ESSENTIAL THING ARTHUR HODGES THE ESSENTIAL THING DORIS The Essential Thing By Arthur Hodges Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher New York Dodd, Mead and Company 1912 Copyright, 1012 BY DODD. MEAD & COMPANY Published, March, 1912 To M. L. S. 2072084 THE ESSENTIAL THING CHAPTER I GOEFFREY HUNTER awoke in his flat in the Kenworthy Chambers just off Fifth Avenue, feeling very, very wretched. As had happened more than once of late, he had drunk too much the night before. Glancing for his watch and not seeing it on the small table at the side of the bed, he lay still for a minute, trying to determine the time. His bedroom was a large square apartment with two windows looking west and the bed in which he now began to move restlessly was of mahogany with four slender columns. A lambrequin of old red velvet, such as one sees in Italian churches at high festivals, hung from its cornice and at each corner were suspended curtains of red damask. An air of rich confusion reigned. The walls were hung with damask and his bedspread had been fashioned out of some antique vestments. A chest of drawers of Dutch marquetry, grandiose and impressive with its swelling front, stood between the windows, and a mirror placed in an ancient Florentine frame of gilded wood and hanging above it reflected a quantity of silver toilet articles with which its top was littered. A sofa, deep and luxurious, occupied the wall opposite the chest of drawers, and between the bed and the fireplace were arranged several easy chairs and a large table on which were piled a quantity of % THE ESSENTIAL THING novels and reviews in English, Italian and French. Some Scutari rugs were piled in a corner, a large tapestry carelessly folded occupied one end of the sofa and a renaissance crucifix in carved wood six feet long, which had been sent in by some dealer for his inspec- tion, rested across the arms of one of the chairs. In addition the room was disordered by various articles of clothing strewn about the floor: a dress coat, a white waistcoat, a pair of pumps kicked off unceremoniously, his watch, and a badly ruffled silk hat. Goeffrey turned his head. In his sitting-room at the right, he could see a fire burning cheerfully in the grate, and from somewhere close at hand came the sound of running water. Presently this sound ceased and a door opened and softly closed. " Waters ! " Goeffrey called. A stout, smooth-faced man appeared from the sitting- room. "What, sir?" he asked in an obsequious manner. The simple vulgarity of this phrase which Waters al- ways used in answering him, often amused Goeffrey, but this morning he felt irritated by it. " What time is it? " he replied shortly. " Eleven o'clock, sir," Waters answered, and seeing the battered hat which lay almost at his feet, he picked it up and began to brush and straighten it dexter- ously. " Mr. Pandolfi stopped in, sir," he continued ; he placed the hat in a clothes closet at one end of the sofa, moving with great softness and agility, and emerged THE ESSENTIAL THING 3 bringing with him a pair of trees which he inserted in the pumps. " He called to ask you something about the supper next Thursday, sir, and " " Never mind that now, Waters," interrupted Goef- frey, who was turning impatiently in bed. " Yes, sir." Waters, who had been breathing on the pumps and rubbing them briskly on his coat sleeve, put them has- tily down and seizing the evening coat, ran to the bureau and returning with a clothes brush began to brush it vigorously. Suddenly he stopped and said earnestly : " Mr. Goeffrey." "What is it? " Goeffrey answered irritably. " Don't you think the red silk tablecloth will be the one to use, sir? " " What on earth are you talking about ? " " About the supper, sir we haven't used it for some time, and if we had yellow tulips to go with it, the effect would be most pleasing. I mentioned it to Mr. Pandolfi, sir, and he thought it an excellent idea, only he suggested that we have mixed in with the tulips, some " " Please, Waters," Goeffrey again interrupted, " never mind about that now ; wait until I am better and then we can talk about it." " Yes, sir, I'm sorry, sir," answered Waters, his face falling. The coat and waistcoat had been carefully folded 4 THE ESSENTIAL THING and put away, and Waters picking up the watch, at- tacked the trousers, the overcoat and the shirt, from which the buttons must be removed. Standing by the chest of drawers, deftly inserting the sleeve links into a fresh one, which he had taken from them, he paused and said quickly: " Mr. Goeff rey ! Miss Adair called you on the tele- phone last night, to say that you were not to forget that she is to come here for luncheon to-day and that you are going to the matinee afterwards." " Waters ! " Goeffrey sat up in the bed and spoke sternly. " I want you to pull the shades down and then to go at once, do you hear? " " Oh ! yes, sir," Waters answered hastily, and drop- ping the shirt he ran to the windows ; he could not re- sist, however, while passing the table, picking up some of the magazines and leaving them in a neat pile. Returning, he noticed for the first time, Goeffrey's undershirt lying on the bed and stooping over to pick it up, he said: " Shall I get you some breakfast, sir ? " Goeffrey seized the shirt and tore it from his hands. " Good God ! Waters, please, please go away," he fairly shouted, and Waters disappeared into the sitting-room shutting the door after him. Yes, Goeffrey was feeling very, very wretched: his head ached with a dull pounding throb, sharp pains which seemed to lurk behind his eyeballs, tortured him, and at times something like a chill swept through him. After lying for some time with closed eyes, hoping that THE ESSENTIAL THING 5 the feeling of general malaise which oppressed him would pass away, he got up, went into the bathroom and swallowed a dose of some nostrum which had been recommended to him as being efficacious in such cases, getting into bed again quickly, but after waiting for a quarter of an hour and still feeling no better, he got up again, determined to try his bath which Waters had prepared for him, hoping that the cold plunge would prove beneficial. Instead of the agreeable shock he usually experienced, the water seemed cruelly cold, and jumping out quickly, with chattering teeth, he began to rub desperately, but growing colder each mo- ment, he hurried into bed again with a groan, mutter- ing: " Good God ! what retribution." Finally, getting up for the third time, he dressed hurriedly, tossed on an overcoat, seized a hat and went out. CHAPTER II GOEFFREY had been born in one of two old mansions which stood together in Waverly Place. The other was occupied when they were in town, which was sel- dom, by his cousin Richard and Richard's mother, Mrs. Whitely, who was his father's sister. He had never known his own mother, because her life had been the price paid for his birth, and for many years he rarely saw his father, a sad, taciturn man who came back only at long intervals from Europe, where he had gone after the death of his wife to whom he had been pas- sionately attached. Both Mr. Hunter and his sister had, through long residence abroad, become thorough Europeans. From time to time as the exigencies of business connected with their properties demanded, they made hurried journeys to New York, but these had become less and less frequent, their friends seeing them so rarely, that at length they were almost forgotten and no one came any more to the houses in Waverly Place. So Goeffrey grew up a very quiet and lonely little boy, knowing hardly anyone except Mrs. Wickes, the English housekeeper, and two old servants. 'Every year about the first of June, when the trees in Wash- ington Square, bursting suddenly into leafage, warned them that summer was at hand, the menage was moved 6 THE ESSENTIAL THING 7 to a small place on the Hudson owned by Mr. Hunter; returning to town again in October. In the city, as in the country too, one day was very like another to Goeffrey, who spent his time trundling his hoop in the square on fine days, taking long aimless walks up Fifth Avenue with Mrs. Wickes, or when the weather was stormy, roaming about the old mansion. The whole house was his playground with the exception of the rooms on the second floor in which his mother had lived and died and which were only opened when Mr. Hunter occupied them. Goeffrey knew that there were such things as mothers because his cousin Richard had one, and although he had only seen her once or twice that he could remem- ber, he thought her very nice ; but what his own was like or where she had gone, he had no clear conception. When Goeffrey was seven, his father, who had been away for two years, wrote that he was coming back and that Mrs. Whitely and Richard were with him. Goeffrey was glad to hear this, because there had been developing in his childish mind a feeling that all was not as it should be with him. Mrs. Wickes, growing old, stout and self-indulgent, left him more and more to himself and he was dimly conscious that there was something lacking in his life, something which he wanted very much, but which it was impossible for him to express. He had a father, he wished that he could be with him. He had almost forgotten that he had been quite afraid of his father, who was very stern with him if he made the least noise ; and when he thought 8 THE ESSENTIAL THING of him, as he did very often, he only remembered him as a tall man with a fine dark beard, of whom he had been very proud. Richard and his mother were al- ways with him in this place called Europe which seemed so far away why could he not go there too? He felt that if he could ask his father if he could go back with him, perhaps things would be better for him. He could not tell just how, but perhaps it would be different there. They were going back very soon the letter had said. At least he must ask. So when Mr. Hunter at last arrived, had shaken hands with Mrs. Wickes, greeted the other servants and deposited his hand lug- gage in the hall, he saw a pale little boy with dark hair and wistful eyes smiling at him nervously, his hands clasping and unclasping. If he was aware that he had neglected his son, whatever sense of failure he may have felt that he was guilty of toward him, or whatever re- solve he may have made to atone to him for it, was swept away by a rush of painful memories. His habit- ual feeling of indifference changed swiftly to one almost of hostility, owing to an obstinate and cruel resentment toward Goeffrey as being the cause of his wife's death. With a bare word of recognition, a coldly indifferent question or two, he turned toward the stairs. A black cloud of disappointment settled about Goeffrey's heart, his old feeling of fear had come back again, but sum- moning all his courage, he said in his quiet child's voice : " Father, may I go back with you ? " Mr. Hunter turned. " Where," he asked shortly. THE ESSENTIAL THING 9 " To Europe." " Oh, no," his father answered, " you are much too young." " But Richard goes, father." " I have nothing to do with Richard. Richard has a mother." As Goeffrey walked with turned up collar, shivering miserably in the raw air, these first memories of his childhood came somehow very vividly before him. Others followed. He had crept to his room and thrown himself on his bed in a passion of tears. He had realized at last, as fully as it is possible for a child, that he was lonely. He felt quite alone and friendless. It seemed as if he had been condemned to live on forever in this house with these old servants, without anything to make him happy, with no one to love or to be loved by. Night came. The little bell which always called him to tea, sounded faintly through his closed door. As he went down the stairs, his attention was attracted by a bright light shining through the open doorway of one of the rooms on the second floor; one of those rooms which had always been closed to him. Reaching the landing he saw hanging over the fireplace against the opposite wall of this room a large portrait of a woman. A reflector fixed above shed a strong light upon it, and forgetting that he was entering forbidden territory, he stepped softly in, looking at the picture with ab- 10 THE ESSENTIAL THING sorbed attention as if drawn to it by some inexplicable attraction. He had never seen anyone so beautiful before. She was sitting down, dressed in some greenish stuff, with a cloak of fur partly covering her bare neck and arms. One elbow rested on an arm of her chair and she was leaning forward as if looking at someone. Suddenly he realized that she was looking at him, looking at him with an expression so wonderfully kind and tender, that her gaze seemed to go straight into his heart, mak- ing it throb so quickly that he pressed his hands to it unconsciously. Something radiant, something beatific seemed to envelop him and with his whole soul he looked back at her. Oh, that he might put his arms about her neck, rest his cheek against hers and be com- forted. He stood quite motionless, he did not know how long, until a slight sound startled him and turn- ing he saw his father seated at a table watching him with his old hostile look. "Is that mother, father? " he asked. " Yes." "Where is she, father?" Mr. Hunter hesitated for a moment. " She has gene away," he said at last, " and you must not ask questions ; go to your tea at once, the bell rang long ago." He remembered that he would have liked so much to ask his father where she had gone and when she was coming back, but he was afraid and went quickly out of the room. But he felt very happy now that THE ESSENTIAL THING 11 he had seen her. How beautiful and kind she looked. He must find out somehow where she was, so that he could send her a message, asking her please, please to come back. He must not ask questions, his father had said, but still he felt sure that somehow he would find her. That night he dreamed a dream which was both sad and sweet; he thought that as he lay in bed his mother came and sat beside him, leaning forward in her chair with the same tender, half smiling look, and climbing quickly up to her, they clung together, oh, so closely and wept together; he knew not why, but in the delicious agony of their mingling tears, he felt ineffable happiness. He is in the room of the portrait again; his father is not there but he is standing before it with Mrs. Whitely and Richard. " That is my mother," he is saying proudly ; " she has gone away, but I am going to ask her to come back." Richard, a little blond boy about his own age, who speaks with a strong French accent, is looking at him in amazement. " Your mother ! " he exclaims, " why, she's what do you call it in English? Oh, yes, dead! She's dead. Didn't you know? " " Dead ! " he asks, " what's that? " " I don't know exactly," answered Richard, " but when my father died, they took him in a long black box to 12 THE ESSENTIAL THING Pere Lachaise and put him in the ground. I've been there many times with my bonne." " Richard," cries Mrs. Whitely, horrified. But Goeffrey in one of those flashes of intuition by which, without previous experience, the mind comprehends, un- derstands that he has found her only to lose her again forever. That night he dreamed another dream. She came to him as she had come before, but after they had clung together in that dear embrace, she put him in his bed and kissing him said gently, " Good-by my Goeffrey." Long he watched her with outstretched arms until he saw her from afar, turn and say again, " Good-by," and answering between his sobs, he too called " Good- by, Good-by," and waked to find his face still wet. Often after this his dream came to him, and always the same, always that dear embrace, that parting kiss, that poignant good-by always so full of anguish and yet so appealing, so tender, that his last thought at night was, the wish that it might come again. He remembered how Mrs. Whitely, touched by his ob- vious loneliness and neglect, had pleaded so vigorously with his father, that she had finally persuaded him and he had found himself suddenly transported into a strange world amidst unaccustomed surroundings. He remembered his early life abroad, confused im- pressions of endless changing from place to place ; of long, very long and tiresome journeys, of sojourns in hotels and villas, of introductions into strange schools THE ESSENTIAL THING 13 where unknown tongues were spoken which in some mysterious way became suddenly familiar to him. He remembered how Richard finally went away to enter a school in England and how much he had missed him. He remembered well the little villa on the Italian Ri- viera which his father had purchased, and to which he went to find relief from a bronchial affection, taking Goeffrey with him, where at last a faint light of under- standing began to grow up between them. To Goef- frey when they were finally settled there it seemed to him as if he had come home at last after his years of school and other years of wandering, and he grew to love that old country with its olive groves on their narrow terraces, its rocky promontories, its ruined watch towers, its pagan temples, its deserted convents, the cascades and the sea. But above all he loved the mountains, sitting afar off he used to think, like old, old giants. And as he thought of his youth there, his memory glowed as he had seen the sea glow under the bows of the fishermen's boats as they moved slowly in to shore, casting ripples of phosphorescent light upon the beach. He remembered his years of study in Paris and his last visit to Italy to see his father. A recollection full of sorrow because they had come to love each other. They were seated after dinner one night on the little terrace in front of the house, from which a view of the sea could be had, spread out far below them. Their desultory conversation had lapsed for a moment, when Mr. Hunter laid a hand on his son's shoulder. 14 THE ESSENTIAL THING " Goeffrey," he said, " I want to speak to you about your future." Goeffrey looked up quickly. He had thought, upon reaching the villa, that his father had looked quite ill, but as the days passed and he had seen nothing spe- cific to indicate a change for the worse, his momentary apprehension had passed away. Now it returned; his father sat beside him wrapped in a shawl, but his face under his beard seemed emaciated, he looked very old and tired. Goeffrey felt certain now that his cough was more obstinate than it had been the last time he had seen him. Mr. Hunter apparently read his thoughts, for he made a reassuring gesture. " It isn't that, Goeffrey," he said, " I am as well as usual, but the time will come some day when I shall be gone and one must discuss these things sooner or later. What I wanted to say was, that you have never had any experience in business affairs ; money is very hard to get and very easy to lose, and although I shall leave you everything I have, I shall place it in trust, so that you Avill have only the income of it. Would you object to that? " " Do what you think best of course, father," answered Goeffrey. Mr. Hunter smiled at the boyish inconsequence of his answer. " I am very glad," he answered, " that you have no objections to my plan; you will be very well off, Goef- frey, about thirty thousand dollars a year I should think ; not a large fortune as fortunes go in these days, THE ESSENTIAL THING 15 but enough to live on, and even to marry, as I hope you will sometime ; but, Goeffrey, there is one thing I am going to ask you to promise me to do, even if I should happen not to be here to remind you of it. Mr. Davidge (whom you will remember to have met in Paris) will administer my estate, and I believe that he will prove to be a very honest and careful custodian ; still one cannot foresee the future, and I want you to promise me that when you finish your studies, you will go to your own country and for a time, at least, practice your profession. It is wrong to leave one's country as we have done. You may find that your education here and the traditions you have absorbed may make life there difficult for you, but promise me that you will try ; practice your profession there for three years and if nothing comes of it, you will have gained practical ex- perience which may prove to be invaluable to you later. Will you promise?" "Yes, father, of course, but are you quite sure that everything is all right? " Goeffrey was looking at him anxiously. " Oh, yes, thank you, I am as well as usual, but as I said, one must talk of these matters sooner or later, and now," he continued, getting up, " it is my bed time, and as you will be leaving very early, I shall not see you in the morning. Good-by and good luck, and I hope you will be down very soon again. Good- by." " Good-by, father," Goeffrey answered, filled with a premonition of approaching evil. Mr. Hunter turned toward the house, but before 16 THE ESSENTIAL THING reaching the door, he stopped and came back to Goef- frey's side. " Goeffrey," he said, " when you were a little boy, I was very unjust and cruel to you. Will you forgive me?" " But father, of course, I think I " " It was because she died bringing you into the world ; what she was to me, what she did for me, cursed with my temperament, no one can know. Even now, old man that I am, I cannot, I cannot but you never saw her ; you could not know what her loss was to me " Goeffrey hesitated a moment for fear of giving pain. " Do you remember the night," he said at last, " when I first saw her portrait, when I came into your room and looked at it for a long time and asked you if it were my mother and where she had gone? That night when I was asleep, she came and sat beside me, that night and many nights after for years." His father grasped his hand and Goeffrey felt that it trembled. " Does she come now ? " " Not for many years, father," answered Goeffrey. " Ah ! you have forgotten her," his father said mourn- fully. " We all forget ! She promised to come to me but she never came. But she did not forget, it was I who forgot, forgot my duty toward you. She was a good, an angelic woman, Goeffrey, and if you can live so as to be worthy of her praise, you will have done well." He remembered how, a week later, he was at his THE ESSENTIAL THING IT father's house again, having gone with all speed from Paris, in answer to a telegram saying that Mr. Hunter had had a severe hemorrhage, only to find that he was too late. He had reached there very late at night, and toward morning he stole from the house and climb- ing a steep path, seated himself in a little pavilion which surmounted a hill overlooking the villa and the sea. He wanted to be alone and think of his loneliness. In the wandering life that he had led no lasting friend- ships had been formed, and now that his father was gone, he had no one. Mrs. Whitely had died some years before, and Richard had drifted into other oc- cupations and surroundings. He felt as one some- times feels after a period of great happiness has passed, that there is nothing left. The future at that moment seemed as empty as did the material world lying silent under the pale dawn kindling slowly in the east, under the vast expanse of the sky, sprinkled with stars al- ready fading from sight. And as he turned toward the mountains, the mountains he had always loved, ly- ing somnolent in the growing light, it seemed to him that they welcomed this silence, longed for it always, were waiting with the prescience of immense age for the time when nature, which always conquers man, shall have destroyed him utterly, so that they could rest forever in undisturbed tranquillity. Goeffrey, that morning, thought again of all these things. Of his uselessness, of his mother of whom he had not been worthy, of that powerful emotion of soli- 18 THE ESSENTIAL THING tude which had possessed him, seated in the pavilion at dawn in Italy, which at intervals still possessed him, and which comforted him because of the hope that at last it might draw him from his idle life, to one of use to himself and others. He had been walking through a side street and at last, for no definite reason, turned up one of the more re- mote avenues, which, formerly an old residential dis- trict, was being rapidly invaded by business. Through the swirls of dust raised by the cold east wind, the orange colored electric cars rushed past upon their steel grooves, with a roaring sound. Huge buildings reared their cornices aloft at intervals, and between, groups of old houses, dirty and uncared for, stood with an air of sadness and dejection, like old people who have lived beyond their allotted time, beyond the ties of kindred and friendship, beyond their own, into an alien generation. And to Goeffrey looking at them, they seemed typical of what his own life would become, and he felt that he must do something, take some step, so that it would be less empty. He longed to lay his head upon the tender bosom of a woman as he had done with his mother in his dream. The thought which had come to him many times of late returned. Yes, he must marry. His pity for his own situation was so great, that tears came to his eyes. He drew a cigar from his pocket, but the odor was so distasteful that he dashed it angrily to the ground. Suddenly a vertigo seized him and he clung to a railing, his head whirling. What THE ESSENTIAL THING 19 was the matter? Could it be that he needed food? He remembered now that the carouse of the night before had begun upon his meeting some friends late in the afternoon and in consequence, he had not dined at all. It had been twenty-four hours since he had eaten any- thing. Yes, that was it. He was famishing. He looked at his watch, it was twelve o'clock. Doris Adair was to be there at half past. He had barely time to get back to his rooms. CHAPTER III ON going one night, soon after he had first met Ernesto Pandolfi, into a restaurant which for the moment was the popular rendezvous for after-theater suppers, Goef- frey had encountered him with a very gay party which he had been asked to join. Although he knew the other women present all actresses he had never seen until then, the one who happened to be seated at his left. She was a blonde, of about middle height ; the corsage of her ele- gant dress was well filled ; she had fine shoulders and a beautiful but sullen face. Sullen rather through some habitual condition of mind, some preying thought per- haps, than from the natural expression of her features which Goeffrey thought might easily have been very, sweet. Her quiet almost suppressed manner was in sharp contrast to the rather forced vivacity of the other women, a vivacity which they seemed to consider obli- gatory, and when she spoke, her accent was an English one with a slight additional trace of something which puzzled him and at the first opportunity he had said to her: " Surely, you are not an English woman." " My mother was French, but my name is a very English one Doris Adair." 80 THE ESSENTIAL THING 21 " But you have a slight foreign accent which I can't place. I thought I knew most of them." She did not care apparently to satisfy his curiosity and made no response. She seemed in fact at first to be generally unresponsive, although not unfriendly, but as the evening wore on and from time to time they fell, as the opportunity offered, into snatches of desul- tory conversation, she revealed to him a surprisingly educated point of view, and Goeffrey became pleasingly conscious of the harmonious flow between them of that subtle fluid called sympathy. As they were getting up to go, he had found her so attractive, with her air of cold indifference, her beauti- ful but sullen face and her unmistakable intelligence, that he said to her: " May I come to see you sometime ? " She stared at him stonily. " You may not," she an- swered abruptly, and turned her back on him. Her rudeness covered him with confusion for a mo- ment, and he remembered afterwards that he had seen Pandolfi looking at them with an amused smile, but a little later as they were waiting for the motors and he found himself standing beside her, she had said hurriedly to him: " Forgive me, for being rude. I only have a little box of a place and never ask anyone there. Where do you live ? " "At the Kenworthy," Goeffrey answered. She looked about her quickly before speaking again, and then still hurriedly, she said: 2Z THE ESSENTIAL THING " Would you like me to come and see you on Sunday night? " Goeffrey's pleasure at this proposal enabled him to conceal his astonishment. " I should be delighted," he answered ; " when may I expect you?" But at that moment Pandolfi came up to them, and without answering, she got into a motor which had just stopped at the curb. During the days which ensued before the arrival of Sunday, Goeffrey, an idler, thought often of this ad- venture and speculated as to her reason for making the proposal she had. An opportunity offering itself, he had asked about her, but little was known except that it was said that she had been born of a French mother and an English father, and had lived most of her life in England. That she was an actress and was playing minor parts at one of the more important thea- ters. He went one night to see her and was disappointed. Her few lines were spoken with an enunciation which was a delight to listen to, but he felt sure that she had not the makings of an actress. She lacked the peculiar temperament, and while he was disappointed, he was pleased too ; he could not have told why. He was sur- prised at the interest she had aroused in him, and as evidence of it, it occurred to him when he got home that he had intended that night to go to Mrs. Aladine's, because he knew that Miss Nina Davidge was to be there. He had forgotten about it completely. On Sunday night at nine, after Goeffrey had almost THE ESSENTIAL THING 23 given up hope, Waters, who had been told that she was expected, opened the door of Goeffrey's parlor and she came in. He noticed the richness and finish of her clothing, as he was helping her off with her wraps, but he was not especially observant, because he was not curious, and if he had thought at all about it, he would probably have explained it to himeslf by saying that actresses seemed to know how to do that sort of thing, get the right effects, with much less money than other women. At first she stood quite still looking at Goeffrey's really fine room. " How beautiful," she said, " how beautiful," and he was flattered to find that she under- stood at once that only a very fastidious and discrim- inating taste could have brought his collection together. His furniture, his porcelains and his silver. " I haven't very much, compared with some people," he explained, " but what there is of it, is unusually fine I think." Their conversation was quite impersonal, but Goef- frey, happening to say something which caused her to laugh, he was so pleased with the change it made in her expression, the curve it gave to her lips and the glimpse it afforded of her perfect teeth, that he was spurred to renewed efforts. She did not seem, however, to expect him to make any special conversational ex- ertion for her, nor did she talk very much herself; there were times when they were silent together, but that subtle bond of sympathy which had developed al- most from the first between them, made these silences 24. THE ESSENTIAL THING possible, and not only possible but pleasant. To Goef- frey it almost seemed as if she had come there to rest, to get away from something which fatigued and de- pressed her. This meeting was the first of many. She would come to see him almost always in the afternoon. Some- times telephoning to find out whether he would be in or not, and sometimes in response to notes which he would send to her at the theater. She never told him where she lived. A deep and sympathetic friendship developed be- tween them, but that it remained that, was due to her. Goeffrey noticed that her intense repression of manner, at times almost painful to a man of his temperament, began to disappear. She became more responsive. When she was with him, her face lost its sullen expres- sion; she talked and laughed freely with a spontaniety which was delightful to him ; but once or twice, when under the influence of her physical beauty, his manner had taken on a tenderer, a less impersonal tone, she had changed at once ; had shrunk back into her old attitude of silence and reserve. When GoefFrey reached home after his walk, he found a small table already laid, standing near the fireplace with a large chair at either side of it. Doris was sit- ting on the arm of one of them leaning slightly forward and looking out of the window. From the white gloved hand, which hung limply over its back, to her large, black hat and the tip of her suede slipper, above which THE ESSENTIAL THING 25 a slender ankle encased in a stocking of thinnest silk could be seen, she was dressed to perfection, with a slight something of daring which was never absent from her and with which she seemed to invest the most con- ventional forms of dress. For one instant before she jumped to her feet upon hearing him, Goeffrey caught in her attitude, in her expression, in the droop of her full white neck, a sense of dejection, of languor, as if in this moment of solitude she had given herself up to the contemplation of that thought, of that burden the consciousness of which was never far beneath the surface and which so often de- pressed and wearied her. He had surprised her in this mood more than once, and had always wondered what it meant, but she so evidently wished to conceal it, that he had never spoken of it. " Why, Goeffrey ! " she exclaimed, looking at him closely. " What is the matter? You look ill, have you been drinking again?" " A little," answered Goeffrey, rather shamefacedly. " Oh, you foolish, foolish boy. Was Ernesto with you? Goeffrey, what is it? " For Gocffrey's vertigo had returned and he had dropped into one of the chairs looking quite white. Through the faintness which overcame him, the result mainly of exhaustion, it seemed to him that Doris looked at him quite wildly for a moment and then seizing one of his hands kissed it passionately. The touch of those soft lips thrilled and revived him. He tried to smile reassuringly. 28 THE ESSENTIAL THING " Yes," Goeffrey answered, looking up in surprise. " He is the trustee of my property. Why?" " Well, Mr. Davidge and Ernesto are together con- stantly." " Are they? I didn't know that." " Is there any way that Ernesto could harm you, Goeffrey? In money matters, I mean." " I can't see how, I only have an income, what do you mean ? " " I don't know, but I am worried." " My dear little Doris," cried Goeffrey, " don't worry your head about me. I won't see him so much if you don't want me to, but don't say that you won't come here any more, please and now," he went on, as Waters brought in a tray containing a silver coffee service and two cups of thin porcelain, " cigarettes, Waters, and that will be all." And Doris, rousing herself, began to put on her armor ; she was to be alone with man, her eternal enemy. She had been weak before him and that was dangerous. " Do you know what I have been thinking of to-day? " began Goeffrey. " Of Italy and the mountains. I lived there when I was a boy, in the very shadow of the mountains I loved them and yet they always op- pressed me somehow. Now I long to see them again they always seemed to me like immensely old giants, very old and tired." Doris made a gesture toward the window. " They always remind me of giants," she replied. " The buildings, of bad giants. Their hundreds of win- THE ESSENTIAL THING 29 dows look like expressionless eyes through which they see everything. They quite frighten me." Goeffrey leaning back luxuriously in his chair, looked at the buildings. From where he sat, his apartment occupied the fourteenth floor, he could see the whole of the lower part of the city that gigantic agglomera- tion of steel and stone with which the earth is burdened. They stretched on every side, in every direction, story piled on story, endless adaptations of old forms to new conditions. A waste massive, overpowering, but with- out relationship, without plan. And it seemed to him that this very lack of harmony, this absence of cohesion, gave their immense proportions, their towering cornices, devoid of charm, devoid of fancy, an expression as of something hard, proud, scornful and insolent an unconscious revelation of the ferocious individualism which had created them. Yes, in this immensity of ef- fort spread before him, under the leaden sky there was something hostile and forbidding, but at the same time something somber, something sad. " Do you see what I mean, Goeffrey? " Doris went on. " In old countries, one sees buildings that have person- alities which charm one, some mournful, some gay, some poetical, but here they seem just hostile, like an army of hostile giants, always looking balefully out of their thousand eyes, not wishing to be what they are and always thinking with resentment, with hatred, of the people who have brought them into being." Goeffrey laughed. " What an extraordinary idea ! But my giants weren't like that, they were just awfully 28 THE ESSENTIAL THING " Yes," Goeffrey answered, looking up in surprise. "He is the trustee of my property. Why? " " Well, Mr. Davidge and Ernesto are together con- stantly." " Are they? I didn't know that." " Is there any way that Ernesto could harm you, Goeffrey? In money matters, I mean." " I can't see how, I only have an income, what do you mean ? " " I don't know, but I am worried." " My dear little Doris," cried Goeffrey, " don't worry your head about me. I won't see him so much if you don't want me to, but don't say that you won't come here any more, please and now," he went on, as Waters brought in a tray containing a silver coffee service and two cups of thin porcelain, " cigarettes, Waters, and that will be all." And Doris, rousing herself, began to put on her armor ; she was to be alone with man, her eternal enemy. She had been weak before him and that was dangerous. " Do you know what I have been thinking of to-day? " began Goeffrey. " Of Italy and the mountains. I lived there when I was a boy, in the very shadow of the mountains I loved them and yet they always op- pressed me somehow. Now I long to see them again they always seemed to me like immensely old giants, very old and tired." Doris made a gesture toward the window. " They always remind me of giants," she replied. " The buildings, of bad giants. Their hundreds of win- THE ESSENTIAL THING 29 dows look like expressionless eyes through which they see everything. They quite frighten me." Goeffrey leaning back luxuriously in his chair, looked at the buildings. From where he sat, his apartment occupied the fourteenth floor, he could see the whole of the lower part of the city that gigantic agglomera- tion of steel and stone with which the earth is burdened. They stretched on every side, in every direction, story piled on story, endless adaptations of old forms to new conditions. A waste massive, overpowering, but with- out relationship, without plan. And it seemed to him that this very lack of harmony, this absence of cohesion, gave their immense proportions, their towering cornices, devoid of charm, devoid of fancy, an expression as of something hard, proud, scornful and insolent an unconscious revelation of the ferocious individualism which had created them. Yes, in this immensity of ef- fort spread before him, under the leaden sky there was something hostile and forbidding, but at the same time something somber, something sad. " Do you see what I mean, Goeffrey? " Doris went on. " In old countries, one sees buildings that have person- alities which charm one, some mournful, some gay, some poetical, but here they seem just hostile, like an army of hostile giants, always looking balefully out of their thousand eyes, not wishing to be what they are and always thinking with resentment, with hatred, of the people who have brought them into being." Goeffrey laughed. " What an extraordinary idea ! But my giants weren't like that, they were just awfully 30 THE ESSENTIAL THING old and tired. Have you ever been to Italy, Doris? " " No, but I have been to France and oh ! Goeffrey, I do love it. Each time, when I first see the little French houses and the little French soldiers, I cry, I love it so." " And I love Italy and when I finish practicing my profession, I am going back." " Practicing your profession ! " Doris looked at him with open eyes and then broke into a clear ringing laugh. " Practicing your profession, why, Goeffrey, what profession have you?" " I'm an architect, didn't you know ? " Goeffrey an- swered with a serious air. " I promised my father that when he died, I would come over here and go into busi- ness for three years at least." Doris leaned toward him. " Forgive me, Goeffrey, I didn't know. And did you practice it? " " I tried," answered Goeffrey, " but I didn't get any commissions." "And why not?" " I don't know, because it wasn't necessary perhaps, ' I suppose if one lias to get commissions, one gets them, but I didn't have to and so, I shall go back soon. I don't like it here and I don't believe that I shall ever come over again. But I don't want to go alone " he reached across the table and took her hand, Doris letting it lie passively and sitting with averted face, her long lashes resting on her cheeks he drew it toward him and kissed it as she had done his. "Why did you do that, Doris?" THE ESSENTIAL THING 31 She did not answer. " Doris, will you come with me as my little companion to France, to Italy, care free, wherever we like? " Still she did not answer and Goeffrey, kissing her hand again, repeated: " Why did you do it, Doris? " "Do what, Goeffrey? " she answered almost inau- dibly. " You know, why did you? " Doris drew a breath that was almost a sob. " I didn't ! " she exclaimed, snatching her hand away and turning quickly toward him, " and if I did, it was be- cause I was frightened, and oh, Goeffrey, just let's be friends, I have been so happy in our friendship, don't try to change it." " But isn't love better? " he asked. " Love," she repeated scornfully, " it's worse,*a thou- sand times worse. I hate the very sound of the word and I hate you when you talk of it. You are like all the rest then " " Like all the rest. Oh, Doris, how can you say so." " Very well, suppose I go with you, what then ? " " What then? We are so companionable, would there ever have been such a pilgrimage as we would make together. Stopping where we like. Idling through Europe which we both love." "And what then?" " Who would give a thought to the future, living like that?" 32 THE ESSENTIAL THING " Sometime we would think of the future, and what then? " Goeffrey did not answer. "What then, Goeffrey? You don't answer because you can't. And you say that you are not like the rest and I thought that you were my friend. Oh, Goeffrey," she went on, " you don't know what you have done, how you have hurt me, destroyed something in me, by say- ing what you have." Suddenly the telephone bell, which was close to Doris, began its long insistent ring, causing her to start, and Goeffrey, glad of the interruption, sprang to answer it. " Is Mr. Hunter there? " a voice called. " Is this Mr. Hunter? Your cousin, Mr. Richard Whitely, is down- stairs and wishes to know if he may come up, sir." " Of course, send him up at once," answered Goeffrey, replacing the receiver. " Was there ever such luck," he exclaimed. " My cousin is here from Europe. I haven't seen him for years. That means that we can't go, Doris. I'm so sorry. But take the tickets, you can go at least." " No, thanks," Doris answered shortly, getting up and beginning to gather together a woman's impedimenta. "Please, Doris, are you angry?" " I shan't," she cried, stamping her foot. " I have never taken anything from you, and I never shall. Good-by, Goeffrey." She held out her hand with averted face and turning, went through a small study at the right of the sitting-room, by which access could be had to a flight o f narrow stairs. She had done THE ESSENTIAL THING 33 this more than once when they had been interrupted. By descending a flight, she could return to the main corridor and take the elevator down. "I'm so sorry, Doris. Will you never come again? " " Never, Goeffrey. I intended not to come again any- way. I should never have come in the first place = " " But I swear, Doris, I swear." " It's no use, Goeffrey, I shan't come." " But, Doris, I am your friend ; it has been good to have you here. And you will come again if others are here, won't you ? You'll come to my party ? " Doris hesitated. " Yes, I will come because I prom- ised you to. Good-by." "Doris!" " Good-by," she repeated. " Good-by, Doris ; I'm sorry." He watched her as she went down the stairs and caught again that sense of depression, of fatigue, as of a person carrying a burden hard to bear, and he flushed with shame as he realized how brutally he had destroyed in one moment, shriveled up, that candid and sincere friendship which had grown up between them. He knew that her obvious honesty and self re- spect should have prevented any possible misconstruc- tion on his part, but he had promptly attempted to take advantage of an act on hers, which (whatever it meant) was quite as spontaneous, quite as honest as her whole conduct had been toward him from the be- ginning. " Yes," he thought. " I have acted like a cad what 34 THE ESSENTIAL THING must she think of me? Poor Doris, I must put myself straight with her if I can. If she'll let me." He had stopped in his study, forgetting Richard for the moment, but the sound of voices, one of which he recognized as Waters', roused him and pushing open the sitting-room door quickly, he almost collided with a very handsome young man very tall, very blond and very elegantly dressed in rather foreign looking clothes who was evidently just coming toward the door to open it himself. He had not seen his cousin for seven years. When Richard had first entered school in England, his foreign accent and his linguistic ability, coupled to a surprisingly English appearance, had caused him at first to be looked upon with distrust by his school fel- lows, as some strange kind of foreigner, but had he per- severed, and being possessed of a genial disposition and a proper appreciation of the importance of making the right sort of friends, he had finally achieved popularity. Indeed he had made such progress, that upon Goef- frey's only visit to him in England, he had felt some misgiving as to his turning out to be quite good form, and was much relieved one day when the Hon. Dysart Stanley, aged fourteen, said to him, " I say, Whitely, what an awfully good sort your cousin is ! " Five years later, after his mother's death, Richard had in turn visited Goeffrey, and it was during this visit that the latter chose his profession. A pedestrian tour of the Italian lakes had been decided upon after Richard had been there for a fortnight, and it was at THE ESSENTIAL THING 85 Bellaggio, where they sat one evening after dinner, on the terrace of a small hotel, that they made the ac- quaintance of a famous Milanese architect who had come to Como to inspect a villa which he was erecting on the shore of the lake. For a week they were in- separable companions and before they parted, it had been arranged that Goeffrey should place himself under Faccini's instruction in the fall. Richard had an- nounced his intention of doing the same, but soon after Goeffrey had settled himself in Milan, he received a let- ter from his cousin, written at Vienna, saying that his only passion was music, that as Goeffrey knew, he was already a capable pianist, and that he had gone to Vienna to place himself under a celebrated master, who had been kind enough to praise his ability highly. Richard had written Goeffrey after his father's death, but he had not come to Italy, and he had seen him only once since, seven years before in Paris, where Goeffrey had gone to continue his studies. " My dear, dear Dick," cried Goeffrey, seizing him with both hands, " how good it seems to see you ; you bring a whiff of Europe with you. Whatever made you think of coming over here? Where are you stop- ping?" " I only got in this morning," Richard answered. " I had my luggage sent to the Waldorf." He spoke with the well modulated enunciation, soft and yet rapid, of the educated young Englishman, yet with a slight accent. " But that won't do at all, you must come here," 36 THE ESSENTIAL THING answered Goeffrey. " I have an extra bedroom. Waters ! go to the Waldorf and arrange to have Mr. Whitely's luggage sent here directly it arrives." " It is awfully good of you, Goeffrey, but really " " Not at all. I insist." " It's awfully good of you all the same, Goeffrey, and thanks, very much. So this is your * pied a terre,' is it? Very comfortable I should say but good God ! you are in the clouds," Richard exclaimed, going to a window. " Aren't you afraid to live at such a height? " Goeffrey laughed. " I am on the top floor you see, and I took it on condition that I could build real chim- neys in each room and have real fireplaces. They are almost unknown here now." But as they talked of old days together, of other times and other places, of boyish adventures in many countries, of old acquaintances, each stimulating the other in the resurrection of half forgotten memories, Goeffrey became aware of a nervousness of manner in his cousin which he was sure was not natural. He was continually getting up, walking restlessly to and fro, sitting down and getting up again. While at times he talked with a spontaneous flow of gayety and light heartedness which Goeffrey remembered to have been one of the most charming traits of a character which could be very charming when it chose, at others he seemed to be struggling against a preoccupation which he had difficulty in overcoming. As if his mind, against his will, was returning constantly to things he wished, for the moment at least, to forget, to conceal. At the THE ESSENTIAL THING 37 same time he watched Goeffrey as if taking his meas- ure. " Poor chap," thought Goeffrey, " he has some- thing on his mind and he is trying to decide whether he shall tell me or not," and he half smiled to himself, it seemed so like the Richard he had known of old. Suddenly he said abruptly, " Dick, something's the matter, what is it? " Richard turned quickly toward him with a frightened half smile on his face, which vanished at once. His lip quivered, he dropped into a chair, tears came to his eyes and he seemed to be struggling with some emotion which prevented him from speaking. At last, with an effort he said, in a voice which he controlled with difficulty : "I I've had a hard time of it, Goeffrey." " In what way, Dick, tell me." " It's about money," Dick answered. He avoided looking at Goeffrey and with his hands moving rest- lessly on the arms of his chair, he stared fixedly at the cornice of the opposite wall as if by holding his head at that angle he would prevent the tears, which were brimming in his eyes, from inundating his cheeks. " But I don't understand," Goeffrey answered. " Have you lost money? " " Yes." Dick snatched his handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it quickly to his eyes. "How much?" asked Goeffrey. " I'm afraid to tell you." 38 THE ESSENTIAL THING " But you will tell me sooner or later, how much have you lost ? " " All of it." " Do you mean to say that you have lost all of your money? " " Every penny of it, Goeffrey ; I'm a pauper." " But what the what on earth have you done with it Do you mean to say that you have lost it all? " " I've told you already that I have lost it." " But your shares, your property, are they gone too?" " All of it, I tell you," Richard almost shouted in desperation, " every penny." "But how, how?" " Well, I spent it then I think I'd better go, Goef- frey. I hadn't anyone but you to come to and I thought I might get a little advice, a little sympathy " " Don't be a fool," exclaimed Goeffrey, jumping up, " you've got to tell me about it and see what can be done." He almost pushed his cousin back in his chair, and as he sat down again Richard covered his face with his hands, and then all at once, snatching a letter from his pocket, he held it out, saying : " Here, read this, you might as well know the whole story at once." Goeffrey drew it from its envelope and read : " ' MY DEAR WHITELY: Dysart has just had a letter from Lady Stanley in which she has asked him to send you away. From what Stanley tells me, your well known success with women has encouraged you to lay THE ESSENTIAL THING 39 siege to her. Dysart is in a furious rage and would start for Venice at once, were it not that the business which keeps him here will prevent his leaving for two days at least. I am not writing for your sake at all, because if you are such a cad as to make love to Dysart's wife, when you are living on his bounty, you deserve all that he would give you ; but you know him and what you may expect if he catches you. I am only warning you to avoid a scandal, or perhaps something worse, for Dysart's sake and Lady Stanley's. So get away at once. Go to America Dysart will make it too hot for you here, and try to earn a decent living. The occupa- tion of parasite isn't one that most people admire and if I had been Dysart, I would have gotten rid of you long ago. SEEBOLD.' " "That's a brutal letter; is it true?" said Goeffrey, looking up to see that his cousin had flushed darkly during the reading of it. " It isn't true," Richard answered excitedly, " I'll swear it. I've had affairs, I'll admit, but I never said or did one thing that Lady Stanley could have taken ex- ception to. You remember Stanley? Well, I met him quite by accident a year ago in Paris. I was down then to my last hundred francs, and was on my way to cable to you to send me enough to get over here, when whom should I meet but Stanley, just as I was going into the telegraph office. He wanted to know what I was doing and finally I told him. It happened that he had re- ceived an appointment as charge at the English embassy 40 THE ESSENTIAL THING at Rome and he took me along as his personal secretary ; he is very rich, and wanted someone to look after his private affairs. Well, everything went on all right until Lady Stanley came. That woman is a devil. It may seem a rotten thing to say, but she made a dead set for me almost from the beginning, but things didn't come to a crisis until Dysart got a month's leave and we all went to Venice. We hadn't been there a fortnight, when Dysart was sent for and had to go back to Rome. The day he went, I had a scene with her which made her furious and her letter to Dysart was the result. When I heard from Seebold, I didn't know what to do. Be- tween my word and Lady Stanley's, Dysart would surely take hers and I decided to go at once. "Do you know how I came over?" he continued. " From Genoa in the second cabin and I had to sell my watch to do that, think of it? I stayed in the stinking hole, day after day, because I was afraid someone I knew might be on board. I only went out at night. " Well," he went on after a pause, " that is the im- mediate reason for coming here and as for my money, it is gone, that's all, every sou of it frittered away. Mamma left it to me without restrictions of any kind, and it was not very long before my income seemed too small and I began to spend the principal. When that got low, I took to gambling of course, and any fool knows what that means, except the one who is doing it. Think of it, Goeffrey," he got up and paced quickly up and down. " A hundred and twenty thousand pounds thrown away and not one thing to show for it." THE ESSENTIAL THING 41 " What are you going to do, how are you going to live ? " Goeffrey asked coldly. " I don't know, Goeffrey," Richard answered pite- ously. " I don't know how to do anything ; I know noth- ing about business. Sometimes I think I had better make way with myself." " That's a coward's remedy,'* Goeffrey answered. " Be a man, at least ; you've got to take your medicine. It is terribly hard, of course, and you have been incon- ceivably foolish. Think of a man with an income large enough to satisfy every moderate wish, squandering not only the income, but every penny of the principal. What is at the bottom of it, Dick? Are you vicious? Was it women ? Was it drink ? " Listening to Richard's misdeeds, Goeffrey had for- gotten his own shortcomings. His sensations might have been those of a righteous judge, listening to the ex- cuses of a criminal. " No, it wasn't," answered Richard shortly, " but I am going to drink now. I can't stand this sort of thing," and he filled two glasses with whiskey and water, which stood on the table, handing one to Goef- frey. The latter took it but had barely put it to his lips, when he shuddered violently, made a wry face and hastily put it down again. He looked at his cousin and saw that he was standing with his glass half raised, a dawning light of comprehension in his eyes, and at that moment Richard stooped and reaching un- der the table, lifted to view a tiny handkerchief. Goef- 42 THE ESSENTIAL THING frey flushed, and with an embarrassed smile held out his hand. " Look here, Richard, circumstances seem to convict me of being a hypocrite. That's all I can say, but at any rate I've no right to be so hard on you. Forgive me, will you ? " Richard laughed light heartedly. " Of course, my boy, with all my heart. I understand." " And suppose," continued Goeffrey, " we drop the subject of your troubles for awhile, we will get you out of them somehow. Have you anything to do? " " Not a thing in the world." " Very well, I have seats for Sembrich this afternoon, in the ' Barber,' that may help us to forget them. Shall we go ? " " By all means. That's what I need, Goeffrey, music." CHAPTER rv; " You see," said Richard, reverting to his troubles as he settled himself on the cushions of Goeffrey's sumptu- ous limousine, " this is what I have thrown away. This sort of thing. To have ruined myself was a crime, Goef- frey ; I cannot live without the luxuries of life. They are as necessary to me, as his daily pittance is to thai, poor devil of a laborer we passed just then. We are so specialized, people like you and me, that we cannot exist without our environment, and just as it would be a crime for me to kill myself by depriving myself of air or by going without food, so it has been criminal in me to throw away that which makes life possible for me. Life can go on for certain periods, under unfavorable condi- tions, and I have of course no real intention at present at least, of making way with myself, but let me tell you this I must have money a great deal of it I must, I tell you, or good-by to Richard Whitely." The curtain had just gone down on the first act as they took their seats, and the great auditorium was full of that mysterious rustling caused by the innumerable slight automatic movements of the audience, after being released from the spell of the music. A patter of hand clapping sounding like a heavy rain arose, and a row of singers bowing low, marched hand in hand across the 43 44 THE ESSENTIAL THING stage, looking very small beneath the height of the enormous proscenium. " A huge house," Richard said, looting about him, " much larger than Covent Garden. I like the dull red and the dull gold. The only background for a pretty woman. The effect is good. Very opulent, very rich." "And why not?" answered Goeffrey. "Opera, the most luxurious spectacle of modern life, requires a set- ting like this." His cousin, who had transferred his scrutiny to the boxes, suddenly called Goeffrey's attention to one in the first tier, in which a woman, dressed in black velvet and wearing a large black hat, was sitting alone. Although she was so far away that her features could not be seen with clearness, one could tell somehow that she was beau- tiful. She was leaning back in her chair, her head bent slightly. A hand in a white glove rested on the velvet railing of the box front and played idly with one of those feminine toys which are half opera glass, half lorgnette. " Do you know her? " Richard asked. " Yes, it is Mrs. Martel." " I thought so, would you mind if I should go and speak to her ? " "Of course not. Do you know her?" asked Goef- frey. " Quite well, in Paris," Richard answered, and was gone. Goeffrey watched him until he disappeared and again when he came into Mrs. Martel's box, and he was struck THE ESSENTIAL THING 45 anew by his cousin's extreme good looks, and by his extraordinary air of elegance and distinction. He no- ticed that many people were looking at him. Yes, as- suredly, he was highly specialized, one could tell in- stinctively that he belonged to that class who live on a special plane, breathe a special air, who are the favorites of fortune and who are so freely endowed with a material heritage of all that should make life desirable, that what to the average would seem like unattainable privi- lege they accept as a matter of course, cannot live with- out. Yes, money was necessary to a man like Richard. It was inconceivable that he should be without it. And now he had nothing. He was penniless. To Goeffrey, who knew quite well the advantages of money, there was something terrible about Richard's situation, the more so as he felt instinctively that he was helpless was quite unfitted, not only by the life that he led, but by his education, his temperament, for the task of making it. But what was to be done? He knew before he asked himself this question, the answer to it. He must change his own manner of life sufficiently so that he could share his income with his cousin. He accepted this solution of the matter quite naturally without hesitation. He did not stop to think that Richard had no real claim on him, was a stranger almost. It was enough that he had money, more than he really needed, and that Richard had none. An usher approached him and handed him a card on which Miss Davidge's name was engraved. A few lines were written on it in pencil: 46 THE ESSENTIAL THING "Aunt Mary, the children and I are in Constance's box. Please come up. NINA." He got up eagerly. Nina here! What a lucky chance. How good it would be to see her after his rather trying experiences of the morning. "And who," inquired Aunt Mary, as Goeffrey sat down, " is that fine looking young man you came in with just now? " She was a tall, gaunt woman on whose bony features there rested an odd expression of fatuity and indecision, contrasting curiously with her strong masculine voice. Her ruling passion was pride of family, which is fre- quently found developed to an extraordinary degree among New Yorkers who have kept their money for two generations. " My cousin, Richard Whitely," Goeffrey answered. " He has been abroad for years." " I knew it was Richard," Nina said, " the instant I saw him." " Do you mean the Waverly Place Whitely's? " Aunt Mary asked with a considerable show of interest. " Then his father must have been " " You must remember him, Auntie," Nina interposed, in an effort to prevent one of those complicated dis- sertations on relationships, which Aunt Mary was so fond of giving. " Don't interrupt, Nina, please ; his father was my mother's sister's brother-in-law " Aunt Mary resumed. " By that I mean that his brother, who by the way was much older than your cousin's father, married my THE ESSENTIAL THING 47 mother's sister who was also much younger than my mother. This explains the difference in our ages, that is between your cousin's and mine, because you see I am no longer as young as I used to be, although I don't suppose he is either for that matter," and Aunt Mary leaned back comfortably in her chair. " By the way," she continued, " why didn't you bring him up? " " He went to speak to Mrs. Martel," Goeffrey ex- plained. " A woman who owes her position entirely to her hus- band," Aunt Mary remarked scornfully, " the daughter of an obscure west side doctor, I'm told. Now the Martels are one of our oldest families and / have always maintained that they are descended from the great Charles Martel, king of France Martel means ham- mer " Nina, who had been scrutinizing Mrs. Martel's box through her opera glass, handed it to Goef- frey: " Did you ever see two people more beautiful than they are? " she asked. Goeffrey adjusted the glass and looked at them. His cousin, who was seated facing the front of the box, was talking earnestly to Mrs. Martel, whose position had hardly changed since they had looked at her from their seats. Her profile was turned toward him and he could see plainly her delicate clear cut features, her slightly reddish fair hair and her dark eyes under the shadow cast by the plumes of her hat. Al- 48 THE ESSENTIAL THING though he had noticed that her reception of his cousin had been carefully indifferent, it seemed to Goeffrey that there was an unmistakable air of intimacy in their attitude, and he thought, or was he mistaken, that he saw Richard, with a quick movement, take her hand which was nearest to him, and hold it for a moment before letting it drop again. Yes, he was sure that he was not deceived, and thinking of the letter he had shown him, and which he had instinctively accepted as being true, in spite of Richard's protestations, a feel- ing of resentment, of disgust, rose in him. Was his cousin one of that sort? Was he one of those men who are always playing that kind of game? " Do you think that you can find people beautiful, if you don't like them? " he said at last. " How silly, of course you can. You surely like Richard?" "Oh, yes!" " And not Mrs. Martel? " " Perhaps, I can't tell, I know her so little." But there was something in that air of guarded in- timacy, in that surreptitious clasping of hands which made it distasteful to him to discuss them with her, and turning to Madeline, Nina's sister, a small pale girl of ten, and Humphrey, a little boy of seven, who, in a large white collar, was sitting with dangling legs, looking about him seriously, he asked : " And how do you like the Opera? " " Madeline has been here before," answered Nina, '* but it is a new experience for Humphrey." THE ESSENTIAL THING 49 " I like it much better than Punch and Judy," said the latter. " You see," Madeline explained, " whenever we go to a party they always have Punch and Judy or else a conjurer, and Humphrey is very tired of both. But I have seen ' Carmen ' by Bizet, ' Rigoletto ' by Verdi, and ' Faust ' by Gounod." She pronounced the names very precisely, as if she were reciting a lesson. " Humphrey hasn't seen any of them." " When I get bigger, I shall," Humphrey answered, looking at Madeline as if it were rather low of her to call attention to his lack of experience. " Do you know," Nina said, " seeing Richard has brought Paris back so vividly I mean when we were children there." " It did to me too," said Goeffrey. "Have I ever been in Paris, Nina?" Humphrey asked. " No, my dear." " Paris is the capital of France," answered Madeline, in her precise way. " Yes," Goeffrey said, " and when I was a boy, it was bounded on the north by the Pare Monceau, on the east by the Nouveau Cirque, on the west by the Luxem- bourg Gardens and on the south by a pastry cook's shop in the Palais Royale, where Richard and I used to spend our pocket money." Nina laughed. " How clearly that brings something back to me," she said. " I remember Richard's pre- senting to me with great eclat, a box of little cakes 50 THE ESSENTIAL THING once, when we were there together, and when you spoke of the pastry cook's, it brought that box vividly before me. I can remember it quite distinctly, white and shiny with gilt edges, it was tied with a little blue ribbon and I can see it, as plainly as if I had it in my hand now. Doubonnet Patissier Palais Royalc." " The very place," said Goeffrey. " I was very much impressed by Richard's magnifi- cence," Nina continued, " and I am afraid that for a time I thought you quite beneath my notice." "And do you know what that wretched boy had done? " Goeffrey rejoined. " You know what rivals we were where you were concerned. Well, he had spent all of his own allowance and so he borrowed my last franc and bought those cakes with it. I punched him well when I found that he had stolen such a march on me." " But, Goeffrey, that really was fine of you to be loyal to him like that you never told me." " Of course not, it was nothing." "But it must have seemed like something then?" " It would seem like something now, Nina," Goeffrey answered. She turned toward him quickly in surprise " What do you mean? " she asked, and then looked away again. " Plush," she said, and Goeffrey saw that the curtain was going up on the second act. The intrigues of Rosina, of Figaro, and the Count, were an old story to Goeffrey and after a few moments he ceased to be interested in them. But how charm- THE ESSENTIAL THING 51 ing it was to sit so intimately in this little circle, with the children, who tired already of being attentive, were trying, with naive abstraction, to count the lights in the central chandelier. With Aunt Mary, who a little bored too, was looking in the program at the names of the new subscribers and then scrutinizing their boxes closely, and with Nina. " How attractive she is," he thought, " how pretty." Ke was sitting beside and a little behind her and he looked at her furtively. She was tall, straight and well shaped, her slender neck sup- ported a little head whose small square chin and short straight nose, indicated that she did not lack decision. Her clear skin, her dark crisp brown hair and her violet eyes, gave an impression of vitality. She had very white teeth and her lips curved up at the corners of her mouth with a curious petulant expression, which Goeffrey thought wholly delightful. " How attractive," he repeated, and leaning over to her he said: " I wonder if you could not go to tea with me after it is over. We shall be out by five." Nina hesitated for a moment. " Why, yes, I should love to." "Would your Aunt mind?" Nina laughed. " If I went to tea with you rather not. Don't you know that you are a Waverly Place Hunter, a cousin of the Waverly Place Whitelys and that you can do no wrong? " " Then you will come? " Goeffrey repeated. " Yes, of course I shall." 52 THE ESSENTIAL THING " I want to talk to you about a lot of things," he continued. " I have so much to tell you." " How interesting," said Nina, " what kind of things, tell me?" " About Richard for one thing. I want to ask your advice about him, you are so sensible and clear headed and then I want to talk about myself too." "About yourself?" " Yes, if I have the courage." " Courage? I never thought that you were lacking in that." " But it is about myself in connection with some- one else." Goeffrey hoped that she would ask him who it was that he wished to talk about himself in connec- tion with, but she did not answer. " Shall I tell you who the someone else is ? " he asked at length. " If you like," she answered indifferently. " It is you Will you let me talk to you very freely, without reserve? If I have the courage?" Goeffrey saw a faint flush rise in her cheeks, her lips parted as if she were about to answer him, but she hesitated. All at once her expression changed. " Hush," she whispered again, " the singing lesson." The orchestra, which had been following the ever vary- ing tempo of the score, stopped for a moment, and then the long swinging movements of the " Primavera " rose and filled the house with its irresistible rhythm and Sembrich's flute-like voice, with all its matchless art, floated out in unison. Swaying waves of delicious THE ESSENTIAL THING 53 sound floated about them. Interweavings of rhythm- ical movements. Goeffrey's pulses seemed to beat time to them, and always quickly responsive to the more lyrical forms of musical expression, the odd idea came to him that it would be quite easy for him to float off into space and to perform the evolutions of the waltz with movements of exaggerated but fantastic grace, far above the heads of the audience. He looked at Nina, whose only answer was a smile. She was moving her head slightly too, in tune with the music, and her body swayed rhythmically. " How wonderful it would be if we could dance it," he said to her, " to that orchestra and to Sembrich's voice." A faint color had come into her cheeks again, her eyes were shining. " Ah ! no ! " she answered, " I couldn't, it would be too ecstatic." " Goeffrey is going to take me home, Auntie," Nina said, after the curtain had gone down on the finale, " and I think we would like to walk. We shall probably stop and get a cup of tea somewhere. Here is the carriage number," she added, handing her the ticket. " You are sure that you won't mind taking the chil- dren?" " Very sure of that and also sure that Mr. Goeffrey is to be trusted," answered Aunt Mary cordially. " Noblesse oblige." " Did you come in your car? " asked Nina, as they left the box. " What will your man do if he doesn't find you?" 5* THE ESSENTIAL THING " He'll go home, he's never sure of finding me any- where." They had not spoken since Sembrich had finished singing the "Primavera." Nina had become absorbed in the performance again and had seemed unconscious of her surroundings, except once when Humphrey had laughed heartily during the scene in which Figaro shaves Rosina's guardian. She had given him a quick smile then and had included Goeffrey in it. Nina laughed. " Oh Goeffrey, how delightfully irre- sponsible you are." " But how can one be responsible without responsi- bilities ? " he answered. " I haven't any, I wish I had. Shall we go to Sherry's? " He was feeling quite gay, quite light hearted again. It seemed so good to have her walking beside him in her modish gown, her smart hat with her air of self re- liance, made more vivid by that little petulant expres- sion at the corners of her mouth. " That's one of the things I want to talk to you about." "About acquiring responsibilities?" she asked in- nocently. Goeffrey looked up quickly to see if she were laughing at him. " And Richard," said Nina, after they had emerged from the maelstrom of traffic, that surged in Broadway and were nearing Fifth Avenue through one of the cross streets, " shouldn't you have found him ? " " Oh, he went out with Mrs, Martel, long before we did." THE ESSENTIAL THING 55 " There he is now," Goeff rey announced, indicating a distant corner, when they had seated themselves in the large dining-room " with Mrs. Martel. And speaking of responsibilities, I am afraid I have acquired one with a vengeance." "What is it?" Nina aslced. " It's Richard, he's lost his money, every penny of it." "Goeff rey!" " This is quite entre nous you understand, yes, every penny and he has come to me " " How awful, but what can you do for him? " " I can easily economize, I don't spend all of my in- come now, and I can very well arrange it so that he can have half. The only thing is that I am afraid that it won't be nearly enough he must be frightfully extravagant." Nina listened to him as if she would hardly believe what he was saying. " But Goeffrey, that's Quixotic Richard has no claim on you, you have no right to do a thing like that " " Why no right? He is my cousin, we were boys to- gether, do you imagine that I could see him ruined as he is, and not offer to share what I have with him? " " But suppose that you had lost your money, and that Richard had made you such an offer, would you accept it? " Goeffrey hesitated. " But that's different, somehow. It will be such a pleasure for me to do it." "And you mean that it wouldn't be for him?" " No, I didn't mean that exactly, that would be un- 56 THE ESSENTIAL THING kind, but you see Richard is quite helpless. He can't make money." " He won't try, Goeff rey he'll marry it." Goeffrey looked up quickly, an expression of ad- miration on his face. " How clever you are," he said, " of course he will. Do you know I never thought of that." " And Goeffrey, you have got to promise me that you will make no definite arrangement with him about money I know something about life, I know what Richard is; he is a man of pleasure; that's all. He has many charming qualities and some good ones per- haps, but he is quite irresponsible and he is weak. No matter what you give him, he will spend more. You must not bind yourself in any way r will you prom- ise?" " Perhaps you are right," said Goeffrey, hesitating. " I know that I am right. I have heard about Rich- ard from time to time, more than you have, perhaps, and I know that he has been very wild. It may be after the lesson he has had, that he will be willing to settle down. There are plenty of girls who would be glad to have a man, like that, with his fascinations, his accomplishments. But she must have money, a great deal of it." " That's just what he said, that he did not know how to live any other life than that which is made possible by a great deal of money. Do you think that that is true? That if one has had money, all one's life, so much that one has always been able to get what one THE ESSENTIAL THING 57 wanted, has never had to stop to think about the cost of things, has never known the disadvantages of being poor, and then loses everything, that it would be impos- sible to live? To learn how to live without it? " Nina's expression had become very grave as Goef- frey put this question to her, and she seemed to be con- sidering her answer with a seriousness which was al- most unnecessary. Goeffrey recalled this long after- wards. "It may seem cowardly to say so," she answered at length, " but I am afraid that Richard is right. Money doesn't count with us because we have it, but think of suddenly finding out that it really means everything, everything in life and that we haven't any. Because after all, Goeffrey, it does mean everything. Poor people have their emotions, their individual tempera- ments and are happy or unhappy through them, just as we are but the one essential thing in life to people, who have money, is money. I am sure of it. Do you think it quite heartless of me to say so? " " No," said Goeffrey, " but I feel somehow that you are wrong." " Shall we go now? " she said, " it is getting late." She got up, still with that gravity of manner, and they went out without speaking. " You will remember what I asked you to promise me about Richard," she reminded him as they turned down Fifth Avenue. "Yes," said Goeffrey. "And you promise?" 58 THE ESSENTIAL THING " Yes, I promise to make no definite arrangement for the present at least, and I will let you know before I do." And they walked on again in silence. " No," Goeffrey thought it could not be that Nina was right. He had never felt the want of money and yet he had often been wretchedly unhappy. He looked at her as she walked beside him with that expression of gravity which still rested on her face, and he was sure that her thoughts were not happy ones. No, there were things in life worth much more than that, than money. Nina lived in that quarter of the city known as Murray Hill, and as they reached Thirty-seventh Street, they paused for a moment and looked toward the south. The avenue from where they stood, fell away in a long down- ward sweep to Madison Square, as if bending beneath the weight of the buildings, beneath the masses of stone, steel and iron piled on either side of it. It was almost dark. A wintry sky with masses of stormy clouds rose before them against which the silhouettes of the enor- mous structures showed black, with a kind of fantastic grandeur. The lines of the street lights, looking like silver globes, receded in long curves and between them a river of yellow lamps on the carriages and motors, flowed ceaselessly toward the north. A wind from the east, strong and biting, made the blood tingle, and the scene spread out before them, the fantastic buildings, the stormy sky, the rows of lamps, the moving crowds on the pavements, gave them the impression that they were looking at the manifestation of forces which THE ESSENTIAL THING 59 were powerful, complex and incomprehensible. They paused still for another moment, and then went on again. " Life is very strange," said Nina at last. " Life is what we make it," answered Goeffrey, think- ing perhaps of Richard. " A man may say that," Nina returned with a sigh, " but with a woman, life is so often what other people make it for her." " Nina," Goeffrey said to her, speaking very ear- nestly, " I told you at the opera that I was going to ask you something if I had the courage I have found my courage at last and so I shall ask you now. Let me help you to make your life what you would like it to be. We have been talking about money. I have never known the want of it, nor have you, but there is something lacking in my life that I know quite well it can never get for me. You said that money was the one essential thing, but I know that you are wrong there are two things worth much more, and they are love and sympathy do you think me very sentimental when I say this? And although you have never told me, don't you feel yourself that you need something; that life lacks something for you in order to make it complete? Isn't it true?" " Yes," she answered, speaking so softly that he could hardly hear her. " And you lack just those things, love and sympathy, and I can give them to you " Is that really what you were going to ask me, Goef- 60 THE ESSENTIAL THING frey? " she said at length, but with no hint of incredul- ity in her question. " Yes, that was it, but I have been afraid to speak about it. At times I have wanted not to, because I used to delude myself too, with the idea that having money, I needed nothing else, but lately I have been finding out my mistake I do need something you * very, very much." " Can you answer me ? " he added after a moment. They had reached her house and were standing at the foot of the steps. " Not now, Goeff rey, I must think." " May I call to-morrow? " " Not here, I am never alone, and not so soon, I must have more time" she paused a moment and then added " Come to Constance's next Thursday," and she held out her hand. CHAPTER V IT occurred to Goeffrey as he walked home, that he had had an eventful day. He had made an offer of mar- riage to one woman and a proposal of a much less con- ventional kind to another within a few hours. Yet he had been quite sincere with each. His invitation to Doris was the result of a sudden and inexplicable act on her part and its effect on a deeply sympathetic bond which had been developed between them. It was en- tirely spontaneous and unpremeditated, while his pro- posal to Nina was the result of deliberation, after he had, by a slow process, reached the conclusion that it was time to settle down. His temporary defection under the attraction which Doris undoubtedly had for him, did not in any way indicate a lack of sincerity with Nina. Love with young people may sometimes be less personal than is generally supposed. It may be a commodity which they are eager to exchange for equal value. They may feel the need of loving and of being loved. Richard returned to Goeffrey's rooms at seven, and after dining quietly at the latter's club, they had re- turned to them at once. The east wind, which had been blowing all day, had increased in violence, and in the morning, the city was 61 62 THE ESSENTIAL THING being swept by torrents of cold and penetrating rain, through which the buildings at times appeared dimly, and at times vanished as if being looked at through the waving folds of an enormous curtain, semi-transparent. The pavements were deserted and as night fell, the re- flections of the lamps on the surface of the streaming asphalt, gave the streets the appearance of canals, brim- ming with black water. During the ensuing night the temperature fell sharply, and on Monday the whole city was encased in ice. The buildings in course of demolition and the steel cages of the new structures, stood deserted. A fine rain still descended, freezing as it fell, the streets were like glass and it would seem that the activities of the city must be frozen under this icy covering. But nothing stops the cohorts of those relentless armies that battle all day in the city. From every side they press in. The wheels of the electric trains, driven by their powerful motors, slip on their icy rails, but they must carry their regiments. The tunnels sweat with their steaming swarms. The ferry boats groaning under their burdens, push their way in their slips; and as these thousands are disgorged into the streets, a galvanic activity seizes them ; the machinery of the city begins to move and that strange battle, which is re- newed each day, begins again. In the great buildings, the elevators sweep ceaselessly up and down, metal doors clash, a million telephone bells ring, the telegraphic transmitters and the stock indicators click unendingly, the electric trams grinding on their steel grooves, clang THE ESSENTIAL THING 63 their bells, the rushing trains in the tunnels shake the earth, a million activities lend their varied sounds to a bedlam already defying analysis and ever up and down, in and out, the hordes surge unendingly. The ice in the streets is rubbed into a greasy slush under their feet, the freezing rain is unheeded, nothing can stop them and yet in all this strife, this ceaseless spending of energy, there seems to be something auto- matic, something unintelligent, a kind of somnambulistic frenzy, and that if one should say to them, "Whither? For what purpose? " they would stop, look up dumbly and pass on in confusion, not knowing what to say. , The temperature rising, a dense fall of snow fol- lowed. Soft, heavy and continuous, changing again to rain and it was not until Thursday morning that angry gleams shining through masses of dark clouds, showed that the storm was passing. During these days, Waters' culinary resources were tested severely, as Goeffrey had decided that he would take his meals at home until the weather improved. Richard had been out twice, returning each time in excellent spirits. He had not referred again to his affairs and Goeffrey, much occupied with his own, had made no attempt to discuss them with him. He had, however, offered his cousin a generous loan, which the latter had accepted gratefully. Mrs. Aladine had never abandoned the old custom of a weekly day, but on this afternoon at five, only three persons sat with her in the library of the great house her husband had left her when he died, Nina, 64. Goeffrey and Mr. Bancroft. Richard had promised to drop in later. Mr. Bancroft, an old gentleman of whom time had bereft almost everything except an income, came each week with unfailing regularity. !A bachelor so old that he had outlived most of his con- temporaries, he knew that here at least, he was always welcome. He was inordinately fond of tea. Every week, after he had finished his first cup, and when Mrs. Aladine without asking permission, would proceed to fill it again, he would raise his hand with a protesting gesture saying, " No more, dear lady ! " and Constance, without stopping, would answer softly, " Just one cup to please me," and he would acquiesce with a gratified smile. This byplay would be repeated invariably four and perhaps five times, with almost the same gestures, the same words. Tea had not yet arrived and Mr. Bancroft was grow- ing noticeably restless. Goeffrey rose and going to one of the windows, turned the knob of the ormolu espag- nolette and opened the casement. On the Avenue, carriages and motor cars were to be seen again, mov- ing rapidly north and south, an occasional pedestrian passed. In the park opposite, dark branches showed against the sky, and far on the other side vast cubes of masonry rose from which lights gleamed. A rush of cold air entered the room bringing with it the odor of dead leaves and of earth soaked with rain. Mrs. Aladine shivered. " Shut the window, Goeffrey, please." Leaning across the arm of her chair, she pressed an electric button. THE ESSENTIAL THING 65 Goeffrey closed the casement, but before returning he looked about him, at this room which he had seen so often but which never failed to impress him pleasur- ably with its cunning semblance of antiquity. Fifty feet long and perhaps eighteen high, fluted pilasters of some dark wood with capitals of dull gold supported the cornice. The ceiling at the ends and sides was divided by carved moldings, into panels of varied and yet symmetrical shapes, enriched with frets and dentals, garlands and cupids. And all of this pro- fusion of ornament, the flowers, the cornucopiae dis- charging from their escalloped mouths, masses of fruit, the arabesques and the fretted moldings, all gleaming with the dusty tones of antique gilding, formed but a frame for the great central panel thirty feet long, in which glowed a painting from a Venetian palace, a Tie- polo, " Mercury Descending from Olympus." Between the pilasters from floor to cornice, the recessed walls were filled with books. At the end of the room where Mrs. Aladine and her companions sat, blazing logs, in a great fireplace of black and yellow marble, cast a ruddy light on the floor and on the walls, and in a dis- tant corner a single reading lamp, upon a table, made the surrounding gloom translucent. An old servant dressed in black breeches, black stockings and a purple coat, entered. " Ask Hopkins to bring tea, if you please, Jacob," Mrs. Aladine said. " Yes, madam." No one spoke for some moments, sitting quietly under 66 THE ESSENTIAL THING the hypnotic influence of the dancing flames. Presently the whirr of a motor rose from the street, a bell sounded from the distance and a door closed with a heavy clang of metal. Steps were heard on the marble treads of the staircase. " Will you look at the Rembrandt, sir? " Jacob was heard saying in a respectful tone, from the foyer. " A glimpse, Jacob," answered a strong almost harsh voice. Someone crossed the hall, the click of electric buttons sounded and a flood of light illuminated a doorway at the further end of the library leading to the drawing- room. Mrs. Aladine smiled. " That is Mr. Storey ; it is a whim of his, he always looks at it as soon as he comes in and just as he is go- ing away," and raising her voice, she called, " we are in here, Vincent." " An extraordinary man," remarked Mr. Bancroft, " a harsh, powerful man and yet I sometimes think, one gifted, or cursed, with very delicate sensibilities." A huge bulky figure appeared in the doorway. " Jacob," he called to the old servant, " telephone my secretary, that I shall be here for an hour, but not to disturb me unless absolutely necessary." He was enormous; not only tall but grossly fat and yet he walked with an active, almost light step. His head, with its powerful chin, square cranium, cov- ered sparsely with black hair, and finely modeled nose, conveyed, in spite of his enormous jowls, an impression THE ESSENTIAL THING 67 of force, perhaps nobility, but one of those purplish birthmarks, beginning broadly on the right temple, and almost encircling the eye, gave him an expression almost sinister and aroused at the first glance, a feeling of repulsion. Hopkins, who had just come in with tea, wheeled a large chair up to the fire and Storey lowered himself into it, after greeting each in turn. " What is this," he asked, picking up from the table at his elbow a statuette of cast brass, six inches high; a grotesque representation of a nude woman performing the " danse du ventre." " A Persian antique, Vincent," answered Constance. " I saw it in a shop the other day and I bought it for you. Do you like it?" Storey looked up quickly and held out his hand. " That was good of you, to think of me," he said in his deep voice, " but I should like to give you something in exchange for it do you know what I have thought ? Goeffrey, you are a man of taste, isn't something needed at the top of the stairs between the candelabras? " " But not to hide the tapestry there," Goeffrey re- monstrated. " Of course not to hide the tapestry, just below it. I bought a chest in Rome a couple of months ago, which would go excellently there I think. I will send it to you when I get it." " Oh, Vincent," answered Constance, laughing, " I shall never make any more exchanges with you, I always get so much the best of the bargain." 68 THE ESSENTIAL THING " If you don't like my chest, send it back, but I warn you that I shall not return you your Persian antique ; it is immensely clever, and do you know," he continued, "that I have seen it before? yes, twenty years ago It was in the collection of Prince Demidoff , when it was sold at Florence. I bought a few things and I wanted this, but I got there a little late that day and it had disappeared." Nina had gone to the piano at the other end of the room, and was playing the " Primavera " softly. Goef- frey got up and went toward her, his heart thumping in his breast. It seemed to him that it took a very long time to cross the room, as if he were being urged toward her and at the same time retarded by opposing forces ; a sort of terror seized him; suppose she should say yes, was he making a mistake? For a moment he saw Doris again, seated on the arm of his chair, with that air of depres- sion, of fatigue, that air of one carrying a burden hard to bear, and he hesitated but suppose she said no. At this thought he was still more terrified, and he went on again. " I am worried about Nina," Constance was saying in an undertone, " she has seemed nervous and unhappy of late." " I have noticed that that young man seems very fond of her," observed Mr. Bancroft, putting down his cup. " No more, dear lady," he continued, raising his hand. " To please me," Constance answered, smiling at him with that air of charming coquetry, which some women THE ESSENTIAL THING 69 reserve for old men. " She is fond of him too I think, but it isn't that, it's something at home. It is remark- able what a nice girl she is when one considers her bring- ing up under the care of that eccentric old woman. She never sees her father." " I am afraid Davidge is getting to the end of his rope," Storey said, lowering his voice. " Are there rumors about him? " " Not yet, but there will be." " I hope Goeffrey's money is safe." " What do you mean ? " asked Storey, looking at her. "Didn't you know that Mr. Davidge is trustee of Goeffrey's father's estate?" An expression almost of amazement crossed Storey's features. " Davidge, of all men ! " He turned to Jacob who had come in with some message for his mistress, " Will you get my secretary on the telephone and let me know, I would like to speak to him." " I will try, sir," Jacob answered, " but I have been unable to get him yet." Goeffrey had reached Nina's side and was bending over her. His agitation made it hard for him to speak. " Nina, will you tell me? " he said at last. " Tell you what," she answered. She did not look up and her fingers did not cease moving over the keys. " You know." " But what can I say. So many people who marry, regret it so soon." " But we would not." "Why?" 70 THE ESSENTIAL THING " Because, Nina, I know I know that we would not." " Is that a reason, Goeffrey? " " No, but you know that sometimes we feel that things are so, without knowing why we have convictions, presentiments that we know are trustworthy." " Yes." " And I have a presentiment like that about you and about myself." " I have presentiments too," she said presently. "About me?" " Yes." " About yourself? " " Yes." " Don't you believe that I am sincere ? " " Yes." "Are you more sure of yourself than of me?" She hesitated for a moment, glanced up at him quickly and looked down again. "Perhaps." Did she mean to give him hope? " Nina," he exclaimed and checked himself, " you know what you were, to tell me to-day," he said at last. " You know what I want you to say, what would make me happier than anything else to hear." Nina still played the Primavera softly. He could not see her eyes, which half veiled by their lashes, were fixed on the key board. The subdued notes of the music gave an emotional emphasis to the spoken words. " When I came over to you," Goeffrey continued, " the thought came to me that you might say ' No,' THE ESSENTIAL THING 71 and the possibility of such an answer terrified me be- yond words. Don't say that, say what I want so much to hear please, please." " But are you sure ? " she answered, still playing, in a voice so low that he had to bend yet closer to hear her, " are you quite, quite sure? Isn't it perhaps more because you are tired of the life you have been leading and that you want to change it more than that you want me? Are you quite, quite sure? " As she was speaking, he noticed her round wrists with the white firm hands moving skillfully on the keys the soft rise and fall of her breathing, the curve of her cheeks on which the downcast lashes made faint shadows, the waves of her dark hair under the rim of her hat, and he felt that she was more desirable, more to be wanted than anything in life. She raised her head slowly and stared straight into his eyes, but with an apparent air of abstraction that seemed to rob her look of any personal significance. "Are you quite, quite sure?" she repeated. The arrangement of the waltz was not an easy one, but she was playing it without effort. The tempo, which she had increased slightly, seemed to bear him into regions of lyrical expression as he answered her. " Quite sure," he said, " more sure than I can tell you, so sure that if you say * No,' I shall go away, be- cause I could not bear to be where I could see you be always reminded of what I wanted so much and could not have. Oh ! Nina, tell me, but please don't say that it is < No.' " 72 THE ESSENTIAL THING She began to sway slightly to the music whose tempo she had again increased until with two sharp chords she stopped, raised her head with a bewitching smile and looked again straight into his eyes. " It's ' Yes,' Goeffrey," she whispered. An overpowering desire to take her in his arms pos- sessed him, he looked about almost desperately. " Let us go into the drawing-room. I must see you alone." Nina caught his hand for an instant and pressed it furtively. " No ! No ! " she whispered again " not now, later perhaps," and giving him again that be- witching smile, she jumped up and walked quickly toward the other end of the room. Richard had come in with Mrs. Martel and had been presented to Mrs. Aladine and three other persons had also arrived; a Mr. and Mrs. Vanderveer and Mr. Arthur Vernay. Mr. Vanderveer's chief claim to dis- tinction, aside from being very rich, was the fact that he had been educated for the navy. He was a small timid man, who was in the habit of addressing all of his conversation to his wife, a magnificent, placid, English woman, of whom he was very jealous, for no reason whatever. Vernay, a bachelor of forty-five, was one of those refined voluptuaries who have existed in all ages. His face wore a serene but empty expression. His profile was of that noble cast one sees on Roman coins. His cheeks were those of a gourmet, slightly mottled with a network of delicate bluish veins and he was beginning to show signs of approaching baldness, which he endeavored to conceal by a careful arrange- THE ESSENTIAL THING 73 ment of his fine light brown hair. He gave the impres- sion of one who had always slept in the softest beds, betv ***f\ Mnnest sheets, drunk the choicest wines, Q^rest cigars, eaten the richest food and >r* ed beneath his affable exterior, a fixed er to do anything else. 1 - was entertaining Mr. Bancroft with accident which had befallen some they could get to her, her horse roken both her legs. One never happening in England." Alartel and Richard were sitting .ias just been telling me about your .s a pianist," Constance said to Goef- .e up with Nina, " but we can't get him jme reason." in, you know, is extremely temperamental," .f raumerei, Richard." Nina greeted him with a smu ind held out her hand. "And do you remember that? " Goeffrey interposed. " What a day that was. You remember it, Richard, don't you? " Richard looked mystified. " I must confess that I don't." " I only remember that Richard used to play Traumerei, when he was sentimental," said Nina. Goef- frey made a gesture of disappointment. " So you have both forgotten it. I suppose I remem- 72 THE ESSENTIAL THING She began to sway slightly to the music whose tempo she had again increased until with two sharp chords she stopped, raised her head with a bewitching smile and looked again straight into his eyes. " It's Yes,' Goeffrey," she whispered. An overpowering desire to take her in his sessed him, he looked about almost despr us go into the drawing-room. I m Nina caught his hand for an im furtively. " No ! No ! " she whisj now, later perhaps," and giving witching smile, she jumped up toward the other end of the room f>^ Richard had come in with Mrs ^-^ TTr presented to Mrs. Aladine an* L had also arrived; a Mr. and M: *?. Arthur Vernay. Mr. Vandervr tinction, aside from being verj he had been educated for the , vas a small timid man, who was in the h Dressing all of his conversation to his wife, a magnificent, placid, English woman, of whom he was very jealous, for no reason whatever. Vernay, a bachelor of forty-five, was one of those refined voluptuaries who have existed in all ages. His face wore a serene but empty expression. His profile was of that noble cast one sees on Roman coins. His cheeks were those of a gourmet, slightly mottled with a network of delicate bluish veins and he was beginning to show signs of approaching baldness, which he endeavored to conceal by a careful arrange- THE ESSENTIAL THING 73 ment of his fine light brown hair. He gave the impres- sion of one who had always slept in the softest beds, between the thinnest sheets, drunk the choicest wines, smoked the rarest cigars, eaten the richest food and that he concealed beneath his affable exterior, a fixed determination never to do anything else. Mrs. Vanderveer was entertaining Mr. Bancroft with an account of an accident which had befallen some friend. " But before they could get to her, her horse had rolled on her and broken both her legs. One never hears of such things happening in England." Constance, Mrs. Martel and Richard were sitting together. " Mrs. Martel has just been telling me about your cousin's ability as a pianist," Constance said to Goef- frey, as he came up with Nina, " but we can't get him to play for some reason." " My cousin, you know, is extremely temperamental," said Goeffrey. " Play Traumerei, Richard." Nina greeted him with a smile and held out her hand. "And do you remember that? " Goeffrey interposed. " What a day that was. You remember it, Richard, don't you?" Richard looked mystified. " I must confess that I don't." " I only remember that Richard used to play Traumerei, when he was sentimental," said Nina. Goef- frey made a gesture of disappointment. " So you have both forgotten it. I suppose I remem- 74. THE ESSENTIAL THING her it, because all of my surroundings then were so new and delightful. It wasn't much though in itself, just a day in London. I had come from Italy to visit Richard, and you, Nina, were there with your mother, en route to Paris. We had been to the Drury Lane to see the pantomime with your mother's maid, and when we came back, we had tea with your mother in a big, old fashioned parlor. Such delicious tea, with such appetizing English bread and butter and such heavenly jam, and after Richard and I had eaten a shameful lot of everything, your mother said : ' Play something, Richard,' and Richard went to the piano (it was one of the old fashioned kind with candles burning in scon- ces on it) and played Traumerei. There were no lights in the room, except the candles on the piano, and Nina and her mother, and I, all sat by the fire and listened, and as I looked out of the window I could see the trees in Hyde Park through the dusk. Traumerei always brings that back." " I should say that you were temperamental, Goef- frey," said Richard, who had been watching his cous- in's expressive face and nervous gestures, with a half amused smile, " but I will admit that my playing is very much influenced by my surroundings. If I played Traumerei, it was probably because it seemed to me to be the thing for that old fashioned parlor, the candles, the firelight and all that, but in this wonderful room of Mrs. Aladine's, for the moment nothing comes to me that I would like to play here, but it will, it always does, and then if you will let THE ESSENTIAL THING 75 turned to Constance, " I will come and play > /ernay and Mr. Vanderveer, were standing listance, talking together in subdued tones. x t get your secretary, sir," Jacob said, ap- >torey, " the telephone seems not to be work- y it is the storm." lind," Storey answered, and then as a new %*ed the room and greeted Mrs. Aladine, 1, " Ah ! here is Martel ! What news, ne over to him and looked toward Nina ring. " I haven't been downtown, but jmor at the club that Davidge's bank is in 1's husband and certain people always t, when speaking of him was rather be- 2fe height, with the broad shoulders and U legs of an athlete. He wore a short /ie and against his bronzed skin his eyes /^'.ly blue. He gave the impression of one _.? open, in the free air of the sea and his of a sailor. The backs of his brown were covered with a thick growth of .irs. He seemed like a man who had v nand, but one with rather slow wits, and :'^*iries of worry between his eyebrows and other fines about his mouth which gave him a bitter expres- sion. Nina in response to a mute appeal from Goeffrey, 74. THE ESSENTIAL THING her it, because all of my surroundings then \,f and delightful. It wasn't much though in :> a day in London. I had come from Ita Richard, and you, Nina, were there with yc en route to Paris. We had been to the Dru: see the pantomime with your mother's maid we came back, we had tea with your mothe old fashioned parlor. Such delicious tea, * appetizing English bread and butter and sue jam, and after Richard and I had eaten , lot of everything, your mother said : * Play Richard,' and Richard went to the piano ( of the old fashioned kind with candles burnh ces on it) and played Traumerei. There wei in the room, except the candles on the piano, and her mother, and I, all sat by the fire ar and as I looked out of the window I cou trees in Hyde Park through the dusk, always brings that back." " I should say that you were temperamen frey," said Richard, who had been watching in's expressive face and nervous gestures, v amused smile, " but I will admit that my very much influenced by my surroundir played Traumerei, it was probably because to me to be the thing for that old fashion the candles, the firelight and all that, but wonderful room of Mrs. Aladine's, for the moment nothing comes to me that I would like to play here, but it will, it always does, and then if you will let THE ESSENTIAL THING 75 me >J he turned to Constance, " I will come and play it for you." Storey, Vernay and Mr. Vanderveer, were standing at a little distance, talking together in subdued tones. " I cannot get your secretary, sir," Jacob said, ap- proaching Storey, " the telephone seems not to be work- ing properly it is the storm." " Never mind," Storey answered, and then as a new arrival entered the room and greeted Mrs. Aladine, he exclaimed, " Ah ! here is Martel ! What news, Charles?" Martel came over to him and looked toward Nina before answering. " I haven't been downtown, but there was a rumor at the club that Davidge's bank is in trouble." Mrs. Martel's husband and certain people always called him that, when speaking of him was rather be- low the average height, with the broad shoulders and slightly bowed legs of an athlete. He wore a short blond mustache and against his bronzed skin his eyes looked intensely blue. He gave the impression of one who lived in the open, in the free air of the sea and his gait was that of a sailor. The backs of his brown muscular hands were covered with a thick growth of short blond hairs. He seemed like a man who had himself well in hand, but one with rather slow wits, and there were lines of worry between his eyebrows and other lines about his mouth which gave him a bitter expres- sion. Nina in response to a mute appeal from Goeffrey, 76 THE ESSENTIAL THING had slowly moved toward the other end of the room again, and they sat down on one of the velvet cov- ered benches which stood in the recesses of the windows. "And so Richard used to be sentimental and play Traumerei to you," began Goeff rey. " Did he make love to you ? " Nina laughed. "We were children, you remember. Are you jealous already? But as to making love, Richard makes love to everybody, that's his specialty." She paused for a moment " Constance will be the next." " Nina ! " Goeffrey was horrified. " He isn't good enough for her." " I didn't say that he would marry her, but he'll try." " I shall dislike Richard before very long, if I don't look out." "Why should you? He has got to marry someone with money. We agreed on that point. He must, don't you understand, and you don't think for a moment that Constance is always going to stay a widow? Mr. Storey would like to marry her." " That monster. Did she tell you? " " There probably isn't anything to tell, but anyone can see that he is in love with her, and I don't think you ought to call him a monster." " I know that was a beastly thing to say, because I like him immensely, but the thought of her marrying him is terrible, somehow. She is so beautiful and and so delicate." THE ESSENTIAL THING 77 " I don't think that she will marry him. I don't think she could; but she will marry someone, she's lonely you know. I hope she gets the right sort of man ; but I shall always feel afraid for Constance, she's too sympathetic; she lets her feelings carry her away against her judgment." Nina had glanced out of the window. " Here comes Mr. Pandolfi," she said, " he's so tiresome, he's always calling on one. Will you get me a cup of tea? Hurry, there's a dear, and get back before he comes in. Per- haps he won't see us." Goeff rey was completely happy, the things which had been lacking in his life had found their way into it very quickly and wonderfully. He was conscious of an extraordinary sense of well being, which seemed to fill, not only his mind and his soul, but his body as well. Why had he put off for so long taking the necessary steps to satisfy that craving for sympathy and af- fection which all men feel. Mr. and Mrs. Vanderveer were saying good-by to Constance, and everybody had stood up. Mr. Ban- croft lingered by the tea table. Storey, Vernay and Martel were still standing at a little distance and Mrs. Martel and Richard were exchanging a few words in an undertone. Suddenly Pandolfi hurried into the room. He was tall and well built, slightly inclined to stoutness, with black wavy hair closely cut. He wore a small black mustache which was waxed at the ends and his eyes were large, dark and very handsome. He came in 78 THE ESSENTIAL THING quickly, clearly under the influence of some excitement, and waving his hat and stick which he carried in one hand, around his head, he cried: " Davidge has absconded, the examiners have taken possession, they say that his bank is absolutely cleaned out. There'll be the devil to pay to-morrow." Alarm was depicted on the faces around him. " Shut up, you fool,"' cried Goeffrey furiously, turn- ing so quickly that Mr. Bancroft seized the tea pot " don't you see that Nina is here? " All turned and looked at her. She was coming toward them from the other end of the room, walking slowly and in a dazed way, as if she had received a blow which had paralyzed her mental faculties. For a moment they stood spell-bound, watching her curious slow somnambulistic progress toward them, and then Goeffrey and Constance ran toward her. " Oh ! Nina, Nina ! " was all that Goeffrey could say, but Constance, putting her arm around her, led her out of the room. Mrs. Martel went up to her husband, who happened to be standing alone. " I am going now, shall I take you home ? " She spoke in a voice so low that the others could not hear her, with a curious expression of mingled defiance, fear and supplication on her beauti- ful face. Martel looked at her, once, with his intensely blue eyes, an inexplicable look, and turning, joined the others without answering her. Constance came into the room again and hurried to Storey's side. THE ESSENTIAL THING 79 " She insists on going home, but do you think that she ought to ? " " She must not think of it, the house will be be- sieged by the reporters and probably the police. Could you keep the children and her aunt over night? " " Yes, I have been telling her so." " Very well, then, I will go there and tell them to come. To-morrow we can see what to do. But tell her that I say positively that she must stay here." Storey turned toward the door. " I think I will go with you, Storey," said Martel. " Good," answered the latter, and they went out together. CHAPTER VI WHEN Goeffrey came back to the library a little later, Mrs. Aladine had taken Nina upstairs with her and told him that he might come again in the morning, he found it deserted. Although he knew that it was quite prob- able that his own affairs would be seriously, perhaps disastrously, affected by Davidge's failure, the catas- trophe which had overtaken Nina seemed so much more appalling, that he hardly thought of them, but he wondered what Richard would say and he felt sure that it would be a harder blow for his cousin, than for himself. He looked at his watch ; it was seven o'clock. He had left Mrs. Aladine's house and was walking down the Avenue. Before him lay the open space at the en- trance to the park. To the right he could see through the trees, a gigantic hotel rising story on story, its white walls dotted with lights shining from innumer- able windows. On the opposite side, others scarcely less lofty towered before him, and between them, like a river opening between cliffs, Fifth Avenue discharged into the plaza before it, its torrent of moving lamps, yellow and silver, the dark vehicles which bore them and the current of people on the sidewalks. He heard someone calling him, and turning saw Pandolfi hurrying after him. " Look here, Hunter ! " he exclaimed in an angry 80 THE ESSENTIAL THING 81 tone, as he came up. " At Mrs. Aladine's just now, you spoke to me in a way I didn't like, and I want to know what the devil you meant by it. What the devil do you mean by speaking to me in that way ? " " Was I rude? " said Goeffrey. " I don't remember what I said, but I'm awfully sorry. You see I knew it would be a most awful blow for Nina, and I was in hopes that she might not have heard you, and I wanted to stop you from saying anything more " " Well, you don't suppose that I am any more anx- ious to hurt her feelings than you are, do you? And besides I don't see any reason why you should appoint yourself her special protector " Pandolfi's manner was such that Goeffrey was begin- ning to lose his temper too. " You don't? " he asked. " Well, there's a very good reason." " What do you mean ? " " It's none of your business, but I don't mind tell- ing you that we're engaged." Pandolfi came to a standstill, looked at Goeffrey and laughed; a short, politely insolent laugh, then he walked on again. Goeffrey was so exasperated that he became personal. " Look here, Pandolfi, I wish you would get over that beastly Italian habit of yours, of coming to a dead stop when you are walking with anyone, it's so disconcert- ing." This reference to a racial trait which he had often tried to break himself of, seemed to infuriate Pandolfi, 83 THE ESSENTIAL THING and for a moment, like some beast seen in concealment, the cruel Neapolitan nature which was always slumber- ing beneath the surface, showed itself in his face. " So you don't like my habits, my Italian habits," he answered slowly and with a menacing tone in his voice. " Very well, let me tell you that no one will care now what you like or what you don't like do you know why? Because you are nothing, you are a pau- per." " Good God," said Goeffrey, " that's a new point of view. I am nothing, because I have no money I have money, therefore I am; a stock broker's version of Descartes; but just let my affairs alone, will you? They don't concern you, and I don't see how you should know anything about them anyway." Suddenly he thought of what Doris had said her apprehensions. " What do you know about my affairs, by the way. What business is it of yours ? " he replied, looking at Pandolfi suspiciously. Pandolfi's manner changed quickly for some reason; the cruel expression disappeared. " Excuse me, Hunter," he said in a tone of almost exaggerated friendliness, " I ought not to have said that. I only repeated what I have heard, that Davidge had lost his own and everybody's money he had anything to do with and as to your engagement, let me offer you my heartiest congratulations." Pandolfi had stopped, intending evidently to turn off the Avenue, and Goeffrey, who always found it difficult THE ESSENTIAL THING 83 to harbor ill will against anyone, held out his hand saying : " Thank you, Pandolfi and I am sorry for what I said to." " That's all right then I shall leave you here, but I shall see you to-night of course." Goeffrey wondered why he should see Pandolfi again that night, and the latter's meaning was not made plain to him until he reached his rooms. A table laid for ten stood in the middle of the parlor. A cloth of crimson silk covered it, and a mass of yellow tulips rose from a large bowl of Chinese porcelain which stood in the center. Other tulips lying on the cloth traced a fantastic pattern, and still others filled every available receptacle. The effect against the dark back-ground of the room, and Goeffrey's really beautiful furniture, proved to be as Waters had predicted, most pleasing but Goeffrey was thunder- struck. He had forgotten his party completely. " You never told me about it," said Richard reproach- fully. He had come in a few minutes earlier. " I had no idea Waters had such a coquettish taste." " Here's a situation that would please a playwright," answered Goeffrey, looking about him in dismay. " On a certain day I am engaged to be married a little later I hear that I have lost my money, and in the evening I give a supper to some of my friends of the theater. But I mustn't do it I must stop it some- how," 84 THE ESSENTIAL THING Richard seemed not to have heard what Goeffrey had said of his engagement, but was looking at him with a startled expression on his face. "That you have lost your money?" his tone was half incredulous, "how could you lose it?" " You knew, didn't you, that Mr. Davidge had charge of my property ? " " If I ever knew it, I had forgotten," Richard an- swered. " It never occurred to me that his failure could affect you in any sort of way." " I'm afraid it's true, Richard. Pandolfi was kind enough just now; to tell me that I was a pauper and so I am, I'm afraid, almost at least. We are in the same boat, Richard." He was smiling quite cheerfully as he spoke. " JBut what are we going to do? " Richard demanded. He seemed exasperated by Goeffrey's manner and spoke in an iritated tone, as if he considered it to be his cousin's fault. " How can you smile like that after what has happened?" " We are going to make money again now that we have lost it," Goeffrey answered, still with the same air of composure. Richard got up and began to pace the floor; his ex- asperation increasing. " Well, really, Goeffrey," he said bitterly, " you can't make money, I can't make it. It is utter, absolute, silly rot to talk like that. Aren't you going to do anything, see your lawyer, do some- thing, take some step to protect yourself if you can? You knew what it might mean when you heard of THE ESSENTIAL THING 85 Davidge's failure this afternoon, have you done noth- ing?" " To-night, of course not - in the morning I shall, but it will be no use I tell you, I know it. You heard Pandolfi say that the bank is absolutely cleaned out." " Well, God help us both," cried Richard, with de- spair and anger in his voice. *' God pity us, that's all / can say." " Nina said to-day that she would marry me," Goef- frey went on after a moment, " and it is more than likely that her father's failure will leave her as destitute as it does me. Do you suppose, knowing that, that I have time to think about my own troubles? Know- ing what hers are? Do you suppose that I have time for anything now except to think how I can best earn money to take care of her? And isn't there something well worth while about it too, if I can say to myself here I've got this thing to do and I'm going to do it? " Richard looked at him with an expression in which pity and contempt were mingled. " My dear Goef- frey," he said, " you're a fool." " Am I? " replied Goeffrey, " perhaps ! But let me tell you one thing. You said the other day that to people like you and me, money is necessary I say it isn't - I say in spite of the probability of my having lost everything, I've never been so happy as I am to-night never looked at life so courageously, never knew what it was to understand that life could have a special meaning. And if someone had told me that it would, 86 THE ESSENTIAL THING cost me every penny to feel as I do now, to realize what life really means, I would have given it Richard had lighted a cigarette and thrown himself sullenly on a sofa. " I'll give you six months," he said at last, " and in the mean time what am I to do? Life has developed no new meaning for me. To me it means one thing life." " I'm sorry, Richard, much more sorry for you than for myself, but listen I have some money in my bank I haven't always spent everything, and there's about thirty thousand dollars there, I should think. I'll give you half. Is that a bargain? And with that we'll start again by the way, what time is it? " He too took out his watch and consulting it, looked at Richard in consternation. " It's quarter past eight I can't have them to-night, Dick, it doesn't seem right some- how to-night " " Can you get word to them now ? " " I don't know where to find the men, I might get the women at their theaters." " Then why stop it," said Richard, " it's your last night." Goeffrey was silent 1 yes, this was his last night, his old life was over a feeling almost of regret as- sailed him for a moment what harm to have them. They had been friends in their way. They had had many pleasant evenings together. Would it be decent for him to tell them not to come at the last moment, when he intended not to see them again? What harm THE ESSENTIAL THING 87 to have them for the last time? And Doris she had promised to come must he not see her any more either? he half sighed he supposed not poor little Doris, but just once at least to put himself straight with her. He jumped to his feet. " All right, Dick, we'll have them, it's for the last time, and now dress, dress quickly we will dine some- where together. We are all to meet at Davenport's after the theaters are out and come here later." CHAPTER VII IN the meantime Storey and Martel in the former's car had gone straight to Davidge's house. A group of re- porters stood on the pavement and an officer coming out of the door, touched his hat to Storey as he ascended the steps. Martel remained in the car. Inside, the atmosphere of the house seemed to reflect the ruin that had befallen it, although nothing was changed. A dubious dejection reigned, mournful and at the same time ominous. An old housekeeper came in and announced that Miss Mary Davidge was prostrated by the news and could see no one, but on Storey's stating his message, she disappeared, returning to say that Miss Davidge would try to go later. " But that is most indefinite," Storey answered. " I am going back to Mrs. Aladine's at once. Ask Miss Davidge to say when Miss Nina may expect her." " Miss Davidge says that she will get up as soon as she can," the housekeeper reported after a considerable delay. " Is she ill ? " Storey demanded with a gesture of im- patience. " No, sir, but she is in bed and her door is locked." " But the children shouldn't be left here, where are they?" " In the nursery, sir." 88 THE ESSENTIAL THING 89 " Get them at once, I will take them with me." Madeline and Humphrey came in after further delay, dressed for the street, looking scared and mystified. They realized that something dreadful had happened but what it was they could not understand. One of those things which happen to grown people, which is beyond their range of experience, which they accept without question and soon forget. Children with their instinctive knowledge of the es- sential things in the characters of others, are curiously indifferent to physical ugliness. That is unessential to them. They go deeper. And Storey had always been a favorite with them. " Come along," he said in his strong voice, " we are going to see your sister," and smiling trustfully, they got into the car. " Tell Miss Davidge," he said to the servant, " that I have taken the children to Mrs. Aladine's," and as they moved off he broke into a hearty laugh. " She will not stay there now," he added, " alone with the servants." " Will you come home with me for a few minutes," Martel said after they had left Mrs. Aladine's again. " I should like to ask you something." Upon reaching his house, he assisted Storey from the car and preceding him up the steps, ushered him into the hall. A large old fashioned room paved with squares of black and white marble. A sound of weeping was heard as they entered Lu- cus, Martel's little boy, five years old, stood sobbing 90 THE ESSENTIAL THING dismally, while his sister, two years older, seemed to be searching his pockets. "What is the matter?" said Storey going up to them. Lucus stopped suddenly, staring with open mouth as if in wonder at such a huge man, but Helen knew Storey well and smiling up at him, her short skirts swaying to and fro, she answered in a shrill voice : " I was looking for his pocket handkerchief he won't wipe his nose and nurse says that's a nasty trick." Storey laughed heartily. " Perhaps he hasn't one," he said, drawing a silver dollar from his pocket, " so here is something to buy one with." " I have many pocket handkerchiefs," Lucus an- swered in a loud distinct voice. " Then you may buy anything you like with it." Lucus stood smiling, first at the dollar and then at Storey, until suddenly he turned and shouting something excitedly, he began running round and round the hall, his sister close at his heels, both seemingly engaged in the performance of some game intelligible only to them- selves. Their cries and the clattering of their shoes on the marble floor, made a deafening racket. "Where is Therese?" Martel demanded irritably of the English servant who had opened the door for them. " They should not be allowed to make such a noise downstairs, take them to the nursery at once, it's time they were in bed," and turning quickly he led the way THE ESSENTIAL THING 91 into his study, pausing however to say " Bring scotch and cigars." Storey sat down in a large easy chair and waited. Martel paced restlessly up and down, avoiding his eye. The servant appeared. "Has Mrs. Martel come in?" " Not yet, sir." Martel opened the box of cigars. " Not these ! not these," he exclaimed in the same ir- ritable manner, " the perf ectos, you know the kind I smoke." " Excuse me, sir," answered the servant, " I will fetch them directly." When he had finally gone, closing the door after him, Martel filled the glasses, gave one to Storey, provided him with a cigar, lighted his own which he put down at once and did not take up again, and then looking him squarely in the face, with his intensely blue eyes, he said almost harshly: " Vincent, I need money." "How much?" " Two hundred thousand dollars." Storey gave him a quick searching look and re- mained silent. " Yes, I could let you have it," he said finally, " but let me ask you " Martel held up his hand as if to stop him. " No, that isn't what I mean," he said. " I want to 92 THE ESSENTIAL THING sell some of my securities, I have no intention of bor- rowing." " Let me ask you, Charles/' Storey repeated, " have you been speculating? " "I?" answered Martel, looking at him in surprise. " This is not then to provide for some unexpected de- mand some loss ? " " I have run behind," answered Martel, " that's all. I have been running behind for years, living beyond my means." " Now listen," said Storey. " Davidge's failure may be only the beginning of trouble, you may not be able to sell your securities without sacrificing them, give them to me as collateral and let me lend it to you. You have never been in business, you know nothing about mak- ing money, therefore hold to what you have. Your money is well invested, don't touch it. Once begin en- croaching on your capital, and God knows where you will end. Let me lend it to you. From time to time, as you feel able, you can pay it back." Martel remained for a moment looking mournfully at the floor. " No," he said at last, " I would never be able to." " But you have sixty thousand a year go abroad for five years, let both your houses, sell the ' Phryne,' ' said Storey, referring to a schooner yacht, the apple of Martel's eye. 61 1 sold her six months ago," answered Martel. " You know my wife hates the water." He sat silent again, still looking at the floor. THE ESSENTIAL THING 93 " No," he repeated at last, as if to himself. " I should never be able to." Suddenly he rose to his feet, an expression of fury distorted his features. " Yes ! " he exclaimed, " it is as you say, God knows where it will end. All! all will go, fortune, name, everything, all, all ! " Then looking quickly at Storey as if surprised at his own intensity, he sat down and said in a calm voice : " Vincent, I am going to confide to you, something I have told no liv- ing soul I feel that I must the thought of it is with me night and day I must tell you." He rose again, went to the door, looked out, closed and locked it. When he resumed his seat, Storey saw that his face now wore a look of agony, as if he were dwelling on memories intolerably painful to him. He drew a deep breath and Storey could see that his muscu- lar hands were gripping the arms of his chair tightly. " All men, Vincent," he said at last, " marry for one reason, the wish for physical possession. They would not admit this to you sometimes they do not even know it, but it is true, and it was for this that I too married and 7 did not know. You remember her, you know how beautiful she is, and how much more beautiful she was then? The idea of possessing her, filled me with feelings of awe, of tenderness. Often when thinking of the inscrutable ways of God, in giv- ing me a wife so beautiful, so good, so beautiful, so perfect, so beautiful, always beautiful you see, I prayed that I might be in a measure worthy of her because she was beautiful." 94 THE ESSENTIAL THING Martel paused again, breathed deeply and went on. " But while satiety, weariness or indifference follow most marriages, love followed mine on my part No 1 men do not marry for love. They marry because their wives seem beautiful to them they learn to love or to hate afterwards I learned to love, at first " Well, we married and I took her abroad. Her father, who had been a physician with a small practice, had found it difficult even to give her an education such as he wished, and she had, up to this time, seen nothing of life, knew nothing of it, and it pleased me to show it to her." A nervous smile distorted his lips. He got up, walked the length of the room and back, and resuming his seat, went on : " She was mine you see and she had been poor I would shower money on her be her Maecenas, teach her how people with money live How well my beauty learned her lesson ! " Storey was amazed as he listened. Martel, a man of few words, and with no gift of language, was ex- pressing himself with a lucidity, an ease which he could not have given him credit for it seemed as if in brooding over his troubles, he had acquired a vocabu- lary wherewith to give expression to them. " But I was content at first. Proud of the man- ners and graces of the world which she acquired so easily of her beauty which attracted notice be- cause I possessed it proud of her faculty in learning the lesson it had pleased me to teach, the lesson of life THE ESSENTIAL THING 95 as we know it, until finally I realized that she had de- veloped an appetite for it, without restraint, without moderation, voracious of pleasure, insatiable. That is why I need money, Storey, my debts are pressing Martel stopped and there was a long silence, but Storey felt that he had not finished. At length he be- gan again. " I remonstrated with her and we quarreled, the first of many. We grew farther and farther apart and then a certain man came " He drew one of those deep labored breaths and his face assumed again that look of suffering which Storey] had noticed before. " A certain man came ; and I forgave her." He stopped again and looked at Storey for the first time since he had begun speaking. " Forgive me," he said, " for talking so long but it is hard, hard to tell." Storey made a gesture of assent. " I forgave her," he repeated in the same mournful voice, " on certain conditions. This man was to be dis- missed absolutely and completely and I demanded of her a circumspection of conduct which she must fol- low unwaveringly. She promised. She was frightened and sincerely remorseful, I think, but whether she has kept her promise, I do not know. I did not want to know and yet I wanted to I was afraid to know and yet I doubted. What an intolerable situation, and in all these years, I have never known, would never try to know, because I was afraid afraid that I could not stand the knowledge of a second a second 96 THE ESSENTIAL THING Martel could not go on. " To-day, I was crossing Fifth Avenue, when she passed me in her car, and with her was the man she had promised never to see. Neither noticed me. What caused me to go to Mrs. Aladine's, I cannot tell, but I went, and they were there. There are to be reprisals now. She has broken her promise and she shall pay if I can make her, to the uttermost farthing. She shall not have one penny of my money, if I can prevent it, nor the children. Will you help me, Storey? Just what I intend to do, I cannot tell yet, but she would like my money and she shall not get it, she would like my children and she shall not have them. Will you try to keep her from them if I show you good reasons why she should not have them?" "Will /try?" " I mean that life is so uncertain. If I should give you reasons good reasons, for doing so, would you carry out my wishes if I should not be here? " Storey, man of many responsibilities, hesitated. " I would do what I could, Charles," he answered at length. Martel held out his hand a weight seemed to have been lifted from his mind. He knew that that answer of Storey's meant much. " Thank you, Vincent," he said simply. Then he did an unwonted thing, he smiled the bitter lines about his mouth disappeared and Storey saw that he was looking at a different man; a man with a very sweet, honest and simple nature. CHAPTER VIII DAVIDGE, until five years before, had been a man of de- pendable and honest qualities. He was typical of that solid but unimaginative class who are scrupulously or- derly in their dealings with themselves and others. He read nothing but the newspapers, discounted his bills, and went to sleep at the opera. He was a good hus- band, proud of his wife because she was his, loved his children and had a strong conviction that the head of the banking business of Davidge & Co., was a person of some importance. He was affectionate, kindly, shrewd, unintelligent and vain. But after the death of his wife, a change began to take place in Davidge's character. He seemed to be dropping a little below the level of life, as he had always lived it. He became a shade less particular about his person. His expression changed slightly. He grew slowly into habits of self indulgence which had been quite foreign to his nature he was under- going some subtle deterioration but very gradually. Gradually the old Davidge was disappearing, but so slowly, that it was not until the transformation was complete, that his family realized that a new Davidge had taken the place of the other a man given to debauchery, dissipation, brutality and anger. 97, 98 THE ESSENTIAL THING The history of insanity can show many such cases. A man of strong domestic tastes will leave his family and refuse to see or support them. An extraordi- narily fastidious man, seemingly the victim of an unus- ually vindictive providence, has been known to marry his cook. A refined and studious man will become a libertine; all victims of some mysterious physiological alteration of the brain whereby they become other people. The shock that Pandolfi's announcement had given Nina, was not caused by any feeling of affection for her father. That, with liking even or respect, had gone long since, but by the realization that it meant dis- grace and ruin. It had plunged her into a chaos of uncertainty in which nothing could be distinguished which might serve as a sign to guide her forward. That she had thought of the possibility of such a dis- aster, was shown by her instantaneous realization of its significance and by her calmness after the first few moments. What her father's fate might be, did not interest her in the least. She hoped that he had gone out of her life forever and her only feeling toward him was one of increased resentment for this crowning disgrace in a long chapter of ig- nominy. Constance was shocked at first by Nina's composure and by certain contemptuous references to her father, until the latter noticing it, told her the story which until now pride had prevented her from telling anyone, revealing one of those hidden dramas which are being THE ESSENTIAL THING 99 enacted around us, perhaps by those most dear to us, without our knowledge. At ten o'clock, a note came from Aunt Mary " Don't go to bed," it said. " I shall be there soon." At half past eleven, Nina heard a cab drive up, and after a short delay Aunt Mary appeared in the little boudoir in which she was sitting. She carried a small black bag. She was greatly excited. " Your jewels, your mother's and mine," she an- nounced, holding it up. " There's that much saved anyway. I was afraid someone would take them away from me. If that odious Mr. Storey hadn't acted so disgracefully, dragging me out of bed the way he did, I would have asked him to slip out with them in his pocket. But perhaps it was just as well. They say you never can tell about these Wall Street men, and we might never have seen them again." " Dragging you out of bed? " " Well not that exactly ; don't be so literal ; but he took the children away and I should have been afraid to stay there all alone." Suddenly her face became distorted, as if she were about to burst into tears. "Isn't it frightful, such a disgrace?" She threw her arms around Nina's neck, but almost at once the latter was startled to hear her aunt's loud masculine voice close to her ear, call to Jacob, who had brought her up- stairs and who was just leaving the room: " Here, shut that door after you, will you ! " Nina disengaged herself. " There is nothing to cry about," she said coldly. 100 THE ESSENTIAL THING " I hope that I shall never see him again that is almost worth the disgrace, the humiliation of it the thought that I shall never, never see him again. But is everything gone; has he ruined himself and us com- pletely?" "Well, I have a little, thank God," Aunt Mary an- swered. " I never would let him have my money to take care of, although he suggested it more than once, and then of course your income of five thousand a year was in other hands, so that's safe." She leaned close to Nina and speaking in a whisper said : " He was at the house this afternoon." "At the house?" " Yes ; he came and packed a valise and went away again he was like a crazy man. Most of the time scarcely coherent, he said first that he was going to give himself up, then that he was going away to make money and pay everybody, and finally that he would kill himself. He frightened me." " Do you think that he would do that? " asked Nina, scornfully. " I don't. I suppose I ought to feel sorry for him, Aunt Mary, but I can't," Nina said slowly. " For a long time I have felt that something like this would happen but I can't feel sorry for him you know what father was like ? " " Know him ! How that man changed ; it's in- sanity, I tell you, that's what it is." " It was bad habits, dissipation, neglect of duties. I wonder how he could have gone on as long as he has without other people finding him out?" THE ESSENTIAL THING 101 " It's insanity, I tell you," reiterated Aunt Mary, vehemently, " it's in the family. Did you never hear of your Aunt Ann? " And on Nina's answering in the negative, she went on with that air of satisfaction which old people assume when indulging in reminis- cences. " How well I remember, it was years ago and people have forgotten it. We were all young then and lived in Pearl Street I had gone to church to a rehearsal of the choir; things were very different in those days, and I had left your Aunt Ann at home. Well, I asked the others in afterwards, to have some cake and sherry, and when we got to the house, we all went into the drawing-room, and what do you suppose there was your Aunt Ann sitting in an easy chair without any clothing on whatever, reading a novel ! " " Aunt Mary ! " cried Nina. " Without any clothing on whatever. The only man in the party, Mr. Page, the organist, had a weak heart and fainted away, and Miss Ann was packed off to Bloomingdale she was stark staring mad Not insanity indeed! " Yes, most of the time he was almost unintelligible, he frightened me. But I must say that he seemed really sorry about Mr. Goeffrey's money. Every once in a while in the midst of his incoherent ravings, he would speak of Mr. GoefFrey and then suddenly he would be quite rational again. Your father and Mr. Goeffrey's father had been life long friends, and the fact that he had not been true to the trust that had been given him, seemed to make him desperate. He 102 THE ESSENTIAL THING seemed to think more of this than anything, and oh ! " she exclaimed, " where is it ? Oh, here it is he gave me a letter for Mr. Goeffrey. Do you know I had forgotten all about it he said you must get this to Mr. Goeffrey at once, at once, do you understand, with- out a moment's delay? It is of the most vital import- ance, it may save his money for him." " Aunt Mary," cried Nina again. " And that was hours ago." " I'm sorry, I know I should have done something, but I forgot it until just now. What are you going to do? " For Nina had touched an electric bell. " I hope Jacob is up yet," she answered. " How could you be so forgetful, when perhaps so much is at stake. It may be too late now. Oh, Jacob ! " she exclaimed, as he appeared at the door. " I'm so glad you haven't gone to bed, will you see if you can get Mr. Hunter on the telephone is there one on this floor?" " In the room that used to be Mr. Aladine's office there is one, Miss Nina, but I am afraid that it is out of order I will show you." And he led her to a small room looking on Fifth Avenue. As they entered, Jacob lighted a shaded lamp which hung suspended over a massive desk standing in the middle of the room. In the silence of the night, there was something oppres- sive about the atmosphere of this little office. With its rigid but costly severity, its single light flooding the enormous and ornate desk standing like a symbol of its former occupant, Aladine's spirit seemed THE ESSENTIAL THING 103 to pervade it and Nina almost fancied that she could see him sitting there as he used to, with his tense hawk-like face, before his massive desk, always quite bare of everything except a pad made of small ob- long sheets of white paper on which he was forever making figures, always figures written in pencil, small, faint, almost illegible, as his cold emotionless voice gave its orders to the mouthpiece of the telephone. Nina sat down at once and put the receiver to her ear, but no sound came. " I am afraid it is out of order, Miss Nina," Jacob repeated. " I tried to get a message through for Mr. Storey this afternoon, but I couldn't, and no mes- sages have come here to-day at all a quantity of them have been affected by the storm." " How provoking ! " Nina exclaimed, petulantly. Each was speaking in a subdued voice. She moved the arm by which the receiver was suspended, rapidly up and down, hoping to attract the attention of the oper- ator at the central office. " How provoking ! " She waited again without result, Jacob standing motion- less beside her. The house was very still and from the city only occasional distant sounds rose faintly to them, but in the receiver which Nina held tightly to her ear, there was silence, utter and profound, and as she held it there and became more and more aware of its dead, its complete stillness, it seemed to her she was listening into spaces lying beyond the confines of the world, remote, mysterious, and still under the influence of the personality which had pervaded this room, she 104 THE ESSENTIAL THING felt each moment as if she might hear Aladine's voice, cold but faint, speaking to her from out of some un- known, ghostly place. She put back the receiver with a clatter and hur- ried into the corridor. " Jacob," she said, " I have a letter for Mr. Hunter, which I must deliver at once, to-night, and as I can't tell him to come for it, I must take it myself." " But I can take it, Miss Nina." " No, I must take it myself, but I should like you to come with me. Will you call a cab ? " " But the telephone, ma'am, we use it even for Mrs. Aladine's garage " " Of course, I had forgotten ; very well, we must walk then." "Perhaps we shall meet a cab, although it is quite late," answered Jacob. As he spoke, Mrs. Aladine came out of her room, and on hearing Nina's explanation of her dilemma, she exclaimed : " I will go too ! You mustn't think of going alone. I will get ready at once." Nina went back to the boudoir and began putting on her hat. Her aunt looked up in astonishment. " You are not going out ? " " I am going to take Goeffrey's letter to him." "Why don't you tell him to come for it? " " The telephone is out of order," Nina answered shortly. " You could wait until morning, I should think. He THE ESSENTIAL THING 105 can't do anything to-night." Aunt Mary took out her handkerchief and feeling that she was being silently blamed for her forgetfulness, prepared to put it to her eyes. " I really think Nina, that " " Oh, do be quiet," Nina interrupted vehemently, stamping her foot ; " he must get it and I mean to take it to him. Don't make me more irritable than I am already." She picked up her muff and collar, stopped for a mo- ment again before the glass, and went out saying to her aunt: " Constance and Jacob are going with me, you had better not wait." Constance, Nina and the old servant paused for a moment under the great glass and iron marquee which covered the main entrance on the side street, as they went out. It seemed very late. A carriage stopped for a moment before a house further down ; a group of people left it and ascended the steps. The door slammed and they heard the rapid concussion of the horses' hoofs as they moved away. An electric car rushed by on a neighboring Avenue, blazing with lights, and all was still again. It had grown colder. The night was calm and in the sky, which was fast clear- ing, a full moon rode above the clouds. As they reached the corner, no vehicle of any kind was in sight. " Let us walk," said Constance, and they started south. The street was deserted, except for the soli- tary figure of a man, who several blocks in front of them, was walking so slowly that they rapidly overtook 106 THE ESSENTIAL THING him. As they came nearer, Nina, who had been looking at him intently, suddenly ran ahead calling, " Mr. Ban- croft, Mr. Bancroft ! " Mr. Bancroft engaged in one of those nocturnal prowlings, which were a habit of his, turned at the sound of his name. If he was surprised at seeing them at this hour, he did not show it, and Constance explained at once their reason for calling him. "Would it be too much trouble to go with us?" she concluded, " then I could send Jacob back." " I take these walks every night for my health," answered Mr. Bancroft. " I am going in that direc- tion and I shall have to come back in this to get home again, so that you will transform a disagreeable neces- sity into a pleasure." " Very well, then," Constance responded. " You need not come with us, Jacob." " And now let me make a suggestion," Mr. Bancroft said. " We will walk more rapidly and more easily, if you will each take an arm." Mr. Bancroft spoke but little, and arm in arm, he walking with the slight tottering rigidity of old age, and they the personification of youth, passed street after street. The theaters must have been out long since, and as they reached the great hotels, they saw that the restaurants were dark and silent. Only at long intervals, a carriage or a motor sped by on its way up- town. On this deserted prospect, the moon poured a flood of pale light and the buildings rising dark and somber, seemed to stand humbly with huddled shoulders, THE ESSENTIAL THING 107 as if saying to the pale satellite above them, " How far above even us, thou art, how remote." They still went on, but Mr. Bancroft's step was changing; feeling those youthful arms within his own, conscious of those elastic steps beside him, something of their life, their energy seemed to be finding its way into his veins, his gait lost its heaviness, he too began to walk with a buoyancy almost youthful. From time to time he glanced at their faces beside him and from them to the moon riding above; and the quiet street, the contact of these women young and beautiful, the calm moon raining down its flood of silver light, woke in him memories long sleeping. He seemed almost young again. " My dear," he said to Nina, in 'his thin and precise voice, " you have had a hard blow to-day, and you will have others. But you still have that which rio man can take from you, and which is worth all the rest. Do you know what it is? " " It seems as if I had nothing," said Nina. " You have youth," he answered. " But of what value is youth without the means to enjoy it," she thought. Davidge throughout the de- velopment of that slow process which was destroying his brain, never lost sight of the importance of his position and that of his family, and even toward the last when hard put to it for money, he had always maintained an opulent manner of life. It seemed as if in return for their cooperation in hiding his vices, he had wished to deny them nothing, and Nina had been 108 THE ESSENTIAL THING brought up in utter disregard of the value of money. She had had what she wanted and her father had paid. Once, however, when temporarily embarrassed, he had reprimanded her sharply for her extravagance, she had realized with a shock of apprehension, that here was a different situation from any that she had known be- fore, that it was possible to not always have money, and it was from that time, that she had begun to dread a catastrophe such as had taken place. It was this that had frightened her, and now her fears had been realized in a way terribly definite and conclusive. Her former life was at an end, and she knew how to live no other, had no wish to, and Goeffrey's condition was the same. She was taking this letter to him with the desperate hope that it would result in bettering their fortunes, but if it did not, there seemed to be nothing ahead, no future except one which was quite impos- sible. She was deeply absorbed in her thoughts, when her attention was attracted to a motor cab which passed them rapidly, going down the avenue. It seemed crowded with people and songs, laughter and joyous cries issued from within it. Three others followed it swiftly, but the last, after going a short distance, stopped at the curb, waited for a man to descend from it, and then went on again. The man walked rapidly back to meet them and as he approached them, Nina saw that it was Pandolfi. A coat lined with sable and with a sable collar, covered his evening clothes. He too, concealed any feeling of surprise he might have THE ESSENTIAL THING 109 felt at seeing them, and after he had greeted them and they had walked on together, Nina found herself by his side, the others having dropped a little behind. " I saw you, as I was on my way home," he said to her, speaking in a low rapid tone. " I have been so distressed, that I should have been the means of causing you pain to-day. You know of course that I was quite ignorant of you being there? " " Of course," answered Nina, indifferently, " that is understood." " And I was still more distressed at something Hunter told me afterwards, that you are engaged." " It is true," Nina said. " And I am distressed. Do you know that he is ruined? " " Perhaps," answered Nina, " I am not sure." " It is most difficult for me to mention it under the circumstances," answered Pandolfi. " You will readily understand why, but I felt that I should let yo^ know." Nina looked at him with that air of hauteur, she knew so well how to assume. " Are you telling me this because you think that Goeffrey will try to conceal it from me? " Pandolfi shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. The cruel southern nature looked out for a moment and was gone again. " I am rebuffed," he said, " you are right. It is something that does not concern me, and I have no .right to mention it." 110 THE ESSENTIAL THING " That is why I am on my way to see him now," Nina answered, before she realized that she was committing an indiscretion perhaps. " To see him now? " repeated! Pandolfi in amazement, stopping short according to his wont, but going on again instantly. " Yes, we are on our way there. Something has made it very necessary for me to see him at once, some- thing that may help him." " He is not there," Pandolfi answered. " I left him a few minutes ago." " Then I shall wait for him,'* said Nina simply. Pandolfi hesitated for the fraction of a second *' Then let me suggest this," he returned. " My quar- ters are in the same house as you know, let me offer them to you until he comes. With Mrs. Aladine and Mr. Bancroft," he added, " I am sure no one could ob- ject." Nina did not answer at once and he went on. " There is no waiting room there and you would be much more comfortable I am sure. In addition I should consider that you had forgiven me for causing you pain this afternoon, and for what you thought I insinuated about Hunter, just now." Nina turned and waited for the others. " I am so sorry," she said as they came up, " that I asked you to come with me. Goeffrey may be very late, Mr. Pandolfi says, but I must see him. Mr. Pandolfi has very kindly asked us to wait in his rooms until THE ESSENTIAL THING 111 Goeffrey comes " and she looked at Constance inter- rogatively. To Constance's conventionally regulated life, the af- fair was almost assuming the complexion of an adven- ture. She was eager to see what that strange retreat a bachelor's apartment was like. " It is very kind of Mr. Pandolfi," she said, " let us accept by all means," and going on again they pres- ently turned down a side street on which stood the Ken- worthy, their destination. As they went in, a small man with a Jewish cast of features spoke to Pandolfi, who answered: " I will be down again in a moment," and he ushered them into the elevator. That strange curiosity which women feel for the habitations of unmarried men, and which they almost always invest with a vague atmosphere, of secret and romantic dissipation, caused Constance and Nina to look at the room into which Pandolfi had shown them, with interest. It revealed its occupant to be a man of luxurious habits, but of bizarre taste, and they re- tained afterwards only a confused impression of sur- roundings heavily sensuous, of rugs that were too thick, furniture too richly covered, of velvet curtains too ex- travagantly draped, of a variety of costly and yet tasteless ornaments ; and of paintings in staring gilt frames, purchased without knowledge or appreciation. The environment of a man with money, but without cul- tivation or refinement. THE ESSENTIAL THING As soon as they had seated themselves, Pandolfi asked to be excused. " A business acquaintance has been wait- ing to see me," he explained, " on a rather important matter, but I shall not be long. The moment Goeffrey gets here, I will let you know." He went out, closing the door after him. After nearly an hour, he came back again. " Goeffrey is here at last," he announced, " and asks if you will please come to his rooms. He has gone up to see if they are presentable." CHAPTER IX A VERY few minutes after Pandolfi had joined Con- stance, Nina and Mr. Bancroft, four motor cabs turn- ing into a cross street from that portion of Fifth Ave- nue now given over to shops, approached the Kenworthy Chambers. As the first of these vehicles stopped before the entrance, the door burst open as if from consider- able pressure, and six persons, three women and three men, among whom were Richard and Goeffrey, disen- gaged themselves with difficulty and descended to the sidewalk. Seeming quite oblivious of the attention they attracted from the few passersby, they gazed noncha- lantly at the sky, the opposite houses, the cabs or the fa9ade of the Kenworthy for a moment, and then as if moved by a common impulse, turned, ascended the steps and entered. The second motor was occupied by Doris and a tall shapely blonde, who looked quite bored and ill tempered. " If they go up without waiting for us I'll go home," said the latter. " Oh Irma, please," replied Doris, " you'll spoil Goeffrey's party." The third cab had but one occupant. As the door opened a tall slender young man with rather long blond 113 THE ESSENTIAL THING hair, emerged. Although he seemed to be slightly in- toxicated, he tried to walk with a fashionable air, bend- ing forward elegantly from the waist. The night wind blowing his black trousers about, displayed the outlines of his thin calves. Instead of following the others, he waited the approach of the fourth cab, and as it stopped he seized the handle and with a loud laugh opened the door. The cab was empty. The young man stared with astonishment into its recesses, pulled his high hat down tightly on his head, looked hurriedly up and down the street, and quickly running to Doris and Irma, who were just entering the building, he cried : " Pandolfi is not in his cab ! " Doris and Irma stopped for a moment in amazement and then running to the rest of the party, who were waiting for the elevator, exclaimed : " Pandolfi is not in his cab ! " All turned in consternation and then in a body passed out of the building, descended the steps and ap- proached the cab, each in turn peering into it and conjecturing as to the cause of this strange disappear- ance. " Perhaps he wanted to walk." " Pandolfi never walks if he can help it." "Perhaps he has fallen out." " But both the doors were shut," answered Davenport, the young man who had made the discovery. " He didn't intend to come," said Irma angrily, whose THE ESSENTIAL THING 115 irritation, for some reason, seemed to be increasing " well come along, we don't need him." " The gentleman said that he would see you later," the chauffeur suddenly explained in a rough voice. " Well, why didn't you say so before, you fool? " said Irma, angrier than ever, " instead of keeping us out here to freeze," and she moved once more toward the entrance. The others followed. The chauffeur, a short burly man with a red face, looked indignantly at the retreating group and then cried out insolently: "Whose going to pay me?" " Go to the devil," responded Irma's clear full voice. At this the four chauffeurs descended hastily. The burly red faced man was leading and advancing close to Irma, he said in a sneering insolent tone : " I know you you don't pay for anything not when you've got someone to do it for you." Irma gave him the look of a tigress and seemed ready to spring at him, when Davenport interrupted in a conciliatory tone, saying: " Now, now, my man, we don't want any trouble." " Who's talking to you? " the chauffeur answered, so threateningly that Davenport ran quickly up the steps and going close to Irma he repeated again, with an indescribable leer : " Not when you've got someone to do it for you." But a new actor now appeared in this little drama. Glevin, the third man in the first motor, came quickly down the steps. He was twenty-five perhaps, short, and 116 THE ESSENTIAL THING with closely cut blond hair. He was clean shaven with a hard, almost brutal face. He had a thick neck and his shoulders were very broad. Tearing off his overcoat quickly, he threw it to Davenport, brushed past Irma and seizing the chauffeur by the shoulder, he whirled him away from her without apparent effort, but with such force that he spun twice around before coming to a stop and standing with his face close to the chauffeur's he said, looking him straight in the eye: " Say that again, will you ! " The chauffeur, knowing his man, hesitated, and for a moment there was silence. The women frightened and yet fascinated, drew away without, however, being able to avert their gaze. Goeffrey and Richard had come down and were standing close to Glevin, furious at be- ing involved in such a disgraceful scene. Two or three servants from the Kenworthy came out and a number of passersby had assembled to see the outcome of the al- tercation. Glevin went still closer to the chauffeur and pressed against him compelling him to give way a step. " Say that again," he repeated. The chauffeur, his face distorted with impotent rage, remained silent. Twice more Glevin repeated this maneuver and twice the chauffeur gave way. There was something pitiless about Glevin's action, pitiless and repulsive. He seemed determined to goad the man into a fight and all felt instinctively, the chauffeur perhaps better than any, that he stood no chance with Glevin, that his punishment THE ESSENTIAL THING 117 would be quick and merciless. Glevin was too sure of himself, knew his powers too well, was too anxious to display them. At this moment a little withered man, a German, one of the other chauffeurs, pulled timidly at Glevin's sleeve : " Please, gentleman," he said, holding his hat in his hand and speaking with a strong accent, " he yoost vants his money." " I thought he wanted to fight," said Glevin taunt- ingly ; " well, which is it? Do you want to fight or do you want your money." The chauffeur scowling at him, backed away and walked slowly toward his cab without answering. " Gentleman," repeated the old German, " he yoost vants his money." He looked at Glevin appealingly and finally smiled, but so dubiously, displaying a toothless mouth, that Irma began to laugh, at which the old chauffeur's mouth opened still wider and repeating, *' he yoost vants his money," he too began in the cracked fal- setto of old age, until a general sound of laughter arose; nods and winks were exchanged among the by- standers who began to disperse and Glevin taking his coat from Davenport : who seeing that peace had been restored, had come down the steps again put it on. " Pay these men," said Goeffrey to one of the ser- vants. " I hope supper isn't cold," and he started up the steps once more, followed by the others. " Veil ! good night," called out the old chauffeur. For some reason everyone laughed again at this and Goeffrey and his companions went into the Kenworthy 118 THE ESSENTIAL THING in excellent humor which increased into a general hi- larity. All crowded into the elevator and as it ascended, a confused hubbub of singing and laughter resounded, above which could be heard the voice of the elevator at- tendant repeating: " Please, gentlemen, please, this is against the rules." At the fourteenth story, the door was pushed back with a clang and men and women walked rapidly to Goeffrey's apartment, admission to which was given at once by Waters who had been waiting anxiously for them. Davenport, because Glevin had tickled his neck, came out of the elevator last of all laughing immoderately. Stooping over and resting his hands on his knees, he burst into a violent fit of coughing. Finally reaching the door and finding that it had been locked from within, he burst into fresh paroxysms of laughter seeming to find something extraordinarily funny in this proceeding, until finally he was admitted. These parties given occasionally at the rooms of various men, had a fascination for Goeffrey, who in the social intercourse of the more conventional kind, often noticed a self consciousness which seemed extremely provincial to him. Here at least they were themselves. The women, all actresses, and all favorites on the metro- politan stage, stars of lesser magnitude were provin- cial too, to an extent, but they were not troubled by self consciousness, and there was a breezy inconsequence about them, a verve and a quickness of wit, expressed in language unconventional and picturesque which THE ESSENTIAL THING 119 amused him greatly. They lived too hard, slept too little and smoked too many cigarettes, but they were not vulgar and any mention of their love affairs, even if they were perfectly well known, was strictly tabooed. Although someone was sure to get drunk at these parties, it was always one of the men. The women possessed a natural vivacity which needed no stimulus and they drank little. But of them all he liked Doris the best. In her beau- tiful but sullen face, her musical and perfectly modu- lated voice, her daring elegance of manner and dress, there was a manifest superiority which the other women accepted, and yet strangely enough did not resent, prob- ably because of her obvious sincerity and kindness of heart. Beside the rather boisterous give and take of the other women, there was a refinement about her which was in striking contrast to them. Although she lived their life, she seemed to belong to another class. Once when some rather outrageous conduct had been indulged in, she had disappeared and they had found that she had slipped quietly away. The supper was well under way, Waters serving it with his accustomed dexterity, and Richard had left the table to play something for them in response to a general request. Aside from the candles on the table and a few shaded lamps, there were no lights in the room, and in the far corner where he was seated, his shirt front made a white blur above the grand piano, emerging from the shadow and receding again as he drew on the cigarette which he still held between his 120 THE ESSENTIAL THING lips. Goeffrey had noticed that Doris, who sat next to him, was unusually quiet. "What is it," he asked her. "What is the mat- ter?" " Nothing much," she answered, " but Glevin fright- ened me ; I hate violence so, of any kind, it makes me feel weak ; but I shall be all right again presently," and lift- ing her champagne glass, she drank some of its contents. They were speaking in an undertone, as the others had stopped talking for a moment to listen to the piano, and Richard was playing with a rather exaggerated ex- pression but in soft tones, giving the impression of music heard at a distance, some of those ephemeral airs, half sad, half lively, which appear in every capital and which like the units of that gay life of which they are the product and the expression, have their brief vogue and are forgotten. One of the women was sing- ing softly in a clear, fresh voice. " Doris," said Goeffrey, " will you forgive me for what I said the other day, and will you believe me when I say that I am really and truly sorry and that I am heartily ashamed of myself? " Doris was turning her champagne glass round and round, she did not look up. " Of course I forgive you, Goeffrey. I knew that you would regret it, and I regret showing my vexa- tion but you hurt me. That was the sort of thing one might expect of Glevin, but not of you." He felt that that responsiveness which had developed so rapidly in her since he had first met her, was lacking. THE ESSENTIAL THING 121 There was some mental reservation there which made a complete resumption of their old friendship impossible. He had gone down in her estimation too far to be able to regain his position by a mere apology. " I know," he answered disappointedly, " but are we still friends?" "Still friends, Goeffrey." " I am glad, Doris, because everything will be so dif- ferent now, that perhaps I shall not see you any more " She turned quickly to him. "What do you mean?" " I mean that my old life is over." " But how, Goeffrey? I don't understand." " Do you remember my saying that the reason I did not get commissions, was because it wasn't necessary? It is necessary now." " Why now more than then ? " " Because there has been a failure and my money is gone. Do you remember telling me that you were wor- ried about me; about Pandolfi and Davidge? Well, Davidge is ruined, he has run away." The news had an extraordinary effect on her. She half rose from her chair as if looking for some means of escape, and at the same time an expression of helpless fury, of rage, swept across her face. " Oh, Goeffrey, it is too terrible." " What did you mean the other day, by being wor- ried, what had you heard? " Doris put her hands to her throat as if it were hard THE ESSENTIAL THING for her to breathe. She did not answer for a moment and then she said, speaking hurriedly: " Nothing, except that I knew that Ernesto and Mr. Davidge were friends I knew that Mr. Davidge was a dissipated man it did not seem to me that that kind of man should be trusted with other people's money ; and yet from what Ernesto had said about you and his daughter, I did not feel as if I could tell you about him. I thought that you might think that I was jealous of your friendship with her. It wasn't true of course that I was jealous and I should have spoken." " It would have made no difference," said Goeffrey. " But I'm so so sorry, Goeffrey and must you give up all your beautiful things these beautiful rooms ? " " I suppose so and my old life," answered Goeffrey. Truly it seemed hard to have to give it up. He looked about him as he spoke, at the rich background of the room, the table with its covering of crimson silk in the candles' light ; and the women Blanche and Louise, dark and vivacious, Pauline, dark too, but younger and more appealing, Irma, tall, shapely and blond, with her small straight nose and full round chin, and Doris, more beautiful than all, and about each something which suggested those airs which Richard was playing as if from a distance; gay, with an undercur- rent of unconscious ennui ephemeral and fleeting. The partial intoxication which had shown itself on their arrival in the cabs, had been dissipated by the excitement of Glevin's encounter with the chauffeur and THE ESSENTIAL THING 123 all now drank freely ; Waters, dexterously and without obtrusion, replenishing each glass before it was empty, cooperating earnestly to produce the necessary exhilara- tion. Conversation became noisier and more general. Irma, brandishing her white arms above the table, gave an imitation for which she was famous and at which everybody laughed heartily. Davenport, putting his head in his plate, luckily a fresh one, and giving way to unbridled mirth always more easily affected than the others, was rapidly getting very drunk. Blanche and Louise contributed to the general hilarity by sing- ing a duet in which they were to appear together in a new musical comedy and going through some cleverly ridiculous business which they were working up for it. Davenport with his head still in his plate, laughed more than ever. " Shut up, will you," remonstrated Irma, " we can't hear anything." Suddenly a shout arose, Pandolfi had come into the room. He explained his disappearance by saying that he had seen someone in the street as he was passing in the cab, whom he was most anxious to have a word with. " And by the way," he said to Goeffrey, " a friend stopped in for a moment and I brought him up Mr. Hunter, Mr. Eckstein." A small Jew advanced obsequiously and after shaking hands with Goeffrey seated himself at one corner of the table in a chair Waters brought up ; Pandolfi taking the place which had been left vacant for him. The Jew 124 THE ESSENTIAL THING was known to some of the women, for he exchanged greetings with them as he looked about smilingly, plainly delighted at having fallen in with such pleasant company. The general sense of hilarity and good fel- lowship was at its height. Although everyone had smoked cigarettes straight through, Pauline now took from a case which hung at her waist, a long thin cigar and lighted it at one of the candles, and Waters, who had just served coffee, passed others of a larger and stronger variety to the men. Blue tendrils of smoke twisted lazily in the air, and the crimson glow from the cloth flushed the faces and seemed to accentuate the audaciously elegant costumes of the women. " By the way, Goeffrey," said Glevin suddenly, dur- ing a lull in the conversation, " didn't Davidge look after your money ? " " He did," Goeffrey answered. " Worse luck." " My God ! but that's bad," returned Glevin. " That's hard luck." " My ! My ! " exclaimed Eckstein, who until now had spoken only to Louise at his right and Pandolfi at his left " that's too bad. They say he squandered every- thing." " What's the matter, has Goeffrey lost some money? " asked Pauline. " If Davidge had it, ten to one he's lost it all," an- swered Glevin. Goeffrey at the head of the table saw that they were all looking at him curiously, a fusillade of questions were fired at him the moment seemed ripe for a dra- THE ESSENTIAL THING 125 matic climax and the idea came into his head that he would make them a little speech and say good-by. He stood up and raised his glass. " Yes, I've lost it all. Wish me good luck." All raised their glasses and drank. Cries of " Good luck, good luck, cheer up, Goeffrey, we'll help you," were heard, hands were held out to him and those near- est patted him sympathetically on the back. Only Doris, after she had drunk with the others, sat quietly in her chair a smile on her face which was perilously close to tears, if anyone had noticed. " Speech, speech," called Davenport, who seemed to think the whole thing a joke. Seizing a pack of cards lying on a table which had been arranged for poker, he put it on the top of Goeffrey's head whence it slipped in a shower to the table. " Stop it, will you, Davenport." " Shut up." " Sit down," was heard and Glevin pulled him into his chair. Goeffrey laughed in a queer embarrassed way. Put- ting his hands on the table to steady himself, he had been drinking freely in spite of Doris's protestations, he began. " Yes. I'm afraid that everything will be rather dif- ferent now. To tell the truth I didn't feel very much like having you to-night on account of the bad news I had just heard and another thing but we have had so many good times together, that it seemed not quite fair to you and an unnecessary hardship for me to de- 126 THE ESSENTIAL THING prive myself of the pleasure of seeing you once more. " Not see us any more," cried Irma. " Well, why not?" " Don't think that I take too serious a view of things," continued Goeffrey, " it isn't that ; but I have thought about it a good deal to-day and it seems to me that I must lead one kind of life or another. This kind is very pleasant, I admit, but I shan't be able to do my share now, and to take part in it on any other terms wouldn't be possible." " Veil, goot night," interrupted Davenport, imitat- ing the accent of the old chauffeur. It seemed to him that Goeffrey was very dull and he settled himself in his chair as if to take a nap. " Do be quiet," said Irma, speaking to him again. " So I'm going to buckle down and see what it's like earning one's living and luckily I have a way of earning it because I have a profession. I'm an architect. My father asked me one day to promise him that after he died I would come home and go into business. I made the promise and I came here to keep it, but I'm afraid I haven't kept it very well, but the reason I didn't in part, was because it didn't seem fair exactly. I ran across a number of chaps here, chaps I had known in Paris, and most of them were having a hard time to get along. Why should I, who had so much, try to get work which they needed. They were like poor artists, struggling to get money and fame it was like taking the bread out of their mouths." THE ESSENTIAL THING 127 " Take bread out of an artist's mouth," suddenly interrupted Davenport, again laughing immoderately. " Why, you must be a presti-ti-ti-digi-tateur, not an architect. Take some gold coins out of Eckstein's nose." The Jew, who was a total stranger to Davenport, shot an angry glance at him and renewed protestations were heard. " Oh, he's too impossible." " We'll put you out, Davenport." " He's so fresh." Goeffrey prepared to sit down, but in response to numerous invitations to go on, began again. " Well there isn't much more to say except to repeat that I want your good wishes. People say that it is hard to make money, but if one is in earnest, if one does one's best, I don't think it can be so very difficult. You all make money. If there is any secret about it other than hard work, tell me what it is? " He stopped as if waiting for an answer, but no one spoke. Thinking perhaps of those bitter blows which life had dealt each of them, they looked at Goeff rev's eager expression, at his bearing of confidence in facing for the first time the realities of life life which had left them with no illusions with a feeling of pity for him and with the knowledge that their dearly bought experience was useless to anyone except themselves. That he must learn the answer to his question unaided. An uneasy silence followed accompanied by a move- ment of restlessness. Goeffrey was beginning to bore 128 THE ESSENTIAL THING them an unpardonable crime but at that instant a sharp report was heard, followed by a cry of pain from Davenport, who was seen holding his cheek. Taking some ivory counters from the poker table, he had slipped them down Irma's back and had received in return a stinging slap in the face. This diversion was taken instant advantage of, shouts of laughter were heard from the men, accompanied by cries of pre- tended indignation from the women. All jumped up, including Goeffrey, who felt that he had been put- ting a damper on the festivities, and rushed at the unfortunate Davenport, who tried to evade them by running around the furniture, showing surprising agility for a drunken man. "Put him in the study," Goeffrey directed, as they cornered him, and in spite of his struggles, he was seized, thrust in and the door was locked, but almost at once, like one of those harlequins on the stage, who no sooner go out at one door, than they appear at another, he came in again at the entrance to the apartment. He had discovered that the rear door was unlocked, and running for one flight down the narrow stairs, by which Doris had left on a previous afternoon, he had come up at the front. He was seized again, but this time resorting to passive resistance, he refused to move, so that they were com- pelled to carry him. All helped, and a dense mass sur- rounded him from which only his head protruded, his rather long blond hair hanging down as they bore him toward his prison. Laughter, shouts and facetious comments mingled as they moved slowly toward the THE ESSENTIAL THING 129 study, when for some unaccountable reason, feeling that they were no longer alone, they looked behind them and Davenport dropped to the floor. Mrs. Aladine, Nina, Mr. Bancroft and Pandolfi, who had gone out a few minutes before, stood in the doorway. " Miss Davidge," said Pandolfi, with a sinister smile, "your fiancee." In a flash on Goeffrey's brain, befuddled though it was, an indelible impression was printed, of the entire scene. He saw his guests, men and women, taken off their guard, awkward and ill at ease; he saw Mrs. 'Aladine tall, beautiful and elegant, looking about with a gracious, kindly and half amused smile, he saw Nina's expression of scorn and hauteur, Pandolfi's triumphant manner, Doris's glance of reproach and he was even conscious that Davenport, possessed with a maudlin idea of escaping notice, was crawling stealthily on his hands and knees through the half open door of the study. Nina took the letter from her muff and laid it on the table. " For you," she said, without looking at him, " from my father," and turned toward the door. A tempest of rage and despair filled Goeffrey's heart, his world was tumbling about him in utter ruin, and in this final havoc, as in the rest, Pandolfi had a hand. He went up to him, inflamed with fury. " I have to thank you for this," he cried thickly and struck him in the face. Pandolfi reeled, caught at the table- cloth and precipitated an avalanche of dishes to the 130 THE ESSENTIAL THING floor, but recovering himself, he rushed at Goeffrey only to be thrust aside as lightly as a feather by Glevin who pushed him out of the door. "Did he know? " asked Mrs. Aladine of Richard, a light of understanding dawning in her eyes, " for shame." Nina had already gone out with Mr. Bancroft and Richard accompanied Mrs. Aladine into the hall. " Let me go back with you? " he said. " If you will walk slowly with Nina and Mr. Bancroft, I will overtake you, but I must get rid of the others? " And Goeffrey was alone at last in the disordered room, amid the debris of the broken dishes swept to the floor by Pandolfi, and with his thoughts of his ruined fortunes and of Nina's scorn. Every tie that bound him to the past was gone it seemed to him, and he would wake in the morning like someone waking in a strange land, without friends and with a future before him with which the past had no connection. He thought of] his life since he had been in New York and how in spite of his idleness, he too had been in- oculated with its fever, its unrest, so that even his pleasures were sought with a sort of ferocity, an ap- petite for excitement which became more and more in- satiable. He went to a window and raised the shade the moon had set and under the light of the stars, sprinkling the blue black of the night sky, the buildings rose, vast, silent and somber, like sleepless sentinels watching for the hordes which would return at dawn. And at THE ESSENTIAL THING 131 the thought of them, as he had watched them so often, their countless numbers, their wan, pallid and tired faces, struggling stupidly as if under the hypnosis of some grotesque idea, he realized fully for the first time what he had to do and a feeling of terror seized him at the thought that to-morrow he too must be one of them, must gird himself to take part in that heart- breaking and relentless struggle. He was aroused by someone moving in the study. No one had thought of Davenport. Going in he found him stretched on a sofa, sleeping uneasily, and seizing him by the shoulder he shook him roughly. " Here, get up, will you? " Davenport rose immediately without speaking, not half awake. Goeffrey seized his overcoat, got it on somehow, and placing his hat on his head led him toward the door in silence. As they passed the poker table, Davenport with an automatic movement gathered up a handful of ivory counters and tossed them in the air. As they fell they struck the top of his hat with a drumming noise. Without a word Goeffrey led him into the hall and left him there, but almost at once a knock was heard, Davenport was standing outside again. He still seemed almost asleep and swayed slightly from side to side. "Where are they?" he asked, looking stupidly at Goeffrey. " Go to the devil ! " the latter shouted furiously and slammed the door in his face. Suddenly he remembered the letter Nina had THE ESSENTIAL THING brought. She had laid it on the table just before he had struck Pandolfi, and it must be buried in the mass of dishes which had fallen to the floor. He called Waters, who always remained discreetly in his little kitchen until summoned, and told him to look for it, but Waters was unsuccessful. A thorough search was made, the room was ransacked, but without suc- cess. It had disappeared. CHAPTER X RICHAHD found Mrs. Aladine, Nina and Mr. Ban- croft, waiting for him before the Kenworthy with a motor cab which had been passing as they came out. No one knew why it should have been necessary for him to go back with them, but he got in, sitting with Mr. Bancroft on the small front seats and they returned to Mrs. Aladine's house almost without speaking, each under the influence of the unfortunate contretemps which they had had a part in and each of the others respecting Nina's evident agitation. Richard spoke to her once, but she barely replied to him, and on reaching the house, went upstairs immediately. The two men prepared to go, but Mrs. Aladine would not hear of it. Her eyes were bright and there was a flush of color in her beautiful and delicate face, usually rather pale. " Must you go ? I know it is very late, but I am not in the least sleepy, and I am dying for a cup of tea. Won't you wait and have one with me, Julien ? " she said to Mr. Bancroft, and seeing him about to raise his hand with the usual gesture of protestation, she continued quickly, " to please me, that is, unless you are very tired." "I never have breakfast until noon," he replied. 133 134 THE ESSENTIAL THING " It was because I thought that you were only prompted by your usual kindly hospitality, but if you want a cup yourself " " Then that is settled," she answered. " Tea will hardly appeal to you, Mr. Whitely, but Jacob will bring you whatever you want. I must see Nina for a few moments, but I shall be back by the time it is made." Jacob led the two men to a small parlor at one side of the great hall, where he left them after replenishing the fire which was burning dimly in the grate. Mr. Bancroft sat down before it, but Richard, struck by the beauty of the room, moved about it with interest. The walls to the cornice were paneled with an oak wainscot- ing, evidently very old, English he thought, slightly worm eaten, with the mellow tones of antique woodwork. The curtains at the single door and at the windows had the unmistakable elegance, faded but luxurious, of Gen- oese velvet of the sixteenth century. The furniture too was old, beautiful examples of English mahogany. Two vases of antique Chinese porcelain and an old French clock stood on the mantel shelf, and on each wall hung a portrait, clearly by the hand of some Dutch master. A sense of serenity and charm was given by the taste with which this old furniture, the porcelains, the paneling, the velvet and the paintings had been assembled. " This is a wonderful house," he said at length, " whose taste brought all this together?" " Mr. and Mrs. Aladine both loved the antique ; the THE ESSENTIAL THING 135 only thing they had in common by the way," answered Mr. Bancroft. " Were they unhappy then? I think I have heard that he was much older." " Twenty-five years," Mr. Bancroft replied shortly. Then he continued, " She was unhappy. Aladine's nature was far from being emotional. He loved his millions and his furniture, that was all." " And she married him ? But why ? She doesn't seem to me like a woman who would be in the least likely to marry for money." " She is not," Mr. Bancroft answered more shortly than before. Richard had seated himself on the other side of the fireplace, and with his legs stretched out, looked medi- tatively into the flame. " Still," he said, " Aladine's millions ! a strong temp- tation." Mr. Bancroft did not reply, he seemed anxious to drop the subject. " A temptation few women could resist, I believe," continued Richard, " even the best." Mr. Bancroft looked keenly at him and then seemed to make a sudden resolution. " She could have resisted him," he said, moving his chair toward Richard, " but she sacrificed herself for her mother and, well Aladine did have a way of get- ting what he wanted. I have known Mrs. Aladine ever since she was a little girl but Storey told me how it happened. Storey was in the park one day, sitting 136 THE ESSENTIAL THING on a bench. He has never told me why he goes there but I know ; he goes to watch the children sailing their boats in the little lake near Fifth Avenue. He loves children. He was sitting there when Aladine happened along and joined him. They had been talking gener- ally about business matters, until Aladine suddenly said, " ' The Middle States Road passes into my hands to- morrow, Storey.' " * You have come to terms with the Boston share- holders, then ? ' asked Storey. " ' They have come to terms with me, rather,' Aladine replied. ' If Dayton were living, it would be a bitter pill for him to swallow.' " * Dayton knew that he was beaten, that's what killed him he hardly left a penny. I suppose you know that,' Storey said. " ' I know that I got his Middle. States stock, I don't know what else he had. Look here, Storey,' Aladine went on, * Dayton was too old he had no business to try conclusions with me he has a railroad ; it's his pet a magnificent property, well managed I need it to complete my system. If Dayton had built it on purpose to sell it to me, I would have given him twice its cost and felt grateful into the bargain. I made him the most liberal offers, " No, no, wouldn't sell." I asked him to name his own terms, " No, no, wouldn't sell." At last I sent Davidge to him thinking perhaps that he, with his oily tongue, might accomplish something. He pleaded, argued, cajoled, all in vain and at last he said: " Dayton, Aladine feels that with the Middle States THE ESSENTIAL THING 137 Road in your hands, his own position is not as strong as he would like it to be let me advise you as a friend to sell it to him I think he'll get it anyway." Day- ton got angry at this. " You tell Aladine," he said, " that he will never own the Middle States Road as long as I live he hasn't got enough and he could not beg, borrow or steal enough to buy it." But I got it,' Ala- dine went on. ' He was a good fighter though ; he never cried for mercy but no one sympathized with him, he had done to too many, what I did to him. He was a hard man, a brutal, domineering old man ; his wife and daughter had not lived with him for years, I am told, they couldn't stand him.' " Now comes the curious part," continued Mr. Ban- croft, " I can repeat Storey's exact words almost. As Aladine was speaking, a young lady came toward them and sat down on a bench nearly opposite. Storey and Aladine gave her a preoccupied glance, stopped talking and began to watch her with deep interest. Uncon- scious of their scrutiny, she sat almost facing them. At times her hat, which slanted down, hid, when her head was bent, all but a mouth and chin which gave them an impression of gravity, but when she looked up, they could see that her eyes were very soft and at the same time brilliant. She did not stay there long, looking about her as if expecting someone, and at the approach of an older woman, who walked as if enfeebled by ill- ness, she got up at once and they turned a corner of the path together. Her movements, her walk, the folds of her black dress, the slant of her hat, her manner of 138 THE ESSENTIAL THING looking down ; all of these things, which seemed to have something markedly attractive and individual about them, together with her indisputable beauty, made an extraordinary impression on them. Each, like all men of great business sagacity, possessed an intuitive fac- ulty of appraisal and perhaps they recognized that there was something rare and therefore valuable about her. " l Storey,' said Aladine all of a sudden, * I've made up my mind to marry, and there goes my future wife.' " * Very appropriate,' Storey answered, * you can give her your Middle States stock as a wedding present.' " * Why that more than anything else? ' Aladine asked himj " ' So that she may come into her own again,' said Storey. " Aladine was puzzled. ' Look here,' he said, * what are you driving at? ' " * Do you mean to say that you don't know who she is ? ' Storey asked him. " ' I never saw her before do you ? ' " ' Yes ; I don't know her, but I know who she is.' "'Well, who is she?' " * Dayton's daughter.' " Aladine did not answer for a moment, then he whis- tled. " * Dayton's daughter ! ' he repeated, * but I shall marry her all the same.' That's how Aladine first saw his wife. Dayton had always given her mother a liberal allowance, but at his ruin she found herself dependent upon the income from a small property of her own THE ESSENTIAL THING 139 amounting to less than two thousand a year. It didn't improve her temper. It seems incredible that Mrs. Aladine could have been the product of two such people as Dayton and his wife. Well, Aladine appeared I doubt if to this day Mrs. Aladine knows that he ruined her father and Mrs. Dayton finally persuaded her to marry him. She didn't enjoy her new found luxury long ; less than a year I think and so it was settled ; but they never understood each other. Aladine bought her because he wanted her, not because he loved her. That was 1 the only way he knew how to get anything by buying it and she could never, although I could see that she tried, overcome her sense of reserve, of shy- ness caused by the coldness and real brutality of his na- ture. I have often wondered what the outcome would have been had Aladine lived. You see Storey began to come here. He and Aladine had never been friends, Aladine always hated a bigger man than himself, but Mrs. Aladine appealed to Storey from the first, and she liked him better than her husband without doubt, and Aladine knew it and would sometimes humiliate her before Storey on purpose. Do you know what I think would have happened if he had lived and kept that up that sort of thing? I think that Storey would have crushed him, squeezed him dry and flung him away like a used up orange would have ruined him as he had ruined Day- ton and he could have done it, powerful as Aladine was. I don't mean in the least to intimate that she loved Storey, because she didn't, and Aladine knew that too, but he was kind to her. Aladine showered on her that 140 THE ESSENTIAL THING which was dross to him money but what would have been gold to her, he couldn't give her. Yes, he used to hurt her before Storey. Storey would have stood it for awhile and then he would have warned Aladine to stop. This would only have made Aladine persist in doing it even more than he had before and then some- thing would have happened. Things were getting very close to this point when Aladine died. " The doctors, I believe, had given him warning, to which he paid no more attention than he would have to Storey's, and so one day death came and stood before him and beckoned, once, and as a child at bedtime lays aside its toys, Aladine, that relentless man, humbly put away his schemes, his negotiations, his implacable ha- treds, his ceaseless task of piling millions on millions and composed himself for sleep. Do you know, Mr. Whitely, there is something incomprehensible to me about death ? We see our friends about us, they come and go as we do, eat, sleep, and laugh, enjoy the act of living, and all at once, he beckons and something takes place: they are gone, they are not here. What is it that happens which makes us his victims. I have never been ill. I have led a life of moderation in everything. Through tempera- ment and circumstance, no worries have fretted me and yet each year I am getting a little further down on the debit side until one day I, too, will be gone. Why I do not know." Mr. Bancroft paused for a moment and 1 then went on. " Yes, there is something mysterious about it. Aladine was ill a week. One day he said to his wife, * I am THE ESSENTIAL THING 141 afraid I never understood you, Constance. You are a good woman, but it seems to me you always wanted some- thing which I couldn't give.' When he died, he left the burden of all those millions on her delicate shoulders Storey helps her, she could do nothing without him and he worships the ground she walks on. Don't think that I am betraying confidences in telling you this. Everyone knows it your cousin could have told you." The sound of a door 'being closed in some distant part of the house, came to them. Mr. Bancroft drew his chair still closer. " The question many people ask is, will she marry again? I say yes she is young, beautiful, immensely rich and she has never known love. But God help the man who harms one hair of her head while Storey is alive." A note of solemnity, perhaps of warning, sounded in the old man's voice, but before he could go on, a rustling 1 of skirts sounded in the passage and Mrs. Aladine came in. " No tea? " she exclaimed, " and nothing for you to drink? How mournful you look," and she laughed. Richard pushed a chair up for her and she sat down be- tween them. " What a day ! " she went on, " a day of excitement and adventure. If it hadn't been for Nina's calamities and Goeffrey's, I would have enjoyed it, I think." " How is Miss Davidge? " Mr. Bancroft asked. " Poor child, she is dazed. But she is angry too, which is encouraging. What could have made Goeffrey do such a thing on the very night of his engagement? " 142 THE ESSENTIAL THING '* He had arranged it long ago and had quite forgot- ten about it," Richard answered. " When he got home to-night and found the table laid, he was amazed. He thought of stopping it then, but it was too late. There is no harm in Goeffrey. Is Nina such a little Puritan as that?" "I told her that it could probably be explained in some way. But I am afraid she won't give him a chance. Poor Goeffrey. And how contemptible of Mr. Pandolfi to take us up there. I hope that I shall never see him again." Jacob appeared, bearing a tray containing cigars and cigarettes, the tea, several decanters and a cold chicken. Mr. Bancroft confessed to being hungry and attacked the chicken with evident pleasure. Mrs. Aladine al- lowed a small slice to be put on her plate, but Richard, helping himself to the Scotch, pleaded a complete lack of appetite, having just finished supper. A small up- right stood in the room and going to it he said, looking back at Mrs. Aladine : " May I, if it is very pianissimo? " " Oh, yes, you know I want to hear you," she answered. And Richard played but only those ephemeral airs which Goeffrey's companions had heard not long before. Richard repeated them, running from one to the other, little lyrical things; gay, with their undercurrents of unconscious ennui, playing them very softly with an elegance which gave them a note of distinction less clever hands would have been unable to produce. Mrs. Ala- dine leaned back in her chair and lighted a cigarette. The firelight played on her pure profile, the peculiar ele- THE ESSENTIAL THING 149 gance of her shoulders, her grace of movement. Some subtle exhilaration seemed to animate her and while she talked with Mr. Bancroft, Richard knew that she was listening to him, felt intuitively that she was thinking of him, that he had impressed her. " Let us hope," Mr. Bancroft was saying, " that that letter, which really caused all the trouble, will at least be of some help to Goeffrey." " How much has Goeffrey lost, Julien? " " Thirty thousand a year about." " But how much money does that mean? " " Three quarters of a million, perhaps. It would de- pend on how much it earned." "I was thinking, Julien, could I give it to him? I have so much." Mr. Bancroft was staggered. " Do you realize that it is an enormous sum of money?" " Not to me. Sometimes when I go over my affairs with Vincent, I am frightened at what I have; at the shares, the bonds, the mines, the railroads, the houses, all the things that are mine." She drew a deep breath. " It seems to crush me and it is always growing, greater and greater, I cannot spend it. When I try to give, Vincent is very strict with me he talks about the evils of indiscriminate charity. What does it mat- ter if it makes people happy why can't I do as I like with my own? You see what has happened to Goeffrey if I could give him what he has lost, everything would be as it was before and they could marry." 144 THE ESSENTIAL THING Mr. Bancroft had finished his chicken and had lighted a cigar. " And how has anything changed so far as they in- trinsically are concerned? If they love each other, let them marry she has a little." " Five thousand a year ; it would be hard to live on that." " Many people do, and not badly. But the point is do they love each other? " Mrs. Aladine was looking meditatively into the fire. " How can they tell, how can anyone tell what love is lasting love. It seems to me that there are so many emotions that take its disguise or else so many kinds of love itself, that until we try, we cannot know the per- manent from the fleeting." She turned and leaning to- ward him repeated, "How can one tell, Julien?" *' The main thing is, one must not search for it, I think; it must come of itself," he answered. " Yes, that is best," she acquiesced, and she got up and went to the piano. Richard knew that he had drawn her to him. " How frivolous you are," she said, " do you like such music? " " Yes, I like it." "Why?" " Because it is frivolous. I will confess to you that I like all that is frivolous, gay, inconsequential in life I told you that rooms affect me and a moment ago I thought of something I thought I saw a little dancer in chiffon and gauze, dancing in the cloister of one of THE ESSENTIAL THING 145 those old monastic houses one sees abroad. This room is the cloister, my music the little dancer dancing in it." " You don't like my room, then ? " " Yes, it has charm. But in its bare simplicity, in the rigid purity of its furniture, there is something austere. That is why I play music which is frivolous, if you like, because it brings in a note of gayety. An- other thing, these airs were running in my head because I had been playing them at Goeffrey's." "We have been talking about Goeffrey," she re- plied. " Is he very much cast down ? " " Not he ! He intends beginning to-morrow to make another fortune and when he has made it, it is quite simple you know, he will lay it at Nina's feet." " You are making fun of him." " Not at all, but Goeff rey is an enthusiast, not from conviction, but by temperament. And he has no knowledge of the things one must know in order to make money " " He has his profession." " Learned in the schools, and which may be of use to him after he has unlearned most of it." Mrs. Aladine laughed. " It is lucky for Goeffrey that he has something left, even if it is only enthusiasm. What would become of him were he as pessimistic as you are? " " I am far from being a pessimist," Richard answered, " but I have learned to recognize the futilities of life. And how much trouble that saves one." Richard still played on and Mrs. Aladine watched him. 146 THE ESSENTIAL THING His profile reminded her of that of the incomparable Hermes. " Those women," she said at last, " who were they? " " They were actresses," he answered, " friends of Goeffrey's." "Did you like them?" " They seemed good sorts, but you must remember that I had not met them before. Still, I would like them, I think, because, you see, they live." " Live ! Live ! " answered Mrs. Aladine with a touch of impatience in her voice, " what do you mean ? " "By living? I mean enjoying enjoying that which is to be enjoyed in life, if, only we know how." " I think we all do that." " Perhaps." " That is as much as we have capacity for." " Precisely, and how few but might have a greater capacity if they chose a capacity for being sensible to all that is beautiful and joyous in life. A capacity for being able to respond to the innumerable things, that if we know them, may subtly lift us above our fellows. To have the sensibilities to feel and the emotions to make poignant. That is life. How many live it? Do you?" " I wonder," she said and then she added, " You think that I do not." " I don't know." " No ! you think that I do not. But perhaps I do more than you imagine. You think that I am austere like this room of mine." THE ESSENTIAL THING 147 " Yes ! " he answered, looking straight Into her eyes. " Beautiful, but austere." Mrs. Aladine, with an air of coldness, made a move- ment as if to turn away, but Richard, indicating Mr. Bancroft, whispered, " He is asleep, let me ask you some- thing." Mr. Bancroft was leaning back peacefully in his chair, his cigar lying on the table. His hands were folded one over the other and his eyes were closed. He did not move when Mrs. Aladine softly called his name. " What is it ? " she answered. " I should like so much to see more of your house. It is celebrated, as of course you know I have heard so much of the tapestries and of the porcelains you have here. Will you show me some of them ? " "Yes, if you like," she replied still coldly and they went out leaving Mr. Bancroft still resting in his chair. She led him slowly through a number of small rooms whose single lights dimly illuminating them, she aug- mented by pressing the buttons of the electric switches which were placed at the sides of each doorway. Her coldness, her slight air of hauteur, gradually left her as she called his attention to various objects and noticed the intelligent appreciation of his answers. In turn she revealed to him a varied knowledge, a refined and fastid- ious taste and a genuine love for her collections, based on a sympathy which is not always found among collect- ors whose comprehension of what they possess is some- times more archaeological than artistic. Richard was amazed at the number and beauty of the objects he saw. 148 THE ESSENTIAL THING " What labor the collection of all this must have re- quired," he said, " and what discrimination." " It is my greatest happiness," she replied. " But the trouble is, that finally one only wants superlative things." " And where have you found them all ? " he asked. " Oh ! everywhere. In England, France, Italy, even China. I am abroad so much When I find something that I like, my agent in Paris, a very honorable man, buys it for me. Mr. Storey suggested this because it seems that one must not allow oneself to pay too much for anything even if one wants it very much." They had come now to the large drawing-room which Mrs. Aladine illuminated as she had done the others. " This is the Rembrandt Mr. Storey loves so much," she said. " What is it," she continued after a moment, " that makes us love these old things as we do ? We know that they are beautiful, often wonderfully so, but is that the only reason? Sometimes it seems to me that in addition to their beauty there is something pathetic too and appealing about them." " Yes, there is," Richard answered, " and with reason, because the hand of man will never make the like of them again. He has forgotten how. They are the products of conditions which will never return. They are what is left of the golden age of art, and when they are gone, there will be nothing left to teach us its lesson. It is as if they were saying to us, * Learn well what we have to tell you because soon our voices will be still.' '" THE ESSENTIAL THING 149 " I think," she said, " that often Americans feel this more keenly than other people, because we really have no art, no literature and no traditions." " Nor ever will have," he answered. Suddenly a slight cry escaped her : " Look ! " she ex- claimed, " it is morning." They were standing in the doorway opening into the great library where Pandolfi had announced Davidge's flight. No lamps were burning in the room, and a pale light came in at the windows, illuminating dimly the pi- lasters, the books and the painted ceiling. At the op- posite end of the room in the great fireplace of black and yellow marble, a faint line of smoke ascended slowly from the embers smoldering on the hearth. Without they could see the trees of the park, standing motionless in the hush of dawn, and far on the other side the build- ings raised aloft their vast cubes of masonry in which occasional lights still gleamed faintly. Mrs. Aladine did not illuminate this room as she had done the others, and as they came into its pale light they seemed to step into another world, a world of shadows, intangible al- most, cool and serene. They talked in whispers. " Let me play you one thing more," he said to her, " and then I shall go. It should never be played except at dawn. It must be the sort of thing that the elves dance to and if you go to the window, perhaps I shall be able to sum- mon them for you," and he began playing very softly, Berlioz's " Dance of the Will o' the Wisps," from the " Damnation of Faust," and Mrs. Aladine watched him again, noticed again his profile like that of the incom- 150 THE ESSENTIAL THING parable Hermes and noticed too the extraordinary im- pression of elegance and modernity he conveyed. " Do you see them ? " he asked. Mrs. Aladine turned to the window and looked out. Suddenly she clasped her hands together with an ex- clamation of delight. "Of course I see them, how charming. There is a little circle of them dancing hand in hand on the grass, they go faster and faster. But there is something strange about them too. What is it ? Oh ! " she said, turning to him, with an air of deep disappointment, " they cannot be elves at all, they are quite modern and smart. They wear white waistcoats and the light twinkles on their glossy hats and theirj shiny boots ; the ladies are in ball gowns and close by, there are some motors, no bigger than my hand, and a little brougham." Richard laughed. " Now you are making fun of me," he said. " Let me try again," and he began some- thing which sounded very sylvan, simple and archaic. " No ! they don't like that, they have vanished. If I could play as you do, I am sure) that I could bring them, but you are too modern and you can only summon some new kind of fairies, little modern people, very smart, very well dressed," and suddenly abandoning her bantering tone, she came close up to him and said, " Why do you think that I am austere ? " " I said something personal to you a little while ago," he replied, " and it displeased you. If I am to answer you, I must be personal again." THE ESSENTIAL THING 151 " Very well, but tell me." " I did not mean austere exactly, but you are by way of becoming a preciense; I shall speak frankly to you because you have given me permission. You have a hobby ; don't have one, you are too young. It is all very well, for instance, that you should possess all of these wonderful things that you have shown me; but they should be yours as a matter of course, by right of your wealth and position, it should not be wonderful that you should have them, you should not be absorbed by them as some old savant is absorbed in his investiga- tions. Besides, you have something more beautiful than all of your paintings, your figurines, your porcelains, your exquisite furniture, and that is yourself and you have youth make the most of it." As Richard spoke again of her beauty, a slight ex- pression of disdain, of hauteur returned to her face and noticing it, he stopped abruptly and got up. " I have been very thoughtless to have kept you up like this. I have tired you horribly. Forgive me. Good-night," he said gravely and held out his hand. " Don't go," she answered. " Or, perhaps you had better, it is so late but let me tell you, you are right I understand quite well what you mean and you are right, only I have been trying to fill a life that is very empty." " I am sorry," he answered. " You have so much it seems to me that with a little more you would have everything." " Ah, yes," she said, " and for that little more one 152 THE ESSENTIAL THING sometimes feels that one would give up all the rest. It seems very strange that I should talk to you as I have done until this afternoon I didn't know you." " I don't know why, but it would have seemed strange somehow if you had not you see our friendship begins at the beginning of a new day. Perhaps that is a good omen. May I come again soon ? " They shook hands and she turned away but in a moment she came back to him. She half put up her hands as if to offer them to him but dropped them again at her sides. She looked very beautiful, but pale and slightly fatigued, and going close up to him with an air almost of entreaty, she said so softly that he could hardly hear her, " Yes, come soon. And and help me. You have helped me so much." Mr. Bancroft, in no very good humor, was standing with his back to the fire rubbing his eyes . when she returned to the little parlor. " Do you know what I have been thinking," he said, " that I have never liked men who play the piano." CHAPTER XI HORTENSE, Mrs. Martel's maid, who had gone in quietly half an hour before, to close the bedroom windows, was waiting patiently in a small outer passage. Suddenly a bell, fixed in the wall above her, sounded twice. Getting up quickly and repeating this signal somewhere by pressing twice on an electric button in the wall, she opened the door softly and went in. The room was paneled in dark gray and white with a quantity of small mirrors let into the doors between moldings of painted wood. These mirrors repeated with pleasing effect, the fire burning in the French fire- place of white marble, the sconces with their white candles surmounted by tiny electric bulbs, covered with rose colored shades, the curtains of rose colored silk at the windows and at the bed, the French furniture of gilded cane and the rugs of white Thibetan wool. A small table stood beside the bed on which rested a silver tray containing a glass pitcher enclosed in a network of silver wire, a decanter of Scotch whiskey, a plate of bis- cuits and; a cigarette case of gold. On a shelf immedi- ately below, were a number of novels, one of which was open face down. Mrs. Martel was still in bed, her beautiful hair piled 153 154. THE ESSENTIAL THING up on her head and tied with a broad rose colored rib- bon. " What is the thermostat set for? " she asked as Hor- tense appeared. " Seventy degrees, madame," answered Hortense look- ing at the thermometer. Mrs. Martel reached across the table, displaying a perfect arm and an elbow as smooth and round as an egg, and lighted a cigarette. " My pegnoir and slippers, please. Is the masseuse here?" " Yes, madame, she is waiting in the dressing- room." Slipping on the pegnoir and letting Hortense adjust the slippers, she disappeared into the dressing-room, sacred to those mysterious rites of the toilet which all women perform before the altar of their charms. Hortense rang another bell and a maid appeared to put the room in order. She brought with her a num- ber of letters which Hortense carried into the boudoir, an adjoining room, and laid on the table where Mrs. Martel breakfasted. Drawing it up to the fire and placing a French fauteuil before it she in turn dis- appeared into the dressing-room. In half an hour Mrs. Martel reappeared, dressed, but still wearing her pegnoir, and at the same moment a knock sounded at the door of the boudoir and Hortense admitted a man servant bearing a tray on which stood a pot of choco- late, rolls and butter. Mrs. Martel ate one roll, drank one cup of chocolate and upon the removal of the tray, THE ESSENTIAL THING 155 lighted a cigarette and was about to open her letters, when a knock was heard again and the maid appeared carrying two large hat boxes which Hortense opened at once, taking a hat from each. Mrs. Martel got up, put one of them on and surveyed herself in the glass. " It is hideous ! " she exclaimed, secretly pleased. " Oh ! no, madame on the contrary, it is charm- ing," Hortense exclaimed. She took it off and was putting on the other, when the door 1 opened for the third time and the two children, Helen and Lucas, ran in, followed by their governess, another French woman. " Mamma, Lucas had a dream last night," Helen an- nounced at once, coming close to her mother and look- ing back smiling. " Tell it, Lucas." " Yeth," Lucas answered with a slight lisp " I did. I dwemt that Nellie and I were going to heaven and Nellie said, * mind' your manners.' And and I had a box of candy and so when I got there, I said to the angel, * Will you have a piece, Miss Mary? ' And she said, * No, thank you.' ' Lucas stood rather abashed at the amusement this story aroused, and then suddenly throwing himself on the floor, he laughed louder than any, partly from em- barrassment and partly from sheer joy. " You little cherub," said his mother. " And why did you call the angel Miss Mary? " " Why, that was her name." Helen had been examining the hat boxes. 156 THE ESSENTIAL THING "I am so glad your hats come from Carducci, mamma." "Don't you think the plume is much too long?" Mrs. Martel was asking Hortense, and Helen went on: " Because Edith's mamma says that he is extremely smart." She rested her elbow on the top of the bureau and putting her chin in her hand, she said in a dreamy tone: " Mamma, was Maline the most beautiful princess in the world? " " What is the child talking about ! " exclaimed Mrs. Martel. " I have been reading them a fairy story, madame," the governess answered. And Helen added, " The princess Maline lived in a tower in the middle of a plain and the prince came and rescued her and they lived happily ever afterwards. And she was the most beautiful, beautiful princess in the world." " Mamma, may I play with this? " asked Lucas, hold- ing up a large toilet bottle of cut glass. " Yes, my child, if you will be very careful." " Yes, I will be very careful," he answered with an ecstatic expression on his face, at being allowed to hold such an enchanting object. A knock sounded again and Hortense brought Mrs. Martel a note. On seeing printed in the corner of the envelope, Madame Shea, Modiste, she hesitated to open it, but finally] did so and read : THE ESSENTIAL THING 157 " DEAR, MADAME : According to our understand- ing with you, we have never sent bills for more than half your account, to Mr. Martel. These were settled by him in full a month ago, but on the other half which you have always promised! to pay yourself, we have had nothing in two years. " We have written you repeatedly, but you have never answered us. Unless you can give the bearer of this note your cheque for $1,000.00 on account, we regret to say that we shall be obliged to bring suit against you immediately. " Very respectfully, " MADAME SHEA." Mrs. Martel made a gesture of impatience, and going to her writing desk, drew out a cheque book and was about to write a cheque, when a crash was heard fol- lowed by a complete silence. Lucas had let the bottle fall on the hearth. His mother jumped up, increasing her irritation by knocking her cheque book off the desk. " You naughty, naughty boy, what have you done? Can I never have one moment's peace ! Take it off at once," she con- tinued to Helen who, standing before the glass, had been trying on one of the new hats. " Please take them away, why will you be so naughty? " Lucas with the pitiful expression one sometimes sees in children's faces when they weep, an expression which asks for love and consolation instead of anger, began 158 THE ESSENTIAL THING to sob heartbrokenly as the governess led them out and closed the door. " Now," said Mrs. Martel, " give me the cheque- book, please. Do you know what that impertinent woman writes? You may tell the person who is waiting, that I shall have nothing more to do with Madame Shea." She handed the note to Hortense, who glanced through it. " But, Madame, you cannot give her a cheque. Your book was returned by the bank this morning and they say that your account is too much over- drawn." " But it isn't overdrawn," cried Mrs. Martel with increasing exasperation. She turned over the pages and showed the maid some figures on the margin. " I have twelve hundred dollars there they are your own figures." " But they are very accurate at the bank. Perhaps I have made a mistake." " Very well, go over it again." Hortense sat down and they went laboriously through the cheque book, from the date of the previous balance, Mrs. Martel reading off the various deposits, and Hor- tense deducting from them the cheques which had been paid out. The result was, with the difference of a few dollars, the same as that which Mrs. Martel had re- ferred to. " You see," said the latter, " I can perfectly well give Madame Shea a cheque." THE ESSENTIAL THING 159 " Still, I think that the bank may be right, madame," the maid answered. " How can it be right ? You talk like a fool. Be- sides, if they are right, it's your fault. You are sup- posed to keep my accounts." Hortense got up without speaking and went into the bedroom. Mrs. Martel followed her to the door. " Why don't you answer me ? " she asked angrily. '* If I am a fool, you had better get someone else," Hortense answered, darting a look of resentment at her mistress from under her lashes. "Very well, you may go whenever you like." Mrs. Martel returned to the boudoir, sat down before the desk, an expression of sullen resentment on her face, and began to again go over the figures in her cheque book. Presently Hortense returned, picked up the hats and prepared to put them away. " But I insist on knowing definitely whether the bank is right or not," Mrs. Martel went on. " That woman is waiting, you keep my accounts, how can there be such a difference ? " " I cannot keep madame's accounts, if she makes out cheques without telling me and does not put them down." " Oh! then I am to blame? " " We shall see," answered Hortense. She took from the desk a bundle of vouchers which the bank had re- turned with the bank-book and began comparing them with the entries made in the counterfoils of the cheque book. Four cheques remained which had not been en- tered, aggregating nearly fifteen hundred dollars. 160 THE ESSENTIAL THING " You see, madame, I never saw these cheques before." " Good heavens," cried Mrs. Martel pettishly, " I should think that I might write cheques in my own book." " But I cannot keep it accurately, if you don't tell me about them." Mrs. Martel put her hands to her ears. " Good God ! please stop you will drive me dis- tracted with your arguing. Well, I must get rid of that woman. Is Mr. Martel at home ? " " I don't know," Hortense answered shortly, and added under her breath, " voyez vous-meme." If Mrs. Martel heard this rejoinder, she ignored it, and going to the desk again, she wrote: " Mrs. Martel will send Madame Shea the cheque she asks for to-morrow and will be careful not to employ her again." She handed it to Hortense and as the latter left the room, got up and went to the mirror. Her peg- noir was made of some material that fell in very many fine straight clinging folds, such as one sees sometimes in the draperies of Greek statues ; the sleeves were short and it was cut so as to display her perfect neck. She looked very beautiful, very alluring. Should she wear it? Should she make that appeal to him by which she had conquered him so often ? Should she ? No, it would be base now before, there had been at least a residue of sincerity in those appeals, now there was none. And as she thought of those coquetries in which his simpler THE ESSENTIAL THING 161 nature had never seen one trace of calculation, she felt ashamed. And as she thought of that love which had come into her life again, which obsessed her, a feeling of momentary sadness seized her a sadness, without regret. A feeling that she must go on was being carried forward by a force dangerous but dear to her, which she gloried in, knowing at the same time, its peril. Hortense coming back, she put on a street gown and went downstairs. Martel was in his study standing before a window. His back was toward her and his hands were thrust into his pockets. Against the light she could see well the outline of his compact and vigorous frame. As she came in, closing the door after her, he turned without speaking and looked at her again with that indescribable look, out of his intensely blue eyes, a look which had once before vaguely disquieted her. " May I speak to you for a moment, Charles ? " She sat down in a small chair and rested an elbow on a table beside it. He too, seated himself. " It is not pleasant, but I must tell you." "Very well; what is it?" Martel answered quietly, coldly almost, but he seemed to listen tensely for her answer. " It is about money." Martel seemed to hear this with relief almost, he relaxed slightly. " When you asked me a month ago for a list of the people I owed money to, I did not give you everything. To Madame Shea for instance, I owed nearly two thousand more than I told you." "Are thore others?" he asked her. She hesitated for a moment in order to overcome that 162 THE ESSENTIAL THING impulse for misrepresentation which had become habitual to her in her dealings with him, but it seemed to her that her crowning dishonesty made it necessary for her to be truthful in smaller things at least, and she answered : " Yes, some others, but Madame Shea will be quite willing to take a thousand dollars at present." " Let me have all the rest of your bills, and I will pay them. Will you let me have them all? " he continued. " Yes, Charles." And after a moment she added, " I am sorry." "Sorry?" " Sorry, because I didn't tell you the whole truth before." " And I am glad," he answered. " Do you know why?" " No ; why are you glad ? " " Because you have told me the truth now, even if it is a little late." And almost gently he added, draw- ing some papers towards him, " Tell me, what they are." As well as she could remember, she gave him the list, concealing nothing. When she had finished he said: " Is that everything? " " Yes, everything." " It is not so much." " It is a good deal, Charles, are you sure that you can afford to pay them? " " Oh, yes ; you see I borrowed some money from Storey a month ago, and I have some of it yet." " Were you compelled to borrow, Charles ? " THE ESSENTIAL THING 163 " Yes ; I had run behind." " I am sorry," she said again, " because I know that I have been the cause of it." Neither spoke for a while, and then Mrs. Martel laughed softly. " I must tell you something Lucas told me this morn- ing," she said, " it is so amusing." And she repeated the story of the dream. Her husband smiled, that smile which showed the real Martel. " He is a good little chap," he said. " And I was vexed with him and scolded him. He broke one of my toilet bottles. I was so sorry after- wards. It seems that I am always being sorry for something." Again they were silent. Their house, rather far downtown, was in a quarter on which business was en- croaching, and through the closed windows sounds of various activities came to them faintly, increasing the sense of quiet where they sat. And this sense of quiet, of security, the harmonious outcome of their interview, gave them a feeling of nearness which was pleasant to them. They looked at each other furtively and there may have come to each a vague longing to be as they were before, to bridge the gulf which had been widening gradually for so many years, to stretch out their arms far, far, until their hands clasped with a strong pres- sure of amity and forgiveness. Perhaps even at that moment, the love which obsessed her grew faint in Mrs. Martel's heart. Faint to death. Perhaps. One can- 164* THE ESSENTIAL THING not tell about these things. But Martel's resentment had been melting a little. " It is good to be sorry,'* he said at last. "But not good to be always doing things one must be sorry for," she answered. And after a moment she added, " Are you quite sure, Charles, that it is all right about the bills?" " Quite all right," he answered and was silent again. Suddenly she felt that he would speak to her about Richard. Since Martel's coming upon them at Mrs. [Aladine's a month before, she had barely seen her hus- band. No explanation had been attempted. Martel had seen them together. She had broken her promise. But since Richard had come into her life again, that promise had seemed such a preposterous one to make, that she could not imagine how she could have been expected to keep it. Should she make it again, and break it? Perhaps at that moment she was ready to make it again and keep it. But not if he spoke to her now. She felt almost like being won back to him. If he would be kind to her. But she also felt that if he reproached her then there would be an end for- ever. " Dora," Martel said at last, " we have settled our money matters, now there are other things to settle." She looked at him appealingly, tears came to her eyes. " Oh, Charles," she said piteously, " must we talk of that again now it tires me so cannot we let things go? Let me try to prove to you that I am not as bad THE ESSENTIAL THING 165 as you think. We have spoken so often about it. Cannot we ignore it for a little while? " " But things are different now, something else has taken place." Something he could not resist, impelled him to go on, to make her discuss it with him make her explain. " There is something to be accounted for, something to be said, but by you, not by me." " What do you want me to say, Charles ? " she asked wearily. " I don't know," he answered. " What can I say except what I have said so often that I am sorry ? " " If one could be sorry enough for doing things, per- haps one wouldn't do them. People sometimes look on being sorry as a sort of absolution, a plenary in- dulgence permitting them to do them again." " I see and I am like that." There was a slight bitterness in her tone. " A little, I am afraid." "Yes; and that is the trouble. You have never trusted me, never. You have always thought me cap- able of any dishonesty, any falsehood." " How could I think anything else? " " Because you have always put the worst possible construction on everything I did. Because you were always anxious to think ill of me would have been disappointed if you had found that you were wrong." " But I found that I was right." "How do you know that you are right? I tell you 166 THE ESSENTIAL THING that you are not. I was on my way to Mrs. Aladine's that afternoon and had stopped at a shop. As I was coming out, I met him I didn't know that he was here. He asked if I were going to Mrs. Aladine's and when I said yes, he asked if he might come with me. What could I do?" " More lies," said Martel. " What do you mean ? " " He was in your box at the opera, four or five days before." " That is not true." " It is true, Dora, and you know it." Martel got up quickly and exclaimed vehemently. "Why, in God's name, why, why will you always lie to me why is it that you will never let me trust you? Can't you be honest, don't you know how, don't you care? For God's sake, tell me the reason ? " Mrs. Martel's face became agonized in its expression, like one enduring torture, like a creature at bay. Her hand shook, and trembling with nervous excitement, suf- fering and pain, she answered: "Because you would drive any woman to the devil. Because you are always suspicious, because you have always misconstrued even the simplest things I do. Be- cause you have always made it impossible for me to be frank with you. Because, if I told you the truth always, you would never believe me." "How do you know, have you ever tried? " " Yes," she answered. " More lies," Martel repeated. THE ESSENTIAL THING 167 Suddenly she began to weep, to weep terribly, con- vulsively, with long mournful sobs which racked her body. And as M artel watched her, heard those sounds of distress, saw her tears, something thrilled him, a feel- ing of delicious compassion overcame him, an ecstasy of tenderness and love. It was always so ; while she resisted him, he hated her, but when, her opposition beaten down, she wept, he felt always an irresistible desire to take her in his arms and dry her tears with kisses. Yes ! it was always so Martel, impelled by some uncontrollable impulse, a sort of ferocious curiosity, in- variably returned to the same topic. Every subject if they were together long enough, seemed to lead irresistibly for him, to that of her dishonesty. It agonized him and yet it attracted him. Explanations followed. Lies, bitter reproaches, tears and then those reconciliations, which meant nothing, led nowhere, which left them always where they were before. And now going to her, he took her hands in his and tried to draw them from her face. Sobs still shook her. " Dora," he said, gently, " forgive me, please, please forgive me I know that I am cruel, but somehow I can't help it. But I love you forgive me this once I swear that I will trust you that I shall never ques- tion " Mrs. Martel jumped: to her feet and threw his hands away from her. "Who is lying now?" she exclaimed through her tears. " You, because you know that it would be impossible to do what you promise. And I 168 THE ESSENTIAL THING hate you you have tortured me too much -I want you never to touch me again never speak to me I cannot stand it. I will kill myself if you don't leave me in peace." " And you will make no promise? " Never do what you like. For myself, I don't care what becomes of me I would rather die than live the life I have been living any longer." " You have nothing more to say, Dora? " " Nothing," she answered. " You are quite sure ? " And this time she saw again that disquieting look. " Quite sure," she answered defiantly. " You cannot make life more unbearable for me than you have done already." "Then that is all?" " Yes all," and she went out. Martel made a movement as if to follow her and then turning went back to the window. He stood there for a long time, motionless. Yes, it must be ended. He saw at last the specious terms on which their lives had been going on. He realized that it was partly his own fault perhaps, but he could not put away that act which td him was the cause of all their unhappiness. Admit- ting that his own treatment of her in the past, his con- duct toward her, his jealousies, his suspicions may have aroused a defiance in her which partly palliated her actions there was that act which he could never for- get, never forgive, which haunted him always. Admit- ting everything it was still there, could not be put away, THE ESSENTIAL THING 169 and in the final reckoning with him, she must answer for it. All the laws of marriage, of society seemed to de- mand, to justify revenge, punishment, disgrace, if a woman erred. A slight sound caused him to turn. Hortense was just leaving the room closing the door gently after her. He was about to speak to her when he noticed on his desk an envelope which he knew had not been there before. Perhaps it was a note from his wife. He went over and picked it up. It was addressed to Richard Whitely, Esq., in his wife's hand. He turned to the door, locked it and sat do\vn, still holding the letter. He looked at it intently, sighed deeply, put it down and buried his face in his hands. Finally he took it up again. He seemed to be contemplating an action which was hateful to him. He looked at it closely and saw that it was hurriedly and carelessly sealed. He reached for a long and slender paper knife which lay beside him, inserted it into the envelope, withdrew it and returned it to the desk. He sat quite still again, thinking. At last taking up the knife, he carefully opened the flap of the envelope, drew out the letter, read it, made a note or two, returned it to the envelope and refastened it. He sighed again deeply. A dark flush had mounted under the bronze of his skin. He put the letter in his pocket, took up his hat and went out. He looked old. CHAPTER XII DAVIDGE'S failure proved to be as disastrous as the few who, like Storey, were in a position to watch his gradual decline, had feared. Succeeding his father as head of the house many years before, his control of its affairs had been absolute and unquestioned and when the crash came, it was found as Pandolfi had said, that the bank was cleaned out. Where its assets had gone, what Davidge had done with them, could never be learned. In the Street, vague rumors were heard, faint whisperings of systematic looting by someone who had gained Davidge's confidence, and Pandolfi's name was guardedly mentioned by a few, also in the Street; but the authorities could find no trace of anything, except evidence of some reckless speculations on Davidge's part which accounted for but a small portion of the losses. Every effort was made to find Davidge himself, with- out avail. Foreign ports were watched, rewards were offered, his photograph was sent broadcast to no pur- pose, and as the weeks wore on without one clue to aid in solving the mystery of his disappearance, the hope that he would ever be found, or that the reason for his failure would ever become known, died gradually, for even his letter to Goeffrey had vanished completely, 170 THE ESSENTIAL THING 171 although a most thorough search had been made for it. So Goeffrey found himself with thirty thousand at the bank and nothing else except his personal effects. Half of the money he gave to Richard and after selling his motor car and a few of his exceptionally fine pieces, he took stock of the furnishings of his rooms. Waters had been snatched away with astonishing quickness by some friend of Goeffrey's, who had long appreciated his talents. " I hate to sell all this stuff, Dick," he said one day as he was preparing to move to less expensive quarters. He was sitting astride a chair and was fingering a cur- tain of old green damask. " It's really worth a lot of money." " Then sell it for a lot and save storage," Dick an- swered. " Have you had any offers ? " " That's the trouble. I used to have before this beastly smash came, for a lot of it, but now people all seem to have changed their minds." " They think they can get it for less, I suppose," his cousin replied sententiously. " That's usually the way. It does seem a pity though, because you have got some really good things." " Good things ! I should say I had. Have you ever seen a table to equal that ? The one inlaid with tortoise shell and silver? Have you ever seen Wedgewood more beautiful than mine? Have you ever seen a col- lection of French watches finer than mine, considering its size? " "Well, don't sell them then, keep them yourself. 178 THE ESSENTIAL THING Besides, fifteen thousand dollars can be made to last a good while and before that's gone, something may turn up." "That's what I'll do," Goeffrey answered. "I'll use as much as I can in my new place and have the rest stored." He got up and began emptying some book shelves, putting the books in a packing box which stood beside them. " By the way," he said presently, " where will you go, when I leave here ? " " I don't know," answered Richard from his place, on the sofa. " I'll find a little kennel somewhere." " Will you come with me I'd like to have you? " " Thanks, no, Goeffrey. As they say here, we've got to hustle for ourselves, and I think that we would each get on better alone. By the way, I saw Pandolfi to-day, he told me about a good speculation in stocks." " Well, don't touch it," said Goeffrey shortly. " No fear," answered his cousin. " They say you know that he knows something about Davidge's failure." " I don't doubt it," Goeffrey replied, " but they will never connect him with it, he's too clever." " Perhaps that explains his dislike of you. Per- haps he hated you because he knew he was ruining you, instead of ruining you, because he hated you." " I don't think it had anything to do with it one way or the other," Goeffrey answered. " My money hap- pened to be in Mr. Davidge's care, so I lost it as others did theirs." " It does seem absurd and yet in some of those South- THE ESSENTIAL THING 173 era Italians, one will sometimes run across wild primitive traits, even in the educated ones, which have survived through the ages. Take his bringing Nina up here that night. He was jealous of your success with Doris, so he struck back at you." " Yes, I've heard that," answered Goeffrey, " but I don't believe that Doris was concerned in it in that way she's nothing to him." Richard looked at his cousin and smiled oddly, but Goeffrey was busy putting his books carefully in the packing case and did not notice. " By the way," Richard asked after a moment, " have you seen her lately ? " "Who?" " Doris." " Not since that night." "Really?" Goeffrey looked up in surprise. " No ; why shouldn't I tell you if I had?" " Nothing she's very nice, that's all," his cousin answered. But not long after this Goeffrey did see Doris. He had taken the second floor of an old house on one of the side streets not far from Fifth Avenue. The quarter was undergoing one of those changes in character which happens so frequently in New York and rents were low on short leases. The large front room he had made into his work shop. Four draughting tables occupied the floor and a quantity of T squares and triangles hung on the 174 THE ESSENTIAL THING walls in company with numerous photographs of cele- brated foreign buildings. A large chest of drawers had been set up in which to keep drawings, and an air of extraordinary cleanness and emptiness pervaded the en- tire place. The room immediately behind this was to be used for the reception of clients during business hours and as an office for Goeffrey ; and at night as a sitting- room or library. Still behind this in an extension, was his bedroom and bath. In his sitting-room he had crowded the chiefest of his treasures and it was here one night soon after he was settled, that Doris came to see him. He had come in from an early dinner and had been sitting alone, as he had done repeatedly of late, think- ing of Nina whom he had not seen since the night of his party. He had tried desperately to do so, but she was obdurate and had finally left town with Aunt Mary and the children, to remain until the excitement which followed her father's failure had passed away. For nearly a month, he had seen no one. Feeling that his former life was of a character which was incompatible with a serious occupation, and as there seemed to him to be no other reasons than social ones, for seeing his friends, he began his professional career by promptly dropping them and stopping at home evenings. At times he felt very lonely, hoped that every foot on the stairs might mean a visitor, and as he heard them pass his door, indulged in reproachful reflections on the in- stability of friendship, forgetting that hardly anyone had been told his new address. But most of the time THE ESSENTIAL THING 175 he thought of Nina, of how he had gained her and lost her lost her when he had most need of her. How much easier it would be for him now if he could have her sympathy and encouragement. " Love and sympathy," that is what he had offered her. Had she given him either in return? And had there been love and sym- pathy, would not forgiveness have walked hand in hand with them? Had she chosen the better part was it quite worthy of a character as noble, as wonderful, as beautiful, as admirable, as hers? But no, he must not reproach her, he had no right, because the fault had been his. But life seemed very hopeless. He looked about him, it was very still in his rooms. How lonely it was. Love, friendship, money, all had gone, nothing was left. Suddenly he heard light steps ascending the stairs quickly, a knock sounded on his door and opening it he saw Doris standing there. "Alone? " she asked. She came in at once, shut the door herself, locked it and sat down before the fire. She seemed a little out of breath as if she had been hurry- ing. Goeff rey seized both her hands eagerly. " Oh, Doris," he said, " how glad, how glad I am to see you." " Are you surprised? " she asked after a moment. " Oh, yes ! surprised and delighted, more than I can say." He caught her hands again and they smiled into each other's eyes. " Are you really glad, Goeff rey ? " " Yes, awfully glad. You see it's rather lonely here 176 THE ESSENTIAL THING at times. What put it into your head to take pity on me?" " I don't know, perhaps because I wondered if you needed friends now do you ? " " I always need friends like you, and then I take it that your coming here is a sign that you have forgiven me." " Yes, you're forgiven." " And you are coming often? Everything is to be as it was before? This is even a better place than the other. No danger of people telling tales here. At night the whole building is empty." Doris flushed. " Of course I shall not come often, I shall not come at all." "Oh, Doris, why not?" Doris jumped up and went quickly to the door. " I am going," she said in a low voice, with her hand on the knob, " you always hurt me." " But Doris, what have I done, I don't understand? " "I just stopped here for a moment to see how you were getting on. You are engaged to be married and you ask me to come often. You wouldn't ask any other woman you know to do that here in this house alone. But I don't count." "Oh!" said Goeffrey, "but didn't you know that everything is ended that I haven't seen her since that night?" " Oh, Goeffrey ! " exclaimed Doris. " I hadn't heard." And sympathy and compassion sounded suddenly in THE ESSENTIAL THING 177 her voice. " Forgive me for being so irritable. You see you do need friends real ones. The others won't bother about you now that you are poor." " But Miss Davidge isn't like that," answered Goef- frey, " she was offended because I " " You needn't mind going on," she continued as Goef- frey hesitated " she was offended because you had me there and Irma and Pauline and the others and just at the time you need help and encouragement, she can think of nothing except the injury to her own feel- ings. She had an opportunity she couldn't afford to miss, I should say, and so she took advantage of it." " I won't listen to you, Doris, if you say such things," protested Goeffrey " they're unjust and unfair." " They're not," she answered. " I like the other lady, the one who was tall, and beautiful, and delicate, but Miss Davidge looked at us so coldly and haughtily, I tell you she is heartless." " And you talk about your friendship for me, and can say things like that, Doris when you must know how it hurts me? Don't you realize that I have had that same doubt and that if I didn't fight against it, if I accepted it as true, life wouldn't be worth living? And now you come, my friend, and instead of giving me courage, you try to make me lose faith in the woman I love." Doris did not answer. They had seated themselves before the fire again and she was looking into it from under the brim of her hat. She moved slightly, but did not speak. 178 THE ESSENTIAL THING " Is that an act of friendship, Doris ? '* Goeffrey asked. " It is an act of " she began and was silent again. Suddenly she turned and held out her hand. " Forgive me," she said, " I'm sorry." Goeffrey took it and they sat in this way for some moments. It seemed to him that she looked at him furtively from time to time and that more than once she was on the point of speaking to him. At last she said, " Are you sure you love her, Goef- frey? " " Of course," he answered, " of course I'm 1 sure." After another pause, she drew her hand gently from his and sat straight up in her chair. " And now," she said in a brisk matter of fact voice, '* how are you getting on ? " " Not very well no commissions yet." " Aren't your friends giving you anything to do ? " " I haven't seen any of them." " Oh, Goeffrey ! how foolish you are. You must see them. They will forget you if you let them." " Then they're not worth having. They know that I have begun to practice my profession, and if they want to employ me, it's easy enough to find me." Doris made a gesture of despair. " Do you mean to say that you haven't even told them where you live ? " " No, I haven't." " You're a child ! " she exclaimed. " That's all, just a child. You need someone to tell you what to do you must be more enterprising. There are other men THE ESSENTIAL THING 179 who won't wait to be found; they will go and get work while you are waiting for it to come to you. Don't you see that you must be more like the others ? " " I suppose so," he assented, " but the thought of it is awfully unpleasant somehow. Still I can't see why I shouldn't make money ; other people do, almost every- body you make it, Doris you must make a lot, I think what a charming little gown that is. Are you still in the 'Mermaid?'" " No," she answered after a moment's hesitation " that ended a month ago. I'm not doing anything now." " But you will get something of course," Goeffrey replied. " You're such a clever little person." " I'm not clever, Goeffrcy I'm very nice of course, but I'm an awfully poor actress. It isn't easy for me to get work either." " Oh, but you must. What would you do if you couldn't be always the same delightful Doris, with your pretty gowns and hats and boots and gloves it's quite unthinkable." " Well, you see I have a little income, a very tiny one and that helps." Suddenly she cried, " Oh, Goeffrey ! how I should love to take you to my dressmaker in Paris everything I have comes from her I must go there soon, somehow. She's a little old woman with a crooked back, but she has the soul of an artist. She loves to make my clothes because she loves me. She says that I am more chic than anyone. Do you think it wicked to love beautiful clothes ? " 180 THE ESSENTIAL THING " Of course it isn't." " But I love them so much that I couldn't live with- out them. Oh, Goeffrey! if you could only be in my beautiful, beautiful Paris some day when I am there, I would take you to her. She loves to talk about me, and you would hear from her how good and how nice I am would you like that ? " " Ah, yes, but Paris seems a long way off now, Doris, we must both work and make money and then we can go there." Doris clinched her fists and shook them at the ceil- ing. " Oh ! oh ! oh ! if I were only rich," she said, " if I " Someone knocked sharply on the door and she started up in terror. "Wait," said Goeffrey. "Who is it?" he called. " Mr. Bancroft," said an old man's voice through the Jdoor. " It's all right, Doris, let me let him in he will never say anything to anyone, then you may go. I as- sure you it's all right." " And so the young lady would like to be rich," Mr. Bancroft observed, as Goeffrey introduced him and pro- ceeded to help him off with his overcoat. " Let me ad- vise you, Goeffrey, to have a heavier door put on, that one is much too thin I hope you will forgive me for intruding, but I promised to deliver a message to Mr. Hunter to-night, if I could, so I came down here on my usual nocturnal prowl. If you are to be in later, Goef- frey, I can stop on my way uptown." " Oh, please don't," Doris protested. " I was jusi THE ESSENTIAL THING 181 going, I had only stopped in to see Goeffrey for a mo- ment and I stayed longer than I had expected to." " I quite understand," Mr. Bancroft answered with a bow. " There are people whom one always stays longer with than one intends Goeffrey is one of them and I should not be surprised if you were another." Doris gave him a brilliant smHe and went out on the landing, Goeffrey following her and closing the door after him. " You don't know how you've cheered me up," he said. " Won't you come again ? " " No," she said, " I won't." " Please, Doris." " I'll tell you what I'll do, Goeffrey," she answered gravely. " I'll come until you are friends again do you understand I mean you and she." " I understand that's something anyway come soon, will you? " " As soon as I can and Goeffrey be a little more practical run about and see people you will never get anything to do moping alone here." " All right, don't worry, I'll be building one of your giants before you know it." Doris put her hand to her head. " No ! no ! " she protested and then she added " but yes, anything if you can only make money. Good- night." " Good-night, Doris." Goeffrey came back, locked the door, sat down before the fire where Mr. Bancroft had already seated him- 182 THE ESSENTIAL THING self and seemed about to say something, when the old gentleman raised his hand. "Explanations are quite unnecessary, my dear boy. There are some men whose presence here with that young lady would mean but one thing you are not one of them." " Thank you, sir," said Goeffrey. " But I will tell you who is that piano playing cousin of yours. I'm going to talk plainly to you, Goef- frey, I hope it wont offend you what do you know about him ? " " Almost nothing," answered Goeffrey ; " until he came here, I had not seen him for years." " Well, I have been looking a little into the career of Mr. Richard Whitely," the old man went on with a tone of peculiar resentment in his voice, " and I have found that his life abroad, for a number of years, has been that of an idler, a spendthrift, a gambler and a seducer of women. The immediate reason for his coming here was to get away from the wrath of a man whose friend- ship he had tried to betray." " He told me about that," interrupted Goeffrey, " but he said that the woman lied to her husband about him, out of pique." " Did you believe him ? " " Well, no, I didn't, I don't know why exactly," Goef- frey answered. " No, nor would anybody else," rejoined Mr. Bancroft shortly, " but that is only one incident I have many THE ESSENTIAL THING 183 and some day I may make it rather too hot for him to stay here with any sort of comfort." " But I am sure that Richard isn't bad at heart," said Goeffrey. " The things you mention, many men do. If he hasn't been guilty of anything really criminal, I don't see how you would be justified in repeating scan- dalous stories about him, sir, really I don't, no matter how true they might be." " It is true," the old gentleman answered, " that among the men you and I know, there are some who do all the things that I have mentioned, they are our friends sometimes, go where we go, know our women. The first three types do little harm to any except them- selves perhaps, but if the seducer of women began to practice his beastly arts on one you loved, began to weave his net of fascination about her, what then ? " " But how " began Goeffrey. " You are going to ask how it could concern me, an old man, unmarried, with no ties of kindred I'll ex- plain, but before I do, let me tell you of a thing that happened not long ago. I was taking my evening walk as I always do, as you know, but on this occasion it was earlier than usual. I have no special route, some- times I go in one direction, sometimes in another, but on this night I had gone up Broadway and turned West. The quarter I found myself in was rather a dubious one and the street at this point was quite deserted, except that a public cab was waiting close to the curb, about midway in the block. As I reached this point on the 184 THE ESSENTIAL THING opposite side of the street, a door opened and a man and woman came out, descended the steps quickly, entered the cab and were driven away. A street lamp stood close by the cab and I recognized both. The woman was the wife of a man we both know and her companion, your cousin. I looked at my watch, it was eleven o'clock. The hour and the character of the neighbor- hood aroused my suspicions and I had certain investiga- tions made which confirmed them. Then it was that I be- gan to look into the past life of your precious cousin. I did this for a certain reason and that was that he had begun to practice his arts on the one woman I cherish and love. Do you know who that is ? " and on the lat- ter replying in the negative, he added : " It is Con- stance." " Constance," exclaimed Goeffrey, bewildered and in- dignant. " Oh, Mr. Bancroft ! how can you say such a thing about her? You would be the first to resent it if anyone else did." " And what have I said about her, if you please, that anyone could resent ? " he replied, fixing Goeffrey with a threatening look " What have I said? " " I think I must have misunderstood you," Goeffrey answered in some confusion. ** I would rather not say what I thought you said." The old gentleman brought his fist down on the arm of his chair. " I say, sir, that your cousin is practicing his arts on her so that he may marry her. Now do you under- stand?" THE ESSENTIAL THING 185 " Oh ! " exclaimed Goeffrey. " Practicing his arts on her in order to marry her is the thought of it pleasant to you ? " Goeffrey remembered Nina's prediction. " He isn't good enough for her," he said as he had said once before. " He's not worthy to touch the hem of her gown," Mr. Bancroft replied. " It must be prevented and I want your assistance. I want you to go to your cousin and suggest that he had better go away tell him that you have been told that things are known about him that will make it most unpleasant for him here if they are made public. If the source of your informa- tion is unknown to him, it may make a deeper impres- sion, and coming as an emissary of someone else, it will be easier for you. You are friends, I suppose? " " Oh, yes, but suppose that he refuses to go? " " Let him take the consequences. I knew her when she was a child. I saw her grow to womanhood and beauty. I watched the wretchedness of her life with Aladine and now I mean to save her from a marriage which would make her even more unhappy." Mr. Ban- croft rose and walked toward the door, tottering a little as he went " See him at once," he said. " I will see him to-morrow," said Goeffrey, " but I am not very hopeful. The only answer one uusally gets in such cases, is an invitation to mind one's own business." " Never mind. Tell him and let me know the result." Goeffrey assisted him on with his overcoat and ac- companied him downstairs. On the way down the old 186 THE ESSENTIAL THING man mumbled softly as if talking to himself. He paused on the stoop. " In a month the town will be empty no time to lose. See him at once." He turned toward Fifth Avenue but after a few steps he stopped. " I forgot to tell you that Constance wants to see you to- morrow afternoon about four. Try to see your cousin first. I may be there, at Constance's, I mean, and you can tell me what he has to say." He went on again, but in a moment came back to where Goeffrey was standing. " Remember," he said threateningly, " I'll have no mercy on him. If I tell a certain man here what I know, I fancy your cousin will go back to Europe in as great a hurry as he left it a few months ago." CHAPTER XIII DORIS came down the steps from Goeffrey's rooms and stood for a moment in hesitation. The month was May but there was a chill in the air and the wind blew through the cross streets in sharp gusts. The occasional street lights showed undimmed through an atmosphere which seemed but lately to have been washed with rain, and between the dark clouds which floated high in the heav- ens, stars could be seen shining remote but clear. She stood for a moment on the pavement and smiled to herself the cool night wind, the clear air, the shin- ing stars and her little visit with Goeffrey, pro- duced an elation which she did not often feel. As a sort of good-by, she pictured him in his room, as he had looked not long before with his expression of eager de- light on seeing her and she smiled again, a smile half tender, half protecting. She seemed uncertain at first what direction to take, but finally, with a quick look about her, turned and walked rapidly toward Broadway. Although she looked from side to side repeatedly, the block was a long one and midway between the avenues badly lighted, and she did not notice, until he was close to her, that a man had crossed the street for the purpose of intercept- ing her. When she was almost upon him, she saw him 187 188 THE ESSENTIAL THING and knew at the same moment that it was Pandolfi. She stopped with an involuntary gesture of dismay, and her hand went quickly to her heart. Pandolfi went swiftly up to her, with his active and noiseless stride, and seized her wrist. " So ! I have caught you," he said in a cold and sneering tone. " You liar ! Is this the way you keep your promises to me? " Doris stood terrified she did not answer him and her face looked very pale. " Answer me," he demanded. " Ernesto, you hurt me," she replied in a low voice. " Answer me," he repeated in the same cruel and sneering tone. " Are you supporting that pauper with the money I give you?" ** Ernesto, you hurt me, I will not talk to you here take me home and I will answer you." " You liar," he said again. He started toward Broadway still keeping tight hold of her wrist and glancing around from time to time in search of a cab. " Ernesto please you hurt me," she repeated, but at that moment a motor cab responded to his signal and drew up to the curb. Pandolfi thrust her into it, gave the chauffeur a number and got in himself. The cab started and turned up Broadway. Doris sat far back in the corner in silence. From time to time, with a trembling hand, she put her small handkerchief to her eyes. She saw on each side of her, moving past the windows of the cab, the cheap and vulgar panorama of THE ESSENTIAL THING 189 Pn 1 the street. The dirt, the roar, the tawdry lights. A din of conflicting sounds smote the ear, the metal clang of gongs, blasts of motor horns, the grinding of steel wheels on steel grooves, the clash of hoofs, shouts, cries. A kind of dust hung in the air, one could not have seen the clear stars here. One could see nothing except the : -li'cnlav of hotels, theaters and restaurants ; " i the ka- smagoria. material- life, Doris ;he restau- emptiness. he thought quite dif- ew. From ^s something et, more hu- jus some- js which she she felt she to some or- r but a con- ind meaning- one pure and ^hich her ear % hubbub which , until it had turning down .fin w S23i2/a>* p* a '"' I 11* UC*O i f *>! 8PP ?o