OF THE 1GHTEOUSI By- JULIET WILBOR1 TOMPKINS ,?, THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS "You are so loyal to your family that even vou ' THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS By TOMPKINS ^iitJJfes an4 Palaces, et.c.i close tie devoted from childhood. Most of my best deals have gone through because my mother married his father. That's the way things go." Chloe slipped a hand under his arm. "I do like you," she confided. "You're so under- standing. I don't believe I could think any- thing too bad to tell you." "Well, that's something," he admitted, be- ginning to trudge slowly toward his car. Chloe always saw him as trailing a broken wing. She walked with him in silence for a few moments, then forced a stiff little sentence : 10 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS "I am glad Alex is getting on so well." He gave his usual dry assent. "Yes. You two haven't made it up yet, have you!" he added unexpectedly. "Oh, we are perfectly friendly when we meet." Chloe drew her hand from under his arm. "Now I must run home, Uncle Harry." She crossed the street, and so could only nod to her Cousin Alex, whom she passed in the next block. He lifted his hat without smiling. "You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong," Chloe silently flung after him. "I am generally wrong, but in this one case I was right !" It had been a stupid, unreasonable break be- tween them, not like a good, healthy quarrel. When, last autumn, the kind Van Dusens had asked Chloe to go abroad with them, it had seemed such unmitigated good fortune. Every one had met it as she did, simply and with rejoicing, until she told Alex. He had faced her in stiff-necked, frowning silence. She had seen him more than once turn that look on her family, and, partly understanding it by her own unrighteous impulses, had tried to pass on to him the bigness of the family creed. To THE SEED OF THE EIGHTEOUS 11 meet it hurled straight at herself seemed to open a dreadful gulf between them. "Why not, Alex?" she insisted. "I shouldn't think you would want to take it," he said shortly. She proved to him, irre- futably, what a narrow and ungenerous attitude that was. Alex would neither argue nor relent. He gave her to understand, without quite say- ing it, that if she went she lost something out of his friendship. He was a dictatorial young man, and though he was not at all irritable, like Ralston, a good many things made him angry. Chloe, of course, went; and had the "perfectly glorious" time that youth makes a point of having everywhere brave, pretentious youth, with its thousand hurts and humilia- tions so vehemently ignored! And Alex, who did nothing by halves, had wiped out every bond between them. He did not even read Italian with her any more. Chloe found Mrs. Gage standing strongly in the hall, pulling on her gloves with the straight- armed vigor of a man turning up his sleeves to fight. "Ralston is quite right; he has never had a 12 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS proper chance," she declared. "I have been feeling it more and more. If he hadn't married right after college but you couldn't blame him, with all that encouragement. I have never thought it was right of Mr. Sothern to come so near to taking his play, and then not take it. He must have a better place to work." Chloe had come to a dismayed pause. "But, mother, what can you do about it?" she asked, a troubled protest in her voice. "Well, there's Mrs. Cartaret with that big, empty house. I don't see why Ralston couldn't go over every morning and have a quiet room to work in. He'd be no trouble." Chloe winced bodily. "But suppose she does not want some one coming in, and having to stay quiet near that room " the protest fal- tered helplessly. Her family always made Chloe feel herself poor-spirited, even mean. "Wouldn't we gladly lend her a room if we had it?" the mother demanded from her chest. "If there is any reason Mrs. Cartaret can't, I'll try the Dows. Only Rawly doesn't like them so well. He says Grace Dow's laugh gets on his nerves." She gathered her skirt into her hand, THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 13 symbolically, since it Was too sensibly short to impede her. "If you want to go off, send Billy over to play with the little Murrays," she added. "Their nurse might just as well look after four as three." And she went out with her direct stride, as oblivious of her aged, voluminous suit and weather-beaten bonnet as some gaunt old grenadier might be of his faded uniform. Chloe did want to go off. She was often a little desperate Monday morning, after the family Sunday. The others were so much older and taller, so overpowering : they convicted her eternally of being in the wrong, and yet she could not learn to be like them. With rueful humor she saw herself as a quaking brown wren among eagles. The eagles might find the wren annoying; but it was the wren who suf- fered, she could assure them. To-day April was stirring in the city squares and she longed to be off into it as a hot forehead longs for a cool hand. When the morning's work was done, she put on her street things and looked up Billy. He was standing at an open window, yearn- 14 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS ing out toward a vagrant young cur, who wagged up at him from the sidewalk beneath. His broad face was moist with tenderness. "A li'l parpy, Toto," he told her, as one point- ing out a divine miracle. "A li'l parpy a dee-ar li'l parpy!" No mother with her first-born could have expressed a richer emotion; the heart of his grandfather, who had loved all young things, was swelling in his little breast. Chloe laughed, but she put on his clean blouse there at the window, that his paternal rapture need not be interrupted. "We'll go and see the li'l kitty at the Hur- rays'," she said, as they set out hand in hand. She had made numberless such pilgrimages with Billy when no one at home was free to look after him, and yet they always depressed her. Perhaps it was the association with the pilgrimages of her own childhood little brown Clotilda trudging in silent, helpless reluctance between long, weedy, impatient Ralston and handsome, assured Sabra. She could still hear Sabra's confident, "Mother's compliments, Mrs. Van Dusen, and if it is no trouble, may Chloe spend the day here, because we've got a moth- THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 15 ers' meeting at our house?" The answer was always gracious, and yet Chloe's very being would seem to melt with shame under it she was so sure she was not really wanted. She used to try not to eat much lunch, and to run on her tiptoes, by way of lessening the infliction. And when these involuntary hostesses called her as they often did a "dear little soul," her quaint, still face would be lit from within by a very ecstasy of grateful relief. Of course, later, she was made to understand how glad people were to be neighborly and to help one another, and that it was mean to sup- pose they were not. Mrs. Gage certainly lived up to her creed. Little sisters of measles and brothers of whooping-cough spent weeks in their crowded home. The new babies of her poorer neighbors never lacked flannel and soft cotton, sturdily collected from the richer. Mrs. Gage could not see a kindness as too much trouble either to give or to be taken. And she never forgot that the children of Sereno Gage had a heritage of rights. The Murrays had a fine old house and, at one side, a walled garden that should have grown 16 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS plants of solid gold to balance its value in feet and inches. Chloe, standing at the wall door, felt the same old reluctance to ring ; but, after she had forced herself to do it, she was ashamed of her own ungenerosity, her lack of faith. The little Murrays greeted Billy with joy, and their pleasant Mary assured her that he was never any trouble. "I will come back for him at noon," she said, and went happily away. An hour up in the green park, with sun and birds and opening earth, took the fever out of her. Chloe could be quite exquisitely happy when she could get away from the clash of the family ideal on her own tiresome scruples and sensitivenesses. The probable loss of Sabra's earnings had at first troubled her, but their mother would manage someway. She always managed. No doubt some rich old admirer of Sereno Gage would be glad to back Sabra in the more valuable work. People never tired of paying honor to Sereno Gage. The father who had not seen her was Chloe's secret romance. ;When she was alone, she walked with her hand L THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 17 in his, and she was as fluent with him as she was silent with her living family. He would "have understood even her incurable wrennish- ness. When she again passed the wall door, Billy was seated on the gravel nursing a sleeping cat that overflowed him on either side, and whose nap must not be disturbed, so Chloe, with small twitches of amusement showing through her grave consent, sat down on the stone bench against the house to await the cat's pleasure. It was sweet here, with grass under her feet and birds chittering in the house vines, little figures trotting about, the nurse bending over the baby carriage. She tipped up her face to the streaming sunlight, the April scents and sounds, and so became aware of voices at the open window just over her head. "Who's the fourth kid?" It was an elderly man speaking, and he said the word "kid" pleasantly, as though he liked little fellows ; and because she loved to hear her father's name pronounced, Chloe stayed still. "That is the Sereno Gage grandchild ;" Mrs. 18 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS Murray spoke with a note of laughter. "He is dumped down here rather often you know the family way ! But Mary doesn't seem to mind." They laughed again at some further comment as they moved away. For a moment Chloe sat white and helpless with bewildered pain. Then terror lest Mrs. Murray might come into the garden made her start up. "Come, Billy; come home at once," she com- manded, and the sleeping cat was bundled out with a horrifying lack of respect. Billy was grieved, but dared not protest to this wholly new Toto. At the wall door she suddenly left him and ran back to Mary. "You have been kind and good ; I shall never forget it," she flung at the surprised woman. "Sure, Billy's no trouble. We like to have him," said Mary, but the words were empty to Chloe. Had not Mrs. Murray said the same, a hundred times, in her pretty, lying voice? To get away and fiercely, punishingly stay away was the first need. Other forms of resentment might be thought out later. For, curiously enough, this one laughing slight had done for Chloe what years of teaching had not been able THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 19 to accomplish: it had made her one with her family. All the way home, with Billy laboring to keep up, she hurled at Mrs. Murray her mother's creed of kindness and neighborly duty ; she told what her mother had done for humbler children, she pointed to her father's life, given to the cause of all children. "And you grudged a little garden space to one good child !" she cried. Not till she opened her own door was she aware of the flushed, anx- ious face upturned at her side. "Oh, my dear I" she apologized. "Was I bad, Toto?" Billy quavered. She knelt down to comfort. "No, Billy! Good as gold ! Only grown people are bad," she added hotly. Chloe did not dream of telling what had hap- pened. She covered it up as something shame- ful, unrepeatable; but it left a miserable inse- curity. The bogy of her childhood, explained away by wise grown-ups, was suddenly con- fronting her again, uglier than ever. People did not really want you. They acted as if they did, but their hearts were reluctant. "It was only one person," she told herself. 20 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS "Mrs. Murray isn't everybody !" But the bogy had gained standing: it could no longer be swept aside as a little girl's stupidity. The house grew very quiet that afternoon. Mrs. Gage and Sabra were at the Congress and Ralston had taken Billy up to the zoo. When Ralston's work had gone well he had a romantic impulse toward excursions with his little son. Both always came back on the verge of tears, but they set out just as happily the next time. Chloe worked for faithful hours on the tasks that fall naturally to the untalented member of a family, then, drooping bodily, she went out to sit on the door-step in the soft new-born warmth of the day. People still sat on door- steps in that informal old corner of the city. Chloe at twenty had not yet lost the quality that had named her a "dear little soul." Per- haps it lay in an innocent readiness to believe that others were great and good and that she must learn of them : or perhaps it came from the delicate, pointed, quaintly secular face of the left-hand angel in Botticelli's Madonna Enthroned, at which Mrs. Gage had gazed with faithful purpose for months before her daugh- THE SEED Q3 THE RIGHTEOUS 21 ter's birth. She had hoped for some soaring spirituality of a tough-winged kind that should make a stir in the world, but was perfectly con- tent with the simpler result that Chloe did act- ually look like the angel on the extreme left. The family was inclined to take the resemblance humorously. "Pity mother wished the figure on her, too," Ralston often said in deprecation of his sister's almost boyish slenderness. The constant presence of her secret companion had given her face an upward tilt that might well have been taken from an angel. Seeing her so, a young man who had been coming down the block hesitatingly, as though some argument blocked his path, leaped the obstacle and started forward. "Well, Chloe," he said. He had taken a humble attitude, hat off, but a smile lurked in the lively blue eyes and under the brief mustache that only just was not red. "Well, Alex," she returned, with discourag- ing coolness. "I have been thinking about you all day," he persisted, putting out his hand. "We have been such good friends, Chloe; it is stupid to let it 22 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS go. Truly, I've missed you like the dickens. Can't I come back?" She took his hand, but provisionally. "You are not saying anything about having been in the wrong," she observed, fixing him with an unfooled eye. It was her belief that Alex had found girls altogether too pliant for his own good. He avoided that issue. "I was all in the wrong to lay down the law for some one else," he said, taking a seat below her and looking up with a friendliness that few ever resisted. It was a vital, colorful face, and perhaps Alex had discovered its power, for he lounged very com- fortably, and his smile did not bear out the anx- iety of his words. "Couldn't you forgive me enough to go on with our Italian? Haven't you missed me at all, Toto?" Chloe maintained a detached air of looking him over. "I have been reading a good deal of French," was all she said, and Alex, recogniz- ing that the lost territory was not to be in- stantly regained by the expenditure of a little charm, sat up and went honestly to work for it. THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 23 They were still visiting there on the steps when Mrs. Gage, worn, dusty, triumphant, came marching home. "Oh, Alex !" she greeted him with her hearty kindness. "Why, we haven't seen you lately, have we? I suppose you have been too busy with your invention. Your father spoke about it yesterday. Don't stand up, dear children ; I'll sit down here and tell you about the Congress." She took the top step, unfastening her ancient, black silk wrap. "I know my bonnet is crooked, Chloe. It was a wonderful afternoon; I wish you could have been there. Alex, did you realize that some big proportion of the blind- ness of the world seven-eighths or something like that is entirely preventable? Sabra was fine ; so dignified and handsome. I did wish her father could have seen her. The chairman who introduced her paid him a beautiful tribute. Something about the mantle of the father de- scending to the child. They clapped her more than any one. Of course, Alex, you understand that defectives ought not to have children any one can see that. I never remember figures, 24 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS but the proportion of defective parents is ap- palling something like seven-tenths. Sabra is going to get a law passed against it." Alex was listening with resistance in every line of his vigorous body. His frown seemed to include Sabra and the audience and eugenics in one sweeping disapproval, kept down by sheer muscular force. "It is easy enough to pass laws," he said dryly. "Oh, it is not easy at all," she assured him. "They have to know all the congressmen in- dividually. They send clever delegates to some and pretty ones to others it takes a great deal of tact. Sabra has been to Albany any number of times." Alex gave a short laugh. "As brains or as beauty?" "They want Sabra for both," said Sabra's mother. "I saw old Mr. Lindsley there and had a talk with him about her career. I shouldn't wonder if something came of it." She was full of weary satisfaction. Chloe, reading Alex's expression, moved closer to her side. "Mother works for other people morning, "Oh, it is not easy at all," she assured him THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 25 noon and night," she said, looking straight into his stiff-necked frown. Alex, rebuked, amended his expression, but would give no sign of chang- ing his opinion. Mrs. Gage, simply pleased, patted her daughter's hand. "Every one does, dear, more or less," she said. "Some day, Alex, when I am not so tired, you must tell me about your invention. I might be able to interest some one in it." "Oh, thanks I don't want any help;" Alex spoke shortly. "Father shouldn't tell my secrets." "My dear Alex, the more who know, the bet- ter. You never can tell which way help will come," she assured him with large, kind cer- tainty. "I know so many influential people. And they would be interested for your uncle's sake. The world doesn't forget what it owes to Sereno Gage." "Aunt Emily, you are very kind ;" Alex gave an effect of biting off the words ; "but I am not looking for any one to push or pull me along." "That is foolish ;" she spoke with perfect good humor. "Where would my children be if I hadn't found ways to give them a chance?" 26 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS Alex started to answer, then, seeing Chloe's fingers twisting nervously together, thought better of it. "Well, I have a feeling for work- ing things out myself," he said, rising. "Good night I must run." He left with unfriendly abruptness. His squared shoulders had a fight- ing quality as he strode away. "I never supposed Alex would turn out so good-looking," said Mrs. Gage. "A little stocky, perhaps, but a nice face. I am glad for your Uncle Harry if he is going to be clever. His children haven't had much chance. I hope I can do something for Alex a word here and there." Chloe took breath to speak, then let it go again. Mrs. Gage was gathering herself up. "Oh, I got Rawley a fine place to work this morning," she added, as she straightened a tired back. "The old billiard room at the top of the house. Mrs. Cartaret was delighted to have it used. Coming in, dear?" Chloe looked after her mother with loving, troubled eyes. "People ought not to keep getting angry, any- THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 27 way," she said at last, glad of on6 certainty in a world of shifting values. The next morning Ralston set out for his new workroom in high excitement. His sensitive face, usually so somber, looked boyish in its hopefulness. "It is my first real chance," he told his mother, solemn for all those lost years. He even allowed Billy to walk to the corner with him. The statue of Sereno Gage greeted them with grave kindness. Billy, who supposed that this actually was his grandfather and loved him dearly, ran to thrust his face between the iron palings and shout good morning, with some further news concerning a li'l parpy. Ralston looked up at it with self-absorbed eyes. "Someday they may call that Ralston Gage's father," he said, and laughed a little, then sent Billy home and hurried on. A few moments later, on her way to the office, Sabra passed the patient figure. Sabra could remember how the pennies had poured in from all over the country warm from the little tight 28 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS fists of the givers to set up this monument to the children's friend. Perhaps the chief lesson she had derived from the memory was that money was very easily raised. To-day her eyes still saw upturned faces, her ears echoed ap- plause. "I shall not be unworthy of your name, my father," she promised, and went to the day's work as one might take up a temporary dis- guise, worn for high political purposes. Presently Mrs. Gage came past, her driving soul blocks ahead of her ignored body. She would not have known where she was if a humble neighbor had not stopped her with a piece of news. "Why, Katy Mrs. Sexton dead !" Mrs. Gage had to hear more before she could adjust to the shock. The woman's eyes were red with weep- ing. "Of course you are going up there, Katy, to help. I am glad they have you," she said at parting, then turned back to add: "Marjorie Sexton is just about my Chloe's build. I sup- pose she will be giving away all sorts of pretty dresses if she goes into mourning." "Yes, m'am. I'll be glad to drop a word THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 29 about it you've been that good to me," Katy promised. Mrs. Gage, collecting her scattered purposes, lifted unseeing eyes to her husband's face. "I wish there had been some one about Sabra's size," she said as she went on. An hour later Chloe came on her way to market, Billy at her side. They stood looking up together. "Tell about the li'l chil'ren in the fractory," Billy commanded. Chloe exchanged smiles with her father, and then the two went on to the beloved story of little children oppressed and rescued, and of laws that had had to fight their way like ban- ners up a battle hill. She did not dream that she at that moment was handing on the emblem Sereno Gage had carried. CHAPTER II NO TWO years were ever alike in Chloe's family. Simply to be in Mrs. Gage's orbit meant endless change and opportunity. Some- times a fortunate conjunction lent them a tem- porary brilliancy; sometimes they hovered on the verge of black eclipse. In these darker times Ealston always offered to give up his. writing and go into an office. "I'd last about two years in office life, but I am perfectly ready to do it," he would say, a sad beauty in his narrow, boy-poet face that moved his mother to inspired marvels of con- triving. Water out of barren rock was no more miraculous than the resources called up by her stanch old courage. This year promised to be a brilliant one. The talk about Sabra's career, briskly followed up, led straight to good fortune. Sabra had had some difficulty in fixing on her Cause. She had known, ever since the pennies had poured in to 30 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 31 build a monument to Sereno Gage, that she was destined to nail herself, body and soul, to some high purpose; the trouble had been to find a purpose entirely suitable. She had felt the Suf- frage platform too crowded to give her room; New Thought drew too limited an audience; Child Labor had passed its need of brilliant pio- neers. Not till chance took her to the first feeble, shy meeting of the Eugenics Society did she see her way clear. This new subject must be handled with delicacy and distinction, it carried on her family tradition of working for the child; here was her Cause. She had come home that night breathing deep, carrying high the chest in which her future was cradled. Her father's statue, clear black and soft gray in the moonlight, seemed to stand uncovered before Jier. "This is the night of my real birth," she told him. And poor Sereno Gage, who had known nothing of Causes, who had only so loved and suffered over little children that he had had to spend his life on them, kept humble silence as his glorious progeny passed. The Society and Sabra's fame had come up 32 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS together, rapidly and simultaneously. Both would go faster yet when she had rid herself of wage-earning, left all to follow. Sabra was a good girl : no one ever saw her unjust or im- patient or afraid of life; what she earned she gave with open hands to her family ; and when she saw a hard duty ahead, she went at it with single-minded zeal. The day after the Con- gress she sent in her card to Mr. Harper Linds- ley, millionaire, philanthropist and life-long friend of her father. The old man gave her a tremulous hand and a twinkling smile. "Well, Sabra ! I had a talk with your mother yesterday," he greeted her. "I rather thought one of you might be in to-day." It was a be- ginning to disconcert a feebler spirit; but Sa- bra rose to it with splendid assurance. "Then you know why I am here," she said. He was, after all, less valiant than she. "Oh, well, not quite that," he hedged. "Very glad |to see you. Sit down. How's Billy?" Sabra could not be put off with questions. She took the proffered chair, leaning earnestly toward him. THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 33 "Mr. Lindsley, I want you to make me one of your salaried officials 'with power/ as we say of committees," she began. "I believe my fa- ther's child can do something bigger in the world than wage-earning; but I need backing. Will you give me a chance to make myself clear to you?" The frail old hands warded her off with hu- morous protest. "No, no, child. If I listen you'll convince me. I heard you yesterday. Lord, you ought to be in the United States Sen- ate ! And you would have been, if you and your mother had only been men. What a power she would have been in the ward!" He wanted to linger and chuckle over the idea, but Sabra pushed straight on. "Why shouldn't you be convinced?" "No, no," he sighed, lifting a hand to his breast pocket. "I'd rather do it kicking and scratching. How much do you want?" She told him what her salary had been, scru- pulous to ask no more, and then, while he con- sidered, seized her chance to set forth to him all that her Society stood for. He listened with aged indulgence, crossed by an occasional 34 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS flicker of amusement. At the end he slowly nodded. "I sort of like you, Sabra. I believe I'll do it," he said. "A man of my age can afford his little joke now and then." He touched a bell, and her happy ears heard him dictate the memorandum to his secretary. When they were again alone, she took his hand in both hers. "I thank you now," she said, "but I want you to believe that your real thanks will come from the future." His smile was subtle but not un- kindly. "Well, if there has got to be more talk in the world, you're the one to do it," he admitted. Sabra went home to lunch, riding her good news like a palfry. The dining-room door opened on a group dismally familiar in that household. Ralston, who had gone off so ra- diantly that morning to dwell in unbroken com- munion with his talent, sat remote, blank, tragic with some unexplained disappointment. His mother, guilty for she knew not what, watched him with faithful, asking eyes and tried to keep her distress silent. Billy's feel- THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 35 ings had been hurt early in the meal and Chloe had removed him to the kitchen, where she waa comforting him with abundant jam. "Mother everybody !" Sabra's voice brought Chloe to the door. "It has come. I am free for my real work. I have been to see Mr. Linds- ley." "My dear!" Mrs. Gage was martial leader and tender mother in one. "What did he say?" "You had prepared the way for me, mother, dear, so my part was comparatively easy." Sa- bra always distributed scrupulous credit, which was one source of her success as an organizer. "I scarcely had to explain. It was, 'How much do you want?' almost the first moment." "That was from hearing you yesterday, Sa- bra. You never spoke better." She nodded assent. "He thinks I have a great gift for speaking. He said that as a man I would have been a political power." "Fine, dear! What else?" Sabra's clear, candid gaze was turned back on the interview. "He intimated that I was convincing; that people would be swayed by me. His last words were about public speak- 36 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS ing 'You're the one to do it/ " he said. "It was very gratifying." And Sabra sat down to lunch with an aura of success shining visibly about her. Chloe lingered dejectedly in the doorway, measuring her shrinking self against her fine, brave sister. A bitter word finally broke from Ralston. "You get your chance. Everybody but me gets a real chance, sooner or later." Mrs. Gage seized the opening. "Wasn't the room quiet, dear?" "Very, thank you." He tried to continue his magnanimous silence, but the grievance would but. "I should think you would have seen that there was no heat in that room, mother! Nei- ther heat nor sun. I nearly perished. I shall have to give it up." "But there was a fireplace," his mother cried. "There was ; but no fire in it. And I couldn't very well ring for one in Mrs. Cartaret's house, could I?" Mrs. Gage was alight with relief. "Why, she would love to have a fire for you I know it. Any one would. Leave it to me don't worry, THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 37 dear boy. I will see that you are comfortable." And in the general clearing of her sky she turned back to the lunch that she had been un- able to eat. Ralston, too, was presently up again, borne on her buoyant faith. Chloe car- ried a sober droop back to the kitchen. She was all wrong, of course; but she would have died rather than ask for that fire. Mrs. Gage called on Mrs. Cartaret that aft- ernoon, and the next morning Ralston found a cheerful blaze awaiting him. Mrs. Cartaret was so concerned for his comfort that she her- self came up at noon to see that the fire was going properly. She was a widow whose only child had married, a graceful, still woman not yet fifty, with an emotional love of beauty and a remote smile that never deepened into a laugh. A knock on his door before he had vol- untarily opened it usually made Ralston mur- derous; but there was always something fra- grant and distinguished about this dark-eyed woman in her silky black that soothed his rasped sensibilities and touched his mood with knightliness. She wasn't modern or humorous, 88 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS thank God! One could be gentleman to her lady. He begged her to come in. It was an added charm that she should be a little shy. "Come in and see how perfect it is," he urged. "Sit in my chair and see if you don't at once begin to write a masterpiece." She sat there, erect and hesitating, letting her lovely smile come slowly out. "It must be so wonderful to write," she said. "I have al- ways longed to. Tell me how you go about it. Do you get the idea first, before you write a word?" To Ralston, who had not yet acquired a pub- lic, the question was fresh and stimulating. He talked at length about his methods, pacing up and down as he grew excited, or standing over her with hair touchingly rumpled and long fin- gers pointing his meaning. Her listening had the perfection that he found in all her ways. "How did you first know that you had this gift?" she asked him. And "How do you get your idea does it simply come?" And "Do you take your people from life or do you make them up?" Ralston grew flushed and brilliant-eyed. THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 39 An hour slipped past. At last a servant hov- ered in the doorway, murmured and went away. "I am keeping you," he exclaimed. "But if you knew what it meant to talk to some one who understands and cares! I can't usually talk to any one. I am the loneliest man in the city, Mrs. Cartaret." "But why should you be lonely?" Her won- der said : "You who have youth and beauty and talent," and personal vanity might have preened itself; but Ralston had been spared that. "People don't like me," he said, simply and seriously. Her incredulous smile would have made a joke of it, but he shook his head. "No truly. I don't laugh enough, I suppose. Good God, I don't want to laugh life doesn't seem to me funny ! I am sick to death of this modern cult of humor." The audacity of that took her breath. "Doesn't one have to have it?" she asked, a touching hope lighting her gentle face. "No !" He almost shouted it. "Let it alone. That is what makes you so beautiful. One is 40 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS safe with you, one is at home." He took her hand. "You will come up again? Please prom- ise you will!" He was so eager, so boyish in spite of his thirty years, that he could not quite be left so. She hesitated, colored a little, and asked him if he would not come down and have luncheon with her. He came, openly happy. The handsome room, the skilled service, the graceful, listening woman, lapped him in well- being. "One is at home in your house, too," he told her. "I have never had a home like this, and yet I always feel like an exile as if I had once lived where everything was beautiful and har- monious. That would have made all the dif- ference in my career." Self-pity almost brought tears to his eyes. "I have never had a fair chance, Mrs. Cartaret. Or any real help. And talent has to be helped, doesn't it? Look at Wagner. My play was published, you know < the one that Sothern nearly took; an old friend of the family put up the money for it. But he would not go on and really push it, he hadn't the courage to advertise effectively, so of course it didn't sell. It has always been like THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 41 that. People do a little for one, and then they lose heart and drop away. No one has the big, high faith that sees it through." A querulous bitterness rose from his unhealing grievance. "They are all quitters !" he cried. She was troubled, apologetic for the faint- heartedness of benefactors, a class to which she belonged. "I wish you would tell me about the play you are at work on," she ventured. "Not unless you feel like it, of course," she added, disconcerted by the intentness of his stare. But Ralston was only making a discovery. "Some day I shall read it to you," he declared solemnly. "It is all there is of me. I have fed myself to it, body and soul, for two years, and no one has seen a line of it. But I shall want to read it to you. Will you let me?" She had no words to express her gratification and flushed delicately in the eifort to find them. She, too, perhaps, in her big house, was lonely. So Mrs. Gage's two geniuses were launched. As if that were not enough, at the same time she happened on a struggling Montessori class, embraced the doctrines fervently after twenty minutes of elucidation, brought in half a dozen 42 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS pupils, and so "arranged" to have Billy in- cluded. And while Chloe still gazed dubiously at her new freedom, half sorry, yet excited, into her lap fell a soft armful of fine clothes, sent with Marjorie Sexton's love in a sad, black bordered note. Uncle Harry came in while these were still spread over sofa and chair, and Chloe, seated on a foot-stool before them, her chin on her clasped hands, stared at them in tranced rapture. She had had every one of them on with no one home to see, and she sprang up joyfully at her uncle's trailing step. "Oh, Uncle Harry, look what I've got!" she cried. "Marjorie Sexton, you know. Her mother has just she's gone into mourning, poor girl. She sent all these and I have hardly seen her since school. Wasn't it too beautiful ?" Uncle Harry's dry, averted speech had never been milder: "H'm your mother dropped in at the funeral, I suppose." "Oh, yes." Chloe took it quite simply. "Mother's strong on funerals." His slow nod seemed to approve. "Yes ; you can't tell what they may lead to in this world or the next." He fingered a fold of crepe as a THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 4J foreigner might try over an unknown word, "How are you going to live up to all this?" "Oh, I suppose mother will conjure up some parties. There's one to-night, Uncle Harry." She flushed a little, and her eyes forbade him to be humorous. "Alex is taking me to the theater." Uncle Harry never looked at any one, but he seemed to feel her glance. "Yes; so he said," he admitted carefully. Chloe was eager to explain. "I haven't taken him all back, Uncle Harry ; I mean, he hasn't found me easy ! He's walk- ing a chalk line." She was very anxious that he should understand that. "I don't intend to be quite the same until he really sees how wrong-headed he was. He can't just smooth things over and get his own way with me." "Glad to hear it. Keep it up." Uncle Harry relinquished the finery and sat down, his hands folded over the top of his umbrella, his head dropped so that his speech came sidewise. "I've got a proposition to make to you, Chloe." She would have liked to dwell longer on the Jpowns, but compromised by taking a brown 44 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS chiffon into her arms and nursing it lovingly as she returned to her stool. "What is it?" she asked, dipping an arm into a lace sleeve, then hastily taking it out again. "I'm listening, Uncle Harry go on." "Want a job?" he asked. She laughed. "What kind ?" "Well, you see, Sabra has left me. She's go- ing to talk for her living after this. That's all right Sabra's a grand talker. I wouldn't bother with real estate if I could get a living off a platform and a pitcher of ice-water. And Billy's been launched, I hear: learning to fol- low his instincts and distinguish velvet from sandpaper by the touch. Well, that's all right, too. He'll need all the touch he can develop. But why don't you come down to the office and learn how to rent apartments? Nice, pleasant work girl's work. A girl can't look at the plan of an apartment without wishing she could go to housekeeping in it; and that's catching. You'd be earning a salary and get- ting a business training. What do you say?" Chloe only laughed. "Oh, no, Uncle Harry. THE SEED OP THE RIGHTEOUS 45 I don't want to go into business. Oh, I'm not ~that kind a bit." "Not that kind," he repeated musingly. "Going out into the world kind," she ex- plained. "I like to be at home and to go out- doors when I want to. And to take nice trips in the summer people always ask one. I'd hate to commit myself to an office. But it was dear of you to want me," she added with be- lated gratitude. He seemed to fall into thought, and she surreptitiously returned to the brown chiffon, spreading its embroidered tunic over her knees for study. "There would be the money;" he spoke with an air of afterthought. "Oh, we get along," said Chloe easily. "I don't care much about money. Things turn up like these clothes. Uncle Harry, do you think I am a beast to enjoy them so when that poor girl is in mourning?" He rose and trailed slowly out without an- swering, but that was only his way. "If you change your mind I'll take you on," he said from the door, without looking back. 46 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS "I do appreciate it," Chloe insisted, and dropped the offer out of her present mind into the back storage places of consciousness, where it lay forgotten for many months. A moment later she jumped up and ran after him. "Tell Alex to look his grandest," she commanded. "He is not going to be let off with a business suit any longer. Tell him that Miss Clotilda Gage will be lovely in brown chiffon embroid- ered with gold thread in a lotus design." Uncle Harry blinked thoughtfully at the pavement. "Yes, I'll tell him," he said with an odd effect of reluctance. Sabra and Ralston, meeting at the front door, came in as though they had been out together, though as a matter of fact they had never vol- untarily done anything together in their grown lives. There was no visible hostility between them; they simply seemed unacquainted. A horse and a cow, inhabiting the same stable for as many years, will pass each other with the same blank absence of recognition. At Chloe's excited summons they came in to look. "I wouldn't confess I had Marjorie Sexton's figure for all the clothes in the city," Ralston THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 47 said, holding a blouse at arm's length and tilt- ing his gaze as if it were a drawing. Good spirits with Ralston came out in a hard, bright gaiety that could buffet rather roughly. Chloe shrank under it, but Sabra met it with calm fact. "We all know that Chloe's slimness is very pretty and graceful; she may be Marjorie Sex- ton's size without giving at all her effect," she explained, but damped Chloe's gratitude by adding: "I don't think much of the Sexton taste. What a pity they are not prettier !" She went over the garments one by one, dispassion- ately critical "As though they were bought things!" Chloe said to herself, her joy gone. She had seen the clothes through a rosy veil: there had been Cinderella magic in the arrival of the mysterious bundle, left by gnarled old Katy. Fancy Cinderella stopping to criticize the crystal trimming of her ball gown! Per- haps Chloe herself would not have chosen the plaid suit or the saffron blouse; but she would never have spoiled the glamour by saying so. She stood by looking more than ever like the wistful Botticelli angel and made no protest. 48 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS They were so tall, so sure ; their way must be right. But her heart jumped up to meet her mother. Mrs. Gage was weary and dusty, a gaunt old scarecrow to alien eyes ; but her big, strong smile and kind voice seemed always to promise that everything would be made right. "Mother, look what I've got !" Chloe cried. "Oh, they came, did they?" She was heart- ily pleased. "Chloe, dear, how pretty ! Let me see them all." Chloe spread out the dresses, but a wrinkle of fear was deepening between her eyes. Her mother praised them to any heart's content, but she did not seem to hear. She tried not to ask, but the question uttered itself: "You knew they were coming?" "I hoped so, dear. Didn't I tell you? (Chloe, that is a handsome blouse;..! do like color on a young person.) I dropped a word to Katy, the day of Mrs. Sexton's death she was going up there. It just occurred to me that you and Marjorie were about the same size. Have you tried the suit?" Chloe had flushed. "Oh mother!" she breathed. Mrs. Gage, examining the gold em- THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 49 broidery, did not notice. Chloe was clothed in shame, and yet the other three, older and wiser than she, evidently saw no cause for wincing. Katy, no doubt, had dropped the hint tactfully as her own idea. And yet and yet ! Up in her room, Chloe let her finery fall in a disregarded heap. "I would rather have worn rags," she said. Then she lifted her face to her invisible com- rade. "Am I a perfect fool, father? Was that just the natural, right thing that any mother would have done?" Sereno Gage did not an- swer, but his peace seemed to fall on her. "Are you wishing you could shake me for criticizing my mother?" she added with the beginning of a smile. Alex arrived late and breathless, but suit- ably dressed to accompany Chloe's new gran- deur. It was a significant and touchingly American fact that Alex, strong willed as he was strong muscled, always did what Chloe told him to. She was as unconscious of this as he was; and yet she would have been deeply shocked if her little orders had not been fol- lowed. 50 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS Alex was fond of condemning girls for th& time and attention they gave to their looks; but Chloe had always noticed that when her clothes were especially becoming, his eyes had a trick of rewarding her. She watched hap- pily for that quick lighting as she ran down the stairs, carrying her wrap that he might see all at once how fine she was. But this time the response failed her. Alex's glance had never been more cool and detached. "Forgive me for being late," he said. "I didn't get home from the office till some seven minutes ago." "But your dinner?" Chloe exclaimed, stop- ping short. "Oh, I took it on the run as the fast en- gines water. All ready?" The open door disclosed a taxicab. Usually they would have been merry over such an ex- travagance, but to-night Alex helped her in with a matter-of-course air that checked comment. Perhaps the clothes had put them on more for- mal terms ; or else they were still a little shy of each other after the months of estrangement. On the way Alex entertained her, even flirted THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 51 with her, expending charm as he would have on any pretty girl. He could be very astute in society, this obstinate and prejudiced young man. Chloe had no intention of taking him back on these terms. She waited until they were seated in the theater ; then she interrupted him with a laugh in her uptilted face. She was never in the least a wren with Alex. "Now, Alex, you know perfectly well that I am a grand sight, and that you will have to say so sooner or later," she assured him. "What is the sense of holding back?" "I admit it, freely," he said at once, but his voice was purposely unenthusiastic. He had no eyes for gold embroidery or lace sleeves. "But I thought you would enjoy it." Chloe sounded as disappointed as human voice could. "I thought you would be so proud of me." The easy stranger was gone. Alex jerked impatiently and manhandled his program. "I like you better in your own clothes," he said ; then, seeing how hard he had struck, re- pented and mutely implored her to forgive his being the stiff-necked ass he was. "But they happen to be mine, now," said 52 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS Chloe coldly, and, the curtain rising, she drew as far away from him as the seats allowed, giv- ing her entire attention to the stage. At first neither saw much of the play, but the action was amusing, and presently, when Chloe had been made to laugh, Alex took heart and laughed with her. When the curtain fell, her elbow was back on the rest between them. Alex would have ignored the recent trouble, but she stopped him. She had not said lightly that she was making him "walk a chalk line." "No, my dear," she said with a quaint grav- ity. "I am not cross now, but we must have that out. Do you know that your attitude seems to me mean and small ?" Twice Alex started to answer ; then he gave it up. "It is no use," he exclaimed. "If I try to say what I feel, I shall criticize your whole family attitude, and that will only make you angry. But I do want you to be different, lit- tle Chloe !" He was smiling now. "Hang it, I want you to be a credit to me. Haven't I half brought you up?" "No," said Chloe stoutly, "you haven't. You were off flirting with other girls in the years THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 53 when you might have been of some service to me. And it is where I am different from my family that I am less fine than they are. You're all wrong, Alex. Now, when we came in to- night, I saw a cousin of the girl who gave me this gown, and the thought that she might rec- ognize it was hateful to me. I hid in my wrap and slipped past. But mother would have gone up to her and said, 'Marjorie sent me this! Wasn't it kind of her? Doesn't it look well?' Don't you see how much bigger that is, to take simply and gladly, as you would give? I am going to stop and speak to her on the way out with my wrap all open." His eyes at last were giving her the deferred reward. "But it is paying a price, Toto," he told her. "I would rather earn them myself." "Would you rather I earned them?" She spoke humorously, as of something impossible, and he smiled uncontradictingly as the curtain rose. He did not want to drive away her el- bow again. The comedy was all love, love, love. Senti- ment flowed like a colored tide over the foot- \ 54 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS lights, up through the house. Men and women drew closer together, imperceptibly down- stairs, frankly in the gallery. Chloe, who had quarreled and made up, realized only that she was quite exquisitely gay and that life was good. Once, when she turned to smile over some point, Alex's eyes held hers with an odd, new fixity that made her heart beat ; but when the curtain fell on happy embraces, he was his cousinly self. He had always taken very dear care of her in crowds and streets. The April night was warm and they walked home, unenvious of the limousines that streamed past, of the lights and music of the cafes. Half of youth's desire for those things is the desire for love. These two would have denied that they had found love they were cousins, Chloe always explained; "Step cou- sins," Alex added; but they turned from the brightness as contentedly as though they were happily married. Chloe forgot that Alex was on probation. Their old intimacy was back, quickened and deepened. "How people do work to have a good time," she said as they passed a carpeted and THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 55 awninged entrance. "And all the time it is just a matter of being with the right person. You and I can be as gay sitting on the front steps as in a rose-palm-goldfish garden with an or- chestra and five soloists. And crackers and milk on the kitchen table are just as much fun as anything you can get at Delmonico's. Peo- ple don't realize it, that's all." Alex was smiling deeply, as though she had told him more than she knew. "But everybody can't have the right person as you and I can," he said. "For some there isn't any right per- son ; so they have to have sound and color and taste to keep them awake." Chloe had flushed. "By right person, I mean any one you like to talk with," she insisted. "Of course. But take that mammoth, tur- quoise-bearing blonde who sat just in front of us do you suppose she ever had an interesting conversation in all her fat life? It is only peo- ple with brains like you and me who can be just as happy at the kitchen table. With the right person." She glanced up quickly, but if he was teasing her, there was nothing to show it. 56 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS "But people who haven't brains do talk, and enjoy it," she maintained. "They tell their grievances and their quarrels. Women on the cars are always saying, 'And I says to her ' " "And then some man marries them and has to listen to that all his life ;" Alex squared him- self for attack. "I have no patience " "How true!" put in Chloe, and brought him down laughing. They turned into their dark little corner of town, lingering because there was so much to say. Where the slip of park divided the street, they crossed to lean on the broken fence and look up into the face of Sereno Gage. Chloe had done this all her life, but to-night the little act felt newly rich and reverential. "I could never live very far from here," she said impulsively. "It would not be home to me if I couldn't see him every day. You don't know what he means to me." Alex drew closer. "Tell me," he said. The old houses were all dark and asleep ; they stood alone in the beloved presence, and from the bit of threadbare sod at their feet came a dim April fragrance. Chloe, who had kept the THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 57 quiet heart of a little girl all her twenty years, was filled with a sudden, exquisite sense of change. It was as though a bare rod in her hand had blossomed. "I have never told any one," she said. "But you can tell me?" His shadow, cover- ing her, took her into his big protection. She looked up at her father and mutely told him that she was happy, happy. "I live with him," she said slowly; but even to Alex she could not go on. That secret com- panionship, their laughter together, her tears against his breast, the unfailing wisdom and patience that had helped her to grow up, were too precious to be cheapened by words. "It is what he means to all of us," she said instead. "Without this, our family would fall apart. The city would swallow us. Standing here, he is like a a fort. We can't quite be downed. We have had dreadful struggles, you know, and even mother couldn't have pulled us through without this figure standing up here above the crowd." She turned impetuously, her eyes wet. "What can I do to be worthy of him? Some- times it troubles me, Alex. Sabra is doing big 58 THE SEED OP THE RIGHTEOUS things, and Ralston is trying to. I'm only lit- tle Chloe at home! Do you suppose he is dis- appointed?" "My dear girl!" Alex took both her hands, folding them together. "To be true and gener- ous and not self-seeking no, he isn't disap- pointed, little Chloe at home !" She drew away, startled, rather breathless. The open portals were swung shut with girlish haste. "Well, little Chloe ought to be at home this minute," she declared, very brisk and practical. "But your father was with us," Alex said excusingly. They parted on the door-step with laughter and the usual cousinly handshake. Alex came slowly back to the statue, pausing where they had stood to look long and intently into the quiet face. "If you had lived if you had only lived !" he said at last, striking the fence with a reckless fist. A paling clattered down and he stooped to straighten it. When he had had to give it up, he found a policeman watching him from the sidewalk. * 'Twill all be down before long," the latter THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 59 said, recognizing by Alex's evening dress that his purposes were lawful. "Yes; there will have to be a new fence," Alex assented. The officer looked dubiously at the wedge of precious space. "The traffic is getting pretty congested down here," he said. "I guess they'll be carting the old gentleman off one of these days. Good night, sir." And he went slowly on his beat, looking right and left for disorder in his realm. CHAPTER III 'OW that you haven't Billy" It seemed to Chloe that every family communica- tion began with that phrase. Now that she hadn't Billy, she could do every one's work. She had wanted to sit down before her new freedom and rejoice in it for a few lovely weeks, but she was too full of buoyant kindness, these May days, to hold back. They were curious days. Every morning in the early dawn she awoke as though some one had called her as perhaps some one had, across the quiet city squares. While the light grew the joy in her grew like bird-song ; then came sinking wings of drowsiness, taking her back into the dark, and, the next thing she knew, Billy's little fists on the door were telling her that she would be late for breakfast. All day the singing gaiety lasted, rising to a secret shout when, after dinner, Alex came round the corner. Then it abruptly fell away, and while 60 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 6X he stayed she was her usual self, cheerful or mischievous, quaintly grave at times, but un- disturbed. Not till he had been gone an hour or more did the joy begin again. Chloe asked no questions of life ; spring was a sufficient ex- planation. She believed that she always felt like this in spring. Alex showed himself newly moody gay and conquering one night, de- pressed and absent another; but he always came. "Now that you haven't Billy," said Sabra, "you can help me with the Conference on the eighth." "Will it give me a chance to wear my new clothes?" Chloe demanded. "I should think so." "Very well ; then I'll help." Sabra was looking her over with large, calm rebuke. "Suppose our father had undertaken his work because he had a new frock coat," she suggested. "But he never did have, poor dear," said Chloe, unabashed. "And I'm sure if he could have had one with a touch of gold embroidery about it he would have gone in twice as hard." 62 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS This to Sabra ; but to the invisible comrade at her side she said, "You knew it was just a lit- tle joke!" and her father smiled back his un- derstanding. The Eugenics Conference had been hastily arranged in response to Mrs. Tailer Otis's of- fer of her house for the afternoon. Why a woman who had within the year married Tailer Otis should concern herself with eugenics was a question no one had the audacity to ask. The former Mrs. Otis had made her home rich in beautiful things, and the afterglow of her so- cial glory had not yet faded: the house would be packed. That, at the end of her first season, the new Mrs. Otis found it necessary to pack her house by this impersonal method was a bit- ter comment on the futility of millions ; but ap- parently no one heard. On the eighth the block was massed with motors and taxicabs, and elaborate ladies slipped in on foot, hoping that no one noticed. Here and there among them were earnest-looking women who came in plain, businesslike fashion and appraised the gather- ing with a cool eye. "We ought to take in five hundred at least," THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 63 these said to one another, and during the speak- ing they retired into corners and held whis- pered committee meetings. To Chloe, looking on with vivid interest, they were like the dark, busy engineers of a big boat; Sabra, on the bridge, was the captain and the rest were the passengers. As Sabra's lieutenant, she ran back and forth with messages, helped people to find seats, answered questions about the pro- gram, and youthfully enjoyed her activity. Then she settled in a window recess whence she could look into the intent faces and perhaps catch some of their high fervor for Chloe had a reverent heart that believed the best of others and mourned the worst in herself. It was a puzzling afternoon. Sabra, of course, was splendid, but the long poem, Clouds of Glory, written for the occasion by Mr. Cyril DeKay, was hard to follow, and no one more than six rows back could have heard much, owing to the scraping chairs of the late- comers. The next contributor was a handsome young woman who spoke on The Child of the Future with a biological clearness that made Chloe glad of her curtains. She felt horribly 64 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS i sorry for Sabra, pilloried up there on the plat- form while this awful accident went on. When she dared look at the audience, she saw with bewilderment the cool, complacent listening of the ladies ; it was the semi-occasional man who twisted his feet and stared at the ceiling and bit or blew out his lips. Sabra was calmer than any one. She actually seemed to like it. "Well, she has to, poor soul," was Chloe's pitying explanation. "I suppose they are all pretending; and -women do it better than men." An old gentleman whose brilliant name had survived his powers rose next and babbled in- terminably, explaining woman's sphere in terms of 1880 being evidently under the im- pression that he was assisting at a suffrage debate. He was too famous to be checked ; the stream of platitude flowed on and on, and Chloe felt a chivalrous longing to go up and stand by Sabra and so share the mortifying failure. The audience sat packed, hot, courteously still, but Chloe's acute disappointment for them presently received a curious check ; for in their placid, well-fed faces she seemed to read the chilling truth that they were no more bored THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 65 than they had expected to be. No one left or wriggled or whispered; and also no one cared. Chloe came to the knowledge reluctantly, ashamedly, but she could not argue it down. Sabra's fine, rousing words mattered no more "to them than the old man's chatter. They ap- plauded her enthusiastically, but they did not care. The vision of a world purified through its offspring left them cold. This was not for them a world movement ; it was a party. Per- haps causes were always furthered in this fash- ion, Chloe reasoned : a few cared, and the nec- essary mass worked or paid for other reasons. But it was a hateful and disillusioning reve- lation. "My father really cared," she told them; "and Sabra " The words faltered. Did Sabra really care? It was a shocking question, and the ring of Sabra's final address triumphantly answered it. And yet Chloe could not quite forget her moment of doubt. Mrs. Tailer Otis, who had vanished during the Conference, reappeared with her mechani- cal, hostess smile while the audience was being rewarded with food, drink and the freedom of 66 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS the famous rooms. Chloe thought that in the midst of her grandeur she looked strained and disappointed, and felt a compassionate desire to tell her that bread and milk on the kitchen table were just as much fun as all this if you had the right person, a discovery that the poor lady had obviously missed. Then she saw Sa- bra coming, and marveled at the way she was carrying the day's bitter disappointment; she had expected such brilliant things of her pro- gram! She went up to Mrs. Otis with both hands out. "We have to thank you for an inspiring after- noon," she said in her clear, rich voice. "When we get together an audience like this, we make history! Their sympathy was like an electric current ; I felt it all through the speaking. Did you know that thirty-seven new members have been enrolled?" "How very nice," said Mrs. Otis. "Oh, yes ; this afternoon puts the Society on a new, sound basis," Sabra affirmed. "If a year from now you are good enough to let us have the ballroom again, you will see a big gain." THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 67 Mrs. Otis's harassed glance passed over the mass of solid commonplace that was devouring her cake so contentedly. "One can't tell about next year," she said vaguely. "I don't see how you do all this." "It is my life," was the impressive answer. "So very interesting," Mrs. Otis murmured, moving away as others came to congratulate. Sabra was soon surrounded by admirers. Every one paused to help pile up the tribute; and Chloe looked on with astonished eyes. In her childishness she had thought them bored why, she had known that they did not care; and here they were, alight with fervor, chang- ing the dismal failure into a swelling success. When, at home that night, Sabra told of the afternoon's inspired achievement, she shrank into herself, humbled and ashamed. "I think Mrs. Tailer Otis will be a valuable recruit," Sabra told her mother. "She was en- thusiastic about to-day's results: 'I don't see how you do it/ she said. She wants us to use the ballroom again next year." Chloe slipped out, to sit on the steps in the warm dusk. 68 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS "I'm ignorant and unappreciative," she de- cided. "I was mistaken, that's all. Sabra knows." And yet the troubled line would not leave her forehead. Alex found it there, and asked, "Headache ?" with so caressing a sympathy that Chloe nearly cried. Alex's mother had been an invalid for several years before her death, and the rough, headstrong boy had developed a gentleness, a sunny tenderness with suffering, that had a perilous charm for womankind. A weaker spirit would have produced a headache in an- swer to such an invitation, but Chloe stoutly declared : "Not a bit!" "How was the Conference?" he asked, seat- ing himself on a lower step and leaning back on his elbow to look up into her face. She braced herself for trouble. "Thirty-seven new members were enrolled," she told him, "and they took in over four hun- dred dollars." Her tone defied him to belittle that; but Alex was not in a ridiculing mood. He answered soberly. THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 69 "Do you really believe that stout ladies in stout drawing-rooms achieve much of anything, Toto?" "Why not?" His reason startled her. "They don't care. They get up societies like this for other reasons. How can you really serve a cause when you've joined it in order to get personal importance, or to break into Mrs. Tailer Otis's house? Or because you haven't brains enough to find oc- cupation for yourself?" "Sabra didn't," said Chloe quickly. "Oh, no, Sabra didn't," he admitted. "Sabra wants " he broke off with a stretch and a sigh. "Well, perhaps the stout ladies in draw- ing-rooms do something toward public opin- ion," he went on. "They make it fashionable to be eugenic! And so the idea gets diffused. Yes, we'll grant them that. Only I do hate their everlasting sham !" Chloe thought for several moments, her chin in her hands ; then she turned to him with a nod of defiance. "If I wanted very much to know Mrs. Tailer Otis, I shouldn't see the least harm 70 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS in joining a society that would throw me with her. We all want to know nice people. Why shouldn't we go where they are?" Alex sat up with energy. "Very well. I can show you several societies where by putting up some money or a good deal of work you may be thrown with the nicest people. Will you join at once?" Chloe hesitated, then laughed weakly. "Per- haps I will some day," she maintained, but Alex only laughed at her. "You're too true, little Chloe. When you join, it will be because you care. And then you'll make things hum !" "I'm not sure." Her secret trouble looked out at him, the guilt of being only little Chloe at home. "Others do so much. Real or sham, clever or stupid, they get things done." Alex squared an obstinate jaw. "They undo as much as they do. I've heard them. Now I'm a good suffragist, as you know, but when a lovely drawing-room product buttonholed me, not long ago, and ran on about her little tender daughter at home and big, rough, bad men mak- ing laws for her Lord! I had to talk to an THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 71 anti and hear some worse stuff to get back my reason." "But you wouldn't have realized that you were for suffrage if ladies in drawing-rooms hadn't stirred it up," said Chloe shrewdly, and he had to laugh. "I don't care, I hate 'em," he said, comfort- ably falling back on prejudice. "Oh, I don't mean the real ones, of course; but the ones who only come because it's a Fifth Avenue ad- dress. Now, don't say they are no worse than men. What I can't forgive them is that they aren't a darn sight better." "Lots of them are," said Chloe. "And per- haps it is better to work wrong-headedly than not to work," she added with a sigh. "But you are only a little girl yet," he con- soled her. "You are looking on, and growing up oh, very earnestly ! and biding your time, and being very loyal to everything round you till you know just where you stand. But some day you will rise up you'll bust loose, Toto." "And what then?" "Well, you will still be the dearest little girl in the world," was the impulsive answer. Then 72 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS Alex straightened up as though he shook him- self and laughed away the speech. "How's Billy getting on with his Montessori?" he asked. Chloe hesitated. "The trouble is, Billy has brains," she said finally, and looked surprised at Alex's shout of laughter. "I mean, you don't have to develop him so cautiously," she ex- plained. "He could learn anything." "Then, for the love of Mike, take him home and teach him," Alex urged, and laid down the law about the education of the young with a dogmatic assurance that would have made a saint take the other side. They argued hotly at first, then came to peaceable conclusions and said a sensible good night over the topic. But, in spite of all Alex's thoughtful remarks, just one phrase lingered with Chloe "the dearest little girl in the world." It went to bed with her, woke up with her in the fresh dawn, set itself to music in her heart. Surely never had man called woman anything quite so enchant- ing as that . . . the dearest little girl in the world. By morning the phrase had lifted the last soft THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 73 veil of Chloe's unconsciousness. She saw with joy and awe just where she stood, and never doubted but that Alex was at the same place all ready to hold out eager arms. Familiar words burst into blooming significance: "en- gaged" by bedtime she might be oh, ro- mance that stopped the breath "engaged!" And the name Alex, which she had uttered so casually all her life, grew magically into some- thing big and secret and resounding, to be si- lently repeated, like a prayer, but not easily spoken. "Now that you haven't Billy," said Chloe's mother that morning, "you can help me with the fund for your father." Chloe, who had been dreaming at the window, an idle duster in her hand, turned a startled face. "The fund for my father?" "Oh, I forgot : you weren't here when Sabra and I discussed it." Mrs. Gage settled comfort- ably in a rocking chair to discuss it all over again. She dearly loved plans. "The fence, dear, and the grass ; the city won't keep it up, and there is no use protesting and writing to the papers any longer. So we are going to 74 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS raise a fund to keep it in perpetual care. I know a dozen people who will be glad to give something toward it. And if we need more we can get up a little entertainment. Perhaps Rawly would write a play for us." Chloe was trying not to look appalled. She had no idea why the project so depressed her. The need was undeniable. "Do you mean, ask people, ourselves, for the money?" she faltered. "Why not?" Mrs. Gage spoke from an ex- panded chest. "If the widow and children of Sereno Gage don't work for his memory, who will? Mrs. Van Dusen would help," she added, dropping to her usual tones. "I shouldn't won- der if she got a good big sum from the Com- modore for us. Suppose you go and talk to your Uncle Harry about it." Chloe seemed to contract bodily at the sug- gestion. "He won't do anything." "Now, Chloe, if you start out that way, you will never get anything," was the brisk rebuke. "Remember that he is your father's brother " "Step-brother," said Chloe. "It is all the same. Alice Murray ought to be told your father was so fond of her when THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 75 she was a little girl. If you would rather go first to her " Chloe had flushed. She still could not hear Mrs. Murray's name without a rush of shamed anger. "Oh, no. I will see Uncle Harry," she said hastily. "He might know people who would be inter- ested. Perhaps Alex would help." Mrs. Gage rose. "If we start out now, we can have the ball rolling by night," she said from the stairs. She came back in a few moments dressed for the street at least, her gaunt and battered old frame was topped by a bonnet and she had pulled a pair of limp black gloves half on, leav- ing her thumbs free. Her eager spirit, already far on ahead, knew nothing of externals, yet neither the ancient and disregarded clothes nor her grenadier tramp could hide the fact that she was a gentlewoman. Chloe saw her go with the old divided sense of inferiority and protest. Her mother was so splendid but if she only wouldn't ! Then she shook herself and finished her work, that she might call on Un- cle Harry. 76 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS It was a momentous step. Chloe had bor- rowed egg beaters and carpet sweepers, had written notes about the needs of the Babies' Outings and begged books for the Neighbor- hood Reading Room, but the care of Billy had spared her any active or responsible part in the family campaigns. She had a depressed sense that her hand was being forced, that her little- girl silence would protect her no longer: she must go the family way or take her stand against it. Every instinct of her being was against, yet the arguments seemed to be all on their side. The cause was good; how could she refuse to help? "One thing or the other," she told herself all the way. "Either go home and say you won't or do it well." And, because she so longed to go home, she finally marched herself into Un- cle Harry's office and told her purpose with a very good imitation of her mother's cheerful energy. After all, it was not so hard. Uncle Harry, listening with dropped head, assented with the familiar slow "Yes " to every aspect of the proposition. She had expected teasing, but he THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 77 did not seem to be in his usual mood of humor- ous detachment. It occurred to her as she talked that he was growing into an old man. At the end he took out his check-book and wrote her a sum that made her exclaim. "Yes; your mother couldn't have done any better at your age," he said. She was often not quite sure what Uncle Harry meant, and now she was too elated to question. "But ought you to give so much?" She of- fered it back, but he shook his head. "It would be too bad if you were discouraged at the very outset of your career," he explained. "Hadn't any idea you possessed so much of the family talent." "I was frightened to death," she confessed. "I hated it, Uncle Harry! But now I don't so much mind going on." "Yes ; you'll like it presently. Why don't you drop in on old Jacob Ritz on the floor below? He knew your father had met him, anyway." Chloe's joy fell. "But I don't know him !" "That's nothing. He's rich that's all you need to know." 78 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS She tried to confront the prospect bravely, but her limbs turned heavy and her heart sank in her side. "It's no use, I'd rather die !" she burst out. He smiled, but rather sadly. "Oh, you won't feel that way long," he assured her. She tried to believe him. "I have done enough for one morning," she said, folding away the check and rising. "Do you think j Alex would help? Since it's a family matter? Mother said to ask." She had stammered over the name. If Alex's father knew what was happening, what might happen that very night ! The secret spring song, silenced for the moment by her undertaking, came welling up again. She almost told the marvelous news, then burned red with the realization that it had not yet come true. "Perhaps by to-morrow we can tell him," was her thought. Uncle Harry, tapping his pencil on the desk's edge, was looking very sober. "Don't believe Alex has much talent for raising money," he said. "I've often wished one of my children would develop it." THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 79 "Tell him, anyway," said Chloe, and went happily home. How silly she had been, to take it so hard ! Mrs. Gage was gone all day, but Chloe spent the afternoon getting ready for the evening. Only a girl in love could have found so many rites to perform ; but when the purification was complete from her washed hair to her white shoes, she put on the simplest of her gowns, lest she betray her expectation, and eased her full heart by loving Billy. "He will always be my little boy, no matter where I live," she thought, as they went hand in hand to the corner to say good night to Billy's grandfather. Only very bad weather could cut out this ceremony. The patient statue looked worn and dusty in the sunset light. Billy, clinging to the palings, shouted his day's news, and Chloe's shining eyes silently told hers. "I know that you love Alex, too," she assured him. "Oh, father, isn't he splendid !" "And they was a po-or li'l lame boy," Billy was saying; "and he didn' have no ower foot, 80 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS and he can't run, and he can't djump, and he can't " Billy's voice was rising to tears and Chloe hastily broke in. "Billy, darling, do you know that grand- father is going to have a present? Nice new grass and a nice new fence you tell him about it." So Sereno Gage was told his news with much imaginary detail he and Chloe exchang- ing smiles over Billy's excited head, and the little boy went home very happy ; but long after he had been put to bed he called for Toto, cling- ing to her dress with hot little hands. "That po-or li'l lame boy a wicked, bad train hurt him, Toto!" The broad face, so like his grandfather's, was quivering into tears. Chloe did not seek to divert him now ; instead, she told him all that could be comforting about maimed lives, trying to turn his passion of pity into the idea of helping. Young as he was, she knew it was only by service that Billy could live through the sorrows of this world. The others, absorbed in their own affairs, had no idea what Billy was, and Chloe never told them. He was her secret. Fine though her mother's service was, Chloe instinctively turned from that kind THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 81 .for the little boy. She did not want Billy to raise money! She had left her dinner unfinished, but she did not go back to it. Alex might come any minute now, running to her as she had run to him all day. She had planned to take a book out on the steps, that she might have something to do with her eyes when he turned the corner, but dealing with Billy's trouble had lifted her above nerves and girlish fears, leaving her grave and womanly, deeply aware of the rich- ness of life and the bigness of human hearts. She could look into his eyes and wait for him to take her hands. "Well, dear, I didn't half finish telling you about my day ;" Mrs. Gage came out as placidly as though the warm dusk had not been sent for lovers only, and seated herself on the steps without seeing that they awaited some one else. "Mrs. Van Dusen thought that the Commodore was feeling the hard times, but I went right down to him myself " The tale of a prosperous day fell on ears that were indignantly deaf. Chloe had tumbled from an exalted woman spirit to a very petulant 82 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS and uneasy girl, whose romance was threatened. She tried by every device but open speech to send her mother in again, but Mrs. Gage was comfortable and not afraid of damp, and she had much to tell. Half the evening dragged by and still she ma.de no move; and Alex did not come. "I believe we can raise enough without an entertainment;" Mrs. Gage was enjoying the enterprise as an old campaigner might enjoy a light skirmish; "but it wouldn't be much trouble. Louisa Scarlett would sing she never forgets that I introduced her to the man who got her into the Metropolitan." "But that was five years ago," Chloe ob- jected; "and she has sung for it three times already." She would not have said that if she had not been so strained with expectation, so bitter with disappointment; but Mrs. Gage's good humor was unfailing. "It is very little trouble to her, dear. I will get some one to send a car for her. And Cyril DeKay will always write a poem " Some one had turned the corner, and Chloe's THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 83 heart had vaulted before she saw that it was not Alex. Her shaken nerves spoke. "Mother, I won't sell tickets. I can't stand it that awful wait in the drawing-room while they are wondering why you have come and looking for their purses. I can't !" "Your mother and sister have done it a good many times;" but the reproof was gently de- livered. "It won't be necessary, however. We will simply mail them in twos and fours to any one who might be interested." "But then they have to pay or send them back," said Chloe quickly. "I don't think that is fair. It would make me " "Chloe, dear, if you can't do anything but find objections, you will not be very useful. And I should think, for your father's memory, you would want to do what you could." The rebuke was softened by a kindly hand on her daughter's knee. Chloe's eyes filled. When they were clear again, Alex stood at the foot of the steps. He was late and listless, with a moody brow and a cool handclasp, the lover she had awaited all day, but Chloe in her sudden gladness ex- 84 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS plained and excused all. Something had kept and troubled him. But now her mother would go in and all would be made right for he had called her the dearest little girl in the world. Mrs. Gage welcomed him with her hearty cordiality that was like a man's clap on the shoulder. "Well, Alex! How are you? Sit down. Have you heard what Chloe and I are doing did your father tell you?" She had never yet drawn enthusiasm from Alex, but she would never cease to look for it in response to her stirring communications. Uncle Harry himself could not have given a dryer answer. "Yes; he told me." Mrs. Gage set forth expansively what they had done and what was planned, and Alex lis- tened in moody silence. Once his glance crossed Chloe's, but it held no recognition of her dear- ness. "Now that Chloe hasn't Billy, she is going to be a splendid little helper," Mrs. Gage said, fondly encouraging her child's somewhat halt- ing spirit. "People will always give for a good cause. Alex, I wonder if you couldn't do some- thing for this?" THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 85 "That is what I came to see you about," was the surprising answer. "Aunt Emily, I have a proposition to make. The fence won't amount to much you have enough money for that already. Let me keep the plot in order for you. I will do it myself or have it done all my life, and provide for it in my will." "But, Alex, when you work so hard " Mrs. Gage was touched but puzzled. "Why should you?" He debated his answer, choosing his words. "Well, it would let you and Chloe off from raising any more money," he said at last. "This seems to me a family matter. I am more than willing to do my share." Mrs. Gage found him a dear, good boy, but would not think of consenting. "Why, this little sum is nothing," she assured him. "If you could know the thousands I have raised in my day !" Alex was blank to her radiating friendliness. "I wish you would let me," he repeated, then fell doggedly silent. Presently, to Chloe's dis- may, he rose. "I am off for two or three weeks," he told them both. "I am going to try commuting; a 86 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS man I know wants me to stay with him down on Long Island while his family is away. Chloe, I'll bring you up some lilacs." He shook hands as any acquaintance might, apparently not no- ticing that Chloe did not answer. "Good night." There was no glance back, no hint of a hope that she would at least walk to the corner with him. The hand that dropped hers went promptly to a pocket for his pipe. "Now that was very nice of Alex," Mrs. Gage began, but Chloe slipped away. The sun had become a burden and the moon an insult, food was an unswallowable dryness in the mouth, and conversation drummed on raw nerves. Chloe, overwhelmed in disaster, did not seek causes or explanations; the grim truth that love does not necessarily come run- ning to meet love was all she could master. In three days her uptilted, secular-angel face had grown woefully pointed, and her erect slimness drooped. When her mother gave suggestions for following up her good beginning and com- pleting the fund, Chloe looked at her remotely, took the lists of names, then went up to her THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 87 room and lay on her bed all the morning, star- ing at the wall. "Chloe isn't well," Mrs. Gage said excusingly, as she tramped off for the day's campaign. "She must have a change." And so she spread the tale of her daughter's need, quite simply and openly, that some one might not miss the chance to do a kind act. And presently she came home shining with good news. "Chloe, dear!" She had to sit down for breath. "The nicest thing! The Commodore is planning to take out the yacht in June for a month's cruise, and if he does, you are to be asked to go. Isn't that splendid?" A breath of salt coolness seemed to touch Chloe's heavy head. At the thought of getting away, of motion and change, she straightened. "Oh, mother! Who are going?" Mrs. Gage fanned the spark of animation with happy enthusiasm. There would be young people, and dancing, and white gowns for southern waters ; she had Chloe hunting for her bathing suit before she had finished. "The cruise depends on the stock market ; but 88 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS times are getting better," she said. "I shall be ordering the fence for your father before long. The fund is more than half raised." Chloe laid her hand on her mother's. "You must be tired. You are so splendid, mother!" Mrs. Gage liked it enormously. "I wish you were as strong as your old mother, Toto," she said, patting the little hand. For twenty-four hours the stimulus lasted and Chloe went about with a new step; then came the sweet, heavy dusk, made for lovers only, and the respite was over. Not moonlit seas nor gay company nor white dresses on white decks could avail if Alex did not love her. Nothing less could fill her empty, empty life. After dinner she went to her room and put away the gowns and the hoarded treasures of finery, dragging out the task to its utmost length in terror of the hours that still lay be- tween her and sleep. All her life long the evenings must loom like this, dark wastes from which only sleep could rescue her. When at last she came out, Ralston called to her from his room. He was uncovering an old type- writer. "Look here, Chloe," he said, "now that you/ haven't Billy" Chloe burst into laughter, a wild, gasping mirth that ended in a sob, and fled. Behind her closed door she had to fight bodily for self-con- trol, twisting her hands together, hurting her- self, till the stormy rebellion died down. It left her spent, passive, too weary to face the others. She hated the steps now, but she opened the front door and stole out for a breath of fresh- ness. A dim mass at her feet stirred, took human outline. Then, as her eyes adjusted to the dark- ness, she found herself looking into Alex's up- turned face. He sat heavily, as though he had been there a long time. "Well, Chloe!" he said. She could not answer at once. She sat down above him, weakly, waiting for him to begin. Her one clear thought was that she must hide the outrageous joy that would have risen to a shout. "I thought you were never coming," Alex said irritably. The week had changed him : his color was dimmed, his shoulders had dropped away 90 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS i from their fighting squareness. Even his clothes seemed to have lost some quality of vigorous freshness; and he was evidently far from good tempered. Chloe suddenly regained her power. "I thought you were in the country," she said with cheerful ease. "I couldn't stand commuting;" Alex spoke through set teeth. "It drove me wild. And Gordon is such an ass I never was so hideously bored in my life. I had to come back." Chloe's heart was lifting. "You didn't bring me any lilacs." "They weren't out," he said hastily. "At least I don't know they may have been. I'm sorry, Toto." His eyes were desperately, hag- gardly sorry. She smiled into them. "You forgot all about me." "Yes. That's it. I forgot you," was the ex- plosive answer. "God! But Long Island is a horrible place!" "New York hasn't been very nice," she told him. "I may go yachting next month." He let her talk about her plans, but she was not at all sure that he listened. Suddenly he broke in. THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 91 "Still raising the wind, Chloe? How's the fund coming on ?" His look startled her, for in it lay the wrong-headed, obstinate hostility that he had so often turned on the family. "Very well indeed," she said with spirit. "Congratulations!" He was rising to his feet. "Good night," he added over his shoulder ; but a firm voice stopped him. "Alex do you think you are a very good boy to-night?" He half turned. "Forgive me, Toto; I'm sorry," he muttered. For a moment he hung between going and staying, then with a shrug he took himself off. Chloe sat where she was until the lights be- hind her began to go out ; then she went to the corner and crossed the street to look up into her father's face. "He does love me," she silently told him. "Perhaps he doesn't want to I don't know I don't care! It's all right he loves me. Oh, father, I'm glad! I'm glad!" With the blur- ring of her eyes the kind face seemed to smile and the hand to move in benediction. CHAPTER iy MRS. CARTARET'S big house was usu- ally closed by the first of May, but this year she lingered on in town, and Ralston was still hurrying over there in the early morning, impatient of anything that came between him and his inspired workroom. He returned later and later. Sometimes now it was evening be- fore his family saw him again, his lips tightly closed, but in his eyes a fever of excited hope. They did not admit what a relief it was to have his work out of the house, but sometimes, meet- ing in the upper hall, Mrs. Gage still started to breathe a necessary communication into Chloe's ear, and then would suddenly remember that there was no one to burst out on her, raging for silence, and they would laugh together with voices joyously released. "Do you suppose he lets Mrs. Cartaret tele- phone?" Chloe had the wickedness to ask at one of these meetings. A vision of Ralston jump- 92 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 93 ing out at the lovely and dignified lady of the house gave her joy, but her mother answered seriously : "He wouldn't hear it, up there at the top of the house. I hope he leaves his door open in this weather," she went on, for a sickly and un- seasonable heat lay over the city. "Dear me, isn't it oppressive? We are going to have ice- cream for dinner I've sent Lizzie over to the Henrys' for the freezer." The familiar line of trouble appeared between Chloe's eyes. "But Lizzie is so careless about returning it," she said. "Last time they had to send after it. I was so mortified." "We'll remind her, dear;" Mrs. Gage spoke with a large reassurance that promised every- thing, and Chloe, though she knew better, could not help feeling relieved of responsibility. "I am afraid it will be a bad summer," the mother added, wiping her forehead. "I hope the yachting trip comes true," Chloe said, but she did not in the least mean it. Noth- ing could have induced her to leave town just then. Alex had been back for a week, and though he did not come or give a sign, Chloe's 94 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS bloom had returned. "Billy ought to have some beach," she added. "I can take him on some of the Babies* Out- ing trips; unless something better turns up. What is it, Lizzie?" The maid of all work was mounting heavily to announce that the Henrys' freezer was in use. "Then you will have to get the Careys'," was the prompt answer. "I am sorry ; it isn't in as good condition as the Henrys'. But you can make it do, Lizzie. I want something cool for Rawly," she added to Chloe. "The dear boy is working himself to death." Chloe turned away in silence. She had to admit that, owning a freezer, she would be genuinely glad to lend it ; and yet she could not help wincing and wishing with ignoble intensity that they had one of their own. Ralston did not come for his ice-cream. Nine had struck before they heard his step. He paused in the doorway, looking about the plain little room as though he saw it from some fresh angle. Mrs. Gage was darning Billy's flannels and Chloe was reading to her, while Sabra at a desk bent obliviously over a pile of papers. It THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 95 was a comfortable home scene or else a grace- less, glamourless vision of exile, according to the eyes that saw. Mrs. Gage met him with the embracing, "Well, dear !" that had never failed one of them on a return. Ralston did riot respond. His eyes burned black in a white face, and his stillness was more arresting than a shout. Pen, needle and half turned page stopped where they were as though a spell had fallen. It seemed very long before he spoke. "I've got my chance, my real chance ;" he was as short of breath as though he had been run- ning. "Mrs. Cartaret is going to back my play. She believes in it. She thinks it is a great drama. It will go on as it is as I want it no truckling to vulgar, ignorant managers and waiting months and years for their notice, and having them weigh it by the number of laughs there are to a scene good God ! It is going on whole, right, beautifully produced, because one woman cares for pure art and isn't afraid to stand by it. My life has begun, at last !" They exclaimed, they wanted to rejoice with him, but Ralston in his exaltation was curiously 96 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS aloof, as though during his years of struggle they had not had adequate faith. Mrs. Gage was presently remorseful that she had not long ago herself found means to back a production. "But I thought you had to have a manager," she said in troubled apology. "So you do, but we shall hire him," was the unrelenting answer. "We shall get the best talent available you can do anything with money. And we begin right away, to-morrow that is the joy of it !" His eyes again swept the little room as though he saw the last of it. "Wagner would never have got where he did if one woman hadn't believed in him," he declared. Mrs. Gage could not quite stand it. "Your mother has always believed in you, Rawly," she said, a tremble in her voice. He was startled, suddenly made to realize that these, after all, were not the doubting world which he was about to punish, but the faithful, helpless few who had done what they could. He kissed his mother. "You have been a trump, always," he said with an endearing touch of boyishness. "And THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 97 the girls have been very patient and kind. I don't forget it. Some day I shall read you the play." "Why not to-night, dear?" suggested Mrs. Gage. "I am sure we can't any of us sleep." Ralston consulted his mood and found no ob- jection, so they settled themselves to listen: Sabra with a pad and pencil in case she wished to note comments, Chloe curled down on a stool with her face reverently uptilted to pure art, Mrs. Gage with hands folded over her darning and already in her kind, tired eyes the perfect satisfaction that she would express at the end. But no one, however devoted, could listen quite as Mrs. Cartaret had, in silken grace, her stillness taking on a poetic intensity as the drama mounted. Her house, like herself, had been hushed. A quiet command, "I am not to be interrupted for anything," had shut out bells and steps. The beautiful room had taken on the sacred seclusion of a temple, and no word lost a shade of its effect. In his graceless home the telephone, of course, burst in. Chloe stole to answer it, then summoned her mother, who 98 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS apparently held a committee meeting over the wire. She came back apologetic, yet alert with other interests. "I am so sorry, Ralston, but it was Mrs. Van Dusen about the Babies' Outings. We have been given but I will tell you later. Go on, dear." Ralston brought down his eyes, which had been seeking patience on the ceiling. The scene was dark with coming disaster, but Mrs. Gage still smiled to herself over good news. At its close Sabra made a swift, scratchy note. It sounded like a criticism and Ralston paused with politely inquiring eyebrows, but she only nodded. "Go on. We will talk about it afterward," she said. Ralston finished his first act and by a pause invited comment, but no one spoke. Chloe, though still reverent, was looking puzzled ; Mrs. Gage's hands had mechanically taken up her darning. He went on, but his voice grew flat, strained. He offered the speeches baldly, too proud to curry favor by clothing them with ex- pression. Mrs. Gage occasionally lost a word and asked to have it repeated, not dreaming THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 99 how that exasperated. When Billy's kitten came into the room and Chloe held out beckon- ing fingers to it, Ralston made a cold pause, as though to say, "When your attention is quite free " But Chloe, knowing little of authors, did not catch the rebuke, and seized the moment to gather up the kitten into her lap. Ralston resignedly went on, and tried not to see that her fingers played with the little beast. He was coming to his big scene and in spite of obstacles the emotional suspense was rising like a tide when Sabra's cool, efficient voice broke in : "One minute, Ralston. Do you intend there to convey the effect " The manuscript was slammed shut. "Oh, good lord !" he burst out. "If you don't get the effect without explanations, what is the sense of reading it to you?" "But if an intelligent listener is not certain of your intention, wouldn't it be well to make it a little clearer?" Sabra argued with perfect good temper. "However, we can talk of that later. I realize that I should not have inter- rupted." "Go on, dear. I must know what she does," 100 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS his mother urged, and Ralston, with 'a sigh for lost inspiration, drearily finished the act. "That is enough for to-night," he said. "I am too tired to read the last act." "I am sure it is very powerful and unusual," said Mrs. Gage. "And when you get real peo- ple doing it and all it seems to me every bit as good as the Henry Arthur Jones play we went to together." Ralston slightly shivered. "Oh Jones!" he murmured. "It is unusual," Sabra decided. "Your mo- tive is strong and dramatic, and your man is well done." Sabra never offered an opinion; she stated a truth. The softening, "I may be wrong," or, "It seems to me," did not accord with her mental processes. "But your woman is not sound. In the scene where I was incon- siderate enough to interrupt, she would not have taken just that attitude. That is a man's idea of a woman, not a real woman. A man always " "If she didn't take that attitude, there would be no play," said Ralston, rising. "Thank you all for listening. You have been most patient." THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 101 He was too depressed, body and soul, to be sar- castic very successfully, and his mother an- swered with simple literalness. "It has been a great pleasure, dear boy. And I have got a whole pile of dull mending done. You couldn't let me take the last act? I shall be wondering all night if it has a happy ending." The phrase was unlucky. Ralston raised pro- testing hands to the God of pure art. "Oh, happy ending happy ending ! Shall we never be rid of that bogy? Why should it end hap- pily? Life doesn't. Nobody dies, if that is what you mean. It leaves them going on as best they can, as maimed people must." He gave her the typewritten sheets. "Read it if you like, but for pity's sake don't talk to me about it," he said, and went heavily to bed. Mrs. Gage was depressed. "It is hard to say just the right thing," she admitted humbly. Chloe, always very tender of her mother's feelings, looked about for cheer. "The opening night will be fun," she said. That proved a healing thought. They began to talk of curtain 102 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS calls and newspaper notices, and of the five hundred thousand dollars that Shenandoah had earned or was it The Merry Widow? and presently they were entering Billy's name for Groton and wishing that Sereno Gage could have known. Sabra went to bed, but Mrs. Gage stayed up to read the last act to Chloe. She tried valiantly not to be disappointed over the lack of happy embraces at the close. Ibsen ended that way, she knew. "A very powerful play," she declared. "Yes, very," Chloe assented. It mortified her that she did not seem to have any real opinion of her own. It was so young, not to know what one thought! But the play was, of course, powerful. The good news was even better by morning. The richness of the opportunity grew on them till the house seemed to hold no other topic. Chloe had had her secret doubts as to Ralston's talent, her moments of smothered impatience that he did not fling off his coat and help them by any manner of honorable work when dis- aster was upon them. It takes years and much THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 103 forbearance for a woman to surmount the ancient convention that man, whether fitted to it or not, must earn money. Now she saw how small her vision had been, and joy that she had never given it words made a very dear little sister of her. Ralston stayed home all the morning to build cardboard models of his scenery, and Chloe painted charming paper dolls for the characters. Mrs. Gage, seated by the window with a portfolio on her knee, looked on with keen interest. She was starting an endless chain of ten-cent pieces for the benefit of a Diet Kitchen, but the letters to the ten friends who in their turn were each to get ten cents from ten friends, and so on until the tens overlapped and protested, were making slow progress. "It's like a rainy Saturday when we were children," said Chloe. "Only I was always so much littler. I had to be awfully careful not to get sent out of the way." "I'm sure Sabra and Rawly were always very nice to you, dear," Mrs. Gage protested. "Well, they didn't let any one else bully me," 104 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS Chloe admitted with a sigh. "You want the heroine blonde, don't you, Ralston? And blue eyes?" "There! That just shows the intelligence of the public we have to write for," Ralston said disgustedly. "Blonde and blue eyes baby doll for a woman who faces a crisis like that !" "But having her husband grow tired of her wouldn't necessarily change the color of her hair," Chloe persisted, paint brush suspended. "And the public likes them blonde." "The public be blowed. Make it a burnt black, black with a dash of auburn underneath, very straight and heavy. And long Chinese eyes." "I should think he would have got tired of her," said Chloe, washing her brush. Oppos- ing and teasing Ralston was not usually so safe, and she enjoyed her daring. "It was a case of pearls before swine: a woman of mystery and distinction wasted on a fat-necked business man," he explained. "She would have held a man like Trevelyan all her life, if she had been free to go to him." "'Held/" Chloe repeated, carefully remov- THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 105 ing a dimple from the heroine's cheek. "We say that of people in fiction, but we never think of mother having 'held' father, do we?" Mrs. Gage looked up in mild surprise. "Oh, my dear, we were too busy to think of such things," she said simply. "But to the end of his life your father did like a pretty woman," she added with a touch of pride. Chloe looked into her face, so seamed and withered, with the tenderness of her own great secret in her eyes. She must love Alex like that so that in her aged plainness she could take an amused pride in his liking for a pretty woman. "There is no 'holding' about that. It is 'be- longing,' one to the other, forever and ever," she realized. "Perhaps it was being so busy that did it. People in plays always have so much spare daytime!" "I suppose the unhappy Trevelyan must look like a boy poet on cleaning day with somebody using the telephone," she said aloud, with wicked intent. Ralston shot a glance of surprise at the lit- tle sister, usually veiled and silent in her home as some young nun. 106 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS "What has got into you this morning?" he demanded. "I think I am growing up," was the demure answer. "It has been coming for some time, but I have waited to be sure. It's awfully hard, you know, when one is so much smaller and younger." "Well, if you are going to be one of those women who find everything funny, you'd better have stayed as you were," Ralston objected, frowning at the chateau front he was adjusting. He found family life quite trying enough with- out a new and aggressive Chloe to reckon with. A few weeks ago the snub would have de- pressed her; it was curious how love was em- boldening her, setting her free to be herself. "Don't worry. Cleaning day with a boy poet will never seem really funny to me," she said. "Ralston, if the play makes you very rich " "You all keep talking about the money," he broke in. "I wish you could realize how little that matters. We don't speak or think of it, Mrs. Cartaret and I. What we are trying to do is so much bigger than money." Mrs. Gage drew breath for troubled speech, THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 107 then let it go again and signed a ten-cent appeal in silence. Chloe tried to say it for her. "But it would take a load off mother, Rawley. And you know you do like nice things and good service. You're getting them now, spending your days at Mrs. Cartaret's ; you'll hate it like fury if you have to settle down home again, poor as ever." She wished she had not spoken when she saw the look of harassed awakening in Ralston's face. He shrank physically, as though an in- tolerable and undreamed-of future had suddenly risen before him. Evidently he had not once thought of that. Then his wrath descended upon her : she might have kept her croaking to herself and let a person have a little happiness undampened. Of course, being his sister, she didn't believe in him, but, thank God, others did! "But we do believe in you, dear boy," his mother urged, and between them the two women soothed and reassured him. Chloe's new-born audacity was put away for the rest of the morning ; but she did not feel so patient a9 she appeared. 108 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS "Rawley is worse than a prima donna ! I am glad I am going to marry an electrical engi- neer," she said to herself, then flushed to her hair lest the unwarranted thought had been in some way discernible. Alex was not acting like a lover ; it was curious, her certainty of his love. "And now, Chloe " Mrs. Gage's rising from the lunch table was like a call to arms "let us go out and complete the fund. Don't you think that will be a fine way to celebrate Rawly's good news?" Chloe, stricken into misery, dropped limp hands and looked up appealingly. "Oh, mother, no !" she breathed. "Hasn't it got to be done, dear?" "But it is too horrible, to ask for it !" Chloe's face burned a sudden red. Mrs. Gage was evidently not unprepared for the protest. "Because a thing is hard, is that any reason for not doing it?" she asked in kindly reproof. "A good many hard things have been done for you, Chloe. It wasn't just chance that gave you THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 109 all those years at the best private school in the city. Isn't it your turn to help ?" There was a long silence while she waited for that to sink in. Then Chloe rose slowly to her feet. "You can always prove it to me, and yet I can't seem to feel it ;" she was fumbling for the difficult words. "You have all talked me down all my life, but you have never changed me. Perhaps I am only lazy and selfish and coward- ly and want to get out of hard things, as you say. Well, till I can prove it isn't so that what I feel is really right I think I ought to do your way. I'll get my things." And she was gone before Mrs. Gage could answer. "What has come over the child?" she ex- claimed, as bewildered as though Billy had spoken to her in a strange tongue. Mrs. Gage thought best to ignore Chloe's out- burst, and gave her a list of people to see with a few matter-of-course directions. Chloe took it without comment, but, after she had gone, the set whiteness of her face troubled her mother. She wavered, half inclined to run after the poor little soul and let her off. 110 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS "But she has got to learn," she acknowledged, and set out almost too heavy-hearted to do her own part. Late in the afternoon they met again at the home corner, coming from opposite directions, Mrs. Gage striding as though she carried a banner, Chloe with a gleam of unrighteous joy showing through an air of decent regret. "I did my very best, mother," she cried at once, "and I couldn't see a single person on that list ! They were nearly all out of town, except when they were ill. They expected Mr. Gard- ener in, so I waited and waited I haven't shirked. And then he telephoned that he wasn't coming." She threw an arm about her mother, laughing into her shoulder. "I couldn't help it, could I?" Mrs. Gage smiled down indulgently into the wicked face. "Well, dear, it didn't matter, for I have had tremendous luck. We needn't raise any more." "Whee !" Chloe's squeal would have drawn a crowd in a more conventional part of town. "Oh, mother, you are an old brick! How on earth did you do it?" THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 111 Mrs. Gage, after a rather futile afternoon, had had the luck to meet a wealthy connection from Rochester on the street. "Of course, I had thought of Cousin Anna, but there is not much use writing to people when you want money," she explained. "Face to face is the only way remember that, dear. She was im- mensely interested, and gave me a check for the balance then and there. A very public-spirited woman, Chloe. I wish she lived nearer." "Oh, I'm so glad!" Chloe breathed. "Mother, isn't life perfectly beautiful !" Mrs. Gage answered with an unexpected sigh. "Things are going so well, it half frightens me," she admitted. It did not frighten Chloe. The accumulated good news was too great to be held in. Ralston had demanded absolute secrecy about the play, implying darkly that a word might burst the lovely bubble, but Chloe, finding him at home, begged permission to tell Alex. "He never repeats anything," she urged. "He will be so pleased." Ralston's excitement had come to its inevit- able reaction. "Oh, relatives never care," he 112 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS said moodily. "They are glad if you fail. They have known you all your life, therefore you can't be any good." "It's natural," Chloe excused them. "Don't you remember when I came back from Europe, and Uncle Harry saw me on the street? 'Why, that's a pretty girl oh, no, it isn't, it's Chloe !' " She laughed, loving Uncle Harry and all his ways. "Alex has invented something to do with a dynamo, but I don't believe you would take much stock in it," she added. The put-yourself-in-his-place admonition al- ways annoyed Ralston. He had been born feel- ing himself something special and set apart, one of nature's princes, to whom the leveling ad- vice could not apply; and yet, when others did not recognize this, he had no means of assert- ing it. "Oh, tell him if you like," he said, turning away. Chloe had been longing for some such oppor- tunity. She and her father both knew that Alex loved her ; why should the lovely spring go by, wasted? Alex's bad temper must vanish if they came together again, and Chloe, brave and THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 113 bright in her new power, meant to have no more nonsense. "Stupid boy, staying away!" she silently scolded him as she straightened her hat over laughing eyes. She could intercept him on his way home if she hurried. It was Billy's hour for saying good night to his grandfather, but for once Chloe did not want her little boy. She slipped out uncaught. Alex would pass the statue, so she went out to the peaceful little island in the traffic, whence she could watch both sidewalks. A girl could wait unnoticed in this shabby old corner of the town. Neighbors, passing, greeted her with city gaiety. The world was hot and dusty, tired with the day's work, but the jest and the laugh accompanied homing feet like an organ grind- er's tune. A horse balked, and the entire street stopped to grin and to help. Two taxicabs grazed wheels, and their chauffeurs, polite backs to their fares, rolled eyes and puffed cheeks at each other over the eternal joke of the close shave. A truckman and a teamster bawled witticisms across the traffic. They could all be savage enough on provocation ; but 114 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS meanwhile they were gay, the city wine bub- bling in their veins, and touchingly patient under difficulties, and Chloe, city child that she was, felt a joyous tremor of response to the rough fellowship. No doubt evil and despair stalked the streets, but it was the kindness and the laughter that one saw. "My city " an inarticulate song was stream- ing through her heart ; "My city my father my love " Her love was coming. Chloe watched him with a quick rising of possessive pride. She longed to point him out to the whole street: "See, that is my Alex ! Isn't he splendid ! Look at the strength of him. Did you ever see such blue eyes ? And his hair isn't red it's a warm brown. He is so fine and able, and yet such fun! Oh, you don't know! He looks sad and stern to-night, but that's watch him now, when I speak to him !" She went to meet him, but she had to say his name before he was aware of her. Then the whole street might have seen that he started; but the greeting that followed seemed to deny it. THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 115 "Oh, hello, Chloe!" It was the friendly cousin of all her life who spoke, not the lover she had been building up. Chloe had no time to see how badly she was hurt. She was too busy being even more cousinly than he. "Hello, Alex. I was waiting for you. I have, something to tell you, something perfectly great. Come down here where it is quieter." They turned into a side street, and Chloe, very blithe and blooming, told of Mrs. Car- taret's splendid act and of the family glory to come when poor old Rawly, at last, got his chance. The tale demanded enthusiasm, but Alex heard it with lowered eyes and a grim mouth. "It is going to be a stunning production," she insisted, and piled it up for him, but could get no response. "You might at least be a little glad for Ralston, Alex," she reproached him. Then there was an explosion: "Lord God, what that man won't take !" Chloe recoiled, her face paling. "Why shouldn't he take " "Why shouldn't he hold up a woman who has no one to " Alex broke off, to go on more 116 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS gently, though all his physical being was still angrily stiffened. "Look here, Chloe, we've got to have this thing out. I've dodged as long as I can. Now I'm going to say everything I feel, once for all." They had turned away from home into a street of dingy warehouses, already shuttered for the night. In the sudden stillness, the gaunt walls closed about them like some dread- ful court room where sentence was to be pro- nounced. Chloe tried to fight off the oppres- sion. "You always object to everything," she flung at him; "but I thought even you would be pleased at this. Why can't Mrs. Cartaret do what she likes with her own money?" He ignored her tone. "I'll tell you why. Helena Cartaret is without question a lovely lady ; the only thing she lacks is brains. She is no more capable of judging the value of a play than Billy is. To let her back it without some cool, outside endorsement is plain highway robbery. Ralston may be the greatest genius of the age, but he hasn't given any convincing sign of it yet and he has had no stage experi- THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 117 ence. And she isn't a very rich woman. Twenty or thirty thousand dollars will matter to her. How are you all going to feel if it is a flat failure?" The ground seemed to be dropping away under Chloe's feet ; but she clung to her anger. "Suppose she wanted to back your dynamo thing wouldn't you let her?" "No!" He almost shouted it. "Not if she knew the whole subject and could judge its value for herself. A woman in her position hasn't any way to replace her money. The man who gambles with it gambles with her whole life's freedom. How any one with a spark of decency can take it " "Nearly every successful artist has ! Look at Wagner " "Oh, 'look at Wagner'! Every year some lovely lady looks at Wagner, and as a result some good-for-nothing fellow with a half talent is dawdling and drinking in Paris at her ex- pense. 'Look at Wagner !' That's the war-cry of every gifted loafer who doesn't feel like earning his own chance." "But Ralston couldn't earn his own chance - do be fair, Alex !" she cried. "You don't under- stand what he is. An office would be death for him." "Yes: he'd be bored to death. I mean it, literally," he insisted at her angry start. "He has decided from the first that he was to sing for his supper; to have to drudge for it, now, like other men he would fall ill and die of sheer exasperation. Well, he will never have to. There will always be some woman to carry him on." They had reached the end of the block, and turned slowly back. "But you are putting money above everything else!" Chloe spoke the word "money" with young contempt, but he answered patiently: "Ah, Chloe, wait till you have had to earn a living just a living for one person : pile it up day by day, get a little ahead, then have an illness or an accident, pay it all out and begin over again, and all the time know that the day will come when you can't work try that, and then you will say 'money' in a different tone. That's the common lot, Toto, for the average man or woman who doesn't live on some one L THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 119 else. Oh, it isn't that I don't see the bigness of art, compared to money. And real talent has often got to be helped I'll grant that. What I can't stand is seeing the help worked out of soft and sentimental ignorance. Suppose Ralston has great talent ; let him get the endorsement of competent judges before " "But Sothern nearly took a play of his, you know that," she burst in. "Well, he kept it several months and wrote a delightful letter of rejection. Oh, Chloe, I want you to see this thing as it is !" They stopped, unaware of the blank street about them. "It has always come between us. Your father was a great man, and the world was so appreciative of him that it has half ruined his other children. You came a little too late, thank heaven, but you are so loyal to your family that even you Toto, it's the most insidious danger in the world, to learn to take!" He had clasped her arm, and his eyes were calling on her for a great decision. "You can't do it indefinitely and not be corrupted, not begin to think what you can get out of every person and every situa- tion. And it makes you the under-dog Chloe, 120 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS Chloe, you needn't tell me you didn't cringe and suffer when you set out to raise that money, the other day! That suffering was your warning; but you can wear it down if you keep on." "I hated and loathed it," she cried. "Nothing was ever so horrible ! But they thought I was selfish and cowardly, not willing to do my share. Hard things had been done for me ! What was the answer to that?" "The answer was that you would earn it with your two hands before you would go out and beg for it ! What right had you to the earnings of others? Dearest, don't take any more re- fuse ! Don't join in on the family graft !" The last word was fatal. Chloe, hurt beyond bearing, flung off his touch. "You have no right to call it that!" For the first time he lost his self-command. "Don't you suppose that others do ? Chloe, it's a byword, it's a joke the Gage way ! Oh, I see your mother's fineness, but, for all that, she is the grandest old grafter " "Stop !" The word crashed like a stone, and then they stood looking at each other with THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS 121 hard, strange eyes, knowing that something lay dead between them. "If that is the way you see us, there is nothing more to be said," she rushed on. "My mother is the biggest person I have ever known. When you are big enough to understand her, you can come back and apolo- gize. Till then " A sob rose, sucking all the breath out of her body. "Oh, I never want to see you again!" she cried, and went swiftly away. For perhaps the first time in her grown life, Chloe passed her father's statue with no con- sciousness of its presence. Her feet took her home, but she saw and heard nothing until from an open window a voice of husky relief shouted her name. Billy had seen his Toto's vanishing hat and known himself deserted, and his broad face was sodden with tears, but already, at sight of her, a forgiving light was dawning. "I'm here, Toto," he faltered. Hearts may break and kingdoms fall, but babies must be comforted. Toto put away self, sorrowfully kissing the grieved face, and hand in hand they made the nightly pilgrimage. 122 THE SEED OF THE RIGHTEOUS "Toto ran away from me, but she corned back," Billy told his grandfather with a linger- ing hiccough. The level sunbeams threw a dim glory on the sculptured face : Sereno Gage might have been uttering some fine old reassurance beginning with, "Inasmuch " Chloe did not get the mes- sage, but the little boy's clinging hand made life more bearable. CHAPTER Y CHLOE had made her choice, had cast in her lot with her family. For them she had put away love and denied the deepest instinct of her being, and there was no hour in the bitter days that followed when she would not have done the same; yet never had she felt so alien to them, or so longed to get away. She could die for her family, but it was borne in upon her that she could not eternally live with them. The yacht became her hope now, the promise of escape, and she waited for the summons as she had waited for Alex. The day it came, she flew about the house like a young whirlwind. A noisy Chloe was something new, and Mrs.