FROM 
 
 357 Library 
 
 O. W.DUNN 
 OMAHA 
 
 GEO. H. AJJOLIH, OMAHA.
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD
 
 Books by HAROLD BELL WRIGHT 
 
 Philadtlphia Sunday Di,fat<h-"Tbe secret of 
 his power is the same God-given secret that 
 inspired Shakespeare and upheld Dickens" 
 
 Orifon Journal, Portland "it is this almost 
 clairvoyant power of reading the human soul 
 that has made Mr. Wright's books Among the 
 most remarkable works of the present age" 
 
 THAT PRINTER OF UDELL'S 
 
 A Story of Practical Christianity 
 
 THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS 
 
 An Inspiration to the Simple Life 
 
 THE CALLING OF DAN MATTHEWS 
 
 The Ministry of Daily Life 
 
 THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH 
 
 The Ministry of Capital 
 
 THEIR YESTERDAYS 
 
 An Exaltation of Life and Lore 
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 The Ministry of Art and Letters 
 
 The above are uniformly bound 
 Cloth, 12mo. Each $1.35 Net 
 
 THE UNCROWNED KING 
 
 An Allttmrj 
 
 Illustrations by Neill. 16mo. Cloth, 50c Net 
 Full Leather, $1.00 Net
 
 Sibyl
 
 The EYES OF 
 THE WORLD 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 HAROLD BELL WRIGHT 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS'* 
 
 "THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH" 
 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 With Illustrations by 
 F. GRAHAM COOTES 
 
 THE BOOK SUPPLY COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS, CHICAGO
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1914 
 BY HAROLD BELL WRIGHT 
 
 COPYRIGHT. 1914 
 BY ELSBKRY W. REYNOLDS 
 
 PUBLISHED AUGUST, 1914 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 To 
 BENJAMIN H. PEARSON 
 
 STUDENT. ARTIST. GENTLEMAN 
 
 in appreciation of the friendship that began 
 on the "Pipe-Line Trail, "at the camp in 
 the sycamores back of the old orchard, and 
 among the higher peaks of the San Ber- 
 nardinos; and because this story will always 
 mean more to him than to any one else, - 
 this book, with all good wishes, is 
 
 DEDICATED. 
 
 H. B. W. 
 
 "Tecolote Rancho," 
 April 13, 1914.
 
 "/ have learned 
 
 To look on Nature not as in the hour 
 Of thoughtless youth-) but hearing oftentimes 
 The sad, still music of humanity , 
 Not harsh or grating, though of ample power 
 To chasten and subdue. And I have felt, 
 A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
 Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 Whose dwelling is in the lights of setting suns, 
 And the round ocean and the living air, 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man. 
 A motion and a spirit that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts, 
 And rolls through all things. 
 
 Therefore am I still 
 A lover of the meadows and the woods 
 
 And mountains 
 
 And this prayer I make, 
 
 Knowing that Nature never did betray 
 The heart that loved her. 'TV/ her privilege 
 Through all the years of this one life, to lead 
 From joy to joy; for she can so inform 
 The mind that is within us so impress 
 With quietness and beauty, and so feed 
 With lofty thoughts that neither evil tongues, 
 Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 
 Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 
 The dreary intercourse of daily life, 
 Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 
 Our cheerful faith. ' * 
 
 William Wordsworth.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. His INHERITANCE 11 
 
 II. THE WOMAN WITH THE DISFIGURED 
 
 FACE 19 
 
 III. THE FAMOUS CONRAD LAGRANGE .... 33 
 
 IV. AT THE HOUSE ON F AIRLANDS 
 
 HEIGHTS 55 
 
 V. THE MYSTERY OF THE ROSE GARDEN . 69 
 
 VI. AN UNKNOWN FRIEND 87 
 
 VII. MRS. TAINE IN QUAKER GRAY 97 
 
 VIII. THE PORTRAIT THAT WAS NOT A 
 
 PORTRAIT 109 
 
 IX. CONRAD LAGRANGE'S ADVENTURE. . . 120 
 
 X. A CRY IN THE NIGHT 136 
 
 XL Go LOOK IN YOUR MIRROR, You 
 
 FOOL 147 
 
 XII. FIRST FRUITS OF His SHAME 158 
 
 XIII. MYRA WILLARD'S CHALLENGE 164 
 
 XIV. IN THE MOUNTAINS 175 
 
 XV. THE FOREST RANGER'S STORY 191 
 
 XVI. WHEN THE CANYON GATES ARE 
 
 SHUT 204 
 
 XVII. CONFESSIONS IN THE SPRING GLADE. 215 
 XVIII. SIBYL ANDRES AND THE BUTTER- 
 FLIES. . . 225
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XIX. THE THREE GIFTS AND THEIR MEAN- 
 INGS 231 
 
 XX. MYRA'S PRAYER AND THE RANGER'S 
 
 WARNING 239 
 
 XXI. THE LAST CLIMB 248 
 
 XXII. SHADOWS OF COMING EVENTS 258 
 
 XXTII. OUTSIDE THE CANYON GATES AGAIN . 265 
 
 XXIV. JAMES RUTLIDGE MAKES A MISTAKE . 269 
 
 XXV. ON THE PIPE-LINE TRAIL 281 
 
 XXVI. I WANT You JUST AS You ARE 290 
 
 XXVII. THE ANSWER 301 
 
 XXVIH. YOU'RE RUINED, MY BOY 311 
 
 XXIX. THE HAND WRITING ON THE WALL . . 321 
 
 XXX. IN THE SAME HOUR 340 
 
 XXXI. As THE WORLD SEES 345 
 
 XXXII. THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE. . 358 
 
 XXXIII. BEGINNING THE SEARCH 371 
 
 XXXIV. THE TRACKS ON GRANITE PEAK 381 
 
 XXXV. A HARD WAY 390 
 
 XXXVI. WHAT SHOULD HE Do i 407 
 
 XXXVII. THE MAN WAS INSANE 416 
 
 XXXVIII. AN INEVITABLE CONFLICT 426 
 
 XXXIX. THE BETTER WAY 432 
 
 XL. FACING THE TRUTH 440 
 
 XLI. MARKS OF THE BEAST 453 
 
 XLII. AARON KING'S SUCCESS 459
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FROM 
 
 OIL PAINTINGS 
 
 By 
 F. GRAHAM COOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SIBYL Frontispiece 
 
 A CURIOUS EXPRESSION OF BAFFLING, QUIZZING, 
 HALF PATHETIC, AND WHOLLY CYNICAL, IN- 
 TERROGATION 32 
 
 "WELL, WHAT DO YOU WANT ? WHAT ARE YOU 
 
 DOING HERE ?" 152 
 
 STILL SHE DID NOT SPEAK . . . 419
 
 The 
 Eyes of the World 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 HIS INHERITANCE 
 
 T was winter cold and snow and ice and 
 naked trees and leaden clouds and stinging 
 wind. 
 
 The house was an ancient mansion on 
 an old street in that city of culture which 
 has given to the history of our nation to 
 education, to religion, to the sciences, and to the arts 
 so many illustrious names. 
 
 In the changing years, before the beginning of my 
 story, the woman's immediate friends and associates 
 had moved from the neighborhood to the newer and 
 more fashionable districts of a younger generation. 
 In that city of her father's there were few of her old 
 companions left. There were fewer who remembered. 
 The distinguished leaders in the world of art and 
 letters, whose voices had been so often heard within 
 the walls of her home, had, one by one, passed on; 
 leaving their works and their names to their children. 
 The children, in the greedy rush of these younger 
 
 11
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 times, had too readily forgotten the woman who, ta 
 the culture and genius of a passing day, had been 
 hostess and friend. 
 
 The apartment was pitifully bare and empty. 
 Ruthlessly it had beeT 1 stripped of its treasures of art 
 and its proud luxuries. But, even in its naked neces- 
 sities, the room managed, still, to evidence the rare 
 intelligence and the exquisite refinement of its dying 
 tenant. 
 
 The face upon the pillow, so wasted by sickness, 
 was marked by the death-gray. The eyes, deep in 
 their hollows between the fleshless forehead and the 
 prominent cheek-bones, were closed; the lips were 
 livid ; the nose was sharp and pinched ; the colorless 
 cheeks were sunken; but the outlines were still deli- 
 cately drawn and the proportions nobly fashioned. 
 It was, still, the face of a gentlewoman. In the ashen 
 lips, only, was there a sign of life ; and they trembled 
 and fluttered in their effort to utter the words that an 
 indomitable spirit gave them to speak. 
 
 "To-day to-day he will come." The voice was 
 a thin, broken whisper ; but colored, still, with pride 
 and gladness. 
 
 A young woman in the uniform of a trained nurse 
 turned quickly from the window. With soft, profes- 
 sional step, she crossed the room to bend over the bed. 
 Her trained fingers sought the skeleton wrist; she 
 spoke slowly, distinctly, with careful clearness; and, 
 under the cool professionalism of her words, there 
 was a tone of marked respect. "What is it, madam ?" 
 
 The sunken eyes opened. As a burst of sunlight 
 through the suddenly opened doors of a sepulchre, 
 
 12
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 the death-gray face was illumed. In those eyes, clear 
 and burning, the nurse saw all that remained of a 
 powerful personality. In their shadowy depths, she 
 saw the last glowing embers of the vital fire gathered ; 
 carefully nursed and tended ; kept alive by a will that 
 was clinging, with almost superhuman tenacity, to a 
 definite purpose. Dying, this woman would not die 
 could not die until the end for which she willed 
 to live should be accomplished. In the very grasp of 
 Death, she was forcing Death to stay his hand 
 without life, she was holding Death at bay. 
 
 It was magnificent, and the gentle face under the 
 nurse's cap shone with appreciation and admiration 
 as she smiled her sympathy and understanding. 
 
 "My son my son will come to-day." The voice 
 was stronger, and, with the eyes, expressed a convic- 
 tion a certainty with the faintest shadow of a 
 question. , 
 
 The nurse looked at her watch. "The boat was 
 due in New York, early this morning, madam." 
 
 A step sounded in the hall outside. The nurse 
 started, and turned quickly toward the door. But the 
 woman said, "The doctor." And, again, the fire that 
 burned in those sunken eyes was hidden wearily 
 under their dark lids. 
 
 The white-haired physician and the nurse, at the 
 farther end of the room, spoke together in low tones. 
 Said the physician, incredulous, "You say there 
 is no change ?" 
 
 "None that I can detect," breathed the nurse. "It 
 is wonderful !" 
 
 "Her mind is clear ?" 
 
 13
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "As though she were in perfect health." 
 The doctor took the nurse's chart. For a moment, 
 he studied it in silence. He gave it back with a 
 gesture of amazement. "God! nurse," he whispered, 
 "she should be in her grave by now ! It's a miracle ! 
 But she has always been like that " he continued, 
 half to himself, looking with troubled admiration 
 toward the bed at the other end of the room 
 
 He went slowly forward to the chair that the nurse 
 placed for him. Seating himself quietly beside his 
 patient, and bending forward with intense interest, 
 his fine old head bowed, he regarded with more than 
 professional care the wasted face upon the pillow. 
 
 The doctor remembered, too well, when those finely 
 moulded features now, so worn by sorrow, so 
 marked by sickness, so ghastly in the hue of death 
 were rounded with young-woman health and tinted 
 with rare loveliness. He recalled that day when he 
 saw her a bride. He remembered the sweet, proud 
 dignity of her young wifehood. He saw her, again, 
 when her face shone with the glad triumph and the 
 holy joy of motherhood. 
 
 The old physician turned from his patient, to look 
 with sorrowful eyes about the room that was to wit- 
 ness the end. 
 
 Why was such a woman dying like this ? Why was 
 a life of such rich mental and spiritual endowments 
 of such wealth of true culture coming to its close 
 in such material poverty ? 
 
 The doctor was one of the few who knew. He was 
 
 14
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 one of the few who understood that, to the woman 
 herself, it was necessary. 
 
 There were those who without understanding, 
 for the sake of the years that were gone would have 
 surrounded her with the material comforts to which, 
 in her younger days, she had been accustomed. The 
 doctor knew that there was one a friend of her 
 childhood, famous, now, in the world of books who 
 would have come from the ends of the earth to care 
 for her. All that a human being could do for her, in 
 those days of her life's tragedy, that one had done. 
 Then because he understood he had gone away. 
 Her own son did not know could not, in his young 
 manhood, have understood, if he had known would 
 not understand when he came. Perhaps, some day, 
 he would understand perhaps. 
 
 When the physician turned again toward the bed, 
 to touch with gentle fingers the wrist of his patient, 
 his eyes were wet. 
 
 At his touch, her eyes opened to regard him with 
 affectionate trust and gratitude. 
 
 "Well Mary," he said almost bruskly. 
 
 The lips fashioned the ghost of a smile; into her 
 eyes came the gleam of that old time challenging 
 spirit. "Well Doctor George," she answered. Then, 
 "I told you I would not go until he came. 
 I must have my way still you see. He will 
 come to-day. He must come." 
 
 "Yes, Mary," returned the doctor, his fingers 
 still on the thin wrist, and his eyes studying her face 
 with professional keenness, "yes, of course." 
 
 15
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "And George you will not forget your premise ? 
 You will give me a few minutes of strength 
 when he comes so that I can tell him ? I I must 
 tell him myself George. You will do this last 
 thing for me?" 
 
 "Yes, Mary, of course," he answered again. 
 "Everything shall be as you wish as I promised." 
 
 "Thank you George. Thank you my dear 
 dear old friend." 
 
 The nurse who had been standing at the win- 
 dow stepped quickly to the table that held a few 
 bottles, glasses, and instruments. The doctor looked 
 at her sharply. She nodded a silent answer, as she 
 opened a small, flat, leather case. With his fingers 
 still on his patient's wrist, the physician spoke a 
 word of instruction; and, in a moment, the nurse 
 placed a hypodermic needle in his hand. 
 
 As the doctor gave the instrument, again, to his 
 assistant, a quick step sounded in the hall outside. 
 
 The patient turned her head. Her eager eyes 
 were fixed upon the door; her voice stronger, now, 
 with the strength of the powerful stimulant rang 
 out ; "My boy my boy he is here ! George, nurse, 
 my boy is here !" 
 
 The door opened. A young man of perhaps 
 twenty-two years stood on the threshold. 
 
 The most casual observer would have seen that he 
 was a son of the dying woman. In the full flush 
 of his young manhood's vigor, there was the same 
 modeling of the mouth, the same nose with finely 
 turned nostrils, the same dark eyes under a breadth 
 of forehead ; while the determined chin and the 
 
 16
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 ; weP ]uared jaw, together with a rather remarkable 
 fineness of line, told of an inherited mental and spir- 
 itual strength and grace as charming as it is, in these 
 days, rare. His dress was that of a gentleman of 
 culture and social position. His very bearing evi- 
 denced that he had never been without means to 
 gratify the legitimate tastes of a cultivated and 
 refined intelligence. 
 
 As he paused an instant in the open door to 
 glance about that poverty stricken room, a look of 
 bewildering amazement swept over his handsome 
 face. He started to draw back as if he had unin- 
 tentionally entered the wrong apartment. Looking 
 at the doctor, his lips parted as if to apologize for 
 his intrusion. But before he could speak, his eyes 
 met the eyes of the woman on the bed. 
 
 With a cry of horror, he sprang forward; 
 "Mother! Mother!" 
 
 As he knelt there by the bed, when the first mo- 
 ments of their meeting were past, he turned his 
 face toward the doctor. From the physician his gaze 
 went to the nurse, then back again to his mother's 
 old friend. His eyes were burning with shame and 
 sorrow with pain and doubt and accusation. His 
 low voice was tense with emotion, as he demanded, 
 "What does this mean? Why is my mother here 
 like like this?" his eyes swept the bare room 
 again. 
 
 The dying woman answered. "I will explain, my 
 boy. It is to tell you, that I have waited." 
 
 At a look from the doctor, the nurse quietly fol- 
 lowed the physician from the room. 
 
 17
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 It was not long. When she had finished, the false 
 strength that had kept the woman alive until she 
 had accomplished that which she conceived to be 
 her last duty, failed quickly. 
 
 "You will promise you will ?" 
 
 "Yes, mother, yes." 
 
 "Your education your training your blood 
 they are all that I can give you, my son." 
 
 "O mother, mother! why did you not tell me 
 before ? Why did I not know !" The cry was a 
 protest an expression of bitterest shame and sor- 
 row. 
 
 She smiled. "It was all that I could do for 
 you my son the only way I could help. I do 
 not regret the cost. You will not forget ?" 
 
 "Never, mother, never." 
 
 "You promise to to regain that which your 
 father" 
 
 Solemnly the answer came, in an agony of devo- 
 tion and love, "I promise yes, mother, I promise." 
 
 A month later, the young man was traveling, as 
 fast as modern steam and steel could carry him, 
 toward the western edge of the continent. 
 
 He was flying from the city of his birth, as from 
 a place accursed. He had set his face toward a new 
 land determined to work out, there, his promise 
 the promise that he did not, at the first, understand. 
 
 How he misunderstood, how he attempted to use 
 his inheritance to carry out what he first thought 
 was his mother's wish, and how he came at last to 
 understand, is the story that I have to tell. 
 
 18
 
 CHAPTEK II 
 THE WOMAN WITH THE DISFIGURED FACE 
 
 HE Golden State Limited, with two labor- 
 ing engines, was climbing the desert side 
 of San Gorgonio Pass. 
 
 Now San Gorgonio Pass as all men 
 should know is one of the two eastern 
 gateways to the beautiful heart of South- 
 ern California. It is, therefore, the gateway to the 
 scenes of my story. 
 
 As the heavy train zigzagged up the long, barren 
 slope of the mountain, in its effort to lessen the heavy 
 grade, the young man on the platform of the obser- 
 vation car could see, far to the east, the shimmering, 
 sun-filled haze that lies, always, like a veil of mystery, 
 over the vast reaches of the Colorado Desert. Now 
 and then, as the Express swung around the curves, 
 he gained a view of the lonely, snow-piled peaks of 
 the San Bernardinos ; with old San Gorgonio, lifting 
 above the pine-fringed ridges of the lower Galenas, 
 shining, silvery white, against the blue. Again, on 
 the southern side of the pass, he saw San Jacinto's 
 crags and cliffs rising almost sheer from the right- 
 of-way. 
 
 But the man watching the ever-changing panorama 
 of gorgeously colored and fantastically unreal land- 
 scape was not thinking of the scenes that, to him, 
 
 19
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 -were new and strange. His thoughts were far away. 
 Among those mountains grouped about San Gorgonio, 
 the real value of the inheritance he had received from 
 his mother was to be tested. On the pine-fringed 
 ridge of the Galenas, among those granite cliffs and 
 jagged peaks, the mettle of his manhood was to be 
 tried under a strain such as few men in this common- 
 place, work-a-day old world are subjected to. But 
 the young man did not know this. 
 
 On the long journey across the continent, he had 
 paid little heed to the sights that so interested his 
 fellow passengers. To his fellow passengers, them- 
 selves, he had been as indifferent. To those who had 
 approached him casually, as the sometimes tedious 
 hours passed, he had been quietly and courteously 
 unresponsive. This well-bred but decidedly marked 
 disinclination to mingle with them, together with the 
 undeniably distinguished appearance of the young 
 man, only served to center the interest of the little 
 world of the Pullmans more strongly upon him. 
 Keeping to himself, and engrossed with his own 
 thoughts, he became the object of many idle con- 
 jectures. 
 
 Among the passengers whose curious eyes were 
 so often turned in his direction, there was one whose 
 interest was always carefully veiled. She was a 
 woman of evident rank and distinction in that 
 world where rank and distinction are determined 
 wholly by dollars and by such social position as 
 dollars can buy. She was beautiful ; but with that 
 carefully studied, wholly self-conscious one is 
 tempted to say professional beauty of her kind. 
 
 20
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 Her full rounded, splendidly developed body was 
 gowned to accentuate the alluring curves of her sex. 
 With such skill was this deliberate appeal to the 
 physical hidden under a cloak of a pretending mod- 
 esty that its charm was the more effectively revealed. 
 Her features were almost too perfect. She was too 
 coldly sure of herself too perfectly trained in the 
 art of self -repression. For a woman as young as she 
 evidently was, she seemed to know too much. The 
 careful indifference of her countenance seemed to say, 
 "I am too well schooled in life to make mistakes." 
 She was traveling with two companions a fluffy, 
 fluttering, characterless shadow of womanhood, and 
 a man an invalid who seldom left the privacy of 
 the drawing-room which he occupied. 
 
 As the train neared the summit of the pass, the 
 young man on the observation car platform looked 
 at his watch. A few miles more and he would 
 arrive at his destination. Rising to his feet, he 
 drew a deep breath of the glorious, sun-filled air. 
 With his back to the door, and looking away into 
 the distance, he did not notice the woman who, 
 stepping from the car at that moment, stood directly 
 behind him, steadying herself by the brass railing 
 in front of the window. To their idly observing 
 fellow passengers, the woman, too, appeared inter- 
 ested in the distant landscape. She might have been 
 looking at the only other occupant of the platform. 
 The passengers, from where they sat, could not 
 have told. 
 
 As he stood there, against the background of the 
 primitive, many-colored landscape, the young man 
 
 21
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 might easily have attracted the attention of any one. 
 He would have attracted attention in a crowd. Tall, 
 with an athletic trimness of limb, a good breadth of 
 shoulder, and a fine head poised with that natural, 
 unconscious pride of the well-bred he kept his feet 
 on the unsteady platform of the car with that easy 
 grace which marks only well-conditioned muscles, and 
 is rarely seen save in those whose lives are sanely 
 clean. 
 
 The Express had entered the yards at the summit 
 station, and was gradually lessening its speed. Just 
 as the man turned to enter the car, the train came to 
 a full stop, and the sudden jar threw him almost 
 into the arms of the woman. For an instant, while 
 he was struggling to regain his balance, he was so 
 close to her that their garments touched. Indeed, he 
 only prevented an actual collision by throwing his 
 arm across her shoulder and catching the side of the 
 car window against which she was leaning. 
 
 In that moment, while his face was so close to 
 hers that she might have felt his breath upon her 
 cheek and he was involuntarily looking straight into 
 her eyes, the man felt, queerly, that the woman was 
 not shrinking from him. In fact, one less occupied 
 with other thoughts might have construed her bold, 
 open look, her slightly parted lips and flushed cheeks, 
 as a welcome quite as though she were in the habit 
 of having handsome young men throw themselves 
 into her arms. 
 
 Then, with a hint of a smile in his eyes, he was 
 saying, conventionally, "I beg your pardon. It was 
 very stupid of me." 
 
 22
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 As he spoke, a mask of cold indifference slipped 
 over her face. Without deigning to notice his cour- 
 teous apology, she looked away, and, moving to the 
 railing of the platform, became ostensibly interested 
 in the busy activity of the railroad yards. 
 
 Had the woman in that instant when his arm was 
 over her shoulder and his eyes were looking into 
 hers smiled, the incident would have slipped 
 quickly from his mind. As it was, the flash-like im- 
 pression of the moment remained, and 
 
 Down the steep grade of the narrow San Timateo 
 Canyon, on the coast side of the mountain pass, the 
 Overland thundered on the last stretch of its long 
 race to the western edge of the continent. And now, 
 from the car windows, the passengers caught tan- 
 talizing glimpses of bright pastures with their herds 
 of contented dairy cows, and with their white ranch 
 buildings set in the shade of giant pepper and euca- 
 lyptus trees. On the rounded shoulders and steep 
 flanks of the foothills that form the sides of the 
 canyon, the barley fields looked down upon the 
 meadows ; and, now and then, in the whirling land- 
 scape, winding side canyons beautiful with live- 
 oak and laurel, with greasewood and sage led the 
 eye away toward the pine-fringed ridges of the Ga- 
 lenas; while above, the higher snow-clad peaks and 
 domes of the San Bernardinos still shone coldly 
 against the blue. 
 
 In the Pullman, there was a stir of awakening in- 
 terest. The travel-wearied passengers, laying aside 
 books and magazines and cards, renewed conversa- 
 tions that, in the last monotonous hours of the desert 
 
 23
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 part of the journey, had lagged painfully. Through- 
 out the train, there was an air of eager expectancy ; a 
 bustling movement of preparation. The woman of 
 the observation car platform had disappeared into 
 her stateroom. The young man gathered his things 
 together in readiness to leave the train at the next 
 stop. 
 
 In the flying pictures framed by the windows, the 
 dairy pastures and meadows were being replaced by 
 small vineyards and orchards; the canyon wall, on 
 the northern side, became higher and steeper, shut- 
 ting out the mountains in the distance and showing 
 only a fringe of trees on the sharp rim ; while against 
 the gray and yellow and brown and green of the 
 chaparral on the steep, untilled bluffs, shone the 
 silvery softness of the olive trees that border the 
 arroyo at their feet 
 
 With a long, triumphant shriek, the flying overland 
 train from the lands of ice and snow from barren 
 deserts and lonely mountains rushed from the nar- 
 row mouth of the canyon, and swept out into the 
 beautiful San Bernardino Valley where the travelers 
 were greeted by wide, green miles of orange and 
 lemon and walnut and olive groves by many acres 
 of gardens and vineyards and orchards. Amid these 
 groves and gardens, the towns and cities are set; 
 their streets and buildings half hidden in wildernesses 
 of eucalyptus and peppers and palms ; while tower- 
 ing above the loveliness of the valley and visible now 
 from the sweeping lines of their foothills to the 
 gleaming white of their lonely peaks rises, in blue-
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 veiled, cloud-flecked steeps and purple shaded 
 canyons, the beauty and grandeur of the mountains. 
 
 It was January. To those who had so recently 
 left the winter lands, the Southern California scene 
 so richly colored with its many shades of living 
 green, so warm in its golden sunlight seemed a 
 dream of fairyland. It was as though that break in 
 the mountain wall had ushered them suddenly into 
 another world a world, strange, indeed, to eyes 
 accustomed to snow and ice and naked trees and 
 leaden clouds. 
 
 Among the many little cities half concealed in 
 the luxurious, semi-tropical verdure of the wide 
 valley at the foot of the mountains, Fairlands if 
 you ask a citizen of that well-known mecca of the 
 tourist is easily the Queen. As for that! all our 
 Southern California cities are set in wildernesses of 
 beauty ; all are in wide valleys ; all are at the foot of 
 the mountains ; all are meccas for tourists ; each one 
 if you ask a citizen is the Queen. If you, per- 
 chance, should question this fact write for our 
 advertising literature. 
 
 Passengers on the Golden State Limited as per- 
 haps you know do not go direct to Fairlands. They 
 change at Fairlands Junction. The little city, itself, 
 is set in the lap of the hills that form the southern 
 side of the valley, some three miles from the main 
 line. It is as though this particular "Queen" with- 
 drew from the great highway traveled by the vulgar 
 herd in the proud aloofness of her superior clay, 
 sufficient unto herself. The soil out of which Fair- 
 lands is made is much richer, it is said, than the 
 
 25
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 common dirt of her sister cities less than fifteen miles 
 distant. A difference of only a few feet in elevation 
 seems, strangely, to give her a much more rarefied 
 air. Her proudest boast is that she has a larger num- 
 ber of millionaires in proportion to her population 
 than any other city in the land. 
 
 It was these peculiar and well-known advantages 
 of Fairlands that led the young man of my story to 
 select it as the starting point of his worthy ambition. 
 And Fairlands is a good place for one so richly en- 
 dowed with an inheritance that cannot be expressed 
 in dollars to try his strength. Given such a com 
 munity, amid such surroundings, with a man like 
 the young man of my story, and something may be 
 depended upon to happen. 
 
 While the travelers from the East, bound for 
 Fairlands, were waiting at the Junction for the 
 local train that would take them through the orange 
 groves to their journey's end, the young man noticed 
 the woman of the observation car platform with her 
 two companions. And now, as he paced to and fro, 
 enjoying the exercise after the days of confinement 
 in the Pullman, he observed them with stimulated 
 interest they, too, were going to Fairlands. 
 
 The man of the party, though certainly not old in 
 years, was frightfully aged by dissipation and dis- 
 ease. The gross, sensual mouth with its loose-hang- 
 ing lips; the blotched and clammy skin; the pale, 
 watery eyes with their inflamed rims and flabby 
 pouches; the sunken chest, skinny neck and limbs; 
 and the thin rasping voice all cried aloud the shame 
 of a misspent life. It was as clearly evident that he
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 was a man of wealth and, in the eyes of the world, 
 of an enviable social rank. 
 
 As the young man passed and repassed them, where 
 they stood under the big pepper tree that shades the 
 depot, the man in his harsh, throaty whisper, be- 
 tween spasms of coughing was cursing the train 
 service, the country, the weather; and, apparently, 
 whatever else he could think of as being worthy or 
 unworthy his impotent ill-temper. The shadowy 
 suggestion of womanhood glancing toward the 
 young man was saying, with affected giggles, "O 
 papa, don't ! Oh isn't it perfectly lovely ! O papa, 
 don't ! Do hush ! What will people think ?" This 
 last variation of his daughter's plaint must have 
 given the man some satisfaction, at least, for it fur- 
 nished him another target for his pointless shafts; 
 and he fairly outdid himself in politely damning 
 whoever might presume to think anything at all 
 of him ; with the net result that two Mexicans, who 
 were loafing near enough to hear, grinned with ad- 
 miring amusement. The woman stood a little apart 
 from the others. Coldly indifferent alike to the 
 man's cursing and coughing and to the daughter's 
 ejaculations, she appeared to be looking at the moun- 
 tains. But the young man fancied that, once or twice, 
 as he faced about at the end of his beat, her eyes 
 were turned in his direction. 
 
 When the Fairlands train came in, the three found 
 seats conveniently turned, near the forward end of 
 the car. The young man, in passing, glanced down ; 
 and the woman, who had taken the chair next to the 
 aisle, looked up full into his face. 
 
 27
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Again, as their eyes met, the man felt as when 
 they had stood so close together on the platform of 
 the observation car that she did not shrink from 
 him. It was only for an instant. Then, glancing 
 about for a seat, he saw another face a face, in its 
 outlines, so like the one into which he had just looked, 
 and yet so different so far removed in its expres- 
 sion and meaning that it fixed his attention in- 
 stantly compelling his interest. 
 
 As this woman sat looking from the car window 
 away toward the distant mountain peaks, the young 
 man thought he had never seen a more perfect profile ; 
 nor a countenance that expressed such a beautiful 
 blending of wistful longing, of patient fortitude, and 
 saintly resignation. It was the face of a Madonna, 
 but a Madonna after the crucifixion, pathetic in 
 its lonely sorrow, inspiring in its spiritual strength, 
 and holy in its purity and freedom from earthly 
 passions. 
 
 She was near his mother's age; and looking at 
 her as he moved down the aisle his mother's face, 
 as he had known it before their last meeting, came 
 to him with startling vividness. For an instant, he 
 paused, moved to take the chair beside her; but the 
 next two seats were vacant, and he had no excuse 
 for intruding. Arranging his grips, he quickly 
 seated himself next to the window; and again, with 
 eager interest, turned toward the woman in the 
 chair ahead. Involuntarily, he started with astonish- 
 ment and pity. 
 
 The woman still gazing from the window at the 
 distant mountain peaks, and semingly unconscious 
 
 28
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 of her surroundings presented now, to the man's 
 shocked and compassionate gaze, the other side of 
 her face. It was hideously disfigured by a great 
 scar that covering the entire cheek and neck 
 distorted the corner of the mouth, drew down the 
 lower lid of the eye, and twisted her features into an 
 ugly caricature. Even the ear, half hidden under 
 the soft, gray-threaded hair, had not escaped, but 
 was deformed by the same dreadful agent that had 
 wrought such ruin to one of the loveliest counte- 
 nances the man had ever looked upon. 
 
 When the train stopped at Fairlands, and the 
 passengers crowded into the aisle to make their way 
 out, of the characters belonging to my story, the 
 woman with the man and his daughter went first. 
 Following them, a half car-length of people between, 
 went the woman with the disfigured face. 
 
 On the depot platform, as they moved toward the 
 street, the young man still held his place near the 
 woman who had so awakened his pitying interest. 
 The three Overland passengers were met by a heavy- 
 faced, thick-necked man who escorted them to a 
 luxurious touring car. 
 
 The invalid and his daughter had entered the auto- 
 mobile when their escort, in turning toward the other 
 member of the party, saw the woman with the dis- 
 figured face who was now quite near. Instantly, 
 he paused. And there was a smile of recognition on 
 his somewhat coarse features as, lifting his hat, he 
 bowed with the young man fancied condescend- 
 ing politeness. The woman standing by his side with 
 her hand upon the door of the automobile, seeing her 
 
 29
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 companion saluting some one, turned and the next 
 moment, the two women, whose features seemed so 
 like jet so unlike were face to face. 
 
 The young man saw the woman with the disfig- 
 ured face stop short. For an instant, she stood as 
 though dazed by an unexpected blow. Then, holding 
 out her hands with a half-pleading, half-groping 
 gesture, she staggered and would have fallen had he 
 not stepped to her side. 
 
 "Permit me, madam; you are ill." 
 
 She neither spoke nor moved; but, with her eyes 
 fixed upon the woman by the automobile, allowed him 
 to support her seemingly unconscious of his pres- 
 ence. And never before had the young man seen 
 such anguish of spirit written in a human counte- 
 nance. 
 
 The one who had saluted her, advanced as though 
 to offer his services. But, as he moved toward her, 
 she shrank back with a low "No, no !" And such 
 a look of horror and fear came into her eyes that the 
 man by her side felt his muscles tense with indig- 
 nation. 
 
 Looking straight into the heavy face of the 
 stranger, he said curtly, "I think you had better go 
 on." 
 
 With a careless shrug, the other turned and went 
 back to the automobile, where he spoke in a low tone 
 to his companions. 
 
 The woman, who had been watching with a cold 
 indifference, stepped into the car. The man took his 
 seat by the chauffeur. As the big machine moved
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 away, the woman with the disfigured face, again 
 made as if to stretch forth her hands in a pleading 
 gesture. 
 
 The young man spoke pityingly; "May I assist 
 you to a carriage, madam ?" 
 
 At his words, she looked up at him and seeming 
 to find in his face the strength she needed answered 
 in a low voice, "Thank you, sir ; I am better now. I 
 will be all right, presently, if you will put me on the 
 car." She indicated a street-car that was just stop- 
 ping at the crossing. 
 
 "Are you quite sure that you are strong enough?" 
 he asked kindly, as he walked with her toward the 
 car. 
 
 "Yes," with a sad attempt to smile, "y es > and 
 I thank you very much, sir, for your gentle courtesy." 
 
 He assisted her up the step of the car, and stood 
 with bared head as she passed inside, and the con- 
 ductor gave the signal. 
 
 The incident had attracted little attention from 
 the passengers who were hurrying from the train. 
 Their minds were too intent upon other things to 
 more than glance at this little ripple on the surface 
 of life. Those who had chanced to notice the 
 woman's agitation had seen, also, that she was being 
 cared for ; and so had passed on, giving the scene no 
 second thought. 
 
 When the man returned from the street to his grips 
 on the depot platform, the hacks and hotel buses were 
 gone. As he stood looking about, questioningly, for 
 some one who might direct him to a hotel, his eyes 
 
 31
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 fell upon a strange individual who was regarding 
 him intently. 
 
 Fully six feet in height, the observer was so lean 
 that he suggested the unpleasant appearance of a liv- 
 ing skeleton. His narrow shoulders were so rounded, 
 his form was so stooped, that the young man's first 
 thought was to wonder how tall he would really be if 
 he could stand erect. His long, thin face, seamed 
 and lined, was striking in its grotesque ugliness. 
 From under his craggy, scowling brows, his sharp 
 green-gray eyes peered with a curious expression of 
 baffling, quizzing, half pathetic, and wholly cynical, 
 interrogation. He was smoking a straight, much- 
 used brier pipe. At his feet, lay a beautiful Irish 
 Setter dog. 
 
 Half hidden by a supporting column of the depot 
 portico as if to escape the notice of the people in 
 the automobile he had been watching the woman 
 with the disfigured face, with more than casual in- 
 terest. He turned, now, upon the young man who 
 had so kindly given her assistance. 
 
 In answer to the stranger's inquiry, with a curt 
 sentence and a nod of his head he directed him to a 
 hotel two blocks away. 
 
 Thanking him, the young man, carrying his grips, 
 set out. Upon reaching the street, he involuntarily 
 turned to look back. 
 
 The oddly appearing character had not moved 
 from his place, but stood, still looking after the 
 stranger the brier pipe in his mouth, the Irish 
 Setter at his feet.
 
 A curious expression of baffling, quizzing, half pathetic, and wholly 
 cynical, interrogation
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE FAMOUS CONRAD LAGRANGE 
 
 HEN the young man reached the hotel, he 
 went at once to his room, where he passed 
 the time between the hour of his arrival 
 and the evening meal. 
 
 Upon his return to the lobby, the first 
 object that attracted his eyes was the 
 uncouth figure of the man whom he had seen at the 
 depot, and who had directed him to the hotel. 
 
 That oddly appearing individual, his brier pipe 
 still in his mouth and the Irish Setter at his feet, 
 was standing or rather lounging at the clerk's 
 counter, bending over the register ; an attitude which 
 making his skeleton-like form more round shoul- 
 dered than ever caused him to present the general 
 outlines of a rude interrogation point. 
 
 In the dining-room, a few minutes later, the two 
 men sat at adjoining tables; and the young man 
 heard his neighbor bullying the waiters and com- 
 menting, in an audible undertone, upon every dish 
 that was served to him swearing by all the heathen 
 gods, known and unknown, that there was nothing fit 
 to eat in the house; and that if it were not for the 
 fact that there was no place else in the cursed town 
 that served half so good, he would not touch a mouth- 
 ful in the place. Then, to the other's secret amuse- 
 ment, he fell to right heartily and made an astonish- 
 
 33
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 ing meal of the really excellent viands he had so 
 roundly vilified. 
 
 Dinner over, the young man went with his cigar 
 to the long veranda; intent upon enjoying the restful 
 quiet of the evening after the tiresome days on the 
 train. Carrying a chair to an unoccupied corner, he 
 had his cigar just nicely under way when the Irish 
 Setter with all the dignity of his royal blood 
 approached. Resting a seal-brown head, with its long 
 silky ears, confidently upon the stranger's knee, the 
 dog looked up into the man's face with an expression 
 of hearty good-fellowship in his soft, golden-brown 
 eyes that was irresistible. 
 
 "Good dog," said the man, heartily, "good old fel- 
 low," and stroked the sleek head and neck, affection- 
 ately. 
 
 A whiff of pipe smoke drifted over his shoulder, 
 and he looked around. The dog's master stood just 
 behind him; regarding him with that quizzing, half 
 pathetic, half humorous, and altogether cynical 
 expression. 
 
 The young man who had been so unresponsive to 
 the advances of his fellow passengers, for some reason 
 unknown, probably, to himself now took the 
 initiative. "You have a fine dog here, sir," he said 
 encouragingly. 
 
 Without replying, the other turned away and in 
 another moment returned with a chair; whereupon 
 the dog, with slightly waving, feathery tail, trans- 
 ferred his attention to his master. 
 
 Caressing the seal-brown head with a gentle hand, 
 and apparently speaking to the soft eyes that looked 
 
 34
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 up at him so understandingly, the man said, "If the 
 human race was fit to associate with such dogs, the 
 world would be a more comfortable place to live in." 
 The deep voice that rumbled up from some unguessed 
 depths of that sunken chest was remarkable in its 
 suggestion of a virile power that the general appear- 
 ance of the man seemed to deny. Facing his com- 
 panion suddenly, he asked with a direct bluntness, 
 "Are you not Aaron King son of the Aaron King 
 of N"ew England political fame ?" 
 
 Under the searching gaze of those green-gray eyes, 
 the young man flushed. "Yes; my father was active 
 in New England politics," he answered simply. "Did 
 you know him ?" 
 
 "Very well" returned the other "very well." 
 He repeated the two words with a suggestive em- 
 phasis; his eyes with that curious, baffling, ques- 
 tioning look still fixed upon his companion's face. 
 
 The red in Aaron King's cheeks deepened. 
 
 Looking away, the strange man added, with a 
 softer note in his rough voice, "I thought I knew you, 
 when I saw you at the depot. Your mother and I 
 were boy and girl together. There is a little of her 
 face in yours. If you have as much of her character, 
 you are to be congratulated and so are the rest 
 of us." The last words were spoken, apparently, to 
 the dog; who, still looking up at him, seemed to 
 express with slow-waving tail, an understanding of 
 thoughts that were only partly put into words. 
 
 There was an impersonality in the man's person- 
 alities that made it impossible for the subject of his 
 observations to take offense. 
 
 35
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Aaron King when it was evident that the man 
 had no thought of introducing himself said, witk 
 the fine courtesy that seemed always to find expres- 
 sion in his voice and manner, "May I ask your name, 
 sir?" 
 
 The other, without turning his eyes from the dog, 
 answered, "Conrad Lagrange." 
 
 The young man smiled. "I am very pleased to 
 meet you, Mr. Lagrange. Surely, you are not the 
 famous novelist of that name ?" 
 
 "And why, 'surely not' ?" retorted the other, again 
 turning his face quickly toward his companion. "Am 
 I not distinguished enough in appearance? Do I 
 look like the mob? True, I am a scrawny, hump- 
 backed, crooked-faced, scarecrow of a man but what 
 matters that, if I do not look like the mob ? What is 
 called fame is as scrawny and humpbacked and 
 crooked-faced as my body but what matters that? 
 Famous or infamous to not look like the mob is the 
 thing." 
 
 It is impossible to put in print the peculiar humor 
 of pathetic regret, of sarcasm born of contempt, of 
 intolerant intellectual pride, that marked the last 
 sentence, which was addressed to the dog, as though 
 the speaker turned from his human companion to a 
 more worthy listener. 
 
 When Aaron King could find no words to reply, 
 the novelist shot another question at him, with start- 
 ling suddenness. "Do you read my books ?" 
 
 The other began a halting answer to the effect that 
 everybody read Conrad Lagrange's books. But the 
 distinguished author interrupted; "Don't take the 
 
 36
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 trouble to lie out of politeness. I shall ask you to 
 tell me about them and you will be in a hole." 
 
 The young man laughed as he said, with straight- 
 forward frankness, "I have read only one, Mr. 
 Lagrange." 
 
 "Which one ?" 
 
 "The ah why the one, you know where the 
 husband of one woman falls in love with the wife 
 of another who is in love with the husband of some 
 one else. Pshaw! what is the title? I mean the 
 one that created such a furore, you know." 
 
 "Yes" said the man, to his dog "O yes, Czar 
 I am the famous Conrad Lagrange. I observe" 
 he added, turning to the other, with twinkling eyes 
 "I observe, Mr. King, that you really do have a good 
 bit of your mother's character. That you do not read 
 my books is a recommendation that I, better than 
 any one, know how to appreciate." The light of 
 humor went from his face, suddenly, as it had come. 
 Again he turned away ; and his deep voice was gentle 
 as he continued, "Your mother is a rare and beautiful 
 spirit, sir. Knowing her regard for the true and 
 genuine, her love for the pure and beautiful, I 
 scarcely expected to find her son interested in the 
 realism of my fiction. I congratulate you, young 
 man" he paused; then added with indescribable 
 bitterness "that you have not read my books." 
 
 For a few moments, Aaron King did not answer. 
 At last, with quiet dignity, he said, "My mother was 
 a remarkable woman, Mr. Lagrange." 
 
 The other faced him quickly. "You say was? Do 
 jou mean ?" 
 
 37
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "My mother is dead, sir. I was called home from 
 abroad by her illness." 
 
 For a little, the older man sat looking into the 
 gathering dusk. Then, deliberately, he refilled his 
 brier pipe, and, rising, said to his dog, "Come, Czar 
 it's time to go." 
 
 Without a word of parting to his human com- 
 panion, with the dog moving sedately by his side, he 
 disappeared into the darkness of the night. 
 
 All the next day, Aaron King in the hotel din- 
 ing-room, the lobby, and on the veranda watched 
 for the famous novelist. Even on the streets of the 
 little city, he found himself hoping to catch a glimpse 
 of the uncouth figure and the homely, world-worn 
 face of the man whose unusual personality had so 
 attracted him. The day was nearly gone when Con- 
 rad Lagrange again appeared. As on the evening 
 before, the young man was smoking his after-dinner 
 cigar on the veranda, when the Irish Setter and a 
 whiff of pipe smoke announced the strange character's 
 presence. 
 
 Without taking a seat, the novelist said, "I always 
 have a look at the mountains, at this time of the day, 
 Mr. King would you care to come? These moun- 
 tains are the real thing, you know, and well worth 
 seeing particularly at this hour." There was a 
 gentle softness in his deep voice, now as unlike his 
 usual speech as his physical appearance was unlike 
 that of his younger companion. 
 
 38
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 Aaron King arose quickly. "Thank you, Mr. 
 Lagrange; I will go with pleasure." 
 
 Accompanied by the dog, they followed the avenue, 
 under the giant pepper trees that shut out the sky 
 with their gnarled limbs and gracefully drooping 
 branches, to the edge of the little city; where the 
 view to the north and northeast was unobstructed by 
 houses. Just where the street became a road, Conrad 
 Lagrange putting his hand upon his companion's 
 arm said in a low voice, "This is the place." 
 
 Behind them, beautiful Fairlands lay, half lost, in 
 its wilderness of trees and flowers. Immediately in 
 the foreground, a large tract of unimproved land 
 brought the wild grasses and plants to their very feet. 
 Beyond these acres upon which there were no trees 
 the orange groves were massed in dark green 
 blocks and squares; with, here and there, thin rows 
 of palms ; clumps of peppers ; or tall, plume-like 
 eucalyptus ; to mark the roads and the ranch homes. 
 Beyond this and rising, seemingly, out of the 
 groves the San Bernardinos heaved their mighty 
 masses into the sky. It was almost dark. The city's 
 lamps were lighted. The outlines of grove and gar- 
 den were fast being lost in the deepening dusk. The 
 foothills, with the lower spurs and ridges of the 
 mountains, were softly modeled in dark blue against 
 the deeper purple of the canyons and gorges. Upon 
 the cloudless sky that was lighted with clearest 
 saffron, the lines of the higher crests were sharply 
 drawn; while the lonely, snow-capped peaks, ten 
 thousand feet above the darkening valley below, 
 catching the last rays of the sun, glowed rose-pink 
 
 39
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 changing to salmon deepening into mauve as the 
 light failed. 
 
 Aaron King broke the silence by drawing a long 
 breath as one who could find no words to express 
 his emotions. 
 
 Conrad Lagrange spoke sadly ; "And to think that 
 there are, in this city of ten thousand, probably, 
 nine thousand nine hundred and ninety people who 
 never see it." 
 
 With a short laugh, the young man said, "It makes 
 my fingers fairly itch for my palette and brushes 
 though it's not at all my sort of thing." 
 
 The other turned toward him quickly. "You are 
 an artist ?" 
 
 "I had just completed my three years study abroad 
 when mother's illness brought me home. I was for- 
 tunate enough to get one on the line, and they say 
 over there that I had a good chance. I don't 
 know how it will go here at home." There was a 
 note of anxiety in his voice. 
 
 "What do you do ?" 
 
 "Portraits." 
 
 With his face again toward the mountains, the 
 novelist said thoughtfully, "This West country will 
 produce some mighty artists, Mr. King. By far the 
 greater part of this land must remain, always, in its 
 primitive naturalness. It will always be easier, here, 
 than in the city crowded East, for a man to be him- 
 self. There is less of that spirit which is born of 
 clubs and cliques and clans and schools with their 
 fine-spun theorizing, and their impudent assumption 
 
 40
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 that they are divinely commissioned to sit in judg- 
 ment. There is less of artistic tea-drinking, esthetic 
 posing, and soulful talk; and more opportunity for 
 that loneliness out of which great art comes. The 
 atmosphere of these mountains and deserts and seas 
 inspires to a self-assertion, rather than to a clinging 
 fast to the traditions and culture of others and what, 
 after all, is a great artist, but one who greatly asserts 
 himself?" 
 
 The younger man answered in a like vein; "Mr. 
 Lagrange, your words recall to my mind a thought in 
 one of mother's favorite books. She quoted from the 
 volume so often that, as a youngster, I almost knew it 
 by heart, and, in turn, it became my favorite. Indeed, 
 I think that, with mother's aid as an interpreter, it 
 has had more influence upon my life than any other 
 one book. This is the thought jf^To understand the 
 message of the mountains; to love them for what 
 they are; and, in terms of every-day life, to give 
 expression to that understanding and love is a mark 
 ofjrue greatness of soul.S I do not know the author. 
 The book is anonymous. 
 
 "I am the author of that book, sir," the strange 
 man answered with simple dignity, " or, rather, 
 I should say, I was the author," he added, with a 
 burst of his bitter, sarcastic humor. "For God's sake 
 don't betray me. I am, now, the famous Conrad La- 
 grange, you understand. I have a name to protect" 
 His deep voice was shaken with feeling. His worn 
 and rugged features twitched and worked with 
 emotion. 
 
 41
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Aaron King listened in amazement to the words 
 that were spoken by the famous novelist with such 
 pathetic regret and stinging self-accusation. Not 
 knowing how to reply, he said casually, "You are 
 working here, Mr. Lagrange ?" 
 
 "Working! Me? I don't work anywhere. I am 
 a literary scavenger. I haunt the intellectual slaugh- 
 ter pens, and live by the putrid offal that self-respect- 
 ing writers reject. I glean the stinking materials 
 for my stories from the sewers and cesspools of life. 
 For the dollars they pay, I furnish my readers with 
 those thrills that public decency forbids them to 
 experience at first hand. I am a procurer for the 
 purposes of mental prostitution. My books breed 
 moral pestilence and spiritual disease. The unholy 
 filth I write fouls the minds and pollutes the imagina- 
 tions of my readers. I am an instigator of degrading 
 immorality and unmentionable crimes. Work! No, 
 young man, I don't work. Just now, I'm doing 
 penance in this damned town. My rotten imaginings 
 have proven too much even for me and the doctors 
 sent me West to recuperate." 
 
 The artist could find no words that would answer. 
 In silence, the two men turned away from the moun- 
 tains, and started back along the avenue by which 
 they had come. 
 
 When they had walked some little distance, the 
 young man said, "This is your first visit to Fairlands, 
 Mr. Lagrange?" 
 
 "I was here last year" answered the other 
 "here and in the hills yonder. Have you been much 
 in the mountains ?" 
 
 42
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 "Not in California. This is my first trip to the 
 West. I have seen something of the mountains, 
 though, at tourist resorts abroad." 
 
 "Which means," commented the other, "that you 
 have never seen them at all." 
 
 Aaron King laughed. "I dare say you are right." 
 
 "And you ?" asked the novelist, abruptly, eyeing 
 his companion. "What brought you to this commu- 
 nity that thinks so much more of its millionaires than 
 it does of its mountains ? Have you come to Fair- 
 lands to work?" 
 
 "I hope to," answered the artist. "There are 
 there are reasons why I do not care to work, for the 
 present, in the East. I confess it was because I 
 understood that Fairlands offered exceptional oppor- 
 tunities for a portrait painter that I came here. To 
 succeed in my work, you know, one must come in 
 touch with people of influence. It is sometimes easier 
 to interest them when they are away from their homes 
 in some place like this where their social duties 
 and business cares are not so pressing." 
 
 "There is no question of the material that Fair- 
 lands has to offer, Mr. King," returned the novelist, 
 in his grim, sarcastic humor. "God! how I envy 
 you !" he added, with a flash of earnest passion. 
 "You are young You are beginning your life work 
 You are looking forward to success You " 
 
 "I must succeed" the painter interrupted im- 
 petuously "I must." 
 
 "Succeed in what? What do you mean by suc- 
 
 43
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 "Surely, you should understand what I mean bj 
 success," the younger man retorted. "You who have 
 gained " 
 
 "Oh, yes ; I forgot" came the quick interruption 
 "I am the famous Conrad Lagrange. Of course, 
 you, too, must succeed. You must become the famous 
 Aaron King. But perhaps you will tell me why yon 
 must, as you call it, succeed ?" 
 
 The artist hesitated before answering; then said 
 with anxious earnestness, "I don't think I can ex- 
 plain, Mr. Lagrange. My mother " he paused. 
 
 The older man stopped short, and, turning, stood 
 for a little with his face towards the mountains 
 where San Bernardino's pyramid-like peak was 
 thrust among the stars. When he spoke, every bit of 
 that bitter humor was gone from his deep voice. "I 
 beg your pardon, Mr. King" he said slowly "I am 
 as ugly and misshapen in spirit as in body." 
 
 But when they had walked some way again in 
 silence and were drawing near the hotel, the mo- 
 mentary change in his mood passed. In a tone of 
 stinging sarcasm he said. "You are on the right road, 
 Mr. King. You did well to come to Fairlands. It 
 is quite evident that you have mastered the modern 
 technic of your art. To acquire fame, you have only 
 to paint pictures of fast women who have no morals 
 at all making them appear as innocent maidens, 
 because they have the price to pay, and, in the eyes 
 of the world, are of social importance. Put upon 
 your canvases what the world will call portraits of 
 distinguished citizens making low-browed money- 
 thugs to look like noble patriots, and bloody butchers 
 
 44
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 of humanity like benevolent saints. You need give 
 yourself no uneasiness about your success. It is easy. 
 Get in with the right people; use your family name 
 and your distinguished ancestors; pull a few judi- 
 cious advertising wires ; do a few artistic stunts ; get 
 yourself into the papers long and often, no matter 
 how ; make yourself a fad ; become a pet of the social 
 autocrats and your fame is assured. And you will 
 be what I am." 
 
 The young man, quietly ignoring the humor of the 
 novelist's words, said protestingly, "But, surely, to 
 portray human nature is legitimate art, Mr. La- 
 grange. Your great artists that the West is to pro- 
 duce will not necessarily be landscape painters or 
 write essays upon nature, will they ?" 
 
 "To portray human nature is legitimate work for 
 an artist, yes" agreed the novelist "but he must 
 portray human nature plus. ( The forces that shape 
 human nature are the forces that must be felt in the 
 picture and in the story.^ That these determining 
 forces are so seldom seen by the eyes of the world, 
 is the reason for pictures and stories. The artist who 
 fails to realize for his world the character-creating 
 elements in the life which he essays to paint or write, 
 fails, to just that degree, in being an artist; or is 
 self-branded by his work as criminally careless, a 
 charlatan or a liar. \ That one who, for a price, pre- 
 sents a picture or a story without regard for the 
 influence of his production upon the characters of 
 those who receive it, commits a crime for which 
 human law provides no adequate punishment. Being 
 the famous Conrad Lagrange, you understand, I hare 
 
 45
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 the right to say this. You will probably believe it, 
 some day if you do not now. That is, you will 
 believe it if you have the soul and the intelligence 
 of an artist if you have not it will not matter 
 and you will be happy in your success." 
 
 As the novelist finished speaking, the two men 
 arrived at the hotel steps, where they halted, with 
 that indecision of chance acquaintances who have no 
 plans beyond the passing moment, yet who, in mutual 
 interest, would extend the time of their brief com- 
 panionship. While they stood there, each hesitating 
 to make the advance, a big touring car rolled up the 
 driveway, and stopped under the full light of the 
 veranda. Aaron King recognized the lady of the 
 observation car platform, with her two traveling com- 
 panions, and the heavy-faced man who had met them 
 at the depot. As the party greeted the novelist and 
 he returned their salutation, the artist turned away 
 to find again the chair, where, an hour before, the 
 strange character who was to play so large a part in 
 his life and work had found him. The dog, Czar, as 
 if preferring the companionship of the artist to the 
 company of those who were engaging his master's 
 attention, followed the young man. 
 
 From where he sat, the painter could see the tall, 
 uncouth figure of the famous novelist standing 
 beside the automobile, while the occupants of the car 
 were, apparently, absorbingly interested in what he 
 was saying. The beautiful face of the woman was 
 brightly animated as she evidently took the lead in 
 the conversation. The artist could see her laughing 
 and shaking her head. Once, he even heard her speak 
 
 46
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 the writer's name; whereupon, every lounger upon 
 the veranda, within hearing, turned to observe the 
 party with curious interest. Several times, the young 
 man noted that she glanced in his direction, half 
 inquiringly, with a suggestion of being pleased, as 
 though she were glad to have seen him in company 
 with her celebrated friend. Then the man who held 
 so large a place in the eyes of the world drew back, 
 lifting his hat ; the automobile started forward ; the 
 party called, "Good night." The woman's voice rose 
 clear so that the spectators might easily understand 
 "Remember, Mr. Lagrange I shall expect you 
 Thursday day after to-morrow." 
 
 As Conrad Lagrange came up the hotel steps, the 
 eyes of all were upon him ; but he apparently uncon- 
 scious of the company went straight to the artist; 
 where, without a word, he dropped into the vacant 
 chair by the young man's side, and began thought- 
 fully refilling his brier pipe. Flipping the match 
 over the veranda railing, and expelling a prodigious 
 cloud of smoke, the novelist said grimly, "And there 
 my fellow artist go your masters. I trust you 
 observed them with proper reverence. I would have 
 introduced you, but I do not like to take the initiative 
 in such outrages. That will come soon enough. The 
 young should be permitted to enjoy their freedom 
 while they may." 
 
 Aaron King laughed. "Thank you for your con- 
 sideration," he returned, "but I do not think I am 
 in any immediate danger." 
 
 "Winch" the other retorted dryly "betrays 
 either innocence, caution, or an unusual understand- 
 
 47
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 ing of life. I am not, now, prepared to say whether 
 you know too much or too little." 
 
 "I confess to a degree of curiosity," said the artist. 
 "I traveled in the same Pullman with three of the 
 party. May I ask the names of your friends ?" 
 
 The other answered in his bitterest vein ; "I have 
 no friends, Mr. King I have only admirers. As for 
 their names" he continued "there is no reason 
 why I should withhold either who they are or what 
 they are. Besides, I observed that the reigning 
 'Goddess' in the realm of 'Modern Art' has her eye 
 upon you, already. As I shall very soon be com- 
 manded to drag you to her 'Court,' it is well for you 
 to be prepared." 
 
 The young man laughed as the other paused to 
 puff vigorously at his brier pipe. 
 
 "That red-faced, bull-necked brute, is James Rut- 
 lidge, the son and heir of old Jim Rutlidge," con- 
 tinued the novelist. "Jim inherited a few odd 
 millions from his father, and killed himself spending 
 them in unmentionable ways. The son is most 
 worthily carrying out his father's mission, with 
 bright prospects of exceeding his distinguished 
 parent's fondest dreams. But, unfortunately, he is 
 hampered by lack of adequate capital the bulk of 
 the family wealth having gone with the old man." 
 
 "Do you mean James Rutlidge the great critic ?" 
 exclaimed Aaron King, with increased interest. 
 
 "The same," answered the other, with his twisted 
 smile. "I thought you would recognize his name. 
 AB an artist, von will undoubtedly have much to do 
 with him. His friendship is one of the things that 
 
 48
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 are vital to your success. Believe me, his power in 
 modern art is a red-faced, bull-necked power that you 
 will do well to recognize. Of his companions," he 
 went on, "the horrible example is Edward J. Taine 
 a friend and fellow martyr of James Rutlidge, 
 Senior. Satan, perhaps, can explain how he has 
 managed to outlive his partner. His home is in New 
 York, but he has a big house on Fairlands Heights, 
 with large orange groves in this district. He comes 
 here winters for his health. He'll die before long. 
 The effervescing young creature is his daughter, 
 Louise by his first wife. The 'Goddess' who is 
 not much older than his daughter is the present 
 Mrs. Taine." 
 
 "His wife!" 
 
 The artist's exclamation drew a sarcastic chuckle 
 from the other. "I am prepared, now, to testify to 
 your unworldly innocence of heart and mind," he 
 gibed. "And, pray, why not his wife ? You see, she 
 was the ward of old Rutlidge a niece, it is said. 
 Mrs. Rutlidge as you have no doubt heard killed 
 herself . It was shortly after her death that Jim took 
 Vhis little one into his home. She and young Jim 
 {\Tew up together. What was more natural or fitting 
 than that her guardian when he was about to depart 
 from this sad world where human flesh is not able 
 to endure an unlimited amount of dissipation 
 should give the girl as a lively souvenir to his bosom 
 friend and companion of his unmentionable devil- 
 tries ? The transaction also enabled him, you under- 
 stand, to draw upon the Taine millions; and so per- 
 mitted him to finish his distinguished career with 
 
 49
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 credit. You, with your artist's extravagant fancy, 
 have, no doubt, been thinking of her as fashioned for 
 love. I assure you she knows better. The world in 
 which she has been schooled has left her no hazy 
 ideas as to what she was made for." 
 
 "I have heard of the Taines," said the younger 
 man, thoughtfully. "I suppose this is the same 
 family. They are very prominent in the social world, 
 and quite generous patrons of the arts ?" 
 
 "In the eyes of the world," said the novelist, "they 
 are the noblest of our Nobility. They dwell in the 
 rarefied atmosphere of millions. By the dollarless 
 multitudes they are envied. They assume to be the 
 cultured of the cultured. Patrons of the arts ! Why, 
 man, they have autographed copies of all my books! 
 They and their kind feed me and my kind. They 
 will feed you, sir, or by God you'll starve ! But you 
 need have no fear that the crust of genius will be 
 your portion," he added meaningly. "As I remarked 
 the 'Goddess' has her eye upon you." 
 
 "And why do you so distinguish the lady ?" asked 
 the artist, quietly amused with just a hint of well- 
 bred condescension. "Has Mrs. Taine such powerful 
 influence in the world of art ?" 
 
 If Conrad Lagrange noticed his companion's man- 
 ner, he passed it by. "I perceive," he said, "that you 
 are still somewhat lacking in the rudiments of your 
 profession. The statement of faith adhered to by 
 modern climbers on the ladder of fame such as I 
 have been, and you aspire to be is that 'Pull' wins. 
 Our creed is 'Graft.' By 'Influence' we stand, by 
 
 50
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 'Influence' we fall. It pleases Mrs. Taine to be, in 
 the world of art, a lobbyist. She knows the insidea 
 of the inside rings and cliques and committees that 
 say what is, and what is not, art; that declare who 
 shall be, and who shall not be, artists. She has power 
 with those who, in their might, grant position and 
 place in the halls of fame; as their kinsmen in the 
 political world pass the plums to those who court 
 their favor. The great critics who thunder anath- 
 emas at the poor devils who are outside, eat out of 
 her hand. Jim Rutlidge and his unholy crew are 
 at her beck and call. Jim, you see, needing all he 
 can get of the Taine millions, hopes to marry Louise. 
 You can scarcely blame the young and beautiful Mrs. 
 Taine for not being interested in her husband who 
 is going to die so soon. The poor girl must have 
 some amusement, so she interests herself in art, don't 
 you know. She gives more dinners to artists and 
 critics ; buys more pictures and causes more pictures 
 to be bought; mothers more art-culture clubs; dis- 
 covers more new and startling geniuses ; in short, has 
 a larger and better trained company of lions than 
 any one else in the business. She deals in lions. It's 
 her fad to collect them same as others collect butter- 
 flies or postage stamps. She has one other fad that 
 is less harmful and just as deceptive a carefully 
 nourished reputation for prudery. I sometimes think 
 the Gods must laugh or choke. That woman would 
 no more speak to you without a proper introduction 
 than she would appear on the street without shoes or 
 stockings. She has never been seen in an evening 
 
 51
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 gown. Her beautiful shoulders have never been 
 immodestly bared to the eyes of the world." 
 
 The artist thought of that moment on the observa- 
 tion car platform. 
 
 Presently, the novelist refilling his pipe said 
 whimsically, "Some day, Mr. King, I shall write a 
 true story. It shall be a novel of to-day, with char- 
 acters drawn from life; and these characters, in my 
 story, shall bear the names of the forces that have 
 made them what they are and which they, in turn, 
 have come to represent. I mean those forces that are 
 so coloring and shaping the life and thought of this 
 age." 
 
 "That ought to be interesting," said the other, "but 
 I am not quite sure that I understand." 
 
 "Probably you don't. You have not been thinking 
 much of these things. You have your eye upon 
 Fame, and that old witch lives in another direction. 
 To illustrate our bull-necked friend and illustrious 
 critic, James Rutlidge, in my story, will be named 
 'Sensual.' His distinguished father was one 'Lust.' 
 The horrible example, Mr. Edward Taine, boon 
 companion of 'Lust,' is 'Materialism'." 
 
 "Good !" laughed the artist. "I see; go on. Who 
 is the daughter of 'Materialism ?' " 
 
 " 'Ragtime'," promptly returned the novelist, with 
 a grin. "Who else could she be ?" 
 
 "And Mrs. Taine ?" urged the other. 
 
 The novelist responded quickly ; "Why, the reign- 
 ing 'Goddess' in the realm of 'Modern Art,' is 'The 
 Age,' of course. Do you see ? 'The Age' given over
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 to 'Materialism' for base purposes by his companion, 
 'Lust.' And you " he paused. 
 
 "Go on," cried the young man, "who or what am 
 I in your story?" 
 
 "You, sir," answered Conrad Lagrange, seri- 
 ously, "in my story of modern life, represent Art. 
 It remains to be seen whether 'The Age' will add you 
 to her collection, or whether some other influence will 
 intervene." 
 
 "And you" persisted the artist "surely you are 
 in the story." 
 
 "I am very much in the story," the other answered. 
 "My name is 'Civilization.' My story will be pub- 
 lished when I am dead. I have a reputation to sus- 
 tain, you know." 
 
 Aaron King was not laughing, now. Something, 
 that lay deep hidden beneath the rude exterior of the 
 man, made itself felt in his deep voice. Some power- 
 ful force, underlying his whimsical words, gripped 
 the artist's mind compelling him to search for hid- 
 den meanings in the novelist's fanciful suggestions. 
 
 A few moments passed in silence before the young 
 man said slowly, "I met a character, yesterday, Mr. 
 Lagrange, that might be added to your cast." 
 
 "There are several that will be added to my cast," 
 the othe r answered dryly. 
 
 To which the painter returned, "Did you notice 
 that woman with the disfigured face, at the depot ?" 
 
 Conrad Lagrange looked at his companion, quickly. 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Do you know her ?" questioned the artist. 
 
 "No. Why do you ask?" 
 
 53
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Only because she interested me, and because she 
 seemed to know your friends Mr. Rutlidge and Mrs. 
 Taine." 
 
 The novelist knocked the ashes from his pipe by 
 tapping it on the veranda railing. The action seemed 
 to express a peculiar mental effort; as though he were 
 striving to recall something that had gone from his 
 memory. "I saw what happened at the depot, of 
 course," he said slowly. "I have seen the woman 
 before. She lives here in Fairlands. Her name is 
 Miss Willard. No one seems to know much about 
 her. I can't get over the impression that I ought to 
 know her that I have met and known her some- 
 where, years ago. Her manner, yesterday, at seeing 
 Mrs. Taine, was certainly very strange." As if to 
 free his mind from the unsuccessful effort to remem- 
 ber, he rose to his feet. "But why should she be 
 added to the characters in my novel, Mr. King? 
 What does she represent?" 
 
 "Her name," said the artist, "in your study of 
 life, is suggested by her face so beautiful on the 
 one side so distorted on the other her name should 
 be 'Symbol'." 
 
 "There really is hope for you," returned the older 
 man, with his quizzing smile. "Good night. Come, 
 Czar." He passed into the hotel the dog at his 
 heels. 
 
 It was two days later Thursday that Conrad 
 Lagrange made his memorable visit to the Taines 
 memorable, in my story, because, at that time, 
 Mrs. Taine gave such unmistakable evidence of her 
 interest in Aaron King and his future. 
 
 54
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 AT THE HOUSE ON FAIRLANDS HEIGHTS 
 
 S my friend the social scientist would say; 
 it is a phenomenon peculiar to urban life, 
 that the social strata are more or less 
 clearly denned geographically. 
 
 That is, in the English of everyday, 
 people of different classes live in different 
 parts of the city. As certain streets and blocks are 
 given to the wholesale establishments, others to retail 
 stores, and still others to the manufacturing plants ; 
 so there are the tenement districts, the slums, and the 
 streets where may be found the homes of wealth and 
 fashion. 
 
 In Fairlands, the social rating is largely marked 
 by altitude. The city, lying in the lap of the hills and 
 looking a little down upon the valley plebeian busi- 
 ness, together with those who do the work of Fair- 
 lands, occupies the lowest levels in the corporate 
 limits. The heights are held by Fairlands' Pride. 
 Between these two extremes, the Fairlanders are 
 graded fairly by the levels they occupy. It is most 
 gratifying to observe how generally the citizens of this 
 fortunate community aspire to higher things ; and to 
 note that the peculiarly proud spirit of this people is 
 undoubtedly explained by this happy arrangement 
 which enables every one to look down upon his 
 neighbor. 
 
 55
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 The view from the winter home of the Taines was 
 magnificent. 
 
 From the window of the room where Mrs. Taine 
 sat, that afternoon, one could have looked down upon 
 all Fairlands. One might, indeed, have done better 
 than that. Looking over the wealth of semi-tropical 
 foliage that save for the tower of the red-brick Y. 
 M. C. A. building, the white, municipal flagstaff, and 
 the steeples and belfries of the churches hid the 
 city, one might have looked up at the mountains. 
 High, high, above the low levels occupied by the hill- 
 climbing Fairlanders, the mountains lift their heads 
 in solemn dignity; looking down upon the loftiest 
 Fairlander of them all looking down upon even the 
 Taines themselves. 
 
 But the glory of Mrs. Taine's God was not declared 
 by the mountains. She sat by the window, indeed, 
 but her eyes were upon the open pages of a book a 
 popular novel that by some strange legal lapse of the 
 governmental conscience was and is still permitted 
 in print. 
 
 The author of the story that so engrossed Mrs. 
 Taine was in her opinion almost as great in litera- 
 ture as Conrad Lagrange, himself. By those in au- 
 thority who pronounce upon the worthiness or the 
 unworthiness of writer folk, he is, to-day, said to be 
 one of the greatest writers of his generation. He is 
 a realist a modern of the moderns. His pen has 
 never been debased by an inartistic and antiquated 
 idealism. His claim to genius rests securely upon 
 the fact that he has no ideals. He writes for that 
 select circle of leaders who, like the Taines and the 
 
 56
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Rutlidges, are capable of appreciating his art. All of 
 which means that he tells filthy stories in good Eng- 
 lish. That his stories are identical in material and 
 motive with the vile yarns that are permitted only in 
 the lowest class barber shops and in disreputable bar- 
 rooms, in no way detracts from the admiring praise 
 of his critics, the generosity of his publishers, or the 
 appreciation of those for whom he writes. 
 
 With tottering step and feeble, shaking limbs, Ed- 
 ward Taine entered the apartment. As he stood, 
 silently looking at his young wife, his glazed, red- 
 rimmed eyes fed upon her voluptuous beauty with a 
 look of sullen, impotent lustfulness that was near in- 
 sanity. A spasm of coughing seized him; he gasped 
 and choked, his wasted body shaken and racked, his 
 dissipated face hideously distorted by the violence of 
 the paroxysm. Wrecked by the flesh he had lived to 
 gratify, he was now the mocked and tortured slave of 
 the very devils of unholy passion that he had so often 
 invoked to serve him. Repulsive as he was, he was 
 an object to awaken the deepest pity. 
 
 Mrs. Taine, looking up from her novel, watched 
 him curiously without moving or changing her atti- 
 tude of luxurious repose without speaking. Almost, 
 one would have said, a shade of a smile was upon her 
 too perfect features. 
 
 When the man who had dropped weak and ex- 
 hausted into a chair could speak, he glared at her in 
 a pitiful rage, and, in his throaty whisper, said with 
 a curse, "You seem to be amused." 
 
 Still, she did not speak. A tantalizing smile broke 
 over her face, and she stretched her beautiful body 
 
 57
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 lazily in her chair, as a well-conditioned animal stirs 
 in sleek, physical contentment. 
 
 Again, with curses, he said, "I'm glad you so enjoy 
 my company. To be laughed at, even, is better than 
 your damned indifference." 
 
 "You misjudge me," she answered in a voice that, 
 low and soft, was still richly colored by the wealth of 
 vitality that found expression in her splendid body. 
 "I am not at all indifferent to your condition quite 
 the contrary. I am intensely interested. As for the 
 amusement you afford me please consider for 
 three years I have amused you. Can you deny me my 
 turn?" 
 
 He laughed with a hideously mirthless chuckle as 
 he returned with ghastly humor, "I have had the 
 worth of my money. I advise you to make the most 
 of your opportunity. I shall make things as pleasant 
 for you as I can, while I am with you, but, as you 
 know, I am liable to leave you at any time, now." 
 
 "Pray don't hurry away," she replied sweetly. "I 
 shall miss you so when you are gone." 
 
 He glared at her while she laughed mockingly. 
 
 "Where is everybody ?" he asked. "The place is as 
 lonely as a tomb." 
 
 "Louise is out riding with Jim." 
 
 "And what are you doing at home ?" he demanded 
 suspiciously. 
 
 "Me ? Oh I remained to care for you to keep you 
 from being lonely." 
 
 "You lie. You are expecting some one." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 "Who is it this time ?" he persisted. 
 
 58
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Your insinuations are so unwarranted," she mur- 
 mured. 
 
 "Whom are you expecting ?" 
 
 "Dear me ! how persistently you look for evil," she 
 mocked. "You know perfectly well that, thanks to 
 my tact, I am considered quite the model wife. You 
 really should cultivate a more trusting disposition." 
 
 Another fit of coughing seized him, and while he 
 suffered she again watched him with that curious air 
 of interest. When he could command his voice, he 
 gasped in a choking whisper, "You fiend! I know, 
 and you know that I know. Am I so innocent that 
 Jack Hanover, and Charlie Rodgers, and Black Whit- 
 man, and as many more of their kind, can make love 
 to you under my very nose without my knowing it? 
 You take damned good care posing as a prude with 
 your fad about immodest dress that the world sees 
 nothing ; but you have never troubled to hide it from 
 me." 
 
 Deliberately, she arose and stood before him. "And 
 why should I trouble to hide anything from you?" 
 she demanded. "Look at me" she posed as if to 
 exhibit for his critical inspection the charm of her 
 physical beauty "Look at me; am I to waste all this 
 upon you ? You tell me that you have had your mon- 
 ey's worth surely, the purchase price is mine to 
 spend as I will. Even suppose that I were as evil as 
 your foul mind sees me, what right have you to ob- 
 ject ? Are you so chaste that you dare cast a stone at 
 me ? Am I to have no pleasure in this hell you have 
 made for me but the horrible pleasure of watching 
 you in the hell you have made for yourself? Be 
 
 59
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 satisfied that the world does not see your shame 
 though it's from no consideration of you, but wholly 
 for myself, that I am careful. As for my modesty 
 you know it is not a fad but a necessity." 
 
 "That is just it" he retorted "it is the way you 
 make a fad of a necessity! Forced to hide your 
 shoulders, you make a virtue of concealment. You 
 make capital of the very thing of which you are 
 ashamed." 
 
 "And is not that exactly what we all do?" she 
 asked with brutal cynicism. "Do you not fear the 
 eyes of the world as much as I ? Be satisfied that I 
 play the game of respectability with you that I give 
 the world no cause for talk. You may as well be," 
 she finished with devilish frankness, "for you are past 
 helping yourself in the matter." 
 
 As she finished, a servant appeared to announce 
 Mr. Conrad Lagrange ; and the tall, uncouth figure of 
 the novelist stood framed in the doorway; his sharp 
 eyes regarding them with that peculiar, quizzing, 
 baffling look. 
 
 Edward Taine laughed with that horrid chuckle. 
 "Howdy-do, Lagrange glad to see you." 
 
 Mrs. Taine went forward to greet the caller; say- 
 ing, as she gave him her hand, "You arrived just in 
 time, Mr. Lagrange; Edward and I were discussing 
 your latest book. We think it a masterpiece of realis- 
 tic fiction. I'm sure it will add immensely to your 
 fame. I hear it talked of everywhere as the most 
 popular novel of the year. You wonderful man! 
 How do you do it ?" 
 
 60
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 "I don't do it," answered Conrad Lagrange, look- 
 ing straight into her eyes. "It does itself. My books 
 are really true products of the age that reads them; 
 and to paraphrase a statesman who was himself a 
 product of his age for those who read my books they 
 are just the kind of books that I would expect such 
 people to read." 
 
 Mrs. Taine looked at him with a curious, half- 
 doubtful, half-wistful expression; as though she 
 glimpsed a hint of a meaning that did not appear 
 upon the surface of his words. "You do say such 
 such twisty things," she murmured. "I don't think 
 I always understand what you mean; but when you 
 look at me that way, I feel as though my maid had 
 neglected to finish hooking me up." 
 
 The novelist bowed in mock gallantry a move- 
 ment which made his ungainly form appear more gro- 
 tesque than ever. "Indeed, madam, to my humble 
 eyes, you are most beautifully and fittingly ah 
 hooked up." He turned toward the invalid. "And 
 how is the fortunate husband of the charming Mrs. 
 Taine to-day?" 
 
 "Fine, Lagrange, fine," said the man a cough in- 
 terrupting his words. "Eeally, I think that Gertrude 
 is unduly alarmed about my condition. In this glo- 
 rious climate, I feel like a three-year-old." 
 
 "You are looking quite like yourself," returned 
 the novelist 
 
 "There's nothing at all the matter with me but a 
 slight bronchial trouble," continued the other, cough- 
 ing again. Then, to his wife "Dearest, won't you 
 
 61
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 ring, please ; I'm sure it's time for my toddy ; perhaps 
 Mr. Lagrange will join me in a drink. What'll it be, 
 Lagrange ?" 
 
 "Nothing, thanks, at this hour." 
 
 "No ? But you'll pardon me, I'm sure Doctor's 
 orders you know." 
 
 A servant appeared. Mrs. Taine took the glass and 
 carried it to her husband with her own hand, saying 
 with tender solicitude, "Don't you think, dear, that 
 you should lie down for a while ? Mr. Lagrange will 
 remain for dinner, you know. You must not tire 
 yourself. I'm sure he will excuse you. I'll manage 
 somehow to amuse him until Jim and Louise return/' 
 
 "I believe I will rest a little, Gertrude." He 
 turned to the guest "While there is nothing really 
 wrong, you know, Lagrange, still it's best to be on the 
 safe side." 
 
 "By all means," said the novelist, heartily. "You 
 should take care of yourself. Don't, I beg, permit me 
 to detain you." 
 
 Mrs. Taine, with careful tenderness, accompanied 
 her husband to the door. When he had passed from 
 the room, she faced the novelist, with "Don't you 
 think Edward is really very much worse, Mr. La- 
 grange? I keep up appearances, you know, but " 
 she paused with a charming air of perplexed and wor- 
 ried anxiety. 
 
 "Your husband is certainly not a well man, madam 
 but you keep up appearances wonderfully. I really 
 don't see how you manage it. But I suppose that for 
 one of your nature it is natural." 
 
 Again, she received his words with that look of 
 
 62
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 doubtful understanding as though sensing some 
 meaning beneath the polite, commonplace surface. 
 Then, as if to lead away from the subject "You 
 must really tell me what you think of our California 
 home. I told you in New York, you remember, that 
 I should ask you, the first thing. We were so sorry 
 to have missed you last year. Please be frank. Isn't 
 it beautiful 2" 
 
 "Very beautiful" he answered "exquisite taste 
 perfect harmony with modern art." His quizzing 
 eyes twinkled, and a caricature of a smile distorted 
 his face. "It fairly smells to heaven of the flesh 
 pots." 
 
 She laughed merrily. "The odor should not be 
 unfamiliar to you," she retorted. "By all accounts, 
 your royalties are making you immensely rich. How 
 wonderful it must be to be famous to know that the 
 whole world is talking about you ! And that reminds 
 me who is your distinguished looking friend at the 
 hotel ? I was dying to ask you, the other night, but 
 didn't dare. I know he is somebody famous." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange, studying her face, answered re- 
 luctantly, "No, he is not famous ; but I fear he is go- 
 ing to be." 
 
 "Another twisty saying," she retorted. "But I 
 mean to have an answer, so you may as well speak 
 plainly. Have you known him long? What is his 
 name ? And what is he a writer ?" 
 
 "His name is Aaron King. His mother and I grew 
 up in the same neighborhood. He is an artist." 
 
 "How romantic ! Do you mean that he belongs to 
 that old family of New England Kings ?" 
 
 63
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "He is the last of them. His father was Aaron 
 King a prominent lawyer and politician in his 
 state." 
 
 "Oh, yes! I remember! Wasn't there something 
 whispered at the time of his death some scandal that 
 was hushed up money stolen or something ? What 
 was it ? I can't think." 
 
 "Whatever it was, Mrs. Taine, the son had nothing 
 to do with it. Don't you think we might let the dead 
 man stay safely buried ?" There was an ominous 
 glint in Conrad Lagrange's eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Taine answered hurriedly, "Indeed, yes, Mr. 
 Lagrange. You are right. And you shall bring Mr. 
 King out to see me. If he is as nice as he looks, I 
 promise you I will be very good to him. Perhaps I 
 may even help him a little, through Jim, you know 
 bring him in touch with the right people and that 
 sort of thing. What does he paint ?" 
 
 "Portraits." The novelist's tone was curt. 
 
 "Then I am sure I could do a great deal for him." 
 
 "And I am sure you would do a great deal to him," 
 said Conrad Lagrange, bluntly. 
 
 She laughed again. "And just what do you mean 
 by that, Mr. Lagrange? I'm not sure whether it is 
 complimentary or otherwise." 
 
 "That depends upon what you consider complimen- 
 tary," retorted the other. "As I told you Aaron 
 King is an artist." 
 
 Again, she favored him with that look of doubtful 
 understanding ; shaking her head with mock sadness, 
 and making a long sigh. "Another twister" she 
 
 64
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 said woefully "just when we were getting along so 
 beautifully, too. Won't you try again ?" 
 
 "In words of one syllable then let him alone. He 
 is, to-day, exactly where I was twenty years ago. For 
 God's sake, let him alone. Play your game with those 
 who are no loss to the world ; or with those who, like 
 me, are already lost. Let this man do his work. 
 Don't make him what I am." 
 
 "Oh dear, oh dear," she laughed, "and these are 
 words of one syllable ! You talk as though I were a 
 dreadful dragon seeking a genius to devour !" 
 
 "You are," said the novelist, gruffly. 
 
 "How nice. I'm all shivery with delight, already. 
 You really must bring him now, you see. You might 
 as well, for, if you don't, I'll manage some other way 
 when you are not around to protect him. You don't 
 want to trust him to me unprotected, do you f" 
 
 "No, and I won't," retorted Conrad Lagrange 
 which, though Mrs. Taine did not remark it, was also 
 a twister. 
 
 "But after all, perhaps he won't come," she said 
 with mock anxiety. 
 
 "Don't worry madam he's just as much a fool 
 as the rest of us." 
 
 As the novelist spoke, they heard the voices of Miss 
 Taine and her escort, James Rutlidge. Mrs. Taine 
 had only time to shake a finger in playful warning at 
 her companion, and to whisper, "Mind you bring 
 your artist to me, or I'll get him when you're not 
 looking; and listen, don't tell Jim about him; I must 
 ee what he is like, first." 
 
 65
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 At lunch, the next day, Conrad Lagrange greeted 
 the artist in his bitterest humor. "And how is the 
 famous Aaron King, to-day ? I trust that the great- 
 est portrait painter of the age is well ; that the hotel 
 people have been properly attentive to the comfort of 
 their illustrious guest? The world of art can ill 
 afford to have its rarest genius suffer from any lack 
 of the service that is due his greatness." 
 
 The young man's face flushed at his companion's 
 mocking tone; but he laughed. "I missed you at 
 breakfast." 
 
 "I was sleeping off the effect of my intellectual de- 
 bauch it takes time to recover from a dinner with 
 'Materialism,' 'Sensual,' 'Ragtime' and 'The Age'," 
 the other returned, the menu in his hand. "What 
 slop are they offering to put in our troughs for this 
 noon's feed?" 
 
 Again, Aaron King laughed. But as the novelist, 
 with characteristic comments and instructions to the 
 waitress, ordered his lunch, the artist watched him as 
 though waiting with interest his further remarks on 
 the subject of his evening with the Taines. 
 
 When the girl was gone, Conrad Lagrange turned 
 again to his companion, and from under his scowling 
 brows regarded him much as a withered scientist 
 might regard an interesting insect under his glass. 
 "Permit me to congratulate you," he said suggest- 
 ively as though the bug had succeeded in acting in 
 some manner fully expected by the scientist but 
 wholly disgusting to him. 
 
 The artist colored again as he returned curiously, 
 "Upon what?" 
 
 66
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Upon the start you have made toward the goal you 
 hope to reach." 
 
 "What do you mean ?" 
 
 "Mrs. Taine wants you." 
 
 "You are pleased t< be facetious." Under the eyes 
 of his companion, Aaron King felt that his reply did 
 not at all conceal his satisfaction. 
 
 "I am pleased to be exact. I repeat Mrs. Taine 
 wants you. I am ordered by the reigning 'Goddess' 
 of 'Modern Art' 'The Age' to bring you into her 
 'Court.' You have won favor in her sight. She finds 
 you good to look at. She hopes to find you as good 
 as you look. If you do not disappoint her, your fame 
 is assured." 
 
 "Nonsense," said the artist, somewhat sharply; 
 nettled by the obvious meaning and by the sneering 
 sarcasm of the novelist's words and tone. 
 
 To which the other returned suggestively, "It is 
 precisely because you can say, 'nonsense,' when you 
 know it is no nonsense at all, but the exact truth, that 
 your chance for fame is so good, my friend." 
 
 "And did some reigning 'Goddess' insure your suc- 
 cess and fame ?" 
 
 The older man turned his peculiar, penetrating, 
 baffling eyes full upon his companion's face, and in 
 a voice full of cynical sadness answered, "Exactly so. 
 I paid court to the powers that be. They gave me the 
 reward I sought ; and they made me what I am." 
 
 So it came about that Conrad Lagrange, in due 
 time, introduced Aaron King to the house on Fair- 
 lands Heights. Or, as the novelist put it, he, 
 "Civilization", in obedience to the commands of 
 
 67
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 her "Royal Highness", "The Age", presented the 
 artist at her "Majesty's Court" ; that the young man 
 might sue for the royal favor. 
 
 It was, perhaps, a month after the presentation 
 ceremony, that the painter made what to him, at 
 least was an important announcement.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 THE MYSTERY OF THE ROSE GARDEN 
 
 HE acquaintance of Aaron King and Con- 
 rad Lagrange had developed rapidly into 
 friendship. 
 
 The man whom the world had chosen to 
 place upon one of tht> highest pinnacles of 
 its literary favor, and who through some 
 queer twist in his nature was so lonely and em- 
 bittered by his exaltation, seemed to find in the 
 younger man who stood with the crowd at the foot 
 of the ladder, something that marked him as different 
 from his fellows. 
 
 Whether it was the artist's mother; some sacredly 
 hidden memories of Lagrange's past; or, perhaps, 
 some fancied recognition of the artist's genius and 
 its possibilities; the strange man gave no hint; but 
 he constantly sought the company of Aaron King, 
 with an openness that made his preference for the 
 painter's society very evident. If he had said any- 
 thing about it, at all, Conrad Lagrange, likely, would 
 have accounted for his interest, upon the ground that 
 his dog, Czar, found the companionship agreeable. 
 Their friendship, meanwhile in the eyes of the 
 world conferred a peculiar distinction upon the 
 young man a distinction not at all displeasing to 
 the ambitious artist ; and the value of which he, prob- 
 ably, overrated.
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 To Aaron King aside from the subtle flattery of 
 the famous novelist's attention there was in the per- 
 sonality of the odd character a something that ap- 
 pealed to him with peculiar strength. Perhaps it was 
 that the man's words, so often sharp and stinging 
 with bitter sarcasm, seemed always to carry a hidden 
 meaning that gave, as it were, glimpses of another 
 nature buried deeply beneath a wreck of ruined 
 dreams and disappointing achievements. Or, it may 
 have been that, under all the cruel, world-hardness of 
 the thoughts expressed, the J^ung man sensed an 
 undertone of pathetic sadness. Or, again, perhaps, it 
 was those rare moments, when on some walk that 
 carried them beyond the outskirts of the town, and 
 brought the mountains into unobstructed view the 
 clouds of bitterness were lifted ; and the man spoke 
 with poetic feeling of the realities of life, and of the 
 true glory and mission of the arts; counseling his 
 friend with an intelligence as true and delicate as it 
 was rare and fine. 
 
 It was nearly two months after Conrad Lagrange 
 had introduced the young man at the house on Fair- 
 lands Heights. The hour was late. The painter 
 returning from a dinner and an evening at the Taine 
 home found the novelist, with pipe and dog, in a 
 deserted corner of the hotel veranda. Dropping into 
 the chair that was placed as if it awaited his coming, 
 the artist with no word of greeting to the man 
 bent over the brown head that was thrust so in- 
 sistently against his knee, as Czar, with gently wav- 
 ing tail, made him welcome. Looking affectionately 
 
 70
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 into the brown eyes while he stroked the silky coat, 
 the young man answered in the language that all 
 dogs understand; while the novelist, from under his 
 scowling brows, regarded the two intently. 
 
 "They were disappointed that you were not there," 
 said the painter, presently. "Mrs. Taine, particu- 
 larly, charged me to say that she will not forgive, 
 until you do proper penance for your sin." 
 
 "I had better company," retorted the other. "Czar 
 and I went for a look at the mountains. I suppose 
 you have noticed that Czar does not care for the Fair- 
 lands Heights crowd. He is very peculiar in his 
 friendships for a dog. His instincts are remark- 
 able." 
 
 At the sound of his name, Czar transferred his at- 
 tentions, for a moment, to his master ; then stretched 
 himself in his accustomed place beside the novelist's 
 chair. 
 
 The artist laughed. "I did my best to invent an 
 acceptable excuse for you; but she said it was no 
 use nothing short of your own personal prayers for 
 mercy would do." 
 
 "Humph; you should have reminded her that I 
 purchased an indulgence some weeks ago." 
 
 Again, the other laughed shortly. Watching him 
 closely, Conrad Lagrange said, in his most sneering 
 tones, "I trust, young man, that you are not failing 
 to make good use of your opportunities. Let's see 
 dinner and the evening five times afternoon calls as 
 many with motor trips to points of interest and 
 one theater party to Los Angeles believe me; it is
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 not often that struggling genius is so rewarded be- 
 fore it has accomplished anything bad enough to 
 merit such attention." 
 
 "I have been idling most shamefully, haven't I ?" 
 said the artist. 
 
 "Idling!" rasped the other. "You have been the 
 busiest hay-maker in the land. These scientific, in- 
 tensive cultivation farmers of California are not in 
 your class when it comes to utilizing the sunshine. 
 Take my advice and continue your present activity 
 without bothering yourself by any sentimental 
 thoughts of your palette and brushes. The mere vul- 
 gar tools of your craft are of minor importance to one 
 of your genius and opportunity." 
 
 Then, in a half embarrassed manner, Aaron King 
 made his announcement. "That may all be," he said, 
 "but just the same, I am going to work." 
 
 "I knew it" returned the other, in mocking tri- 
 umph "I knew it the moment you came up the 
 steps there. I could tell it by your walk ; by the air 
 with which you carried yourself; by your manner, 
 your voice, your laugh you fairly reek of prosperity 
 and achievement you are going to paint her por- 
 trait." 
 
 "And why not?" retorted the young man, rather 
 sharply, a trifle nettled by the other's tone. 
 
 "Why not, indeed !" murmured the novelist. "In- 
 deed, yes by all means ! It is so exactly the right 
 thing to do that it is startling. You scale the heights 
 of fame with such confident certainty in every move 
 that it is positively uncanny to watch you."
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 "If one's work is true, I fail to see why one should 
 not take advantage of any influence that can contrib- 
 ute to his success," said the painter. "I assure you I 
 am not so wealthy that I can afford to refuse such an 
 attractive commission. You must admit that the 
 beautiful Mrs. Taine is a subject worthy the brush of 
 any artist; and I suppose it is conceivable that I 
 might be ambitious to make a genuinely good job 
 of it" 
 
 The older man, as though touched by the evident 
 sincerity of the artist's words, dropped his sneering 
 tone and spoke earnestly ; "The beautiful Mrs. Taine 
 is a subject worthy a master's brush, my friend. But 
 take my word for it, if you paint her portrait as a 
 master would paint it, you will sign your own death 
 warrant so far as your popularity and fame as an 
 artist goes." 
 
 "I don't believe it," declared Aaron King, flatly. 
 
 "I know you don't. If you did, and still accepted 
 the commission, you wouldn't be fit to associate with 
 honest dogs like Czar, here." 
 
 "But why" persisted the artist "why do you 
 insist that my portrait of Mrs. Taine will be disas- 
 trous to my success, just to the degree that it is a 
 work of genuine merit ?" 
 
 To which the novelist answered, cryptically, "If 
 you have not the eyes to see the reason, it will matter 
 little whether you know it or not. If you do see the 
 reason, and, still, produce a portrait that pleases your 
 sitter, then you will have paid the price ; you will re- 
 ceive your reward; and" the speaker's tone grew 
 sad and bitter "you will be what I am." 
 
 73
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 With this, he arose abruptly and, without another 
 word, stalked into the hotel ; the dog following with 
 quiet dignity, at his heels. 
 
 From the beginning of their acquaintance, almost, 
 the novelist and the artist had dropped into the habit 
 of taking their meals together. At breakfast, the next 
 morning, Conrad Lagrange reopened the conversation 
 he had so abruptly closed the night before. "I sup- 
 pose," he said, "that you will set up a studio, and do 
 the thing in proper style ?" 
 
 "Mrs. Taine told me of a place that is for rent, and 
 that she thinks would be just the thing," returned the 
 young man. "It is across the road from that big 
 grove owned by Mr. Taine. I was wondering if you 
 would care to walk out that way with me this morn- 
 ing, and help me look it over." 
 
 The older man's hearty acceptance of the invitation 
 assured the artist of his genuine interest, and, an hour 
 later after Aaron King had interviewed the agent 
 and secured the keys, with the privilege of inspecting 
 the premises the two set out together. 
 
 They found the place on the eastern edge of the 
 town; half-hidden by the orange groves that sur- 
 rounded it on every side. The height of the palms 
 that grew along the road in front, the pepper and 
 eucalyptus trees that overshadowed the house, and the 
 size of the orange- trees that shut in the little yard 
 with walls of green, marked the place as having been 
 established before the wealth of the far-away East dis- 
 covered the peculiar charm of the Fairlands hills. 
 The lawn, the walks, and the drive were unkempt and 
 overgrown with weeds. The house itself, a small 
 
 74
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 cottage with a wide porch across the front and on the 
 side to the west, unpainted for many seasons, was 
 tinted by the brush of the elements, a soft and restful 
 gray. 
 
 But the artist and his friend, as they approached, 
 exclaimed aloud at the beauty of the scene ; for, as if 
 rejoicing in their freedom from restraint, the roses 
 had claimed the dwelling, so neglected by man, as 
 their own. Up every post of the porch they had 
 climbed ; over the porch roof, they spread their wealth 
 of color ; over the gables, screening the windows with 
 graceful lattice of vine and branch and leaf and 
 bloom; up to the ridge and over the cornice, to the 
 roof of the house itself even to the top of the chim- 
 ney, they had won their way and there, as if in an 
 ecstasy of wanton loveliness, flung a spray of glorious, 
 perfumed beauty high into the air. 
 
 On the front porch, the men turned to look away 
 over the gentle slope of the orange groves, on the other 
 side of the road, to the towering peaks and high ridges 
 of the mountains gleaming cold and white in the 
 winter of their altitude. To the northeast, San Ber- 
 nardino reared his head in lonely majesty looking 
 directly down upon the foothills and the feeble dwell- 
 ers in the valley below. Far beyond, and surrounded 
 by the higher ridges and peaks and canyons of the 
 range, San Gorgonio sat enthroned in the skies the 
 ruler of them all. From the northeast, westward, 
 they viewed the mighty sweep of the main range to 
 Cajon Pass and the San Gabriels, beyond, with San 
 Antonio, Cucamonga, and their sister peaks lifting 
 their heads above their fellows. In the immediate 
 
 75
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 landscape, no house or building was to be seen. The 
 dark-green mass of the orange groves hid every work 
 of man's building between them and the tawny foot- 
 hills; save the gable and chimney of a neighboring 
 cottage on the west. 
 
 "Listen" said Conrad Lagrange, in a low tone, 
 moved as always by the grandeur and beauty of the 
 scene "listen ! Don't you hear them calling ? Don't 
 you feel the mountains sending their message to these 
 poor insects who squirm and wriggle in this bit of 
 muck men call their world ? God, man ! if only we, 
 in our work, would heed the message of the hills !" 
 
 The novelist spoke with such intensity of feeling 
 with such bitter sadness and regret in his voice that 
 Aaron King could not reply. 
 
 Turning, the artist unlocked the door, and they en- 
 tered the cottage. 
 
 They found the interior of the house well arranged, 
 and not in bad repair. "Just the thing for a bache- 
 lor's housekeeping" was the painter's verdict "but 
 for a studio impossible," and there was a touch of 
 regret in his voice. 
 
 "Let's continue our exploration," said the novelist, 
 hopefully. "There's a barn out there." And they 
 went out of the house, and down the drive on the cast- 
 em side of the yard. 
 
 Here, again, they saw the roses in full possession 
 of the place by man, deserted. From foundation to 
 roof, the building a small simple structure was al- 
 most hidden under a mass of vines. There was one 
 large room below ; with a loft above. The stable was 
 in the rear. Built, evidently, at a later date than the
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 house, the building was in better repair. The walls, 
 so hidden without by the roses, were well sided; the 
 floors were well laid. The big, sliding, main door 
 opened on the drive in front; between it and the 
 corner, to the west, was a small door ; and in the west- 
 ern end, a window. 
 
 Looking curiously from this window, Conrad La- 
 grange uttered an exclamation, and hurried abruptly 
 from the building. The artist followed. 
 
 From the end of the barn, and extending, the full 
 width of the building, to the west line of the yard, was 
 a rose garden such a garden as Aaron King had 
 never seen. On three sides, the little plot was en- 
 closed by a tall hedge of Ragged Robins; above the 
 hedge, on the south and west, was the dark-green wall 
 of the orange grove; on the north, the pepper and 
 eucalyptus trees in the yard, and a view of the distant 
 mountains; and on the east, the vine-hidden end of 
 the barn. Against the southern wall, and, so, 
 directly opposite the trellised, vine-covered arch of 
 the entrance, a small, lattice bower, with a rustic 
 table and seats within, was completely covered, as was 
 the barn, by the magically woven tapestry of the flow- 
 ers. In the corner of the hedge farthest from the en- 
 trance, they found a narrow gate. Unlike the rest of 
 the premises, the garden was in perfect order the 
 roses trimmed and cared for; the walks neatly edged 
 and clean ; with no weed or sign of untidiness or ne 
 lect anywhere. 
 
 The two men had come upon the spot so suddenly 
 so unexpectedly the contrast with the neglected 
 grounds and buildings was so marked that they
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 looked at each other in silence. The little retreat 
 so lovely, so hidden by its own beauty from the world, 
 so cared for by careful hands seemed haunted by an 
 invisible spirit. Very quietly, almost reverently, 
 they moved about; talking in low tones, as though 
 half expecting they knew not what. 
 
 "Some one loves this place," said the novelist, 
 softly, when they stood, again, in the entrance. 
 
 And the artist answered in the same hushed voice, 
 "I wonder what it means ?" 
 
 When they were again in the barn, Aaron King be- 
 came eagerly enthusiastic over the possibilities of the 
 big room. "Some rightly toned burlap on the walls 
 and ceiling," he pointed out, "with floor covering 
 and rugs in harmony; there" rolling back the big 
 door as he spoke "your north light ; some hangings 
 and screens to hide the stairway to the loft, and the 
 stable door; your entrance over here in the corner, 
 nicely out of the way ; and the window looking into 
 the garden it's great man, great !" 
 
 "And," answered Conrad Lagrange, from where he 
 stood in the big front door, "the mountains! Don't 
 forget the mountains. The soft, steady, north light 
 on your canvas, and a message from the mountains 
 to your soul, through the same window, should make 
 it a good place to work, Mr. Painter-man. I suppose 
 over here" he moved away from the window, and 
 spoke in his mocking way "over here, you will have 
 a tea-table for the ladies of the circle elect who will 
 come to, 'oh', and, 'ah', their admiration of the newly 
 discovered genius, and to chatter their misunder- 
 standings of his art. Of course, there will be a page
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 in velvet and gold. By all means, get hold of an 
 oriental kid of some kind oriental junk is quite the 
 rage this year. You should take advantage of every 
 influence that can contribute to your success, you 
 know. And, whatever you do, don't fail to consult 
 the ' Goddess' about these essentials of your craft. 
 Many a promising genius has been lost to fame, 
 through inviting the wrong people to take tea in his 
 studio. But" he finished whimsically, looking 
 from the window into the garden "but what the 
 devil do you suppose the spirit who lives out there 
 will think about it all." 
 
 The days of the two following weeks were busy 
 days for Aaron King. He leased the place in the or- 
 ange groves, and set men to work making it habitable. 
 The lawn and grounds were trimmed and put in 
 order; the interior of the house was renovated by 
 painter and paper-hanger; and the barn, under the 
 artist's direction, was transformed into an ideal 
 studio. There was a trip to Los Angeles quite for- 
 tunately upon a day when Mrs. Taine must go to the 
 city shopping for rugs and hangings; and another 
 trip to purchase the tools of the artist's craft. And, 
 at last, there was a Chinese cook and housekeeper to 
 find ; with supplies for his kitchen. It was at Conrad 
 Lagrange's suggestion, that, from the first, every one 
 was given strict orders to keep out of the rose garden. 
 
 Every day, the novelist accompanied, always, by 
 Czar walked out that way to see how things were 
 progressing ; and often, if he had not been too busy 
 
 79
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 to notice, Aaron King might have seen a look of 
 wistfulness in the keen, baffling eyes of the famous 
 man so world-weary and sad. And, while he did 
 not cease to mock and jeer and offer sarcastic advice 
 to his younger friend, the touch of pathos that, like 
 a minor chord, was so often heard in his most caustic 
 and cruel speeches was more pronounced. As for 
 Czar he always returned to the hotel with evident 
 reluctance; and managed to express, in his dog way, 
 the thoughts his distinguished master would not put 
 in words. 
 
 Very often, too, the big touring car from the house 
 on Fairlands Heights stopped in front of the cottage, 
 while the occupants inspected the premises, and 
 with many exclamations of flattering praise, and a 
 few suggestions made manifest their interest. 
 
 In time, it was finished and ready from the big 
 easel by the great, north window in the studio, to the 
 white-jacketed Yee Kee in the kitchen. When the 
 last workman was gone with his tools; and the two 
 men, after looking about the place for an hour, were 
 standing on the front porch ; Conrad Lagrange said, 
 "And the stage is set. The scene shifters are off. The 
 audience is waiting. Ring up the curtain for the next 
 act. Even Czar has looked upon everything and calls 
 it good heh Czar ?" 
 
 The dog went to him ; and, for some minutes, the 
 novelist looked down into the brown eyes of his four- 
 footed companion who seemed so to understand. Still 
 fondling the dog, without looking at the artist, 
 the older man continued, "You will have your things 
 
 80
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 moved over in the morning, I suppose ? Or, will we 
 lunch together, once more 2" 
 
 Aaron King laughed as a boy who has prepared a 
 surprise, and has been struggling manfully to keep 
 the secret until the proper moment should arrive. 
 Placing his hand on the older man's shoulder, he an- 
 swered meaningly, "I had planned that we would 
 move in the morning." At the other's puzzled ex- 
 pression, he laughed again. 
 
 "We ?" said the novelist, facing his friend, quickly. 
 
 "Come here," returned the other. "I must show 
 you something you haven't seen." 
 
 He led the way to a room that they had decided he 
 would not need, and the door of which was locked. 
 Taking a key from his pocket, he handed it to his 
 friend. 
 
 "What's this?" said the older man, looking fool- 
 ishly at the key in his hand. 
 
 "It's the key to that door," returned the other, with 
 a gleeful chuckle. Then "Unlock it." 
 
 "Unlock it?" 
 
 "Sure that's what I gave you the key for." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange obeyed. Through the open door, 
 he saw, not the bare and empty room he supposed was 
 there, but a bedroom charmingly furnished, com- 
 plete in every detail. Turning, he faced his com- 
 panion silently, inquiringly with a look that Aaron 
 King had never before seen in those strange, baffling 
 eyes. 
 
 "It's yours" said the artist, hastily "if you care 
 to come. You'll have a free hand here, you know; 
 
 81
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 for I will be in the studio much of the time. Kee will 
 cook the things you like. You and Czar can come 
 and go as you will. There is the arbor in the rose 
 garden, you know, and see here" he stepped to the 
 window "I chose this room for you, because it looks 
 out upon your mountains." 
 
 The strange man stood at the window for, what 
 seemed to the artist, a long time. Suddenly, he 
 turned to say sharply, "Young man, why did you do 
 this?" 
 
 "Why" stammered the other, disconcerted "'be- 
 cause I want you because I thought you would like 
 to come. I beg your pardon if I have made a mis- 
 take but, surely, no harm has been done." 
 
 "And you think you could stand living with me 
 for any length of time ?" 
 
 The painter laughed with relief. "Oh, that's it! 
 I didn't know you had such a tender conscience. You 
 scared me for a minuta I should think you would 
 know by this time that you can't phase me with your 
 wicked tongue." 
 
 The novelist's face twisted into a grotesque smile. 
 "I warn you I will flay you and your friends just 
 the same. You need it for the good of your soul." 
 
 "As often and as hard as you like" returned the 
 other, heartily "just so it's for the good of my soul. 
 You will come ?" 
 
 "You will permit me to stand my share of the ex- 
 pense?" 
 
 "Anything you like if you will only come." 
 
 The older man said gently, for the first time call- 
 ing the artist by his given name, "Aaron, I believe 
 
 82
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 that you are the only person in the world who would 
 really want me; and I know that you are the only 
 person in the world to whom I would be grateful for 
 such an invitation." 
 
 The artist was about to reply, when the big automo- 
 bile stopped in front of the house. Czar, on the 
 porch, gave a low growl of disapproval ; and, through 
 the open door, they saw Mr. Taine and his wife with 
 James Rutlidge and Louise. 
 
 The novelist said something, under his breath, that 
 had a vicious sound quite unlike his words of the 
 moment before. Czar, in disgust, retreated to the 
 shelter of Yee Kee's domain. With a laugh, the 
 younger man went out to meet his friends. 
 
 "Are you at home this afternoon, Sir Artist?" 
 called Mrs. Taine, gaily, as he went down the walk. 
 
 "I will always be at home to the right people," he 
 answered, greeting the other members of the party. 
 
 As they moved toward the house, Mr. Taine chok- 
 ing and coughing, his daughter chattering and ex- 
 claiming, and James Rutlidge critically observing, 
 Mrs. Taine dropped a little back to Aaron King's 
 side. "And are you really established, at last ?" she 
 asked eagerly; with a charming, confidential air. 
 
 "We move to-morrow morning," he answered. 
 
 "We ?" she questioned. 
 
 "Conrad Lagrange and I. He is going to live with 
 me, you know." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 It is remarkable how much meaning a woman can 
 crowd into that one small syllable ; particularly, when 
 she draws a little away from you as she speaks it 
 
 83
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Why" he murmured apologetically, "don't you 
 approve ?" 
 
 Mrs. Taine's beautiful eyebrows went up inquir- 
 ingly "And why should I either approve or dis- 
 approve ?" 
 
 The young man was saved by the arrival of his 
 guests at the porch steps, and by the appearance of 
 Conrad Lagrange, in the doorway. 
 
 "How delightful!" exclaimed Mrs. Taine, heart- 
 ily; as she, in turn, greeted the famous novelist. 
 "Mr. King was just telling me that you were going 
 to share this dear little place with him. I quite envy 
 you both." 
 
 The others had passed into the house. 
 
 "You are sometimes guilty of saying twisty things 
 yourself, aren't you?" returned the man; and, as he 
 spoke, his remarkable eyes were fixed upon her as 
 though reading her innermost thoughts. 
 
 She flushed under his meaning gaze, but carried it 
 off gaily with "Oh dear ! I wonder if my maid has 
 hooked me up properly, this time ?" 
 
 They left Mr. Taine in an easy chair, with a bottle 
 of his favorite whisky; and went over the place 
 from the arbor in the rose garden to Yee Kee's pan- 
 try Mr. Rutlidge, critically and authoritatively ap- 
 proving; Louise, effervescing the same sugary noth- 
 ings at every step; Mrs. Taine, with a pretty air of 
 proprietorship; Conrad Lagrange, thoughtfully 
 watching; and Aaron King, himself, irresponsibly 
 gay and boyishly proud as he exhibited his achieve- 
 ments. 
 
 84
 
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 In the studio, Mrs. Taine standing before the big 
 easel demanded to know of the artist, when he 
 would begin her portrait she was so interested, so 
 eager to begin how soon could she come? Louise 
 assumed a worshipful attitude, and, gazing at the 
 young man with reverent eyes, waited breathlessly. 
 James Rutlidge drew near, condescendingly attentive, 
 to the center of attraction. Conrad Lagrange turned 
 his back. 
 
 "Really," murmured the painter, "I hope you will 
 not be too impatient, Mrs. Taine. I fear I cannot be 
 ready for some time yet. I suppose I must confess 
 to being over-sensitive to my environment ; for it is a 
 fact that my working mood does not come upon me 
 readily amid strange surroundings. When I have 
 become acclimated, as it were, I will be ready for 
 you." 
 
 "How wonderful!" breathed Louise. 
 
 "Quite right," agreed Mr. Rutlidge. 
 
 "Whenever you are ready," said J.Irs. Taine, sub- 
 missively. 
 
 When their friends from the Hei ^hts were gone, 
 Conrad Lagrange looked the artist u ) and down, as 
 he said with cutting sarcasm, "You did that very 
 nicely. Over-sensitive to your environment, hell ! If 
 you are a bit fine strung, you have no business to 
 make a show of it. It's a weakness, not a virtue. 
 And the man who makes capital out of any man's 
 weakness, even of his own, is either a criminal or 
 a fool or both." 
 
 Then they went back to the hotel for dinner. 
 
 85
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 The next morning, the artist and the novelist 
 moved from the hotel, to establish themselves in the 
 little house in the orange groves the little house 
 with its unobstructed view of the mountains, and with 
 its rose garden, so mysteriously tended. 
 
 86
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 AN UNKNOWN FRIEND 
 
 HEN Yee Kee announced lunch, the ar- 
 tist, the novelist, and the dog were settled 
 in their new home. In the afternoon, the 
 painter spent an hour or two fussing over 
 portfolios of old sketches, in his studio; 
 while Conrad Lagrange and Czar lounged 
 on the front porch. 
 
 Once, the dog rose quietly, and, walking sedately 
 to the edge of the porch toward the west, stood for 
 some minutes gazing intently into the dark green 
 mass of the orange grove. At last, as if concluding 
 that whatever it was it was all right, he went calmly 
 back to his place beside the novelist's chair. 
 
 "Do you know," said the artist, as they sat on 
 the porch that evening, with their after-dinner pipes, 
 "I believe this old place is haunted." 
 
 "If it isn't, it ought to be," answered the other, 
 contentedly playing with Czar's silky ears. "A 
 good ghost would fit in nicely here, wouldn't it or 
 he, or she. Its spookship would travel far to find a 
 more delightful place for spooking in, and provid- 
 ing, of course, she were a perfectly respectable hant 
 what a charming addition to our family he would 
 make. When it was weary of moping and mowing 
 and sobbing and wailing and gibbering, she could 
 
 87
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 curl up at the foot of your bed and sleep ; as Czar, 
 here, curls up and sleeps at the foot of mine. A 
 good ghost, you know if he becomes really attached 
 to you is as constant and faithful and affectionate 
 and companionable as a good dog." 
 
 "B-r-r-r," said the artist. And Czar turned to 
 look at him, questioningly. 
 
 "All the same" the painter continued "when 
 I was out there in the studio, I could feel some one 
 watching me you know the feeling." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange returned mockingly, "I trust 
 your over-sensitive, artistic temperament is not to be 
 so influenced by our ghostly visitor that you will be 
 unfitted for your work." 
 
 The other laughed. Then he said seriously, "Jok- 
 ing aside, Lagrange, I feel a presentiment I can't 
 put it into words but I feel that I am going to 
 begin the real work of my life right here. I" he 
 hesitated "it seems to me that I can sense some in- 
 fluence that I can't define it's the mystery of the 
 rose garden, perhaps," he finished with another short 
 laugh. 
 
 The man, who, in the eyes of the world, had won so 
 large a measure of the success that his friend desired ; 
 and whose life was so embittered by the things for 
 which he was envied by many; made no reply other 
 than his slow, twisted smile. 
 
 Silently, they watched the purple shadows of the 
 mountains deepen ; and saw the outlines of the tawny 
 foothills grow vague and dim, until they were lost in 
 the dusky monotone of the evening. The last faint 
 
 88
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 tint of sunset color went from the sky back of the San 
 Gabriels; while, close to the mountain peaks and 
 ridges, the stars came out. The rows and the con- 
 tour of the orange groves could no longer be distin- 
 guished; the forms of the nearby trees were lost 
 the rich, lustrous green of their foliage brushed out 
 with the dull black of the night ; while the twinkling 
 lights of the distant towns and hamlets, in the valley 
 below, shone as sparkling jewels on the inky, velvet 
 robe that, fold on fold, lay over the landscape. 
 
 When the two had smoked in silence, for some 
 time, the artist said slowly, "You knew my mother 
 very well, did you not, Mr. Lagrange ?" 
 
 "We were children together, Aaron." As he spoke, 
 the man's deep voice was gentle, as always, when the 
 young man's mother was mentioned. 
 
 Again, for a little, neither spoke. As they sat look- 
 ing away to the mountains, each seemed occupied 
 with his own thoughts. Yet each felt that the other, 
 to a degree, understood what he, himself, was think- 
 ing. 
 
 Once more, the artist broke the silence, facing his 
 mother's friend with quiet resolution, as though he 
 felt himself forced to speak but knew not exactly how 
 to begin. "Did you know her well after after my 
 father's death and while I was abroad ?" 
 
 The other bowed his head "Yes." 
 
 "Very well?" 
 
 "Very well." 
 
 As if at loss for words, Aaron King still hesitated. 
 "Mr. Lagrange," he said, at last, "there are some 
 
 89
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 things about about mother that I would like to tell 
 you that I think she would want me to tell you, 
 under the circumstances." 
 
 "Yes," said Conrad Lagrange, gently. 
 
 "Well, to begin, you know, perhaps, how much 
 mother and I have always been " his fine voice broke 
 and the older man bowed his head ; but, with a slight 
 lift of his determined chin, the painter went on calm- 
 ly "to each other. After father's death, until I was 
 seventeen, we were never separated. She was my 
 only teacher. Then I went away to school, seeing her 
 only during my vacations, which we always spent, to- 
 gether, in the country. Three years ago, I went 
 abroad to finish my study. I did not see her again 
 until until I was called home." 
 
 "I know," came in low tones from the other. 
 
 "But, sir, while it seemed necessary that I should 
 be away from home, that we should be separated, 
 all through this period, we exchanged almost daily 
 letters; planning for the future, and looking for- 
 ward to the time when we could, again, be together." 
 
 "I know, Aaron. It was very unusual and very 
 beautiful." 
 
 "When we were together, before I went away, I 
 was a mere lad," continued the artist. "I knew in a 
 general way that father had been a successful lawyer, 
 and quite prominent in politics ; and because there 
 was no change in our manner of living after his death, 
 and there seemed to be always money for whatever we 
 wanted, I suppose I assumed, thoughtlessly, that 
 there would always be plenty. During the years 
 while I was at school, there was never, in any way, 
 
 90
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 the slightest hint in mother's letters that would lead 
 me to question the abundance of her resources. When 
 they called me home, " his voice broke, " I found 
 my mother dying almost in poverty our home 
 stripped of the art treasures she loved her own 
 room, even, empty of everything save the barest 
 necessities." In bitter sorrow and shame, the young 
 man buried his face in his hands. 
 
 The novelist, his gaunt features twitching with the 
 emotion that even his long schooling in the tragedies 
 of life could not suppress, waited silently. 
 
 When the artist had regained, in a measure, his 
 self-control, he continued, and every word came 
 from him in shame and humiliation, "Before she 
 died, she told me about my father. In the settle- 
 ment of his affairs, at the time of his death, it ap- 
 peared that he had taken advantage of the confidence 
 of certain clients and had betrayed his trust; appro- 
 priating large sums to his own interests. He had 
 even taken advantage of mother's influence in certain 
 circles, and, relying upon her unquestioning faith in 
 his integrity, had made her an unconscious instru- 
 ment in furthering his schemes." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange made as if to speak, but checked 
 himself and waited for the other to continue. 
 
 Aaron King went on; "Out of regard for my 
 mother, the matter was kept as quiet as possible. 
 The one who suffered the heaviest loss was able to 
 protect her in a measure. All the others were fully 
 reimbursed. But mother it would have been easier 
 for her if she had died then. She withdrew from her 
 friends and from the life she loved she denied her- 
 
 91
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 self to all who sought her and devoted her life to me. 
 Above all, she planned to keep me in ignorance of the 
 truth until I should be equipped to win the place in 
 the world that she coveted for me. It was for that> 
 she sent me away, and kept me from home. As the 
 demands for my educational expenses grew naturally 
 heavier, she supplemented the slender resources, left 
 in the final settlement of my father's estate, by sacri- 
 ficing the treasures of her home, and by giving up the 
 luxuries to which she had been accustomed from 
 childhood. She even provided for me after her death 
 not wealth, but a comfortable amount, sufficient to- 
 support me in good circumstances until I can gain 
 recognition and an income from my work." 
 
 Under the lash of his memories, the young man 
 sprang to his feet. 
 
 "In God's name, Lagrange, why did not some one 
 tell me? I did not know I did not know I 
 thought O mother, mother, mother why did you 
 do it ? Why was I not told ? All these years I have 
 lived a selfish fool, and you you I would have 
 given up everything I would have worked in a 
 ditch, rather than accept this." 
 
 The deep, quiet voice of Conrad Lagrange broke 
 the stillness that followed the storm of the artist's 
 passionate words. "And that is the answer, Aaron. 
 She knew, too well, that you would not have accepted 
 her sacrifice, if you had known. That is why she 
 kept the secret until you had finished your education. 
 She forbade her friends she forbade me to inter- 
 fere. And don't you see that she was right ? Don't 
 you see it ? We would have done her the greatest in- 
 
 92
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 justice if we had, against her will, deprived her of 
 this privilege. Her splendid pride, her high sense 
 of honor, her nobility of spirit demanded the sacri- 
 fice. It was her right. God forgive me I tried to 
 make her see it otherwise but she knew best. She 
 always knew best, Aaron. Her only hope of regain- 
 ing for you that self-respect and that position in life 
 to which you by right of birth and natural endow- 
 ment are entitled, was in you. The name which 
 she had given to you could be restored to honor bj 
 you only. To train and equip you for your work, 
 and to enable you, unhampered by need, to gain your 
 footing, was the determined passion of her life. Her 
 sacrifice, her suffering to that end, was the only res- 
 titution she could make to you for that which your 
 father had squandered. Her proud spirit, her fine 
 intelligence, her mother love for you, demanded it." 
 
 "I know," returned the artist. "She told me be- 
 fore she died. She made me understand. She said 
 that it was my inheritance. She asked for my prom- 
 ise that I would be true to her purpose. Her last 
 words were an expression of her confidence that I 
 would not disappoint her that I would win a place 
 and name that would wipe out the shame of my 
 father's dishonor. And I will, Lagrange, I must. 
 Mother mother shall not be disappointed she shall 
 not be disappointed." 
 
 "No," said the older man, so softly that the other, 
 torn by the passion of his own thoughts, did not 
 hear, "No, Aaron, your mother will not be disap- 
 pointed." 
 
 For a time longer they sat in silence. Then the 
 
 03
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 young man said, "I wish I knew the name of my 
 mother's friend the one who suffered the heaviest 
 loss through my father, and who so generously pro- 
 tected her in the crisis. I would like to thank him, 
 at least. I begged her to tell me, but she would not. 
 She said he would not want me to know that for me 
 to attempt to reimburse him would, to his mind, rob 
 him of his real reward." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange, his head bowed, spoke quietly to 
 the dog at his feet. Rising, Czar laid his soft muzzle 
 on his master's knee and looked up into the homely, 
 world-worn face. Gently, the strange man so lonely 
 and embittered in the fame that he had won at a 
 price stroked the brown head. "Your mother knew 
 best, Aaron," he said slowly, without looking at his 
 companion. "You must believe that she knew best 
 Her beautiful spirit could not lead her astray. She 
 was right in this, also. Your sentiment does you 
 honor, but you must respect her wish. Whoever the 
 man was she had reasons, I am sure, for feeling as 
 she did that it would be better for you not to know. 
 It was some one, perhaps, whose influence upon you, 
 she had cause to fear." 
 
 "It was very strange," returned the artist, hesitat- 
 ingly. "Perhaps I ought not to say it. But I felt 
 that, as you suggest, she feared for me to know. She 
 seemed to want to tell me, but did not, for my sake. 
 It was very strange." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange made no reply. 
 
 "I wanted you to know about mother," continued 
 the artist, "because I would like you to understand 
 why why I must succeed in my work." 
 
 94
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 The older man smiled to himself, in the dusk. "I 
 have always known why you must succeed, Aaron," 
 he returned. "I have never questioned your motives. 
 I question only your understanding of success. I 
 question if you will pardon me your understand- 
 ing of your mother's wish for you." 
 
 Then, in one of those rare momentary moods, when 
 he seemed to reveal to his young friend his real na- 
 ture that lay so deeply hidden from the world, he 
 added, "You are right, Aaron. This place is haunted 
 haunted by the spirit of the mountains, yonder 
 haunted by the spirit of the rose garden, out there. 
 The silent strength of the hills, and the loveliness of 
 the garden will attend you in your studio, as you 
 work. I do not wonder that you feel a presentiment 
 that your artistic future is to be shaped here; for 
 between these influences and the other influences that 
 will be brought to bear upon you, you will be forced 
 to decide. May the God of all true art and artists 
 help you to make no mistake. Listen !" 
 
 As though in answer to the solemn words of the 
 man who spoke from the fullness of a life-long ex- 
 perience, and from the depths of a life-old love, a 
 strain of music came from out the fragrant darkness. 
 Somewhere, hidden in the depths of the orange grove, 
 the soul of a true musician was seeking expression in 
 the tones of a violin. 
 
 Softly, sadly, with poignant clearness, the music 
 lifted into the night low and pleadingly at first; 
 then stronger and more vibrant with feeling, as 
 though sweetly insistent in its call; swelling next in 
 volume and passion, as though in warning of some 
 
 95
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 threatening evil; ringing with loving fear; sobbing, 
 wailing, moaning, in anguish ; clearly, gloriously, tri- 
 umphant, at last; then sinking into solemn, reverent 
 benediction losing itself, finally, in the darkness, 
 even as it had come. 
 
 The two men, so fashioned by nature to receive 
 such music, listened with emotions they could not 
 have put into words. Eor the moment, the music to 
 them was the voice of the guarding, calling, warning 
 spirit of the mountains that, in their calm, majestic 
 strength, were so far removed from the petty passions 
 and longings of the baser world at their feet it was 
 the voice of the loving intimacy, the sweet purity, 
 and the sacred beauty of the spirit of the garden. It 
 was as though the things of which Conrad Lagrange 
 had just spoken so reverently had cried aloud to them, 
 out of the night, in confirmation of his words. 
 
 96
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 MRS. TAINE IN QUAKER GRAY 
 
 AROST KING seemed loth to begin his 
 work on the portrait of Mrs. Taine. Day 
 after day, without apparent reason, he put 
 it off spending the hours in wandering 
 aimlessly about the place, idling on the 
 porch, or doing nothing in his studio. He 
 would start from the house to the building at the end 
 of the rose garden, as though moved by some clearly 
 defined purpose and then, for an hour or more, 
 would dawdle among the things of his craft, with ir- 
 resolute mind turning over his sketches and draw- 
 ings with uncertain hands, as though searching for 
 something he knew was not there; toying with his 
 paints and brushes ; or sitting before his empty easel, 
 looking away through the big window to the distant 
 mountains. He seemed incapable of fixing his mind 
 upon the task to which he attached so much impor- 
 tance. Several times, Mrs. Taine called, but he 
 begged her to be patient ; and she, with pretended awe 
 of the moods of genius, waited. 
 
 Conrad Lagrange jeered and mocked, offered sneer- 
 ing advice or sarcastic compliment ; and, under it all, 
 was keenly watchful and sympathetic understand- 
 ing better than the artist himself, perhaps, the secret 
 of the painter's hesitation. Every day, sometimes 
 
 97
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon or even- 
 ing, the unseen musician in the orange grove 
 wrought for them melodies that, whether grave or 
 gay, always carried, somehow, the feeling that had so 
 moved them in the mysterious darkness of that first 
 evening. 
 
 They knew, now, of course, that the musician lived 
 in the neighboring house the gable and chimney of 
 which was just visible above the orange-trees. But 
 that was all. Obedient to some whimsical impulse 
 that prompted them both, and was born, no doubt, of 
 the circumstance and mood of that first evening, they 
 did not seek to learn more. They feared though 
 they did not say it that to learn the identity of the 
 musician would rob them of the peculiar pleasure 
 they found in the music, itself. So they spoke always 
 of their unknown neighbor in a fanciful vein, as in 
 like humor they spoke of the spirit that Aaron King 
 still insisted haunted the place, or as they alluded to 
 the mystery of the carefully tended rose garden. 
 
 When the artist could put it off no longer, a day 
 was finally set when Mrs. Taine was to come for the 
 beginning of her portrait. The appointed hour found 
 the artist in his studio. A canvas stood ready upon 
 the easel; palette, colors and brushes were at hand. 
 The painter was standing at the big, north window, 
 looking up away to the mountains the mountains 
 that the novelist said called so insistently. Suddenly, 
 he turned his head to listen. Sweetly clear and low, 
 through the green wall of the orange-trees, came the 
 music of that hidden violin. 
 
 98
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 As he stood there, with his eyes fixed upon the 
 mountains, listening to the spirit that spoke in the 
 tones of the unseen instrument, Aaron King knew, 
 all at once, that the passing moment was one of those 
 rare moments that come, all unexpectedly when, 
 with prophetic vision, one sees clearly the end of the 
 course he pursues and the destiny that waits him at 
 its completion. As clearly, too, he saw the other way, 
 and knew the meaning of the vision. But seldom 
 is the strength given to man, in such moments, to 
 choose for himself. Though he may see the other 
 way clearly, his feet cling to the path he has elected 
 to follow; nor will he, unless some one takes him by 
 the hand saying, "Come," turn aside. 
 
 A voice, not at all in harmony with the music, 
 broke upon the artist's consciousness. He turned to 
 see Mrs. Taine standing expectantly in the open door. 
 "Hush!" said the painter, still under the spell of that 
 moment so big with possibilities. "Listen," with 
 a gesture, he checked her advance, "listen." 
 
 A look of haughty surprise flashed over the 
 woman's too perfect features. Then, as her ear 
 caught the tones of the violin, she half turned but 
 only for a moment. 
 
 "Very clever, isn't it," she said as she came for- 
 ward. "It must be old Professor Becker. He lives 
 somewhere around here, I understand. They say 
 he is very good." 
 
 The artist looked at her for an instant, in amaze- 
 ment. Then, as his normal mind asserted itself, he 
 burst into an embarrassed laugh. 
 
 99
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 At her look of puzzled inquiry, he said, "I beg 
 your pardon, Mrs. Taine. I did not realize how 
 harshly I greeted you. The fact is I I was dream- 
 ing" he turned suggestively toward the canvas upon 
 the easel. "You see I was expecting you I was 
 thinking then the music came and well when 
 you actually appeared in the flesh, I did not for the 
 moment realize that it was really you." 
 
 "How charming of you!" she returned. "To be 
 made the subject of an artist's dream really it is 
 quite the nicest compliment I have ever received. 
 Tell me, do you like me in this ?" she slipped the 
 wrap she wore from her shoulders, and stood before 
 him, gowned in the simple, gray dress of a Quaker 
 Maid. Deliberately, she turned her beautiful self 
 about for his critical inspection. Moving to and fro, 
 sitting, half-reclining, standing in various graceful 
 poses she invited, challenged, dared, his closest atten- 
 tion professional attention, of course to every 
 curve and detail. 
 
 In spite of its simplicity of color and line, the 
 gown still bore the unmistakable stamp of the wear- 
 er's world. The severity of line was subtly made to 
 emphasize the voluptuousness of the body that was 
 covered but not hidden. The quiet color was made 
 to accentuate the flesh the dress concealed only to 
 reveal. The very lack of ornament but served to 
 center the attention upon the charms that so loudly 
 professed to scorn them. It was worldliness speaking 
 in the quiet voice of religion. It was vulgarity adver- 
 tising itself in terms of good taste. She had made 
 modesty the handmaiden of blatant immodesty, and 
 
 100
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 the daring impudence of it all fairly stunned the 
 painter. 
 
 "Oh dear!" she said, watching his face, "I fear 
 you don't like it, at all and I thought it such a 
 beautiful little gown. You told me to wear whatever 
 I pleased, you know." 
 
 "It is a beautiful gown," he said then added 
 impulsively, "and you are beautiful in it. You would 
 be beautiful in anything." 
 
 She shook her head ; favoring him with an under- 
 standing smile. "You say that to please me. I can 
 see that you don't like me this way." 
 
 "But I do," he insisted. "I like you that way, 
 immensely. I was a bit surprised, that's all. You 
 see, I thought, of course, that you would select an 
 evening gown of some sort something, you know, 
 that would fit your social position your place in the 
 world. In this costume, the beauty of your shoul- 
 ders" 
 
 Lowering her eyes as if embarrassed, she said 
 coldly, "The beauty of my shoulders is not for the 
 public. I have never worn I will not wear one of 
 those dreadful, immodest gowns." 
 
 Aaron King was bewildered. Suddenly, he remem- 
 bered what Conrad Lagrange had said about her fad. 
 But after so frankly exhibiting herself before him, 
 dressed as she was in a gown that was deliberately 
 planned to advertise her physical charms, to be par- 
 ticular about baring her shoulders in a conventional 
 costume ! It was quite too much. 
 
 "Again, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Taine," he man- 
 aged to say. "I did not know. Under the circum- 
 
 101
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 stances, this is exactly the thing. Your portrait, in 
 'what is so frankly a costume assumed for the purpose, 
 takes us out of the dilemma very nicely, indeed." 
 
 "Why, that's exactly what I thought," she re- 
 turned, eagerly. "And this is so in keeping with my 
 real tastes don't you see ? A real portrait I mean 
 a serious work of art, you know should always be 
 something more than a mere likeness, should it not ? 
 Don't you think that to be genuinely good, a portrait 
 must reveal the spirit and character must portray 
 the soul, as well as the features ? I do so want this 
 to be a truly great picture for your sake." Her 
 manner seemed to say that she was doing it all for 
 him. "I have never permitted any one to paint my 
 portrait before, you know," she added meaningly. 
 
 "You are very kind, Mrs. Taine," he returned 
 gravely. "Believe me, I do appreciate this oppor- 
 tunity. I shall do my best to express my appreciation 
 tere" he indicated the canvas on the easel. 
 
 When his sitter was posed to his liking, and the 
 artist, with a few bold, sweeping, strokes of the char- 
 coal, had roughed out his subject on the canvas, and 
 was bending over his color-box he said, casually, to 
 put her at ease, "You came alone this afternoon, did 
 you?" 
 
 "Oh, no, indeed! I brought Louise with me. I 
 shall always bring her, or some ona One cannot be 
 too careful, you know," she added with simulated 
 artlessness. 
 
 The painter, studying her face, replied mechanic- 
 ally, "No indeed." 
 
 As he turned back to his canvas, Mrs. Taine con- 
 
 102
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 tinued, "I left her in the house, with a box of choco- 
 lates and a novel. I felt that you would rather 
 we were alone." 
 
 "Please don't look down," said the artist. "I want 
 your eyes about here" he indicated a picture on the 
 wall, a little back and to the left of where he stood 
 at the easel. 
 
 After this, there was silence in the studio, for a 
 little while. Mrs. Taine obediently kept the pose; 
 her eyes upon the point the artist had indicated ; but 
 as the man, himself, was almost directly in her 
 line of vision it was easy for her to watch him at 
 his work, when his eyes were on his canvas or palette. 
 The arrangement was admirable in that it relieved 
 the tedium of the hour for the sitter; and gave her 
 face an expression of animated interest that, truth- 
 fully fixed upon the canvas, should insure the fame 
 and future of any painter. 
 
 It would be quite too much to say that Aaron 
 King became absorbed in his occupation. Thorough 
 master of the tools of his craft, and of his own 
 technic, as well ; he was interested in the mere exer- 
 cising of his skill, but he in no sense lost himself in 
 his work. Two or three times, Mrs. Taine saw him 
 glance quickly over his shoulder, as though expecting 
 some one. Once, for quite a moment, he deliberately 
 turned from his easel to stand at the window, looking 
 up at the distant mountain peaks. Several times, he 
 seemed to be listening. 
 
 "May I talk ?" she said at last. 
 
 "Why, certainly," he returned. "I want you to 
 feel perfectly at ease. You must be altogether at 
 
 103
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 home here. Just let yourself go say what you like, 
 with no conventional restraints whatever consider 
 me a mechanical something that is no more than an 
 article of furniture be as thoroughly yourself as if 
 alone in your own room." 
 
 "How funny," she said musingly. 
 
 "Not at all" he returned "just a matter of 
 business." 
 
 "But it would be funny if I were to take you at 
 your word," she replied ; suddenly breaking the pose 
 and meeting his gaze squarely. "Is it is it quite 
 necessary for the mechanical something to look at 
 me like that ?" 
 
 "I said that you were to consider me as an article 
 of furniture. I didn't say that I felt like a table or 
 chair." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 "Don't look down; keep the pose, please," came 
 somewhat sharply from the man at the easel, as 
 though he were mentally taking himself in hand. 
 
 After that, she watched him with increasing in- 
 terest; and, when he turned his head in that listen- 
 ing attitude, a curious, resentful light came into her 
 eyes. 
 
 Presently, she asked abruptly, "What is it that you 
 hear?" 
 
 "I thought I heard music," he answered, coloring 
 slightly and turning to his work with suddenly 
 absorbing interest. 
 
 "The violin that so enchanted you when I came to 
 break the spell ?" she persisted playfully though the 
 light in her eyes was not a playful light. 
 
 104
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Yes," he answered shortly; stepping back and 
 shading his eyes with his hand for a careful look at 
 his canvas. 
 
 "And don't you know who it is ?" 
 
 "You said it was an old professor somebody." 
 
 "That was my first guess," she retorted. "Was I 
 right ?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "But it comes from that little box of a house, next 
 door, doesn't it ?" 
 
 "Evidently," the artist answered. Then, laying 
 aside his palette and brushes he said abruptly, "That 
 is all for to-day ; thank you." 
 
 "Oh, so soon!" she exclaimed; and the regret in 
 her voice was very pleasing to the man who was 
 decidedly not a mechanical something. 
 
 She started eagerly forward toward the easel. But 
 the artist, with a quick motion, drew a curtain across 
 the canvas, to hide his work; while he checked her 
 with "Not yet, please. I don't want you to see it 
 until I say you may." 
 
 "How mean of you," she protested; charmingly 
 submissive. Then, eagerly "And do you want me 
 to-morrow ? You do, don't you ?" 
 
 "Yes, please at the same hour." 
 
 When the Quaker Maiden's dress was safely hid- 
 den under her wrap, Mrs. Taine stood, for a moment, 
 looking thoughtfully about the studio; while the 
 artist waited at the door, ready to escort her to the 
 automobile. "I am going to love this room," she said 
 slowly; and, for the first time, her voice was genu- 
 
 105
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 inely sincere, with a hint of wistfulness in its tone 
 that made him regard her wonderingly. 
 
 She went to him impulsively. "Will you, when 
 you are famous when you are a great artist and all 
 the great and famous people go to you to have their 
 portraits painted will you remember poor me, I 
 wonder ?" 
 
 "Am I really going to be famous?" he returned 
 doubtfully. "Are you so sure that this picture will 
 mean success ?" 
 
 "Of course I am sure I know. You want to suc- 
 ceed, don't you ?" 
 
 Aaron King returned her look, for a moment, with- 
 out answering. Then, with a quick, fierce determina- 
 tion that betrayed a depth of feeling she had never 
 before seen in him, he exclaimed, "Do I want to suc- 
 ceed ! I I must succeed. I tell you I must." 
 
 And the woman answered very softly, with her 
 hand upon his arm, "And you shall you shall." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange and Czar found the artist on the 
 front porch, pulling moodily at his pipe. 
 
 "Is it all over for to-day?" asked the novelist as 
 he stood looking down upon the young man with that 
 peculiarly piercing, baffling gaze. 
 
 "All over," replied the artist, answering the greet- 
 ing thrust of Czar's muzzle against his knee, with 
 caressing hand. "Where did you fly to ?" 
 
 The other dropped into a chair. "I would fly 
 anywhere to escape being entertained by that 'Rag- 
 
 106
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 time' piece of human nonentity Louise Taina I 
 saw them coming, just in time." He was filling his. 
 pipe as he spoke. "And how did the work go ?" 
 
 "All right," replied the painter, indifferently. 
 
 The older man shot a curious sidewise glance at 
 his moody companion; then, striking a match, he 
 gave careful attention to his pipe. Watching the 
 cloud of blue smoke, he said quizzingly, "I suppose 
 'Her Majesty' was royally apparelled for the occasion 
 properly arrayed in purple and fine linen; aa 
 befits the dignity of her state?" 
 
 The artist turned at the mocking, suggestive tone 
 and answered savagely, "I suppose you have got to 
 know, damn you ! I'm painting her as a Quaker 
 Maiden." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange's reply was as surprising in its 
 way as was the outburst of the artist. Instead of 
 the tirade of biting sarcasm and stinging abuse that 
 the painter expected, the older man only gazed at 
 him from under his scowling brows and, shaking his 
 head, sadly, said with sincere regret and understand- 
 ing, "You poor fellow ! It must be hell." Then, as 
 his keen mind grasped the full significance of the 
 artist's words, he murmured meditatively, "The 
 personification of the age masquerading in Quaker 
 gray Shades of the giants who used to be! What 
 an opportunity if you only had the nerve to do it." 
 
 The artist flung out his hand in protest as he rose 
 from his chair to pace up and down the porch. 
 "Don't, Lagrange, don't ! I can't stand it, just now." 
 
 "All right," said the other, heartily, "I won't." 
 
 107
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 Rising, he put his hand on his friend's shoulder. 
 "Come, let's go for a look at the roses, before Yee 
 Kee calls us to dinner." 
 
 In the garden, the artist's eye caught sight of some- 
 thing white lying in the well-kept path. With an 
 exclamation, he went quickly to pick it up. It was 
 a dainty square of lace a handkerchief with an 
 exquisitely embroidered "S" in the corner. 
 
 The two men looked at each other in silence ; with 
 smiling, questioning eyes. 
 
 108
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE PORTRAIT THAT WAS NOT A PORTRAIT 
 
 AEON KING was putting the last touches 
 to his portrait of the woman who Con- 
 rad Lagrange said was the personifica- 
 tion of the age. 
 
 From that evening when the young man 
 told his friend the story of his mother's 
 sacrifice, their friendship had become like that 
 friendship which passeth the love of women. While 
 the novelist, true to his promise, did not cease to flay 
 his younger companion for the good of the artist's 
 soul those moments when his gentler moods ruled 
 his speech were, perhaps, more frequent; and the 
 artist was more and more learning to appreciate the 
 rare imagination, the delicacy of feeling, the intel- 
 lectual brilliancy, and the keenness of mental vision 
 that distinguished the man whose life was so embit- 
 tered by the use he had made of his own rich gifts. 
 
 The novelist steadily refused to look at the picture 
 while the work was in progress. He said, bluntly, 
 that he preferred to run no risk of interfering with 
 the young man's chance for fame ; and that it would 
 be quite enough for him to look upon his friend's 
 shame when it was accomplished ; without witnessing 
 the process in its various stages. The artist laughed 
 to hide the embarrassing fact that he was rather 
 
 109
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 pleased to be left to himself with this particular 
 picture. 
 
 Conrad Lagrange did not, however, refuse to ac- 
 company his friend, occasionally, to the house on 
 Fairlands Heights; where the painter continued to 
 spend much of his tima When Mrs. Taine made 
 mocking references to the novelist's promise not to 
 leave the artist unprotected to her tender mercies, he 
 always answered with some as she said twisty say- 
 ing ; to the effect that the present situation in no way 
 lessened his determination to save the young man 
 from the influences that would accomplish the ruin 
 of his genius. "If" he always added "if he is 
 worth saving; which remains to be seen." Always, 
 at the Taine home, they met James Rutlidge. Fre- 
 quently, the celebrated critic dropped in at the cottage 
 in the orange grove. 
 
 Under the skillful management of Rutlidge, at 
 the request of Mrs. Taine, the newspapers were 
 already busy with the name and work of Aaron King. 
 True, the critic had never seen the artist's work ; but, 
 never-the-less, the papers and magazines throughout 
 the country often mentioned the high order of the 
 painter's genius. There were little stories of his 
 study and success abroad; tactful references to his 
 aristocratic family; entertaining accounts of his 
 romantic life with the famous novelist in the orange 
 groves of Fairlands, and of how, in his California 
 studio among the roses, the distinguished painter was 
 at work upon a portrait of the well-known social 
 leader, Mrs. Taine this being the first portrait ever 
 painted of that famous beauty. That the picture 
 
 110
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 would create a sensation at the exhibition, was the 
 unanimous verdict of all who had been permitted 
 to see the marvelous creation by this rare genius 
 whose work was so little known in this country. 
 Said Conrad Lagrange "It is all so easy." 
 Once or twice, the artist or his friend had seen 
 the woman of the disfigured face; and the novelist 
 still tried in vain to fix her in his memory. Every 
 day, they heard, in the depths of the neighboring 
 orange grove, the music of that unseen violin. They 
 spoke, often, in playful mood, of the spirit that 
 haunted the place; but they made no effort to solve 
 the mystery of the carefully tended rose garden. 
 They knew that whoever cared for the roses worked 
 there only in the early morning hours; and they 
 carefully avoided going into the yard back of the 
 house until after breakfast. They felt that an in- 
 vestigation might rob them of the peculiar humor 
 of their fancy a fancy that was to them, both, such 
 a pleasure; and gave to their home amid the orange- 
 trees and roses such an added charm. 
 
 But the other member of the trio of friends was 
 not so reticent. Czar had formed an to his most 
 proper dogship unusual habit. Frequently, when 
 the three were sitting on the porch in the evening, he 
 would rise suddenly from his place beside his mas- 
 ter's chair, and walking sedately to the side of the 
 porch facing that neighboring gable and chimney, 
 would stand listening attentively; then, without so 
 much as a "by-your-leave," he would leap to the 
 ground, and vanish somewhere around the corner of 
 the house. Later, he would come sedately back; 
 
 111
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 greeting each, in turn, with that insistent thrust of 
 his soft muzzle against a knee ; and assuring them, in 
 the wordless speech of his expressive, brown eyes, 
 that his mission had been a most proper one, and that 
 they might trust him to make no foolish mistakes 
 that would mar the peace and harmony of their 
 little household. The men never failed to agree with 
 him that it was all right. In fact, so fully did they 
 trust him that they never even stepped to the corner 
 of the porch to see where he went; nor would they 
 leave their chairs until he had returned. 
 
 Upon those days when Mrs. Taine came to the 
 studio, being always careful that Louise accom- 
 panied her as far as the house, Conrad Lagrange 
 vanished. The man swore by all the strange and 
 wonderful gods he knew and they were many that 
 he feared to spend an hour with that effervescing 
 young female devotee of the Arts lest the mountains 
 in their wrath should fall upon him. 
 
 But that day, when Mrs. Taine came for the last 
 sitting, the novelist engaged in interesting talk with 
 the artist forgot. 
 
 "You are caught," cried the painter, gleefully, as 
 the big automobile stopped at the gate. 
 
 "I'll be damned if I am," retorted the novelist, 
 with no profane intent but with meaning quite 
 literal ; and, seizing a book, he bolted through the 
 kitchen nearly upsetting the startled Yee Kee. 
 
 "What's matte', 5 ' inquired the Chinaman, putting 
 his head in at the living-room door ; his almond eyes 
 as wide as they could go, with an expression of 
 celestial consternation that convulsed the artist. 
 
 112
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 Catching sight of the automobile, his oriental fea- 
 tures wrinkled into a yellow grin of understanding; 
 "Oh! see um come! Ha! I know. He all time go, 
 she come. He say no like lagtime gal. Dog Cza', 
 him all time gone, too; him no like lagtime all 
 same Miste' Laglange. Ha! I go, too," and he, in 
 turn, vanished. 
 
 "You are early, to-day," said Aaron King, as he 
 escorted Mrs. Taine to the studio. 
 
 Just inside the door, she turned impulsively to 
 face him standing close, her beautifully groomed 
 and voluptuous body instinct with the lure of her sex, 
 her too perfect features slightly flushed, and her eyes 
 submissively downcast. "And have you forgotten 
 that this is the last time I can come ?" she asked in 
 a low tone. 
 
 "Surely not" he returned calmly "you are com- 
 ing to-morrow, with the others, aren't you?" Her 
 husband with James Rutlidge and Louise Taine were 
 invited for the next day, to view the portrait. 
 
 "Oh, but that will be so different!" She loosed 
 the wrap she wore, and threw it aside with an inde- 
 scribable familiar gesture. "You don't realize what 
 these hours have meant to me how could you ? You 
 do not live in my world. Your world is is so dif- 
 ferent. You do not know you do not know." With 
 a sudden burst of passion, she added, "The world 
 that I live in is hell ; and this this oh, it has been 
 heavenly !" 
 
 Her words, her voice, the poise of her figure, the 
 gesture with outstretched arms it was all so nearly 
 an invitation, so nearly a surrender of herself to him, 
 
 113
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 that the man started forward impulsively. For the 
 moment he forgot his work he forgot everything 
 he was conscious only of the woman who stood before 
 him. But even as the light of triumph blazed up in 
 the woman's eyes, the man halted, drew back; and 
 his face was turned from her as he listened to the 
 sweetly appealing message of the gentle spirit that 
 made itself felt in the music of that hidden violin. 
 It was as though, in truth, the mountains, themselves, 
 from their calm heights so remote from the little 
 world wherein men live their baser tragedies, 
 watched over him. "Don't you think we had better 
 proceed with our work ?" he said calmly. 
 
 The light in the woman's eyes changed to anger 
 which she turned away to hide. Without replying, 
 she went to her place and assumed the pose ; and, as 
 she had watched him day after day when his eyes 
 were upon the canvas, she watched him now. Since 
 that first day, when she had questioned him about 
 the unseen musician, they had not mentioned the 
 subject, although as was inevitable under the cir- 
 cumstances their intimacy had grown. But not 
 once had he turned from his work in that listening 
 attitude, or looked from the window as though half- 
 expecting some one, without her noting it And, 
 always, her eyes had flashed with resentment, 
 which she had promptly concealed when the painter, 
 again turning to his easel, had looked from his can- 
 vas to her face. 
 
 Scarcely was the artist well started in his work, 
 that afternoon, when the music ceased. Presently, 
 Mrs. Taine broke her watchful silence, with the quite 
 
 114
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 casual remark; "Your musical neighbor is still un- 
 known to you, I suppose ?" 
 
 "Yes," lie answered smiling, as though more to 
 himself than at her, "we have never tried to make 
 her acquaintance." 
 
 The woman caught him up quickly ; "To make her 
 acquaintance ? Why do you say, 'her/' if you do not 
 know who it is?" 
 
 The artist was confused. "Did I say, herl" he 
 questioned, his face flushed with embarrassment. "It 
 was a slip of the tongue. Neither Conrad Lagrange 
 nor I know anything about our neighbor." 
 
 She laughed ironically. "And you could know so 
 easily." 
 
 "I suppose so; but we have never cared to. We 
 prefer to accept the music as it comes to us imper- 
 sonally for what it is not for whoever makes it." 
 He spoke coldly, as though the subject was distasteful 
 to him, under the circumstances of the moment. 
 
 But the woman persisted. "Well, / know who it 
 is. Shall I tell you?" 
 
 "No. I do not care to know. I am not interested 
 in the musician." 
 
 "Oh, but you might be, you know," she retorted. 
 
 "Please take the pose," returned Aaron King pro- 
 fessionally. Mrs. Taine, wisely, for the time, dropped 
 the subject ; contenting herself with a meaning laugh. 
 
 The artist silently gave all his attention to the 
 nearly finished portrait. He was not painting, now, 
 with full brush and swift sure strokes, as had been 
 his way when building up his picture, but worked 
 with occasional deft touches here and there ; drawing 
 
 115
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 back from the canvas often, to study it intently, his 
 eyes glancing swiftly from the picture to the sitter's 
 face and back again to the portrait; then stepping 
 forward quickly, ready brush in hand; to withdraw 
 an instant later for another long and searching study. 
 Presently, with an air of relief, he laid aside his 
 palette and brushes ; and turning to Mrs. Taine, with 
 a smile, held out his hand. "Come," he said, "tell 
 me if I have done well or ill." 
 
 "It is finished ?" she cried. "I may see it ?" 
 "It is all that I can do" he answered "come." 
 He led her to the easel, where they stood side by side 
 before his work. 
 
 The picture, still fresh from the painter's brush, 
 was a portrait of Mrs. Taine yet not a portrait. 
 Exquisite in coloring and in its harmony of tone and 
 line, it betrayed in every careful detail in every 
 mark of the brush the thoughtful, painstaking care 
 the thorough knowledge and highly trained skill of 
 an artist who was, at least, master of his own technic. 
 But if one might say so the painting was more 
 a picture than a portrait. The face upon the canvas 
 was the face of Mrs. Taine, indeed, in that the fea- 
 tures were her features; but it was also the face of 
 a sweetly modest Quaker Maid. The too perfect, too 
 well cared for face of the beautiful woman of the 
 world was, on the canvas, given the charm of a nat- 
 ural, unconscious loveliness. The eyes that had 
 watched the artist with such certain knowledge of 
 life and with the boldness born of that knowledge 
 were, in the picture, beautiful with the charm of 
 
 116
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 innocent maidenhood. The very coloring and the 
 arrangement of the hair were changed subtly to 
 express, not the skill of high-priced beauty-doctors 
 and of fashionable hair-dressers, but the instinctive 
 care of womanliness. The costume that, when worn 
 by the woman, expressed so fully her true character ; 
 in the picture, became the emblem of a pure and 
 deeply religious spirit. 
 
 Mrs. Taine turned impulsively to the artist, and, 
 placing her hand upon his arm, exclaimed in delight, 
 "Oh, is it true ? Am I really so beautiful ?" 
 
 The artist laughed. "You like it ?" 
 
 "Like it? How could I help liking it? It is 
 lovely." 
 
 "I am glad," he returned. "I hoped it would 
 please you." 
 
 "And you" she asked, with eager eyes "are you 
 satisfied with it ? Does it seem good to you ?" 
 
 "Oh, as for that," he answered, "I suppose one is 
 never satisfied. I know the work is good in a way. 
 But it is very far from what it should be, I fear. 
 I feel that, after all, I have not made the most of my 
 opportunity." He spoke with a shade of sadness. 
 
 Again, she put out her hand impulsively to touch 
 his arm, as she answered eagerly, "Ah, but no one 
 else will say that. No one else will dare. It will be 
 the sensation of the year I tell you. Just you wait 
 until Jim Eutlidge sees it. Wait until it is hung 
 for exhibition, and he tells the world about it. Every- 
 body worth while will be coming to you then. And 
 I I will remember these hours with you, and be 
 
 117
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 glad that I could help even so little. Will you 
 remember them, too, I wonder. Are you glad the 
 picture is finished ?" 
 
 "And are you not glad ?" he returned meaningly. 
 
 They had both forgotten the painting before them. 
 They did not see it. They each saw only the other. 
 
 "No, I am not glad," she said in a low tone. 
 "People would very soon be talking if I should come 
 here, alone now that the picture is finished." 
 
 "I suppose in any case you will be leaving Fair- 
 lands, soon, for the summer," he returned slowly. 
 
 "O listen," she cried with quick eagerness "we 
 are going to Lake Silence. What's to hinder your 
 coming too ? Everybody goes there, you know. 
 Won't you come ?" 
 
 "But would it be altogether safe ?" He reflected 
 doubtfully. 
 
 "Why, of course, Mr. Taine, Louise, and Jim, 
 we are all going together don't you see? I don't 
 believe you want to go," she pouted. "I believe you 
 want to forget." 
 
 Her alluring manner, the invitation conveyed in 
 her words and voice, the touch of her hand on his 
 arm, and the nearness of her person, fairly swept the 
 man off his feet. With quick passion, he caught her 
 hand, and his words came with reckless heat. "You 
 know that I will not forget you. You know that I 
 could not, if I would. Do you think that I have 
 been so engrossed with my brushes and canvas that 
 I have been unconscious of you ? What is that 
 painted thing beside your own beautiful self? Do 
 you think that because I must turn myself into a 
 
 118
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 machine to make a photograph of your beauty, I am 
 insensible to its charm ? I am not a machine. I am 
 a man ; as you are a woman ; and I " 
 
 She checked him suddenly stepping aside with a 
 quick movement, and the words, "Hush, some one is 
 coming." 
 
 The artist, too, heard voices, just without the 
 door. 
 
 Mrs. Taine moved swiftly across the room toward 
 her wrap. Aaron King, going to his easel, drew the 
 velvet curtain to hide the picture. 
 
 119
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 CONRAD LAGRANGE'S ADVENTURE 
 
 ERTAINLY, when Conrad Lagrange fled 
 so precipitately from Louise Taine, that 
 afternoon, he had no thought that the 
 trivial incident was to mark the beginning 
 of a new era in his life; or that it would 
 work out in the life of his dearest friend 
 such far reaching results. His only purpose was to 
 escape an hour of the frothy vaporings of the poor, 
 young creature who believed herself so interested in 
 art and letters, and who succeeded so admirably in 
 expressing the spirit of her environment and training. 
 With his pipe and book, the novelist hid himself 
 in the rose garden; finding a seat on the ground, in 
 an angle of the studio wall and the Ragged Robin 
 hedge, where any one entering the enclosure would 
 be least likely to observe him. Czar, heartily approv- 
 ing of his master's action, stretched himself comfort- 
 ably under the nearest rose-bush, and waited further 
 developments. 
 
 Presently, the novelist heard his friend, with Mrs. 
 Taine, come from the house and enter the studio. 
 For a moment, he entertained the uncomfortable fear 
 that the artist, in a spirit of sheer boyish fun that so 
 often moved him, would bring Mrs. Taine to the 
 garden. But the moment passed, and the novelist, 
 
 120
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 mentally blessing the young man for his forbearance, 
 with a chuckle of satisfaction, lighted his pipe and 
 opened his book. Scarcely had he found his place 
 in the pages, however, when he was again interrupted 
 this time, by the welcome tones of their neighbor's 
 violin. Putting his book aside, the man reclining in 
 the shelter of the roses, with half-closed eyes, yielded 
 himself to the fancy of the spirit that called from 
 the depths of the fragrant orange grove. 
 
 The mass of roses in the hedge and on the wall of 
 the studio above his head dropped their lovely petals 
 down upon him. The warm, slanting rays of the 
 afternoon sun, softened by the screen of shining 
 leaves and branches, played over the bewildering riot 
 of color. Here and there, golden-bodied bees and 
 velvet-winged butterflies flitted about their fairy-like 
 duties. Far above, in the deep blue, a hawk floated 
 on motionless wings and a lonely crow laid his course 
 toward the distant mountain peaks that gleamed, 
 silvery white, above the blue and purple of the lower 
 ridges and the tawny yellow of their foothills. The 
 air was saturated with the fragrance of the rose and 
 orange blossoms, of eucalyptus and pepper trees, and 
 with the thousand other perfumes of a California 
 spring. 
 
 The music ceased. The man waited hoping that 
 it would begin again. But it did not; and he was 
 about to take up his book, once more, when Czar 
 arose, stretched himself, stood for a moment in a 
 picturesque, listening attitude, then trotted off among 
 the roses; leaving the novelist with an odd feeling 
 of uneasy expectancy half resolved to stay, half 
 
 121
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOBLD 
 
 determined to go. The thought of Louise in the 
 house decided him, and he kept his place, hidden as 
 he was, in the corner a whimsical smile hovering 
 over his world-lined features as though, after all, he 
 felt himself entering upon some enjoyable adventure. 
 
 Presently, he heard indistinctly, somewhere in the 
 other end of the garden, a low murmuring voice. As 
 it came nearer, the man's smile grew more pro- 
 nounced. It was a wonderfully attractive voice, clear 
 and full in its pure-toned sweetness. The unseen 
 speaker was talking to the novelist's dog. The smile 
 on the man's face was still more pronounced, as he 
 whispered to himself, "The rascal! So this is what 
 he has been up to!" Rising quietly to his knees, 
 he peered through the flower-laden bushes. 
 
 A young woman of rare and exquisite beauty was 
 moving abou v the garden bending over the roses, 
 and talking in low tones to Czar, who to his hidden 
 master appeared to appreciate fully the favor of his 
 gentle companion's intimacy. The novelist old in 
 the study of character and trained by his long years 
 of observation and experience in the world of arti- 
 ficiality was fascinated by the loveliness of the 
 scene. 
 
 Dressed simply, in some soft clinging material of 
 white, with a modestly low-cut square at the throat, 
 and sleeves that ended in filmy lace just below the 
 elbow her lithe, softly rounded form, as she moved 
 here and there, had all the charm of girlish grace 
 with the fuller beauty of ripening womanhood. As 
 she bent over the roses, or stooped to caress the dog, 
 in gentle comradeship, her step, her poise, her every 
 
 122
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 motion, was instinct with that strength and health 
 that is seldom seen among those who wear the 
 shackles of a too conventionalized society. Her face, 
 warmly tinted by the golden out-of-doors, firm 
 fleshed and clear, in its unconscious naturalness and 
 in its winsome purity was like the flowers she stooped 
 to kiss. 
 
 As he watched, the man noticed with a smile of 
 understanding that she kept rather to the side of 
 the garden toward the house; where the artist, at his 
 easel by the big, north light, could not see her 
 through the small window in the end of the room; 
 and where, hidden by the tall hedge, she would not 
 be noticed from Yee Kee's kitchen. Often, too, she 
 paused to listen, as if for any chance approaching 
 step appearing, to the fancy of the man, as some 
 creature from another world poised lightly, ready 
 to vanish if any rude observer came too near. Soon, 
 after a cautious, hesitating, listening look about, 
 she slipped, swift footed as a fawn, across the garden, 
 and followed by the dog disappeared into the lat- 
 ticed, rose-covered arbor against the southern wall. 
 
 With a chuckle to himself, Conrad Lagrange crept 
 quietly along the hedge to the door of her retreat. 
 
 When she saw him there, she gave a little cry and 
 started as though to escape. But the novelist, smil- 
 ing, barred her way; while Czar, joyfully greeting 
 his master, turned from the man to the girl and back 
 to the man again, as if, by dividing his attention 
 equally between the two, he was bent upon assuring 
 each that the other was a friend of the right sort. 
 There was no mistaking the facts that the dog was 
 
 123
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 introducing them, and that he was as proud of his 
 new acquaintance as he was pleased to present his 
 older and more intimate companion. 
 
 A sunny smile broke over the girl's winsome face, 
 as she caught the meaning of Czar's behavior. "O," 
 she said, "are you his master ?" Her manner was as 
 natural and unrestrained as a child's her voice, 
 musically sweet and low, as one unaccustomed to the 
 speech of noisy, crowded cities or shrill chattering 
 crowds. 
 
 "I am his most faithful and humble subject," re- 
 turned the man, whimsically. 
 
 She was studying his face openly, while her own 
 countenance unschooled to hide emotions, untrained 
 to deceive frankly betrayed each passing thought 
 and mood. The daintily turned chin, sensitive lips, 
 delicate nostrils, and large, blue eyes, with that 
 wide, unafraid look of a child that has never been 
 taught to fear, revealed a spirit fine and rare ; while 
 the low, broad forehead, shaded by a wealth of soft 
 brown hair, that, arranged deftly in some simple 
 fashion, seemed to invite the caress of every wayward 
 breath of air, gave the added charm of strength and 
 purpose. The man, seeing these things and knowing 
 as few men ever know their value, waited her 
 verdict. 
 
 It came with a smile and a pretty fancy, as though 
 she caught the mood of the novelist's reply. "He 
 has told me so much about you how kind you are 
 to him, and how he loves you. I hope you don't mind 
 that he and I have learned to be good friends. Won't 
 you tell me his name? I have tried everything, but 
 
 124
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 nothing seems to fit. To call such a royal fellow, 
 'doggie', doesn't do at all, does it ?" 
 
 Conrad Lagrange laughed and it was the laugh 
 of a Conrad Lagrange unknown to the world. "No," 
 he said with mock seriousness, " 'doggie,' doesn't do 
 at all. He's not that kind of a dog. His name is Czar. 
 That is" he added, giving full rein to his droll 
 humor "I gave it to him for a name. He has made 
 it his title. He did that, you know, so I would 
 always remember that he is my superior." 
 
 She laughed low, full-throated and clear as a 
 girl who has not sadly learned that she is a woman, 
 laughs. Then she fell to caressing the dog and call- 
 ing him by name; while Czar in his efforts to 
 express his delight and satisfaction was as nearly 
 undignified as it was possible for him to be. 
 
 As he watched them, the rugged, world-worn fea- 
 tures of the famous novelist were lighted with an 
 expression that transformed them. 
 
 "And I suppose," she said, still responding to 
 the novelist's playful mood, "that Czar told you I 
 was trespassing in your garden. Of course it was 
 his duty to tell. I hope he told you, also, that I do 
 not steal your roses." 
 
 The man shook his head, and his sharp, green-gray 
 eyes were twinkling merrily, now as a boy in the 
 spirit of some amusing venture. "Oh, no ! Czar said 
 nothing at all about trespassers. He did tell me, 
 though, about a wonderful creature that comes every 
 day to visit the garden. A nymph, he thought it was 
 a beautiful Oread from away up there among the 
 silver peaks and purple canyons or, perhaps, a 
 
 125
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 lovely Dryad from among the oaks and pines. I felt 
 quite sure, though, that the nymph must be an Oread ; 
 because he said that she comes to gather colors from 
 the roses, and that every morning and every evening 
 she uses these colors to tint the highest peaks and 
 crests of her mountains making them so beautiful 
 that mortals would always begin and end each day 
 by looking up at them. Of course, the moment I saw 
 you I knew who you were." 
 
 Unaffectedly pleased as a child at his quaint fancy, 
 she answered merrily, "And so you hid among the 
 roses to trap me, I suppose." 
 
 "Indeed, I did not," he retorted indignantly. "I 
 was forced to fly from a wicked Flibbertigibbet who 
 seeks to torment me. I barely escaped with my life, 
 and came into the garden to hide and recover from 
 my fright. Then I heard the most wonderful music 
 and guessed that you must be somewhere around. 
 Then Czar, who had come with me to hide from the 
 Flibbertigibbet in the house, left me. I looked to see 
 where he had gone, and so I saw, sure enough, that it 
 was you. All my life, you know, I have wanted to 
 catch a real nymph; but never could. So when you 
 came into the arbor, I couldn't resist trying again. 
 And, now, here we are with Czar to say it is all 
 right." 
 
 At his fanciful words, she laughed again, and her 
 cheeks flushed with pleasure. Then, with grave 
 sweetness, she said, "Won't you sit down, please, 
 and let me explain seriously ?" 
 
 "I suppose you must pretend to be like the rest of 
 
 12G
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 us," he returned with an air of resignation, "but all 
 the same, Czar and I know you are not." 
 
 When they were seated, she said simply, "My name 
 is Sibyl Andres. This place used to be my home. 
 My mother planted this garden with her own hands. 
 Many of these roses were brought from our home in 
 the mountains, where I was born, and where I lived 
 with father and mother until five years ago. I 
 feel, still, as though the old place in the hills were my 
 real home, and every summer, when nearly every one 
 goes away from Fairlands and there is nothing for 
 me to do, Myra Willard and I go up there, for as 
 long as we can. You see, I teach music and play in 
 the churches. Miss Willard taught me. She and 
 mother are the only teachers I have ever had. After 
 father's death, mother and Myra and I lived here 
 for two years; then mother died, and Myra and I 
 moved to that little house over there, because we 
 could not afford to keep this place. But the man 
 who bought it gave me permission to care for the 
 garden; so I come almost every day through that 
 little gate in the corner of the hedge, there to tend 
 the roses. Since you men moved in, though, I come, 
 mostly, in the morning early before you are up. 
 I only slip in, sometimes, for a few minutes, in the 
 afternoon when I think it will be safe. You see, 
 being strangers, I I feared you would think me 
 bold if I if I asked to come. So many people 
 really wouldn't understand, you know." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange's deep voice was very gentle as 
 he said, "Mr. King and I have known, all the time, 
 
 127
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 that we had no real claim upon this garden, Miss 
 Andres." Then, with his whimsical smile, he added, 
 "You see, we felt, from the very first, that it was 
 haunted by a lovely spirit that would vanish utterly 
 if we intruded. That is why we have been so careful. 
 We did not want to frighten you away. And besides, 
 you know, Czar told us that it was all right." 
 
 The blue eyes shone through a bright mist as she 
 answered the man's kindly words. "You are good, 
 Mr. Lagrange. And all the time it was really you 
 of whom I was so afraid." 
 
 "Why me, more than my friend ?" he asked, re- 
 garding her thoughtfully. 
 
 She colored a little under his searching gaze, but 
 answered with that child-like frankness that was so 
 much a part of her winsome charm, "Why, because 
 your friend is an artist I thought he would be sure 
 to understand. I knew, of course, that you were the 
 famous author; everybody talks about your living 
 here." She seemed to think that her words explained. 
 
 "You mean that you were afraid of me because I 
 am famous ?" he asked doubtfully. 
 
 "Oh no," she answered, "not because you are 
 famous. I mean I was not afraid of your fame" 
 she smiled. 
 
 "And now," said the novelist decisively, "you must 
 tell me at once do you read my books ?" He waited, 
 as though much depended upon her answer. 
 
 The blue eyes were gazing at him with that wide, 
 unafraid look as she answered sadly, "No, sir. I 
 have tried, but I can't. They spoil my music. They 
 hurt me, somehow, all over." 
 
 128
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Conrad Lagrange received her words with mingled 
 emotions with pleased delight at her ingenuous 
 frankness; with bitter shame, sorrow, and humili- 
 ation; and, at the last, with genuine gladness and 
 relief. "I knew it" he said triumphantly "I knew 
 it. It was because of my books that you were so 
 afraid of me ?" He asked eagerly, as one would ask 
 to have a deep conviction verified. 
 
 "You see," she said, smiling at the manner of his 
 words, "I did not know that an author could be so 
 different from the things he writes about." Then, 
 with a puzzled air "But why do you write the 
 horrid things that spoil my music and make me 
 afraid ? Why don't you write as you talk about 
 about the mountains ? Why don't you make books 
 like like" she seemed to be searching for a word, 
 and smiled with pleasure when she found it "like 
 yourself?" 
 
 "Listen" said the novelist impressively, taking 
 refuge in his fanciful humor "listen I'll tell you 
 a secret that must always be for just you and me 
 you like secrets don't you ?" anxiously. 
 
 She laughed with pleasure responding instantly 
 to his mood. "Of course I like secrets." 
 
 He nodded approval. "I was sure you did. Now 
 listen I am not really Conrad Lagrange, the man 
 who wrote those books that hurt you so not when I 
 am here in your rose garden, or when I am listening 
 to your music, or when I am away up there in your 
 mountains, you know. It is only when I am in the 
 unclean world that reads and likes my books that I 
 am the man who wrote them." 
 
 129
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 Her eyes shone with quick understanding. "Of 
 course," she agreed, "you couldn't be that kind of a 
 man, and love the music, and like to be here among 
 the roses or up in the mountains, could you ?" 
 
 "No, and I'll tell you something else that goes with 
 our secret. Your name is not really Sibyl Andres, 
 you know any more than you really live over there 
 in that little house. Your real home is in the moun- 
 tains just as you said you really live among the 
 glowing peaks, under the dark pines, on the ridges, 
 and in the purple shadows of the canyons. You only 
 come down here to the Fairlands folk with a message 
 from your mountains and we call your message 
 music. Your name is " 
 
 She was leaning forward, her face glowing with 
 eagerness. "What is my name?" 
 
 "What can it be but 'Nature'," he said softly. 
 "That's it, 'Nature'." 
 
 "And you ? Who are you when you are not when 
 you are not in that other world ?" 
 
 "Me ? Oh, my roal name is 'Civilization'. Can't 
 you guess why?" 
 
 She shook her head. "Tell me." 
 
 "Because, in spite of all that the world that reads 
 my books can give, poor old 'Civilization' cannot be 
 happy without the message that 'Nature' brings from 
 her mountains." 
 
 "And you, too, love the mountains and and this 
 garden, and my music?" she asked half doubtingly. 
 "You are not pretending that too just to amuse 
 me?" 
 
 "No, I am not pretending that," he said. 
 
 130
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 "Then why how can you do the the other 
 thing ? I can't understand." 
 
 "Of course, you can't understand how could you ? 
 You are 'Nature' and 'Nature' must often be puzzled 
 by the things that 'Civilization' does." 
 
 "Yes. I think that is true," she agreed. "But I'm 
 glad you like my music, anyway." 
 
 "And so am I glad that I can like it. That's 
 the only thing that saves me." 
 
 "And your friend, the artist, does he like my 
 mountain music, do you think ?" 
 
 "Very much. He needs it too." 
 
 "I am glad," she answered simply. "I hoped he 
 would like it, and that it would help him. It was 
 really for him that I have played." 
 
 "You played for him ?" 
 
 "Yes," she returned without confusion. "You see, 
 I did not know about you then. I thought you were 
 altogether the man who wrote those books and so I 
 could not play for you. That is I mean you un- 
 derstand I could not play " again she seemed to 
 search for a word, and finding it, smiled "I could 
 not play myself for you. But I thought that because 
 he was an artist he would understand ; and that if I 
 could make the music tell him of the mountains it 
 would, perhaps, help him a little to make his work 
 beautiful and right do you see ?" 
 
 "Yes," he answered smilingly, "I see. I might 
 have known that it was for him that you brought your 
 message from the hills. But poor old 'Civilization' is 
 frightfully stupid sometimes, you know." 
 
 Laughingly, she turned to the lattice wall of the 
 
 131
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 arbor, and parting the screen of vines a little, said to 
 him, "Look here!" 
 
 Standing beside her, Conrad Lagrange, through 
 the window in the end of the studio next the garden, 
 saw Aaron King at his easel ; the artist's position in 
 the light of the big, north window being in a direct 
 line between the two openings and the arbor. Mrs. 
 Taine was sitting too far out of line to be seen. 
 
 The girl laughed gleefully. "Do you see him at 
 his work ? At first, I only hid here to find what kind 
 of people were going to live in my old home. But 
 when he was making our old barn into a studio, and 
 I heard who you both were, I came because I love to 
 watch him; as I try to make the music I think he 
 would love to hear." 
 
 The novelist studied her intently. She was so art- 
 less so unaffected by the conventions of the world 
 in a word, so natural in expressing her thoughts, that 
 the man who had given the best years of his life to 
 feed the vicious, grossly sensual and bestial imagina- 
 tions of his readers was deeply moved. He was puz- 
 zled what to say. At last, he murmured haltingly, 
 "You like the artist, then ?" 
 
 Her eyes were full of curious laughter as she an- 
 swered, "Why, what a funny question when I have 
 never even talked with him. How could I like any 
 one I have never known ?" 
 
 "But you make your music for him ; and you come 
 here to watch him ?" 
 
 "Oh, but that is for the work he is doing ; that is 
 for his pictures." She turned to look through the 
 tiny opening in the arbor. "How I wish I could see 
 
 132
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 inside that beautiful room. I know it must be beau- 
 tiful. Once, when you were all gone, I tried to steal 
 in ; but, of course, he keeps it locked." 
 
 "I'll tell you what we'll do," said the man, sud- 
 denly prompted by her confession to resume his 
 playful mood. 
 
 "What ?" she asked eagerly, in a like spirit of fun. 
 
 "First," he answered, half teasingly, "I must know 
 if you could, now, make your music for me as well as 
 for him." 
 
 "For the you that loves the mountains and the gar- 
 den, I'm sure I could," she answered promptly. 
 
 "Well then, if you will promise to do that if you 
 will promise not to play yourself for just him alone 
 but for me too I'll fix it so that you can go into the 
 studio yonder." 
 
 "Oh, I will always play for you, too, anyway now 
 that I know you." 
 
 "Of course," he said, "we could just walk up to the 
 door, and I could introduce you ; but that would not 
 be proper for us would it?" 
 
 She shook her head positively, "I wouldn't like to 
 do that. He would think I was intruding, I am 
 sure." 
 
 "Well then, we will do it this way the first day 
 that Mr. King and I are both away, and Yee Kee is 
 gone, too; I'll slip out here and leave a letter and a 
 key on your gate. The letter will tell you just the 
 time when we go, and when we will return so you 
 will know whether it is safe for you or not, and how 
 long you can stay. Only" he became very serious 
 "only, you must promise one thing." 
 
 133
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "That you won't look at the picture on the easel." 
 
 "But why must I promise that ?" 
 
 "Because that picture will not be finished for a 
 long time yet, and you must not look at it until I say 
 it is ready. Mr. King wouldn't like you to see that 
 picture, I am sure. In fact, he doesn't like for any 
 one to see the picture he is working on just now." 
 
 "How funny," she said, with a puzzled look. 
 "What is he painting it for ? I like for people to hear 
 my music." 
 
 The man answered before he thought "But I 
 don't like people to read my books." 
 
 She shrank back, with troubled eyes, "Oh ! is he 
 is he that kind of an artist ?" 
 
 "No, no, no !" exclaimed the novelist, hastily. "You 
 must not think that. I did not mean you to think 
 that. If he was that kind of an artist, I wouldn't 
 let you go into the studio at all. Mr. King is a good 
 man the best man I have ever known. He is my 
 friend because he knows the secret about me that you 
 know. He does not read my books. He would not 
 read one of them for anything. It is only that this 
 picture is not finished. When it is finished, he will 
 not care who sees it." 
 
 "I'm glad," she said. "You frightened me, for a 
 minute I understand, now." 
 
 "And you promise not to look at the picture on the 
 easel?" 
 
 She nodded, "Of course. And when I come out 
 I'll lock the door and put the key back on the gate 
 again ; and no one but you and I will ever know." 
 
 134
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 "No one but you and I will know," he answered. 
 
 As he spoke, Czar, who had been lying quietly in 
 the doorway of the arbor, rose quickly to his feet, 
 with a low growl. 
 
 The girl, peering through the screen on the side 
 toward the house, uttered an exclamation of fear and 
 drew back, turning to her companion appealingly. 
 "O please, please don't let that man find me here." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange looked and saw James Rutlidge 
 coming down the path toward the arched entrance to 
 the garden, which was directly across from the arbor. 
 
 "Stop him, please stop him," whispered the girl, 
 her hand upon his arm. 
 
 "Stay here until I get him out of sight," said the 
 novelist quickly. "I won't let him come into the gar- 
 den. When we are gone, you can make your escape. 
 Don't forget the music for me, and the key at the 
 gate." 
 
 He spoke to Czar, and with the dog obediently at 
 heel went forward to meet Mr. Rutlidge, who had 
 called for Mrs. Taine and Louise. 
 
 But all the while that Conrad Lagrange was talk- 
 ing to the man, and leading him toward the door of 
 the studio, he was wondering why that look of fear 
 upon the face of the girl in the garden ? What had 
 Sibyl Andres to do with James Rutlidge ? 
 
 135
 
 CHAPTER X 
 A CRY IN THE NIGHT 
 
 S Conrad Lagrange and Mr. Rutlidge en- 
 tered the studio, Aaron King turned from 
 the easel, where he had drawn the velvet 
 curtain to hide the finished portrait. Mrs. 
 Taine was standing at the other side of the 
 room, wrap in hand, calmly waiting, ready 
 to go. The artist greeted Mr. Eutlidge cordially, 
 while the woman triumphantly announced the com- 
 pletion of her portrait. 
 
 "Ah! permit me to congratulate you, old man," 
 said Rutlidge, addressing the artist familiarly. "It 
 is too much, I suppose, to expect a look at it this af- 
 ternoon ?" 
 
 "Thanks," returned the artist, "you are all 
 coming to-morrow, at three, you know. I would 
 rather not show it to-day. It is a little late for the 
 best light; and I would like for you to see it under 
 the most favorable conditions possible." 
 
 The critic was visibly flattered by the painter's 
 manner and by his well-chosen emphasis upon the per- 
 sonal pronoun. "Quite right" he said approvingly 
 "quite right, old boy." He turned to the novelist 
 "These painter chaps, you know, Lagrange, like to 
 have a few hours for a last touch or two before / 
 come around." He laughed pompously at his own 
 words the others joining. 
 
 136
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 When Mrs. Taine and her companions were gone, 
 the artist said hurriedly to his friend, "Come on, let's 
 get it over." He led the way back to the studio. 
 
 "I thought the light was too bad," said the older 
 man, quizzingly, as they entered the big room. 
 
 "It's good enough for your needs," retorted the 
 painter savagely. "You could see all you want by 
 candle-light." He jerked the curtain angrily aside, 
 and without a glance at the canvas walked away 
 to stand at the window looking out upon the rose gar- 
 den waiting for the flood of the novelist's scorn to 
 overwhelm him. At last, when no sound broke the 
 quiet of the room, he turned to find himself alone. 
 
 Conrad Lagrange, after one look at the portrait 
 on the easel, had slipped quietly out of the building. 
 
 The artist found his friend, a few minutes later, 
 meditatively smoking his pipe on the front porch, 
 with Czar lying at his feet. 
 
 "Well," said the painter, curiously, anxious, as 
 he had said, to have it over, "why the deuce don't 
 you say something ?" 
 
 The novelist answered slowly, "My vocabulary is 
 too limited, for one reason, and" he looked thought- 
 fully down at Czar "I prefer to wait until you have 
 finished the portrait." 
 
 "It is finished," returned the artist desperately. 
 "I swear I'll never touch a brush to the damned thing 
 again." 
 
 The man with the pipe spoke to the dog at his feet ; 
 "Listen to him, Czar listen to the poor devil of a 
 painter-man." 
 
 The dog arose, and, placing his head upon his mas- 
 
 137
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 ter's knee, looked up into the lined and rugged face, 
 as the novelist continued, "If he was only a wee bit 
 puffed up and cocky over the thing, now, we could ex- 
 ert ourselves, so we could, couldn't we ?" Czar slowly 
 waved a feathery tail in dignified approval. His mas- 
 ter continued, "But when a fellow can do a crime like 
 that, and still retain enough virtue in his heart to 
 hear his work shrieking to heaven its curses upon him 
 for calling it into existence, it's best for outsiders to 
 keep quite still. Your poor old master knows whereof 
 he speaks, doesn't he, dog ? That he does !" 
 
 "And is that all you have to say on the subject ?" 
 demanded the artist, as though for some reason he 
 was disappointed at his friend's reticence. 
 
 "I might add a word of advice," said the other. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" 
 
 "That you pray your gods if you have any to be 
 merciful, and bestow upon you either less genius or 
 more intelligence to appreciate it." 
 
 At three o'clock, the following afternoon, the little 
 party from Fairlands Heights came to view the por- 
 trait. Or, as Conrad Lagrange said, while the 
 automobile was approaching the house, "Well, here 
 they come 'The Age', accompanied by 'Materialism', 
 'Sensual', and 'Ragtime' to look upon the prostitu- 
 tion of Art, and call it good." Escorted by the artist 
 and the novelist, they went at once to the studio. 
 
 The appreciation of the picture was instantaneous 
 so instantaneous, in fact, that Louise Taine's lips 
 were shaped to deliver an expressive "oh" of admira- 
 
 138
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 tion, even before the portrait was revealed. As 
 though the painter, in drawing back the easel curtain, 
 gave an appointed signal, that "oh" was set off with 
 the suddenness of a sky-rocket's rush, and was accom- 
 panied in its flight by a great volume of sizzling, 
 sputtering, glittering, adjectival sparks that filling 
 the air to no purpose whatever winked out as they 
 were born; the climax of the pyrotechnical display 
 being reached in the explosive pop of another "oh" 
 which released a brilliant shower of variegated sighs 
 and moans and ecstatic looks and inarticulate ex- 
 clamations ending, of course, in total darkness. 
 
 Mrs. Taine hastened to turn the artist's embar- 
 rassed attention to an appreciation that had the ap- 
 pearance, at least, of a more enduring value. 
 Drawing, with affectionate solicitude, close to her 
 husband, she asked, in a voice that was tremulous 
 with loving care and anxiety to please, "Do you like 
 it, dear ?" 
 
 "It is magnificent, splendid, perfect !" This effort 
 to give his praise of the artist's work the appearance 
 of substantial reality cost the wretched product of 
 lust and luxury a fit of coughing that racked his 
 burnt-out body almost to its last feeble hold upon the 
 world of flesh and, with a force that shamed the 
 strength of his words, drove home the truth that 
 neither his praise nor his scorn could long endure. 
 When he could again speak, he said, in his husky, 
 rasping whisper, while grasping the painter's hand 
 in effusive cordiality, "My dear fellow, I congratu- 
 late you. It is exquisite. It will create a sensation, 
 sir, when it is exhibited. Your fame is assured. I 
 
 139
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 must thank you for the honor you have done me in 
 thus immortalizing the beauty and character of Mrs. 
 Taine." And then, to his wife, "Dearest, I am glad 
 for you, and proud. It is as worthy of you as paint 
 and canvas could be." He turned to Conrad La- 
 grange who was an interested observer of the scene 
 "Am I not right, Lagrange?" 
 
 "Quite right, Mr. Taine, quite right. As you 
 say, the portrait is most worthy the beauty and char- 
 acter of the charming subject." 
 
 Another paroxysm of coughing mercifully pre- 
 vented the poor creature's reply. 
 
 With one accord, the little group turned, now, to 
 James Eutlidge the dreaded authority and arbiter 
 of artistic destinies. That distinguished expert, 
 while the others were speaking, had been listening 
 intently; ostensibly, the while, he examined the pic- 
 ture with a show of trained skill that, it seemed, could 
 not fail to detect unerringly those more subtle values 
 and defects that are popularly supposed to be hidden 
 from the common eye. Silently, in breathless awe, 
 they watched the process by which professional criti- 
 cism finds its verdict. That is, they thought they 
 were watching the process. In reality, the method is 
 more subtle than they knew. 
 
 While the great critic moved back and forth in 
 front of the easel ; drew away from or bent over to 
 closely scrutinize the canvas ; shifted the easel a hair 
 breadth several times; sat down; stood erect; 
 hummed and muttered to himself abstractedly; 
 cleared his throat with an impressive "Ahem" ; 
 squinted through nearly closed eyes, with his head 
 
 140
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 thrown back, or turned in every side angle his fat 
 neck would permit; peered through his half -closed 
 fist; peeped through funnels of paper; sighted over 
 and under his open hand or a paper held to shut out 
 portions of the painting; the others thought they 
 saw him expertly weighing the evidence for and 
 against the merit of the work. In reality it was his 
 ears and not his eyes that helped the critic to his 
 final decision a decision which was delivered, at 
 last, with a convincing air of ponderous finality. In- 
 deed, it was a judgment from which there could be 
 no appeal, for it expressed exactly the views of those 
 for whose benefit it was rendered. Then, in a manner 
 subtly insinuating himself into the fellowship of the 
 famous, he, too, turned to Conrad Lagrange with a 
 scholarly ; "Do you not agree, sir ?" 
 
 The novelist answered with slow impressiveness ; 
 "The picture, undoubtedly, fully merits the appre- 
 ciation and praise you have given it. I have already 
 congratulated Mr. King who was kind enough to 
 show me his work before you arrived." 
 
 After this, Tee Kee appeared upon the scene, and 
 tea was served in the studio a fitting ceremony 
 to the launching of another genius. 
 
 "By the way, Mr. Lagrange," said Mrs. Taine, 
 quite casually, when, under the influence of the 
 mildly stimulating beverage, the talk had assumed 
 a more frivolous vein, "Who is your talented neigh- 
 bor that so charms Mr. King with the music of a 
 violin?" 
 
 The novelist, as he turned toward the speaker, shot 
 a quick glance at the artist. Nor did those keen, 
 
 141
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 baffling eyes fail to note that, at the question, James 
 Rutlidge had paused in the middle of a sentence. 
 "That is one of the mysteries of our romantic sur- 
 roundings, madam," said Conrad Lagrange, easily. 
 
 "And a very charming mystery it seems to be," re- 
 turned the woman. "It has been quite affecting to 
 watch its influence upon Mr. King." 
 
 The artist laughed. "I admit that I found the 
 music, in combination with the beauty I have so 
 feebly tried to put upon canvas, very stimulating." 
 
 A flash of angry color swept into the perfect cheeks 
 of Mrs. Taine, as she retorted with meaning; "You 
 are as flattering in your speech as you are with your 
 brush. I assure you I do not consider myself in your 
 unknown musician's class." 
 
 The small eyes of James Rutlidge were fixed in- 
 quiringly upon the speakers, while his heavy face be- 
 trayed to the watchful novelist an interest he 
 could not hide. "Is this music of such exceptional 
 merit ?" he asked with an attempt at indifference. 
 
 Louise Taine sensing that the performances of 
 the unnamed violinist had been acceptable to Conrad 
 Lagrange and Aaron King the two representatives 
 of the world to which she aspired could not let the 
 opportunity slip. She fairly deluged them with the 
 spray of her admiring ejaculations in praise of the 
 musician employing, hit or miss, every musical term 
 that popped into her vacuous head. 
 
 "Indeed," said the critic, "I seem to have 
 missed a treat." Then, directly to the artist, "And 
 you say the violinist is wholly unknown to you?" 
 
 "Wholly," returned the painter, shortly. 
 
 142
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Conrad Lagrange saw a faint smile of understand- 
 ing and disbelief flit for an instant over the heavy 
 face of James Rutlidge. 
 
 When the automobile, at last, was departing with 
 the artist's guests; the two friends stood for a mo- 
 ment watching it up the road to the west, toward 
 town. As the big car moved away, they saw Mrs. 
 Taine leai forward to speak to the chauffeur while 
 James Rutlidge, who was in the front ssat, turned 
 and shook his head as though in protest. The woman 
 appeared to insist. The machine slowed down, as 
 though the chauffeur, in doubt, awaited the outcome 
 of the discussion. Then, just in front of that neigh- 
 boring house, Rutlidge seemed to yield abruptly, and 
 the automobile turned suddenly in toward the curb 
 and stopped. Mrs. Taine alighted, and disappeared 
 in the depths of the orange grove. 
 
 Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange looked at each 
 other, for a moment, in questioning silence. The ar- 
 tist laughed. "Our poor little mystery," he said. 
 
 But the novelist as they went toward the house 
 cursed Mrs. Taine, James Rutlidge, and all their kin 
 and kind, with a vehement earnestness that startled 
 his companion familiar as the latter was with his 
 friend's peculiar talent in the art of vigorous ex- 
 pression. 
 
 After dinner, that evening, the painter and the nov- 
 elist sat on the porch as their custom was to watch 
 the day go out of the sky and the night come over 
 valley and hill and mountain until, above the highest 
 peaks, the stars of God looked down upon the twink- 
 ling lights of the towns of men. At that hour, too, it 
 
 143
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 was the custom, now, for the violinist hidden in the 
 orange grove, to make the music they both so loved. 
 
 In the music, that night, there was a feeliL * that, 
 to them, was new a vague, uncertain, halting under- 
 tone, that was born, they felt, of fear. It stirred them 
 to question and to wonder. Without apparent cause 
 or reason, they each oddly connected the troubled tone 
 in the music with the stopping of the automobile from 
 Fairlands Heights, that afternoon, at the gate of the 
 little house next door the artist, because of Mrs. 
 Taine's insistent inquiry about the, to him, unknown 
 musician ; Conrad Lagrange, because of the manner 
 of the girl in the garden when James Rutlidge ap- 
 peared, and because of the critic's interest when they 
 had spoken of the violinist in the studio. But neither 
 expressed his thought to the other. 
 
 Presently, the music ceased, and they sat for an 
 hour, perhaps, in silence as close friends may do 
 exchanging only now and then a word. 
 
 Suddenly, they were startled by a cry. In the still 
 darkness of the night, from the mysterious depths of 
 the orange grove, the sound came with such a shock 
 that the two men, for the moment, held their places, 
 motionless questioning each other sharply "What 
 was that?" "Did you hear?" as though they 
 doubted, almost, their own ears. 
 
 The cry came again ; this time, undoubtedly, from 
 that neighboring house to the west. It was unmis- 
 takably the cry of a woman a woman in fear and 
 pain. 
 
 They leaped to their feet. 
 
 Again the cry came from the black depths of the 
 
 144
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 orange grove shuddering, horrible in an agony of 
 fear. 
 
 The two men sprang from the porch, and, through 
 the darkness that in the orange grove was like a black 
 wall, ran toward the spot from which the sound came 
 the dog at their heels. 
 
 Breathless, they broke into the little yard in front 
 of the tiny box-like house. Lights shone in the win- 
 dows. All seemed peaceful and still. Czar betrayed 
 no uneasiness. Going to the front door, they 
 knocked. 
 
 There was no answer save the sound of some one 
 moving inside. 
 
 Again, the artist knocked vigorously. 
 
 The door opened, and a woman stood on the thres- 
 hold. 
 
 Standing a little to one side, the men saw her fea- 
 tures clearly, in the light from the room. It was the 
 woman with the disfigured face. 
 
 Conrad Lagrange was first to command himself. 
 "I beg your pardon, madam. We live in the house 
 next door. We thought we heard a cry of distress. 
 Hay we offer our assistance in any way? Is there 
 anything we can do ?" 
 
 "Thank you, sir, you are very kind," returned 
 the woman, in a low voice, "but it is nothing. 
 There is nothing you can do." 
 
 And the voice of Sibyl Andres, who stood farther 
 back in the room, where the artist from his position 
 could not see her, added, "It was good of you to come, 
 Mr. Lagrange; but it is really nothing. We are so 
 sorry you were disturbed." 
 
 145
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Not at all," returned the men, as the woman of 
 the disfigured face drew back from the door. "Good 
 night." 
 
 "Good night," came from within the house, and 
 the door was shut 
 
 146
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 GO LOOK IN YOUR MIRROR, YOU FOOL 
 
 S the Taine automobile left Aaron King 
 and his friend, that afternoon, Mrs. Taine 
 spoke to the chauffeur; "You may stop a 
 moment, at the next house, Henry." 
 
 If she had fired a gun, James Rutlidge 
 could not have turned with a more startled 
 suddenness. 
 
 "What in thunder do you want there?" he 
 demanded shortly. 
 
 "I want to stop," she returned calmly. 
 "But I must get down town, at once," he pro- 
 tested. "I have already lost the best part of the 
 afternoon." 
 
 "Your business seems to have become important 
 very suddenly," she observed, sarcastically. , 
 
 "I have something to do besides making calls with 
 you," he retorted. "Go on, Henry." 
 
 Mrs. Taine spoke sharply ; "Really, Jim, you are 
 going too far. Henry, turn in at the house." The 
 machine moved toward the curb and stopped. As she 
 stepped from the car, she added, "I will only be a 
 minute, Jim." 
 
 Rutlidge growled an inarticulate curse. 
 "What deviltry do you suppose she is up to now," 
 rasped Mr. Taine. 
 
 147
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Which brought from his daughter the usual pro- 
 test, "O, papa, don't." 
 
 As Mrs. Taine approached the house, Sibyl An- 
 dres busy among the flowers that bordered the walk 
 heard the woman's step, and stood quietly waiting 
 her. Mrs. Taine's face was perfect in its expression 
 of cordial interest, with just enough but not too 
 much of a conscious, well-bred superiority. The 
 girl's countenance was lighted by an expression of 
 childlike surprise and wonder. What had brought 
 this well-known leader in the social world from Fair- 
 lands Heights to the poor, little house in the orange 
 grove, so far down the hill ? 
 
 "Good afternoon," said the caller. "You are Miss 
 Andres, are you not?" 
 
 "Yes," returned the girl, with a smile. "Won't 
 you come in ? I will call Miss Willard." 
 
 "Oh, thank you, no. I have only a moment. My 
 friends are waiting. I am Mrs. Taine." 
 
 "Yes, I know. I have often seen you passing." 
 
 The other turned abruptly. "What beautiful 
 flowers." 
 
 "Aren't they lovely," agreed Sibyl, with frank 
 pleasure at the visitor's appreciation. "Let me give 
 you a bunch." Swiftly she gathered a generous arm- 
 ful. 
 
 Mrs. Taine protested, but the girl presented her 
 offering with such grace and winsomeness that the 
 other could not refuse. As she received the gift, the 
 perfect features of the woman of the world were col- 
 ored by a blush that even she could not control. "I 
 
 148
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 understand, Miss Andres," she said, "that you are 
 an accomplished violinist." 
 
 "I teach and play in Park Church," was the simple 
 answer. 
 
 "I have never happened to hear you, myself," 
 said Mrs. Taine smoothly, "but my friends who live 
 next door Mr. Lagrange and Mr. King have told 
 me about you." 
 
 "Oh!" The girl's voice was vaguely troubled, 
 while the other, watching, saw the blush that colored 
 her warmly tinted cheeks. s 
 
 "It is good of you to play for them," continued the 
 woman from Fairlands Heights, casually. "You 
 must enjoy the society of such famous men, very 
 much. There are a great many people, you know, 
 who would envy you your friendship with them." 
 
 The girl replied quickly, "O, but you are mistaken. 
 I am not acquainted with them, at all ; that is not 
 with Mr. King I have never spoken to him and I 
 only met Mr. Lagrange, for a few minutes, by 
 accident." 
 
 "Indeed ! But I am forgetting the purpose of my 
 call, and my friends will become impatient. Do you 
 ever play for private entertainments, Miss Andres ? 
 for say a dinner, or a reception, you know ?" 
 
 "I would be very glad for such an engagement, 
 Mrs. Taine. I must earn what I can with my music, 
 and there are not enough pupils to occupy all my 
 time. But perhaps you should hear me play, first. 
 I will get my violin." 
 
 Mrs. Taine checked her, "Oh, no, indeed. It is 
 
 149
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 quite unnecessary, iny dear. The opinion of your dis- 
 tinguished neighbors is quite enough. I shall keep 
 you in mind for some future occasion. I just wished 
 to learn if you would accept such an engagement. 
 Good-by. Thanks so much for your flowers." 
 
 She was upon the point of turning away, when a 
 low cry from the nearby porch startled them both. 
 Turning, they saw the woman with the disfigured 
 face, standing in the doorway; an expression of 
 mingled wonder, love, and supplication upon her hid- 
 eously marred features. As they looked, she started 
 toward them, impulsively stretching out her arms, 
 as though the gesture was an involuntary expression 
 of some deep emotion, then checked herself, sud- 
 denly, as though in doubt. 
 
 Sibyl Andres uttered an exclamation. "Why, 
 Myra ! what is it, dear ?" 
 
 Mrs. Taine turned away with a gesture of horror, 
 saying to the girl in a low, hurried voice, "Dear me, 
 how dreadful ! I really must be going." 
 
 As she went down the flower-bordered path towards 
 the street, the woman on the porch, again, stretched 
 out her arms appealingly. Then, as Sibyl reached 
 her side, the poor creature clasped the girl in a close 
 embrace, and burst into bitter tears. 
 
 Upon the return of the Taines and James Rutlidge 
 to the house on Fairlands Heights, Mrs. Taine retired 
 immediately to her own luxuriously appointed 
 apartments. 
 
 At dinner, a maid brought to the household word 
 
 150
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 that her mistress was suffering from a severe head- 
 ache and would not be down and begged that she 
 might not be disturbed during the evening. 
 
 Alone in her room, Mrs. Taine her headache be- 
 ing wholly conventional gave herself unreservedly 
 to the thoughts that she could not, under the eyes of 
 others, entertain without restraint. She was seated 
 at a window that looked down upon the carefully 
 graded levels of the envying Fairlanders and across 
 the wide sweep of the valley below to the mountains 
 which, from that lofty point of vantage, could be seen 
 from the base of their lowest foothills to the crests of 
 their highest peaks. But the woman who lived on 
 the Heights of Fairlands saw neither the homes of 
 her neighbors, the busy valley below, nor the moun- 
 tains that lifted so far above them all. Her thoughts 
 were centered upon what, to her, was more than these. 
 
 When night was gathering over the scene, her maid 
 entered softly. Mrs. Taine dismissed the woman 
 with a word, telling her not to return until she rang. 
 Leaving the window, after drawing the shades close, 
 she paced the now lighted room, in troubled uneasi- 
 ness of mind. Here and there, she paused to touch 
 or handle some familiar object a photograph in a 
 silver frame, a book on the carved table, the trifles on 
 her open desk, or an ornamental vase on the mantle 
 then moved restlessly away to continue her aimless 
 exercise. When the silence was rudely broken by the 
 sound of a knock at her door, she stood still a look 
 of anger marring the well-schooled beauty of her 
 features. 
 
 The knock was repeated. 
 
 151
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 With an exclamation of impatient annoyance, she 
 crossed the room, and flung open the door. 
 
 Without leave or apology, her husband entered: 
 and, as he did so, was seized by a paroxysm of cough- 
 ing that sent him reeling, gasping and breathless, to 
 the nearest chair. 
 
 Mrs. Taine stood watching her husband coldly, 
 with a curious, speculative expression on her face that 
 she made no attempt to hide. When his torture was 
 abated for the time leaving him exhausted and 
 trembling with weakness, she said coldly, "Well, what 
 do you want ? What are you doing here ?" 
 
 The man lifted his pallid, haggard face and, with 
 a yellow, claw-like hand wiped the beads of clammy 
 sweat from his forehead ; while his deep-sunken eyes 
 leered at her with an insane light. 
 
 The woman was at no pains to conceal her disgust. 
 In her voice there was no hint of pity. "Didn't 
 Marie tell you that I wished to be alone ?" 
 
 "Of course," he jeered in his rasping whisper, 
 "that's why I came." He gave a hideous resemblance 
 to a laugh, which ended in a cough and, again, he 
 drew his skinny, shaking hand across his damp fore- 
 head. "That's the time that a man should visit his 
 wife, isn't it ? When she is alone. Or" he grinned 
 mockingly "when she wishes to be ?" 
 
 She regarded him with open scorn and loathing. 
 "You unclean beast! Will you take yourself out of 
 my room ?" 
 
 He gazed at her, as a malevolent devil might gloat 
 over a soul delivered up for torture. "Not until I 
 choose to go, my dear." 
 
 152
 
 'Well, what do you want? \Vhat arc you doinc here?"
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Suddenly changing her manner, she smiled with 
 deliberate, mocking humor. While he watched, she 
 moved leisurely to a deep, many-cushioned couch; 
 and, arranging the pillows, reclined among them in 
 the careless abandonment of voluptuous ease and phy- 
 sical content. Openly, ostentatiously, she exhibited 
 herself to his burning gaze in various graceful poses 
 lifting her arms above her head to adjust a cushion 
 more to her liking; turning and stretching her beau- 
 tiful body; moving her limbs with sinuous enjoy- 
 ment as disregardful of his presence as though she 
 were alone. At last she spoke in cool, even, colorless 
 tones ; "Perhaps you will tell me what you want ?" 
 
 The wretched victim of his own unbridled sensual- 
 ity shook with inarticulate rage. Choking and cough- 
 ing, he writhed in his chair his emaciated limbs 
 twisted grotesquely; his sallow face bathed in per- 
 spiration; his claw-like hands opening and closing; 
 his bloodless lips curled back from his yellow teeth, in 
 a horrid grin of impotent fury. And all the while 
 she lay watching him with that pitiless, mocking, 
 smile. It was as though the malevolent devil and the 
 tortured soul had suddenly changed places. 
 
 When the man could speak, he reviled her, in his 
 rasping whisper, with curses that it seemed must blis- 
 ter his tongue. She received his effort with jeering 
 laughter and taunting words; moving her body, now 
 and then, among the cushions, with an air of purely 
 physical enjoyment that, to the other, was maddening. 
 
 "If this is all you came for," she said, easily, 
 "you might have spared yourself the effort don't 
 you think ?" 
 
 153
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Controlling himself, in a measure, he returned, "I 
 came to tell you that your intimacy with that damned 
 painter must stop." 
 
 Her eyes narrowed slightly. One hand, hidden in 
 the cushions, clenched until her rings hurt. "Just 
 what do you mean by my intimacy?" she asked 
 evenly. 
 
 "You know what I mean," he replied coarsely. "I 
 mean what intimacy with a man always means to a 
 woman like you." 
 
 "The only meaning that a creature of your foul 
 mind can understand," she retorted smoothly. "If it 
 were worth while to tell you the truth, I would say 
 that my conduct when alone with Mr. King has been 
 as proper as as when I am alone with you." 
 
 The taunt maddened him. Interrupted by spells 
 of coughing choking, gasping, fighting for breath, 
 his eyes blazing with hatred and lust, mingling his 
 words with oaths and curses he raged at her. "And 
 do you think that, because I am so nearly dead, I 
 do not resent what I saw, to-day ? Do you think I 
 am so far gone that I cannot understand your in- 
 terest in this man, after watching you, together, 
 all the afternoon ? Has there been any one in his 
 studio, except you two, when he was painting you 
 in that dress which you designed for his benefit ? 
 Oh, no, indeed, you and your genius could not be 
 interrupted, for the sake of his art. His art! 
 Great God ! was there ever such a damnable farce 
 since hell was invented ? Art ! you you you! " 
 crazed with jealous fury, he pointed at her with his 
 yellow, shaking, skeleton fingers; and struggled to 
 
 154
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 raise his voice above that rasping whisper until the 
 cords of his scrawny neck stood out and his face was 
 distorted with the strain of his effort "You! painted 
 as a modest Quaker Maid, with all the charm of 
 innocence, virtue, and religious piety in your face. 
 You! And that picture will be exhibited and writ- 
 ten about as a work of art! You'll pull all the 
 strings, and use all your influence, and the thing 
 will be received as a masterpiece." 
 
 "And," she added calmly, "you will write a check 
 and lie, as you did this afternoon." 
 
 Without heeding her remark, he went on, "You 
 know the picture is worthless. He knows it, Con- 
 rad Lagrange knows it, Jim Rutlidge knows it, 
 the whole damned clique and gang of you know it. 
 He's like all his kind, a pretender, a poser, play- 
 ing into the hands of such women as you; to win 
 social position and wealth. And we and our kind 
 we pretend to believe in such damned parasites, 
 and exalt them and what we call their art, and 
 keep them in luxury, and buy their pictures; be- 
 cause they prostitute their talents to gratify our 
 vanity. We know it's all a damned sham and a pre- 
 tense, and that if they were real artists, with an 
 honest workman's respect for their work, they 
 wouldn't recognize us." 
 
 "Don't forget to send him a check," she mur- 
 mured "you can't afford to neglect it, you know 
 think how people would talk." 
 
 "Don't worry," he replied. "There'll be no talk. 
 I'll send the genius his check for making love to 
 my wife in the sacred name of art, and I'll lie 
 
 155
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 about his picture with the rest of you. But there 
 will be no more of your intimacy wich him. You're 
 my wife, in spite of hell, and from now on I'll 
 see that you are true to me. Your sickening pose 
 of modesty in dress shall be something more than 
 a pose. For the little time I have left, I'll have 
 you to myself or I'll kill you." 
 
 His reference to her refusal to uncover her shoul- 
 ders in public broke the woman's calm and aroused 
 her to a cold fury. Springing to her feet, she stood 
 over him as he sat huddled in his chair, exhausted by 
 his effort. 
 
 "What is your silly, idle threat beside the fact," 
 she said with stinging scorn. "To have killed me, in- 
 stead of making me your wife, would have been a 
 kindness greater than you are capable of. You know 
 how unspeakably vile you were when you bought me. 
 You know how every hour of my life with you has 
 been a torment to me. You should be grateful that 
 I have helped you to live your lie that I have played 
 the game of respectability with you that I am will- 
 ing to play it a little while longer, until you lay down 
 your hand for good, and release us both. 
 
 "Suppose I were what you think me ? What right 
 have you to object to my pleasures ? Have you in 
 all your life of idle, vicious, luxury have you ever 
 feared to do evil if it appealed to your bestial nature ? 
 You know you have not. You have feared only the 
 appearance of evil. To be as evil as you like so long 
 as you can avoid the appearance of evil ; that's the 
 game you have taught me to play. That's the game 
 we have played together. That's the game we and our 
 
 156
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 kind insist the artists and writers shall help us play. 
 That's the only game I know, and, by the rule of our 
 game, so long as the world sees nothing, I shall do 
 what pleases me. 
 
 "You have had your day with me. You have had 
 what you paid for. What right have you to deny me, 
 now, an hour's f orgetfulness ? When I think of what 
 I might have been, but for you, I wonder that I have 
 cared to live, and I would not except for the poor 
 sport of torturing you. 
 
 "You scoff at Mr. King's portait of me because he 
 has not painted me as I am ! What would you have 
 said if he had painted me as I am ? What would you 
 say if Conrad Lagrange should write the truth about 
 us and our kind, for his millions of readers ? You 
 sneer at me because I cannot uncover my shoulders in 
 the conventional dress of my class, and so make a 
 virtue of a necessity and deceive the world by a pre- 
 tense of modesty. Go look in your mirror, you fool ! 
 Your right to sneer at me for my poor little pretense 
 is denied you by every line of your repulsive counte- 
 nance. ISTow get out. I'm going to retire." 
 
 And she rang for her maid. 
 
 157
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 FIRST FRUITS OF HIS SHAME 
 
 HEN" the postman, in his little cart, 
 stopped at the home of Aaron King and 
 his friend, that day, it was Conrad La- 
 grange who received the mail. The artist 
 was in his studio, and the novelist, know- 
 ing that the painter was not at work, went 
 to him there with a letter. 
 
 The portrait still on the easel was hidden by 
 the velvet curtain. Sitting by a table that was lit- 
 tered with a confusion of sketches, books and papers, 
 the young man was re-tying a package of old letters 
 that he had, evidently, just been reading. 
 
 As the novelist went to him, the artist said quietly, 
 indicating the package in his hand, "From my 
 mother. She wrote them during the last year of my 
 study abroad." When the other did not reply, he con- 
 tinued thoughtfully, "Do you know, Lagrange, since 
 my acquaintance with you, I find many things in 
 these old letters that at the time I received them 
 I did not, at all, appreciate. You seem to be helping 
 me, somehow, to a better understanding of my moth- 
 er's spirit and mind." He smiled. 
 
 Presently, Conrad Lagrange, when he could trust 
 himself to speak, said, "Your mother's mind and 
 spirit, Aaron, were too fine and rare to be fully appre- 
 
 158
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 elated or understood except by one trained in the 
 school of life, itself. When she wrote those letters, 
 you were a student of mere craftsmanship. She, her- 
 self, no doubt, recognized that you would not fully 
 comprehend the things she wrote; but she put them 
 down, out of the very fullness of her intellectual and 
 spiritual wealth trusting to your love to preserve the 
 letters, and to the years to give you understanding." 
 
 "Why," cried the artist, "those are almost her ex- 
 act words as I have just been reading them!" 
 
 The other, smiling, continued quietly, "Your ap- 
 preciation and understanding of your mother will 
 continue to grow through all your life, Aaron. When 
 you are old as old as I am you will still find in 
 those letters hidden treasures of thought, and truths 
 of greater value than you, now, can realize. But here 
 I have brought you your share of the afternoon's 
 mail." 
 
 When Aaron King opened the envelope that his 
 friend laid on the table before him, he sat regarding 
 its contents with an air of thoughtful meditation 
 lost to his surroundings. 
 
 The novelist who had gone to the window and was 
 looking into the rose garden turned to speak to his 
 friend ; but the other did not reply. Again, the man 
 at the window addressed the painter; but still the 
 rounger man was silent. At this, Conrad Lagrange 
 came back to the table ; an expression of anxiety upon 
 his face. "What is it, old man ? What's the matter ? 
 No bad news, I hope ?" 
 
 Aaron King, aroused from his fit of abstraction, 
 laughed shortly, and held out to his friend the letter 
 
 159
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 he had just received. It was from Mr. Taine. En- 
 closed, was the millionaire's check. The letter was a 
 formal business note; the check was for an amount 
 that drew a low whistle from the novelist's lips. 
 
 "Rather higher pay than old brother Judas re- 
 ceived for a somewhat similar service, isn't it," he 
 commented, as he passed the letter and check back to 
 the artist. Then, as he watched the younger man's 
 face, he asked, "What's the matter, don't you like 
 the flavor of these first fruits of your shame ? I ad- 
 vise you to cultivate a taste for this sort of thing as 
 quickly as possible in your own defense." 
 
 "Don't you think you are a little bit too hard on 
 us all, Lagrange?" asked the artist, with a faint 
 smile. "These people are satisfied. The picture 
 pleases them." 
 
 "Of course they are pleased," retorted the other. 
 "You know your business. That's the trouble with 
 you. That's the trouble with us all, these days we 
 painters and writers and musicians we know our 
 business too damned well. We have the mechanics 
 of our crafts, the tricks of our trades, so well in hand 
 that we make our books and pictures and music say 
 what we please. We use our art to gain our own vain 
 ends instead of being driven by our art to find ade- 
 quate expression for some great truth that demands 
 through us a hearing. You have said it all, my 
 friend you have summed up the whole situation in 
 the present-day world of creative art these people 
 are satisfied. You have given them what they want, 
 prostituting your art to do it. That's what I have 
 
 160
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 been doing all these years giving people what they 
 want. For a price, we cater to them even as their 
 tailors, and milliners, and barbers. And never again 
 will the world have a truly great art or literature 
 until men like us in the divine selfishness of their 
 calling demand, first and last, that they, themselves, 
 be satisfied by the work of their hands." 
 
 Going to the easel, he rudely jerked aside the cur- 
 tain. Involuntarily, the painter went to stand by his 
 side before the picture. 
 
 "Look at it !" cried the novelist. "Look at it in 
 the light of your own genius ! Don't you see its 
 power ? Doesn't it tell you what you could do, if you 
 would? If you couldn't paint a picture, or if you 
 couldn't feel a picture to be painted, it wouldn't mat- 
 ter. I'd let you ride to hell on your own palette, and 
 be damned to you. But this thing shows a power 
 that the world can ill afford to lose. It is so bad be- 
 cause it is so good. Come here !" he drew his friend 
 to the big window, and pointed to the mountains. 
 "There is an art like those mountains, my boy 
 lonely, apart from the world; remotely above the 
 squalid ambitions of men; Godlike in its calm 
 strength and peace an art to which men may look 
 for inspiration and courage and hope. And there is 
 an art that is like Fairlands petty and shallow and 
 mean with only the fictitious value that its devotees 
 assume, but never, actually, realize. Listen, Aaron, 
 don't continue to misread your mother's letters. Don't 
 misunderstand her as thinking that the place she cov- 
 eted for you is a place within the power of these peo- 
 
 161
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 pie to give. Come with me into the mountains, 
 yonder. Come, and let us see if, in those hills of God, 
 you cannot find yourself." 
 
 When Conrad Lagrange finished, the artist stood, 
 for a little, without reply irresolute, before his pic- 
 ture the check in his hand. At last, still without 
 speaking, he went hack to the table, where he wrote 
 briefly his reply to Mr. Taine. When he had finished, 
 he handed his letter to the older man, who read : 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 In reply to yours of the 13th, inst., enclosing your 
 check in payment for the portrait of Mrs. Taine; I 
 appreciate your generosity, but cannot, now, accept 
 it. 
 
 I find, upon further consideration, that the por- 
 trait does not fully satisfy me. I shall, therefore, 
 keep the canvas until I can, with the consent of my 
 own mind, put my signature upon it. 
 
 Herewith, I am returning your check; for, of 
 course, I cannot accept payment for an unfinished 
 work. 
 
 In a day or two, Mr. Lagrange and I will start 
 to the mountains, for an outing. Trusting that you 
 and your family will enjoy the season at Lake Si- 
 lence, I am, with kind regards, 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Aaron King. 
 
 That evening, the two men talked over their pro- 
 posed trip, and laid their plans to start without de- 
 lay. As Conrad Lagrange put it they would lose 
 
 162
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 themselves in the hills; with no definite destination 
 in view ; and no set date for their return. Also, he 
 stipulated that they should travel light with only 
 a pack burro to carry their supplies and that they 
 should avoid the haunts of the summer resorters, and 
 keep to the more unfrequented trails. The novelist's 
 acquaintance with the country into which they would 
 go, and his experience in woodcraft gained upon 
 many like expeditions in the lonely wilds he loved 
 would make a guide unnecessary. It would be a new 
 experience for Aaron King; and, as the novelist 
 talked, he found himself eager as a schoolboy for the 
 trip ; while the distant mountains, themselves, seemed 
 to call him inviting him to learn the secret of their 
 calm strength and the spirit of their lofty peace. The 
 following day, they would spend in town ; purchasing 
 an outfit of the necessary equipment and supplies, 
 securing a burro, and attending to numerous odds and 
 ends of business preparatory to their indefinite ab- 
 sence. 
 
 It so happened, the next day, that Yee Kee, who 
 was to care for the place during their weeks of ab- 
 sence, also, had matters of importance to himself, 
 that demanded his attention in town. When his mas- 
 ters informed him that they would not be home for 
 lunch, he took advantage of the opportunity and 
 asked for the day. 
 
 Thus it came about that Conrad Lagrange in the 
 spirit of a boy bent upon some secret adventure 
 stole out into the rose garden, that morning, to leave 
 the promised letter and key at the little gate in the 
 corner of the Ragged Robin hedge. 
 
 163
 
 CHAPTEK XIII 
 MYRA WILLARD'S CHALLENGE 
 
 INCE her meeting with Conrad Lagrange 
 in the rose garden, Sibyl Andres had 
 looked, every day, for that promised letter. 
 She found it early in the afternoon. It 
 was a quaint letter written in the spirit 
 of their meeting telling her the probable 
 time of her neighbor's return ; warning her, in fear of 
 some fanciful horror, to beware of the picture on the 
 easel; and wishing her joy of the adventure. With 
 the note, was a key. 
 
 A few minutes later, the girl unlocked the door of 
 the studio, and entered the building that had once 
 been so familiar to her, but was now, in its interior, 
 so transformed. Slowly, she pushed the door to, be- 
 hind her. As though half frightened at her own dar- 
 ing, she stood quite still, looking about. In the at- 
 mosphere of that somewhat richly furnished apart- 
 ment; poised timidly as if for ready flight; she 
 seemed, indeed, the spirit that the novelist in 
 playful fancy insisted that she was. Her cheeks 
 were glowing with color; her eyes were bright with 
 the excitement of her innocent adventure, and with 
 her genuine admiration and appreciation of the beau- 
 tiful room. 
 
 Presently, growing bolder, she began moving 
 
 164
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 about the studio light-footed and graceful as a wild 
 thing from her own mountain home, and, indeed, with 
 much the air of a gentle creature of the woods that 
 had strayed into the haunts of men. Intensely inter- 
 ested in the things she found, she gradually forgot her 
 timidity, and gave herself to the enjoyment of her 
 surroundings, with the freedom and abandon of a 
 child. From picture to picture, she went, with wide, 
 eager eyes. She turned over the sketches in the big 
 portfolios that were so invitingly open ; looked with 
 awe upon the brushes stuck in the big Chinese jar 
 upon the palettes, and at the tubes of color; flitting 
 to the window that looked out upon her garden, and 
 back to the great, north light with its view of the dis- 
 tant mountains ; and again and again, paused to stand 
 with her hands clasped behind her, in front of the big 
 easel with its canvas hidden under the velvet curtain. 
 Then she must try the chairs, the oriental couch, and 
 even the stool where she had seen the artist sitting, 
 sometimes, at his work, when she had watched him 
 from the arbor ; and last in a pretty make-believe 
 she tried the seat on the model throne, as though pos- 
 ing, herself, for her portrait. 
 
 Suddenly, with a startled cry, she sprang to her 
 feet ; then shrank back, white and trembling her big 
 eyes fixed with pleading fear upon the man who 
 stood in the open doorway, regarding her with a 
 curious, triumphant smile. It was James Rutlidge. 
 
 Sibyl, occupied with her childlike delight, had 
 failed to hear the automobile when it stopped in front 
 of the house. Finding no one in the house the man 
 had gone on to the studio, where with the assurance 
 
 165
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 of an intimate acquaintance he had pushed open the 
 door that was standing ajar. 
 
 At the girl's frightened manner, the man laughed. 
 Closing the door, he said, with an insinuating sneer, 
 "You were not expecting me, it seems." 
 
 His words aroused Sibyl from her momentary 
 weakness. Rising, she said calmly, "I was not ex- 
 pecting any one, Mr. Rutlidge." 
 
 Again he laughed with unpleasant meaning. 
 "You certainly look to be very much at home." He 
 moved confidently to the easel stool and, seating him- 
 self, continued with a leering smile, "What's the 
 matter with my taking the artist's place for a little 
 while at least, until he comes ?" 
 
 The girl was too innocent to understand his as- 
 sumption, but her pure mind could not fail to sense 
 the evil in his words. 
 
 "I had permission to come here this afternoon," 
 she said her voice trembling a little with the fear 
 that she did not understand. "Won't you go, please ? 
 Neither Mr. King nor Mr. Lagrange are at home." 
 
 "I do not doubt your having permission to come 
 here," he returned, with meaning stress upon the 
 word, "permission". "I see you even carry a key to 
 this really delightful room." He motioned with his 
 head toward the door where he had seen the key in 
 the lock, as she had left it. 
 
 At this, she grasped a hint of the man's thought 
 and, for an instant, drew back in shame. Then, sud- 
 denly, with a burst of indignant anger, she took a 
 step toward him, demanding clearly ; "Are you saying 
 
 166
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 that I am in the habit of coming here to meet Mr. 
 King?" 
 
 He laughed mockingly. "Really, my dear, no one, 
 seeing you, now, could blame the man for giving you 
 a key to this place where he is popularly supposed to 
 be undisturbed. Mr. King is neither such a virtuous 
 saint, nor so engrossed in his art, as to resent the com- 
 panionship of such a vision of loveliness simply be- 
 cause it comes in the form of good flesh and blood. 
 Why be angry with me ?" 
 
 Her cheeks were crimson as she said, again, "Will 
 you go ?" 
 
 "Not until you have settled the terms of peace," 
 he answered with that leering smile. "Fortune has 
 favored me, this afternoon, and I mean to profit by 
 it" 
 
 For an instant, she looked at him frightened and 
 dismayed. Suddenly, with the flash-like quickness 
 that was a part of her physical inheritance from her 
 mountain life, she darted past him ; eluding his effort 
 to detain her and was out of the building. 
 
 With an oath, the man, acting upon the impulse of 
 the moment, ran after her. Outside the door of the 
 studio, he caught a glimpse of her white dress as she 
 disappeared into the rose garden. In the garden, he 
 saw her as she slipped through the little gate in the 
 far corner of the hedge, into the orange grove. Reck- 
 lessly, he followed. Among the trees, he glimpsed, 
 again, the white flash of her skirts, and dashed for- 
 ward. At the farther edge of the grove that walled in 
 the little yard where Sibyl lived, he saw her standing 
 
 167
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 by the kitchen door. But between the girl and that 
 last row of close-set trees, waiting his coming, stood 
 the woman with the disfigured face. 
 
 Rutlidge paused angry with himself for so fool- 
 ishly yielding to the impulse of his passion. 
 
 Myra Willard went toward him fearlessly her 
 fine eyes blazing with righteous indignation. "What 
 are you trying to do, James Rutlidge ?" she de- 
 manded and her words were bold and clear. 
 
 The man was silent. 
 
 "You are evidently a worthy son of your father," 
 the woman continued every clear-cut word biting 
 into his consciousness with stinging scorn. "He, in 
 his day, did all he knew to turn this world into a hell 
 for those who were unfortunate enough to please his 
 vile fancy. You, I see, are following faithfully his 
 footsteps. I know you, and the creed of your kind 
 as I knew your father before you. No girl of inno- 
 cent beauty is safe from you. Your unclean mind is 
 as incapable of believing in virtue, as you are help- 
 less in the grip of your own insane lust." 
 
 The man was stung to fury by her cutting words. 
 "Take your ugly face out of my sight," he said 
 brutally. 
 
 Fearlessly, she drew a step nearer. "It is because 
 I am a woman that I have this ugly face, James Rut- 
 lidge." She touched her disfigured cheek "These 
 scars are the marks of the beast that rules you, sir, 
 body and soul. Leave this place, or, as there is a God, 
 I'll tell a tale that will forbid you ever showing your 
 own evil countenance in public, again." 
 
 Something in her eyes and in her manner, as she 
 
 168
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 spoke, caused the man beside himself with rage, as 
 he was to draw back. Some mysterious force that 
 made itself felt in her bold words told him that hers 
 was no idle threat. A moment they stood face to face, 
 in the edge of the shadowy orange grove the man of 
 the world, prominent in circles of art and culture; 
 and the woman whose natural loveliness was so dis- 
 torted into a hideous mask of ugliness. With a short, 
 derisive laugh, James Rutlidge turned and walked 
 away. 
 
 Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange were returning 
 from town. As they neared their home, they saw one 
 of the Taine automobiles in front of the house. 
 "Company," said the artist with a smile thinking 
 of his letter to the millionaire. 
 
 "It's Rutlidge," said the novelist noting the 
 absence of the chauffeur. 
 
 They were turning in at the entrance, when Czar 
 who had dashed ahead as if to investigate halted, 
 suddenly, with a low growl of disapproval. 
 
 "Huh!" ejaculated Conrad Lagrange, with his 
 twisted grin. "It's Senior 'Sensual' all right. Look 
 at Czar ; he knows the beast is around. Go fetch him, 
 Czar." 
 
 With an angry bark, the dog disappeared around 
 the corner of the porch. The two men, following, 
 were met by Rutlidge who had made his way back 
 through the grove and the rose garden from the house 
 next door. The dog, with muttering growls, was 
 sniffing suspiciously at his heels. 
 
 169
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Czar," said his master, suggestively. With a 
 meaning glance, the dog reluctantly ceased his em- 
 barrassing attentions and went to see if everything 
 was all right about the premises. 
 
 In answer to their greeting and the quite natural 
 question if he had been waiting long, Rutlidge an- 
 swered with a laugh. "Oh, no I have been amusing 
 myself by prowling around your place. Snug quar- 
 ters you have here; really, I never quite appreciated 
 their charm, before." 
 
 They seated themselves on the porch. Conrad La- 
 grange thinking of Sibyl Andres and that letter 
 which he had left on the gate from under his brows, 
 watched their caller closely ; the while he filled with 
 painstaking care his brier pipe. 
 
 "We like it," returned the artist. 
 
 "I should think so I'd be sorry to leave it if I 
 were you. Mr. Taine tells me you are going to the 
 mountains." 
 
 "We're not giving up this place, though," replied 
 Aaron King. "Yee Kee stays to take care of things 
 until our return." 
 
 "Oh, I see. I generally go into the mountains, my- 
 self, for a little hunt when the deer season opens. It 
 may be that I will run across you somewhere. By the 
 way you haven't met your musical neighbor yet, 
 have you ?" 
 
 The novelist gave particular attention to his pipe 
 which did not seem to be behaving properly. 
 
 The artist answered shortly, "No." 
 
 "I'd certainly make her acquaintance, if I were 
 you," said Rutlidge, with his suggestive smile. "She 
 
 170
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 is a dream. A delightful little retreat that studio 
 of yours." 
 
 The painter, puzzled by the man's words and by 
 his insinuating air, returned coldly, "It does very 
 well for a work-shop." 
 
 The other laughed meaningly; "Yes, oh yes a 
 great little work-shop. I suppose you ah do not 
 fear to trust your art treasures to the Chinaman, dur- 
 ing your absence ?" 
 
 Conrad Lagrange certain, now, that the man had 
 seen Sibyl Andres either entering or leaving the 
 studio said abruptly, "You need give yourself no 
 concern for Mr. King's studio, Rutlidge. I can as- 
 sure you that the treasures there will be well pro- 
 tected." 
 
 Jaines Rutlidge understood the warning conveyed 
 in the novelist's words that, to Aaron King, revealed 
 nothing. 
 
 "Really," said the painter to their caller, "you are 
 not uneasy for the safety of Mrs. Taine's portrait, are 
 you, old man ? If you are, of course " 
 
 "Damn Mrs. Taine's portrait!" ejaculated the 
 man, rising hurriedly. "You know what I mean. 
 It's all right, of course. I must be going. Hope you 
 have a good outing and come back to find all your art 
 treasures safe." He laughed coarsely, as he went 
 down the walk. 
 
 When the automobile was gone, the artist turned to 
 his friend. "Now what in thunder did he mean by 
 that? What's the matter with him? Do you sup- 
 pose they imagine that there is anything wrong be- 
 cause I wouldn't turn over the picture ?" 
 
 171
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 "He is an unclean beast, Aaron," the novelist an- 
 swered shortly. "His father was the worst I ever 
 knew, and he's like him. Forget him. Here comes 
 the delivery boy with our stuff. Let's overhaul the 
 outfit. I hope they'll get here with that burro, be- 
 fore dark. Where'll we put him, in the studio, heh ?" 
 
 "Look here," said the artist a few minutes later, 
 returning from a visit to the studio for something, 
 "this is what was the matter with Rutlidge. And 
 you did it, old man. This is your key." 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked the other in con- 
 fusion, taking the key. 
 
 "Why, I found the studio door wide open, with 
 your key in the lock. You must have been out there, 
 just before we left this morning, and forgot to shut 
 the door. Rutlidge probably noticed it when he was 
 prowling about the place, and was trying to roast me 
 for my carelessness." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange stared stupidly at the key in his 
 hand. "Well I am damned," he muttered. Then 
 added, in savage and as it seemed to the artist ex- 
 aggerated wrath, "I'm a stupid, blundering, irre- 
 sponsible, old fool." Nor was he consoled when the 
 painter innocently assured him that no harm had re- 
 sulted from his carelessness. 
 
 That night, as the two men sat on the porch, watch- 
 ing the last of the light on the mountain tops, they 
 heard again the cry of fear and pain that came from 
 the little house hidden in the depths of the orange 
 grove. Wonderingly they listened. Once more it 
 came filled with shuddering terror. 
 
 172
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 When the sound was not repeated, Conrad La- 
 grange thoughtfully knocked the ashes from his pipe. 
 "Poor soul," he said. "Those scars did more than 
 disfigure her beautiful face. I'll wager there's a sad 
 story there, Aaron, It's strange how I am haunted 
 by the impression that I ought to know her. But I 
 can't make it come clear. Heigho," he added a mo- 
 ment later as if to free his mind from unpleasant 
 thoughts, "I'll be glad when we are safely up in the 
 hills yonder. Do you know, old man, I feel as though 
 we're getting away just in the nick of time. My back 
 hair and the pricking of my thumbs warn me that 
 your dearly beloved spooks are combining to put up 
 some sort of a spooking job on us. I hope Yee Kee 
 has a plentiful supply of joss-sticks to stand 'em off, 
 if they get too busy while we are gone." 
 
 Aaron King laughed quietly in the dusk, as he re- 
 turned, "And I have a presentiment that those 
 precious members of our household are preparing to 
 accompany us to the hills. I feel in my bones that 
 something is going to happen up there" he pointed 
 to the distant mountains, then added "to me, at 
 least. I feel as though I were about to bid myself 
 good-by if you know what I mean. I hope that 
 donkey of ours isn't a psychic donkey, or, if he is, 
 that he'll listen to reason and be content with his es- 
 corts of flesh and blood." 
 
 As he finished speaking, the quiet of the evening 
 was broken by a lusty, "Hee-haw, hee-haw," in front 
 of the house. 
 
 "There, I told you so!" ejaculated the painter. 
 
 178
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Laughing, the two men followed Czar down the 
 walk, in the dark, to receive the shaggy, long-eared 
 companion for their wanderings. 
 
 As many a man has done Aaron King had 
 spoken, in jest, more truth than he knew. 
 
 174
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 IN THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 1ST the gray of the early morning, hours be- 
 fore the dwellers on Fairlands Heights 
 thought of leaving their beds, Aaron King 
 and Conrad Lagrange made ready for 
 their going. 
 
 The burro, Croesus so named by the 
 novelist because, as the famous writer explained, 
 "that ancient multi-millionaire, you know, really was 
 an ass" was to be entrusted with all the available 
 worldly possessions of the little party. An arrange- 
 ment the more experienced man carefully pointed 
 out that, considering the chief characteristics of 
 Croesus, was quite in accord with the customs of mod- 
 ern pilgrimages. Conrad Lagrange, himself, skill- 
 fully fixed the pack in place adjusting the saddle 
 with careful hand; accurately dividing the weight, 
 with the blankets on top, and, over all, the canvas tar- 
 paulin, folded the proper size and neatly tucked in 
 around the ends ; and finally securing the whole with 
 the, to the uninitiated, intricate and complicated dia- 
 mond hitch. The order of their march, also, would 
 place Croesus first; which position the novelist, 
 again, gravely explained, as he drew the cinches tight 
 is held by all who value good form, to be the don- 
 key's proper place in the procession. As he watched 
 
 175
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 his friend, the artist felt that, indeed, he was about 
 to go far from the ways of life that he had always 
 known. 
 
 When all was ready, the two men dressed in flan- 
 nels, corduroys, and high-laced, mountain boots 
 called good-by to Yee Kee, respectfully invited Croe- 
 sus to proceed, and set out with Czar, the fourth 
 member of the party, flying here and there in such a 
 whirlwind of good spirits that not a shred of his usual 
 dignity was left. The sun was sti 11 . below the moun- 
 tain's crest, though the higher points were gilded with 
 its light, when they turned their backs upon the city 
 made by men, and set their faces toward the hills that 
 bore in every ridge and peak and cliff and crag and 
 canyon the signature of God. 
 
 As Conrad Lagrange said they might have hired 
 a wagon, or even an automobile, to take them and 
 their goods to some mountain ranch where they would 
 have had no trouble in securing a burro for their wan- 
 derings. A team would have made the trip by noon. 
 A machine would have set them down in Clear Creek 
 Canyon before the sun could climb high enough to 
 look over the canyon walls. "But that" explained 
 the novelist, as they trudged leisurely along between 
 rows of palms that bordered the orange groves on 
 either side of their road, and sensed the mystery that 
 marks the birth of a new day "but that is not a 
 proper way to go to the mountains. 
 
 "The mountains" he continued, with his eyes 
 upon the distant heights "are not seen by those who 
 would visit them with a rattle and clatter and rush 
 and roar as one would visit the cities of men. They 
 
 176
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 are to be seen only by those who have the grace to go 
 quietly; who have the understanding to go thought- 
 fully; the heart to go lovingly; and the spirit to go 
 worshipfully. They are to be approached, not in the 
 manner of one going to a horse-race, or a circus, but 
 in the mood of one about to enter a great cathedral; 
 or, indeed, of one seeking admittance to the very 
 throne-room of God. When going to the mountains, 
 one should take time to feel them drawing near. They 
 are never intimate with those who hurry. Mere sight- 
 seers seldom see much of anything. If possible," 
 insisted the speaker, smiling gravely upon his com- 
 panion, "one should always spend, at least, a full 
 day in the approach. Before entering the immediate 
 presence of the hills, one should first view them from 
 a distance, seeing them from base to peak in the 
 glory of the day's beginning, as they watch the world 
 awake; in the majesty of full noon, as they maintain 
 their calm above the turmoil of the day's doing ; and 
 in the glory of the sun's departure, as it lights last 
 their crests and peaks. And then, after such a day, 
 one should sleep, one night, at their feet." 
 
 The artist listened with delight, as he always did 
 when his friend spoke in those rare moods that re- 
 vealed a nature so unknown to the world that had 
 made him famous. When the novelist finished, the 
 young man said gently, "And your words, my friend, 
 are almost a direct quotation from that anonymous 
 book which my mother so loved." 
 
 "Perhaps they are, Aaron" admitted Conrad La- 
 grange "perhaps they are." 
 
 So it was that they spent that day in leisure ap- 
 
 177
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 proach the patient Croesus, with his burden, always 
 in the lead, and Czar, like a merry sprite, play- 
 ing here and there. Several times they stopped to 
 rest heside the road, while provident Croesus gath- 
 ered a few mouthfuls of grass or weeds. Many times 
 they halted to enjoy the scene that changed with every 
 step. 
 
 Their road led always upward, with a gradual, 
 easy grade ; and by noon they had left the cultivated 
 section of the lower valley for the higher, untilled 
 lands. The dark, glossy-green of the orange and the 
 lighter shining tints of the lemon groves, with the 
 rich, satiny-gray tones of the olive-trees, were re- 
 placed now by the softer grays, greens, yellows, and 
 browns of the chaparral. The air was no longer 
 heavy with the perfume of roses and orange-blossoms, 
 but came to their nostrils laden with the pungent 
 odors of yerba santa and greasewood and sage. Look- 
 ing back, they could see the valley marked off by 
 its roads into many squares of green, and dotted here 
 and there by small towns and cities stretching away 
 toward the western ocean until it was lost in a gray- 
 blue haze out of which the distant San Gabriels, be- 
 yond Cajon Pass, lifted into the clear sky above, like 
 the shore-line of dreamland rising out of a dream sea. 
 Before them, the San Bernardinos drew ever nearer 
 and more intimate silently inviting them ; patiently, 
 with a world old patience, bidding them come ; in the 
 majestic humbleness of their lofty spirit, offering 
 themselves and the wealth of their teaching. 
 
 So they came, in the late afternoon, to that spot 
 where the road for the first time crosses the alder and 
 
 178
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 cottonwood bordered stream that, before it reaches the 
 valley, is drawn from its natural course by the irriga- 
 tion flumes and pipes. 
 
 The sound of the mountain waters leaping down 
 their granite-bouldered way reached the men while 
 they were yet some distance. Croesus pointed his 
 long ears forward in burro anticipation his ex- 
 perience telling him that the day's work was about to 
 end. Czar was already ranging along the side of the 
 creek sending a colony of squirrels scampering to 
 the tree tops, and a bevy of quail whirring to the 
 chaparral in frightened flight. The artist greeted 
 the waters with a schoolboy shout of gladness. Con- 
 rad Lagrange, with the smile and the voice of a man 
 miraculously recreated, said quietly, "This is the 
 place where we stop for the night." 
 
 Their camp was a simple matter. Croesus asked 
 nothing but to be released from his burden being 
 quite capable of caring for himself. A wash in the 
 clear, cold water of the brook; a simple meal, pre- 
 pared by Conrad Lagrange over a small fire made of 
 sticks gathered by the artist; their tarpaulin and 
 blankets spread within sound of the music of the 
 stream ; a watching of the sun's glorious going down ; 
 a quiet pipe in the hush of the mysterious twilight ; a 
 "good night" in the soft darkness, when the myriad 
 stars looked down upon the dull red glow of their 
 camp-fire embers; with the guarding spirit of the 
 mighty hills to give them peace and they lay down 
 to sleep at the mountain's feet. 
 
 There is no sleeping late in the morning when one 
 sleeps in the open, under the stars. After breakfast, 
 
 179
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 the artist received another lesson in packing, and 
 they moved on toward the world that already seemed 
 to dwarf that other world which they had left, by one 
 day's walking, so far below. A heavy fog, rolling in 
 from the ocean in the night, submerged the valley in 
 its dull, gray depths leaving to the eye no view but 
 the view of the mountains before them, and forcing 
 upon the artist's mind the weird impression that the 
 life he had always known was a fantastically unreal 
 dream. 
 
 And now, as they approached, the frowning en- 
 trance of Clear Creek Canyon grew more and more 
 clearly defined. The higher peaks appeared to draw 
 back and hide themselves behind the foothills, which 
 as the men came closer under their immediate 
 slopes and walls seemed to grow magically in height 
 and bulk. A little before noon, they were in the rocky 
 vestibule of the canyon. On either hand, the walls 
 rose almost sheer, while their road, now, was but a 
 narrow shelf under the overhanging cliffs, below 
 which the white waters of the stream cold from the 
 snows so far above tumbled impetuously over the 
 boulders that obstructed their way filling the hall- 
 like gorge with tumultuous melody. Soon, the can- 
 yon narrowed to less than a stone's throw in width. 
 The walls grew more grim and forbidding in their 
 rocky nearness. And then they came to that point 
 where, on either side, great cliffs, projecting, form the 
 massive, rugged portals of the mountain's gate. 
 
 First seen, from a point where the road rounds a 
 jutting corner on the extreme right, the projecting 
 cliffs ahead appear as a blank wall of rock that for- 
 
 180
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 bids further progress. But, as the men moved for- 
 ward, the r<Dad swinging more toward the center of 
 the gorge, the cliffs seemed to draw apart, and, 
 through the way thus opened, they saw the great 
 canyon and the mountains beyond. It was as though 
 a mighty, invisible hand rolled silently back those 
 awful doors to give them entrance. 
 
 Abruptly, upon the inner side of the narrow pas- 
 sage, the canyon widens to many times the width of 
 the outer vestibule; and the road, crossing the creek, 
 curves to the left ; so that, looking back as they went, 
 the two men saw the mighty doors closing again, be- 
 hind them as they had opened to let them in. It 
 was as though that spirit sentinel, guarding the treas- 
 ures of the hills, had jealously barred the way, that 
 no one else from the world of men might follow. 
 
 Aaron King stopped. Drawing a deep breath, and 
 removing his hat, he turned his face from that moun- 
 tain wall, upward to th'e encircling pine-fringed 
 ridges and towering peaks. He had, indeed, come far 
 from the world that he had always known. 
 
 Conrad Lagrange, smiling, watched his friend, but 
 spoke no word. 
 
 Clear Creek Canyon is a deep, narrow valley, some 
 fifteen, miles in length, and approaching a mile in its 
 greatest width ; lying between the main range of the 
 San Bernardinos and the lower ridge of the Galenas. 
 The lower end of the canyon is shut in by the sheer 
 cliff walls, and by the rugged portals of the narrow 
 entrance; the upper end is formed by the dividing 
 ridge that separates the Clear Creek from the Cold 
 Water country which opens out onto the Colorado 
 
 181
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Desert below San Gorgonio Pass and the peaks of 
 the San Jacintos. Perhaps two miles above the en- 
 trance, the canyon widens to its greatest width ; and 
 in this portion of the little valley, which extends 
 some five miles to where the walls again draw close, 
 located on the benches above the boulder-strewn wash 
 of Clear Creek, are the homes of several mountain 
 ranchers, and the Government Forest Ranger Station. 
 
 At the Ranger Station, they stopped Conrad La- 
 grange wishing to greet the mountaineer official, 
 whom he had learned to know on his former trip. 
 But the Ranger was away somewhere, riding his 
 lonely trails, and they did not tarry. 
 
 Just above the Station, they left the main road to 
 follow the way that leads to the Morton Ranch in the 
 mouth of Alder Canyon a small side canyon leading 
 steeply up to a low gap in the main range. Beyond 
 Morton's, there is only a narrow trail. Three hun- 
 dred yards above the ranch corral, where the road 
 ends and the trail begins, the buildings of the moun- 
 taineer's home were lost to view. Except for the nar- 
 row, winding path that they must follow single file, 
 there was no sign of human life. 
 
 For three weeks, they knew no roads other than 
 those lonely, mountain trails. At times, they walked 
 under dark pines where the ground was thickly car- 
 peted with the dead, brown needles and the air was 
 redolent with the odor of the majestic trees ; or made 
 their camps at night, feeding their blazing fires with 
 the pitchy knots and cones. At other times, they 
 found their way through thickets of manzanita and 
 buckthorn, along the mountain's flank; or, winding 
 
 182
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 zigzag down some narrow canyon wall, made them- 
 selves at home under the slender, small-trunked 
 alders ; and added to the stores that Croesus packed, 
 many a lusty trout from the tumbling, icy torrent. 
 Again, high up on some wind-swept granite ridge or 
 peak, where the pines were twisted and battered and 
 torn by the warring elements, they looked far down 
 upon the rolling sea of clouds that hid the world be- 
 low ; or, in the shelter of some mighty cliff, built their 
 fires ; and, when the night was clear, saw, miles away 
 and below, the thousands of twinkling star-like lights 
 of the world they had left behind. Or, again, they 
 halted in some forest and hill encircled glen; where 
 the lush grass in the cienaga grew almost as high as 
 Croesus' back, and the lilies even higher ; and where, 
 through the dark green brakes, the timid deer come 
 down to drink at the beginning of some mountain 
 stream. At last, their wanderings carried them close 
 under the snowy heights of San Gorgonio the lofti- 
 est of all the peaks. That night, they camped at tim- 
 ber-line; and in the morning, leaving Croesus and 
 the outfit, while it was still dark, made their way to 
 the top, in time to see the sun come up from under 
 the edge of the world. 
 
 So they were received into the inner life of the 
 mountains ; so the spirit that dwells in that unmarred 
 world whispered to them the secrets of its enduring 
 strength and lofty peace. 
 
 From San Gorgonio, they followed the trail that 
 leads down to upper Clear Creek halting, one night, 
 at Burnt Pine Camp on Laurel Creek, above the falls. 
 Then leaving the Laurel trail they climbed over 
 
 183
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 a spur of the main range, and so down the steep wall 
 of the gorge to Lone Cabin on Fern Creek. The next 
 day, they made their way on down to the floor of the 
 main canyon five miles above the point where they 
 had left it at the beginning of their wanderings. 
 
 Crossing the canyon at the Clear Creek Power 
 Company's intake, they took the company trail that 
 follows the pipe-line along the southern wall. From 
 the headwork to the reservoir two thousand feet above 
 the power-house at the mouth of Clear Creek Canyon, 
 this trail is cut in the steep side of the Galena range 
 overhanging the narrow valley below nine beautiful 
 miles of it. At Oak Knoll, where a Government 
 trail for the Forest Ranger zigzags down from the 
 pipe-line to the wagon road below, they halted. 
 
 Conrad Lagrange explained that there were three 
 ways back to the world they had left, nearly a month 
 before the pipe-line trail to the reservoir and so 
 down to the power-house and the Fairlands road ; the 
 Government trail from the pipe-line, over the Ga- 
 lenas, to the valley on the other side; or, the Oak 
 Knoll trail down to Clear Creek and out through the 
 canyon gates the way they had come. 
 
 "But," objected Aaron King, lazily, from where 
 he lay under a live-oak on the mountainside, a few 
 feet above the trail, "either route presupposes our 
 wish to return to Fairlands." 
 
 The novelist laughed. "Listen to him, Czar," 
 he said to the dog lying at his feet, "listen to that 
 painter-man. He doesn't want to go back to Fair- 
 lands any more than we do, does he ?" 
 
 Rising, Czar looked at his master a moment, with 
 
 184
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 slow waving tail, then turned inquiringly toward the 
 artist. 
 
 "Well," said the young man, "what about it, old 
 boy ? Which trail shall we take ? Or shall we take 
 any of them ?" 
 
 With a prodigious yawn, as though to indicate 
 that he wearied of their foolish indecision, Czar 
 turned, with a low "woof," toward the fourth mem- 
 ber of the company, who was browsing along the edge 
 of the trail. Whenever Czar was in doubt as to the 
 wants of his human companions he always barked at 
 the burro. 
 
 "He says, 'ask Croesus'/' commented the artist. 
 
 "Good !" cried the older man, with another laugh. 
 "Let's put it up to the financier and let him choose." 
 
 "Wait," said the artist, as the other turned to- 
 ward the burro, "don't be hasty the occasion calls 
 for solemn meditation and lofty discourse." 
 
 "Your pardon," returned the novelist, "'tis so. 
 I will orate." Carefully selecting a pebble in readi- 
 ness to emphasize his remarks, he addressed the 
 shaggy arbiter of their fate. "Sir Croesus, thy pack 
 is lighter by many meals than when first thou didst 
 set out from that land where we did rescue thee from 
 the hands of thy tormenting trader ; but thy responsi- 
 bilities are weightier, many fold. Upon the wisdom 
 of thy choice, now, great issue rests. Thou hast thy 
 chance, O illustrious ass, to recompense the world, 
 this day, for the many evils wrought by thy odious an- 
 cestor and by all his long-eared kin. Choose, now, the 
 way thy benefactors' feet shall go; and see to it, 
 Croesus, that thou dost choose wisely ; or, by thy ears, 
 
 185
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 we'll flay thy woolly hide and hang it on the moun- 
 tainside a warning to thy kind." 
 
 The well-thrown pebble struck that part of the 
 burro's anatomy at which it was aimed; the dog 
 barked; and Croesus with an indignant jerk of his 
 head, and a flirt of his tail started forward. At the> 
 fork of the trail, he paused. The two men waited 
 with breathless interest. With an air of accepting the 
 responsibility placed upon him, the burro whirled 
 and trotted down the narrow path that led to the floor 
 of the canyon below. Laughing, the men followed 
 but far enough in the rear to permit their leader to 
 choose his own way when they should reach the wagon 
 road at the foot of the mountain wall. Without an in- 
 stant's hesitation, Croesus turned down the road 
 quickening his pace, almost, into a trot. 
 
 "By George!" ejaculated the novelist, "he acts like 
 he knew where he was going." 
 
 "He's taking you at your word," returned the ar- 
 tist. "Look at him go! Evidently, he's still under 
 the inspiration of your oratory." 
 
 The burro had broken into a ridiculous, little gal- 
 lop that caused the frying-pan and coffee-pot, lashed 
 on the outside of the pack, to rattle merrily. Splash- 
 ing through the creek, he disappeared in the dark 
 shadow of a thicket of alders and willows, where the 
 road crosses a tiny rivulet that flows from a spring a 
 hundred yards above. Climbing out of this gloomy 
 hollow, the road turns sharply to the left, and the men 
 hurried on to overtake their four-footed guide before 
 he should be too long out of their sight. Just at the 
 top of the little rise, before rounding the turn, they 
 
 186
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 stopped. A few feet to the right of the road, with 
 his nose at an old gate, stood Croesus. Nor would he 
 heed Czar's bark commanding him to go on. 
 
 On the other side of the fence, an old and long neg- 
 lected apple orchard, a tumble-down log barn, and the 
 wreck of a house with the fireplace and chimney 
 standing stark and alone, told the story. The place 
 was one of those old ranches, purchased by the Power 
 Company for the water rights, and deserted by those 
 who once had called it home. From the gate, ancient 
 wagon tracks, overgrown with weeds, led somewhere 
 around the edge of the orchard and were lost in the 
 tangle of trees and brush on its lower side. 
 
 The two men looked at each other in laughing sur- 
 prise. The burro, turning his head, gazed at them 
 over his shoulder, inquiringly, as much as to say, 
 <r Well, what's the matter now ? Why don't you come 
 along?" 
 
 "When in doubt, ask Croesus," said the artist, 
 gravely. 
 
 Conrad Lagrange calmly opened the gate. 
 
 Promptly, the burro trotted ahead. Following the 
 ancient weed-grown tracks, he led them around the 
 lower end of the orchard; crossed a little stream; 
 and, turning again, climbed a gentle rise of open, 
 grassy land behind the orchard ; stopping at last, with 
 an air of having accomplished his purpose, in a beau- 
 tiful, little grove of sycamore trees that bordered a 
 small cienaga. 
 
 Completely hidden by the old orchard from the 
 road in front, and backed by the foot of the moun- 
 tain spur that here forms the northern wall of the 
 
 187
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 little valley, the spot commanded a magnificent view 
 of the encircling peaks and ridges. San Bernardino 
 was almost above their heads. To the east, were the 
 more rugged walls of the upper and narrower end of 
 the canyon; in their front, the beautiful Oak Knoll, 
 with the dark steeps and pine-fringed crest of the 
 Galenas against the sky; while to the west, the blue 
 peaks of the far San Gabriels showed above the lower 
 spurs and foothills of the more immediate range. 
 The foreground was filled in by the gentle slope lead- 
 ing down to the tiny stream at the edge of the old 
 orchard and, a little to the left, by the cienaga rich 
 in the color of its tall marsh grass and reeds, gemmed 
 with brilliant flowers of gold and scarlet, bordered by 
 graceful willows, and screened from the eye of the 
 chance traveler by the lattice of tangled orchard 
 boughs. 
 
 Seated in the shade of the sycamores on the little 
 knoll, the two friends enjoyed the beauty of the scene, 
 and the charming seclusion of the lovely retreat; 
 while Croesus stood patiently, as though waiting to be 
 rewarded for his virtue, by the removal of his pack. 
 Even Czar refrained from charging here and there, 
 and lay down contentedly at their feet, with an air of 
 having reached at last the place they had been 
 seeking. 
 
 A few days later found them established in a com- 
 fortable camp; with tents and furniture and ham- 
 mocks and books and the delighted Yee Kee to take 
 care of them. It had been easy to secure permission 
 from the neighboring rancher who leased the orchard 
 
 188
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 from the Company. Conrad Lagrange, with the man 
 and his big mountain wagon, had made a trip to 
 town returning the next day with Yee Kee and the 
 outfit. He brought, also, things from the studio ; for 
 the artist declared that he would no longer be without 
 the materials of his art. 
 
 The first day after the camp was built, the artist 
 declaring that he would settle the question, at once, 
 as to whether Yee Kee could cook a trout as skillfully 
 as the novelist took rod and flies, and leaving the 
 famous author in a hammock, with Czar lying near 
 set out up the canyon. For perhaps two miles, the 
 painter followed the creek taking here and there 
 from clear pool or swirling eddy a fish for his creel, 
 and pausing often, as he went, to enjoy in artist 
 fashion the beauties of the ever changing land- 
 scape. 
 
 The afternoon was almost gone when he finally 
 turned back toward camp. He had been away, al- 
 ready, longer than he intended ; but still as all fish- 
 ermen will understand he could not, on his way back 
 down the stream, refrain from casting here and there 
 over the pools that tempted him. 
 
 The sun was touching the crest of the mountains 
 when he had made but little more than half the dis- 
 tance of his return. He had just sent his fly skillfully 
 over a deep pool in the shadow of a granite boulder, 
 for what he determined must be his last cast, when, 
 startlingly clear and sweet, came the tones of a 
 violin. 
 
 A master trout leaped. The hand of the unheeding 
 
 189
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 fisherman felt the tug as the leader broke. Giving 
 the victorious fish no thought, Aaron King slowly 
 reeled in his line. 
 
 There was no mistaking the pure, vibrant tones of 
 the music to which the man listened with amazed 
 delight. It was the music of the, to him, unknown 
 violinist who lived hidden in the orange grove next 
 door to his studio home in Fairlands. 
 
 190
 
 CHAPTEK XV 
 THE FOREST RANGER'S STORY 
 
 EKHAPS the motive that, in Fail-lands, 
 had restrained the artist from seeking to 
 know his neighbor was without force in 
 the mountains. Perhaps it was that, in 
 the unconventional freedom of the hills, 
 the man obeyed more readily his impulse. 
 Aaron King did not stop to question. As though in 
 answer to the call of that spirit which spoke in the 
 tones of the violin, he moved in the direction from 
 which the music came. 
 
 Climbing out of the bed of the stream to the bench 
 that slopes back a quarter of a mile, perhaps to 
 the foot of the canyon wall, he found himself in an 
 old road that, where it once crossed the creek, had 
 been destroyed by the mountain floods. Wonder- 
 ingly, he followed the dimly marked track that led 
 through the chaparral toward a thicket of cedars, 
 from beyond which the music seemed to come. Where 
 the road curved to find its way through the green bar- 
 rier, he paused the musician, undoubtedly, now, 
 was just beyond. Still acting upon the impulse of 
 the moment, he cautiously parted the boughs and 
 peered through into a little, open glade that was 
 closed in on every side by the rank growth of the 
 mountain vegetation, by the thicket of dark cedars 
 
 191
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 and by tangled masses of wild rose-bushes. Opposite 
 the spot where he stood, and half concealed by great 
 sycamore trees, was a small, log house with a thread 
 of blue smoke curling lazily from the chimney. The 
 place was another of those old ranches that had been 
 purchased by the Power Company and permitted to 
 go back to the wilderness from which it had been won 
 by some hardy settler. The little plot of open ground 
 well sodded with firm turf and short-cropped by 
 roving cattle and deer had evidently been, at one 
 time, the front yard of the mountaineer's home. A 
 little out from the porch, and in full view of the ar- 
 tist, her graceful form outlined against the back- 
 ground of wild roses, stood Sibyl Andres with 
 her violin. 
 
 As the girl played, her winsome face upturned to 
 the mountain heights and her body, lightly poised, 
 swaying with the movement of her arm as easily as 
 a willow bough, she appeared, to the man hidden in 
 the cedars, as some beautiful spirit of the woods and 
 hills a spirit that would vanish instantly if he 
 should step from his hiding place. He was so close 
 that he could see her blue eyes, wide and unmindful 
 of her surroundings; her lips, curved in an uncon- 
 scious smile; and her cheeks, flushed with emotion 
 under their warm brown tint as she appeared to 
 listen for the music that she, in turn, seemingly 
 with no effort of her will, gave forth again in the 
 tones of the instrument under her chin. 
 
 Aaron King was moved by the beauty of the pic- 
 ture, as he had never been stirred before. The pecu- 
 liar charm of the music ; the loveliness of the girl her- 
 
 192
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 self ; the setting of the scene in the little glade with 
 its wild roses, giant sycamores, dark cedars, and en- 
 circling mountain walls, all in the soft mystery of 
 the twilight's beginning ; and, withal, the unexpected- 
 ness of the vision combined to make an impression 
 upon the artist's mind that would endure for many 
 years. 
 
 Suddenly, as he watched, the music ceased. The 
 girl lowered her violin, and, with a low laugh, said 
 to some one on the porch concealed from the painter 
 by the trunk of a sycamore "O Myra, I want to 
 dance. I can't keep still. I'm so glad, glad to be 
 home again to see old 'San Berdo' and 'Gray Back' 
 and all the rest of them up there !" She stretched out 
 her arms as if in answer to a welcome from the hills. 
 Then, whirling quickly, she gave the violin to her 
 companion on the porch. "Play, Myra ; please, dear, 
 play." 
 
 At her word, the music of the violin began again 
 coming, now, from behind the trunk of the sycamore. 
 In the hands of the unseen musician, the instrument 
 laughed and sang a song of joyous abandonment of 
 freedom and rejoicing of happiness and love 
 while, in perfect harmony with the spirit and the 
 rhythm of the melody, the girl danced upon the firm, 
 green carpet of grass. Here and there, to and fro, 
 about the little glade shut in from the world by its 
 walls of living green, she tripped and whirled in un- 
 studied grace lightly as if winged unconscious as 
 the wild creatures that play in the depths of the 
 woods wayward as the zephyr that trips along the 
 mountainside. 
 
 193
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 It was a spontaneous expression of her spiritual 
 and physical exaltation and was as natural as the 
 laughter in her voice or the flush upon her cheeks. 
 It was a dance that was like no dance that Aaron 
 King had ever seen. 
 
 The artist watching through the screen of cedar 
 boughs beside the old wagon road and scarcely daring 
 to breathe lest the beautiful vision should vanish 
 forgot his position forgot what he was doing. Fas- 
 cinated by the scene to which he had been led, so un- 
 expectedly, by the music he had so often heard while 
 at work in his studio, he was unmindful of the rude 
 part he was playing. He was brought suddenly to 
 himself by a heavy hand upon his shoulder. As he 
 straightened, the hand whirled him half around, and 
 he found himself looking into a face that was tanned 
 and seamed by many years in the open. 
 
 The man who had so unceremoniously commanded 
 the artist's attention stood a little above six feet in 
 height, and was of that deep-chested, lean, but full- 
 muscled, build that so often marks the mountain 
 bred. He wore no coat. At his hip, a heavy Colt re- 
 volver hung in its worn holster from a full, loosely 
 buckled, cartridge belt. Upon his unbuttoned vest 
 was the shield of the United States Forest Service. 
 From under the brim of his slouch hat, he gazed at 
 Aaron King questioningly in angry disapproval. 
 
 Instinctively, neither of the men spoke. A word 
 would have been heard the other side of the cedars. 
 With a gesture commanding the artist to follow, the 
 Ranger quietly withdrew along the wagon road 
 toward the creek. 
 
 194
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 When they were at a distance where their voices 
 would not reach the girl in the glade, the Ranger said 
 with angry abruptness, "Now, sir, perhaps you will 
 tell me who you are and what you mean by spying 
 upon a couple of women, like that." 
 
 The other could not conceal his embarrassment. 
 "I don't blame you for calling me to account," he 
 said. "If it were me if our positions were re- 
 versed, I mean I should kick you down into the 
 creek there." 
 
 The cold, blue eyes that had been measuring the 
 painter so shrewdly twinkled with a hint of humor. 
 "You do look like a gentleman, you know," the 
 officer said, as if excusing himself for not following 
 the artist's suggestion. "But, all the same, you must 
 explain. Who are you ?" 
 
 "That part is easy, at least," returned the other. 
 "Though the circumstance of our meeting is a temp- 
 tation to lie." 
 
 "Which would do you no good, and might lead to 
 unpleasant complications," retorted the Ranger, 
 sharply. 
 
 The man under question, still embarrassed, laughed 
 shortly, as he returned, "I really was not thinking of 
 it seriously. My name is Aaron King. I am an 
 artist. You are Mr. Oakley, I supposa" 
 
 The officer nodded beginning to smile. "Yes, I 
 am Brian Oakley." 
 
 The artist continued, "A month ago, Conrad La- 
 grange and I came into the mountains for an outing. 
 We stopped at the Station, but there was no one at 
 home. Most of the time, we have been just roaming 
 
 195
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 around. Now, we are camped down there, back of 
 that old apple orchard." 
 
 The Ranger broke into a laugh. "Mrs. Oakley was 
 visiting friends up the canyon, the day you came in ; 
 but Morton told me. I've crossed your trail a dozen 
 times, and sighted you nearly as many; but I was 
 always too busy to go to you. I knew Lagrange didn't 
 need any attention, you see ; so I just figured on meet- 
 ing up with you somewhere by accident like about 
 meal time, mebbe." He laughed again. "The acci- 
 dent part worked out all right." He paused, still 
 laughing enjoying the artist's discomfiture; then 
 ended with a curious "What in thunder were you 
 sneaking around in the brush like that for, anyway ? 
 Those women won't bite." 
 
 Aaron King explained how he had heard the music 
 while fishing; and how, following the sound, he had 
 acted upon an impulse to catch a glimpse of the un- 
 known musician before revealing himself; and then, 
 in his interest, had forgotten that he was playing the 
 part of a spy until so rudely aroused by the hand 
 of the Ranger. 
 
 Brian Oakley chuckled ; "If I'd acted upon 
 impulse when I first saw you peeking through those 
 cedars, you would have been more surprised than you 
 were. But while I was sneaking up on you I noticed 
 your get-up with your creel and rod and figured 
 how you might have come there. So I thought I 
 would go a little slow." 
 
 "And you wear rather heavy boots too," said the 
 artist suggestively. Then, more at ease, he joined in 
 the laugh at himself. 
 
 196
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Catch any fish?" asked the Ranger lifting the 
 cover of the creel. "Whee I" as he saw the contents. 
 "That's bully! And I'm hungry as a she wolf too! 
 Been in the saddle since sunup without a bite. What 
 do you say if I make that long deferred social call 
 upon you and Lagrange this evening ?" 
 
 "I say, good! Mr. Oakley," returned the artist, 
 heartily. "I guess you know what Lagrange will 
 say." 
 
 "You bet I do." He whistled a low, birdlike 
 note. In answer, a beautiful, chestnut saddle-horse 
 came out of the chaparral, where it had not been seen 
 by the painter. "We're going, Max," said the officer, 
 in a matter-of-fact way. And, as the two men set out, 
 the horse followed, with a business-like air that 
 brought a word of admiring comment from the artist. 
 
 That Aaron King had won the approval of the 
 Ranger was evidenced by the mountaineer's inviting 
 himself to supper at the camp in the sycamores. The 
 fact that the officer considerately told Conrad La- 
 grange only that he had met the artist with his creel 
 full of trout, and so had been tempted to accompany 
 him, won the enduring gratitude of the young man. 
 Thus the circumstances of their meeting introduced 
 each to the other, with recommendations of peculiar 
 value, and marked the beginning of a genuine and 
 lasting friendship. But, while, out of delicate regard 
 for the artist's feelings, he refrained from relating 
 the to the young man embarrassing incident, 
 Brian Oakley could not resist making, at every oppor- 
 tunity, sly references to their meeting for the 
 painter's benefit and his own amusement. Thus it 
 
 197
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 happened that, after supper, as they sat with their 
 pipes, the talk turned upon Sibyl Andres and the 
 woman with the disfigured face. 
 
 The Hanger, to tease the artist, had remarked casu- 
 ally, after complimenting them upon the location of 
 their camp, "And you've got some mighty nice 
 neighbors, less than a mile above too." 
 
 "Neighbors!" ejaculated Conrad Lagrange in a 
 tone that left no doubt as to his sentiment in the 
 matter. 
 
 The others laughed ; while the officer said, "Oh, I 
 know how you feel ! You think you don't want any- 
 body poaching on your preserves. You're up here in 
 the hills to get away from people, and all that. But 
 you don't need to be uneasy. You won't even see 
 these folks unless you sneak up on them." He stole 
 a look at the artist, and chuckled maliciously as the 
 painter covertly shook his fist at him. "You may 
 hear them though." 
 
 "Which would probably be as bad," retorted the 
 novelist, gruffly. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know!" returned the other. "You 
 might be able to stand it. I don't reckon you would 
 object to a little music now and then, would you ? 
 real music, I mean." 
 
 "So our neighbors are musical, are they?" The 
 novelist seemed slightly interested. 
 
 "Sibyl Andres is the most accomplished violinist I 
 have ever heard," said the Ranger. "And I haven't 
 always lived in these mountains, you know. As for 
 Myra Willard well she taught Sibyl though she 
 doesn't pretend to equal her now." 
 
 198
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Conrad Lagrange was interested, now, in earnest. 
 He turned to the artist, eagerly but with caution 
 "Do you suppose it could be our neighbors in the 
 orange grove, Aaron ?" 
 
 Brian Oakley watched them with quiet amuse- 
 ment. 
 
 "I know it is," returned the artist. 
 
 "You know it is!" ejaculated the other. 
 
 "Sure I heard the violin this afternoon. While 
 I was fishing," he added hastily, when the Kanger 
 laughed. 
 
 The novelist commented savagely, "Seems to me 
 you're mighty careful about keeping your news to 
 yourself !" 
 
 This brought another burst of merriment from the 
 mountaineer. 
 
 When the two men had explained to the Ranger 
 about the music in the orange grove, Conrad La- 
 grange related how they had first heard that cry in 
 the night ; and how, when they had gone to the neigh- 
 boring house, they had seen the woman of the dis- 
 figured face standing in the doorway. 
 
 "It was Miss Willard who cried out," said Brian 
 Oakley, quietly. "She dreams, sometimes, of the 
 accident or whatever it was that left her with 
 those scars at least, that's what I think it is. Cer- 
 tainly, it's no ordinary dream that would make a 
 woman cry like that. The first time I heard her the 
 first time that she ever did it, in fact she and Sibyl 
 were stopping over night at my house. It was three 
 years ago. Jim Eutlidge had just come West, on his 
 first trip, and was up in the hills on a hunt. He hap- 
 
 199
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 pened along about sundown, and when he stepped into 
 the room and Myra saw him, I thought she would 
 faint. He looked like some one she had known she 
 said. And that night she gave that horrible cry. 
 Lord ! but it threw a fright into me. My wife didn't 
 get over being nervous, for a week. Myra explained 
 that she had dreamed but that's all she would say. 
 I figured that being upset by Rutlidge's reminding 
 her of some one she had known started her mind to 
 going on the past and then she dreamed of whatever 
 it was that gave her those scars." 
 
 "You have known Miss Willard a long time, 
 haven't you, Brian?" asked Conrad Lagrange, with 
 the freedom of an old comrade for men may grow 
 closer together in one short season in the mountains 
 than in years of meeting daily in the city. 
 
 "I've known her ever since she came into the hills. 
 That was the year Sibyl was born. All that anybody 
 knows is what has happened since. Sibyl's mother, 
 even a month before she died told me that Myra's 
 history, before she came to them, was as unknown to 
 her as it was the day she stopped at their door." 
 
 "I can't get over the feeling that I ought to know 
 her that I have seen her somewhere, years ago," 
 said the novelist, by way of explaining his interest. 
 
 "Then it was before she got those scars," returned 
 the Ranger. "No one could ever forget her face as 
 it is now." 
 
 "At the same time," commented the artist, "the 
 ecars would prevent your identifying her if she re- 
 ceived them after you had known her." 
 
 "All the same," said Conrad Lagrange, as though 
 
 200
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 his mind was bothered by his inability to establish 
 some incident in his memory, "I'll place her yet. 
 Do you mind, Brian, telling us what you do know of 
 her?" 
 
 "Why, not at all," returned the officer. "The 
 story is anybody's property. Its being so well 
 known is probably the reason you didn't hear it when 
 you were up here before. 
 
 "Sibyl's father and mother were here in the moun- 
 tains when I came. They lived up there at the old 
 place where Myra and Sibyl are camping now, and 
 I never expect to meet finer people either in this 
 world or the next. For twenty years I knew them 
 intimately. Will Andres was as true and square and 
 white a man as ever lived and Nelly was just as good 
 a woman as he was a man. They and my wife and I 
 were more like brothers and sisters than most folks 
 who are actually blood kin. 
 
 "One day, along toward sundown, about a month 
 before Sibyl was born, Nelly heard the dogs barking 
 and went to see what was up. There stood Myra 
 Willard at the gate like she'd dropped out of the 
 sky. Where she came from God only knows except 
 that she'd walked from some station on the railroad 
 over toward the pass. She was just about all in ; and, 
 of course, Nelly had her into the house and was fixing 
 her up in no time. She wanted to work, but admitted 
 that she had never done much housework. She said, 
 straight out, that they should never know more about 
 her than they knew, then; but insisted that she was 
 not a bad woman. At first, Will and I were against 
 it for, of course, it was easy to see that she was trying 
 
 201
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 to get away from something. But the women Nelly 
 and my wife somehow, believed in her, and with 
 the baby due to arrive in a month and any kind of 
 help hard to get they carried the day. Well, sir, 
 she made good. If twenty years acquaintance goes 
 for anything, she's one of God's own kind, and I 
 don't care a damn what her history is. 
 
 "We soon saw that she was educated and refined, 
 and as you can see for yourself she must have 
 been remarkably beautiful before she got so disfig- 
 ured. When the baby was born, she just took the 
 little one into her poor, broken heart like it had been 
 her own, until Sibyl hardly knew which was her own 
 mother. When the girl was old enough for school, 
 Myra begged Will and Nelly to let her teach the child. 
 She was always sending for books and it was about 
 that time that she sent for a violin. The girl took to 
 music like a bird. And well that's the way Sibyl 
 was raised. She's got all the education that the best 
 of them have even to French and Italian and Ger- 
 man and she's missed some things that the schools 
 teach outside of their text-books. She has a library 
 given to her mostly by Myra, a book at a time that 
 represents the best of the world's best writers. You 
 know what her music is. But, hell !" the Ranger 
 interrupted himself with an apologetic laugh "I'm 
 supposed to be talking about Myra Willard. I don't 
 know as I'm so far off, either, because what Sibyl is 
 aside from her natural inheritance from Will and 
 Nelly Myra has made her. 
 
 "When Will was killed by those Mexican outlaws, 
 which is a story in itself, Nelly sold the ranch to 
 
 202
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 the Power Company, and bought an orange grove in 
 Fairlands which was the thing for her to do, as she 
 and Myra could handle that sort of property, and the 
 ranch had to go, anyway. Before Nelly died, she 
 and I talked things over, and she put everything in 
 Myra's hands, in trust for the girl. Later, Myra sold 
 the grove and the house where you men live, now, 
 and bought the little place next door putting the rest 
 of the money into gilt-edged securities in Sibyl's 
 name ; which insures the girl against want, for years 
 to come. Sibyl helps out their income with her 
 music. And that's the story, boys, except that they 
 come up here into the mountains, every summer, to 
 spend a month or so in the old home place." 
 
 The Eanger rose to go. 
 
 "But do you think it is safe for those women to 
 stay up there alone ?" asked Aaron King. 
 
 Brian Oakley laughed. "Safe ! You don't know 
 Myra Willard! Sibyl, herself, can pick a squirrel 
 out of the tallest pine in the mountains with her six- 
 shooter. Will and I taught her all we knew, as she 
 grew up. Besides, you see, I drop in every day or 
 so, to see that they're all right." He laughed mean- 
 ingly, as he added, to Conrad Lagrange for the 
 artist's benefit, "I'm going to tell them, though, that 
 Sibyl must be careful how she goes dancing around 
 these hills now that she has such distinguished but 
 irresponsible neighbors." 
 
 He whistled and the chestnut horse was at his 
 side before the echo of their laughter died away. 
 
 With a "so-long," the Ranger rode away into the 
 night. 
 
 203
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 WHEN THE CANYON GATES ARE SHUT 
 
 F Aaron King had questioned what it was 
 that had held him in the cedar thicket 
 until Brian Oakley's heavy hand broke the 
 spell, he would probably have answered 
 that it was his artistic appreciation of the 
 beautiful scene. But deep down in the 
 man's inner consciousness there was a still, small 
 voice declaring, with an insistency not to be denied, 
 that for him there was a something in that pic- 
 ture, that was not to be put into the vernacular of his 
 profession. 
 
 Had he acted without his habitual self-control, the 
 day following the Ranger's visit, he would, again, 
 have gone fishing up Clear Creek at least, to the 
 pool where that master trout had broken his leader. 
 But he did not. Instead, he roamed aimlessly about 
 the vicinity of the camp explored the sycamore 
 grove; climbed a little way up the mountain spur, 
 and down again; circled the cienaga; and so came, 
 finally, to the ruins of the house and barn on the 
 creek side of the orchard. 
 
 Not far from the lonely fireplace with its naked 
 chimney, a little, old gate of split palings, in an an- 
 cient tumble-down fence, under a great mistletoe- 
 hung oak, at the top of a bank attracted his careless 
 
 204
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 attention. From the gate, he saw what once had been 
 a path leading down the bank to a spring, where the 
 tiny streamlet that crossed the road a hundred yards 
 away, on its course to Clear Creek, began. Pushing 
 open the gate that sagged dejectedly from its leaning 
 post, the artist went down the path, and found him- 
 self in a charming nook shut in on every side by the 
 forest vegetation that, watered by the spring, grew 
 rank and dense. 
 
 For a space on the gate side of the spring, the sod 
 was firm and smooth with a gray granite boulder in 
 the center of the little glade, and, here and there, wild 
 rose-bushes and the slender, gray trunks of alder trees 
 breaking through. From the higher branches of the 
 alders that shut out the sky with their dainty, silvery- 
 green leaves, hung with many a graceful loop and 
 knot ropes of wild grape-vine and curtains of vir- 
 gin's-bower. Along the bank below the old fence, the 
 wild blackberries disputed possession with the roses ; 
 while the little stream was mottled with the tender 
 green of watercress and bordered with moss and fra- 
 grant mint. Above the arroyo willows, on the farther 
 side of the glade, Oak Knoll, with bits of the pine- 
 clad Galenas, could be glimpsed; but on the orchard 
 side, the vine-dressed bank with the old gate under 
 the mistletoe oak shut out the view. Through the 
 screen of alder and grape and willow and virgin's- 
 bower, the sunlight fell, as through the delicate tra- 
 ceries of a cathedral window. The bright waters of 
 the spring, softly held by the green sod, crept away 
 under the living wall, without a sound ; but the deep 
 murmur of the distant, larger stream, reached the 
 
 205
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 place like the low tones of some great organ. A few 
 regularly placed stones, where once had stood the fam- 
 ily spring-house; with the names, initials, hearts and 
 dates carved upon the smooth bark of the alders now 
 grown over and almost obliterated seemed to fill the 
 spot with ghostly memories. 
 
 All that afternoon, the artist remained in the little 
 retreat. The next day, equipped with easel, canvas 
 and paint-box, he went again to the glade deter- 
 mined to make a picture of the charming scene. 
 
 For a month, now, uninterrupted by the distrac- 
 tions of social obligations or the like, Aaron King had 
 been subjected to influences that had aroused the 
 creative passion of his artist soul to its highest pitch. 
 With his genius clamoring for expression, he had 
 denied himself the medium that was his natural lan- 
 guage. Forbidding his friend to accompany him, he 
 worked now in the spring glade with a delight with 
 an ecstasy that he had seldom, before, felt. And 
 Conrad Lagrange, wisely, was content to let him go 
 uninterrupted. 
 
 As the hours of each day passed, the artist became 
 more and more engrossed with his art. His spirit 
 sang with the joy of receiving the loveliness of the 
 scene before him, of making it his own, and of giving 
 it forth again a literal part of himself. The mem- 
 ories suggested by the stones of the spring-house foun- 
 dation and the old carvings on the trees ; the sunlight, 
 falling so softly into the hushed seclusion of the glade, 
 as through the traceried windows of a church; and 
 the deep organ-tones of the distant creek ; all served 
 to give to the spot the religious atmosphere of a sanc- 
 
 206
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 tuary ; while the artist's abandonment in his work was 
 little short of devotion. 
 
 It was the third afternoon, when the painter be- 
 came conscious that he had been hearing for some 
 time he could not have said how long a low-sung 
 melody so blending with the organ-tones of the 
 mountain stream that it seemed to come out of the 
 music of the tumbling waters. 
 
 With his brush poised between palette and canvas, 
 the artist paused, turning his head to listen, half 
 inclined to the belief that his fancy was tricking him. 
 But no; the singer was coming nearer; the melody 
 was growing more distinct ; but still the voice was in 
 perfect harmony with the deep-toned accompaniment 
 of the distant creek. 
 
 Then he saw her. Dressed in soft brown that 
 blended subtly with the green of the willows, the gray 
 of the alder trunks, the russet of rose and blackberry- 
 bush, and the umber of the swinging grape-vines in 
 the flickering sunshine, the soft changing half-lights, 
 and deep shadows she appeared to grow out of the 
 scene itself; even as her low-sung melody grew out 
 of the organ-sound of the waters. 
 
 To get the effect that satisfied him best, the painter 
 had placed his easel a little back from the grassy, 
 open spot. Seated as he was, on a low camp-stool, 
 among the bushes, he would not have been easily 
 observed even by eyes trained to the quickness of 
 vision that belongs to those reared in the woods and 
 hills. As the girl drew closer, he saw that she 
 carried a basket on her arm, and that she was picking 
 the wild blackberries that grew in such luscious pro- 
 
 207
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 fusion in the rich, well watered ground at the foot 
 of the sheltering hank. Unconscious of any listener, 
 as she gathered the fruit of Nature's offering, she 
 sang to the accompaniment of Nature's music, with 
 the artless freedom of a wild thing unafraid in its 
 native haunts. 
 
 The man kept very still. Presently, when the girl 
 had moved so that he could not see her, he turned to 
 his canvas as if, again, absorbed in his work but 
 hearing still, behind him, the low-voiced melody of 
 her song. 
 
 Then the music ceased; not abruptly, but dying 
 away softly losing itself, again, in the organ-tones 
 of the distant waters, as it had come. For a while, 
 the artist worked on ; not daring to take his eyes from 
 his picture; but feeling, in every tingling nerve of 
 him, that she was there. At last, as if compelled, he 
 abruptly turned his head and looked straight into 
 her face. 
 
 The man had been, apparently, so absorbed in his 
 work, when first the girl caught sight of him, that she 
 had scarcely been startled. When she had ceased her 
 song, and he, still, had not looked around ; drawn by 
 her interest in the picture, she had softly approached 
 until she was standing quite close. Her lips were 
 slightly parted, her face was flushed, and her eyes 
 were shining with delight and excited pleasure, as she 
 stood leaning forward, her basket on her arm. So in- 
 terested was she in the painting, that she seemed to 
 have quite forgotten the painter, and was not in the 
 least embarrassed when he so suddenly looked directly 
 into her face.
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "It is beautiful," she said, as though in answer to 
 his question. And no one hearing her, and watch- 
 ing her face as she spoke could have doubted her 
 sincerity. "It is so true, so so" she searched for a 
 word, and smiled in triumph when she found it "so 
 right so beautifully right. It it makes me feel aa 
 as I feel when I am at church and the organ playa 
 soft and low, and the light comes slanting through the 
 window, and some one reads those beautiful words, 
 'The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth 
 keep silence before him'." 
 
 "Why !" exclaimed the artist, "that is exactly what 
 I wanted it to say. When I saw this place, and 
 heard the waters over there, like a great organ ; and 
 saw how the sunshine falls through the trees ; I felt 
 as you say, and I am trying to paint the picture BO 
 that those whc see it will feel that way too." 
 
 Her face was aglow with enthusiastic understand- 
 ing, as she cried eagerly, "Oh, I know ! I know ! I'm 
 like that with my music ! When I look nt the moun- 
 tains, sometimes or at the trees and flowers, or hear 
 the waters sing, or the winds call I I get so full 
 and so so kind of choked up inside that it hurts; 
 and I feel as though I must try to tell it and then 
 I take my violin and try and try to make the musio 
 say what I feel. I never can though not altogether. 
 But you have made your picture say what you feel. 
 That's what makes it so right, isn't it ? They said in 
 Fairlands that you were a great artist, and I under- 
 stand why, now. It must be wonderful to put what 
 you see and feel icto a picture like that where noth- 
 ing can ever change or spoil it." 
 
 209
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Aaron King laughed with boyish embarrassment. 
 "Oh, but I'm not a great artist, you know. I am 
 scarcely known at all." 
 
 She looked at him with her great, blue eyes sin- 
 cerely troubled. "And must one be Tcnown to be 
 great ?" she asked. "Might not an artist be great and 
 still be unknown? Or, might not one who was really 
 very, very" again she seemed to search for a word 
 and as she found it, smiled "very small, be known 
 all over the world ? The newspapers make some 
 really bad people famous, sometimes, don't they ? No, 
 no, you are joking. You do not really think that 
 being known to the world and greatness are the same." 
 
 The man, studying her closely, saw that she was 
 speaking her thoughts as openly as a child. Experi- 
 mentally, he said, "If putting what you feel into your 
 work is greatness, then you are a great artist, for 
 your music does make one feel as though it came from 
 the mountains, themselves." 
 
 She was frankly pleased, and cried intimately, 
 "Oh ! do you like my music ? I so wanted you to." 
 
 It did not occur to her to ask when he had heard 
 her music. It did not occur to him to explain. They, 
 neither of them, thought to remember that they had 
 not been introduced. They really should have pre- 
 tended that they did not know each other. 
 
 "Sometimes," she continued with winsome confi- 
 dence, "I think, myself, that I am really a great vio- 
 linist and then, again," she added wistfully, "I 
 know that I am not. But I am sure that I wouldn't 
 like to be famous, at alL" 
 
 210
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 He laughed. "Fame doesn't seem to matter so 
 much, does it; when one is up here in the hills and 
 the canyon gates are closed." 
 
 She echoed his laughter with quick delight. "Did 
 you see that ? Did you see those great doors open to 
 let you in, and then close again behind you as if to 
 shut the world outside? But of course you would. 
 Any one who could do that" she pointed to the can- 
 vas "would not fail to see the canyon gates." With 
 her eyes again upon the picture, she seemed once more 
 to forget the presence of the painter. 
 
 Watching her face, that betrayed her every pass- 
 ing thought and emotion as an untroubled pool mir- 
 rors the flowers that grow on its banks or the song-bird 
 that pauses to drink, the artist to change her mood 
 said, "You love the mountains, don't you ?" 
 
 She turned her face toward him, again, as she an- 
 swered simply, "Yes, I love the mountains." 
 
 "If you were a painter," he smiled, "you would 
 paint them, wouldn't you ?" 
 
 "I don't know that I would," she answered 
 thoughtfully, "but I would try to get the mountains 
 into my picture, whatever it was. I wonder if you 
 know what I mean ?" 
 
 "Yes," he answered, "I think I know what you 
 mean ; and it is a beautiful thought. You wouldn't 
 paint portraits, would you?" 
 
 "I don't think I could," she answered. "It seems 
 to me it would be so hard to get the mountains into a 
 portrait of just anybody. An artist a great artist, 
 I mean must make his picture right, mustn't he? 
 
 211
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 And if his picture was a portrait of some one who 
 wasn't very good, and he made it right; he wouldn't 
 be liked very well, would he? No, I don't think I 
 would paint portraits unless I could paint just the 
 people who would want me to make my picture 
 right" 
 
 Aaron King's face flushed at the words that were 
 spoken so artlessly; and he looked at her keenly. 
 But the girl was wholly innocent of any purpose other 
 than to express her thoughts. She did not dream of 
 the force with which her simple words had gone home. 
 
 "You love the mountains, too, don't you ?" she 
 asked suddenly. 
 
 "Yes," he answered, "I love the mountains. I am 
 learning to love them more and more. But I fear I 
 don't know them as well as you do." 
 
 "I was born up here," she said, "and lived here 
 until a few years ago. I think, sometimes, that the 
 mountains almost talk to me." 
 
 "I wonder if you would help me to know the moun- 
 tains as you know them," he asked eagerly. 
 
 She drew a little back from him, but did not an- 
 wer. 
 
 "We are neighbors, you see," he continued smiling. 
 "%. heard your violin, the other evening, when I was 
 fishing up the creek, near where you live; and so I 
 know it is you who live next door to us in the orange 
 grore. Mr. Lagrange and I are camped just over 
 *here back of the orchard. May we hot be friends ? 
 Won't you help me to know your mountains ?" 
 
 "I know about you," she said. "Brian Oakley told 
 
 212
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 us that you and Mr. Lagrange were camped down 
 here. Mr. Lagrange said that you are a good man; 
 Brian Oakley says that you are too are you ?" 
 
 The artist flushed. In his embarrassment, he did 
 not note the significance of her reference to the nov- 
 elist. "At least," he said gently, "I am not a very 
 bad man." 
 
 A smile broke over her face her mood changing 
 as quickly as the sunlight breaks through a cloud. 
 "I know you are not" she said "a bad man 
 wouldn't have wanted to paint this place as you have 
 painted it." 
 
 She turned to go. 
 
 "But wait !" he cried, "you haven't told me will 
 you teach me to know your mountains as you know 
 them?" 
 
 "I'm sure I cannot say," she answered smiling, as 
 she moved away. 
 
 "But at least, we will meet again," he urged. 
 
 She laughed gaily, "Why not ? The mountains are 
 for you as well as for me; and though the hills are 
 so big, the trails are narrow, and the passes very few." 
 
 With another laugh, she slipped away her brown 
 dress, that, in the shifty lights under the thick foliage, 
 so harmonized with the colors of bush and vine and 
 tree and rock, being so quickly lost to the artist's eye 
 that she seemed almost to vanish into the scene before 
 him. 
 
 But presently, from beyond the willow wall, he 
 heard her voice again singing to the accompaniment 
 of the mountain stream. Softly, the melody died 
 
 213
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 away in the distance losing itself, at last, in the 
 deeper organ-tones of the mountain waters. 
 
 For some minutes, the artist stood listening 
 thinking he heard it still. 
 
 Aaron King did not, that night, tell Conrad La- 
 grange of his adventure in the spring glade. 
 
 214 

 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 CONFESSIONS IN THE SPRING GLADE 
 
 LL the next day, while he worked upon his 
 picture in the glade, Aaron King listened 
 for that voice in the organ-like music of 
 the distant waters. Many times, he 
 turned to search the flickering light and 
 shade of the undergrowth, behind him, for 
 a glimpse of the girl's brown dress and winsome face. 
 The next day she came. 
 
 The artist had been looking long at a splash of sun- 
 light that fell upon the gray granite boulder which 
 was set in the green turf, and had turned to his can- 
 vas for it seemed to him only an instant. When he 
 looked again at the boulder, she was standing there 
 had, apparently, been standing there for some time, 
 waiting with smiling lips and laughing eyes for him 
 to see her. 
 
 A light creel hung by its webbed strap from her 
 shoulder; in her hand, she carried a slender fly rod 
 of good workmanship. Dressed in soft brown, with 
 short skirts and high laced boots, and her wavy hair 
 tucked under a wide, felt hat; with her blue eyes 
 shining with fun, and her warmly tinted skin glowing 
 with healthful exercise ; she appeared to the artist 
 more as some mythical spirit of the mountains, than 
 as a maiden of flesh and blood. The manner of her 
 
 215
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Doming, too, heightened the impression. He had 
 heard no sound of her approach no step, no rustle of 
 the underbrush. He had seen no movement among 
 the bushes no parting of the willows in the wall of 
 green. There had been no hint of her nearness. He 
 oould not even guess the direction from which she had 
 ome. 
 
 At first, he could scarce believe his eyes, and sat 
 motionless in his surprise. Then her merry laugh 
 rang out breaking the spell. 
 
 Springing from his seat, he went forward. "Are 
 jrou a spirit?" he cried. "You must be something 
 unreal, you know the way you appear and disap- 
 pear. The last time, you came out of the music of 
 the waters, and went again the same way. To-day, 
 jrou come out of the air, or the trees, or, perhaps, that 
 gpray boulder that is giving me such trouble." 
 
 Laughing, she answered, "My father and Brian 
 Oakley taught me. If you will watch the wild things 
 in the woods, you can learn to do it too. I am no 
 more a spirit than the cougar, when it stalks a rabbit 
 in the chaparral; or a mink, as it slips among the 
 rocks along the creek ; or a fawn, when it crouches to 
 hide in the underbrush." 
 
 "You have been fishing?" he asked. 
 
 She laughed mockingly, "You are so observing! 
 I think you might have taken that for granted, and 
 asked what luck." 
 
 "I believe I might almost take that for granted 
 too," he returned. 
 
 "I took a few," she said carelessly. Then, with a 
 harming air of authority "And now, you must go 
 
 216
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 back to your work. I shall vanish instantly, if you 
 waste another moment's time because I am here." 
 
 "But I want to talk," he protested. "I have been 
 working hard since noon." 
 
 "Of course you have," she retorted. "But pres- 
 ently the light will change again, and you won't be 
 able to do any more to-day; so you must keep busy 
 while you can." 
 
 "And you won't vanish if I go on with my 
 work ?" he asked doubtfully. She was smiling at him 
 with such a mischievous air, that he feared, if he 
 turned away, she would disappear. 
 
 She laughed aloud; "Not if you work," she said. 
 "But if you stop I'm gone." 
 
 As she spoke, she went toward his easel, and, rest- 
 ing her fly rod carefully against the trunk of a 
 near-by alder, slipped the creel from her shoulder, 
 placing the basket on the ground with her hat. Then, 
 while the painter watched her, she stood silently look- 
 ing at the picture. Presently, she faced him, and, 
 with an impulsive stamp of her foot, said, "Why 
 don't you work ? How can you waste your time and 
 this light, looking at me? I shall go, if you don't 
 come back to your picture, this minute." 
 
 With a laugh, he obeyed. 
 
 For a moment, she watched him; then turned 
 away; and he heard her moving about, down by the 
 tiny stream, where it disappeared under the willows. 
 
 Once, he paused and turned to look in her direc- 
 tion. "What are you up to, now ?" he said. 
 
 "I shall be up to leaving you," she retorted, "if 
 you look around, again." 
 
 217
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 He promptly turned once more to his picture. 
 
 Soon, she came back, and seated herself beside her 
 creel and rod, where she could see the picture under 
 the artist's brush. "Does it bother, if I watch ?" she 
 asked softly. 
 
 "No, indeed," he answered. "It helps that is, it 
 helps when it is you who watch." Which to the 
 painter's secret amazement was a literal truth. The 
 gray rock with the splash of sunshine that would not 
 come right, ceased to trouble him, now. Stimulated 
 by her presence, he worked with a freedom and a 
 sureness that was a delight. 
 
 When he could not refrain from looking in her 
 direction, he saw that she was bending, with busy 
 hands, over some willow twigs in her lap. "What in 
 the world are you doing ?" he asked curiously. 
 
 "You are not supposed to know that I am doing 
 anything," she retorted. "You have been peeking 
 again." 
 
 "You were so still I feared you had vanished," 
 he laughed. "If you'll keep talking to me, I'll know 
 you are there, and will be good." 
 
 "Sure it won't bother ?" 
 
 "Sure," he answered. 
 
 "Well, then, you talk to me, and I'll answer." 
 
 "I have a confession to make," he said, carefully 
 studying the gray tones of the alder trunk beyond the 
 gray boulder. 
 
 "A confession ?" 
 
 "Yes, I want to get it over so it won't bother me." 
 
 "Something about me?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 218
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Why, that's what I am trying so hard to make you 
 keep your eyes on your work for because / have to 
 make a confession to you." 
 
 "To me?" 
 
 "Yes don't look around, please." 
 
 "But what under the sun can you have to confess 
 to me ?" 
 
 "You started yours first," she answered. "Go on. 
 Maybe it will make it easier for me." 
 
 Studiously keeping his eyes upon his canvas, he 
 told her how he had watched her from the cedar 
 thicket. When he had finished, and she was silent, 
 he thought that she was angry, and turned about 
 expecting to see her gathering up her things to go. 
 
 She was struggling to suppress her laughter. At 
 the look of surprise on his face, she burst forth in 
 such a gale of merriment that the little glade was 
 filled with the music of her glee; while, in spite of 
 himself, the painter joined. 
 
 "Oh!" she cried, "but that is funny! I am glad> 
 glad!" 
 
 "Now, what do you mean by that?" he demanded. 
 
 "Why why that's exactly what I was trying to 
 get courage enough to confess to you!" she gasped. 
 And then she told him how she had spied upon him 
 from the arbor in the rose garden; and how, in his 
 absence, she had visited his studio. 
 
 "But how in the world did you get in ? The place 
 was always locked, when I was away." 
 
 "Oh," she said quaintly, "there was a good genie 
 who let me in through the keyhole. I didn't meddle 
 with anything, you know I just looked at the beau- 
 
 219
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 tiful room where you work. And I didn't glance, 
 even, at the picture on the easel. The genie told me 
 you wouldn't like that. I would not have drawn the 
 curtain anyway, even if I hadn't been told. At least, 
 I don't think I would but perhaps I might I can't 
 always tell what I'm going to do, you know." 
 
 Suddenly, the artist remembered finding the studio 
 door open with Conrad Lagrange's key in the lock, 
 and how the novelist had berated himself with such 
 exaggerated vehemence; and, in a flash, came the 
 thought of James Rutlidge's visit, that afternoon, and 
 of his strange manner and insinuating remarks. 
 
 "I think I know the name of your good genie," said 
 the painter, facing the girl, seriously. "But tell me, 
 did no one disturb you while you were in the studio ?" 
 
 Her cheeks colored painfully, and all the laughter 
 was gone from her voice as she replied, "I didn't want 
 you to know that part." 
 
 "But I must know," he insisted gravely. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "Mr. Rutlidge found me there; 
 and I ran away through the garden. I don't like 
 him. He frightens me. Please, is it necessary for 
 us to talk about it any more ? I had to make my con- 
 fession, of course, but must we talk about that part ?" 
 
 "No," he answered, "we need not talk about it. It 
 was necessary for me to know; but we will never 
 mention that part, again. When we are back in the 
 orange groves, you shall come to the rose garden and 
 to the studio, as often as you like; your good genie 
 and I will see to it that you are not disturbed by 
 any one." 
 
 Her face brightened at his words. "And do you 
 
 220
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 really like for me to make music for you as Mr. La 
 grange says you do ?" 
 
 "I can't begin to tell you how much I like it," he 
 answered smiling. 
 
 "And it doesn't bother you in your work ?" 
 
 "It helps me/' he declared thinking of that por- 
 trait of Mrs. Taine. 
 
 "Oh, I am glad, glad !" she cried. "I wanted it to 
 help. It was for that I played." 
 
 "You played to help me?" he asked wonderingly. 
 
 She nodded. "I thought it might if I could get 
 enough of the mountains into my music, you know." 
 
 "And will you dance for me, sometimes too?" he 
 asked. 
 
 She shook her head. "I cannot tell about that. 
 You see, I only dance when I must when the 
 music, somehow, doesn't seem quite enough. When 
 I when I" she searched for a word, then finished 
 abruptly "oh, I can't tell you about it it's just 
 something you feel there are no words for it. When 
 I first come to the mountains, after living in Fair- 
 lands all winter, I always dance the mountains 
 feel so big and strong. And sometimes I dance in the 
 moonlight when it feels so soft and light and clean ; 
 or in the twilight when it's so still, and the air is 
 so so full of the day that has come home to rest and 
 sleep; and sometimes when I am away up under the 
 big pines and the wind, from off the mountain tops, 
 under the sky, sings through the dark branches." 
 
 "But don't you ever dance to please your friends ?" 
 
 "Oh, no I don't dance to please any one only 
 just when it's for myself when nothing else will do 
 
 221
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 when I must. Of course, sometimes, Myra or 
 Brian Oakley or Mrs. Oakley are with me but they 
 don't matter, you know. They are so much a part of 
 me that I don't mind." 
 
 "I wonder if you will ever dance for me ?" 
 
 Again, she shook her head. "I don't think so. 
 How could I ? You see, you are not like anybody 
 that I have ever known." 
 
 "But I saw you the other evening, you remember." 
 
 "Yes, but I didn't know you were there. If I had 
 known, I wouldn't have danced." 
 
 All the while as she talked her fingers had been 
 busy with the slender, willow branches. "And now" 
 she said, abruptly changing the subject, and smil- 
 ing as she spoke "and now, you must turn back to 
 your work." 
 
 "But the light is not right," he protested. 
 
 "Never mind, you must pretend that it is," she 
 retorted. "Can't you pretend ?" 
 
 To humor her, he obeyed, laughing. 
 
 "You may look, now," she said, a minute later. 
 
 He turned to see her standing close beside him, 
 holding out a charming little basket that she had 
 woven of the green willows and decorated with moss 
 and watercress. In the basket, on the cool, damp 
 moss, and lightly covered with the cress, lay a half 
 dozen fine rainbow trout. 
 
 "How pretty!" he exclaimed. "So that is what 
 you have been doing!" 
 
 "They are for you," she said simply. 
 
 "For me ?" he cried. 
 
 She nodded brightly ; "For you and Mr. Lagrange.
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 I know you like them because you said you were fish- 
 ing when you heard my violin. And I thought that 
 you wouldn't want to leave your picture, to fish for 
 yourself, so I took them for you." 
 
 The artist concealed his embarrassment with diffi- 
 culty ; and, while expressing his thanks and apprecia- 
 tion in rather formal words, studied her face keenly. 
 But she had tendered her gift with a spontaneous 
 naturalness, an unaffected kindliness, and an inno- 
 cent disregard of conventionalities, that would have 
 disarmed a man with much less native gentleness than 
 Aaron King. 
 
 Leaving the basket of trout in his hand, she turned, 
 and swung the empty creel over her shoulder. Then, 
 putting on her hat, she picked up her rod. 
 
 "Oh are you going ?" he said. 
 
 "You have finished your work for to-day," she an- 
 swered. 
 
 "But let me go with you, a little way." 
 
 She shook her head. "E~o, I don't want you." 
 
 "But you will come again ?" 
 
 "Perhaps if you won't stop work but I can't 
 promise you see I never know what I am going to 
 do up here in the mountains," she answered whimsi- 
 cally. "I might go to the top of old 'Berdo' in the 
 morning; or I might be here, waiting for you, when 
 you come to paint." 
 
 He was putting his things in the box thinking he 
 would persuade her to let him accompany her a little 
 way ; if she saw that he really would paint no more. 
 When he bent over the box, she was speaking. "I 
 hope you will," he answered. 
 
 223
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 There was no reply. 
 
 He straightened up and looked around. 
 
 She was gone. 
 
 For some time, he stood searching the glade with 
 his eyes, carefully ; listening to catch a sound a puz- 
 zled, baffled look upon his face. Taking his things, 
 at last, he started up the little path. But before he 
 reached the old gate, a low laugh caused him to whirl 
 quickly about. 
 
 There she stood, beside the spring a teasing smile 
 on her face. Before he could command himself, she 
 danced a step or two, with an elfish air, and slipped 
 away through the green willow wall. Another merry 
 laugh came back to him and then the silence of the 
 little glade, and the sound of the distant waters. 
 
 With the basket of fish in his hand, Aaron King 
 went slowly to camp ; where, when Conrad Lagrange 
 saw what the artist carried so carefully, explana- 
 tions were in order- 
 
 224
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 SIBYL ANDRES AND THE BUTTERFLIES 
 
 " the following day, the artist was putting 
 away his things, at the close of the after- 
 noon's work, when the girl appeared. 
 
 The long, slanting bars of sunshine and 
 the deepening shadows marked the late- 
 ness of the hour. As he bent over his 
 paint-box, the man was thinking with regret that she 
 would not come that, perhaps, she would never 
 come. And at the thought that he might not see her 
 again, an odd fear gripped his heart. His thoughts 
 were interrupted by a low, musical laugh; and he 
 sprang to his feet, to search the glade with careful 
 eves. 
 
 "Come out," he cried, as though adjuring an in- 
 visible spirit. "I know you are here ; come out." 
 
 With another laugh, she stepped from behind the 
 trunk of one of the largest trees, within a few feet of 
 where he stood. As she went toward him, she carried 
 in her outstretched hands a graceful basket, woven 
 of sycamore leaves and ferns, and filled with the rip- 
 est, sweetest blackberries. She did not speak as she 
 held out her offering; but the man, looking into her 
 laughing eyes, fancied that there was a meaning and 
 a purpose in the gift that did not appear upon the 
 surface of her simple action. 
 
 225
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Expressing his pleasure, as he received the dainty 
 basket, he could not refrain from adding, "But why 
 do you bring me things ?" 
 
 She answered with that wayward, mocking humor 
 that so often seized her; "Because I like to. I told 
 you that I always do what I like up here in the 
 mountains." 
 
 "I hope you always will," he returned, "if your 
 likes are all as delicious as this one." 
 
 With the manner of a child playfully making a 
 mystery yet anxious to have the secret discussed, she 
 said, "I have one more gift to bring you, yet." 
 
 "I knew you meant something by your presents," 
 he cried. "It isn't just because you want me to have 
 the things you bring." 
 
 "Oh, yes it is," she retorted, laughing mischiev- 
 ously at his triumphant and expectant tone. "If I 
 didn't want you to have the things I bring why I 
 wouldn't bring them, would I ?" 
 
 "But that isn't all," he insisted. "Tell me why 
 do you say you have one more gift to bring ?" 
 
 She shook her head with a delightful air of mys- 
 tery. "Not until I come again. When I come again, 
 I will tell you." 
 
 "And you will come to-morrow ?" 
 
 She laughed teasingly at his eagerness. "How can 
 I tell ?" she answered. "I do not know, myself, what 
 I will do to-morrow when I am up here in the 
 mountains when the canyon gates are shut and the 
 world is left outside." Even as she spoke, her mood 
 changed and the last words were uttered wistfully, as 
 a captive spirit that, by nature wild and free, was 
 
 226
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 permitted, for a brief time only, to go beyond its 
 prison walls might have spoken. 
 
 The artist puzzled by her flash-like change of 
 moods, and by her manner as she spoke of the world 
 beyond the canyon gates had no words to reply. As 
 he stood there, in that little glade where the light 
 fell as in a quiet cathedral and the air trembled with 
 the deep organ-tones of the distant waters holding 
 in his hands the basket of leaves and ferns with its 
 wild fruit, and looking at the beautiful girl who had 
 brought her offering with the naturalness of a child 
 of the mountains and the air of a woodland spirit, 
 he again felt that the world he had always known was 
 very far away. 
 
 The girl, too, was silent as though, by some subtle 
 power, she knew his thoughts and did not wish to 
 interrupt. 
 
 So still were they, that a wild bird darting 
 through the screen of alder boughs stopped to swing 
 on a limb above their heads, with a burst of wild-wood 
 melody. In the arroyo beyond the willow wall, a 
 quail called his evening call, and was answered by 
 his mate from the top of the bank under the mistletoe 
 oak. A pair of gray squirrels crept down the gray 
 trunks of the trees and slipped around the granite 
 boulder to drink at the spring; then scampered away 
 again half in frolic, half in fright as they caught 
 sight of the man and the maid. As the squirrels dis- 
 appeared, the girl laughed a low laugh of fellowship 
 with the creatures of the wilderness in complete 
 understanding of their humor. Then as though 
 following the path of a sunbeam two gorgeously 
 
 227
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 brown and yellow winged butterflies came flitting 
 through the draperies of virgin' s-bower, and floated 
 in zigzag flight about the glade now high among the 
 alder boughs ; now low over the tops of the roses and 
 berry-bushes; down to the fragrant mint at the 
 water's edge ; and up again to the tops of the willows, 
 as if to leave the glade; but only to return again to 
 the vines that covered the bank, and to the flowers 
 that, here and there, starred the grassy sward. 
 
 "Oh !" cried the girl impulsively, as the beautiful 
 winged creatures disappeared at last, "if people 
 could only be like that ! It's so hard to be yourself in 
 the world. Everybody, there, seems trying to be 
 something they are not. No one dares to be just 
 themselves. Everything, up here, is so right so true 
 so just what it is and down there, everything 
 tries so hard to be just what it is not. The world 
 even sees so crooked that it cant believe when a thing 
 is just what it is." 
 
 While watching the butterflies, she had turned 
 away from the artist and, in following their flight 
 with her eyes, had taken a few light steps that brought 
 her into the open, grassy center of the glade. With 
 her face upturned to the opening in the foliage 
 through which the butterflies had disappeared, she 
 had spoken as if thinking aloud, rather than as ad- 
 dressing her companion. 
 
 Before the artist could reply, the beautiful crea- 
 tures came floating back as they had gone. With a 
 low exclamation of delight, the girl watched them as 
 they circled, now, above her head, in their aerial waltz 
 among the sunbeams and leafy boughs. Then the 
 
 228
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 man, watching, saw her unheeding his presence 
 stretch her arms upward. For a moment she stood, 
 lightly poised, and then, with her wide, shining eyes 
 fixed upon those gorgeously winged spirits whirling 
 in the fragrant air, with her lips parted in smiling 
 delight, she danced upon the smooth turf of the glade 
 every step and movement in perfect harmony with 
 the spirit of care-free abandonment that marked the 
 movements of the butterflies that danced above her 
 head. Unmindful of the watching man, as her dainty 
 companions themselves, forgetful of his presence, 
 she yielded to the impulse to express her emotions in 
 free, rhythmic movement. 
 
 Instinctively, Aaron King was silent standing 
 motionless, as if he feared to startle her into flight. 
 
 Suddenly, as the girl danced her eyes always 
 upon her winged companions the insects floated 
 above the artist's head, and she became conscious of 
 his presence. Her cheeks flushed and, laughing low, 
 as she danced, lightly as a spirit, she impulsively 
 stretched out her arms to him, in merry invitation 
 as though challenging him to join her. 
 
 The gesture was as spontaneous and as innocent, 
 in its freedom, as had been her offering of the gifts 
 from mountain stream and bush. But the man 
 lured into forgetfulness of everything save the wild 
 loveliness of the scene started toward her. At 
 his movement, a look of bewildered fear came into 
 her face ; but too startled to control her movements 
 on the instant, and as though impelled by some hidden 
 power she moved toward him blindly, uncon- 
 sciously her eyes wide with that look of questioning 
 
 229
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 fright. He had almost reached her when, as though 
 by an effort of her will, she stopped and stood still 
 gazing into his face trembling in every limb. Then, 
 with a low cry, she sank down in a frightened, cower- 
 ing, pleading attitude, and buried her crimson face 
 in her hands. 
 
 As though some unseen hand checked him, the man 
 halted, and the girl's cheeks were not more crimson 
 than his own. 
 
 A moment he stood, then a step brought him to her 
 side. Putting out his hand, he touched her upon the 
 shoulder, and was about to speak. But at his touch, 
 with another cry, she sprang to her feet and, whirling 
 with the flash-like quickness of a wild thing, vanished 
 into the undergrowth that walled in the glade. 
 
 With a startled exclamation, the man tried to fol- 
 low; calling to her, reassuring her, begging her to 
 come back. But there was no answer to his words ; 
 nor did he catch a glimpse of her; though once or 
 twice he thought he heard her in swift flight up the 
 canyon. 
 
 All the way to the place where he had first seen 
 her, he followed ; but at the cedar thicket he stopped. 
 For a long time, he stood there; while the twilight 
 failed and the night came. Slowly, in the soft dark- 
 ness, with bowed head, as one humbled and ashamed, 
 he went back down the canyon to the little glade, 
 and to the camp.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 THE THREE GIFTS AND THEIR MEANINGS 
 
 HE next day, Aaron King too distracted 
 to paint idled all the afternoon in the 
 glade. But the girl did not come. When 
 it was dark, he returned to camp ; telling 
 himself that she would never come again; 
 that his rude yielding to the lure of her 
 wild beauty had rightly broken forever the charm of 
 their intimacy and he cursed himself as many a 
 man has cursed for that momentary lack of self- 
 control. 
 
 But the following afternoon, as the artist worked, 
 bent upon quickly finishing his picture of the place 
 that seemed now to reproach him with its sweet atmos- 
 phere of sacred purity, he heard, as he had heard 
 that first day, the low music of her voice blending 
 with the music of the mountain stream. Scarce dar- 
 ing to move, he sat as though absorbed in his work 
 listening, with all his heart, for some sound of her 
 approach, other than the melody of her song that grew 
 more and more distinct. At last, he knew that she 
 was standing just the other side of the willows, be- 
 yond the little spring. He felt her hidden eyes upon 
 him, but dared not look that way feeling sure that 
 if he betrayed himself in too eager haste she would 
 vanish. Bending forward toward his canvas, he 
 
 231
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 made show of giving close attention to his work and 
 waited. 
 
 For some minutes, she remained concealed; sing- 
 ing low, as though to try him with temptation. Then, 
 all at once, as the painter, with poised brush, 
 glanced from his canvas to the scene, she stood in 
 full view beside the spring; her graceful, brown-clad 
 figure framed by the willow's green. Her arms were 
 filled with wild flowers that she had gathered from 
 the mountainside from nook and glade and glen. 
 
 "If you will not seek me, there is no use to hide," 
 she called, still holding her place on the other side of 
 the spring, and regarding him seriously ; and the man 
 felt under her words, and saw in her wide, blue eyes 
 a troubled question. 
 
 "I sought you all the way to your home," he said, 
 gently, "but you would not let me come near." 
 
 "I was frightened," she returned, not lowering her 
 eyes but regarding him steadily with that questioning 
 appeal. 
 
 "I am sorry," he said, "won't you forgive me ? 
 I will never frighten you so again. I did not mean to 
 do it." 
 
 "Why," she answered, "I have to forgive myself as 
 well as you. You see, I frightened myself quite as 
 much as you frightened me. I can't feel that you 
 were really to blame any more than I. I have tried, 
 but I can't so I came back. Only, I I must never 
 dance for you again, must I ?" 
 
 The man could not answer. 
 
 As though fully reassured, and quite satisfied to 
 take his answer for granted, she sprang over the tiny
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 stream at her feet, and came to him across the glade, 
 holding out her arms full of blossoms. "See," she 
 said with a smile, "I have brought you the last one of 
 the three gifts." Gracefully, she knelt and placed 
 the flowers on the ground, beside his box of colors. 
 
 Deeply moved by her honesty and by her simple 
 trust in him ; and charmed by the air of quiet, natural 
 dignity with which she spoke of her gifts; the artist 
 tried to thank her. 
 
 "And now," he added, "the meaning tell me tht 
 meaning of your gifts. You promised you remem- 
 ber that you would read the pretty riddle, when you 
 came again." 
 
 She laughed merrily. "And haven't you guessed 
 the meaning ?" she said in her teasing mood. 
 
 "How could I ?" he retorted. "I was not schooled 
 in your mountains, you know. Your world up her 
 is still a strange world to me." 
 
 Still smiling with the pleasure of her fancy, sh 
 replied, "But didn't you ask me again and again to 
 help you to know the mountains as I know them ?" 
 
 "Yes," he said, "but you would not promise." 
 
 "I did better than promise" she returned "I 
 brought you, from the mountains themselves, their 
 three greatest gifts." 
 
 He shook his head, with the air of a backward 
 schoolboy "Won't you read the lesson ?" 
 
 "If you will work while I talk, I will," she an- 
 swered amused by the hopelessness of his manner 
 and tone. 
 
 Obediently, he took up his brushes, and turned to- 
 ward his picture. 
 
 233
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Removing her hat, she seated herself on the ground, 
 where she had woven the willow basket for the fish. 
 
 After a moment's silence, she began timidly, at 
 first, then with increasing confidence as she found 
 words to express her charming fancy. "First, you 
 must know, that in all the wild life of the mountains 
 there is no creature so strong in proportion to its 
 size and weight, I mean as the trout that lives in 
 the mountain streams. Its home is in the icy tor- 
 rents that are fed by the snows of the highest peaks 
 and canyons. It lives, literally, in the innermost 
 heart and life of the hills. It seeks its food at the 
 foot of the falls, where the water boils in fierce fury ; 
 where the current swirls and leaps among the 
 boulders; and where the stream rushes with all its 
 might down the rocky channels. With its muscles, 
 fine as tempered steel, it forces its way against the 
 strength of the stream conquering even the fifty-foot 
 downward pour of a cataract. Its strength is a silent 
 strength. It has no voice other than the voice of its 
 own beautiful self. And all its gleaming colors you 
 may see, in the morning and in the evening, tinting 
 the mighty heads and shoulders and sides of the hills 
 themselves. And so, the first gift that I brought you 
 fresh from the mountain's heart was the gift of 
 the mountain's strength. 
 
 "The second gift was gathered from bushes that 
 were never planted by the hand of man. They grow 
 as free and untamed as the rains that water them, 
 and the earth that feeds them, and the sunshine that 
 sweetens them. In them is the flavor of mountain 
 mists, and low hung clouds, and shining dew; the 
 
 234
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 odor of moist leal-mould, and unimpoverished soil; 
 the pleasant tang of the sunshine ; and the softer 
 sweetness of the shady nooks where they grow. In 
 the second gift, I brought you the purity, and the 
 flavor of the mountains/' 
 
 "And to-day" she finished simply "to-day I 
 have brought you the beauty of the hills." 
 
 "You have brought me more than the strength and 
 purity and beauty of the mountains," exclaimed the 
 painter. "You have brought me their mystery." 
 
 She looked at him questioningly. 
 
 "In your own beautiful self," he continued sin- 
 cerely, "you have brought me the mystery of these 
 hills. You are wonderful ! I have never known any 
 one like you." 
 
 She was wholly unconscious of the compliment 
 if, indeed, he meant it as such. "I suppose I must be 
 different," she returned with just a touch of sadness 
 in her voice. "You see I have never been taught like 
 other girls. I know nothing at all of the world where 
 you live except what Myra has told me." Then, as 
 if to change the subject, she asked shyly, "Would you 
 care for my music to-day?" 
 
 He assented eagerly thinking she meant to sing. 
 But, rising, she crossed the glade, and disappeared 
 behind the willows returning, a moment later, with 
 her violin. 
 
 In answer to his exclamation of pleased surprise, 
 she said smiling, "I brought my violin because I 
 thought, if you would let me play, the music would 
 perhaps help us both to forget what what happened 
 when I danced." 
 
 235
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Standing by the gray boulder, with her face up- 
 turned to the mountains, she placed the instrument 
 under her chin and drew the bow softly across the 
 strings. 
 
 For an hour or more she played. Then, as Czar 
 trotted sedately into the glade, she lowered her in- 
 strument; and, with a smile, called merrily to Con- 
 rad Lagrange who, attracted by the music, was stand- 
 ing at the gate on the bank from the artist's posi- 
 tion, invisible; "Come down, good genie, come 
 down! You have been watching there quite long 
 enough. Come, instantly; or with my magic I'll 
 turn you into a fantastic, dancing bug, such as those 
 that straddle there upon the waters of the spring, or 
 else into a fat pollywog that wiggles in the black ooze 
 among the dead leaves and rotting bits of wood." 
 
 With a quick movement, she tucked her violin 
 under her chin and played a few measures of the 
 worst sort of ragtime, in perfect imitation of a popu- 
 lar performer. The effect, following the music she 
 had just been making, was grotesque and horrible. 
 
 "Mercy, mercy!" cried the man at the gate. "I 
 beg! I beg! Do not, I pray, good nymph, torture 
 me with thy dreadful power. I swear that I will 
 obey thy every wish and whirn." 
 
 Pointing with her bow as with a wand to the 
 boulder, she sternly commanded, "Come, then, and sit 
 here upon this rock ; and give to me an account of all 
 that thou hast done since I left thee in the rose gar- 
 den; or I will split thy ears and stretch thy soul 
 upon a torture rack of hideous noise." 
 
 She lifted her violin again, threateningly. The 
 
 236
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 novelist came down the path, on a run, to seat him- 
 self upon the gray boulder. 
 
 The artist shouted with laughter. But the novelist 
 and the girl paid no heed to his unseemly merriment, 
 
 "Speak," she commanded, waving her wand, 
 "what hast thcu done ?" 
 
 "Did I not obey thy will and, under such terms a 
 I could procure, open for thee the treasure room of 
 thy desire ?" growled the man on the rock. 
 
 "And still," she retorted, "when I made myself 
 subject to those terms, and obediently looked not 
 upon the hidden mystery still the room of my de- 
 sires became a trap betraying me into rude hands 
 from which I narrowly escaped. And you you fled 
 the scene of your wrong-doing, without so much a* 
 by-your-leave, and for these long weeks have wan- 
 dered, irresponsible, among my hills. Did you not 
 say that my home was under these glowing peaks, and 
 in the purple shadows of these canyons? Did you 
 think that I would not find you here, and charm you 
 again within reach of my power ?" 
 
 "And what is thy will, good spirit?" he asked, 
 humbly "tell me thy will and it shall be done if 
 thou wilt but make music only upon the instrument 
 that is in thy hand." 
 
 With a laugh, she ended the play, saying, "My will 
 is that you and Mr. King come, to-morrow evening, 
 for supper with Miss Willard and me. Brian Oakley 
 and Mrs. Oakley will be there. I want you too." 
 
 The men looked at each other in doubt. 
 
 "Really, Miss Andres," said the artist, "we " 
 
 The girl interrupted with one of her flash-lik 
 
 237
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 changes. "I have invited you. You must come. I 
 shall expect you." And before either of the men 
 could speak again, she sprang lightly across the little 
 stream, and disappeared through the willow wall. 
 
 "Well, I'll be" The novelist checked himself, 
 solemnly staring blankly at the spot where she had 
 disappeared. 
 
 The artist laughed. 
 
 "What do you think of it ?" demanded Conrad La- 
 grange, turning to his friend. 
 
 Aaron King, packing up his things, answered, "I 
 think we'd better go." 
 
 Which opinion was concurred in by Brian Oakley 
 who dropped in on them that evening.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 MYRA'S PRAYER AND THE RANGER'S WARNING 
 
 HAT same afternoon, while Sibyl Andres 
 was making music for Aaron King in the 
 spring glade, Brian Oakley, on his way 
 down the canyon, stopped at the old place 
 where Myra Willard and the girl were 
 living. Riding into the yard that was 
 fenced only by the wild growth, he was greeted cor- 
 dially by the woman with the disfigured face, who 
 was seated on the porch. 
 
 "Howdy, Myra," he called in return, as he swung 
 from the saddle ; and leaving the chestnut to roam at 
 will, he went to the porch, his spurs clinking softly 
 over the short, thick grass. 
 
 ''Where's Sibyl ?" he asked, seating himself on the 
 top step. 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know, Mr. Oakley," the woman 
 answered, smiling. "You really didn't expect me to, 
 did you?" 
 
 The Ranger laughed. "Did she take gun, basket, 
 rod or violin ? If I know whether she's gone shoot- 
 ing, berrying, fishing or fiddling, it may give me a 
 clue or did she take all four?'' 
 
 The woman watched him closely. "She took only 
 her violin. She went sometime after lunch down 
 the canyon, I think. Do you wish particularly to see 
 her, Mr. Oakley?" 
 
 239
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 It was evident to the woman that the officer was 
 relieved. "Oh, no; she wouldn't be going far with 
 her violin. If she went down the canyon, it's all right 
 anyway. But I stopped in to tell the girl that she 
 must be careful, for a while. There's an escaped 
 convict ranging somewhere in my district. I received 
 the word this morning, and have been up around 
 Lone Cabin and Burnt Pine and the head of Clear 
 Creek to see if I could start anything. I didn't find 
 any signs, but the information is reliable. Tell Sibyl 
 that I say she must not go out without her gun that 
 if I catch her wandering around unarmed, I'll pack 
 her off back to civilization, pronto." 
 
 "I'll tell her," said Myra Willard, "and I'll help 
 her to remember. It would be better, I suppose, if 
 she stayed at home ; but that seems so impossible." 
 
 "She'll be all right if she has her gun," asserted 
 the Ranger, confidently. "I'd back the girl against 
 anything I ever met up with when she has her 
 artillery. By the way, Myra, have your neighbors 
 below called yet?" 
 
 "No at least, not while I have been at home. I 
 have been berrying, two or three times. They might 
 have come while I was out." 
 
 "Has Sibyl met them yet ?" came the next question. 
 
 "She has not mentioned it, if she has." 
 
 "H-m-m," mused Brian Oakley. 
 
 The woman's lo^e for the girl prompted her to 
 quick suspicion of the Ranger's manner. 
 
 "What is it, Mr. Oakley ?" she asked. "Has the 
 child been indiscreet? Has she done anything 
 wrong ? Has she been with those men ?" 
 
 240
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 "She has called upon one of them several times," 
 returned Brian, smiling. "Mr. King is painting that 
 little glade by the old spring at the foot of the bank, 
 you know, and I guess she stumbled onto him. The 
 place is one of her favorite spots. But bless your 
 heart, Myra, there's no harm in it. It would be 
 natural for her to get interested in any one making a 
 picture of a place she loves as she does that old spring 
 glade. She has spent days at a time there ever 
 since she was big enough to go that far from home." 
 
 "It's strange that she has not mentioned it to me," 
 said the woman troubled in spite of the Ranger's 
 reassuring words. 
 
 The man directed his attention suddenly to his 
 horse; "Max! You let Sibyl's roses alone." The 
 animal turned his head questioningly toward his 
 master. "Back !" said the Ranger, "back !" At his 
 word, the chestnut promptly backed across the yard 
 until the officer called, "That will do," when he 
 halted, and, with an impatient toss of his head, again 
 looked toward the porch, inquiringly. "You are all 
 right now," said the man. Whereupon the horse 
 began contentedly cropping the grass. 
 
 "I met Mr. King, accidentally, once, at the depot 
 in Fairlands," continued the woman with the dis- 
 figured face. "He impressed me, then, as being a 
 genuinely good man a true gentleman. But, judg- 
 ing from his books, Conrad Lagrange is not a man 
 I would wish Sibyl to meet. I have wondered at the 
 artist's friendship with him." 
 
 "I tell you, Myra, Lagrange is all right," said 
 Brian Oakley, stoutly. "He's odd and eccentric and 
 
 241
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 rough spoken sometimes ; but he's not at all what you 
 would think him from the stuff he writes. He's a 
 true man at heart, and you needn't worry about Sibyl 
 getting anything but good from an acquaintance with 
 him. As for King well Conrad Lagrange vouches 
 for him. If you knew Lagrange, you'd understand 
 what that means. He and the young fellow's mother 
 grew up together. He swears the lad is right; and, 
 from what I've seen of him, I believe it. It doesn't 
 follow, though, that you don't need to keep your eyes 
 open. The girl is as innocent as a child though she 
 is a woman and well accidents have happened, 
 you know." As he spoke he glanced unconsciously at 
 the scars that disfigured the naturally beautiful face 
 of the woman. 
 
 Myra Willard blushed as she answered sadly, 
 "Yes, I know that accidents have happened. I will 
 talk with Sibyl ; and will you not speak to her too ? 
 She loves you so, and is always guided by your 
 wishes. A little word or two from you would be an 
 added safeguard." 
 
 "Sure I'll talk to her," said the Eanger, heartily 
 rising and whistling to the chestnut. "But look here, 
 Myra," he said, pausing with his foot in the stirrup, 
 "the girl must have her head, you know. We don't 
 want to put her in the notion that every man in the 
 world is a villain laying for a chance to do her harm. 
 There are clean fellows a few and it will do Sibyl 
 good to meet that kind." He swung himself lightly 
 into the saddle. 
 
 The woman smiled ; "Sibyl could not think that all 
 
 242
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 men are evil, after knowing her father and you, Mr. 
 Oakley." 
 
 The Kanger laughed as he turned Max toward the 
 opening in the cedar thicket. "Will was what God 
 and Nelly made him, Myra; and I if I'm fairly 
 decent it's because Mary took me in hand in time. 
 Men are mostly what you women make 'em, anyway, 
 I reckon." 
 
 "Don't forget that you and Mrs. Oakley are 
 coming for supper to-morrow," she called after him. 
 
 "No danger of our forgetting that," he answered. 
 "Adios!" And the chestnut loped easily out of the 
 yard. 
 
 Myra Willard kept her place on the porch until the 
 sound of the horse's galloping feet died away down 
 the canyon. But, as she listened to the vanishing 
 sound of the Ranger's going, her eyes were looking 
 far away as though his words had aroused in her 
 heart memories of days long past. When the last 
 echo had lost itself in the thin mountain air, she went 
 into the house. 
 
 Standing before the small mirror that served in 
 the rude, almost camp-like furnishings of the house 
 for both herself and Sibyl, she studied the lace re- 
 flected there turning her head slowly, as if 
 comparing the beautiful unmarked side with the 
 other that was so hideously disfigured. For some 
 time she stood there, unflinchingly giving herself to 
 the torture of this contemplation of her ruined love- 
 liness ; drinking to its bitter dregs the sorrowful cup 
 of her secret memories; until, as though she could 
 
 243
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 bear no more, she drew back her eyes wide with 
 pain and horror, her marred features owisted gro- 
 tesquely, in an agony of mental suffering. With a 
 pitiful moan she sank upon her knees in prayer. 
 
 In the earnestness of her spirit out of the deep 
 devotion of her love as she prayed God for wisdom 
 to guide the girl entrusted to her care, she spoke 
 aloud. "Let me not rob her, dear Christ, of love; 
 but help me to help her love aright. Help me, that 
 in my fear for her I do not turn her heart against 
 her mate when he shall come. Help me, that I do not 
 so fill her pure mind with doubt and distrust of all 
 men that she will look for evil, only. Help me, that 
 I do not teach her to associate love wholly with that 
 which is base and untrue. Grant, O God, that her 
 beautiful life may not be marred by a love that is 
 unworthy." 
 
 As the woman with the disfigured face rose from 
 her knees, she heard the voice of Sibyl, who was com- 
 ing up the old road toward the cedars singing as she 
 <?ame. 
 
 When Sibyl entered the house, a moment later, 
 Myra Willard, still agitated, was bathing her face. 
 The girl, seeing, checked the song upon her lips ; and 
 going to the woman who in everything but the ties of 
 blood was mother to her, sought to discover the 
 reason for her troubled manner, and tried to soothe 
 her with loving words. 
 
 The woman held the girl close in her arms and 
 looked into the lovely, winsome face that was so un- 
 marred by vicious thoughts of the world's teaching. 
 
 244
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 "Dear child, do you not sometimes hate the sight of 
 my ugliness ?" she said. "It seems to me, you must." 
 
 With her arms about her companion's neck, Sibyl 
 pressed her pure, young lips to those disfiguring 
 scars, in an impulsive kiss. "Foolish Myra," she 
 cried, "you know I love you too well to see anything 
 but your own beautiful self behind the scars. To me, 
 your face is all like this" and she softly kissed, in 
 turn, the woman's unmarred cheek. "Whatever made 
 the marks, I know that they are not dishonorable. So 
 I never think of them at all, but see only the beautiful 
 side which is really you, you know." 
 
 "No," answered Myra Willard, gently, "my 
 scars are not dishonorable. But the world does not 
 see with your pure eyes, dear child. The world sees 
 only the ugly, disfigured side of my face. It never 
 looks at the other side. And listen, dear heart, so 
 the world often sees dishonor where there is no dis- 
 honor. It sees evil in many things where there is 
 only good." 
 
 "Yes," returned the girl, "but you have never 
 taught me to see with the eyes of the world. So, to 
 me, what the world sees, does not matter." 
 
 "Pray that it may never matter, child," answered 
 the woman with the disfigured face, earnestly. 
 
 Then, as they went out to the porch, she asked, 
 "Did you meet Mr. Oakley as you were coming 
 home ?" 
 
 Sibyl laughed and colored with a confusion that 
 was new to her. as she answered, "Yes, I did and 
 he scolded me." 
 
 245
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "About your going unarmed ?" 
 
 "No, but he told me about that too. I don't see 
 why, whenever a poor criminal escapes, he always 
 conies into our mountains. I don't like to 'pack a 
 gun' unless I'm hunting. But Brian Oakley didn't 
 scold me for that, though he knows I always do as he 
 says. He scolded because I hadn't told you about my 
 going to see Mr. King, in the spring glade." She 
 laughed, conscious of the color that was in her cheeks. 
 "I told him it didn't matter whether I told you or not, 
 because he always knows every single move I make, 
 anyway." 
 
 "Why didn't you tell me, dear ?" asked the woman. 
 "You never kept anything from me, before I'm 
 sure." 
 
 "Why dearest," the girl answered frankly, "I don't 
 know, myself, why I didn't tell you" which, Myra 
 Willafd knew, was the exact truth. 
 
 Then Sibyl told her foster-mother everything about 
 her acquaintance with the artist and Conrad La- 
 grange from the time she first watched the painter, 
 from the arbor in the rose garden, where she met the 
 novelist; until that afternoon, when she had invited 
 them to supper, the next day. Only of her dancing 
 before the artist, the girl did not tell. 
 
 Later in the evening, Sibyl saying that she would 
 sing Myra to sleep took her violin to the porch, out- 
 side the window; and in the dusk made soft music 
 until the woman's troubled heart was calmed. When 
 the moon came up from behind the Galenas, across 
 the canyon, the girl tiptoed into the house, to bend 
 over the sleeping woman, in tender solicitude. With 
 
 246
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 that mother tenderness belonging to all true women, 
 she stooped and softly kissed the disfigured face upon 
 the pillow. At the touch, Myra Willard stirred un- 
 easily; and the girl careful to make no sound 
 withdrew. 
 
 On the porch, she again took up her violin as if to 
 play; but, instead, sat motionless her face turned 
 down the canyon her eyes looking far away. Then, 
 quickly, she put aside the instrument, and as though 
 with sudden yielding to some inner impulse slipped 
 out into the grassy yard. And there, in the moon's 
 white light, with only the mountains, the trees, and 
 the flowers to see, she danced, again, as she had 
 danced before the artist in the glade with her face 
 turned down the canyon, and her arms outstretched, 
 longingly, toward the camp in the sycamores back of 
 the old orchard. 
 
 Suddenly, from the room where Myra Willard 
 slept, came that shuddering, terror-stricken cry. 
 
 The girl, fleet-footed as a deer, ran into the house. 
 Kneeling, she put her strong young arms about the 
 cowering, trembling form on the bed. "There, there, 
 dear, it's all right." 
 
 The woman of the disfigured face caught Sibyl's 
 hand, impulsively. "I I was dreaming again," 
 she whispered, "and and this time O Sibyl this 
 time, I dreamed that it was you." 
 
 947
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE LAST CLIMB 
 
 HAT first visit of Aaron King and Conrad 
 Lagrange to the old home of Sibyl An- 
 dres was the beginning of a delightful 
 comradeship. 
 
 Often, in the evening, the two men, 
 with Czar, went to spend an hour in 
 friendly intercourse with their neighbors up the can- 
 yon. Always, they were welcomed by Myra Willard 
 with a quiet dignity; while Sibyl was frankly de- 
 lighted to have them come. Always, they were 
 invited with genuine hospitality to "come again." 
 Frequently, Brian Oakley and perhaps Mrs. Oakley 
 would be there when they arrived; or the Ranger 
 would come riding into the yard before they left. At 
 times, the canyon's mountain wall echoed the laughter 
 of the little company as Sibyl and the novelist played 
 their fantastical game of words; or again, the older 
 people would listen to the blending voices of the artist 
 and the girl as, in the quiet hush of the evening, they 
 sang together to Myra Willard's accompaniment on 
 the violin ; or, perhaps, Sibyl, with her face upturned 
 to the mountain tops, would make for her chosen 
 friends the music of the hills. 
 
 Not infrequently, too, the girl would call at the 
 camp in the sycamore grove sometimes riding with 
 
 248
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 the Ranger, sometimes alone ; or they would hear her 
 merry hail from the gate the other side of the orchard 
 as she passed by. And sometimes, in the morning, 
 she would appear equipped with rod or gun or 
 basket to frankly challenge Aaron King to some 
 long ramble in the hills. 
 
 So the days for the young man at the beginning of 
 his life work, and for the young woman at the be- 
 ginning of her womanhood, passed. Up and down the 
 canyon, along the boulder-strewn bed of the roaring 
 Clear Creek, from the Ranger Station to the falls ; in 
 the quiet glades under the alders hung with virgin's- 
 bower and wild grape; beneath the live-oaks on the 
 mountains' flanks or shoulders; in dimly lighted, 
 cedar-sheltered gulches, among tall brakes and lilies ; 
 or high up on the canyon walls under the dark and 
 fragrant pines over all the paths and trails familiar 
 to her girlhood she led him showing him every nook 
 and glade and glen teaching him to know, as he had 
 asked, the mountains that she herself so loved. 
 
 The time came, at last, when the two men must 
 return to Fairlands. With Mr. and Mrs. Oakley they 
 were spending the evening at Sibyl's home when Con- 1 
 rad Lagrpnge announced that they would leave the 
 mountains, two days later. 
 
 "Then," said the girl, impulsively, "Mr. King 
 and I are going for one last good-by climb to-morrow. 
 Aren't we ?" she concluded turning to the artist. 
 
 Aaron King laughed as he answered, "We certainly 
 seem to be headed that way. Where are we going ?" 
 
 "We will start early and come back late" she 
 returned "which really is all that any one ought to 
 
 249
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 know about a climb that is just for the climb. And 
 listen no rod, no gun, no sketch-book. I'll fix a 
 lunch." 
 
 "Watch out for my convict," warned the Ranger. 
 "He must be getting mighty hungry, by now." 
 
 Early in the morning, they set out. Crossing the 
 canyon, they climbed the Oak Knoll trail down 
 which the artist and Conrad Lagrange had been led 
 by the uncanny wisdom of Croesus, a few weeks 
 before to the pipe-line. Where the path from below 
 leads into the pipe-line trail, under the live-oaks, on 
 a shelf cut in the comparatively easy slope of the 
 mountain's shoulder, they paused for a look over the 
 narrow valley that lay a thousand feet below. Across 
 the wide, gray, boulder-strewn wash of the mountain 
 torrent's way, with the gleaming thread of tumbling 
 Clear Creek in its center, they could see the white 
 dots that marked the camp back of the old orchard; 
 and, farther up the stream, could distinguish the 
 little opening with the cedar thicket and the giant 
 sycamores that marked the spot where Sibyl was 
 born. 
 
 Aaron King, looking at the girl, recalled that day 
 when he and Conrad Lagrange, in a spirit of venture- 
 some fun, had left the choice of trails to the burro. 
 "Good, old Croesus !" he said smiling. 
 
 She knew the story of how they had been guided 
 to their camping place, and laughed in return, as she 
 answered, "He's a dear old burro, is Croesus, and 
 worthy of a better name." 
 
 "Plutus would be better," suggested the artist. 
 
 250
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Because a Greek God is better than a Lydian 
 King?" she asked curiously. 
 
 "Wasn't Plutus the giver of wealth ?" he returned. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, and wasn't he forced by Zeus to distribute 
 his gifts without regard to the characters of the 
 recipients ?" 
 
 She laughed merrily. "Plutus or Croesus I'm 
 glad he chose the Oak Knoll trail." 
 
 "And so am I," answered the man, earnestly. 
 
 Leisurely, they followed the trail that is hung 
 a narrow thread-like path high upon the mountain 
 wall, invisible from the floor of the canyon below. 
 At a point where the trail turns to round the inward 
 curve of one of the small side canyons where the 
 pines grow dark and tall some thoughtful hand had 
 laid a small pipe from the large conduit tunnel, under 
 the trail, to a barrel fixed on the mountainside below 
 the little path. Here they stopped again and, while 
 they loitered, filled a small canteen with the cold, 
 clear water from the mountain's heart. Farther on, 
 where the pipe-line again rounds the inward curve 
 of the wall between two mountain spurs, they turned 
 aside to follow the Government trail that leads to the 
 fire-break on the summit of the Galenas and then 
 down into the valley on the other side. At the gap 
 where the Galena trail crosses the fire-break, they 
 again turned aside to make their leisure way along 
 the broad, brush-cleared break that lies in many a 
 fold and curve and kink like a great ribbon on the 
 thin top of the ridge. With every step, now, they 
 
 251
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 were climbing. Midday found them standing by a 
 huge rock at the edge of a clump of pines on one of 
 the higher points of the western end of the range. 
 Here they would have their lunch. 
 
 As they sat in the lee of the great rock, with the 
 wind that sweeps the mountain tops singing in the 
 pines above their heads, they looked directly down 
 upon the wide Galena Valley and far across to the 
 spurs and slopes of the San Jacintos beyond. Sibyl's 
 keen eyes mountain-trained from childhood 
 marked a railway train crawling down the grade from 
 San Gorgonio Pass toward the distant ocean. She 
 tried in vain to point it out to her companion. But 
 the city eyes of the man could not find the tiny speck 
 in the vast landscape that lay within the range of 
 their vision. The artist looked at his watch. The 
 train was the Golden State Limited that had brought 
 him from the far away East, a few months before. 
 
 Aaron King remembered how, from the platform 
 of the observation car, he had looked up at the moun- 
 tains from which he now looked down. He remem- 
 bered, too, the woman into whose eyes he had, for the 
 first time, looked that day. Turning his face to the 
 west, he could distinguish under the haze of the dis- 
 tance the dark squares of the orange groves of Fair- 
 lands. Before three days had passed he would be in 
 his studio home again. And the woman of the 
 observation car platform From distant Fairlands. 
 the man turned his eyes to the winsome face of his 
 girl comrade on the mountain top. 
 
 "Please" she said, meeting his serious gaze with 
 
 252
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 a smile of frank fellowship "please, what have I 
 done?" 
 
 Smiling, he answered gravely, "I don't exactly 
 know but you have done something." 
 
 "You look so serious. I'm sure it must be pretty 
 bad. Can't you think what it is ?" 
 
 He laughed. "I was thinking about down there" 
 he pointed into the haze of the distant valley to the 
 west. 
 
 "Don't," she returned, "let's think about up here" 
 she waved her hand toward the high crest of the 
 San Bernardinos, and the mountain peaks about 
 them. 
 
 "Will you let me paint your portrait when we 
 get back to the orange groves ?" he asked. 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know," she returned. "Why do 
 you want to paint me ? I'm nobody, you know but 
 just me." 
 
 "That's the reason I want to paint you," he an- 
 swered. 
 
 "What's the reason ?" 
 
 "Because you are you." 
 
 "But a portrait of me would not help you on your 
 road to fame," she retorted. 
 
 He flinched. "Perhaps," he said, "that's partly 
 why I want to do it." 
 
 "Because it won't help you ?" 
 
 "Because it won't help me on the road to fame. 
 You will pose for me, won't you ?" 
 
 "I'm sure I cannot say" she answered "perhaps 
 please don't let's talk about it," 
 
 253
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Why not?" he asked curiously. 
 
 "Because" she answered seriously "we have 
 been such good friends up here in the mountains; 
 such such comrades. Up here in the hills, with the 
 canyon gates shut against the world that I don't 
 know, you are like like Brian Oakley and like my 
 father used to be and down there" she hesitated. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "and down there I will be what ?" 
 
 "I don't know," she answered wistfully, "but some- 
 times I can see you going on and on and on toward 
 fame and the rewards it will bring you and you seem 
 to get farther and farther and farther away from 
 from the mountains and our friendship ; until you are 
 so far away that I can't see you any more at all. I 
 don't like to lose my mountain friends, you know." 
 
 He smiled. "But no matter how famous I might 
 become no matter what fame might bring me I 
 could not forget you and your mountains." 
 
 "I would not want you to remember me," she an- 
 swered, "if you were famous. That is I mean" 
 she added hesitatingly "if you were famous just 
 because you wanted to be. But I know you could 
 never forget the mountains. And that would be the 
 trouble ; don't you see ? If you could forget, it would 
 not matter. Ask Mr. Lagrange, he knows." 
 
 For some time Aaron King sat, without speaking, 
 looking about at the world that was so far from that 
 other world the world he had always known. The 
 girl, too, seeming to understand the thoughts that 
 he himself, perhaps, could not have expressed, was 
 silent. 
 
 Then he said slowly, "I don't think that I care for 
 
 254
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 fame as I did before you taught me to know the 
 mountains. It doesn't, somehow, now, seem to 
 matter so much. It's the work that really matters 
 after all isn't it ?" 
 
 And Sibyl Andres, smiling, answered, "Yes, it's 
 the work that really matters. I'm sure that must be 
 so." 
 
 In the afternoon, they went on, still following the 
 fire-break, down to where it is intersected by the pipe- 
 line a mile from the reservoir on the hill above the 
 power-house; then back to Oak Knoll, again on the 
 pipe-line trail all the way a beautiful and never-to- 
 be-forgotten walk. 
 
 The sun was just touching the tops of the western 
 mountains when they started down Oak Knoll. The 
 canyon below, already, lay in the shadow. When 
 they reached the foot of the trail, it was twilight. 
 Across the road, by a small streamlet a tributary to 
 Clear Creek a party of huntsmen were making 
 ready to spend the night. The voices of the men came 
 clearly through the gathering gloom. Under the 
 trees, they could see the camp-fire's ruddy gleam. 
 They did not notice the man who was standing, half 
 hidden, in the bushes beside the road, near the spot 
 where the trail opens into it. Silently, the man 
 watched them as they turned up the road which they 
 would follow a little way before crossing the canyon 
 to Sibyl's home. Fifty yards farther on, they met 
 Brian Oakley. 
 
 "Howdy, you two," called the Ranger, cheerily 
 without stopping his horse. "Rather late to-night, 
 ain't you V 9 
 
 255
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 "We'll be there by dark," called the artist. And 
 the Hanger passed on. 
 
 At sound of the mountaineer's voice, the man in 
 the bushes drew quickly back. The officer's trained 
 eyes caught the movement in the brush, and he leaned 
 forward in the saddle. 
 
 A moment later, the man reappeared in the road, 
 farther down, around the bend. As the Ranger ap- 
 proached, he was hailed by a boisterous, "Hello, 
 Brian ! better stop and have a bite." 
 
 "How do you do, Mr. Rutlidge ?" came the officer's 
 greeting, as he reined in his horse. "When did you 
 land in the hills?" 
 
 "This afternoon," answered the other. "We're 
 just making camp. Come and meet the fellows. You 
 know some of them." 
 
 "Thanks, not to-night," returned Brian Oakley, 
 "deer hunt, I suppose." 
 
 "Yes thought we would be in good time for the 
 opening of the season. By the way, do you happen to 
 know where Lagrange and that artist friend of his 
 are camped ?" 
 
 "In that bunch of sycamores back of the old 
 orchard down there," answered the Ranger, watching 
 the man's face keenly. "I just passed Mr. King, up 
 the road a piece." 
 
 "That so ? I didn't see him go by," returned the 
 other. "I think I'll run over and say 'hello' to La- 
 grange, in the morning. We are only going as far 
 as Burnt Pine to-morrow, anyway." 
 
 "Keep your eyes open for an escaped convict," said 
 the officer, casually. "There's one ranging some- 
 
 256
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 where in here came in about a month ago. He's 
 likely to clean out your camp. So long." 
 
 "Perhaps we'll take him in for you," laughed the 
 other. "Good night." He turned toward the camp- 
 fire under the trees, as the officer rode away. 
 
 "!N\)w what in hell did that fellow want to lie to 
 me like that for," said Brian Oakley to himself. "He 
 must have seen King and Sibyl as they came down 
 the trail. Max, old boy, when a man lies deliberately, 
 without any apparent reason, you want to watch 
 him." 
 
 257
 
 CHAPTER XXH 
 
 SHADOWS OF COMING EVENTS 
 
 A.RON KING and Conrad Lagrange were 
 idling in their camp, after breakfast the 
 next morning, when Czar turned his head, 
 quickly, in a listening attitude. With a 
 low growl that signified disapproval, he 
 moved forward a step or two and stood 
 stiffly erect, gazing toward the lower end of the 
 orchard. 
 
 "Some one coming, Czar ?" asked the artist. 
 The dog answered with another growl, while the 
 hair on his neck bristled in anger. 
 
 "Some one we don't like, heh!" commented the 
 novelist. "Or" he added as if musing upon the 
 animal's instinct "some one we ought not to like." 
 A bark from Czar greeted James Rutlidge who at 
 that moment appeared at the foot of the slope leading 
 up to their camp. 
 
 The two men remembering the occasion of their 
 visitor's last call at their home in Fairlands, when he 
 had seen Sibyl in the studio received the man with 
 courtesy, but with little warmth. Czar continued to 
 manifest his sentiments until rebuked by his master. 
 The coolness of the reception, however, in no way dis- 
 concerted James Rutlidge; who, on his part, rather 
 overdid his assumption of pleasure at meeting them 
 again, 
 
 258
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Explaining that he had come with a party of 
 friends on a hunting trip, he told them how he had 
 met Brian Oakley, and so had learned of their camp 
 hidden behind the old orchard. The rest of his party, 
 he said, had gone on up the canyon. They would 
 stop at Burnt Pine on Laurel Creek, where he could 
 easily join them before night. He could not think, 
 he declared, of passing so near without greeting his 
 friends. 
 
 "You two certainly are expert when it comes to 
 finding snug, out-of-the-way quarters," he commented, 
 searching the camp and the immediate surroundings 
 with a careful and, ostensibly, an appreciative eye. 
 "A thousand people might pass this old, deserted 
 place without ever dreaming that you were so ideally 
 hidden back here." 
 
 As he finished speaking, his roving eye came to 
 rest upon a pair of gloves that Sibyl the last time 
 she had called had carelessly left lying upon a 
 stump close by a giant sycamore where, in camp 
 fashion, the rods and creels and guns were kept. The 
 artist had intended to return the gloves the day 
 before, together with a book of trout-flies which the 
 girl had also forgotten ; but, in his eagerness for the 
 day's outing, he had gone off without them. 
 
 The observing Conrad Lagrange did not fail to 
 note that James Rutlidge had seen the telltale gloves. 
 Fixing his peculiar eyes upon the visitor, he asked 
 abruptly, with polite but purposeful interest, after 
 the health of Mr. and Mrs. Taine and Louise. 
 
 The faint shadow of a suggestive smile that crossed 
 
 259
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 the heavy features of James Rutlidge, as he turned 
 his gaze from the gloves to meet the look of the novel- 
 ist, was maddening. 
 
 "The old boy is steadily going down," he said with- 
 out feeling. "The doctors tell me that he can't last 
 through the winter. It'll be a relief to everybody 
 when he goes. Mrs. Taine is well and beautiful, as 
 always remarkable how she keeps up appearances, 
 considering her husband's serious condition. Louise 
 is quite as usual. They will all be back in Fairlands 
 in another month. They sent regards to you both 
 in case I should run across you." 
 
 The two men made the usual conventional replies, 
 adding that they were returning to Fairlands the next 
 day. 
 
 "So soon?" exclaimed their visitor, with another 
 meaning smile. "I don't see how you can think of 
 leaving your really delightful retreat. I understand 
 you have such charming neighbors too. Perhaps 
 though, they are also returning to the orange groves 
 and roses." 
 
 Aaron King's face flushed hotly, and he was about 
 to reply with vigor to the sneering words, when Con- 
 rad Lagrange silenced him with a quick look. Ignor- 
 ing the reference to their neighbors, the novelist 
 replied suavely that they felt they must return to 
 civilization as some matters in connection with the 
 new edition of his last novel demanded his attention, 
 and the artist wished to get back to his studio and to 
 his work. 
 
 "Really," urged Rutlidge, mockingly, "you ought
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 not to go down now. The deer season opens in two 
 days. Why not join our party for a hunt? We 
 would be delighted to have you." 
 
 They were coolly thanking him for the invitation, 
 that, from the tone in which it was given, was so 
 evidently not meant, when Czar, with a joyful bark, 
 dashed away through the grove. A moment, and a 
 clear, girlish voice called from among the trees that 
 bordered the cienaga, "Whoo-ee." It was the signal 
 that Sibyl always gave when she approached their 
 camp. 
 
 James Kutlidge broke into a low laugh while 
 Sibyl's friends looked at each other in angry con- 
 sternation as the girl, following her hail and accom- 
 panied by the delighted dog, appeared in full view; 
 her fishing-rod in hand, her creel swung over her 
 shoulder. 
 
 The girl's embarrassment, when, too late, she saw 
 and recognized their visitor, was pitiful. As she 
 came slowly forward, too confused to retreat, Rut- 
 lidge started to laugh again, but Aaron King, with 
 an emphasis that checked the man's mirth, said in a 
 low tone, "Stop that ! Be careful !" 
 
 As he spoke, the artist arose and with Conrad La- 
 grange went forward to greet Sibyl in as nearly as 
 they could their customary manner. 
 
 Formally, Eutlidge was presented to the girl ; and, 
 under the threatening eyes of the painter, greeted her 
 with no hint of rudeness in his voice or manner ; say- 
 ing courteously, with a smile, "I have had the pleas- 
 ure of Miss Andres' acquaintance for let me see 
 
 261
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 three years now, is it not?" he appealed to her 
 directly. 
 
 "It was three years ago that I first saw you, sir," 
 she returned coolly. 
 
 "It was my first trip into the mountains, I remem- 
 ber," said Rutlidge, easily. "I met you at Brian 
 Oakley's home," 
 
 Without replying, she turned to Aaron King 
 appealingly. "I I left my gloves and fly-book. I 
 was going fishing and called to get them." 
 
 The artist gave her the articles with a word of 
 regret for having so carelessly forgotten to return 
 them to her. With a simple "good-by" to her two 
 friends, but without even a glance toward their caller, 
 she went back up the canyon, in the direction from 
 which she had come. 
 
 When the girl had disappeared among the trees, 
 James Rutlidge said, with his meaning smile, 
 "Really, I owe you an apology for dropping in so 
 unexpectedly. I " 
 
 Conrad Lagrange interrupted him, curtly. "No 
 apology is due, sir." 
 
 "No ?" returned Rutlidge, with a rising inflection 
 and a drawling note in his voice that was almost too 
 much for the others. "I really must be going, any- 
 way," he continued. "My party will be some dis- 
 tance ahead. Sure you wouldn't care to join us?" 
 
 "Thanks ! Sorry ! but we cannot this tima Good 
 of you to ask us," came from Aaron King and the 
 novelist. 
 
 "Can't say that I blame you," their caller returned. 
 "The fishing used to be fine in this neighborhood. 
 
 262
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 You must have had some delightful sport. Don't 
 blame you in the least for not joining our stag party. 
 Delightful young woman, that Miss Andres. Charm- 
 ing companion either in the mountains or in civil- 
 ization. Good-by see you in Fairlands, later." 
 
 When he was out of hearing the two men relieved 
 their feelings in language that perhaps it would be 
 better not to put in print. 
 
 "And the worst of it is," remarked the novelist, 
 "it's so damned dangerous to deny something that 
 does not exist or make explanations in answer to 
 charges that are not put into words." 
 
 "I could scarcely refrain from kicking the beast 
 down the hill," said Aaron King, savagely. 
 
 "Which" the other returned "would have com- 
 plicated matters exceedingly, and would have accom- 
 plished nothing at all. For the girl's sake, store 
 your wrath against the day of judgment which, if I 
 read the signs aright, is sure to come." 
 
 When Sibyl Andres went down the canyon to the 
 camp in the sycamores, that morning, the world, to 
 her, was very bright. Her heart sang with joyous 
 freedom amid the scenes that she so loved. Care-free 
 and happy, as when, in the days of her girlhood, she 
 had gone to visit the spring glade, she still was con- 
 scious of a deeper joy than in her girlhood she had 
 ever known. 
 
 When she returned again up the canyon, all the 
 brightness of her day was gone. Her heart was 
 heavy with foreboding fear. She was oppressed with 
 
 263
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 a dread of some impending evil which she could not 
 understand. At every sound in the mountain wild- 
 wood, she started. Time and again, as if expecting 
 pursuit, she looked over her shoulder poised like a 
 creature of the woods ready for instant panic-stricken 
 flight. So, without pausing to cast for trout, or even 
 to go down to the stream, she returned home; where 
 Myra Willard, seeing her come so early and empty 
 handed, wondered. But to the woman's question, 
 the girl only answered that she had changed her 
 mind that, after recovering her gloves and fly-book 
 at the camp of their friends, she had decided to come 
 home. The woman with the disfigured face, knowing 
 that Aaron King was leaving the hills the next day, 
 thought that she understood the girl's mood, and 
 wisely made no comment. 
 
 The artist and Conrad Lagrange went to spend 
 their last evening in the hills with their friends. 
 Brian Oakley, too, dropped in. But neither of the 
 three men mentioned the name of James Rutlidge in 
 the presence of the women; while Sibyl was, appar- 
 ently, again her own bright and happy self carrying 
 on a fanciful play of words with the novelist, singing 
 with the artist, and making music for them all with 
 her violin. But before the evening was over, Conrad 
 Lagrange found an opportunity to tell the Ranger 
 of the incident of the morning, and of the construc- 
 tion that James Rutlidge had evidently put upora 
 Sibyl's call at the camp. Brian Oakley, thinking 
 of the night before, and how the man must have seen 
 the artist and the girl coming down the Oak Knoll 
 trail in the twilight, swore softly under his breath. 
 
 264
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 OUTSIDE THE CANYON GATES AGAIN 
 
 KING and Conrad Lagrange deter- 
 mined to go back from the mountains, the 
 way they had come. Said the novelist, 
 "It is as unseemly to rush pell-mell from 
 an audience with the gods as it is to enter 
 their presence irreverently." 
 To which the artist answered, laughing, "Even 
 criminals under sentence have, at least, the privilege 
 of going to their prisons reluctantly." 
 
 So they went down from the mountains, reverently 
 and reluctantly. 
 
 Yee Kee, with the more elaborate equipment of the 
 camp, was sent on ahead by wagon. The two men, 
 with Croesus packed for a one night halt, and Czar, 
 would follow. When all was ready, and they could 
 neither of them invent any more excuses for linger- 
 ing, Conrad Lagrange gave the word to the burro and 
 they set out down the little slope of grassy land; 
 across the tiny stream from the cienaga; around the 
 lower end of the old orchard, by the ancient weed- 
 grown road even Czar went slowly, with low-hung 
 head, as if regretful at leaving the mountains that 
 he, too, in his dog way, loved. 
 
 At the gate, Aaron King asked the novelist to go 
 on, saying that he would soon overtake him. It was 
 
 265
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 possible, he said, that he might have left something 
 in the spring glade. He thought he had better make 
 sure. Conrad Lagrange, assenting, went through the 
 gate and down the road, with the four-footed mem- 
 bers of the party; and Czar must have thought that 
 there was something very funny about old Croesus 
 that morning, from the way his master laughed; 
 when they were safely around the first turn. 
 
 There was, of course, no material thing in the 
 spring glade that the artist wanted. He knew that 
 quite as well as his laughing friend. Under the 
 mistletoe oak, at the top of the bank, he paused, 
 hesitating as one will often pause when about to 
 enter a sacred building. Softly, he pushed open the 
 old gate, as he might have pushed open the door of a 
 church. Slowly, reverently, he went down the path ; 
 baring his head as he went. He did not search for 
 anything that he might have left. He simply stood 
 for a few minutes under the gray-trunked alders that 
 were so marked by the loving hands of long ago men 
 and maidens beside the mint bordered spring with 
 the scattered stones of that old foundation where, 
 through the screen of boughs and vines and virgin's- 
 bower, the sunlight fell as through the traceries of a 
 cathedral window, and the low, deep tones of the 
 mountain waters came like the music of a great 
 organ. 
 
 It is likely that Aaron King, himself, could not, 
 at that time, have told why, as he was leaving the 
 hills, he had paused to visit once more the spot 
 where Sibyl Andres had brought to him her three 
 gifts from the mountains where, in her pure inno- 
 
 266
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 cence, she had danced before him the dance of the 
 mating butterflies and where, with the music of her 
 violin, she had saved their friendship from the perils 
 that threatened it lifting their intimate comrade- 
 ship into the pure atmosphere of the higher levels, 
 even as she had shown him the trails that lead from 
 the lower canyon to the summits and peaks of the 
 encircling mountain walls. But when he rejoined his 
 friend there was something in his face that prevented 
 the novelist from making any comment in a laughing 
 vein. 
 
 As the two men passed outward through the can- 
 yon gates and, looking backward as they went, saw 
 those mighty doors "lose silently behind them, the 
 artist was moved by emotions that were strange and 
 new to the mar who, two months before, had watched 
 those gates open to receive him. This, too, is true; 
 as that man, then, knew, but did not know, the moun- 
 tains ; so this man, now, knew, yet still did not know, 
 himself. 
 
 Where the road crosses, for the last time, the 
 tumbling stream from the heart of the hills, they 
 halted; and for one night slept again at the foot of 
 the mountains. The next day they arrived at 
 their little home in the orange grove. To Aaron 
 King, it seemed that they had been away for years. 
 
 When the traces of their days upon the road had 
 been removed, and they were garbed again in the 
 conventional costume of the world ; when their outfit 
 had been put away, and a home lound for patient 
 Croesus ; the artist went to his studio. The afternoon 
 passed and Yee Kee called dinner; but Aaron King 
 
 267
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 did not come. Then Conrad Lagrange went to find 
 him. Softly, the older man pushed open the studio 
 door to see the painter sitting before the portrait of 
 Mrs. Taine, with the package of his mother's letters 
 in his hand. 
 
 Without a sound, the novelist withdrew, leaving 
 the door ajar. Going to the corner of the house, he 
 whistled low, and in answer, Czar come bounding to 
 him from the porch. "Go find Aaron, Czar," said 
 the man, pointing toward the studio. "Go find 
 Aaron." 
 
 Obediently, with waving tail, the dog trotted off, 
 and pushing open the door entered the room ; followed 
 a few moments later by his master. 
 
 Conrad Lagrange smiled as he saw that the easel 
 was without a canvas. The portrait of Mrs. Taine 
 was turned to the wall. 
 
 268
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 JAMES RUTLIDGE MAKES A MISTAKE 
 
 HEIST Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange 
 had said, "good-by," to their friends, at 
 Sibyl Andres' home, that evening; and 
 had returned to spend their last night at 
 the camp in the sycamores ; the girl's mood 
 was again the mood of one oppressed by a 
 haunting, foreboding fear. 
 
 Sibyl could not have expressed, or even to herself 
 denned, her fear. She only knew that in the pres- 
 ence of James Rutlidge she was frightened. She had 
 tried many times to overcome her strange antipathy ; 
 for Rutlidge, until that day in the studio, had never 
 been other than kind and courteous in his persistent 
 efforts to win her friendship. Perhaps it was the im- 
 pression left by the memory of Myra Willard's 
 manner at the time of their first meeting with him, 
 three years before, in Brian Oakley's home; perhaps 
 it was because the woman with the disfigured face had 
 so often warned her against permitting her slight 
 acquaintance with Rutlidge to develop; perhaps it 
 was something else some instinct, possible, only, to 
 one of her pure, unspoiled nature whatever it was, 
 the mountain girl who was so naturally unafraid, 
 feared this man who, in his own world, was an 
 acknowledged authority upon matters of the highest 
 spiritual and moral significance.
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 That night, she slept but little. With the morning, 
 every nerve demanded action, action. She felt as 
 though if she could not spend herself in physical 
 exertion she would go mad. Taking her lunch, and 
 telling her companion that she was going for a good, 
 full day with the trout; she was starting off, when 
 the woman called her back. 
 
 "You have forgotten Mr. Oakley's warning, dear. 
 You are not to go unarmed, you know." 
 
 "Oh, bother that old convict, Brian Oakley is so 
 worried about," cried the girl. "I don't like to carry 
 a gun when I am fishing. It's only an extra load." 
 But, never-the-less, as she spoke, she went back to 
 the porch ; where Myra Willard handed her a belt of 
 cartridges, with a serviceable Colt revolver in the 
 holster. There was no hint of awkwardness when 
 the girl buckled the belt about her waist and settled 
 the holster in its place at her hip. 
 
 "You will be careful, won't you, dear," said the 
 woman, earnestly. 
 
 Lifting her face for another good-by kiss, the girl 
 answered, "Of course, dear mother heart." Then, 
 with a laugh "I'll agree to shoot the first man I 
 meet, and identify him afterwards if it will make 
 you easier in your mind. You won't worry, will 
 you?" 
 
 Myra Willard smiled. "Not a bit, child. I know 
 how Brian Oakley loves you, and he says that he has 
 no fear for you if you are armed. He takes great 
 chances himself, that man, but he would send us back 
 to Fairlands, in a minute, if he thought you were in 
 any danger in your rambles." 
 
 270
 
 THE EYTSS OF THE WORLD 
 
 Beside the roaring Clear Creek, Sibyl seated her- 
 self upon a great boulder her rod and flies neglected 
 apparently unmindful of the purpose that had 
 brought her to the stream. Her eyes were not upon 
 the swirling pool at her feet, but were lifted to a spot, 
 a thousand feet up on Oak Knoll, where she knew the 
 pipe-line trail lay, and where Croesus had made the 
 momentous decision that had resulted in her com- 
 radeship with Aaron King. Following the canyon 
 wall with her eyes as though in her mind she walked 
 the thread-like path from Oak Knoll to the fire- 
 break, a mile from the reservoir ; her gaze then traced 
 the crest of the Galenas, resting finally upon that 
 clump of pines high up on the point that was so 
 clearly marked against the sky. Once, she laid aside 
 her rod, and slipped the creel from her shoulder. 
 But even as she set out, she hesitated and turned 
 back; resolutely taking up her fishing-tackle again, 
 as though, angry with herself for her state of mind, 
 she was determined to indulge no longer her mood 
 of indecision. 
 
 But the fishing did not go well. To properly cast 
 a trout-fly, one's thoughts must be upon the art. A 
 preoccupied mind and wandering attention tends to 
 a tangled line, a snarled leader, and all sorts of 
 aggravating complications. Sibyl usually so skill- 
 ful at this most delicate of sports was as inaccurate 
 and awkward, this day, as the merest tyro. The many 
 pools and falls and swirling eddies of Clear Creek 
 held for her, now, memories more attractive, by far, 
 than the wary trout they sheltered. The familiar 
 
 271
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 spots she had known since childhood were haunted by 
 a something that made them seem new and strange. 
 
 At last, thoroughly angry with her inability to 
 control her mood, and half ashamed of the thoughts 
 that forced themselves so insistently upon her; with 
 her nerves and muscles craving the action that would 
 bring the relief of physical weariness, she deter- 
 mined to leave the more familiar ground, for the 
 higher and less frequented waters of Fern Creek. 
 Climbing out of the canyon, by the steep, almost 
 stair-like trail on the San Bernardino side, she walked 
 hard and fast to reach Lone Cabin by noon. But, 
 before she had finished her lunch, she decided not to 
 fish there, after all ; but to go on, over the still harder 
 trail to Burnt Pine on Laurel Creek, and, returning 
 to the lower canyon by the Laurel trail, to work down 
 Clear Creek on the way to her home, in the late after- 
 noon and twilight 
 
 The trail up the almost precipitous wall of the 
 gorge at Lone Cabin, and over the mountain spur 
 to Laurel Creek, is one that calls for a clear head and 
 a sure foot. It is not a path for the city bred to essay, 
 save with the ready arm of a guide. But the hill- 
 trained muscles and nerves of Sibyl Andres gloried 
 in the task. The cool-headed, mountain girl enjoyed 
 the climb from which her city sisters would have 
 drawn back in trembling fear. 
 
 Once, at a point perhaps two-thirds of the height 
 to the top, she halted. Her ear had caught a slight 
 noise above her head, as a few pebbles rolled down 
 the almost perpendicular face of the wall and bounded 
 
 272
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 from the trail where she stood, into the depths below. 
 For a few minutes, the girl, on the little, shelf-like 
 path that was scarcely wider than the span of her two 
 hands, was as motionless and as silent as the cliff 
 itself; while, with her face turned upward, she 
 searched with keen eyes the rim of the gorge; her 
 free, right hand resting upon the butt of the revolver 
 at her hip. Then she went on not timidly, but 
 neither carelessly; not in the least frightened, but 
 still, knowing that the spot was far from the more 
 frequented paths, with experienced care. 
 
 As her head and shoulders came above the rim, she 
 paused again, to search with careful eyes the vicinity 
 of the trail that from this point leads for a little way 
 down the knife-like ridge of the spur, and then, by 
 easier stages, around the shoulder and the flank of 
 the mountain, to Burnt Pine Camp. When no living 
 object met her eye, and she could hear no sound save 
 the lonely wind in the pines and the faint murmur 
 of the stream in the gorge below, she took the few 
 steps that yet remained of the climb, and seated her- 
 self for a moment's well-earned rest. Some small ani- 
 mal, she told herself, a squirrel or a wood-rat, per- 
 haps, frightened at her approach, and scurrying 
 hastily to cover, had dislodged the pebbles with the 
 slight noise that she had heard. 
 
 From where she sat with her back against the 
 trunk of a great pine, she could see far below, and 
 beyond the immediate spurs and shoulders of the 
 range, on the farther side of the gorge out of which 
 she had just come the lower end of Clear Creek 
 
 273
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 canyon, and, miles away, under the blue haze of the 
 distance, the dark squares of the orange groves of 
 Fairlands. 
 
 Somewhere between those canyon gates and the 
 little city in the orange groves, the girl knew that 
 Aaron King and his friend were making their way 
 back to the world of men. With her eyes fixed upon 
 the distant scene, as if striving for a wholly im- 
 possible strength of vision to mark the tiny, moving 
 spots that she knew were there, the girl upon the high 
 rim of the wild and lonely mountain gorge was lost 
 to her surroundings, in an effort, as vain, to see her 
 comrade of the weeks just past, in the years that were 
 to come. 'Would the friendship born in the hills 
 endure in the world beyond the canyon gates ? Could 
 it endure away from those scenes that had given it 
 birth ? Was it possible for a fellowship, established 
 in the free atmosphere of the mountains, to live in the 
 lower altitude of Fairlands ? Sibyl Andres, as she 
 sat there, alone in the hills she loved, in her heart 
 of hearts, answered her own questions, "Wo." But 
 still she searched the years to come even as her eyes 
 so futilely searched the distant landscape beyond the 
 mighty gates that seemed, now, to shut her in from 
 that world to which Aaron King was returning. 
 
 The girl was aroused from her abstraction by a 
 sound behind her and a little to the left of the tree 
 against which she was leaning. In a flash, she was 
 on her feet. 
 
 James Rutlidge stood a few steps away. He had 
 been approaching her as she sat under the tree; but 
 when she sprang to her feet and faced him, he halted. 
 
 274
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 Lifting his hat, he greeted her with easy assurance ; a 
 confident, triumphant smile upon his heavy features. 
 
 White-faced and trembling, the mountain girl 
 who, a few moments before, had been so unafraid 
 stood shrinking before this cultured representative of 
 the arts. Keturning his salutation, she was starting 
 hurriedly away down the trail, when he said, "Wait. 
 Why be in such a hurry ?" 
 
 As if against her will, she paused. "It is growing 
 late," she faltered; "I must go." 
 
 He laughed. "I will go with you presently. Don't 
 be afraid." Coming forward, with an air of making 
 himself very much at home, he placed his rifle against 
 the tree where she had been sitting. Then, as if to 
 calm her fears, he continued, "I am camped at Burnt 
 Pine, with a party of friends. I was up here looking 
 for deer sign when I noticed you below, at the cabin 
 there. I was just starting down to you, when I saw 
 that you were going to come up ; so I waited. Beau- 
 tiful spot this don't you think ? so out of the 
 way, too. Just the place for a quiet little visit." 
 
 As the man spoke, he was eyeing her in a way that 
 only served to confuse and frighten her the more. 
 Murmuring some inaudible reply, she again started 
 to go. But again he said, peremptorily, "Wait." 
 And again, as if against her will, she paused. "If 
 you have no scruples about wandering over the moun- 
 tains, alone with that artist fellow, I do not see why 
 you should hesitate to favor me." 
 
 The man's words were, undoubtedly, prompted by 
 what he firmly believed to be the nature of the rela- 
 tion between the girl and Aaron King a belief for 
 
 275
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 which he had, to his mind, sufficient evidence. But 
 Sibyl had no understanding of his meaning. In the 
 innocence of her pure mind, the purport of his words 
 was utterly lost. Her very fear of the man was not 
 a reasoning fear, but the instinctive shrinking of a 
 nature that had never felt the unclean touch of the 
 world in which James Rutlidge habitually moved. 
 It was this very unreasoning element in her emotions 
 that made her always so embarrassed in the man's 
 presence. It was because she did not understand her 
 fear of him, that the girl, usually so capable of tak- 
 ing her own part, was, in his presence, so helpless. 
 
 James Rutlidge, by the intellectual, moral, and 
 physical atmosphere in which he lived, was made 
 wholly incapable of understanding the nature of 
 Sibyl Andres. Secure in the convictions of his own 
 debased mind, as to her relation to the artist; and 
 misconstruing her very manner in his presence; he 
 was not long in putting his proposal into words that 
 she could not fail to understand. 
 
 When she did grasp his meaning, her fears and her 
 trembling nervousness gave place to courageous in- 
 dignation and righteous anger that found expression 
 in scathing words of denunciation. 
 
 The man, still, could not understand the truth of 
 the situation. To him, there was nothing more in her 
 refusal than her preference for the artist. That this 
 young woman to him, an unschooled girl of the 
 hills whom he had so long marked as his own y 
 should give herself to another, and so scornfully turn 
 from him, was an affront that he could not brook. 
 The very vigor of her wrath, as she stood before him, 
 
 276
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed, and her beau- 
 tiful body quivering with the vehemence of her 
 passionate outburst, only served to fan the flame 
 of his desire; while her stinging words provoked his 
 bestial mind to an animal-like rage. With a mut- 
 tered oath and a threat, he started toward her. 
 
 But the woman who faced him now, with full 
 understanding, was very different from the timid, 
 frightened girl who had not at first understood. With 
 a business-like movement that was the result of Brian 
 Oakley's careful training, her hand dropped to her 
 hip and was raised again. 
 
 James Rutlidge stopped, as though against an iron 
 bar. In the blue eyes that looked at him, now, over 
 the dark barrel of the revolver, he read no uncertainty 
 of purpose. The small hand that had drawn the 
 weapon with such ready swiftness, was as steady as 
 though at target practice. Instinctively, the man 
 half turned, throwing up his arm as if to shield his 
 face from a menacing blow. "For God's sake," he 
 gasped, "put that down." 
 
 In truth, James Rutlidge was nearer death, at that 
 instant, than he had ever been before. 
 
 Drawing back a few fearful paces, his hands still 
 uplifted, he said again, "Put it down, I tell you. 
 Don't you see I'm not going to touch you ? You are 
 crazy. You might kill me." 
 
 Her words came cold and collected, expressing, 
 together with her calm manner, perfect self- 
 possession. "If you can give any good reason why I 
 should not kill you, I will let you go." 
 
 277
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 The man was carefully drawing backward toward 
 the tree against which he had placed his rifle. 
 
 She watched him, with a disconcerting smile. 
 "You may as well stop now," she said, in those even, 
 composed tones. "I shall fire, the moment you are 
 within reach of your gun." 
 
 He halted with a gesture of despair ; his face livid 
 with fear at her apparent indecision as to his fate. 
 
 Presently, she spoke again. "Don't worry. I'm 
 not going to kill you unless you force me to which 
 I assure you will not be at all difficult for you to do. 
 Move down the trail until I tell you to stop." She 
 indicated the direction, along the ridge of the moun- 
 tain spur. 
 
 He obeyed. 
 
 "That will do," she said, when he was some twenty 
 paces away. 
 
 He stopped, turning to face her again. 
 
 Picking up his Winchester, she skillfully and 
 rapidly threw all of the shells out of the magazine. 
 Then, covering him again with her own weapon, she 
 went a few steps closer and threw the empty rifle at 
 his feet. "Now," she said, "put that gun over your 
 left shoulder, and go on ahead of me down the trail. 
 If you try to dodge or run, or if you change the 
 position of your rifle, I'll kill you." 
 
 "What are you going to do ?" he asked. 
 
 "I'm going to take you down to your camp at 
 Burnt Pine." 
 
 James Rutlidge, pale with rage and shame, stood 
 still. "You may as well kill me," he said. "I will 
 never go into camp, this way." 
 
 278
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Don't be uneasy," she returned. "I am no more 
 anxious for the world to know of this, than you are. 
 Do as I say. When we come within sight of your 
 camp, or if we meet any one, I will put up my gun 
 and we will go on together. That's why I am per- 
 mitting you to carry your rifle." 
 
 So they went down the mountainside the man 
 with his empty rifle over his shoulder; the girl fol- 
 lowing, a few paces in the rear, with ready weapon. 
 
 When they had come within sight of the camp, 
 James Rutlidge said, "There's some one there." 
 
 "I see," returned Sibyl, slipping her gun in its 
 holster and stepping forward beside her companion. 
 And there was a note of glad relief in her voice, for 
 it was Brian Oakley who was bending over the camp- 
 fire. "Come," she continued to her companion, "and 
 act as though nothing had happened." 
 
 The Ranger, on his way down from somewhere in 
 the vicinity of San Gorgonio, had stopped at the 
 hunters' camp for a belated dinner. Finding no one 
 at home, he had started a fire, and had helped himself 
 to coffee and bacon. He was just concluding his 
 appropriated meal, when Sibyl and James Rutlidge 
 arrived. 
 
 In a few words, the girl explained to her friend, 
 that she was on her way over the trail from Lone 
 Cabin, and had accidentally met Mr. Rutlidge who 
 had accompanied her as far as the camp. James 
 Rutlidge had little to say beyond assuring the Ranger 
 of his welcome; and very soon, the officer and the 
 girl set out on their way down the Laurel trail to 
 Clear Creek canyon. As they went, Sibyl's old friend 
 
 279
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 asked not a few questions about her meeting with 
 James Rutlidge; but the girl, walking ahead in the 
 narrow trail, evaded him, and was glad that he could 
 not see her f aca 
 
 Sibyl had spoken the literal truth when she said to 
 Rutlidge, that she did not want any one to know of 
 the incident. She felt ashamed and humiliated at 
 the thought of telling even her father's old comrade 
 and friend. She knew Brian Oakley too well to 
 have any doubts as to what would happen if he knew 
 how the man had approached her, and she shrank 
 from the inevitable outcome. She wished only to 
 forget the whole affair, and, as quickly as possible, 
 turned the conversation into other and safer channels. 
 
 The Ranger could not stop at the house with her, 
 but must go on down the canyon, to the Station. So 
 the girl returned to Myra Willard, alone ; and, to the 
 woman's surprise, for the second time, with an empty 
 creel. 
 
 Sibyl explained her failure to bring home a catch 
 of trout, with the simple statement that she had not 
 fished; and then to her companion's amazement 
 burst into tears; begging to return at once to their 
 little home in Fairlands. 
 
 Myra Willard thought that she understood, better 
 than the girl herself, why, for the first time in her 
 life, Sibyl wished to leave the mountains. Perhaps 
 the woman with the disfigured face was right. 
 
 280
 
 CHAPTEK XXV 
 ON THE PIPE-LINE TRAIL 
 
 AMES BUTLIDGE spent the day follow- 
 ing his experience with Sibyl Andres, in 
 camp. His companions very quickly felt 
 his sullen, ugly mood, and left him to his 
 own thoughts. 
 
 The manner in which Sibyl received his 
 advances had in no way changed the man's mind as 
 to the nature of her relation to Aaron King. To 
 one of James Rutlidge's type, schooled in the intel- 
 lectual, moral and esthetic tenets of his class, it 
 was impossible to think of the companionship of the 
 artist and the girl in any other light. If he had 
 even considered the possibility of a clean, pure com- 
 radeship existing between them under all the cir- 
 cumstances of their friendship as he had seen them 
 in the studio, on the trail at dusk, and in the artist's 
 camp he would have answered himself that Aaron 
 King was not such a fool as to fail to take advantage 
 of his opportunities. The humiliation of his pride, 
 and his rage at being so ignominiously checked by 
 the girl whom he had so long endeavored to win, 
 served only to increase his desire for her. Sibyl's 
 resolute spirit, and vigorous beauty, when aroused by 
 him, together with her unexpected opposition to his 
 advances, were as fuel to the flame of his passion. 
 
 281
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 His day of sullen brooding over the matter did not 
 improve his temper ; and the next morning his friends 
 were relieved to see him setting out alone, with rifle 
 and field-glass and lunch. Ostensibly starting in the 
 direction of the upper Laurel Creek country he 
 doubled back, as soon as he was out of sight of camp, 
 and took the trail leading down to Clear Creek 
 canyon. 
 
 It could not be said that the man had any definite 
 purpose in mind. He was simply yielding in a pur- 
 poseless way to his mood, which, for the time being, 
 could find no other expression. The remote chance 
 that some opportunity looking toward his desire 
 might present itself, led him to seek the scenes where 
 such an opportunity would be most likely to occur. 
 
 Crossing the canyon above the Company Head- 
 work, he came into the pipe-line trail at a point a 
 little back from the main wagon road and, an hour 
 later, reached the place on Oak Knoll where the 
 Government trail leads down into the canyon below, 
 and where Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had 
 committed themselves to the judgment of Croesus. 
 Here he left the trail, and climbed to a point on a 
 spur of the mountain, from which he could see the 
 path for some distance on either side and below, and 
 from which his view of the narrow valley was unob- 
 structed. Comfortably seated, with his back against 
 a rock, he adjusted his field-glass and trained it upon 
 the little spot of open green marked by the giant 
 sycamores, the dark line of cedars, and the half hid- 
 den house where he knew that Sibyl Andres and 
 Myra Willard were living. 
 
 282
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 ]STo sooner had he focused the powerful glass upon 
 the scene that so interested him, than he uttered a low 
 exclamation. The two women, surrounded by their 
 luggage and camp equipment, were sitting on the 
 porch with Brian Oakley ; waiting, evidently, for the 
 wagon that was crossing the creek toward the house. 
 It was clear to the man on the mountainside, that 
 Sibyl Andres and the woman with the disfigured face 
 were returning to Fairlands. 
 
 For some time, James Kutlidge sat watching, with 
 absorbing interest, the unconscious people in the 
 canyon below. Once, he turned for a brief glance 
 at the grove of sycamores behind the old orchard, 
 farther down the creek. The camp of Conrad 
 Lagrange and Aaron King was no longer there. 
 Quickly he fixed his gaze again upon Sibyl and her 
 friends. Presently, as one will when looking long 
 through a field-glass or telescope, he lowered his 
 hands, to rest his eyes by looking, unaided, at the 
 immediate objects in the landscape before him. At 
 that moment, the figure of a man appeared on the 
 near-by trail below. It was a pitiful figure ill- 
 kempt, ragged, half-starved, haggard-faced. 
 
 Creeping feebly along the lonely little path with- 
 out seeing the man on the mountainside above 
 crouching as he walked with a hunted, fearful air 
 the poor creature moved toward the point of the spur 
 around which the trail led beneath the spot where 
 Eutlidge sat. 
 
 As the man on the trail drew nearer, the watcher 
 on the rocks above involuntarily glanced toward the 
 
 283
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 distant Forest Ranger; then back to the as he 
 rightly guessed escaped convict. 
 
 There are, no doubt, many moments in the life of 
 a man like James Rutlidge when, however bad or 
 dominated by evil influences he may be, he feels 
 strongly the impulse of pity and the kindly desire to 
 help. Undoubtedly, James Rutlidge inherited from 
 his father those tendencies that made him easily ruled 
 by his baser passions. His character was as truly the 
 legitimate product of the age, of the social environ- 
 ment, and of the thought that accepts such characters. 
 What he might have been if better born, or if schooled 
 in an atmosphere of moral and intellectual integrity, 
 is an idle speculation. He was what his inheritance 
 and his life had made him. He was not without im- 
 pulses for good. The pitiful, hunted creature, creep- 
 ing so wearily along the trail, awoke in this man of 
 the accepted culture of his day a feeling of compas- 
 sion, and aroused in him a desire to offer assistance. 
 For the legal aspect of the case, James Rutlidge had 
 all the indifference of his kind, who imbibe contempt 
 for law with their mother's milk. For the moment he 
 hesitated. Then, as the figure below passed from his 
 sight, under the point of the spur, he slipped quietly 
 down the mountainside, and, a few minutes later, met 
 the convict face to face. 
 
 At the leveled rifle and the sharp command, 
 "Hands up," the poor fellow halted with a gesture 
 of tragic despair. An instant they stood; then the 
 hunted one turned impulsively toward the canyon 
 that, here, lies almost a sheer thousand feet below. 
 
 284
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 James Rutlidge spoke sharply. "Don't do that. 
 I'm not an officer. I want to help you." 
 
 The convict turned his hunted, fearful, starving 
 face in doubtful bewilderment toward the speaker. 
 
 The man with the gun continued, "I got the drop 
 on you to prevent accidents until I could explain 
 that's all." He lowered the rifle. 
 
 The other went a staggering step forward. "You 
 mean that ?" he said in a harsh, incredulous whisper. 
 "You you're not playing with me ?" 
 
 "Why should I want to play with you ?" returned 
 the other, kindly. "Come, let's get off the trail. I 
 have something to eat, up there." He led the way 
 back to the place where he had left his lunch. 
 
 Dropping down upon the ground, the starving man 
 seized the offered food with an animal-like cry ; feed- 
 ing noisily, with the manner of a famished beast. 
 The other watched with mingled pity and disgust. 
 
 Presently, in stammering, halting phrases, but in 
 words that showed no lack of education, the wretched 
 creature attempted to apologize for his unseemly 
 eagerness, and endeavored to thank his benefactor. 
 "I suppose, sir, there is no use trying to deny my 
 identity," he said, when James Rutlidge had again 
 assured him of his kindly interest. 
 
 "Not at all," agreed the other, "and, so far as I 
 am concerned, there is no reason why you should." 
 
 "Just what do you mean by that, sir ?" questioned 
 the convict. 
 
 "I mean that I am not an officer and have no 
 reason in the world for turning you over to them. I 
 
 285
 
 THL EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 saw you coming along the trail down there and, of 
 course, could not help noticing your condition and 
 guessing who you were. To me, you are simply a 
 poor devil who has gotten into a tight hole, and I 
 want to help you out a bit, that's all." 
 
 The convict turned his eyes despairingly toward 
 the canyon below, as he answered, "I thank you, sir, 
 but it would have been better if you had not. Your 
 help has only put the end off for a few hours. They've 
 got me shut in. I can keep away from them, up here 
 in the mountains, but I can't get out. I won't go 
 back to that hell they call prison though I won't." 
 There was no mistaking his desperate purpose. 
 
 James Rutlidge thought of that quick movement 
 toward the edge of the trail and the rocky depth 
 below. "You don't seem such a bad sort, at heart," 
 he said invitingly. 
 
 "I'm not," returned the other, "I've been a fool 
 a miserably weak fool but I've had my lesson- 
 only I have had it too late." 
 
 While the man was speaking, James Rutlidge was 
 thinking quickly. As he had been moved, at first, 
 by a spirit of compassion to give temporary assistance 
 to the poor hunted creature, he was now prompted to 
 offer more lasting help providing, of course, that he 
 could do so without too great a risk to his own con- 
 venience. The convict's hopeless condition, his 
 despairing purpose, and his evident wish to live free 
 from the past, all combined to arouse in the other 
 a desire to aid him. But while that truly benevolent 
 inclination was, in his consciousness, unmarred with
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 sinister motive of any sort; still, deeper than the 
 impulse for good in James Rutlidge's nature lay those 
 dominant instincts and passions that were his by 
 inheritance and training. The brutal desire, the 
 mood and purpose that had brought him to that spot 
 where with the aid of his glass he could watch Sibyl 
 Andres, were not denied by his impulse to kindly 
 service. Under all his thinking, as he considered 
 how he could help the convict to a better life, there 
 was the shadowy suggestion of a possible situation, 
 where a man like the one before him wholly in his 
 power as this man would be might be of use to him 
 in furthering his own purpose the purpose that had 
 brought about their meeting. 
 
 Studying the object of his pity, he said slowly, "I 
 suppose the most of us are as deserving of punishment 
 as the majority of those who actually get it. One 
 way or another, we are all trying to escape the 
 penalty for our wrong-doing. What if I should help 
 you out make it possible for you to live like other 
 men who are safe from the law? What would you 
 do if I were to help you to your freedom ?" 
 
 The hunted man became incoherent in his pleading 
 for a chance to prove the sincerity of his wish to live 
 an orderly, respectable, and honest life. 
 
 "You have a safe hiding place here in the moun- 
 tains ?" asked Rutlidge. 
 
 "Yes ; a little hut, hidden in a deep gorge, over on 
 the Cold Water. I could live there a year if I had 
 supplies." 
 
 James Rutlidge considered. "I've got it !" he said 
 
 287
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 at last. "Listen ! There must be some peak, at the 
 Cold Water end of this range, from which you can 
 see Fairlands as well as the Galena Valley." 
 
 "Yes," the other answered eagerly. 
 
 "And," continued Rutlidge, "there is a good 'auto' 
 road up the Galena Valley. One could get, I should 
 think, to a point within say nine hours of your 
 camp. Do you know anything about the heliograph ?" 
 
 "Yes," said the man, his face brightening. "That 
 is, I understand the general principle that it's a 
 method of signaling by mirror flashes." 
 
 "Good! This is my plan. I will meet you to- 
 morrow on the Laurel Creek trail, where it turns off 
 from the creek toward San Gorgonio. You know the 
 spot?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "We will go around the head of Clear Creek, on 
 the divide between this canyon and the Cold Water, 
 to some peak in the Galenas from which we can see 
 Fairlands; and where, with the field-glass, we can 
 pick out some point at the upper end of Galena 
 Valley, that we can both find later." 
 
 "I understand." 
 
 "When I get back to Fairlands, I will make a 
 night trip in the 'auto' to that point, with supplies. 
 You will meet me there. The day before I make the 
 trip, I'll signal you by mirror flashes that I am com- 
 ing ; and you will answer from the peak. We'll agree 
 on the time of day and the signals to-morrow. When 
 you have kept close, long enough for your beard and 
 hair to grow out well, everybody will have given you 
 up for dead or gone. Then I will take you down and 
 
 288
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 give you a job in an orange grove. There's a little 
 house there where you can live. You won't need to 
 show yourself down-town and, in time, you will be 
 forgotten. I'll bring you enough food to-morrow to 
 last you until I can return to town and can get back 
 on the first night trip." 
 
 The man who left James Rutlidge a few minutes 
 later, after trying brokenly to express his gratitude, 
 was a creature very different from the poor, fright- 
 ened, hunted, starving, despairing, wretch that Rut- 
 lidge had halted an hour before. What that man was 
 to become, would depend almost wholly upon his 
 benefactor. 
 
 When the man was gone, James Rutlidge again 
 took up his field-glass. The old home of Sibyl 
 Andres was deserted. While he had been talking 
 with the convict, the girl and Myra Willard had 
 started on their way back to Fairlands. 
 
 With a peculiar smile upon his heavy features, the 
 man slipped the glass into its case, and, with a long, 
 slow look over the scene, set out on his way to rejoin 
 his friends. 
 
 289
 
 CHAPTEK XXVI 
 I WANT YOU JUST AS YOU ARE 
 
 I HE evening of that day after their return 
 from the mountains, when Conrad La- 
 grange had found Aaron King so absorbed 
 in his mother's letters, the artist continued 
 in his silent, preoccupied, mood. The 
 next morning, it was the same. Refusing 
 every attempt of his friend to engage him in conver- 
 sation, he answered only with absent-minded mono- 
 syllables; until the novelist, declaring that the 
 painter was fit company for neither beast nor man, 
 left him alone ; and went off somewhere with Czar. 
 
 The artist spent the greater part of the forenoon 
 in his studio, doing nothing of importance. That is, 
 to a casual observer he would have seemed to be doing 
 nothing of importance. He did, however, place his 
 picture of the spring glade beside the portrait of Mrs. 
 Taine, and then, for an hour or more, sat considering 
 the two paintings. Then he turned the "Quaker 
 Maid" again to the wall and fixed a fresh canvas in 
 place on the easel. That was all. 
 
 Immediately after their midday lunch, he returned 
 to the studio hurriedly, as if to work. He arranged 
 his palette, paints, and brushes ready to his hand, 
 indeed but he, then, did nothing with them. List- 
 lessly, without interest, he turned through his port- 
 
 290
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 folios of sketches. Often, he looked away through the 
 big, north window to the distant mountain tops. 
 Often, he seemed to be listening. He was sitting 
 before the easel, staring at the blank canvas, when, 
 clear and sweet, from the depths of the orange grove, 
 came the pure tones of Sibyl Andres' violin. 
 
 So soft and low was the music, at first, that the 
 artist almost doubted that it was real, thinking as 
 he had thought that day when Sibyl came singing to 
 the glade that it was his fancy tricking him. When 
 he and Conrad Lagrange left the mountains three 
 days before, the girl and her companion had not 
 expected to return to Fairlands for at least two weeks. 
 But there was no mistaking that music of the hills. 
 As the tones grew louder and more insistent, with a 
 ringing note of gladness? he knew that the mountain 
 girl was announcing her arrival and, in the language 
 she loved best, was greeting her friends. 
 
 But so strangely selfish is the heart of man, that 
 Aaron King gave the novelist no share in their neigh- 
 bor's musical greeting. He received the message as 
 if it were to himself alone. As he listened, his eyes 
 brightened; he stood erect, his face turned upward 
 toward the mountain peaks in the distance; his lips 
 curved in a slow smile. He fancied that he could 
 see the girl's winsome face lighted with merriment 
 as she played, knowing his surprise. Once, he started 
 impulsively toward the door, but paused, hesitating, 
 and turned back. When the music ceased, he went 
 to the open window that looked out into the rose 
 garden, and watched expectantly. 
 
 Presently, he heard her low-voiced song as she 
 
 291
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 came through the orange grove beyond the Ragged 
 Robin hedge. Then he glimpsed her white dress at 
 the little gate in the corner. Then she stood in full 
 view. 
 
 The artist had, so far, seen Sibyl only in her moun- 
 tain costume of soft brown, made for rough contact 
 with rocks and underbrush, with felt hat to match, 
 and high, laced boots, fit for climbing. She was 
 dressed, now, as Conrad Lagrange had seen her that 
 first time in the garden, when he was hiding from 
 Louise Taine. The man at the window drew a little 
 back, with a low exclamation of pleased surprise and 
 wonder. Was that lovely creature there among the 
 roses his girl comrade of the hills ? The Sibyl Andres 
 he had known in the short skirt and high boots of 
 her mountain garb was a winsome, fanciful, some- 
 times serious, sometimes wayward, maiden. This 
 Sibyl Andres, gowned in clinging white, was a 
 slender, gracefully tall, and beautifully developed 
 woman. 
 
 Slowly, she came toward the studio end of the 
 garden; pausing here and there to bend over the 
 flowers as though in loving, tender greeting ; singing, 
 the while, her low- voiced melody; unafraid of the 
 sunshine that enveloped her in a golden flood, undis- 
 turbed by the careless fingers of the wir.d that 
 caressed her hair. A girl of the clean out-of-doors, 
 she belonged among the roses, even as she had been 
 at home among the pines and oaks of the mountains. 
 The artist, fascinated by the lovely scene, stood as 
 though fearing to move, lest the vision vanish. 
 
 292
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Then, looking up, she saw him, and stretched out 
 her hands in a gesture of greeting, with a laugh of 
 pleasure. 
 
 "Don't move, don't move!" he called impulsively. 
 "Hold the pose please hold it! I want you just as 
 you are !" 
 
 The girl, amused at his tragic earnestness, and at 
 the manner of his welcome, understood that the zeal 
 of the artist had brushed aside the polite formalities 
 of the man; and, as unaffectedly natural as she did 
 everything, gave herself to his mood. 
 
 Dragging his easel with the blank canvas upon it 
 across the studio, he cried out, again, "Don't move, 
 please don't move !" and began working. He was as 
 one beside himself, so wholly absorbed was he in 
 translating into the terms of color and line, the loveli- 
 ness, purity and truth that was expressed by the per- 
 sonality of the girl as she stood among the flowers. 
 "If I can get it ! If I can only get it !" he exclaimed 
 again and again, with a kind of savage earnestness, 
 as he worked. 
 
 All his years of careful training, all his studiously 
 acquired skill, all his mastery of the mechanics of his 
 craft, came to him, now, without conscious effort 
 obedient to his purpose. Here was no thoughtful 
 straining to remember the laws of composition, and 
 perspective, and harmony. Here was no skillful 
 evading of the truth he saw. So freely, so surely, he 
 worked, he scarcely knew he painted. Forgetting 
 self, as he was unconscious of his technic, he worked 
 as the birds sing, as the bees toil, as the deer runs. 
 
 293
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 Under his hand, his picture grew and blossomed as 
 the roses, themselves, among which the beautiful girl 
 stood. 
 
 Day after day, at that same hour, Sibyl Andres 
 came singing through the orange grove, to stand in 
 the golden sunlight among the roses, with hands out- 
 stretched in greeting. Every day, Aaron King waited 
 her coming sitting before his easel, palette and 
 brush in hand. Each day, he worked as he had 
 worked that first day with no thought for anything 
 save for his picture. 
 
 In the mornings, he walked with Conrad Lagrange 
 or, sometimes, worked with Sibyl in the garden. 
 Often, in the evening, the two men would visit the 
 little house next door. Occasionally, the girl and the 
 woman with the disfigured face would come to sit for 
 a while on the front porch with their friends. Thus 
 the neighborly friendship that began in the hills was 
 continued in the orange groves. The comradeship 
 between the two young people grew stronger, hour 
 by hour, as the painter worked at his easel to express 
 with canvas and color and brush the spirit of the girl 
 whose character and life was so unmarred by the 
 world. 
 
 All through those days, when he was so absorbed 
 in his work that he often failed to reply when she 
 spoke to him, the girl manifested a helpful under- 
 standing of his mood that caused the painter to 
 marvel. She seemed to know, instinctively, when he 
 was baffled or perplexed by the annoying devils of 
 "can't-get-at-it," that so delight to torment artist folk ; 
 
 294
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 just as she knew and rejoiced when the imps were 
 routed and the soul of the man exulted with the sure- 
 ness and freedom of his hand. He asked her, once, 
 when they had finished for the day, how it was that 
 she knew so well how the work was progressing, when 
 she could not see the picture. 
 
 She laughed merrily. "But I can see you; and 
 I" she hesitated with that trick, that he was learn- 
 ing to know so well, of searching for a word "I 
 just feel what you are feeling. I suppose it's because 
 my music is that way. Sometimes, it simply won't 
 come right, at all, and I feel as though I never could 
 do it. Then, again, it seems to do itself ; and I listen 
 and wonder just as if I had nothing to do with it." 
 
 So that day came when the artist, drawing slowly 
 back from his easel, stood so long gazing at his pic- 
 ture without touching it that the girl called to him, 
 "What's the matter ? Won't it come right ?" 
 
 Slowly he laid aside his palette and brushes. 
 Standing at the open window, he looked at her 
 smiling, but silent as she held the pose. 
 
 For an instant, she did not understand. "Am I 
 not right?" she asked anxiously. Then, before he 
 could answer "Oh, have you finished? Is it all 
 done?" 
 
 Still smiling, he answered almost sadly, "I have 
 done all that I can do. Come." 
 
 A moment later, she stood in the studio door. 
 
 Seeing her hesitate, he said again, "Come." 
 
 "I I am afraid to look," she faltered. 
 
 He laughed. "Really I don't think it's quite so 
 bad as that." 
 
 295
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 "Oh, but I don't mean that I'm afraid it's bad- 
 it isn't." 
 
 The painter watched her, a queer expression on 
 his face, as he returned curiously, "And how, pray 
 tell, do you know it isn't bad when you have never 
 seen it ? It's quite the thing, I'll admit, for critics to 
 praise or condemn without much knowledge of the 
 work; but I didn't expect you to be so modern." 
 
 "You are making fun of me," she laughed. "But 
 I don't care. I know your work is good, because I 
 know how and why you did it. You painted it just 
 as you painted the spring glade, didn't you 2" 
 
 "Yes," he said soberly, "I did. But why are you 
 afraid?" 
 
 "Why, that's the reason. I I'm afraid to see 
 myself as you see me." 
 
 The man's voice was gentle with feeling as he 
 answered seriously, "Miss Andres, you, of all the 
 people I have ever known, have the least cause to 
 fear to look at your portrait for that reason. Come." 
 
 Slowly, she went forward to stand by his side 
 before the picture. 
 
 For some time, she looked at the beautiful work 
 into which Aaron King had put the best of himself 
 and of his genius. At last, turning full upon him, 
 her eyes blue and shining, she said in a low tone, "O 
 Mr. King, it is too too beautiful ! It is so beauti- 
 ful it it hurts. She seems to, to" she searched 
 for the word "to belong to the roses, doesn't she? 
 It makes you feel just as the rose garden makes you 
 feel." 
 
 He laughed with pleasure. "What a child of 
 
 296
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 nature you are! You have forgotten that it is a 
 portrait of yourself, haven't you ?" 
 
 She laughed with him. "I had forgotten. It's so 
 lovely!" Then she added wistfully, "Am I am I 
 really like that ? just a little ?" 
 
 "No," he answered. "But that is just a little, a 
 very little, like you." 
 
 She looked at him half doubtfully sincerely 
 unmindful of the compliment, in her consideration of 
 its truth. Shaking her head, with a serious smile, 
 she returned slowly, "I wish that I could be sure you 
 are not mistaken." 
 
 "You will permit me to exhibit the picture, will 
 you ?" he asked. 
 
 "Why, yes ! of course ! You made it for people to 
 see, didn't you ? I don't believe any one could look at 
 it seriously without having good thoughts, could 
 they?" 
 
 "I'm sure they could not," he answered. "But, 
 you see, it's a portrait of you; and I thought you 
 might not care for the ah " he finished with a 
 smile "shall I say fame ?" 
 
 "Oh ! I did not think that you would tell any one 
 that / had anything to do with it. Is it necessary 
 that my name should be mentioned ?" 
 
 "Not exactly necessary" he admitted "but few 
 women, these days, would miss the opportunity." 
 
 She shook her head, with a positive air. "No, no; 
 you must exhibit it as a picture ; not as a portrait of 
 me. The portrait part is of no importance. It is 
 what you have made your picture say, that will do 
 good." 
 
 297
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "And what have I made it say?" he asked, curi- 
 ously pleased. 
 
 "Why it says that that a woman should be beauti- 
 ful as the roses are beautiful without thinking too 
 much about it, you know just as a man should be 
 strong without thinking too much about his strength, 
 I mean." 
 
 "Yes," he agreed, "it says that. But I want you 
 to know that, whatever title it is exhibited under, it 
 will always be, to me, a portrait the truest I have 
 ever painted." 
 
 She flushed with genuine pleasure as she said 
 brightly, "I like you for that. And now let's try it 
 on Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard. You get 
 him, and I'll run and bring her. Mind you don't let 
 Mr. Lagrange in until I get back ! I want to watch 
 him when he first sees it." 
 
 When the artist found Conrad Lagrange and told 
 him that the picture was finished, the novelist, with- 
 out comment, turned his attention to Czar. 
 
 The painter, with an amused smile, asked, "Won't 
 you come for a look at it, old man ?" 
 
 The other returned gruffly, "Thanks; but I don't 
 think I care to risk it." 
 
 The artist laughed. "But Miss Andres wants you 
 to come. She sent me to fetch you." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange turned his peculiar, baffling eyes 
 upon the young man. "Does she like it ?" 
 
 "She seems to." 
 
 "If she seems to, she does," retorted the other, ris- 
 ing. "And that's different." 
 
 When the novelist, with his three friends, stood
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 before the easel, he was silent for so long that the 
 girl said anxiously, "I I thought you would like it, 
 Mr. Lagrange." 
 
 They saw the strange man's eyes fill with tears as 
 he answered, in the gentle tones that always marked 
 his words to her, "Like it? My dear child, how 
 could I help liking it? It is you you!" To the 
 artist, he added, "It is great work, my boy, great! 
 I I wish your mother could have seen it. It is 
 like her as I knew her. You have done well." He 
 turned, with gentle courtesy, to Myra Willard ; "And 
 you ? What is your verdict, Miss Willard ?" 
 
 With her arm around the beautiful original of the 
 portrait, the woman with the disfigured face an- 
 swered, "I think, sir, that I, better than any one in 
 all the world, know how good, how true, it is." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange spoke again to the artist, inquir- 
 ingly ; "You will exhibit it ?" 
 
 "Miss Andres says that I may but not as a 
 portrait." 
 
 The novelist could not conceal his pleasure at the 
 answer. Presently, he said, "If it is not to be shown 
 as a portrait, may I suggest a title ?" 
 
 "I was hoping you would !" exclaimed the painter. 
 
 "And so was I," cried Sibyl, with delight. "What 
 is it, Mr. Lagrange ?" 
 
 "Let it be exhibited as 'The Spirit of Nature 
 A Portrait'," answered Conrad Lagrange. 
 
 As the novelist finished speaking, Yee Kee ap- 
 peared in the doorway. "They come big automobile. 
 Whole lot people. Misse Taine, Miste' Lutlidge, sick 
 man, whole lot I come tell you." 
 
 299
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 The artist spoke quickly, "Stop them in the 
 house, Kee; I'll be right in," and the Chinaman 
 vanished. 
 
 At Yee Kee's announcement, Myra Willard's face 
 went white, and she gave a low cry. 
 
 "Never mind, dear," said the girl, soothingly. "We 
 can slip away through the garden come." 
 
 When Sibyl and the woman with the disfigured 
 face were gone, Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King 
 looked at each other, questioningly. 
 
 Then the novelist said harshly, pointing to the 
 picture on the easel, "You're not going to let that 
 flock of buzzards feed on this, are you ? I'll murder 
 some one, sure as hell, if you do." 
 
 "I don't think I could stand it, myself," said the 
 artist, laughing grimly, as he drew the velvet curtain 
 to hide the portrait. 
 
 300
 
 CHAPTEK XXVII 
 
 THE ANSWER 
 
 Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange 
 entered the house to meet their callers 
 from Fairlands Heights, the artist felt, 
 oddly, that he was meeting a company of 
 strangers. 
 
 The carefully hidden, yet to him 
 subtly revealed, warmth of Mrs. Taine's greeting 
 embarrassed him with a momentary sense of shame. 
 The frothing gush of Louise's inane ejaculations, and 
 the coughing, choking, cursing of Mr. Taine, 
 whose feeble grip upon the flesh that had so betrayed 
 him was, by now, so far loosed that he could scarcely 
 walk alone, set the painter struggling for words that 
 would mean nothing the only words that, under the 
 circumstances, could serve. fAaron King was some- 
 what out of practise in the use of meaningless 
 words, and the art of talking without saying anything 
 is an art that requires constant exercise if one would 
 not commit serious technical blunders. ; James Rut- 
 lidge's greeting was insolently familiar ; as a man of 
 certain mind greets in public a boon companion 
 of his private and unmentionable adventures. Toward 
 the great critic, the painter exercised a cool self- 
 restraint that was at least commendable. 
 
 While Aaron King, with James Rutlidge and Mr. 
 
 301
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 Taine, with carefully assumed interest, was listening 
 to Louise's effort to make a jumble of "ohs" and 
 "ahs" and artistic sighs sound like a description of a 
 sunset in the mountains, Mrs. Taine said quietly to 
 Conrad Lagrange, "You certainly have taken excel- 
 lent care of your protege, this summer. He looks 
 splendidly fit." 
 
 The novelist, watching the woman whose eyes, as 
 she spoke, were upon the artist, answered, "You are 
 pleased to flatter me, Mrs. Taine." 
 
 She turned to him, with a knowing smile. "Per- 
 haps I am giving you more credit than is due. I 
 understand Mr. King has not been in your care 
 altogether. Shame on you, Mr. Lagrange ! for a man 
 of your age and experience to permit your charge to 
 roam all over the country, alone and unprotected, 
 with a picturesque mountain girl! and that, after 
 your warning to poor me !" 
 
 Conrad Lagrange smiled grimly. "I confess I 
 thought of you in that connection several times." 
 
 She eyed him doubtfully. "Oh, well," she said 
 easily, "I suppose artists must amuse themselves, 
 occasionally the same as the rest of us." 
 
 "I don't think that, 'amuse' is exactly the word, 
 Mrs. Taine," the other returned coldly. 
 
 "No ? Surely you don't meant to tell me that it is 
 anything serious ?" 
 
 "I don't mean to tell you anything about it," he 
 retorted rather sharply. 
 
 She laughed. "You don't need to. Jim has already 
 told me quite enough. Mr. King, himself, will tell 
 me more." 
 
 302
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Not unless he's a bigger fool than I think," 
 growled the novelist. 
 
 Again, she laughed into his face, mockingly. "You 
 men are all more or less foolish when there's a woman 
 in the case, aren't you ?" 
 
 To which, the other answered tartly, "If we were 
 not, there would be no woman in the case." 
 
 As Conrad Lagrange spoke, Louise, exhausted by 
 her efforts to achieve that sunset in the mountains 
 with her limited supply of adjectives, floundered 
 hopelessly into the expressive silence of clasped hands 
 and heaving breast and ecstatically upturned eyes. 
 The artist, seizing the opportunity with the cunning 
 of desperation, turned to Mrs. Taine, with some inane 
 remark about the summers in California. 
 
 Whatever it was that he said, Mrs. Taine agreed 
 with him, neartily, adding, "And you, I suppose, 
 have been making good use of your time ? Or have 
 you been simply storing up material and energy for 
 this winter ?" 
 
 This brought Louise out of the depths of that 
 sunset, with a flop. She was so sure that Mr. King 
 had some inexpressibly wonderful work to show them. 
 Couldn't they go at once to the equally inexpressibly 
 beautiful studio, to see the inexpressibly lovely pic- 
 tures that she was so inexpressibly sure he had been 
 painting in the inexpressibly grand and beautiful and 
 wonderfully lovely mountains ? 
 
 The painter assured them that he had no work for 
 them to see; and Louise floundered again into the 
 depths of inexpressible disappointment and despair. 
 
 Nevertheless, a few minutes later, Aaron King 
 
 303
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 found himself in his studio, alone with Mrs. Taine. 
 He could not have told exactly how she managed it, 
 or why. Perhaps, in sheer pity, she had rescued him 
 from the floods of Louise's appreciation. Perhaps 
 she had some other reasons. There had been some- 
 thing said about her right to see her own picture, and 
 then there they were with the others safely barred 
 from intruding upon the premises sacred to art. 
 
 When there was no longer need to fear the eyes of 
 the world, Mrs. Taine was at no pains to hide the 
 warmth of her feeling. With little reserve, she con- 
 fessed herself in every look and tone and movement. 
 
 "Are you really glad to see me, I wonder," she 
 said invitingly. "All this summer, while I have been 
 forced to endure the company of all sorts of stupid 
 people, I have been thinking of you and your work. 
 And, you see, I have come to you, the first possible 
 moment after my return home." 
 
 The man being a man could not remain wholly 
 insensible to the alluring physical beauty of the 
 splendid creature who stood so temptingly before 
 him ; but, to the honor of his kind, he could and did 
 remain master of himself. 
 
 The woman, true to her life training, as James 
 Rutlidge had been true to his schooling when he 
 approached Sibyl Andres in the mountains, con- 
 strued the artist's manner, not as a splendid self- 
 control, but as a careful policy. To her, and to her 
 kind, the great issues of life are governed, not at all 
 by principle, but by policy. It is not at all what 
 one is, or what one may accomplish that matters ; it 
 is wholly what one may skillfully appear to be, and 
 
 304
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 what one may skillfully provoke the world to say, 
 that is of vital importance. Turning from the painter 
 to the easel, as if to find in his portrait of her the 
 fuller expression of that which she believed he dared 
 not yet put into words, she was about to draw aside 
 the curtain ; when Aaron King checked her quickly, 
 with a smile that robbed his words of any rudeness. 
 
 "Please don't touch that, Mrs. Taine. I am not 
 yet ready to show it." 
 
 As she turned from the easel to face him, he took 
 her portrait from where it rested, face to the wall; 
 and placed it upon another easel, saying, "Here is 
 your picture." 
 
 With the painting before her, she talked eagerly 
 of her plans for the artist's future ; how the picture 
 was to be exhibited, and how, because it was her 
 portrait, it would be praised and talked about by her 
 friends who were leaders in the art circles. Frankly, 
 she spoke of "pull" and "influence" and "scheme" ; 
 of "working" this and that "paper" for "write-ups" ; 
 of "handling" this or that "critic" and "writer" ; of 
 "reaching the committees" ; of introducing the 
 painter into the proper inside cliques, and clans; 
 and of clever "advertising stunts" that would make 
 him the most popular portrait painter of his day; 
 insuring thus his as she called it fame. 
 
 The man who had painted the picture of the spring 
 glade, and who had so faithfully portrayed the truth 
 and beauty of Sibyl Andres as she stood among the 
 roses, listened to this woman's plans for making his 
 portrait of herself famous, with a feeling of embar- 
 rassment and shame. 
 
 305
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 "Do you really think that the work merits such 
 prominence as you say will be given it?" he asked 
 doubtfully. 
 
 She laughed knowingly, "Just wait until Jim Kut- 
 lidge's 'write-up' appears, and all the others follow 
 his lead, and you'll see ! The picture is clever enough 
 you know it as well as I. It is beautiful. It has 
 everything that we women want in a portrait. I 
 really don't know much about what you painters call 
 art; but I know that when Jim and our friends get 
 through with it, your picture will have every mark 
 of a great masterpiece, and that you will be on the 
 topmost wave of success." 
 
 "And then what ?" he asked. 
 
 Again, she interpreted his words in the light of 
 her own thoughts, and with little attempt to veil the 
 fire that burned in her eyes, answered, "And then 
 I hope that you will not forget me." 
 
 For a moment he returned her look ; then a feeling 
 of disgust and shame for her swept over him, and 
 he again turned away, to stand gazing moodily out 
 of the window that looked into the rose garden. 
 
 "You seem to be disturbed and worried," she said, 
 in a tone that implied a complete understanding of 
 his mood, and a tacit acceptance of the things that 
 he would say if it were not for the world. 
 
 He laughed shortly "I fear you will think me 
 ungrateful for your kindness. Believe me, I am not." 
 
 "I know you are not," she returned. "But don't 
 you think that you had better confess, just the same ?" 
 
 He answered wonderingly, "Confess ?" 
 
 306
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Yes." She shook her finger at him, in playful 
 severity. "Oh, I know what you have been up to all 
 summer running wild with your mountain girl ! 
 Really, you ought to be more discreet." 
 
 Aaron King's face burned as he stammered some- 
 thing about not knowing what she meant. 
 
 She laughed gaily. "There, there, never mind 
 I forgive you now that you are safely back in civili- 
 zation again. I know you artists, and how you must 
 have your periods of ah relaxation with rather 
 more liberties than the common herd. Just so you 
 are careful that the world doesn't know too much." 
 
 At this frank revelation of her mind, the man 
 stood amazed. For the construction she put upon his 
 relation with the girl whose pure and gentle com- 
 radeship had led him to greater heights in his art 
 than he had ever before attained, he could have 
 driven this woman from the studio he felt that she 
 profaned. But what could he say ? He remembered 
 Conrad Lagrange's counsel when James Rutlidge had 
 seen the girl at their camp. What could he say that 
 would not injure Sibyl Andres ? To cover his embar- 
 rassment, he forced a laugh and answered lightly, 
 "Really, I am not good at confessions." 
 
 "Nor I at playing the part of confessor," she 
 laughed with him. "But, just the same, you might 
 tell me what you think of yourself. Aren't you just 
 a little ashamed ?" 
 
 The artist had moved to a position in front of her 
 portrait; and, as he looked upon the painted lie, his 
 answer came. "Rather let me tell you what I think 
 
 307
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 of you, Mrs. Taine. And let me tell you in the lan- 
 guage I know best. Let me put my answer to your 
 charges here," he touched her portrait. 
 
 Almost, his reply was worthy of Conrad Lagrange> 
 himself. 
 
 "I don't quite understand," she said, a trifle put 
 out by the turn his answer had taken. 
 
 "I mean," he explained eagerly, "that I want to 
 repaint your portrait. You remember, I wrote, when 
 I returned Mr. Taine's generous check, that I was 
 not altogether satisfied with it. Give me another 
 chance." 
 
 "You mean for me to come here again, to pose for 
 you ? as I did before ?" 
 
 "Yes," he answered, "just as you did before. I 
 want to make a portrait worthy of you, as this is no>. 
 Let me tell you, on the canvas, what I cannot " he 
 hesitated then said deliberately "what I dare not 
 put into words." 
 
 The woman received his words as a veiled declara- 
 tion of a passion he dared not, yet, openly express. 
 She thought his request a clever ruse to renew their 
 meetings in the privacy of his studio, and was, accord- 
 ingly, delighted. 
 
 "Oh, that will be wonderful! heavenly!" she 
 cried, springing to her feet. "Can we begin at once ? 
 May I come to-morrow ?" 
 
 "Yes," he answered, "come to-morrow." 
 
 "And may I wear the Quaker gown ?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed ! I want you just as you were before 
 the same dress, the same pose. It is to be the same 
 picture, you understand, only a better one one more 
 
 308
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 worthy of us, both. And now," he continued hur- 
 riedly, "don't you think that we should return to the 
 house?" 
 
 "I suppose so," she answered regretfully linger- 
 ing. 
 
 The artist was already opening the door. 
 
 As they passed out, she placed her hand on his 
 arm, and looked up into his face admiringly. "What 
 a clever, clever man you are, to think of it! And 
 what a story it will make for the papers when my 
 picture is shown how you were not satisfied with 
 the portrait and refused to let it go and how, after 
 keeping it in your studio for months, you repainted 
 it, to satisfy your artistic conscience!" 
 
 Aaron King smiled. 
 
 The announcement in the house that the artist was 
 to repaint Mrs. Taine's picture, provoked character- 
 istic comment. Louise effervesced a frothy stream 
 of bubbling exclamations. James Rutlidge gave a 
 hearty, "By Jove, old man, you have nerve ! If you 
 can really improve on that canvas, you are a wonder." 
 And Mr. Taine, under the watchful eye of his beauti- 
 ful wife, responded with a husky whisper, "Quite 
 right my boy quite right! Certainly by all 
 means- if you feel that way about it " his consent 
 and approval ending in a paroxysm of coughing that 
 left him weak and breathless, and nearly eliminated 
 him from the question, altogether. 
 
 When the Fairlands Heights party had departed, 
 Conrad Lagrange looked the artist up and down. 
 
 "Well," he growled harshly, in his most brutal 
 tones, "what is it? Is the dog returning to his 
 
 309
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 vomit? or is the prodigal turning his back on hia 
 hogs and his husks ?" 
 
 Aaron King smiled as he answered, "I think, 
 rather, it's the case of the blind beggar who sat by 
 the roadside, helpless, until a certain Great Physician 
 passed that way." 
 
 And Conrad Lagrange understood. 
 
 310
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 YOU'RE RUINED, MY BOY 
 
 T was no light task to which Aaron King 
 had set his hand. He did not doubt what 
 it would cost him. Nor did Conrad 
 Lagrange, as they talked together that 
 evening, fail to point out clearly what it 
 
 would mean to the artist, at the very 
 
 beginning of his career, to fly thus rudely in the face 
 of the providence that had chosen to serve him. The 
 world's history of art and letters affords too many 
 examples of men who, because they refused to pay 
 court to the ruling cliques and circles of their little 
 day, had seen the doors of recognition slammed in 
 their faces; and who, even as they wrought their 
 great works, had been forced to hear, as they toiled, 
 the discordant yelpings of the self-appointed watch- 
 dogs of the halls of fame. Nor did the artist ques- 
 tion the final outcome, if only his work should be 
 found worthy to endure, for the world's history 
 establishes, also, the truth that he who labors for a 
 higher wage than an approving paragraph in the 
 daily paper, may, in spite of the condemnation of the 
 pretending rulers, live in the life of his race, long 
 after the names to which he refused to bow are lost 
 in the dust of their self-raised thrones. 
 
 The painter was driven to his course by that self- 
 
 311
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 respect, without which, no man can sanely endure his 
 own company ; together with that reverence I say it 
 deliberately that reverence for his art, without 
 which, no worthy work is possible. He had come to 
 understand that one may not prostitute his genius to 
 the immoral purposes of a diseased age, without reap- 
 ing a prostitute's reward. The hideous ruin that Mr. 
 Taine had, in himself, wrought by the criminal dissi- 
 pation of his manhood's strength, and by the debasing 
 of his physical appetites and passions, was to Aaron 
 King, now, a token of the intellectual, spiritual, and 
 moral ruin that alone can result from a debased and 
 depraved dissipation of an artist's creative power. 
 He saw clearly, now, that the influence his work must 
 wield upon the lives of those who came within its 
 reach, must be identical with the influence of Sibyl 
 Andres, who had so unconsciously opened his eyes to 
 the true mission and glory of the arts, and thus had 
 made his decision possible. In that hour when Mrs. 
 Taine had revealed herself to him so clearly, follow- 
 ing as it did so closely his days of work and the final 
 completion of his portrait of the girl among the roses, 
 he saw and felt the woman, not as one who could help 
 him to the poor rewards of a temporary popularity, 
 but as the spirit of an age that threatens the very life 
 of art by seeking to destroy the vital truth and pur- 
 pose of its existence. He felt that in painting the 
 portrait of Mrs. Taine as he had painted it he had 
 betrayed a trust; as truly as had his father who, for 
 purely personal aggrandizement, had stolen the ma- 
 terial wealth intrusted to him by his fellows. The 
 young man understood, now, that, instead of fulfilling 
 
 312
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 the purpose of his mother's sacrifice, and realizing for 
 her her dying wish, as he had promised; the course 
 he had entered upon would have thwarted the one and 
 denied the other. 
 
 The young man had answered the novelist truly, 
 that it was a case of the blind beggar by the wayside. 
 He might have carried the figure farther; for that 
 same blind beggar, when his eyes had been opened, 
 was persecuted by the very ones who had fed him in 
 his infirmity. It is easier, sometimes, to receive 
 blindly, than to give with eyes that see too clearly. 
 
 When Mrs. Taine went to the artist, in the studio, 
 the next day, she found him in the act of retying the 
 package of his mother's letters. For nearly an hour, 
 he had been reading them. For nearly an hour be- 
 fore that," he had been seated, motionless, before the 
 picture that Conrad Lagrange had said was a por- 
 trait of the Spirit of Nature. 
 
 When Mrs. Taine had slipped off her wrap, and 
 stood before him gowned in the dress that so revealed 
 the fleshly charms it pretended to hide, she indicated 
 the letters in the artist's hands, with an insinuating 
 laugh ; while there was a glint of more than passing 
 curiosity in her eyes. "Dear me," she said, "I hope 
 I am not intruding upon the claims of some absent 
 affinity." 
 
 Aaron King gravely held out his hand with the 
 package of letters, saying quietly, "They are from 
 my mother." 
 
 And the woman had sufficient grace to blush, for 
 once, with unfeigned shame. 
 
 When he had received her apologies, and, putting 
 
 313
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 aside the letters, had succeeded in making her forget 
 the incident, he said, ''And now, if you are ready, 
 shall we begin ?" 
 
 For some time the painter stood before the picture 
 on his easel, without touching palette or brush, study- 
 ing the face of the woman who posed for him. By a 
 slight movement of her eyes, without turning her 
 head, she could look him fairly in the face. Pres- 
 ently, as he continued to gaze at her so intently, she 
 laughed ; and, with a little shrug of her shoulders and 
 a pretense as of being cold, said, "When you look at 
 me that way, I feel as though you had surprised me 
 at my bath." 
 
 The artist turned his attention instantly to his 
 color-box. While setting his palette, with his eyes 
 upon his task, he said deliberately, " 'Venus Sur- 
 prised at the Bath.' Do you know that you would 
 make a lovely Venus ?" 
 
 With a low laugh, she returned, daringly. "Would 
 you care to paint me as the Goddess of Love ?" 
 
 He, still, did not look at her ; but answered, while, 
 with deliberate care, he selected a few brushes from 
 the Chinese jar near the easel, "Venus is always a 
 very popular subject, you know." 
 
 She did not speak for a moment or two; and the 
 painter felt her watching him. As he turned to his 
 canvas still careful not to look in her direction 
 she said, suggestively, "I suppose you could change 
 the face so that no one would know it was I who 
 posed." 
 
 The man remembered her carefully acquired rep- 
 utation for modesty, but held to his purpose, saying, 
 
 314
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 as if considering the question seriously, "Oh, as for 
 that part; it could be managed with perfect safety." 
 Then, suddenly, he turned his eyes upon her face, 
 with a gaze so sharp and piercing that the blood 
 slowly colored neck and cheek. 
 
 But the painter did not wait for the blush. He 
 had seen what he wanted and was at work with 
 the almost savage intensity that had marked his man- 
 ner while he had worked upon the portrait of Sibyl 
 Andres. 
 
 And so, day after day, as he painted, again, the 
 portrait of the woman who Conrad Lagrange fanci- 
 fully called "The Age," the artist permitted her to 
 betray her real self the self that was so commonly 
 hidden from the world, under the mask of a pretended 
 culture, and the cloak of a fraudulent refinement. 
 He led her to talk of the world in which she lived 
 of the scandals and intrigues among those of her 
 class who hold such enviable positions in life. He 
 drew from her the philosophies and beliefs and relig- 
 ions of her kind. He encouraged her to talk of art 
 to give her understanding of the world of artists as 
 she knew it, and to express her real opinions and 
 tastes in pictures and books. He persuaded her to 
 throw boldly aside the glittering, tinsel garb in which 
 she walked before the world, and so to stand before 
 him in all the hideous vulgarity, the intellectual pov- 
 erty, and the moral depravity of her naked self. 
 
 At times, when, under his intense gaze, she drew 
 the cloak of her pretenses hurriedly about her, he 
 sat before his picture without touching the canvas, 
 waiting; or, perhaps, he paced the floor; until, with 
 
 315
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 skillful words, her fears were banished and she was 
 again herself. Then, with quick eye and sure, ready 
 hand, he wrought into the portrait upon the easel so 
 far as the power was given him all that he saw in 
 the face of the woman who posing for him, secure in 
 the belief that he was painting a lie revealed her 
 true nature, warped and distorted as it was by an age 
 that, demanding realism in art, knows not what it 
 demands. Always, when the sitting was finished, he 
 drew the curtain to hide the picture ; forbidding her 
 to look at it until he said that it was finished. 
 
 Much of the time, when he was not in the studio 
 at work, the painter spent with Mrs. Taine and her 
 friends, in the big touring car, and at the house on 
 Fairlands Heights. But the artist did not, now, enter 
 into the life of Fairlands' Pride for gain or for pleas- 
 ure he went for study as a physician goes into the 
 dissecting room. He justified himself by the old and 
 familiar argument that it was for his art's sake. 
 
 Sibyl Andres, he seldom saw, except occasionally, 
 in the early morning, in the rose garden. The girl 
 knew what he was doing that is, she knew that he 
 was painting a portrait of Mrs. Taine and so, with 
 Myra Willard, avoided the place. But Conrad La- 
 grange, now, made the neighboring house in the 
 orange grove his place of refuge from Louise Taine, 
 who always accompanied Mrs. Taine, lest the world 
 should talk, but who never went as far as the studio. 
 
 But often, as he worked, the artist heard the music 
 of the mountain girl's violin; and he knew that she, 
 in her own beautiful way, was trying to help him 
 as she would have said to put the mountains into 
 
 316
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 his work. Many times, he was conscious of the feel- 
 ing that some one was watching him. Once, pausing 
 at the garden end of the studio as he paced to and fro, 
 he caught a glimpse of her as she slipped through the 
 gate in the Ragged Robin hedge. And once, in the 
 morning, after one of those afternoons when he had 
 gone away with Mrs. Taine at the conclusion of the 
 sitting, he found a note pinned to the velvet curtain 
 that hid the canvas on his working easel. It was a 
 quaint little missive; written in one of the girl's 
 fanciful moods, with a reference to "Blue Beard," 
 and the assurance that she had been strong and had 
 not looked at the forbidden picture. 
 
 As the work progressed, Mrs. Taine remarked, 
 often, how the artist was changed. When painting 
 that first picture, he had been so sure of himself. 
 W T orking with careless ease, he had been suave and 
 pleasant in his manner, with ready smile or laugh. 
 Why, she questioned, was he, now, so grave and 
 serious ? Why did he pause so often, to sit staring at 
 his canvas, or to pace the floor ? Why did he seem 
 to be so uncertain to be questioning, searching, hesi- 
 tating? The woman thought that she knew. Re- 
 joicing in her fancied victory all but won she 
 looked forward to the triumphant moment when this 
 splendid man should be swept from his feet by the 
 force of the passion she thought she saw him strug- 
 gling to conceal. Meanwhile she tempted him by all 
 the wiles she knew inviting him with eyes and lips 
 and graceful pose and meaning gesture. 
 
 And Aaron King, with clear, untroubled eye seeing 
 all; with cool brain understanding all; with steady, 
 
 317
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 skillful hand, ruled supremely by his purpose, 
 painted that which he saw and understood into his 
 portrait of her. 
 
 So they came to the last sitting. On the following 
 evening, Mrs. Taine was giving a dinner at the house 
 on Fairlands Heights, at which the artist was to meet 
 some people who would be as she said useful to 
 him. Eastern people they were ; from the accredited 
 center of art and literature; members of the inner 
 circle of the elect. They happened to be spending 
 the season on the Coast, and she had taken advantage 
 of the opportunity to advance the painter's interests. 
 It was very fortunate that her portrait was to be 
 finished in time for them to see it. 
 
 The artist was sorry, he said, but, while it would 
 not be necessary for her to come to the studio again, 
 the picture was not yet finished, and he could not 
 permit its being exhibited until he was ready to sign 
 the canvas. 
 
 "But I may see it ?" she asked, as he laid aside his 
 palette and brushes, and announced that he was 
 through. 
 
 With a quick hand, he drew the curtain. "Xot 
 yet ; please not until I am ready." 
 
 "Oh!" she cried with a charming air of submitting 
 to one whose wish is law, "How mean of you! I 
 know it is splendid ! Are you satisfied ? Is it better 
 than the other ? Is it like me ?" 
 
 "I am sure that it is much better than the other," 
 he replied. "It is as like you as I can make it." 
 
 "And is it as beautiful as the other 2" 
 
 318
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 "It is beautiful as you are beautiful," lie an- 
 swered. 
 
 "I shall tell them all about it, to-morrow night 
 even if I haven't seen it. And so will Jim Kutlidge." 
 
 Aaron King and Oonrad Lagrange spent that even- 
 ing at the little house next door. The next morning, 
 the artist shut himself up in his studio. At lunch 
 time, he would not come out. Late in the afternoon, 
 the novelist went, again, to knock at the door. 
 
 The artist called in a voice that rang with triumph, 
 "Come in, old man, come in and help me celebrate." 
 
 Entering, Conrad Lagrange found him; sitting, 
 pale and worn, before his picture his palette and 
 brushes still in his hand. 
 
 And such a picture! 
 
 A moment, the novelist who knew as few men 
 know the world that was revealed w th such fidelity 
 in that face upon the canvas, looked ; then, with weird 
 and wonderful oaths of delight, he caught the tired 
 artist and whirled him around the studio, in a tri- 
 umphant dance. 
 
 "You've done it! man you've done it! It's all 
 there ; every rotten, stinking shred of it ! Wow ! but 
 it's good so damned good that it's almost inhuman. 
 I knew you had it in you. I knew it was in you, all 
 the time if only you could come alive. God, man! 
 if that could only be exhibited alongside the other! 
 Look here!" 
 
 He dragged the easel that held Sibyl Andres' por- 
 trait to a place beside the one upon which the canvas 
 just finished rested, and drew back the curtain. The 
 effect was startling. 
 
 319
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 " 'The Spirit of Nature' and 'The Spirit of the 
 Age'," said Conrad Lagrange, in a low tone. 
 
 "But you're ruined, my boy," he added gleefully. 
 "You're ruined. These canvases will never be ex- 
 hibited. Her own, she'll smash when she sees it ; and 
 you'll be artistically damned by the very gods she 
 has invoked to bless you with fame and wealth. Lord, 
 but I envy you ! You have your chance now a real 
 chance to be worthy your mother's sacrifice. 
 
 "Come on, let's get ready for the feast." 
 
 320
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 THE HAND WRITING ON THE WALL 
 
 T was November. Nearly a year had 
 passed since that day when the young man 
 on the Golden State Limited with the 
 inheritance he had received from his 
 mother's dying lips, and with his solemn 
 promise to her still fresh in his mind 
 looked into the eyes of the woman on the platform of 
 the observation car. That same day, too, he first saw 
 the woman with the disfigured face, and, for the first 
 time, met the famous Conrad Lagrange. 
 
 Aaron King was thinking of these things as he set 
 out, that evening, with his friend, for the home of 
 Mrs. Taine. He remarked to the novelist that the 
 time seemed, to him, many years. 
 
 "To me, Aaron," answered the strange man, "it 
 has been the happiest and if you would not mis- 
 understand me the most satisfying year of my life. 
 And this" he added, his deep voice betraying his 
 emotion "this has been the happiest day of the year. 
 It is your independence day. I shall always celebrate 
 it as such I I have no independence day of my 
 own to celebrate, you know." 
 
 Aaron King did not misunderstand. 
 As the two men approached the big house on Fair- 
 lands Heights, they saw that modern palace, from 
 concrete foundation to red-tiled roof, ablaze with 
 
 321
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 many lights. Situated upon the very topmost of the 
 socially graded levels of Fairlands, it outshone them 
 all ; and, quite likely, the glittering display was mis- 
 taken by many dwellers in the valley below for a new 
 constellation of the heavenly bodies. Quite likely, 
 too, some lonely dweller, high up among the distant 
 mountain peaks, looked down upon the sparkling 
 bauble that lay for the moment, as it were, on the 
 wide lap of the night, and smiled in quiet amusement 
 that the earth children should attach such value to so 
 fragile a toy. 
 
 As they passed the massive, stone pillars of the 
 entrance to the grounds, Conrad Lagrange said, 
 "Really, Aaron, don't you feel a little ashamed of 
 yourself ? coming here to-night, after the outrageous 
 return you have made for the generous hospitality of 
 these people ? You know that if Mrs. Taine had seen 
 what you have done to her portrait, you could force 
 the pearly gates easier than you could break in here." 
 
 The artist laughed. "To tell the truth, I don't feel 
 exactly at home. But what the deuce can I do? 
 After my intimacy with them, all these months, I 
 can't assume that they are going to make my picture 
 a reason for refusing to recognize me, can I ? As I 
 see it, they, not I, must take the initiative. I can't 
 say : 'Well, I've told the truth about you, so throw me 
 out'." 
 
 The novelist grinned. "Thus it is when 'Art' be- 
 comes entangled with the family of 'Materialism.' 
 It's hard to break away from the flesh-pots even 
 when you know you are on the road to the Promised 
 Land. But don't worry 'The Age' will take the 
 
 322
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 initiative fast enough when she sees your portrait of 
 her. Wow! In the meantime, let's play their game 
 to-night, and take what spoils the gods may send. 
 There will be material here for pictures and stories a 
 plenty." As they went up the wide steps and under 
 the portal into the glare of the lights, and caught the 
 sound of the voices within, he added under his 
 breath, "Lord, man, but 'tis a pretty show ! if only 
 things were called by their right names. That old 
 Babylonian, Belshazzar, had nothing on us moderns 
 after all, did he ? Watch out for the writing upon 
 the wall." 
 
 When Aaron King and his companion entered the 
 spacious rooms where the pride of Fairlands Heights 
 and the eastern lions were assembled, a buzz of com- 
 ment went round the glittering company. Aside 
 from the fact that Mrs. Taine, with practised skill, 
 had prepared the way for her protege, by subtly stim- 
 ulating the curiosity of her guests the appearance of 
 the two men, alone, would have attracted their atten- 
 tion. The artist, with his strong, splendidly 
 proportioned, athletic body, and his handsome, clean- 
 cut, intellectual face calmly sure of himself with 
 the air of one who knows that his veins are rich with 
 the wealth of many generations of true culture and 
 refinement ; and the novelist easily the most famous 
 of his day tall, emaciated, grotesquely stooped 
 with his homely face seamed and lined, world-worn 
 and old, and his sharp eyes peering from under his 
 craggy brows with that analyzing, cynical, half- 
 pathetic, half-humorous expression certainly pre- 
 sented a contrast too striking to escape notice. 
 
 323
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 For an instant, as comrades side by side upon a 
 battle-field might do, they glanced over the scene. To 
 the painter's eye, the assembled guests appeared as a 
 glittering, shimmering, scintillating, cloud-like mass 
 that, never still, stirred within itself, in slow, grace- 
 ful, restless motions forming always, without pur- 
 pose, new combinations and groupings that were 
 broken up, even as they were shaped, to be reformed ; 
 with the black spots and splashes of the men's con- 
 ventional dress ever changing amid the brighter 
 colors and textures of the women's gowns ; the warm 
 flesh tints of bare white arms and shoulders, gleaming 
 here and there; and the flash and sparkle of jewels, 
 threading the sheen of silks and the filmy softness 
 of laces. Into the artist's mind fresh from the 
 tragic earnestness of his day's work, and still under 
 the enduring spell of his weeks in the mountains 
 flashed a sentence from a good old book ; "For what 
 is your life ? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a 
 little time, and then vanisheth away." 
 
 Then they were greeting, with conventional noth- 
 ings, their beautiful hostess; who, with a charming 
 air of triumphant but not too triumphant pro- 
 prietorship received them and passed them on, with 
 a low spoken word to Aaron King; "I will take 
 charge of you later." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange, before they drifted apart, found 
 opportunity to growl in his companion's ear ; "A near- 
 great musician an actress of divorce court fame 
 an art critic, boon companion of our friend Rut- 
 lidge two free-lance yellow journalists a poet 
 with leading culture-club women of various brands, 
 
 324
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 and a mob of mere fashion and wealth. The pickings 
 should be good. Look at 'Materialism', over there." 
 
 In a wheeled chair, attended by a servant in livery, 
 a little apart from the center of the scene, as though 
 the pageant of life was about to move on without him, 
 but still, with desperate grip, holding his place in 
 the picture, sat the genius of it all the millionaire. 
 The creature's wasted, skeleton-like limbs, were 
 clothed grotesquely in conventional evening dress. 
 His haggard, bestial face repulsive with every mark 
 of his wicked, licentious years grinned with an 
 insane determination to take the place that was his 
 by right of his money bags; while his glazed and 
 sunken eyes shone with fitful gleams, as he rallied 
 the last of his vital forces, with a devilish defiance of 
 the end that was so inevitably near. 
 
 As Aaron King, in the splendid strength of his 
 inheritance, went to pay his respects to the master of 
 the house, that poor product of our age was seized by 
 a paroxysm of coughing, that shook him gasping 
 and choking almost into unconsciousness. The 
 ready attendant held out a glass of whisky, and he 
 clutched the goblet with skinny hands that, in their 
 trembling eagerness, rattled the crystal against his 
 teeth. In the momentary respite afforded by the 
 powerful stimulant, he lifted his yellow, claw-like 
 hand to wipe the clammy beads of sweat that gath- 
 ered upon his wrinkled, ape-like brow; and the 
 painter saw, on one bony, talon-like finger, the gleam- 
 ing flash of a magnificent diamond. 
 
 Mr. Taine greeted the artist with his husky whis- 
 per; "Hello, old chap glad to see you!" Peering 
 
 325
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 into the laughing, chattering, glittering, throng he 
 added, "Some beauties here to-night, heh ? Gad ! my 
 boy, but I've seen the day I'd be out there among 
 them ! Ha, ha ! Mrs. Taine, Louise, and Jim tried 
 to shelve me but I fooled 'em. Damn me, but I'm 
 game for a good time yet ! A little off my feed, and 
 under the weather ; but game, you understand, game 
 as hell!" Then to the attendant "Where's that 
 whisky ?" And, again, his yellow, claw-like hand 
 with that beautiful diamond, a gleaming point of 
 pure, white light lifted the glass to his grinning 
 lips. 
 
 When Mrs. Taine appeared to claim the artist, her 
 husband huddled in his chair, an unclean heap of 
 all but decaying flesh watched them go, with hidden, 
 impotent rage. 
 
 A few moments later, as Mrs. Taine and her charge 
 were leaving one group of celebrities in search of an- 
 other, they encountered Conrad Lagrange. "What's 
 this I see?" gibed the novelist, mockingly. "Is it 
 'Art being led by Beauty to the Judges and Execu- 
 tioners' ? or, is it 'Beauty presenting an Artist to the 
 Gods of Modern Art' ?" 
 
 'You had better be helping a good cause instead of 
 making fun, Mr. Lagrange," the woman retorted. 
 "You weren't always so famous yourself that you 
 could afford to be indifferent, you know." 
 
 Aaron King laughed as his friend replied, "Never 
 fear, madam, never fear I shall be on hand to assist 
 at the obsequies." 
 
 In the shifting of the groups and figures, when 
 dinner was announced, the young man found him- 
 
 326
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 self, again, within reach of Conrad Lagrange; and 
 the novelist whispered, with a grin, "Now for the 
 flesh-pots in earnest. You will be really out of place 
 in the next act, Aaron. Only we artists who have 
 sold our souls have a right to the price of our shame. 
 You should dine upon a crust, you know. A genius 
 without his crust, huh ! A devil without his tail, or 
 an ass without his long ears !" 
 
 Most conspicuous in the brilliant throng assembled 
 in that banquet hall, was the horrid figure of Mr. 
 Taine who sat in his wheeled chair at the head of the 
 table ; his liveried attendant by his side. Frequently 
 as though compelled yes were turned toward that 
 master of the feast, who was, himself, so far past 
 feasting; and toward his beautiful young wife the 
 only woman in the room, whose shoulders and arms 
 were not bare. 
 
 At first, the talk moved somewhat heavily. Neigh- 
 bor chattered nothings to neighbor in low tones. It 
 was as though the foreboding presence of some grim, 
 unbidden guest overshadowed the spirits of the com- 
 pany. But gradually the scene became more ani- 
 mated. The glitter of silver and crystal on the board ; 
 the sparkle of jewels and the wealth of shimmering 
 colors that costumed the diners; with the strains of 
 music that came from somewhere behind a floral 
 screen that filled the air with fragrance ; concealed, as 
 it were, the hideous image of immorality which was 
 the presiding genius of the feast. As the glare of a 
 too bright light blinds the eyes to the ditch across 
 one's path, so the brilliancy of their surroundings 
 blinded the eyes of his guests to the meaning of that 
 
 327
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 horrid figure in the seat of highest honor. But rich 
 foods and rare wines soon loose the tongues that chat- 
 ter the thoughts of those who do not think. As the 
 glasses were filled and refilled again, the scene took 
 color from the sparkling goblets. Voices were raised 
 to a higher pitch. Shrill or boisterous laughter rang 
 out, as jest and story went the rounds. It was Mrs. 
 Taine, now, rather than her husband, who dominated 
 the scene. With cheeks flushed and eyes bright she 
 set the pace, nor permitted any laggards. 
 
 Conrad Lagrange watched, cool and cynical his 
 worn face twisted into a mocking smile; his keen, 
 baffling eyes, from under their scowling brows, seeing 
 all, understanding all. Aaron King, weary with the 
 work of the past days, endured wishing it was over. 
 
 The evening was well under way when Mrs. Taine 
 held up her hand. In the silence, she said, "Listen ! 
 I have a real treat for you, to-night, friends. Listen !" 
 As she spoke the last word, her eyes met the eyes of 
 the artist, in mocking, challenging humor. He was 
 wondering what she meant, when, from behind that 
 screen of flowers, soft and low, poignantly sweet 
 and thrilling in its purity of tone, came the music of 
 the violin that he had learned to know so well. 
 
 Instantly, the painter understood. Mrs. Taine had 
 employed Sibyl Andres to play for her guests that 
 evening ; thinking to tease the artist by presenting his 
 mountain comrade in the guise of a hired servant. 
 Why the girl had not told him, he did not know. 
 Perhaps she had thought to enjoy his surprise. The 
 effect of the girl's presence or rather of her music, 
 
 328
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 for she, herself, could not be seen upon the artist 
 was quite other than Mrs. Taine intended. 
 
 Under the spell of the spirit "that spoke in the 
 violin, Aaron King was carried far from his glitter- 
 ing surroundings. Again, he stood where the bright 
 waters of Clear Creek tumbled among the granite 
 boulders, and where he had first moved to answer the 
 call of that music of the hills. Again, he followed 
 the old wagon road to the cedar thicket; and, in the 
 little, grassy opening with its wild roses, its encircling 
 wilderness growth, and its old log house under the 
 sheltering sycamores, saw a beautiful girl dancing 
 with the unconscious grace of a woodland sprite, her 
 arms upheld in greeting to the mountains. Once 
 again, he was painting in the sacred quiet of the 
 spring glade where she had come to him with her 
 three gifts; where, in maidenly innocence, she had 
 danced the dance of the butterflies; and, later, with 
 her music, had lifted their friendship to heights of 
 purity as far above the comprehension of the com- 
 pany that listened to her now, as the mountain peaks 
 among the stars that night were high above the house 
 on Fairlands Heights. 
 
 The music ceased. It was followed by the loud 
 clapping of hands with exclamations in high- 
 pitched voices. "Who is it ?" "Where did you find 
 him ?" "What's his name ?" for they judged, from 
 Mrs. Taine's introductory words, that she expected 
 them to show their appreciation. 
 
 Mrs. Taine laughed, and, with her eyes mockingly 
 upon the artist's face answered lightly, "Oh, she is a 
 
 329
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 discovery of mine. She teaches music, and plays in 
 one of the Fairlands churches." 
 
 "You are a wonder," said one of the illustrious 
 critics, admiringly. And lifting his glass, he cried, 
 "Here's to our beautiful and talented hostess the 
 patron saint of all the arts the friend of all true 
 artists." 
 
 In the quiet that followed the enthusiastic endorse- 
 ment of the distinguished gentleman's words, an- 
 other voice said, "If it's a girl, can't we see her?" 
 "Yes, yes/' came from several. "Please, Mrs. Taine, 
 bring her out." "Have her play again." "Will she ?" 
 
 Mrs. Taine laughed. "Certainly, she will. That's 
 what she's here for to amuse you." And, again, as 
 she spoke, her eyes met the eyes of Aaron King. 
 
 At her signal, a servant left the room. A moment 
 later, the mountain girl, dressed in simple white, with 
 no jewel or ornament other than a rose in her soft, 
 brown hair, stood before that company. Unconscious 
 of the eyes that fed upon her loveliness ; there was the 
 faintest shadow of a smile upon her face as she met, 
 in one swift glance, the artist's look; then, raising 
 her violin, she made music for the revelers, at the will 
 of Mrs. Taine. As she stood there in the modest 
 naturalness of her winsome beauty innocent and 
 pure as the flowers that formed the screen behind her ; 
 hired to amuse the worthy friends and guests of that 
 hideously repulsive devotee of lust and licentious- 
 ness who, from his wheeled chair, was glaring at her 
 with eyes that burned insanely she seemed, as in- 
 deed she was, a spirit from another world. 
 
 330
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 James Rutlidge, his heavy features flushed with 
 drink, was gazing at the girl with a look that be- 
 trayed his sensual passion. The face of Conrad La- 
 grange was dark and grim with scowling apprecia- 
 tion of the situation. Mrs. Taine was looking at the 
 artist. And Aaron King, watching his girl comrade 
 of the hills as she seemed to listen for the music which 
 she in turn drew from the instrument, felt, by the 
 very force of the contrast between her and her sur- 
 roundings, as he had never felt before, the power 
 and charm of her personality felt and knew that 
 Sibyl Andres had come into his life to stay. 
 
 In the flood of emotions that swept over him, and 
 in the mental and spiritual exultation caused by her 
 music and by her presence amid such scenes; it was 
 given the painter to understand that she had, in 
 truth, brought to him the strength, the purity, and 
 the beauty of the hills ; that she had, in truth, shown 
 him the paths that lead to the mountain heights ; that 
 it was her unconscious influence and teaching that 
 had made it impossible for him to prostitute his 
 genius to win favor in the eyes of the world. He 
 knew, now, that in those days when he had painted 
 her portrait, as she stood with outstretched hands in 
 the golden light among the roses, he had mixed his 
 colors with the best love that a man may offer a 
 woman. And he knew that the repainting of that 
 false portrait of Mrs. Taine, with all that it would 
 cost him, was his first offering to that love. 
 
 The girl musician finished playing and slipped 
 away. When they would have recalled her, Mrs. 
 
 331
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Taine too well schooled to betray a hint of the 
 emotions aroused by what she had just seen as she 
 watched Aaron King shook her head. 
 
 At that instant, Mr. Taine rose to his feet, sup- 
 porting himself by holding with shaking hands to the 
 table. A hush, sudden as the hush of death, fell 
 upon the company. The millionaire's attendant put 
 out his hand to steady his master, and another serv- 
 ant stepped quickly forward. But the man who 
 clung so tenaciously to his last bit of life, with a 
 drunken strength in his dying limbs, shook them off, 
 saying in a hoarse whisper, "Never mind! Never 
 mind you fools can't you see I'm game !" 
 
 In the quiet of the room, that a moment before 
 rang with excited voices and shrill laughter, the 
 man's husky, straining, whispered boast sounded 
 like the mocking of some invisible, fiendish presence 
 at the feast. 
 
 Lifting a glass of whisky with that yellow, claw- 
 like hand upon which the great diamond gleamed 
 a spot of flawless purity ; with his repulsive features 
 twisted into a grewsome ugliness by his straining 
 effort to force his diseased vocal chords to make his 
 words heard; the wretched creature said: "Here's 
 to our girl musician. The prettiest lassie that I 
 have seen for many a day and I think I know a 
 pretty girl when I see one too. Who comes bright 
 and fresh from her mountains, to amuse us and 
 to add, to the beauty and grace and wit and genius 
 that so distinguishes this company the flavor and 
 the freedom of her wild-wood home. Her music is 
 
 332
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 good, you'll all agree " he paused to cough and to 
 look inquiringly around, while every one nodded 
 approval and smiled encouragingly. "Her music is 
 good but I maintain that she, herself, is better. 
 To me her beauty is more pleasing to the eye than 
 her fiddling can possibly be to the ear !" Again 
 he was forced to pause, while his guests, with hand 
 and voice, applauded the clever words. Lifting the 
 glass of whisky toward his lips that, by his effort to 
 speak, were drawn back in a repulsive grin, he leered 
 at the celebrities sitting nearest. "I suppose to- 
 morrow if we desire the company of these distin- 
 guished artists we will have to follow them to the 
 mountains. I don't blame you, gentlemen if I was 
 not ah temporarily incapacitated I would cer- 
 tainly go for a little trip to the inspiring hills 
 myself. Even if I don't know as much about music 
 and art as some of you." Again his words were 
 interrupted by that racking cough, the sound of which 
 was lost in the applause that greeted his witticism. 
 Lifting the glass once more, he continued, "So here's 
 to our girl musician who is her own lovely self so 
 much more attractive than any music she can ever 
 make." He drained the glass, and sank back into his 
 chair, exhausted by his effort. 
 
 Aaron King was on the point of springing to his 
 feet, when Conrad Lagrange caught his eye with a 
 warning look. Instantly, he remembered what the 
 result would be if he should yield to his impulse. 
 Wild with indignation, rage, and burning shame, he 
 knew that to betray himself would be to invite a 
 
 333
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 thousand sneering questions and insinuations to be- 
 smirch the name of the girl he loved. 
 
 In the continued applause and laughter that fol- 
 lowed the drinking of the millionaire's toast, the 
 artist caught the admiring words, "Bully old sport." 
 "Isn't he game?" "He has certainly traveled some 
 pace in his day." "The girl is a beauty." "Let's 
 have her in again." This last expression was so in- 
 sistently echoed that Mrs. Taine who, through it all, 
 had been covertly watching Aaron King's face, and 
 whose eyes were blazing now with something more 
 than the effect of the wine she had been drinking 
 was forced to yield. A servant left the room, and, a 
 moment later, reappeared, followed by Sibyl. 
 
 The girl was greeted, now, by hearty applause 
 which she, accepting as an expression of the com- 
 pany's appreciation of her music, received with 
 smiling pleasure. The artist, his heart and soul 
 aflame with his awakening love, fought for self- 
 control. Conrad Lagrange, catching his eye, again, 
 silently bade him wait. 
 
 Sibyl lifted her violin and the noisy company was 
 stilled. Slowly, under the spell of the music that, to 
 him, was a message from the mountain heights, 
 Aaron King grew calm. His tense muscles relaxed. 
 His twitching nerves became steady. He felt him- 
 self, as it were, lifted out of and above the scene that 
 a moment before had so stirred him to indignant 
 anger. His brain worked with that clearness and 
 precision which he had known while repainting Mrs. 
 Taine's portrait. Wrath gave way to pity ; indigna- 
 
 334
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 tion to contempt. In confidence, he smiled to think 
 how little the girl he loved needed his poor defense 
 against the animalism that dominated the company 
 she was hired to amuse. With every eye in the room 
 fixed upon her as she played, she was as far removed 
 from those who had applauded the suggestive words 
 of the dying sensualist as her music was beyond their 
 true comprehension. 
 
 Then it was that the genius of the artist awoke. 
 As the flash of a search-light in the darkness of night 
 brings out with startling clearness the details of the 
 scene upon which it is turned, the painter saw before 
 him his picture. With trained eye and carefully 
 acquired skill, he studied the scene ; impressing upon 
 his memory every detail the rich appointments of 
 the room; the glittering lights; the gleaming silver 
 and crystal; the sparkling jewels and shimmering 
 laces ; the bare shoulders ; the wine-flushed faces and 
 feverish eyes ; and, in the seat of honor, the disease- 
 wasted form and repulsive, sin-marked countenance 
 of Mr. Taine who almost unconscious with his exer- 
 tion was still feeding the last flickering flame of his 
 lustful life with the vision of the girl whose beauty 
 his toast had profaned: and in the midst of that 
 company expressing as it did the spirit of an age 
 that is ruled by material wealth and dominated by 
 the passions of the flesh the center of every eye, yet, 
 still, in her purity and innocence, removed and apart 
 from them all ; standing in her simple dress of white 
 against the background of flowers the mountain girl 
 with her violin offering to them the highest, holiest. 
 
 335
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 gift of the gods her music. Upon the girl's lovely, 
 winsome face, was a look, now, of troubled doubt. 
 Her wide, blue eyes, as she played, were pleading, 
 questioning, half fearful as though she sensed, in- 
 stinctively, the presence of the spirit she could not 
 understand; and felt, in spite of the pretense of the 
 applause that had greeted her, the rejection of her 
 offering. 
 
 Not only did the artist, in that moment of concep- 
 tion, see his picture and feel the forces that were 
 expressed by every character in the composition, but 
 the title, even, came to him as clearly as if Conrad 
 Lagrange had uttered it aloud, "The Feast of Ma- 
 terialism." 
 
 Sibyl Andres finished her music, and quickly with- 
 drew, as if to escape the noisy applause. Amid the 
 sound of the clapping hands and boisterous voices, 
 Mr. Taine, summoning the last of his wasted 
 strength, again struggled to his feet. With those 
 claw-like hands he held to the table for support; 
 while shaking in every limb, his features twisted 
 into a horrid, leering grin he looked from face to 
 face of the hushed and silent company; with glazed 
 eyes in which the light that flickered so feebly was 
 still the light of an impotent lust. 
 
 Twice, the man essayed to speak, but could not. 
 The room grew still as death. Then, suddenly as 
 they looked he lifted that yellow, skinny hand, to 
 his wrinkled, ape-like brow, and partially loosing, 
 thus, his supporting grip upon the table fell back, 
 in a ghastly heap of diseased flesh and fine raiment; 
 
 336
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 in the midst of which blazed the great diamond as 
 though the cold, pure beauty of the inanimate stone 
 triumphed in a life more vital than that of its wearer. 
 
 His servants carried the unconscious master of the 
 house from the room. Mrs. Taine, excusing herself, 
 followed. 
 
 In the confusion that ensued, the musicians, hid- 
 den behind the floral screen, struck up a lively air. 
 Some of the guests made quiet preparations for leav- 
 ing. A group of those men famous in the world of 
 art and letters under the influence of the wine they 
 had taken so freely, laughed loudly at some coarse 
 jest. Others, thinking, perhaps, if they could be 
 said to think at all, that their host's attack was not 
 serious, renewed conversations and bravely attempted 
 to restore a semblance of animation to the interrupted 
 revelries. 
 
 Aaron King worked his way to the side of Conrad 
 Lagrange, "For God's sake, old man, let's get out of 
 here." 
 
 "I'll find Rutlidge or Louise or some one," returned 
 the other, and disappeared. 
 
 As the artist waited, through the open door of an 
 adjoining room, he caught sight of Sibyl Andres; 
 who, with her violin-case in her hand, was about to 
 leave. Obeying his impulse, he went to her. 
 
 "What in the world are you doing here ?" he said 
 almost roughly extending his hand to take the in- 
 strument she carried. 
 
 She seemed a little bewildered by his manner, but 
 smiled as she retained her violin. "I am here to earn 
 my bread and butter, sir. What are you doing here ?" 
 
 337
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "I beg your pardon," lie said. "I did not mean to 
 be rude." 
 
 She laughed, then, with a troubled air "But is it 
 not right for me to be here ? It is all right for me to 
 play for these people, isn't it ? Myra didn't want me 
 to come, but we needed the money, and Mrs. Taine 
 was so generous. I didn't tell you and Mr. Lagrange 
 because I wanted the fun of surprising you." As he 
 stood looking at her so gravely, she put out her hand 
 impulsively to his arm. "What is it, oh, what is it ? 
 How have I done wrong ?" 
 
 "You have done no wrong, my dear girl," he an- 
 swered. "It is only that " 
 
 He was interrupted by the cold, clear voice of Mrs. 
 Taine, who had entered the room, unnoticed by them. 
 "I see you are going, Miss Andres. Good-night. I 
 will mail you a check to-morrow. Your music was 
 very satisfactory. An automobile is waiting to take 
 you home. Good night." 
 
 Before Aaron King could speak, the girl was gone. 
 
 "Mr. Lagrange and I were just about to go," said 
 the artist, as the woman faced him. "I hope Mr. 
 Taine has not suffered severely from the excitement 
 of the evening ?" 
 
 The woman's cheeks were flushed, and her eyes 
 were bright with feverish excitement. Going close to 
 him, she said in a low, hurried tone, "'No, no, you 
 must not go. Mr. Taine is all right in his room. 
 Every one else is having a good time. You must not 
 go. Come, I have had no opportunity, at all, to have 
 you to myself for a single moment. Come, I " 
 
 338
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 As she had interrupted Aaron King's reply to 
 Sibyl Andres, the cool, sarcastic tones of Conrad La- 
 grange's deep voice interrupted her. "Mrs. Taine, 
 they are hunting for you all over the house. Your 
 husband is calling for you. I'm sure that Mr. King 
 will excuse you, under the circumstances."
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 IN THE SAME HOUR 
 
 N" a splendid chamber, surrounded by every 
 comfort and luxury that dollars could buy, 
 and attended by liveried servants, Mr. 
 Taine was dying. 
 
 The physician who met Mrs. Taine at 
 the door, answered her look of inquiry 
 with; "Your husband is very near the end, madam." 
 Beside the bed, sat Louise, wringing her hands and 
 moaning. James Rutlidge stood near. Without 
 speaking, Mrs. Taine went forward. 
 
 The doctor, bending over his patient, with his fin- 
 gers upon the skeleton-like wrist, said, "Mr. Taine, 
 Mr. Taine, your wife is here." 
 
 In response, the eyes, deep sunken under the 
 wrinkled brow, opened ; the loosely hanging, sensual 
 lips quivered. 
 
 The physician spoke again; "Your wife is here, 
 Mr. Taine." 
 
 A sudden gleam of light flared up in the glazed 
 eyes. The doctor could have sworn that the lips were 
 twisted into a shadow of a ghastly, mocking smile. 
 As if summoning, by a supreme effort of his will, 
 from some unguessed depths of his being, the last 
 remnant of his remaining strength, the man looked 
 about the room and, in a hoarse whisper, said, "Send 
 the others away everybody but her." 
 
 340
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "O papa, papa!" exclaimed poor Louise, protest- 
 ingly. 
 
 "Never mind, daughter," came the whispered an- 
 swer from the bed. "Try to be game, girl game as 
 your father. Take her away, Jim." 
 
 As the physician passed Mrs. Taine, who had thus 
 far stood like a statue, seemingly incapable of thought 
 or feeling or movement, he said in a low tone, "I will 
 be just outside the door, madam ; easily within call." 
 
 When only the woman was left in the room with 
 her husband, the dying man spoke again ; "Come 
 here. Stand where I can see you." 
 
 Mechanically, she obeyed; moving to a position 
 near the foot of the bed. 
 
 After a moment's silence, during which he seemed 
 to be rallying the very last of his vital forces for the 
 effort, he said, "Well the game is played out. 
 You think you're the winner. You're wrong 
 damn you you're wrong. I wasn't so drunk to- 
 night that I couldn't see." His face twisted in a 
 hideous, malicious grin. "You love that artist 
 fellow. Your interest in his art is all rot. It's 
 him you want and you you have been thinking 
 you'd get him with my money the same as I got 
 you. But you won't. You've lost him already. 
 I'm glad you love him damn glad because I 
 know that after what he's seen of me even if he 
 didn't love that mountain girl, he wouldn't wipe 
 his feet on you. You've tortured me you've 
 mocked and sneered and laughed at me in my 
 suffering you fiend and I've tried my damnedest 
 to pay you back. What I couldn't do the man 
 
 341
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 you love will do for me. You'll suffer now in 
 earnest. You thought you'd be a sure winner as 
 soon as I was out of the game. But you've lost 
 you've lost you've lost ! I saw your love for him 
 in your face to-nightas I have seen it every 
 time you two were together. I saw his love for 
 the girl too and I saw that you saw it. I 
 I wouldn't wouldn't die until I'd told you 
 that I knew." He paused to gather his strength for 
 the last evil effort of his evil life. 
 
 The woman who had stood, frozen with horror, 
 her eyes fixed upon the face of the dying man, as 
 though under a dreadful spell cowered before him, 
 livid with fear. Cringing, helpless as though be- 
 fore some infernal monster she hid her face; while 
 her husband, struggling for breath to make her hear, 
 called her every foul name he could master derided 
 her with fiendish glee mocked her, taunted her, 
 cursed her with words too vile to print. With an 
 oath and a profane wish for her future upon his lips, 
 the end came. The sensual mouth opened the dis- 
 eased wasted limbs shuddered the insane light in 
 the lust-worn eyes went out. 
 
 With a scream, Mrs. Taine sank unconscious upon 
 the floor beside the bed. 
 
 From the lower part of the house came the faint 
 sounds of the few remaining revelers. 
 
 When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange left the 
 house on Fairlands Heights that night, they walked 
 quickly, as though eager to escape from the brilliantly 
 
 342
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 lighted vicinity. Neither spoke until they were some 
 distance away. Then the novelist, checking his quick 
 stride, pointed toward the shadowy bulk of the moun- 
 tains that heaved their mighty crests and peaks in 
 solemn grandeur high into the midnight sky. 
 
 "Well, boy," he said, "the mountains are still there. 
 It's good to see them again, isn't it ?" 
 
 Reaching home, the older man bade his friend 
 good night. But the artist, declaring that he was not 
 yet ready to turn in, went, with pipe and Czar for 
 company, to sit for a while on the porch. 
 
 Looking away over the dark mass of the orange 
 groves to the distant peaks, he lived over again, in his 
 thoughts, those weeks of comradeship with Sibyl An- 
 dres in the hills. Every incident of their friendship 
 he recalled every hour they had spent together amid 
 the scenes she loved reviewing every conversation 
 questioning, searching, wondering, hoping, fearing. 
 
 Later, he went out into the rose garden her gar- 
 den where the air was fragrant with the perfume of 
 the flowers she tended with such loving care. In the 
 soft, still darkness of the night, the place seemed 
 haunted by her presence. Quietly, he moved here 
 and there among the roses to the little gate in the 
 Ragged Robin hedge, through which she came and 
 went; to the vine-covered arbor where she had 
 watched him at his work; and to the spot where she 
 had stood, day after day, with hands outstretched in 
 greeting, while he worked to make the colors and lines 
 upon his canvas tell the secret of her loveliness. He 
 remembered how he had felt her presence in those 
 days when he had laughingly insisted to Conrad La- 
 
 343
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 grange that the place was haunted. He remembered 
 how, even when she was unknown to him, her music 
 had always moved him how her message from the 
 hills had seemed to call to the best that was in him. 
 
 So it was, that, as he recalled these things, as he 
 lived again the days of his companionship with her 
 and realized how she had come into his life, how she 
 had appealed always to the best of him, and satisfied 
 always his best needs, he came to know the answer 
 to his questions to his doubts and fears and hopes. 
 There, in the rose garden, with its dark walls of 
 hedge and vine and grove, in the still night under the 
 stars, with his face to the distant mountains, he knew 
 that the mountain girl would not deny him that, 
 when she was ready, she would come to him. 
 
 In the hour when Mr. Taine, with the last strength 
 of his evil life, profanely cursed the woman that his 
 gold had bought to serve his licentious will and 
 cursing died ; Aaron King inspired by the charac- 
 ter and purity of the woman he loved, and by whom 
 he knew he was loved, and dreaming of their com- 
 radeship that was to be dedicated himself anew to 
 the ministry of his art and so entered into that more 
 abundant life which belongs by divine right to all 
 who will claim it. 
 
 But it was not given Aaron King to know that be- 
 fore Sibyl Andres could come to him he must be 
 tested by a trial that would tax his manhood's best 
 strength to the uttermost. In that night of his awak- 
 ened love, as he dreamed of the days of its realization, 
 the man did not know that the days of his testing 
 were so near at hand. 
 
 344
 
 CHAPTEE XXXI 
 
 AS THE WORLD SEES 
 
 T was three days after the incidents just 
 related when an automobile from Fair- 
 lands Heights stopped at the home of 
 Aaron King and the novelist. 
 
 Mrs. Taine, dressed in black and 
 heavily veiled, went, alone, to the house, 
 where Yee Kee appeared in answer to her ring. 
 
 There was no one at home, the Chinaman said. He 
 did not know where the artist was. He had gone off 
 somewhere with Mr. Lagrange and the dog. Perhaps 
 they would return in a few minutes; perhaps not 
 until dinner time. 
 
 Mrs. Taine was exceedingly anxious to see Mr. 
 King. She was going away, and must see him, if 
 possible, before she left. She would come in, and, 
 if Yee Kee would get her pen and paper, would write 
 a little note, explaining in case she should miss him. 
 The Chinaman silently placed the writing material 
 before her, and disappeared. 
 
 Before sitting down to her letter, the woman paced 
 the floor restlessly, in nervous agitation. Her face, 
 when she had thrown back the veil, appeared old and 
 worn, with dark circles under the eyes, and a drawn 
 look to the weary, downward droop of the lips. AB 
 she moved about the room, nervously fingering the 
 
 345
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 books and trifles upon the table or the mantle, she 
 seemed beside herself with anxiety. She went to the 
 window to stand looking out as if hoping for the re- 
 turn of the artist. She went to the open door of his 
 bedroom, her hands clenched, her limbs trembling, 
 her face betraying the agony of her mind. 
 
 With Louise, she was leaving that evening, at four 
 o'clock, for the East with the body of her husband. 
 She could not go without seeing again the man whom, 
 as Mr. Taine had rightly said, she loved loved with 
 the only love of which because of her environment 
 and life she was capable. She still believed in her 
 power over him whose passion she had besieged with 
 all the lure of her physical beauty, but that which 
 she had seen in his face as he had watched the girl 
 musician the night of the dinner, filled her with fear. 
 Presently, in her desperation, when the artist did not 
 return, she seated herself at the table to put upon 
 paper, as best she could, the things she had come to 
 say. 
 
 Her letter finished, she looked at her watch. Call- 
 ing the Chinaman, she asked for a key to the studio, 
 explaining that she wished to see her picture. She 
 still hoped for the artist's return and that her letter 
 would not be necessary. She hoped, too, that in her 
 portrait, which she had not yet seen, she might find 
 some evidence of the painter's passion for her. She 
 had not forgotten his saying that he would put upon 
 the canvas what he thought of her, nor could she fail 
 to recall his manner and her interpretation of it as 
 he had worked upon the picture. 
 
 346
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 In the studio, she stood before the easel, scarce 
 daring to draw the curtain. But, calling up in her 
 mind the emotions and thoughts of the hours she had 
 spent in that room alone with the artist, she was made 
 bold by her reestablished belief in his passion and by 
 her convictions that were founded upon her own de- 
 sires. Under the stimulating influence of her 
 thoughts, a flush of color stole into her cheeks, her 
 eyes grew bright with the light of triumphant 
 anticipation. With an eager hand she boldly drew 
 aside the curtain. 
 
 The picture upon the easel was the artist's portrait 
 of Sibyl Andres. 
 
 With an exclamation that was not unlike fear, Mrs. 
 Taine drew back from the canvas. Looking at the 
 beautiful painting, in which the artist had pictured, 
 with unconscious love and an almost religious fidelity, 
 the spirit of the girl who was so like the flowers 
 among which she stood, the woman was moved by 
 many conflicting emotions. Surprise, disappoint- 
 ment, admiration, envy, jealousy, sadness, regret, and 
 anger swept over her. Blinded by bitter tears, with a 
 choking sob, in an agony of remorse and shame, she 
 turned away her face from the gaze of those pure 
 eyes. Then, as the flame of her passion withered her 
 shame, hot rage dried her tears, and she sprang for- 
 ward, with an animal-like fierceness, to destroy the 
 picture. But, even as she put forth her hand, she 
 hesitated and drew back, afraid. As she stood thus 
 in doubt halting between her impulse and her fear 
 a sound at the door behind her drew her attention. 
 
 347
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 She turned to face the beautiful original of the por- 
 trait. Instantly the woman of the world had herself 
 perfectly in hand. 
 
 Sibyl Andres drew back with an embarrassed, "I 
 beg your pardon. I thought " and would have fled. 
 
 But Mrs. Taine, with perfect cordiality, said 
 quickly, "O how do you do, Miss Andres ; come in." 
 
 She seemed so sincere in the welcome that was im- 
 plied in her voice and manner; while her face, 
 together with her somber garb of mourning, was so 
 expressive of sadness and grief that the girl's gentle 
 heart was touched. Going forward, with that natural 
 dignity that belongs to those whose minds and hearts 
 are unsullied by habitual pretense of feeling and 
 sham emotions, Sibyl spoke a few well chosen words 
 of sympathy. 
 
 Mrs. Taine received the girl's expression of con- 
 dolence with a manner that was perfect in its sem- 
 blance of carefully controlled sorrow and grief, yet 
 managed, skillfully, to suggest the wide social dis- 
 tance that separated the widow of Mr. Taine 
 from the unknown, mountain girl. Then, as if 
 courageously determined not to dwell upon her 
 bereavement, she said, "I was just looking, again, 
 at Mr. King's picture for which you posed. It is 
 beautiful, isn't it ? He told me that you were an 
 exceptionally clever model quite the best he has 
 ever had." 
 
 The girl disarmed by her own genuine feeling of 
 sympathy for the speaker was troubled at something 
 that seemed to lie beneath the kindly words of the 
 experienced woman. "To me, it is beautiful," she 
 
 348
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 returned doubtfully. "But, of course, I don't know. 
 Mr. Lagrange thinks, though, that it is really a 
 splendid portrait." 
 
 Mrs. Taine smiled with a confident air, as one 
 might smile at a child. "Mr. Lagrange, my dear, is 
 a famous novelist but he really knows very little of 
 pictures." 
 
 "Perhaps you are right," returned Sibyl, simply. 
 "But the picture is not to be shown as a portrait of 
 me, at all." 
 
 Again, that knowing smile. "So I understand, of 
 course. Under the circumstances, you would 
 scarcely expect it, would you ?" 
 
 Sibyl, not in the least understanding what the 
 woman meant, answered doubtfully, "No. I I did 
 not wish it shown as my portrait." 
 
 Mrs. Taine, studying the girl's face, became very 
 earnest in her kindly interest; as if, moved out of 
 the goodness of her heart, she stooped from her high 
 place to advise and counsel . ae of her own sex, who 
 was so wholly ignorant of the world. "I fear, my 
 dear, that you know very little of artists and their 
 methods." 
 
 To which the girl replied, "I never knew an artist 
 before I met Mr. King, this summer, in the 
 mountains." 
 
 Still watching her face closely, Mrs. Taine said, 
 with gentle solicitude, "May I tell you something 
 for your own good, Miss Andres ?" 
 
 "Certainly, if you please, Mrs. Taine." 
 
 "An artist," said the older woman, carefully, with 
 an air of positive knowledge, "must find the subjects 
 
 349
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 for his pictures in life. As he goes about, he is 
 constantly on the look-out for new faces or figures 
 that are of interest to him or, that may be used by 
 him to make pictures of interest. The subjects or, 
 I should say, the people who pose for him are noth- 
 ing at all to the artist aside from his picture, you 
 see no more than his paints and brushes and canvas. 
 Often, they are professional models, whom he hires 
 as one hires any sort of service, you know. Some- 
 times " she paused as if hesitating, then continued 
 gently "sometimes they are people like yourself, 
 who happen to appeal to his artistic fancy, and whom 
 he can persuade to pose for him." 
 
 The girl's face was white. She stared at the 
 woman with pleading, frightened dismay. She made 
 a pitiful attempt to speak, but could not. 
 
 The older woman, watching her, continued, "For- 
 give me, dear child. I do not wish to hurt you. But 
 Mr. King is so careless. I told him be should be 
 careful that you did not misunderstand his interest 
 in you. But he laughed at me. He said that it was 
 your innocence that he wanted to paint, and cautioned 
 me not to warn you until his picture was finished." 
 She turned to look at the picture on the easel with the 
 air of a critic. "He really has caught it very well. 
 Aaron Mr. King is so good at that sort of thing. He 
 never permits his models to know exactly what he is 
 after, you see, but leads them, cleverly, to exhibit, 
 unconsciously, the particular thing that he wishes to 
 get into his picture." 
 
 When the tortured girl had been given time to 
 grasp the full import of her words, the woman said 
 
 350
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 again, turning toward Sibyl, as she spoke, with a 
 smiling air that was intended to show the intimacy 
 between herself and the artist, "Have you seen his 
 portrait of me?" 
 
 "No," faltered Sibyl. "Mr. King told me not to 
 look at it. It has always been covered when I have 
 been in the studio." 
 
 Again, Mrs. Taine smiled, as though there was 
 some reason, known only to herself and the painter, 
 why he did not wish the girl to see the portrait. "And 
 do you come to the studio often alone as you came 
 to-day?" she asked, still kindly, as though from her 
 experience she was seeking to counsel the girl. "I 
 mean have you been coming since the picture for 
 which you posed was finished ?" 
 
 The girl's white cheeks grew red with embarrass- 
 ment and shame as she answered, falteringly, "Yes." 
 
 "You poor child ! Really, I must scold Aaron for 
 this. After my warning him, too, that people were 
 talking about his intimacy with you in the moun- 
 tains! It is quite too bad of him! He will ruin 
 himself, if he is not more careful." She seemed sin- 
 cerely troubled over the situation. 
 
 "I I do not understand, Mrs. Taine," faltered 
 Sibyl. "Do you mean that my that Mr. King's 
 friendship for me has harmed him ? That I that it 
 is wrong for me to come here ?" 
 
 ''Surely, Miss Andres, you must understand what 
 I mean." 
 
 "No, I I do not know. Tell me, please." 
 
 Mrs. Taine hesitated as though reluctant. Then, 
 as if forced by her sense of duty, she spoke. "The 
 
 351
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 truth is, ray dear, that your being with Mr. King in 
 the mountains going to his camp as familiarly as 
 you did, and spending so much time alone with him 
 in the hills and then your coming here so often, 
 has led people to say unpleasant things." 
 
 "But what do people say ?" persisted Sibyl. 
 
 The answer came with cruel deliberateness ; "That 
 you are not only Mr. King's model, but that you are 
 his mistress as well." 
 
 Sibyl Andres shrank back from the woman as 
 though she had received a blow in the face. Her 
 cheeks and brow and neck were crimson. With a 
 little cry, she buried her face in her hands. 
 
 The kind voice of the older woman continued, 
 "You see, dear, whether it is true or not, the effect 
 is exactly the same. If in the eyes of the world your 
 relations to Mr. King are are wrong, it is as bad 
 as though it were actually true. I felt that I must 
 tell you, child, not alone for your own good but for 
 the sake of Mr. King and his work for the sake of 
 his position in the world. Frankly, if you continue 
 to compromise him and his good name by coming like 
 this to his studio, it will ruin him. The world may 
 not care particularly whether Mr. King keeps a mis- 
 tress or not, but people will not countenance his open 
 association with her, even under the pretext that she 
 is a model." 
 
 As she finished, Mrs. Taine looked at her watch. 
 "Dear me, I really must be going. I have already 
 spent more time than I intended. Good-by, Miss 
 Andres. I know you will forgive me if I have hurt 
 you." 
 
 352
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 The girl looked at her with the pain and terror 
 filled eyes of some gentle wild creature that can not 
 understand the cruelty of the trap that holds it fast. 
 "Yes yes, I I suppose you know best. You must 
 
 know more than L I thank you, Mrs. Taine. 
 j 
 
 When Mrs. Taine was gone, Sibyl Andres sat for 
 a little while before her portrait ; wondering, dumbly, 
 at the happiness of that face upon the canvas. There 
 were no tears. She could not cry. Her eyes burned 
 hot and dry. Her lips were parched. Rising, she 
 drew the curtain carefully to hide the picture, and 
 started toward the door. She paused. Going to the 
 easel that held the other picture, she laid her hand 
 upon the curtain. Again, she paused. Aaron King 
 had said that she must not look at that picture 
 Conrad Lagrange had said that she must not why ? 
 She did not know why. 
 
 Perhaps if the mountain girl had drawn aside 
 the curtain and had looked upon the face of Mrs. 
 Taine as Aaron King had painted it perhaps the 
 rest of my story would not have happened. 
 
 But, true to the wish of her friends, even in her 
 misery, Sibyl Andres held her hand. At the door of 
 the studio, she turned again, to look long and linger- 
 ingly about the room. Then she went out, closing 
 and locking the door, and leaving the key on a hidden 
 nail, as her custom was. 
 
 Going slowly, lingeringly, through the rose garden 
 to the little gate in the hedge, she disappeared in the 
 orange grove. 
 
 Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange, returning from 
 
 353
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 a long walk, overtook Myra Willard, who was return- 
 ing from town, just as the woman of the disfigured 
 face arrived at the gate of the little house in the 
 orange grove. For a moment, the three stood chat- 
 ting, as neighbors will, then the two men went on 
 to their own home. Czar, racing ahead, announced 
 their coming to Yee Kee and the Chinaman met them 
 as they entered the living-room. Telling them of 
 Mrs. Taine's visit, he gave Aaron King the letter 
 that she had left for him. 
 
 As the artist, conscious of the scrutinizing gaze of 
 his friend, read the closely written pages, his cheeks 
 flushed with embarrassment and shame. When he 
 had finished, he faced the novelist's eyes steadily and, 
 without speaking, deliberately and methodically tore 
 Mrs. Taine's letter into tiny fragments. Dropping 
 the scraps of paper into the waste basket, he dusted 
 his hands together with a significant gesture and 
 looked at his watch. "Her train left at four o'clock. 
 It is now four-thirty." 
 
 "For which," returned Conrad Lagrange, solemnly, 
 "let us give thanks." 
 
 As the novelist spoke, Czar, on the porch outside, 
 gave a low "woof" that signalized the approach of a 
 friend. 
 
 Looking through the open door, they saw Myra 
 Willard coming hurriedly up the walk. They could 
 see that the woman was greatly agitated, and went 
 quickly forward to meet her. 
 
 Women of Myra Willard's strength of character 
 particularly those who have passed through the fur- 
 
 354
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 nace of some terrible experience as she so evidently 
 had are not given to loud, uncontrolled expression 
 of emotion. That she was alarmed and troubled was 
 evident. Her face was white, her eyes were fright- 
 ened, and she trembled so that Aaron King helped 
 her to a seat; but she told them clearly, with no 
 unnecessary, hysterical exclamations, what had hap- 
 pened. Upon entering the house, after parting from 
 the two men at the gate, a few minutes before, she 
 had found a letter from Sibyl. The girl was gone. 
 
 As she spoke, she handed the letter to Conrad 
 Lagrange who read it and gave it to the artist It 
 was a pitiful little note rather vague saying only 
 that she must go away at once; assuring Myra that 
 she had not meant to do wrong; asking her to tell 
 If r. King and the novelist good-by ; and begging the 
 artist's forgiveness that she had not understood. 
 
 Aaron King looked from the letter in his hand to 
 the faces of his two friends, in consternation. "Do 
 you understand this, Miss Willard ?" he asked, when 
 he could speak. 
 
 The woman shook her head. "Only that something 
 has happened to make the child think that her friend- 
 ship with you has injured you ; and that she has gone 
 away for your sake. She she thought so much of 
 you, Mr. King." 
 
 "And I I love her, Miss Willard. I should have 
 told you soon. I tell you now to reassure you. I 
 love her." 
 
 Aaron King made his declaration to his two 
 friends with a simple dignity, but with a feeling that 
 
 355
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 thrilled them with the force of his earnestness and 
 the purity and strength of his passion. 
 
 Conrad Lagrange world-worn, scarred by his 
 years of contact with the unclean, the vicious, and 
 debasing passions of mankind grasped the young 
 man's hand, while his eyes shone with an emotion his 
 habitual reserve could not conceal. "I'm glad for 
 you, Aaron" he said, adding reverently "as your 
 mother would be glad." 
 
 "I have known that you would tell me this, some- 
 time, Mr. King," said Myra Willard. "I knew it, I 
 think, before you, yourself, realized ; and I, too, am 
 glad glad for my girl, because I know what such a 
 love will mean to her. But why why has she gone 
 like this? Where has she gone? Oh, my girl, my 
 girl !" For a moment, the distracted woman was on 
 the point of breaking down; but with an effort of 
 her will, she controlled herself. 
 
 "It's clear enough what has sent her away," 
 growled Conrad Lagrange, with a warning glance to 
 the artist. "Some one has filled her mind with the 
 notion that her friendship with Aaron has been 
 causing talk. I think there's no doubt as to where 
 she's gone." 
 
 "You mean the mountains ?" asked Myra Willard, 
 quickly. 
 
 "Yes. I'd stake my life that she has gone straight 
 to Brian Oakley. Think! Where else would she 
 go?" 
 
 "She has sometimes borrowed a saddle-horse from 
 your neighbor up the road, hasn't she, Miss Willard P 
 asked Aaron King. 
 
 356
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Yes. I'll run over there at once." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange spoke quickly; "Don't let them 
 think anything unusual has happened. We'll go over 
 to your house and wait for you there." 
 
 Fifteen minutes later, Myra Willard returned. 
 Sibyl had borrowed the horse; asking them if she 
 might keep it until the next day. She did not say 
 where she was going. She had left about four o'clock. 
 
 "That will put her at Brian's by nine," said the 
 novelist. 
 
 "And I will arrive there about the same time," 
 added Aaron King, eagerly. "It's now five-thirty. 
 She has an hour's start ; but I'll ride an hour harder." 
 
 "W T ith an automobile you could overtake her," said 
 Myra W T illard. 
 
 "I know," returned the artist, "but if I take a 
 horse, we can ride back together." 
 
 He started through the grove, toward the other 
 house, on a run. 
 
 357
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE 
 
 Y the time Aaron King had found a saddle- 
 horse, and was ready to start on his ride, 
 it was six o'clock. 
 
 Granting that Conrad Lagrange was 
 right in his supposition that the girl had 
 left with the intention of going to Brian 
 Oakley's, the artist could scarcely, now, hope to arrive 
 at the Ranger Station until some time after Sibyl 
 had reached the home of her friends unless she 
 should stop somewhere on the way, which he did not 
 think likely. Once, as he realized how the minutes 
 were slipping away, he was on the point of recon- 
 sidering his reply to Myra Willard's suggestion that 
 he take an automobile. Then, telling himself that he 
 would surely find Sibyl at the Station and thinking 
 of the return trip with her, he determined to carry 
 out his first plan. 
 
 But when he was finally on the road, he did not 
 ride with less haste because he no longer expected to 
 overtake Sibyl. In spite of his reassuring himself, 
 again and again, that the girl he loved was safe, his 
 mind was too disturbed by the situation to permit of 
 his riding leisurely. Beyond the outskirts of the city, 
 with his horse warmed to its work, the artist pushed 
 his mount harder and harder until the animal reached 
 
 358
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 the limit of a pace that its rider felt it could endure 
 for the distance they had to go. Over the way that he 
 and Conrad Lagrange had walked with Czar and 
 Croesus so leisurely, he went, now, with such hot 
 haste that the people in the homes in the orange 
 groves, sitting down to their evening meal, paused to 
 listen to the sharp, ringing beat of the galloping 
 hoofs. Two or three travelers, as he passed, watched 
 him out of sight, with wondering gaze. Those he 
 met, turned their heads to look after him. 
 
 Aaron King's thoughts, as he rode, kept pace with 
 his horse's flying feet. The points along the way, 
 where he and the famous novelist had stopped to rest, 
 and to enjoy the beauty of the scene, recalled vividly 
 to his mind all that those weeks in the mountains had 
 brought to him. Backward from that day when he 
 had for the first time set his face toward the hills, 
 his mind traveled almost from day to day until he 
 stood, again, in that impoverished home of his boy- 
 hood, to which he had been summoned from his studies 
 abroad. As he urged his laboring horse forward, in 
 the eagerness and anxiety of his love for Sibyl 
 Andres, he lived again that hour when his dying 
 mother told her faltering story of his father's dis- 
 honor; when he knew, for the first time, her life of 
 devotion to him, and learned of her sacrifice even 
 unto poverty that he might, unhampered, be fitted 
 for his life work ; and when, receiving his inheritance, 
 he had made his solemn promise that the purpose and 
 passion of his mother's years of sacrifice should, in 
 him and in his work, be fulfilled. One by one, he 
 retraced the steps that had led to his understanding 
 
 359
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 that only a true and noble art could ever make good 
 that promise. Not by winning the poor notice of the 
 little passing day, alone ; not by gaining the applause 
 of the thoughtless crowd ; not by winning the rewards 
 bestowed by the self-appointed judges and patrons of 
 the arts ; but by a true, honest, and fearless giving of 
 himself in his work, regardless alike of praise or 
 blame by saying the thing that was given him to 
 say, because it was given him to say would he keep 
 that which his mother had committed to him. As 
 mile after mile of the di _ ance that lay between him 
 and the girl he loved was put behind him in his race 
 to her side, it was given him to understand as never 
 before how, first the friendship of the world-wearied 
 man who had, himself, profaned his art; and then, 
 the comradeship of that one whose life was so un- 
 spotted by the world; had helped him to a true and 
 vital conception of his ministry of color and line and 
 brush and canvas. 
 
 It was twilight when the artist reached the spot 
 where the road crosses the tumbling stream the spot 
 where he and Conrad Lagrange had slept at the foot 
 of the mountains. Where the road curves toward the 
 creek, the man, without checking his pace, turned his 
 head to look back upon the valley that, far below, was 
 fast being lost in the gathering dusk. In its weird 
 and gloomy mystery, with its hidden life revealed 
 only by the sparkling, twinkling lights of the towns 
 and cities, it was suggestive, now, to his artist mind, 
 of the life that had so nearly caught him in its glit- 
 tering, sensual snare. A moment later, he lifted his 
 eyes to the mountain peaks ahead that, still in the 
 
 360
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 light of the western sun, glowed as though brushed 
 with living fire. Against the sky, he could distinguish 
 that peak in the Galena range, with the clump of 
 , pines, where he had sat with Sibyl Andres that day 
 when she had tried to make him see the train that had 
 brought him to Fairlands. 
 
 He wondered now, as he rode, why he had not 
 realized his love for the girl, before they left the 
 hills. It seemed to him, now, that his love was born 
 that evening when he had first heard her violin, as he 
 was fishing ; when he had watched her from the cedar 
 thicket, as she made her music of the mountains and 
 as she danced in the grassy yard. Why, he asked 
 himself, had he not been conscious of his love in 
 those days when she came to him in the spring glade, 
 and in the days that followed? Why had he not 
 known, when he painted her portrait in the rose gar- 
 den ? Why had the awakening not come until that 
 night when he saw her in the company of revelers at 
 the big house on Fairlands Heights the night that 
 Mr. Taine died ? 
 
 It was dark before he reached the canyon gates. 
 In the blackness of the gorge, with only the light of a 
 narrow strip of stars overhead, he was forced to ride 
 more slowly. But his confidence that he would find 
 her at the Ranger Station had increased as he ap- 
 proached the scenes of her girlhood home. To go to 
 her friends, seemed so inevitably the thing that she 
 would do. A few miles farther, now, and he would 
 see her. He would tell her why he had come. He 
 would claim the love that he knew was his. And so, 
 with a better heart, he permitted his tired horse to- 
 
 361
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 slacken the pace. He even smiled to think of her 
 surprise when she should see him. 
 
 It was a little past nine o'clock when the artist saw, 
 through the trees, the lights in the windows at the 
 Station, and dismounted to open the gate. Riding up 
 to the house, he gave the old familiar hail, 
 "Whoo-e-e." The door opened, and with the flood of 
 light that streamed out came the tall form of Brian 
 Oakley. 
 
 "Hello ! Seems to me I ought to know that voice." 
 
 The artist laughed nervously. "It's me, all right, 
 Brian what there is left of me." 
 
 "Aaron King, by all that's holy !" cried the Ranger, 
 coming quickly down the steps and toward the shad- 
 owy horseman. "What's the matter? Anything 
 wrong with Sibyl or Myra Willard ? What brings 
 you up here, this time of night ?" 
 
 Aaron King heard the questions with sinking heart. 
 But so certain had he come to feel that the girl would 
 be at the Station, that he said mechanically, as he 
 dropped wearily from his horse to grasp his friend's 
 hand, "I followed Sibyl. How long has she been 
 here?" 
 
 Brian Oakley spoke quickly; "Sibyl is not here, 
 Aaron." 
 
 The artist caught the Ranger's arm. "Do you 
 mean, Brian, that she has not been here to-day ?" 
 
 "She has not been here," returned the officer, coolly. 
 
 "Good God !" exclaimed the other, stunned and 
 bewildered by the positive words. Blindly, he turned 
 toward his horse.
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Brian Oakley, stepping forward, put his hand on 
 the artist's shoulder. "Come, old man, pull yourself 
 together and let a little light in. on this matter," he 
 said calmly. "Tell me what has happened. Why 
 did you expect to find Sibyl here ?" 
 
 When Aaron King had finished his story, the other 
 said, still without excitement, "Come into the house. 
 You're about all in. I heard Doctor Gordan's 'auto' 
 going up the canyon to Morton's about an hour ago. 
 Their baby's sick. If Sibyl was on the road, he would 
 have passed her. I'll throw the saddle on Max, and 
 we'll run over there and see what he knows. But 
 first, you've got to have a bite to eat." 
 
 The young man protested but the Ranger said 
 firmly, "You can eat while I saddle; come. I wish 
 Mary was home," he added, as he set out some cold 
 meat and bread. "She is in Los Angeles with her 
 sister. I'll call you when I'm ready." He spoke the 
 last word from the door as he went out. 
 
 The artist tried to eat ; but with little success. He 
 was again mounted and ready to go when the Ranger 
 rode up from the barn "on the chestnut. 
 
 When they reached the point where the road to 
 Morton's ranch leaves the main canyon road, Brian 
 Oakley said, "It's barely possible that she went on up 
 to Carleton's. But I think we better go to Morton's 
 and see the Doctor first. We don't want to miss him. 
 Did you meet any one as you came up ? I mean after 
 you got within two or three miles of the mouth of the 
 canyon ?" 
 
 "No," replied the other. "Why ?" 
 
 363
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "A man on a horse passed the Station about seven 
 o'clock, going down. Where did the Doctor pass 
 you?" 
 
 "He didn't pass me." 
 
 "What ?" said the Ranger, sharply. 
 
 "No one passed me after I left Fairlands." 
 
 "Hu-m-m. If Doc left town before you, he must 
 have had a puncture or something, or he would have 
 passed the Station before he did." 
 
 It was ten o'clock when the two men arrived at the 
 Morton ranch. 
 
 "We don't want to start any excitement," said the 
 officer, as they drew rein at the corral gate. "You 
 stay here and I'll drop in casual like." 
 
 It seemed to Aaron King, waiting in the darkness, 
 that his companion was gone for hours. In reality, 
 it was only a few minutes until the Ranger returned. 
 He was walking quickly, and, springing into the sad- 
 dle, he started the chestnut off at a sharp lope. 
 
 "The baby is better," he said. "Doctor was here 
 this afternoon started home about two o'clock. That 
 'auto' must have gone on up the canyon. Morton 
 knew nothing of the man on horseback who went 
 down. We'll cut across to Carleton's." 
 
 Presently, the Ranger swung the chestnut aside 
 from the wagon road, to follow a narrow trail through 
 the chaparral. To the artist, the little path in the 
 darkness was invisible, but he gave his horse the rein 
 and followed the shadowy form ahead. Three-quar- 
 ters of an hour later, they came out into the main 
 road, again; near the Carleton ranch corral, a mile 
 
 864
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 and a half below the old camp in the sycamores behind 
 the orchard of the deserted place. 
 
 It was now eleven o'clock and the ranch-house was 
 dark. Without dismounting, Brian Oakley called, 
 "Hello, Henry!" There was no answer. Moving 
 his horse close to the window of the room where he 
 knew the rancher slept, the Ranger tapped on the 
 sash. "Henry, turn out; I want to see you; it's 
 Oakley." 
 
 A moment later the sash was raised and Carleton 
 asked, "What is it^ Brian ? What's up ?" 
 
 "Is Sibyl stopping with you folks, to-night ?" 
 
 "Sibyl! Haven't seen her since they went down 
 from their summer camp. What's the matter ?" 
 
 Briefly, the Ranger explained the situation. The 
 rancher interrupted only to greet the artist with a 
 "howdy, Mr. King," as the officer's words made 
 known the identity of his companion. 
 
 When Brian Oakley had concluded, the rancher 
 said, "I heard that 'auto' going up, and then heard 
 it going back down, again, about an hour ago. You 
 missed it by turning off to Morton's. If you'd come 
 on straight up here you'd a met it." 
 
 "Did you see the man on horseback, going down, 
 just before dusk ?" asked the officer. 
 
 "Yes, but not near enough to know him. You 
 don't suppose Sibyl would go up to her old home do 
 you, Brian?" 
 
 "She might, under the circumstances. Aaron and 
 I will ride up there, on the chance." 
 
 "You'll stop in on your way back ?" called the 
 rancher, as the two horsemen moved away. 
 
 365
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Sure," answered the Ranger. 
 
 An hour later, they were back. They had found 
 the old home under the giant sycamores, on the edge 
 of the little clearing, dark and untenanted. 
 
 Lights were shining, now, from the windows of the 
 Carleton ranch-house. Down at the corral, the twink- 
 ling gleam of a lantern bobbed here and there. As 
 the Ranger and his companion drew near, the lantern 
 came rapidly up the hill. At the porch, they were 
 met by Henry Carleton, his two sons, and a ranch 
 hand. As the four stood in the light of the window, 
 and of the lantern on the porch, listening to Brian 
 Oakley's report, each held the bridle-reins of a saddle- 
 horse. 
 
 "I figured that the chance of her being up there 
 was so mighty slim that we'd better be ready to ride 
 when you got back," said the mountain ranchman. 
 "What's your program, Brian ?" Thus simply he put 
 himself and his household in command of the Ranger. 
 
 The officer turned to the eldest son, "Jack, you've 
 got the fastest horse in the outfit. I want you to go 
 down to the Power-House and find out if any one 
 there saw Sibyl anywhere on the road. You see," he 
 explained to the group, "we don't know for sure, yet, 
 that she came into the mountains. While I haven't 
 a doubt but she did, we've got to know." 
 
 Jack Carleton was in the saddle as the Ranger fin- 
 ished. The officer turned to him again. "Find out 
 what you can about that automobile and the man on 
 horseback. We'll be at the Station when you get 
 back." There was a sharp clatter of iron-shod hoofs, 
 
 366
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 and the rider disappeared in the darkness of the 
 night. 
 
 The other members of the little party rode more 
 leisurely down the canyon road to the Ranger Station. 
 When they arrived at the house, Brian Oakley said r 
 "Make yourselves easy, boys. I'm going to write a 
 little note." He went into the house where, as they 
 sat on the porch, they saw him through the window, 
 at his desk. 
 
 The Ranger had finished his letter and with the 
 sealed official envelope in his hand, appeared in the 
 doorway when his messenger to the Power-House 
 returned. Without dismounting, the rider reined his 
 horse up to the porch. "Good time, Jack," said the- 
 officer, quietly. 
 
 The young man answered, "One of the company 
 men saw Sibyl. He was coming up with a load of 
 supplies and she passed him a mile below the Power- 
 House, just before dark. When he was opening the 
 gate, the automobile went by. It was too dark to see 
 how many were in the machine. They heard the 
 'auto' go down the canyon, again, later. No one 
 noticed the man on horseback. Three Company men 
 will be up here at daybreak." 
 
 "Good boy," said Brian Oakley, again. And then, 
 for a little, no sound save the soft clinking of bit or 
 bridle-chain in the darkness broke the hush that fell 
 over the little group. With faces turned toward their 
 leader, they waited his word. The Ranger stood still, 
 the long official envelope in his hand. When he spoke, 
 there was a ring in his voice that left in the mind* 
 
 367
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 of his companions no doubt as to his view of the 
 seriousness of the situation. "Milt," he said sharply. 
 
 The youngest of the Carleton sons stepped forward. 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "You will ride to Eairlands. It's half past one, 
 now. You should be back between eight and nine in 
 the morning. Give this letter to the Sheriff and bring 
 *ne his answer. Stop at Miss Willard's and tell her 
 ffhat you know. You'll get something to eat there, 
 while you're talking. If I'm not at your house when 
 jou get back, feed your horse and wait." 
 
 "Yes, sir," came the answer, and an instant later 
 the boy rider vanished into the night. 
 
 While the sound of the messenger's going still came 
 to them, the Ranger spoke again. "Henry, you'll ride 
 to Morton's. Tell him to be at your place, with his 
 crowd, by daylight. Then go home and be ready 
 with breakfast for the riders when they come in. 
 We'll have to make your place the center. It'll be 
 hard on your wife and the girls, but Mrs. Morton will 
 likely go over to lend them a hand. I wish to God 
 Mary was here." 
 
 "Never mind about my folks, Brian," returned the 
 rancher as he mounted. "You know they'll be on the 
 job." 
 
 "You bet I know, Henry," came the answer as the 
 mountaineer rode away. Then "Bill, you'll take 
 every one between here and the head of the canyon. 
 If there's a man shows up at Carleton's later than an 
 hour after sunup, we'll run him out of the country. 
 Tom, you take the trail over into the Santa Ana, 
 circle around to the mouth of the canyon, and back 
 
 368
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 up Clear Creek. Turn out everybody. Jack, you'll 
 take the Galena Valley neighborhood. Send in your 
 men but don't come back yourself until you've found 
 that man who went down the canyon on horseback." 
 
 When the last rider was gone in the darkness, the 
 Ranger said to the artist, "Come, Aaron, you must 
 get some rest. There's not a thing more that can be 
 done, until daylight." 
 
 Aaron King protested. But, strong as he was, the 
 unusual exertion of his hours in the saddle, together 
 with his racking anxiety, had told upon muscles and 
 nerves. His face, pale and drawn, gave the lie to his 
 words that he was not tired. 
 
 "You must rest, man," said Brian Oakley, shortly. 
 "There may be days of this ahead of us. You've got 
 to snatch every minute, when it's possible, to conserve 
 your strength. . You've already had more than the 
 rest of us. Jerk off your boots and lie down until I 
 call you, even if you can't sleep. Do as I say I'm 
 boss here." 
 
 As the artist obeyed, the Ranger continued, "I 
 wrote the Sheriff all I knew and some things that I 
 suspect. It's that automobile that sticks in my mind 
 that and some other things. The machine must 
 have left Fairlands before you did, unless it came 
 over through the Galena Valley, from some town on 
 the railroad, up San Gorgonio Pass way which isn't 
 likely. If it did come from Fairlands, it must have 
 waited somewhere along the road, to enter the canyon 
 after dark. Do you think that any one else besides 
 Myra Willard and Lagrange and you know that Sibyl 
 started up here?" 
 
 369
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "I don't think so. The neighbor where she bor- 
 rowed the horse didn't know where she was going." 
 
 "Who saw her last ?" 
 
 "I think Mrs. Taine did." 
 
 The artist had already told the Ranger about the 
 possible meeting of Mrs. Taine and Sibyl in his 
 studio. 
 
 "Hu-m-m," said the other. 
 
 "Mrs. Taine left for the East at four o'clock, you 
 know," said the artist. 
 
 "Jim Rutlidge didn't go, you said." The Rangei 
 spoke casually. Then, as if dismissing the matter, 
 he continued, "You get some rest now, Aaron. I'll 
 take care of your horse and saddle a fresh one for you. 
 As soon as it's light, we'll ride. I'm going to find out 
 where that automobile went and what for." 
 
 370
 
 CHAPTEK XXXIII 
 BEGINNING THE SEARCH 
 
 AEON KING lay with closed eyes, but not 
 asleep. He was thinking, thinking, think- 
 ing. In a weary circle, his tired brain 
 went round and round, finding no place to 
 stop. The man on horseback, the auto- 
 mobile, some accident that might have 
 befallen the girl in her distraught state of mind he 
 could find no place in the weary treadmill of con- 
 jecture to rest. While it was still too dark to see, 
 Brian Oakley called him. And the call was a relief. 
 As the artist pulled on his boots, the Ranger said, 
 "It'll be light enough to see, by the time we get above 
 Carleton's. We know the automobile went that far 
 anyway." 
 
 At the Carleton ranch, as they passed, they saw, 
 by the lights, that the mountaineer's family were 
 already making ready for the gathering of the riders. 
 A little beyond, they met two men from the Company 
 Head- Work, on their way to the meeting place. Soon, 
 in the gray, early morning light, the tracks of the 
 automobile were clearly seen. Eagerly, they followed 
 to the foot of the Oak Knoll trail, where the machine 
 had stopped and, turning around, had started back 
 down the canyon. With experienced care, Brian Oak- 
 ley searched every inch of the ground in the vicinity. 
 
 371
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Shaking his head, at last, as though forced to give 
 up hope of finding any positive signs pointing to the 
 solution of the puzzle, the officer remounted, slowly. 
 "I can't make it out," he said. "The road is so dry 
 and cut up with tracks, and the trail is so gravelly, 
 that there are no clear signs at all. Come, we better 
 get back to Carleton's, and start the boys out. When 
 Milt returns from Fairiands he may know some- 
 thing." 
 
 With the rising of the sun, the mountain folk, sum- 
 moned in the night by the Banger's messengers, 
 assembled at the ranch; every man armed and 
 mounted with the best his possessions afforded. Tied 
 to the trees in the yard, and along the fence in front, 
 or standing with bridle-reins over their heads, the 
 horses waited. Lying on the porch, or squatting on 
 their heels, in unconscious picturesque attitudes, the 
 mountain riders who had arrived first and had 
 finished their breakfast were ready for the Ranger's 
 word. In the ranch kitchen, the table was filled with 
 the later ones ; and these, as fast as they finished their 
 meal, made way for the new arrivals. There was no 
 loud talk ; no boisterous laughter ; no uneasy restless- 
 ness. Calm-eyed, soft-voiced, deliberate in movement, 
 these hardy mountaineers had answered Brian Oak- 
 ley's call ; and they placed themselves, now, under his 
 command, with no idle comment, no wasteful excite- 
 ment; but with a purpose and spirit that would, if 
 need be, hold them in their saddles until their horses 
 dropped under them, and would, then, send them on, 
 afoot, as long as their iron nerves and muscles could 
 be made to respond to their wills. 
 
 372
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 There was scarce a man in that company, who did 
 not know and love Sibyl Andres, and who had not 
 known and loved her parents. Many of them had 
 ridden with the Ranger at the time of Will Andres' 
 death. When the officer and his companion appeared, 
 they gathered round their leader with simple words 
 of greeting, and stood silently ready for his word. 
 
 Briefly, Brian Oakley divided them into parties, 
 and assigned the territory to be covered by each. 
 Three shots in quick succession, at intervals of two 
 minutes, would signal that the search was finished. 
 Two men, he held to go with him up Oak Knoll trail, 
 after his messenger to the Sheriff had returned. At 
 sunset, they were all to reassemble at the ranch for 
 further orders. When the officer finished speaking, 
 the little group of men turned to the horses, and, 
 without the loss of a moment, were out of sight in 
 the mountain wilderness. 
 
 A half hour before he was due, young Carleton 
 appeared with the Sheriff's answer to the Ranger's 
 letter. "Well done, boy," said Brian Oakley, heartily. 
 "Take care of your horse, now, and then get some rest 
 yourself, and be ready for whatever comes next." 
 
 He turned to those he had held to go with him; 
 "All right, boys, let's ride. Sheriff will take care of 
 the Fairlands end. Come, Aaron." 
 
 All the way up the Oak Knoll trail the Ranger 
 rode in the lead, bending low from his saddle, his 
 gaze fixed on the little path. Twice he dismounted 
 and walked ahead, leaving the chestnut to follow or 
 to wait, at his word. When they came out on the 
 pipe-line trail, he halted the party, and, on foot, went 
 
 373
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 carefully over the ground either way from the point 
 where they stood. 
 
 "Boys," he said at last, "I have a hunch that there 
 was a horse on this trail last night. It's been so 
 blamed dry, and for so long, though, that I can't be 
 sure. I held you two men because I know you are 
 good trailers. Follow the pipe-line up the canyon, 
 and see what you can find. It isn't necessary to say 
 stay with it if you strike anything that even looks 
 like it might be a lead. Aaron and I will take the 
 other way, and up the Galena trail to the fire-break." 
 
 While Brian Oakley had been searching for signs 
 in the little path, and the artist, with the others, was 
 waiting, Aaron King's mind went back to that day 
 when he and Conrad Lagrange had sat there under 
 the oaks and, in a spirit of irresponsible fun, had 
 committed themselves to the leadership of Croesus. 
 To the young man, now, that day, with its care-free 
 leisure, seemed long ago. Remembering the novelist's 
 fanciful oration to the burro, he thought grimly how 
 unconscious they had been, in their merriment, of the 
 great issues that did actually rest upon the seemingly 
 trivial incident. He recalled, too, with startling 
 vividness, the times that he had climbed to that spot 
 with Sibyl, or, reaching it from either way on the 
 pipe-line, had gone with her down the zigzag path to 
 the road in the canyon below. Had she, last night, 
 alone, or with some unwelcome companions, paused a 
 moment under those oaks ? Had she remembered the 
 hours that she had spent there with him ? 
 
 As he followed the Ranger over the ground that 
 he had walked with her, that day of their last climb 
 
 374
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 together, it seemed to him that every step of the way 
 was haunted by her sweet personality. The objects 
 along the trail a point of rock, a pine, the barrel 
 where they had filled their canteen, a broken section 
 of the concrete pipe left by the workmen, the very 
 rocks and cliffs, the flowers dry and withered now 
 that grew along the little path a thousand things 
 that met his eyes recalled her to his mind until he 
 felt her presence so vividly that he almost expected 
 to find her waiting, with smiling, winsome face, just 
 around the next turn. The officer, who, moving ahead, 
 scanned with careful eyes every foot of the way, 
 seemed to the artist, now, to be playing some fantastic 
 game. He could not, for the moment, believe that 
 the girl he loved was God ! where was she ? Why 
 did Brian Oakley move so slowly, on foot, while his 
 horse, leisurely cropping the grass, followed? He 
 should be in the saddle ! They should be riding, rid- 
 ing, riding as he had ridden last night. Last night ! 
 Was it only last night ? 
 
 Where the Government trail crosses the fire-break 
 on the crest of the Galenas, Brian Oakley paused. "I 
 don't think there's been anything over this way," he 
 said. "We'll follow the fire-break to that point up 
 there, for a look around." 
 
 At noon, they stood by the big rock, under the 
 clump of pines, where Aaron King and Sibyl Andres 
 had eaten their lunch. 
 
 "We'll be here some time," said the Ranger. 
 "Make yourself comfortable. I want to see if there's 
 anything stirring down yonder." 
 
 With his back to the rock, he searched the Galena 
 
 375
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Valley side of the range, through his powerful glass ; 
 commenting, now and then, when some object came 
 in the field of his vision, to his companion who sat 
 beside him. 
 
 They had risen to go and the officer was returning 
 his glass to its case on his saddle, when Aaron King 
 pointing toward Fairlands, lying dim and hazy in 
 the distant valley said, ''Look there!" 
 
 The other turned his head to see a flash of light 
 that winked through the dull, smoky veil, with start- 
 ling clearness. He smiled and turned again to his 
 saddle. "You'll often see that," he said. "It's the 
 sun striking some bright object that happens to be at 
 just the right angle to hit you with the reflection. A 
 bit of new tin on a roof, a window, an automobile 
 shield, anything bright enough, will do the trick. 
 Come, we'll go back to the trail and follow the break 
 the other way." 
 
 In the dusk of the evening, at the close of the long, 
 hard day, as Brian Oakley and Aaron King were 
 starting down the Oak Knoll trail on their return to 
 the ranch, the Ranger uttered an exclamation. His 
 quick eyes had caught the twinkling gleam of a light 
 at Sibyl's old home, far below, across the canyon. 
 The next instant, the chestnut, followed by his four- 
 footed companion, was going down the steep trail at 
 a pace that sent the gravel flying and forced the 
 artist, unaccustomed to such riding, to cling desper- 
 ately to the saddle. Up the canyon road, the Ranger 
 sent the chestnut at a run, nor did he draw rein as 
 they crossed the rough boulder-strewn wash. Plung- 
 
 376
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 ing through the tumbling water of the creek, the 
 horses scrambled up the farther bank, and dashed 
 along the old, weed-grown road, into the little clear- 
 ing. They were met by Czar with a bark of welcome. 
 A moment later, they were greeted by Conrad 
 Lagrange and Myra Willard. 
 
 "But why don't you stay down at the ranch, 
 Myra?" asked the Ranger, when he had told them 
 that his day's work was without results. 
 
 "Listen, Mr. Oakley," returned the woman with 
 the disfigured face. "I know Sibyl too well not to 
 understand the possibilities of her temperament. 
 Natures, fine and sensitive as hers, though brave and 
 cool and strong under ordinary circumstances, under 
 peculiar mental stress such as I believe caused her to 
 leave us, are easily thrown out of balance. We know 
 nothing. The ehild may be wandering, alone dazed 
 and helpless under the shock of a cruel and malicious 
 attempt to wreck her happiness. Only some terrible 
 stress of emotion could have caused her to leave me 
 as she did. If she is alone, out here in the hills, 
 there is a chance that even in her distracted state 
 of mind she will find her way to her old home." 
 The woman paused, and then, in the silence, added 
 hesitatingly, "I I may say that I know from experi- 
 ence the possibilities of which I speak." 
 
 The three men bowed their heads. Brian Oakley 
 said softly, "Myra, you've got more heart and more 
 sense than all of us put together." To Conrad 
 Lagrange, he added, "You will stay here with Miss 
 Willard?" 
 
 377
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Yes," answered the novelist, "I would be little 
 good in the hills, at such work as you are doing, 
 Brian. I will do what I can, here." 
 
 When the Ranger and the artist were riding down 
 the canyon to the ranch, the officer said, "There's a 
 big chance that Myra is right, Aaron. After all, she 
 knows Sibyl better than any of us, and I can see that 
 she's got a fairly clear idea of what sent the child 
 off like this. As it stands now, the girl may be just 
 wandering around. If she is, the boys will pick her 
 up before many hours. She may have met with some 
 accident. If that's it, we'll know before long. She 
 may have been I tell you, Aaron, it's that auto- 
 mobile acting the way it did that I can't get around." 
 
 The searchers were all at the ranch when the two 
 men arrived. ~No one had a word of encouragement 
 to report. A messenger from the Sheriff brought no 
 light on the mystery of the automobile. The two 
 men who had followed the pipe-line trail had found 
 nothing. A few times, they thought they had signs 
 that a horse had been over the trail the night before, 
 but there was no certainty; and after the pipe-line 
 reached the floor of the canyon there was absolutely 
 nothing. Jack Carleton was back from the Galena 
 Valley neighborhood, and, with him, was the horse- 
 man who had gone down the canyon the evening 
 before. The man was known to all. He had been 
 hunting, and was on his way home when Henry 
 Carleton and the Ranger had seen him. He had come, 
 now, to help in the search. 
 
 Picking a half dozen men from the party, Brian 
 Oakley sent them to spend the night riding the higher 
 
 378
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 trails and fire-breaks, watching for camp-fire lights. 
 The others, he ordered to rest, in readiness to take up 
 the search at daylight, should the night riders come 
 in without results. 
 
 Aaron King, exhausted, physically and mentally, 
 sank into a stupor that could scarcely be called sleep. 
 
 At daybreak, the riders who had been all night on 
 the higher trails and fire-breaks, searching the dark- 
 ness for the possible gleam of a camp-fire's light, 
 came in. 
 
 All that day Wednesday the mountain horse- 
 men rode, widening the area of their search under 
 the direction of the Ranger. From sundown until 
 long after dark, they came straggling wearily back; 
 their horses nearly exhausted, the riders beginning 
 to fear that Sibyl would never be found alive. There 
 was no further word from the Sheriff at Fairlands. 
 
 Then suddenly, out of the blackness of the night, 
 a rider from the other side of the Galenas arrived with 
 the word that the girl's horse had been found. The 
 animal was grazing in the neighborhood of Pine Glen. 
 The saddle and the horse's sides were stained with 
 dirt, as if the animal had fallen. The bridle-reins 
 had been broken. The horse might have rolled on the 
 saddle; he might have stepped on the bridle-reins; 
 he might have fallen and left his rider lying senseless. 
 In any case, they reasoned, the animal would scarcely 
 have found his way over the Galena range after he 
 had been left to wander at will. 
 
 Brian Oakley decided to send the main company 
 of riders over into the Pine Glen country, to continue 
 the search there. He knew that the men who found 
 
 379
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 the horse would follow the animal's track back as far 
 as possible. He knew, also, that if the animal had 
 been wandering several hours, as was likely, it would 
 be impossible to back-track far. Late as it was, Aaron 
 King rode up the canyon to tell Myra Willard and 
 Conrad Lagrange the result of the day's work. 
 
 The artist's voice trembled as he told the general 
 opinion of the mountaineers ; but Myra Willard said, 
 "Mr. King, they are wrong. My baby will come 
 back. There's harm come to her no doubt; but she 
 is not dead or I would know it." 
 
 In spite of the fact that Aaron King's reason told 
 him the woman of the disfigured face had no ground 
 for her belief, he was somehow helped, by her words, 
 to hope. 
 
 380
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 THE TRACKS ON GRANITE PEAK 
 
 HE searching party was already on the way 
 over to Pine Glen, when Brian Oakley 
 stopped at Sibyl's old home for Aaron 
 King. The Ranger, himself, had waited 
 to receive the morning message from the 
 Sheriff. 
 
 When the two men, following the Government trail 
 that leads to the neighborhood where the girl's horse 
 had been found, reached the fire-break on the summit 
 of the Galenas, the officer said, "Aaron, you'll be of 
 little use over there in that Pine Glen country, where 
 you have never been/' He had pulled up his horse 
 and was looking at his companion, steadily. 
 
 "Is there nothing that I can do, Brian ?" returned 
 the young man, hopelessly. "God, man ! I must do 
 something ! I must, I tell you !" 
 
 "Steady, old boy, steady," returned the moun- 
 taineer's calm voice. "The first thing you must do, 
 you know, is to keep a firm grip on yourself. If you 
 lose your nerve I'll have you on my hands too." 
 
 Under his companion's eye, the artist controlled 
 himself. "You're right, Brian," he said calmly. 
 "What do yon want me to do ? You know best, of 
 coursa" 
 
 The officer, atill watching him, said slowly, "I 
 
 381
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 want you to spend the day on that point, up there," 
 he pointed to the clump of pines, "with this 
 glass." He turned to take an extra field-glass from 
 his saddle. Handing the glass to the other, he con- 
 tinued, "You can see all over the country, on the 
 Galena Valley side of this range, from there." Again 
 he paused, as though reluctant to give the final word 
 of his instructions. 
 
 The young man looked at him, questioningly. 
 "Yes?" 
 
 The Ranger answered in a low tone, "You are to 
 watch for buzzards, Aaron." 
 
 Aaron King went white. "Brian ! You think " 
 
 The answer came sharply, "I am not thinking. I 
 don't dare think. I am only recognizing every possi- 
 bility, and letting nothing, nothing, get away from 
 me. I don't want you to think. I want you to do the 
 thing that will be of greatest service. It's because I 
 am afraid you will think, that I hesitate to assign 
 you to the position." 
 
 The sharp words acted like a dash of cold water in 
 the young man's face. Unconsciously, he straightened 
 in his saddle. "Thank you, Brian. I understand. 
 You can depend upon me." 
 
 "Good boy !" came the hearty and instant approval. 
 "If you see anything, go to it; leaving a note here, 
 under a stone on top of this rock ; I'll find it to-night, 
 when I come back. If nothing shows up, stay until 
 dark, and then go down to Carleton's. I'll be in late. 
 The rest of the party will stay over at Pine Glen." 
 
 Alone on the peak where he had sat with Sibyl 
 the day of their last climb, Aaron King watched for 
 
 382
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 the buzzards' telltale, circling flight and tried not to 
 think. 
 
 It was one o'clock when the artist resting his eyes 
 for a moment, after a long, searching look through 
 the glass caught, again, that flash of light in the 
 blue haze that lay over Fairlands in the distant 
 valley. Brian Oakley had said, when they had seen 
 it that first day of the search, that it was a common 
 sight; but the artist, his mind preoccupied, watched 
 the point of light with momentary, idle interest. 
 
 Suddenly, he awoke to the fact that there seemed 
 to be a timed regularity in the flashes. Into his mind 
 came the memory of something he had read of the 
 heliograph, and of methods of signalling with mir- 
 rors. Closely, now, he watched three flashes in 
 quick succession pause two flashes pause one 
 flash pause one flash pause two flashes pause 
 three flashes pause. For several minutes the 
 artist waited, his eyes fixed on the distant spot under 
 the haze. Then the flashes began again, repeating the 
 
 same order : . 
 
 At. the last flash, the man sprang to his feet, and 
 searched the mountain peaks and spurs behind him. 
 On lonely Granite Peak, at the far end of the Galena 
 Range, a flash of light caught his eye then another 
 and another. With an exclamation, he lifted his 
 glass. He could distinguish nothing but the peak 
 from which had come the flashes. He turned toward 
 the valley to see a long flash and then only the haze 
 and the dark spot that, he knew to be the orange 
 groves about Fairlands. 
 
 Aaron King sank, weak and trembling, against the 
 
 383
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 rock. What should he do ? What could he do ? The 
 signals might mean much. They might mean nothing. 
 Brian Oakley's words that morning, came to him; 
 "I am recognizing every possibility, and letting noth- 
 ing, nothing, get away from me." Instantly, he was 
 galvanized into life. Idle thinking, wondering, con- 
 jecturing, could accomplish nothing. 
 
 Riding as fast as possible down to the boulder 
 beside the trail, where he was to leave his message, 
 he wrote a note and placed it under the rock. Then 
 he set out, to ride the fire-break along the top of the 
 range, toward the distant Granite Peak. An hour's 
 riding took him to the end of the fire-break, and he 
 saw that from there on he must go afoot. 
 
 Tying the bridle-reins over the saddle-horn, and 
 fastening a note to the saddle, in case any one should 
 find the horse, he turned the animal's head back the 
 way he had come, and, with a sharp blow, started it 
 forward. He knew that the horse one of Carleton's 
 would probably make its way homa Turning, he 
 set his face toward the lonely peak ; carrying his can- 
 teen and what was left of his lunch. 
 
 There was no trail for his feet now. At times, he 
 forced his way through and over bushes of buck-thorn 
 and manzanita that seemed, with their sharp thorns 
 and tangled branches, to be stubbornly fighting him 
 back. At times, he made his way along some steep 
 slope, from pine to pine, where the ground was slip- 
 pery with the brown needles, and where to lose his 
 footing meant a fall of a thousand feet. Again, he 
 scaled some rocky cliff, clinging with his fingers to 
 jutting points of rock, finding niches and projections 
 
 384
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 for his feet; or, with the help of vine and root and 
 bush, found a way down some seemingly impossible 
 precipice. Now and then, from some higher point, 
 he sighted Granite Peak. Often, he saw, far below, 
 on one hand the great canyon, and on the other the 
 wide Galena Valley. Always he pushed forward. 
 His face was scratched and stained ; his clothing was 
 torn by the bushes; his hands were bloody from the 
 sharp rocks ; his body reeked with sweat ; his breath 
 came in struggling gasps ; but he would not stop. He 
 felt himself driven, as it were, by some inner power 
 that made him insensible to hardship or death. Far 
 behind him, the sun dropped below the sky-line of the 
 distant San Gabriels, but he did not notice. Only 
 when the dusk of the coming night was upon him, 
 did he realize that the day was gone. 
 
 On a narrow shelf, in the lee of a great cliff, he 
 hastily gathered material for a fire, and, with his 
 back to the rock, ate a little of the food he carried. 
 Far up on that wind-swept, mountain ridge, the night 
 was bitter cold. Again and again he aroused himself 
 from the weary stupor that numbed his senses, and 
 replenished the fire, or forced himself to pace to and 
 fro upon the ledge. Overhead, he saw the stars 
 glittering with a strange brilliancy. In the canyon, 
 far below, there were a few twinkling lights to mark 
 the Carleton ranch, and the old home of Sibyl, where 
 Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard waited. Miles 
 away, the lights of the towns among the orange groves, 
 twinkled like feeble stars in another feeble world. 
 The cold wind moaned and wailed in the dark pines 
 and swirled about the cliff in sudden gusts. A cougar 
 
 385
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 screamed somewhere on the mountainside below. An 
 answering scream came from the ledge above his head. 
 The artist threw more fuel upon his fire, and grimly 
 walked his beat. 
 
 In the cold, gray dawn of that Friday morning, 
 he ate a few mouthfuls of his scanty store of food 
 and, as soon as it was light, even while the canyon 
 below was still in the gloom, started on his way. 
 
 It was eleven o'clock when, almost exhausted, he 
 reached what he knew must be the peak that he had 
 seen through his glass the day before. There was 
 little or no vegetation upon that high, wind-swept 
 point. The side toward the distant peak from which 
 the artist had seen the signals, was an abrupt cliff 
 hundreds of feet of sheer, granite rock. From the 
 rim of this precipice, the peak sloped gradually down 
 and back to the edge of the pines that grew about its 
 base. The ground in the open space was bare and 
 hard. 
 
 Carefully, Aaron King searched as he had seen 
 the Ranger do for signs. Beginning at a spot near 
 the edge of the cliff, he worked gradually, back and 
 forth, in ever widening arcs, toward the pines below. 
 He was almost ready to give up in despair, cursing 
 himself for being such a fool as to think that he could 
 pick up a trail, when, clearly marked in a bit of softer 
 soil, he saw the print of a hob-nailed boot. 
 
 Instantly the man's weariness was gone. The long, 
 hard way he had come was forgotten. Insensible, 
 now, to hunger and fatigue, he moved eagerly in the 
 direction the boot-track pointed. He was rewarded 
 by another track. Then, as he moved nearer the softer 
 
 386
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 ground, toward the trees, another and another and 
 then 
 
 The man worn by his physical exertion, and by 
 his days of mental anguish for a moment, lost con- 
 trol of himself. Clearly marked, beside the broad 
 track of the heavier, man's boot, was the unmistakable 
 print of a smaller, lighter foot. 
 
 For a moment he stood with clenched fists and 
 heaving breast ; then, with grim eagerness, with every 
 sense supernaturally alert, with nerves tense, quick 
 eyes and ready muscles, he went forward on the trail. 
 
 It was after dark, that night, when Brian Oakley, 
 on his way back to Clear Creek, stopped at the rock 
 where the artist had left his note. 
 
 Reaching the floor of the canyon, he crossed to tell 
 Myra Willard and the novelist the result of the day's 
 search. The men riding in the vicinity of Pine Glen 
 had found nothing. It had been as the Ranger 
 expected impossible to follow back for any distance 
 on the track of the roaming horse, for the animal had 
 been grazing about the Pine Glen neighborhood for 
 at least a day. Over the note left by Aaron King, 
 the mountaineer shook his head doubtfully. Aaron 
 had done right to go. But for one of his inexperience, 
 the way along the crest of the Galenas was practically 
 impossible. If the young man had known, he could 
 have made the trip much easier by returning to Clear 
 Creek and following up to the head of that canyon, 
 then climbing to the crest of the divide, and so around 
 to Granite Peak. The Ranger, himself, would start, 
 
 387
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 at daybreak, for the peak, by that route; and would 
 come back along the crest of the range, to find the 
 artist 
 
 At Carleton's, they told the officer that Aaron's 
 horse had come in. Jack Carleton and his father 
 arrived from the country above Lone Cabin and 
 Burnt Pine, a few minutes after Brian Oakley 
 reached the ranch. It was agreed that Henry should 
 join the searchers at Pine Glen, at daybreak lest 
 any one should have seen the artists camp-fire, that 
 night, and so lose precious time going to it and that 
 Jack should accompany the Ranger to Granite Peak. 
 
 Henry Carleton had gone on his way to Pine Glen, 
 and Brian Oakley and Jack were in the saddle, ready 
 to start up the canyon, the next morning, when a 
 messenger from the Sheriff arrived. An automobile 
 had been seen returning from the mountains, about 
 two o'clock that night. There was only one man in 
 the car. 
 
 "Jack," said the Ranger, "Aaron has got hold of 
 the right end of this, with his mirror flashes. You've 
 got to go up the canyon alone. Get to Granite Peak 
 as quick as God will let you, and pick up the trail of 
 whoever signalled from there ; keeping one eye open 
 for Aaron. I'm going to trail that automobile as far 
 as it went, and follow whatever met or left it. We'll 
 likely meet somewhere, over in the Cold Water 
 country." 
 
 A minute later the two men who had planned to 
 ride together were going in opposite directions. 
 
 Following the Fairlands road until he came to 
 where the Galena Valley road branches off from the 
 
 388
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Clear Creek way, three miles below the Power-House 
 at the mouth of the canyon, Brian Oakley found the 
 tracks of an automohile made without doubt, during 
 the night just past The machine had gone up the 
 Galena \ r alley road, and had returned. 
 
 A little before noon, the officer stood where the 
 automobile had stopped and turned around for the 
 return trip. The place was well up toward the head 
 of the valley, near the mouth of a canyon that leads 
 upward toward Granite Peak. An hour's careful 
 work, and the Ranger uncovered a small store of 
 supplies ; hidden a quarter of a mile up the canyon. 
 There were tracks leading away up the side of the 
 mountain. Turning his horse loose to find its way 
 home ; Brian Oakley, without stopping for lunch, set 
 out on the trail. 
 
 High up on Granite Peak, Aaron King was bend- 
 ing over the print of a slender shoe, beside the track 
 of a heavy hob-nailed boot. Somewhere in Clear 
 Creek canyon, Jack Carleton was riding to gain the 
 point where the artist stood. At the foot of the 
 mountain, on the other side of the range, Brian Oak- 
 ley was setting out to follow the faint trail that 
 started at the supplies brought by the automobile, in 
 the night, from Fairlands. 
 
 389
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 A HARD WAY 
 
 HEIST Sibyl Andres left the studio, after 
 meeting Mrs. Taine, her mind was domi- 
 nated by one thought that she must get 
 away from the world that saw only evil 
 in her friendship with Aaron King a 
 friendship that, to the mountain girl, was 
 as pure as her relations to Myra Willard or Brian 
 Oakley. 
 
 Under the watchful, experienced care of the woman 
 with the disfigured face, only the worthy had been 
 permitted to enter into the life of this child of the 
 hills. Sibyl's character mind and heart and body 
 and soul had been formed by the strength and 
 purity of her mountain environment ; by her associa- 
 tion with her parents, with Myra Willard, and with 
 her parents' life-long friends; and by her mental 
 comradeship with the greatest spirits that music and 
 literature have given to the world. As her physical 
 strength and beauty was the gift of her free mountain 
 life, the beauty and strength of her pure spirit was 
 the gift of those kindred spirits that are as mountains 
 in the mental and spiritual life of the race. 
 
 Love had come to Sibyl Andres, not as it comes to 
 those girls who, in the hot-house of passion we call 
 civilization, are forced into premature and sickly 
 
 390
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 bloom by an atmosphere of sensuality. Love had come 
 to her so gently, so naturally, so like the opening of 
 a wild flower, that she had not yet understood that it 
 was love. Even as her womanhood had come to fulfill 
 her girlhood, so Aaron King had come into her life 
 to fulfill her womanhood. She had chosen her mate 
 with an unconscious obedience to the laws of life that 
 was divinely reckless of the world. 
 
 Myra Willard, wise in her experience, and in her 
 more than mother love for Sibyl, saw and recognized 
 that which the girl herself did not yet understand. 
 Satisfied as to the character of Aaron King, as it had 
 been tested in those days of unhampered companion- 
 ship ; and seeing, as well, his growing love for the 
 girl, the woman had been content not to meddle with 
 that which she conceived to be the work of God. And 
 why not the work of God ? Should the development, 
 the blossoming, and the fruiting of human lives, that 
 the race may flower and fruit, be held less a work of 
 divinity than the plants that mature and blossom 
 and reproduce themselves in their children ? 
 
 The character of Mrs. Taine represented those 
 forces in life that are, in every way, antagonistic to 
 the forces that make the character of a Sibyl Andres 
 possible. In a spirit of wanton, selfish cruelty, that 
 was born of her worldly environment and training, 
 "The Age" had twisted and distorted the very virtues 
 of "Nature" into something as hideously ugly and 
 vile as her own thoughts. The woman product of 
 gross materialism and sensuality had caught in her 
 licentious hands God's human flower and had crushed 
 its beauty with deliberate purpose. Wounded, f right- 
 
 391
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 ened, dismayed, not understanding, unable to deny, 
 the girl turned in reluctant flight from the place that 
 was, to her, because of her love, holy ground. 
 
 It was impossible for Sibyl not to believe Mre. 
 Taine the woman had spoken so kindly ; had seemed 
 so reluctant to speak at all ; had appeared so to appre- 
 ciate her innocence. A thousand trivial and unim- 
 portant incidents, that, in the light of the worldly 
 woman's words, could be twisted to evidence the 
 truth of the things she said, came crowding in upon 
 the girl's mind. Instead of helping Aaron King with 
 his work, instead of truly enjoying life with him, as 
 she had thought, her friendship was to him a menace, 
 a danger. She had believed and the belief had 
 brought her a strange happiness that he had cared 
 for her companionship. He had cared only to use her 
 for his pictures as he used his brushes. He had 
 played with her as she had seen him toy idly with 
 a brush, while thinking over his work. He would 
 throw her aside, when she had served his purpose, as 
 she had seen him throw a worn-out brush aside. 
 
 The woman who was still a child conld not blame 
 the artist she was too loyal to what she had thought 
 was their friendship ; she was too unselfish in her yet 
 unrecognized love for her chosen mate. No, she could 
 not blame him only only she wished oh how 
 she wished that she had understood. It would not 
 have hurt so, perhaps, if she had understood. 
 
 In all the cruel tangle of her emotions, in all her 
 confused and bewildering thoughts, in all her suffer- 
 ing, one thing was clear ; she must get away from the 
 world that could see only evil she must go at once. 
 
 392
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King might come at any 
 moment. She could not face them; now that she 
 knew. She wished Myra was home. But she would 
 leave a little note and Myra dear Myra with her 
 disfigured face would understand. 
 
 Quickly, the girl wrote her letter. Hurriedly, she 
 dressed in her mountain costume. Still acting under 
 her blind impulse to escape, she made no explanations 
 to the neighbors, when she went for the horse. In 
 her desire to avoid coming face to face with any one, 
 she even chose the more unfrequented streets through 
 the orange groves. In her humiliation and shame, 
 she wished for the kindly darkness of the night. Not 
 until she had left the city far behind, and, in the soft 
 dusk, drew near the mouth of the canyon, did she 
 regain some measure of her self-control. 
 
 As she was overtaking the Power Company's team 
 and wagon of supplies, she turned in her saddle, for 
 the first time, to look back. A mile away, on the 
 road, she could see a cloud of dust and a dark, moving 
 spot which she knew to be an automobile. One of the 
 Company machines, she thought ; and drew a breath 
 of relief that Fairlands was so far away. 
 
 It was quite dark as she entered the canyon ; but, 
 as she drew near, she could see against the sky, those 
 great gates, opening silently, majestically to receive 
 her. From within the canyon, she watched, as she 
 rode, to see them slowly close again. The sight of the 
 encircling peaks and ridges, rising in solemn gran- 
 deur out of the darkness into the light of the stars, 
 comforted her. The night wind, drawing down the 
 canyon, was sweet and bracing with the odor of the 
 
 393
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 hills. The roar of the tumbling Clear Creek, filling 
 the night with its deep-toned music, soothed and 
 calmed her troubled mind. Presently, she would be 
 with her friends, and, somehow, all would be well. 
 
 The girl had ridden half the distance, perhaps, 
 from the canyon gates to the Ranger Station when, 
 above the roar of the mountain stream, her quick ear 
 caught the sound of an automobile, behind her. 
 Looking back, she saw the gleam of the lights, like 
 two great eyes in the darkness. A Company machine, 
 going up to the Head- Work, she thought. Or, per- 
 haps, the Doctor, to see some one of the mountain folk. 
 
 As the automobile drew nearer, she reined her 
 horse out of the road, and halted in the thick chap- 
 arral, to let it pass. The blazing lights, as her horse 
 turned to face the approaching machine, blinded her. 
 The animal restive under the ordeal, demanded all 
 her attention. She scarcely noticed that the auto- 
 mobile had slowed down, when within a few feet of 
 her, until a man, suddenly, stood at her horse's head ; 
 his hand on the bridle-rein as though to assist her. 
 At the same instant, the machine moved past them, 
 and stopped ; its engine still running. 
 
 Still with the thought of the Company men in her 
 mind, the girl saw only their usual courtesy. "Thank 
 you," she said, "I can handle him very nicely." 
 
 But the man whom she had not had time to see, 
 blinded as she had been by the light, and who was 
 now only dimly visible in the darkness stepped 
 close to the horse's shoulder, as if to make himself 
 more easily heard above the noise of the machine, his 
 hand still holding the bridle-rein. 
 
 394
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 "It is Miss Andres, is it not ?" He spoke as though 
 he was known to her; and the girl still thinking 
 that it was one of the Company men, and feeling that 
 he expected her to recognize him leaned forward 
 to see his face, as she answered. 
 
 Instantly, the stranger standing close and taking 
 advantage of the girl's position as she stooped toward 
 him from the saddle caught her in his powerful arms 
 and lifted her to the ground. At the same moment, the 
 man's companion who, under cover of the darkness 
 and the noise of the machine, had drawn close to the 
 other side of the horse, caught the bridle-rein. 
 
 Before the girl, taken so off her guard could cry 
 out, a softly-rolled, silk handkerchief was thrust be- 
 tween her lips and skillfully tied in place. She strug- 
 gled desperately; but, against the powerful arms of 
 her captor, her splendid, young strength was useless. 
 As he bound her hands, the man spoke reassuringly ; 
 "Don't fight, Miss. I'm not going to hurt you. I've 
 got to do this ; but I'll be as easy as I can. It will do 
 you no good to wear yourself out." 
 
 Frightened as she was, the girl felt that the 
 stranger was as gentle as the circumstances permitted 
 him to be. He had not, in fact, hurt her at all ; and, 
 in his voice, she caught a tone of genuine regret. He 
 seemed to be acting wholly against his will; as if 
 driven by some power that rendered him, in fact, as 
 helpless as his victim. 
 
 The other man, still standing by the horse's head, 
 spoke sharply; "All right there?" 
 
 "All right, sir," gruffly answered the man who held 
 Sibyl, and lifting the helpless girl gently in his arms 
 
 395
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 he seated her carefully in the machine. An auto- 
 mobile-coat was thrown around her, the high collar 
 turned up to hide the handkerchief about her lips, 
 and her hat was replaced by an "auto-cap," pulled 
 low. Then her captor went back to the horse; the 
 other man took the seat beside her ; and the car moved 
 forward. 
 
 The girl's fright now gave way to perfect coolness. 
 Realizing the uselessness of any effort to escape, she 
 wisely saved her strength ; watchful to take quick ad- 
 vantage of any opportunity that might present itself. 
 Silently, she worked at her bonds, and endeavored to 
 release the bandage that prevented her from crying 
 out. But the hands that had bound her had been too 
 skillful. Turning her head, she tried to see her com- 
 panion's face. But, in the darkness, with upturned 
 collar and cap pulled low over "auto-glasses," the 
 identity of the man driving the oar was effectually 
 hidden. 
 
 Only when they were passing the Ranger Station 
 and Sibyl saw the lights through the trees, did she, 
 for a moment, renew her struggle. With all her 
 strength she strained to release her hands. One cry 
 from her strong, young voice wo*ld bring Brian 
 Oakley so quickly after the automobile that her 
 safety would be assured. On that mountain road, the 
 chestnut would soon run them down. She even tried 
 to throw herself from the car ; but, bound as she was, 
 the hand of her companion easily prevented, and she 
 sank back in the seat, exhausted by her useless ex- 
 ertion. 
 
 At the foot of the Oak Knoll trail the automobile 
 
 396
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 stopped. The man who had been following on Sibyl's 
 horse came up quickly. Swiftly, the two men 
 worked; placing sacks of supplies and blankets as 
 the girl guessed on the animal. Presently, the one 
 who had bound her, lifted her gently from the auto- 
 mobile. "Don't hurt yourself, Miss," he said in her 
 ear, as he carried her toward the horse. "It will do 
 you no good." And the girl did not again resist, as 
 he lifted her to the saddle. 
 
 The driver of the car said something to his com- 
 panion, in a low tone, and Sibyl heard her captor an- 
 swer, "The girl will be as safe with me as if she were 
 in her own home." 
 
 Again, the other spoke, and the girl heard only 
 the reply ; "Don't worry ; I understand that. I'll go 
 through with it. You've left me no chance to do 
 anything else." 
 
 Then, stepping to the horse's head and taking the 
 bridle-rein, the man who seemed to be under orders, 
 led the way up the canyon. Behind them, the girl 
 heard the automobile starting on its return. The 
 sound died away in the distance. The silence of the 
 night was disturbed only by the sound of the man's 
 hob-nailed boots and the horse's iron-shod feet on the 
 road. 
 
 Once, her captor halted a moment, and, coming to 
 the horse's shoulder, asked if she was comfortable. 
 The girl bowed her head. "I'm sorry for that gag," 
 he said. "As soon as it's safe, I'll remove it; but I 
 dare not take chances." He turned abruptly away 
 and they went on. 
 
 Dimly, Sibyl saw, in her companion's manner, a 
 
 397
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 ray of hope. That no immediate danger threatened, 
 she was assured. That the man was acting against 
 his will, was as evident. Wisely, she resolved to bend 
 her efforts toward enlisting his sympathies, to make 
 it hard for him to carry out the purpose of whoever 
 controlled him, instead of antagonizing him by con- 
 tinued resistance and repeated attempts to escape, 
 and so making it easier for him to do his master's 
 bidding. 
 
 Leaving the canyon by the Laurel Creek trail, they 
 reached Burnt Pine, where the man removed the 
 handkerchief that sealed the girl's lips. 
 
 "Oh, thank you," she said quietly. "That is so 
 much better." 
 
 "I'm sorry that I had to do it," he returned, as he 
 unbound her arms. "There, you may get down now, 
 and rest, while I fix a bit of lunch for you." 
 
 The girl sprang to the ground. "It is a relief to 
 be free," she said. "But, really, I'm not a bit tired. 
 Can't I help you with the pack ?" 
 
 "No," returned the other, gruffly, as though he 
 understood her purpose and put himself on his guard. 
 "We'll only be here a few minutes, and it's a long 
 road ahead. You must rest." 
 
 Obediently, she sat down on the ground, her back 
 against a tree. 
 
 As they lunched, in the dim light of the stars, she 
 said, "May I ask where you are taking me ?" 
 
 "It's a long road, Miss Andres. We'll be there to- 
 morrow night," he answered reluctantly. 
 
 Again, she ventured timidly; "And is, is some 
 one waiting for for us, at the end of our journey ?" 
 
 398
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 The man's voice was kinder as he answered, "No, 
 Miss Andres ; there'll be just you and me, for some 
 time. And," he added, "you don't need to fear me." 
 
 "I am not at all afraid of you," she returned 
 gently. "But I am " she hesitated "I am sorry 
 for you that you have to do this." 
 
 The man arose abruptly. "We must be going." 
 
 For some distance beyond Burnt Pine, they kept to 
 the Laurel Creek trail, toward San Gorgonio; then 
 they turned aside to follow some unmarked way, 
 known only to the man. When the first soft tints of 
 the day shone in the sky behind the peaks and ridges, 
 while Sibyl's friends were assembling at the Carleton 
 Ranch in Clear Creek Canyon, and Brian Oakley was 
 directing the day's search, the girl was following her 
 guide in the wild depths of the mountain wilderness, 
 miles from any trail. The country was strange to 
 her, but she knew that they were making their way, 
 far above the canyon rim, on the side of the San 
 Bernardino range, toward the distant Cold Water 
 country that opened into the great desert beyond. 
 
 As the light grew stronger, Sibyl saw her com- 
 panion; a man of medium height, with powerful 
 shoulders and arms ; dressed in khaki, with mountain 
 boots. Under his arm, as he led the way with a 
 powerful stride that told of almost tireless strength, 
 the girl saw the familiar stock of a Winchester rifle. 
 Presently he halted, and as he turned, she saw his 
 face. It was not a bad face. A heavy beard hid 
 mouth and cheek and throat, but the nose was not 
 coarse or brutal, and the brow was broad and in- 
 telligent. In the brown eyes there was, the girl 
 
 399
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 thought, a look of wistful sadness, as though there 
 were memories that could not be escaped. 
 
 "We will have breakfast here, if you please, Miss 
 Andres," he said gravely. 
 
 "I'm so hungry," she answered, dismounting. 
 "May I make the coffee ?" 
 
 He shook his head. "I'm sorry ; but there must be 
 no telltale smoke. The Ranger and his riders are 
 out by now, as like as not." 
 
 "You seem very familiar with the country," she 
 said, moving easily toward the rifle which he had 
 leaned against a tree, while he busied himself with 
 the pack of supplies. 
 
 "I am," he answered. "I have been forced to learn 
 it thoroughly. By the way, Miss Andres," he added, 
 without turning his head, as he knelt on the ground 
 to take food from the pack, "that Winchester will 
 do you no good. It is not loaded. I have the shells 
 in my belt." He arose, facing her, and throwing 
 open his coat, touched the butt of a Colt forty-five 
 that hung in a shoulder holster under his left armpit. 
 "This will serve in case quick action is needed, and 
 it is always safely out of your reach, you see." 
 
 The girl laughed. "I admit that I was tempted," 
 she said. "I might have known that you put the rifle 
 within my reach to try me." 
 
 "I thought it would save you needless disappoint- 
 ment, to make things clear at once," he answered. 
 "Breakfast is ready." 
 
 The incident threw a strong light upon the charac- 
 ter with which Sibyl had to deal. She realized, more 
 
 400
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 than ever, that her only hope lay in so winning this 
 man's sympathies and friendship that he would turn 
 against whoever had forced him into his present posi- 
 tion. The struggle was to be one of those silent 
 battles of the spirit, where the forces that war are not 
 seen but only felt, and where those who fight must 
 often fight with smiling faces. The girl's part was to 
 enlist her captor to fight for her, against himself. 
 She saw, as clearly, the need of approaching her ob- 
 ject with caution. Eager to know who it was that 
 ruled this man, and by what peculiar power a charac- 
 ter so strong could be so subjected, she dared not ask. 
 Hour after hour, as they journeyed deeper and deeper 
 into the mountain wilds, she watched and waited for 
 some sign that her companion's mood would make 
 it safe for her to approach him. Meanwhile, she 
 exercised all her womanly tact to lead him to forget 
 his distasteful position, and so to make his un- 
 congenial task as pleasant as possible. 
 
 The girl did not realize how far her decision, in 
 itself, aroused the admiring sympathy of her captor. 
 Her coolness, self-possession, and bravery in meeting 
 the situation with calm, watchful readiness, rather 
 than with hysterical moaning and frantic pleading, 
 did more than she realized toward accomplishing her 
 purpose. 
 
 During that long forenoon, she sought to engage 
 her guide in conversation, quite as though they were 
 making a pleasure trip that was mutually agreeable. 
 The man as though he also desired his thoughts 
 removed as far as might be from his real mission 
 
 401
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 responded readily, and succeeded in making himself 
 a really interesting companion. Only once, did the 
 girl venture to approach dangerous ground. 
 
 "Really," she said, "I wish I knew your name. It 
 seems so stupid not to know how to address you. Is 
 that asking too much ?" 
 
 The man did not answer for some time, and the 
 girl saw his face clouded with somber thought. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," she said gently. "I I ought 
 not to have asked." 
 
 "My name is Henry Marston, Miss Andres," he 
 said deliberately. "But it is not the name by which 
 I am known these days," he added bitterly. "It is 
 an honorable name, and I would like to hear it 
 again " he paused "from you." 
 
 Sibyl returned gently, "Thank you, Mr. Marston 
 believe me, I do appreciate your confidence, and " 
 she in turn hesitated "and I will keep the trust." 
 
 By noon, they had reached Granite Peak in the 
 Galenas, having come by an unmarked way, through 
 the wild country around the head of Clear Creek 
 Canyon. 
 
 They had finished lunch, when Marston, looking at 
 his watch, took a small mirror from his pocket and 
 stood gazing expectantly toward the distant valley 
 where Fairlands lay under the blue haze. Presently, 
 a flash of light appeared ; then another and another. 
 It was the signal that Aaron King had seen and to 
 which he had called Brian Oakley's attention, that 
 first day of their search. 
 
 With his mirror, the man on Granite Peak an- 
 swered; and the girl, watching and understanding 
 
 402
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 that he was communicating with some one, saw his 
 face grow dark with anger. She did not speak. 
 
 They had traveled a half mile, perhaps, from the 
 peak, when the man again stopped, saying, "You 
 must dismount here, please." 
 
 Removing the things from the saddle, he led the 
 horse a little way down the Galena Valley side of the 
 ridge, and tied the reins to a tree. Then, slapping the 
 animal about the head with his open hand, he forced 
 the horse to break the reins, and started him off 
 toward the distant valley. Again, the girl under- 
 stood, and made no comment. 
 
 Lifting the pack to his own strong shoulders, her 
 companion his eyes avoiding hers in shame said 
 gruffly, "Come." 
 
 Their way, now, led down from the higher levels 
 of peak and ridge, into the canyons and gorges of the 
 Cold Water country. There was no trail, but the man 
 went forward as one entirely at home. At the head 
 of a deep gorge, where their way seemed barred by 
 the face of an impossible cliff that towered above their 
 heads a thousand feet and dropped, another thousand, 
 sheer to the tops of the pines below, he halted and 
 faced the girl, enquiringly. "You have a good head, 
 Miss Andres ?" 
 
 Sibyl smiled. "I was born in the mountains, Mr. 
 Marston," she answered. "You need not fear for 
 me." 
 
 Drawing near to the very brink of the precipice, 
 he led her, by a narrow ledge, across the face of the 
 cliff ; and then, by an easier path, down the opposite 
 wall of the gorge. 
 
 403
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 It was late in the afternoon when they arrived at 
 a little log cabin that was so hidden in the wild tangle 
 of mountain growth at the bottom of the narrow can- 
 yon as to be invisible from a distance of a hundred 
 yards. 
 
 The girl knew that they had reached the end of 
 their journey. Nearly exhausted by the hours of 
 physical exertion, and worn with the mental and 
 nervous strain, she sank down upon the blankets that 
 her companion spread for her upon the ground. 
 
 "As soon as it is dark, I will cook a hot supper for 
 you," he said, regarding her kindly. "Poor child, 
 this has been a hard, hard, day for you. For me " 
 
 Fighting to keep back the tears, she tried to thank 
 him. For a moment he stood looking down at her. 
 Then she saw his face grow black with rage, and, 
 clenching his great fists, he turned away. 
 
 While waiting for the darkness that would hide 
 the smoke of the fire, the man gathered cedar boughs 
 from trees near-by, and made a comfortable bed in the 
 cabin, for the girl. As soon as it was dark, he built 
 a fire in the rude fire-place, and, in a few minutes, 
 announced supper. The meal was really excellent; 
 and Sibyl, in spite of her situation, ate heartily; 
 which won an admiring comment from her captor. 
 
 The meal finished, he said awkwardly, "I want to 
 thank you, Miss Andres, for making this day as easy 
 for me as you have. We will be alone here, until 
 Friday, at least ; perhaps longer. There is a bar to 
 the cabin door. You may rest here as safely as 
 though you were in your own room. Good night." 
 
 Before she could answer, he was gone. 
 
 404
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 A few minutes later, Sibyl stood in the open door. 
 "Mr. Marston," she called. 
 
 "Yes, Miss Andres," came, instantly, out of the 
 darkness. 
 
 "Please come into the cabin." 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 "It will be cold out there. Please come inside." 
 
 "Thank you, Miss Andres; but I will do very 
 nicely. Bar the door and go to sleep." 
 
 "But, Mr. Marston, I will sleep better if I know 
 that you are comfortable." 
 
 The man came to her and she saw him in the dim 
 light of the fire, standing hat in hand. He spoke 
 wonderingly. "Do you mean, Miss Andres, that you 
 would not be afraid to sleep, if I occupied the cabin 
 with you ?" 
 
 "No," she answered, "I am not afraid. Come in." 
 
 But he did not move to cross the threshold. "And 
 why are you not afraid ?" he asked curiously. 
 
 "Because," she answered, "I know that you are a 
 gentleman." 
 
 The man laughed harshly such a laugh as Sibyl 
 had never before heard. "A gentleman ! This is the 
 first time I have heard that word in connection with 
 myself for many a year, Miss Andres. You have 
 little reason for using it after what I have done to 
 you and am doing." 
 
 "Oh, but you see, I know that you are forced to do 
 what you are doing. You are a gentleman, Mr. 
 Marston. Won't you please come in and sleep by the 
 fire ? You will be so uncomfortable out there. And 
 you have had such a hard day." 
 
 405
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 "God bless you, for your good heart, Miss Andres," 
 the man said brokenly. "But I will not intrude upon 
 your privacy to-night. Don't you see," he added sav- 
 agely, "don't you see that I I can't ? Bar your door, 
 please, and let me play the part assigned to me. Your 
 kindness to me, your confidence in me, is wasted." 
 
 He turned abruptly away and disappeared in the 
 darkness. 
 
 406
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 WHAT SHOULD HE DO 
 
 HE next morning, it was evident to Sibyl 
 Andres that the man who said his name 
 was Henry Marston had not slept. 
 
 All that day, she watched the battle 
 saw him fighting with himself. He kept 
 apart from her, and spoke but little. 
 When night came, as soon as supper was over, he 
 again left the cabin, to spend the long, dark hours in 
 a struggle that the girl could only dimly sense. She 
 could not understand ; but she felt him fighting, fight- 
 ing ; and she knew that he fought for her. What was 
 it ? What terrible unseen force mastered this man, 
 compelled him to do its bidding, even while he 
 hated and loathed himself for submitting? 
 
 Watchful, ready, hoping, despairing, the helpless 
 girl could only pray that her companion might be 
 given strength. 
 
 The following morning, at breakfast, he told her 
 that he must go to Granite Peak to signal. His 
 orders were to lock her in the cabin, and to go alone ; 
 but he would not. She might go with him, if she 
 chose. 
 
 Even this crumb of encouragement that he would 
 so far disobey his master filled the girl's heart with 
 hope. "I would love to go with you, Mr. Marston," 
 
 407
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 she said, "but if it is going to make trouble for you, 
 I would rather stay." 
 
 "You mean that you would rather be locked up in 
 the cabin all day, than to make trouble for me?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "It wouldn't be so terrible," she answered, "and I 
 would like to do something something to to show 
 you that I appreciate your kindness to me. There's 
 nothing else I can do, is there ?" 
 
 The man looked at her wonderingly. It was im- 
 possible to doubt her sincerity. And Sibyl, as she 
 saw his face, knew that she had never before wit- 
 nessed such mental and spiritual anguish. The eyes 
 that looked into hers so questioningly, so pleadingly, 
 were the eyes of a soul in torment. Her own eyes 
 filled with tears that she could not hide, and she 
 turned away. 
 
 At last he said slowly, "~No, Miss Andres, you shall 
 not stay in the cabin to-day. Come; we must go on, 
 or I shall be late." 
 
 At Granite Peak, Sibyl watched the signal flashes 
 from distant Fairlands the flashes that Aaron King 
 was watching, from the peak where they had sat to- 
 gether that day of their last climb. As the man 
 answered the signals with his mirror, and the girl 
 beside him watched, the artist was training his glass 
 upon the spot where they stood; but, partially con- 
 cealed as they were, the distance was too great. 
 
 When Sibyl's captor turned, after receiving the 
 message conveyed by the flashes of light, his face was 
 terrible to see; and the girl, without asking, knew 
 
 408
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 that the crisis was drawing near. Deadly feai- 
 gripped her heart; but she was strangely calm. On 
 the way back to the cabin, the man scarcely spoke, 
 but walked with bent head ; and the girl felt him 
 fighting, fighting. She longed to cry out, to plead 
 with him, to demand that he tell her why he must do 
 this thing; but she dared not. She knew, instinc- 
 tively, that he must fight alone. So she watched and 
 waited and prayed. As they were crossing the face 
 of the canyon wall, on the narrow ledge, the man 
 stopped and, as though forgetting the girl's presence, 
 stood looking moodily down into the depths below. 
 Then they went on. That night, he did not leave the 
 cabin as soon as they had finished their evening meal, 
 but sat on one of the rude seats with which the little 
 hut was furnished, gazing into the fire. 
 
 The girl's heart beat quicker, as he said, "Miss 
 Andres, I would like to ask your opinion in a matter 
 that I cannot decide satisfactorily to myself." 
 
 She took the seat on the other side of the rude fire- 
 place. 
 
 "What is it, Mr. Marston?" 
 
 "I will put it in the form of a story," Jie answered. 
 Then, after a wait of some minutes, as though he 
 found it hard to begin, he said, "It is an old story, 
 Miss Andres ; a very common one, but with a differ- 
 ence. A young man, with every chance in the world 
 to go right, went wrong. He was well-born. He was 
 fairly well educated. His father was a man of influ- 
 ence and considerable means. He had many friends, 
 good and bad. I do not think the man was intention- 
 
 409
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 ally bad, but I do not excuse him. He was a fool 
 that's all a fool. And, as fools must, he paid the 
 price of his foolishness. 
 
 "A sentence of thirty years in the penitentiary is 
 a big price for a young man to pay for being a fool, 
 Miss Andres. He was twenty-five when he went in 
 strong and vigorous, with a good mind ; the prospects 
 of thirty years of prison life but that's not the story. 
 I could not hope to make you understand what a 
 thirty years sentence to the penitentiary means to a 
 man of twenty-five. But, at least, you will not won- 
 der that the man watched for an opportunity to 
 escape. He prayed for an opportunity. For ten 
 years, ten years, Miss Andres, the man watched 
 and prayed for a chance to escape. Then he got 
 away. 
 
 "He was never a criminal at heart, you must under- 
 stand. He had no wish, now, to live a life of crime. 
 He wished only to live a sane, orderly, useful, life of 
 freedom. They hunted him to the mountains. They 
 could not take him, but they made it impossible for 
 him to escape he was starving dying. He would 
 not give himself up to the twenty years of hell that 
 waited him. He did not want to die but he would 
 die rather than go back. 
 
 "Then, one day, when he was very near the end, a 
 man found him. The poor hunted devil of a convict 
 aroused his pity. He offered help. He gave the 
 wretched, starving creature food. He arranged to 
 furnish him with supplies, until it would be safe for 
 him to leave his hiding place. He brought him food 
 and clothing and books. Later, when the convict's 
 
 410
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 prison pallor was gone, when his hair and beard were 
 grown, and the prison manner and walk were, in some 
 measure, forgotten; when the officers, thinking that 
 he had perished in the mountains, had given up look- 
 ins: for him; his benefactor gave him work beauti- 
 fux work in the orange groves where he was safe 
 and happy and useful and could feel himself a man. 
 
 "Do you wonder, Miss Andres, that the man was 
 grateful? Do you wonder that he worshipped his 
 benefactor that he looked upon his friend as upon 
 his savior?" 
 
 "No," said the girl, "I do not wonder. It was a 
 beautiful thing to do to help the poor fellow who 
 wanted to do right. I do not wonder that the man 
 who had escaped, loved his friend." 
 
 "But listen," said the other, "when the convict was 
 beginning to feel safe ; when he saw that he was out of 
 danger ; when he was living an honorable, happy life, 
 instead of spending his days in the hell they call 
 prison; when he was looking forward to years of 
 happiness instead of to years of torment; then his 
 benefactor came to him suddenly, one day, and said, 
 'Unless you do what I tell you, now unless you help 
 me to something that I want, I will send you back 
 to prison. Do as I say, and your life shall go on as 
 it is as you have planned. Refuse, and I will turn 
 you over to the officers, and you will go back to your 
 hell for the remainder of your life.' 
 
 "Do you wonder, Miss Andres, that the convict 
 obeyed his master?" 
 
 The girl's face was white with despair, but she did 
 not lose her self-control. She answered the man, 
 
 411
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 thoughtfully as though they were discussing some 
 situation in which neither had a vital interest. "I 
 think, Mr. Marston," she said, "that it would depend 
 upon what it was that the man wanted the convict to 
 do. It seems to me that I can imagine the convict 
 being happier in prison, knowing that he had not 
 done what the man wanted, than he would be, free, 
 remembering what he had done to gain his freedom. 
 What was it the man wanted ?" 
 
 Breathlessly, Sibyl waited the answer. 
 
 The man on the other side of the fire did not speak. 
 
 At last, in a voice hoarse with emotion, Henry 
 Marston said, "Freedom and a life of honorable use- 
 fulness, purchased at a price, or hell, with only the 
 memory of a good deed which should the man 
 choose, Miss Andres ?" 
 
 "I think," she replied, "that you should tell me,, 
 plainly, what it was that the man wanted the convict 
 to do." 
 
 "I will go on with the story," said the other. 
 
 "The convict's benefactor or, perhaps I should 
 say, master loved a woman who refused to listen to 
 him. The girl, for some reason, left home, very sud- 
 denly and unexpectedly to any one. She left a hur- 
 ried note, saying, only, that she was going away. By 
 accident, the man found the note and saw his oppor- 
 tunity. He guessed that the girl would go to friends 
 in the mountains. He saw that if he could intercept 
 her, and keep her hidden, no one would know what 
 had become of her. He believed that she would 
 marry him rather than face the world after spending 
 so many days with him alone, because her manner of 
 
 412
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 leaving home would lend color to the story that she 
 had gone with him. Their marriage would save her 
 good name. He wanted the man whom he could send 
 back to prison to help him. 
 
 "The convict had known his benefactor's kindness 
 of heart, you must remember, Miss Andres. He knew 
 that this man was able to give his wife everything 
 that seems desirable in life that thousands of women 
 would have been glad to marry him. The man as- 
 sured the convict that he desired only to make the girl 
 his wife before all the world. He agreed that she 
 should remain under the convict's protection until 
 she was his wife, and that the convict should, himself, 
 witness the ceremony." The man paused. 
 
 When the girl did not speak, he said again, "Do 
 you wonder, Miss Andres, that the convict obeyed 
 his master?" 
 
 "No," said the girl, softly, "I do not wonder. But, 
 Mr. Marston," she continued, hesitatingly, "what do 
 you think the convict in your story would have done 
 if the man had not if he had not wanted to marry 
 the girl ?" 
 
 "I know what he would have done in that case," the 
 other answered with conviction. "He would have 
 gone back to his twenty years of hell. He would have 
 gone back to fifty years of hell, if need be, rather than 
 buy his freedom at such a price." 
 
 The girl leaned forward, eagerly ; "And suppose 
 suppose that after the convict had done his master's 
 bidding suppose that after he had taken the girl 
 away from her friends suppose, then, the man 
 would not marry her ?" 
 
 413
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 For a moment there was no sound in the little 
 room, save the crackling of the fire in the fire-place, 
 and the sound of a stick that had burned in two, fall- 
 ing in the ashes. 
 
 "What would the convict do if the man would not 
 marry the girl?" persisted Sibyl. 
 
 Her companion spoke with the solemnity of a judge 
 passing sentence; "If the man violated his word if 
 he lied to the convict if his purpose toward the girl 
 was anything less than an honorable marriage if he 
 refused to keep his promise after the convict had done 
 his part he would die, Miss Andres. The convict 
 would kill his benefactor as surely as there is a just 
 God who, alone, can say what is right and what is 
 wrong." 
 
 The girl uttered a low cry. 
 
 The man did not seem to notice. "But the man 
 will do as he promised, Miss Andres. He wishes to 
 make the girl his wife. He can give her all that 
 women, these days, seem to desire in marriage. In 
 the eyes of the world, she would be envied by thou- 
 sands. And the convict would gain freedom and the 
 right to live an honorable life the right to earn his 
 bread by doing an honest man's work. Freedom and 
 a life of honorable service, at the price ; or hell, with 
 only the memory of a good deed which should he 
 choose, Miss Andres? The convict is past deciding 
 for himself." 
 
 The troubled answer came out of the honesty of 
 the girl's heart ; "Mr. Marston, I do not know." 
 
 A moment, the man on the other side of the fire- 
 place waited. Then, rising, he quietly left the cabin. 
 
 414
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 The girl did not know that he was gone, until she 
 heard the door close. 
 
 In that log hut, hidden in the deep gorge, in the 
 wild Cold Water country, Sibyl Andres sat before 
 the dying fire, waiting for the dawn. On a high, 
 wind-swept ledge in the Galena mountains, Aaron 
 King grimly walked his weary beat. In Clear Creek 
 Canyon, Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange waited, 
 and Brian Oakley planned for the morrow. Over in 
 the Galena Valley, an automobile from Fairlands 
 stopped at the mouth of a canyon leading toward 
 Granite Peak. Somewhere, in the darkness of the 
 night, a man strove to know right from wrong. 
 
 415
 
 CHAPTEE XXXVII 
 
 THE MAN WAS INSANE 
 
 EITHER Sibyl Andres nor her companion, 
 the next morning, reopened their conversa- 
 tion of the night before. Each was 
 preoccupied and silent, with troubled 
 thoughts that might not be spoken. 
 
 Often, as the forenoon passed, Sibyl 
 saw the man listening, as though for a step on the 
 mountainside above. She knew, without being told, 
 that the convict was expecting his master. It was, 
 perhaps, ten o'clock, when they heard a sound that 
 told them some one was approaching. 
 
 The man caught up his rifle and slipped a round 
 of cartridges into the magazine; saying to the girl, 
 "Go into the cabin and bar the door ; quick, do as I 
 say ! Don't come out until I call you." 
 
 She obeyed ; and the convict, himself, rifle in hand, 
 disappeared in the heavy underbrush. 
 
 A few minutes later, James Rutlidge parted the 
 bushes and stepped into the little open space in front 
 of the cabin. The convict reappeared, his rifle under 
 his arm. 
 
 The new-comer greeted the man whom Sibyl knew 
 as Henry Marston, with, "Hello, George, everything 
 all right? Where is she?" 
 
 "Miss Andres is in the cabin. When I heard you 
 
 416
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 coming, I asked her to go inside, and took cover in 
 the brush, myself, until I knew for sure that it was 
 you." 
 
 Rutlidge laughed. "You are all right, George. 
 But you needn't worry. Everything is as peaceful as 
 a graveyard. They've found the horse, and they 
 think now that the girl killed herself, or met with an 
 accident while wandering around the hills in a state 
 of mental aberration." 
 
 "You left the supplies at the same old place, I 
 suppose ?" said the convict. 
 
 "Yes, I brought what I could," Rutlidge indicated 
 a pack which he had slipped from his shoulder as he 
 was talking. "You better hike over there and bring 
 in the rest to-night. If you leave at once, you will 
 make it back by noon, to-morrow." 
 
 The girl in the cabin, listening, heard every word 
 and trembled with fear. The convict spoke again. 
 
 "What are your plans, Mr. Rutlidge ?" 
 
 "Never mind my plans, now. They can wait until 
 you get back. You must start at once. You say Miss 
 Andres is in the cabin ?" He turned toward the door. 
 
 But the other said, shortly, "Wait a minute, sir. 
 I have a word to say, before I go." 
 
 "Well, out with it." 
 
 "You are not going to forget your promise to me ?" 
 
 "Certainly not, George. You are safe." 
 
 "'I mean regarding Miss Andres." 
 
 "Oh, of course not ! Why, what's the matter ?" 
 
 "Nothing, only she is in my care until she is your 
 wife." 
 
 James Rutlidge laughed. "I will take good care 
 
 417
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 of her until you get back. You need have no fear. 
 You're not doubting my word, are you ?" 
 
 "If I doubted your word, I would take Miss An- 
 dres with me," answered the convict, simply. 
 
 James Eutlidge looked at him, curiously ; "Oh, you 
 would?" 
 
 "Yes, sir, I would; and I think I should tell you, 
 too, that if you should forget your promise " 
 
 "Well, what would you do if I should forget ?" 
 
 The answer came deliberately ; "If you do not keep 
 your promise I will kill you, Mr. Rutlidge." 
 
 James Rutlidge did not reply. 
 
 Stepping to the cabin door, the convict knocked. 
 
 Sibyl's voice answered, "Yes ?" 
 
 "You may come out now, please, Miss Andres." 
 
 As the girl opened the door, she spoke to him in a 
 low tone. "Thank you, Mr. Marston. I heard." 
 
 "I meant you to hear," he returned in a whisper. 
 "Do not be afraid." In a louder tone he continued. 
 "I must go for supplies, Miss Andres. I will be 
 back to-morrow noon." 
 
 He stepped around the corner of the cabin, and 
 was gone. 
 
 Sibyl Andres faced James Rutlidge, without speak- 
 ing. She was not afraid, now, as she had always been 
 in his presence, until that day when he had so plainly 
 declared himself to her and she met his advances 
 with a gun. The convict's warning to the man who 
 could send him back to prison for practically the re- 
 maining years of his life, had served its purpose 
 in giving her courage. She did not believe that, for 
 
 418
 
 ,...-. 
 
 Still she did not speak
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 the present, Rutlidge would dare to do otherwise than 
 heed the warning: 
 
 James Rutlidge regarded her with a smile of tri- 
 umphant satisfaction. "Really," he said, at last, 
 "you do not seem at all glad to see me." 
 
 She made no reply. 
 
 "I am frightfully hungry" he continued, with a 
 short laugh, mov:'ng toward her as she stood in the 
 door of the cabin "I've been walking since mid- 
 night. I was in such a hurry to get here that I didn't 
 even stop for breakfast." 
 
 She stepped out, and moved away from the door. 
 
 With another laugh, he entered the cabin. 
 
 Presently, when he had helped himself to food, he 
 went back to the girl who had seated herself on a log, 
 at the farther side of the little clearing. "You seem 
 fairly comfortable here," he said. 
 
 She did not speak. 
 
 "You and my man get along nicely, I take it. He 
 has been kind to you ?" 
 
 Still she did not speak. 
 
 He spoke sharply, "Look here, my girl, you can't 
 keep this up, you know. Say what you have to say, 
 and let's get it over." 
 
 All the time, she had been regarding him intently 
 her wide, blue eyes filled with wondering pain. 
 "How could you ?" she said at last. "Oh, how could 
 you do such a thing ?" 
 
 His face flushed. "I did it because you have 
 driven me mad, I guess. From the first time I saw 
 you, I have wanted you. I have tried again and 
 
 419
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 again, in the last three years, to approach you; but 
 you would have nothing to do with me. The more 
 you spurned me, the more I wanted you. Then this 
 man, King, came. You were friendly enough, with 
 him. It made me wild. From that day when I met 
 you in the mountains above Lone Cabin, I have been 
 ready for anything. I determined if I could not win 
 you by fair means, I would take you in any way I 
 could. When my opportunity came, I took advantage 
 of it. I've got you. The story is already started that 
 you were the painter's mistress, and that you have 
 committed suicide. You shall stay here, a while, 
 until the belief that you are dead has become a cer- 
 tainty; then you will go East with me." 
 
 "But you cannot do a thing so horrible !" she ex- 
 claimed. "I would tell my story to the first people 
 we met." 
 
 He laughed grimly, as he retorted with brutal 
 meaning, "You do not seem to understand. You will 
 be glad enough to keep the story a secret when the 
 time comes to go." 
 
 Bewildered by fear and shame, the girl could only 
 stammer, "How could you oh how could you ! Why, 
 why" 
 
 "Why!" he echoed. Then, as he went a step to- 
 ward her, he exclaimed, with reckless profanity, "Ask 
 the God who made me what I am, why I want you ! 
 Ask the God who made you so beautiful, why !" 
 
 He moved another step toward her, his face flushed 
 with the insane passion that mastered him, his eyes 
 burning with the reckless light of one past counting 
 
 420
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 the cost; and the girl, seeing, sprang to her feet, in 
 terror. Wheeling suddenly, she ran into the cabin, 
 thinking to shut and bar the door. She reached the 
 door, and swung it shut, but the bar was gone. While 
 he was in the cabin he had placed it out of her reach. 
 Putting his shoulder to the door, the man easily 
 forced it open against her lighter weight. As he 
 crossed the threshold, she sprang to the farthest 
 corner of the little room, and cowered, trembling 
 too shaken with horror to cry out. A moment he 
 paused ; then started toward her. 
 
 At that instant, the convict burst through the 
 underbrush into the little opening. 
 
 Hearing the sound, Rutlidge wheeled and sprang 
 to the open door. 
 
 The convict was breathing heavily from the exer- 
 tion of a hard run. 
 
 "What are you doing here ?" demanded Rutlidge, 
 sharply. "What's the matter ?" 
 
 "Some one is following my trail down from Granite 
 Peak." 
 
 "Well, what are you carrying that rifle for ?" said 
 Rutlidge, harshly, with an oath. 
 
 "There may be others near enough to hear a shot," 
 answered the convict. "Besides, Mr. Rutlidge, this is 
 your part of the game not mine. I did not agree 
 to commit murder for you." 
 
 "Where did you see him ?" 
 
 "A half mile beyond the head of the gulch, where 
 we turn off to go to the supply point." 
 
 Rutlidge, rifle in hand, stepped from the house. 
 
 421
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "You stay here and take care of the girl and see that 
 she doesn't scream." With the last word he set out 
 at a run. 
 
 The convict sprang into the cabin, where Sibyl still 
 crouched in the corner. The man's voice was im- 
 ploring, as he said, "Miss Andres, Miss Andres, what 
 is the matter ? Did he touch you ? Tell me, did he 
 harm you?" 
 
 Sobbing, the girl held out her hands, and he lifted 
 her to her feet. "You you came just in time, Mr. 
 Marston." 
 
 An instant he stood there, then muttering some- 
 thing under his breath, he turned, caught up his rifle, 
 and started toward the door. 
 
 But, as he reached the threshold, she cried out, 
 "Mr. Marston, don't, don't leave me again." 
 
 The convict stopped, hesitated, then he said sol- 
 emnly, "Miss Andres, can you pray? I know you 
 can. You are a good girl. If God can hear a prayer 
 he will surely hear you. Come with me. Come 
 and pray girl pray for me." 
 
 The most charitable construction that can be put 
 upon the action of James Rutlidge, just related, is to 
 accept the explanation of his conduct that he, him- 
 self, made to Sibyl. The man was insane as Mr. 
 Taine was insane as Mrs. Taine was insane. 
 
 What else can be said of a class of people who, in 
 an age wedded to materialism, demand of their art- 
 ists, not that they shall set before them ideals of 
 truth and purity and beauty, but that they shall feed 
 
 422
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 their diseased minds with thoughts of lust and stimu- 
 late their abnormal passions with lascivious 
 imaginings? Can a class whatever its pretense to 
 culture may be can a class, that, in story and picture 
 and music and play, counts greatest in art those who 
 most effectively arouse the basest passions of which 
 the human being is capable, be rightly judged sane ? 
 
 James Rutlidge was bred, born, and reared in an 
 atmosphere that does not tolerate purity of thought. 
 It was literally impossible for him to think sanely of 
 the holiest, most sacred, most fundamental facts of 
 life. Education, culture, art, literature, all that is 
 commonly supposed to lift man above the level of the 
 beasts, are used by men and women of his kind to 
 so pervert their own natures that they are able to 
 descend to bestial depths that the dumb animals them- 
 selves are not capable of reaching. In what he called 
 his love for Sibyl Andres, James Rutlidge was insane 
 but no more so than thousands of others. The 
 methods of securing the objects of their desires vary 
 the motive that prompts is the same the end 
 sought is identical. 
 
 As he hurriedly climbed the mountainside, out of 
 the deep gorge that hid the cabin, the man's mind 
 was in a whirl of emotions rage at being interrupted 
 at the moment of his triumph; dread lest the 
 approaching one should be accompanied by others, 
 and the girl be taken from him ; fear that the convict 
 would prove troublesome, even should the more imme- 
 diate danger be averted ; anger at himself for being 
 so blindly precipitous; and a maddening indecision 
 as to how he should check the man who was following 
 
 423
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 the tracks that led .from Granite Peak to the evident 
 object of his search. The words of the convict rang 
 in his ears. "This is your job. I did not agree to 
 commit murder for you." 
 
 Murder had no place in the insanity of James Rut- 
 lidge. To destroy innocence, to kill virtue, to murder 
 a soul these are commonplaces in the insane philoso- 
 phy of his kind. But to kill to take a life delib- 
 erately the thought was abhorrent to him. He was 
 not educated to the thought of taking life he was 
 trained to consider its perversion. The heroes in 
 his fiction did not kill men they betrayed women. 
 The heroines in his stories did not desire the death of 
 their betrayers they loved them, and deserted their 
 husbands for them. 
 
 But to stand idly aside and permit Sibyl Andres 
 to be taken from him to face the exposure that 
 would inevitably follow was impossible. If the 
 man who had struck the trail was alone, there might 
 still be a chance if he could be stopped. But how 
 could he check him ? What could he do ? A rifle-shot 
 might bring a dozen searchers. 
 
 While these thoughts were seething in his hot 
 brain, he was climbing rapidly toward the cliff at the 
 head of the gorge, across which, he knew, the man 
 who was following the tracks that led to the cabin 
 below, must come. 
 
 Gaining the end of the ledge that leads across the 
 face of that mighty wall of rock, less than a hundred 
 feet to the other side, he stopped. There was no one 
 in sight. Looking down, he saw, a thousand feet be- 
 low, the tops of the trees in the bottom of the gorge. 
 
 424
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Lifting his head, he looked carefully about, searching 
 the mountainsides that slope steeply back from the 
 rim of the narrow canyon. He looked up at the 
 frowning cliff that towered a thousand feet above his 
 head. He listened. He was thinking, thinking. The 
 best of him and the worst of him struggled for 
 supremacy. 
 
 A sound on the mountainside, above the gorge, and 
 beyond the other end of the ledge, caught his ear. 
 With a quick step he moved behind a projecting 
 corner of the cliff. Rifle in hand, he waited. 
 
 425
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 AN INEVITABLE CONFLICT 
 
 HEN Aaron King set out to follow the 
 tracks he had found at Granite Peak, 
 after his long, hard trip along the rugged 
 crest of the Galenas, his weariness was 
 forgotten. Eagerly, as if fresh and strong, 
 but with careful eyes and every sense 
 keenly alert, he went forward on the trail that he 
 knew must lead him to Sibyl Andres. 
 
 He did not attempt to solve the problem of how 
 the girl came there, nor did he pause to wonder about 
 her companion. He did not even ask himself if 
 Sibyl were living or dead. He thought of nothing;, 
 knew nothing; was conscious of nothing; but the 
 trail that led away into the depths of the mountain 
 wilderness. Insensible to his own physical condition ; 
 without food; unacquainted with the wild country 
 into which he was going; reckless of danger to him- 
 self; but with all possible care and caution for the 
 sake of the girl he loved, he went on. 
 
 Coming to the brink of the gorge in which the 
 cabin was hidden, the trail, following the rim, soon 
 led him to the ledge that lay across the face of the 
 cliff at the head of the narrow canyon. A moment, 
 he paused, to search the vicinity with careful eyes, 
 then started to cross. As he set foot upon the ledge, 
 a voice at the other end called sharply, "Stop." 
 
 426
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 At the word, Aaron King halted. 
 
 A moment passed. James Rutlidge stepped from 
 behind the rocks at the other end of the ledge. He 
 was covering the artist with a rifle. 
 
 In a flash, the man on the trail understood. The 
 automobile, the mirror signals from Fairlands it 
 was all explained by the presence and by the menac- 
 ing attitude of the man who barred his way. The 
 artist's hand moved toward the weapon that hung at 
 his hip. 
 
 "Don't do that," said the man with the rifle. "I 
 can't murder you in cold blood; but if you attempt 
 to draw your gun, I'll fire." 
 
 The other stood still. 
 
 James Rutlidge spoke again, his voice hoarse with 
 emotion; "Listen to me, King. It's useless for me 
 to deny what brought me here. The trail you are 
 following leads to Sibyl Andres. You had her all 
 summer. I've got her now. If you hadn't stumbled 
 onto the trail up there, I would have taken her out 
 of the country, and you would never have seen her 
 again. I might have killed you before you saw me, 
 but I couldn't. I'm not that kind. Under the cir- 
 cumstances, there is no possible compromise. I'll 
 give you a fighting chance for your life and the girl. 
 I'll take a fighting chance for my life and the girl. 
 Throw your gun out of reach and I'll leave mine here. 
 We'll meet on the ledge there." 
 
 James Rutlidge was no coward. Mr. Taine, also, 
 it will be remembered, on the night of his death, 
 boasted that he was game. 
 
 Without an instant's hesitation, Aaron King un- 
 
 427
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 buckled the belt that held his weapon and, turning, 
 tossed it behind him, with the gun still in its holster. 
 At the other end of the ledge, James Eutlidge set his 
 rifle behind the rock. 
 
 Deliberately, the two men removed their coats and 
 threw aside their hats. For a moment they stood 
 eyeing each other. Into Aaron King's mind flashed 
 the memory of that scene at the Fairlands depot, 
 when, moved by the distress of the woman with the 
 disfigured face, he had first spoken to the man who 
 faced him now. With startling vividness, the inci- 
 dents of their acquaintance came to him in flash-like 
 succession the day that Rutlidge had met Sibyl in 
 the studio ; the time of his visit to the camp in the 
 sycamore grove; the night of the Taine banquet a 
 hundred things that had strengthened the feeling of 
 antagonism which had marked their first meeting. 
 And, through it all, he seemed to hear Conrad La- 
 grange saying that in his story of life this character's 
 name was "Sensual." The artist, in that instant, 
 knew that this meeting was inevitable. 
 
 It was only for a moment that the two men who 
 in their lives and characters represented forces so 
 antagonistic stood regarding each other, each know- 
 ing that the duel would be must be to the death. 
 Deliberately, they started toward the center of the 
 ledge. Over their heads towered the great cliff. A 
 thousand feet below were the tops of the trees in the 
 bottom of the gorge. About them, on every hand, the 
 silent, mighty hills watched the wild and lonely 
 wilderness waited. 
 
 As they drew closer together, they moved, as wres- 
 
 428
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 tiers, warily crouching, silent, alert. Stripped to 
 their shirts and trousers, they were both splendid 
 physical types. James Rutlidge was the heavier, but 
 Aaron King made up for his lack in weight by a more 
 clean-cut, muscular firmness. 
 
 They grappled. As two primitive men in a savage 
 age might have met, bare handed, they came together. 
 Locked in each other's arms, their limbs entwined, 
 with set faces, tugging muscles, straining sinews, and 
 taut nerves they struggled. One moment they 
 crushed against the rocky wall of the cliff the next, 
 and they swayed toward the edge of the ledge and 
 hung over the dizzy precipice. With pounding 
 hearts, laboring breath, and clenched teeth they 
 wrestled. 
 
 James Rutlidge' s foot slipped on the rocky floor; 
 but, with a desperate effort, he regained his momen- 
 tary loss. Aaron King worn by his days of anxiety, 
 by his sleepless nights and by the long hours of toil 
 over the mountains, without sufficient food or rest 
 felt his strength going. Slowly, the weight and en- 
 durance of the heavier man told against him. James 
 Rutlidge felt it, and his eyes were beginning to blaze 
 with savage triumph. 
 
 They were breathing, now, with hoarse, sobbing 
 gasps, that told of the nearness of the finish. Slowly, 
 Aaron King weakened. Rutlidge, spurred to increase 
 his effort, and exerting every ounce of his strength, 
 was bearing the other downward and back. 
 
 At that instant, the convict and Sibyl Andres 
 reached the cliff. With a cry of horror, the girl stood 
 
 as though turned to stone. 
 
 \ 
 
 429
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Motionless, without a word, the convict watched the 
 struggling men. 
 
 With a sob, the girl stretched forth her hands. In 
 a low voice she called, "Aaron ! Aaron ! Aaron !" 
 
 The two men on the ledge heard nothing saw 
 nothing. 
 
 Sibyl spoke again, almost in a whisper, but her 
 companion heard. "Mr. Marston, Mr. Marston, it is 
 Aaron King. I I love him I love him." 
 
 Without taking his eyes from the struggling men, 
 the convict answered, "Pray, girl; pray, pray for 
 me." As he spoke, he steadily raised his rifle to his 
 shoulder. 
 
 Aaron King went down upon one knee. Rut- 
 lidge, his legs braced, his body inclined toward the 
 edge of the precipice, was gathering his strength for 
 the last triumphant effort. 
 
 The convict, looking along his steady rifle barrel, 
 was saying again, "Pray, pray for me, girl." As the 
 words left his lips, his finger pressed the trigger, and 
 the quiet of the hills was broken by the sharp crack 
 of the rifle. 
 
 James Rutlidge's hold upon the artist slipped. For 
 a fraction of a second, his form half straightened and 
 he stood nearly erect ; then, as a weed cut by the sharp 
 scythe of a mower falls, he fell ; his body whirling 
 downward toward the trees and rocks below. The 
 sound of the crashing branches mingled with the 
 reverberating report of the shot. On the ledge, Aaron 
 King lay still. 
 
 The convict dropped his rifle and ran forward. 
 Lifting the unconscious man in his arms, he carried 
 
 430
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 him a little way down the mountain, toward the 
 cabin; where he laid him gently on the ground. To 
 Sibyl, who hung over the artist in an agony of loving 
 fear, he said hurriedly, "He'll be all right, presently, 
 Miss Andres. I'll fetch his coat and hat." 
 
 Running back to the ledge, he caught up the dead 
 man's rifle, coat, and hat, and threw them over the 
 precipice, as he swiftly crossed for the artist's things. 
 Recovering his own rifle, he ran back to the girl. 
 
 "Listen, Miss Andres," said the convict, speaking 
 quickly. "Mr. King will be all right in a few min- 
 utes. That rifle-shot will likely bring his friends ; if 
 not, you are safe, now, anyway. I dare not take 
 chances. Good-by." 
 
 From where she sat with the unconscious man's 
 head in her lap, she looked at him, wonderingly. 
 "Good-by ?" she repeated questioningly. 
 
 Henry Marston smiled grimly. "Certainly, good- 
 by. What else is there for me ?" 
 
 A moment later, she saw him running swiftly down 
 the mountainside, like some hunted creature of the 
 wilderness. 
 
 431
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 THE BETTER WAY 
 
 LONE on the mountainside with the man 
 who had awakened the pure passion of her 
 woman heart, Sibyl Andres bent over the 
 unconscious object of her love. She saw 
 his face, unshaven, grimy with the dirt of 
 the trail and the sweat of the fight, drawn 
 and thin with the mental torture that had driven him 
 beyond the limit of his physical strength; she saw 
 how his clothing was stained and torn by contact with 
 sharp rocks and thorns and bushes ; she saw his hands 
 the hands that she had watched at their work upon 
 her portrait as she stood among the roses cut and 
 bruised, caked with blood and dirt and, seeing these 
 things, she understood. 
 
 In that brief moment when she had watched Aaron 
 King in the struggle upon the ledge, and, knowing 
 that he was fighting for her, had realized her love for 
 him, all that Mrs. Taine had said to her in the 
 studio was swept away. The cruel falsehoods, the 
 heartless misrepresentations, the vile accusations that 
 had caused her to seek the refuge of the mountains 
 and the protection of her childhood friends were, in 
 the blaze of her awakened passion, burned to ashes; 
 her cry to the convict "I love him, I love him" was 
 more than an expression of her love; it was a trium- 
 
 432
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 pliant assertion of her belief in his love for her it 
 was her answer to the evil seeing world that could not 
 comprehend their fellowship. 
 
 As the life within the man forced him slowly 
 toward consciousness, the girl, natural as always in 
 the full expression of herself, bent over him with 
 tender solicitude. With endearing words, she kissed 
 his brow, his hair, his hands. She called his name in 
 tones of affection. "Aaron, Aaron, Aaron." But 
 when she saw that he was about to awake, she deftly 
 slipped off her jacket and, placing it under his head, 
 drew a little back. 
 
 He opened his eyes and looked wonderingly up j\ 
 the dark pines that clothed the mountainsides. His 
 lips moved and she heard her name ; "Sibyl, Sibyl." 
 
 She leaned forward, eagerly, her cheeks glowing 
 with color. "Yes, Mr. King." 
 
 "Am I dreaming, again?" he said slowly, gazing 
 at her as though struggling to command his senses. 
 
 "No, Mr. King," she answered cheerily, "you are 
 not dreaming." 
 
 Carefully, as one striving to follow a thread oi 
 thought in a bewildering tangle of events, he went 
 over the hours just past. "I was up on that peak 
 where you and I ate lunch the day you tried to make 
 me see the Golden State Limited coming down from 
 the pass. Brian Oakley sent me there to watch for 
 buzzards." For a moment he turned away his face, 
 then continued, "I saw flashes of light in Fairlands 
 and on Granite Peak. I left a note for Brian and 
 came over the range. I spent one night on the way. 
 I found tracks on the peak. There were two, a man 
 
 433
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 and a woman. I followed them to a ledge of rock 
 at the head of a canyon," he paused. Thus far the 
 thread of his thought was clear. "Did some one stop 
 me ? Was there was there a fight ? Or is that part 
 of my dream ?" 
 
 "No," she said softly, "that is not part of your 
 dream." 
 
 "And it was James Rutlidge who stopped me, as I 
 was going to you ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then where " with quick energy he sat up and 
 grasped her arm "My God! Sibyl Miss Andres, 
 did I, did I " He could not finish the sentence, but 
 sank back, overcome with emotion. 
 
 The girl spoke quickly, with a clear, insistent voice 
 that rallied his mind and forced him to command 
 himself. 
 
 "Think, Mr. King, think! Do you remember 
 nothing more ? You were struggling your strength 
 was going can't you remember? You must, you 
 must!" 
 
 Lifting his face he looked at her. "Was there a 
 rifle-shot?" he asked slowly. "It seems to me that 
 something in my brain snapped, and everything went 
 black. Was there a rifle-shot ?" 
 
 "Yes," she answered. 
 
 "And I did not I did not ?" 
 
 "No. You did not kill James Rutlidge. He would 
 have killed you, but for the shot that you heard." 
 
 "And Rutlidge is ?" 
 
 "He is dead," she answered simply. 
 
 "But who ?" 
 
 434
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Briefly, she told him the story, from the time that 
 she had met Mrs. Taine in the studio until the con- 
 vict had left her, a few minutes before. "And now," 
 she finished, rising quickly, "we must go down to 
 the cabin. There is food there. You must be nearly 
 starved. I will cook supper for you, and when you 
 have had a night's sleep, we will start home." 
 
 "But first," he said, as he rose to his feet and stood 
 before her, "I must tell you something. I should 
 have told you before, but I was waiting until I 
 thought you were ready to hear. I wonder if you 
 know. I wonder if you are ready to hear, now." 
 
 She looked him frankly in the eyes as she answered, 
 "Yes, I know what you want to tell me. But don't, 
 don't tell me here." She shuddered, and the man 
 remembering the dead body that lay at the foot of 
 the cliff, understood. "Wait," she said, "until we 
 are home." 
 
 "And you will come to me when you are ready? 
 When you want me to tell you?" he said. 
 
 "Yes," she answered softly, "I will go to you when 
 I am ready." 
 
 At the cabin in the gulch, the girl hastened to 
 prepare a substantial meal. There was no one, now, 
 to fear that the smoke would be seen. Later, with 
 cedar boughs and blankets, she made a bed for him 
 on the floor near the fire-place. WTien he would have 
 helped her she forbade him ; saying that he was her 
 guest and that he must rest to be ready for the home- 
 ward trip. 
 
 435
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 Softly, the day slipped away over the mountain 
 peaks and ridges that shut them in. Softly, the dark- 
 ness of the night settled down. In the rude little 
 hut, in the lonely gulch, the man and the woman 
 whose lives were flowing together as two converging 
 streams, sat by the fire, where, the night before, the 
 convict had told that girl his story. 
 
 Very early, Sibyl insisted that her companion lie 
 down to sleep upon the bed she had made. When 
 he protested, she answered, laughing, "Very well, 
 then, but you will be obliged to sit up alone," and, 
 with a "Good night," she retired to her own bed in 
 another corner of the cabin. Once or twice, he spoke 
 to her, but when she did not answer he lay down 
 upon his woodland couch and in a few minutes was 
 fast asleep. 
 
 In the dim light of the embers, the girl slipped 
 from her bed and stole quietly across the room to the 
 fire-place, to lay another stick of wood upon the 
 glowing coals. A moment she stood, in the ruddy 
 light, looking toward the sleeping man. Then, with- 
 out a sound, she stole to his side, and kneeling, softly 
 touched his forehead with her lips. As silently, she 
 crept back to her couch. 
 
 All that afternoon Brian Oakley had been follow- 
 ing, with trained eyes, the faintly marked trail of 
 the man whose dead body was lying, now, at the foot 
 >f the cliff. When the darkness came, the moun- 
 taineer ate a cold supper and, under a rude shelter 
 quickly improvised by his skill in woodcraft, slept 
 
 436
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 beside the trail. Near the head of Clear Creek, Jack 
 Carleton, on his way to Granite Peak, rolled in his 
 blanket under the pines. Somewhere in the night, 
 the man who had saved Sibyl Andres and Aaron 
 King, each for the other, fled like a fearful, hunted 
 thing. 
 
 At daybreak, Sibyl was up, preparing their break- 
 fast. But so quietly did she move about her homely 
 task that the artist did not awake. When the meal 
 was ready, she called him, and he sprang to his feet, 
 declaring that he felt himself a new man. Breakfast 
 over, they set out at once. 
 
 When they came to the cliff at the head of the 
 gulch, the girl halted and, shrinking back, covered 
 her face with trembling hands; afraid, for the first 
 time in her life, to set foot upon a mountain trail. 
 Gently, her companion led her across the ledge, and 
 a little way back from the rim of the gorge on the 
 other side. 
 
 Five minutes later they heard a shout and saw 
 Brian Oakley coming toward them. Laughing and 
 crying, Sibyl ran to meet him ; and the mountaineer, 
 who had so many times looked death in the face, 
 unafraid and unmoved, wept like a child as he held 
 the girl in his arms. 
 
 When Sibyl and Aaron had related briefly the 
 events that led up to their meeting with the Ranger, 
 and he in turn had told them how he had followed 
 the track of the automobile and, finding the hidden 
 supplies, had followed the trail of James Rutlidge 
 
 437
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 from that point, the officer asked the girl several 
 questions. Then, for a little while he was silent, 
 while they, guessing his thoughts, did not interrupt. 
 Finally, he said, "Jack is due at Granite Peak, some- 
 time about noon. He'll have his horse, and with 
 Sibyl riding, we'll make it back down to the head 
 of Clear Creek by dark. You young folks just wait 
 for me here a little. 1 want to look around below 
 there, a bit." 
 
 As he started toward the gulch, Sibyl sprang to 
 her feet and threw herself into his arms. "No, no, 
 Brian Oakley, you shall not you shall not do it !" 
 
 Holding her close, the Ranger looked down into 
 her pleading eyes, smilingly. "And what do you 
 think I am going to do, girlie ?" 
 
 "You are going down there to pick up the trail of 
 the man who saved Aaron who saved me. But you 
 shall not do it. I don't care if you are an officer, and 
 he is an escaped convict! I will not let you do any- 
 thing that might lead to his capture." 
 
 "God bless you, child," answered Brian Oakley, 
 "the only escaped convict I know anything about, this 
 last year, according to my belief, died somewhere in 
 the mountains. If you don't believe it, look up my 
 official reports on the matter." 
 
 "And you're not going to find which way he went ?" 
 
 "Listen, Sibyl," said the Ranger gravely. "The 
 disappearance of James Rutlidge, prominent as he 
 was, will be heralded from one end of the world to 
 the other. The newspapers will make the most of it. 
 The search is sure to be carried into these hills, for 
 that automobile trip in the night will not go unques- 
 
 438
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 tioned, and Sheriff Walters knows too much of my 
 suspicions. In a few days, the body will be safely 
 past recognition, even should it be discovered through 
 the buzzards. But I can't take chances of anything 
 durable being found to identify the man who fell 
 over the cliff." 
 
 When he returned to them, two hours later, he said, 
 quietly, "It's a mighty good thing I went down. It 
 wasn't a nice job, but I feel better. We can forget it, 
 now, with perfect safetly. Remember" he charged 
 them impressively "even to Myra Willard and Con- 
 rad Lagrange, the story must be only that an un- 
 known man took you, Sibyl, from your horse. The 
 man escaped, when Aaron found you. We'll let the 
 Sheriff, or whoever can, solve the mystery of that 
 automobile and Jim Rutlidge's disappearance." 
 
 A half mile from Granite Peak, they met Jack 
 Carleton and, by dark, as Brian Oakley had said, 
 were safely down to the head of Clear Creek ; having 
 come by routes, known to the Ranger, that were easier 
 and shorter than the roundabout way followed by the 
 convict and the girl. 
 
 It was just past midnight when the three friends 
 parted from young Carleton and crossed the canyon 
 to Sibyl's old home. 
 
 139
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 FACING THE TRUTH 
 
 S Brian Oakley had predicted, the disap- 
 pearance of James Rutlidge occupied 
 columns in the newspapers, from coast to 
 coast. In every article he was headlined 
 as "A Distinguished Citizen ;" "A Famous 
 Critic;" "A Prominent Figure in the 
 World of Art ;" "One of the Greatest Living Author- 
 ities;" "Leader in the Modern School;" "Of Power- 
 ful Influence Upon the Artistic Production of the 
 Age." The story of the unknown mountain girl's 
 abduction and escape was a news item of a single 
 day; but the disappearance of James Rutlidge kept 
 the press busy for weeks. It may be dismissed here 
 with the simple statement that the mystery has never 
 been solved. 
 
 Of the unknown man who had taken Sibyl away 
 into the mountains, and who had escaped, the world 
 has never heard. Of the convict who died but did 
 not die in the hills, the world knows nothing. That 
 is, the world knows nothing of the man in this con- 
 nection. But Aaron and Sibyl, some years later, 
 knew what became of Henry Marston which does 
 not, at all, belong to this story. 
 
 Upon his return with Conrad Lagrange to their 
 home in the orange groves, Aaron King plunged into 
 his work with a purpose very different from the 
 
 440
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOULD 
 
 motive that had prompted him when first he took up 
 his brushes in the studio that looked out upon the 
 mountains and the rose garden. 
 
 Day after day, as he gave himself to his great 
 picture, "The Feast of Materialism," he knew the 
 joy of the worker who, in his art, surrenders himself 
 to a noble purpose a joy that is very different from 
 the light, passing pleasure that comes from the mere 
 exercise of technical skill. The artist did not, now, 
 need to drive himself to his task, as the begging 
 musician on the street corner forces himself to play 
 to the passing crowd, for the pennies that are dropped 
 in his tin cup. Rather was he driven by the convic- 
 tion of a great truth, and by the realization of its 
 woeful need in the world, to such adequate expression 
 as his mastery of the tools of his craft would permit 
 He was not, now, the slave of his technical knowl- 
 edge ; striving to produce a something that should be 
 merely technically good. He was a master, compell- 
 ing the medium of his art to serve him; as he, in 
 turn, was compelled to serve the truth that had mas- 
 tered him. 
 
 Sometimes, with Conrad Lagrange, he went for an 
 evening hour to the little house next door. Some- 
 times, Sibyl and Myra Willard would drop in at the 
 studio, in the afternoon. The girl never, now, came 
 alone. But every day, as the artist worked, the music 
 of her violin came to him, out of the orange grove, 
 with its message from the hills. And the painter at 
 his easel, reading aright the message, worked and 
 waited ; knowing surely that when she was ready she 
 would come, 
 
 441
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 Letters from Mrs. Taine were frequent. Aaron 
 King, reading them nearly always under the quiz- 
 zing eyes of Conrad Lagrange, whose custom it was 
 to bring the daily mail carefully tore them into 
 little pieces and dropped them into the waste basket, 
 without comment, 
 
 Once, the novelist asked with mock gravity, "Have 
 you no thought for the day of judgment, young man ? 
 Do you not know that your sins will surely find you 
 out?" 
 
 The artist laughed. "It is so written in the law, 
 I believe." 
 
 The other continued solemnly, "Your recklessness 
 is only hastening the end. If you don't answer those 
 letters you will be forced, shortly, to meet the conse- 
 quences face to face." 
 
 "I suppose so," returned the painter, indifferently. 
 "But I have my answer ready, you know." 
 
 "You mean that portrait ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The novelist laughed grimly. "I think it will do 
 the trick. But, believe me, there will be conse- 
 quences !" 
 
 The artist was in his studio, at work upon the big 
 picture, when Mrs. Taine called, the day of her 
 return to Fairlands. 
 
 It was well on in the afternoon. Conrad Lagrange 
 and Czar had started for a walk, but had gone, as 
 usual, only as far as the neighboring house. Yee 
 Kee, meeting Mrs. Taine at the door, explained, 
 doubtfully, that the artist was at his work. He 
 would go tell Mr. King that Mrs. Taine was here. 
 
 442
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD. 
 
 "Never mind, Kee. I will tell him myself," she 
 answered; and, before the Chinaman could protest, 
 she was on her way to the studio. 
 
 "Damn !" said the Celestial eloquently; and retired 
 to his kitchen to ruminate upon the ways of "Melli- 
 can women." 
 
 Mrs. Taine pushed open the door of the studio, so 
 quietly, that the painter, standing at his easel and 
 engrossed with his work, did not notice her presence. 
 For several moments the woman stood watching him, 
 paying no heed to the picture, seeing only the man. 
 When he did not look around, she said, "Are you too 
 busy to even look at me ?" 
 
 With an exclamation, he faced her; then, as 
 quickly, turned again; with hand outstretched to 
 draw the easel curtain. But, as though obeying a 
 second thought that came quickly upon the heels of 
 the first impulse, he did not complete the movement. 
 Instead, he laid his palette and brushes beside his 
 color-box, and greeted her with, "How do you do, 
 Mrs. Taine? When did you return to Fairlands? 
 Is Miss Taine with you ?" 
 
 "Louise is abroad," she answered. "I I preferred 
 California. I arrived this afternoon." She went a 
 step toward him. "You you don't seem very glad 
 to see me." 
 
 The painter colored, but she continued impulsively, 
 without waiting for his reply. "If you only knew 
 all that I have been doing for you ! the wires I have 
 pulled; the influences I have interested; the critics 
 and newspaper men that I have talked to ! Of course 
 I couldn't do anything in a large public way, so soon 
 
 443
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 after Mr. Taine's death, you know; but I have been 
 busy, just the same, and everything is fixed. When 
 our picture is exhibited next season, you will find 
 yourself not only a famous painter, but a social 
 success as well." She paused. When he still did not 
 speak, she went on, with an air of troubled sadness ; 
 "I do miss Jim's help though. Isn't it frightful the 
 way he disappeared ? Where do you suppose he is ? 
 I can't I won't believe that anything has happened 
 to him. It's all just one of his schemes to get himself 
 talked about. You'll see that he will appear again, 
 safe and sound, when the papers stop filling their 
 columns about him. I know Jim Rutlidge, too well." 
 
 Aaron King thought of those bones, picked bare by 
 the carrion birds, at the foot of the cliff. "It seems 
 to be one of the mysteries of the day," he said. 
 "Commonplace enough, no doubt, if one only had the 
 key to it." 
 
 Mrs. Taine had evidently not been in Fairlands 
 long enough to hear the story of Sibyl's disappear- 
 ance for which the artist mentally gave thanks. 
 
 "I am glad for one thing," continued the woman, 
 her mind intent upon the main purpose of her call. 
 "Jim had already written a splendid criticism of your 
 picture before he went away and I have it. All 
 this newspaper talk about him will only help to 
 attract attention to what he has said about you. 
 They are saying such nice things of him and his 
 devotion to art, you know it is all bound to help 
 you." She waited for his approval, and for some 
 expression of his gratitude. 
 
 444
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOELD 
 
 "I fear, Mrs. Taine," he said slowly, "that you 
 are making a mistake." 
 
 She laughed nervously, and answered with forced 
 gaiety. "Not me. I'm too old a hand at the game 
 not to know just how far I dare or dare not go." 
 
 "I do not mean that" he returned "I mean that 
 I can not do my part. I fear you are mistaken in 
 me." 
 
 Again, she laughed. "What nonsense ! I like for 
 you to be modest, of course that will be one of your 
 greatest charms. But if you are worried about the 
 quality of your work forget it, my dear boy. Once 
 I have made you the rage, no one will stop to think 
 whether your pictures are good or bad. The art is 
 not in what you do, but in how you get it before the 
 world. Ask Conrad Lagrange if I am not right." 
 
 "As to that," returned the artist, "Mr. Lagrange 
 agrees with you, perfectly." 
 
 "But what is this that you are doing now ? Will 
 it be ready for the exhibition too ?" She looked past 
 him, at the big canvas; and he, watching her curi- 
 ously, stepped aside. 
 
 Parts of the picture were little more than sketched 
 in, but still, line and color spoke with accusing truth 
 the spirit of the company that had gathered at the 
 banquet in the home on Fairlands Heights, the night 
 of Mr. Taine's death. The figures were not portraits, 
 it is true, but they expressed with striking fidelity, 
 the lives and characters of those who had, that night, 
 been assembled by Mrs. Taine to meet the artist. 
 The figure in the picture, standing with uplifted glass 
 
 445
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 and drunken pose at the head of the table with 
 bestial, lust-worn face, disease-shrunken limbs, and 
 dying, licentious eves fixed upon the beautiful girl 
 musician might easily have been Mr. Taine himself. 
 The distinguished writers, and critics; the repre- 
 sentatives of the social world and of wealth ; Conrad 
 Lagrange with cold, cynical, mocking, smile; Mrs. 
 Taine with her pretense of modest dress that only 
 emphasized her immodesty; and, in the midst of the 
 unclean minded crew, the lovely innocence and the 
 unconscious purity of the mountain girl with her 
 violin, offering to them that which they were incap- 
 able of receiving it was all there upon the canvas, 
 as the artist had seen it that night. The picture 
 cried aloud the intellectual degradation and the 
 spiritual depravity of that class who, arrogating to 
 themselves the authority of leaders in culture and 
 art, by their approval and patronage of dangerous 
 falsehood and sham in picture or story, make pos- 
 sible such characters as James Rutlidge. 
 
 Aaron King, watching Mrs. Taine as she looked 
 at the picture on the easel, saw a look of doubt and 
 uncertainty come over her face. Once, she turned 
 toward him, as if to speak; but, without a word, 
 looked again at the canvas. She seemed perplexed 
 and puzzled, as though she caught glimpses of some- 
 thing in the picture that she did not rightly under- 
 stand. Then, as she looked, her eyes kindled with 
 contemptuous scorn, and there was a pronounced 
 sneer in her cold tones as she said, "Really, I don't 
 believe I care for you to do this sort of thing." She 
 laughed shortly. "It reminds one a little of that 
 
 446
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 dinner at our house. Don't you think ? It's the girl 
 with the violin, I suppose." 
 
 "There are no portraits in it, Mrs. Taine," said 
 the artist, quietly. 
 
 "No? Well, I think you'd better stick to your 
 portraits. This is a great picture though," she 
 admitted thoughtfully. "It, it grips you so. I can't 
 seem to get away from it. I can see that it will 
 create a sensation. But just the same, I don't like it. 
 It's not nice, like your portrait of me. By the way" 
 and she turned eagerly from the big canvas as 
 though glad to escape a distasteful subject "do you 
 remember that I have never seen my picture yet? 
 Where do you keep it ?" 
 
 The painter indicated another easel, near the one 
 upon which he was at work. "It is there, Mrs. 
 Taine." 
 
 "Oh," she said with a pleased smile. "You keep 
 it on the easel, still !" Playfully, she added, "Do you 
 look at it often ? that you have it so handy ?" 
 
 "Yes," said the artist, "I must admit that I have 
 looked at it frequently." He did not explain why 
 ha looked at her portrait while he was working upon 
 the larger picture. 
 
 "How nice of you," she answered "Please let me 
 see it now. I remember when you wanted to repaint 
 it, you said you would put on the canvas just what 
 you thought of me ; have you ? I wonder !" 
 
 "I would rather that you judge for yourself, Mrs. 
 Taine," he answered, and drew the curtain that hid 
 the painting. 
 
 As the woman looked upon that portrait of herself, 
 
 447
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 into which Aaron King had painted, with all the 
 skill at his command, everything that he had seen in 
 her face as she posed for him, she stood a moment 
 as though stunned. Then, with a gesture of horror 
 and shame, she shrank back, as though the painted 
 thing accused her of being what, indeed, she really 
 was. 
 
 Turning to the artist, imploringly, she whispered, 
 "Is it is it true ? Am I am I that ?" 
 
 Aaron King, remembering how she had sent the 
 girl he loved so nearly to a shameful end, and think- 
 ing of those bones at the foot of the cliff, answered 
 justly ; "At least, madam, there is more truth in that 
 picture than in the things you said to Miss Andres, 
 here in this room, the day you left Fairlands." 
 
 Her face went white with quick rage, but, control- 
 ing herself, she said, "And where is the picture of 
 your mistress? I should like to see it again, please." 
 
 "Gladly, madam," returned the artist. "Because 
 you are a woman, it is the only answer I can make 
 to your charge; which, permit me to say, is as false 
 as that portrait of you is true." 
 
 Quickly he pushed another easel to a position 
 beside the one that held Mrs. Taine's portrait, and 
 drew the curtain. 
 
 The effect, for a moment, silenced even Mrs. Taine 
 but only for a moment. A character that is the 
 product of certain years of schooling in the thought 
 and spirit of the class in which Mrs. Taine belonged, 
 is not transformed by a single exhibition of painted 
 truth. From the two portraits, the woman turned to 
 the larger canvas. Then she faced the artist. 
 
 448
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "You fool !" she said with bitter rage. "0 you fool ! 
 Do you think that you will ever be permitted to 
 exhibit such trash as this ?" she waved her hand to 
 include the three paintings. "Do you think that I 
 am going to drag you up the ladder of social position 
 to fame and to wealth for such reward as that ?" she 
 singled out her own portrait. "Bah ! you are impos- 
 sible impossible ! I have been mad to think that I 
 could make anything out of you. As for your idiotic 
 claim that you have painted the truth " She seized 
 a large palette knife that lay with the artist's tools 
 upon the table, and springing to her portrait, hacked 
 and mutilated the canvas. The artist stood motion- 
 less, making no effort to stop her. When the picture 
 was utterly defaced she threw it at his feet. "That, 
 for your truth, Mr. King!" With a quick motion, 
 she turned toward the other portrait. 
 
 But the artist, who had guessed her purpose, 
 caught her hand. "That picture was yours, madam 
 this one is mine." There was a significant ring of 
 triumph in his voice. 
 
 Neither Aaron King nor Mrs. Taine had noticed 
 three people who had entered the rose garden, from 
 the orange grove, through the little gate in the corner 
 of the hedge. Conrad Lagrange, Myra Willard and 
 Sibyl were going to the studio ; deliberately bent upon 
 interrupting the artist at his work. They sometimes 
 as Conrad Lagrange put it made, thus, a life- 
 saving crew of three; dragging the painter to safety 
 when the waves of inspiration were about to over- 
 whelm him. Czar, of course, took an active part in 
 these rescues. 
 
 449
 
 THE EYES OF THE WOKLD 
 
 As the three friends approached the trellised arch 
 that opened from the garden into the yard, a few 
 feet from the studio door, the sound of Mrs. Taine's 
 angry voice, came clearly through the open window. 
 
 Conrad Lagrange stopped. "Evidently, Mr. King 
 has company," he said, dryly. 
 
 "It is Mrs. Taine, is it not ?" asked Sibyl, quietly, 
 recognizing the woman's voice. 
 
 "Yes," answered the novelist. 
 
 The woman with the disfigured face said hurriedly, 
 "Come, Sibyl, we must go back. We will not disturb 
 Mr. King, now, Mr. Lagrange. You two come over 
 this evening." They saw her face white and fright- 
 ened. 
 
 "I believe I'll go back with you, if you don't 
 mind," returned Conrad Lagrange, with his twisted 
 grin; "I don't think I want any of that in there, 
 either." To the dog who was moving toward the 
 studio door, he added; "Here, Czar, you mustn't 
 interrupt the lady. You're not in her class." 
 
 They were moving away, when Mrs. Taine's voice 
 came again, clearly and distinctly, through the win- 
 dow. 
 
 "Oh, very well. I wish you joy of your possession. 
 I promise you, though, that the world shall never 
 hear of this portrait of your mistress. If you dare 
 try to exhibit it, I shall see that the people to whom 
 you must look for your patronage know how you 
 found the original, an innocent, mountain girl, and 
 brought her to your studio to live with you. Fair- 
 lands has already talked enough, but my influence 
 has prevented it from going too far. You may be 
 
 450
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 very sure that from now on I shall not exert myself 
 to deny it." 
 
 The artist's friends in the rose garden, again, 
 stopped involuntarily. Sibyl tittered a low exclama- 
 tion. 
 
 Conrad Lagrange looked at Myra Willard. "I 
 think," he said in a low tone, "that the time baa 
 come. Can you do it ?" 
 
 "Yes. I I must," returned the woman. She 
 spoke to the girl, who, being a little in advance, had 
 not heard the novelist's words, "Sibyl, dear, will you 
 go on home, please ? Mr. Lagrange will stay with me. 
 I I will join you presently." 
 
 At a look from Conrad Lagrange, the girl obeyed. 
 
 "Go with Sibyl, Czar," said the novelist ; and the 
 girl and the dog went quickly away through the 
 garden. 
 
 In the studio, Aaron King gazed at the angry 
 woman in amazement. "Mrs. Taine," he said, with 
 quiet dignity, "I must tell you that I hope to make 
 Miss Andres my wife." 
 
 She laughed harshly. "And what has that to do 
 with it?" 
 
 "I thought that if you knew, it might help you to 
 understand the situation," he answered simply. 
 
 "I understand the situation, very well," she 
 retorted, "but you do not appear to. The situation 
 is this: I I was interested in you as an artist. 
 I, because my position in the world enabled me to 
 help you, commissioned you to paint my portrait. 
 You are unknown, with no name, no place in the 
 world. I could have given you success. I could have 
 
 451
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 introduced you to the people that you must know if 
 you are to succeed. My influence would insure you a 
 favorable reception from those who make the reputa- 
 tions of men like you. I could have made you the 
 rage. I could have made you famous. And now " 
 
 "Now," he said calmly, "you will exert your influ- 
 ence to hinder me in my work. Because I have not 
 pleased you, you will use whatever power you have 
 to ruin me. Is that what you mean, Mrs. Taine ?" 
 
 "You have made your choice. You must take the 
 consequences," she replied coldly, and turned to leave 
 the studio. 
 
 In the doorway, stood the woman with the dis- 
 figured face. 
 
 Conrad Lagrange stood near. 
 
 452
 
 CHAPTEE XLI 
 MARKS OF THE BEAST 
 
 Mrs. Taine would have passed out 
 of the studio, the woman with the dis- 
 figured face said, "Wait madam, I must 
 speak to you." 
 
 Aaron King recalled that strange scene 
 at the depot, the day of his arrival in 
 Fairlands. 
 
 "I have nothing k/ say to you" returned Mrs. 
 Taine, coldly "stand aside please." 
 
 But Conrad Lagrange quietly closed the door. "I 
 think, Mrs. Taine," he remarked dryly, "that you 
 will be interested in what Miss Willard has to say." 
 "Oh, very well," returned the other, making the 
 best of the situation. "Evidently, you heard what I 
 just said to your protege." 
 
 The novelist answered, "We did. Accept my com- 
 pliments, madam ; you did it very nicely." 
 
 "Thanks," she retorted, "I see you still play your 
 role of protector. You might tell your charge 
 whether or not I am mistaken as to the probable 
 result of his ah artistic conscientiousness." 
 
 "Mr. King knows that you are not. You have, 
 indeed, put the situation rather mildly. It is a sad 
 fact, but, never-the-less, a fact, that the noblest work 
 is often forced to remain unrecognized and unknown 
 
 453
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 to the world by the same methods that are used to 
 exalt the unworthy. You undoubtedly have the 
 power of which you boast, Mrs. Taine, but " 
 
 "But what ?" she said triumphantly. "You think 
 I will hesitate to use my influence ?" 
 
 "I know you will not use it in this case," came 
 the unexpected answer. 
 
 She laughed mockingly, "And why not ? What 
 will prevent?" 
 
 "The one thing on earth, that you fear, madam"- 
 answered Conrad Lagrange "the eyes of the world." 
 
 Aaron King listened, amazed. 
 
 "I don't think I understand," said Mrs. Taine, 
 coldly. 
 
 "No? That is what Miss Willard proposes to 
 explain," returned the novelist. 
 
 She turned haughtily toward the woman with the 
 disfigured face. "What can this poor creature say to 
 anything I propose ?" 
 
 Myra Willard answered gently, sadly, "Have you 
 no kindness, no sympathy at all, madam ? Is there 
 nothing but cruel selfishness in your heart ?" 
 
 "You are insolent," retorted the other, sharply. 
 "Say what you have to say and be brief." 
 
 Myra Willard drew close to the woman and looked 
 long and searchingly into her face. The other 
 returned her gaze with contemptuous indifference. 
 
 "I have been sorry for you," said Myra Willard 
 slowly. "I have not wished to speak. But I know 
 what you said to Sibyl, here in the studio; and I 
 overheard what you said to Mr. King, a few minutes 
 ago. I cannot keep silent." 
 
 454
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Proceed," said Mrs. Taine, shortly. "Say what 
 you have to say, and be done with it." 
 
 Myra Willard obeyed. "Mrs. Taine, twenty-six 
 years ago, your guardian, the father of James Rut- 
 lidge, won the love of a young girl. It does not 
 matter who she was. She was beautiful and inno- 
 cent. That was her misfortune. Beauty and inno- 
 cence often bring pain and sorrow, madam, in a world 
 where there are too many men like Mr. Rutlidge, 
 and his son. The girl thought the man she did not 
 know him by his real name her lover. She thought 
 that he became her husband. A baby was born to 
 the girl who believed herself a wife; and the young 
 mother was happy. For a short time, she was very 
 happy. 
 
 "Then, the awakening came. The girl mother was 
 holding her baby to her breast, and singing, as happy 
 mothers do, when a strange woman appeared in the 
 open door of the room. She was a beautiful woman, 
 richly dressed; but her face was distorted with 
 passion. The young mother did not understand. She 
 did not know, then, that the woman was Mrs. Rut- 
 lidge the true wife of the father of her child. She 
 knew that, afterward. The woman in the doorway 
 lifted her hand as though to throw something, and 
 the mother, instinctively, bowed her head to shield 
 her baby. Then something that burned like fire struck 
 her face and neck. She screamed in agony, and 
 fainted. 
 
 "The rest of the story does not matter, I think. 
 The injured mother was taken to thf hospital. When 
 she recovered, she learned that Mrs. Rutlidge was 
 
 455
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 dead a suicide. Later, Mr. Rutlidge took the bab} 
 to raise as his ward ; telling the world that the child 
 was the daughter of a relative who had died at its 
 birth. You must understand that when the disfigured 
 mother of the baby came to know the truth, she 
 believed that it would be better for the little one if 
 the facts of its birth were never known. The wealthy 
 Mr. Rutlidge could give his ward every advantage of 
 culture and social position. The child would grow 
 to womanhood with no stain upon her name. Because 
 she felt she owed her baby this, the only thing that 
 she could give her, the mother consented and disap- 
 peared. 
 
 "Madam," finished Myra Willard, slowly, "a little 
 of the acid that burned that mother's face fell upon 
 the shoulder of her illegitimate baby." 
 
 "God !" exclaimed the artist. 
 
 Throughout Myra Willard's story, Mrs. Taine 
 stood like a woman of stone. At the end, she gazed 
 at the woman's disfigured face, as though fascinated 
 with horror, while her hands moved to finger the 
 buttons of her dress. Unconscious of what she was 
 doing, as though under some strange spell, without 
 removing her gaze from Myra Willard's marred fea- 
 tures, she opened the waist of her dress and bared 
 to them her right shoulder. It was marked by a broad 
 scar like the scars that disfigured the face of her 
 mother. 
 
 Myra Willard started forward, impelled by the 
 mother instinct. "My baby, my poor, poor girl !" 
 
 The words broke the spell. Drawing back with an 
 air of cold, unconquerable pride, the woman looked 
 
 456
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 at Conrad Lagrange. "And now," she said, as she 
 swiftly rearranged her dress, "perhaps you will be 
 good enough to tell me why you have done this." 
 
 Myra Willard turned away to sink into a chair, 
 white and trembling. Aaron King stepped quickly 
 to her side, and, placing his hand gently on her shoul- 
 der, waited for the novelist to speak. 
 
 "Miss Willard told you this story because I asked 
 her to," said Conrad Lagrange. "I asked her to tell 
 you because it gives me the power to protect the two 
 people who are dearer to me than all the world/' 
 
 "Still in your role of protector, I see," sneered 
 Mrs. Taine. 
 
 "Exactly, madam. It happens that I was a 
 reporter on a certain newspaper when the incidents 
 just related occurred. I wrote the story for the 
 press. In fact, it was the story that gave me my start 
 in yellow journalism, from which I graduated the 
 novelist of your acquaintance. I know the newspaper 
 game thoroughly, Mrs. Taine. I know the truth of 
 this story that you have just heard. Permit me to 
 say, that I know how to write in the approved news- 
 paper style, and to add that my name insures a wide 
 hearing. Proceed to carry out your threats, and I 
 promise you that I will give this attractive bit of 
 news, in all its colorful details, to every newspaper 
 in the land. Can't you see the headlines ? 'Startling 
 Revelation,' 'The Secret of the Beautiful Mrs. 
 Taine's Shoulders,' 'Why a Leader in the Social 
 World makes Modesty her Fad,' 'The Parentage of a 
 Social Leader.' Do you understand, madam ? Use 
 your influence to interfere with or to hinder Mr. 
 
 457
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 King in his work; or fail to use your influence to 
 contradict the lies you have already started about the 
 character of Miss Andres ; and I will use the influence 
 of my pen and the prestige of my name to put you 
 before the eyes of the world for what you are." 
 
 For a moment the woman looked at him, defiantly. 
 Then, as she grasped the full significance of what he 
 had said, she slowly bowed her head. 
 
 Conrad Lagrange opened the door. 
 
 As she went out, the woman with the disfigured 
 face started forward, holding out her hands appeal- 
 ingly. 
 
 Mrs. Taine did not look back, but went quickly 
 toward the big automobile that was waiting in- front 
 of the house. 
 
 458
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 AARON KING'S SUCCESS 
 
 E winter months were past. 
 
 Aaron King was sitting ' before his 
 finished picture. The colors were still 
 fresh upon the canvas that, to-day, hangs 
 in an honored place in one of the great 
 galleries of the world. To the last careful 
 touch, the artist had put into his painted message, 
 the best he had to give. Back of every line and 
 brush-stroke there was the deep conviction of a 
 worthy motive. For an hour, he had been sitting 
 there, before the easel, brush and palette in hand, 
 without touching the canvas. He could do no more. 
 Laying aside his tools, he went to his desk, and 
 took from the drawer, that package of his mother's 
 letters. He pushed a deep arm-chair in front of his 
 picture, and again seated himself. As he read letter 
 after letter, he lifted his eyes, at almost every sen- 
 tence, from the written pages to his work. It was 
 as though he were submitting his picture to a final 
 test as, indeed, he was. He had reached the last 
 letter when Conrad Lagrange entered the studio; 
 Czar at his heels. 
 
 Every day, while the picture was growing under 
 the artist's hand, his friend had watched it take on 
 beauty and power. He did not need to speak of the 
 finished painting, now. 
 
 459
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "Well, lad," lie said, "the old letters again?" 
 
 The artist, caressing the dog's silky head as it was 
 thrust against his knee, answered, "Yes, I finished 
 the picture two hours ago. I have been having a 
 private exhibition all on my own hook. Listen." 
 From the letter in his hand he read : 
 
 "It is right for you to be ambitious, my son. I 
 would not have you otherwise. Without a strong 
 desire to reach some height that in the distance lifts 
 above the level of the present, a man becomes a lag- 
 gard on the highway of life a mere loafer by the 
 wayside slothful, indolent slipping easily, as the 
 years go, into the most despicable of places the place 
 of a human parasite that, contributing nothing to the 
 wealth of the race, feeds upon the strength of the 
 multitude of toilers who pass him by. But ambition, 
 my boy, is like to all the other gifts that lead men 
 Godward. It must be a noble ambition, nobly con- 
 trolled. A mere striving for place and power, without 
 a saving sense of the responsibility conferred by that 
 place and power, is ignoble. Such an ambition, I 
 know as you will some day come to understand 
 is not a blessing but a curse. It is the curse from 
 which our age is suffering sorely ; and which, if it be 
 not lifted, will continue to vitiate the strength and 
 poison the life of the race. 
 
 "Because I would have your ambition, a safe and 
 worthy ambition, Aaron, I ask that the supreme and 
 final test of any work that comes from your hand 
 may be this ; that it satisfy you, yourself that you 
 may be not ashamed to sit down alone with your 
 work, and thus to look it squarely in the face. Not 
 
 460
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 critics, nor authorities, not popular opinion, not even 
 law or religion, must be the court of final appeal 
 when you are, by what you do, brought to bar; but 
 by you, yourself, the judgment must be rendered. 
 And this, too, is true, my son, by that judgment and 
 that judgment alone, you will truly live or you will 
 truly die." 
 
 "And that" said the novelist so famous in the 
 eyes of the world, so infamous in his own sight 
 "and that is what she tried to make me believe, when 
 she and I were young together. But I would not. 
 I would not accept it. I thought if I could win fame 
 that she " he checked himself suddenly. 
 
 "But you have led me to accept it, old man," cried 
 the artist heartily. "You have opened my eyes. You 
 have helped me to understand my mother, as I never 
 could have understood her, alone." 
 
 Conrad Lagrange smiled. "Perhaps," he admitted 
 whimsically. "No doubt good may sometimes be 
 accomplished by the presentation of a horrible 
 example. But go on with your private exhibition. 
 I'll not keep you longer. Come, Czar." 
 
 In spite of the artist's protests, he left the studio. 
 
 While the painter was putting away his letters, the 
 novelist and the dog went through the rose garden 
 and the orange grove, straight to the little house next 
 door. They walked as though on a definite mission. 
 
 Sibyl and Myra Willard were sitting on the porch. 
 
 "Howdy, neighbor," called the girl, as the tall, 
 ungainly form of the famous novelist appeared. 
 "You seem to be the bearer of news. What is the 
 latest word from the seat of war ?" 
 
 461
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 "It is finished," said Conrad Lagrange, returning 
 Myra's gentle greeting, and accepting the chair that 
 Sibyl offered. 
 
 "The picture ?" said the girl eagerly, a quick color 
 flushing her cheeks. "Is the picture finished ?" 
 
 "Finished," returned the novelist. "I just left 
 him mooning over it like a mother over a brand-new 
 baby." 
 
 They laughed together, and when, a moment later, 
 the girl slipped into the house and did not return, 
 the woman with the disfigured face and the famous 
 novelist looked at each other with smiling eyes. 
 When Czar, with sudden interest, started around the 
 corner of the house, his master said suggestively, 
 "Czar, you better stay here with the old folks." 
 
 Passing through the house, and out of the kitchen 
 door, Sibyl ran, lightly, through the orange grove, to 
 the little gate in the corner of the Ragged Robin 
 hedge. A moment she paused, hesitating, then, steal- 
 ing cautiously into the rose garden, she darted in 
 quick flight to the shelter of the arbor; where she 
 parted the screen of vines to gain a view of the studio. 
 
 Between the big, north window and the window 
 that opened into the garden, she saw the artist. She 
 saw, too, the big canvas upon the easel. But Aaron 
 King was not, now, looking at his work just finished. 
 He was sitting before that other picture into which he 
 had unconsciously painted, not only the truth that 
 he saw in the winsome loveliness of the girl who 
 posed for him with outstretched hands among the 
 roses, but his love for her as well. 
 
 With a low laugh, Sibyl drew back. Swiftly, as 
 
 462
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 she had reached the arbor, she crossed the garden, 
 and a moment later, paused at the studio door. Again 
 she hesitated then, gently, so gently that the artist, 
 lost in his dreams, did not hear, she opened the 
 door. For a little, she stood watching him. Softly, 
 she took a few steps toward him. The artist, as 
 though sensing her presence, started and looked 
 around. 
 
 She was standing as she stood in the picture; her 
 hands outstretched, a smile of welcome on her lips, 
 the light of gladness in her eyes. 
 
 As he rose from his chair before the easel, she 
 went to him. 
 
 l^ot many days later, there was a quiet wedding, 
 at Sibyl's old home in the hills. Besides the two 
 young people and the clergyman, only Brian Oakley, 
 Mrs. Oakley, Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard 
 were present. These friends who had prepared the 
 old place for the mating ones, after a simple dinner 
 following the ceremony, returned down the canyon 
 to the Station. 
 
 Standing arm in arm, where the old road turns 
 around the cedar thicket, and where the artist had 
 first seen the girl, Sibyl and Aaron watched them go. 
 From the other side of roaring Clear Creek, they 
 turned to wave hats and handkerchiefs ; the two in 
 the shadow of the cedars answered ; Czar barked joy- 
 ful congratulations; and the wagon disappeared in 
 the wilderness growth. 
 
 Instead of turning back to the house behind them, 
 
 463
 
 THE EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 the two, without speaking, as though obeying a com- 
 mon impulse, set out down the canyon. 
 
 A little later they stood in the old spring glade, 
 where the alders bore, still, in the smooth, gray bark 
 of their trunks, the memories of long-ago lovers; 
 where the light fell, slanting softly through the screen 
 of leaf and branch and vine and virgin' s-bower, upon 
 the granite boulder and the cress-mottled waters of 
 the spring, as through the window traceries of a vast 
 and quiet cathedral; and where the distant roar of 
 the mountain stream trembled in the air like the 
 deep tones of some great organ. 
 
 Sibyl, dressed in her brown, mountain costume, 
 was sitting on the boulder, when the artist said 
 softly, "Look!" 
 
 Lifting her eyes, as he pointed, she saw two but- 
 terflies it might almost have been the same two 
 entering with zigzag flight, through the opening in 
 the draperies of virgin' s-bower. With parted lips and 
 flushed cheeks, the girl watched. Then as the 
 beautiful creatures, in their aerial waltz, whirled 
 above her he\d she rose, and lightly, gracefully, 
 almost as her winged companions, accompanied 
 them in their dance. 
 
 The winged emblems of innocence and purity flit- 
 ted away over the willow wall. The girl, with bright 
 eyes and smiling lips half laughing, half serious 
 looked toward her mate. He held out his arms and 
 she went to him. 
 
 THE END 
 464
 
 t/J 
 
 
 
 ^TS 
 
 fat,