take you." 
 
 The curious little creature was beginning to en- 
 gage her attention. "Are you one of his pupils?" 
 she asked. 
 
 The boy's chest rose. "Oh, I am his Luis," he 
 threw off. 
 
 "His what?" 
 
 "His Luis. I have come from San Francisco to 
 live with him and become a great musician." 
 
 The smile was stricken out of the pretty lady's 
 eyes. She looked frightened, hurt. "Not Luis 
 Valdez?" 
 
 The name drew a flash of anger. "No! I do not
 
 260 EVER AFTER 
 
 keep the name of those pigs. I am Mr. Malone's 
 Luis. My father and my mother will lie dead in 
 the gutter, and I will jump over them and laugh!" 
 
 His scorn of the Fifth Commandment passed 
 unnoticed. The lady had sunk down on the couch, 
 and she rocked slightly, as though the pain were 
 sharp. 
 
 "Ah, and he sent for you;" she covered her face 
 with her hands. "With all this, he sent for you. 
 Oh, my dear, my dear!" 
 
 "No, he didn't send for me," Luis contradicted. 
 "I brought myself. I am like that. I can do any- 
 thing." She seemed so glad to hear it that he told 
 her more of his coming, and brought out a treasured 
 letter. "That's what he wrote me. You can read 
 it if you like." 
 
 She sat so long over the letter that Luis stood 
 beside her to help her out. 
 
 "The writing is very plain," he said. "I made 
 it all out by myself. That is 'debt of gratitude' 
 there. It is this way: 'Mr. Bynner was as good 
 to me when I was a boy as he has been to you, and 
 I owe him such a debt of gratitude that I want to 
 pay it to you.' That means ' 
 
 "Yes, I know what it means," she interposed 
 gently, her face still shielded by her hand. 
 
 "He is the best man in the world," Luis stated. 
 "I would let myself be cut in pieces for him, so."
 
 EVER AFTER 261 
 
 His hand crisscrossed his little body. "I am to 
 live with him until she drives me out." 
 
 "Who drives you out?" 
 
 "His cat of a wife." Luis spat out the words, 
 then, seeing the lady recoil, apologized. "I do not 
 call her that to him at least, not again. I thought 
 he would kill me." He shivered with an awed 
 memory of the moment. "He stood so oh, like 
 a lion! Then he dropped his hand and he said, 
 'Luis! If you speak of her that way again, I will 
 lick the life out of you!' Oh, he was terrible." 
 Luis settled down beside her with a wriggle of 
 artistic satisfaction. "I wish you had seen him." 
 
 A gentle, gloved hand rested on his shoulder. 
 "Perhaps she will let you stay," the lady suggested. 
 Luis's headshake was hopeless. 
 
 "There isn't room. I'd be under her feet all the 
 time. I am not to expect it." 
 
 "But suppose he moved to a nice house, where 
 there was plenty of room?" 
 
 Male exasperation took him to his feet: from 
 closed eyes to swinging foot, his little body expressed, 
 "If that isn't just like a woman ! " At last he spoke : 
 
 "How in thunder do you think we'd pay 
 for it? Aren't we working day and night to pay 
 for this?" 
 
 The lady laughed aloud, a laugh so full of warmth 
 and merriment that Luis found his scowl of offence
 
 262 EVER AFTER 
 
 hard to maintain. He turned away, loftily, but 
 
 she called him back. 
 
 "Luis ! When will Mr. Malone be in? " 
 
 Again he evaded the question. "Did you want 
 
 evening lessons?" 
 
 "I want all the evenings he can give me." 
 
 Luis scrambled for a pad and pencil. "Write it 
 
 down," he said eagerly. 
 
 "But I would rather wait to see him." 
 
 At last it came. "Well but he won't be home 
 
 to-night." 
 The lady looked ready to cry. "Oh, Luis! Why 
 
 not? Where has he gone?" 
 
 "He might be, of course," Luis amended. 
 
 "I couldn't be dead certain. But he's gone to 
 
 Boston."
 
 CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 Luis dearly loved to make a sensation; and he had 
 undeniably made one. The lady half rose, as though 
 she would run to Boston herself, and Luis could 
 not tell whether she was very glad or very sorry. 
 She listened to his account of a letter and 
 a sudden departure that morning with flattering 
 intensity. 
 
 "Perhaps you know about the letter," he sug- 
 gested, conscious of things unspoken. 
 
 She shook her head; she did not seem to care 
 about that. "He will be back to-night, Luis," she 
 said. "Do you mind if I wait for him? " 
 
 Luis was enchanted; he seldom had so devout an 
 audience. The lady hung on his words, and the 
 glow in her face lifted him into an ecstasy of self- 
 appreciation. 
 
 "I certainly am a re-markable boy," he told 
 himself at happy intervals. At her suggestion, he 
 showed her the bare little kitchen and explained 
 their housekeeping devices. Then he exhibited 
 their sleeping arrangements and made up his bed 
 on the rug, politely offering to let her try its delights. 
 
 263
 
 264 EVER AFTER 
 
 But when she asked about the other door, he sprang 
 to defend it. 
 
 "You can't go in there," he exclaimed. "That 
 is his wife's room. No one else can go in it, except 
 just the lady that comes to sweep." Lucy turned 
 away, twisting her hands together. 
 
 "I cannot bear it," she said softly. 
 
 Luis, fearing that she was going, offered to play 
 to her, and worked off his excitement at the piano, 
 not dreaming that his motionless audience did not 
 hear one note. When he stopped, his eyes were 
 swimming with sleep. 
 
 "I will play more for you another day," he 
 mumbled. As from a long distance, he heard the 
 lady urge him to go to bed, and he drowsily obeyed, 
 rousing himself for a moment to demand admiration 
 for his blue pajamas. Then his head sank into the 
 cushions and he was off. 
 
 As soon as he was asleep, Lucy rose and quietly 
 opened the forbidden door. The little room was 
 like a shrine; every object had been placed there in 
 love of her. At first the effort that had gone into 
 it nearly broke her heart. Then she remembered 
 what she had done for love of him, and her head 
 lifted. 
 
 "I am not unworthy," she said. 
 
 For several days past Dana had felt despair
 
 EVER AFTER 265 
 
 coming nearer and nearer. The stand he had taken 
 was right, but he could not maintain it. He was 
 not fitted to support a wife. He was throwing his 
 talent and his health all he had into his 
 offering, yet he could not make it good enough. 
 The vision of Lucy in those bare quarters, badly 
 served, crowded for space, brought a flush of shame 
 and helpless anger. If he had married some hardy 
 little art student, who could hop into a kimono and 
 get breakfast while he was shaving, they might have 
 pulled through financially and even had energy 
 over for other things; but he had allied himself to 
 a House, and its daughter never entered a kitchen 
 but as a shy, stately mistress with orders. He had 
 no regrets for the little art student; the fine-lady 
 quality in Lucy had drawn him just as the Dana 
 inheritance had spread romance for Dan Malone, 
 his father, son of old Brian Malone of the inspired 
 fiddle. But he began to see, drearily, that he who 
 makes such an alliance has to lop off some of 
 his natural instincts: he may not inevitably be 
 the head of his household. Sooner or later, he 
 must come down from his first hot demand. Per- 
 haps, if Lucy would live in her own fashion 
 - where he could earn his living, the compro- 
 mise might be tolerable. Pride winced, of course; 
 but they had hurt each other so horribly! Some- 
 times the only thing in life that seemed to mat-
 
 266 EVER AFTER 
 
 ter was to win her back and so ease that incessant 
 ache. 
 
 "What if I went to her to-day?" The thought 
 had been in his mind that very morning, holding 
 him stock-still in the middle of the kitchen, a pot of 
 oatmeal in one hand. Luis, seated expectantly 
 before a bowl, waited in silence, a hopeful glimmer 
 in his eyes. Once, during an abstracted moment, 
 Dana had carefully emptied the scrambled eggs 
 into the sink, and Luis lived for another such joyous 
 event. The postman's ring spoiled the chances 
 this time, and the boy slipped down to answer it; 
 a little praise kept Luis at a high pitch of usefulness. 
 Dana, startled back to the present, was serving the 
 oatmeal and glancing at his watch like any other 
 punctual business man when the letter was laid be- 
 fore him. At first glance, he saw only that it was not 
 from Lucy. Then the printed heading caught his eye. 
 
 "Oh, by jinks!" he breathed, and tore open the 
 envelope. 
 
 He had felt a calm certainty that his " Children's 
 Crusade Suite " would win the prize; yet, now that 
 it had come, he could not believe his senses. Luis 
 questioned in vain; he was deaf to everything but 
 his own inner shout of joy. A thousand dollars 
 might not mean an established income, but, oh, it 
 meant Lucy! He could at least go to her with full 
 hands and an offering of glory. He dragged out
 
 EVER AFTER 267 
 
 a bag and made a faint effort to pack it intelligently; 
 then gave up with an explosive, "Oh, what's the use!" 
 and banged it shut on whatever it might contain. 
 His coffee was poured out, so he drank it, standing. 
 
 "I have to go to Boston, Luis," he explained. 
 "Here's a dollar. You will have to look out for 
 yourself as best you can. I'll be back soon 
 
 to-morrow " He was leaving, but Luis's 
 
 hand on his coat stopped him at the door. 
 
 "Don't you want your hat?" the boy demanded 
 in astonished reproach. Dana laughed and admitted 
 that he did, tried wildly to consider if other practical 
 matters were being overlooked, then shrugged off 
 all earthly cares and ran for his train. 
 
 The first dismay at finding Lucy gone was wiped 
 out by an awed joy. For she had taken train to 
 New York, and the address she had left for her 
 letters was his. Dana marvelled over it, at first 
 solemnly, then with a jubilant leap of pulses. She 
 had run to him, even as he had run to her, and there 
 would be no need of words. 
 
 His outer door opened on darkness, but a light 
 from the inner room showed where she was. Dana 
 went quietly past the sleeping Luis and pushed 
 back the door. Lucy, hearing him, had started to 
 her feet, but she stood motionless until their eyes 
 met. Then it was all as she had foreseen "Lucy !" 
 and "Dana!" and a close silence.
 
 CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 "I CAN'T go down to the office. I can't do it!" 
 Dana laughed, in the tone of one who, nevertheless, 
 is about to do the impossible. He sat on the side 
 of the bed, and the coffee and toast he had brought 
 in cooled forgotten on the little oval table. Lucy's 
 morning face had a rose-petal flush between her 
 brown braids and her eyes were blue as cornflowers; 
 but her beauty had gone deeper than these things, 
 and Dana, feeling it, had to bend his head to her 
 hands to express his fealty. He wanted to go down 
 on his knees to her, but, being of his generation, he 
 could only laugh at himself and wait on her with 
 brimming zeal. 
 
 "Don't go," she urged, knowing that he would. 
 
 "My beloved, I don't believe I even telephoned 
 them yesterday. If I did, I have no recollection of 
 it. I simply lit out." They laughed and clung to 
 each other for the sake of that simultaneous flight. 
 "But you will come down and lunch with me? 
 Without fail?" 
 
 "Without fail." 
 
 "It is all right about Luis. Father Grant will 
 
 268
 
 EVER AFTER 269 
 
 take him for a few days, anyway, till we come to" 
 - he hesitated, and the light was a little dimmed 
 "practical arrangements," he concluded manfully. 
 "We have a lot to talk over, Lucy." 
 
 "Not yet; not to-day," she begged. "Just love 
 me, Dana." 
 
 "I'll 'just love you* to the end of my days." 
 He dragged himself to his feet. "I must go. Don't 
 mind if Luis looks knives and daggers at you; he'll 
 come round." 
 
 Lucy had a tiny smile at the corner of her mouth. 
 "We seem to have acquired our little Frederick," 
 she murmured. Dana sat down again. 
 
 Five minutes later, he departed at a run, calling 
 a word of cheer to Luis as he passed. Luis made 
 no answer. His scowling little face was bent over 
 a bundle containing his few earthly possessions. 
 When Lucy came out, determined on reconciliation, 
 he had gone. 
 
 The "lady who comes in to sweep" had been sent 
 for and bribed to stay by the day, so there was 
 nothing for Lucy to do. Spring called to her at 
 the open windows. Even the breath of the city 
 had an April sweetness. She went down into the 
 streets and walked aimlessly in a daze of happiness. 
 Once she found herself under the elevated, and the 
 splashes of sunlight falling through its barred shade 
 transformed it into a gigantic semblance of the grape
 
 270 EVER AFTER 
 
 arbour of the Shore garden, and so made her heart 
 thud with delight. The very signs of the shops 
 struck notes of beauty and romance. "Black, 
 Starr and Frost"! who could pass that magic 
 combination without the thrill of keen nights? 
 "C. Hymes" over an obscure door said "Chimes" 
 to Lucy, and the street rang with the lovely word. 
 A wet steel rail, seen in a side glimpse, took on a 
 piercing blue, as entrancing as the sudden note of a 
 thrush. Puffs of white steam, curling with luminous 
 intensity into bright sky, seemed to carry her spirit 
 up with them like a white offering. The swinging 
 doors of the cathedral suggested that she must thank 
 some one's God for all this, so she stepped into its 
 sudden, rich coolness, and, finding a seat behind 
 a pillar, went down on her knees, burying her face 
 in her arms. Again there was no need of words. 
 
 It was Saturday, and Dana had so arranged his 
 work that he need not go back to his office that 
 afternoon. 
 
 "What shall I do with you?" he asked, leaning 
 back in his chair, the better to look at her. They 
 had lunched gorgeously and conspicuously, yearning 
 to be seen together by old friends, yet nervous of 
 possible questions, since the future was still undis- 
 cussed. They had talked of everything else of 
 Dana's prize and of the hope that had come and 
 gone, of "Mary Alone," and Ludlam and Candace
 
 EVER AFTER 271 
 
 and of all the love and misery of those interminable 
 weeks: only the blighting theme of money had 
 been avoided. Lucy debated his question, but, 
 meeting his eyes, forgot to answer it. "What 
 will you have done with you, Miss Lucy?" he 
 repeated. 
 
 Her glance turned to the open windows. ""Hire 
 a motor and take me out of town," she commanded, 
 and so very nearly got herself embraced in a public 
 cafe. "My dear," she breathed, with a gasp for 
 the closeness of her escape. He laughed and took 
 her coat from the waiter. As he held it, his glance, 
 passing over intervening tables, met Ludlam's pale 
 gaze, fixed on them with an intensity that was 
 almost dismayed. Dana nodded blithely, then 
 muttered a disgusted : 
 
 "Oh, confound it!" 
 
 "What? "she asked. 
 
 He did not explain until they were outside. 
 "I saw a man in there that I intended to cut; and 
 I forgot all about it." 
 
 Lucy was amused. "I will wait while you go back 
 and do it," she suggested; then added a quick, "Oh 
 was it Mr. Ludlam?" Dana nodded. "I shall not 
 forget to cut him," she promised, with early Victo- 
 rian stateliness. 
 
 They sped home for wraps and veils, and a car was 
 at the door by the time they were ready. Not till
 
 272 EVER AFTER 
 
 they had left the city far behind them did Dana 
 remember Luis. 
 
 "I meant to see him or call him up," he explained. 
 "Poor little chap, his nose is rather out of joint." 
 
 "We will see him to-morrow," she comforted him. 
 
 They came home late that night, drowsy, sun- 
 burned, as happy as two people may be with a 
 momentous topic unbroaehed between them. Once 
 or twice Lucy had tried to prepare Dana for what 
 she had done, to edge up to the mighty secret, but 
 courage dismally failed her. The pure justice of 
 her sentence and her exaltation in carrying it out 
 had lifted her for the time being into a simpler 
 world, where truth and righteousness held unques- 
 tioned sway; she had overlooked the scruples and 
 sensitivenesses that must complicate Dana's accept- 
 ance of her act. The thought that she might have 
 to fight him as she had fought herself and Mr. Battle 
 appalled her. She even caught herself in a craven 
 desire to fall very ill, so that Dana might be too 
 concerned about her to protest at anything; and, for 
 shame's sake, made an attempt at the topic. They 
 were sitting over a late breakfast in Sunday morning 
 laziness, glancing through the letters they had been 
 too sleepy to open the night before. She handed 
 three sheets across to him. 
 
 "What would you do with those?" she asked. 
 
 They were all appeals for money. One of them
 
 EVER AFTER 273 
 
 Dana threw aside with a laugh; a second with sounds 
 of contempt; the third he read with kindling interest. 
 
 "Good letter," he observed. "It sounds all 
 right." 
 
 "But what would you do? " 
 
 "Why, look it up, of course. Find out if the need 
 of an infirmary is as bad as they say, and how these 
 people stand. If it turned out as good as it sounds, 
 I'd give let me see: they are trying to raise fifty 
 thousand dollars. Well, I'd give a thousand now, 
 and perhaps more later." 
 
 "And you would enjoy doing it," said Lucy. 
 
 "Oh, yes. I'd like meeting those men and hearing 
 what they had to say. I like human dealings." 
 
 "A rich man should," she said bravely. "You 
 would be a better person than I to have money, 
 Dana." The words had an intention that he could 
 not ignore: they said, "You were right," and her 
 steady eyes repeated the message. The hideous 
 charge on which they had parted lay uncovered 
 before Dana's shamed sight. He went round to her 
 and hid his face in her shoulder. 
 
 "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry 
 sorry 
 
 "No: I am glad. I had to learn. Dana 
 
 The telephone came to her rescue. Sternest 
 resolution could not go on with that bell buzzing 
 in the corner. Lucy dropped back in her chair,
 
 274 EVER AFTER 
 
 weak with unrighteous relief. She heard Dana's, 
 "Oh, Father Grant: good morning! How are you?" 
 and had time for a silent rhapsody over the beloved, 
 inborn cordiality with which he met all the world 
 before the tiny, metallic echo that was the priest's 
 voice reached her understanding. 
 
 "When is the boy coming over? " he was saying. 
 
 They talked at cross purposes, puzzling each other; 
 then Dana broke out with a startled : 
 
 "Great Scott! You don't mean that he hasn't 
 turned up? Why, he left here yesterday morning!" 
 
 Luis had not turned up; and he had been gone 
 twenty-four hours. Lucy could tell nothing, and 
 Dana hurried downstairs to make inquiries. An 
 elevator boy remembered Luis's departure with his 
 bundle, and had noticed that he turned east when 
 he left the building. Father Grant lived to the 
 west, but the boy was certain. He had watched 
 because Luis seemed to be in a curious state of mind, 
 and had met their usual opening for repartee with 
 a silent snarl, baring his teeth like a small tiger. 
 He had walked away slowly, yet with purpose: he 
 seemed to know where he was going. 
 
 As a matter of form, Dana called up police and 
 hospitals, but he knew very well that there had been 
 no accident. Luis had a dollar in his pocket, rage 
 in his heart, and he had run away. 
 
 "I ought to have given more time to him," Dana
 
 EVER AFTER 275 
 
 reproached himself. "I could have straightened 
 him out in ten minutes; but I was so wrapped up in 
 you, I couldn't think of anything else. And, of 
 course, he saw it." 
 
 Lucy shivered. "It is so horrible to be jealous!" 
 He turned to her in surprise. 
 
 "What do you know about it, Lucy Cuyler?" 
 he demanded. She smiled, but would not explain. 
 The time had gone by forever when his love for 
 California could go through her like a knife. 
 
 They gave the police a description of Luis and set 
 out to search the city streets. The morning was 
 fruitless, but, while they were lunching, a policeman 
 appeared with Luis's bundle. It had been found 
 hidden in the bushes by a Park lake, where the boy 
 had evidently slept; and with it were his cap, shoes, 
 and stockings. A remark about having the lake 
 examined made Lucy turn white, but Dana refused 
 to be alarmed. 
 
 "He is taking care of himself, you can bet on 
 that," he assured her. "I know him." Lucy still 
 saw dreadful pictures of a little body drifting, face 
 down. 
 
 "Oh, he must be found," she exclaimed. "We 
 
 will give five hundred dollars, gladly Then 
 
 she broke off with a gasp; for she had suddenly 
 remembered that the five hundred dollars she had 
 with her was all the money she possessed in the
 
 276 EVER AFTER 
 
 world. Dana, coming back from final words with 
 the officer, found her looking more frightened 
 than ever. 
 
 "He's all right, darling," he comforted her. 
 "I give you my word, he's better fitted to take care 
 of himself than I am." 
 
 "I hope so. O Dana, I wish we could find 
 him ourselves!" 
 
 "You're such a little brick," he murmured. 
 
 They took a taxicab for the afternoon, and went 
 up and down the city till they were worn out. Five 
 o'clock found them sitting, limp and speechless, in 
 a Park restaurant with a pot of tea between them. 
 After a reviving cup, Dana went to call up head- 
 quarters for news. Lucy sat, vacant with weariness, 
 staring at the bizarre women and sleek, thick -necked 
 men that motors and carriages kept depositing at 
 the foot of the broad steps. 
 
 She thought she must have fallen asleep, for 
 suddenly she was listening to "Mary Alone." 
 She started, shaking her head to clear it of dreams; 
 but the strain persisted, a mournful piping 
 "Mary Alone" done into another language. Others 
 were turning to some sight on the gravel beneath, 
 and their amusement checked the waiters, who had 
 started forward to stop the intrusion. Lucy rose 
 in time to see a small son of Spain, bareheaded and 
 barefooted, a musical pipe pressed to his cheek, old-
 
 EVER AFTER 277 
 
 world eyes lifted as though to the gods, playing 
 money out of the nearest pockets with an appalling 
 surety. She started forward, but others, rising, 
 blocked her path. 
 
 "Luia!" she called, but too faintly to be noticed. 
 
 The child stood with the assurance of acknowl- 
 edged genius, his perfect melancholy untouched by 
 the laughter in the faces above him. He was enjoy- 
 ing himself superbly; and not by the flicker of an 
 eyelash did he betray consciousness of the silver 
 dropping at his feet. Luis was destined to un- 
 numbered successes with women, and a keen prophet 
 might have seen the signs then in the laughing 
 attention bent on him; but never would his charm 
 fly home more swiftly and certainly than it did now 
 to his first real conquest. Lucy had appreciated 
 his devotion to Dana, had determined to overcome 
 her instinctive class shrinking from the ragamuffin 
 in him and to love him for Dana's sake; and suddenly 
 here she was, filled with warm laughter over him and 
 a mighty, mothering desire to shake him well. She 
 pressed forward, losing sight of him for the moment. 
 When she reached the steps, a Park policeman held 
 a struggling, furious Luis by the shoulder. 
 
 "I guess you're the kid we're looking for," he was 
 saying with genial satisfaction. "Here, drop that 
 wildcat business, sonny, or I'll - 
 
 "Luis!" Lucy ran down to him, heedless of curious
 
 278 EVER AFTER 
 
 eyes. "Luis, dear!" The voice meant rescue, and 
 Luis's struggles ceased. "My dear little boy, we 
 have been looking for you all day long!" Her arm 
 was about him, her eyes spoke understanding and 
 tenderness. Luis's sullen gaze fell and encoun- 
 tered the silver. In an instant, he had it pocketed 
 with a deftness that brought another laugh from 
 the tables. 
 
 Dana, coming out, heard the tale, and hastened 
 to get his family away from the intensely interested 
 spectators. The policeman showed reluctance at 
 parting from Luis. 
 
 "It was me found him," he insisted. 
 
 "Oh, yes. You may come for the reward at any 
 time," said Lucy serenely. In the cab, her arm 
 slipped about the silent Luis. 
 
 "He's a tired boy, Dana," she said. "Don't 
 scold him to-night. He must be so hungry." 
 
 Dana's hand, having brushed Luis's pocket, was 
 unceremoniously thrust in, and brought out a hand- 
 ful of silver and copper. 
 
 "H'm hungry!" he observed. "Luis, I can 
 see that bringing you up isn't going to be unmixed 
 joy. You go into a good, stiff school next fall, 
 young man." 
 
 "But he will spend the summer with us," said 
 Lucy. 
 
 Luis gave her a swift, cool glance. There was
 
 EVER AFTER 279 
 
 a patronizing acceptance in it, as though jealousy had 
 realized that here were scarcely grounds for any real 
 alarm. His head slipped an inch nearer her shoulder, 
 in token that he was willing to let her take his side, 
 and Lucy, curiously humble and pleased, had 
 thoughts of ponies and tutors for this little son of 
 the streets. 
 
 The reward was paid that evening: five hundred 
 dollars in bills. Lucy was so very grave afterward 
 that Dana was troubled. 
 
 "You needn't have paid it," he told her. "He 
 didn't really find him; we were right there. I ought 
 to have said so at the time." 
 
 "No: I am glad it happened," was the puzzling 
 answer, and suddenly Lucy laughed aloud, a breath- 
 less, astonished laugh that ended against his shoulder. 
 "O Dana, life is so funny," she stammered. 
 
 "So Candy says," was the sober answer. 
 
 More than once, in the days that followed, Dana 
 stopped short to demand: 
 
 "Lucy, what is it? What has happened?" 
 But she would only laugh and slip away from 
 the question. There was some bubbling well of 
 spirits just under the surface. When Dana made 
 a serious business of hurrying off to his office, her 
 eyes mocked him: when he came home tired and 
 fagged, her mothering tenderness had the same 
 mischievous gleam. He had seen her as merry on
 
 280 EVER AFTER 
 
 the hills of Sky Farm, but never as alluringly wicked, 
 and he fell in love with her "all over again from the 
 beginning," as he expressed it. In some mysterious 
 way she had broken the mighty grip that held her, 
 and found freedom. She would not talk of money. 
 In fact, she would not do anything that she ought 
 to, and she enjoyed her own defiance so exquisitely 
 that he could only follow her lead in devout acqui- 
 escence. 
 
 On the fifth morning, as he was putting together 
 some papers, the frown of the punctual business man 
 on his forehead, she suddenly appeared before him 
 with an air of scared purpose. She wore an absurd 
 little dressing sack with fluttering lace for sleeves, 
 and her brown braids lay on her shoulders. Her 
 hands were clasped behind her back. 
 
 "Dana!" 
 
 "Yes, dear?" Mortal man could not have shown 
 himself more approachable, yet her colour rose and 
 fell, and, in spite of her amused eyes, she visibly 
 gasped. 
 
 "It's only Dana, dear I haven't any money. 
 Could you let me have some?" 
 
 Could he! His hand plunged into a well-filled 
 pocket and offered her its entire contents. She 
 would have taken a modest bill, but he pressed it 
 all into her hands and closed them over it. 
 
 "You'll need it, dearest," he urged.
 
 EVER AFTER 281 
 
 Lucy looked down at her hands, still held closely 
 between his, as though making a discovery. He 
 waited till it came in words. 
 
 "Dana I like taking it from you." 
 
 "God knows how I like giving it to you!" Then 
 a clock struck, and he had to go. 
 
 Lucy painted every morning in her bedroom, 
 where the light was better than in the sunny main 
 room. She was developing from memory sketches 
 made in the Shore garden, and the plain little room, 
 fitted out so laboriously in love of her, seemed to 
 weave a spell about her, so that she worked with 
 enchanted brushes on fairy canvas, and held scenes 
 of magic beauty under her eyelids. So deep was 
 the glamour that surrounded her, that morning, 
 that she did not notice the opening of the door 
 behind her, and worked on in happy unconsciousness 
 of a spectator on the threshold. Fifteen minutes 
 later a voice made her jump. 
 
 "I'd leave it there," it said. "You'll overdo it 
 if you go on." 
 
 "Candy!" Lucy flew to her, but could get little 
 personal attention; Candace was intent on the 
 sketch. She looked at it from so many angles 
 that Lucy grew worried. "I haven't had any time 
 to work this winter," she apologized. 
 
 At last Candy turned to her. 
 
 "What has happened to you?" she demanded.
 
 282 EVER AFTER 
 
 "You've got it at last the thing I've been preach- 
 ing at you all these years in vain. You've let go. 
 And I didn't think you could. What taught you? " 
 
 "Life, I suppose," said Lucy, with a sigh for the 
 price she had paid. 
 
 "Go on living, then. That's painting. Come 
 and work with me while you are in town." Then 
 Candace returned to personal matters, a smile curl- 
 ing the corners of her sleepy little eyes. "Well?" 
 she queried. 
 
 "All well, thank you;" Lucy smiled and flushed. 
 
 "Had a pretty bad time?" 
 
 "It is over now, Candy. Over for ever and ever." 
 
 "H'm. It is if you have learned to laugh; not 
 otherwise." Candace turned back to the main room 
 and settled down with an air of having come on 
 business. "Lucy, how about Sky Farm? I have 
 gathered an idea that you thought that rather a 
 failure the cabin part of it." 
 
 Lucy checked an impulsive, "Oh, no!" and sat 
 down to consider. "Yes, on the whole, I did," 
 she admitted. 
 
 "Take them one by one." 
 
 "Well: Mr. Ludlam. He certainly was not 
 worthy of being helped. He used and despised it." 
 
 "I grant you Ludlam." 
 
 "Adamovitch. You remember how he ran away 
 without a word of good-bye or appreciation?"
 
 EVER AFTER 283 
 
 "Yes; but he came to me last winter and apolo- 
 gized. He was desperate with homesickness, and 
 he went back to Russia. He told me that the place 
 saved him: he has had a successful season. Palmer 
 Jacks did work there that has set him solidly on his 
 feet oh, atrocious work, I admit, but he sells it 
 and he's happy I think he is even looking for a 
 lady to marry him;" Candace's hardy brown face 
 was all curled up in smiling lines. "And though 
 he is still poor enough, he won't take the cabin for 
 this year. Give it to some other poor devil, he 
 says. Not much harm done there?" 
 
 "No," Lucy admitted. 
 
 "Some one will always have to look out for little 
 Willing: it might as well be me as any one else. 
 You can't say he isn't grateful. The Dabneys want 
 me to build a cottage there and rent it to them; they 
 must feel that they got something. As for Dana 
 Malone I don't think his cabin was wasted, little 
 Lucy!" 
 
 A vision of what her life would have been if 
 Dana's cabin had not been built brought Lucy 
 to Candace's side. "O Candy, if we hadn't!" she 
 cried. 
 
 "I thought as much. Well, now, what is your 
 wish? Shall I go on lending the cabins? It isn't 
 a brilliant record, I admit. I could rent them and 
 pay you a good interest on the investment."
 
 284 EVER AFTER 
 
 Lucy winced. "Please don't. I want you to go 
 on lending them, of course." 
 
 "Very well. I have several candidates in mind." 
 Candace rose. "I want to hear about your plans, 
 but I mustn't stop now. When are you two children 
 coming to dine with me?" 
 
 Lucy's pause marked the taking of a mighty 
 resolution. 
 
 "To-morrow night," she said, and so stood com- 
 mitted to telling Dana that night the appalling 
 secret that he was a rich man. 
 
 He made it harder for her by coming home in a 
 blaze of excitement over his " Children's Crusade." 
 He had had an interview with the leader of the 
 orchestra that was to play it, and the appreciation 
 shown him had started the strings and brasses 
 echoing in his ears. After dinner, he had to play 
 bits of it to her, to illustrate the great man's praises. 
 He seemed wholly absorbed in his subject, and yet 
 suddenly he swung round and caught her in his arms 
 as she stood beside him. 
 
 "What's the matter?" he demanded. "Have 
 you got to scold me for something is that it? 
 Or have you committed some awful crime yourself? 
 Out with it!" She drew a deep breath of resolution; 
 then let it out again. 
 
 "It is going to be so hard to make you under- 
 stand," she faltered.
 
 EVER AFTER 285 
 
 "No, dear, it isn't." He had turned grave, and 
 his arms released her. "Say it slowly, just as you 
 mean it, and I will understand. Of course, it is 
 this everlasting money business," he added. "I 
 have things to say about it, too." 
 
 She stood hesitating, then, with a desperate 
 gesture, turned to a portfolio on the table and took 
 out a letter. 
 
 "I wrote it, in case don't be angry don't 
 fight me ! Oh, if you can only understand ! " 
 
 She thrust the letter into his hands and ran into 
 her own room, closing the door. Dana sat down 
 under the light, and, breaking the envelope, looked 
 about as though dimly aware that all his world 
 would bear a different aspect when he had finished 
 reading. 
 
 DEAREST: Please read this with all your heart and soul, so 
 that you will understand. When I was up at the Shore house I 
 saw things as if I had been lifted miles above the earth, and were 
 looking down on a poor little Lucy and Dana struggling below. 
 Not all at once. For weeks I saw only the different sides. I 
 fought it all out, inch by inch, and you won; and then I tried to 
 think what we could do. I made terms and treaties by the 
 hundred, but they were never right; there was always room for 
 more trouble. And, then one night O Dana, such a marvellous 
 night! I went straight up and sat among the gods, and I saw 
 this case of Dana and Lucy as clearly and inexorably as if it 
 had been written on stone tablets. My right hand had offended, 
 and it would offend again. Love, I cut it off. 
 
 I never was fitted to be a rich woman. I didn't know there
 
 286 EVER AFTER 
 
 was such freedom, such lightness, in the world. It has even got 
 into my painting Candy will tell you. I have put my burden 
 on you; but you will carry it happily and use it well, and make 
 another thing of our lives. Come home and be the head of your 
 house. It is all done. You are absolute master of everything 
 and I am only your wife, who loves you. 
 
 At first Dana could see only his own pained pro- 
 test. The thing was impossible, monstrous : the red 
 of pure shame rushed to his face. He started up to 
 tell her so, then, remembering her imploring, "Don't 
 fight me!'* he conceded to her a second reading of 
 the letter. A slow third reading followed. Its 
 living truth caught and held him. "I have put my 
 burden on you": there was the change in her made 
 clear the change that had showed in every move- 
 ment of her body and spirit. She had broken from 
 her inheritance. She was right: he would carry the 
 burden better. 
 
 "But how can I?" burst from him. 
 
 Very slowly, with many turnings back, the letter 
 lifted him up to where Lucy had risen, and he saw 
 with new vision the case of Dana and Lucy. He 
 had failed to keep his marriage sweet and whole, 
 and this was his punishment. Instead of meeting 
 evil strongly with love and truth, he had suffered 
 it in helpless passivity, as though the outcome were 
 no affair of his. He had been a sensitive boy, 
 brooding over a grievance, where life had called for
 
 EVER AFTER 287 
 
 a thinking man. Now he must stand by and see 
 Lucy come shining out of that dark failure and go 
 up past him to heights of serene nobility. All the 
 beauty of atonement was for her: for him, the 
 humiliation of being appeased and recompensed, 
 of having his grievance healed. He accepted his 
 part, but his pride was trailed in the dust; shame 
 held him in a constraining grip. He could not go 
 to her and tell her so. 
 
 It was then, as he stood faltering, that the outer 
 aspect of the letter in his hand caught his attention. 
 The sheet had come to an end too soon, so Lucy had 
 crowded the last page, and squeezed the final lines 
 into the margin. She had given away millions, but 
 she had saved a sheet of paper, and Dana, seeing, 
 was caught unawares by a gust of silent laughter. 
 It shook him, warmed him, lifted him from his 
 abasement and scattered his constraint to the four 
 winds of a radiant heaven; and it put him back 
 beside his wife. 
 
 " Lucy ! " he shouted. 
 
 THE END
 
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