? A
 
 o
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA
 
 BRINGING OUT 
 BARBARA 
 
 BY 
 
 ETHEL TRAIN 
 
 AUTHOR OF "SON" 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 NEW YORK : : : : : 1917
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published March, 1917
 
 TO 
 MARGARET 
 
 2133243
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 THE EXPERIENCES OF A NEW YORK DEBUTANTE 
 
 14 AT OTHER!" I cried. 
 
 IT A. "How do you do, dear?" a care- 
 fully modulated voice replied. 
 
 Two minutes earlier we had puffed noisily 
 into the station, and the train had disgorged 
 a car-load of our girls, several of whom, like 
 myself, were leaving school for good. I was 
 staggering under the weight of two huge 
 grips, one in each hand, not having been 
 able to find in my pocketbook any change 
 for a tip to the porter. 
 
 Mothers and mothers were pressing eager 
 faces against the railing at the top of the 
 flight of steps we were about to ascend, but 
 I did not discover mine. It was terrible,
 
 2 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 that sight of other people's mothers when I 
 couldn't find my own ! She hadn't troubled, 
 I thought, to meet her girl, who was coming 
 home to her forever. I jumped to the con- 
 clusion that some social engagement had 
 been allowed to interfere with that reunion 
 to which I had been looking forward for 
 months. 
 
 In the anguish of that moment I could not 
 remember what she looked like. I knew I 
 had a mother, but her face was without 
 features, like the faces of the people I used 
 to draw when I was a little girl. I could not 
 imagine the faces adequately, so I just left 
 them out. 
 
 Laboring up the steps under my load, I 
 saw Jean Royce already at the top, her 
 little slim figure almost obliterated by the 
 clasp of a big man's arms. No father was 
 waiting to sweep me off my feet like that. 
 It was the abomination of desolation, this 
 arrival. I did not know which I felt more
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 3 
 
 like a dog without any master or a kitchen- 
 maid going to a new place. 
 
 Then suddenly I saw father and mother 
 both, standing quietly beside a pillar. Father 
 looked appallingly tall, had on a silk hat 
 and carried a cane. He's six feet one and 
 always wonderfully dressed, dark, with a 
 clear olive skin, smooth black hair, and a 
 mustache that's too small for him. I should 
 sketch it several inches longer and much 
 thicker on an ideal head. He's continually 
 being mistaken for an Englishman, though 
 he was never in England in his life until he 
 had finished college, and, I think, looks more 
 French than English. At any rate, he 
 doesn't seem a bit like an American, even to 
 me. He was born in New York and has 
 never lived anywhere else; yet when I walked 
 up-town with him once, last Christmas vaca- 
 tion, he observed everything as though he 
 were trying to form an impression of manners 
 and customs previously unknown.
 
 4 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 Mother would have served to perfection 
 as a cover design for a fashion magazine. 
 She was faultlessly gowned, creamily spatted, 
 with her hat tilted at an angle of forty-five 
 degrees, and, notwithstanding the breathless 
 humidity of the June day, almost obliter- 
 ated as to contours of cheek and chin by a 
 large, fluffy white-fox boa. Her whole ap- 
 pearance was calculated to deceive the ob- 
 server as to her age. It did not seem possible 
 that she could be the mother of a girl of 
 seventeen. 
 
 When she made her even rejoinder to my 
 glad cry she protruded her cheek out of the 
 fur just far enough for me to kiss it. As I 
 pressed trembling lips against its coolness I 
 noticed a resemblance between her eyes and 
 those of the dead, stuffed animal that dangled 
 over her shoulder. 
 
 Shocked that such a thought had entered 
 my mind, I turned to father with some idea 
 of throwing myself into his arms. Luckily
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 5 
 
 I perceived in time the absurdity of this 
 impulse. He was inspecting me with his 
 habitual air of detachment. This affectation 
 embarrassed me. He had known perfectly 
 well for seventeen years what I looked like. 
 The dimple in my cheek, the irregularity of 
 my nose, the cleft in my chin all had been 
 patent in my babyhood; it was unnecessary 
 to observe them further. The changes that 
 counted were inside changes, due to spiritual 
 growth, but to these I well knew he would de- 
 vote no scrutiny. 
 
 "You've grown, I think?" he hazarded 
 politely; and I answered, with regret: 
 
 "Not much, I'm afraid," adding: "Oh ! I 
 almost forgot. I must go and report to Miss 
 Wier that I've been met. I won't be a min- 
 ute." 
 
 I found Miss Wier, in whose charge we 
 had made the journey, standing alone, with 
 her hands crossed, a thin, prim presence, 
 spectacled, and as angular as the subject
 
 6 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 she taught geometry. Contrasted with 
 hers, my own lot seemed suddenly full of 
 warmth and color. For her there were 
 neither partings nor meetings. In a spot so 
 suggestive of palpitating emotion as a great 
 terminal the isolation of that patient figure 
 wrung my heart. 
 
 I wanted to share with her everything I 
 had my father, my mother, and my home. 
 My impulse was to take her by the hand, 
 turn a deaf ear to her trifling protests, 
 carry her off bodily. On fire with my desire, 
 I faced about and ran back. 
 
 "Mother!" I cried. "May I ask Miss 
 Wier to stay with us while she's in town ? 
 She's our geometry teacher, you know, who 
 chaperoned us on the train. There's nobody 
 to meet her and I'm sure she's going to some 
 boarding-house." 
 
 "Not to-day," said mother. Then, see- 
 ing in my face a very abyss of disappoint- 
 ment, she explained: "There are people for
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 7 
 
 dinner." And she added, as though making 
 a great concession: "If you want it very 
 much, I might be able to manage it to- 
 morrow." 
 
 To-morrow ! Bereft of spontaneity, what 
 would the invitation amount to ? 
 
 "If I can't have her now," I returned 
 hotly, "I won't have her at all." 
 
 "You talk like a spoiled child," was the 
 answer. "You don't seem to have out- 
 grown your wilfulness." 
 
 At these words memory turned up in my 
 mind old scenes stormy tears and tempers, 
 frequent foot-stampings, innumerable clinch- 
 ings of fists of which I had repented bit- 
 terly in my exile, vowing that they should 
 never occur again. Could it have been that 
 they had had any justification in fact ? 
 That they had been a child's weapons of 
 defense against false standards of con- 
 duct, misinterpretation of motives, and want 
 of heart ? But, even if this were so, I was
 
 8 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 wrong, now that reason had wakened, in 
 resorting to such means. 
 
 "I only meant," I said slowly, "that I 
 didn't think she'd care to move after she 
 was settled. She'd have unpacked her bag, 
 and all that. Is it a formal dinner?" 
 
 "No," said mother; "informal. There is 
 no formal entertaining in New York in 
 June." 
 
 "Then," I urged, "what would it matter 
 about having one more chair at the table ? 
 Couldn't you just slide her in ?" 
 
 "People are not slid in at dinner," was 
 the reply. "Besides making the number 
 uneven, she would be put in the embarrass- 
 ing position of having nothing in common 
 with my other guests. It's out of the ques- 
 tion. Please go now and report." 
 
 I went, genuinely puzzled as to what con- 
 stituted informality. Offhand I should have 
 defined an informal dinner as one admit- 
 ting of any amount of elasticity in regard
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 9 
 
 to arrangement everybody moving up at 
 the last moment to make room for one 
 more. 
 
 "There you are at last, Barbara!'* said 
 Miss Wier when she caught sight of me. "All 
 the others are accounted for. Have you been 
 met?" 
 
 "Yes, Miss Wier," I replied glibly, in per- 
 functory school phraseology, and then stood 
 silent before her, in the grip of sudden real- 
 izations. 
 
 Of a multitude of small obediences dis- 
 tributed over years, this was the final one. 
 The school had made its ultimate demand 
 of me; imposed its behests upon me for the 
 last time. Henceforth it could dictate to 
 me no more forever. Should I be able to 
 stand alone ? Fearful of liberty, fearful of 
 emancipation, I felt unaccountably home- 
 sick for the old surroundings with their 
 hitherto irksome props: demerits for trans- 
 gression of rules, marks for untidinesses,
 
 io BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 permissions written and signed. Without 
 these, how was I to know whether I did well 
 or ill? 
 
 At the door of my prison I stood hesitant, 
 blinking at the daylight. I was unaware that 
 these thoughts showed in my face, until I 
 saw Miss Wier's eyes soften strangely under 
 her glasses. 
 
 "It's hard to give you up. It's harder for 
 us to give you up," she said in a tone I had 
 never heard her use before, "than it is for 
 you to leave us. How we shall miss you, my 
 child!" 
 
 Tears started to my eyes. I threw both 
 arms round her neck and squeezed her with 
 all my strength. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Wier!" I choked. "After all 
 the bother I've been to you with my rotten 
 work in mathematics!" 
 
 She only smiled. At school she got up 
 with her subject, spent the day with it, and 
 took it to bed with her to ponder it in her
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 11 
 
 dreams. Now she vouchsafed it not even 
 passing attention. 
 
 "I hope nothing will spoil you," she said 
 fervently, bending over to kiss me on the 
 lips. "Dear Barbara! Good-by!" 
 
 I could give no expression to my grief at 
 having to let our association drop then and 
 there, just as it had sloughed off the rela- 
 tion of teacher and pupil, so hampering to the 
 growth of friendship on equal terms. To 
 breathe a word of what had passed between 
 mother and myself would have been arrant 
 disloyalty; so I gave her one more squeeze, 
 released her abruptly, and dashed away, not 
 once looking back. 
 
 When I came up mother saw me wiping 
 my eyes, but she made no comment. The 
 three of us moved along, together, and yet 
 apart, followed at a respectful distance by a 
 porter carrying my grips. The station was 
 rather crowded, with people standing in 
 little groups, which broke up inevitably to
 
 12 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 let father through. What was it, I won- 
 dered, that thus cleared a path for him, as 
 though he were a fire-engine or an ambu- 
 lance? I hated to suspect it of my demo- 
 cratic countrymen, but I gathered that it was 
 the "distinguished foreigner" impression he 
 produced. 
 
 All this had little to do with the reunion 
 of a family. It was no reunion this meeting 
 of three people who had nothing to say to 
 each other except obvious things like "Here 
 is the motor," which mother now said as a 
 little automobile rolled up. 
 
 Its wheel was in the hand of a chauffeur 
 unmistakably French, with mustaches as 
 sensitive as the whiskers of a cat, and lynx 
 eyes that indicated an order of intelligence 
 too high for such a simple job as driving a 
 toy machine. 
 
 "New chauffeur!" I commented. "Oh, 
 and new groom, too! How terrifying!" 
 
 At school the same old darkies were fa-
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA ij 
 
 miliar presences to generations of girls, but 
 mother changed her servants with the sea- 
 sons, as she did her gowns. An uneasy fear 
 tormented me that she would have changed 
 her daughter, too, had that been practicable. 
 It would have relieved her of the herculean 
 task of making a silken purse out of a sow's 
 ear, when the sow was likely to protest at 
 the amputation. I fancied her discarding 
 me with scant compunction a last year's 
 daughter; a daughter out of style; one not 
 worth the trouble and expense of remodelling. 
 
 " Show me your latest thing in daughters," 
 I could imagine her saying in her somewhat 
 languid voice. "No; not to take with me. 
 I shall have her made to order. My last 
 daughter I got ready-made, and she was 
 such a complete failure that I had to throw 
 her away." 
 
 Whimsical as was this idea, it made me 
 seem to myself even more of an alien than I 
 should otherwise have done in that deli-
 
 14 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 cately upholstered car, my well-worn clothes 
 brushing the luxurious ones on each side as 
 I sat down uncomfortably between my pa- 
 rents upon a seat obviously designed only 
 for two. 
 
 I felt as though I were being taken some- 
 where to be adopted instead of to my own 
 home, and that the first thing they would 
 do when they got me there would be to order 
 me a bath and provide fresh raiment. 
 
 The groom adjusted the robe and asked: 
 
 "Where to, madam ?" touching his cap. 
 
 "Home," was the answer. 
 
 "Yes, madam," he replied, touching his 
 cap again. "Very good, madam," touching 
 it a third time. 
 
 "And James!" 
 
 "Yes, madam," with another touch. 
 
 "Tell Rene not to drive quite so fast as 
 he did on the way down." 
 
 "Very good, madam," with still another 
 sign of deference.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 15 
 
 I had begun to regard this frequent ges- 
 ture with fascinated eyes. 
 
 "Don't you get tired of being treated like 
 royalty?" I questioned flippantly when the 
 door had snapped. "I should be bored to 
 death by having a man like that about.'* 
 
 "His manners are excellent," returned 
 father, with an emphasis which was clearly 
 meant to reflect on mine; and, indeed, the 
 groom's were the better of the two. 
 
 "It's a tiresome trip from school in hot 
 weather," mother remarked presently. 
 
 "Yes, mother," was my prompt answer. 
 "Quite, mother." 
 
 "Through uninteresting country," she went 
 on. 
 
 "Yes, mother," I repeated. "Very, 
 mother." 
 
 "Did you make an early start?" father 
 inquired. 
 
 "No, father," I replied in monotone. 
 "Not very early, father,"
 
 16 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 Conversation languished. At length 
 mother tried again. 
 
 "Did you receive a letter from me yes- 
 terday," she questioned, "with money in 
 it?" 
 
 "Yes, mother," I said. "Thank you, 
 mother." 
 
 At this, with one accord, they drew back. 
 
 "Have you lost your mind?" father de- 
 manded. "Or are you making fun of us?" 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 "I was only trying an experiment," I ex- 
 plained. "You see, I have such difficulty 
 with my manners, and his kind seemed so 
 simple, I hoped an adaptation of them would 
 work. It won't, though. It seems more dif- 
 ficult for a girl to give satisfaction than for 
 a groom." 
 
 "You put things in the strangest way," 
 mother objected. "Why do you talk about 
 giving satisfaction, as though you were a 
 servant ? You, the daughter of the house !"
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 17 
 
 I made no reply. It would have required 
 some thought to formulate my reasons for 
 the remark; and, even had I done so, my 
 success in conveying them would have been 
 problematical. Theoretically I was the 
 daughter of the house, certainly; but prac- 
 tically I was worse off than the groom, who, 
 if his efforts to please did not meet with suc- 
 cess would be dismissed, and thus provided 
 with an opportunity to try his luck else- 
 where. There was no such loophole for me. 
 Satisfactory or not, now that I was here, 
 here I should have to remain. 
 
 How was I to fit into the existence of which 
 the expensive trifles I had already noted 
 were the emblems and the signs ? I had no 
 notion of either the duties or the perquisites 
 of my position. Instead of familiarizing me 
 with them gradually during my adolescence 
 the period of greatest adaptability mother 
 had abruptly cut me off at its start from my 
 natural surroundings and thrust me into
 
 1 8 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 others where entirely different ideals pre- 
 vailed. 
 
 Having kept me for four years out of 
 sight, put away like an epileptic or a lunatic, 
 she had suddenly brought me back in the 
 expectation that I would feel like a daugh- 
 ter. 
 
 I didn't feel like a daughter. I didn't 
 know what I felt like, I'd been away from 
 home so long ever since I was a kid of 
 thirteen. Now I was almost a woman; too 
 old to go to school any more. Every sum- 
 mer I'd been packed off to camp, and the 
 winter and spring vacations were too tem- 
 porary to make much impression. 
 
 Just then we passed the cathedral and my 
 eyes fell upon a long line of orphans going 
 in to some service. 
 
 That was it ! That was what I felt like ! 
 A blue-garbed Orphan, with a capital O a 
 Public Charge an Institution Child ! By a 
 quick transition my thoughts passed from.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 19 
 
 myself to mother. If I had had no mother, 
 she had had no child. During my long exile 
 she had remained in undisturbed possession 
 of a childless house. She had had no wil- 
 fulness to encounter; no opposition; no in- 
 terruptions; no demands; no whispered con- 
 fessions; no penitence; no confidences in the 
 dark, cheek on cheek. 
 
 The motherhood that was the kernel of 
 my soul revolted, and there arose within me 
 a fierce longing for a little child of my own, 
 that I might make up to it all that we had 
 lost she and I. I felt that I should never 
 be able to give it up to any one, even at 
 night. When I woke I should want to feel 
 its warm, live, marvellous little body in my 
 arms; press it, limp and unresponsive as it 
 was, against my breast. It would grow up 
 then without my knowing it; and I should 
 grow along with it, because I would have to 
 find answers to the questions it asked. That 
 would be much less disconcerting than re-
 
 20 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 ceiving it back from somewhere, full-grown, 
 like a Venus rising out of the waves. 
 
 Poor mother ! I understood a little now 
 why she had not seemed more glad to see me. 
 My absence had become a habit. It wasn't 
 going to be easy, this taking up of mother- 
 hood at the eleventh hour. She had omitted 
 all the steps the settling of childish diffi- 
 culties, the comforting of small troubles 
 easily comforted. As she sat there beside 
 me, so calm, so dainty, so aloof, she seemed 
 to me to resemble in every respect a woman 
 who had never either desired or possessed a 
 child. 
 
 "Where's he going?" I asked suddenly, 
 when the chauffeur failed to slow down at 
 the accustomed corner. "Stop him, mother! 
 He's passed the street." 
 
 "What are you thinking of, Barbara?" 
 she returned. "I wrote you we'd moved 
 into the new house." 
 
 "Oh-h!" I gasped. "The new house ? Of
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 21 
 
 course! I'd forgotten all about it. It went 
 completely out of my head." 
 
 "We've been in it two weeks," said 
 father as we slowed down before an imposing 
 edifice, which upon my previous views of it 
 had been obstructed by scaffolding. "That 
 is the only reason we're not at Westbury. 
 Rotten bore ! It's practically all furnished." 
 
 "All furnished!" I repeated, incredulous. 
 "That immense house in two weeks ? But 
 you had a lot of things, of course." 
 
 "Very little that was suitable," he replied. 
 
 "My furniture?" I insisted, suspicious 
 and on the defensive. "You haven't got 
 rid of that?" 
 
 "You'll see," said mother evasively as we 
 got out. 
 
 The front door swung inward, revealing 
 three men, one in afternoon attire and two 
 in livery. All had British countenances, en- 
 tirely devoid of expression, and all were six 
 feet high. These strange, imposing servants
 
 22 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 in possession of a strange, imposing house 
 oppressed my spirit. 
 
 "What's become of Jules?" I whispered 
 to mother, referring to our erstwhile French 
 butler, whose wrinkled, smiling face had 
 welcomed me home at least twice at Christ- 
 mas and at Easter and who, therefore, in 
 our menage, might almost have been re- 
 garded as a family servant. 
 
 "I couldn't have a Frenchman in this 
 house," she replied. 
 
 "But you have one on your car!" I de- 
 murred, doubting whether I should ever 
 master these distinctions. It was apparently 
 correct to employ a French chauffeur. A 
 butler, however, must be English. More- 
 over, an impressive presence was a require- 
 ment. Not being very tall myself, I had a 
 fellow-feeling for those who did not measure 
 up to standard, and determined that when I 
 had a house I would employ only short men. 
 
 The entrance-hall was spacious, with Caen-
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 23 
 
 stone walls and a floor of black and white 
 marble laid in squares. 
 
 We went up in the elevator to the third 
 landing to inspect my room before lunch. 
 
 The walls of this room were panelled in 
 ivory; the furniture was ivory and cane; 
 the hangings pale-rose taffeta; the rug of 
 the same hue. The desk was supplied with 
 a desk set of pale-rose leather, tooled in dull 
 gold, and the crowning touch was a pale- 
 rose quill pen, thrust into a pale-rose re- 
 ceptacle filled with white shot. 
 
 I had never seen white shot used for pur- 
 poses of ammunition, and wondered where 
 this had been obtained. 
 
 I did not like this two-toned room; it 
 cried to heaven for some jarring note 
 something crashingly purple, orange, or 
 blue; yet my heart overflowed in apprecia- 
 tion of the pains mother had bestowed upon 
 it, the time she had spent in carrying out the 
 minutiae of the scheme, just now, when she
 
 24 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 was so busy and had so much on her mind. 
 Nothing that day had made me so happy as 
 this, and I threw my arms round her neck, 
 crying: 
 
 "Oh, mother darling! How sweet of 
 you!" 
 
 Her next words chilled me to the bone. 
 
 "I felt sure you'd be pleased with it," she 
 said. "This whole room was on exhibition, 
 just as it is, in every detail, even to the pic- 
 tures, at the Dartmour Shops. All they had 
 to do was to move it. Luckily even the cur- 
 tains were an exact fit." 
 
 She left, telling me to meet her in her 
 sitting-room when I had taken off my things. 
 
 While I was standing disconsolate there 
 was a muffled knock at the door. I opened 
 it and found that my grips had arrived in 
 the hands of one of the huge footmen. No 
 sooner had he left than I ripped open the 
 nearest one, scattered its contents over the 
 floor, and rapidly selected what I wanted.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 25 
 
 My old felt slippers went under the bed, 
 my memory book on the table, the photo- 
 graphs of our cheer leaders and basket-ball 
 teams I piled on the desk all but a few of 
 the choicest, which I stuck in the mirror of 
 the dressing-table. Then, a little comforted, 
 I ran down-stairs. In the dining-room the 
 table was laid for two, father having dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 It was a very large dining-room indeed, 
 decorated in green and white marble, with a 
 stone mantel and tapestried chairs. 
 
 "The breakfast-room isn't finished yet," 
 mother explained. "We'll always lunch 
 there when it is." 
 
 The butler stood behind mother's chair, 
 a footman behind mine. Acting in concert 
 they pulled the two chairs out simultane- 
 ously. I sat down, my feet missing the floor 
 by half an inch. 
 
 The first course was cold eggs in aspic 
 jelly, with a herbaceous border encircling
 
 26 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 the dish. I partook nervously, not only of 
 the solids but of the party-colored garnish- 
 ings. 
 
 "Have you got a new cook?" I asked, 
 detecting an unfamiliar bite at the tip of my 
 tongue. 
 
 "A chef," she replied, "who was twelve 
 years at Voisin's. He's an expert at season- 
 ing." 
 
 The second course roused little interest in 
 me, as the eggs had more than satisfied my 
 appetite. It consisted of small round filets, 
 each with a mushroom on top and, under- 
 neath, a layer of artichoke resting upon a 
 foundation of toast. I took one perfunc- 
 torily, and also a spoonful of very black, 
 thick sauce. Salad followed; and we had 
 for dessert ice-cream, together with straw- 
 berries almost as big as plums. At least 
 that was the way they felt when I swallowed 
 them. 
 
 Coffee was served in mother's sitting-room
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 27 
 
 by the butler, the first footman immediately 
 following him with liqueurs on a tray. We 
 declined both and they marched out again. 
 
 "I've ordered the car at three," mother 
 announced. 
 
 "Must we go out ?" I asked, lolling in an 
 easy chair. "I feel as though I didn't want 
 to move after that lunch." 
 
 Her eyes rested upon me in disapproval. 
 
 "You must learn not to eat everything," 
 she said. "I don't. If you noticed, all I 
 took to-day was an egg, some green peas, and 
 a strawberry or two." 
 
 "What do you have it all cooked for, 
 then?" I questioned. "Isn't it a waste?" 
 
 "Oh, no," returned mother vaguely. 
 "Fran9ois doesn't waste anything. He 
 makes use of it in some way, of course." 
 
 "Where are we going at three?" I re- 
 sumed. 
 
 "To get you some clothes," she replied 
 with decision.
 
 28 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 I had not been mistaken, then, in my con- 
 jecture as to raiment. 
 
 "What's the matter with those I've got 
 on?" I demanded, in sudden reluctance to 
 part with the rough garments that had 
 adapted themselves to my casual lines, and 
 the discarding of which would mark the end 
 of an epoch. 
 
 "They're unsuitable," she decreed. "They 
 were all very well for a schoolgirl, but you're 
 not a schoolgirl now. Go and put on your 
 hat." 
 
 As we crawled down Fifth Avenue, in a 
 line three deep of other motors bent on simi- 
 lar errands, I remarked that we should never 
 get to Rosenberg & Hymen's at this rate. 
 
 "We're not going there," mother en- 
 lightened me. "I shall not dress you at the 
 department stores any longer. We'll see 
 whether Yvette has anything." 
 
 Yvette had a great many things. Her 
 dressmaking establishment, which special-
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 29 
 
 ized in girl's frocks, was carried on in a large 
 corner house built not five years before as a 
 private residence, and hastily vacated, as 
 such houses often are in New York why, 
 nobody knew. 
 
 Yvette herself failed to appear, but in her 
 absence the gowns were displayed by a Miss 
 Hawkins, who seemed to be a person of 
 authority, and a smiling assistant to whom 
 money was no object. 
 
 "This is only a hundred and fifty dollars," 
 she would say, holding up an exquisite, 
 flower-like dress, thrown together out of 
 nothing more durable than net and tulle. 
 "That blue chiffon with the silver embroi- 
 dery is two twenty-five; but look at the lines 
 of it!" 
 
 These figures made my brain reel. Up to 
 this time, while a girl at school, eighteen 
 fifty had been the highest price paid at 
 Rosenberg's for my "best" dresses. My 
 shirt-waists I had been allowed to choose
 
 30 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 myself at Tracy's, for sums ranging from 
 $1.49 to $4.75, articles of striped and zig- 
 zagged patterns, in which my soul had re- 
 joiced. At home I had always had my 
 supper apart on a tray, and at school my 
 wardrobe had stood up well beside those of 
 the other girls. 
 
 "How do you like the blue, Barbara?" 
 mother asked indifferently. "Don't you 
 think it's rather pretty ? I think I shall 
 have my daughter try the blue one on, Miss 
 Hawkins." 
 
 I went over to her and whispered tensely 
 in her ear. 
 
 "Two hundred and twenty-five dollars for 
 that dress is robbery, mother!" I said. 
 "Don't buy it! Please, don't! Suppose I 
 should get a spot on it! Let's go back to 
 Rosenberg's. They've got lovely things ! 
 Really they have, when you get extra lace 
 to fill them in! I'm not out; I don't need 
 such a beautiful dress as that."
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 31 
 
 "Yes; you do," she returned placidly. 
 "You forget that you're coming down to all 
 my informal dinners after this. Could we 
 have this dress for to-night, Miss Haw- 
 kins?" 
 
 At Rosenberg's alterations inevitably took 
 ten days; so I was astonished when Miss 
 Hawkins acquiesced suavely: 
 
 "If there's not too much to do, madam; 
 certainly I'll hurry it through for you ! The 
 alterations, of course, will be extra I can't 
 tell how much until I see just what there is 
 to be done." 
 
 While two efficient young women were 
 pinning and snipping at me together, mother 
 ordered more dresses and arranged for ap- 
 pointments late in the week. As we were 
 leaving the establishment I reminded her 
 that she had forgotten to ask anything more 
 about the cost of the alterations. 
 
 "Twenty-five dollars," said Miss Hawkins 
 offhand. "The young lady seems to be very
 
 32 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 economical; so different from most of the 
 young ladies nowadays. How nice that is!" 
 
 Her tone was bland, but her glance at me 
 was inimical as she bowed us out. 
 
 On our way home I maintained silence for 
 at least two blocks. Then I burst out: 
 
 "It's wicked to charge twenty-five dollars 
 for those alterations ! Why, mother, there 
 was hardly anything to do! Just a little 
 redraping in the back and putting in some 
 tulle about a dollar's worth, I should think. 
 It could have been done just as well in the 
 house." 
 
 "Not in time for to-night," rejoined 
 mother easily. "Why do you worry so, 
 Barbara ? You're not paying for it." 
 
 We had tea, served by most of the men; 
 and when I went up to my room there was 
 the gayly striped box that held my dress. 
 
 I had no desire to open it. The extrava- 
 gance I had seen displayed that day sick- 
 ened me. More food than you could eat;
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 33 
 
 better clothes than you needed to wear; a 
 servant at every door and behind every chair 
 I was weary of it already, weary and de- 
 pressed. What was the object of this con- 
 tinual outpouring of money for that which 
 was not bread ? 
 
 One little pincushion of mother's choosing 
 would have meant more to me than the 
 whole room she had bought with a price, 
 and a single kiss of real welcome I should 
 have prized above all the finery in the 
 world. 
 
 "You must learn how to wear your clothes, 
 Barbara," she admonished me as we went 
 down-stairs together at five minutes to 
 eight. "You can't move about in an even- 
 ing gown as though you were swinging 
 clubs." 
 
 I restrained my movements obediently. 
 
 As we passed the heavily wainscoted room 
 known as father's "Study," through the open 
 door I glimpsed the butler deigning to occupy
 
 34 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 his leisure moments in altering by the frac- 
 tion of an inch the positions of the magazines 
 on the Italian table. 
 
 "You haven't told me yet who's coming," 
 I said in the drawing-room. "How many are 
 there?" 
 
 "Ten in all," mother answered. "Mrs. 
 Apthorp-Brown; the Glynn Rollinses, who 
 are motoring in from Westbury; Miss Bolles, 
 a most charming woman; Mr. Emery Win- 
 ship, an old friend of ours; another man who 
 is staying with him, whose name I forget; 
 and Allan Denning." 
 
 From her omission of data concerning 
 them, no less than from a certain slight ac- 
 centuation of tone upon their names, I 
 inferred that the Alpha and Omega of the 
 evening were Mrs. Apthorp-Brown and Allan 
 Denning. Of Mr. Winship's privilege I was 
 jealous; mother accepted his friend why 
 had she not accepted mine ? 
 
 "Tell me about the nameless man," I
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 35 
 
 demanded. "What's he like? Old or 
 young?" 
 
 "I don't remember," she replied. "He 
 does something, I believe." 
 
 "Stocks?" I suggested, out of sheer hos- 
 tility. 
 
 "No; not stocks," she returned. "Writ- 
 ing or painting something of that sort." 
 
 "Oh !" I cried, mollified. "I'm so glad it 
 isn't stocks. I don't think I should like 
 stock-brokers. What does Mr. Denning do ?" 
 
 Mother drew back. 
 
 "Nothing!" she hastened to answer, as 
 though she were denying a malicious allega- 
 tion. "I've put you beside him, Barbara, and 
 I do hope you won't ask impertinent ques- 
 tions or use slang. Let him do the talking. 
 He's a man of the world and can talk to 
 anybody. It's just luck that he happens to 
 be in town. In the season he's almost im- 
 possible to get. I wonder where your father 
 is?"
 
 36 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 No sooner had she spoken than my father 
 came in. 
 
 How faultlessly erect was his bearing, not- 
 withstanding his height, and how aquiline 
 his nose ! Somehow I felt responsible for his 
 entertainment; impelled to rise from my 
 chair and engage him in conversation. He 
 seemed so much more guest than host, so 
 much less father than acquaintance. 
 
 "Mrs. Apthorp-Brown!" announced the 
 butler at this point, and I saw him licking 
 his lips as he withdrew. 
 
 The old woman who entered did not look 
 the part assigned her. I wanted to cover up 
 her poor neck with a little woolly shawl. 
 There was nothing on it but jewels not 
 even flesh. 
 
 "How do you do?" she said, with no 
 question in her voice, when mother presented 
 me. 
 
 Perhaps she thought I ought not to be 
 there. At any rate, she did not notice me
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 37 
 
 further. The Glynn Rollinses came in next; 
 and, mother having left them to me, I at- 
 tempted conversation with diminished con- 
 fidence, which they took no steps to restore. 
 On the advent of Miss Bolles, a dried-up 
 spinster with dyed hair and an enamelled 
 neck, whom they greeted effusively, they 
 turned their backs upon me altogether, and 
 I retreated, to stand propped against the 
 panelling, examining my slippers and feeling 
 very small. 
 
 "Mr. Winship!" I heard; and then: 
 "Mr. R-m-m " 
 
 Oh, that butler! He had botched the 
 name on purpose. The appellations of 
 those who, according to his standards, were 
 something, he rolled as sweet morsels un- 
 der his tongue; but with that of him who 
 merely did something he gave himself no 
 concern. Yet it was only the attitude of 
 his employers that was reflected in the 
 cloudy mirror of his mind.
 
 38 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 Then and there I resolved that, as I had 
 wished Miss Wier to be welcomed, so hence- 
 forth should every man, woman, or child who 
 set foot upon our threshold be welcomed 
 here. Eager to act upon this determina- 
 tion, I noticed that the young man, having 
 been briefly greeted by his hostess, was now 
 standing by himself, perceptibly ill at ease. 
 He was of medium height, lithe of body, 
 alert of glance, and his awkwardness at the 
 moment was due, I felt, not to any lack of 
 poise but to a peculiar sensitiveness to the 
 atmosphere of this gathering. 
 
 I crossed the room and went up to him. 
 
 "We were delighted that you could 
 come," I said, holding out my hand. 
 
 He took it warmly and his every muscle 
 relaxed. 
 
 "That's awfully good of you," he re- 
 sponded. "I was afraid my coming was 
 rather an imposition. But it's all right if 
 you say so."
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 39 
 
 Further standing about ensued. Pres- 
 ently mother rang a bell and I heard her 
 say to the butler: 
 
 "We won't wait any longer for Mr. 
 Denning, Parker. Telephone to his rooms 
 and bring the cocktails at once." 
 
 Because this guest had not come, every- 
 body save Mrs. Apthorp-Brown, who was 
 duly escorted by father, had to walk in 
 "informally." Mr. Denning had not for- 
 gotten, it appeared. He was merely half an 
 hour late and came in entirely unruffled be- 
 fore we had finished our soup. 
 
 How graciously mother accepted the 
 apologies of this drawing-room favorite! 
 He was distinctly handsome, with crisp, 
 backward-curling hair, white forehead and 
 regular features, marred only by a slight 
 puffiness under the eyes and an incipient 
 heaviness just above the collar. 
 
 "Mr. Denning," said mother, as the but- 
 ler pulled out the vacant chair on my right,
 
 40 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 "this is my little daughter, just back from 
 boarding-school. She's come down to din- 
 ner for a great treat, because it's her first 
 evening at home." 
 
 Such an introduction would have caused 
 me inexpressible embarrassment an hour 
 ago; but I had taken the initiative once 
 since then and felt capable of doing so 
 again. 
 
 "We came near not having anything to 
 eat on your account," I told him. 
 
 "How's that?" he asked, smiling and 
 sitting down. 
 
 "The Bible says," I explained, "'Give a 
 portion to seven, and also to eight.' Mother 
 is willing to give it to eight, but not to seven. 
 Did you forget ? Oh, never mind don't 
 answer." 
 
 "Why not?" he demanded. 
 
 "Because I was not to ask you imperti- 
 nent questions," was my reply. "You were 
 to introduce the subjects of conversation.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 41 
 
 You're a man of the world and can talk to 
 anybody even me." 
 
 "Ask me anything you like," he invited, 
 bending his well-shaped head quite close, 
 "and I'll give you a straight answer." 
 
 "How were the races on Saturday?'* 
 broke in Mrs. Glynn Rollins, in her high, 
 strained voice. 
 
 "Dull," he replied laconically, and turned 
 again to me. "I've had one dinner already," 
 he confided. "This one went clean out of 
 my head. I had to lie out of it, didn't I ? 
 Of course you won't give me away." 
 
 Thus, at the outset of our acquaintance, 
 by just being myself, as mother had warned 
 me against doing, I had "hit it off" with 
 this overrated but, I thought, essentially 
 unpretentious young man. And, of course, 
 it was amusing to note the icy regard of 
 Mrs. Glynn Rollins at the shoulder he kept 
 persistently turned in her direction. 
 
 "Who's that chap on your left?" he
 
 42 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 asked, sotto voce, with a full stare at Mr. 
 Winship's protege. "I don't remember hav- 
 ing seen him anywhere before." 
 
 "Is that any reason for looking at him as 
 though he were some strange species of 
 animal?" I demanded. "What are dinners 
 for, if not to meet new people ? I should 
 think just seeing the old ones over and over 
 would be an awful bore." 
 
 He smiled, refusing to take up my chal- 
 lenge. His complacence rather nettled me. 
 
 "You haven't answered my question," 
 he said. 
 
 "I don't know yet who he is," I replied. 
 "All I know is that Mr. Winship brought 
 him, and that he does something. When 
 he's finished talking with Miss Bolles I'm 
 going to ask him what. I don't think it'll 
 be long; he doesn't seem to be getting on 
 particularly well." 
 
 My neighbor was, in fact, playing with 
 his bread between pauses of unconscionable
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 43 
 
 length, crumbling it up shockingly with the 
 most nervous, delicate hand I had ever 
 seen. 
 
 "What do you do ?" I finally came to his 
 rescue by asking. 
 
 "Paint," he replied, turning upon me 
 that alert glance. "What do you?" 
 
 "What do I look like a girl that could 
 do?" I retorted. 
 
 "That's a wonderful sentence!" he 
 laughed. "Let's translate it into English." 
 
 The play of expression on his face as he 
 talked was astounding. In three minutes it 
 had passed from seriousness to inquiry, and 
 now it was all broken up into fun. 
 
 "What," I complied, "does a girl who 
 looks as I do look as though she could do ?" 
 
 He paused, and I felt myself flushing 
 under a scrutiny that was yet in no sense a 
 stare. 
 
 "Anything," he affirmed quietly. "Every- 
 thing."
 
 44 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 "I'd like to paint," I was moved to con- 
 fess. 
 
 "Have you studied drawing?" he asked. 
 
 "We had it," I replied connotatively. 
 
 "That's a different matter," he smiled.' 
 
 I smiled back. He looked altogether boy- 
 ish when he smiled. 
 
 "I've finished now," I enlightened him. 
 
 "Finished what?" he cried. "Not draw- 
 ing!" 
 
 "No," I returned. "School." 
 
 "What next?" he continued. 
 
 "Oh, next ? The world, the flesh, and 
 the devil. But I'm not ready for those yet. 
 It's going to take a year to break me in." 
 
 "By what means?" he demanded. 
 
 I hesitated. Following my eyes he no- 
 ticed their stare at the platter which was 
 at that moment being brought in. Upon it 
 was offered salmon, counterfeiting lobster 
 pop-eyes, feelers, and all. 
 
 "See that wolf in sheep's clothing?" I
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 45 
 
 said, nodding toward the triumph of culi- 
 nary skill. "That's what they intend to do 
 with me." 
 
 "What an outrage!" he said in a voice 
 that was capable of as many gradations of 
 expression as his face. It deepened by sev- 
 eral tones as he added: "Don't let them! 
 Please don't!" 
 
 "That's curious," I returned gravely. 
 "Yours is the second warning I've had to- 
 day. The first was from another friend of 
 mine my teacher, Miss Wier. 'I hope noth- 
 ing will spoil you,' she said. I didn't under- 
 stand what she meant, but I think I'm be- 
 ginning to " 
 
 As I spoke my gaze swept the table, and 
 his followed mine as he said, very low: 
 
 "I'm glad you include me among your 
 friends." 
 
 Allan Denning was doing better now by 
 Mrs. Glynn Rollins, having several times 
 emptied his glass of champagne. She was
 
 46 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 saying something to him behind her fan 
 and I heard him laugh rather coarsely. 
 
 Father was absorbed in endeavoring to 
 hold Mrs. Apthorp-Brown's attention long 
 enough to admit of his recounting to her an 
 anecdote. The wandering of her eye failed 
 to discourage him in this attempt. He 
 talked more to her in five minutes than he 
 had talked to me in five years. 
 
 Worried at her failure to swing the con- 
 versation from right to left at the exact 
 moment of the entry of the roast, mother 
 observed in dismay that Miss Bolles on one 
 side and Mr. Glynn Rollins on the other 
 were left without any one to talk to; her 
 relief was evident when they leaned for- 
 ward across the table and began to talk to 
 each other. Miss Bolles chattered like a 
 magpie, now that she had reverted to some 
 one who spoke her language, her talk con- 
 sisting mostly of references to "Kittie," 
 "Birdie," "Larry," "Dick," and other fa- 
 miliars.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 47 
 
 With the exception of Allan Denning, 
 nobody drank anything to speak of; yet 
 corks popped one after another behind the 
 pantry screen until I had counted six small 
 explosions. As the butler passed me the 
 salad he blew down my neck, and my fas- 
 tidious nostrils detected an odor that be- 
 trayed the whereabouts of some of the cham- 
 pagne. 
 
 The night was stifling. In spite of the 
 size of the room it smelt sickeningly of rich, 
 heavy food. After a varied and exciting 
 day I grew suddenly dizzy; and for several 
 seconds the buzz of strident talk and shrill 
 laughter sounded alternately far off and 
 ear-splittingly near. The faintness passed, 
 leaving me with a frown between my brows 
 and a splitting headache. I felt that I could 
 not endure another moment of this confu- 
 sion of sound. 
 
 The hubbub amid which we ate at school 
 had never bothered me. It was as spontane- 
 ous as the twittering of birds in an aviary.
 
 48 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 This was of a different quality noise with- 
 out gayety; laughter without mirth; me- 
 chanical, self-conscious, and forced. When 
 at last we got up, the only thing that kept 
 me from making my escape to bed was the 
 prospect of seeing my new friend for a few 
 moments more at the end of the evening. 
 
 The men stayed out a long time. In their 
 absence mother "took on" Mrs. Apthorp- 
 Brown, who, I had observed, neither listened 
 to what was said to her nor said anything 
 herself. Miss Bolles and Mrs. Glynn Rol- 
 lins went off together to sit on a sofa in a 
 remote corner, where they conversed, over 
 cigarettes, in tones inaudible to the rest. 
 Even their smoking they did not seem to be 
 able to do without making anything of it, 
 but poised their elbows in graceful attitudes 
 and puffed out the smoke ostentatiously 
 through pouting lips. 
 
 The only book in the drawing-room was 
 an unwieldy one, with a parchment cover,
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 49 
 
 marked "Roma"; so I settled myself in a 
 fairly comfortable bergere with that, and 
 was soon absorbed in the photographs of 
 art treasures it contained. They roused my 
 yearning to travel, to learn, to absorb. 
 
 "Yes," I heard mother saying as I turned 
 over a page; "it came near being a bad 
 accident. His horse refused, and he went 
 off, striking the back of his head. Luckily 
 he was only stunned." 
 
 I returned to my photographs, puzzled. 
 Couldn't they who had travelled and had 
 countless other opportunities find any- 
 thing better to talk about than the spill of 
 an acquaintance during a game of polo, the 
 merest incident, a thing of no consequence 
 to anybody ? When I heard the men ap- 
 proaching to rejoin us my heart thumped 
 agreeably. 
 
 To my disappointment it was Allan 
 Denning who sought me out. He was very 
 nice and said a good deal about seeing me
 
 50 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 at Newport, but I could not forgive him for 
 not being somebody else. That somebody 
 else was valiantly talking to mother; out 
 of the corners of my eyes I could see how 
 embarrassed he was. 
 
 Presently Mrs. Apthorp-Brown arose ma- 
 jestically; there was no clock in the room, 
 but she apparently knew by instinct that it 
 was half past ten. 
 
 At the door we found each other again 
 I and my new-made friend and stood 
 without speaking for several seconds, he 
 looking down, I looking up; my hand in his. 
 
 "Won't you come to my studio," he 
 asked eagerly then, "and see some of my 
 work ? I'm just moving that's why Mr. 
 Winship's taken me in." 
 
 "I'd love to!" I replied with enthusiasm. 
 
 "When will you come ?" he went on. 
 
 "I'll come on Thursday," I specified, "at 
 three. We're going away next week." 
 
 "Bully!" he cried, and gave the address.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 51 
 
 "You've forgotten one thing," I reminded 
 him. 
 
 "What's that?" he asked. 
 
 "To tell me your name," I smiled. "It 
 might be convenient for me to know it." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 "Randall," he said; "John Randall. Don't 
 forget. Thursday, at three ! Good night." 
 
 "Oh, mother!" I cried, when everybody 
 had gone. "Isn't he wonderful?" 
 
 She regarded me curiously; and I de- 
 tected an increase of consideration in her 
 manner when she said: 
 
 "You got on with him surprisingly 
 well." 
 
 "Any one could get on with him," I re- 
 plied. 
 
 "Most people do," she assented. "He 
 knows everybody and goes everywhere. He's 
 at every performance of the opera, every 
 dance, every musicale. He's engaged months 
 ahead for week-ends. Still, I hope to get
 
 52 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 him to spend a Sunday with us at Westbury 
 in September." 
 
 During the foregoing my eyes had widened 
 in dismay. 
 
 "Mother," I said solemnly when she 
 paused, "I hate to tell you, but we're not 
 talking about the same man." 
 
 Instantly she stiffened. 
 
 "To whom did you refer?" she asked 
 coldly. 
 
 "To Mr. Randall," I replied, wondering. 
 "I'm going to his studio on Thursday." 
 
 "Girls of seventeen don't go to artists' 
 studios," she said in an icy tone. "You're 
 a child and can't be expected to understand 
 such things; but that he should ask it 
 proves conclusively that he's not a gentle- 
 man. He was taking advantage of your 
 inexperience that's all. I shall never ask 
 him inside this house again." 
 
 I felt myself turning still and white. 
 
 "He didn't know you'd feel that way
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 53 
 
 about it," I said slowly, "any more than I 
 did. Perhaps he isn't a gentleman in your 
 sense. But I don't care, because I'm not a 
 lady. Goodnight!" 
 
 Half an hour later I was lying in my bed 
 in the dark, limbs still rigid, eyes staring at 
 nothingness. Little by little I relaxed 
 first my fists, then my legs and arms, then 
 my eyelids; finally I was all a little limp 
 heap, and then I began to sob as though my 
 heart would break. 
 
 Nothing mattered if only your mother 
 was real. What was the use of living if she 
 wasn't ? What joy would there be in loving 
 if you couldn't confess your love with your 
 face hidden on her breast ? Oh, how I had 
 cried for my mother during sleepless hours, 
 night after night, year after year, at school ! 
 In the morning my pillow had been all 
 soaked with tears and I had put it on the 
 window-sill to dry, so that no one might see. 
 
 From the day of my birth to this day I
 
 54 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 had had a succession of mothers, but no 
 mother ! The trained nurse had been the 
 first to mother me; then, oh, happy years ! 
 had come my Irish Jane, with all the mother- 
 hood of all the ages reflected in the blue 
 pools of her eyes, and all the tenderness 
 of the Mother of God in her awkward red 
 hands. Then, because poor Jane had only 
 the halting vehicle of her own brogue in 
 which to give broken expression to the 
 wealth of her soul, foreign governesses had 
 succeeded; and finally, their variety of 
 motherhood not being entirely adapted to 
 the requirements of the situation imagine 
 Uncle Remus rendered with French or Ger- 
 man accent ! had ensued the varied an- 
 gularities of the patient, reserved, devoted 
 mothers at school. 
 
 It was too much to expect of these un- 
 worldly women, spinster school-teachers from 
 small towns, to turn me out a finished prod- 
 uct, fitted to shine in metropolitan draw-
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 55 
 
 ing-rooms ! No one could have made a 
 society woman of me but mother herself. 
 Was it my fault that I had come back to her 
 with ideals opposed to hers that our stand- 
 ards were as wide apart as the poles ? 
 
 Only love could have wrought the miracle 
 bridged the chasm. Did my mother love 
 me ? It was a terrible question to arise in a 
 young heart. 
 
 Oh, how I wanted her love ! It was my 
 natural right ! I must have it, for I was 
 bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh ! 
 
 Far away, in a room as safe from intru- 
 sion as a fortress, she little guessed into 
 what depths of anguished longing my re- 
 sentment was breaking up. The starvation 
 of the starved years was as nothing to the 
 starvation of to-night. 
 
 My mother was in the same house with me 
 and yet I was alone !
 
 II 
 
 UPON the following morning I woke 
 with a quivering sigh and that lassi- 
 tude of spirit which follows keen emotion. 
 Not only did I feel that mother and I should 
 never understand each other, but I didn't 
 care much whether I ever saw John Randall 
 again or not. 
 
 When the maid tapped at the door with a 
 summons to go at once to mother's room, I 
 knew what that summons portended. The 
 subject of our disagreement of the evening 
 before was to be reopened and the pros and 
 cons' of the discussion rehashed. 
 
 I found mother, semidressed, in the setting 
 appropriate to such mid-morning attire 
 her boudoir. But under the shimmering 
 folds of her negligee her whole figure was 
 
 taut with determination. 
 56
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 57 
 
 "Barbara," she began, "have you notified 
 that young man who was here last night 
 that he's not to expect you at his studio on 
 Thursday?" 
 
 "No," I said; "I haven't done anything 
 about it. Why should you call him 'that 
 young man,' mother as though you didn't 
 know him ?" 
 
 "Because I don't intend to know him," 
 she returned, "except in the most general 
 way. He's forfeited his right to anything 
 more by presuming to invite you, a mere 
 child, to come to his studio a thing that's 
 unheard of ! The effrontery of it ! No 
 sooner had he managed to get himself asked 
 to my house than he seized his opportunity, 
 through an introduction to you, to try and 
 break into society." 
 
 "Now, mother!" I smiled. "As though / 
 could help any one socially! Why, you 
 yourself say I don't know how to stand, or 
 walk, or behave, or wear my clothes !"
 
 5 8 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 "Nevertheless," she replied, "you are my 
 daughter." 
 
 So might the Czar of Russia have spoken 
 in referring to the czarevitch. It was diffi- 
 cult for me to get her point of view as I 
 watched her sitting there, so attractive, her 
 glossy hair full of high lights, her rounded 
 arm, delicately tapering at the wrist, lying 
 along the arm of the chair. She would have 
 died rather than say, "I am a pretty woman"; 
 yet she had not the smallest hesitation in 
 declaring: "I am It!" Hers was an arro- 
 gance not of person but of place. 
 
 "Have you thought," I suggested, "that 
 maybe he doesn't want to get in ? Perhaps 
 he wouldn't care about it. He's pretty busy 
 painting, you know." 
 
 "That's utterly absurd," she retorted. 
 "Of course he wants it! Everybody does 
 who hasn't got it, in every country of the 
 world. What do you suppose the nouveaux 
 riches in America give lavish entertainments
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 59 
 
 for if not for that ? If they're impossible 
 themselves they try to buy social position 
 for their sons and daughters, to whom they've 
 been able to give the advantages they have 
 missed." 
 
 "You don't have to do a thing," I com- 
 mented. "I should think you'd be glad." 
 
 "That's where you're wrong. I have a 
 great deal to do. I've got to keep going. 
 People are so easily lost sight of in this coun- 
 try, where everything is in a continual state 
 of flux. Take the Blaisdens, for example. 
 You remember the Blaisdens?" 
 
 "I've heard of them. Didn't they give a 
 series of musicales about two years ago?" 
 
 " Wonderful musicales ! " she replied. " Ca- 
 ruso sang at the last one." 
 
 She paused, and I remarked: 
 
 "It seems to me I haven't heard the 
 Blaisdens mentioned lately." 
 
 "They're never mentioned," she replied. 
 "They've dropped out. They went abroad
 
 60 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 at the end of the season and haven't been 
 heard of since. The Glynn Rollinses took 
 their house. They considered themselves 
 lucky to get it, as it's an ideal house for en- 
 tertaining. Everybody goes there, just the 
 same." 
 
 "Poor Blaisdens!" I sighed. "Perhaps 
 they had to pay Caruso out of the rent ! 
 Doesn't any one care enough about them to 
 ask?" 
 
 "People haven't time. There are always 
 things to go to. It doesn't take a generation 
 to be forgotten; it's a matter of months." 
 
 "If it's as impersonal as that, why 
 bother?" I questioned. "Any unforeseen 
 circumstance, such as the death of an aunt 
 or an illness, would break up the whole 
 scheme. I'd much rather have a few friends 
 whom I could count on to come and see me 
 if I were ill, or call me up on the telephone, 
 whether I happened to be in mourning or 
 not. Then there'd never be any break to
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 61 
 
 bridge over no worry about trying to get 
 back. One would have a freer mind for 
 other things." 
 
 "What things ?" she asked impatiently. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," I evaded, flushing 
 in sudden reserve; then, deciding that this 
 was unfair to her, I brought myself to add : 
 "Reading, studying, thinking things out. 
 In my case painting, perhaps." 
 
 "Painting!" She took me up. "There 
 you are ! I don't believe you ever thought of 
 such a thing as painting until you met that 
 man last night." 
 
 "Yes, I did," I assured her eagerly. "Oh, 
 I love it so, mother ! I've been painting a 
 little for years. Oils and water-color, both. 
 And I did lots of caricatures at school; cut 
 them out of black paper. The girls thought 
 they were killing. I've got one of a fat 
 lady up-stairs. Shall I get it?" 
 
 "Another time," she put me ofF, dismiss- 
 ing my poor little achievements as unworthy
 
 62 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 of notice and thus wounding me to the 
 quick. 
 
 Never, I believed, to my dying day, would 
 it be possible to me to open my lips to her 
 upon this subject again. 
 
 "You won't have much time for reading 
 and studying, and such things, after this," 
 she went on, in a manner distinctly dis- 
 paraging to all intellectual pursuits. "You'll 
 have enough to do to get ready to 'come 
 out/ I begin to realize that I ought not to 
 have kept you away so long; but, now it's 
 done, we must make the best of it. A great 
 deal can be accomplished in seven months 
 if you make a business of it." 
 
 "Is it so serious as all that ?" I asked, in- 
 timidated. "Can't I just go to parties, when 
 the time comes, for the fun of it ?" 
 
 "Don't refer to cosmopolitan entertain- 
 ments as parties," she corrected. "You'd find 
 the dances extremely formidable if you hadn't 
 laid a foundation with the dancing men."
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 63 
 
 I wondered whether the dancing men had 
 any other avocation, or whether the whole 
 of their activities was comprehended in that 
 term, as one speaks of "performing bears." 
 
 "Is Allan Denning a dancing man?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "Yes," she returned, with an increase of 
 cordiality in her tone, "and you made an 
 excellent beginning with him last night. 
 That was one reason I was so determined 
 not to have you get mixed up in any way 
 with this painter and his friends, whoever 
 they are. The most exclusive women of my 
 acquaintance are only too glad to get Allan 
 Denning to come to their houses. Do you 
 imagine for one moment that he's going to 
 stoop to enter into competition with a no- 
 body for the favor of a mere schoolgirl ? 
 Don't deceive yourself! If he sees you 
 going about with outsiders he'll let you drop; 
 and your stock will fall not only with him 
 but with all the other young men of his sort
 
 64 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 who might have proved extremely useful to 
 you." 
 
 As she spoke I recalled Allan Denning's 
 cool stare at John Randall last evening, his 
 whispered "Who is that ? I don't remember 
 having seen him before," which had dispelled 
 my first pleasant impression of him and 
 stamped him for me as a snob. 
 
 "Mother," I said, with intense earnest- 
 ness, "suppose I don't want the sort of suc- 
 cess you've planned for me ? Suppose the 
 very thought of it is repugnant to me ? 
 Suppose I don't care for men of Allan Den- 
 ning's type and do care for those of Mr. 
 Randall's ? Since it's a matter of choice, 
 oughtn't it to be left to me to choose ? I'm 
 not fitted by temperament for the sort of 
 life you lead. No matter how hard I try, I 
 know I shall not succeed in being a credit to 
 you. Why not drop the whole perplexing 
 business and let me go to college ? Think 
 of the relief to us both ! What harm does
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 65 
 
 it do to change one's plans ? If I went back 
 to school next year I could pass the Bryn 
 Mawr exams in June. Let me, mother ! It 
 would make me absolutely happy. . . . 
 After all, it's my life that's in question, isn't 
 it?" 
 
 "Yours!" she cried in high indignation. 
 "You think only of yourself. What about 
 my life ? Hasn't my every thought been 
 centred on your coming out for years ? 
 Didn't I build a house that was bigger than 
 I needed just to be able to do the thing 
 properly ? And now you say you don't 
 want it ! It's perfectly ridiculous ! How 
 can a girl of seventeen, who's had no experi- 
 ence, know what she wants ? Do you imagine 
 I'm going to allow you, in your childish igno- 
 rance and conceit, to knock down at one blow 
 what I've been building up ever since you 
 were born ? To rob my social career of its 
 climax ?" 
 
 I saw that my case was hopeless. Mother
 
 66 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 needed me in her business. There was noth- 
 ing for it but to give in. How could I con- 
 tinue to oppose her and live under the same 
 roof ? If I did, existence would be hell ! I 
 was the under dog, and I knew it. On the 
 side of the oppressor there was power. 
 
 "What do you want me to do?" I asked, 
 with heavy heart. "Write Mr. Randall a 
 note?" 
 
 "Yes, dear," she replied, with an entire 
 change of tone and manner. "Sit down at 
 that desk. I'll word it for you." 
 
 "Dear Mr. Randall," she wrote through 
 my agency; "I am sorry not to be able to 
 come to your studio on Thursday, as we are 
 moving to the country to-morrow." 
 
 "To-morrow?" I repeated, incredulous. 
 "I thought we weren't going until next 
 week." 
 
 "I've changed my mind." 
 
 "On my account?" I asked with a slow 
 flush. "Do you think I'd go to the studio
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 67 
 
 on the sly, mother ? Is that the sort of girl 
 you think I am ?" 
 
 "It's not that," she replied hastily. "I'm 
 doing it in order to supply you with an ex- 
 cuse." 
 
 I chewed my pen and waited for her to go 
 on with the dictation. 
 
 "With appreciation of your kindness in 
 asking me," she concluded, "Sincerely yours, 
 Barbara West." 
 
 When I had sealed the envelope she pressed 
 the bell for her maid. 
 
 "Yvonne," she directed, "see that this is 
 sent at once by messenger. No answer." 
 
 Thus definitely the episode was closed. 
 All that day I expected signs of dismantling, 
 but did not see any. 
 
 "How can we move on Thursday?" I 
 asked at dinner. "Why, this house is going 
 full tilt ! Not a single thing's covered up or 
 put away. And how is the other house to 
 be got ready five days before the time?"
 
 68 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 "My dear child," mother explained with 
 a slight smile, "it's perfectly simple. The 
 Long Island house is never really closed. 
 It's easily put in shape with an extra staff 
 of cleaners. I telephoned the superinten- 
 dent this morning to attend to it. As for 
 the town house, I never have anything 
 touched until I'm out of it. We take our 
 final meal with the silver on the table. It's 
 the only way to live nicely." 
 
 At this calm statement my mind went 
 back to a house I knew in the Southern city 
 near my school. I had been privileged to 
 enjoy its hospitality on several occasions 
 through a classmate, whose home it was. 
 How did its mistress live, if not nicely ? 
 Many a rare bit of old china had arrested 
 even my inexperienced eye, when passed to 
 me in her own hand at tea-time. The furni- 
 ture in her cool parlor, the lace at her wrist, 
 were as fragile and exquisite as herself. 
 Yet that house was "put away," regularly
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 69 
 
 at the first sign of warm weather, every 
 spring. The entire staff at this gentle lady's 
 command consisted of two old fat mam- 
 mies. 
 
 For the first time it flashed upon me that 
 she must be in straightened circumstances. 
 I had never suspected it amid the several 
 daintinesses with which she was surrounded 
 all cherished heirlooms. She would have 
 considered it lacking in taste to display her 
 poverty. What would she have thought of 
 our display of riches ? Even our lavishness 
 of housecleaning suddenly seemed to me in- 
 decently ostentatious. And why suppress 
 every sign of the business of living ? It would 
 have been inspiriting to hear the whir of the 
 machinery, instead of silencing the parts 
 with a surfeit of oil. 
 
 "Father," I asked, "do all the people you 
 and mother know live in big houses ?" 
 
 "Oh, no," he answered, and I felt im- 
 mensely relieved until he added, smoothing
 
 70 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 his little black mustache: "Many of them 
 prefer apartments now. The Abercrombies 
 have a whole floor of that new apartment- 
 house on Fifth Avenue. It has twenty-six 
 rooms and eight baths. I met Abercrombie 
 at the Racket Club yesterday, and he said 
 they found it very comfortable." 
 
 During the whole of the next morning I 
 was aware, in my room, of the faint rustle of 
 tissue-paper in the hall. When I emerged 
 the maid's arms were buried in it up to the 
 elbows, while her nose pointed toward the 
 cavernous depths of one of a double row of 
 trunks. This was the sole indication of our 
 impending departure. 
 
 We lunched as usual at half-past one. An 
 hour later, according to schedule, we got 
 into the automobile, crossed the Queens- 
 borough Bridge, and, at the discreet pace that 
 was all the tiny car was capable of, ap- 
 proached our destination by an uninspiring 
 and filthy route. It did not even remotely
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 71 
 
 suggest the country, this flat and sordid 
 stretch; all that could be said for it was that 
 it was not the city. On an average of once 
 every two minutes a big touring-car would 
 shoot by us and we would be obliged to eat 
 its dust, which puffed in at our one open 
 window. We had barely composed ourselves 
 after an interval of gasping, gagging, and 
 swallowing before another would come hurt- 
 ling along. 
 
 Mother submitted to this discomfort en- 
 tirely undisturbed. It was customary not 
 only to live on Long Island until July but 
 to arrive there by this means of transporta- 
 tion. Heat, dirt, and ugliness, since they 
 were part of the scheme, were all to be en- 
 dured with equanimity. 
 
 After the lapse of an hour the scenery if 
 scenery it could be called, punctuated every 
 few miles, as it was, with mean little vil- 
 lages, road houses, and saloons improved 
 somewhat, and the air grew less dense.
 
 72 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 Presently we began to pass enclosures marked 
 off by tall iron railings, and through wrought- 
 iron gateways we glimpsed blue macadam 
 driveways, edged by trees and greenery, 
 leading to those considerable mansions which, 
 like those who had built them, were so for- 
 tunately situated as to be able to turn their 
 backs upon all that was unlovely in their 
 surroundings. 
 
 Ours was one of the largest of these. 
 When we reached its boundaries I watched 
 its sombre palings ominously approaching, 
 one by one, and, without pause, flitting by, 
 with a feeling as little cheerful as though I 
 had been a corpse at my own funeral. Once 
 we had turned in at the gate and the iron- 
 work had been left behind, the resemblance 
 to a cemetery was diminished, though the 
 clipped shrubbery and the swept driveway 
 kept it from being wholly dissipated. How- 
 ever the pebbles might fly and crunch under 
 our tires I knew that within the next five
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 73 
 
 minutes all traces of our arrival would be 
 raked away. 
 
 What was the object of moving from one 
 house to another if such moving was to af- 
 ford no variety, no change of scene ? We 
 had descended stone steps in New York; we 
 were ascending stone steps in Westbury. 
 The servants who stood immovably waiting 
 were duplicates of those who had served us at 
 luncheon the same patent-leather pumps; 
 the same white stockings, shapely calves, 
 knee breeches, braid, faces of painstakingly 
 acquired vacuity. How dull it was to be rich 
 if you were also unimaginative ! Duller even 
 than being poor! 
 
 Instead of going up-stairs I wandered into 
 the drawing-room and stepped out through 
 the window onto the upper terrace. The 
 garden occupied the lower one. My eye 
 swept it unemotionally. Think of a garden 
 that fails to thrill the being in June ! It is 
 unworthy the name of garden, being merely
 
 74 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 a space allotted to horticulture. The gar- 
 den at school ah, that was a garden, in- 
 deed, with a very riot of flowers, growing 
 in Southern profusion anywhere anyhow ! 
 In this garden they were set out, row by 
 row, with mathematical precision, the vari- 
 eties differentiated by means of wooden 
 labels, upon which their botanical names 
 were written in ink. To call a rose by its 
 nickname would have been undue familiarity. 
 
 After an interval I caught sight of mother 
 on the lower level, moving about among the 
 beds. I had seen her last in dark blue and 
 now she was daintily dressed in mauve. 
 A gardener had sprung up from somewhere. 
 Him she appeared to be directing in some 
 way, vaguely pointing with a folded mauve 
 parasol. 
 
 "How did you get out without my seeing 
 you?" I cried, running down to her. "And 
 how did you happen to change ? Have the 
 trunks come already?"
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 75 
 
 "I came out through the billiard-room," 
 she answered. "Of course, the trunks have 
 come ! They arrived by motor-truck three- 
 quarters of an hour ago. Yvonne has un- 
 packed half of them by now, with two 
 housemaids to help her. Hurry and change 
 your gown. I'm expecting several people 
 for tea." 
 
 As I obeyed I wondered whether Yvonne 
 had arrived by motor-truck, too, sitting be- 
 side the driver. At any rate, she had been 
 transferred by some speedier method of 
 locomotion than ours. While I was dressing, 
 motors began to arrive, and when I came 
 down the great hall was already swarming 
 with guests, mostly dowagers in resplendent 
 embroidery, lace veils, and pearls. 
 
 I was introduced to a great many of them, 
 who talked rather about me than to me, 
 making such comments as: 
 
 "Came home only day before yesterday! 
 How glad you must be to have her!"
 
 76 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 "Not very tall for seventeen, is she?" 
 
 "She must meet my girls. Could she 
 dine with them next Monday ? Oh, no no 
 one will be there who is 'out.' Just the 
 younger set." 
 
 They stayed until nearly seven. When the 
 last group had gone mother announced 
 hurriedly: 
 
 "I must fly ! We'll be late at the Rudford 
 Joneses, as it is. They're at Oyster Bay 
 and it takes half an hour to get there." 
 
 "I didn't know you were dining out," I 
 replied, rather disconsolately. 
 
 "We always dine out when we don't have 
 people in," she said. "I've ordered your 
 dinner served in my sitting-room, Bar- 
 bara." 
 
 "Let me have milk toast on a tray instead," 
 I begged. "Then I won't have to have a 
 man watching every mouthful I eat. Be- 
 sides," I added cannily, "it'll be much 
 better for my digestion. I've been stuffing
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 77 
 
 myself for two hours with all kinds of little 
 cakes." 
 
 "You're as greedy as you can be !" returned 
 mother, shocked. "Well, do as you like." 
 
 "It wasn't greed," I explained as she 
 started up-stairs. "It was just something 
 to do. I couldn't stand there unoccupied 
 while all those women looked me over to see 
 whether I would do for their children to as- 
 sociate with." 
 
 I woke next morning, in accordance with 
 long-established habit, promptly at half past 
 six too early to get up. It was, in fact, too 
 early to wake up, for our household habit- 
 ually remained wrapped in slumber until 
 nine. Yet I was ravenously hungry. 
 
 "What would they do," I wondered, "if I 
 should come down at half past seven and de- 
 mand breakfast ? I think I'll try it. They'll 
 be sweeping or something," I conjectured as 
 I went down-stairs. 
 
 But "they" were not sweeping. There
 
 78 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 was no one about. "They" were imitating 
 the matutinal habits of their employers. 
 
 "The butler's probably having his break- 
 fast served in bed," I thought scornfully. I 
 had no use for that butler. "Wonder what'll 
 happen if I ring this bell!" 
 
 I pressed it, and for a long time nothing 
 happened. Finally a footman in shirt-sleeves, 
 peering round the screen that hid the pantry 
 door, withdrew his head with a jerk. The 
 next moment he reappeared with his coat on, 
 arms at his sides militarily, and I made my 
 wishes known. He vanished and, after at 
 least twenty minutes, came back with very 
 bad coffee, which I was sure had been de- 
 signed for consumption below stairs, an over- 
 fried egg, and some cold damp toast, left 
 over from the day before. No trace of the 
 chefs hand here ! 
 
 When I went back to my room it was just 
 as I had left it my things scattered here, 
 there, and everywhere; bed-clothes rumpled
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 79 
 
 on the bed. No doubt the housemaid was 
 still dreaming. This, too, I suppose, was a 
 part of what mother called living nicely. 
 
 I pottered about for an hour or two; and 
 then, all at once, the house burst into ac- 
 tivity. People walked, creaked, and thumped 
 overhead and under; carpet-sweepers 
 groaned; brooms swished; trays clattered. 
 
 At eleven mother came to my room, hatted 
 and veiled, with a little bag in her hand. 
 
 "Get ready, Barbara," she instructed me. 
 "The motor will be here in ten minutes." 
 
 "Are we going for a drive?" I asked 
 eagerly. "How nice ! I'm crazy to get some 
 wild flowers." 
 
 "We're going to town," she returned. 
 "I've got some shopping to do. We'll stop 
 at Yvette's and pick up your blue crepe de 
 Chine gown, with the jacket. That ought to 
 be ready to-day. And I think I can find you 
 a hat at Rothenstein's." 
 
 "Can't I wear my old clothes," I ques-
 
 8o BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 tioned, "just to go shopping ? We shan't 
 see a soul." 
 
 "We'll see everybody," she returned, "at 
 luncheon at Sherry's." 
 
 "What a pretty dress!" I said an hour 
 later, with a gratified glance at myself in the 
 long mirror at Yvette's. "This hat does look 
 funny with it." 
 
 "It certainly does," agreed mother. 
 "We'll go right to Rothenstein's now." 
 
 At the millinery shop the shades were 
 drawn to keep out the heat, and quantities 
 of gray-garbed girls lounged about, yawning. 
 Most of them had yellow hair and very red 
 cheeks. 
 
 Mother selected a dainty hat of silver lace, 
 trimmed with tiny flowers and a narrow silk 
 bow. It looked like a boudoir cap and the 
 price was forty dollars. I knew better now 
 than to utter any protest aloud, and even my 
 inner objections were lost in admiration of 
 the skilfully wrought flowerets. The hat
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 81 
 
 certainly did offset the shape of my head. 
 Made it look trim and compact, I decided, 
 turning it left and right as I held up a hand- 
 glass for its better inspection. 
 
 Coming out we met Miss Wier face to face; 
 and I realized, to my dismay, that I was 
 strutting like a peacock. 
 
 "Mother," I said, my face burning under 
 my coquettish hat, "this is Miss Wier. I've 
 been dying to have you meet her." 
 
 "How do you do, Miss Wier?" said 
 mother graciously. "I've heard so much of 
 you from Barbara. I wish you could come 
 down to the country and spend a night with 
 us sometime." 
 
 "Thank you so much, Mrs. West," was 
 the reply, "but I'm leaving the city to-day. 
 I'm delighted to have this glimpse of you, 
 Barbara. I should hardly have known you, 
 you look so smart." 
 
 There was renunciation in her eyes. Be- 
 fore I knew it she was gone.
 
 82 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 I hated my new finery now. I wanted to 
 tear it all off and throw it into the street, 
 since it had come between me and my friend. 
 I longed to convince her that it had wrought 
 no change in me; that it never would. But 
 presently a doubt arose in my breast. 
 Hadn't it begun to affect me just a little 
 bit? 
 
 Sighing and perplexed I sat very still in 
 my corner and watched the summer pedes- 
 trians moving along slowly under the gayly 
 striped awnings of the shops, until we turned 
 into Forty-fourth Street, which purred with 
 motors, each pausing for a moment to drop 
 its quota of women in gala attire at the 
 restaurant door and then passing on. Ar- 
 rayed in cutaway, "dickey," and top-hat, 
 with a cane in one hand and a pair of castor 
 gloves in the other, an occasional male was 
 to be glimpsed amid this female galaxy. 
 
 Such get-ups or should I say gets-up ? 
 I had heretofore supposed had no existence
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 83 
 
 outside the imagination of whoever wrote 
 "What the Man Will Wear" in the theatre 
 programmes. 
 
 One ape, with face merely vapid, bowed to 
 mother; another, with something in his ex- 
 pression that made me shrink, lifted his hat 
 as we passed; then an old one, who was not 
 entitled to the privilege, since he did not 
 greet her, looked me up and down with an 
 odious leer that made me crawl. 
 
 But once inside the portals I began to 
 enjoy myself, as I always enjoyed music, 
 bustle, heat, hurry, and noise when I was 
 allowed to be an observer instead of having 
 to take part in the show. 
 
 "Isn't this a spree?" I whispered. "I'm 
 so afraid you won't be able to get a table, 
 mother." 
 
 "The table was reserved yesterday," she 
 said, "by telephone. There's the head 
 waiter now." 
 
 The person designated, after having greeted
 
 84 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 her with the smiling cordiality that was 
 evidently appropriate in a head waiter but 
 would have caused a house servant to be 
 discharged, ushered us to a tiny table for 
 two just inside an open window, and darted 
 off to other preoccupations. 
 
 "What will you have, Barbara?" asked 
 mother, studying the menu. 
 
 "Nothing much," I answered. "It's so 
 hot, isn't it ? You order it. There's Mrs. 
 Aspinwall over there, with the stiff woman 
 in yellow, and that horrid-looking girl if 
 she is a girl! Is she a girl, mother?" 
 
 Mother followed the direction of my 
 eyes. 
 
 "Look how she's made up, mother," I 
 went on, horrified. "Like a chorus girl! 
 Her lips look as though they were bleeding ! 
 I've never seen anything so disgusting!" 
 
 At this moment the object of our inspec- 
 tion opened her little silk bag, selected 
 therefrom a minute mirror, deliberately ex-
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 85 
 
 amined her features therein, gave a few 
 critical touches to her hair, put the mirror 
 back, closed the bag, picked up a fork, and 
 began to prod the food about indifferently 
 on her plate. 
 
 " That's Ruth Alvord," mother explained. 
 "You mustn't form slapdash judgments, 
 Barbara. Ruth is a very intelligent girl. 
 Her mother is Mrs. Barton Winslow, a 
 friend of mine. You'll get into trouble if 
 you're not more careful of what you say 
 about people." 
 
 "What would you do," I asked curiously, 
 "if I should begin to powder and rouge? 
 to say nothing of behaving like that in a 
 public restaurant!" 
 
 "You couldn't," was the reply. "You're 
 not 'out.' She is. It would be very bad 
 form in a girl who wasn't out. Ruth has 
 been out two years. Of course, she does 
 make herself rather conspicuous; but she's 
 all right at heart."
 
 86 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 By which she meant not what she said, 
 but that Miss Alvord was the daughter of 
 Mrs. Barton Winslow and must be accepted, 
 without question, as such. 
 
 At this moment the waiter who had 
 taken our order came hurrying up. 
 
 "What are those little black things?" I 
 asked suspiciously, watching mother, who, 
 having laid a square of dry toast upon her 
 plate, was now spreading it sparsely with 
 something extracted from a dish surrounded 
 with ice and garnished with small slivers of 
 lemon. "Do I have to take any?" 
 
 "Sh!" she reprimanded, looking at me 
 as one might look at some uninitiated rela- 
 tive from the country. "It's caviar fresh 
 caviar. Don't be childish, Barbara ! Cer- 
 tainly; take some." 
 
 "It's rather good," I admitted; then, the 
 waiter having once more left us, I asked, 
 half banteringly, half affectionately: "Are 
 you ashamed of my ignorance, mother?"
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 87 
 
 "Not of your ignorance," she replied, 
 "but of your complete unconsciousness that 
 you are ignorant." 
 
 Glancing across the vista of tables just 
 then I caught the eye of the Alvord girl. 
 Seeing herself observed, even by another 
 girl, she instantly drooped her shoulders, 
 thrust her chin out in an attitude of studied 
 boredom, flicked a speck from her gown 
 with one long white finger, and let her mouth 
 fall into disdainful curves. 
 
 "She's not unconscious of anything she 
 does," I reflected. "I wonder if that's the 
 manner mother'd like me to acquire?" 
 
 Our luncheon over, mother barely glanced 
 at the slip that was offered her, folded. 
 Opening her gold purse, she took out a bill 
 and laid it beside the bit of paper on the 
 salver. As it was swept away in the waiter's 
 hand I saw the double X in the corner. I 
 expected mountains of change, but when 
 it came there were only three quarters and
 
 88 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 a two-dollar bill. Mother picked up the 
 quarters and waved away the bill. 
 
 The waiter who pocketed it had a hag- 
 gard face, seamed with illness or former 
 want. My meeting with Miss Wier had 
 started me thinking, and now this face sud- 
 denly loomed terrible to my eyes, typify- 
 ing all the miseries of the poor. I dared 
 not look at the man as I followed mother 
 out. Somehow I felt that we had insulted 
 him with our money made him an acces- 
 sory in our crime. 
 
 As mother threaded her way among the 
 crowded tables, walking erect and bowing 
 graciously here and there, I hung my head, 
 unhappy and ashamed. 
 
 "Must we do more shopping?" I asked 
 wearily while we were waiting for the car 
 to come up. "Couldn't we go and hear 
 some music somewhere?" 
 
 My spirit had trailed along the earth for 
 so many hours that I felt an urgent need of
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 89 
 
 something to lift it up; but mother nega- 
 tived the suggestion. She had a "fitting" 
 at three and an appointment to look at some 
 Chinese rugs at four. 
 
 "I wish I could get into the woods," I 
 said, when at last we were on our way 
 home, "and sleep in my clothes, and have 
 nothing to eat but what I cooked my- 
 self." 
 
 "The woods," replied mother, "would 
 be extremely uncomfortable at this time of 
 year, with the mosquitoes. You're much 
 better off where you are." 
 
 "But I'm not there," I objected. "It's 
 not living in the country to spend the day in 
 town." 
 
 "It's what everybody does," said mother. 
 "If you stayed on Long Island in the day- 
 time you'd stay there alone except on rac- 
 ing days, of course, and during polo week. 
 But that's over." 
 
 "Let me stay alone sometimes," I begged.
 
 90 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 "I shouldn't mind it a bit. I can always 
 find plenty to do." 
 
 "No," returned mother with decision. 
 "I'm going to take you about with me. The 
 season is half over. People will be leaving 
 for Newport and Bar Harbor in another 
 three weeks. You mustn't lose a single 
 chance of being seen." 
 
 We went to town every day that week 
 and the next. Usually we lunched at 
 Sherry's, sometimes at the Ritz; and once 
 we visited an Italian restaurant in an ob- 
 scure street, which "people were beginning 
 to go to." At night we had dinners, formal 
 and informal. At the formal I appeared, 
 dressed in my best, stood about until all 
 the guests had assembled, and made my 
 escape while cocktails were being served. 
 At the latter I remained throughout the 
 evening. Twice I dined out with other girls 
 and boys. The first lot were of my own age 
 and younger comrades in the transition
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 91 
 
 stage, whose awkwardness gave no indica- 
 tion of the stupendous changes, physical and 
 mental, that were going on inside. 
 
 The dinner was a pompous affair, but the 
 dancing that followed was good fun. The 
 boys trod on my toes until I volunteered to 
 teach them the steps, and then the evening 
 was mine. How queer we should have 
 looked to adults, had any adults been there 
 to see ! There were none, as all the adults 
 were at entertainments of their own. Some 
 of us had shot out like telescopes; others had 
 their heads growing between their shoulders. 
 Some were fat, some lean; for even your Long 
 Island cannot escape its awkward age. 
 
 The second assemblage to which I was 
 introduced consisted of the butterflies of 
 next year the grubs of last. They fore- 
 shadowed that which was to be and gave 
 no sign whatever of what had so recently 
 been. The girls had acquired a knowledge 
 of what was to constitute their stock in
 
 92 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 trade from froufrou hair, brought down 
 over their ears, to sharply pointed, shiny 
 finger-nails; from coy glances to fixed 
 smiles, displaying regular teeth or dimples 
 or pretty lips, whichever they happened to 
 be endowed with extremely disconcerting 
 to me, since I had not acquired it. Their 
 talk was of the races, the polo that I had 
 missed, and current "shows." 
 
 One boy had been to the "Broadway 
 Follies" seventeen times, as he took pains to 
 tell me twice, being a simple soul in spite 
 of his coat tails, hair plastered back from 
 his forehead, and the gardenia in his but- 
 tonhole. When I went home I saw him 
 driving himself off in a huge red automo- 
 bile, with a nice-looking man in a gray 
 ulster probably a tutor at his side. What 
 could a tutor teach a boy brought up like 
 that ? 
 
 The hot, dusty days in town, the hurry 
 of dressing, the heavy food, which I bolted
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 93 
 
 out of sheer nervousness, the strain of 
 meeting new people disturbed my nights 
 and made me toss about for hours. I in- 
 variably woke with a dull feeling in my 
 temples, and was only too glad to have my 
 breakfast brought to me in bed. Provided 
 the hour at which I rang for it was late 
 enough, I could thus be reasonably sure of 
 a good cup of coffee. I got to depend upon 
 this more and more, and took it blacker 
 and blacker. Exercise was not included in 
 the plan of campaign and I felt the lack of 
 it sharply. 
 
 One day we came out from town early, 
 as mother was going to Mrs. Barton Wins- 
 low's for tea. 
 
 "I think I'll take you with me," she said 
 as we turned in at the driveway. 
 
 "In this gown?" I protested, having on 
 only my second best. "Do you think I look 
 well enough ?" 
 
 Mother smiled approval.
 
 94 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 "You wouldn't have thought of that a 
 week ago," she commended. "You're learn- 
 ing. It won't matter here. Mrs. Winslow 
 has a gift of making every one feel at home." 
 
 This time she spoke the truth. 
 
 Mrs. Winslow was a very charming 
 woman, graceful in appearance and in 
 speech. I lost my heart to her on the spot. 
 
 "Come and meet my daughter," she in- 
 vited; and, holding me by the hand, she 
 led me over to the tea-table. 
 
 With a man seated on each side and two 
 standing against the wall behind, Ruth 
 Alvord was pouring the tea. She had a 
 certain sort of good looks, but not a trace of 
 her mother's breeding. How had she missed 
 it ? I wondered. It was my first encounter 
 with the effect produced by the total de- 
 tachment of interests among people of our 
 sort. 
 
 In humbler circumstances a daughter 
 begins to drink in her mother's ideas with
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 95 
 
 her mother's milk. We, poor things, miss 
 even this, being generally bottle-fed; and 
 by the time we are eighteen separation 
 is complete, especially if some relative 
 a father, perhaps, as in this case before 
 making his exit from the stage is consider- 
 ate enough to insure us independence of 
 every good influence by providing us with 
 a fortune in our own right. 
 
 The interruption of my advent caused 
 Miss Alvord obvious annoyance; and, upon 
 her mother's introduction, she gave me an 
 impertinent stare. Mrs. Winslow had not 
 time to observe this. Almost before the 
 seated swains had sprung to their feet she 
 had turned to receive other guests. 
 
 "Woo, how do you do?" the daughter 
 drawled in a high, thin voice, artificially 
 pitched. "Tea ? No ? Oh ! Sit down again, 
 Monty. You, too, Jim." 
 
 As I hastily withdrew I saw her smile at 
 Monty in a fashion I found later to be much
 
 96 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 in vogue among young women down here; 
 it is done by drawing the upper lip back 
 over the teeth. 
 
 Looking about for mother, I espied two 
 very slim girls, with cups in their hands, 
 standing in the embrasure of a French 
 window. They were talking with a man 
 whose back was toward the room. I knew 
 that back. It was John Randall's. 
 
 As I recognized it the blood receded from 
 my heart and then came pumping back 
 again. Presently that overtaxed organ be- 
 gan pounding joyously. Who would ever 
 have thought of coming upon John Ran- 
 dall in a Long Island drawing-room ? 
 
 It was my lucky star that had caused 
 this untoward phenomenon; thrust him 
 under my eyes; willed me to find him again 
 in the only way I should have been willing 
 to find him out in the open, in plain sight 
 of anybody who was interested enough to look. 
 
 I could hardly walk properly as I has-
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 97 
 
 tened toward him; my steps wanted to break 
 into the most idiotic little skips, just as my 
 face had already broken into radiant smiles. 
 
 "Hello!" I cried breathlessly. 
 
 The girls looked up in surprise; he 
 turned and did not smile at me. He 
 merely bowed, with a slight flush. The 
 repulse of that look was like a blow in the 
 face. It staggered me. 
 
 "This is an unexpected pleasure, Miss 
 West," he said stiffly. "I'm down here 
 just for a few days, to start er a to 
 start a portrait of Mrs. Winslow. I made 
 the preliminary sketch this morning." 
 
 "Oh!" I said, more stiffly than he. 
 "How very nice! I wish you success." 
 
 With that I wheeled abruptly and 
 walked away. Behind me I could hear the 
 girls resume their giggling; could picture 
 the silly things undulating up to him again, 
 their cups shaking to the shaking of their 
 shoulders.
 
 98 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 Why didn't he shove them aside and 
 come running after me to tell me it wasn't 
 true, as I thought, that he had taken offense 
 at my letter ? That he had merely been so 
 surprised at seeing me his mind hadn't 
 worked ? I should have accepted any ex- 
 cuse, no matter how lame. 
 
 But he didn't come. He didn't come 
 because it was true. He had let that letter 
 spoil it all. He was a sapless creature 
 a poor thing, without imagination enough 
 to read mother between the lines. Why, I 
 had never for one moment thought of his 
 attributing that letter to me ! Any fool 
 could see that it was her letter; she jumped 
 right out at you from the paper. 
 
 I had thought him so peculiarly en- 
 dowed with fine and delicate perceptions; 
 and now I found him literal to the last de- 
 gree. It was infuriating of him to step 
 down from the pedestal upon which I had 
 placed him and mingle with the throng,
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 99 
 
 sharing its qualities of littleness suspicion, 
 egotism, false pride. Tears of vexation 
 rose to my eyes, so that the whole room 
 became a blur and I could not see where I 
 was going. 
 
 Of course I promptly collided with some- 
 body, winked away the tears in short order, 
 looked up to ascertain who it was to whom 
 I was murmuring an apology and found 
 myself face to face with Allan Denning. I 
 expected some bantering retort; but, to 
 my surprise, his eyes were looking straight 
 into mine with an expression of anxious 
 solicitude. 
 
 Curious that I had not noticed before 
 how supremely blue they were as blue 
 as the shadows on snow when the sun is 
 shining ! His ruddy cheeks glowed with a 
 suggestion of the open country; they made 
 me forget the dense atmosphere of this 
 tea-party and think of frosty mornings; 
 of sleigh-bells; of crackling camp-fires. I
 
 ioo BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 could imagine him walking through the 
 autumn woods, gun in hand, or casting his 
 flies over the still pools of trout streams. 
 Why didn't he realize that that not this 
 was his natural element ? 
 
 "Something's the matter!" he said, lean- 
 ing quite close. 
 
 "No!" I protested. "Nothing's the mat- 
 ter nothing at all. I'm just hot, that's 
 all hot and bored." 
 
 He smiled irrelevantly and took out his 
 handkerchief. 
 
 "Look!" he said, indicating the lace on 
 my dress. 
 
 I looked; and there, amid its folds, hung 
 a telltale tear. 
 
 "Caught!" I admitted, as he brushed 
 it away with the irresistible tenderness of 
 a very big thing for a very little one. 
 
 "Now come out of this!" he ordered, 
 "and tell me all about it." 
 
 It was pleasant to obey. As I passed
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 101 
 
 mother I saw her looking at me, paused 
 just long enough to read in that look acqui- 
 escence commendation even and went 
 on. I was so tired and it was so easy to 
 follow the line of least resistance. To be 
 approved of by mother was a new sensa- 
 tion. And now to be taken care of, to be 
 soothed that was new too. 
 
 "Out with it!" Allan Denning com- 
 manded when we were seated on the terrace 
 in two light-green iron chairs, with a cool 
 vista of green lawn in front, and the move- 
 ment and color of the "tea" delightfully 
 distant, behind the long, open windows. 
 
 "That Alvord girl," I said, "was snippy 
 to me; and then a friend of mine disap- 
 pointed me. That's all that happened. 
 Honest, it is!" 
 
 "It's enough!" he returned quickly, and 
 his eyes flashed. "That you," he added 
 in a low tone, "should be subjected to the 
 rudeness of a girl like that!"
 
 102 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 His scorn of Miss Alvord was the subtlest 
 flattery to myself. I sat silent, drinking it in. 
 
 "What about the friend?" he resumed 
 presently. 
 
 I shrank back. 
 
 "Don't ask me about that," I answered, 
 my face suffused. "I'd rather not talk 
 about that." 
 
 "I beg your pardon," he said at once. 
 "You spoke of it first, you know. What 
 have you been doing with yourself all these 
 days?" 
 
 At his making it so easy for me to keep 
 my own counsel my gratitude went out to 
 him afresh. 
 
 "Thousands of things!" I replied. "Hor- 
 rid things ! Things I hate shopping, 
 lunching, going to teas, dining out, having 
 people in. When I used to read about it 
 in the Social Notes it sounded so gay. But 
 now that I'm living it, it doesn't seem gay 
 a bit."
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 103 
 
 "It isn't gay," he replied. "Putting cer- 
 tain people in juxtaposition doesn't con- 
 stitute gayety. The only people who are 
 gay down here are the ones that go about 
 together because they want to, not because 
 they have anything to gain by it." 
 
 "Where are those?" I asked hopefully. 
 "Why haven't I met them?" 
 
 "Because they're busy with each other," 
 he affirmed. "You won't meet them, ex- 
 cept by accident." 
 
 "I shouldn't think it would be necessary 
 to live in big houses on Long Island to 
 have that sort of fun," I commented. 
 
 "It isn't," he answered. "The same sort 
 is obtainable in Lowell, Massachusetts. All 
 you need is a gang of kindred spirits." 
 
 "Who are the kindred spirits here?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "Well," he replied, "there are the Spen- 
 cers, and the Glendennings, and the Winty 
 Athertons, and the Boltons, and "
 
 io 4 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 "I don't see any of their entertainments 
 mentioned in the papers," I interrupted. 
 
 "They don't give any," he enlightened 
 me. "People give functions only when 
 they have something to get by doing it. 
 What's the use of being bothered if the 
 world is your oyster to begin with ?" 
 
 "It's a relief," I said thoughtfully, "to 
 learn that there's anybody here, however 
 narrow and selfish, who doesn't plot and 
 scheme." 
 
 "The plotting and scheming," he re- 
 turned, "is all done by those who are not 
 in the inner circle, but who wish to appear 
 to be in it." 
 
 "Thank you," I said, with lurking mis- 
 chief in my eyes. "You've placed my 
 family for me in Who's Who on Long 
 Island." 
 
 "Turn over the page and you'll find 
 my name," he replied, with an answering 
 gleam. "I'm a plotter and schemer too. I
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 105 
 
 tap the inner circle at some points; but I'm 
 not satisfied with that." 
 
 At that moment mother, appearing in 
 the window, beckoned, smiled, and waved 
 a blithe parasol. 
 
 "May I come and see you to-morrow?" 
 asked Allan Denning as we got up, holding 
 my hand a moment longer than was neces- 
 sary. 
 
 "Do!" I cried. "Where are you stay- 
 ing?" 
 
 A shade of embarrassment flickered 
 across the self-satisfaction of his demeanor. 
 
 "I'm staying here," he replied. 
 
 "Staying here?" I repeated. "And yet 
 you spoke so contemptuously of the Alvord 
 girl! You were not sincere in what you 
 said to me. You like her. You wouldn't 
 be here if you didn't." 
 
 He paused before he answered. 
 
 "I despise her," he then said deliber- 
 ately. "I stay here because because," he
 
 io6 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 ended bitterly, "that's the kind of thing 
 we plotters and schemers do. If I'd come 
 in contact years ago with a few girls like 
 you I'd have been out of that class long 
 ago. Won't you help me to get out of it 
 now?" 
 
 Once more his flattery went to my head. 
 I was confident that I could even now rev- 
 olutionize his standards, having been so 
 charmingly invited to place my finger in 
 the pie. Returning the pressure of his 
 fingers, I whispered eagerly: 
 
 "I'll try." 
 
 He came the next day, and the next. 
 On the fourth day he moved over from 
 Mrs. Winslow's house to ours, bag and 
 baggage motor, valet, golf-sticks, tennis- 
 rackets, and such countless other neces- 
 saries as form the equipment of the profes- 
 sional week-ender. 
 
 He went back to town on Monday, and
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 107 
 
 upon the Friday following, mother and 
 father having accepted an invitation to 
 Hyde Park for over Sunday, I was left, 
 for the first time since my arrival, free to 
 breathe. 
 
 I was going to spend my Saturday in 
 sketching in oils or in picking field flowers; 
 I hadn't decided which. My intention was 
 to motor as far from civilization as I could, 
 be dropped somewhere, and left until called 
 for. The weather was discouraging to my 
 enterprise, being densely foggy; but I set 
 out, nevertheless. 
 
 At noon I found a heavenly turn in a 
 road, with a high, crumbly wall made of 
 brick; and, having sent the car away, I 
 scaled the wall and began to sketch from 
 the top of it a deserted farmhouse, sur- 
 rounded by three trees. 
 
 A faint, yellow thing, like an orange, was 
 coming through the fog. Every instant it 
 grew brighter, until it began to blaze glori-
 
 io8 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 ously and became the sun. Segments of 
 mist, transfigured, floated about, filaments 
 of unbelievable delicacy. Finally they 
 melted and the whole world was crystal- 
 clear. 
 
 The colors were so much more beautiful 
 than any I could mix that I sat, paint-brush 
 in hand, on my perch, ears attuned to the 
 stillness. Suddenly it was broken by a too 
 familiar sound the roar of a motor driven 
 at top speed. 
 
 Closer and closer came the car, swerving 
 perilously as it rounded the corner, its 
 wheel in the nonchalant hold of a gray- 
 coated young man. 
 
 Bang ! A terrific report. A front tire had 
 blown out. The machine gave a drunken 
 lurch, jumped the road and landed in a ditch, 
 just grazing the wall directly under me. 
 
 The young man, somewhat dazed by the 
 jar, was amusingly unaware of my presence. 
 
 "Whew!" I said. "What a disturbance!
 
 log 
 
 No harm done, I guess. What are you 
 doing in this unpopulated place, Mr. Den- 
 ning?" 
 
 Speechless with surprise, he looked up. 
 My appearance evidently did not lessen his 
 amazement. Left to myself, I had assem- 
 bled my costume to suit my own fancy. I 
 had on a linen hat, purchased from a caddy, 
 and a dress of lustrous dark-blue crepe de 
 Chine, trimmed with lace. It was open at 
 the throat and upon the part exposed the 
 fierce rays of the sun had burnt an angry 
 purple V. I had exaltation in my eye, and 
 in my hand a paint-brush. Denning vaulted 
 from his machine. 
 
 "Why, Miss West!" he cried, face up- 
 turned. "What are you doing on top of 
 that wall ? You ow ! " 
 
 "What's the matter?" I queried. 
 
 "You're dripping paint on me," he grum- 
 bled, rubbing his eyes. "Green paint!" he 
 amplified aggrievedly.
 
 no BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 "I'm sorry!" I apologized absently. 
 "I'm afraid I'll have to call a halt on this 
 picture. I can't seem to get anywhere with 
 it. Yet you'd think any one could make a 
 picture of a nice old farmhouse, surrounded 
 by three trees." 
 
 "There's not enough action in it to keep 
 your attention," he laughed. "Now, why 
 don't you paint me ? Young man at the 
 wheel, hair blowing, and all that sort of 
 thing eh, what ?" 
 
 To his evident amusement he felt my 
 downward glance at him freeze into a fixed 
 stare. So might a wildcat stare out of a 
 tree at the prey that it had stalked. 
 
 "I will," I said solemnly. "You shall 
 pose for me. What luck that I've got an- 
 other canvas stretched !" 
 
 I clapped my hands. I had to drop the 
 brush, of course, to do it. He picked up 
 my property, cleaned it with leaves, and 
 gave it back politely by the handle.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA in 
 
 "I've got to get back to luncheon at the 
 Glendennings'," he demurred. "I must get 
 to work and put on a tire. Besides, you 
 can't paint really, can you?" 
 
 I tossed my head. 
 
 "I'll show you whether I can or not," I 
 muttered. "You're too late now to lunch 
 with the inner circle. You have no choice. 
 There's some chocolate in my bag. We'll 
 eat that later. As for the car, I'll help you 
 get it out." 
 
 I gave a pull at my skirt with my free 
 hand, preparatory to jumping down. 
 
 "This is an afternoon dress," I explained. 
 "I wore it to Mrs. Winslow's tea that day. 
 But I thought, as mother was away, I 
 might as well use it to paint in. Bloomers 
 would be better," I ended, giving the skirt 
 a kick. "Oh, it would be delicious to wear 
 bloomers! Here goes!" I jumped. 
 
 Down in the ditch, knees braced, fore- 
 heads throbbing, our four arms shoved with
 
 ii2 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 all their ferocious strength. The ditch was 
 not deep and at the sixth attempt the car 
 consented to move. 
 
 "Whew!" I exclaimed when it was 
 squarely on the road again, looking for a 
 handkerchief, not finding it, and using a 
 corner of my skirt to mop my face. "Now 
 get in and let me have a look at you." 
 
 Head on one side, I made a careful scru- 
 tiny. 
 
 "Don't sit up so straight," I ordered. 
 "Slump as though you had no back-bone. 
 There, that's better. You can't have back- 
 bone and ease both. How heavenly that 
 your coat is gray ! It brings out the won- 
 derful blue of your eyes. Gray car, too! 
 Gray figure, gray machine one a part of 
 the other. Of course, I can only give your 
 general effect on this small canvas if I want 
 to get the car in. But it's an effect that's 
 worth giving." 
 
 I spoke dreamily, with caressing inflec-
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 113 
 
 tions. From his quizzical expression I knew 
 I had been saying foolish, extravagant 
 things. When the painting impulse was on 
 me I never could curb my speech. It was 
 a very intoxication. 
 
 "Push your hair farther back from your 
 forehead," I commanded. "I want to get 
 all the strength of it; all the dignity." 
 
 "White," I continued my soliloquy, for 
 that was what it was. So far as he person- 
 ally was concerned, he might just as well 
 not have been there at all. "With blue 
 veinings," I went on. "What a pity I've 
 got to leave those delicate veinings out 
 and just catch an impression of you with a 
 dab of paint." 
 
 "Am I slumped enough?" he asked, to 
 divert me; but I was not to be diverted. 
 
 "Never mind that just now," I admon- 
 ished. "I'm not thinking of anything at 
 this moment but your head. I want to 
 get the outline that broken line of your
 
 ii4 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 hair. It's radiant, with the sun on it, all 
 tossed up into little gold-brown waves. 
 Some curly hair's effeminate, but yours 
 is too crisp for that; too decided. It's 
 heavenly hair to paint." 
 
 Five hours later I was laying on the 
 finishing strokes. The sun was low in the 
 west, yet my model had not relinquished 
 his pose. There had been intervals, of 
 course, intervals of stalk-chewing and choc- 
 olate-munching; but these had been, on 
 the whole, of brief duration. 
 
 "It's finished !" I cried suddenly. "Don't 
 look yet." 
 
 "Now may I ?" he asked after an in- 
 terval. 
 
 "No," I prohibited sharply. "Yes- 
 no wait! Oh, I'm afraid to have you 
 look!" 
 
 He looked, of course. 
 
 "By George!" he said quickly. "You 
 can paint ! Why didn't you tell me ?"
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 115 
 
 "I don't tell anybody," I said. "I care 
 so awfully. You don't honestly think 
 it's a good sketch ?" 
 
 My bravado had deserted me and I 
 hung on his scrutiny. 
 
 "It's corking!" he cried. "Just look at 
 the action in it ! Why, that's a regular 
 fellow; and he's on the move too ! You 
 must get some painter to give you an opin- 
 ion on this. How about that Randall 
 chap?" 
 
 "Oh, no," I protested hastily. "Not 
 Mr. Randall. I wouldn't have him see it 
 for the world ! I don't think I have talent. 
 I only do it to express something that's 
 bottled up inside. Aren't you going to 
 put on your tire?" 
 
 "Yes," he said. "And then may I take 
 you home ?" 
 
 "I'd love that!" I cried gratefully. "Our 
 second chauffeur is coming for me in the 
 car; he's on his way now. We'll have to
 
 ii6 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 wait until he gets here; then we'll send 
 him back. Meantime I'll help you with 
 the tire; I've put them on lots of times. 
 It's the least I can do after spoiling your 
 whole afternoon." 
 
 "You haven't spoiled it," he answered in 
 a significant tone. 
 
 While we were working over the tire, 
 backs bent like the backs of friendly cats, 
 he tried again to stir me to the personal 
 note. But I was far too excited over my 
 achievement. 
 
 When the car had arrived, and we were 
 preceding it into the sunset, he said, eyes 
 front: 
 
 "I mustn't forget to express my grati- 
 tude for the um-m extremely complimen- 
 tary things you've been saying to me this 
 afternoon." 
 
 "I haven't!" I contradicted in indigna- 
 tion, adding anxiously: "What things?" 
 
 "About my veined, strong forehead," he
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 117 
 
 replied tersely; "my wonderful, blue eyes; 
 my crisp " 
 
 My laughter stopped him. 
 
 "I always rattle on like that when I'm 
 painting," I explained. "Pve done it since 
 I was a small child. It's idiotic, isn't it ? 
 But it doesn't mean anything at all. It's 
 a sort of hypnotic state I get into. When I 
 come to I don't even remember what I've 
 said." 
 
 "The question is," he demanded, "who 
 gets the sketch ?" 
 
 "May I keep it?" I asked. 
 
 "If you want it," he said as we turned 
 in at our gate. 
 
 "Will you come in?" I asked. 
 
 "Not to-day," he answered. "But, if 
 you'll let me, I'll come to-morrow." 
 
 He came on Sunday, and on Monday he 
 sent a token rather, a token multiplied 
 by twelve. The roses arrived in a striped 
 box of tremendous proportions; but, even
 
 ii8 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 so, it had been necessary to cut away one 
 end to allow the powerful, thorny stalks to 
 protrude. Seen through glazed paper, the 
 bright color was tempered to an exquisite 
 delicacy of hue. Pillowed upon this love- 
 liness lay a small white envelope, neatly ad- 
 dressed. No one had ever sent me flowers 
 before. 
 
 I drew away the paper and peered into 
 the box fearfully, as though gazing at an 
 infant that slept. Then I read the card 
 and arranged the roses in a vase. I had 
 not thought I was interested in him. How 
 we had frivolled only yesterday ! But 
 now I was in another mood. For long 
 moments I remained hovering over the ta- 
 ble where the bold beauties stood, drinking 
 in fragrance with nostrils, lips, and eyes. 
 
 Suddenly I was in a mysterious garden, 
 dew-besparkled, laden with myriad sweet 
 odors, filled with vivid flowers on swaying 
 stalks, the opalescent wings of insects and
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 119 
 
 the seductive song of birds. In the midst 
 of this garden I walked with one other. I 
 panted with the bliss of it. I was swaying 
 with the stalks. 
 
 Something hard pricked my palm. In a 
 trice the garden had vanished. I lifted my 
 hand and found that I had been crushing in 
 it the envelope which held the card. There 
 were some red marks on the flesh. 
 
 "I believe I'm falling in love!" I said, 
 with a weak little laugh. "How conve- 
 nient! I'm falling in love with some one 
 inside the walls!"
 
 Ill 
 
 THE roses faded and for several weeks 
 I saw their sender no more. I had 
 my sketch; but even that was only an 
 impression of him upon whom my thoughts 
 dwelt. Emotion feeds upon an absence of 
 details especially that vague form of it 
 which agitates a young girl's breast. It 
 was not love that was at the bottom of 
 the emotion, but the emotion that was at 
 the bottom of what, with beating heart, I 
 thought I recognized as love. Whatever it 
 was, it had taken hold of me and soothed 
 my turbulence. I became surprisingly ac- 
 quiescent in everything that mother de- 
 manded of me, and found myself the gainer 
 by this docility. I went wherever I was 
 told to go and endeavored to behave ac- 
 cording to instructions. 
 
 120
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 121 
 
 By the time we were ready to exchange 
 Long Island for Newport I had a large 
 though sketchy acquaintance among those 
 who were to share in our migration. It 
 comprised nearly everybody except the 
 Spencers, the Glendennings, the Winty 
 Athertons, the Boltons, and a few others 
 of their ilk, who remained consistently 
 withdrawn. I did see the Bolton girl one 
 day getting some polo practice in a field. 
 She handled her mallet with the utmost 
 skill, swinging it with long, sweeping, pen- 
 dulum strokes of a brown arm, bare to the 
 elbow. Her hair was all blown, her cheeks 
 scarlet; she sat her scampering pony like 
 a jockey. She looked like a real girl, and 
 I wanted most awfully to meet her. I 
 found out upon inquiry that she was fifteen; 
 and that she never went out in the evening, 
 but had her supper with her two little 
 brothers at half past six. 
 
 There was no lack of girls of that age
 
 122 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 who did go out to our subdebutante festivi- 
 ties. The Hill twins, for example, wouldn't 
 be sixteen until September. They were the 
 two shoulder shakers who had been talking 
 with John Randall at Mrs. Winslow's tea. 
 Their mother had been deposed from office 
 several months before upon grounds that 
 had not failed to reach even our juvenile 
 ears. Rumor had it that negotiations were 
 pending for a successor; but meantime 
 there was nobody to look after the twins, 
 who floated about as they pleased. 
 
 Nobody looked after any of us, really. 
 So long as we frequented only certain houses 
 we were considered safe. We should have 
 bored older people and they had no inten- 
 tion of being bored; so they would give us 
 the run of the house for the evening, and 
 take themselves off to more congenial com- 
 panionship. After dinner there was always 
 something to divert us from any attempt 
 at acquiring the art of conversation; if
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 123 
 
 not dancing, then an oily-trick man, or a 
 mind-reader, or a singer of not very nice 
 topical songs. 
 
 We moved to Newport toward the middle 
 of July. Our house here was not so large 
 as the Westbury house, but it was rather 
 more ponderous. It seemed too heavy for 
 the contracted grounds upon which it stood. 
 There was no space for a garden, so our 
 flowers were forwarded to us from Long 
 Island several times a week by express. 
 
 Whenever I thrust my nose out of doors 
 I was in full view of the strollers along the 
 shore walk. Everything we did here was 
 done under the public eye. The resort out- 
 did the suburb in gregariousness. Neither 
 mother nor her associates ever seemed to 
 feel the need of being alone. 
 
 Anybody to whom money is no considera- 
 tion can own three houses, but nobody on 
 earth can have three homes. Having no 
 home, of course we had no home-life. We
 
 i2 4 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 lived in other people's houses, and they in 
 ours. None of us had any household gods, 
 since such commodities do not come in 
 triplicate. 
 
 The luxury in the midst of which I now 
 found myself seemed to me harmful chiefly 
 because of its falsification of values. The 
 house, for example, instead of being a means 
 to an end, became an end in itself. 
 
 Existence was complicated by the need- 
 less elaboration of what intrinsically was 
 simple enough. It was not that we over- 
 dressed any girl who appeared in lace 
 and muslin on golf-links or tennis-courts 
 would have been well laughed at; correct 
 sport attire for the young consisted of the 
 plainest of white shirt-waists and skirts, but 
 when it came to crispness and starchiness 
 you might go to any lengths uncriticised. 
 
 Mother insisted that I should change 
 oftener than the most fastidious standard 
 of personal cleanliness could possibly have
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 125 
 
 demanded. Every time I turned round 
 there stood Yvonne holding out a fresh 
 white skirt for me to put on. Serviceable- 
 ness, for which such garments were designed, 
 thus gave place to style, a term having 
 meaning in one small stratum of society, 
 but without signification to the rest of the 
 world. 
 
 I should think it would have enraged 
 the laundresses, of whom there were three 
 in our laundry, to be obliged to go through 
 the whole process of "doing up" a dress 
 when all it needed was a little pressing to 
 take out the creases. The idea was, I sup- 
 pose, that, since they were paid to work, 
 it made no difference what work they did. 
 
 Of our three abiding-places Newport was 
 the least familiar to me, for the nine weeks 
 of my family's sojourn here I had for years 
 spent in a girls' camp in Maine. It was a 
 far cry from that to this. The transition 
 had taken my breath away. I was given
 
 126 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 no pause to regain it. No allowance was 
 made for any bewilderment on my part. 
 A routine was mapped out for me and I was 
 expected to follow it without ado. I got up 
 late; for, once started on the day, it was one 
 long, dizzying whirl. Its only quiet mo- 
 ments were those relegated to the changing 
 of clothes. I now had too much exercise 
 in conjunction with everything else. Sleepy 
 from tennis and bathing, I had to sit up 
 and make conversation in hot, crowded 
 rooms at lunch; black coffee stimulated 
 me to more exercise in the afternoon; tea 
 restored my verve after that; then came 
 dinner, with renewed chatter, food, and cof- 
 fee; and then, to finish off the evening, 
 dancing ! More exhausted than any factory 
 girl, I tumbled into bed. 
 
 I began almost at once to form a variety 
 of acquaintances among the opposite sex. 
 Some blew in on yachts for a night; others 
 came as visitors and stayed indefinitely.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 127 
 
 Few were under twenty, for the boys of 
 our age liked girls older or younger than we 
 were, when they liked them at all. Our 
 swains ranged in age from eighty to twenty. 
 There were retired rear-admirals who still 
 danced, preferably with girls in their teens. 
 There were men married, unmarried, and 
 remarried; there were paupers, "pet cats," 
 and sudden millionaires; there was every- 
 body who was anybody, and anybody who 
 had become somebody by the magic of 
 money, through foreign alliance, by hook 
 or by crook. We had steel kings and to- 
 bacco kings, soup kings and copper kings; 
 the only monarch who hadn't broken in 
 yet was the movie king, and from latest 
 advices we were informed that he was on 
 the way, and was due to arrive in another 
 five years or so. 
 
 Between the girls who were not "out" 
 and those who were there was drawn a 
 strict line of demarcation. We were never
 
 128 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 invited to their entertainments, or they to 
 ours. But when it came to men, not one 
 was considered too old or too experienced 
 for us to associate with on equal terms. 
 Once they had obtained the entree, they 
 were asked "to everything." I wondered, 
 when I first saw them standing about in 
 the doorways at our very young dances, 
 what we, who knew so little of the world, 
 could possibly have to offer them. One 
 night I found out. 
 
 It was at a little dance at the Hills. The 
 party was frankly "sticky," and everybody 
 was having a dull time of it. The ballroom 
 was hideously decorated in blue and silver, 
 with designs reminiscent of the calliopes 
 in circus parades. There was no angle at 
 which these did not hit one in the eye. 
 Wherever one looked were quirks and quirls 
 innumerable, Cupids with overdeveloped 
 stomachs, and bow-knots that did not tie 
 anything.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 129 
 
 After one unsuccessful effort to pilot him 
 round the room I had sat out two inter- 
 minable dances with my Long Island ac- 
 quaintance, the Midnight Follies boy, whose 
 name was Cyril Chub, and had come peri- 
 lously near yawning right in his pink and 
 placid face. Never to my dying day should 
 I forget that soulless eye, that plastered 
 hair, and that perennial gardenia. From 
 this extremity I was rescued by an oldish 
 man, whom I had met on another occasion, 
 and invited to seek coolness somewhere 
 outside. I was flattered at his having re- 
 membered me and gratefully accepted, 
 though I knew nothing of him but his name, 
 which was Watson. We went out on the 
 veranda, but that was too damp, he thought; 
 so we adjourned to the conservatory, a 
 green and bowery spot most grateful to 
 me after the glare of the lights inside. 
 
 I expressed my satisfaction and drew his 
 attention to the beauty of a great palm,
 
 130 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 with drooping fronds. We got to talking 
 about flowers and I told him how I loved 
 them. Then he began comparing girls to 
 flowers; and I thought that sounded rather 
 silly, but put it down to an older point of 
 view. When I was fifty or sixty, no doubt 
 I, too, should be sentimentalizing over the 
 freshness and innocence of that youth which 
 I was so matter-of-fact about just now. 
 Still, it was tiresome of him to continue 
 harping on this subject, with lowered voice 
 and bated breath. 
 
 I had no idea there was anything per- 
 sonal about it, however, until his flowery 
 language suddenly ceased and I distinctly 
 felt something touch my bare arm. I could 
 not believe that my senses had not played 
 me false; and, drawing every muscle taut, 
 I waited, absolutely still. Then I heard 
 in an insinuating whisper: 
 
 "Don't be frightened, Little One. I'm 
 not going to hurt you. I'm only helping
 
 13* 
 
 you to wake up ! You've got to begin 
 sometime, you know!" 
 
 In one bound I was out of that wicker 
 chair. Luckily there was light enough to 
 see the open door. If there hadn't been I 
 believe I should have crashed right through 
 the glass. 
 
 In all my life nothing had ever so out- 
 raged and surprised me as this episode. 
 As a result, I suddenly hated and distrusted 
 all men Allan Denning not excepted. John 
 Randall alone escaped. I did not think of 
 him at all. The bubble of my youthful 
 self-sufficiency had burst. There was no 
 gas left in my balloon. I wanted some- 
 body to take care of and comfort me. 
 
 Mrs. Barton Winslow sat among the 
 patronesses, soignee, exquisite, the woman 
 of fashion from the tip of her small, white- 
 crowned head to the toe of her slipper, but 
 more, far more than that when you looked 
 at her eyes dark eyes, mirroring life
 
 132 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 human eyes ! . . . Oh, if I could have con- 
 fided in her. . . . Instead, I went up to her, 
 extended the tips of my fingers, murmured 
 something about being tired, and left. 
 
 A thin line of light underneath mother's 
 door showed me that she was within. Sadly 
 I passed it; for mother had failed me. 
 She had sent me forth unprepared and 
 unwarned. 
 
 In my own room I sobbed for hours, 
 flung athwart my bed. At last I slept, 
 very heavily. In the morning I woke, 
 stiff and weary, last night's melting suc- 
 ceeded by an exaggerated and deplorable 
 cynicism. Since there was no one to take 
 care of me, it behooved me in future to 
 take care of myself. This I thenceforth 
 did a little too well. I thought I saw a 
 devil lurking in ambush behind every mas- 
 culine face; for there is no disillusion com- 
 parable in poignancy and passion to 'the 
 disillusion of extreme youth.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 133 
 
 The hours, with their overlapping en- 
 gagements, hurried confusedly along, and 
 I hurried with them. In Allan's absence I 
 continued to include him in my sweeping 
 distrust of men. I did not know when he 
 was coming, or whether he were ever com- 
 ing. Meantime I rushed from one activity 
 to another. If anybody asked me to play 
 golf or tennis, I played; wherever I was 
 bidden to lunch, tea, or dinner, I went. 
 Mother arranged my engagements, Yvonne 
 dressed me for them, and the chauffeur 
 conveyed me to the designated spot. The 
 more keyed up I got from overdoing, the 
 more I overdid. Society had harnessed me 
 to its chariot, a poor little three-year-old 
 colt, without full strength of wind or limb. 
 
 Then, one day, Allan turned up. No 
 sooner had I laid my hand in his and looked 
 into his eyes, than I found myself, by sheer 
 force of reaction, more than ever under the 
 spell. "All men are liars," I had thought.
 
 134 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 Now I said: "All men are liars except 
 one." 
 
 During this period John Randall did not 
 exist for me. Ever since I had turned my 
 back on him, and run straight into the 
 arms of Allan Denning, the bolder image 
 of the latter had usurped his place upon 
 my mental retina. The young painter had 
 been the unattainable moon; Allan Den- 
 ning was the coin, which, held close to my 
 eye, served to blot that moon out of my 
 field of vision. 
 
 One night, however, the coin was struck 
 aside and the moon shone once more in 
 the midnight sky. It was at a vaudeville 
 performance at one of the houses. Allan 
 was sitting beside me. He did not honor 
 many of our subdebutante dinners with 
 his adult presence, but he often dropped 
 in afterward to applaud good-naturedly 
 whatever entertainment was on for the 
 latter portion of the evening.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 135 
 
 On this occasion it was acrobats. Upon 
 an improvised platform a delicately mus- 
 cular fellow, in tights, was awaiting, lithe 
 and watchful as a panther, the moment 
 for his leap onto the shoulders of a colleague. 
 There was something in the set of his lips, 
 the concentration of his eye, that vividly 
 suggested the young painter and curiously 
 clutched at my heart. The leap was made; 
 more than the usual polite applause fol- 
 lowed even this assemblage had not es- 
 caped a thrill. 
 
 He who had evoked it deserved no less; 
 spurred on by merciful necessity to sweat 
 and strive, he had evaded softness, a quality 
 warranted to make of whatever it touched 
 that had once been young and glorious a 
 thing all gone to rot decadent and mean. 
 From the boy's thin, streaming face my 
 eyes turned to Allan. He was clapping, 
 heavy-handed; complacently calling out: 
 " Bravo ! " With a shock I wondered whether
 
 136 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 it were possible that he would one day be 
 fat! 
 
 I dreamed feverishly of John Randall, 
 clad in cheap pink tights. 
 
 As luck would have it, the very next day 
 Mrs. Winslow invited me to lunch, to see 
 her portrait, which had been all this time 
 getting framed, and had just arrived from 
 Long Island. 
 
 I was taken to the drawing-room to wait. 
 With my foot on the threshold, I was ar- 
 rested by the direct gaze of a pair of gentle, 
 yet burning eyes. The portrait hung over 
 the mantel, directly opposite the door. 
 The canvas was not very large. It showed 
 Mrs. Winslow sitting at ease upon a sofa 
 with plenty of give to it, and took in the 
 knees. She was in a simple tea-gown that 
 fell in loose folds about her; her delicate 
 neck, the poise of her exquisite head, with 
 its piled-up white hair ah, with what 
 appreciation had they been reproduced !
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 137 
 
 With high courage, Randall had dared to 
 put in every line he saw in that face of a 
 woman approaching sixty; not one had 
 been omitted. The result was that he had 
 portrayed the dignity, the nobility, that 
 only years can give; and proved that truth 
 is beauty beauty, truth. 
 
 So compelling, so intense, was the quiet 
 of that seated figure, that it made all the 
 
 little things with which my brain had been 
 
 t 
 
 so busy fall away at once, leaving my spirit 
 reverent and hushed. So absorbed was I in 
 my contemplation that I did not hear Mrs. 
 Winslow come in. I started when I felt 
 her hand on my shoulder, and turned, with 
 a smile. But I could not speak for a min- 
 ute, because just as they did when I was 
 listening to music my eyes had filled with 
 tears. 
 
 "There's not much doubt as to what 
 you think of it," said my hostess, adding 
 quietly: "I learned to know John Randall
 
 138 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 well during the sittings, and to value him 
 highly as a friend." 
 
 Upon this opening might have ensued 
 confidences that would have changed the 
 whole course of this narrative, but for the 
 fact that at this inopportune moment Ruth 
 Alvord came dawdling in. 
 
 The following afternoon Mrs. Winslow 
 exhibited the portrait by means of a tea. 
 From four o'clock on her house was jammed. 
 The portrait took Newport by storm. For 
 the rest of the season, at least, the young 
 artist's name would be on every tongue. 
 Why wasn't he present ? a hundred voices 
 demanded. I made spurious criticisms of 
 him to myself. He ought to have come, 
 I argued, even if only out of curiosity. It 
 must be an affectation this seeming indif- 
 ference as to whether thumbs turned up or 
 down. Nobody could really be so cool as that. 
 
 Deep down inside I knew well enough 
 that the reason John Randall refused to em-
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 139 
 
 brace his big opportunity was on account 
 of nothing more important than myself. 
 He wished still to avoid me. Out of pique 
 or out of embarrassment what matter, 
 since he had not come ? 
 
 Memory stands a poor chance in com- 
 petition with the actual presence of a de- 
 lightful, assiduous and constant companion, 
 such as Denning. We were "Allan" and 
 "Barbara" now; we swam together every 
 morning, played golf every afternoon. A 
 girl does want some man after having been 
 with spinsters all her life, and here was a 
 very charming one who was ever within 
 call. Yet, even in his company, I was 
 subject to moods of taciturnity and ab- 
 straction. 
 
 "You look so unsatisfied sometimes!" 
 he commented one day, leaning on his club, 
 throat bare, sun glinting on his hair. "I 
 believe you still worry like the devil about 
 being made to come out."
 
 i 4 o BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 "I do often," I admitted gravely. 
 
 For a while he regarded me in silence. 
 
 "If you became a highbrow," he then 
 said whimsically, "what I want to know 
 is: Where should I come in?" 
 
 My heart thumped agreeably. 
 
 "I didn't know you wanted to come in!" 
 I stammered. 
 
 His smile went out. 
 
 "You bet I do!" he said in his deep, 
 vibrant voice. "Why, I've told you a 
 dozen times I'd never met any one like 
 you ! We don't grow 'em round here. And 
 now you talk about deserting us ! Don't 
 you think that's rather hard ?" 
 
 My eye sought the horizon at the end of 
 the wide sweep of green. He must have 
 noticed its wistfulness, for he said con- 
 solingly : 
 
 "/ understand exactly how you feel. 
 But, unfortunately, I'm not your mother ! 
 The plain fact is, you're up against it.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 141 
 
 You don't know women with social am- 
 bitions as well as I do. You might talk 
 yourself blue in the face she wouldn't 
 give in. She knows what she wants, and 
 she wants what she wants, when she wants 
 it ! There's the whole thing in a nutshell. 
 Why not succumb with a good grace ? No 
 rows smooth sailing lots of laughs on 
 the side somebody to laugh with me ! 
 Is that such a ghastly prospect ? Don't 
 take it so seriously ! Why, you're almost 
 as serious as she is ! Come on ! Be a sport ! 
 Play the game!" 
 
 At seventeen you don't refuse to be a 
 sport, any more than you refuse to take a 
 dare. And the accusation of seriousness 
 is a serious accusation, carrying with it 
 the opprobrious implication of lack of a 
 sense of humor. Besides, an exceedingly 
 attractive young man, who intimates that 
 he is in love with you, is an influential 
 factor in any situation.
 
 H2 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 "Oh, very well!" I said gayly, though 
 my spirit was troubled. "I don't care. 
 I'll see it through." 
 
 The first of these statements was a lie. 
 I did care, terribly. The second was a 
 pledge. The importance that I was to 
 attach to that pledge was evidence that I 
 was incurably serious after all. In Allan 
 Denning mother had gained a powerful ally. 
 
 Two days later Mrs. Winslow was one of 
 the guests at a luncheon of women at our 
 house. I was "down"; and as soon as 
 opportunity offered she whispered in my 
 ear: 
 
 "He's coming after all. I persuaded 
 him. He's sailing himself up from New 
 York in his own boat. He ought to be 
 here to-day." 
 
 I paled and all my pulses thumped. 
 
 Mrs. Winslow introduced John Randall 
 to Newport at an evening reception. I was 
 there by her special request.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 143 
 
 He shrank at sight of me; but I went 
 straight up to him, where he stood under 
 the portrait, and held out my hand. 
 
 "I can't tell you," I said slowly, with 
 look upturned to it, "how picayune, how 
 idiotic, in the light of this, I seem to myself 
 for having resented your resentment with 
 me about the letter " 
 
 A warm glow suffused his face. 
 
 "It was only because I couldn't bear to 
 think of it that I was so cross," he said, 
 boyishly eager. "Of their beginning the 
 metamorphosis stuff, you know. But now 
 I see I was wrong. They haven't touched 
 you! You're the very same girl I met 
 that night." , 
 
 I started away from him, wide-eyed. 
 
 "I don't think I am," I said uneasily. 
 "You only get that impression because 
 I'm still able to recognize inspiration in a 
 picture when I see it." 
 
 He smiled.
 
 144 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 "Any one would be a fool," he averred, 
 "not to draw inspiration from such a sub- 
 ject." 
 
 Somebody came up to him just then, 
 after which Mrs. Winslow brought others, 
 and presently he was surrounded obliter- 
 ated from my view closed in. For the 
 next two hours he was at the mercy of the 
 throng. They would hardly permit him 
 to breathe. 
 
 When the crowd had begun to thin out 
 he found me again. 
 
 "Thank the Lord that's over!" he said, 
 with a heartfelt sigh. 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 "How brown you are!" I commented. 
 "I never knew a painter could be so brown. 
 What fun it must have been, sailing up ! 
 I'd love so to sail." 
 
 "Come sailing with me to-morrow!" he 
 flashed. 
 
 I shook my head, wondering what to tell
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 145 
 
 him. He should never know of the friction 
 that had occurred between myself and 
 mother on his account. I was glad now 
 that he had not divined her attitude toward 
 him. With these thoughts in mind I was 
 completely taken aback by his next words. 
 
 "Your mother's been awfully kind to- 
 night," he said appreciatively. "Said how 
 much she liked the portrait; asked me to 
 dine week after next, and to tea on Tues- 
 day." 
 
 This change of front on mother's part 
 took my breath away. It hadn't mattered 
 that I had vouched for this man out of the 
 depths of my being, with everything in me 
 that intuitively recognized what he was; 
 she had forbidden our association just the 
 same. What had altered her decision ? 
 Mrs. Winslow. Whom Mrs. Winslow ac- 
 cepted, it was meet that Mrs. West should 
 accept. There was nothing for it but to 
 get in line with the other sheep. Of my
 
 146 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 thoughts I showed nothing, but said 
 eagerly: 
 
 "I hope you're coming!" 
 
 "Of course I am!" was his prompt reply. 
 "Meantime, what about that sail ? Come 
 on ! Fll get you back in a couple of hours. 
 I swear I will ! " 
 
 I beamed. There was nothing now to 
 stand in the way of my accepting. 
 
 "It'll be wonderful!" I cried. 
 
 We looked at each other, radiant. Then 
 suddenly the sun went out. I had re- 
 membered an engagement. How came it 
 that it had slipped my mind ? 
 
 "I forgot," I said. "I can't. I've got 
 to play golf at half past three." 
 
 "Too bad!" Randall replied. "Oh, well; 
 never mind." 
 
 His disappointment was evident, from 
 his eyes all the way down to the sensitive 
 tip of his chin. I found myself unaccount- 
 ably contrasting that chin with Denning's.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 147 
 
 That the latter had allowed his to forfeit 
 something of its natural contours outraged 
 my artistic sense. Adonis he was, beyond 
 question; but Adonis "to date," a little 
 blunted as to edges a few pounds over- 
 weight. 
 
 "Have you been doing any painting?" 
 he asked, with an effort, after a pause. 
 "You have! I can read guilt in your eyes. 
 Confess!" 
 
 I blushed furiously. If he should dis- 
 cover that my golf partner and the subject 
 of my sketch were one and the same, it 
 would spoil our fresh start. 
 
 "Only one sketch," I deprecated. "Noth- 
 ing at all. I finished it in a day." 
 
 Glancing toward the door at this juncture 
 I saw two or three late arrivals who had 
 just come on from somewhere else. Allan 
 was one of them. He joined us at once, 
 turned to Randall, offered congratulations 
 and shook hands. How charmingly cordial
 
 148 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 was his manner! No reminiscence in it of 
 that cool stare with which he had looked 
 him over at their first meeting. Was this 
 change due to the recognition of genius, 
 or could it be that he, too, was one of the 
 sheep ? Instantly dismissing this suspicion, 
 I yet wished he had been endowed with 
 foresight rather than hindsight. He ought 
 to have recognized at a glance the quality 
 of that face. ... I had ! 
 
 "I only dropped in for a minute," Allan 
 said. "Good night, Barbara. Don't for- 
 get our match to-morrow, will you ? Three- 
 thirty. And do show Mr. Randall that 
 sketch you did of me. She did a cracking 
 sketch of me, Mr. Randall. Get her to 
 show it to you. Make her !" 
 
 He was off, and Randall and I were left 
 uncomfortably together. I knew what that 
 line in his forehead meant, that almost imper- 
 ceptible quiver of the chin. He was drawing 
 deductions at the rate of a million a minute.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 149 
 
 "Please," I besought him, in acute dis- 
 tress, "stop thinking what you are think- 
 ing ! I might just as well have sketched 
 anybody. He happened along just when 
 I wanted to sketch. When I want to sketch 
 I sketch anything that comes along. 
 I " 
 
 From these verbal involutions I was 
 rescued by mother, who, approaching, 
 wished Mr. Randall good night with the 
 utmost cordiality, and said it was time to 
 take me home. 
 
 When I laid my hand in his, something 
 in his expression reminded me of the way 
 Miss Wier had looked when she had come 
 upon me in my dinky little hat. 
 
 Tuesday came without my having caught 
 sight of him again. That afternoon my game 
 was unspeakable, I was so afraid of not 
 getting through before five. Luckily Allan 
 was due somewhere else at tea-time; so we 
 only played nine holes. In his absence I
 
 i5o BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 was sure of an opportunity for a frank talk 
 with Randall that would clear things up. 
 
 Arrived at home, I waited confidently; 
 and he didn't come. After everybody had 
 been sitting round for hours, the door-bell 
 rang. I heard soft sounds, as of things 
 being laid down on a table. 
 
 "It is he, after all !" I thought, exuberant. 
 
 It wasn't he. It was Allan ! 
 
 One moment of blank disappointment; 
 and then a lightning chemical transforma- 
 tion of all the ingredients of that disap- 
 pointment the chief, hurt pride into over- 
 whelming gratitude toward a friend who 
 never failed. 
 
 "I thought you weren't coming to-day," 
 I whispered. "I thought you were going 
 to have tea with the Glynn Rollinses." 
 
 Before answering, he bent so close that 
 in one moment I seemed to feel the pres- 
 sure of his lips upon mine. 
 
 "I've had tea with the Glynn Rollinses,"
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 151 
 
 he said, implying that the Glynn Rollinses 
 were powerless to hold him long away from 
 me. "And now I'm going to have more 
 tea," he added comfortably, "with you." 
 
 He chatted for a while with mother, who 
 handed it to him, and with the other guests; 
 and then we went and sat on a remote sofa. 
 He was not only in high spirits but he was 
 most awfully good-looking in golf clothes. 
 Some day I would sketch him like that 
 one leg thrown over the other; hair all 
 crisped and kinked with fog; teacup in 
 hand. I would sketch him forty ways and 
 show all the sketches to John Randall, just 
 to see him wince for so reckless was my 
 mood that I delighted in the thought of 
 hurting. 
 
 He began gossiping about people; I re- 
 sponded. It was a form of diversion I 
 despised; but my ideas were all out of 
 kilter this afternoon and it required so 
 little effort. He laughed at some rumor I
 
 152 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 retailed. I followed it up with another 
 choice bit; he laughed again, and the more 
 he laughed, the hotter my cheeks flamed 
 the more excitedly and incoherently I 
 talked. 
 
 " Do you know," he commented, suddenly 
 slapping his knee, "I've never known you 
 to let yourself go like this before ! By 
 George ! You're waking up !" 
 
 At this expression, I stared at him. Could 
 it be true ? "I'm only helping you to wake 
 up," had hissed the serpent. "You've got 
 to begin some time, you know!" Ah, how 
 soon I had begun ! 
 
 That night a formidable dinner occurred 
 at our house, and I entered the drawing- 
 room amid a loud hubbub of indignant 
 talk issuing from a medley of dowagers, 
 diamonds and fans, all in motion. No 
 strikers gathered on a street-corner could 
 have given more unmistakable evidence of 
 indignant agitation. The men who were
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 153 
 
 there did not say anything; they let the 
 women talk. 
 
 A single name was on everybody's tongue 
 the name of the new lion. It appeared 
 that this lion, instead of submitting to 
 being decorated with garlands by soft hands, 
 had shown his teeth. In plain English, 
 devoid of metaphor, John Randall had 
 actually dared, without a word of explana- 
 tion to anybody, to give Newport the slip. 
 Taking advantage of the lasting qualities 
 of the breeze, which my weather-eye had 
 foretold, he had unfastened his moorings at 
 Mrs. Winslow's dock that very afternoon 
 and sailed away into the sunset in his little 
 catboat. 
 
 Enter cocktails exit girl. That was my 
 programme. That night I thought the 
 cocktails would never come! Snatches of 
 talk reached my ears. 
 
 "No he never promised to begin carry- 
 ing out his orders here; but, of course,
 
 154 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 everybody assumed he would. No manners ! 
 . . . Doesn't know how things are done. 
 . . . Hasn't any breeding. . . . The orders 
 will stand, but this thing will kill him so- 
 cially, of course ! " 
 
 At the risk of mother's displeasure, I 
 made my escape while yet no cocktails 
 were in sight. I had no defense of Randall 
 to make. He had been frightfully rude to 
 me. He must have heard further rumors 
 regarding my relations with Allan. But 
 he had cared rather magnificently enough 
 to get himself in bad with the high muck- 
 amucks who could have made him. I 
 could not be very angry with him. He 
 was free to get out. I, alas ! was bound 
 by my promise, by my pledge to "see 
 the thing through." 
 
 The walls closed in on me that night, 
 shutting the vistas out. How silly I had 
 been to imagine that I could have my cake 
 and eat it too; play both ends against the
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 155 
 
 middle ! Life was not like that. You had 
 to stand for one thing or another. Out 
 on the links that day, looking into Allan's 
 eyes, I had renounced my rebellion de- 
 cided to accept present conditions. That, 
 not this, was my true moment of choice. 
 From that moment on I threw my hands up 
 and drifted with the tide. The die was 
 cast. 
 
 In the mornings the sea was so blue and 
 it was such fun to have a merman to swim 
 with, and in the afternoons the golf-course 
 was so green, and it was so stimulating to 
 have a partner to play with, that I swept 
 all the disturbing thoughts into the back 
 of my mind, where they lay in a disordered 
 heap, inviting dust. There was no doubt 
 that having two grown-up men show in- 
 terest in me had gone to my head a little. 
 None of the other girls of seventeen had 
 anybody so old to bother about. 
 
 My instrument was keyed too high. By
 
 156 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 September I started at every sound. If a 
 door slammed it seemed to slam in the top 
 of my head; the slightest stimulus was 
 sufficient to set in motion the vibrations of 
 my emotional reactions. One night I caught 
 a look in Allan's eyes those eyes so 
 supremely blue, so heavily fringed; and 
 his hand pressed mine. He whispered 
 the three fateful words, and our lips met. 
 . . . Nothing else was possible; for I 
 was in love with him madly in love ! 
 
 Straight from his arms I went to mother, 
 unafraid to break in on her privacy, bold 
 with the boldness of a messenger who brings 
 welcome tidings, to be delivered anywhere, 
 anyhow even, like this, in the middle of 
 the night. 
 
 She was in bed, with her hair strewn all 
 about the pillow. By the shaded bedside 
 light she looked very beautiful, yielding and 
 young. Eager and smiling, I approached 
 and took the hand that lay, slender and
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 157 
 
 very white, against the soft whiteness of 
 the blanket. 
 
 "Oh, mother!" I whispered. "It's come!" 
 I expected she would understand at once; 
 so I was surprised when she returned 
 blankly: 
 
 "What do you mean ? What has come ?" 
 Embarrassed, but still confident, I let 
 her hand fall and returned shyly: 
 "Can't you guess? I'm engaged!" 
 At that she gathered herself up in bed 
 as an animal gathers itself for a spring, 
 and I stepped back in terror. 
 
 "What are you talking about?" she de- 
 manded in a voice that cut like the lash 
 of a whip. 
 
 Only one thing could account for it; she 
 suspected that John Randall was the man. 
 Her tone, her manner, hurt just as much 
 as though he had been. How could any 
 older woman make any young girl shrink 
 and quiver away from her like that ?
 
 i$8 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 I wanted to gather this big thing that 
 had happened to me to my breast and run 
 away with it; but it was too late. 
 
 "It's not the man you think," I said 
 painfully. "It's Allan Denning." 
 
 To my amazement, the name did not 
 placate her. 
 
 "Nonsense!" she retorted sharply. "I 
 never heard of such nonsense in my life ! " 
 
 I could not believe my ears. 
 
 "I thought you'd be pleased," I said. 
 "I thought you were crazy about him! 
 You've always thrown him in my way." 
 
 "To give you social confidence!" she 
 cried. "To bring you to people's attention ! 
 That was what he was for! To insure you 
 a start!" 
 
 Something turned to iron inside me at 
 these words. I no longer shrank; I had 
 lost all sensation of timidity. 
 
 "You expected me to work him for all 
 he was worth to squeeze him dry, and
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 159 
 
 then to throw him over!" I summed up. 
 "I see!" 
 
 "You won't gain anything,'* she warned, 
 " by distorting my words. I didn't say any- 
 thing about working or squeezing. Those 
 graphic expressions are your own. Allan 
 Denning has done just exactly what he 
 wanted to do. And in the end he's amused 
 himself by flirting with you a little. If you 
 make anything more of it than that," she 
 concluded disparagingly, "it's because you 
 know nothing whatever about life; you, 
 a mere schoolgirl a baby." 
 
 "I'm not so much of a baby," I replied 
 slowly, "as you think. And I know a good 
 deal more about life than I did. If you 
 imagine that you can start things going 
 and then then make them stop by just 
 putting up your hand, like a policeman 
 regulating traffic why, then, it seems to 
 me it's you who don't know about life 
 that's all!"
 
 160 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 From the silence which followed I saw that 
 my words had begun to carry conviction. 
 
 "How far," she asked at length, in great 
 agitation, "has this actually gone?" 
 
 "I've just told you," I answered. "We're 
 engaged. He's going to speak to father 
 to-morrow." 
 
 Her indignation found a new channel. 
 
 "We'll see about that!" she declared 
 ominously. "I can't believe it of him! To 
 play upon a young girl's ignorance ! To 
 impose upon her lack of knowledge of the 
 world!" 
 
 I smiled bitterly. I had heard such 
 words before. First, it had been John 
 Randall, and now it was Allan Denning 
 who was imposing upon my inexperience. 
 
 "You wouldn't let me have the man I 
 wanted," I cried; "and when I take the 
 one you substitute you're not satisfied, 
 either! You'll never be satisfied, no matter 
 what I do!"
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 161 
 
 "Now, Barbara," she almost begged, 
 "be reasonable! It never occurred to me 
 that you wouldn't know that Allan Den- 
 ning is no match for you. He's good-look- 
 ing and well connected and convenient to 
 have about, and all that; but he hasn't 
 got a cent. And as for marrying him 
 Why, child, you haven't even begun to look 
 round ! Wait till after next winter. What 
 sort of time do you think any girl who was 
 engaged would have when she came out?" 
 
 "I needn't come out now," I suggested, 
 though I recognized the futility of the sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 Mother's face turned to adamant and her 
 eyes to steel. 
 
 "Whatever happens," she announced, 
 "you are coming out!" 
 
 She said it as though she were registering 
 a vow before heaven. 
 
 For mother's manner of receiving the 
 news of my engagement I had been totally
 
 162 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 unprepared. I had run to her with it, ex- 
 pecting to be praised and had been in- 
 continently rebuffed. I was less upset on 
 my own account than on Allan's. How 
 would he take her unflattering estimate of 
 him as a parti ? Hard, I was sure. In 
 counselling me to acquiesce in her pro- 
 gramme for the coming months, he had 
 obviously realized no more than I, that his 
 name was not to appear upon it. Perhaps 
 he would not feel so convinced now of the 
 advisability of being a sport, playing the 
 game, seeing the thing through. 
 
 What was my astonishment, not to say 
 chagrin, when he took my information 
 quite easily, and was all for compromise ! 
 You had to be tactful with women like my 
 mother, he said confidentially. They must 
 always be made to think that they were 
 getting their own way, whether they ac- 
 tually were or not. Nothing was to be 
 gained by antagonizing them.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 163 
 
 The following was the policy he outlined 
 in council before the concert of Powers: 
 Not a word concerning what had occurred 
 between us was to be breathed until after 
 the close of the New York season. Only 
 we four were to know of it. If at the be- 
 ginning of March next I should have changed 
 my mind, I was to call the whole thing off. 
 Thus mother's arrangements for the winter 
 would not be in any way jeopardized. To all 
 intents and for all social purposes I was free. 
 
 Mother and father expressed themselves 
 as satisfied and took my silence for consent. 
 As a matter of fact, I scorned trial engage- 
 ment as I would have scorned trial mar- 
 riage. Like every other girl of seventeen, 
 I was firmly convinced that I knew my 
 own mind and would never change it. My 
 word was my word not a mere near-prom- 
 ise, subject to the statute of limitations. 
 The more they said that I was not bound, 
 the more securely bound I felt.
 
 164 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 I justified Allan's willingness to make 
 concessions to mother upon the ground of 
 his faith in me. In staking his life's happi- 
 ness upon his belief in my fidelity, he was 
 paying me the highest tribute in his power. 
 Still, I felt that an open rupture with my 
 parents would have been the more honor- 
 able course to pursue. Never before had 
 there been the smallest reservation on my 
 part in my relations with mother. I had 
 argued with her, burst into tears, shown 
 temper, done all sorts of exuberant and 
 childish things; but I had never for one 
 moment allowed her to remain in any doubt 
 as to what I meant. I had carefully re- 
 frained from being tactful with her. 
 
 Now I was letting her infer one thing 
 while I intended another. Curiously, it 
 was a man who had urged upon me this 
 Jesuitical method of dealing with her. And 
 I had always been led to suppose that a man's 
 sense of honor had a finer edge than a girl's !
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 165 
 
 Of course I had no business to fall under 
 this or any influence that was at odds with 
 that something inside which had always 
 kept me straight. That was what I had 
 got by drifting. I had drifted so far and so 
 fast that I could not make up my mind to 
 turn about and put up a fight. The alter- 
 native was just to keep on going wherever 
 the wind and the tide chose to take me. 
 
 The weather was so mild that it was 
 October before we returned to Long Island. 
 Once arrived there, we spent our days in 
 the city as before, going back to the coun- 
 try only to dine and to sleep. In prepara- 
 tion for what was to come my wardrobe 
 was being amassed. Mother concentrated 
 upon this task enough energy to have run 
 a dozen Bureaus of Serbian Relief. If I 
 was expected to attend all the types of 
 function for which garments were being 
 provided I thought I should be a rag before 
 the end of the first six weeks.
 
 166 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 She didn't buy me a variety of dresses, 
 hats, and coats, and let it go at that. No; 
 every costume was an equipment by itself, 
 a symphony of nuance a tone poem. Each 
 afternoon gown, for example, had its ac- 
 cessories of hat, veil, gloves, coat, fur neck- 
 piece and muff, shoes and stockings. Even 
 gloves were not interchangeable. Atten- 
 tion to these details consumed an exorbitant 
 amount of time to say nothing of money. 
 I remember we went into nine shops one 
 day before we found enamelled hatpins of 
 the exact shade of mauve to harmonize 
 with a certain hat. 
 
 There seemed to be no end to what 
 mother could do when she was doing what 
 she wanted. The vitiated air of the shops 
 stimulated her. If at first she didn't suc- 
 ceed she asked nothing better than to try, 
 try again. Yet there were things that tired 
 her. If she walked for half an hour along 
 a country road she became so exhausted
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 167 
 
 that she had to lie down. When her secre- 
 tary was ill one day, and she was obliged 
 to write her own notes, she could not eat 
 any lunch. Loud or abrupt talking was 
 painful to her for instance, mine. When 
 I laughed "right out" I often saw a little 
 frown come between her brows, as though 
 I had given her a headache. 
 
 Many of her friends shared these idio- 
 syncrasies. There was Mrs. Fiske Wyman, 
 for one, a "confirmed" invalid; yet she 
 had just risen from an almost permanent 
 bed of pain, with an alacrity hardly decent, 
 to go yachting in the Bahamas; while Miss 
 Julia Endeman, who had weighed two hun- 
 dred undismayed and had never exercised 
 in her life, had recently rolled her hips 
 away by turning over and over fifty times 
 each morning on her bedroom floor, and 
 "gone in" for golf. 
 
 Everybody was planning to skate this 
 winter on the Radmore roof even those
 
 i68 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 whom the blackest ice had not tempted in 
 youth, the natural skating time. Wabbly 
 legs could be strengthened by practice, 
 weak ankles propped; and she who was 
 unable to attain balance by herself might 
 always hire somebody to hold her up. From 
 the dictates of fashion no infirmity excused. 
 Fashion made its puppets dance to any 
 tune. During that autumn, in and out of 
 shops, I estimated that we must have 
 walked a hundred miles. We never left 
 off until the wax ladies in the windows 
 were being covered with sheets and the 
 blinds drawn down. 
 
 We spent and were spent. What for ? 
 That I, too, might be made into a waxen 
 manikin, set in a window for one season for 
 exhibition purposes, and then carried away 
 to make room for fresh goods. There was 
 a career for you ! 
 
 I was becoming surfeited with clothes. 
 Every girl loves clothes, but she does not
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 169 
 
 love a superfluity of them. I had once 
 eaten all the caramels I wanted, and for 
 years thereafter had not been able to look 
 at a caramel. As a child I had always ap- 
 proached the park by the Seventy-second 
 Street entrance on my way to the Mall. 
 Now I sedulously avoided that approach. 
 Fifty-ninth Street was all right, or Eighty- 
 fifth, or Ninetieth; but Seventy-second I 
 was done with forever. 
 
 One disadvantage of owning a costume 
 for each occasion was the anticipation it 
 involved. It was bad enough to have to 
 go to functions at all, without focussing 
 one's attention upon them for hours before- 
 hand. Oh, for my old rough serge, which 
 had served me all day and every day at 
 school for as many seasons as I could get 
 wear out of it ! 
 
 Sometimes I remembered, with a sense 
 of loss, the things in my experience that 
 had been uncomfortable. I had grumbled
 
 170 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 as loudly as anybody else, at the time, at 
 having to pile out of bed half asleep on a 
 dark winter morning to close my own win- 
 dows and stand shivering on a chilly floor; 
 but now I thought that I would have wel- 
 comed any hardness to relieve the eternal 
 softness of my life ! My bed was soft; my 
 food was soft; the people about me spoke 
 in soft voices; there was no edge to any- 
 thing, no sparkle, no snap. 
 
 My engagement had been so qualified 
 and bereft of the natural attributes of an 
 engagement that it afforded me but little 
 satisfaction. Allan lunched with us occa- 
 sionally at Sherry's, and that was about all 
 I saw of him. Things would be different in 
 the spring, but I was not so old that spring 
 did not seem to me a long way off. And 
 there was much to come, between now and 
 then. 
 
 In preparation for the great event, my 
 coming-out ball on December 20, we closed
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 171 
 
 the Long Island house much earlier than 
 usual, and found ourselves just after Thanks- 
 giving, as mother said, "alone" in New 
 York; by which she did not mean, of 
 course, that there was not the usual quota 
 of people in the streets. I was satiated 
 with that ball long before it occurred, for 
 it was the only topic of conversation. I 
 had always supposed living in the future 
 to be a prerogative of youth; but no young 
 person I had ever seen lived so much in 
 the future as mother. 
 
 She took precautions against the possi- 
 bility of everything not being perfect in 
 every detail by stocking up with commodi- 
 ties, as though the sources of supply were 
 presently to be forever cut off. Even an 
 awning was ordered to be specially made, 
 instead of being hired from a caterer for 
 the evening. She showed me samples of 
 awning cloth and looked reproachful be- 
 cause I had no preference for green and
 
 172 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 white stripes over red and white, or vice 
 versa. She got another French maid, to 
 supplement Yvonne, so that the two might 
 work in shifts like a night nurse and a day 
 nurse in illness one being always on hand. 
 A second butler was likewise procured, 
 that coat tails, instead of mere livery, might 
 still be in evidence before guests when the 
 butler in chief was out or sleeping. As it 
 was assumed that, once launched upon my 
 social career, I would keep to my bedroom 
 until noon, yet another housemaid was 
 added to the staff. 
 
 As a result of this forethought, the ser- 
 vants now outnumbered the family in a 
 ratio of five to one. I ran into them at 
 every turn, stumbled upon them in every 
 corner. It was like living at a fashionable 
 hotel on the Normandy coast while waiting 
 for the season to open storm-lashed waves; 
 empty casino; band playing to the echoes. 
 Everything ready, and nothing doing. How
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 173 
 
 could one settle down to normal accom- 
 plishment with this abnormal fever of an- 
 ticipation permeating the atmosphere ? If 
 mother found me reading she would order 
 me to close the book, for fear my eyelids 
 should become reddened. Painting was 
 out of the question, for painting took time, 
 and I could never count on more than half 
 an hour. 
 
 It wasn't an evening's pleasure that was 
 being planned; it was the opening move 
 in a systematic campaign. So far as I 
 could make out, pleasure didn't enter into 
 it. After the 1st of December mother's 
 activities narrowed down to the desk in 
 her sitting-room, where she and a strange 
 woman, who came every morning, pored all 
 day long over sheaves of papers and marked 
 off names in the various lists with little 
 crosses. The strange woman seemed to 
 know exactly who should be invited and 
 who should not. They managed it all be-
 
 174 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 tween them, without once consulting me. 
 I suggested only one name, with much 
 diffidence John Randall's which was re- 
 ceived without comment and written down. 
 
 Time and much cogitation had brought 
 me to the conclusion that Randall's sud- 
 den departure from Newport had been due 
 wholly to delicacy. If he had retired in 
 favor of another man it was because he 
 had believed that I cared for that other. 
 Once convinced of this, his sole considera- 
 tion had been to remove the embarrassment 
 of his presence as speedily as possible. The 
 fact that in failing to seize his unprecedented 
 opportunity he was jeopardizing his future 
 of worldly success and running the risk of 
 losing a score of orders, was a matter of 
 supreme indifference to him, if it occurred 
 to him at all. Poor as dirt, he was, never- 
 theless, a royal spender. Honor to whom 
 honor is due. 
 
 Unfortunately, instead of flashing me the
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 175 
 
 true explanation at once, my woman's wit, 
 or intuition, or whatever it is that consti- 
 tutes our superiority to man, had been ex- 
 tremely slow upon this occasion in getting 
 to work upon the situation. It had, in fact, 
 remained in a state of suspension during 
 some weeks. In the interim Allan Denning 
 had obtained my promise. I was morally 
 bound by it now, hard and fast, hand and 
 foot. But to Randall's behavior I had at 
 last found the key. Therefore, the invita- 
 tion. 
 
 When we had first moved to the city 
 Allan had begun again to present himself 
 with frequency, but, upon a hint from the 
 authorities, had obediently fallen off in at- 
 tendance, and had since reappeared with 
 the utmost circumspection, only upon rare 
 occasions. I sometimes wondered whether 
 it was not a case of shutting the barn door 
 after the horse had trotted forth. After 
 all, we had afforded ample opportunity for
 
 176 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 comment that summer, having been almost 
 never apart. Not everybody's sight was 
 as peculiar as that of mother, who went 
 through life believing that only such things 
 existed as she wished to see. John Randall, 
 for example, had been "on" long before I was. 
 The approach of my eighteenth birthday, 
 which filled me with a shy sense of mystery 
 and wonder, was acclaimed by mother 
 solely as affording a good excuse for a 
 theatre-party. This occasion was to be a 
 farewell to subdebutantism, consisting of 
 girls only thirty of them and those, 
 younger ones who were not coming out this 
 year. It was quite in order, mother ex- 
 plained to me, to invite girls of that age 
 without boys. The most fashionable danc- 
 ing-class in the city that which preceded 
 the Cosmopolitan dances for girls not yet 
 out, excluded the other sex, except for a 
 Christmas evening dance, and an Easter the 
 dansant.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 177 
 
 After much deliberation, ten names were 
 selected from the list of this dancing-class. 
 Nine out of those bidden accepted, as the 
 girls were only fifteen and had not many 
 engagements as yet. Alas ! The very one 
 who declined was the one mother most 
 wanted the little Bolton girl. 
 
 The remaining twenty were asked from 
 the year's Cosmopolitan list. The Cosmo- 
 politan dances, colloquially known as the 
 Mops, were the only official peep-holes into 
 the social arena. To be eligible a girl must 
 be sixteen and much besides. It was ex- 
 cessively easy for some girls to be invited 
 to join and insuperably difficult for others. 
 The dances were subscription affairs, but it 
 was not only money that had to be sub- 
 scribed. Those who failed to get on the list 
 organized consolation dances of their own, 
 with limited membership, and patronesses, 
 and all the proper accessories, so that the 
 newspaper accounts of them sounded just
 
 i/8 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 as good. A few of those who attended the 
 Mops went to these also, if they were par- 
 ticularly enthusiastic about dancing. 
 
 Boarding-school had deprived me of my 
 three legitimate years of Mops. By means 
 of them I should have gained experience. 
 The next best thing, according to mother, 
 was to tap them to keep in touch with 
 the members; so that when my sun should 
 be setting, a year from now, I might still 
 have points of contact with those whose 
 luminary was drawing toward its zenith. 
 
 The party, when it occurred, came peri- 
 lously near being a frost, for mother was not 
 accustomed to young people and did not 
 know how to put them at their ease. The 
 little girls arrived earliest, not having yet 
 acquired the smart habit of keeping other 
 people waiting. From the maturity of 
 eighteen I leaned down toward them with 
 a reminiscent wistfulness for the childhood 
 forfeited during those three years. They
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 179 
 
 were so sweet, several of them, and came 
 into the room shyly, their bodies tenderly 
 curving, some inward, some outward like 
 flowers blown lightly this way and that in 
 a breeze. Their recently uprolled hair rested 
 unfamiliarly against their heads, creating 
 new outlines; a few of the coils seemed too 
 heavy for the soft necks to bear. What a 
 sin against nature to mould them to make 
 them conform; to point out to them what 
 was what and who was who. Youth was 
 receptive enough; it would not take long. 
 
 Meantime they were standing about, 
 some with hands folded patiently across 
 their stomachs, others with their satin slip- 
 pers scrunched inward, wide-eyed, expect- 
 ant, and dumb. This would never do ! In 
 desperation I managed to corral the whole 
 group into a corner, tell them little jokes 
 and whisper little confidences until their 
 laughter bubbled up like geysers out of the 
 ground-
 
 i8o BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 Each newcomer heard it as she came in, 
 and joined our elastic circle at once; it off- 
 set mother's formality, and the situation 
 was saved. Soon there was a twittering like 
 that of swallows under eaves. Everybody 
 was natural, as the sexes are apt to be in 
 the absence of each other. 
 
 Against mother's advice, I had chosen 
 " Henry VIII " instead of the musical 
 comedy she proposed. It was a superb pro- 
 duction and the girls were crazy about it. 
 Any puppy will eat meat if you throw it 
 to him, and like it just as well as lollipops. 
 
 That was a happy evening for me a 
 sort of female-bachelor dinner, dedicated 
 to pure, spontaneous gayety, before assum- 
 ing the bonds of wedlock to the social 
 world. 
 
 As the 2Oth drew nearer, the atmos- 
 phere grew more and more oppressive and 
 hushed. I became, day by day, increasingly 
 apprehensive of not carrying out my part
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 181 
 
 in the affair in the right form. The thought 
 of it weighed on me as though it were a 
 presentation at court, or even a ceremony 
 of coronation. I might say or do something- 
 that wasn't on the programme I never 
 could tell just what I was going to do or say. 
 
 I wasn't used to pomp and doubted 
 whether I ever could get used to it. It sat 
 uneasily upon me, and hampered my move- 
 ments in much the same manner as did my 
 delicate clothes. Yet I wanted so earnestly 
 to do my best that I even sent up a little 
 prayer about it, and intended neither trivi- 
 ality nor irreverence thereby. 
 
 Personally I did not attach the least im- 
 portance to this or any function; but mother 
 cared terribly, and that was enough. I had 
 sacrificed much to "play the game"; "see 
 the thing through." I wanted the climax 
 to occur in a burst of glory. Thus much I 
 could do toward the success of the crown- 
 ing achievement of the life of her who had
 
 1 82 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 borne me, whether my ideals were hers or 
 not. 
 
 "I wonder," she said reflectively one day 
 when we were out in the motor together, 
 "whether you'll be a success!" 
 
 I smiled, and uncomfortably felt her eye 
 on the spot where I'd forgotten my dimple 
 was. 
 
 "I'm not going to worry about that," I 
 returned gently. "You're doing the best 
 you can to make me one, mother. It doesn't 
 depend on me." 
 
 "Oh, yes, it does, in large measure," she 
 asserted. "I'm. just deliberating what tac- 
 tics to advise. This spring I believed your 
 er outspokenness and your blunt manner 
 would offend. Now, from what I've ob- 
 served at Newport, I'm inclined to think 
 that they take. People are tired of the 
 usual thing, probably, and looking for some- 
 thing different. On the whole, I think I'll 
 have you push your individuality."
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 183 
 
 The color surged over my face and neck 
 in wave after wave. 
 
 "Oh, mother!" I protested. "Don't you 
 see that you're going to kill whatever it is 
 that's me by talking about it ? Please 
 please don't!" 
 
 Nevertheless, I was a little relieved to 
 think that I need not behave like an au- 
 tomaton at the ball. 
 
 The result of the invitation to Randall 
 was a note from Mrs. Winslow next day 
 asking mother to allow her to take me to 
 the studio for some music that evening. Of 
 course permission was not withheld. With 
 Mrs. Winslow I should have been allowed 
 to go anywhere ! 
 
 The minute I stepped out of my own 
 house I began to feel the breath of a keener 
 air. Snowflakes, light as thistledown, were 
 falling; I can feel their tiny pricklings of 
 perforated frostiness now on my cheek. In 
 the motor I touched the fur-edged sleeve of
 
 i8 4 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 Mrs. Winslow's wrap with cautious finger, 
 to make sure that she was real. There was 
 an illusion of fitfulness and shadow about 
 her, and I wanted to dispel it, for my love 
 went out to her there in the night. Daugh- 
 terless mother and motherless daughter that 
 we were, our natures had hailed each other 
 long since, at the first hand-clasp. 
 
 That evening brought Randall out of the 
 void for me put a background behind him 
 and earth under his feet. 
 
 The studio was a big room in a down- 
 town street, up several flights of stairs. 
 Somebody was singing when we got there. 
 The room was full of people who made no 
 sound. Toward the back I caught sight of 
 Mr. Winship's face, appreciative and in- 
 tent. It was my first contact, save at public 
 concerts where tickets were to be bought, 
 of a gathering that dared to show itself 
 serious. No one was ashamed of being seri- 
 ous here !
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 185 
 
 Randall was sitting motionless, chin for- 
 ward, hand on knee. He must have heard 
 us; but he gave no sign. We were spared 
 the variety of "manners" that would have 
 forced intrusion upon us. In the arch of 
 the old-fashioned doorway, her breast rising 
 and falling under her pearls, the fold of her 
 train coiled about her feet, Mrs. Winslow 
 was allowed her fair share of enjoyment, 
 standing unnoticed until the song was at 
 an end. Then Randall sprang toward us, 
 with a glad face of welcome, all his boyish- 
 ness loosed from the spell. 
 
 "You!" he said, turning to me when he 
 had greeted Mrs. Winslow. "In my house !" 
 
 That was all; but he said it as though 
 some Presence had crossed his threshold, 
 and I trembled, incapable of reply. 
 
 Hour after hour they made music for the 
 sheer joy of it. On and on they went, with- 
 out order, sequence, or brevity. During in- 
 tervals Randall scrambled eggs, we ate, and
 
 1 86 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 I met everybody. There was plenty of 
 jollity; and when people laughed, they 
 laughed ! They were no more afraid of 
 laughter than of seriousness. 
 
 The guests included painters of both sexes, 
 musicians, sculptors, stage folk, two play- 
 wrights, several readers for magazines, edi- 
 tors and their wives people who did things; 
 and people who, like Mr. Winship and Mrs. 
 Winslow, loved to see things done. Some 
 were word artists, who chatted familiarly 
 of subjects that, where I came from, were 
 kept imprisoned between the covers of 
 books. Everything they touched upon they 
 clothed with form and color. They brought 
 dead history to life. They discussed phi- 
 losophy and metaphysics. It was almost 
 too rich, that meal, after a starvation diet 
 of such long duration. 
 
 "You're coming to my ball?" I whis- 
 pered to Randall as we said good night. 
 
 He nodded.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 187 
 
 "Really, this time!" I enjoined. 
 
 "Yes really!" he promised, with a flit- 
 ting smile. 
 
 It was the only reference that was made 
 by either of us to his late defalcation. 
 
 In the interval I tried not to think of 
 him. My intelligence must be of a very 
 limited order, I reflected ruefully, since I 
 seemed incapable of thinking of more than 
 one man at a time. 
 
 At Newport, Allan had crowded Randall 
 out; now Randall was crowding Allan out. 
 And this was not as it should be. I was a 
 little annoyed with Allan for his tame ac- 
 quiescence in the role of absentee landlord. 
 He should have been keeping a closer watch 
 on his preserves.
 
 IV 
 
 the morning of December 20 I 
 partially woke to a sensation of por- 
 tent. The fear of something vaguely gran- 
 diose was sitting astride my chest, filling 
 me with oppression. Some cataclysm was 
 imminent. For a moment I thought it 
 was my wedding-day no less. I did not 
 feel happy about it. Blinking, it was rather 
 a relief to realize presently that it was not 
 so bad as all that. I wasn't going to be 
 married yet. I was only coming out. 
 This was the day. 
 
 I did not go out that morning. I wanted 
 to be on hand and see what was doing. 
 There was much in me still of the little 
 girl whose habit it had been to rush to the 
 front door, every time the bell rang, to 
 discover what shape of parcel was being 
 
 188
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 189 
 
 delivered, or to get the letters the postman 
 brought. First, a vanful of chairs arrived; 
 and next, a melancholy looking motor, sug- 
 gestive of the undertaker. Flattening my 
 nose against my window, which was my 
 nearest dignified approach now to the out- 
 side world, I sighed with relief when it be- 
 gan to disgorge nothing more ominous 
 than potted plants. So many things came 
 during the next two hours that I marvelled 
 how any one could have remembered to 
 order them all. Caterers' wagons were not 
 wanting. In spite of our chef and his staff 
 we had to buy little cakes, and what-not, 
 just as they did for Sunday-school picnics. 
 
 The best part of the day began after 
 lunch, for it rained flowers the whole after- 
 noon. The boxes were opened in the sitting- 
 room, so that the secretary could sort the 
 cards and jot down descriptive memoranda 
 for acknowledgments to be written by me 
 later on; then the men brought the flowers
 
 190 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 to the drawing-room by armfuls. Mother 
 sat in a chair at first and gave orders as to 
 where they were to be put, but, being sum- 
 moned elsewhere, left me in possession; 
 whereupon I changed the position of every 
 vase, and in less than an hour had that room 
 blooming like an exhibit in a flower-show. 
 
 I looked over the cards before dinner and 
 found ninety-seven names of people I didn't 
 know. The same people would undoubtedly 
 commemorate the occasion of my marriage 
 in the same way; and of my funeral too 
 if fate should prove so obliging as to give 
 it precedence of theirs. If people said what 
 they meant in this world I could imagine any 
 of them, supposing I were to make inquiries 
 and tender my thanks verbally to-night, 
 replying, with a bow: "Nothing personal 
 intended, I assure you. Merely a matter 
 of form." 
 
 John Randall sent me no flowers. Allan 
 Denning did; but I was in too much of a
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 191 
 
 rush at the moment to pay much heed to 
 them. They and the hair-dresser arrived 
 simultaneously; so I thrust them into the 
 last remaining receptacle and let it go at 
 that. 
 
 That hair-dresser was an anatomist of 
 no mean order. I did not recognize my own 
 skull when he had done with it. Where it 
 was too small it had been given the illusion 
 of expansion, and where it was too big it 
 had seemingly contracted. I undulated up 
 from my neck and I tapered down from my 
 crown; ringlets twined where wisps had 
 been before; coils looked solid that were 
 hollow inside; I stuck out where I ought to 
 stick out, and where I oughtn't I didn't. 
 The backward and upward poise of the 
 structure lent inches to my height. She was 
 almost tall that girl who returned my stare 
 into the mirror; and correct, surprisingly 
 far too correct to be me ! 
 
 "It's faking!" I protested, and picked up
 
 192 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 a tiny strand of strictly debutante pearls, 
 which had been given me for my birth- 
 day. 
 
 I let them trickle through my fingers, 
 gleaming like dewdrops in moonlight, and 
 then put them on. Bah ! Utterly out of 
 place, the delicate things, against a throat 
 strong, muscular, and brown ! Raising dis- 
 contented eyes, I beheld Yvonne, the tempt- 
 ress, with extended powder-puff. I shook 
 my head and snapped the clasp to. Saving 
 my coiffure, as to which I had been allowed 
 no say, I was determined to stand on my 
 own merits; to be displayed like an article 
 put up for auction "as is." After all, the 
 pearls were as well suited to me as the rest 
 of my surroundings. 
 
 In white, with an aura of tulle, I made 
 my way to mother's room and offered my- 
 self for inspection. While it lasted my heart 
 was in my mouth. When at length she said 
 solemnly, "I've never seen you look so
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 193 
 
 well!" it fell back into place. She was not 
 ashamed of me, then. That would make 
 the ordeal far easier. That it was to be an 
 ordeal I had no manner of doubt. The 
 situation was one I could not possibly 
 dominate as I had dominated the theatre- 
 party of girls. It was too big for me. 
 
 Toward eleven o'clock we took our stand 
 at the drawing-room door. Shortly after, 
 the oldest and most important personages 
 always the earliest began to arrive. They 
 came by twos and threes at first, then by 
 tens and dozens. Their glances were crit- 
 ical; their hand-clasps cold. Within half 
 an hour they had reduced me spiritually 
 to pulp. My spine had become a string; 
 my pretty white dress seemed a rag; and 
 my whole personality a hopeless proposi- 
 tion. It was not that they were intentionally 
 cruel. Safe within the shells of self-impor- 
 tance they had provided themselves with to 
 walk about in, they felt no shafts from with-
 
 194 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 out, and supposed others equally invulner- 
 able. 
 
 Would younger people never begin to 
 come? I wondered. What had these dow- 
 agers to do with dancing? Whose enter- 
 tainment was this, anyway mother's or 
 mine ? It was fully ten minutes since any 
 gloved fingers had touched my own; so I 
 felt free to leave my post beside mother, 
 near the door, and look into the ballroom. 
 There the orchestra's spirited playing still 
 invited in vain. Brocaded trains swept the 
 polished floor; diamonds glittered; feather 
 fans swung deliberately to and fro. What 
 men there were were personages, too, though 
 many of them did not look it, the years 
 having given them fantastic curves never 
 intended by Nature and unknown to art. 
 Fashion, in regard to concealment of such 
 deficiencies, certainly discriminates in favor 
 of women. A man in a white waistcoat, 
 so far as his outline is concerned, might as
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 195 
 
 well be on the slab at a Turkish bath. From 
 distasteful contemplation of one partic- 
 ularly offensive bulge, I was recalled by a 
 light step behind; and, turning, I caught 
 my breath at sight of John Randall, like- 
 wise in a white waistcoat, with a glorious 
 inward curve. The look of merry anticipa- 
 tion in his face was new to me; the eyes 
 that could be so serious were actually snap- 
 ping to ragtime ! 
 
 "Try this!" he suggested succinctly, and 
 we took up the rhythm in the middle of a 
 beat. 
 
 "I didn't know you danced," I mur- 
 mured. "How delicious!" 
 
 Perhaps I was prejudiced in his favor, 
 but he seemed to me to dance divinely. 
 Closing my eyes, I gave myself up to the 
 joy of it. I did not know whether any other 
 couple was on the floor. Suddenly I felt 
 my partner's muscles tighten, his pace 
 falter. Somebody was about to cut in.
 
 196 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 I opened my eyes upon Allan, smiling 
 with an air of ownership, hands outstretched. 
 He was within his rights, his act strictly in 
 accord with the dancer's code. With entire 
 propriety he might thus have claimed any 
 girl he knew. I could not do otherwise 
 than suffer him to swing me away. Allan 
 Denning jealous ! Furious though I was 
 at the interruption, I was flattered too. 
 
 "You might have let me finish it out," 
 I grumbled, "instead of snatching away my 
 cake in the middle of a bite/' 
 
 "Had to obey orders," he laughed, slow- 
 ing down as we neared the door. "You 
 shouldn't have bolted just then, you know. 
 No end of people coming in. Young people. 
 Your mother sent me to bring you back." 
 
 Then it wasn't jealousy. How flat ! He 
 hadn't come of his own accord. He'd been 
 sent. There was nothing to be furious 
 about. I was furious that there wasn't. 
 He was a half-hearted lover, this lover of
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 197 
 
 mine. The momentary tang had gone out 
 of the evening, to return no more. 
 
 I had always supposed society to be 
 exclusive; but the last few months had 
 taught me otherwise. Mother had fol- 
 lowed, upon this occasion, the generally 
 recognized custom, which prevails among 
 metropolitan hostesses, of inviting to their 
 houses not only the young men they know 
 personally but also those they know about. 
 The social secretary had furnished the 
 names, and the majority of those who an- 
 swered to them had materialized during 
 the evening, been presented, and done 
 what was expected of them namely, taken 
 me for a turn. Some had overlooked the 
 implied obligation, and were merely making 
 a convenience of the house as offering cer- 
 tain advantages over a public dance-hall. 
 For one thing, the champagne was free. 
 
 I looked about everywhere for Randall, 
 though I knew I was looking in vain. He
 
 198 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 had gone. What else was there for him to 
 do when I was snatched away ? He did 
 not know any of the other girls. He had 
 only come because I had asked him. This 
 festivity was none of his nor of mine, for 
 that matter. But it had served its purpose. 
 In half a dance we had found each other as 
 dancing partners. Half a bar would have 
 sufficed. Those who had danced together 
 once could dance together again and again 
 and again. We had danced to-night in 
 a ballroom; but a studio would do as well. 
 And, given two pairs of eager feet, a fiddle 
 was as good as a stringed orchestra every 
 bit. 
 
 Once, while I was waltzing with Allan, 
 I forgot Randall altogether; and then sud- 
 denly I felt something sharp and hard 
 against my breast. Could it be a button ? 
 A waistcoat button ? Released upon cessa- 
 tion of the music, I examined his outline 
 with apprehensive eyes. N-o; no actual
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 199 
 
 bulge as yet. And oh, how handsome he 
 was ! Not so half-hearted, either, after a 
 few digressions to the corridor, where the 
 footmen were kept busy filling glass after 
 glass. But I was in no mood for love- 
 making that required artificial stimulus to 
 give it a fillip. I refused his invitation to 
 supper in favor of that of a black-browed 
 count, with a limited vocabulary and a 
 tiny waxed mustache. 
 
 At length people grew tired of eating. 
 Napkins were thrown aside; chairs pushed 
 away; the elderly had had enough they 
 were ready to say good night. According 
 to precedent, the dancers returned to the 
 ballroom for more dancing; then the music 
 stopped, as music must; and everybody 
 went home. 
 
 Mother disappeared to give some orders, 
 and I was left in the great glittering draw- 
 ing-room, serving now no purpose, since it 
 was meant for entertaining and there was
 
 200 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 no one left to entertain. The flowers were 
 all drooping on their stems; and as for me, 
 the toes of my slippers were soiled and 
 crumpled, my tulle had wilted, my hair was 
 coming down. 
 
 It was over ! No need to stand here any 
 longer. The deed was done. I was "out"! 
 
 When I passed into the hall the men 
 were waiting there, motionless, to extin- 
 guish the lights. Slipping by them, I ran 
 up-stairs. 
 
 There was no doubt of it; by coming out 
 I had acquired merit with mother. From 
 the evening of my debut my status was 
 changed. After the manner of a son who 
 has attained his majority, I was now a 
 person of importance in the house. I re- 
 ceived more attention than I demanded, 
 and was accorded a larger measure of con- 
 sideration than I either desired or deserved. 
 Luckily I had a good memory for the lean 
 years behind, and thus preserved some
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 201 
 
 measure of equilibrium. They were such a 
 little way behind those years ! just round 
 the turning in the road. My feet had 
 travelled that uphill road alone. 
 
 Lately mother had seen fit to resume 
 what, to her, was motherhood; it was like 
 a garment long discarded and left to hang 
 in a remote corner of the closet until such 
 time as occasion should demand that it 
 be brought forth, shaken and aired. The 
 result of such resumption had not dis- 
 pleased her. It lent a new attribute to her 
 personality; added an element of surprise. 
 It supplemented her and admitted of fresh 
 combinations. It was a better fit than she 
 had had reason to expect. 
 
 A debutante must be heart-free. There- 
 fore, my engagement was in abeyance; it 
 had degenerated into a thing of naught. 
 All summer I had been allowed to be con- 
 stantly in Allan Denning's company; now 
 I never saw him alone. I submitted because
 
 202 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 I had offered to submit, but I chafed ex- 
 ceedingly, and thought only of getting over 
 the tiresome months between now and the 
 moment of my release. 
 
 Meantime, at least, time was not hanging 
 on my hands. During the remainder of 
 the month of December the coming-out 
 teas and dances were as thick as weddings 
 in June, and I attended them all. On the 
 whole, the teas were preferable to the balls. 
 I was invariably crushed and breathless, 
 it was true, on one occasion mother and 
 I were wedged on a stairway and could not 
 move up or down for three-quarters of an 
 hour I saw nobody I wanted to see and 
 everybody I didn't but, though I was as 
 acutely uncomfortable as one of a crowd 
 of trippers jamming an excursion boat, I 
 had as personal a feeling as they of adding 
 to the jollity of the occasion helping things 
 along. 
 
 One tea is pretty much like another. It
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 203 
 
 does not admit of apprehension and excite- 
 ment for months and even years before- 
 hand. It can be weathered without undue 
 mental strain, with no graver consequences 
 than a good-sized bill at the florist's and a 
 few sandwiches left over at the end of the 
 day. 
 
 By the 2Oth of the month everybody had 
 come out who was coming. Then occurred 
 the interlude of the holidays, after which 
 the actual season broke. You supped at 
 one ball and you breakfasted at another; 
 if you did not keep going you were not hav- 
 ing a good time. I would bolt my eggs and 
 coffee at four in the morning with the others, 
 and then, before I got into the motor with 
 my maid, stand for an instant in the street, 
 eyes on the glowing east, despising myself, 
 my rumpled frock, my soiled slippers, so 
 tawdry in the portentous hush of the new 
 day. 
 
 Once, to make my peace with it, having
 
 204 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 arrived at home, I wished Yvonne good 
 night, dumped my finery in the middle of 
 the floor, and, dressed in an old school Tarn, 
 a rough skirt and a sweater, went out again 
 alone. I encountered an old Irishman a 
 night-watchman, I judged with iron-gray 
 hair and majestic presence, who looked at 
 me without surprise and inclined his head 
 gravely, as to a fellow worker in the world. 
 Nothing for weeks had so stirred me as this 
 assumption. My heart blessed him as I 
 passed, and my eyes gave the countersign. 
 
 There was no sleep for me that night or, 
 rather, that morning. I had recovered the 
 insight with which I had come back from 
 boarding-school, and which I had somehow 
 lost since. My relation to the life I was 
 leading was crystal-clear to me. I was and 
 always should be a rank outsider. I felt 
 no scorn for mother's point of view; but it 
 was not and never could be mine. Sooner 
 or later I must be free of these surround-
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 205 
 
 ings. It was no more possible for me to 
 adapt myself to them than for a fish to 
 adapt itself to the breathing of air. 
 
 Things had worked themselves out ac- 
 cording to my expectation, with one ex- 
 ception. I had warned myself not to fall 
 in love within the walls. Poor little fool 
 that I had been for my pains ! Treasure is 
 treasure, in one place or another; and it 
 was well within the enclosure that I had 
 stumbled upon mine. Well, there was 
 nothing for it but to gather it up and stag- 
 ger forth with it upon the highway. 
 
 In plain words, I was going to get out; 
 but I was going to carry Allan Denning 
 along with me when the time had come. 
 I had learned enough to know that it would 
 be hard to uproot him; that it would be 
 myself who would have to take the initia- 
 tive. Well, I was equal to the task. Out 
 of dead air into air that was in motion I 
 would sweep him; he would draw great
 
 206 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 drafts of it into his lungs, and after that 
 he would never want to go back. Together 
 we would tackle the road that wound up- 
 hill all the way yes; to the very end ! 
 
 I thrilled at the thought of it; I felt his 
 hand in mine; all the trivialities that had 
 kept us apart melted into nothing; tears 
 started to my eyes; my lips breathed his 
 name. I must see him this very day and 
 not over the teacups, either; I was done 
 with pretense, so far as he was concerned. 
 He was mine and I was his; and if we were 
 to play the farce out for the benefit of the 
 public we must be fortified between scenes 
 by a little concentrated living and loving 
 to keep our courage up. 
 
 I was just going to sit down and write 
 him an urgent summons when my tooth 
 began to ache. I had two rows of exceed- 
 ingly serviceable teeth and had never had 
 a toothache in my life; but this one started 
 as though it meant business. It exacted
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 207 
 
 the strictest attention; I laid my pen down 
 and sat, taut and dismayed, hand on cheek. 
 Impossible to idle in a negligee, boudoir 
 cap, and slippers, with a red-hot iron in my 
 mouth I 
 
 I dressed hastily and rang for a maid to 
 accompany me to Doctor Read's, to seek 
 alleviation; for, though in my real char- 
 acter I might walk abroad safely at sunrise, 
 in my assumed one it was not permissible 
 to go unaccompanied in mid-morning. No 
 one responded. Neither maid was listen- 
 ing, for it was not in the regulations that I 
 should bestir myself before noon. Unable 
 to bear another moment's delay, I there- 
 fore defied custom and outraged conven- 
 tion in seeking my destination unprotected 
 by means of public conveyances, taking a 
 transfer, along with other strap-hangers, 
 and finishing 'cross-town, directly in front 
 of the dentist's door. 
 
 Not having made an appointment, I was
 
 208 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 obliged to wait. Another patient was "in 
 the chair." After the custom of teeth when 
 relief is imminent, mine had ceased to throb 
 so insistently. A little apart from the stale 
 magazines littering the table lay a fresh, 
 new copy of Gossip. I picked it up out of 
 curiosity, because I knew it was without 
 the pale. At the very first paragraph my 
 heart turned to ice. I forced myself to 
 read it through not once, but three times: 
 
 I have it on good authority that our genial 
 friend, Allan Denning, having had pretty poor 
 sport in salmon fishing, last summer took to 
 fishing for minnows at Newport and by Jove ! 
 landed one right in his hand. In the ver- 
 nacular, every millionairess this side of the Mis- 
 sissippi having turned him down, last spring on 
 Long Island he unearthed little Miss Innocence, 
 who responded to his rather shop-worn charms 
 on the sly. He followed up his advantage at 
 Newport, and every day there was a twosome on 
 the links. It was a pretty romance, until my 
 young lady's parents got onto it. Then there 
 was the devil to pay ! If the girl was to be sac- 
 rificed let her be sacrificed to some purpose, they
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 209 
 
 shrieked. There might be money enough to 
 catch a duke if sufficient splurge was made about 
 it. Keep Allan for a pet round the house ! That 
 was all he was good for, and everybody knew it. 
 Poor Allan ! He'd fixed the girl, but the old 
 folks were too many for him. When he found 
 that out he crawled. He adhered to his custom 
 of letting himself be walked over and kicked. 
 For the twentieth time he went 'way back and 
 sat down. He's sitting down now, waiting for 
 the fireworks to go out. Then, if the duke doesn't 
 materialize, up he'll step again. It's a long 
 chance he's taking, but it's my guess that it's 
 his last one of anchoring himself to a fortune. 
 The girl's spunky enough, I'm told. She's ut- 
 terly inexperienced and he's got her cold. If he 
 doesn't do anything rash he thinks he can count 
 on her to work things round. We shall see ! 
 
 At the end of the third reading the letters 
 danced before me. I swayed to a chair and 
 dropped upon it; the paper, clutched in my 
 fingers, sank to my knee slowly, as though 
 it had been a thing of weight. 
 
 The dentist came in suavely, bowing some 
 woman out. He made sympathetic inquiry 
 as to my trouble, for I was the daughter
 
 210 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 of a lucrative patient who had all her fillings 
 done in gold. Seeing the paper in my hand, 
 he murmured a hasty apology for having 
 it about; some one had brought it in and 
 left it, he explained; he had had every 
 intention of destroying it; it was a scur- 
 rilous sheet. 
 
 "Scurrilous! Scurrilous! Scurrilous!" 
 ground out the horrid buzz-saw, to the 
 jangling of my nerves. 
 
 "I don't think it'll bother you any more 
 now," soothed Doctor Read, applying a 
 small square of cheese-cloth to my mouth 
 as I lay extended, weak, limp and white. 
 He referred to the tooth. 
 
 He watched me narrowly as I went 
 out. 
 
 "May I take it?" I asked stonily. 
 
 "Take what?" 
 
 "That paper." 
 
 "Certainly; by all means, Miss West." 
 
 There was a colored maid in the dressing-
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 211 
 
 room when I put on my hat. She handed 
 me my hatpins and said something about 
 the weather in a low, musical voice. I 
 longed to pour my sorrows into that girl's 
 ears. I was so bewildered that I did not 
 know what to do. I had never thought it 
 was in dentists' offices that idols were shat- 
 tered and whole structures of the imagina- 
 tion came crashing to the ground. 
 
 A man was in front of me at the ticket- 
 office window when I reached the subway. 
 As he took the change that was shoved 
 toward him I noticed what an extraordinary 
 hand he had; so white, so slim, so nervous 
 a distinguished hand ! He swept up the 
 pile, turned away; and in the act of shov- 
 ing in my nickel I glanced up. To the 
 disgust of the official in the window, I 
 failed to take the ticket he offered, but, 
 instead, touched the man before me on the 
 arm. 
 
 "Mr. Randall!" I said hoarsely.
 
 212 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 Startled exceedingly, he turned. It had 
 been no greeting that I had uttered. He 
 had recognized in it a cry for help. 
 
 Out of cavernous darkness the express 
 came rushing, with its gleaming headlights; 
 but we let it go and made our way back 
 to daylight and the street. 
 
 "I've got to talk to some one," I ap- 
 pealed. "I've got to have some advice. 
 Look at this." 
 
 I showed him the paragraph. As he read 
 it he grew red and white by turns. At last 
 he turned and looked at me, and in that 
 voice of his, which was capable of as many 
 gradations of expression as his face, he 
 said simply: 
 
 "I can't advise you in this matter. It 
 wouldn't be giving the other fellow a 
 square deal." 
 
 And this was the man mother had said 
 was not a gentleman this the man at whom 
 that "other fellow" had Jooked askance
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 213 
 
 because he didn't remember having seen 
 him "anywhere" before! 
 
 "Isn't there anybody else?" he resumed, 
 with an effort. "How about Mrs. Wins- 
 low? Couldn't you go to her?" 
 
 I seized upon the suggestion and clung to 
 it. 
 
 "I'm not coming with you," he said. "I 
 might I'd better not come." 
 
 I descended alone into the cavern, boarded 
 one of the rushing trains, and in short order 
 reached Mrs. Winslow's house. My heart 
 sank when I saw her motor standing in 
 front of it. It must be luncheon-time. She 
 was lunching out. There she was now, on 
 the step ! I would snatch a hurried word 
 with her make an appointment. Her eyes 
 lighted when they fell on me. 
 
 "Well, Barbara!" she said, saw my agita- 
 tion, and stopped. 
 
 Before I could speak she laid her hand on 
 my arm. I could feel the magnetic current
 
 2i 4 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 of those fingers through her glove and my 
 sleeve. 
 
 "Come in," she said quietly, and turned 
 back to the house. 
 
 "Oh, no!" I cried in dismay, being by 
 this time well versed in the paramount 
 importance of engagements and hours to 
 the class of society in which Mrs. Winslow 
 moved. 
 
 Nothing short of a death in the family 
 would have kept mother from a bridge- 
 party; or, in fact, any appointment made 
 weeks ahead and written down on her 
 pad. 
 
 For answer Mrs. Winslow drew her arm 
 through mine, while the footman pressed 
 the bell, and the door swung open. 
 
 "You'll be late," I protested. "Or you'll 
 miss it altogether." 
 
 "What does that matter?" she returned; 
 and I could detect a faint trace of scorn in 
 the beautiful curve of her lips. "Eldredge
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 215 
 
 shall send a telephone message for me. 
 Come up-stairs." 
 
 No sooner had the door closed upon us 
 two than all the lines of her proud figure 
 seemed to melt. She turned toward me 
 eagerly, and there was such a look in her 
 dark eyes as I had seen in the eyes of Italian 
 women nursing their babies on the curb. I 
 threw myself into her arms headlong and 
 crumpled up upon her breast. 
 
 Not until she had kissed and comforted 
 me, called me "darling" not sentimentally, 
 but naturally and quieted me in her arms, 
 did she sit down on the sofa, indicate a big 
 chair for me to draw up near her, and ask 
 me what my trouble was. I unfolded the 
 paper, which I still held, and handed it 
 to her open at the paragraph that referred 
 to Allan Denning. She read it, laid the 
 sheet down on her knee, and remained 
 silent. 
 
 Confirmed in my apprehensions by the
 
 2i6 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 fact that she withheld comment, I broke 
 into an impromptu defense of the subject 
 of the attack. I pleaded his cause from the 
 beginning in a tumult of broken words and 
 disordered phrases. I talked until I was 
 out of breath, and all the time I realized 
 that I convinced neither her nor myself. I 
 broke off in the middle of a sentence; my 
 lips quivered. I knew I was beaten, and I 
 felt bruised. 
 
 As I searched her face for fresh courage 
 I was startled by her resemblance to the 
 portrait. The same compelling look, that 
 gripped and lifted you ! Oh, the insight that 
 had pinioned that look on canvas ! . . . 
 I felt that we were no longer two in that 
 room, but three. . . . Neither his own 
 will-power, nor yet doors nor windows, could 
 keep John Randall out ! 
 
 "I've always felt sure," Mrs. Winslow 
 said, "that something would save you from 
 the catastrophe of marriage with Allan Den-
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 217 
 
 ning. It's happened to come from outside; 
 but it might just as well have come from 
 within. You're such a straight thinker 
 about the straightest I've ever met. You 
 would have ended by realizing that there 
 was no ground upon which you and he 
 could stand together. The things you hold 
 essential he can never grasp the meaning 
 of. You can't expect him to, any more 
 than you can expect him to decipher words 
 written in an unknown tongue." 
 
 "Then," I faltered, "the opinion of the 
 person who wrote that paragraph is the 
 same as yours ?" 
 
 "Essentially it is," she answered. "He's 
 very charming to meet and very good-look- 
 ing, but you can't get away from the fact 
 that he's a poor thing! If he had great 
 virtues you could forgive him for having 
 great faults. He has neither. Why, Bar- 
 bara ! It would take a hundred of him to 
 make one of you ! His nature has an alto-
 
 218 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 gether different consistency from yours. 
 It's thin!" 
 
 "But is he really a fortune-hunter?" I 
 asked wistfully. "Is he so despicable as 
 that?" 
 
 "Quite," she affirmed. "When he was 
 staying with us at Westbury in June he 
 was very attentive to my daughter Ruth. 
 However" sighing "Ruth knows how to 
 take care of herself." 
 
 My cheeks blazed. 
 
 "He said he despised her!" I cried. 
 
 "Perhaps he did," she returned, "but he 
 proposed marriage to her none the less." 
 
 Words half forgotten came back to me: 
 "I stay here because because that's the 
 kind of thing we plotters and schemers do. 
 If I'd come in contact years ago with a 
 few girls like you I'd have been out of that 
 class long ago. Won't you help me to 
 get out of it now?" 
 
 Was it after this that he had proposed to
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 219 
 
 the Alvord girl, and been rejected ? He had 
 not moved over to us for four days ! Had 
 he even then been laying the foundation for 
 plotting and scheming in a fresh channel 
 in case of his failure in this ? Was that 
 why he had come to see me in the intervals 
 of his pursuit ? 
 
 "What shall I do?" I cried. "How shall 
 I tell him?" 
 
 "In the fewest possible words," she ad- 
 vised. "Avoid anything in the nature of 
 a scene. You could leave it to your mother, 
 of course." 
 
 "That would be cowardly," I replied. 
 "After all, it's my business." 
 
 "You're no shirker!" she commented. 
 
 When I left her the only thing I had 
 omitted to confide to her was the incident 
 of my meeting with John Randall. Through- 
 out our talk his name had not been men- 
 tioned. 
 
 Mother was annoyed with me and her
 
 220 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 indictment held two counts: the first, that I 
 had gone out without a maid; the second, 
 that I had remained away for hours with- 
 out notifying her. She had three "days" 
 to take me to, and my remiss behavior was 
 the topic of our conversation all the after- 
 noon. 
 
 It did not occur to her to inquire into 
 the cause of my prolonged absence. Poor 
 mother lived in a confusing world, where 
 phenomena happened arbitrarily, without 
 rhyme or reason when they happened at 
 all. When her mental sun set it dropped 
 with a thud below the horizon, unhampered 
 by any natural laws. Therefore, she never 
 got below the outer layer of things. 
 
 I went to a dance that evening, as usual; 
 and no sooner had I entered the ballroom 
 than I was aware of Allan Denning the 
 whole five feet eleven of him leaning 
 against a foolish, frivolous wall of white 
 and gold. Blue of eye, bronze of head,
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 221 
 
 square of shoulders, imposing of height and 
 bulk all these advantages I conceded him; 
 only so complete had been my disillusion- 
 ment that I didn't care a snap of my finger 
 any more. They meant exactly nothing to 
 me now. 
 
 How lately I had thought him out of 
 his element in a ballroom ! I remembered 
 curiously that the blue of his eyes had 
 seemed to me like the shadows on snow 
 when the sun was shining. I had associated 
 him with out-of-doors. I now saw that I 
 had complicated matters which were, in 
 fact, essentially simple. If Allan had be- 
 longed out-of-doors he would have been 
 there ! This was his true element this his 
 natural setting; here he lived and moved 
 and had his being amid the artificiality, 
 the champagne, the powder, and the pearls. 
 
 I might as well tell him right then and 
 there, and get it over. The circumstances 
 were conducive to the avoidance of any
 
 222 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 sort of scene. He saw me and approached 
 at once. 
 
 "I haven't got the hang of this new step 
 yet," he said easily; "but shall we make a 
 stab at it?" 
 
 To his amazement I answered, so low 
 that no one else could hear: 
 
 "Allan, something has happened to con- 
 vince me that you don't really care for 
 me. It was a thing I saw in Gossip. 
 I wanted to tell you right out as soon as 
 possible. I only saw it this morning. This 
 is my very first chance." 
 
 He paused, thunderstruck, and then mut- 
 tered, incredulous: 
 
 "You don't mean to say you place any 
 reliance on that vile slander!" 
 
 "It's been substantiated," I returned 
 quietly, and looked him steadily in the 
 eyes those eyes that, so far as I was con- 
 cerned, might just as well have been stones. 
 They dropped before mine.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 223 
 
 With an effort he pulled himself together 
 and bent his handsome head. 
 
 "Barbara!" he began. "Little girl! 
 Don't let any one tell you I'm not crazy 
 about you! Come with me somewhere 
 anywhere where I can explain." 
 
 "What's the use, Allan?" I returned 
 sadly. "It wouldn't do a bit of good. I've 
 made up my mind." 
 
 "Not" he gasped "not to throw me 
 over?" 
 
 "Just that !" was my grave reply. "After 
 talking with Mrs. Barton Winslow." 
 
 He blanched to the roots of his hair. 
 Then he noticed a group of men near the 
 door observing us rather narrowly. 
 
 "We can't discuss this here," he whis- 
 pered hurriedly. "If you won't come out- 
 side, dance with me, will you ? Only once 
 round ! People are looking. They can see 
 that something's up." 
 
 I stared, trying to understand him.
 
 224 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 Either he knew me so little as not to take 
 me seriously, or else he was proposing to 
 let slip a crucial opportunity, on the ground 
 that "people were looking"! Oh, how 
 trivial, how incorrigibly trivial he was ! 
 How right Mrs. Winslow had been ! 
 
 "Just one turn!" he urged, more and 
 more uncomfortable. 
 
 "Certainly," I said, and let him swing 
 me away. 
 
 We had not progressed ten feet before 
 Johnny Hargrave cut in. Thus, Allan, no 
 doubt to his intense relief, was most oppor- 
 tunely released from an embarrassing sit- 
 uation. 
 
 I received two impassioned notes from 
 him during the course of the next morning, 
 begging me to see him at the house; and, 
 these having elicited no reply, he followed 
 them in the afternoon with a third, in which 
 he actually suggested a clandestine inter- 
 view in the park. Which was going pretty 
 far for Allan.
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 225 
 
 That evening I went to mother's room 
 to tell her that I had determined to give 
 him up. She had finished dressing, and was 
 walking to and fro before her cheval glass, 
 scrutinizing over her shoulder the details 
 of her costume, while Yvonne stood silently 
 by. When I whispered that I wanted to 
 speak with her alone she sent the latter 
 away; and I announced my decision. Her 
 gratification knew no bounds. Never had 
 I seen her so elated. 
 
 "You'll get twice as much out of your 
 social opportunities now!" she exulted. 
 
 Then she seemed to forget that I was 
 there, and started walking up and down 
 again, but not before the mirror this time. 
 All at once she stopped and hung poised 
 on an arched foot. Her clasped hands, 
 with their rosy nails, supported her delicate 
 chin; below them her breast rose and fell 
 in an accession of pleasurable excitement; 
 triumph was on her lips, and in her eyes 
 were dreams of dukes.
 
 226 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 Poor mother ! My heart went out to 
 her, and I longed to protect her from life. 
 Since our ideals were irreconcilable, it was 
 inevitable that I should disappoint her at 
 every turn again, and again, and again. 
 Between us lay the intangible forces of the 
 Imponderables, holding us forever apart. 
 
 As I passed her on my way out I touched 
 an end of the filmy tulle she had wound 
 about her throat, with lingering fingers full 
 of compunction, tenderness, and regret. 
 
 I stayed at home that night for the first 
 time in many weeks, and seated myself in 
 the up-stairs sitting-room beside the fire, 
 with a book. But in my unsettled mood 
 the tale I had chosen ran its course too 
 deliberately; and as for the fire, it soon 
 became unbearably hot. I moved away; 
 but the walls of the room seemed closing 
 in on me, giving me a sensation of suffoca- 
 tion. The artificial system of heating worked 
 too well; though the month was February,
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 227 
 
 so carefully had drafts been excluded that 
 one could hardly draw breath. I went to 
 the window and gave it an energetic shove. 
 It flew upward, letting in a vigorous blast 
 that stung my temples deliciously. 
 
 Fifth Avenue was still pulsating; buses 
 rumbled, motors hummed; pedestrians went 
 by, walking briskly, their necks muffled in 
 their collars. This was no night for lingering. 
 
 Only one man that slim one there did 
 not seem to be in any hurry. I watched 
 him until he was out of my field of vision. A 
 moment more and he was within range 
 again, retracing his steps. Directly in front 
 of the house he paused, looking up, and in 
 the glare of the arc-light I saw John Ran- 
 dall's face off guard. What I read in it 
 caused me to dash out of the room head- 
 long and run down the stairs two steps at 
 a time. He had not moved when the heavy 
 grilled door yielded, under protest, to my hand. 
 
 "Come in!" I said peremptorily. He
 
 228 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 made no motion to obey. "I was going 
 to write you," I said slowly. "It's over 
 the thing we were talking about." 
 
 He came in then; and when I had closed 
 the door behind him he said: 
 
 "How awfully hard for you!" 
 
 "Not any more!" I answered quickly. 
 "It wasn't the real thing. I think I felt 
 that subconsciously all the time." 
 
 In the sitting-room, since the window 
 had remained open in the interval, the air 
 was thoroughly changed. 
 
 "Why," I demanded abruptly, "couldn't 
 you have rung the door-bell and asked for 
 me ? If I hadn't opened the window just 
 then I should never have known you were 
 there! Oh, John Randall, why will you 
 always stay outside?" 
 
 His eyes pricked mine. 
 
 "Because I'm an outsider," he retorted; 
 "and I never trespass on private grounds. 
 I only skirt them occasionally."
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 229 
 
 "I'm an outsider too," I said gravely. 
 "I always suspected it, and now I know 
 it. I don't belong here any more than you 
 do. Some day or other I'm going to dis- 
 cover where it is that I do belong!" 
 
 He took a deep breath and his eyes 
 glowed. 
 
 "I wanted to hear you say it," he avowed. 
 "I just wanted to hear you say it ! They've 
 put you in a mould and you've come out 
 retaining your own shape. It staggers be- 
 lief! I couldn't have done it. No one 
 could but you." 
 
 "Do you remember," I asked quietly, 
 "the imitation lobster, that night we met? 
 The wolf in sheep's clothing?" 
 
 "Yes," he nodded. "And I remember 
 just what your comment was. 'That's 
 what they're trying to do with me,' you 
 said." 
 
 "Do you remember your answer?" 
 
 "How can I remember what I said?"
 
 230 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 "Well, then, I do. You said: 'Don't let 
 them.' And, if I haven't, you're more than 
 half responsible." 
 
 As I spoke I could see his reserve that 
 provoking reserve which had so long de- 
 flected our lives out of their true course 
 breaking up, like ice before spring fresh- 
 ets. 
 
 "You'd have done it, anyway," he 
 averred. "You've got a nature that would 
 pull out of anything ! And there's no ruth- 
 lessness in it, either; that's the beauty of 
 it. How you were able to curb it, to hold it 
 down as you did, to defer in every way to 
 your father and mother, to give their sys- 
 tem a fair show, instead of taking the bit in 
 your teeth, is a marvel to me! And I'm 
 not the only one, either. You ought to hear 
 what Mrs. Winslow thinks about it ! You 
 ought to know what she thinks of you, any- 
 way. She thinks you're the straightest, the 
 cleanest-minded, the safest and the most
 
 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 231 
 
 earnest girl she's ever seen. Besides that, 
 she thinks " 
 
 "Oh, pooh!" I cut him short. "Mrs. 
 Winslow never said that!" 
 
 "Some of it she did," he affirmed, the 
 eyes that had been all steady light sud- 
 denly atwinkle. "Anyway, I didn't say 
 she said it I said she thought it!" 
 
 We threw back our heads and laughed. 
 
 "Why don't you speak for yourself, 
 John?" I challenged teasingly. 
 
 But he stopped laughing and trembled 
 from head to foot. 
 
 "It's the money!" he blurted out, with 
 a boy's abruptness. "That's what it is, if 
 you want to know." 
 
 "But the money's an accident!" I cried, 
 wondering. "An incident ! Why do you 
 make it so important ? We needn't use 
 the money I'll have, for ourselves. We can 
 use it for foundations of some sort or 
 hospitals. We'll see," I ended contentedly,
 
 232 BRINGING OUT BARBARA 
 
 "what we'll use it for. And meantime we'll 
 be living on yours. You'll have enough to 
 keep me in smocks if I paint too. Have- 
 n't you just made a stupendous success ? 
 Haven't you got orders it'll take you two 
 years to fill?'* 
 
 With one cry he sprang toward me and 
 crushed me in his arms.
 
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