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 PHILADELPHIA.
 
 SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 BY 
 
 JULIEN GORDON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "A DIPLOMAT'S DIAKT," ETC. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
 1891
 
 Copyright, 1890, by THE COSMOPOLITAN PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 
 Copyright, 1890, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPAST.
 
 I DEDICATE THIS STORY 
 
 TO 
 
 TITUS MUNSON COAN, 
 
 WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT OF MY LITERARY 
 EFFORTS I THUS 
 
 GBATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGE. 
 
 2061837
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE homestead stood under the hill close 
 to the main road which led into the town. It 
 could hot be termed a pretty house, nor was it 
 even solid or imposing. It was big and mere- 
 tricious, in that pretentious villa style which 
 was the rage forty years ago, when the colo- 
 nial architecture had gone out of fashion and 
 Queen Anne had not yet been awakened; 
 there were wood turrets which were meaning- 
 less, verandas which looked out on nothing 
 in particular, and porches which led nowhere. 
 Hundreds of such houses disfigure nature all 
 over the United States. Where, through 
 fidelity or economy, their owners have not 
 tampered with them, they are hopeless ; they 
 are hideous when they are embellished. One 
 
 7
 
 8 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 thing, indeed, can be said in their favor : they 
 have usually high ceilings, wide doors, and 
 generous windows admitting plenty of light 
 and air, and their rooms are often large and 
 sweetly cool. Queen Anne evidently laid no 
 stress on " stuffiness ;" she was not accustomed 
 to America in August. 
 
 Of this particular structure it might be said 
 that the inside was pleasant enough ; not ex- 
 actly elegant or even cosey, but fresh, whole- 
 some, and, on the whole, comfortable. The 
 grounds which environed it and where the 
 children played there were about twenty 
 acres counting the adjacent meadow were 
 really quite charming. There was soft mossy 
 turf, plenty of shade, a variety of fine thrifty 
 old trees, and a general aspect of careful gar- 
 dening. The fences were excellent, and the 
 orchard which lay behind the house was full 
 of fruit. A profusion of flowers bloomed on 
 each side of the garden-paths. There was 
 nothing so picturesque as a barn-yard, al- 
 though invisible hens proclaimed themselves 
 and three Holsteins browsed in the pasture lot.
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 9 
 
 The stables were more modern than the 
 house and not less unsightly, and there was 
 more than a suspicion of new paint about 
 them. The trees, however, cast over them a 
 mantle of charitable shade, and the four well- 
 fed horses had enough room. All was cheer- 
 ful and respectable, with a look of middle- 
 class affluence and entirely well-to-do. The 
 house was an object of interest to every 
 passer-by, and the hackmen who carried stran- 
 gers up Harbor Hill to see the view always 
 pulled up a minute and showed the place with 
 pride, for it was the habitation of the " great 
 man" of the town. Some predicted that he 
 would become the great man of the State, 
 perhaps one day of the nation ; who could 
 tell ? The hack-driver who was possessed of 
 more imagination than his colleagues enlarged 
 upon his theme, and called the great man a 
 great orator, usually pronouncing the word 
 " oh-ra'tor." 
 
 At the early hour when my story opens, 
 the great man's wife was standing in one of 
 the upper rooms, which was suffused with
 
 10 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 summer sunshine. It was a very nice room 
 indeed, so she thought, when her hushand 
 brought her to their home twenty years before 
 and she selected the room for her own. Here 
 she had slept and worked, suffered and en- 
 joyed, laughed and cried ; here she had borne 
 and brought up her children, six in number. 
 Her domestic life had known but few inter- 
 missions. Twice six months in Europe and 
 one trip to the West, with an occasional visit 
 to friends in the country, were the sum of her 
 holidays ; and these last had become more and 
 more rare with the multiplying ties of mater- 
 nity, and of late they had almost entirely 
 ceased. 
 
 Mrs. Lawton had never been fond of trav- 
 elling ; even in Europe she had not been quite 
 happy. To be sure, her husband had on both 
 occasions been forced by business claims to 
 return without her, and she had been left with 
 young children on her hands to amuse her- 
 self as best she might. Her talents in this 
 direction were not great. She would have 
 preferred to return with him, but, being a
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN H 
 
 poor sailor, she thought it better for her health 
 to take a few more weeks before these trying 
 voyages. She looked back to these tours with 
 sufficient pleasure, as we do on our early edu- 
 cation, for she was intelligent enough to rel- 
 ish a mild form of sight-seeing; but she 
 had never got at the heart of life over there, 
 and had no imperative longing to repeat the 
 experiment. 
 
 To return to the upper chamber. Mrs. 
 Lawton was engaged at this particular mo- 
 ment in combing out her eldest girl's hair. 
 Very lovely hair it was. Long, fine, light, it 
 almost swept the floor as the mother wound it 
 lovingly in and out and across her fingers. 
 
 "How nice and dry it is!" she said. 
 "Light hair is always fluffier than black. 
 Your papa's used to be like this. It is a pity 
 he has grown so gray." 
 
 " Impending cares of state," said the girl. 
 
 " I suppose we must hope so," sighed Mrs. 
 Lawton, " but it is very upsetting." 
 
 " Cheer up, mammy. You know you will 
 cry your eyes out if he is defeated."
 
 12 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 "I don't know anything of the kind. 
 Your mamma is not very ambitious." 
 
 " Well, papa is, then ; enough for the whole 
 family. Kow, dear, that will do. I just love 
 to have you brush my hair. You have such 
 a sweet, cunning little way. When I have a 
 headache it is a sure cure." 
 
 So saying, Clemence shook her mane and 
 rose from the contemplation of herself in her 
 mother's dressing-table mirror. 
 
 She was a fair miss of sixteen, well-made, 
 healthy, and excessively pretty, with that in- 
 describable sort of prettiness that is made up 
 of complexion, beautiful hair, and. youth. She 
 was a head taller than her mother, who was 
 herself not undersized. Between them, how- 
 ever, there was little or no resemblance. 
 
 The mother was of medium height, in- 
 clined to plumpness, with agreeable dark eyes 
 and regular features. She looked like a very 
 well-preserved woman of forty, and was so 
 well preserved in fact that one wondered why 
 she should not be taken to be younger. 
 There were very few if any wrinkles upon
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 13 
 
 her face. Her teeth were intact, her hair was 
 abundant, and her voice retained some of its 
 girlish inflections. There had, however, been 
 something about her for many years which 
 people, for lack of a better term, called " set- 
 tled." 
 
 It is difficult to say whether in her case it 
 was in the figure or in the expression. Her 
 hips were a little accentuated, to be sure, but 
 she was not heavy in either form or gait. 
 She wore, on the other hand, that look of 
 placid resignation one sees so frequently on 
 the faces of the entirely domestic women, 
 who years before have renounced all coquetry. 
 Is the look a tribute to what they have 
 missed ? It would be hard to determine. It 
 did not express discontent. 
 
 Mrs. Lawton would have told you, and with 
 candor, that her existence had been an excep- 
 tionally happy one. No tragedies had touched 
 it; hardly such common sorrows as fall to 
 the lot of most of us. Her greatest chagrin 
 had been when her husband had entered the 
 political arena, for this she thought might
 
 14 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 separate him more from her and the children ; 
 and she had lost a sister to whom she was 
 attached. Her parents were still living, and 
 not very old; she had married the man she 
 wanted ; she had never lost a child ; and her 
 husband's political career had been more suc- 
 cessful than their most sanguine imaginings. 
 
 Of course Daniel had been sure to succeed. 
 She had hardly looked for disaster. He al- 
 ways did. He had ability, pluck and luck, so 
 people said ; and of his ability his wife had no 
 shadow of a doubt. She thought him a re- 
 markable man, and remembered that old Mr. 
 Cairns, who was the wiseacre of the city, had 
 always prophesied that Dan Lawton, who was 
 then still very young and obscure, would " make 
 himself felt." Those had been his words. 
 
 As Miss Clem tossed up her plentiful locks, 
 the door opened, and her father stood on the 
 threshold ; his wife went up and kissed him. 
 
 " I hoped, papa, you were still asleep, you 
 were up so late." 
 
 " I can't sleep until this infernal convention 
 is over."
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 15 
 
 Mrs. Lawton's eyes rested on her husband's 
 with trusting affection ; his moved good- 
 humoredly from her to his daughter, but 
 seemed to be looking over the women at 
 something beyond them. 
 
 A curly head was thrust in just now at the 
 other door, which led down a long passage to 
 the nursery. 
 
 " I say, pop, when am I going to have my 
 kite ?" 
 
 " Is that you, you young rascal ?" said Mr. 
 Lawton, raising the lovely boy under the arm- 
 pits and swinging him as if he had been a 
 featherweight on to his broad shoulder. " You 
 will have your kite when you learn to say 
 the multiplication-table and to spell hippo- 
 potamus backward." 
 
 " Please, pop," said the little fellow, whis- 
 pering into the ear which was close by his 
 mouth now and prying it open with his thumb 
 and finger, " please, pop, say ' up to five' and 
 let the hiporotamus go." 
 
 " Breakfast is ready, madam," announced a 
 handsome maid in cap and apron.
 
 16 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 The dining-room was cheerful, and the table 
 was plainly but neatly set; the linen was 
 snowy, the silver bright, and there was plenty 
 of excellent food, rather indifferently cooked, 
 it must be confessed. 
 
 The children were all at the table. Master 
 Fred came down late, in a velveteen jacket 
 and a collar which notched the ends of his 
 ear-lobes. He complained of everything; and, 
 when Clem said the biscuits were " real hot" 
 and good enough for boys, he repeated, " Real 
 -hot! Gad, what English!" and rolled his 
 eyes up until they disappeared. By and by he 
 said, 
 
 " Mother, you had better send Clem to Miss 
 SewelPs school. Blake's sister was there to 
 finish, and has come back what a girl ought 
 to be." 
 
 Clem shouted out a peal of boisterous, 
 mocking laughter. 
 
 Fred put his hands up to his ears. 
 
 " Clem, for heaven's sake, learn to modulate 
 your voice. You don't know what bad form 
 it is to scream and yell like that."
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 17 
 
 " There, children, stop squabbling. You 
 disturb your papa. And, Clem, I don't know 
 but what your brother is right. It may be a 
 good notion for you to go to Europe to finish, 
 but I don't see now how we could manage it." 
 
 Eighteen-year-old Fred, a junior in a great 
 college, his mother's pet, was apt to get her 
 upon his side. 
 
 Miss Clem laughed again, but lower this 
 time, and gave forth with a snap two words, 
 " Xot much." 
 
 In the mean while Daniel Lawton was eating 
 a poached egg, sipping his coffee, and gradu- 
 ally breaking the seals of a pile of letters. and 
 documents of all sizes and colors which had 
 been laid near his plate. A waste-basket had 
 been drawn close to his seat, and as he drew 
 out the letters one by one to open and peruse 
 them, such as were of no consequence were 
 quickly disposed of and thrown aside. 
 
 One of the secrets of this man's success had 
 always been that he possessed the rare gift of 
 rejecting the unimportant. Goethe tells us 
 this is a characteristic of the master-mind, 
 b 2*
 
 18 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 As the morning light played upon his fore- 
 head and his hair, it was impossible not to be 
 struck with the man's extraordinary good 
 looks. He appeared to be in the prime and 
 full vigor of a life which, if it had been in- 
 tensely, had been so far wisely lived. Such 
 marks as the years had left upon him were 
 honorable and honest. His was one of those 
 heads at which, when men met him in the 
 thoroughfare, they would turn to gaze back, 
 saying to each other, "Look, this must be 
 some distinguished man." 
 
 He sometimes overheard them and smiled, 
 for, while he was not entirely unaffected by 
 flattery, he was not vain. His hair silky, 
 fine as a woman's, now almost entirely gray, 
 worn rather long was thrown back in waves 
 from his broad forehead. His eyes were 
 of a burning blue, piercing, attentive, often 
 amused, sometimes implacable, yet capable of 
 a tender light. His nose was straight, forcible, 
 shapely, with sensitive nostrils; it was full 
 of character; and the mouth was singularly 
 beautiful.
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 19 
 
 Little Dan, between mouthrals of milk 
 toast, looked up and across at his big brother. 
 
 " Fred's got a mash on the Blake girl. I'll 
 tell Nettie Andrews," he sung out. 
 
 His mother shook her head at him reprov- 
 ingly, but Fred, superb and ignoring, ad- 
 dressed his father rather pompously, thinking 
 probably it was as well that further personal 
 allusions should be instantly crushed. 
 
 " We took a vote in the class the other day, 
 sir." 
 
 " Well ?" Mr. Lawton's eyes had their most 
 merry twinkle in them. 
 
 " They stood ten to one against Me Airy, sir, 
 the regular voters, but the independents cut 
 up rather rough." 
 
 " They did, did they ? The young idiots !" 
 
 Fred had been an independent himself and 
 a rather loud one a year ago, until one day, 
 having proclaimed his opinions at the dinner- 
 table amid stupefied silence, his father had 
 looked at him in a way which somehow had 
 been " deuced uncomfortable," as he confided 
 afterwards to one of his female admirers., the
 
 20 -4 SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 same long-suffering Nettie Andrews whose 
 name his young brother had so irreverently 
 tampered with. He remembered just such a 
 look on his father's face the day he had taken 
 Tim, the obstreperous under-man, by the shirt- 
 collar and sent him spinning half-way across 
 the road. 
 
 " What nonsense is this ?" his fond parent 
 had sternly asked. "Don't make a donkey 
 of yourself, sir. Don't talk this infernal jar- 
 gon at my table when I sit at it. When 
 you want to air that sort of cheap cynicism, 
 let me know." 
 
 The last words had been spoken with loud 
 emphasis, and Mr. Lawton had glared terri- 
 bly. Fred had squirmed. It is never pleasant 
 to be sat upon, particularly before the women. 
 
 Now, to his women, like all true and good 
 Americans who hope to win at least standing- 
 room in heaven, Daniel Lawton was ever 
 scrupulously courteous, keeping such asperi- 
 ties of character as he might possess for the 
 rougher contact with his own sex. His sons 
 were kindly dealt with, no doubt, but not in-
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 21 
 
 dulged; they had a little wholesome fear of 
 the "governor," somewhere hidden in the re- 
 cesses of their happy hearts, a vague sense 
 that he could not only claim but enforce obe- 
 dience. 
 
 Since then Fred's political convictions had 
 undergone some modifications, and he even 
 deigned to take a considerable, although never 
 too eager, interest in his father's career. All 
 forms of eagerness or enthusiasm were part 
 and parcel of those numberless emotions 
 whose expression was vulgar and superfluous, 
 and stamped a man at once as "fresh," than 
 which no word in the English language could 
 carry a more mortal stigma. 
 
 In his secret soul he thought his father 
 rather " fresh," as, indeed, he was. He, how- 
 ever, pardoned him indulgently, as belonging 
 to a generation when such things ware not 
 looked upon with as much disfavor, and did 
 not at once stamp a man as entirely unfit for 
 all social uses. 
 
 Then the better side of the boy's nature, 
 which was pure and sweet enough, flared up
 
 22 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 occasionally, and gave a flash, from under 
 the pale ashes beneath which he concealed 
 it, and acknowledged itself proud of the head 
 of the family. Once, in a moment of weak- 
 ness, Fred had even been heard to declare 
 that the " pater" was " immense." 
 
 To the father the son's temperament was 
 peculiarly unsympathetic, the entire absence 
 of any glaring vices having to be accepted as 
 a sort of negative consolation for the absence 
 of all great virtues. 
 
 Mrs. Lawton, who adored her son, always 
 said, "He is only a bit extravagant on his 
 clothes; he has no bad habits;" and she was 
 surprised that her husband's appreciation of 
 this great "blessing," as she would have 
 called it, was rather cold. 
 
 Once, indeed, he had replied, a trifle impa- 
 tiently. "But has he any temptations?" at 
 which his wife had opened her eyes very 
 widely. "Why, at his age," he continued, 
 " I was just overflowing, irrepressible." 
 
 " You were good enough when I met you, 
 Dan."
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 23 
 
 " Ah ! That was five years later. Let me 
 see. I was twenty-two, was I not, then ? The 
 'uses of adversity' had already sobered and 
 made a man of me. But I often think," he 
 added, gallantly, " if I hadn't married you, 
 my dear, so early, I should probably have 
 gone to the devil."
 
 24 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 CONSTANCE lay at fall length stretched out 
 upon her bed. Her tumbled locks were on 
 the pillow, making a dim aureole about her 
 fair face. Her two arms lay out upon the fine 
 silk counterpane, with the lace ruffles of her 
 night-dress falling half over her long hands. 
 
 She looked up at the bedhangings, with 
 their canopy of antique carvings and their 
 pathetic tone of color, and she sighed. She 
 was laughter-loving enough, and drank deeply 
 every day of life and of love. But which of 
 us has not sighed when the dawn awakes us 
 from its paradise of early dreams ? 
 
 She was a woman of fashion, and this 
 means to a certain extent a slave; and, 
 although she strained at the chain of cus- 
 tom so as to stretch it to its utmost limits, 
 nay, people said almost to snap its subtle 
 links, she was too wise or was it too indo-
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 25 
 
 lent? to break the leash altogether and es- 
 .cape into the uncertain outside world. She 
 had noticed that the wanderers who strayed 
 into it returned with bedraggled garments and 
 eyes that shrank from meeting other eyes. 
 
 It must be confessed that she envied them 
 a little at their first plunge, but she had re- 
 marked that they soon grew weary of their 
 emancipation and had been fain to creep 
 back as beggars where they had once been 
 sovereigns. She felt that she would have 
 been too proud to do this. Being a person of 
 observation and good judgment, she had re- 
 flected and pondered over these things, and 
 she realized that it is only women of very 
 superior intellect and men whose angel wings 
 are already growing who can be contented 
 outside the pale of social conventions. 
 
 To-day she sighed. Yet it was a sunlit 
 world she looked out at from under the cur- 
 tains which shrouded her so discreetly from 
 glare and draft. The light streamed in at the 
 half-opened window, into which rich vines 
 flower-laden were tossing to and fro in the
 
 26 -A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 gentle wind. Their faint smell, moist and 
 acrid, was wafted to her on the breeze, and 
 she drew in her breath to drink of their 
 fragrance. Odors had a peculiar effect upon 
 her, and wherever she went herself she left 
 a vague perfume which was the despair of her 
 rivals. No pharmacy seemed able to supply 
 the essence. Who knows ; perhaps it was only 
 the essence of health and of a generous blood ! 
 The great room was as splendid and deli- 
 cate as were the flowers that waved outside. 
 It was all hung in pale soft silks. White furs 
 lay here and there on the inlaid floor. There 
 were cushioned lounges, insidiously sugges- 
 tive of sensuous delights or of a beauty's 
 dream of conquest; tall, stiff, carved chairs, 
 for devotional reading or serious contempla- 
 tion; deep, low ottomans, for summer slum- 
 bers, leisure, and listless revery. The artistic 
 Louis XVI. clock ticked majestically on the 
 mantel-shelf, where were amassed a thousand 
 and one ornaments, photographs, forgotten 
 fans, and useless knick-knacks which seem a 
 part of an elegant woman's existence. Fine bits
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 27 
 
 of porcelain were hidden in old carved wood 
 cupboards or displayed on gilded etaghes. 
 
 The dressing-table was fairly laden with 
 its sumptuous brushes and combs, powder- 
 boxes, ring-stands, mirrors, vinaigrettes, all of 
 wrought gold with jewelled monograms. 
 Among them a bouquet lay face downward 
 fast fading, a half-soiled glove with its twenty 
 buttons, and a note torn across in its envelope. 
 In one corner a table was almost covered 
 with books and magazines, piled up close 
 under a tall lamp demurely draped in its 
 creamy lace-trimmed shade, showing that the 
 outfit of the mondaine could not be complete 
 without a tribute to mental needs, for the bed- 
 room may have its hour when reflection must 
 be banished or sleep wooed. 
 
 The books were a motley assortment : some 
 Russian novels lay close to ^schylus, Ouida's 
 latest upon a work on political economy, Leo- 
 pardi's poetry, and George Meredith's prose ; 
 a German scientific treatise and Guy de Mau- 
 passant's last story ; Henry James's " London 
 Life" and Tolstoi's " De la Vie."
 
 28 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 The sigh heaved upon the awakening day 
 brought a step across the threshold. 
 
 " Madame est evtittee ?" 
 
 The Frenchwoman came and stood at the 
 foot of the bed. She was not pretty and was 
 plainly dressed, with dark coiled hair. But, 
 when her mistress threw her a " Bon jour," 
 she smiled and displayed two rows of even, 
 pretty white teeth which made her look 
 charming. All the men in the house had 
 tried to win that smile, until at last at the 
 altar the English butler had fixed it definitely 
 upon himself. Since then it was still wooed, 
 but more respectfully and, as it were, without 
 hope. Constance had taken some interest in 
 the marriage. 
 
 The maid opened the shutters, and let in a 
 flood of warmth from the sunny side of the 
 house. She then busied herself about the 
 porcelain tub, filling it from a great water-can 
 and piling up towels beside it on a chair. 
 
 A knock at the door she answered directly, 
 and received into her outstretched hands a 
 tray on which were tea, toast, a bunch of
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 29 
 
 grapes, some violets, and a bundle of letters. 
 The tray was concealed with embroidered 
 linen, and the china service was of rare 
 fabric. 
 
 Constance sat up and caught her tangled 
 curls up into their comb; her maid helped 
 her to slip on her peach-blossom jacket lined 
 with satin; and, taking the light tray upon 
 her knees, 
 
 " I am awfully hungry," she said. 
 
 " Would madame like a boiled egg ?" 
 
 "Ko." 
 
 Before, however, providing for her hunger- 
 pangs, she looked hurriedly at her letters. 
 She threw three or four on a table near 
 the bed where were a candle and an open 
 book. The others she pushed under the 
 tray, all but one, which she opened and 
 read immediately. It was very short, but it 
 seemed eminently satisfactory. It read thus : 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS. GRESHAM, 
 
 "How could you be so cruel last night? 
 Promise me that cotillon to-morrow, or I shall 
 a*
 
 30 -A- SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 leave by the boat this afternoon, and you will 
 hear of me no more forever. 
 
 "Let me know what you will wear, that 
 my roses may suit your gown. Say yes. 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 T. P." 
 
 This was all, but it was carefully perused 
 twice. It is never unpleasant to be sure of 
 leading a cotillon with the most desired of 
 partners; and, although such things had 
 become a matter of course to Constance, she 
 was not yet heroically indifferent to them. 
 There was a good bit of youth and humanity 
 in her still. 
 
 She bent forward to smell the light-brown 
 stream of the tea as it poured itself into the 
 cup, and inspired its steam with a pant as she 
 had the scent of the vines. 
 
 "It is sweeter than flowers. Oh, how I 
 like my tea !" 
 
 " Madame has the same sentiment I have 
 for my cafe, au lait in the morning. Without 
 it I could not exist."
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 31 
 
 " Coffee ! Nasty. Don't you like tea, 
 Leontine ?" 
 
 "I would as lief drink soap-and-water, 
 madame." 
 
 " Very well ; you shall have some soap-and- 
 water for your breakfast to-morrow." 
 
 "Madame jokes." 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " What will madame wear this morning ?" 
 
 " My mauve foulard." 
 
 " Madame is not then going to visit or to 
 the Casino?" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "So simple?" 
 
 " Would you have me always covered with 
 lace and jewelry? It is rococo and stupid." 
 
 " As madame desires." 
 
 " Give me my looking-glass." 
 
 Leontine tripped lightly to the dressing- 
 table, and disentangled the hand-glass from 
 the long pink ribbon of the bouquet. She 
 brought it to her mistress, and then went 
 back quickly and lifted the flowers, carried 
 them to the window, sprinkled and loosened
 
 32 -4 SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 them, and put them in a great white jar full of 
 fresh water where they would catch the breeze. 
 
 " Such a pity !" she muttered with a 
 Frenchwoman's love of flowers and natural 
 thrift. 
 
 In the mean while the mistress was gazing 
 at herself in the glass. What do women see 
 in these long contemplations? What hopes, 
 what fears, are reflected within this narrow 
 margin of metal and of quicksilver? mean- 
 ingless to the child, full of promise to the 
 girl, often of warning to the woman. 
 
 Constance was rarely satisfied with the sur- 
 vey. She had never admired her own style. 
 She would have liked to he imposing and 
 very pale. She could be the former, although 
 not from any especial fitness of her features. 
 The latter had so far been unattainable. 
 
 She made a grimace at herself, opened her 
 mouth, looked at her teeth and her fresh pink 
 gums, pushed back her hair which grew very 
 low, turned her profile sideways as far as she 
 could, only succeeding in seeing the tip end 
 of her nose, and then, throwing the mirror
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 33 
 
 away, sprang from the bed on to the white 
 bearskin. Her feet sank gratefully into its 
 animal warmth. She donned a long dressing- 
 gown, slipped on a pair of high-heeled mules, 
 and, taking her letters in one hand and hold- 
 ing her laces with the other where they were 
 somewhat unfastened across her breast, she 
 walked energetically to a seat near a window, 
 her heels resounding on the polished floor, 
 and began to peruse the rest of her mail. 
 
 Shall we look over her shoulder ? The first 
 letter that she opened was from a tradesman : 
 
 " MRS. GRESHAM : 
 
 "MADAM, Will you kindly let us know 
 when you can fit your habit, as it is impos- 
 sible to do the cover coat any justice unless 
 fitted once more before it is sent home ? 
 
 "Very respectfully, awaiting further com- 
 mands, 
 
 "PEEL & WEARS, 
 
 " Tailors to her Majesty the Queen of England, the Em- 
 press of Austria, the Empress of Eussia, H. K. H. the 
 Princess of Wales. 
 
 " London, Paris, Vienna, New York and St. Petersburg." 
 c
 
 34 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 The second letter was on common paper 
 -and written in pencil : 
 
 "DEAR LADY, 
 
 " I have been down with the malaryal fever 
 for three weeks. I was very sick ; there was 
 nothing that would lie on my stomak. I 
 prayed to hear from you. I knew you would 
 write. I knew you would send me something. 
 I had no money left. I thought lemons and 
 ice would save my life, or I should burn up 
 and die for a cold drink. I think I went mad 
 when your letter came. When it was given 
 me, I cryed for joy. I didn't know what to 
 do. I should have kiled myself if the old 
 man hadn't restrained me. I made some 
 chicken soup and got ice and lemonade, and 
 every day I got better, thanks to you, God's 
 angel that you are. Oh, we get so tired here 
 in the woods with never a book or paper. I 
 shall be very thankful for anything to read. 
 Those papers were splendid you sent. It was 
 wonderful how that letter and that money 
 came to me. I was wicked, yet God was
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 35 
 
 helping me and I didn't know it. No more 
 at present. I am so nervous I can hardly 
 write. I keep your letter under my pillow. 
 Well, I will close, so good-by from 
 
 " CHARLEY HURRY." 
 
 Poor wretch! Constance was touched by 
 this letter. We are always touched by any 
 genuine appreciation of our virtues. 
 
 "Poor miserable being!" Once, when in 
 mourning and low spirits, less at the be- 
 reavement, which was not a bitter one, than 
 at the enforced retirement, at which her vig- 
 orous senses chafed (she detested the world's 
 hypocrisies), she had, in an excess of impulsive 
 energy, taken to a sort of amateur philan- 
 thropy. It had left her with a number of 
 helpless " ne'er-do-weels" on her hands, whose 
 only recommendation was that they were poor 
 devils who never could get on and that no- 
 body else would assist. She had shouldered 
 them and carried them valiantly enough long 
 after her hospital visits and society meetings 
 had been abandoned, saying, with her low,
 
 36 ^ SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 sweet laugh, that the unworthy poor seemed 
 to be her especial province. 
 
 The next was a woman's hurried note : 
 
 " DEAREST CON, * 
 
 " I am in an awful scrape. Didn't you say 
 we should make up a party and go over to the 
 convention in Ralph's yacht? Well, I am 
 crazy to do it, and I told Mrs. Leo I found I 
 had made a mistake and must back out of her 
 dinner, as I had promised myself to you for 
 this expedition ten days ago. She is perfectly 
 furious. I am in terror lest she should see 
 you, and .you should tell her our yacht trip 
 was impromptu. Please, dear, sustain me in 
 my lie ! It is a pretty huge one. 
 
 " They say that man Lampson, or Lawton, 
 or Dawton, or whoever he is, will speak, you 
 know who I mean, and that he is quite won- 
 derful ; that really everybody is talking about 
 him, and it is stupid of us never to have seen 
 him. I am so ignorant of such matters. And 
 then the yacht ! We can sup on board, Ralph 
 says. It will all be over by eleven. Such a
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 37 
 
 lovely moon! It will be amusing quite a 
 spree ! so odd and different ! Don't fail. And 
 above all if you see Mrs. Leo say I was engaged 
 to you. You are so clever and have so much tact. 
 
 " Yours, 
 
 " MAT. 
 
 "P.S. If you see the Turkish minister, 
 why not ask him? I rather like Mm, and 
 Ralph is heavy, entre nous." 
 
 " Characteristic I" ejaculated Constance. She 
 leaned back smiling, adding, " and compli- 
 mentary to Lawton." 
 
 She called him thus by his surname without 
 any prefix as we do a casual celebrity, the 
 President of the United States or an Italian 
 tenor. She had herself never seen him, and 
 her curiosity to do so was languid, but she 
 had read the newspapers. 
 
 The excursion across the bay and the incur- 
 sion into the party conclave were only a new 
 mode of passing a moonlit night. As her 
 friend had expressed it, it was " odd and dif- 
 ferent." As such, the plan commended itself 
 exceptionally to Mrs. Gresham's favor.
 
 38 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 There was only one more letter to be pe- 
 rused, except, indeed, those rejected ones, 
 evidently unpaid bills or undesirable invita- 
 tions, which lay neglected on the little table 
 over by the bedside waiting to intrude them- 
 selves at some fitter moment. 
 
 Mrs. Gresham turned it over, and the color 
 which she deprecated deepened On her cheek. 
 
 "Faugh!" she said. 
 
 "We will not give it here. It was a letter 
 of senseless reproaches, burning with passion- 
 ate love and hate ; such a letter as it scorches 
 a man's soul to write, and should sear the 
 woman's heart at which it is aimed, if indeed 
 a heart which inspires such bitterness has not 
 grown callous to such wounds. It was as 
 foolish and fierce as are the reproofs that ten- 
 der and faithful people heap on the unfaithful 
 and unloving, and ... as impotent. 
 
 It ended with these words : " Is it possible 
 that that to which you have brought me is for 
 nothing ? Speak, speak, Constance ! tell me 
 the truth, that I may know if you are a 
 woman or a fiend !"
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 39 
 
 An angry light gleamed for a moment in 
 the young woman's eyes, and she set her lips 
 together and clinched her teeth. She crushed 
 the letter in her hands, which she struck to- 
 gether two or three times, with the sheet be- 
 tween them, as if mastered for a moment by 
 an overpowering agitation. 
 
 The letter did in fact give her a peculiar 
 physical suffering at the heart, as if a hand of 
 ice were arresting its pulsations. 
 
 " It is intolerable," she said. " If he had a 
 spark of manliness or of pride, he would have 
 seen long ago that I loathed him. My God ! 
 what I am made to pay for an hour's co- 
 quetry ! What was it ? What was it ? A 
 smile, two or three foolish letters, a moment's 
 discouragement, an acknowledgment that I 
 was not happy : I remember just what I said : 
 and now this senseless passion pursuing me, 
 haunting me, filling me with dread and hor- 
 ror. I hate him! I despise him! but I am 
 afraid to be too unkind. He makes me afraid. 
 I am blameless." 
 
 Was she? We have so many sophistries
 
 40 ^ SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 with which to palliate our own weaknesses. 
 She tore the poor cry of a man's folly into 
 fragments and threw them into the empty 
 grate with a lighted match among them. 
 
 As she rose, a yellow envelope fell to the 
 floor. She had overlooked it. It contained a 
 telegram, and, stooping to pick it up, 
 
 " Tims!" she said. 
 
 It ran thus : 
 
 " Have killed lots of big game. Shall stop 
 another ten days. Capital sport. Tell Barnes 
 to express my winter ulster and more shirts. 
 Martin knows where to find them. Tele- 
 graph if you are quite well. 
 
 " JACK." 
 
 "From the tragic to the conjugal," she 
 thought, and she could not help laughing. 
 As I said before, she was laughter-loving, and 
 the atmosphere, which had for a moment 
 been leaden, grew lighter. Like all impres- 
 aionable, highly-strung women who are never- 
 theless healthy and sane, she passed through
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 41 
 
 a hundred moods in an hour, and this made 
 her a joy to those who had breadth of vision, 
 and a torment to the narrow. She herself, 
 while she fretted and revolted at narrowness, 
 pitied it, realizing all that it misses and suf- 
 fers, for, as her friend May had said, she was 
 very clever. 
 
 After the foulard had been draped upon 
 her and the violets adjusted in her belt, she 
 put on a hat of startling dimensions, and, 
 leaving her room in the hands of the maids, 
 came down the wide stairs of her domain. 
 
 A footman and Kichard the Buttons were 
 gossiping in the hall. They were talking 
 about the lately disbanded house party, which, 
 it must be confessed, had sailed a little close 
 to the wind, had been merry almost to bois- 
 terousness, and even more than usually troub- 
 lesome. One unmarried lady, who had been 
 invited solely because of her gift at buffoonery 
 and her talent for comic songs, she herself 
 called them ribald, had sat up late with the 
 gentlemen when others had gone to bed, and 
 behaved in the eyes of Mr. Barnes, the butler, 
 
 4*
 
 42 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 altogether more like a "play hactress" than 
 a well-born woman. Her tips too had been 
 insignificant, and her wit had failed to amuse 
 the valets. She was being discussed when 
 the mistress appeared. The men separated 
 in haste, each bent on proving himself over- 
 whelmed with matutinal duties. Her ser- 
 vants respected Mrs. Gresham, however they 
 might sometimes disapprove of her guests. 
 They even loved her and thought her a very 
 fine lady, as inferiors do those who are at 
 once exacting and kind. 
 
 Constance walked across the hall, whose 
 magnificent proportions and elegant furnish- 
 ings were the admiration and envy of all her 
 friends and enemies, and stepped out on the 
 stone terrace which overhung the sea. Here 
 was a low marble table in the centre, where 
 breakfast was often served on propitious 
 mornings, and scattered about were stone, 
 china, and cane seats. It was shaded with 
 bright-colored awnings which threw a red 
 glow over the whole, while the east side had 
 been converted into a veritable arbor of exot-
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 43 
 
 ics. She leaned over the parapet, letting the 
 soft, pungent breeze blow her hair about. 
 How still and delicious it was at this early 
 hour, for it was early in this idle place, where 
 the lazy modish butterflies slept late on their 
 luxurious couches, and the stir of gayety 
 hardly began before twelve o'clock. 
 
 The house rose, pale, gray, and chaste, 
 right from the sea, resting like some great 
 bird upon its rock ; of pure Elizabethan style, 
 it fronted upon the closely-clipped green 
 lawns which swept in unbroken lines to the 
 rose-gardens, while this side hung over the 
 ocean, mute, serene, and silent, with the 
 breakers tossing themselves and moaning at 
 its base on the reefs below. 
 
 Some buildings have an essential power 
 of impressing one with repose. This resi- 
 dence, which had been closely copied alas ! 
 that our genius goes no further upon a Eu- 
 ropean model, and on which all that wealth 
 and taste could procure had been lavishly 
 expended, had this peculiar quality. 
 
 " It rests the eyes," Constance had said to
 
 44 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 her husband, when it had at last emerged 
 entire as if by magic from the moist earth, 
 and it had continued to rest her eyes. She 
 had another home away in the great city, but 
 Sea Mew was her delight. 
 
 She was as glad as the servants that the 
 people were all gone and that she was free. 
 It was so pleasant to do as one liked. She 
 tired of the restraint of the houseful, and was 
 secretly pleased that even Jack would stay 
 away another ten days or so, since he was 
 well and amused. 
 
 The sight of the water always filled her 
 imagination when she was thus solitary and 
 had the time for contemplation, and she dis- 
 missed the remembrance of the letter which 
 had so annoyed her, and gave herself up to 
 revery.
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 45 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE opera-house was strained to its utmost 
 capacity to accommodate the swaying multi- 
 tude which filled it from floor to ceiling. 
 McAffy's crowd McAffy was Lawton's only 
 dangerous rival arrived early at the evening 
 session, wearing blue badges on their bosoms 
 and with a brass band in full accompaniment. 
 When that genial Irishman appeared for a 
 moment on the hotel balcony opposite, there 
 was a great uproar and " whooping up." 
 
 The convention was called to order by 
 Albert Garrett, a short, deep-chested gentle- 
 man with a giant's voice. A prayer was 
 offered by the Reverend Doctor Huffie, pastor 
 of the First Congregational Church of the 
 town. He admonished the Almighty to be 
 on hand, as it were, on this occasion, and to 
 see that matters were properly conducted, to
 
 46 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 allay all tendency to inflation or pride in the 
 hearts of the rival candidates, and to keep 
 them from arrogance and self-seeking and 
 finally to adjust things peacefully. A gruff 
 voice from the gallery shouted twice during 
 this invocation, " Louder, old man, louder !" 
 
 Lohengrin Potts, a young county lawyer, 
 who was much flushed and somewhat terri- 
 fied, was escorted to the platform and an- 
 nounced as the temporary chairman. People 
 were good-natured and gave Lohengrin a 
 round of cheers. He delivered himself of a 
 speech, in which the only intelligible words 
 were the names of the President and Vice- 
 President of the United States and those of 
 Lincoln and George Washington ; but apropos 
 of what these last two were invoked it would 
 be hard to determine. He assured his audi- 
 ence that he for his part would yield to no 
 dictation and would never allow his party to 
 be swayed at the beck of any individual or 
 corporation. Here he looked about him 
 rather savagely. When he named the two 
 aspirants to the gubernatorial chair of the
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 47 
 
 State, the constituents of each one shouted 
 themselves hoarse. 
 
 After a short recess the permanent chair- 
 man, an ex-judge, was selected, and also a 
 secretary, whose name was Love. The com- 
 mittee on rules then stated that a candidate 
 would be chosen before the platform was 
 read. There was some wrangling at this, and 
 a vote was cast. The ayes being in the ascen- 
 dency, business was resumed. A man, a colo- 
 nel somebody, came out in the pit and told all 
 he knew about Daniel Lawton. He had had 
 two horses shot under him at Resaca, and he 
 had won his colonel's epaulets on the battle- 
 field; but he was so modest that he had 
 always remained plain Dan Lawton to his 
 friends ; he was a man of untarnished moral- 
 ity, an honest financier, an experienced states- 
 man, a true American, a Chesterfield in man- 
 ner, a scholar and a gentleman. The man 
 who was running against him, Marcus M. 
 Curley, he prophesied if elected would prove 
 false to every trust. He was a scoundrel, a 
 liar, grossly immoral, a low person, and alto-
 
 48 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 gether unfit for a place of responsibility. (It 
 may be said here that Mr. Curley was in fact 
 a very decent fellow.) He insisted that the 
 national honor was at stake, and, while he 
 had nothing to say against Mr. McAffy, who 
 was, he knew, an honorable gentleman, he 
 felt nay, he knew that Daniel Lawton was 
 the choice of the party at large and the only 
 man sure of victory. " His record is clean ; 
 he stands upon it," he cried, and he sat down 
 amid vociferous applause. 
 
 Then a long-winded and less happy orator 
 got upon his legs, and dwelt upon McAffy's 
 eminent virtues and untarnished fame. Mc- 
 Affy hats were thrown wildly into the air, and 
 his adherents' lungs seemed to be noisier than 
 Lawton's. 
 
 The delegates of the northern counties went 
 solid for Daniel Lawton, except one, who 
 presented the name of Alexander Hamilton 
 Busk. Everybody knew this was only done 
 to stave off Lawton's immediate success, and 
 the name was silently dropped. One or two 
 more names were advanced. After this the
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 49 
 
 balloting commenced. It was spirited, but 
 the McAffys felt almost immediately that their 
 game was up. At the last count the totals 
 were Lawton 385, McAffy 105, Busk 57, and 
 a few others out of sight. Then it was moved 
 by the unsuccessful to make Lawton's nomina- 
 tion unanimous. This was done amid tremen- 
 dous enthusiasm. The delegates all stood 
 up afterwards and sang " Marching through 
 Georgia," while Me Airy stepped across the 
 platform and shook hands, with such cordiality 
 as he could muster, with Mr. Lawton. 
 
 The latter had only just entered the con- 
 vention. He was at once called upon for a 
 speech. He stepped forward and said a few 
 words. His effort did not overlast fifteen 
 minutes. To the occupants of the proscenium 
 boxes in one of which were Mrs. Gresham 
 and her friends, in the other Fred and Clem- 
 ence Lawton and a few leaders of their father's 
 party it seemed a very short speech indeed. 
 Brilliant it certainly was. With heart beating 
 high and a voice somewhat tremulous, he ut- 
 tered his thanks in a pithy, manful, graceful 
 c d . 5
 
 50 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 way, pledging himself to do his duty boldly 
 and not to disappoint his friends. He had a 
 special gift at unprepared utterance; he was 
 clear, sonorous, even eloquent. His English 
 was flowing, terse, and forcible, with just a 
 suggestion here and there of poetic sentiment, 
 and never an instant's lapse into sentimen- 
 tality or affectation. 
 
 Clemence Lawton listened breathlessly to 
 her father. Through all the early part of the 
 evening her political fervor had been inter- 
 fered with by her entranced observance of the 
 party in the opposite box, her brother having 
 told her that he had seen Mrs. Gresham be- 
 fore when he was visiting his friend Blake 
 on Long Island; that she was a lady of the 
 highest fashion, and took five-barred fences 
 with as much ease as she led the dance at the 
 hunt balls afterwards. 
 
 " I think she is just perfectly lovely," said 
 Clemence. 
 
 " She's no end of a swell." 
 
 " Were you introduced ?" 
 
 " Well no not exactly." Fred didn't like
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 5J 
 
 to admit that Blake himself was not acquainted 
 with Mrs. Gresham, and only dared look at 
 her from great and respectful distances. 
 
 There were two ladies in the box with her 
 and quite a crowd of gentlemen. The latter 
 were in evening dress. They chattered a 
 great deal among themselves, laughed once or 
 twice rather disturbingly, and did not seem 
 profoundly impressed with the convention. 
 
 Mrs. Gresham, however, was an exception. 
 She had leaned over and listened, apparently 
 entirely absorbed in the row of faces before 
 her, in the speeches, and in the voting, ob- 
 livious of her companions. When Daniel 
 Lawton rose she turned to hush them. 
 
 " See," she said, " he is going to speak. 
 I think it very exciting." 
 
 The Turkish minister, who had been se- 
 cured, screwed an eye-glass into a limpid, dark 
 eye and pushed a little towards the front of 
 the box. May Gerold also put up her enam- 
 elled lorgnette and craned forward. 
 
 " Is that Lawton ? Why, Con, the man's a 
 perfect beauty !"
 
 52 ^ SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 "He looks like some great poet or musi- 
 cian, doesn't he ?" 
 
 " A superb head !" 
 
 The man's eloquence silenced everybody. 
 The sigh of an infant would have seemed 
 loud and profane. When he ceased, the hum 
 of approval in the boxes was drowned by the 
 delirium in the orchestra and family circle. 
 
 "Would you like to know him?" The 
 speaker was Tom Fane. 
 
 " Why, of course. How will you manage 
 it?" 
 
 " I will have him here in two minutes ;" 
 and he left the box. He stopped Mayor 
 Healey, who was just descending from the 
 platform, whom he knew very well, and told 
 him that Mrs. Jack Gresham and some ladies 
 wished to shake hands with the hero of the 
 night 
 
 The mayor had heard of the Jack Greshams : 
 of course the great capitalist and his wife 
 were not obscure people. In the mean while 
 the Lawton children and the crowd were 
 filing out into the aisles.
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 53 
 
 When Daniel Lawton was ushered into 
 Mrs. Gresham's presence, all the party were 
 standing up in the box hunting for their 
 wraps. His entrance caused a little disturb- 
 ance. She looked up, and Tom Fane pre- 
 sented him. They gazed at each other as 
 strangers do, he indifferently, she with curi- 
 osity. She was one of those women, however, 
 at whom men do not look with impunity 
 twice, and Lawson proved no exception. 
 
 She said, "We will wait for a moment, 
 until the crowd disperses. Will you stay 
 with us a few minutes, or are you expected 
 elsewhere to-night ?" 
 
 " I am free for the present," he answered, 
 " and will do myself the honor of escorting 
 you to your carriage." 
 
 What could have been more banal or com- 
 monplace? Yet the next five minutes it 
 was hardly more left a vivid impression on 
 them both. She said some low, flattering 
 words about his speech, that while she had 
 often heard of his gifts, they had been to her 
 the revelation of a great power. 
 5*
 
 54 A. SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 " I never," she said, " took my eyes from 
 your lips for one moment; I was quite en- 
 chained." 
 
 She thought that he received her praise 
 coldly. She had expected that he would at 
 least tell her that he had noticed her face in 
 the box, she had been so near him. He did 
 not, however, and the delinquency gave her a 
 movement of pique, almost of resentment, 
 so accustomed was she to compliment. 
 
 " I dare say he would be an oaf in the 
 drawing-room," she said to herself. 
 
 The others, who had gone out into the lob- 
 bies, came back to look for her, and, leaning 
 on Lawton's arm, picking their way down the 
 stairs through the crowd which still blocked 
 the door-way, they reached the sidewalk at 
 last. 
 
 "An oaf" he certainly was not to-night. 
 Hats were lifted and voices raised in felicitation 
 and greeting as he passed, and the elegant 
 woman at his side felt as if her own brow was 
 circled for a moment with half of his laurels. 
 Her heart beat high under its imprisoning
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 55 
 
 laces, and the hand which rested upon his 
 broad- cloth sleeve trembled with agreeable 
 nervous excitement. As they emerged into 
 the moonlit square, the band struck up " Hail 
 to the Chief." 
 
 He, too, was just a little intoxicated, and the 
 soft pressure of a woman's arm seemed a fit- 
 ting accompaniment to his exaltation. He 
 held her slender hand for a moment in his 
 broad one at parting, and it gave him a queer 
 sensation, such as he had not known for a 
 very long time. He did not feel quite cer- 
 tain whether it was the hand or the music or 
 the moonshine. It was a touch of returning 
 romance that had been dimmed by the years. 
 She leaned out to him from the portiere. 
 
 "If you ever come across the bay," she 
 said, gravely, "we shall feel much honored 
 if you will stop and see us. I am generally 
 at home about five o'clock." 
 
 She had never before asked a man to visit 
 her upon such brief acquaintance, and the 
 impulse remained unexplained. - Then the 
 carriage had driven off with its burden to the
 
 56 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 quay, near which the yacht was pulling at her 
 anchor. 
 
 " Just like Con's luck," said Mrs. Gerold, 
 " to go to her first political shindy and come 
 out leading the only important magnate by 
 the ear. She carried off all the cheers, and 
 people took the rest of us for humble append- 
 ages, useless hangers-on of greatness." 
 
 "Are you sure it was luck?" said Fane. 
 
 " Oh, well, a siren's luck if you like." 
 
 The Turkish minister, who hadn't relished 
 being unimportant, now laboriously explained 
 to Mrs. Gerold, sitting up very stiffly in the 
 front of the carriage, holding his hat between 
 his knees, that Mr. Lawton, while undoubt- 
 edly a very distinguished person, might not 
 be elected after all. He had insisted that 
 Tom Fane should state matters clearly to him 
 all the way across in the boat, and was glad 
 now to show the ladies that he was entirely 
 aufait. 
 
 " Oh, he'll be elected," she replied, stifling 
 a yawn ; " but you may be sure, if he is or is 
 not, I give him less than thirty-eight hours to
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 57 
 
 be on Mrs. Gresham's back terrace sipping 
 weak decoctions of tea, and wagging Ms tail 
 when she deigns to throw him a bit of stale 
 cake. Eh, Connie ?" 
 
 But Constance remained silent. As she 
 climbed up the side of the yacht, which looked 
 like a phantom thing swinging under the 
 stars, and stepped upon its deck, she felt like 
 one embarking upon some pleasant -voyage 
 of discovery whose outset is full of allure- 
 ment. 
 
 It had not occurred to Daniel Lawton to be 
 surprised at his wife's absence. Her lack 
 of any earnest participation in his political 
 life had ceased to be, if indeed it ever had 
 been, a source of regret to him. She had at 
 least never put any palpable spokes in his 
 wheel of good fortune, and he knew he owed 
 much to her of that tranquillity of brain so 
 important to those whose existence is spent in 
 the rush and smoke of conflict. He was one 
 of those men who are fond of mixing with 
 his kind for discussion, debate, or argument, 
 and of such society as fell to his lot; but he
 
 58 ^ SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 was in no sense what one may call gregarious. 
 Among men he had few close friendships and 
 craved fewer, and among women he had none. 
 He had never known a rich intimacy with a 
 woman who was his equal. He would hardly 
 have acknowledged to himself that his wife 
 was not a companion to him, that his children 
 were not necessities, or that when in the 
 house his happiest and fullest hours were 
 spent in his study. He had early in life con- 
 tracted the habit of a certain solitariness at 
 home, and his wife had respected his seclu- 
 sion. Busy with pressing practical details 
 from morning until eve, he wrested hard- 
 earned night and evening hours from fireside 
 chat or needed sleep, for study. He could do 
 with very little sleep, for he had an iron con- 
 stitution and great virility of mind and body. 
 To give an example of the man's energy and 
 courage : Unable to find a translation of an 
 important German work on political economy 
 which he wished to read, and irritated at his 
 own disability, he set himself at work in the 
 evenings to learn a very difficult language at
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 59 
 
 a time when press of private business joined 
 to official duties well-nigh overwhelmed him. 
 In three months he had gone through the 
 book with a dictionary. In six he could read 
 German with ease. His wife looked on. She 
 rarely talked to him on literary matters, being 
 herself no reader and having a most modest 
 opinion of her own powers as a critic. Of 
 politics she had the vague jealousy which 
 women who have no doubt of their husbands' 
 or lovers' fidelity feel for his favorite pursuit 
 or pastime. This lack of alacrity on her part 
 might have vexed a more exacting husband, 
 but left him indifferent. 
 
 She did not notice this indifference, or she 
 would have called it by another name. His 
 cares and ambitions gave him no time for 
 splitting straws, not even with his wife. All 
 he asked of home was leisure and calm, and 
 she accepted the situation, seeking no expla- 
 nation of the lack of all depth in their inter- 
 course. She was not analytical, and then 
 he was so indulgent ! 
 
 Their acquaintances thought her very infe-
 
 60 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 rior to her husband. Household questions, 
 economies or expenditures, the children, their 
 health, their education, their future, formed 
 the basis of her communings with him. He 
 had ceased to expect more of marriage, or 
 indeed of women. He had a maiden sister 
 who loved polemics, had advanced ideas, and 
 wore spectacles. She was a shrewd, discursive 
 person, of ready wit, whose conversation he 
 enjoyed, and with whom once a year he had 
 a little sharp-shooting on questions political, 
 literary, or religious; but he considered her 
 a man in petticoats. The relations between 
 men and women were, he thought, simple 
 enough. By his intellect he understood most 
 things ; but the secrets of the passions baffle 
 the keenest insight. He had mused, it is 
 true, sometimes, over the vagaries of the 
 sexual passion, its inconsequences and its 
 follies, as he heard them whispered about 
 him or read of them in his morning paper. 
 He had shuddered, and felt glad that such 
 irregularities and tragedies had never touched 
 him or his, not in the least from any pharisai-
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 61 
 
 cal spirit of superciliousness or because he 
 fancied for a moment that they could not, but 
 because he was naturally clean and whole- 
 some. Such things filled him with unrest and 
 uneasiness. "Who knows? Perhaps he sus- 
 pected the existence, somewhere in the deeper 
 recesses of his own being, of an animalism 
 which must always exist in rounded tempera- 
 ments, and that, given other circumstances, 
 might have been a foe to his peace. 
 
 Now he stopped to send his wife a telegram. 
 He wrote it standing in the hotel corridor. 
 
 " Nominated on the second ballot. Let no 
 one sit up. I shall be kept in town very late. 
 
 "D. L." 
 
 On his way to join some friends who ex- 
 pected him to eat oysters and drink cham- 
 pagne with them, his thought was, curiously 
 enough, less of his evening's triumph than of 
 the sorry figure he had cut in Mrs. Gresham's 
 box, or at least so it had seemed to him. He 
 had felt extraordinarily diffident, and had re- 
 6
 
 62 ^ SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 ceived her sweet flatteries without warmth or 
 even common courtesy. 
 
 " I declare," he thought, " we go out so lit- 
 tle it is ridiculous ! I forget how to behave. 
 That lovely lady must have thought me half a 
 savage."
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 63 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Two days later, Lawton was called upon to 
 attend an evening meeting of his constituents 
 at the city across the water. He took a mid- 
 day boat, concluded it would be convenient to 
 pass the night, and, registering at the princi- 
 pal hotel, the Goshen House, where he wa8 
 well known and treated with marked consid- 
 eration, be left his bag in his room and saun- 
 tered out for a stroll. His path lay between 
 the trimmed green lawns of splendid private 
 places and the ocean. Here the public were 
 allowed to flit past, skirting the cliffs which 
 hugged the shores, if they would respect the 
 laws of proprietorship, and not pause too long 
 or injure shrubs and flower-beds ; and, on the 
 whole, they were grateful for their privileges 
 and discreet in their behavior. 
 
 It was a sultry afternoon of the late sum- 
 mer, and the twilight was drawing nigh. A
 
 64 ^ SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 warm glow rested upon the laughing sea, 
 which was to-night neither angry nor turbu- 
 lent, but wooing as a capricious woman can 
 be in her softer humor. 
 
 The love of nature, as indeed of all beauty, 
 was strong in Lawton. It was untutored, and 
 hence all the more satisfying. After walking 
 for a half-hour, enjoying every breath of the 
 golden air, he came suddenly to a curve in 
 the path and to a stand-still before a wonder- 
 ful picture, Sea Mew rising up out of its rock 
 right in front of him like an enchanted palace. 
 
 " Is this Mr. Greshanr s place ?" he stopped 
 and inquired of a woman, a maid who was 
 sitting alone in a summer-house which jutted 
 just here out over the rocky beach. 
 
 " That is Monsieur Graysham's house," re- 
 plied Leontine, with her pretty accent. 
 
 " Thank you." He took off his hat to her 
 as he moved on. 
 
 " Qu'esl-ce que a pent $tre que ce monsieur ?" 
 she thought. 
 
 He looked different from the habitu&s. She 
 felt some doubts concerning him, and com-
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 55 
 
 mented, when she saw him hesitate a moment 
 and then walk up following the path through 
 the rose gardens, that he was some ecrivain or 
 samnt, such as madame received occasionally. 
 
 " II a une belle ieie tout de meme" she said to 
 herself, as he disappeared in the shrubbery, 
 " and he is very polite." 
 
 Partly through idleness, and partly through 
 curiosity to see a place whose glories were on 
 every tongue, and more especially, shall it be 
 said, to efface an impression of his own awk- 
 wardness which had lingered disagreeably in 
 his memory since his meeting with Mrs. 
 Gresham, he impulsively determined to call 
 upon her. 
 
 " She invited me," he thought. When he 
 rang the bell, however, he was half surprised 
 at his own temerity, and found himself hoping 
 that she would not be at home. She had 
 seemed to him very fastidious and unap- 
 proachable, and he felt a secret fear of her. 
 The women he knew had never been in any 
 way alarming to him. 
 
 He was told that Mrs. Gresham was at 
 
 e 6*
 
 66 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 home, however, _and he was conveyed across 
 interminable vestibules and through several 
 large drawing-rooms, whose heavy portieres 
 were pushed back to let him pass by the two 
 footmen who piloted him, until at last he 
 reached the terrace. 
 
 " Mr. Lawton," announced Barnes. 
 
 The picture which here met his eyes was 
 also very charming. What he saw was three 
 or four women clad in light summer gar- 
 ments, with slim, tightly-laced figures, carry- 
 ing marvellous hats and parasols on and over 
 their heads, sitting or reclining in various 
 attitudes of ease, that ran through a pretty 
 gamut of color, while a half-dozen men 
 lounged about them, one dangling his feet 
 from the marble centre-table. These also 
 wore more or less picturesque attire. Some 
 were still in morning-coats ; one in top-boots 
 and breeches, just from the ride ; one in yacht- 
 ing cap and flannels ; two in frock-coats, with 
 gardenias in their button-holes, and canes and 
 stiff hats held between their knees. 
 
 He heard a woman's voice say, " The thirty-
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 67 
 
 eight hours are not yet up ; am I a prophet or 
 no ?"' 
 
 Then a man's voice replied, "Fair Lady 
 Con's new fad." 
 
 Then somebody said " Hush !" and there 
 was a sound of suppressed laughter, while he 
 stepped down among them, and his hostess 
 came quickly forward to receive him. 
 
 " How exquisite she was and so different 
 from the others !" he thought, as he watched 
 her lithe grace, her energetic, harmonious 
 movements, and listened to her caressing 
 voice of welcome. He thought she made the 
 others look empty, trivial, and awkward. He 
 hardly formulated this impression, but was 
 only conscious in looking at her of that sense 
 of contentment which a man of discernment 
 and imagination feels in what is complete and 
 finished. She seemed to him the essence of 
 that culture the world imparts. He was glad 
 to see there were such women in America. 
 She might have been an empress. Royal 
 princes' with whom she had danced at foreign 
 courts had told her this before.
 
 68 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 She shook hands with him, and there was 
 in the firm rapid touch something of force 
 and of character. She seemed to leave the 
 impress of herself upon his palm. She named 
 him only to one or two of the women who 
 were near her, and to none of the men pres- 
 ent. This seemed to him unusual, belonging 
 himself to a world where introductions and 
 hand-shakings were held of paramount impor- 
 tance. Yet, on the whole, he thought it a 
 relief. He also noticed that after a few light 
 words about the lovely evening no particular 
 effort was made for his entertainment. One 
 young woman did indeed ask him, looking 
 up at the awnings, what boat had brought 
 him over, and if there were one every two 
 hours, as she wished to visit some friends near 
 his town ; but she did not wait for his answer 
 and cut it short by asking him if he didn't 
 think this terrace " a dear." 
 
 The servants here brought in tea and 
 bread-and-butter, and, while Mrs. Gresham 
 busied herself among the cups, he had plenty 
 of time for observation, and, being a careful
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 69 
 
 student of humanity in its varied aspects, he 
 was a good deal amused. These people all 
 looked to him about the same age, he would 
 have said varying anywhere from twenty-five 
 to thirty-five, and very much alike. They 
 were evidently extremely intimate among 
 themselves, having numberless jokes which 
 he did not understand. Their intercourse 
 indeed seemed to consist in peals of pointless 
 merriment and an exchange of monosyllables 
 which were to him generally unintelligible. 
 There existed here evidently a freemasonry 
 whose grip he had never been taught. It 
 made him feel, however, somehow as if they 
 were very clever and wide-awake and he very 
 old and dull. They called each other by their 
 Christian names or nicknames or by appella- 
 tions even more informal. One six-footer, 
 with a drooping blonde moustache and an 
 eyeglass, was addressed by the women as 
 " Baby." The " Baby" could not find a seat 
 to his taste, and complained of this, affecting 
 a child's whimper. 
 
 "Come, 'Baby,' stop crying," said a girl
 
 70 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 in a sailor hat. " I will give you half of 
 mine.''' 
 
 " Why, you have it all filled with your own 
 sails." 
 
 " I will take in a reef. Come, I will show 
 you ! Let me take your arm, so. If we go 
 down together, we will just fit in." 
 
 They did in fact " go down" together and 
 fitted into the wide cane-bottomed seat which 
 was made to do duty for both. The young 
 lady was pretending to smoke a cigarette, 
 and the man took it from between her lips 
 and placed it in his own. Lawton wondered 
 if the next move would be a masculine arm 
 cast about the round waist which fashion had 
 tortured into a compass of nineteen inches. 
 He also wondered, in parenthesis, how the 
 larger functions of life could go on within 
 such a narrow limit. 
 
 There was no especial appearance of ill- 
 health, however, about the young woman, for 
 she was dazzlingly fair and blooming. Her 
 high aquiline features were encircled by a 
 quantity of copper-colored hair. Her thin
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 71 
 
 arms, tightly encased in the cloth of her 
 yachting costume, were held somewhat away 
 from her sides, so that one could appreciate a 
 slenderness which leaned to angularity. She 
 talked in a key which was apparently bor- 
 rowed, not her own, with an affected intona- 
 tion, and bore herself with an arrogance 
 which seemed to assert, "I am a beauty, 
 look!" 
 
 She was called one. Leaning back in her 
 chair, she exhibited a good deal of silk stock- 
 ing, and one was more absorbed in surmises 
 as to how her hose could so exactly match 
 her hair, her gown, her gloves, and her para- 
 sol, and in paying tribute to her artistic skill 
 in this matter, than to any study of the 
 shapely leg beneath them. It was soon borne 
 in upon Mr. Lawton that he need have felt no 
 anxiety as to the young lady's danger from 
 her neighbor's ill-repressed ardor. They .con- 
 tinued to sit next to each other for some- min- 
 utes, to exchange cabalistic phrases, and enig- 
 matic smiles, and yet Lawton saw that nothing 
 in the world could have been. 'less suggestive
 
 72 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 of impropriety. He in his high shirt collar 
 and she in her brilliant hardness resembled 
 automatic puppets; sexless! one felt they 
 might have sat there until doomsday and 
 no one have been the better or worse off in 
 this generation or the next. 
 
 By and by Mrs. Gresham called out, " You 
 know you are absolutely ridiculous, you two ! 
 Geraldine, come and help me pour out the 
 tea!" 
 
 Thus admonished, Geraldine moved to the 
 table, and he of the yellow eyelash stretched 
 himself out complacently as if he greatly pre- 
 ferred having the chair to himself. 
 
 Mrs. Gresham now gave Lawton his cup 
 and addressed him particularly, as if she fan- 
 cied he was rather too much left out in the 
 cold. She spoke of the convention and her 
 keen interest in the coming canvass. 
 
 " I am already hard at work for you," she 
 said, " and have a promise of a dozen votes 
 from those tiresome, discouraging indepen- 
 dents." 
 
 He sipped his tea with the breath of her
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 73 
 
 close to him, her garments almost sweeping 
 his feet, and he found himself wishing these 
 superfluous other people would cease their 
 idle prattle and go away and leave them 
 alone. 
 
 By and by she seemed to divine his thoughts. 
 " Come, now, my dears," she said, " you must 
 all of you clear away and be gone. There is 
 a pernicious damp coming, and you feminines 
 have to crimp your hair and get your com- 
 plexions in order for the ball to-night ; and as 
 for you, my lazy gentlemen, it is high time 
 you got yourselves out of your morning-coats. 
 I, too, must soon be arraying myself in my 
 dinner-gown." 
 
 There was a cry of protest and a momentary 
 strife of tongues, but they did all admit at 
 last that it was later than they had thought. 
 One of the men, whom they called Fane, and 
 who wore a frock-coat, insisted that he was 
 faultlessly dressed, that he was perfectly com- 
 fortable, and that he intended remaining 
 where he was until his bones bleached upon 
 the terrace; but the women protested and 
 D 7
 
 74 ^ SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 dragged him away, and gradually, in parties 
 of twos and threes, they dispersed. 
 
 Lawton arose and apologized for so long an 
 intrusion. 
 
 "I only wanted to be rid of them," she 
 said, when they were alone. " I have hours 
 before dinner. By the way, can't you dine 
 here ? I expect only a few guests." 
 
 " Thanks. I must dine at half-past six, as 
 my meeting is before eight." 
 
 "Ah ! and I dine at eight. Well, it will be 
 another time. In the mean while, don't leave 
 me yet !" 
 
 She said the last words as a spoiled child 
 would implore a favor, letting his eyes meet 
 and rest upon her own. 
 
 " I want to show you another view ; come !" 
 So saying, she led her too willing captive 
 down the terrace steps on to a ledge of the 
 weedy rocks. They stood side by side, almost 
 shoulder to shoulder, speechless, looking out 
 at the placid waters. The draperies of her 
 long tea-gown fluttered against him with a 
 soft swish.
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 75 
 
 " What a divine night ! And you see this 
 expanse at every hour ? How I envy you !" 
 
 "Ah ! that is the misfortune of all acquisi- 
 tions," she said, smiling. "Envy! Others 
 tried to purchase this point, but Mr. Gresham 
 was too quick for them. They feel towards 
 us a good deal as McAfly does towards 
 you." 
 
 "And don't people envy you other things 
 besides the place ?" 
 
 She recognized the ring of flattery in his 
 tone, but, woman-like, was determined to 
 make him more explicit. 
 
 " What, for instance ?" 
 
 "Your loveliness, your grace, and, above 
 all, your individuality," he said, enthusiasti- 
 cally. 
 
 She blushed with pleasure. " He is really 
 very nice," she thought. 
 
 He hardly knew himself. Some one else 
 seemed speaking in him. 
 
 "My individuality?" she said. 
 
 " Yes, just that. It impressed me the very 
 first moment. It must be a constant stum-
 
 76 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 bling-block of offence to others. It is never 
 pardoned," he said, smiling. 
 
 " You speak from your own experience ?" 
 
 " Well, possibly, a little." 
 
 " Why, of course, if one gains anything, 
 any prestige even, it is only by displacing 
 some one else. If one rises in the least, one 
 must do so at the expense of another. What 
 one grasps another fails to attain. Where one 
 succeeds another goes to the wall. It is the 
 law of competition which is so cruel after all. 
 The little people not tall enough to seize the 
 fruit which hangs from the highest bough are 
 never pleased ; they never can be fair to the 
 long-legged creatures who reach and grasp." 
 
 " Individuality," he continued, dreamingly, 
 " is the torture of the inquisition to mediocre 
 minds. They hate it." 
 
 "And yet how character imposes. Doc- 
 trines and ideas are less seductive than they 
 used to be. There is no faith now, but one 
 involuntarily admires any force, even when 
 it is applied to evil. It seems to promise 
 guidance. We are weak; we want to obey,
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 77 
 
 to follow. I read somewhere the other day 
 'Man is the born serf of any strong will 
 which passes near him.' ' 
 
 " Do you think of such serious things ?" 
 
 " Why not ?" 
 
 " I don't know. It is unusual. Women like 
 you have rarely the time," he said, simply. 
 
 He was looking down at her from his great 
 height, with an expression that was at once 
 puzzled and deeply interested. She was a 
 new experience to him, and fascinating. Her 
 spirit rose with its insatiate love of power, for 
 she knew this expression in the eyes of men. 
 
 " I have nothing to do, nothing that you 
 would consider of the slightest consequence. 
 I think about everything." 
 
 She moved a few steps away from him on 
 the rocks ; he followed her quickly and seized 
 her elbow almost roughly. 
 
 " Look ! look !" he said. 
 
 To his amazement, she shook his hand off 
 haughtily. 
 
 " Oh !" she thought, " if he is going to be 
 familiar;" but in a moment she recognized 
 
 7*
 
 78 -4 SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 that he had touched her arm in ignorance, 
 not in impertinence. 
 
 " I wanted you to see that ship in the sun's 
 last rays, but it is too late now, it has slipped 
 into the gray. I beg your pardon. Did I 
 offend you ?" 
 
 He could not imagine why, but it was evi- 
 dent she was annoyed. 
 
 " Oh, it was nothing. I saw perfectly." 
 Then, feeling that it would be a kindness to 
 give him a lesson at once, 
 
 " I dislike," she said, " to be touched." 
 
 He remembered the scene in the arm-chair 
 on the terrace which Mrs. Gresham had 
 looked at so complacently, and confessed to 
 himself that he had not then thought her a 
 prude. He, however, only repeated, "I beg 
 your pardon," twirling his hat in his hands 
 much disconcerted. 
 
 The dejected mien of the great man and his 
 attitude as of a reproved school-boy filled Mrs. 
 Gresham's heart with a sudden sense of pleas- 
 ure and of compunction; she tried to bring 
 healing balm to his wound.
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 79 
 
 " Oh, the ships, they pass like that all day. 
 They are very pretty," she said, lightly. 
 
 " I have intruded too long upon you," he 
 answered stiffly. " I was passing, and thought I 
 would stop for a moment. I came over only for 
 this committee to-night. I leave to-morrow." 
 
 "I did not imagine that you swam the 
 Hellespont for my beaux yeux" she said, 
 smiling, but her smile was forced. His can- 
 dor, which in some moods would have been a 
 refreshment to her, seemed now out of place 
 and somewhat jarring. To this he replied not 
 at all. 
 
 It was unfortunate, for his silence went into 
 the balance against him of that strict account 
 which women keep for and against the men 
 who occupy them. A hopelessly discordant 
 note had been sounded between them, and 
 they parted mutually dissatisfied. He had 
 seemed less to her than on the first evening, 
 naturally enough, for he was less in tune 
 with his surroundings and she remained to 
 him an enigma he could not solve. 
 
 "He has not the usages," she said to her-
 
 80 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 self, as she tripped up the stairs to her bed- 
 room ; and oh how she wished a voice might 
 be raised to combat this assertion. She was 
 dying to talk him over, discuss him. 
 
 She was soon to be gratified, for some one 
 else was dying with curiosity to know what 
 and who he might be. 
 
 " Did the monsieur who was walking on the 
 cliffs find madame ?" asked Leontine. 
 
 ""What monsieur?" Mrs. Gresham knew 
 perfectly well to whom her maid referred. 
 
 " I did not know him, madame. He was 
 very large and very polite," she added, after a 
 moment's reflection. 
 
 "Polite?" 
 
 " Yes, he spoke so amiably and took off his 
 hat to me. Is it not strange, madame, how 
 much there is in a manner ?" 
 
 " And did you think him handsome, too ?" 
 asked her mistress, while the Frenchwoman 
 unloosed her hair. 
 
 " Oh, very, madame ! Quite the type d'hommt 
 ctttbre. Not exactly like what one expects 
 every day."
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN gl 
 
 " "Well, lie is celebrated." 
 
 Leontine pricked up her ears. " Un ecri- 
 vain f" This vague epithet covered for her a 
 recognition of all greatness which titles and 
 wealth did not bestow. 
 
 "ISTo, un homme politique." 
 
 " Ah !" Then, after a pause, "It will amuse 
 madame to receive him ! It will be a change." 
 
 Then, in a moment of weakness, Mrs. 
 Gresham said to her maid, rather low and 
 tentatively, "Yes, but 'these men have not 
 our ideas." 
 
 " I should think," said the shrewd domestic, 
 "that that would make them more interest- 
 ing. They must be tout de meme, very intel- 
 ligent. I am sure that this gentleman has 
 beaucoup de talent." 
 
 WTien Mrs. Gresham was ready for her 
 guests, her spirits, which had been dampened, 
 had risen again.
 
 82 ^ SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HE came again three days later. He 
 mumbled something about another meeting 
 at the village two miles away, which he was 
 expected to address in the late afternoon. 
 But he did not enlarge upon the urgency of 
 this claim, and Mrs. Gresham asked no ques- 
 tions. 
 
 It was in the morning this time, and the 
 cliffs were flooded with the summer sunshine. 
 He found the lady he sought standing on the 
 lawn, apparently costumed for a walk. She 
 was all in white, with a little close toque set 
 over her dusky brown hair and a wide white 
 lace umbrella shadowing her face. There was 
 a sweet seriousness upon her lips. He thought 
 he had never seen her looking so handsome. 
 Hers was an elusive sort of beauty ; it did not 
 invite analysis, and there were people who
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 83 
 
 had questioned its details. Those on whom 
 she deigned to cast her glamour, however, had 
 no doubt. She was, at any rate, one of those 
 women who never pass unnoticed in the 
 world, and have a fatal power of relegating 
 their sisters to the background. If it be but 
 a trick, after all, it is one which awakens in 
 inimical hearts tumults of impotent rivalry; 
 in the friendly, emulation and an effort at 
 imitation. It is probably to its possessor a 
 misfortune. 
 
 She hesitated a moment when he accosted 
 her, as if to turn back with him to the house, 
 and then said, 
 
 " How would you like to walk with me ? I 
 am thirsting for exercise and air." 
 
 "I should enjoy it above all things." 
 
 They descended the path and were soon 
 skirting the sea. 
 
 " How lucky I am. Five minutes later and 
 I should have missed you." 
 
 "I try to take my constitutional early, or 
 a ride when I have time. The latter, how- 
 ever, is more complicated. It necessitates a
 
 84 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 change of clothes and the tub afterwards, and, 
 really, to-day I could not lose all of my morn- 
 ing." 
 
 "You must have known how much I 
 wanted to see you again." 
 
 " I knew no such thing, and am inclined to 
 think you politicians are adept silver-tongued 
 deceitful diplomats, too." 
 
 He laughed. "I have generally been ac- 
 cused of being too honest." After a moment 
 he asked her if she were still alone. He 
 longed to make her talk of herself, of her life. 
 
 "Yes," she said; "my lord is hunting in 
 the Aroostook country far away up in the 
 north, and I am rid of all guests until the end 
 of the month." 
 
 " Do guests weary you ?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't trouble much about them. 
 Now and then there are unpleasant complica- 
 tions. The last time two women arrived 
 twenty-four hours before the rest of the party 
 and I found they had quarrelled' and were not 
 on speaking terms." 
 
 " I don't doubt you were equal to the occa-
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 5 
 
 eion. You strike me as a person who would 
 be mistress of almost any situation." 
 
 "I would courtesy to you if I were not 
 afraid of tumbling over the cliffs. Thanks! 
 Why, the next day I just had a headache and 
 stayed in bed, and sent them word I was not 
 coming down, and that they must amuse 
 themselves together. When I met them at 
 eight o'clock, they had made up, and were 
 chattering like seventy magpies." 
 
 "I wish political antagonisms could be as 
 easily adjusted," he said, laughing. " I shall 
 get you to teach me youf Machiavellian 
 methods." 
 
 " Oh, you do not require any lessons." 
 
 He remembered the scene on the rocks of 
 the other evening, and looked a little mis- 
 chievously at her through the laces of her 
 parasol. 
 
 "You give pretty severe and efficacious 
 ones sometimes when you think people are 
 too bold." 
 
 She felt herself blushing under his gaze, 
 and, to disguise her embarrassment, suggested 
 8
 
 86 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 they should descend nearer to the water. It 
 was possible to do so here ; there were natural 
 steps in the rocks. 
 
 He followed her with alacrity, as she skipped 
 from ledge to ledge. She was secretly amused 
 to find that, while he kept very close to her as if 
 to assure her safety, he proffered her no assist- 
 ance, not even the offer of conventional finger- 
 tips. The lesson had sunk deep. It was absurd. 
 By and by, panting a little, she let herself 
 rest on a stone which formed a seat in the 
 upheaved boulders, pulling her garments 
 down with one hand over her long, narrow, 
 daintily-shod feet. He sank to her side, but 
 not too near. A ledge of the rocks overhung 
 them, making, as it were, a back and a shelter 
 over their heads. 
 
 " What a poem this is !" 
 " Yes, I often come here alone." 
 " Are you really fond of solitude, then ?" he 
 asked, incredulously. 
 
 " Perhaps not, perhaps it is all pose," she 
 said, with a little fine point of irony in her 
 voice.
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN g7 
 
 "But you fine ladies owe yourselves to 
 others." 
 
 " For Heaven's sake don't call me that !" 
 
 " What shall I call you then, a goddess ?" 
 
 " Yes, much better." 
 
 They talked together for a half-hour, sitting 
 under the hot noon sunshine. "What do people 
 say to -each other on such occasions, such 
 people as were here ? They were both clever, 
 full of vitality, of blood, of life. It is prob- 
 able their conversation was not commonplace. 
 It must be confessed that its burden fell princi- 
 pally upon Mrs. Gresham. Mutually drawn 
 to study each other, knowing nothing one of 
 the other, they craved to unravel the mystery, 
 to gain that knowledge which might prove 
 pain. 
 
 They were an incongruous pair enough : 
 she in her exquisite gown, with that distinc- 
 tive air of ease and repose the world gives to 
 its votaries; he in his careless, ill-fitting 
 clothes, intimidated, fearful of displeasing her, 
 with his earnest, honest, beautiful face. He 
 found no such eloquence in the presence of
 
 88 ^ SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 her tranquility as surged so readily within 
 him in the heated forum, where eager faces 
 and coarse hands were held up to welcome 
 and applaud him. 
 
 Perhaps to the sated woman of fashion this 
 silence was all the sweeter. She may have 
 fathomed its secret homage. It was " differ- 
 ent." Certain it is that she lingered. When 
 she did at last ask him the hour, she was 
 startled to find it so late. 
 
 " I too am a laggard to-day," he said, " and 
 have wasted too much of your time, and 
 intruded myself, I fear, at the wrong mo- 
 ment." 
 
 " Is it being a laggard to lie on a rock at a 
 lady's feet? I thought it was quite the re- 
 verse." 
 
 ""Well, it is not the kind of laggard we 
 dread in a political campaign, surely," he 
 answered, smiling ; " those whose eyes have 
 to be rubbed open for them, who have to be 
 carted to the polls and told whom to vote for. 
 I know well enough what I want myself, and go 
 for it with a directness which may be selfish."
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN gg 
 
 "It is all the fault of this lazy languid 
 morning," she cried, "and not yours, that 
 Mrs. Gerold has been kept waiting a half- 
 hour. We were to go Casinoward together. 
 This sounds frivolous to you, no doubt, with 
 all your important cares and occupations. 
 Shall I he making you frivolous too ?" 
 
 She asked the question with an instinct 
 of what seemed to him the divinest coquetry. 
 
 " You have already, if it he frivolous to he 
 terribly happy !" 
 
 They both remained dumb. The uttered 
 words loomed up portentous, a landmark in 
 the roadway of their fate. She was conscious 
 of a swift emotion which flashed like light- 
 ning through her being, leaving behind it the 
 glow of some strange delight. 
 
 Gratified vanity is probably the most perfect 
 form of human enjoyment; I will not say the 
 highest. Through the affections there is suf- 
 fering ; and whatever joy the love of the Deity 
 may bestow, its human prototype is always 
 burdened with fear. A high authority tells 
 us that " fear hath torment." 
 8*
 
 90 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 After this they exchanged but a few insig- 
 nificant phrases until they reached the gate 
 and she gave him her hand. 
 
 "Good-by! good-by." 
 
 " The next time," she called out after him 
 from among her roses, greeting at the same 
 time the dogs that came rushing to meet her, 
 "Ah, Jock ! down Saxe ! the next time you 
 must dine." 
 
 He waved an assent to her and was out 
 of sight. 
 
 Still under the influence of a pleasurable 
 sensation which made her step unusually 
 buoyant, Constance came in from the heat 
 into the cool, dim drawing-room. 
 
 " Oh, May, I am so sorry !" 
 
 "Well, my dear, I wondered just how long 
 it would last, and now I know !" 
 
 " How long what would last?" 
 
 " Why, your tete-a-$te under the cliff with 
 your governor philandering." 
 
 " Where were you, pray ?" 
 
 " Spying over at you for quite a while. It 
 gave me a stiff neck. Oh, don't be alarmed,
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 91 
 
 I didn't borrow the Gaskells' telescope. 
 What the naked eye divulged was quite 
 sufficient." 
 
 " What a goosey you are !" 
 
 " The saddest part of it is ugh ! how my 
 hair-pins do stick into my cranium !" And 
 Mrs. Gerold walked to the mirror and began 
 unloosening her veil. " The worst of it is 
 that the poor thing takes you seriously." 
 
 "Why shouldn't he?" 
 
 " Constance Gresham, don't gerrymander 
 that way with me ! I am in deadly earnest, 
 and I think it simply brutal !" 
 
 As she spoke she drew out rapidly one or 
 two long pins that fastened in her hat. 
 
 "Dio mio, what a relief!" she said, readjust- 
 ing her voilette and smoothing it down over 
 her rather long, sallow cheeks. 
 
 " Brutal ?" 
 
 " Yes ! What do you do with them, Con ? 
 How far do you go ? Where do you leave 
 them ? I have often asked myself; wondered 
 how good and how bad you were ! What 
 shall you do with him ? He is tragic."
 
 92 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 Mrs. Gresham had not decided what she 
 would do with him, or even considered the 
 question before, but, being a woman of quick 
 resources, replied, laughing, "Why, make him 
 the fashion !" 
 
 " Don't you know that you would be ruining 
 him politically, and that there is a fierce light 
 on him just now, and that you may scorch 
 your own pretty little fingers ?" 
 
 "I accept the kindly warning, which is 
 of course the direst nonsense, Madam May. 
 I have seen him exactly three times." 
 
 " Twice" too often for his comfort, poor 
 wretch !" 
 
 "What did you think of him the other 
 afternoon ? How did he impress you ?" 
 
 Constance's curiosity pushed her to this 
 imprudent questioning. She thought her 
 friend shrewd, and wanted to gauge her 
 opinion. 
 
 "To tell you the truth, I was so engaged 
 in wondering how we impressed him I had 
 hardly time for a detailed study." 
 
 "Ah ! did we shock his majesty ?"
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 93 
 
 "Well, Constance, you must admit we're 
 pretty bad !" 
 
 " You mean Geraldine ? I did myself feel 
 provoked with her." 
 
 " Oh, Geraldine ! Yes, and those men so 
 rude. I could see he was watching us and 
 thought us a pack of silly, senseless snobs." 
 
 " Was I uncivil ?" 
 
 "You? !N"o. I admired you immensely. 
 You managed it all so nicely. You are 
 always a lady, Constance. You could not be 
 vulgar. Why, if you did a vulgar thing, it 
 would straightway look becoming." 
 
 " Much obliged. The compliment is equiv- 
 ocal, but I take anything that is offered." 
 
 " You know perfectly what I mean. Those 
 fellows that hang about you are not worthy to 
 touch your shoestrings." 
 
 " They are harmless." 
 
 " That is just it, and just where you differ 
 from the rest of us." 
 
 " So I am not harmless ?" 
 
 " Not exactly. Why, Constance, what could 
 Geraldine breathe into a man, do you sup-
 
 94 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 pose ? Any deed of prowess ? Any inspira- 
 tion of ambition? Eh? Any fortitude, or 
 even a crime or two? We women forgive 
 men who are wary in gallantry; but you 
 , know, Connie, we want them reckless in love, 
 don't we ? See how eloquent I grow ! Ger- 
 aldine ! What a terror she is, to be sure. 
 They play with her because she is chic. Oh, 
 I will not deny that ! But what a doll ! Very 
 hard, but not even hard enough to be pic- 
 turesquely cruel and unscrupulous like the 
 wicked woman in the plays. Just nothing! 
 You! . . . Well," continued Mrs. Gerold, 
 impulsively, " if a man cared for you, Con- 
 stance, I can imagine it would be an in- 
 ferno !" 
 
 " My dear, after this you must need some 
 refreshment. Shall I ring for a lemonade ?" 
 
 " Oh, laugh at me if you will ! I knew 
 that man thought us idiots; I see things." 
 
 "That is evident, but you won't tell me 
 what you thought of him." 
 
 "I thought him shockingly dressed and 
 very interesting."
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 95 
 
 " This, at last, is direct." 
 
 "I confess, Connie, I can imagine the be- 
 ginning might be original. The second or 
 silent stage, my dear, is always the same. No 
 matter what or who the man may be, he loses 
 all conversational power and becomes a hope- 
 less bore. As for the third stage, the cross, 
 grumpy condition, when they want Heaven 
 only knows what, it is simply unendurable." 
 
 "Mr. Lawton and I are not entering into 
 any 'stages.' Do not be frightened." 
 
 "Pshaw! Do you expect me to swallow 
 that ? "Why make him unhappy, Constance ?" 
 she continued. " What is the use of making 
 people unhappy ? I know it is generally the 
 result of being unhappy one's self. He seems 
 a good man." 
 
 Mrs. Gerold paused, and then continued, 
 with a sort of muffled hopelessness in her 
 usually sharp-keyed voice, and Constance did 
 not interrupt her. 
 
 " Oh, I am not going to probe into your 
 life, my dear. I know your reserve ; I think 
 it very delicate. I never believed you a happy
 
 96 -4 SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 woman, with a mind or heart at peace, but I 
 have respected you because you gave no sign. 
 Look at me ! I went marivauding about, pub- 
 lishing my marital infelicities while they 
 lasted telling my woes to all who would 
 listen and people listen it amuses them it 
 was a sorry spectacle ! and, when I asked poor 
 Wilbur's pardon, he was already past words 
 of mine, beyond reach." 
 
 "You were sorely tried, May," said Con- 
 stance, gently, " and very young." 
 " Bah ! I might at least have tried to cover 
 up his faults. I was not too young for that. I 
 need not have been alarmed ; they were per- 
 ceptible without lenses," she continued, with 
 a sort of grim humor ; " but I need not have 
 lent mine to the community. Why, we do as 
 much for our servants, say a good word for 
 them! It would have been more decent. 
 Don't you suppose I worried him ? Ask my 
 sweet mother-in-law !" 
 
 " Every one said she was much to blame, 
 that she made difficulties for you." 
 
 " Oh, I dare say. I tried her severely
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 97 
 
 enough, and she was not one of the indulgent 
 kind. I was not an angel. Connie, do you 
 know I ask Wilbur every night to forgive 
 me before I go to sleep, out loud in the 
 dark? You didn't believe that of me, did 
 you ? Do you suppose he hears ?" And she 
 laughed. 
 
 But her eyes met Mrs. Gresham's, and the 
 two women contemplated each other across 
 the waves of that icy sea of conventionality 
 which keeps souls barred, locked from each 
 other and apart forever. They gazed immov- 
 able as if mutually hypnotized. The harsh 
 laugh expired upon Mrs. Gerold's lips; then 
 even the ghost of a wan smile died. 
 
 Gradually a curious change came over her 
 face, a tremor, a cloud. The mouth was 
 convulsed and the glittering dark eyes filled. 
 She did not cry out or weep, but her pale face 
 was distorted in an anguish which shook Con- 
 stance with a poignant pity. 
 
 She ran across the floor and threw her arms 
 about her friend's neck. 
 
 ""We are all weak and erring," she whis- 
 = g 9
 
 98 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 pered, under her breath, and then burst into 
 tears. 
 
 They remained thus for a while clasped in 
 each other's arms. Constance offered no fur- 
 ther word of consolation ; she knew it would 
 be ill-timed. "Warm, rough natures inflict 
 such upon us in their kindly unwisdom, but 
 Mrs. Gresham's taste was unerring in these 
 things, even had her feelings not been deeply 
 stirred. 
 
 . Mrs. Gerold was the first to speak. She 
 had shed no tears, and began to wipe away 
 Constance's with her fine handkerchief. 
 
 " Forgive me, dear ! Come, let us go into 
 the other room. Let me cheer you up a bit. 
 Have you seen the papers to-day ? They are 
 full of horrors, as usual." 
 
 Constance swabbed her eyes and face and 
 shook her head wofully. 
 
 "Do you remember that little red-haired 
 thing who came here last summer, that Mrs. 
 Christopher somebody, I can never remem- 
 ber the creature's name, whom every one 
 felt called upon to snub and ill-use ?
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 99 
 
 She has been 'imprudent,' as the reporters 
 delicately express it, and in a fit of repentance 
 confessed everything to her husband." 
 
 " "Well ?" Constance tried to be interested, 
 still dabbing at her eyes. 
 
 "Well, he shot the other gentleman, the 
 lover, and now the husband is in prison. It 
 is quite gruesome." 
 
 "Which proves what I have always said," 
 and Constance looked up through her tears, 
 " that fools ought never to misbehave." 
 
 " I think it is generally the clever people 
 who do the silly things." 
 
 "Yes, that is true enough, but their wit is a 
 wedge with which they can at least disen- 
 tangle and extricate themselves." 
 
 " Ah ! sometimes Mesdames Clotho, Lach- 
 esis, and Atropos step in and huddle them 
 along and cut the thread before they have 
 time. There is another most edifying account 
 in the papers to-day of a man in Paris carry- 
 ing off an American girl." 
 
 " Mercy ! what for ? Is it any one we 
 know?"
 
 100 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 " Ko, I think not. They were stopped at 
 the station by her pursuing parent, and she 
 was brought over to Cincinnati, where she 
 now resides." 
 
 " Fancy !" 
 
 " One of these days she will marry some re- 
 spectable little dry-goods clerk, and oh, when 
 she is settled and blissful, how she will pine 
 for and regret her foreigner !" 
 
 " May," said Constance, laughing half hys- 
 terically, " you are incorrigible." 
 
 " Ma chdre, it is written : She will think, as 
 she trundles and trots the poor clerk's babies, 
 
 * 
 
 and darns his shirt-fronts, and pins his paper 
 collars on from behind, that she was once 
 madly loved, a heroine. She will dream 
 dreams, and what dreams! She will be 
 lenient to the memory of the bold, base ad- 
 venturer, and think her excellent husband 
 does not ' understand her.' His methods will 
 be too simple. Voila lesfemmes! Adieu, dear 
 Con! Take care of yourself." And Mrs. 
 Gerold tripped off, giving a backward push to 
 her narrow skirts.
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 1Q1 
 
 Constance stood at the window watching 
 her. "And to think that in her heart is a 
 passionate remorse !" 
 
 At a dinner-party that night she was taken 
 in by the host. She usually had the seat of 
 honor, and on her left was a man who was 
 uncongenial to her. She found her host 
 equally so, however, and the party generally 
 ill-assorted, and in her weariness she turned 
 to this neighbor. He was a man prominent 
 in finance, in society, and of some political in- 
 fluence. She began to lay traps for him to 
 mention a certain name. Few of her world 
 knew Lawton personally, but this man, she 
 felt sure, must have met him. At last he did 
 speak of him. 
 
 " I saw Dan Lawton yesterday," he said. 
 " He and his heelers are on the stump. An 
 unscrupulous lot they are." 
 
 This was certainly not encouraging. Having 
 delivered himself thus far, he relapsed into con- 
 temptuous silence. His manner, even more 
 than his words, was a covert attack. 
 
 Mrs. Gresham drew away from him. She 
 9*
 
 102 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 did not know he had secretly coveted the 
 nomination Daniel Lawton had secured, and 
 had plotted and wheedled for it and had 
 failed. She turned the subject quickly, re- 
 membering Emerson's warning that it is our 
 own idle curiosity which gives others the 
 power to wound us. She instinctively felt 
 that this man knew nothing of Daniel Law- 
 ton, yet was his enemy. She could have 
 struck him gladly across his unpleasant pursed- 
 up lips, yet etiquette forced her to civility and 
 smiles for the next hour. She left early, with 
 a heart of lead, her nerves unstrung and out 
 of tune. As she drove home she thought how 
 unjustly we weigh and judge each other. 
 How mean and petty are the jealousies of the 
 world, and what tragedy lies underneath ! 
 
 She remembered that her set had praised her 
 warmly for her devotion to her mother in the 
 latter's last illness. The barbarians of Uganda, 
 the Dinka, Bari, and Dango tribes, throw their 
 dying parents into the desert, and expose to 
 the cruel blasts of heaven the breasts from 
 which they have sucked in life.
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 1Q3 
 
 Had they expected her, because she was the 
 child of luxury and of pleasure, to do no better 
 than these savages ? The commendation had 
 wounded and angered her, and she had even 
 resented it once with scourging sarcasm, for 
 her honeyed tongue could also scathe. After- 
 wards she had been loudly blamed for not 
 wearing her mourning long enough, and had 
 thus struck the balance. 
 
 Now, leaning back among the cushions of 
 her open carriage, looking up at the calm, 
 cold stars, wishing that her unquiet spirit 
 might drink in of their peace, she thought of 
 these things, and of others, of her own 
 wasted energies, of the man whose letter she 
 had read so lately throwing away his youth 
 because she had been vain and idle. She 
 looked at herself less leniently to-night. 
 
 "May is right," she thought. "I can at 
 least let him alone."
 
 104 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WHEN Daniel Lawton disembarked the next 
 morning at Ms pier, lie found his buggy and 
 man waiting for him. The latter handed him 
 half a dozen letters and telegrams, which he 
 read on his way through the town. Whirling 
 along the street, he chanced to look up as he 
 passed the sign of a new tailor who advertised 
 himself as being a branch of a celebrated Lon- 
 don firm. 
 
 " I don't take time to get myself clothes, or 
 to have my hair cut, hardly. I have a great 
 mind to stop and look in here. I think Fred 
 told me it was a good place." 
 
 He was never vacillating, but prompt of 
 action, and in a moment he had thrown the 
 reins to his servant and was in the store. A 
 clerk with very red cheeks and a waxed 
 moustache approached him languidly. He
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 1Q5 
 
 looked narrowly, almost impertinently, at the 
 new customer, the, general cut of whose jib 
 did not suggest extravagance. 
 
 " How can I serve you, sir ?" 
 
 Mr. Lawton had for years patronized a little 
 Hebrew tailor, who continued to turn out his 
 clothes from the same mould with praise- 
 worthy constancy. He felt some compunc- 
 tion at this infidelity, and hoped the poor old 
 Jew would never know. 
 
 "Measure me for a suit," he said. He 
 ordered himself two and finally three, one a 
 rough light gray for morning wear. 
 
 " You wish the latest style, sir, I suppose ?" 
 asked the highly-colored clerk, eying Mr. 
 Lawton's black broadcloth coat with ill-con- 
 cealed scorn. 
 
 "Yes, yes, I suppose so." He laughed a 
 little nervously and shamefacedly. " Make 
 them in the fashion. I am not much on dress, 
 as you see, but I'll go the whole figure this 
 time." 
 
 " Will you give me your name, sir ?" asked 
 the man ; he whipped out a note-book and a
 
 106 -4 SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 pencil, which he held suspended between his 
 thumb and index ; " and I will fix the hour 
 for trying on early next week, sir." 
 
 " Mr. Lawton, Daniel Lawton ; perhaps you 
 know my offices." 
 
 The heads of the English master of the 
 establishment and his book-keeper jerked up 
 suddenly from their desks. The former stepped 
 out briskly. 
 
 "Pray be seated, Mr. Lawton! Pray be 
 seated ! Hi 'ope you will be pleased with us, 
 sir ! We will do our hutmost ! Hi think, sir, 
 we have made some things for your son, sir ! 
 No one would hever himagine, to look at you, 
 sir, you could 'ave a son that hage. A fine 
 young gentleman, sir, with a helegant figure!" 
 
 "He takes after his father," said Mr. Law- 
 ton ptre, much amused. 
 
 "Narrower in the chest, sir," murmured 
 the clerk, who had become more flushed. 
 "We will be ready for you Tuesday at 
 eleven." 
 
 " Make it ten, and I will get around early. 
 I am very busy."
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 107 
 
 " Yes, of course, sir, of course ! any hour 
 you wish." 
 
 x 
 
 " Would you like to look at some light cloth 
 for an overcoat, sir ? We make them up in all 
 styles for twelve pounds sixty dollars, I mean, 
 sir ! !N~o ? not to-day ? This way, sir ! Would you 
 like a match ? Here, Hawser ! quick ! a light !" 
 
 Three clerks darted out simultaneously from 
 behind their counters. They all wanted to 
 have a nearer view of Mr. Lawton, and took 
 a long stare. 
 
 He found great difficulty in making his 
 escape, but did finally, after having lighted a 
 cigar, get himself into the street. He was pay- 
 ing the penalty of his greatness. Later, when 
 he reached home, he found his wife standing 
 outside on the porch, much disturbed and ex- 
 cited. Fred was dawdling about with his 
 hands in his pockets, waiting for the trap 
 which was to convey him to the station. He 
 was going off with his chum Blake for a 
 week's gunning, and there was an endless 
 array of gun-cases and cartridge-boxes piled 
 up on the piazza steps.
 
 108 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 "Did the expressman give you back the 
 dollar and a half change, Kate ?" Mrs. Lawton 
 was saying, hardly taking time to greet her 
 husband. 
 
 " No, ma'am," said Kate, who was engaged 
 in fastening a recalcitrant strap. "He .gave 
 me back a dollar and a half's worth of impu- 
 dence." 
 
 "It is perfectly abominable the way that 
 company steals," said Mrs. Lawton. " They 
 are simply robbers. I do hope, Daniel, when 
 you are governor, you will put a stop to such 
 things." 
 
 "Oh, mother, don't bother!" said Fred, 
 loftily, as if from heights where dollar bills 
 were plentiful and unimportant. 
 
 Mrs. Lawton was clad in a cambric wrap- 
 per, such as hang, in the late summer, at re- 
 duced prices, out on sidewalks in front of 
 large dry-goods establishments. It may be 
 said, however, that she had purchased it in 
 the season and at its original value. Seeing 
 it with other gaudier ones, she had thought 
 the color pale until it had come home. It
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 109 
 
 was, in fact, of a brilliant saffron pink, and 
 was distinctly unbecoming. 
 
 " Why, Mollie !" said her husband, " you 
 look like a flamingo." 
 
 "Yes, I know; I hate the thing; but I 
 wanted to see Fred off comfortably, and I 
 have not had time to dress." 
 
 " The way you mollycoddle that boy is 
 absurd," he said, a little dryly, and went into 
 the house. 
 
 At the dinner she asked him about his 
 meetings over the bay and spoke of the prob- 
 abilities of a successful election; but Fred's 
 departure, and the fear lest he was riot provided 
 with sufficiently warm flannels, and, above all, 
 the expressman's guilt, were with her still, and 
 she threw no eagerness into her questionings. 
 
 He had somehow failed to speak to her 
 of his first visit to Mrs. Gresham ; he did not 
 now mention the second. "Why ? Perhaps it 
 was due to a naturally reticent nature. On 
 that first evening he had casually told her 
 of his introduction ; but he was introduced to 
 so many* people and obliged to shake so many 
 10
 
 HO A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 hands, male and female, that it made small 
 impression upon his wife. It had always 
 bored him ; she thought it would continue to 
 do so to the end. Immediately after dinner 
 he made his escape to his study. 
 
 He looked over some political attacks upon 
 himself in the journals of his antagonists. 
 They were very mild, and they failed to an- 
 noy. It was difficult to pick flaws in him. 
 He then wrote a few important letters, after 
 which he tried to think what he should say 
 on the morrow at a meeting of workingmen 
 that he was to address, hut somehow his brain 
 refused to work. It did not matter much. 
 He was never at a loss when the moment 
 came. He felt now a mental lassitude that 
 was not common to him, and thought he 
 would find the aliment he required upon his 
 book-shelves. He craved, as it were, to rest 
 his spirit upon some lofty ideals, but even his 
 favorite authors failed this evening to arrest 
 his attention. He threw aside the books and 
 began to think, and his revery was one of 
 despondency. He asked himself what, after
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN HI 
 
 all, was this struggle and effort for ? "What 
 had his successes brought him ? How ephem- 
 eral their joy, how insufficient their attain- 
 ment ! He was no pessimist, no sentimentalist, 
 but we all touch these moments of disillusion 
 and discouragement. Now, he thought to 
 himself, life was half over. Youth, ah ! bold, 
 brave youth ! Even that was gone youth, 
 which women adore ! His heart contracted in 
 sadness. Then, suddenly, as he sat there 
 musing over the worthlessness of earth's best 
 prizes, a thought rushed past him and touched 
 him with its wing : a thought of rapture, for 
 which all else might well be jeopardized, near 
 which all others paled. He shuddered from 
 head to foot. 
 
 He had been through all his past a man 
 of energetic principle and forceful, even ag- 
 gressive, will. He dismissed the dizzy vision, 
 instantly pushed it from him, compressed it 
 way down in the darkness of his being where 
 no one might suspect and he himself not 
 dwell upon it one moment more. It left him 
 at peace for an hour.
 
 112 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 But what are will and energy, nay, prin- 
 ciple, in the first travail of an awakened pas- 
 sion ? Let men cavil as they may. The river 
 flows smoothly enough. See how gently it 
 glides between its flowery banks ! But dare 
 to dam it up, and then, even after years, 
 loosen only a tiny stone, make but an inch's 
 rift in the soil, and behold, through the flood- 
 gates the long-pent waters, wild, exultant, 
 escape; broken, torn, with the wreck of a 
 continent upon its bosom ! 
 
 People prattle of truth, " The loving 
 Truth," they say. Artists paint her in her 
 splendors, crowned with majesty, bearing 
 aloft in undraped chastity her lamp of pure 
 fires, searching the hearts of guilty men to 
 ransom and redeem them. But truth is ugly 
 enough, and as I see her now her lamp is 
 turned down, her garments bedraggled, and 
 the bright picture I would fain show you 
 is marred with smoke and seared and soiled. 
 
 The thought, the dream, came back to 
 Daniel Lawton later as he lay upon his 
 couch ; came back, and this time he did not
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN H3 
 
 shrink at its approach. He welcomed, hugged, 
 gloated over it, the sweet delirium of it, the 
 poison and the pleasure ! He held it close to 
 himself, warming himself at its glow, linger- 
 ingly now in wilful dalliance, until Truth, 
 weeping, put out her torch ! 
 
 10*
 
 114 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SHE had said she would make him the 
 fashion; he became the lion of the hour. 
 His family scattered, about this time, for a 
 trip into the mountains, and he was left to his 
 own devices. Frequent short journeys were 
 necessary in this interim for the exigencies of 
 his canvass. His home was unsettled. He 
 concluded to run over to the Goshen house and 
 make that his head-quarters for a brief season. 
 It would be a sort of holiday, a respite and rest 
 he greatly required, so, at least, he said to him- 
 self, since Truth had veiled her face from him. 
 
 And thus it came to pass that he was, in 
 vulgar parlance, "taken up." "We hear the 
 significant expression, and must accept it 
 without explanation. 
 
 Mrs. Langton fancied him. She invited 
 him to her Saturday evenings. She was a 
 dried-up little old woman who made the
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN H5 
 
 sunshine and the rain in the coterie over 
 which she reigned. People said she was 
 amazingly clever, and she certainly had a 
 wicked tongue. She expressed herself as 
 much honored by Mr. Lawton's willingness to 
 appear at her soirees. She never gave her 
 guests anything but ices, tea, and conversa- 
 tion, and liked to catch distinguished odds 
 and ends, specimens of eccentric or foreign 
 humanity, as a form of inducement. 
 
 Tom Fane, who kept bachelor's hall, gave 
 Mr. Lawton a reception, and all the " smart" 
 people turned out, as they were wont to do 
 for his entertainments. He was invited to 
 five dinners a night; to coaching parties and 
 yachting parties; to luncheons, garden fetes, 
 picnics, and teas. And he accepted every- 
 thing, or nearly everything, where he felt 
 sure he should meet her. Of course he 
 knew, and everybody else knew, it was Mrs. 
 Gresham who had launched him, and people 
 smiled and said, " Isn't it funny ?" Men put 
 him up at their clubs or took him off for a 
 day's fishing. Fair women asked him for his
 
 116 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 portrait, almost for his autograph. Once in a 
 while he said or did something that was 
 unexpected, but it was overlooked and ex- 
 cused. The word "provincial" was never 
 applied after the first ten days of the furore. 
 One caviller insisted that he said "lady" 
 where "woman" would have sufficed, and, 
 after a heated discussion one night at a 
 dinner where he had held the people spell- 
 bound for fifteen minutes with his eloquence, 
 he suddenly apologized and said, " I have 
 talked too long ; I must ' quit.' ' A young 
 woman tittered and whispered to her neigh- 
 bor she thought the expression countrified. 
 Her neighbor replied, vaguely, it was probably 
 " western." An erudite old gentleman who 
 overheard the remark, who was an authority 
 on language but at the same time snobbish, 
 and who always kept abreast of the suc- 
 cessful swimmer, thought the expression was 
 admissible, and, on the whole, quaint and 
 picturesque. A woman who hated Con- 
 stance, because Jack Gresham had flirted 
 with her desperately before his marriage,
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN H7 
 
 and then had taken himself and his ducats 
 to another shrine, intimated that Daniel 
 Lawton said " Yes, ma'am," when he ad- 
 dressed a girl of twenty. Then a tender fem- 
 inine voice which was always raised in the 
 defence and never in the attack, asserted un- 
 hesitatingly that this accusation was an atro- 
 cious libel, but that, even if the charge were 
 true, it was only a trifle old-fashioned ; one 
 who had so surpassed others might well be 
 forgiven if he were behind them in so insig- 
 nificant a manner. 
 
 " Every one," she said, " said * Yes, ma'am' 
 a hundred years ago, and even now one has 
 to use the words as an accompaniment to 
 one's courtesy when presented to Queen 
 Victoria or her daughters, if spoken to by 
 these royal ladies." 
 
 So the ripple of talk ran to and fro, up and 
 down, and Mr. Lawton's social bark was car- 
 ried safely over these little eddies upon which 
 so many are doomed to instantaneous wreck. 
 He was at oace too modest and too self- 
 respecting even to suspect their existence, and,
 
 118 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 more, he was too absorbed ; for the temptation 
 he had at first repudiated and then courted 
 had become an obsession of every hour. 
 Every moment he could spare from his politi- 
 cal duties, he would soon have to start on 
 another pilgrimage; there were important 
 principles of his platform he must explain to 
 his more distant constituents, every moment, 
 I say, was spent with her. People laughed, 
 thinking the intimacy extraordinary, and it 
 was so. All they knew was that they were 
 happy together. Of each other's past, its 
 associations and its experiences, they never 
 spoke. Of course she knew vaguely that he 
 was a married man, the father of children; 
 but she instinctively asked him no questions, 
 and he was silent. Of her he hardly thought 
 as of a wedded wife. 
 
 Mr. Gresham's hunting expedition seemed 
 to have extended itself indefinitely, for he did 
 not return, and the husband remained a myth 
 whose reality Lawton tried to forget. The 
 husband, the worm at the heart of the rose ! 
 He who should one day return, with claims
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN H9 
 
 and tyrannies! It was well to banish him, 
 blot him from the memory. 
 
 With a childish simplicity Lawton avoided 
 looking at the photographs upon Mrs. Gresh- 
 am's drawing-room tables, at the portraits 
 upon her walls, lest he should some day meet 
 the eyes that he dreaded. In the mean while, 
 nothing could be more charming than their 
 walks, their talks, their communings. She 
 was surprised to find he had read everything, 
 and that even the works of contemporaneous 
 fiction which interested her were not unr 
 known to him. His comments upon them 
 tallied with her own views, but had some- 
 thing fresh and vigorous in them, and, how- 
 ever different their traditions might have 
 been, they met here upon the same ground. 
 Of art, too, she was amazed to find him an 
 incisive critic, possessed of a naturally correct 
 taste. She knew that he could hardly have 
 had the time, in the stress of his active life, to 
 cultivate aesthetics, yet his artistic perceptions 
 seemed to her of no mean order. 
 
 Constance was sitting one morning under a
 
 120 & SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 tree on her lawn picking at a banjo (I regret 
 that I can use no more impressing verb). She 
 was a good musician, a pianist of some origi- 
 nality and sentiment ; but it is only in novels 
 that women reach the F above the line at the 
 first trial and dance admirably without pre- 
 paratory instruction. " Art is long," and 
 Constance drew more discords than harmo- 
 nies from the instrument upon which she had 
 only lately begun to experiment, and which 
 fills so many modern drawing-rooms with 
 anxiety and gloom. Fortunately, her audi- 
 ence, an Austrian attache and a French first 
 secretary of legation, did not seem harsh cen- 
 sors of her poor performance, and applauded 
 her effort with fervor. It is hardly to be mar- 
 velled at. These stringed instruments have 
 the advantage that they may be carried into 
 the sunlight, and furnish a lovely woman an 
 opportunity of posing under green boughs in 
 graceful positions and picturesque hats, and 
 with pretty arms bared to the elbow. 
 
 Mrs. Gresham did not play in private theat- 
 ricals; her contempt for the public had not
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 reached this climax. She must therefore be 
 pardoned if her dramatic instincts found a 
 more innocent vent. 
 
 Suddenly, as she sat listening to the chorus of 
 praise sung by her two foreign visitors and was 
 yawning behind her hand at their inanities, 
 her lips parted, her eyes shone, and her cheeks 
 flushed. A thought had struck her. She cast 
 aside her banjo, and fell to dreaming of 
 another instrument from which she drew no 
 discords and on which she played with con- 
 summate address. Practice makes perfect, 
 and it is also an advantage to have genius. 
 She bethought herself now of a great heart 
 which she held palpitating in her palm. She 
 could feel its wild throbs, almost listen to its 
 pulses under her fingers ; upon its strings she 
 liked to play. From its keys Constance could 
 draw rapturous melody, for she was a skilled 
 artist. With a woman's keen insight she had 
 guessed long since that it was hers, and the 
 desire to play upon it at this very minute 
 grew into a positive longing. 
 
 She became so distraite that the quick-witted 
 v 11
 
 122 ^ SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 strangers saw they were importunate, and in 
 a few moments had taken their leave. On 
 winged feet she flew to her secretary and had 
 in less than a quarter of an hour despatched a 
 note to Daniel Lawton. For it may as well 
 be said here with sorrow that the good re- 
 solves which Mrs. Gresham had so lately 
 made to the stars had melted, like them, into 
 the dawn, and that when Truth veiled her 
 face from Daniel Lawton, her own Recording 
 Angel covered its eyes and wept. 
 
 This written message was one of those 
 three-cornered ones that smell good and may 
 mean so much or so little. To Daniel Lawton 
 it meant exactly that he was to dine with her 
 that night, and for the first time alone. The 
 fumes of it were in his brain through all 
 of the summer's day. 
 
 When he presented himself at eight o'clock 
 his hostess was not in her boudoir. He waited 
 for her patiently, for expectancy, which can 
 be the most terrible of ills, can also be the 
 sweetest of human joys. At last the gray 
 portibre with its border of roses was lifted,
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 123 
 
 and Mrs. Gresham crossed the threshold. He 
 mastered his agitation with difficulty, but her 
 own tranquil greeting had soon somewhat 
 calmed his heart-beats and put him at his 
 ease. They had only time to exchange a few 
 words before dinner was announced. He gave 
 her his arm across the numerous drawing- 
 rooms, and their progress was, to the man at 
 least, a beatitude. 
 
 The dining-room was almost in darkness, 
 except the table, whose gold-embroidered 
 cloth, strewn with flowers, chased silver, rare 
 porcelains, fruits, and bon-bons, was radiantly 
 illumed by numerous wax-lights. Peering 
 into the frowning gloom, Lawton thought it 
 almost a pity the splendid apartment should 
 be kept so dim. He himself liked a room to 
 be very light. He expressed this opinion, and 
 she laughed low, and told him he was a Phil- 
 istine with old-fashioned ideas, but that in 
 fact Mr. Gresham was.just the same ; all men 
 were alike, afraid of the dark, like children, 
 and when her husband was at home an extra 
 chandelier was always lighted for his benefit.
 
 124 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 " I am making the most," she added, " of 
 my liberty. I like it this way best." 
 
 She spoke quite naturally and as a matter 
 of course, and seemed 'surprised that her 
 remark was met with an awkward pause. 
 
 They returned to the boudoir for their coffee. 
 She offered him a cigarette, but he declined 
 it, and the agitation which had possessed him 
 earlier came back upon him with redoubled 
 force. She, on the contrary, was gay and ap- 
 parently undisturbed. She rallied and chaffed 
 him about his new r6le as a man of fashion ; 
 upon his social success and his conquests. But 
 he answered her in monosyllables, and grew 
 at last absolutely taciturn. The seriousness 
 of his attitude gained upon her in a peculiar 
 way. As his spirits seemed to dampen, hers 
 rose, until at last she became merry and even 
 a little wild. She bantered him with unmer- 
 ciful raillery, laying particular stress upon his 
 attentions to a maiden of thirty summers and 
 large fortune, who had showered him with 
 courtesies, and evidently entertained a roman- 
 tic admiration of his person. As he grew
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 125 
 
 more and more gloomy, she grew more and 
 more light. She was probably intoxicated 
 with the sense of her own charm. She felt 
 that every movement of her lips, every shrug 
 of her shoulders, every quiver of her eyelids, 
 every intonation of her voice, with all its 
 joyous and pathetic cadences, every curve of 
 her hand and wrist as she raised them or they 
 lay upon her lap, were eagerly marked nay, 
 devoured by the silent man who sat beside 
 her; and she was secretly filled with pleasure 
 that she could thus beguile him. 
 
 Judge her not too harshly ! Women who 
 have no turn at philanthropy, are not pos- 
 sessed of genius, and who love power, have 
 but this arena. Had he been bolder, she 
 might have been more prudent, but his re- 
 spectful homage awakened in her a childish 
 temerity. He did not even venture to ap- 
 proach her, sitting at some distance across the 
 shaded room, with only that sombre fire grow- 
 ing in his eyes. She felt so sure of him now ; 
 he was such a gentleman. Ah! they might 
 say what they would, he was that. 
 11*
 
 126 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 I think that his Satanic Majesty himself 
 sends a special messenger sometimes to pre- 
 side over a woman's toilet, to peep and hide 
 and beckon in the plait of a dress, in the 
 curve of a girdle, on the end of a shoe, in a 
 coil of hair. Had the bold imp some hand in 
 arraying Constance for this hour ? 
 
 She wore a gown cut very low, as was the 
 fashion of the moment, displaying her beau- 
 tiful arms and glowing bosom. It fell in rich 
 folds of golden satin close to her long rounded 
 limbs, making her every motion a rhythm of 
 charm. The dress became her, toning down 
 her rich color, and casting up strange lurid 
 reflections into her eyes. A woman's talk is 
 more brilliant when she is conscious of look- 
 ing her best. 
 
 As time sped on, however, she could not 
 have told why, her own spirits began to flag 
 and falter. A certain restlessness of his con- 
 tinued quietness, a sense of uneasiness and of 
 danger in an atmosphere which seemed to 
 grow a little stifling. Perhaps she, who was 
 never maladroit, had teased him long enough ;
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 127 
 
 perhaps she had gone too far and wounded 
 him. She disliked the thought. At last, glad 
 of any change, she made an excuse to rise 
 and ring for a glass of 'water, but, as she did 
 so, he also sprang to his feet. It was too late 
 for her to shrink from him. All the pent-up 
 fierceness of the years was raging in him now. 
 If she had wished to rouse him, she had suc- 
 ceeded. She had only time to take a step or 
 two backward in her newly-awakened fear 
 when he had her by the wrists. He held 
 them as if in a clasp of iron, and, as he did 
 so, he looked down upon her as a keeper does 
 at the creature he will tame. 
 
 Constance knew she had met her master, 
 and had neither the will nor the power to 
 struggle or to stir. After holding her thus in 
 his grasp of steel for a moment, speechless, he 
 drew her to him with indescribable violence, 
 and stooped as if to seek the warm, soft lips 
 of the temptress ; but suddenly, and with an 
 exclamation of terror, he threw her from him, 
 and, picking up his hat, which lay at hand, 
 almost ran from her presence. She tottered
 
 128 -4 SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 and would have fallen, had she not clutched a 
 neighboring chair, but her high heels were 
 no't made for such exercises, and in her un- 
 steadiness her head rolled against the wall. 
 She sat down, with her hands over her heart, 
 trying to quell its tumults. Her blood ran 
 riot in her veins, and the thought uppermost 
 in her was, " I have never known such joy !" 
 
 It is not every lover that throws one against 
 the wall. 
 
 She was fastidious, refined for, after all, 
 she was a haughty woman, or rather was pos- 
 sessed of that form of pride which gives the 
 illusion of force ; yet she who had so resented 
 the first touch of his hand upon her arm when 
 she had stood on the rocks, and thought him 
 guilty of familiarity, was neither shocked nor 
 angered now. 
 
 "Women prefer brutality to coldness ; and all 
 great feeling dominates. A famous Russian 
 writer tells us that so enormous is the power 
 of a genuine passion that a woman who hated 
 the man who so loved her, and knew her visit 
 to him would mean death, yet went, drawn to
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 129 
 
 him by some incomprehensible fascination, to 
 meet it at his hands. 
 
 Up in the mountains the next day, Mrs. 
 Lawton and Clemence were sunning them- 
 selves on the piazza of the hotel. 
 
 " I have letters from Fred and from your 
 papa, Clem," said Mrs. Lawton. 
 
 "Well, I hope they are having a better 
 time than I am ; that is all I can say." Miss 
 Clem's tone was disconsolate. She had not 
 yet taken her elder brother's advice as to 
 modulating it. 
 
 " Why, papa is quite gay, going out a great 
 deal ; and do you know, Clem, he has been to 
 the Greshams', to that Mrs. Gresham's you 
 are always chattering about." 
 
 It had been easy enough to write of it casu- 
 ally. Of course Mrs. Lawton had heard of 
 " Sea Mew." The papers were full of its 
 beauties, the purity of its architecture, the 
 correctness of its landscape gardening. 
 
 Young America is still dazzled at her own 
 prowess. She puffs herself, and struts and 
 swaggers and advertises.
 
 130 4 SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 " Oh, dear ! I wish it was me," said Clem- 
 ence. 
 
 "Nonsense, child! Do you suppose Mrs. 
 Gresham would trouble herself with a little 
 school-girl like you ?" 
 
 "Hurry up and call me that, mammy; it 
 won't last much longer." 
 
 " No, it won't," and Mrs. Lawton sighed. 
 
 " Why do you sigh, ma ?" 
 
 " Oh, because I loved my babies, and they 
 will soon all be men and women. Well, I am 
 glad your papa's resting. He needed it; he 
 looked worn out." 
 
 " So he knows that Mrs. Gresham ? Well, 
 I have always noticed the good things hap- 
 pened to people who didn't care a picayune 
 about them." 
 
 "You seem to think Mrs. Gresham quite 
 wonderful. What do you know about her ?" 
 said Mrs. Lawton, smiling. 
 
 "Well, she is wonderful. I hope to be 
 exactly like her some day. Who knows? 
 When papa's governor, perhaps I shall marry 
 a swell !"
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 " Clem !" said her mother, frowning, " I 
 don't like that kind of talk. I don't want 
 your head running on beaux. You must 
 think of your studies." 
 
 Miss Clem made a wry face. ""Well, 
 mammy, it is the truth that old people get all 
 the fun and don't care a bit about it. They 
 enjoy things in such a tiresome, dull sort of 
 way." 
 
 "I suppose you think me and your father 
 very old, but we don't feel so, and you won't 
 when you are our age." 
 
 " I think you are just sweet, mammy, and 
 you don't look old, and you cannot look cross, 
 even if you try ever so hard." 
 
 Mrs. Lawton shook her head. 
 
 "When papa's governor you will have to 
 go out in society more, won't you, ma? Can 
 I have a low-necked dress, please, please ?" 
 
 " We will see. He must be elected first." 
 
 " Oh, it's a walk-over ; everybody says so," 
 said Miss Clem, sententiously. She had infinite 
 confidence in her father's lucky star. " Why, 
 Marcus M.'s just trembling in his shoes !"
 
 132 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LEAVING a letter for Mrs. Gresham, Lawton 
 had departed. It is the fashion of the day to 
 laugh at all romance and to say that love is 
 out of date. Yet we know that there are 
 rugged soils in which it still may nourish; 
 that, while in a heart like Constance's, which 
 has wasted its strength in futile coquetries, the 
 flame may at its best hum but fitfully, Law- 
 ton's was still capable of all its height of 
 sacrifice, all its depth of tragic despair. 
 
 His letter moved her to tears. With the 
 intense humility of all deep natures, his poor 
 heart floundered hopelessly in the throes of 
 this new-born sentiment. He implored her 
 pardon for having looked a moment up from 
 the flatness and dreariness of his own exist- 
 ence to the poetry and beauty of her own. 
 He poured out at her feet all the richness of
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 133 
 
 an idolatry that expected nothing and asked 
 for less. She carried the missive about with 
 her for two days, in her dress, close to her 
 bosom. There are hymns of worship which 
 women find it hard to destroy. 
 
 On his distant round of political speech- 
 making his audiences were more than ever 
 persuaded of his rare gifts. The topics he 
 was obliged to present to them were practical 
 and hard enough, but it may be that a ray of 
 the martyrdom that he suffered for he had 
 sworn to conquer himself pierced through 
 even their unpromising dryness. He was 
 never more scathing in denouncing corrupt, 
 dishonorable, and crooked methods; his in- 
 vective was never more scorching, keen, and 
 withering ; his exhortations to courage, man- 
 fulness, and vigilance -more noble. People 
 trembled under the magnetism of his eye and 
 voice, and came out and looked at one another, 
 and said, "This is genius;" for there was 
 something in the man that impressed them 
 strangely, with a hint as of some dark fore- 
 boding. Later this was remembered and 
 
 12
 
 134 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 commented upon by his friends, those party 
 leaders whose enthusiasm for him had known 
 no bounds, and some of whom had accompa- 
 nied him. 
 
 Two weeks had passed, and Mrs. Gresham 
 was resting on the terrace one afternoon after 
 her horseback ride, when her friend May 
 Gerold was announced. 
 
 " Where in the world have you kept your- 
 self all this time, Madame May? "We have 
 had never a sight of your beloved visage. 
 Dear me ! what a smart gown !" 
 
 " I am grateful that you notice my absence 
 and glad you admire my frock. I have been 
 across the water, stopping at the Ramseys'. I 
 came back an hour ago, and only wonder I 
 lived to come back at all." 
 
 "So bored?" 
 
 " To extinction ! The most tiresome lot of 
 men, perfect jackasses, and the women not 
 much better. Even Geraldine was a comfort. 
 She is at least larky enough to keep one awake. 
 What have you been about over here ?" 
 
 " Oh, the everlasting treadmill ; the same
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 135 
 
 old round ! But this is the end ; the season is 
 over. I too have been bored unto death." 
 Constance said the last words fervently. 
 "Jack returns to-morrow, and Wednesday I 
 am expecting a house-party of fourteen. Mrs. 
 Langton gives a ball on Tuesday, the Days' 
 musicale is on Monday ; et voila !" 
 
 " A ball ? How extraordinary ! So late in 
 the season." 
 
 " Mrs. Langton thinks she will have fewer 
 undesirable people." 
 
 " And where is Mr. Lawton ?" 
 
 To her question Mrs. Gresham replied, in- 
 differently, "How should I know?" and gazed 
 at the view as if Daniel Lawton was a wraith 
 who had vanished into the ambient ether. 
 
 Mrs. Gerold had not enjoyed her trip, and 
 had grave doubts of the Turkish minister's 
 fidelity during her absence. She felt rather 
 cross. 
 
 ""Well, I know, then, for I saw him this 
 morning." 
 
 Mrs. Gresham's heart gave a leap, but she 
 managed to conceal her perturbation, and
 
 136 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 only inquired, calmly, "Ah, really! What 
 was he about ?" 
 
 " Kissing his wife." 
 
 " That must have been an edifying spectacle 
 in public," forcing a smile, which, it must be 
 confessed, was rather a feeble effort. 
 
 " I thought myself that the time and place 
 were ill-chosen, but there they were, kissing 
 each other, according to their lights. He was 
 in the railway-station, and she and a lot of 
 children were getting out of the cars. I sup- 
 pose he had come to meet them." 
 
 " What dress shall you wear to Mrs. Lang- 
 ton's, May ?" asked Mrs. Gresham, abruptly. 
 
 " My swagger gown, my mauve and silver." 
 
 " I wouldn't advise you to," said her friend, 
 dryly. " It is not becoming." 
 
 " Not becoming ! Well, that is a crusher ! 
 Why, I thought myself simply angelic in 
 mauve." 
 
 " My dear," and Mrs. Gresham shook her 
 head decidedly and laughed a little discord- 
 antly, " that is an illusion which had better be 
 dispelled at once. You are too brune for
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 137 
 
 those light lilac shades. I should strongly 
 recommend you to keep to your black." 
 
 " I do think, Constance," Mrs. Gerold was 
 almost crying, "this is the most unkind 
 thing I ever heard you say. Why, it was you 
 yourself who insisted on my ordering that 
 gown, which has nearly ruined me, and that 
 every one admires." 
 
 " I have not the slightest recollection of the 
 fact," said Mrs. Gresham, leaning back lan- 
 guidly with half-shut eyes; "but, if I did, 
 je vous ai mis dedans, that is all I can say. 
 As to people they do tell such lies." 
 
 "You are disagreeable to-day, Connie. I 
 think I had better leave you." 
 
 Mrs. Gerold rose stiffly. Mrs. Gresham 
 entered no protest. 
 
 " I do verily believe," continued the young 
 widow, lingering, "that you are angry at 
 what I said about Mr. Lawton." 
 
 " What has Mr. Lawton to do with your 
 gown ?" asked Constance, with some asperity. 
 
 "A good deal, I fancy. Before I depart, 
 Connie, don't you want to hear what his 
 
 12*
 
 138 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 frau looks like?" Mrs. Gerold went on, pro- 
 vokingly. 
 
 " Certainly, if it amuses you, but I cannot 
 be expected to take the same interest in men's 
 harems that you do." 
 
 Mrs. Gerold winced. The thrust was ungen- 
 erous, and Constance was ashamed of herself. 
 
 The surgeon will tell you that if you but 
 touch upon certain nerves the most heroic 
 patient must writhe and scream ; and a young 
 warrior of my acquaintance, who had faced 
 bullets upon the field of battle, once was 
 known, in the tortures of the dentist's chair, 
 to seize the innocent author of his sufferings 
 by the throat and inflict upon him corporeal 
 punishment of such severity that the poor 
 little doctor cried out for mercy. 
 
 " Let me see !" Mrs. Gerold screwed a sin- 
 gle eye-glass into her left eye and gave her 
 friend an exhaustive stare. " She is taller 
 than you are, Connie, nearly twice your 
 height. I should say a regular stunner, a 
 regular beauty ; a high stepper, like that sor- 
 rel mare you wanted Jack to get you last
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 139 
 
 year. She has Circassian eyebrows and Ori- 
 ental eyelashes, a Grecian nose and an Egyp- 
 tian chin, a slender waist, a full bust, and the 
 voice and gestures of a houri. I tell you what, 
 my dear, the possessor of such charms is a 
 lucky fellow ! Ta-ta !" 
 
 Constance's sense of humor, which was or- 
 dinarily keen, found, unfortunately, no food 
 in this comprehensive description. 
 
 When Mrs. Gerold's brougham crunched 
 away upon the gravel, she gave an audible 
 sigh of relief and of contemptuous displeas- 
 ure. Yet ridicule is so paralyzing a weapon 
 that the measure of her vexation hardly 
 reached the height of what her late tormentor 
 would have called " a fit of the tragics." 
 
 She slowly unfastened two buttons of her 
 summer riding-dress and drew a letter from 
 her breast. She held it hesitatingly for a 
 moment in her hands, turned it this way and 
 that, and then, angrily murmuring, " Bah ! 
 so much for love and for friendship !" tore it 
 into a hundred pieces. 
 
 " I wonder," she thought, bitterly, " if any
 
 140 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 other soul is as lonely as mine. Ever since 
 early childhood I have felt the isolation. 
 What is the matter with me ? I seem inca- 
 pable of single, simple emotions. Those I 
 love offend my taste, and where I have hated 
 I have always pitied. Is it the fault of my 
 own temperament ? Am I too fastidious, 
 and are not such subtleties weaknesses ? 
 We chatter of sympathy: what is it? To 
 suffer together? Who truly suffers with 
 us?" She should have known that a high 
 civilization is never obtained without a cor- 
 responding loss of robustness. A sense of 
 mortification and wounded vanity lingered 
 with her through the day, mingled with a 
 sentiment which was at once more poignant 
 and less unworthy. 
 
 Mrs. Gerold in the mean while laughed 
 heartily but not very good-naturedly at the 
 picture she had drawn. The quiet, plump 
 matron she had seen descending from the 
 drawing-room car and claiming a perfunc- 
 tory conjugal greeting was so unlike her 
 portrait !
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 Twelve hours before, while returning from 
 his own wanderings, Lawton's eyes had 
 chanced to rest on the pages of a weekly 
 journal which he had hardly ever before 
 opened. A young woman who had occupied 
 in the train the half of his seat, and had 
 perused its contents with a feverish avidity, 
 had, on alighting at her station, left it 
 behind her. He had, indeed, heard the 
 paper spoken of as a social sheet which 
 battened like a parasite on the wounds which 
 it inflicted. Its politics were hazy and vari- 
 able, following the evil humors of its editor. 
 Its literary criticisms were probably bought. 
 As he flicked over its pages carelessly, pages 
 filled with cruel personal allusions, low in- 
 nuendoes, and obscene jests, he wondered 
 what attraction it could have had to the 
 sweet-faced girl who had sat beside him. You 
 see, he was a simple-minded person, and 
 he associated maidenhood with a love for 
 the poetic and the beautiful. This gross 
 materialism held his attention with a mix- 
 ture of curiosity and disgust.
 
 142 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 Suddenly, as Mr. Lawton was about to 
 throw the paper aside, his eyes became 
 arrested by a heading in larger type than 
 the rest: "Mrs. Slack Dresham's New Lap- 
 dog." He read it from beginning to end. 
 Under the name of Dawton he was made to 
 dance for the public. And what a dance it 
 was ! Everything that the most venomous 
 political rivalry might have inspired, every- 
 thing that the most petty personal rancor 
 and spite could have invented, was heaped 
 upon him in coarse freedom, and under 
 the faintly disguised names hardly a detail 
 of his late social experiences escaped or 
 failed to be held up to merciless ridicule. 
 His political creeds and methods, his dress, 
 his appearance, but, above all, his social 
 triumphs, were minutely recorded, and be- 
 came the target for a hundred poisoned 
 arrows. 
 
 His vanity and self-love were not inordi- 
 nate, and he could have laughed in scorn 
 but for the dragging in of Her. He was 
 malignantly called the new lapdog, whom
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 143 
 
 she had cajoled and petted; had made 
 absurd at the moment of all others when 
 the world's eyes were upon him. That 
 which had heen to him of ineffable sweet- 
 ness, an experience at once refined and 
 profound, was made the subject of vulgar 
 arid ribald jests. Of his wife it was kindly 
 said that in the new role of man of fashion 
 he bad forgotten the partner of his early 
 obscurity, the village girl who had once 
 been good enough for him, but whom he 
 had now far surpassed. She had been left 
 to darn her stockings in desolation by the 
 desecrated hearth, while his head lay, like 
 Samson's, on his new Delilah's knees. 
 
 To people of true sensitiveness such things 
 are terrible. That a creature like Constance 
 should be held up, almost by name, to 
 public opprobrium he knew that hundreds 
 would read and understand filled him with 
 a rage all the more violent that he knew it 
 was impotent. His own part in the per- 
 formance seemed to him both heinous and 
 horrible. Whether rightly or wrongly, she
 
 144 ^ SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 had embodied for him, in the brief summer 
 days that were over, everything that a woman 
 could of delicacy and of loveliness. He had 
 perhaps overrated her. Who can say? He 
 who has no such illusions is indeed poverty- 
 stricken. Daniel Lawton had for the first 
 time in his existence tasted of a draught 
 which, if it be indeed poison, is of a flavor 
 so exquisite that it would make death wel- 
 come ; he had smelled for one moment of that 
 sombre flower whose perfume leaves undying 
 memories. 
 
 During his drive homeward with his wife 
 and daughter, whom he had gone to meet a 
 few hours later, with his habitual courtesy, he 
 told Mrs. Lawton he had an invition for a ball 
 for her. 
 
 " Oh, mamma, mamma, you must go !" 
 cried Clem, clasping her hands. " I will dress 
 you!" 
 
 He had found a card from Mrs. Langton, 
 and had immediately resolved to go to this 
 ball, and take his wife with him. He had 
 written and told the old lady that Mrs. Law-
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 145 
 
 ton would be at home on the day mentioned, 
 and she had by return mail, with effusive 
 apologies, sent another card. 
 
 He thought his wife a perfect lady, and he 
 blamed himself for having given the world a 
 chance to doubt it. He repented, I am sorry 
 to add, of nothing else. He knew she was a 
 woman to whom a low thought or coarse 
 word would be impossible, a woman before 
 \vhom they would expire upon lips fain to 
 utter them. He remembered that some of 
 the ladies of fashion he had met, and who 
 might criticise her, he was not dull of per- 
 ceptions, were less fastidious and might well 
 emulate her in this. 
 
 The invitation was accepted, Clemence 
 having persuaded her mother that the coming 
 glories of gubernatorial precedence would 
 necessitate certain social efforts and conces- 
 sions. Early the next morning Mrs. Lawton 
 sought her husband's study, with anxious 
 wrinkles upon her usually smooth forehead. 
 
 " Do I disturb you, dear ?" 
 
 He looked up wearily. " Not at all." He 
 o k 13
 
 146 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 had been perusing all the morning a discur- 
 sive treatise on the tariff laws. 
 
 " I want to ask your advice ; you will think 
 it unimportant." Mrs. Lawton was depre- 
 cating. " Daniel, do the ladies wear very fine 
 clothes at the Goshen house ? Are they very 
 dressy ?" 
 
 "I didn't see any la any women at the 
 hotel excepting in very plain things, my 
 dear; travelling gowns mostly. All the so- 
 ciety, you know, is outside at the villas and 
 cottages, and they are very fine indeed," he 
 explained. 
 
 She sighed. " Oh, yes, of course ; I knew 
 that. I didn't suppose," she continued, tenta- 
 tively, "that my brown satin would do. 
 Clem says the waist is too high. Do they 
 wear low waists to everything?" 
 
 " Pretty low, it struck me," said Mr. Law- 
 ton, laughing, and at the same time some 
 recollection made the blood rise suddenly up 
 under his hair, and he fidgeted a little ner- 
 vously in his chair. 
 
 " You see," she continued, " I have so little
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 147 
 
 time. But," she added, smiling at him, "I 
 don't want to disgrace you, dear." 
 
 He winced. " By all means," he said, hur- 
 riedly, and rather huskily, " get a new dress, 
 and at once." Something which he gulped 
 down would come up in his throat. "You 
 can have all the money you want. Fix your- 
 self up handsomely, Mollie ; don't stint your- 
 self in the expense." 
 
 He spoke as cheerily and kindly as possible, 
 and the thought passed through her mind how 
 different he was from many husbands. He, 
 too, so clever and wonderful. 
 
 The flush had left him and his face was 
 pale." 
 
 ""Well," she said, "I will order the car- 
 riage, and Clem and I will drive into town, to 
 Madame Elise's. She must be made to get 
 me up something in three days." 
 
 She thought it was rather a pity to discard 
 the brown satin, which was very handsome, 
 and had a train, and was trimmed with real 
 lace ; but Clem had positively insisted that it 
 was not full dress.
 
 148 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 "I will put it in the trunk, in case we stay 
 several days, or are asked to dine out," she 
 thought. 
 
 " Oh, by the way, Daniel," she put her 
 head into the door again, " I wish you would 
 step to the stable and see the new mare. 
 They have put her into the box stall. She'll 
 do splendidly for the buggy. The man says 
 she is very fast in single harness. She is 
 spirited, he says, but gentle, and I think you 
 will find her convenient in the mornings." 
 
 The autumn had declared itself rainy. The 
 weather was lowering. It had poured steadily 
 for nearly a week, and the tides were extraor- 
 dinarily high. 
 
 Madame Elise, as she measured Mrs. Law- 
 ton, asked if Madame had heard that the old 
 dock under Harbor hill, where people went 
 of a Sunday afternoon, had been swept away, 
 and that even the cliffs were more or less 
 undermined. Then they chattered of ribbons 
 and embroideries, and storms and tides were 
 alike forgotten. 
 
 When the new gown came home, Mrs.
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 149 
 
 Lawton tried it on, with two neighbors who 
 had .dropped in, Clemence, and Kate the 
 housemaid in attendance. It was voted " very 
 becoming" and a great success. It was indeed 
 suitable and rich. It was a heavy violet silk 
 relieved with white lace, somewhat cut away 
 about the shoulders, and with sleeves which 
 met the long gloves, which had been pro- 
 vided for the occasion, a little above the 
 elbow. The ingenious Frenchwoman had 
 combined all the requirements of fashion and 
 of her conservative customer. 
 
 Clemence was wildly excited. No debutante 
 at her first party could have had a " send-off" 
 of more promise than this mother of a family. 
 A handsome white lace fan was produced. 
 There were pretty slippers, and even violet 
 hose ; and Clem exclaimed, " Well, ma, you 
 are just complete !" while Kate, at the door- 
 way, emphasized her admiration by repeated 
 exclamations that " Mrs. Lawton would be 
 the beautifulest belle at the ball." 
 
 Alas for human prophecies and their mea- 
 gre fulfilments ! 
 
 18*
 
 150 ^ SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 the night of the ball arrived, the 
 storm was raging with a fury that made the 
 gas-lights in front of the hotel flare and blink 
 like the eyes of old age. The torrents of rain 
 lashed against the window-panes of Mrs. Law- 
 ton's whitewashed bedroom until their sashes 
 shook and moaned under the stress. 
 
 If Clemence had only come with her 
 mother, all might have been different; but 
 the foolish Irish girl had alone accompanied 
 her mistress, and dropped early in the evening 
 the comment " that very few probably would 
 venture out on such a night, and that the new 
 dress would undoubtedly be ruined." 
 
 People who go to their first party after 
 twenty years of seclusion require discreet and 
 tactful handling. Mrs. Lawton's vacillating 
 courage sank. When the skirt was half over
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 her emerging head, she suddenly lurched out 
 of it with unusual alertness. 
 
 "Kate, take the horrid thing away! I 
 should look like a fool in it ! I simply can't 
 put it on. Give me my brown satin!" she 
 said, in desperation. 
 
 Kate, frightened at her own influence, en- 
 tered now a feeble protest, murmuring that 
 " Miss Clem would be very angry," but she 
 knew from the start that it was all up with 
 the violet silk and white lace magnificence. 
 
 When Mrs. Lawton surveyed herself in the 
 high-necked, long-sleeved dark gown, only 
 brightened at the neck by a few diamonds, 
 which did service on all grand occasions, she 
 felt relieved and almost consoled. She had 
 pictured herself sitting in unblushing effront- 
 ery amid a bevy of wiser dames, who would 
 naturally, on this frightful night, have con- 
 sulted the dictates of wisdom and sobriety. 
 Of course a few flighty young misses would 
 still wear their white frocks, but she felt sure 
 the older married women, at least, would be 
 less foolish. Her own foolishness will appear
 
 152 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 incomprehensible to the mondaine who slips 
 into the nudity of her ball corsage with as 
 much ease as she does into her satin shoe, but 
 Puritanically-bred " provincials" of modest and 
 retiring dispositions will more fully understand. 
 
 Mrs. Lawton felt some trepidation at ac- 
 knowledging her cowardice to her husband. 
 She wished to explain to him that it was a 
 sense of unfitness and not economy which had 
 prompted her to the change of toilet, but, 
 when they were at last ensconced in the car- 
 riage, he seemed so distrait in manner that she 
 imagined he must be composing an oration, 
 and she only casually mentioned to him that 
 she had donned the high-necked gown. 
 
 " I dare say it will look very nice, but what 
 will Clem say ?" He spoke absently, as if in 
 a dream, and she could only hope when he 
 saw her he would approve. 
 
 He was in a fever of unrest at the thought 
 of once more meeting Constance. She had 
 not replied to his letter, and there had been 
 no sign between them since that evening 
 when he had so completely lost himself. He
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 153 
 
 wondered if she were forever offended, and 
 felt that now when she saw him with his wife 
 the abyss he had himself put between them 
 could never again be spanned. The impulses 
 which had prompted him to bring Mrs. Law- 
 ton were too complicated for analysis. The 
 reader who is no novice in the intricacies 
 of human motive will require no explanation, 
 while to the unimaginative and inexperienced 
 even the inscriptions on guide-posts are indis- 
 tinct. 
 
 Probably a form of pride which is akin to 
 humility was the strongest motor. Almost 
 immediately after they entered the room, Mrs. 
 Langton separated them. 
 
 " Mr. Fane has something particular to ask 
 you," she whispered in Mr. Lawton's ear. 
 " Something political, I think, about your 
 party organization here." Mrs. Langton liked 
 to be considered au fait about everything. 
 "He is looking all over the place for you. 
 Go, like a dear, and find him, and I will take 
 charge of your wife." 
 
 Mrs. Lawton had indeed hardly time to
 
 154 -A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 realise that, with the exception of a very old 
 lady in an ermine tippet, she had on the only 
 high-necked gown in the rooms, when four or 
 five men were introduced to her in rapid suc- 
 cession. Whether it was an overwhelming 
 conviction of her mistake in not having worn 
 the violet silk, or a natural inaptitude at con- 
 versation with unknown gentlemen, certain it 
 is that she found herself quite unable to enter- 
 tain them, After having expressed her ad- 
 miration of the really brilliant scene, having 
 commented upon its animation, upon the 
 warmth of the atmosphere inside and the dis- 
 malness of the storm outside, she had nothing 
 left to say to them. She noticed that by and 
 by they one by one became restive, and finally, 
 in the increasing rush and crush .of new arri- 
 vals, made hurried excuses of other claims 
 upon them and gradually fell away from her. 
 She was left at last standing quite alone in a 
 door-way, rather glad to be rid of her cava- 
 liers, and yet hardly knowing where to place 
 herself. 
 
 She espied an empty chair in an embrasure,
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 155 
 
 half hidden by the voluminous skirts of two 
 middle-aged ladies, resplendent in " shimmer 
 of satin and glimmer of pearls," with a profu- 
 sion of vari-colored feathers upon their heads. 
 They were women at the very least ten years 
 older than herself. They looked well and 
 fresh enough, however, and she gazed with 
 wonder at their bared necks and rather envied 
 them their pluck. One was in pale rose, the 
 other in a deep sapphire-colored satin. 
 
 There was no doubt of it ; she herself had 
 made a fatal blunder. At the mere idea of 
 telling Clemence she grew alarmed. The 
 child would be so disappointed. She had 
 been so proud of that other gown. Almost 
 unobserved, Mrs. Lawton managed to ensconce 
 herself behind these showy dowagers. Not 
 being accustomed to belledom, or to any 
 homage from men except such as was prompted 
 by the merest friendliness, she felt somewhat 
 lonely, to be sure, but not mortified, and, on 
 the whole, interested and rather amused. 
 Soon, probably, Mrs. Langton or her husband 
 would come up.
 
 156 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 Her neighbors were engaged in an animated 
 conversation. They spoke in an audible whis- 
 per, and indulged now and then in low, well- 
 bred laughter. Sometimes she caught the 
 thread of their disjointed talk, and then lost 
 it again in the general hum, the blare of the 
 band, and the tread of the dancers in the ad- 
 joining ballroom. When" they, however, men- 
 tioned Mr. Lawton's name, she would have 
 been more than human had she not listened. 
 
 " Which is he ? I was away when he was 
 here. Do show him to me !" 
 
 " There over there ! Don't you see ! He 
 is putting his hand up to his head; leaning 
 against the portiere. The man with the gray 
 hair." 
 
 " What, that young-looking man ?" said the 
 first speaker, putting up a long gold eye-glass. 
 " Why, he is certainly very striking. A fine 
 head." 
 
 " Do you think he looks so young ? He is 
 gray." 
 
 " I should say from forty to forty-five. It 
 is a splendid face. I am quite surprised.
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 157 
 
 They say there is no doubt he will be gov- 
 ernor." 
 
 " Oh, my husband is such a partisan ! He 
 of course believes it, thinks that he is a very 
 remarkable man; but then there are those 
 who doubt. One can never be sure. Each 
 side is carried away by its own party hue and 
 cry." 
 
 Mrs. Lawton listened and was edified. 
 
 " These men whose lives are full of serious 
 interests really live longer and look younger 
 than the idlers. It is what we don't do that 
 wears upon us. So, at least, I tell my son, 
 who is, I regret to say, a, flaneur." 
 
 " Very cleverly put. Has he a family ?" . 
 
 " Who ? Mr. Lawton ? I think there is a 
 wife. I fancied somebody said she was to be 
 here to-night." 
 
 " I don't see her with him." 
 
 "I wonder what Connie Gresham will say?" 
 
 " Oh, by the way ! yes, I hear it is quite a 
 flirtation !" 
 
 " She is such an incorrigible coquette. I 
 must confess I think the young married 
 14
 
 158 ^ SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 women are carrying that sort of thing too 
 far." 
 
 "Ah, well! Mrs. Jack is very attractive, 
 and men will burn their fingers." 
 
 " I wonder her husband allows it." 
 
 " Oh, my dear, it is the fate of the hus- 
 bands of pretty women to be a little neglected." 
 
 " Connie is certainly fascinating and clever, 
 and the house is admirably ordered. I like 
 her, but I think her foolish about some things. 
 
 Now, this man " Then others came up, 
 
 and the subject changed. 
 
 Mrs. Lawton too came out of her window- 
 seat. She wanted air, she was stifling. She 
 didn't believe what she had heard, not a word 
 of it. Daniel would not lend himself to such 
 a thing. It was impossible ; he was above it. 
 Nevertheless, as she pushed through the crowd 
 into the next room, her limbs were trembling 
 in a strange fashion. Here she found the 
 mothers of two or three disconsolate daughters 
 huddled together in a corner. She sank into 
 a seat beside them. One, who seemed com- 
 municative, turned to her amiably.
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 159 
 
 " My girl is so timid," she said. " I cannot 
 get her to even stand up and show herself." 
 
 The girl in question, who had very thin 
 shoulder-blades, jerked them, and emitted a 
 little groan. 
 
 " She has such a lovely gown," said the 
 mother. "It is so silly not to go into the ball- 
 room and show it and dance." 
 
 " I might stand there all night and nobody 
 ask me," said the girl, snappishly. "Not a 
 soul, and you know it." 
 
 " Well, it is all your fault. Other girls get 
 on who have not had half the advantages." 
 
 " My daughter is just the same," said an- 
 other mother, sympathetically, who was seated 
 just behind a young lady in scarlet tulle. 
 " She is too particular. Young Bolton asked 
 her for the cotillon, but she refused him 
 flatly, and says his shoes always smell of 
 blacking. It is perfectly ridiculous, I tell her. 
 Debutantes cannot afford to put on airs." 
 
 " I haven't got anybody to put on airs 
 with," said the snappish girl, tartly. "No 
 one ever comes near me."
 
 160 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 " You are too modest, my dear," said the 
 second mother, secretly enchanted at her own 
 daughter's greater success. 
 
 Mrs. Lawton noticed that the first mother 
 put her foot out under the cross girl's chair 
 and gave her a little kick. The dull pain she 
 had felt was passing off somewhat, and she 
 was thanking God that her Clemence was not 
 here, but safely at home and asleep. That 
 was some comfort. Happiness and fame and 
 honor seemed to be away in the glittering 
 pale-blue distance where swinging lamps and 
 fragrant flowers and splendid jewels and ra- 
 diant women were moving in a panorama of 
 warmth and light. Here were congregated 
 the bitterness of discontent and failure. 
 
 It was just then that Mrs. Gresham crossed 
 the room upon her husband's arm. 
 
 " Why, there is Mrs. Jack Gresham ! And 
 Mr. Gresham is with her !" 
 
 " They say that Mr. Lawton, who is running 
 for governor, is a great friend of hers." 
 
 " The more fool he. She will lead him a 
 dance !"
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 
 
 " Is it for the dance, I wonder, lie has put 
 
 on those laveader gloves, that are a mile too 
 large for him, poor thing ? I saw him pass a 
 few moments ago." 
 
 " There was an abominable squib about 
 
 them in the weekly ." And the first 
 
 mother mentioned the paper Daniel Lawton 
 had read with such anger. 
 
 - " Oh, pshaw ! Who cares ? Not Mrs. Jack, 
 I am sure. All she thinks of is her own 
 amusement. She won't mind." 
 
 " She is just perfectly exquisite," exclaimed 
 in concert the girl in scarlet and the snappish 
 girl, gazing after Mrs. Gresham's retiring 
 form. 
 
 " The gentlemen certainly admire her," said 
 the mothers in unison, but without heat. 
 
 Then the first mother added, " Is her color 
 her own, do you think ?" 
 
 May Gerold now passed through on the 
 Turk's arm ; it is to be supposed he was still 
 in the " first stage." She had taken Mrs. 
 Gresham's advice and wore black. She 
 looked extremely distinguished, with her 
 i ', 14*
 
 162 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 straight, slim figure, her pallor, and her near- 
 sighted eyes under their black brows. 
 
 One of the gentlemen who had been pre- 
 sented to Mrs. Lawton early in the evening, 
 conscious of his shortcomings and at the 
 instigation of the hostess, who was still de- 
 tained at the door, now came forward and, 
 offering his arm gallantly, asked if she would 
 like to see the dancing. 
 
 She remembered that she took it. She 
 talked to him mechanically on various topics. 
 While she did so she saw her husband ap- 
 proach Mrs. Gresham, look at and speak to 
 her ; and then she knew. Those cruel women 
 need not have enlightened her. There are 
 instincts more unerring than the sense of 
 hearing. She saw their eyes meet and mingle. 
 She had never seen this expression in her 
 husband's before. All the truth flashed upon 
 her sick soul. 
 
 Dramatic people, who express more than 
 they feel, can probably form no conception 
 of what emotion means to slowly-stirred, com- 
 monplace, placid natures. The latter have no
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 163 
 
 eloquence with which to voice their woe to- 
 day, no facile pen that shall dilate on it 
 to-morrow. Tongue and pen will be alike 
 unavailable, but the agony is there all the 
 same. 
 
 It is commonly said that a jealous woman 
 can do no justice to her rival. This is untrue. 
 The passions have quickened perceptions of 
 their own which are more generally correct 
 than false, and their illuminations are often 
 clearer in such minds as are ordinarily obtuse. 
 
 Constance was dressed with great simplicity, 
 but Mrs.. Lawton did not make the mistake 
 of imagining her to be simple. She recog- 
 nized at once that her repose and the gra- 
 ciousness of her cold smile were of the high- 
 est art. She wore soft white crepe de Chine, 
 with some pearls at her throat. There were 
 lilies of the valley in her girdle and a great 
 loose bunch of the same flowers in her hand. 
 Sometimes her arm hung by her side, and 
 sometimes she raised the bouquet and buried 
 her face in its blossoms. Mrs. Lawton noted 
 too that her color was genuine; and that,
 
 164 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 if she was a coquette and a flirt, she was also 
 something more ; she made the women about 
 her look tawdry, loud, and overdressed. 
 
 The barn-yard fowl that cackles over its 
 brood is a peaceful bird enough, but let some 
 common enemy hover near, and with ruffled 
 wings and threatening beak and talons it may 
 become a dangerous antagonist. Pussy lies 
 before the hearth and licks her furry paws, 
 purring and calm as a slumbering infant, yet, 
 in a moment, if her rival Ponto should show 
 his face at the drawing-room door, you have 
 the tiger-cat, fierce and furious, with glit- 
 tering eyeball, quivering tail, and foaming 
 mouth, ready to spring. Even the toothless 
 old lion of whose docility the keeper has 
 boasted will, if that keeper deprive him for 
 but one hour of his food, turn upon him in 
 frenzy, and tear and mangle and suck the 
 blood of the hand it fawned upon. The wild 
 beast only sleeps ; it can still get up, shake 
 itself, growl, prowl, kill. 
 
 Mrs. Lawton saw her husband approach 
 Mrs. Gresham. She saw the young woman's
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 165 
 
 nonchalant manner change to one of eager 
 pleasure, for Constance had passed through 
 many moods since we left her, and to-night 
 they had all culminated in an intense hunger 
 to see him again. It did not escape Mrs. 
 Lawton's strained attention that the counte- 
 nance which had been so indifferent became 
 almost tender, as the expression of one across 
 whose smiling flits an idea of pathos. 
 
 She also noticed that Mrs. Greshain's pres- 
 tige was shared by the man beside her, and 
 that they two seemed to be courted and 
 petted in an atmosphere of equal homage by 
 the group which surrounded them. She 
 glanced down at herself, and felt herself to 
 be not only dingy and dowdy, but insignifi- 
 cant, old, and hideous, and, with a sudden 
 revelation of her husband's physical attrac- 
 tions, which was as penetrating as a desire 
 of the senses, she became the prey of an 
 acute jealousy of his beauty as well as of her 
 rival's. She hated them both. So in this 
 gentle woman's breast awoke the savage in- 
 stinct the animal with its appeal to her sex
 
 166 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 and to her vanity. She would have liked to 
 tear the pearls from Mrs. Gresham's throat, 
 to spit at and strike her, to trample upon her 
 flowers, to insult and mar her loveliness. 
 
 Her reason must have tottered for a mo- 
 ment, for she went so far as to imagine that 
 they were speaking of her together; that 
 Mrs. Gresham asked who she was, and that 
 her husband repudiated her; that they were 
 ridiculing her together. They had, in fact, 
 not even seen her, being mutually absorbed. 
 Of course, in a saner moment she would have 
 known he was incapable of such baseness. 
 Her sufferings became so insupportable that 
 she determined to end them, and, suddenly 
 turning, asked the man who was with her 
 for a glass of water. The instant he had left 
 her, she accosted a servant who was passing 
 with a tray of empty glasses : "I am feeling 
 ill," she said to him, hurriedly; "please help 
 me to my carriage ; and do you see that gen- 
 tleman over there speaking to the lady in 
 white ? In about fifteen minutes, mind you, 
 not sooner, tell him his wife went home ;
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 167 
 
 had a little headache; nothing serious, and 
 he must on no account hurry, he must stay. 
 Now, promise to do this for me, and come." 
 
 The servant, an old man with stooping 
 shoulders, who had been in the family for 
 years, stared at her with his sunken, tired 
 eyes. " Certainly, ma'am, certainly ! I will 
 tell the gentleman. Shall I call Mrs. Lang- 
 ton ? Would you like a maid ?" 
 
 His sympathetic voice and kindly manner 
 so unnerved her that she feared she could not 
 repress the tears, but she made a superhuman 
 effort. 
 
 " No, nothing, only come !" she said, so 
 decidedly that he deposited his tray and fol- 
 lowed her. 
 
 He helped her into her fur cloak and went 
 out to tell the footman. This smart English 
 lackey called out for the carriage, which Mrs. 
 Lawton had prudently ordered very early. . It 
 was one from a livery-stable ; respectable, but 
 not elegant; and he helped the modestly- 
 attired lone person into it with civility, but 
 without enthusiasm. She was thankful the
 
 168 ^ SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 drive was not too short ; she could give way to 
 her despair. 
 
 On his part, Daniel Lawjon's evening had 
 not been without incident, for he had at last 
 seen . . . the husband, and, as is the case in 
 real life, where nothing happens but the un- 
 expected, it had passed without complications 
 of any sort. Mrs. Gresham had introduced 
 the rosy, jovial, round-faced fellow to him, 
 and he had been forced to admit to himself 
 that he seemed manly and frank. In fact, 
 Jack Gresham had few enemies, and the worst 
 these could say of him was that he was not 
 overburdened with brains, and that he grew 
 sometimes a trifle heated over his wine. The 
 two men had shaken hands and talked for a 
 few minutes about hunting. He had heard 
 him address her as " Con," and had looked in 
 vain in her eyes for an expression of fear or 
 of dislike. Shall I add that she had even 
 been amicable in her manner, had called him 
 "Jack," and had asked him to bring her a 
 cup of bouillon, and that when he did so she 
 nodded her thanks to him pleasantly ?
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 The conviction was unwillingly borne in 
 upon Lawton, who studied their minutest 
 actions with the keenest anxiety, that Mrs. 
 Gresham did not shrink from her husband 
 with loathing, and that their relations, what- 
 ever they might be, were at least friendly. It 
 was indeed difficult to imagine one's self de- 
 testing Jack Gresham, he was so very good- 
 natured. Lawton, himself, to his immense 
 regret, found it impossible to do so not yet, 
 not at once, at least well, then no matter. 
 Even if the plane were a lower one, one hour 
 of life, one hour ! He was starving, and she 
 was here beside him! The pure breath of 
 her mouth fanned his cheek, the touch of her 
 hand was upon his arm. Oh, the ecstasy 
 of it! 
 
 And Constance for women are proverbially 
 indulgent to the men who love them leaned 
 to him, speaking low, sweet words, filled with 
 that happiness which his adoration and his 
 presence always gave her. Probably she did 
 not even notice that his gloves were too large 
 for him. The marked improvement in the 
 
 H 15
 
 170 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 matter of his costume of late she had accepted 
 as the most delicate incense of flattery to her- 
 self. She had reached that stage of sentiment 
 where such discrepancies as might still exist 
 struck her as pathetic, and, as such, endearing. 
 At any rate, this thing had been " different;" 
 of this she had felt sure from the beginning. 
 To him she was an elixir of strong wine, re- 
 newing, stimulating to the utmost every 
 faculty of heart and brain, rousing him to 
 fresh ambitions. He told himself this was 
 growth. While she felt with him like a tired 
 chaser of shadows who grasps at last the real. 
 There was something broad and sweet in the 
 man. He had dwarfed her own world.
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 171 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE domestic delivered his message faith- 
 fully: fidelity was his strong point. He did 
 so just as Lawton was about to seek his wife. 
 He was too upright and honorable a man to 
 bring her here, a stranger, to a house where 
 he felt at home, and to wound her by any dis- 
 respect or neglect. He was, as I say, about to 
 look for her and present to her some of his 
 acquaintances. He had even thought it prob- 
 able that she and Mrs. Gresham would meet, 
 and, although not enough a man of the world 
 to face this ordeal with entire composure, he 
 would rather have died than seem to shun it, 
 and had, in fact, determined to let things take 
 their course. 
 
 Tow for an instant he thought, with a 
 qualm of conscience, of following her, but, 
 man-like, he was provoked that she had not
 
 172 -4 SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 waited for him. He told himself that her 
 impatience was childish in the extreme, and 
 the more he thought of it the more annoyed 
 and irritated with her he became. How 
 would she ever meet the exigencies of her 
 impending position if she were so easily 
 haffled by her first social effort ? 
 
 So, when Constance's eyes bade him stay, 
 he lingered. Socrates himself must have had 
 his hours of recklessness. When he reached 
 his rooms two hours later and stopped at his 
 wife's door, all was silent and dark. He 
 turned the handle and found it locked. He 
 therefore concluded she was asleep. But Mrs. 
 Lawton was not asleep. After he had gone 
 to his bed she crept up noiselessly and leaned 
 against his door. She listened to his lightest 
 movement, to his breathing, as if they would 
 betray to her his secrets. It is a great shock 
 to find the heart you have rested on in peace 
 filled with tumults of which you know nothing. 
 
 Lawton had never been a demonstrative 
 man, and Mrs. Lawton, albeit loving, was of a 
 calm temperament ; " her demands upon his
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 173 
 
 affectionateness had at no times been great. 
 Now, standing shivering with bare feet on the 
 cold floor of her dreary hotel room, she re- 
 membered all of the past, and marvelled that 
 she had been so easily satisfied. Lately he 
 had been even less warm than usual, and she, 
 in her silly security, had attributed it to the 
 cares and anxieties of his campaign. 
 
 She had, of course, known that the world 
 was full of folly, of untruth, and of sin, but 
 she had never believed that these things could 
 touch herself. She read of them, heard of 
 them daily, and had fancied that she alone 
 wore a magic armor, was safe. What an 
 idiot she had been ! Now she felt sure that 
 he had never loved her. A woman's faith, 
 which has burned steadily for years, will 
 waver at a breath. A man's, once accorded, 
 is with difficulty shaken. She thought of 
 Constance, and in her own humility asked 
 herself what qualities she possessed to cope 
 with such a sorceress, and she said to herself, 
 "None." She had been engrossed with her 
 household, with bringing up the children, and 
 15*
 
 174 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 she had shared none of her husband's pur- 
 suits, none of his literary activities. Even his 
 political career she had borne with, rather 
 than encouraged. How could she fill the 
 manifold requirements of such a mind as his ! 
 He had made strides and left her behind. All 
 was clear to her now as the day. 
 
 As she stood there in her wretchedness she 
 longed to cry out to him, to touch his hand, 
 to creep into his arms and be comforted ; but 
 the anger and pride of her offended woman- 
 hood rose up and checked her, and she gave 
 no sign. 
 
 When he met her the next morning, he 
 found her and Kate booted and spurred and 
 packed for an early boat. She murmured 
 something about being worried; that little 
 Dan had a cold, and that she had decided not 
 to remain another night. She bade him fare- 
 well quite cheerfully. He was obliged to re- 
 main until the evening, to be present at an 
 important committee meeting. It would be 
 one of the last, for the elections were drawing 
 nigh.
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 175 
 
 A week later the great day had arrived. 
 The incessant rain had at last ceased. The 
 storm seemed to have blown itself out, and 
 the wind-swept valley was at rest. A bright 
 sunshine shone upon the scene, and lighted 
 up alike the banners of Marcus M. Curley, 
 which flaunted in the fresh north wind with 
 an impudent assurance, and those which 
 waved across the street a hideous effigy of 
 Lawton's fine face. Curley's supporters were 
 loud in their braggings, as people are who 
 lead a forlorn hope and are really wading 
 knee-deep in despondency. The voting was 
 brisk, and the streets were full of men. 
 There were crowds about and at the polls. 
 They said it would be one of the largest votes 
 that had ever been cast ; but everything was 
 well-ordered and quiet. Party feeling ran 
 high, but there was no disturbance. The 
 police, who patrolled the town, were on the 
 alert, but had hardly more onerous duties 
 than usual to fulfil. A few warrants had been 
 issued to the deputy marshals for the arrest 
 of persons accused of illegal registration. A
 
 176 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 few men charged with " impersonation" were 
 seized at the instigation of the inspectors and 
 held for future examination. 
 
 A certain number of jubilant Irishmeii who 
 had celebrated the day early by copious liba- 
 tions, and who were a trifle noisy, were col- 
 lared and hustled off to the station-houses. 
 Among the vehement supporters of the two 
 opponents the Independents crept about sul- 
 lenly, maintaining as to their own intentions 
 a sphinx-like reserve. They seemed to be 
 coquetting between the rival factions, who, 
 in their turn, felt the pulse of this agitating 
 minority which resists, protests, and warns, 
 caressing and making them overtures. One 
 could never know until the ballots were 
 counted how an extra vote or two might turn 
 the scale. 
 
 Lawton remembered after his mid-day meal, 
 of which he partook at his office, that, besides 
 being election-day, this Tuesday was one of 
 some significance in his private annals. It 
 was the anniversary of his engagement. He 
 had forgotten it in the morning. It had been
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 177 
 
 their wont his and his wife's always to cel- 
 ebrate, the afternoon with a tete-h-iete drive into 
 the country, unless indeed, which had rarely 
 happened, business or illness interfered. He 
 now remembered it with compunction. He 
 had noticed that his wife's manner was 
 marked in its coldness since the fatal ball, but 
 he had pretended not to remark the change, 
 as people do who live in fear of explanations 
 and their consequences. All deceit and trick- 
 ery were hateful to him, and he hoped there 
 was nothing. It was at any rate safer to 
 ignore. It is easier, however, to say " what is 
 beyond remedy should be beyond concern" 
 than to put this sound philosophy into execu- 
 tion. 
 
 To-day, it must be confessed, he rather 
 dreaded the ttte-ci-tete, but it was not in his 
 character to shrink from unpleasant contin- 
 gencies. He reminded himself of her many 
 virtues, of her unselfishness, of her devotion 
 to his children ; and his conscience smote him. 
 He would not appear negligent. He tele- 
 graphed to her that she must not forget what
 
 178 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 day of the month it was ; that he would be 
 out at three to drive her to Harbor Hill, and 
 begged her to have the new mare put into the 
 light wagon. In an hour he received her 
 answer. It was short : " I will be ready." 
 
 At a few minutes past three they started. 
 He found his hands were full with the young 
 horse, and for the first half-hour little else- was 
 spoken of between them except of her merits 
 and demerits, her possibilities and peculiari- 
 ties. She seemed somewhat skittish, and 
 chafed on the bit, but Lawton was an experi- 
 enced driver, having learned in his boyhood to 
 break in colts on his father's farm, and man- 
 aged her admirably. His wife had implicit 
 confidence in his skill, and was not by nature 
 timorous. They then spoke of the elections, 
 and he expressed himself as glad to escape for 
 a couple of hours from the heated excitement 
 of the town and the importunities of ofiicious 
 friends into the freshness of the quiet fields. 
 
 The raindrops still fell from the trees above 
 them, and the mud flew up high under the 
 wheels. When they reached Harbor Hill,
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 179 
 
 these topics, however, were exhausted, and 
 there . arose a certain chill and embarrassment 
 between them. Wedged so closely into the 
 narrow wagon, bound together so mightily by 
 the ties of custom, by years of mutual in- 
 terests and mutual sacrifices, these two people 
 felt themselves in that moment immeasurably 
 far apart. They sat shoulder to shoulder, now 
 and then pushed up together by the jolts of 
 the springs on the uneven road ; yet they were 
 ill at ease, and would have given worlds if 
 they might have done with this drive, which 
 was such a mockery, and be once more 
 asunder. But Mrs. Lawton had come with a 
 purpose, and that purpose was to be accom- 
 plished. She tried two or three times to say 
 what she had come to say, but her mouth was 
 so dry she could not speak. At last she did 
 muster up sufficient courage. 
 
 " Dan," she said, " Dan, I want to speak to 
 you." 
 
 " Yes, my dear ?" touching the mare's neck 
 gently with the whip, but somehow his heart 
 stood still.
 
 180 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 " When I left that party the other night, it 
 was not the headache that drove me away ; it 
 was the heartache, Daniel." 
 
 There was something so solemn in her tone 
 that he found no word to say to her. 
 
 " Listen," she continued, " and I will tell 
 you all. I cannot tell you what I heard. It 
 is useless. Those fashionable folks have 
 tongues in their heads that are as bitter as the 
 adder's. No matter what I heard, though 
 they talked of you, Daniel, and and of that 
 woman, till I felt I ought to scream out to you 
 and force you to listen to me and be warned ! 
 No, it was not that ! I am no gossip myself, 
 and I don't lay too much stress on what tattlers 
 say. No ; but I saw you go up to her, and I 
 saw you look at her as you never looked at 
 me, and I seemed to to to have lost you !" 
 
 She gasped for breath, and he remained 
 speechless. 
 
 " I understand now perfectly, Daniel, that I 
 have been a fool ; I have been too busy over 
 the house and the children. When I saw 
 those women, I felt I was nothing. I have
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 neglected myself. I cannot talk, and I cannot 
 even dress. "When I thought of all that would 
 be expected of me now that you will have such 
 a big place, I felt like running and hiding, or 
 asking you to let me go back to ma, for for 
 for you never have loved me, Dan, I am sure of 
 it ! And, do you know, when you hung over 
 her I knew how it was. I hated her, I hated 
 you ! I felt outraged, but I saw her power ! I 
 do not think you have been wicked are those 
 women up to that ?" she asked, with strange 
 astuteness. "Don't they -care too much for 
 themselves ? But if I tell you what I thought, 
 will you forgive me, Dan? I thought she 
 asked you who I was, and that you said you 
 did not know; that you laughed at me to- 
 gether! Daniel! Daniel!" and she clutched 
 at his knee with one of her hands convul- 
 sively, " say it was not true ! say it was not 
 true ! You would not deny your little Dan's 
 mother !" 
 
 In her agitation she had grown half-wild 
 again, and her eyes fixed his with an anguish 
 of questioning. 
 
 16
 
 182 ^ SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 Then something in the man's being gave 
 way. His head fell forward on his breast, 
 and he broke forth into violent tears and 
 sobbings. 
 
 Her own tears flowed freely now at the 
 sight of his unwonted emotion, and they fell 
 upon her hands like a healing balm, for at 
 least he was not of stone. At the sight of 
 her pain he too suffered. 
 
 There was another witness of this scene, to 
 whom, if incomprehensible, it gave greater 
 freedom. As Lawton raised one powerful 
 hand to his face to wipe away the great drops 
 which trickled through his fingers, the mare 
 trembled, feeling the joy of the slackened 
 rein. It is impossible for the chronicler to 
 know why or at what she took fright. Some 
 workmen were blasting rocks in a neighboring 
 quarry. An explosion a little louder than the 
 preceding ones was the first signal. In a 
 moment Lawton was erect, with the reins 
 tightly rolled about his wrists, his feet braced 
 firmly against the dash-board. An instant 
 later he cried to his wife,
 
 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 183 
 
 " Throw yourself out ! I cannot hold her !" 
 and they were hurling towards the cliffs. 
 
 Harbor Hill on its inward slope was a gentle 
 declivity of grassy meadow, the land dropping 
 to the valley. On the sea it was a high steep 
 cliff of sand and loose boulders. 
 
 As the mare made for and neared the preci- 
 pice, Lawton repeated his command to his 
 wife to cast herself to the ground, but she 
 hesitated. 
 
 A few yards from the edge he tried, with 
 frantic energy, to turn the mare's head. The 
 wagon swerved round with a jerk under them, 
 and he felt the back wheels sink. 
 
 The soil, undermined by the recent floods, 
 had given way. The mare herself seemed 
 to know that her last hour had come. As 
 the earth caved in under her hind legs, she 
 snorted with agony, and her eyeballs shot 
 forth flame. 
 
 Mrs. Lawton had just time to throw herself 
 across her husband's breast, and so, clinging 
 closer to each other than ever they had done 
 in the first pure transports of their boy and
 
 184 A SUCCESSFUL MAN 
 
 girl affection, they were swept down together 
 into the eternal silence. 
 
 An hour later, in the neighboring towns 
 and on the highways, the newsboys were 
 running about shouting out their "Extras" 
 announcing to the world that Daniel Lawton 
 was elected governor of the State by an over- 
 whelming majority. 
 
 Through the still evening air Constance, 
 leaning at her window, heard their distant 
 cries. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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