EDWARD CHILDS CARPENTER 
 
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 cmE EiBHiHy^ros HTGELES
 
 "A Cinderella-man!" she murmured. "But He is Not He
 
 THE 
 CINDERELLA 
 
 MAN 
 
 A ROMANCE OF YOUTH 
 
 BY 
 HELEN K. CARPENTER 
 
 AND 
 
 EDWARD CHILDS CARPENTER 
 
 New York 
 THE H. K. FLY COMPANY 
 
 Publishers
 
 Copyright, 1916, by 
 The H. K. Fly Company.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I THE DREAMER AWAKENED 9 
 
 II MEMORIES IN AN OLD GARDEN. ... 19 
 
 III A LODGING FOR A POET 25 
 
 IV THE HEROINE ENTERS 31 
 
 V SUNLIGHT AND THEN A SHADOW. . 44 
 
 VI Two POINTS OF VIEW 52 
 
 VII A LITTLE GIRL IN A BIG, STRANGE 
 
 HOUSE . . . : 62 
 
 VIII WILL AGAINST WILL 73 
 
 IX SOMEHOW, THE RING DID NOT FIT 
 
 HER FINGER 83 
 
 X THE SPELL OF THE SONG 94 
 
 XI THE LIGHT FROM A DORMER WIN- 
 DOW 103 
 
 XII HE WROTE THINGS UNDER THE 
 
 ROOF 117 
 
 XIII AN EMISSARY FROM A PRINCESS. ... 130 
 XIV A BANK BALANCE 143 
 
 2128701
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XV A CHRISTMAS FAIRY 152 
 
 XVI THE VIOLET ROSETTE 164 
 
 XVII THE FAIRY SERVES TEA 175 
 
 XVIII His NEW SECRETARY 186 
 
 XIX A FEW CHANGES 195 
 
 XX ROMNEY ISSUES A DICTUM 204 
 
 XXI A GENIUS AT FAULT 212 
 
 XXII MAINLY TEMPERAMENTAL 224 
 
 XXIII A LOVE PASSAGE IMPROVED 235 
 
 XXIV PRIMROSE AS CUPID 244 
 
 XXV "THE GATEWAY OF DREAMS" 253 
 
 XXVI A SHATTERED PARADISE 261 
 
 XXVII LOVE SEEKS THE WAY 267 
 
 XXVIII MORRIS CANER HEARS A CONFES- 
 SION 278 
 
 XXIX THE THRESHOLD OF ROMANCE. ... 285 
 
 XXX ON COMMON GROUND 293 
 
 XXXI THE TURNING POINT 300 
 
 XXXII THE PRINCESS , 304
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "A Cinderella-man I" she murmured softly. "But 
 he is not here" Frontispiece 
 
 "Well, in that shabby old place where you see 
 the light, lives Quintard. He lives up there, 
 like Cinderella, in the attic" Page 109 
 
 "Good-by, Cinderella-man" " 194 
 
 "Please, ask the Princess I" " 310
 
 The Cinderella Man 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE DREAMER AWAKENED. 
 
 GENTLE mysteries dwelt among the old and 
 beautiful things which companioned Anthony 
 Quintard through the long nights when the 
 frost's delicate embroideries edged the window panes 
 and the falling snow tapped wraithily at the casement. 
 Many a time he said, "Come in," picturing with 
 boyish fancy a friendly phantom come to visit the 
 others, who, when the firelight reached out to em- 
 brace them, retreated into the shy shadows of the 
 panelled wall. He always had the feeling that they 
 were there those ghosts of sovereign thoughts, 
 those shades of golden words, those spirits of benfi- 
 cent deeds for, in a hundred years and more, only 
 the gentlest of lovely women, the noblest of gentle 
 gentlemen, had thought and spoken and done for 
 one another and their neighbors there. So you may 
 
 9
 
 10 
 
 understand that Tony, one of the most gentle of all 
 that house, left alone with that beautiful heritage of 
 old things and older spirits, must have loved and 
 venerated them everyone. 
 
 Outside, the city its towering hives crowding, al- 
 most crushing the ancient dwelling where Tony lived 
 with all the yesterdays called, like a vendor of toys, 
 offering the dazzling playthings of the night to him ; 
 but, for one whose blood was warm with youth, his 
 heart was cold to that vibrant lure without. It 
 always seemed to him that there was more for heart 
 and mind within those venerable walls. So he did 
 not join that motley pageant of humanity at play. 
 He found companions in those peopled books, friends 
 who were forever amiable and young; there were 
 songs for him in the silent spinet; there were light 
 and shadow dances on the hearth; magic in the weave 
 of the rugs at his feet; and drama in the conflict of 
 the quiet place itself against the noisy bluster of en- 
 croaching years. 
 
 The new and tawdry brawled without, the old and 
 beautiful reposed within. There was nothing there 
 that was not older than Tony, nothing there that 
 was not as harmonious as the chords that he some- 
 times ventured to rouse from that sleeping instru- 
 ment. To touch it, to pick up a book, to sit at the
 
 THE DREAMER AWAKENED n 
 
 great carved table, to gaze at the mellowed portraits, 
 or to sink back into the embracing arms of his 
 grandsire's chair, was to visualize companions who 
 charmed him with their gentle courtesy, engaged him 
 with their soft voices, counselled him with their 
 sturdy advice, and entertained him with their friendly 
 wit. 
 
 There, before the fire in that same grandsire's 
 chair with the samovar simmering at his elbow and 
 the light from a lamp falling upon the penciled verses 
 now taking form after a long vigil his friend, 
 Romney Evans, attorney-at-law, and over twice his 
 years, found him on a winter's night. 
 
 Tony had no reason to expect him, yet in some 
 clairvoyant fashion the youth seemed to know that 
 it was Romney's hand that knocked. That night 
 between the coinage of rhymes his thoughts had 
 turned to the oldest friend in his memory, although 
 he had not seen or heard from the lawyer in months. 
 Perhaps it was that ancient samovar, Romney's re- 
 membrance on the occasion of Tony's eighteenth 
 birthday, and which he had not lighted that winter; 
 or it may have been Montaigne, for some lines he 
 had read on friendship, earlier in the evening, made 
 him think of his oldest intimate. 
 
 The philosopher's words were: "If a man should
 
 12 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 importune me to give reason why I loved him, I 
 find it could not otherwise be expressed, than by 
 making answer: because it was he, because it was I." 
 
 It was that way with Tony and Romney. More- 
 over, the past bound them together as only the past 
 can a past of tender memories. Romney had been 
 his father's dearest friend; and when the father was 
 summoned by the Great Usher of Eternity, Romney 
 had been his mother's closest councilor. 
 
 It was during his lifetime that Tony came to look 
 upon the lawyer as one of his own and most cher- 
 ished possessions. He considered Romney as a 
 thoroughly grown-up brother, though the latter was 
 old enough to have been his father. Tony shared 
 with him all those manly interests which a boy so 
 ardently harbors, and which he considers beyond the 
 ken of even the dearest of mothers. 
 
 This friendly intercourse with Romney had a great 
 influence upon Tony's character. Luckily it was a 
 sound influence, counteracting to a happy degree the 
 super-sensitiveness the lad had inherited from his 
 mother. They apparently grew up together man 
 and boy. Pals they were with no distinction, save 
 in years, which their sympathies leveled. 
 
 So on that winter's night, Tony knew his old 
 friend's knock upon the library door.
 
 THE DREAMER AWAKENED 13 
 
 "Enter, old top !" he cried joyously. And as Rom- 
 ney appeared upon the threshold, Tony held out a 
 slender but capable hand, and grasped the other's 
 warmly. 
 
 Romney responded to this enthusiastic greeting in 
 his old, quiet, humorous fashion, looking at Tony 
 through a pair of blue eyes, in which one might 
 have seen a flicker of anxiety. In the dim light the 
 young man missed this tell-tale signal, but he did not 
 fail to note that the usually smooth and glossy head 
 of grey hair bore rather the marks of fingers' towsled 
 combing than the orderly toilet of a brush. 
 
 "What's wrong?" asked Tony, as he relieved 
 Romney of his great coat and drew up a chair for 
 him by the fire. 
 
 "Be so good as to sit down yourself," insisted the 
 lawyer. "I want to look at you for a while" he 
 smiled "and then I'll tell you how I came to crunch 
 the snow on your doorsill to-night." 
 
 Tony, though ever impatient, knew better than to 
 oppose him, so he obeyed, sitting, as it seemed to 
 him, at the feet of that tall, soldierly figure standing 
 on the hearth rug. 
 
 "You haven't changed much in the last few 
 months," began Romney, after a moment's si- 
 lence.
 
 I 4 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "No," grinned Tony. "I won't be twenty-five 
 until April!" 
 
 "I didn't mean that!" He pointed to the manu- 
 script of verses which the young man had dropped 
 upon the table. "I meant as to your convictions. 
 Still writing verses !" 
 
 Tony nodded. "And selling them every now and 
 then. If this keeps up I shall be able to get out a 
 volume of poems in the autumn. And then," he 
 went on enthusiastically, "I'm going to try my hand 
 at writing the book of an opera something light, 
 you know, but with sense as well as rhythm in it 
 a real plot oriental Arabian Nights' atmosphere. 
 I've got a bully idea !" 
 
 "That's interesting, but not practical just now ! 
 The fact is, you've got to contrive in some way to 
 substantially increase your income. I had a talk with 
 your Uncle Peter this afternoon, and he " 
 
 "Uncle Peter!" groaned Tony. 
 
 His Uncle Peter, it may be remarked, was the only 
 other 1 Quintard of Tony's family, but beyond the 
 name, he in no wise resembled any Quintard that 
 the lad had ever met. Uncle Peter was a bullet- 
 headed, commercial-minded, non-sentimentalist. He 
 had in a thoroughly business-like, but unbrotherly 
 fashion, possessed himself of the old Quintard man-
 
 THE DREAMER AWAKENED 15 
 
 sion in which he had suffered Tony to live after the 
 death of the lad's mother, pending the time when the 
 property might most profitably be sold as the site 
 for a skyscraper. But as the years had passed, with 
 never a word of warning, Tony had lived on there 
 with a perfect feeling of security. He was rooted 
 in the soil of the old garden outside the window. 
 He had the illusion that it was his, just as were the 
 two old servants who kept it for him; and the income 
 which came to him regularly through Romney's 
 hands. 
 
 "Well, what about Uncle Peter?" asked Tony. 
 He knew it was something unpleasant. 
 
 Romney drew up a chair. "You know he owns 
 this house?" Yes, Tony vaguely remembered that, 
 but what of it? 
 
 "Knowing that, you must be aware that some day 
 your Uncle Peter will sell it I" 
 
 Tony felt a sinking sensation somewhere in the 
 region of his solar plexis. A look at Romney's solemn 
 face confirmed his worst fears. "He has sold I 
 know it!" 
 
 "Yes! I'm as broken up about it as you are 
 almost! I know how you feel, but you must buck 
 up. You're very young old things have to go 
 you've got your own house to build I mean your
 
 16 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 life's house; and you can't lose any time in setting 
 to work!" Romney laid his hand on Tony's arm 
 to assure him anew that he was standing by his old 
 pal. 
 
 Tony nodded, as he bit his lip, and clenched his 
 hands. Finally he spoke: "Is that all?" 
 
 "Not quite," answered Romney, slowly. "You 
 may not remember, but your mother's income, which 
 became yours with her death, was the revenue de- 
 rived from a contract, which your father made with 
 your Uncle Peter twenty-five years ago when they 
 were partners. That contract has expired, and with 
 its expiration, your income ceases. You understand 
 that." 
 
 Yes, Tony could understand that enough to know 
 its significance; but that was a small matter. It was 
 the sale of the old house which concerned him. 
 "What are they going to do with it?" 
 
 "I suppose they'll tear it down and put up a twenty- 
 story office building." 
 
 "When must I clear out?" 
 
 "This month!" 
 
 Tony looked about the room. "I wonder what I 
 shall do with all these things?" 
 
 "Your Uncle will take care of them," returned 
 Romney casually, rising to light a cigar.
 
 THE DREAMER AWAKENED 17 
 
 "Oh, he will, will he," snapped Tony, belligerently. 
 "What interest has he in the contents of this house?" 
 
 "They belong to him !" 
 
 Tony was stunned for a moment. He had always 
 disliked his Uncle Peter. Now he loathed him with 
 boyish intenseness. Why should his uncle come into 
 possession of all these dear and intimate things, each 
 holding some cherished significance? It was only a 
 matter of money. He would buy them from his 
 uncle. He told Romney so in an outburst of indig- 
 nation. 
 
 "With what, my dear boy, will you buy them?" 
 
 Tony was crushed. He began to curse Uncle 
 Peter. Romney stopped him. "Your Uncle Peter 
 is a cold business proposition. No use wasting breath 
 upon him. You have only to consider his proposal. 
 Mind you, Tony, it isn't my idea. It is his. I merely 
 promised to put it up to you." 
 
 "Whatever it is, I won't consider it for a second !" 
 declared Tony, as he paced the room. "He's an 
 unmitigated swine I don't care if he is my father's 
 brother and you know what I thought of my father. 
 I don't see how they possibly could have had the 
 same mother." 
 
 "Then I won't bother you with this idea of his," 
 said Romney.
 
 i8 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "But what is it? I might as well know ! " insisted 
 Tony. 
 
 Romney smiled. "He offers you a position as clerk 
 in the talcum powder factory!" 
 
 "Hah !" cried the young man, hysterically. "Tal- 
 cum powder! Probably wants me to paste labels on 
 those dreadful looking ten-cent cans! You can tell 
 him for me that he and his whole darned factory 
 can go to the devil !" 
 
 "I wouldn't tell him that," molified Romney. "He 
 might be induced to offer you a place with some of 
 his other interests." 
 
 Tony sank down in a chair for a moment, thought- 
 fully. Presently he jumped up, and faced Romney 
 squarely. "Romney, I've made up my mind. I'm 
 going to stick to writing verses, and any other old 
 thing that comes into my head. I'll make a living 
 that way or bust;, and you won't hear a whimper out 
 of me. Let Uncle Peter pull this dear old house 
 down over my head, and cart away every blessed 
 object in it; but I won't ask him for a job I won't 
 take one from him and if he offered me a penny, 
 I'd fling it in his ugly face !"
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MEMORIES IN AN OLD GARDEN. 
 
 TONY QUINTARD slept badly that night in 
 the old four-poster, which had lulled him to 
 sleep for many a year. As he rose fatigued, and 
 looked out of the latticed window, his eyes feasted 
 themselves, for the last time he knew, upon the old 
 garden where he had spent so many happy hours. 
 
 As he stood there, he watched the shadow-line on 
 the sundial slowly recording the advance of the day. 
 The morning sun shot leaping fire into the frost- 
 covered branches of the trees, turned the leaning 
 arm of the ancient timepiece from dead copper into 
 gleaming gold, the age-bitten stone into new life, 
 and the gaunt Roman numerals, which time had bat- 
 tered grotesquely out of shape, were softened into 
 comeliness, and became again as symmetricali as 
 when graven by the artisan now three centuries dead. 
 
 It was the sentinel that sundial of the old 
 Dutch garden, now fast asleep under the snow, and
 
 2O 
 
 the straw-bound coverings with which the old gar- 
 dener had wrapped, against the frost, the most cher- 
 ished plants. Only the ivy, wind-shaken free from 
 snow, glistened green and entwined itself about the 
 sundial, symbolizing for Tony the many memories 
 which twined themselves for him about that rugged 
 sentinel. That venerable object itself might have 
 recalled that it had tolled off the hours, days, weeks, 
 months and years of many a generation that lived 
 and died beneath the lowering eyes of that old dwell- 
 ing. 
 
 Across Tony's vision floated a small pattern of 
 himself, lying at full length on the greensward in the 
 springtime, with the pedestal of the dial for a pillow, 
 "thinking songs," which was one of his favorite 
 forms of play. These songs were full of birds and 
 flowers and faries, and a little later filled with the 
 images of Shakespeare's heroes and heroines, whose 
 asquaintance he first made in Lamb's Tales. These 
 in turn led him precociously to dip into the master 
 poet's works themselves, and he came out with many 
 a trick clinging to him. 
 
 Surely if Orlando could write verses on the bark 
 of trees, Anthony Quintard at twelve could do as 
 much. He smiled that sad morning, as he looked 
 upon the garden and thought of the scoldings he had
 
 MEMORIES OF AN OLD GARDEN 21 
 
 got from the gardener for hacking away at that lordly 
 maple, which still bore the scars of his boyish jingles. 
 How full of purpose he was then to own a forest 
 where he might hack away without molestation. 
 
 It was his mother who finally induced him to put 
 his songs on paper tablets rather than on trees. It 
 was much more practical, and easier. Furthermore, 
 you could tear up the paper when the rhymes were 
 not right and begin anew; but you couldn't tear up 
 trees. It wasn't done. 
 
 He found more facility, too, with his pencil than 
 with his pen-knife. So much so that some of his 
 verses actually challenged the serious attention of 
 his mother. 
 
 "Where did you get that pretty idea?" she had 
 asked him. 
 
 "Oh," he had replied, "it just popped out of my 
 head." 
 
 "Out of your head?" she smiled. "I thought 
 ideas popped into one's head." 
 
 "No no, dear mother," he had assured her. "My 
 head is so, so full of them that they keep pop- 
 ping out all the time, and so fast that lots of 
 them get away. My pencil is so slow, and the spell- 
 ing so hard, that it is all I can do to catch one out 
 of ten."
 
 22 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 He remembered the sympathetic amusement with 
 which his mother had listened to him, and then asked : 
 "But they must get into your head before they can 
 come out, must they not?" 
 
 "Oh, well," he had answered, "the fairies the lit- 
 tle people, you know they are always hiding among 
 the flowers and grass and if you lie down and keep 
 very still and pretend you're asleep, you can feel them 
 stuffing ideas into your head through your ears. 
 That's what's going on when you see me pretending 
 to be asleep at the sundial. That's why I lie so still 
 in the grass." 
 
 It was no effort now for Tony to recreate that 
 scene. Mother and son were sitting together under 
 the trellis, then all a-plume with its fragrant wisteria 
 flowering. He could see now just how that cameo 
 face all gentleness and winsomeness, an aristocratic 
 face lighted up as she smiled, and playfully said, 
 "If your common sense would only develop in step 
 with your fancy, I'd be quite sure of your future; 
 but I'm afraid, my dear" and she drew him close 
 to her as she spoke "that you are too much like 
 your father!" 
 
 "Too much like father?" Tony had been sur- 
 prised. He had believed that his mother shared 
 with him the idea that his father was a paragon.
 
 MEMORIES OF AN OLD GARDEN 23 
 
 "Yes too much like your father to compete in 
 that great market-place they call the world I" 
 
 "What's the matter with it? why can't I I com- 
 pete with it?" Tony had inquired sturdily. 
 
 "Because it never quite appreciates men like your 
 father." 
 
 "I'll make it appreciate me you see if I 
 don't!" 
 
 At that the mother leaned forward with sudden 
 impulse and took her boy in her arms. "If you feel 
 like that, and never let failure discourage you never 
 accept what you cannot repay never lose faith in 
 yourself be firm without, but keep yourself gentle 
 within you will succeed, my dear. I only hope that 
 I will be here to see you win!" 
 
 She had been spared to him, on through his college 
 days which he thought so unluckily separated them ; 
 but compensation came in the long vacations. Then 
 Romney came to visit them. It was on the occasion 
 of one of these visits that Romney found Mrs. Quin- 
 tard ill so ill that it alarmed him. She, too, felt 
 that the time of her lingering here would be brief 
 that the doctors could do nothing for her. She told 
 Romney then, that when she had gone, there was 
 one trinket in particular that she wished him to put 
 in Tony's hands. It was a gold locket, which her
 
 24 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 mother had given her. She had replaced the old 
 picture in it with a miniature of herself. 
 
 Not more than a month later, Tony had sat alone, 
 his eyes blurred with tears, as he looked at the 
 beloved face in the locket. The big house was still. 
 The Great Adventure had called its chattelaine. 
 
 These were Tony's thoughts as he bade good-bye 
 that morning to the old house and its garden the 
 shrine of his dearest memories.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 A LODGING FOR A POET. 
 
 DISTRESSED over Tony's circumstances, 
 knowing that all that the lad possessed was 
 little more than a hundred dollars in bank, 
 Romney importuned the boy to accept one or another 
 position he had pried open for him. Fearful, at 
 last, of hurting his old friend; fearful that insistance 
 might make him yield against his will, Tony dis- 
 appeared and purposely left no trail behind him. 
 
 Possessed of a determination of making his living 
 by writing verse, or whatever else came to his hand, 
 he resolved that he would keep going about the 
 task in his own way, refusing the assistance that 
 Romney only too gladly extended to him. Pride, 
 ground deep into his uttermost consciousness, bade 
 him stand or fall by himself. The little money he 
 had would keep him for a while at least. It must. 
 But there was need of the strictest economy. The 
 hotel where he had spent the first week after leav- 
 
 25
 
 26 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 ing the old house should no longer harbor him. He 
 must seek humbler lodgings he and his one trunk 
 and his manuscripts. 
 
 He found it away down town, near Washington 
 Square. On a corner stood one of those none-too- 
 handsome mansions, designed in the 70*8, a spacious 
 edifice, the home of Morris T. Caner, who carried 
 mines in his vest pocket and railroads dangling from 
 his watch chain. The house was not big enough for 
 Caner. He wanted to extend, to build an art gallery 
 on the site of the older brown-stone dwelling next 
 door, whose dingy front was the scandal of the 
 street. But the owner of that dilapidated house got 
 wind of the millionaire's desire and fixed an exorb- 
 itant price on his property. Caner refused to be 
 robbed, as he put it, and the rookery's tenant, a 
 shabby, towering woman who boasted of Southern 
 respectability, remained to harass her lodgers for 
 their rent. 
 
 Tony carried on negotiations with this creature to 
 a successful issue. He occupied the attic, with a fine 
 rear view over the roofs, and a prospect on one 
 side of Caner's uppermost windows. He paid two 
 dollars a week for this garret, and felt himself lucky 
 at that, even though it was unfurnished. He wanted 
 little. He bought himself, at a junk dealer's, a
 
 A LODGING FOR A POET 27 
 
 second-hand Gloucester hammock for a bed. At 
 another shop he acquired a well-worn kitchen table 
 and a hideously upholstered but comfortable straight- 
 backed chair, which had once been the feature of a 
 suite; a washstand and the things that go with it. 
 There was a shelf in one corner of his habitation. 
 He hung a piece of calico therefrom and made him- 
 self a wardrobe. A soap box answered for a second 
 chair in case he should ever have a visitor; and there 
 was the trunk. He placed it against the railing, 
 which balustraded the trap through which he made 
 entrance and exit by way of a rickety pair of stairs 
 to the hall below. 
 
 The attic was bitter cold. There was a register in 
 the floor, but what heat originated in the cellar van- 
 ished utterly before it could ascend to that high 
 altitude. Luckily he was well supplied with clothing. 
 He worked in a fur overcoat, his feet in woolen 
 stockings. And for service, he found the ready as- 
 sistance of one Jerry Primrose, the factotem of the 
 house, who, out of a wealth of experience, recognized 
 in Tony Quintard a gently bred youth the sort that 
 he had delighted in caring for in days that were fairer 
 than those now vouchsafed to him. 
 
 Primrose had been a well-trained servant and knew 
 his place. Tony liked him at once, and the old man
 
 28 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 soon came to look upon the lad with genuine affec- 
 tion. He was rather a picturesque figure in his way, 
 with his shock of grey hair, surmounting a florid 
 face, a shabby body which was supported by shuf- 
 fling legs and somewhat uncertain feet. They were 
 both in a way derelicts, the one at the beginning, the 
 other at the end or very close to the end of his 
 tether. 
 
 Whenever he could spare a moment from his 
 arduous labors below stairs, whenever he could es- 
 cape from the argus eye of the landlady, whom Tony 
 had dubbed "The Great She-Bear," Primrose would 
 sneak up to the attic, and if he found Tony in an 
 unproductive mood he would tidy up the room, ac- 
 companying these ministrations with a flow of humble 
 philosophy and simple wit. And as time wore on 
 he became as one closely knit with Tony's fortune, 
 rejoicing with the lad when he sold a poem, con- 
 soling him when a verse was returned as "unavail- 
 able." 
 
 While Tony worked faithfully, he found the mar- 
 ket for his wares a meagre one. Slowly the small 
 bank account dwindled to nothing. Then it was 
 that Primrose became the medium through which his 
 fur overcoat, his watch, and other "luxuries" found 
 their way to the pawnshop.
 
 A LODGING FOR A POET 29 
 
 Many a time the old man, bewailing Tony's ill- 
 luck with never a thought of his own, had suggested 
 that the lad hunt up his old friend Romney Evans 
 of whom he had heard Tony often speak and ask 
 for assistance. But the young man was obdurate. 
 He preferred to struggle along as best he could in 
 his own way; and he was by no means unhappy. 
 Possessed of a rich vein of humor, he had learned 
 to laugh at his misfortune. Moreover, hope and 
 faith in himself were strong within him, and he had 
 learned to make a dollar go a long way. 
 
 In spite of Tony's avowed intention of making no 
 call upon Romney, his faithful servitor could not 
 get the lawyer out of his head. One day he said: 
 "I ain't wishin' the gentleman no harm, sir; but ain't 
 it possible that he might up an' croak an' leave you 
 a bit of money?" 
 
 Tony laughed: "Don't build any such hopes. Mr. 
 Evans is as hale and hearty at fifty as I am at twenty- 
 five. Besides why worry, my dear Primrose we 
 are doing very well as it is. The editor of 'The 
 Ladies' Monthly Pest' has asked me to write a son- 
 net for the October number, and here it is April 
 already." 
 
 "But you must remember, sir, he's one of them 
 kind that don't pay nothin' till he prints your poem.
 
 30 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 I'd like to see some ready money comin' into us." 
 "Money isn't everything," protested Tony. 
 "Ah, sir, it's only the rich as can afford to say 
 that!" 
 
 Whereupon Tony laughed again. "I am rich," he 
 declared. "I have your good company at selected 
 intervals and I'm plugging away, without the least 
 responsibility in the world, at the work I want to do. 
 No man could ask morel"
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 \ 
 
 THE HEROINE ENTERS. 
 
 WHILE Tony was thus working out his own 
 destiny in his own way, Romney Evans, 
 who had long since given up his fruitless 
 search for the lad, was a frequent visitor at the great 
 mansion next door. For years he had been the legal 
 advisor of Morris Caner, not only in business but 
 in domestic affairs. And as the millionaire's council- 
 lor, he had, some fifteen years before the date of 
 this narrative, unconsciously begun to gather in his 
 hands the threads of Caner's broken love-story, only 
 to begin the weaving of them into Tony's own 
 romance. 
 
 Caner had married after he had made his first for- 
 tune in coke too late to be susceptible to the gentler, 
 modifying influences of a sensitive woman. He was 
 a born bachelor. He never should have married. 
 He was selfish, strong-willed, and, as so many self- 
 made men are, unyielding, and absolutely intent upon 
 
 31
 
 32 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 having his own way in everything. When opposed, 
 he became obstinate. Anyone who contested his will 
 was obliged to yield or break with him. 
 
 His wife was a woman of real spirit. She en- 
 dured his arrogance at first, hoping that her influence 
 in time would at least make it possible for her to live 
 with him; and still she hoped on, when a daughter 
 was born to them, that the advent of a child in the 
 house would bring out the better side of her hus- 
 band's nature. But this event in no wise changed 
 him. 
 
 For the sake of her daughter, Marjorie, Mrs. 
 Caner suffered the millionaire's unreasoning bursts 
 of temper until her own self-respect could no longer 
 endure them. It was then that Romney was called 
 in, and a separation arranged. 
 
 Their friends were not surprised, and though his 
 intimates among men still clung to him, they did 
 not fail to tell him what they thought of him. His 
 physician, Doctor Thayer, came out bluntly and said 
 to him: 
 
 "Morris, your millions have not improved you. 
 You have been fighting for years to acquire wealth 
 and power. Both are coming to you, yet you never 
 give quarter in any contest in the market or at home 
 even when you have, as you usually do, all the
 
 THE HEROINE ENTERS 33 
 
 advantage on your side. It has been the sort of war- 
 fare that takes the refinement out of a man." 
 
 "I know what I'm doing, and I don't ask even 
 your advice," retorted Caner. 
 
 "You'll hear what I have to say, even though you 
 never speak to me again," went on the physician. 
 "Having thrust so many men down, when a little 
 generosity on your part might have saved them, you 
 have got rather in the habit of brutality. It's a 
 habit that clings to you. I see it here in your own 
 house. I don't wonder that Mrs. Caner is leaving 
 you. Any woman of spirit would. You forget that 
 in her home the woman should rule, not the man, no 
 matter what sort of a king he may be in the business 
 world. If you had one atom of real generosity in 
 your nature " 
 
 "Generosity!" thundered Caner. "What could be 
 more generous than the provisions I'm making for 
 my wife and child? They'll never want. They can 
 go where they please, live as they please. It's set- 
 tled." 
 
 And so it was. Mrs. Caner took Marjorie to 
 France. At that time the child was five years old. 
 Her mother in due time placed her in a convent 
 school, whither she took the girl in the morning and 
 called for her in the afternoon. They lived in a
 
 34 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 charming apartment near Versailles, and as Marjorie 
 grew up, her mother saw to it that the girl achieved 
 all those accomplishments and attained all those 
 graces so dear to womanhood. But, out of her own 
 bitter experience, she kept Marjorie carefully se- 
 questered from contact with young men. She told 
 herself that the girl should never marry. That way 
 lay unhappiness. And knowing only those carefully 
 selected friends with which her mother surrounded 
 her, Marjorie was dutifully content; but she could 
 not escape that instinct for romance, the innate en- 
 dowment of all women, nor some vicarious knowl- 
 edge of what love meant, gathered from the 
 girls she met at school and the conservatories, 
 and such books as were bound to fall into her 
 hands. 
 
 It was not until her nineteenth year that the op- 
 portunity came to her to know a young man in more 
 than the most casual way. Mrs. Caner was in the 
 habit of making trips to the various Continental re- 
 sorts, but usually out of the season. Then, however, 
 as she was not feeling well, and the winter in Paris 
 a more than usually trying one, her doctor advised 
 her to spend a month at Nice. 
 
 So they started Mrs. Caner, Marjorie, and her 
 maid and companion, Celeste Beauclair, who was as
 
 THE HEROINE ENTERS 35 
 
 respectable a she-dragon as ever watched over the 
 vagaries of a girl. 
 
 They left Paris in the dark winter drizzle; they 
 entered Nice in the sunlight at the height of the 
 season. 
 
 In the eyes of the girl, who had never before seen 
 that jewel of the Mediterranean, the city was an 
 enchantment. From a distance indeed it looked to 
 her like the top of a jeweled comb rising from out a 
 sea of sapphire; and then as they drew nearer, it 
 looked like a crescent-shaped garden filled with beds 
 of geraniums. Closer still these plots resolved them- 
 selves into the red-tiled roofs of a smiling, glowing 
 phalanx of villas and below them palm-shaded ave- 
 nues spread like the ribs of a fan through the color- 
 ful ranks of shops and parks, dwellings and hostel- 
 ries, and dipped into the blue, iridescence of the 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 In less than a half hour Marjorie sat down to her 
 first meal in Nice, and about four o'clock that after- 
 noon she strolled with her mother out on the prome- 
 nade, which extends along the beach front. 
 
 In terrible contrast to the gay throng on the 
 promenade was the riff-raff of the city sunning them- 
 selves on the stony beach below, like flotsam left 
 there by a receding tide. Never had Marjorie seen
 
 36 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 the upper and the under currents of humanity in such 
 vivid contrast; never had she seen them regard each 
 other with so much indifference; never had she seen 
 them massed so closely and yet so far apart; never 
 did the gay seem so gay, the wretched so wretched. 
 It was though a silvery stream flowed side by side 
 with an open sewer. 
 
 Thoughtfully they turned back toward the Jardin 
 Publique, and, as they did this, they saw approach- 
 ing through the throng a Mrs. Van Camp, a Pari- 
 sian-American acquaintance of Mrs. Caner's. She 
 was accompanied by a debonnaire young man of 
 about thirty, straight of limb, good-looking, with 
 dark brown eyes and a smart little mustache. 
 
 There was no avoiding Mrs. Van Camp. She all 
 but embraced Mrs. Caner, patted Marjorie's hand 
 affectionately, and presented the young man. 
 
 "Mr. Walter Nicolls, of New York!" 
 
 "How d' do delighted to meet you," he bowed 
 engagingly to Marjorie, and rattled on to her, while 
 Mrs. Van Camp engaged her mother. "Quite jolly 
 here, but one never meets anyone but foreigners. So 
 you may imagine how happy I am to run across a girl 
 from home." 
 
 Marjorie was interested. Anything American in- 
 terested her. Her one great wish was to revisit hei-
 
 THE HEROINE ENTERS 37 
 
 native land. Her mother, though expatriated, still 
 retained a feeling of genuine love for her country. 
 She took particular pains to instruct Marjorie her- 
 self in the history of America. Indeed, she gave that 
 her special attention. She regarded it as her sacred 
 duty. So Marjorie was familiar with all the stirring 
 events which had led to the final establishment of 
 the picturesque nation to which she belonged, and the 
 greatest hero to her in all the pages of history was 
 George Washington. Moreover, she kept up with 
 current events at home. American papers were sent 
 to them. Both she and her mother read them regu- 
 larly, with the avidity of exiles, and found more in- 
 terest in them than in the English or Continental 
 journals which came their way. 
 
 Thus, when Marjorie found herself for the mo- 
 ment vis-a-vis with one of her own countrymen, she 
 began to quiz him in a quaint, straightforward, al- 
 most boyish fashion. At the same time there is no 
 doubt but that the novelty of engaging in a conver- 
 sation with a young man, and an attractive young man 
 at that, added zest to the encounter. She found him 
 responsive, full of small information, which is worth 
 nothing in itself, and assumes only such value as is 
 supplied by the person who furnishes it. But Walter 
 Nicolls had an engaging manner, a real social gift.
 
 38 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 He knew how to make himself agreeable. He knew 
 little else of any importance in this world, but he 
 thought rather well of himself, for he was well-born 
 and should have inherited quite a fortune only his 
 father had generously squandered it before him. 
 This left Walter with a mere pittance, on which he 
 found great difficulty in sustaining himself in the 
 manner to which he had been born. 
 
 Without the least viciousness in his nature only 
 a lack of manliness he had come to believe that the 
 only solution of his difficulties would be to marry a 
 rich girl. In this he had been encouraged from 
 youth, and, but for a certain fastidiousness, he no 
 doubt would have found a wife with a fortune long 
 since. During the past year or so he had met more 
 than one heiress, but, as he had remarked to Mrs. 
 Van Camp, "I don't seem to suit those that suit me, 
 and those that would have me, I wouldn't marry 
 if they were hung with diamonds." So after all, he 
 was not a thorough-going fortune-hunter. 
 
 However, he was immensely impressed with Mar- 
 jorie the more so, it may be added, when he learned 
 from Mrs. Van Camp that the girl would doubtless 
 come in for a large share of Morris Caner's mil- 
 lions. She told Walter the history of the family, the 
 moment they had taken leave of mother and daugh-
 
 THE HEROINE ENTERS 39 
 
 ter, and at his solicitation Mrs. Van Camp agreed 
 to do all that she could to further his acquaintance 
 with Marjorie. 
 
 She drew the girl and her mother relentlessly into 
 the small circle of her acquaintances at the resort, 
 and not too often she managed to throw the young 
 people together. She gave Walter an excellent char- 
 acter, and he himself gained the good-will of Mrs. 
 Caner to such an extent that she at last made no objec- 
 tion to the friendly attentions he paid her daughter. 
 
 They played about Nice together like two children, 
 more or less under the eye of the mother or the 
 watchful Celeste. She even succumbed to his en- 
 treaties to visit the Casino, and there the three en- 
 tered together one evening. 
 
 A stream of people, most of them in evening 
 dress, were passing through the corridor, coming to 
 the theatre at the far end of the building, and others 
 no doubt intending to stop in the palm room where 
 the band was playing. They, too, lingered there in 
 the huge hall, set out with palms and small tables, 
 parted with one broad aisle leading down the centre 
 to the musicians' platform. The place was well filled 
 with a gay, chattering crowd, mostly French, but 
 scattered among them were a few English and a still 
 lesser number of Americans.
 
 40 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Walter had secured cards of membership to the 
 Circle International, He presented these cards at the 
 foot of a pair of broad stairs to a liveried attend- 
 ant, and mounting the flight they went through whit 
 seemed to be a reading room to a vast hall, chiefly 
 furnished with tables about which sat and stood the 
 most remarkable lot of people Marjorie had ever 
 seen gathered in one place. 
 
 There the prettiest of French demi-mondaines 
 rubbed elbows with the homeliest of respectable Eng- 
 lish women and a sprinkling of Russians; while the 
 men, who were outnumbered almost ten to one, were 
 of every sort from the gesticulating Frenchman to 
 the ponderous, good-natured American man of busi- 
 ness who was seeing Europe and ready to lose money 
 for the fun of the thing. 
 
 The place, in spite of all the people, was singularly 
 quiet, oppressively, almost ominously quiet. The 
 low-keyed hum which arose from the swarms around 
 the tables, where butterflies were breaking their wings 
 against the wheel, no more disturbed the stillness 
 than does the drone of bees in a garden; but now 
 and again above that hum broke the raven-like croak 
 of the croupier with his monotonous, inevita- 
 ble, "Faltes vos jeux, Messieurs. Marquez tfos
 
 Walter and his little party stood some time watch- 
 ing the play at a table over the shoulder of a stout, 
 perspiring English princess in a black decolete gown. 
 It was all like a motion-picture wordless, but 
 graphic. Marjorie was fascinated. Walter ex- 
 plained the game to her, and her quick mind soon 
 embraced its intricacies so that she followed gains 
 and losses with ready understanding. 
 
 She was especially interested in watching a pale, 
 shabbily dressed middle-aged woman who was stead- 
 ily losing. At last the woman pushed back her chair 
 from the table and rose unsteadily to her feet. The 
 crowd made way for her. Marjorie followed her 
 with a look, saw her pause uncertainly, raise her 
 head and close her eyes in an effort to control a sob. 
 It was perfectly plain to the girl the tragedy was 
 written big in the woman's face. 
 
 "Mother!" she exclaimed, impulsively. "Have 
 you any money with you !" 
 
 "No, my dear; and if I had," she added with a 
 smile, "I wouldn't let you play. This is all very 
 interesting as a spectacle, but " 
 
 "Oh, you don't understand. I don't want to to 
 gamble !" She turned to Walter. "That woman 
 there you saw her she has lost every penny she 
 has in the world I know it!"
 
 42 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "Yes, yes that may be, darling," said Mrs. Caner 
 soothingly, "but someone always loses here!" 
 
 Walter had an inspiration. He took out his slen- 
 der pocketbook and offered it to Marjorie. "I 
 haven't very much with me, but you're welcome to 
 it, Miss Caner!" 
 
 "You're a dear," exclaimed the girl, as she began 
 to empty the pocketbook. 
 
 "Marjorie !" protested her mother sternly. 
 
 "I am borrowing" she was counting the money 
 "ten five-franc notes from Mr. Nicolls. I shall 
 pay him back directly we return to the hotel. Now, 
 please, mother dear," she insisted, anticipating Mrs. 
 Caner's forbidding expostulation, and ignoring a re- 
 straining hand, turned to the woman. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," began Marjorie in French, 
 "but I saw that you you were having very bad luck. 
 And I I thought that perhaps you couldn't exactly 
 afford to to lose so much." 
 
 The woman looked at her wonderingly. Marjorie 
 went on: "I don't suppose you would ever care to 
 play again after what has happened would you?" 
 
 "Play again?" The woman smiled bitterly. "Oh, 
 I'm done for!" It was a bald statement of fact 
 not an appeal. 
 
 "Oh, no you're not 'done for' !" insisted Mar-
 
 THE HEROINE ENTERS 43 
 
 jorie. "Of course, I don't know anything about you, 
 but I'm sure that just a little help a small loan, you 
 know at this time, might carry you along until you 
 could find something better to do than than come 
 here, where you haven't a fair chance." 
 
 The woman looked at her incredulously. 
 
 "So if you wouldn't mind," Marjorie went on, 
 
 "I'd like to lend you these " She held out the 
 
 money, tightly rolled, and pressed it into the woman's 
 hand. "You can pay it back to me sometime, if 
 you like. Please take it!" 
 
 Tears came into the woman's eyes. She grasped 
 Marjorie's hand and kissed it. 
 
 "Come, my dear, we must be going!" Mrs. Caner 
 took Marjorie gently by the arm, and under the 
 pilotage of Walter, they left the woman standing 
 there, looking after the girl with an expression of 
 abject gratitude on her face and a benediction in her 
 heart. 
 
 "She's a wonderfully fine generous girl," thought 
 Walter as he led them down the stairway and out 
 into the street, where the stars shone down big 
 through the purple night.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SUNLIGHT AND THEN A SHADOW. 
 
 WALTER NICOLLS had established him- 
 self securely as a friend of the Caner's. 
 Although Mrs. Caner did not entirely ap- 
 prove of Marjorie's method of administering charity 
 at the Casino Municipal, her own nature was toa 
 warm-hearted to reprove with an air of conviction her 
 daughter's impulsive generosity. She scolded the girl 
 mildly, and when Walter essayed to take the blame, 
 Mrs. Caner promptly exonerated him and assured 
 him that she liked what he had done. She also liked 
 the considerate way he had of dancing attendance 
 upon mother and daughter indiscriminatingly, and 
 his simple and uncomplicated intelligence, his charm- 
 ing manners, won her so that she felt he was a man 
 with whom she could trust her daughter. She came 
 to the latter conclusion, however, only after a care- 
 ful interrogation of Mrs. Van Camp and a subtle 
 
 44
 
 SUNLIGHT AND A SHADOW 45 
 
 questioning of Marjorie as to the general trend of 
 her conversations with Walter. 
 
 Thus it happened that the two young people were 
 permitted to see each other frequently. It was a new 
 experience to Marjorie, to be on intimate terms with 
 a jolly young man, who was never at a loss to find 
 a means of entertaining her. Sentiment at first 
 found no place in her calculations. Any thought of 
 actually caring for Walter in a serious way never 
 entered her head until on a certain afternoon they 
 started out together to pay a call on a Russian fam- 
 ily, the Nordofs, whom Mrs. Caner approved of, 
 and who occupied one of the most picturesque villas 
 about Nice. 
 
 Their cocher, a villainous looking old fellow in 
 shabby green livery, drove them at an abominably 
 slow gait along the quai overlooking the river, which 
 separates the old town from the new. On the stones 
 which margined the stream below them women were 
 washing clothes in the primitive fashion of the great- 
 grandmothers, and above them on the boulevards 
 opposite a corps of municipal gardeners were trim- 
 ming the trees. High above, spread out over the 
 rising ground, gleamed villa upon villa, each in its 
 blossoming garden; and beyond them the hills, cov- 
 ered with solemn olives and evergreen, among which
 
 46 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 were plentifully and luxuriously scattered tropical 
 fruit trees just beginning to flower, while still 
 further away they could see great patches of yellow 
 mimosa. 
 
 The hills looked as though someone had scattered 
 confetti over a green carpet. Higher and further 
 away still rose the maritime Alps a misty pale blue, 
 with sparkling white peaks, where the sun shone upon 
 them. 
 
 At length they turned into a winding boulevard 
 fringed with orange trees, and drew up at last be- 
 fore the Nordofs' amber-tinted villa whose garden 
 was riotous with purple iris. 
 
 A French maid admitted them with the informa- 
 tion that the family was out, but that she expected 
 them to return at any moment. She urged the young 
 people to wait in the cool drawing room. 
 
 They decided to do so. There was a piano in the 
 room. Marjorie went to it instinctively and turned 
 over the music on the open rack. 
 
 "Do you play?" asked Walter. 
 
 "My professor would never admit it," smiled 
 Marjorie. 
 
 Walter laughed: "I'm not a professor. I don't 
 know a thing about music not a thing; but I like 
 it if it's got a tune. It has an effect upon me.
 
 SUNLIGHT AND A SHADOW 47 
 
 Really, it has especially when I dance to it." 
 
 "You'd better tell me what kind of an effect it 
 has before I begin," said Marjorie, with a teasing 
 smile. 
 
 "Oh, just an effect, you know makes me jolly, or 
 sad oh, very sad that is, when it's sad." Walter 
 was never eloquent. He had a limited vocabulary, 
 and slight powers of imagination. His very paucity 
 of expression was a source of gentle amusement to 
 Marjorie. It seemed to her, for all her lack of 
 worldly experience, that here was one who really 
 knew less than she did. Moreover, in spite of the 
 fact that at times he was almost inarticulate, his 
 sleepy way of speaking made up in humor what he 
 missed in point of wit. 
 
 She laughed at him now, quite frankly, and he, 
 out of his own simple conceit, laughed too; but as 
 always he was quite confident that he was entertain- 
 ing her. 
 
 "Perhaps," he went on, "you sing things. I think 
 that singing affects me even more than playing things 
 but, of course, you can't dance to singing. 
 That's my only objection to it. I wonder if you could 
 sing to me." 
 
 "Oh, yes, I could sing to you, though I've never 
 sung to anyone of importance before."
 
 48 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "Well, it's time you began if you don't mind," 
 he said solemnly. "Sing any old thing I should 
 just like hearing your voice." 
 
 Marjorie made him a courtesy and, seating herself 
 at the piano, began to sing in a clear, girlish soprano : 
 "Oh, wert thou in the cold blast, I'd shelter thee." 
 The old ballad was the first thing that had come 
 into her hand and she instinctively sang with more 
 than usual expression. 
 
 Walter sat in an easy chair where he could watch 
 her bewitching profile and look out beyond her 
 through the wide window over Nice and the Med- 
 iterranean. But before she had finished he was on 
 his feet, standing close by the piano, fancying himself 
 and that required but little imagination in love 
 with her. 
 
 When she finished he held out his hand to her. 
 She looked at him wonderingly and then placed her 
 hand in his. It felt cool and strong. He pressed 
 it. 
 
 "I I never heard anyone sing so so that is, 
 with so much effect upon me. You know" he still 
 kept her hand "it made me feel terribly eh 
 fond of you." 
 
 For a moment Marjorie was nonplussed. There 
 was a kind of light not the brightest ever seen
 
 SUNLIGHT AND A SHADOW 49 
 
 but a light, in Walter's eyes, that embarrassed her. 
 No one had ever made love to her before, but she 
 guessed what was going on. For another moment 
 the idea thrilled her; then it set up a mild 
 panic in her heart. She blushed, and laughed ner- 
 vously. 
 
 "If I should ever find that you were cross at me," 
 she hastened to say, "then all I'd have to do would 
 be to sing to you." With that counter she withdrew 
 her hand from his and hastened to add: "I'm sure 
 the Nordofs are not coming home for hours. We'd 
 better go." 
 
 "Why hurry when it's so comfortable here ?" 
 
 "I don't think we know them well enough to use 
 their drawing room for a a playground," she re- 
 plied, and picking up her parasol, she called the maid 
 to say that they were going. 
 
 On their way back to the hotel Marjorie took 
 refuge in teasing Walter about his sensitiveness, for 
 he insisted on keeping to the same key that he had 
 struck in the Nordofs drawing room. Marjorie 
 would have none of it. She felt that she had adven- 
 tured further than she had meant to go, and with the 
 innate wisdom of a daughter of the house of Caner, 
 she meant to know more of the way ahead before 
 skipping unseeing into the dark no matter how
 
 50 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 strongly her womanly curiosity might beckon her to 
 exploration. 
 
 Her thoughts, which were now dwelling closely 
 about this young man, were abruptly diverted when 
 she returned to the hotel. There she found that her 
 mother had been taken suddenly ill, and while Mrs. 
 Caner rallied the next day, her condition was such 
 that she was kept to her bed for three days. During 
 that time Marjorie was constantly with her, and 
 only saw Walter for a moment as he came to inquire 
 for the invalid or bring her some flowers. On the 
 third day Mrs. Caner felt better and determined to 
 return to Versailles, where she could command the 
 attention of the physician who had looked after her 
 health for the past ten years. 
 
 Walter saw them off at the station, but it was a 
 hurried leave-taking, and Marjorie's mind was all 
 on her mother, for the doctor at the hotel had warned 
 her that her mother's health was precarious. She 
 gave the young man her address, told him that she 
 would be glad to see him when he came up to Paris, 
 and thanked him for the happy days he had given 
 her. 
 
 Marjorie brought her mother to their apartment 
 at Versailles, and there re-installed her with a trained 
 nurse, under the watchful care of an old friend and
 
 SUNLIGHT AND A SHADOW 5 1 
 
 physician. Complication followed complication. 
 Marjorie was told that only a major operation could 
 save her mother's life, but before Mrs. Caner could 
 be transferred to the hospital, the summons came. 
 The nurse was off duty. It was late in the after- 
 noon. Marjorie had taken her place. She was sit- 
 ting by her mother's side, holding her hand. Sud- 
 denly she felt a slight pressure upon her fingers. 
 She looked into her mother's face. The sick woman 
 was trying to speak. Her lips moved but no sound 
 came forth. Marjorie rushed to the telephone. She 
 called the doctor, and returned to her mother's bed- 
 side. The girl knew then that the end had come. 
 It came before the doctor arrived. 
 
 Marjorie herself, all alone, closed her mother's 
 eyes for her last long sleep. 
 
 It was not until days afterward that she could 
 bring herself to read the cablegrams which had come 
 in answer to the news of her mother's death which 
 had been flashed across the seas. Among them was 
 one from her father. It read: "Come home! Draw 
 on me for whatever you need I"
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 TWO POINTS OF VIEW. 
 
 IN the warm, handsomely-furnished drawing-room 
 of Morris T. Caner, the steel and railroad pluto- 
 crat, it was not easy to realize that those outside 
 found it one of the bitterest winter evenings New 
 York had ever known. Luxurious comfort was the 
 keynote within, Curtains were drawn at the win- 
 dows, steam heat diffused itself from cunningly-hid- 
 den radiators, and blazing logs in the great open 
 fireplace bestowed warmth and cheeriness together. 
 
 The light of the fire twinkled on the costly Gobelin 
 panels, framed in silver, on the massive furniture, on 
 the grand piano, on the tall Hawthorn vase with its 
 cluster of stately calla lilies, and on the long carved 
 table, with its priceless porcelain jars from Pekin, its 
 ivory ornaments from Hindostan, and its tall can- 
 delabra that cast a soft glow upon them from the 
 depths of richly-chased shades made by the most 
 skillful artificers of old Florence. 
 
 52
 
 TWO POINTS OF VIEW 53 
 
 Morris Caner was not only a "captain of indus- 
 try," he was also noted as a collector of objets d'art. 
 He cared nothing for the cost when he heard that a 
 fine picture, a rare porcelain, a wonderful gem, or a 
 unique book was on the market. In such a case his 
 instructions to his agents were to get it! 
 
 He did not trust to agents altogether, either. In 
 the course of many years of collecting he had acquired 
 a knowledge of antiquities, with the instinct that en- 
 abled him to detect a fraud without knowing just how 
 he did it. This instinct comes to most collectors in 
 time. Often when he learned that some precious 
 curio might be obtained at a reasonable price by one 
 who understood such things, he would go on a still 
 hunt alone, and often with success. 
 
 He had returned from such a hunt that afternoon, 
 much to his profit. And now he was gloating over a 
 beautiful porcelain vase the result of that ex- 
 pedition. 
 
 It was half-past six o'clock, and Caner, with two 
 of his men friends, were getting through that most 
 pleasant of all times in a home of wealth, the hour 
 before dinner, talking over things in which all were 
 interested, and incidentally admiring the host's new 
 purchase. 
 
 The two frieruk were Doctor Joseph Thayer and
 
 54 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Albert Sewall, the latter a distinguished musician and 
 composer. The doctor was about fifty years of age 
 that is, some five years younger than Caner, while 
 Sewall, with his leonine head of grey hair, his quick, 
 nervous movements, his clear-cut, mobile features 
 and his dancing eyes, might have been any age be- 
 tween twenty-five and sixty. As a matter of fact, he 
 was forty-nine, according to Who's Who. Also, he 
 was recorded as having been born in America, not- 
 withstanding that he had a rather strong foreign ac- 
 cent, which people said was Viennese. 
 
 Caner was hovering about the large table, on which 
 stood the vase that pleased him so. 
 
 "Look at that !" he chuckled. "Isn't it a beauty 
 a little masterpiece? Not another like it in this 
 country ! Not one ! Picked it up at auction to-day, 
 right under Duveen's nose. He never saw it. If 
 he had he would have given his eyes for it. Ha, ha, 
 ha ! Duveen ! I've beaten him, hands down. Ha, 
 ha, ha!" 
 
 He took the vase in his hands and held it under 
 the shade of the nearest candelabrum, so that the 
 light could shine full upon it, laughing like a pleased 
 schoolboy. 
 
 "You know," he chuckled, "the wise ones passed 
 i-t over. Said it had no pedigree. But I've made
 
 TWO POINTS OF VIEW 55 
 
 rather an exhaustive study of Asiatic porcelains, and 
 I guessed what it was. You think all I know is coke 
 and steel, eh? But I've got an instinct an instinct 1" 
 he finished, patting the porcelain with real pride and 
 affection. 
 
 "Undoubtedly," threw in Albert Sewall. "If you 
 had turned your thoughts to music, in your youth, in- 
 stead of to business, you might have composed the 
 great lost harmony we musicians have been searching 
 for since King David swept it from his harp strings 
 and then allowed to fly away forever." 
 
 "If David had been a man of business he wouldn't 
 have let a good thing get away from him," grunted 
 Caner. "But, as I was about to say, I don't need a 
 catalogue to tell me when I see a genuine antique. 
 That isn't all. I bought better than I knew. Old 
 Humphries he's collecting porcelains to send back 
 to China he knows, the old dog!" 
 
 He pranced about the room in his excitement, but 
 soon stopped, with a muffled groan. Bending invol- 
 untarily, he pressed a hand to his right leg. 
 
 "Great Scott! I forgot that confounded rheu- 
 matism ! Never mind. What do you suppose Hum- 
 phries told me when I showed him the vase? Why, 
 it was produced in the Ming dynasty about 1403 
 Hsuan-te reign."
 
 56 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "I don't want to see your old antiques," laughed 
 Sewall. "I want to see your real flesh and blood 
 Marjorie! I've come to see her! Where's little 
 Marjorie?" 
 
 "She hasn't arrived yet," replied Caner crustily. 
 "Romney's gone to meet her." 
 
 "Humph!" grunted Sewall with some contempt. 
 
 Caner ignored him, and turning the vase over in 
 his fingers lovingly, held it so that its cerulean sheen 
 got the full benefit of the light. 
 
 "Look here you two," he went on with enthusiasm, 
 "see that? That's what you call Mohammedan blue. 
 What do you think of it?" 
 
 Doctor Thayer gave only a passing glance at the 
 vase he was not an enthusiast, as was Caner and 
 pointing to the latter's leg, said, dourly : 
 
 "That's quite a bit of luck for you, Morris. But 
 you've no business to be dancing about on that rheu- 
 matic leg of yours !" 
 
 "It's my leg," rejoined Caner, resentfully 
 
 "But you're my patient. Sit down." 
 
 The doctor thrust his arm through Caner's, and 
 taking the vase from him, placed it carefully on the 
 table. Then he led his refractory patient to a chair. 
 
 "I won't sit down!" barked Caner. "I'm bored 
 with sitting down! I'll stand."
 
 TWO POINTS OF VIEW 57 
 
 And stand he did, although he compromised to the 
 extent of leaning against the table. Sewall shook a 
 fist at him. "If you can stand up, you ought to be 
 down at the pier!" 
 
 "I suppose I should," grumbled Caner. 
 
 "If I had a daughter arriving from France to- 
 night " added the composer. 
 
 "Well, you haven't," cut in Caner. "My daugh- 
 ter's coming home to-night not yours!" 
 
 "It seems to me," jeered Sewall, "that you're tak- 
 ing a violent interest in her all at once." 
 
 "Only because he can't help himself," put in 
 Thayer. 
 
 Caner nodded. "That's the truth ! I tell you, Joe, 
 I don't want any woman in my house." 
 
 "Selfish brute!" ejaculated Thayer, while Sewall 
 raised his eyes and hands deprecatingly. 
 
 "If I had any decent relatives living, I'd pack the 
 girl off to them. She'll be a confounded nuisance, 
 I know a positive embarrassment." 
 
 "Lovely woman an embarrassment!" exclaimed 
 Sewall, sotto voce. "Can such things be?" 
 
 Doctor Thayer placed a hand on Caner's shoulder 
 as he remarked, with sardonic humor: "You know, 
 Morris, it's barely possible that you may like your 
 daughter when you see her."
 
 58 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "There isn't a chance." 
 
 "Don't be too sure. When did you see her last?" 
 
 Caner reflected a moment, and the shrug of his 
 shoulders might have meant anything although hard- 
 ly regret, as he murmured thoughtfully: 
 
 "I haven't laid eyes on her for fourteen years." 
 
 "Fourteen years !" came in a whisper from Sewall. 
 
 "I didn't realize it was so long as that," was 
 Thayer's comment. "Why didn't you bring her home 
 yourself, three months ago, when her mother died?" 
 
 The millionaire started up and angrily paced the 
 room. When he returned it was with clenched fists 
 and down-drawn brows that he replied: 
 
 "When my wife and I separated, that was the 
 end." 
 
 "The end between you and your wife maybe, but 
 not between you and your child. Morris, I'm 
 ashamed of you." 
 
 There could be no doubt that Doctor Joseph 
 Thayer spoke from his soul. His voice quivered 
 with indignation and he glared savagely. 
 
 "I've done all that could be expected of me under 
 the circumstances," declared Caner in grudging apol- 
 ogy. "I made no fuss when my wife took Marjorie 
 away. I always gave them all the money they could 
 spend."
 
 TWO POINTS OF VIEW 59 
 
 "Did you ever give Marjorie a thought?" 
 
 "I gave her an allowance a damn big one." 
 
 "Did you ever write your daughter a single 
 letter?" 
 
 "Yes I did," answered Caner, triumphantly. "I 
 wrote her when I got word of her mother's death." 
 
 "I'm glad you did that much to comfort her." 
 
 "Yes, I told her to draw on me for whatever she 
 wanted." 
 
 "Very tender!" grunted Doctor Thayer. "You say 
 you wrote to her. But I know that Romney Evans 
 spared you even that feeble effort?" 
 
 Morris Caner shifted uneasily from his sound leg 
 to the rheumatic one, and back again, as he snapped: 
 
 "What's the use of having a lawyer if he can't 
 write an occasional letter for you? Besides, Romney 
 likes writing in words of one syllable. I don't." 
 
 Thayer looked at the man of many corporations 
 whose word in Wall Street could make other million- 
 aires tremble and the look expressed withering 
 contempt. Then he said, slowly and emphatically : 
 
 "Morris, you've succeeded in everything in this 
 life except as a father. Yes, by Jove, in that you've 
 been a failure a failure, Morris. Just as much as 
 any drunken old slob who neglects his family. In 
 fact, you're a h 1 of a father 1"
 
 60 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Caner turned on him hotly, banging a fist down 
 on the table. 
 
 "You didn't know my wife !" 
 
 "Yes, I did!" thundered Thayer. "She was a- fine 
 woman. She had too much spirit to put up with your 
 temper!" 
 
 "My temper? She was the most obstinate woman 
 that ever lived. Why, she died just to to irri- 
 tate me." 
 
 Sewall, from behind the cloud of his cigar smoke, 
 shot out the remark: "All I've got to say is that I 
 hope you'll treat the daughter better than you did 
 the wife." 
 
 "I won't take any nonsense from Marjorie. You 
 can depend on that," was the sharp rejoinder. 
 
 Doctor Thayer shook his head with a cold smile, 
 as if he considered Caner hopeless. But he didn't 
 say so. Instead: "Then take some advice from me, 
 Morris. Lavish a little attention on her. Treat her 
 as if she were your pet railroad. Remember, you old 
 grouch, she is your only child your heiress." 
 
 "Heiress? H'm! More trouble! Men after her 
 for my money." 
 
 "There's the pity of it for her!" exclaimed the 
 doctor. "It will be your part, as her father, to pre- 
 vent her being annoyed or cajoled, or "
 
 TWO POINTS OF VIEW 61 
 
 "It's happened already," said Caner, in a low tone, 
 as he saw that Sewall was out of hearing at the back 
 of the piano, looking over some sheet music. "Some 
 cub she met in Nice last summer Nicolls is his 
 name. Impudent young beggar ! Called at my office 
 a few weeks ago. Gave me the idea that he and 
 Marjorie are pretty close friends. Damn him !" 
 
 "Have you taken the trouble to look him up?" 
 
 "Yes, I have! He's a drone, a waster, a parasite, 
 brought up with a notion that all he has to do is to 
 marry some rich girl!" Caner waxed more angry as 
 he talked. "But I won't have him in my family! 
 I'll break his infernal neck first!" 
 
 "I wouldn't do that," laughed Doctor Thayer. 
 "Some other family might want him, if yours 
 doesn't." 
 
 "I don't think so," replied Caner. Then, as he 
 saw a liveried servant in the room, he asked, sharply : 
 "Well, Blodgett, what is it?" 
 
 "Miss Marjorie Caner! Mr. Romney Evans!" 
 announced Blodgett with the stony detachment of the 
 well-trained footman. 
 
 "Good Lord!" groaned Caner cavernously, as the 
 girl and her escort, followed by the faithful Celeste, 
 appeared on the threshold of his drawing-room.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A LITTLE GIRL IN A BIG, STRANGE HOUSE 
 
 FRAMED in the tapestried doorway, stood 
 Marjorie, dressed in the deepest of French 
 mourning, looking like a little black butterfly 
 whose drooping wings, buffeted by an unfriendly 
 wind, had carried her into a strange, forbidding gar- 
 den. Her pale, oval face, under the chic hat, was 
 caressed by tiny tendrils of pale gold hair, and light- 
 ed by two grey eyes whose dark lashes momentarily 
 swept the cheeks beneath them, to be as quickly 
 lifted in wistful question. 
 
 The girl knew enough of the character of her 
 father not to anticipate a happy return to that home 
 from which she had been exiled for fourteen years, 
 but she was optimistic and felt that with tact she 
 might finally succeed where her mother had failed. 
 
 So she looked from one to the other of the three 
 men, scattered about the room like so many wax 
 figures, and with a wondering smile asked: 
 
 62
 
 A LITTLE GIRL IN A BIG HOUSE 63 
 
 "Which is my papa?" 
 
 Caner, looking the least little bit shamefaced, but 
 still with the echo of a growl in his deep voice, took 
 a step toward the girl and said: 
 
 "I'm your father!" 
 
 Having made this announcement, he seemed not 
 to know what to do next. So he put out a fishy hand 
 and jerked out: 
 
 "How do you do?" 
 
 Marjorie took the hand, and, very much to Caner's 
 embarrassment, ventured, hesitatingly: 
 
 "In France, fathers kiss their their daughters. 
 Isn't it done here?" 
 
 A laugh from Sewall, which he tried to turn into 
 a cough, made the millionaire glance angrily in his 
 direction. Then, in reply to the girl, Morris Caner 
 stammered: 
 
 "I I believe something of the kind is done in 
 New York, just as it is in Paris by some persons. 
 It ah all depends upon how you feel about it." 
 
 "I feel about it just like any other girl," returned 
 Marjorie, wistfully. "But perhaps you you don't 
 feel about it like some fathers. You see, I'm rather 
 a a strange daughter to you." 
 
 "For God's sake, kiss the girl 1" exclaimed Sewall, 
 as if he could not bear the strain any longer.
 
 64 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "I'm going to I'm going to !" snapped Caner. 
 
 "I wish she was my daughter," murmured Albert 
 Sewall to himself. 
 
 "You know, papa," put in Marjorie, with a mis- 
 chievous smile dimpling the corners of her mouth, 
 although her eyes showed that she was perilously 
 near tears, "you have to begin some time, so it may 
 as well be now !" 
 
 "I suppose so," was his gruff response. 
 
 He bent down and pecked at her cheek, as she 
 kissed him daintily. 
 
 "There," laughed Marjorie. "It's all over. You 
 didn't mind very much did you?" 
 
 "Mind it?" he returned, with a grunt. "Why 
 should I mind it? I may not be the perfect pattern 
 of a father, but I dare say I'm no worse than you 
 expected." 
 
 "I think you are going to turn out very well," she 
 assured him. 
 
 "Then you're not disappointed in me, eh?" 
 
 She looked at him as if she did not comprehend 
 the full meaning of the query. There was a touch of 
 sarcasm in his tone, as if he wanted her to realize 
 that it would make no particular difference what her 
 sentiments might be. 
 
 "Oh, no," she answered. "I was afraid you
 
 A LITTLE GIRL IN A BIG HOUSE 65 
 
 wouldn't care to have me here at all. But you seem 
 to be to be er quite" she paused, as if trying 
 to hit on a suitable word, and finally came out with 
 "cordial." 
 
 Again that distressing high-pitched laughter, 
 smothered by a cough, from Albert Sewall. 
 
 "You really are glad to see me, papa?" and there 
 was a world of wistfulness in the question. 
 
 "Eh?" he blurted out. "What what's that?" 
 
 Doctor Thayer lost patience and hurled himself 
 headlong into the limping colloquy. 
 
 "Of course you're glad to see her I" he insisted. 
 "Tell her how glad you are." 
 
 "Yes yes. I'm glad certainly," obeyed Caner. 
 
 "Thank you, papa. That's going to make it ever 
 so much easier for me." 
 
 "You're a strange little thing." 
 
 It had escaped him almost before he knew he had 
 spoken. The girl took it up quickly. 
 
 "I do feel a little strange," she admitted, with a 
 stifled sigh. "I suppose that's because I've been away 
 from home so long." Then, rather dolefully: "This 
 big place is 'home,' isn't it?" 
 
 "Naturally." 
 
 Her father's cold assurance gave her little com- 
 fort. She seemed more forlorn than ever, as she
 
 66 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 looked about and murmured: "Home!" Then, in 
 nervous haste, "Where's Romney? Oh, there you 
 are." 
 
 She took Romney Evans's proffered hand and 
 clung to him as if for protection against the spacious 
 magnificence and the coldness. She felt as if it were 
 crushing and chilling her. 
 
 "And this is Doctor Thayer," introduced Caner, 
 adding, with a dry smile : "One of the most disagree- 
 able friends I have." 
 
 "You don't look a bit disagreeable," she said, shyly 
 offering her hand to the doctor. 
 
 "And I'm not, either, my dear," he answered. "I 
 only wish I were an uncle, or a brother, of yours 
 anything that would entitle me to a kiss." 
 
 "Perhaps, when I know you better " 
 
 "Good Lord ! interrupted her father. "You don't 
 need to kiss every man you meet." 
 
 "I know that, papa. But I had to hug Romney at 
 the pier. I couldn't help it. We've been such friends, 
 writing to each other for years." She put her hand 
 trustfully in his. "Haven't we, Romney?" 
 
 "Indeed we have," returned Romney Evans, pat- 
 ting her hand gently. 
 
 "And, papa, I knew him right away, as soon as I 
 saw him on the wharf. Didn't I, Romney?"
 
 A LITTLE GIRL IN A BIG HOUSE 67 
 
 "Yes, and she'd never even seen a photograph 
 of me." 
 
 "But he'd written me such a cunning description 
 of himself. He told me to look for a tall, grey- 
 headed man, with a little red feather in his hat. And 
 there he was, holding up his hat, so that I could see 
 the red feather and his grey head at the same time. I 
 hope you didn't catch cold, Romney. To think of 
 such a smart man putting a red feather in his silk 
 hat and waving it about, just for me !" 
 
 "Hah!" grunted Caner, visualizing the picture 
 with grim humor and inadvertently stamping with 
 his game boot. Then, with a groan, he lifted his 
 foot from the floor, and leaning on the table, mut- 
 tered : 
 
 "Deuce take it!" 
 
 "Oh, papa !" cried Marjorie, full of contrition. "I 
 forgot. Please forgive me. How is your foot? 
 Romney told me about it." 
 
 "Bad very bad," he replied, with a look of re- 
 sentment at his physician. 
 
 "What arc you giving him, doctor?'* inquired 
 Marjorie in the most practical manner. 
 
 "Aspirin." 
 
 "That's good. I know. Mother and I " 
 
 She stopped, turned her back to them, put a hand-
 
 68 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 kerchief to her eyes for a moment, and then recover- 
 ing her composure, went on : 
 
 "When we were in Paris we had a concierge with 
 rheumatism. We gave him aspirin every two hours I 
 It cured him. And surely if it would cure a concierge 
 it ought to cure papa." She appealed to Thayer. 
 "Perhaps he doesn't obey your orders! I don't sup- 
 pose he is a very good patient. Men aren't !" 
 
 "Your father is the worst patient in the Western 
 Hemisphere," declared Thayer, vehemently. 
 
 "I thought so. Papa, have you taken your medi- 
 cine?" 
 
 "I I don't remember," was the hesitating reply. 
 
 "Where is your medicine?" she demanded. 
 
 "I don't know," he admitted, silently. 
 
 She shook her head at him in reproof, while Albert 
 Sewall chuckled at the back of the piano. 
 
 "But, papa, you must take it at once. How are 
 we to get you well if you don't ?" 
 
 "All right," he grumbled. "I'll take it. I'll take 
 it. Now run along and dress for dinner. And ah 
 look here, Marjorie," 
 
 "Yes, papa?" 
 
 He pointed to her black dress with an impatient 
 gesture. 
 
 "I don't want you dressed like that. It's too much
 
 A LITTLE GIRL IN A BIG HOUSE 69 
 
 black for a little girl like you. I want you to take it 
 off. Take it all off." 
 
 Marjorie looked at him wide-eyed, solemnly. She 
 felt behind her for Romney Evans's hand, and he took 
 hers and held it comfortingly. Then, speaking very 
 softly, she said: 
 
 "But, papa, I wear this for mother." 
 
 "I know I know!" he cut her off. "But I'd 
 rather see you in a more cheerful-looking frock." 
 Disregarding her wondering, sorrowing look, he 
 called: "Blodgett!" 
 
 Blodgett, the imperturbable, stepped into the 
 room. Evidently he had been not far away. 
 
 "Marjorie," continued her father, "this is Blod- 
 gett. Blodgett, show Miss Marjorie and her maid 
 to their rooms." 
 
 "Yes, sir," responded Blodgett. Then, taking a 
 letter from his pocket he handed it to Marjorie. 
 "This came for you this morning, miss." 
 
 "Thank you." She took the letter, glanced at the 
 superscription, and blushed slightly. 
 
 Marjorie made a dignified bow to the men, and 
 smiled faintly at Albert Sewall's rather extravagant 
 bow in return. Then she followed Blodgett and 
 Celeste out of the room. 
 
 "You saw that letter, Romney?" exclaimed Caner,
 
 70 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 in repressed excitement, as his daughter disappeared. 
 "It was Nicolls's monogram on the enevelope." 
 
 "Indeed? You need not be uneasy," was Rom- 
 ney's response. "I mentioned Nicolls to Marjorie 
 coming up in the car." 
 
 "You did? What did you say to her?" 
 
 "I suggested mildly that she must be sure the 
 young man has not been more dazzled by her wealth 
 than her beauty." 
 
 "A neat compliment to the young lady!" smiled 
 Thayer. "It must have pleased her." 
 
 "Keep quiet, Joe!" snapped Caner. Then, to 
 Romney: "What did she say?" 
 
 "Nothing much. She doesn't love him. You may 
 rest assured of that. She only thinks he does!" 
 
 "Romney, has X-ray powers of penetration," 
 mocked Caner. 
 
 "I can see through you, for all the frost on your 
 panes," retorted Romney. 
 
 "Frost is the right word," remarked. Doctor 
 Thayer, sententiously. 
 
 "Morris, you may not realize it, but that little 
 thing is lonely. She wants something to love. Nicolls 
 is the first young man she has ever known intimately." 
 
 "Intimately!" exploded Caner. "There you are. 
 What did I tell you, Joe? Look here, Romney! Do
 
 A LITTLE GIRL IN A BIG HOUSE 71 
 
 you suppose there is an understanding between them ?" 
 "Possibly. But, from what I gathered, I should 
 
 say that Nicolls is merely on probation. I wouldn't 
 
 worry about her her spirits, I mean." He paused 
 
 in thought and then added: "Christmas is day after 
 
 to-morrow. We've got to make it cheery for Mar- 
 
 jorie." 
 
 "We will we will!" groaned Caner. "I'll give 
 
 her a pearl necklace an automobile " 
 
 "You talk like a barbarian," broke in Romney 
 
 Evans. "It isn't presents she wants. It's cheerful 
 
 companionship, diversion." 
 
 "All right! All right! I'll give her a ball." 
 "Your ideas are primitive!" groaned Romney. 
 
 "Marjorie doesn't want a ball. The poor child is in 
 
 mourning." 
 
 "Then I give it up! I'll leave her to you. I'll 
 
 give her to you. Romney, I wish you'd marry her." 
 "I would if I were twenty-five years younger " 
 
 laughed the lawyer, "and she were willing." 
 
 "I'm serious," insisted Caner. "She'd be safe 
 
 with you." 
 
 "No girl wants to be safe. She wants to be happy." 
 
 "What do you know about it, anyway?" 
 
 "I remember what you, you old fossil, never 
 
 knew," rejoined Romney, with some warmth. "That
 
 72 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 is youth ! You don't know what that means. It isn't 
 middle age. It's romance. That's what Marjorie 
 needs to make her happy her own romance." 
 
 "Pooh!" jeered Caner. "Romance is a myth!" 
 
 "I know I missed it," returned Romney, sadly. "I 
 know it. But Marjorie shan't. This is the open mating 
 season for her, and, by Jove ! I'm going to keep it 
 open for her." 
 
 "I'll have something to say about that," retorted 
 Caner, hotly. 
 
 "No, you won't." 
 
 "That will do," interposed Doctor Thayer. 
 "There's no use arguing about it! Come on, Rom- 
 ney. Let's have a go at billiards." 
 
 "Is there time before dinner?" objected Romney. 
 
 "Plenty," declared Caner, rising, rather painfully, 
 from his chair. "It'll take that girl an hour to pow- 
 der her nose." 
 
 "You can't stand around and play on that leg," 
 said Thayer, authoritatively. "We'll let you score." 
 
 "I won't score," was Caner's prompt negative. 
 "Sewall and I will have a go at chess. Eh, Sewall?" 
 
 "I can beat you again," laughed Sewall, as he gave 
 Caner his arm and walked with him out of the room. 
 
 "No, you can't 1" retorted the millionaire.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WILL AGAINST WILL. 
 
 LODGETT, is this the state drawing-room 
 room, or what?" 
 
 It was Marjorie who asked the question. 
 She had come down, dressed for dinner, in a white 
 gown, and finding nobody in the drawing-room, 
 pressed a button to bring somebody. She was 
 insufferably lonesome. Even Blodgett would be 
 a relief. 
 
 "This is the small drawing-room," replied Blod- 
 gett, stiffly. "The large drawing-room, the music- 
 room and the gallery are over there, miss." 
 
 He extended his left arm to point. Then he 
 dropped it and stood, in his usual wooden attitude, 
 to wait for orders from the new lady of the house. 
 
 The butler looked as if he had no interest in any- 
 thing, particularly in Marjorie. But beneath his 
 stolid manner there was already a very warm re- 
 gard for the young girl. He had told himself he 
 was going to like Miss Marjorie Caner. 
 
 73
 
 74 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 She did not speak, so he made a suggestion. It 
 was not in accordance with his notions of etiquette 
 to say anything unless he were addressed. But he 
 felt that this was an unusual situation, and he must 
 meet it in an unusual way. So he boomed forth 
 solemnly : 
 
 "I'll have the other drawing-room, music-room 
 and gallery lighted up, if you wish, miss." 
 
 "No, thank you," replied Marjorie, shivering. 
 "This room is big enough and cold enough for me." 
 
 "The thermometer records seventy-five, miss," 
 said Blodgett, more stiffly than ever. "We try to 
 keep the rooms comfortable." 
 
 "Nobody could be comfortable in this room," she 
 insisted, "except a giant and his family. The furni- 
 ture is perfectly enormous." She tripped over to a 
 cumbersome throne-chair and tried to move it. "Why 
 is everything arranged in this stiff way? That dav- 
 enport, for instance, ] ooks as if it were posing for 
 its photograph." 
 
 "The furniture has always been that way, miss." 
 
 "I'd change it myself only it's all nailed down." 
 
 "Excuse me, miss, but it's not nailed down," pro- 
 tested Blodgett, on whose bumpy forhead the per- 
 spiration was beginning to gather. "The things are 
 heavy, but they can be moved when desired."
 
 WILL AGAINST WILL 75 
 
 "Then we'll move them now," announced Mar- 
 jorie, triumphantly. "Help me, Blodgett." 
 
 "I beg your pardon, miss. I shouldn't like to with- 
 out Mr. Caner's permission. I hope you won't in- 
 sist, miss." 
 
 "I do insist, Blodgett. We'll begin with this hulk- 
 ing old davenport. But we shall have to push the 
 table aside first." 
 
 "I know Mr. Caner, miss," faltered the badgered 
 Blodgett. "He won't like it. He won't like it!" 
 
 The girl burst into a peal of merry laughter. It 
 was the first time Blodgett had heard it, and he liked 
 the sound. Still, this unheard-of disturbance of a 
 room that was held sacred by everybody dulled his 
 enjoyment of the music, and he groaned as the girl 
 replied cheerfully: 
 
 "My father might not like the change if we asked 
 him. But we won't. When he sees how we have 
 improved things, he'll be so surprised and delighted 
 that he will " 
 
 "He will give me my notice, I'm afraid, miss," 
 interrupted Blodgett, miserably. 
 
 "Good gracious, Blodgett! If that is -what you 
 are afraid of, I'll take the blame. Take the other 
 end of that davenport and swing it around. That's 
 the way. Not that there will be any blame. I am
 
 76 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 sure my father will be pleased. He would have made 
 these changes himself if ever he had thought of 
 them." 
 
 "Oh, Lord!" groaned Blodgett. 
 
 "Your own decorative sense, Blodgett," she went 
 on, gaily, "must tell you that this davenport ought 
 to face the fireplace. There ! That's splendid ! Now 
 the table ! We want it against the back of the dav- 
 enport." 
 
 The davenport and table disposed of to her liking, 
 she stood back to survey the effect, while Blodgett, 
 who had nailed his colors to the mast, murmured: 
 
 "I'm afraid you'll be sorry, miss." 
 
 "Now, let me see," she exclaimed, disregarding his 
 lamentations. "What next?" 
 
 "You're not going to move anything else, are you, 
 miss ?" ventured the worried Blodgett. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she assured him, lightly. "WeVe only 
 just begun. That throne-chair over there 1 I want it 
 right here, where I am standing. Can you move it 
 alne ? Or shall I help you ?" 
 
 "I can move it," he answered. Then, as he brought 
 the chair to the spot she had pointed out, he appealed 
 to her pathetically: 
 
 "Excuse me, miss, but haven't we done enough for 
 to-night?"
 
 WILL AGAINST WILL 77 
 
 "I haven't decided yet. Now then, you like the 
 chair this way, don't you ?" 
 
 "I beg your pardon, miss, but, speaking the truth 
 as it comes to me, I must say I think the old way 
 is the safest." 
 
 "The 'safest'?" she quizzed. 
 
 Before he could reply, the stern voice of Morris 
 Caner made him jump : 
 
 "Blodgett, are you out of your mind?" 
 
 Past speaking was Blodgett. He stood between 
 two fires, and both were scorching him. On one side 
 was this insistent young lady, who had taken her 
 place as head of her father's household at a bound, 
 while on the other was the fiery Morris Caner, accus- 
 tomed to instant and implicit obedience. 
 
 It was the young girl who faced the storm of her 
 father's wrath, and, as it were, invited the charge. 
 With her hand on the large throne chanr, which, 
 under her direction, had been moved from its usual 
 place, she gazed cheerfully into the eyes of her 
 parent and championed poor Blodgett. 
 
 "He is not out of his mind, papa. Blodgett has 
 been helping me. He doesn't like the new arrange- 
 ment, but I think it is quite an improvement. Don't 
 you?" 
 
 "I do not!" He saw no wavering in Marjorie's
 
 7 8 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 steady gaze. So he swung tempestuously upon Blod- 
 gett: "What do you mean, Blodgett, by moving the 
 furniture about in this disorderly manner?" 
 
 "I thought, sir, that " began Blodgett, feebly. 
 
 "You don't have to lie like a gentleman, Blodgett," 
 interrupted the girl, sweetly. Then, to her father: 
 "I made him do it. I told him I'd discharge him if 
 he didn't . . . .Didn't I, Blodgett?" 
 
 "Oh, you did?" ejaculated Caner with biting sar- 
 casm. "You told him you'd discharge him? Who 
 do you think you are, anyway?" 
 
 "Why," she returned, calmly, "I naturally sup- 
 posed, papa, when you invited me to live with you, 
 that I would be mistress of the house." 
 
 Morris Caner turned his back on the girl, ignoring 
 her, as he growled at the shrinking Blodgett: "Put 
 that furniture back where you found it and see that 
 it stays there." 
 
 "But, papa," interposed Marjorie, "it looks so 
 much better the way it is." 
 
 "Blodgett, you understand what I said?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," bleated Blodgett. 
 
 While Blodgett busied himself with the furniture, 
 Marjorie moved so that her father could not avoid 
 her gaze, and there was a great deal of his own 
 strong will in the clear eyes, as she said: "It is not
 
 WILL AGAINST WILL 79 
 
 polite for you to countermand my orders in this way." 
 "This is my house not yours, young lady," he 
 snarled. 
 
 "You're certainly not making me feel very much 
 at home in it," was her retort. "Is this the way you 
 treated mother," she added, with a little catch in 
 her voice. 
 
 Caner started angrily. Then, through his world- 
 hardened nature swept a consciousness that perhaps 
 he had been rather brutal. Strange for him. It 
 was not his disposition to acknowledge himself in the 
 wrong, particularly to a child like this. Perhaps he 
 saw in the delicate figure and pretty face of the girl 
 something that reminded him of the wife he had 
 known when she was not much older than Marjorie. 
 At all events, his tone was almost gentle as he bowed 
 perhaps a little lower than he had ever bowed before 
 and said quietly : 
 
 "Marjorie, I lost my temper. I beg your pardon." 
 "Well," she returned, smiling through her tear- 
 dimmed eyes. "I really think you should beg my 
 pardon. Although I know it must be very hard for 
 a big man like you to apologize to a little girl like 
 me." 
 
 "Never mind about that," was his hurried re- 
 sponse. "I think we can come to an understanding.
 
 8o THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Of course this is your home now, and the servants 
 are to obey you." He paused. Then, with a gulp : 
 "You may have whatever you want for your comfort 
 or pleasure so long as it does not upset the present 
 order of things in the household." 
 
 "Thank you, papa." She was cheerful again, her 
 spirits rising buoyantly at this first sign of human- 
 ness on his part. "I can have anything I want? You 
 mean that, papa?" 
 
 "Yes ! Anything within reason. So long as you 
 no not move the furniture." 
 
 "Not even one little footstool?" she queried. 
 
 "Not one," was the emphatic reply. 
 
 Morris Caner hobbled out of the room. 
 
 "Now, Blodgett," admonished Marjorie when they 
 were alone, "you heard what my father said? I am 
 to have whatever I want." 
 
 "Yes, miss," assented Blodgett, doubtfully. 
 
 "Let me see. What first? Oh, yes I I want you 
 to get me some flowers orchids, and roses, and 
 tiger-lilies, and jonquils, and yellow chrysanthemums 
 thousands of them. Order them the first thing in 
 the morning. I shall die if I don't cheer this place up." 
 
 "Is that all, miss?" 
 
 "No. Are there any pets in this house animals, 
 birds, fishes?"
 
 WILL AGAINST WILL 81 
 
 "No, indeed, miss!" returned the scandalized 
 Blodgett. "Your father would not have anything of 
 that kind about." 
 
 "Surely the cook has a cat?" 
 
 "The cook is a chef, miss." 
 
 "Well, can't a chef have a cat?" 
 
 "Not here, miss," declared Blodgett, positively. 
 "Mr. Caner would not permit it for a moment." 
 
 "That's because he's never had any pets. I want 
 you to get me a dog any kind of dog, an Angora 
 cat, a dozen canary birds, an aquarium of goldfish, 
 and two or three pairs of squirrels I" 
 
 Poor Blodgett, rubbing one hand over the other, 
 while the perspiration came out on his bumpy fore- 
 head as it always did when he was perplexed, shook 
 his head. 
 
 "I wouldn't dare, miss." 
 
 "Then I'll order them myself. Oh, and another 
 thing. I want at least fifty sofa-pillows nice, big, 
 soft pillows !" 
 
 Blodgett was saved from commenting on this awful 
 determination of the self-willed young lady by a buz- 
 zing that told him somebody had been admitted to 
 the front hall. He hurried out. A moment later he 
 returned, with a card on a silver salver. 
 
 Marjorie, puzzled, took up the card and looked
 
 82 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 at it. "Mr. Walter Nicolls," she read to herself and 
 smiled, just the least bit perturbed, for there, tucked 
 in the waist of her dress was the letter from him, 
 which Blodgett had given her almost immediately 
 upon her rival. Under the watchful eye of Celeste, 
 her faithful dragon, the girl had only had time to 
 glance through it as she quickly dressed for dinner, 
 but she saw enough to make her lonely little heart 
 beat. It was her first love letter. 
 
 She had hardly known what to make of it. She 
 wanted time to read and ponder over it alone. One 
 thing was certain, the letter pleased her, made her 
 happy, for it impressed upon her more than she real- 
 ized that here was someone who cared a great deal 
 for her; and it seemed to her in the light of her 
 father's 'casual, not to say, brusque welcome that 
 fate had sent the young man to her when most she 
 needed him. She was, indeed, in that frame of mind, 
 when the right word would call her gladly to another 
 home, which she might happily make for the man 
 who vowed that he loved her. 
 
 All this and more shot through her mind and 
 warmed her heart, as she looked at the card, and 
 finally raised her eyes and said with sudden eager- 
 ness : "Blodgett, ask Mr. Nicolls to come in !"
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SOMEHOW, THE RING DID NOT FIT HER FINGER. 
 
 IN that brief moment while she waited there, 
 standing behind the piano, Marjorie's pulse as- 
 cended far above normal. No lover had ever 
 come more opportunely than Walter Nicolls. The 
 very fact that he was associated in the girl's mind 
 with those last happy days spent with her mother at 
 Nice, warmed her heart to him ; and when he pushed 
 aside the draperies which framed the doorway, and 
 entered with his confident, but quizzical air immac- 
 ulate, debonnaire in his well-fitting dinner jacket 
 the girl impulsively held out a hand to him across 
 the piano, and greeted him with a cordial, "Hello, 
 Walter!" 
 
 "Hello, Marjoriel" he returned and hastened to 
 grasp the hand held out to him. As he looked at her 
 then, he felt more than encouraged. He was quite 
 sure that he had made no mistake in losing no time. 
 He had planned this visit from the moment that he 
 
 83
 
 8 4 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 had learned of her prospective home-coming. At 
 first he had intended to meet her at the pier, but his 
 exchequer was low and he could not picture himself 
 among the throng of welcomers without an armful 
 of expensive roses. No, this was quite all right, he 
 assured himself, although he did not even guess how 
 timorous she felt as she stood there, looking up into 
 his eyes, wonderingly, and experiencing a strange lit- 
 tle thrill. It was her closest approach to the alluring 
 borderland of romance. 
 
 "I hope you don't mind, do you my coming so 
 soon?" he began, leading her to a settee below the 
 piano. "Heard you were arriving to-night. Thought 
 you wouldn't mind if I dropped in. Wanted to catch 
 you alone " , 
 
 "Oh, no," she assured him. "Only I wasn't ex- 
 pecting you not to-night." She sank down on the 
 settee. "Papa has some of his old friends to din- 
 ner, to meet me, or .I'd ask you to stay." 
 
 "Thanks, just the same," he chirped. "Couldn't 
 possibly do it. Got a dinner engagement myself 
 stag affair at the Knickerbocker. Taxi's waiting! 
 But the fact is, I had to come to-night. I have some- 
 thing for you." 
 
 He dropped down beside her and took a small 
 jeweler's box from his waistcoat pocket.
 
 THE RING DID NOT FIT 85 
 
 "I'm sure you'll like it," he went on, solemnly. 
 "It's a sort of combination of Christmas present and 
 well, you'll see 1" 
 
 He opened the box and took out a showy white 
 satin case, which he placed in her hand. 
 
 "I selected the case with a great deal of care. Tif- 
 fany's that's where I got it. Wouldn't think of 
 going anywhere else for a thing like this. Press the 
 spring, and " 
 
 "But, Walter," she protested, uncertainly. "I " 
 
 "Press the spring press the spring ! Ah ! There 
 you are ! Not a large, vulgar diamond, but fine 
 very fine ! I knew you wouldn't care about the size." 
 
 It was a small solitaire diamond ring. She looked 
 at it without offering to take it from its little white 
 bed. 
 
 "It is pretty very pretty," she murmured. "But 
 we hadn't said anything about a ring, you know." 
 
 "No not exactly. But you got my letter this 
 evening, didn't you? I sent it here." 
 
 "Yes. Only I hadn't made up my mind how I 
 should answer it." 
 
 "Don't bother about that," he interrupted, cheer- 
 fully. "I'll make up your mind for you." He took 
 the ring from the case. "Here's the ring. Now, 
 where's the finger?"
 
 86 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 She put her hand behind her. 
 
 "You mustn't be in such a hurry," she objected. 
 "We never talked about any subject so so serious 
 as this in Nice." 
 
 "You never let me," he reminded her. "You al- 
 ways put me off telling me we didn't know each 
 other well enough. But since last summer I've done 
 a lot of thinking about you, and well, Marjorie, the 
 time has come hasn't it when there should be 
 something definite? So let me put this ring on your 
 finger, and we'll be definitely engaged." 
 
 Still she withheld her hand from him, and asked: 
 "And then, what?" 
 
 "Then? Why, we'll be married, of course, just 
 as soon as as you wish. I suppose your father will 
 have something to say about it. What do you 
 think?" 
 
 "I don't know what he'll say at first. But, in the 
 end he will let me do whatever I wish." 
 
 "Good!" broke out Walter, in a relieved tone. 
 "That's settled. When shall we be married?" 
 
 "Before I answer, that," she returned, "so long as 
 I am taking all the responsibility for you, I hope you 
 won't mind if I ask you a few questions." 
 
 "Oh," he assured her promptly, "I'm all right 
 perfectly healthy. I play a lot of golf and tennis, and
 
 THE RING DID NOT FIT 87 
 
 so on weather permitting. Then, through the win- 
 ter, I am dancing all the time. That keeps me in fine 
 condition." 
 
 "You look well," was her dry response. "But what 
 I was going to ask is, how would you take care of 
 me after we were married?" 
 
 "Oh, I'll take splendid care of you. Never let you 
 go out without your furs when it is cold. And and 
 when you are not feeling fit, I'll bring you candy and 
 flowers, and so on." 
 
 "Yes," she smiled. "I'm sure you would do all 
 that. But " 
 
 "That's nothing," he interrupted, largely. "I'll 
 take you around everywhere dinners, dances ! I'll 
 show you what living is. We'll entertain a lot. Very 
 formally footmen, all dolled up, behind every chair. 
 Informally that is where I come in cabaret ! We'll 
 have the Castles! They come high, but I can get 
 them know them myself. And, of course, we'll 
 have a car or two. A big blue limousine, with my 
 crest on it, and one of those low, sporty ones to tour 
 in. And we've got to have a town and a country 
 house on an island. That's where we'll put our 
 country house. I know the very island we want. That 
 means a yacht. And whenever we get bored stiff 
 here, I'll just up and take you abroad. We might go
 
 88 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 to China, now the Continent is in such a mess." 
 
 Walter rattled all this off as glibly as if he had re- 
 hearsed it. Evidently a most fascinating picture pre- 
 sented itself to his mental vision. To Marjorie it 
 seemed as if the enjoyment of all the pleasures and 
 luxuries he named, which wealth alone can bring, 
 filled such a spacious area in his mind that there was 
 no room for the contemplation of the happiness of 
 possessing herself. She was at best a secondary con- 
 sideration. 
 
 She brought him down to earth by remarking, 
 quietly: 
 
 "You must have a very large income." 
 
 "What ?" he almost shouted. "I ? My dear Mar- 
 jorie, my income is so slender, I often wonder how 
 it supports me." 
 
 "Wouldn't it be enough to support me too?" 
 
 "Never in the world." 
 
 "I could be very economical." 
 
 "Economical?" he repeated, in edifying disgust. 
 "I don't like that. It is so unspeakably vulgar." 
 
 "Ah ! I see. You're going to work." 
 
 "Work? I I've never had to! What could I 
 do, I wonder?" 
 
 "You must have some talents, haven't you?" she 
 pressed.
 
 THE RING DID NOT FIT 89 
 
 "Oh, yes yes, indeed," he began encouragingly. 
 "When I was a kid, I used to draw things, you know. 
 Awfully clever and all that. But I didn't keep it up. 
 Then I have a great ear for music. I whistle, play 
 the drum the kettledrum. I can play any old thing 
 on the drum. Makes it awfully jolly with the pian- 
 ola, or victrola. . . . What are you laughing at?" 
 
 "Nothing! Tell me, what is the best thing you 
 can do?" 
 
 "Dance," he replied, promptly. "Pm a ripping 
 good dancer. Only, I should not like to do it pro- 
 fessionally. You wouldn't like me to do it would 
 you?" 
 
 "I don't think I should. So I'm afraid we couldn't 
 depend on any of your talents. That brings us 
 down to your really working for me." 
 
 "You want me to go into business?" he asked, in 
 an awe-stricken tone. "Work?" 
 
 "Why not? You could. Men do." 
 
 "But I haven't any leaning that way," he wailed. 
 "If I I got a job, I'd be fired the first week. Be- 
 sides, it would not agree with me." 
 
 "It was only my suggestion. I don't know. Per- 
 haps you have a better idea?" 
 
 There was a long pause. Obviously Walter Nicolls 
 had received a painful shock. He coughed in em-
 
 90 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 barrassment before he proceeded, then, gathering 
 courage, he plunged in with: "Er I I rather 
 thought that that your father er might sort of 
 you know set us up, as it were, to begin with 
 and and " 
 
 He trailed off into inaudibility, as it penetrated his 
 rather thick perception that the girl was viewing him 
 with unutterable disappointment. At last she spoke : 
 
 "Oh, that was your idea?" 
 
 "Isn't it the natural idea?" he defended his posi- 
 tion. "You're his only child, aren't you?" 
 
 "And you think he is certain some day to leave me 
 all his money?" 
 
 "It seems likely. Even if he went a bit dotty in 
 his old age, and began to boost charity and all th?t 
 sort of thing, you'd be bound to come in for all we 
 I mean, all you would need. Why, only last month 
 your father paid half a million for some musty old 
 paintings not much larger than a double sheet of 
 music. He considered them worth the money because 
 they were knocked off by some old fossil a few hun- 
 dred years ago. If he can afford that, I should think 
 he'd be willing to do something pretty nifty for you 
 when you er marry. That is, if you put it up 
 to him in the right way." 
 
 Marjorie's head had drooped, and she had turned
 
 THE RING DID NOT FIT 91 
 
 away from him. He continued hopefully: 
 
 "I know he's an uncomfortable old bird to ap- 
 proach. But you could get around him. A girl al- 
 ways can." 
 
 It was then that she rose and turned away from 
 him, miserably disillusioned. When she spoke, her 
 voice was even, dull, but firm. 
 
 "Perhaps I could 'get around him,' as you say 
 but I won't !" 
 
 "You won't? Why not?" 
 
 "I am afraid I have too much pride to ask my 
 father to support the man I intend to marry." 
 
 She shut the ring in the case and handed it to him. 
 He took it mechanically, but continued to hold it out 
 toward her, as he faltered: 
 
 "I did not get this for myself, you know." 
 
 She shook her head to indicate that the incident 
 was closed, but Nicolls persisted: "Just because I 
 thought your father might " 
 
 "Please please, don't go over all that again," she 
 entreated, and held out her hand. "Good-bye !" Her 
 tone was even, colorless. 
 
 "Marjorie," he complained, disregarding her hand 
 and giving the jewel case a toss before tucking it 
 in his pocket, "you'll be sorry for treating me like 
 this."
 
 92 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "I am sorry sorry that you are not different!" 
 
 He could not understand her point of view. It was 
 absolutely beyond his ken. "But," he insisted, blind- 
 ly, "you liked me a great deal when we were trot- 
 ting around in Nice." 
 
 "I liked you then because I thought you were the 
 
 kind of man that " She could not say it. But 
 
 out of her heart came a little cry of genuine disap- 
 pointment and something more than that, which pene- 
 trated even Walter's dull intelligence: "Oh, Walter!" 
 
 He frowned, hesitated for an instant, and went on : 
 "I may not be exactly what you think you want, but 
 I'm a whole lot above the average and it doesn't 
 do for a girl to be too particular these days when 
 men are getting mighty scarce." 
 
 "Good-bye," she repeated in a monotone of final- 
 ity. 
 
 "Oh, no ! We won't say 'good-bye' yet. Think it 
 over. I won't call it off. I'll give you what your 
 father would call an option on me for one kiss." 
 He advanced a step toward her. 
 
 She gave him a look that stopped him. "No, thank 
 you, just the same," and turned away from him to the 
 great fireplace. 
 
 He followed her, saying: "Well, then, never mind 
 the option!"
 
 THE RING DID NOT FIT 9; $ 
 
 "Good-bye!" She spoke over her shoulder, and 
 there was no mistaking then that he must go. 
 
 Irrepressibly he rejoined: "Oh, well, you've got 
 my address. If I don't hear from you within a week 
 or so, I'll drop around. Au revoirf" 
 
 As Walter went out one door, Blodgett passed an- 
 other. Marjorie called to him, and as he paused at 
 respectful attention, she said: "If Mr. Nicolls should 
 ever call again, please say that I am not at home I"
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SPELL OF THE SONG. 
 
 URELY, that command does not refer to 
 me!" Albert Sewall grinned this over the 
 shoulder of the butler. If he had been 
 wearing his glasses, instead of dangling them on the 
 end of his fingers, he would have seen that it was no 
 grinning mood in which he had found Marjorie. 
 But at the sight of his cheery face and the sound of 
 his wholesome, friendly voice, the tears, which were 
 lurking in the orners of Marjorie's eyes, ready to 
 launch themselves down her cheeks, withdrew, and 
 the youthful look of tragedy above them slowly 
 faded. She was not one to wear her heart upon her 
 sleeve for even the friendliest of daws to peck at. 
 
 "No, no of course not," she hastened to say. "It 
 was just someone who isn't worth while seeing 
 again." 
 
 "I knew that couldn't mean me," he laughed, with 
 a bow, his hand over his heart in cavalier fashion. 
 "I've come to get acquainted." 
 
 94
 
 THE SPELL OF THE SONG 95 
 
 "That's very sweet of you!" 
 
 "Well, I thought you wouldn't mind philandering 
 a bit with Old Papa Sewall. That's what all my chil- 
 dren and I have thousands of them pupils and 
 prima donnas just children like you call me. They 
 are scattered all over the world. I hope you'll adopt 
 me. You see, I've simply got to be adopted. That's 
 the way it's done. That once settled, I'm very much 
 at home and happy." 
 
 "I shall be very proud if you'll let me adopt you," 
 smiled Marjorie. "I'll begin now if you're sure it 
 won't interfere with your billiards I heard the clink 
 of the balls, didn't I, as I came down the stairs?" 
 
 "You did, my dear," he replied, sitting on the big 
 davenport beside her. "But don't let that worry 
 you. I was not playing. Your father and I were 
 thinking of having a go at chess, but he was not in 
 the er mood. He is sitting on a high chair criti- 
 cising the play of Romney and the Doctor. I was 
 glad to escape." 
 
 "To be adopted by little me ! You the great 
 Sewall!" He laughingly protested. "Oh, you are 
 great," she insisted. "I know lots of your music, but 
 best of all I love 'The Order of the Rose.' I heard 
 the opera in Paris. It was very, very beautiful !" 
 
 Albert Sewall burst into a leonine roar of laughter.
 
 96 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "Don't don't, my dear, talk like a young ladies' 
 seminary. No, no ! You have more character 
 more flair. Permit me, won't you?" 
 
 He placed the tips of his long fingers delicately 
 upon her forehead, and nodded in mock seriousness. 
 
 "I thought so. You have the bump of music. We 
 shall be friends !" 
 
 The girl smiled up at him. 
 
 "Good!" he beamed back at her. "Now, look me 
 straight in the eye. What is the best part of the 
 opera that you say is so ah beautiful? Do you 
 remember?" 
 
 "Yes. The overture to the second act." She dart- 
 ed to the piano and played the opening bars of the 
 most musicianly piece that Sewall had turned out in 
 his long career. 
 
 "Marvelous! You are marvelous!" he cried. 
 "Those fool critics! They had to admit that Old 
 Papa Sewall could write serious music. But they did 
 not know what was best. Only you, and Waldsemul- 
 ler, of Munich, knew." 
 
 "But I like all of it," s,he protested. "Oh, that 
 lovely song to the sunset in the second act, and the 
 dance in the third. They carried me off my feet." 
 
 "Naturally," he returned. "I had a book a libret- 
 -that inspired me. Now I am trying to find an-
 
 THE SPELL OF THE SONG 97 
 
 other one as good ! Oh, for a book ! A book ! That's 
 what I want a book! I can write symphonies out 
 of my head waltzes out of my fingers. But an opera ? 
 I must have a libretto ! But where am I to get a book 
 that is worth a note these days?" 
 
 "I wish I could get you a book," exclaimed Mar- 
 jorie, sympathetically. 
 
 "I would give you ten thousand dollars for a good 
 one," he declared, solemnly. 
 
 "Is that very much?" was her innocent query. 
 
 "Much? Why, yes! It is a fabulous price to pay 
 in advance on royalties. But we are so desperate 
 that is what we have done. My managers, they have 
 offered a prize of ten thousand dollars for a libretto. 
 I tell them that will bring the genius out of his gar- 
 ret." 
 
 "His garret?" repeated the girl, thoughtfully. 
 "That's where geniuses come from, isn't it?" 
 
 "Surely," gibed the composer. "That's where they 
 grow in garrets where it is cold." 
 
 "But there's always a little flame inside of them" 
 her voice grew dreamy "that keeps them warm. 
 . . . Perhaps some genius will send you an opera 
 book for a Christmas present." 
 
 "Pray for me, little lady," he besought her. "By 
 the way," he went on, briskly, as he took a small roll
 
 98 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 of manuscript from the tail-pocket of his evening 
 coat and handed it to her, "I've got a Christmas pres- 
 ent for you. It is a wee bit of a song. Written by 
 my dear old self and just for you." 
 
 "What a delightful Christmas present!" she 
 purred, as she glanced over the manuscript. "And , 
 just for me!" 
 
 "Read the verse! Read the verse!" he insisted 
 cheerily. 
 
 She spread out the manuscript, moved a little near- 
 er to the tall shaded lamp at the side of the piano, 
 and, in clear, tender tones, read : 
 
 "The world is blind; it only sings 
 The praises of poets, masters and kings ! 
 Their words, their works, their deeds of flame, 
 Win all the fame, win all the fame. 
 
 "So let my voice ring out for one 
 Who has no fame for great deeds done. 
 He spins no song, he rears no dome. 
 Out of his heart he builds a home 1 
 
 "He rules no realm ! He's more than king! 
 A woman's joy his harvesting! 
 He spins no song, he rears no dome. 
 Out of his heart he builds a home !"
 
 THE SPELL OF THE SONG 99 
 
 As she finished, she looked up at Sewall with a 
 bright smile. 
 
 "I love that," she breathed. 
 
 "I knew you would. Prodigious little idea, eh?" 
 
 "You you are wonderful Papa Sewall!" 
 
 "Oh, I didn't write the verse," he returned, quickly. 
 "Blessed if I know who did. Read it in a newspaper, 
 and tore it out. Just like me left the author's name 
 behind me." 
 
 "I should like to know the man who wrote those 
 lines," she murmured, half to herself. 
 
 "Come now, Marjorie!" broke in Sewall. "I'll 
 play you sing it!" 
 
 "I don't know whether I can sing it at sight," 
 she objected. 
 
 But Sewall was already seated at the piano, running 
 over the prelude. 
 
 "You'll sing this, young lady. It's as easy as 
 kissing. There's the introduction. Now the song 
 begins. I'll play the melody through for you first." 
 
 She was standing by his side now, and as she lis- 
 tened to the music which flowed so easily from his 
 trained fingers, she exclaimed involuntarily: 
 
 "I love that, too." 
 
 "Good! Now! Come! Fill your little lungs, 
 open your little mouth, and sing your little head off.
 
 ioo THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 . . . No. I said fill your lungs not stuff them. 
 You know how to breathe, don't you?" 
 
 "Of course," she laughed. "But I don't know 
 whether I can sing for you." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "You, the great Albert Sewall ! I I'm afraid." 
 
 "Nonsense ! The accompanist never listens. Now ! 
 Begin!" 
 
 He struck the opening chords, and there was 
 nothing for Marjorie but to sing. Under the spell 
 of the music, and because she delighted in that as 
 well as in the words, she forgot her nervousness. 
 Her fresh young voice suited the tender music, and 
 Albert Sewall in spite of his assertion that accom- 
 panists do not listen was delighted. 
 
 "Bravo!" he shouted, as the song came to an end. 
 "Splendid, little girl! You've paid for it!" 
 
 He handed the manuscript to her with a low bow, 
 patting her hand paternally as she took it from 
 him. 
 
 "Thank you so much," she said, earnestly. "I like 
 it better than any Christmas present I can imagine. 
 It will help to keep me from being lonely." 
 
 It was with another cheering but sympathetic laugh 
 that Sewall heard this confession. "Lonely? You 
 lonely in your father's house with all of us his
 
 THE SPELL OF THE SONG 101 
 
 friends, and each and all of us ready-made friends, 
 parents or playmates, as you will, to keep you com- 
 pany, to sign ourselves, at any hour, 'devotedly 
 yours !' ' He made a bow. "Now I dare you to be 
 lonely!" He finished with a flourish. 
 
 She looked up at him, smiling wistfully, then 
 laughed a little a low, silvery note. 
 
 "Hah, hah!" he exclaimed. "I knew you had a 
 pretty laugh concealed about you somewhere. But 
 what is it the joke? You think we are too old for 
 you eh ? Come ! Out with it !" 
 
 "Well," she demurred, "with so many elderly 
 friends though, of course, I know I'm going to 
 adore you all still, I am beginning to feel a little 
 like the matron of an old man's home." 
 
 The composer scrutinized the girl gravely for a 
 moment, but there was a flash of humor in his eyes 
 as he echoed, "Old man's home eh?" 
 
 "I hope you don't mind," she exclaimed, a trifle 
 worried; "but remember you insisted you said, 'out 
 with it!'" 
 
 Sewall shook his head heartily. "You've put us 
 where we belong, but we'll show you, my young lady, 
 that there's enough life left in the old boys to keep 
 you from being lonely." 
 
 Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of
 
 102 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Blodgett, standing in impatient but respectful silence 
 at the door. 
 
 "Blodgett," he commented, "has a way of slipping 
 in and out like a well-trained ghost, without making 
 as much noise as a breath of air." 
 
 "What is it, Blodgett?" asked Marjorie. 
 
 "Your father, miss, sent me to tell Mr. Sewall that 
 his cocktail is getting warm." 
 
 "Ah, what a calamity," exclaimed the composer, 
 starting up from the piano. "You'll excuse me, Mar- 
 jorie, or those young dogs will be drinking them- 
 selves to death." 
 
 In a flash he was gone; and Marjorie was lonely.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE LIGHT FROM A DORMER WINDOW. 
 
 HALF an hour ago Marjorie had wished to be 
 alone that she might read Walter Nicolls's 
 letter. Alone, now, she drew it forth from 
 its hiding place with feelings so altered that she was 
 scarcely the same girl who had tucked that letter away 
 before and pressed it with an ardent hand. 
 
 Now she read it slowly, every word, down to the 
 last avowal, and it did not seem to her that the man 
 who had penned this, her first love-letter, could be the 
 same Walter who had come a few minutes ago to 
 take her, but only on the wings of her father's for- 
 tune. 
 
 It was a simple, very youthful, lowly little romance 
 which she had begun to build for herself. Its archi- 
 tecture was poor, but the decorations were hers, and 
 it had seemed for a brief moment or two exceed- 
 ingly real to her. The letter spoke so genuinely to 
 her, contradicting the fall of her humble castle, that 
 
 103
 
 io 4 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 it made more poigant the little tragedy. She realized 
 that she had been mistaken, that the man had failed, 
 but these thoughts did not console her they made 
 her feel more wretchedly alone than ever. A desire 
 to love and to be loved had been created within her. 
 The vanishing of that dear prospect left her heart 
 unsatisfied. 
 
 Slowly she turned with the letter in her hand, and 
 looked not at it, but the manuscript song on the piano. 
 "Out of his heart he builds a home," she mur- 
 mured. 
 
 Walter knew nothing of building such a home. It 
 was the kind of home she would like. Was it just a 
 song? Or was it the ideal of a man who knew? 
 Yes, the man who wrote that song knew ! She felt 
 as though he had spoken to her. 
 
 Slowly again she turned. This time she went to- 
 ward the fireplace, and with one last look and a sigh 
 she dropped her letter into the flames. As she 
 watched it writhe and curl into ashes, the tears started 
 from her eyes, but she did not heed them. It was 
 to her a very sad little ceremony, the cremation of 
 her initial love affair. 
 
 Presently she became conscious that someone was 
 near her. She looked up, startled, and found Rom- 
 ney standing close beside her.
 
 THE LIGHT FROM A WINDOW 105 
 
 "W-where did you come from?" she stammered, 
 and daubed at her eyes with a handkerchief. 
 
 He looked down at her, quietly, whimsically, as he 
 said, pointing into the fireplace, "I was sum- 
 moned to you by the spirit of that cremated love- 
 letter!" 
 
 Surprised and still crying silently, Marjorie asked : 
 "L-love-letter?" 
 
 "It's only love-letters that one burns and cries 
 over." 
 
 "I'm not crying," she protested with an infini- 
 tesimal sob, leaving him at the hearth and dropping 
 down on the edge of the davenport. 
 
 "Oh, I beg your pardon 1" He was most contrite, 
 as he followed her. 
 
 "At least not about him !" 
 
 "Him?" Romney let himself down cautiously be- 
 side her. 
 
 "Walter," she explained, with a convulsive excla- 
 mation. "He was awfully nice and and entertain- 
 ing but " She felt that was enough. Beside she 
 must stop crying. The tiny handkerchief was quite 
 wet by this time. 
 
 "I suppose he didn't measure up to standard," sug- 
 gested Romney. 
 
 Marjorie nodded, as she explained, still tearfully:
 
 io6 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "So you see I wasn't crying for him. It it 
 was my first 1-love-letter 1" 
 
 "But it won't be your last," he encouraged. 
 
 "Oh, yes it will." She was quite positive. "My 
 my heart is is frost-bitten!" 
 
 Romney refused to credit this statement. "If that 
 were so, you would be crying little icicles; but I'm 
 sure they are warm little tears." He observed the in- 
 adequacy of the bit of cambric which the girl was em- 
 ploying so industriously. "Have a larger handker- 
 chief !" He whipped one from his pocket and offered 
 it to her as though he were merely passing her a cup 
 of tea. 
 
 "Thank you!" Marjorie found it entirely satis- 
 factory. In a moment the tears were dried and their 
 source, pretty thoroughly drained by this time, appar- 
 ently resolved to hold in reserve what little remained. 
 The girl put out a hand, which Romney promptly 
 took in his and began to stroke soothingly. "I can 
 talk to you," she began anew. "I don't think that I 
 was ever quite sure about Walter. Now I know that 
 I didn't love him." 
 
 "You only wanted something to love," he volun- 
 teered. "I'll get you a white rabbit with pink eyes. 
 I understand they are quite affectionate." 
 
 The girl shook her head, as she smiled, not with-
 
 THE LIGHT FROM A WINDOW 107 
 
 out some vague sense at least of the humor of her 
 rather pathetic remark: "I want some one not some 
 thing!" 
 
 But the lawyer felt he was on the right track. The 
 smile indicated as much. "But a tame rabbit, or even 
 a well-behaved bull-pup is much less trouble than a 
 man." 
 
 "I am going to order my own menagerie," she said, 
 returning his handkerchief; "but that's not what I 
 want now." 
 
 "Whatever you want," he committed himself with- 
 out reserve, "I'll get it for you. Have you any def- 
 inite ideas on the subject." A lawyer is a practical 
 sort of person. He never feels safe until he has a 
 bit of a fact to work upon. 
 
 "I hadn't, until to-night!" This sudden, direct an- 
 swer startled Romney. He was up on his feet now 
 and watching Marjorie with mystification in his eyes, 
 as she darted across the room and caught up the man- 
 uscript of the song from the piano. "Mr. Sewall 
 brought me a song," she explained, as she wheeled 
 about to him. Walter and his shallowness, even his 
 love-letter, with its strange ring of truth, were for- 
 gotten. She had a new interest, and behind it there 
 was unconsciously an intention. She put the song in 
 Romney's hands, with a great deal of satisfaction.
 
 io8 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "I thought I heard you singing," he remarked as 
 he adjusted his glasses. 
 
 "Oh, it's such a dear song," she enthused. "He 
 wrote the music himself for me for Christmas. 
 But the words the verse he doesn't know who 
 wrote them. They're about the most wonderful kind 
 of man. Only I'm afraid he doesn't exist!" She fin- 
 ished with a sigh. 
 
 "Huh!" ejaculated the lawyer, as, with a patron- 
 izing but sympathetic smile, he glanced over the man- 
 uscript. Suddenly he pursed his brow, and gave a 
 subdued exclamation of amazement. 
 
 "Isn't it too adorable?" Marjorie beamed up at 
 him. 
 
 "I've always liked it," he declared laconically, 
 while the girl gazed at him with an expression of 
 puzzlement. "I know the chap who wrote it!" 
 
 "You know the chap who wrote it?" Marjorie 
 was quite excited as well as surprised. "Oh if he 
 should be a a friend of yours !" 
 
 "He he was!" Romney made this remark in a 
 preoccupied fashion, which he finally only explained 
 by saying: "Gad! It's the strangest thing his song 
 falling into your hands !" He looked from the man- 
 uscript to the girl and from the girl toward the win- 
 dow, which faced a bit of lawn just a patch which
 
 'Well, in Thai Shabby Old Place-Where You See the Light, Lives Quintard. 
 He Lives Up There, Lil(e Cinderella in the Attic"
 
 THE LIGHT FROM A WINDOW 109 
 
 separated the house from the iron railings along the 
 street front. 
 
 "Come here!" he commanded gently, taking Mar- 
 jorie by the elbow and leading her over to the win- 
 dow seat. "Jump up !" He helped to steady her on 
 the cushions, parted the curtains, and pointed to the 
 shabby dwelling that neighbored them. "You see 
 that di-eadful old house next door?" 
 
 Marjorie remembered. Romney had written, in 
 the course of their long correspondence, a long letter 
 to the girl telling her about that house. "That's where 
 they keep boarders, or lodgers, or something, just to 
 annoy papa because he wouldn't pay a ridiculous price 
 for it isn't it?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes! In that miserable rookery there's where 
 Quintard lives !" 
 
 "Quintard?" She knew no one by that name. 
 
 "Anthony Quintard," he expanded. "The lad who 
 wrote your song. He lives up there, like Cinderella, 
 in the attic." He pointed upward, where there was 
 a faint glow to be seen over the edge of the roof, a 
 roof that jambed itself up against the side of the 
 Caner mansion just under their fifth story windows. 
 "You can see the light from his dormer! It's cold 
 and forlorn and lonely up there ! I've been in that 
 garret !"
 
 no THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Marjorie flattened her cheek against the casement, 
 and stood there looking up at that glow far above 
 her for a moment or so in silence. "A Cinderella- 
 man!" she finally christened the lone dweller in that 
 attic, as she visualized to herself the wretchedness of 
 its occupant. 
 
 Romney left her standing there, went to the piano 
 and set up the song. He was playing it softly, when 
 Marjorie suddenly jumped down from the window- 
 seat and interrupted him. "Why does he live up 
 there? Is he so dreadfully poor?" 
 
 "So poor that I don't think he gets enough to eat," 
 answered the lawyer, rising from the piano. 
 
 "Oh, Romney, why don't you do something for 
 him?" she demanded. 
 
 "He won't let me," returned her old friend warm- 
 ly. "Young idiot won't take a penny. You never 
 knew anyone so proud as Tony. Once I offered him 
 a little loan; he bristled up like a porcupine. I've 
 had an awful row with him just because I paid his 
 landlady a month's rent without his knowing it. It 
 was only a few dollars, but when he heard of it 
 he sent the money back to me, like a shot with 
 thanks. Rather tart thanks, too. That was some 
 weeks ago. I haven't dared to visit him since." 
 
 "But hasn't he any family?"
 
 THE LIGHT FROM A WINDOW 1 1 1 
 
 "Not even a cat though I dare say there are mice 
 in that attic. He did have a rich old uncle stingy, 
 miserable old cuss. Wanted Tony to manufacture 
 talcum powder!" 
 
 "Talcum powder?" echoed Marjorie with an ex- 
 clamation of horror, in which there was much sym- 
 pathy for the Tony she didn't know, but for whom 
 in her heart she had already found a warm habitation. 
 
 "Yes ! That was Uncle Peter's idea ; but Tony re- 
 fused I may say, scorned his offer. Tony wanted 
 to write things !" 
 
 "Of course he did!" exclaimed the girl promptly, 
 with the memory of the lad's verses still running 
 through her head. 
 
 "As I was about to tell you," Romney went^ on, 
 "Uncle Peter, general chump and scoundrel I hope 
 that's strong enough cut Tony out of his will, and 
 died yes, died." 
 
 "The beast!" Marjorie was indignant. 
 
 "I agree with you. Uncle Peter was a throw-back 
 the only Quintard I didn't like. Gentle folks 
 dear people. Tony's one of the best of them, and 
 he's nothing but a boy." 
 
 Marjorie looked at Romney sternly. "You were 
 horrid to quarrel with him!"
 
 H2 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "I didn't quarrel with him," protested the lawyer. 
 "He quarreled with me !" 
 
 "It was your fault. You you weren't tactful 
 and you must be very oh, ever so very tactful with 
 anyone so poor and sensitive, and and lonely." She 
 felt by this time that she knew Tony thoroughly. Such 
 is the power of imagination. 
 
 "But he was so silly about it such a simpleton 1" 
 
 Marjorie could not endure having even Romney 
 call her Cinderella-man a simpleton. A man who 
 could write such a song as now kept floating through 
 her sub-consciousness was, at the very least reckoning, 
 a genius ! She told Romney that he must reform his 
 estimate of the young gentleman in the attic. 
 
 "You don't know him !" To defend his position, 
 to prove what a simpleton Tony was, he told her how 
 the youth had absolutely disappeared two years ago 
 hidden himself like a mole. "For months and 
 months," he elucidated, "I didn't know what had be- 
 come of him. Then, last spring, I saw that poem, 
 signed by the little idiot, in a magazine. The editor 
 gave me his address." 
 
 "Why didn't you make the editor buy a whole lot 
 of his poems?" There was an accusation in the ques- 
 tion. It was clear that she considered Romney crim- 
 inally negligent, as he himself might have put it.
 
 THE LIGHT FROM A WINDOW 1 1,3 
 
 Romney had had some acquaintance, with editors. 
 He knew what a hard-headed lot they were, the sort 
 of gods that one hesitates to trifle with. "If I had 
 suggested it, the editor would probably have kicked 
 me out of his office; or, if he were busy at the time, 
 he would have found a ready assistant to propel me 
 expeditiously out of his sanctuary. There are always 
 lots of them aching for just that sort of exercise." 
 
 The girl had ceased listening. She wasn't inter- 
 ested in editors any more. But Romney didn't know 
 this. 
 
 "He's a gentleman, isn't he?" she asked. 
 
 "The editor?" The lawyer was dubious. He 
 thought he might be outside of the office. They often 
 were, he remembered. 
 
 "No! The Cinderella-man 1" 
 
 Romney became serious. "To the tips of his 
 fingers!" 
 
 "Then I shall invite him to dinner!" That was 
 settled. 
 
 "Charming thought but he won't accept!" 
 
 "Why won't he?" Her persistence reminded him 
 of Caner. She was like the old ruffian, in a certain 
 modified fashion. 
 
 "He refused an invitation from me, an old friend. 
 Do you imagine he'll accept one from a stranger?"
 
 ii 4 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Marjorie had forgotten that she only knew Tony 
 vicariously. Now she realized that, of course, Rom- 
 ney was right. She must think of something else. 
 She had been thinking that the young man ought to 
 have a mouse-trap up there, particularly as he had no 
 cat. She hoped he wasn't afraid of mice. She 
 thought men, real men at any rate, were not even 
 afraid of rats. But it wasn't just nice to have mice 
 running about over everything, probably chewing up 
 some of Tony's most precious verses. However, that 
 wasn't really important. What could she do? She 
 was bound to do something, but she must not make 
 the sort of mistake that Romney made, and it was all 
 very difficult and complicated, as she really didn't 
 know Tony. 
 
 U I should like to do something for him well, for 
 Christmas, you know," said Romney, putting into 
 words the idea which had already begun to form 
 itself in Marjorie's own mind. 
 
 "Oh, Romney," she cried, "I want to do something 
 for him, too, for Christmas !" She had a feeling of 
 remorse; it swept over her with a little shudder as 
 she thought of the presents all sorts of things 
 which her father would probably heap upon her, 
 things that would cost a lot of money and that she 
 wouldn't care for. "And all the time," she said
 
 THE LIGHT FROM A WINDOW 115 
 
 aloud, "there's that poor, lonely, little Cinderella- 
 man " 
 
 "He isn't little he's five feet ten and a half, if 
 he's an inch," interposed Romney. 
 
 "Please be serious," she commanded. "I can't 
 even smile when I think of his having nothing, while 
 I oh, Romney," she broke out with a trembling 
 voice, "I can't stand it I can't stand itl I must do 
 something for him I must!" 
 
 "I'd be very glad if you could think of any way of 
 helping." 
 
 Marjorie went back to the window for inspiration's 
 sake. And presently it came to her. The thought 
 delighted her. She would make it all the more de- 
 lightful by wrapping it in mystery. Perhaps that was 
 necessary. Her father might not approve. So what 
 was the use of letting any one know. When it was 
 done, and she were found out, it wouldn't matter. 
 The good she meant to do would have been accom- 
 plished, little Jesuit that she was. 
 
 "Romney! I want you to go to him to-morrow 
 make up with him." This was virtually an order. 
 She, too, was used to being obeyed. "Find out what 
 he needs most. Don't ask him. Look around and 
 see for yourself. Then come back immediately and 
 tell me."
 
 n6 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 He looked down at her wonderingly. "What's 
 stirring in that funny little head of yours ?" 
 
 Oh, it was a great project, a real, beautiful ad- 
 venture, but she couldn't tell even him. No ! All 
 she would say was: "I've thought of giving him a 
 Christmas! Oh, Romney, I'll do it I will do itl 
 Promise me that you'll go promise me !" 
 
 "Of course I promise !" 
 
 "That's a dear, old thing!" Then with a second, 
 lively thought, she asked: "Did you ever know a Cin- 
 derella-man !" 
 
 "Not until I met Tony, and I never would have 
 recognized his title to the name if you hadn't so sage- 
 ly pointed it out to me." 
 
 "I never met one either," she laughed happily, and 
 added with the covetousness of a discoverer : "So let 
 us keep this one all to ourselves at least for Christ- 
 mas. He'll be our own, own Cinderella-man!"
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HE WROTE THINGS UNDER THE ROOF. 
 
 IN the tall, lean young man who sat in the cold 
 and forlorn attic, whose dormer window had 
 been the object of so much interest to Marjorie 
 Caner, the observer would have found little change in 
 the two years that had passed since he first climbed 
 those rickety stairs and took possession of that nest 
 under the roof. He was somewhat leaner, somewhat 
 shabbier, but no less hopeful, although it needed no 
 efficiency expert to tell one that a great deal of en- 
 ergy had been expended over that kitchen table with- 
 out producing a commensurate ratio of profit. The 
 light was still burning steadily in those grey-blue eyes, 
 the lines about his mouth were still marked with 
 ready smiles, and his dark hair with the touch of red 
 in it was still towseled about as though it had never 
 known a brush or comb, as the lad leaned over his 
 "copy," pushing a pencil industriously, his good, 
 square, manly jaw set firmly against disappointment 
 
 117
 
 ii8 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 and failure two familiar devils, who forever were 
 tapping for admittance, but who had never so far 
 managed to thrust their noses into his workshop. 
 
 It was the afternoon of the day before Christmas, 
 the day after Marjorie had arrived from France. 
 Tony, engrossed in his work, appeared to be obliv- 
 ious to the comfortless nature of his surroundings. 
 It was very cold in the attic. The mournful blue light 
 of a mid-winter afternoon stole through the window, 
 but not clearly, for there was a thick frost on the 
 panes except in spots where the sunbeams had burned 
 a few peepholes. 
 
 Through these points of advantage could be seen 
 the heavy mantle of snow on the adjoining room, 
 while in perspective were the rooms, gables and chim- 
 neys of Morris Caner's and other residences, togeth- 
 er with the tapering spire of a church above its square 
 clock tower. 
 
 "Whoof !" ejaculated Tony, putting down his pen 
 and rubbing his numbed fingers. "This is the coldest 
 day yet. How's the register?" 
 
 Walking to the middle of the room where a dimin- 
 utive heat-register was sunk in the floor, he felt over 
 it with his hands. 
 
 "A bluff!" he exclaimed. "The only air coming 
 out of that thing was canned at the North Pole."
 
 HE WROTE THINGS 1 19 
 
 With a grunt of disgust he turned briskly to a calico 
 curtain hanging from a shelf in a corner, and pulling 
 it aside, brought down from a nail an old Persian 
 dressing-gown, which he slipped on over his coat. 
 He topped this off with a gay-colored but faded tur- 
 ban. Then he looked at himself 1 in a small mirror 
 over the washstand and grinned. Even the bitter cold 
 could not quench Tony Quintard's over-bubbling 
 sense of humor. 
 
 "Ah ! Here I am ! The grand vizier of Azirbi- 
 jerah ! Ready to curse all my enemies, and particu- 
 larly that infidel dog, the Weather Man. May a 
 Kobold catch him and tickle him to death! This is 
 pretty good this robe ! But my ribs are cold. Ah ! 
 Yes ! Of course ! Paper ! That's the thing I There's 
 a lot of warmth in paper." 
 
 He took a newspaper from under his table, folded 
 it to a convenient size, so that there were several 
 thicknesses, opened his waistcoat and placed the pa- 
 per across his chest. Then he buttoned it up and 
 grinned again. 
 
 "What do I care for old Winter? He has no ter- 
 rors for me so long as I can get a paper for a penny ! 
 This is one of those hot, sensational sheets, too. I 
 can feel it radiating warmth all through me." 
 
 He drew the robe around him and went back to
 
 120 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 his chair, squaring his elbows, preparatory to resum- 
 ing his work. Then he reached for his brier pipe and 
 filled it with tobacco, all the while studying the last 
 page of a manuscript he had turned out. He took 
 up a match, not noticing that it had already been 
 burned out, and tried to strike a light for his pipe. 
 
 "What the oh! I see! Half the time I don't 
 know what' I'm doing, I'm so bothered over this 
 darned masterpiece. Well, when it is done, and I 
 get the money for it, I'll take a rest and enjoy my 
 pipe like a Christian." 
 
 The pipe was set going, and as Tony Quintard 
 took two or three luxurious pulls at it, he dipped his 
 pen in the ink and wrote a few words. Then he 
 crossed them out and uttered a half-audible ejacula- 
 tion of annoyance. 
 
 "That won't do. It's rot ! Let me see. I'll have 
 to change that!" 
 
 He got up and marched to the window. Having 
 rubbed off some of the frost, he gazed out without 
 seeing anything more than the ideas cavorting 
 through his head. 
 
 "By Jove !" Apparently an attractive idea crossed 
 his vision. He hurried back to the table and settled 
 down to write at lightning speed, afraid he might lose 
 the thought before it was nailed to the paper. He
 
 HE WROTE THINGS 121 
 
 was absorbed in his work, his head low over the 
 paper, and his pipe, neglected, clenched in his teeth, 
 when there came a knock at the door below. 
 
 "Go away !" growled Tony, without looking up. 
 
 The entrance to his attic was by way of a stairway 
 that came through a trap in the floor, protected by a 
 wooden railing on three sides. The knock floated up 
 from the door at the foot of these stairs. 
 
 When Tony grunted "Go away I" the only result 
 was a repetition of the knock, a little louder than 
 before. 
 
 "Go a-w-a-y!" Tony's growl deepened with ex- 
 asperation. 
 
 "It's most important, sir." 
 
 It was a meek, husky voice that ascended to the 
 scribbler. It sounded as if its owner were even then 
 climbing the worn stairs. 
 
 "Nothing is important except my work," insisted 
 Tony. Then added with humorous exasperation: 
 "Confound you ! I just got a wireless from inspira- 
 tion, and you break in. Now you've aroused my curi- 
 osity. So come up and annoy me." 
 
 "I'm coming, sir." Primrose, as down at the heels 
 but as cheerful as ever, appeared through the trap in 
 his usual apologetic manner. Within two stairs of 
 the top he paused to cough hoarsely.
 
 122 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "I beg your pardon, Mr. Quintard, for bothering 
 you. But " 
 
 "Don't stand down there like a bear in a pit," en- 
 couraged Tony. 
 
 "Thank you, sir," was the reply. The old man 
 came to the top and leaned wearily over the rail, for 
 the climb had rather taken the wind out of him. "I 
 wouldn't have thought of botherin' you, only " 
 
 "Primrose," interrupted Tony, with ironic tolera- 
 tion, "eliminate the preface and unwind your 
 tale." 
 
 "Well, sir," explained the man-who-had-seen-bet- 
 ter-days, "he's waiting below a gentleman." 
 
 "You're quite sure he's a gentleman?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, sir. He has on a fur coat." 
 
 Tony put his pipe on the table, shivered a little, 
 and gazed speculatively at his servitor. 
 
 "Attention, Primrose! Could you er get me 
 the coat and leave the gentleman ?" 
 
 "I'm afraid not, sir!" This with a phantom smile. 
 "The gentleman is wearin' the coat." 
 
 "He knew where he was coming," grunted Tony. 
 "Is it Cooke or Peary?" 
 
 The allusion rolled harmlessly off Jerry Primrose's 
 mentality. He surmised that it was a joke of some 
 kind, but he didn't recognize it. So he answered, with
 
 HE WROTE THINGS 123 
 
 a noncommittal widening of the mouth: "I couldn't 
 say, sir." 
 
 Primrose had been a valet for many years, and the 
 instinct of the efficient body-servant was in him al- 
 ways. He observed 'that Tony wore slippers, and 
 that his shoes were scattered about the room. So he 
 picked them up one by one and handed them to Tony. 
 
 "Infernal nuisance!" complained the youth as he 
 took off the slippers and gave them to Primrose. 
 "Got to put my shoes on just to be bored by some- 
 body." 
 
 "And he is somebody, sir he came in a motor car, 
 with a swell chauffeur. The chauffeur is wearin' a 
 fur coat, too !" 
 
 "Then how could you tell which was the gentle- 
 man?" asked Tony solemnly. 
 
 "The gentleman wears the fur inside, the chauffeur 
 outside," was the laconic reply. Then, with a dismal 
 shake of the head, the old man added: "You used to 
 wear yours inside, sir." 
 
 It was evident that the recollection of happier for- 
 tune, both for himself and Tony, was weighing heav- 
 ily on the spirits of Primrose. He choked back a sob, 
 braced himself with a quiver of bent shoulders, took 
 a shabby overcoat from where it lay on a trunk, shook 
 it and brushed it down with his hand solicitously.
 
 i2 4 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "It is a well-known economic fact, Primrose," re- 
 marked Tony, as he laced up his second shoe, "that 
 you can't wear your fur coat and eat it, too. What's 
 your opinion about our fur-lined visitor?" 
 
 Primrose was silent until he had hung the shabby 
 overcoat in a corner, and, picking up a hat from the 
 floor where it had been carelessly flung, placed it on 
 a shelf. After some consideration, he answered: 
 
 "I think it would be safe to let him up, sir." 
 
 "Then bring him up." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Oh, by the way," called Tony, as the old man took 
 a step down the stairs. "I could do with a whiff of 
 heat up here. Suppose you go down to the uttermost 
 depths of this habitation and sneak a spoonful of an- 
 thracite into the furnace. But don't let the Great 
 She-Bear catch you. She might raise my rent." 
 
 "So she might, sir. Thank you, sir," returned 
 Primrose as he disappeared. 
 
 "I'll have to dress for company, I suppose," mum- 
 bled Tony. He took off the Persian robe and hid it 
 behind the curtain. The turban he laid on the shelf. 
 "It's a bore especially when I am so busy." 
 
 There was a short pause, during which Tony took 
 up some sheets of his manuscript and studied them 
 thoughtfully. He was completely engrossed when
 
 HE WROTE THINGS 125 
 
 footsteps on the stairs attracted his attention. He 
 went to the trap, and seeing who it was, held out his 
 hand cordially. 
 
 "Hello, Romneyl" 
 
 "Hello, Tony!" 
 
 As they shook hands warmly, the young man said : 
 "My apologies for keeping you waiting! I didn't 
 know it was you." 
 
 "My fault," returned Romney Evans. "I should 
 have sent up my name. Only, I was afraid you 
 wouldn't see me." 
 
 "Nonsense! We understand each other now. 
 Awfully good of you to come again. Give me your 
 hat and stick. I'd ask you to take off your coat, but 
 I'm afraid you are not used to these high alti- 
 tudes." 
 
 "It is rather like out-of-doors here," confessed the 
 lawyer. 
 
 "Ah, you notice that? The effect?" breezed Tony. 
 "Good! Some people like to sleep out-of-doors. I 
 like to work out-of-dors. But that isn't practical at 
 this season of the year, so I managed to have it cool 
 up here. Keeps my brain active. What does the mer- 
 cury say?" he added, consulting an old advertising 
 thermometer on the wall. No, it's all right. I was 
 afraid my man would make it too hot for me. He
 
 126 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 has a passion for heat. Have the chair. It's the one 
 I have been sitting in. It is still fairly warm." 
 
 Tony bustled about, making his guest as comfort- 
 able as possible. Romney watched him, dashing to 
 and fro in his icy room, affecting to be entirely happy 
 with his surroundings, and cheerful as ever he was 
 when, as a boy, he had no more on his mind than a 
 bit of doggerel. 
 
 "A Cinderella-man, indeed," thought Romney. 
 "Have a cigarette, Tony ?" 
 
 He held out a gold case. Tony extracted a cigar- 
 ette with an off-hand "Thanks," adding: "Haven't 
 smoked a cigarette in days. Have to smoke a pipe 
 when I'm working." 
 
 Their cigarettes were going, with Tony on the big 
 trunk, nursing his knee and puffing with genuine en- 
 joyment, while Romney occupied the chair, when the 
 latter remarked casually: 
 
 "By the way, I have a friend a neighbor of yours 
 who's taken a sudden interest in your work quite 
 smitten with those verses of yours, 'Out of His Heart 
 He Builds a Home.' " 
 
 "Neighbor? Who is it? Perhaps I know him by 
 sight." 
 
 "It isn't a he it's a she." 
 
 "Ah ! Enter romance, very early in the first chap-
 
 HE WROTE THINGS 127 
 
 tcr," observed Tony, between puffs. "Now, don't 
 spoil it by giving me facts. Let me improvise. It's 
 the Veiled Princess!" 
 
 "Who's the Veiled Princess?" 
 
 "Who? Why, the little billionairess. She ar- 
 rived next door, last night, in the gloaming." 
 
 "So you've heard about her?" 
 
 Tony waved his cigarette expansively toward the 
 staircase down the trap. 
 
 "My journal brings me the fashionable news ot 
 the street." 
 
 "Your journal?" 
 
 "Primrose, my man. You noticed him. He's my 
 journal my court gazette morning and evening 
 edition and occasionally an extra. Most reliable. 
 Serves me in the dual capacity of journal and valet, 
 whether I will have it or not. His real business in 
 life is butting and janitoring for the Great She- 
 Bear." 
 
 "The Great She-Bear?" repeated Romney. 
 
 "Landlady. I can't call her anything but what I've 
 just said. She's a terror a grizzly. You noticed 
 her the last time you were here. I'm deathly afraid 
 of her. I try to keep my door locked. She's likely 
 to come in and eat me some night, just because I've 
 forgotten to pay the rent."
 
 128 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "But you were talking of the Veiled Princess," 
 Romney reminded him. 
 
 "Oh, yes! My journal informs me that she ar- 
 rived last night in her gasoline chariot, heavily veiled. 
 He also told me that she is the only daughter of the 
 king of commerce next door." 
 
 "Wouldn't you like to meet her?" asked Romney. 
 
 "Got her in your pocket?" returned Tony, care- 
 lessly. 
 
 "Not to-day." 
 
 "Too bad ! Too bad ! But, after all, what have I 
 to do with veiled princesses?" 
 
 "Nothing. That's the trouble. You write about 
 them probably in the most familiar sort of way. 
 But you don't know them. Think how much better 
 you could write about them if you knew one just 
 one." 
 
 "You are mistaken, my dear Romney," laughed 
 Tony. "I can imagine them much better than they 
 are. Once upon a time, in my days of affluent slav- 
 ery, I knew a princess. I had to entertain her for 
 almost an hour. It makes me ache to think of it." 
 
 "But, you forget. The Veiled Princess likes your 
 song." 
 
 "You're a sly old dog, Romney. But I'm impervi- 
 ous to flattery."
 
 HE WROTE THINGS 129 
 
 "But when a charming young woman expresses a 
 desire to meet you " 
 
 "The only safe procedure is to scurry up to the 
 turret of your castle and bolt the door after you," 
 finished Tony. 
 
 "Not a bit of it, young man 1 You must not think 
 she's the sort that would run after you. No, indeed 1" 
 
 "Thank heaven 1 I am saved!" ejaculated Tony, 
 with mock fervor. 
 
 Romney Evans turned on him in disgust. 
 
 "I should think," he snorted, "that when you are 
 told there is a young person next door who appreci- 
 ates and is interested in your work, you'd be only 
 too glad to have a chance to meet her." 
 
 But this did not disturb Tony's calm attitude. 
 
 "I'm sure it's very friendly and delightful of you 
 and the Veiled Princess to think of me. I am flat- 
 tered, and I hope you will convey my sincere thanks 
 to her. But, having forgotten my party manners, as 
 well as mislaid my party clothes, I must regretfully 
 and respectfully decline your cordial invitation. With 
 the compliments of the season, I remain, your obedi- 
 ent servant, Anthony Quintard !"
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 AN EMMISSARY FROM A PRINCESS. 
 
 WHILE Tony expressed himself in this rath- 
 er highfalutin fashion, trying to render it 
 apparent, beyond peradventure, that he did 
 not care to make the acquaintance of the Veiled 
 Princess, no matter how charming she might be, Rom- 
 ney Evans stalked about the attic, taking a mental 
 inventory of its shabby details. The evidences of 
 poverty that met his eye on all sides caused him to 
 boil within at the young man's obstinacy. 
 "Tony, you're a jackass !" he rasped. 
 "The very words of my late, but not lamented, 
 uncle," was the cheerful response. 
 
 "What's the use of your freezing to death in this 
 miserable garret?" 
 
 "But, Romney, I'm not freezing to death. I'm 
 doing a most important piece of work or I was, un- 
 til you so politely interrupted me." 
 "Huh ! I doubt its importance." 
 130
 
 EMMISSARY FROM A PRINCESS 131 
 
 "Oh, say not so say not so!" 
 Tony made this protest in a sort of chant. It irri- 
 tated his visitor into a burst of expostulation. 
 
 "You should be living comfortably respectably 
 
 "Respectably?" cried Tony, in pretended astonish- 
 ment. "What do you call this? Why, it's the most 
 moral lodgery in New York. The Great She-Bear is 
 a Puritan of the most violent type. Only last week 
 she cast out a perfectly good stenographer from the 
 floor below just because her alleged brother called on 
 a Saturday evening." 
 
 "You know what I mean. You should, and could, 
 be living among people of your own kind, if you 
 would only accept a certain position that I have wait- 
 ing for you " 
 
 "In a pickle factory?" jeered the poet. "Thank 
 you but no." 
 
 "In a broker's office, at a good salary !" countered 
 the lawyer, hotly. 
 
 Tony deliberately stalked over to the register and 
 stooped so that he could spread his two hands close 
 over the grating. He looked at Romney with a quiz- 
 zical smile which faded, however, as his words be- 
 came more earnest. 
 
 "I thank you, but I wouldn't take it at any price.
 
 i 3 2 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Why bring up the question, anyway? I had that out 
 with you once. Don't let us start cussing each other 
 again. You can't convince me any more than I can 
 make you understand that I must do the thing that's 
 in me to do without compromise. Otherwise, I'm 
 a failure." 
 
 "I can't see that you're making much of a success, 
 as it is," was Romney's rejoinder. 
 
 "No," assented Tony, slowly. "No!" He was 
 hurt, but he quickly threw off his feeling of depres- 
 sion and declared with decision: "But I am not a 
 failure yet and I won't be! It would take more 
 than you're saying so to shake my faith in myself." 
 
 For a few moments Romney Evans gazed at the 
 young man with affectionate pity. At last he picked 
 up his hat and stick from the washstand, where Tony 
 had placed them, and laid a hand on the young man's 
 shoulder. 
 
 "I'm sorry, Tony," he said, softly. "I didn't come 
 up here to hurt you. I thought that perhaps I could 
 be the means of bringing a new friend into your life 
 the Veiled Princess. She's a dear thing. I even 
 hoped that you two might might grow to care for 
 each other." 
 
 "What?" Tony wheeled about, amazed, almost 
 indignant.
 
 EMMISSARY FROM A PRINCESS 133 
 
 "Yes! Why not?" retorted Romney, warmly. 
 "You are the only man I know who's good enough 
 for her." 
 
 The youth smiled and laid a hand on his friend's 
 shoulder. "It's very decent of you to say that, Rom- 
 ney. But you know I have the utmost contempt for 
 men who marry rich girls. It's a kind of prostitu- 
 tion. That's what it is. Your self-respect for a meal 
 ticket." 
 
 Romney held out his hand and Tony grasped it 
 heartily. 
 
 "You see that my point of view don't you, 
 Romney?" 
 
 "That's all right! I understand!" 
 
 "I knew you would. Well, when you're around 
 this way again, drop up." He laughed whimsically, 
 propelling his visitor to the stairs. "And, oh my 
 compliments and thanks to the Princess." 
 
 "I'll deliver them at once," promised Romney, as 
 he went down into the pit, only pausing at the bottom 
 to send back a cheerful: "So long, old boy!" 
 
 "Merry Christmas, old top!" called Tony, after 
 him. 
 
 "Same to you !" 
 
 As the door banged, the smile with which he had 
 hurled the compliments of the Yuletide season after
 
 i 3 4 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 his boyhood's friend faded from Tony's face. Hi 
 sighed involuntarily and huddled down on the old 
 trunk, his chin in his hand. 
 
 "A failure! Am la failure?" 
 
 Then came a knock at the door. But Tony did 
 not heed. Drumming on his brain, as it seemed, 
 was the monotonously recurring query: "Am I a 
 failure? Am I a failure?" He could hear nothing 
 else. 
 
 Neither did he see Jerry Primrose's faded counte- 
 nance with the moist eyes which seemed ever on the 
 verge of weeping, cautiously rising above the level of 
 the trap. It was only when the wheezy voice was 
 raised in reproachful sympathy that he raised his 
 head and saw that his faithful attendant was gazing 
 at him in sorrowful apprehension. 
 
 "Bless m' soul, sir!" exclaimed Primrose. "You 
 ain't gone and got the willies again, have you?" He 
 came up the remaining stairs, and continued, with 
 something like a sob: "It is the willies. I was afraid 
 you had 'em. Oh, Mr. Quintard ! What I thinks" 
 
 "Shut up, you old cry-baby!" interrupted Tony, 
 arousing himself and smiling. "I never felt better 
 in my life ! Here," he went on, as he strode over to 
 the table and looked at his pile of manuscript, "are 
 you any judge of libretto?"
 
 135 
 
 "I might be, if I knew what it was," replied Prim- 
 rose, with reserve. 
 
 "It's a libretto. That's the book of an opera the 
 words." 
 
 "You don't say, sir!" 
 
 "In grand opera they are sung. In light opera 
 occasionally." 
 
 "I saw an opery once," murmured Primrose, rem- 
 iniscently. "The devil was in it." 
 
 "And there's a devil in mine a charming, ro- 
 mantic devil ! But he's housebroken in the last act." 
 
 Primrose was awestruck. "You, sir, are writin' of 
 an opery?" 
 
 "Verily! And I tell you, in confidence, that I have 
 burst many a button in the effort to write something 
 original. It was to be a masterpiece but now I 
 wonder ! It was to have worked the miracle for me ! 
 And it shall!" He picked up several sheets of his 
 manuscript from the table and fanned them with his 
 fingers under the old servitor's blue nose. "Prim- 
 rose, do you see that? It's going to bring us ten 
 thousand dollars! Do you understand? Ten thou- 
 sand dollars!" 
 
 Primrose, saddened as he was by hard times, and 
 with nerves roughened to a burr edge by constantly 
 grinding against the temperament of the Great She-
 
 136 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Bear below stairs, had not lost his sense of humor. 
 The sense was primitive. But, such as it was, it re- 
 mained to him, and he grinned slowly as Tony spoke 
 grandiloquently of ten thousand dollars. That was 
 a joke that Primrose could appreciate. It had the 
 odor of fabulous wealth. What more could a joke 
 require ? 
 
 "Is that all?" he asked, the grin assuring Tony 
 that his sally was appreciated. 
 
 "Huh I" grunted the author. "I see the flicker of 
 incredulousness in your kindly but watery eye, and I 
 don't blame you. Ten thousand dollars I It's fabu- 
 lous!" 
 
 "Very likely, sir." Primrose was noncommital. 
 
 "I assure you it is!" Tony went on. "Come hith- 
 er, unbeliever! See! Every page of this manuscript 
 of mine is worth not less than fifty dollars." 
 
 "I'm afraid you've something worse than the wil- 
 lies now, sir," returned Primrose, becoming serious. 
 "You know, fifty dollars is " 
 
 "Still unconvinced?" said Tony. "Wait a moment.'* 
 
 From under the ink bottle he drew a clipping from 
 a newspaper, which he opened and placed in the 
 other's hand. 
 
 "If you'll read that, my heretical friend, it may 
 enlighten you."
 
 EMMISSARY FROM A PRINCESS 137 
 
 To Primrose reading was more than a mere inci- 
 dent. It was a rite, which must be approached with 
 certain ceremonies, all in regular order, and with due 
 regard to the importance of the proceeding. 
 
 To begin with, there were his spectacles. These 
 precious articles were kept in a case at the bottom of 
 a cavern inside his coat. They were tamped down 
 with a large red-yellow-and-blue handkerchief, which 
 he found more convenient than the ordinary small 
 white ones in more common usage. 
 
 He fished out the handkerchief, shook it free and 
 passed it across his brow. Then he reached for the 
 glasses. They had a way of sinking to an almost 
 inaccessible corner of the deep pocket, whence they 
 could be extracted only with paralytic contortions, 
 accompanied by sundry grunts and muttered impre- 
 cations. 
 
 "Come on now!" he apostrophized them sternly. 
 "I know you're there, and I'm goin' to have you out 
 if it takes a leg. Ah ! There they come ! I knowed 
 it ! They couldn't fool me." 
 
 Wiping the steel-rimmed glasses took up another 
 two or three minutes during which Tony read a 
 page of his opera, with a gratified smile. 
 
 "Now, sir, I'm ready," announced Primrose, at 
 last.
 
 138 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 He held the clipping close to his face and labor- 
 iously spelled it out. As he perused it, his humid 
 eyes widened and his loose-hung mouth worked con- 
 vulsively. Clearly he was astonished. The whole 
 thing was beyond his ordinary ken. 
 
 "Well, I'm Mowed !" he blurted out at last. "And 
 this here opery of yours is goin' to get the prize?" 
 
 "Such is our hope," was Tony's off-hand reply, as 
 he took back the clipping. 
 
 "Ten thousand dollars!" murmured Primrose, 
 awe-stricken. "Would you let me look at it, sir?" 
 
 "The opera? Certainly 1" 
 
 With the libretto in his hands, the old man began 
 to read aloud, with a judicial air, by chance for an 
 opening striking some stage directions : 
 
 " 'The Caliph looks at her with profound admira- 
 tion. She lowers her head, but lets her eyes fly up at 
 him through the top of her lids.' ' 
 
 Jerry stopped reading, and stared at Tnoy 
 as if he thought the young man must be crazy. 
 Tony replied to his look by saying with con- 
 viction : 
 
 "It can be done. Like this." 
 
 He let his head fall to one side, in a coquettish 
 manner, at the same time rolling up his eyes at his 
 staring inquisitor.
 
 EMMISSARY FROM A PRINCESS 139 
 
 "Um ! Do you think a young woman would ever 
 look like that?" 
 
 "Of course she would. At least, this young woman 
 would. Go ahead. Read some more." 
 
 " 'Caliph, your eyes illuminate the path to my 
 soul's dark chamber.' 'He repeats the serenade.' ' 
 It was Greek to him. "So that's a opery book? And 
 it's goin' to get you ten thousand dollars?" 
 
 "Without a doubt," answered Tony, taking the 
 manuscript from him. "The only difficulty is to get 
 the job done in time. It's just eight days until Jan- 
 uary first. I've got to work like the devil. That 
 means the consumption of much kerosene ! We must 
 consider the oil question." 
 
 "We can't work on oil, sir. That gentleman friend 
 of yours him in the fur coat didn't happen to lend 
 you a fiver, or somethin', did he?" 
 
 "He's not a banker, my dear Primrose. Besides, 
 what do we want with money? We paid the rent last 
 week, and lived in wantonness for three days on that 
 sonnet! If I can turn out a sonnet and sell it 
 every seven days, we shall live in affluence." 
 
 "But you ain't wrote no sonnet since that one, and 
 you haven't paid this week's rent ! As for the thing 
 you call the 'larder,' there's nothin' in it." 
 
 "What an old cheer-monger you are ! But never
 
 i 4 o THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 mind! We shall pull through! Let's see! What 
 have we left? Ah! The trunk! Primrose, we've 
 eaten everything in it. Why not eat the trunk itself?" 
 
 "It wouldn't pay to cart it away, sir." He gave 
 the battered bit of luggage a kick of contempt. 
 
 "Perhaps you're right. Well, let's have a look 
 around. There must be something negotiable that 
 we've overlooked." 
 
 "Here's a weskitt, sir," suddenly announced Prim- 
 rose. "It's that fancy one you used to wear when " 
 
 "Where is it?" interrupted Tony, snatching the 
 article which the old man had discovered in a drawer. 
 "A find! A find!" he cried enthusiastically, as he 
 waved the waistcoat over his head. Then sobering 
 down a little, he spread it out. At once a cry of dis- 
 may came from Primrose. 
 
 "There's a big ink-spot on it, sir." 
 
 "What? A spot? Ah, yes, I remember. Out, 
 damned spot! I did it with a fountain-pen that I 
 carried in the upper pocket. It leaked, as most foun- 
 tain-pens do. I've never carried one since." 
 
 "You haven't got the pen, have you?" asked 
 Primrose, eagerly. "We might raise some- 
 thing " 
 
 "No. Unfortunately, in a moment of anger, I 
 threw it away. But, see here," he went on, as he
 
 EMM1SSARY FROM A PRINCESS 141 
 
 hastily put on the waistcoat. "With the coat but- 
 toned, the spot doesn't show." 
 
 "What would be the good of a nice vest like that, 
 sir, if you couldn't wear your coat open?" There was 
 no replying to that interrogation. Tony threw the 
 waistcoat in a corner as Primrose, investigating the 
 washstand drawer, cried out: 
 
 "Here's something more likely. Looks as how it 
 might be gold." 
 
 He had found a small gold locket among the rub- 
 bish in the drawer and held it out to Tony in the palm 
 of his hand. The young man glanced at it, saw what 
 it was, and instantly snatched it away. 
 
 "No, no !" he shouted, in sudden anger. 
 
 "Why? It's gold, ain't it? You'd better leave me 
 soak it. What's the good of it kicking around your 
 drawer there?" 
 
 "It's a lot of good," came the rejoinder, in a pre- 
 occupied tone. "Good luck, I mean." 
 
 "It ain't brought you much luck as I can see," 
 grumbled Primrose. 
 
 "But it will it will !" said Tony, half to himself. 
 "And even i it shouldn't, there are some things I 
 can't eat." 
 
 "Well, it would bring three or four dollars, maybe 
 enough to keep you goin' till the opery's done."
 
 i 4 2 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 In way of reply Tony opened the locket and held it 
 out for inspection. When the steel-rimmed spectacles 
 had been duly adjusted, Primrose looked closely at 
 the picture in the locket, and said, softly: 
 
 "It's your mother. I never seen her. But you're 
 the spittin' image of her I" The tears came to his 
 eyes. 
 
 Tony patted him gently on the back, and taking 
 possession of the locket, said with an affectionate 
 smile: "Don't cry about her she wasn't your 
 mother."
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A BANK BALANCE. 
 
 THERE was a short silence, during which 
 Primrose sniffed into the large, many-col- 
 ored handkerchief, while Tony gazed, with 
 misty eyes, upon the beloved face in the locket. He 
 was recalling how Romney Evans had given the 
 locket to him after his mother's death, and how 
 his old friend had told the boy that she would like him 
 always to keep it, in memory of his father, as well as 
 of herself. He had worn it on his watch-chain so 
 long as he had one. When watch and chain had gone 
 their way to the pawnbroker's he had put the locket 
 in the drawer for safety and forgotten it. 
 
 "Still sniffling?" he demanded suddenly of Prim- 
 rose. 
 
 "I can't help thinkin' what your mother'd be think- 
 in', lookin' down on her son a gentleman an' him 
 goin' to work on his opery on a empty stummick," 
 was the mournful reply as he put away his handker- 
 chief.
 
 144 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "It would be much worse if I were going to work 
 on an empty head," rejoined Tony. "Now trot along. 
 That thistledowny, evanescent thing we call inspira- 
 tion is hovering signalling to what I please to call 
 my genius." 
 
 "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir!" returned Primrose 
 the well-trained, self-effacing body-servant coming to 
 the surface through his shabbiness, as it had an inter- 
 mittent habit of doing. "Oh, I beg your pardon, sir. 
 I have a letter I forgot to give you." 
 
 The large handkerchief had to be removed labor- 
 iously from his pocket, and he brought forth from 
 below a business-like looking letter. 
 
 "It came in the last mail, sir. That's what I came 
 up for to give it to you. Only " 
 
 "From the Fulton National Bank, eh?" exclaimed 
 Tony. "Once upon a time, Primrose, I had funds 
 money, real money in that bank ! All I had to do 
 to get it was to write a check. I wonder what " 
 
 He opened the envelope and glanced at the letter- 
 head. The old servant watched him, blinking re- 
 spectfully. 
 
 "This seems to be from the cashier. He begins 
 very affectionately. 'Dear sir: You will understand 
 that it is a rule with this bank to carry no accounts 
 which do not maintain an average balance of five hun-
 
 A BANK BALANCE 145 
 
 dred dollars or over. For the past twenty-one months 
 your balance has been three dollars and seventeen 
 cents. Kindly close your account at your earliest con- 
 venience by withdrawing your balance, and oblige ' 
 Ah!" shouted Tony, joyfully, "I have a balance to 
 my credit of three-seventeen ! Do you get that, Prim- 
 rose? What time is it?" 
 
 He rushed to the window and looked out at the 
 church clock. Primrose was no less excited. 
 
 "Do you mean there's three dollars and seventeen 
 cents of yours in the bank, sir?" 
 
 "Yes. A fortune ! A fortune ! It's ten minutes to 
 three. Call me a taxi ! No ! no ! I mean, get my 
 overcoat! Where's my hat? Banks close at three, 
 on the dot." 
 
 "Here's your things, sir," said Primrose, bringing 
 the coat and hat from the curtained recess which 
 Tony used as a wardrobe. "You'll have to hurry, 
 sir." 
 
 He helped the young man into his frayed overcoat 
 and handed the disreputable hat to him with a low 
 bow such as it had been his delight to bestow when 
 as a valet in the old days he had sent his patron out 
 immaculately attired from hat to shoe, and could be 
 honestly proud of the sartorial tout ensemble. 
 
 "Good! We shall have a feast to-morrow a
 
 146 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 feast, my good Primrose! What is to-morrow? 
 Christmas! We shall dine in state! Elijah had his 
 ravens Quintard has his bankers!" 
 
 For a few moments after Tony had dashed down 
 the stairs and slammed the door, Jerry Primrose 
 stood looking down the trap, while two tears ran 
 down his poor old blue-veined nose and splashed 
 upon the uncarpeted floor. 
 
 "Nothin' can knock the ginger out o' him 1" 
 
 Following his instinct, the old man moved about 
 the attic, making it as tidy as he could. He smoothed 
 the blanket on the gloucester hammock that hung at 
 one side of the room, and patted the pillow affection- 
 ately. Then he went to the table, and very carefully, 
 so as not to disturb the papers, brushed up the spilled 
 tobacco, placed the brier pipe, the pens and the pencil 
 in a row, at right-angles with the large inkstand, and 
 stared down interestedly at the manuscript of the 
 opera, without venturing to touch it. 
 
 "Ten thousand dollars!" he murmured. "An* all 
 for just that writin' ! There's a lot of blots on it, too. 
 I wonder whether they'll take anything off for them, 
 or whether he'll get the full ten thousand anyhow." 
 
 His meditations were interrupted by the sudden 
 appearance of a large dark woman, middle-aged, with 
 the shadow of a mustache and glittering, beady black
 
 A BANK BALANCE 147 
 
 eyes, who had come up the trap. She was untidy, 
 musty, but well-fed-looking, with a square jaw, and 
 a set of strong but irregular teeth. Her malevolent 
 gaze fastened itself upon the shrinking servant and 
 in a voice like a man's, growled at him : 
 
 "So, this is where you're loafing, you good-for- 
 nothing lump!" 
 
 "No, mum !" protested Primrose, trying to be 
 brave under her accusing glare. "I wasn't loafin'. I 
 was only tidyin' up a bit after Mr. Quintard." 
 . "Oh, you were?" she sneered, as she came up the 
 remaining stairs and stood so near to him that he 
 seemed to feel her aggressiveness as a tangible thing. 
 "Do I pay you for foolin' around up here, or are you 
 supposed to work for me?" 
 
 "I I don't know mum, I was " 
 
 "Yon don't know? Well, I'll tell you ! Once for 
 all, I don't pay nobody nothin' for what I don't get." 
 
 She folded a pair of grimy, bare arms, muscular as 
 a prizefighter's, across her wide chest, and looked at 
 Primrose with an expression that quite warranted 
 Tony's description of her as "the Great She- 
 Bear." 
 
 . When Tony had engaged the attic she had in- 
 formed him that her name was "Mrs. Bulger." But 
 he preferred his own picturesque appelation, adopted
 
 i 4 8 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 as he came to know her charming ways. He had 
 almost forgotten that she had any other. 
 
 Primrose quite agreed with Tony that she had 
 many of the attributes of a grizzly bear, as he had 
 observed them in menageries and read of them in 
 books, and though he never spoke of her himself as 
 the Great She-Bear, he chuckled enjoyingly whenever 
 Tony used the term. Just now, without the support 
 of Tony's presence, he felt entirely at her mercy. 
 
 "I I didn't think you'd mind, mum," he stam- 
 mered. 
 
 "You've got another think comin' to you," was her 
 retort, as unfolding her arms, she brought down one 
 huge hand into the palm of the other with a slap that 
 made him jump. "If any of my roomers wants you 
 to clean up for 'em, they've got to settle first with 
 me." 
 
 "Mr. Quintard would settle, most cheerful if he 
 could," declared Jerry. "He's got a beautiful dis- 
 position, mum." 
 
 "Beautiful is as beautiful pays," she snapped. 
 "That's my motto. And what I want to know is, 
 what do you get for waitin' on him hand and foot?" 
 
 "Well, mum," hisitated Primrose, after a short 
 pause. "It's like this: Did you ever get very close, 
 in a confidential position, to a real gentleman ?"
 
 A BANK BALANCE 149 
 
 "I should say not," replied the Great She-Bear, 
 with a sniff of virtuous indignation. 
 
 "I didn't think you had," was the other's dry re- 
 joinder. "Well, mum, I was brung up in a gentle- 
 man's family, from scullery boy to butler, in the old 
 country, and I served me time, too, as a gentleman's 
 gentleman." 
 
 The Great She-Bear burst into a shout of sarcastic 
 laughter. 
 
 Primrose thought it the most mirthless sound he 
 had ever heard. 
 
 "You? A gentleman's gentleman" she echoed, 
 scornfully. 
 
 "Yes, mum. And there's the point I'm makin'. It 
 means a lot to me to be close to one of me own ag'in. 
 Just to hear a gentleman's voice to have him treat 
 me like a human bein' an' a friend still keepin' me 
 in my place, mum." 
 
 "Is that all you get out of him?" 
 
 "It's more than enough for me." 
 
 "He never gives you a tip, and you call him a 
 gentleman?" Her scorn was profound. 
 
 "You don't judge his sort by their tips," replied 
 Jerry, soberly. "Why it's an honor to serve 
 him." 
 
 "But you're too high and mighty to clean my ens-
 
 1 50 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 pidors," she growled, very much like the she-bear 
 Tony called her. "Well, you'll begin on them to- 
 day. I'll learn you. Come on now ! You can start 
 on the china one in the parlor. And mind you don't 
 break it! Take one chip out of it and I'll " 
 
 She did not finish. It was not necessary. She 
 clenched one of her mighty fists and extended it in 
 Primrose's direction. But the spirit of rebellion 
 arose in him, and, as the Great She-Bear started down 
 into the pit, he grumbled loudly enough for her to 
 hear: 
 
 "I wasn't engaged to clean cuspidors." 
 
 "What's that?" she demanded. "Well, if you 
 want a better job, perhaps you know you can get it. 
 But you can take it from me that it isn't every land- 
 lady who's goin' to put up with an old rum-hound 
 like you." 
 
 He put up his two hands weakly, as if to ward off 
 a blow, and the ready tears trinkled down his nose. 
 There was a sob in his tones as he answered, broken- 
 ly: "I ain't touched a drop for a week, Mr. Quin- 
 tard's reformin' me." 
 
 "If he knew how you got fired from one place to 
 another, because you couldn't keep sober!" was the 
 Great She-Bear's parting snarl, as she went on down 
 the stairs.
 
 A BANK BALANCE 151 
 
 "Mr. Quintard knows all about me," he retorted, 
 following her down. "But he never reminds me how 
 I came to be what I am. That's the difference 
 between you and a gentleman." 
 
 Anybody within earshot of the kitchen regions, far 
 down in the bowels of the melcancholy old lodging- 
 house, might have been edified by a continuance of 
 the discussion, with the Great She-Bear in the ascend- 
 ant so far as vituperative violence was concerned, but 
 Primrose holding his own in the way of logic and 
 sound argument. 
 
 The colloquy lasted for ten minutes or more. Then 
 it was brought to an end by the lady ordering the old 
 man to "git at them cuspidors or else get out." 
 
 "All the same," Primrose muttered, as he began 
 on the first cuspidor, "she ain't no gentleman, and 
 never will be !"
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A CHRISTMAS FAIRY. 
 
 FOR some minutes after the disappearance of 
 the Great She-Bear and Jerry Primrose the 
 attic remained empty. It is barely possible 
 that the Spirit of Christmas may have peeped through 
 the window since it was certainly abroad that after- 
 noon, and it may have been that the poetic inspiration 
 which Tony Quintard had declared was hovering 
 about him lingered to await his return. But human 
 presence there was none, until 
 
 The dormer window opened gently a little way and 
 a girl's face, framed by a dainty grey hood, appeared 
 in the opening. She had been looking through the 
 glass before opening the window. She wanted to 
 make sure that the place was untenanted. 
 
 It was Marjorie Caner who thus burglariously en- 
 tered the sanctum of the poet, and her movements 
 were as stealthy as though she had come to rob. 
 
 Very pretty she seemed, in her "liberty cloak" of
 
 A CHRISTMAS FAIRY 153 
 
 soft gray material, with its frilled hood, from which 
 tendrils of soft hair escaped and turned themselves 
 into little snares on her white forehead. Except for 
 a small apron and a violet chiffon scarf, she was all 
 in gray, including slippers and hose. Her color had 
 been heightened by the eager winter air, and if there 
 is such a thing as a Christmas rose, that is what she 
 looked like. 
 
 "A Cinderella-man," she murmured softly, "but 
 he is not here." 
 
 A tinkling nervous laugh came to her red lips, as 
 she ventured further into the attic, and, with swift 
 glances, satisfied herself that for the moment she 
 would not be discovered. 
 
 She tripped up to the window and went out on the 
 snow-covered roof. In a moment she was back, this 
 time carrying a large market basket, with wicker lids. 
 Obviously it was heavy, for only with an effort did 
 she lift it over the sill and place it on the floor in the 
 middle of the room. 
 
 "My! How cold it is I" she whispered. "No 
 wonder! I've left the window open." 
 
 Hastily closing the casement, she ran about the 
 attic, peeping into every corner. The trap, with the 
 stairs, interested her particularly, as being the direc- 
 tion from which she might expect interruption.
 
 i 5 4 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "I think I shall be able to hear their footsteps," 
 she reasurred herself. "Then, before they get up 
 the stairs, I can make my exit by the window. Oh, 
 dear, it seems to be colder every instant! It isn't 
 because I did not close the window at once, either. 
 There isn't a bit of heat in this register. Poor Cin- 
 derella-man ! Romney told me his attic was cold, but 
 I did not understand how cold a room could be when 
 there is no fire, or steam heat, or anything. I wish I 
 could have some of the steam from our house turned 
 in here!" 
 
 Marjorie noted more than the frigidity. She saw 
 that the furniture was mean and scanty, and that the 
 room had a generally forlorn aspect which chilled 
 her to the soul. 
 
 "The Cinderella-man is a poet," she said, half 
 aloud. "I think he will appreciate a few Christmas 
 decorations." 
 
 From her basket she took a large bunch of holly 
 and English ivy, and, with deft fingers, hung branches 
 of the red berries, and the deep-green, shiny leaves, 
 wherever there was a convenient projection. 
 
 "That warms it up," she remarked, in a satisfied 
 way. "Now for the mistletoe! I wonder whether
 
 A CHRISTMAS FAIRY 155 
 
 the Cinderella-man thinks about the old-fashioned 
 significance of mistletoe ! If he doesn't, he is not the 
 kind of poet I think he is, from his song." 
 
 She brought a spray of the mystic plant, its white 
 berries twinkling like small stars among the olive- 
 hued leaves, and hung it on the railing around the 
 stair opening. She laughed softly. 
 
 "It will be almost above his head as he comes up. 
 But, if there is no girl, what difference will it make 
 to him where it hangs ? Now for the more important 
 part of what I have to do." 
 
 She hummed the song she had sung the evening 
 before, with Albert Sewall playing the accompani- 
 ment. But her voice was very low now; it would 
 hardly have been audible to anybody in an adjoining 
 room had there been such a one. 
 
 ' 'He rules no realm ! He's more than king ! A 
 woman's joy his harvesting!' " she sang, as she bus- 
 ied herself taking things from her capacious market 
 basket. 
 
 And what unexpected things they were, to be sure I 
 
 First came a small white tablecloth. Looking at 
 the table with a speculative eye, she saw that it would 
 be dangerous to move any of the loose sheets of 
 manuscripts that littered it all over. 
 
 "I couldn't put my cloth there," she reflected. "I
 
 156 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 should have to take away his papers, and if I did, no 
 doubt he'd pursue me to the ends of earth to punish 
 me for the sacrilege. No; something else must be 
 done. There's a trunk. It's nearly as high as the 
 table, and has almost as large a top. When the cloth 
 is on, it won't look at all badly. That's what I'll do." 
 
 Indeed, when the glistening white damask was 
 spread on the travel-battered old trunk, it looked as 
 inviting as if it had been a polished mahogany table, 
 instead of the dented, bruised, rusty iron-bound old 
 voyager it really was. A minute before it had been a 
 veritable tramp of a trunk. Set off by the white 
 cloth, it became as respectable as a clergyman in a 
 new surplice. 
 
 Having spread the cloth, Marjorie brought from 
 her basket jars of jam and marmalade, a smoked 
 sausage tied with a red ribbon, a cold chicken fes- 
 tively decorated, a Christmas cake brave in its icing 
 and red-sugar holly berries, a loaf of graham bread, 
 a crock of baked beans, a tea-caddy, spirit lamp, small 
 copper kettle, plate of dainty sandwiches, and a batal- 
 lion of golden-brown cookies. 
 
 "There! That isn't so bad for a Christmas Eve 
 picnic," she purred, delightedly. "I hope he will like 
 at leas^ some of the things I have brought. Now 
 for thi tea 1"
 
 A CHRISTMAS FAIRY 157 
 
 Kettle in hand, she bustled over to the washstand 
 and poured in some water from the pitcher. Then, 
 taking a match from the table, she lighted the alcohol 
 lamp and set the kettle over it. 
 
 "Let me see! Where did I put those ah, here 
 they are !" 
 
 She had been fumbling in the basket, her pretty 
 brows raised in anxiety, until she placed her fingers 
 on what she sought. It was a box of Turkish cigar- 
 ettes. These she set upon the table by the side of 
 the brier pipe. 
 
 The next article extracted from that wonderful 
 basket was a pink-and-white silk comfortable, all lace 
 and be-ribboned. She spread this upon the hammock, 
 and very gay it looked when arranged to her satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 "Now, Mr. Cinderella-man, I don't know what 
 you will say, but I think the effect of that counter- 
 pane is excellent. It not only looks well, but it sug- 
 gests warmth and dreamless slumber. People talk 
 about dreamless sleep as if it were a most desirable 
 thing," she went on musingly. "Yet, might it not be 
 better to have dreams, if they are pleasant ones? 
 Now, a poet, I should think, would be likely to 
 dream " 
 
 She broke off abruptly, and running to the railing
 
 158 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 at the stairs, leaned over and listened. Her heart was 
 beating wildly, and her breath came and went so fast 
 that she felt as if she would suffocate. 
 
 "Good gracious ! He's coming !" 
 
 Gathering her cloak about her, she ran to the win- 
 dow and tried to pull it open. But the frost had 
 wedged it tight. She could not make it move. Panic- 
 stricken, she looked about for a corner in which to 
 hide. 
 
 "Oh, isn't this too dreadful!" 
 
 She darted behind the curtain where Tony kept 
 what remained of his clothes, and pulled the curtain 
 straight in front of her. It was better than being out 
 in the room. But it was not perfect as a hiding-place, 
 either, for the curtain did not quite reach the 
 floor and the tips of her grey shoes showed under- 
 neath. 
 
 Hardly was Marjorie hidden when the door below 
 was flung open with a crash, followed by the rapid 
 footsteps of somebody coming up the stairs. She 
 heard the somebody whistling, as if he were in good 
 spirits. Then he stopped whistling to utter a most 
 emphatic "Good Lord!" 
 
 The newcomer was Tony Quintard, and she knew 
 he had just caught sight of the appetizing spread on 
 the trunk.
 
 A CHRISTMAS FAIRY 159 
 
 In his arms he carried, besides a flat, oblong parcel, 
 a large paper bag with a loaf of bread sticking out of 
 it, a can of soup, and some other comestibles of a del- 
 icatessen aspect. At sight of the trunk he dropped 
 his burden unceremoniously on the floor. He was 
 thunderstruck literally ! He stood there with mouth 
 agape for fully a moment before he asked himself 
 with comic bewilderment : "Is this a " mirage or 
 what? Am I out of my senses?" To test the reality 
 of the feast spread before his amazed eyes, whose 
 evidence he doubted, he sniffed at the chicken. "My 
 eyes might deceive me," he concluded, "but my nose 
 never! No one would dream the savor of that 
 chicken! It is real, even if everything else on the 
 trunk were imagination." 
 
 He twisted a leg off the chicken and took a bite. 
 A rapturous expression crept over his face. He at- 
 tacked the chicken leg vigorously. Between bites he 
 ejaculated : 
 
 "It isn't everybody that can roast a chicken. The 
 genius who cooked this fowl knew how to control his 
 fire so that it would give precisely the amount of heat 
 required at every stage of the operation not a de- 
 gree too much. Such a cook deserves the cordon 
 bleu, and I hope he has it. Men have received half a 
 dozen royal decorations for achievements less emi-
 
 160 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 ncnt than this. My honorable but unknown chef, I 
 salute you!" 
 
 He waved the drumstick and bowed low to an im- 
 aginary personage. It was while he leaned forward, 
 his left hand over his heart, that his eyes fell upon 
 the kettle, gaily singing above the alcohol lamp. 
 
 Now he was wonder-struck. Singing kettles were 
 no more to be encountered in Tony's attic than ze- 
 bras. He questioned its integrity to such an extent 
 that he did not hesitate to poke a finger into the alco- 
 hol flame. That convinced him. "Suffering kittens P 
 he exclaimed ruefully as he nursed the finger. "Yes, 
 that is a flame, without a doubt; that is a kettle, and 
 here's a complete and miraculous replenishment of the 
 larder along lines beyond the dreams of avarice. If 
 I were Alladin himself I could not do better!" He 
 pondered for a moment over the mystery, then sud- 
 denly turned to the stairs and called down lustily: 
 
 "Primrose ! Primrose ! Primrose !" 
 
 Impatiently he stamped about, and receiving no re- 
 sponse he sprang down the stairs, calling loudly for 
 the old man, who was then no doubt far below in 
 the subterranean fastnesses of that dreary house 
 scouring cuspidors. 
 
 As Tony disappeared through the trap Marjorie
 
 A CHRISTMAS FAIRY 161 
 
 ventured to push the curtain aside to take observa- 
 tions. The situation was an alarming one. 
 
 From the stairway below she could hear the poefs 
 voice calling, "Primrose!" He was Gable to return 
 at any moment. The dormer window through which 
 she had entered and by which she might conceivably 
 make her escape was some yards away, and she re- 
 membered that it had seemed to be frozen fast. 
 
 "It's the only way r she murmured. "I ** get 
 out." 
 
 Gathering courage, she darted toward the window. 
 While she was half way across the attic she heard 
 Tony coming up the stairs, and catapulted herself 
 back to the shelter of the curtain like a mouse dad- 
 ing pursuit. Only the tips of her grey pump*, peep- 
 ing from below the calico folds, might have betrayed 
 her trembling presence. 
 
 Tony returned as boyishly excited and as impatient 
 as he had rushed away, without waiting for the slow- 
 moving Primrose to follow. How his eyes fefl upon 
 the Yuletide decorations. He touched the holly and 
 ivy with reverent fingers and stood for a moment gat- 
 ing thoughtfully at the spray of mistletoe- Present- 
 ly, as he moved about, he tripped over the market 
 basket. 
 
 "Jove!"
 
 1 62 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Opening the basket, he took from it a rose-colored 
 angora muffler. With mystification glittering in his 
 eyes and wrinkling his forehead, he wound the muf- 
 fler around his neck. 
 
 "I may have to surrender those other things 
 when I wake up," he muttered. "But, by all that's 
 bountiful, I'll keep this muffler ! It's too comfortable 
 a thing to let go this weather, sleeping or waking." 
 
 He picked up the now nearly denuded drumstick 
 from the table where he had dropped it and cleaned 
 it to the shank. Throwing it into the waste-basket 
 under his table, he returned to the trunk and took 
 another survey. 
 
 "Marvelous!" he breathed. "A tea service! Egg- 
 shell porcelain ! And a tea-caddy of sandalwood, cut- 
 glass sugar bowl ! What a noble sausage imperial 
 bologna! And sandwiches!" He took a bite, and 
 smiled: "They're as real as the chicken!" 
 
 A knock at the door impelled him to run to the 
 trap and go down a step. 
 
 "That you, Primrose?" 
 
 "Yes, sir!" replied the husky tones of the faithful 
 servitor. 
 
 "Then come up ! Come up !" 
 
 Tony reached down, seized Primrose by the collar 
 of his loose coat an act that caused the occupant al-
 
 A CHRISTMAS FAIRY 163 
 
 most to fall out of it at the other end and dragged 
 him into the room. 
 
 "Anything the matter, sir?" gasped Primrose, 
 fighting for breath. "Anything happened to upset 
 you, sir?" 
 
 "Upset me? Well, what do you think?" went on 
 Tony, slowly and impressively. "Kris Kingle has 
 been here!"
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE VIOLET ROSETTE. 
 
 THE mental processes of Jerry Primrose were 
 not rapid of movement, and as Tony pointed 
 to the trunk with its appetizing display he 
 could only wink his faded eyes and allow his mouth 
 to fall open in wonderment. 
 
 "Explain, good Primrose," shouted Tony, "this 
 multiplicity of delectable nutriment, this largesse of 
 eats, this sumptuous banquet! And, look around 
 you ! These holiday decorations ! Don't tell me they 
 were all brought by Elijah's ravens !" 
 
 It was then that a solution of the puzzle worked 
 itself out in Primrose's brain. Looking at Tony 
 rather reproachfully, he said: 
 
 "You've gone and blowed in the whole three dol- 
 lars and seventeen cents !" 
 
 "What? That? Them? Those?" cried the 
 youth scornfully. "For three-seventeen ? This isn't 
 bargain day at the Ritz. No I No ! There lie my 
 frugal foragings." 
 
 164
 
 THE VIOLET ROSETTE 165 
 
 He indicated the bag with the loaf of bread, and 
 the rest of the humble provender he brought in, which 
 lay neglected on the floor by the side of the trunk. 
 
 "I'm blowed!" ejaculated the old man. 
 
 "You're a clever dissembler," charged Tony, stern- 
 ly. "Now, tell me at once. You know whence came 
 these gifts. Don't deny it. The truth 1" 
 
 " 'Pon me word, sir " 
 
 "They came from the gentleman in the fur coat. 
 He smuggled them in with your connivance. He 
 tipped you to hold your long tongue." Then swing- 
 ing around ferociously to face the protesting Prim- 
 rose, Tony demanded: "Where's that tip?" 
 
 Tremblingly Primrose turned his pockets inside 
 out. 
 
 "Honest, sir 1 I ain't let anybody in since you went 
 out!" 
 
 "Then where did this banquet come from?" 
 
 Primrose was inspecting the tea service, lovingly 
 feeling the semi-transparent cups and passing his fin- 
 gers over the sharp edges of the cut-glass sugar bowl. 
 These were things that appealed to him, for they re- 
 minded him of past days when, as a well-fed, neatly- 
 dressed butler, he had had occasion to handle them 
 professionally. 
 
 " Tore Gawd, sir, I'm tellin' the truth 1 I don't
 
 1 66 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 know." His protest was too tearfully honest to be 
 questioned. Now he turned his attention again to the 
 service. "This here is the most genteel china I've 
 seen since I used to be butler for the Suydams, sir. It 
 would be a real pleasure, I'm sure, to serve tea in 
 these things. And the tea in this here caddy," he con- 
 tinued as he opened it and inhaled rapturously, "it's 
 tea as is tea, sir." 
 
 "But that doesn't explain where it all came from," 
 mused Tony, rocking on toes and heels, while he re- 
 garded the old man doubtfully. "Listen, my good 
 Primrose. Do you think there is any one in this 
 house who er entertains a secret passion forme?" 
 
 "Not a chance, sir," returned the old man in a 
 solemn tone of conviction. 
 
 Tony laughed and made another discovery. Here 
 are cigarettes cigarettes by the hundred!" He 
 stuffed two of them in Primrose's gaping mouth and 
 lighted another for himself. 
 
 "It would make you believe in Kris Kingle, sir 
 now wouldn't it?" 
 
 "Or fairies!" Tony shouted joyously. "That's it! 
 Fairies have been here !" 
 
 "I didn't let no fairies in this afternoon, sir." 
 
 Tony meanwhile had picked up a dust-covered lad- 
 der from a corner of the garret and was lugging it
 
 THE VIOLET ROSETTE 167 
 
 across the room, with his eye upon a trap door in the 
 roof above his head. 
 
 "What are you doin' with the ladder?" asked the 
 puzzled Primrose. 
 
 "Fairies always come in by the roof," replied 
 Tony. "Hold the ladder while I go up to the trap 
 door. That's right ! Don't let it slip !" 
 
 With the ladder planted firmly against the edge of 
 the trap, and the old man steadying it with hand and 
 foot, Tony went up and began to push at the trap 
 door. 
 
 "So you're expectin' to find fairies up there?" 
 
 "There's no telling. They may have heard that 
 we were broke. You see, they didn't know about that 
 check for three-seventeen. Ah ! There goes the trap 
 door. It's yielding. I'm going to make a thorough 
 search." 
 
 He pushed the trap open and ascended another step 
 on the ladder, so that he could look around on the 
 roof. 
 
 "As I thought !" he exclaimed. "There are tracks 
 up here fairy tracks!" 
 
 "Pigeon tracks !" was Primrose's sardonic explana- 
 tion. 
 
 Tony closed the trap and came down the ladder 
 before he remarked solemnly:
 
 1 68 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "The indications are that the commissary depart- 
 ment made its advance upon us through the roof!" 
 
 "Excuse me, sir, but they couldn't," corrected the 
 matter-of-fact Primrose. "The trap was bolted on 
 the inside." 
 
 "That settles it," was the reply, as Tony carried 
 the ladder back to its place in the corner. "Don't you 
 know, you dear old ignoramus, that only fairies could 
 have got that basket through a bolted trap door?" 
 
 "I don't believe in fairies!" declared Primrose 
 stoutly. 
 
 "Very likely. Well do you believe in er drum- 
 sticks ? If you do, try this." 
 
 Primrose gratefully accepted the drumstick and 
 there was real enthusiasm in his tones as he uttered 
 his thanks. 
 
 While Primrose gave attention to the chicken leg, 
 and also proceeded to consume a sandwich that was 
 pressed upon him, Tony, cake in hand, turned to his 
 hammock that he might sit and munch at his ease. 
 Instead, he started back from it in comic surprise. 
 
 "There has been a fairy here," he exploded; "and 
 she's been sleeping in my bed. See ! See ! She's left 
 her quilt behind her!" 
 
 While Tony held up the quilt for the old man's in- 
 spection and sniffed its dainty perfume, Primrose
 
 THE VIOLET ROSETTK 169 
 
 made a discovery on his own account. It was a small 
 rosette of violet ribbon which he picked up from the 
 floor. 
 
 "Here's somethin' else she forgot to take with 
 her!" 
 
 Tony dropped the quilt, snatched the ribbon from 
 his valet and sniffed it. Without a doubt it came 
 from the same sourse as the quilt. That delicate per- 
 fume delicate as it was could not be mistaken. 
 
 "The plot thickens!" he declared. "This, my dear 
 Primrose," he went on solemnly and with conviction, 
 "is what I'd call a clue!" 
 
 Primrose knew better. "That ain't a clue," he pro- 
 tested. "No, sir! It's, what-you-may-call-it off lin- 
 gerie!" He pronounced it to rhyme with "fingery" 
 if there were such a word. 
 
 "You think so?" grinned Tony. 
 
 "Sure ! I've seen 'em in shop windows on the ave- 
 nue." This expansively, like the man of the world 
 that he was. 
 
 Tony considered the rosette thoughtfully. At last 
 he said: "Cinderella, when she visited her prince, left 
 behind a glass slipper. . . . My fairy godmother, 
 when she visited me to-day, left behind a violet 
 rosette. That's rather nice. Quite an idea ! I think 
 I can use it."
 
 170 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "Use it?" protested Primrose. "Gentlemen don't 
 wear things like that." 
 
 "Possibly not. But authors ! Well, they use just 
 such trifles to decorate their plots. I needed some- 
 thing like this for that song in the second act. Here 1 
 Clear out now ! I'm going to work ! I'll lay the 
 rosette here on my table, for inspiration." 
 
 "But we ain't found out yet who sent " 
 
 "I'll leave that to you. I'm struck with an idea 
 they don't come often I can't afford to lose it I 
 must get to work. You go ahead and learn the name 
 of my fairy godmother. When you have it, come and 
 tell me. Oh, by the way," Tony interrupted himself, 
 as he picked up from the floor the oblong parcel he 
 had brought in with him. "Here's a Christmas pres- 
 ent for you a pair of suspenders. Useful and dec- 
 orative at the same time." 
 
 "Oh, sir," gulped Primrose as he opened the par- 
 cel and took the decidedly gaudy articles in his trem- 
 bling fingers. "You shouldn't have blowed yourself 
 on me like this." 
 
 "But see the fairies provide. Take this sausage 
 it's all dressed up! You're wild about sausage. 
 But don't eat the sash I" 
 
 Primrose took the smoked sausage and was admir- 
 ing the pink ribbon on it, when there was a sudden
 
 THE VIOLET ROSETTE 171 
 
 and unpleasant interruption. The Great She-Bear 
 put her head through the trap of the stairs and deliv- 
 ered herself of a baritone cough. Then, as the old 
 servant turned i n her direction, she at once 
 opened the vials of her wrath upon his unlucky 
 head. 
 
 "So, you're up here again, spending the day are 
 you?" 
 
 "Not spending the day," interposed Tony 
 Quintard, politely. "Just bringing up a letter to 
 me." 
 
 "Oh, I know," she snapped. "I heard you calling 
 him half an hour ago. Do you think I'm payin' him 
 wages just to fiddle about up here all afternoon, 
 bringin' you a letter?" 
 
 "Well, you need not make such an infernal row 
 about it." 
 
 "I'll make all the row I please," she retorted. 
 "And without askin' leave of you." 
 
 "Then you'll make it somewhere else," he told her, 
 with extreme courtesy. 
 
 Placing her arms akimbo, her generous-sized hands 
 resting upon her hips, the Great She-Bear advanced a 
 step toward Tony and snorted: 
 
 "Don't you give me any of your impudence, young 
 man?"
 
 172 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "I might give you all the impudence I could scrape 
 together, and the balance would still be in your 
 favor," was his suave rejoinder. 
 
 "If you can't talk plain, keep your tongue to your- 
 self." 
 
 "In plain words, madam, I object exceedingly to 
 your rude habit of bursting into my apartment with- 
 out knocking." 
 
 "It's my house !" she stormed. "I'll do as I like 
 in it." 
 
 "This is my room. You have no right to enter 
 without my permission, so long as I pay the rent." 
 
 She turned on him in malicious triumph. "You 
 haven't paid your rent. But you can go and squan- 
 dei the money you ought to be givin' me, on swell 
 food, and and Christmas decorations " 
 
 "Here ! I'll pay the rent, if that's what you want," 
 broke in Tony, taking two one-dollar bills from his 
 waistcoat pocket. "Here it is two dollars. Don't 
 forget to give me the receipt." 
 
 "That's all very well," she growled, as she pushed 
 the money inside the front of her dress. "But I 
 want you to understand, Mr. Quintard, that I won't 
 have you keepin' Jerry Primrose potterin' around up 
 here, chinnin' to him an' fillin' his old gullet. And 
 as for you," she abruptly turned on the old man "you
 
 THE VIOLET ROSETTE 173 
 
 go down stairs double-quick and get to work. When 
 you've done the cuspidors, you can scrub the vesti- 
 bule. D'ye hear?" 
 
 Although Primrose uttered a very humble "Yes, 
 mum !" as he disappeared, he contrived to make Tony 
 aware of a slow and watery wink which conveyed a 
 world of meaning. Tony knew that while Primrose 
 might yield to the enemy temporarily, he had a strat- 
 egic plan in his mind which would bring him back to 
 the service of the young man before the day was over. 
 
 "Primrose is my servant, Mr. Quintard, not 
 yours," finished the Great She-Bear as she followed 
 Primrose down the stairs. 
 
 "Thank you for putting it so delicately," laughed 
 Tony. "And just to show you that there's no ill feel- 
 ing, permit me to offer you a piece of my chicken. 
 The choisest part is none too good for you. Now, 
 here is a particularly tender morsel." 
 
 He leaned over the railing, proffering the neck on 
 the end of a fork. She seemed inclined to snatch it 
 from the fork and throw it in his face. But she con- 
 trolled the implse, and, with a malevolent frown, 
 growled: "Eat it yourself!" and vanished, banging 
 the door furiously behind her. 
 
 Tony lighted a cigarette and walked slowly to his 
 writing table. The Great She-Bear had ceased to
 
 i 7 4 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 exist to him. He lifted the bow of ribbon very gin- 
 gerly in two fingers and knit his brows in thought. 
 But somehow the inspiration sought did not come, 
 notwithstanding the fact that he held the rosette in 
 one hand while he urged his pen wih the other. 
 
 At last he threw down the pen, and, with an im- 
 patient groan, got up from his chair. "What's the 
 matter?" he grumbled. Then, brightening suddenly: 
 "I know my thinking-cap!" It was the battered 
 and shabby turban wihch lived on the shelf, whose 
 curtains had sheltered Marjorie. All this time she 
 had been standing there, straight up behind the 
 ragged folds in great trepidation, but quite uncon- 
 scious that the tips of her slippers were on view below 
 the edge of the curtains. 
 
 As Tony put on the turban, his eyes chanced to 
 fall upon the small gray shoes and he started invol- 
 untarily. Then recovering himself a little, he stared 
 hard at the little shoe-tips and tried to construct some 
 reasonable theory that would explain their being in 
 his attic. 
 
 "No wonder I couldn't work," he said, softly, at 
 last. "Even the presence of a fairy is distracting. 
 You can always tell a fairy by her feet."
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE FAIRY SERVES TEA. 
 
 SO many unheard-of things had taken place in 
 Tony Quintard's attic on that chilly Christmas 
 Eve, that he was in a mood to accept any un- 
 usual visitation quite as a matter of course. Even a 
 pair of grey-shod little feet was not to be wondered 
 at unduly. 
 
 Still, he would like to know who or what those 
 dainty feet supported. So, standing at his table, and 
 addressing the unknown in the peremptory tone in 
 which a magician in an extravaganza commands his 
 familiar demon to "Appear!" Tony declaimed: 
 
 "I know not whence you came, nor by what magic 
 means you gained entrance here. But, as genie of 
 this castle, I bid you come forth!" Nothing came of 
 this adjuration, and after a pause, he added, in re- 
 assuring, everyday accents: "I promise not to eat 
 you." 
 
 It was then that the curtains parted, and Marjorie 
 
 175
 
 176 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 blushing distractedly, and in a flutter of beautiful 
 confusion, stood in the opening looking at him. 
 
 There was a half-smile on her lips, while her wide- 
 open eyes pleaded for mercy. 
 
 "Oh, my artistic soul ! Fairies and ministers of 
 grace, introduce me!" exclaimed Tony, as he removed 
 his turban, and, his face lighted up with admiration 
 and surprised delight, made her a low bow. 
 
 Marjorie in some confusion started to speak out. 
 Checking her with a gesture, Tony went on suddenly r 
 
 "No, no! If you have a voice, don't speak not 
 yet! Leave me to explain you." He paused to collect 
 himself. Then : "You came from the Isle of Bliss 
 on a sunbeam. One of those bright, playful, early- 
 morning sunbeams that we hear so much of, but 
 never rise in time to meet. They have the run of my 
 attic for one of the smallest hours while I still 
 sleep. That's it ! A sunbeam out of the perfumed 
 southland carried you in very early this morning. 
 You had just finished your marketing, and, as any 
 lady fairy naturally would, you called your sunbeam, 
 as mortals call their cabs, to take you home again. 
 But your sunbeam had been waiting for you in the 
 vineyard just across from the delicatessen shop. 
 Probably he had lingered too long over the grapes, 
 and, feeling in a sportive mood, he picked you up
 
 THE FAIRY SERVES TEA 177 
 
 and inadvertently shot through my window-pane." 
 
 Marjorie, delighted with the fancy, so earnestly 
 expressed, broke into a rippling laugh. 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed Tony. "She laughs!" 
 
 "I would laugh more," she assured him, "if my 
 teeth were not chattering. Won't you invite me to 
 tea? The kettle's boiling." 
 
 "A thousand pardons," apologized Tony, effu- 
 sively. "Here is a chair, the chair. Permit me ! You 
 provide the feast, I the hospitality." 
 
 She turned to the chair and seated herself with 
 demure gravity. Tony pushed the trunk in front of 
 her, to serve as a table, as he continued: 
 
 "Accept a mortal's thanks for this delightful 
 Christmas fare. Pray join me. Ah! A fairy at 
 tea !" he added, as she proceeded to put tea into the 
 teapot, with a thoughtful eye on the steaming kettle. 
 "I also beg to thank you for trimming my humble 
 habitation after the fashion of the season, and for 
 the scarf! You see" he indicated the muffler 
 around his neck "I wear your colors. And for 
 the quilt in which I take the liberty of wrapping 
 you." 
 
 He brought the pink-and-white quilt from the ham- 
 mock and draped it about her shoulders. "I shall be 
 glad to have you chatter, but not with the cold."
 
 178 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "You make me feel very much at home," she de- 
 clared. "How do you like your tea?" 
 
 He had gone over to the curtain which had 
 hidden her for so long, and was bringing forth 
 a soap-box for a seat. He answered over his 
 shoulder: 
 
 "I think I like it strong." 
 
 "But you must not have it strong," she objected. 
 "It isn't good for you. Men never know what is 
 good for them." 
 
 "I'm sure this visitation of yours is very good for 
 me," smiled Tony, taking his place upon the soap- 
 box across the trunk from her. 
 
 "Dear me !" she exclaimed in a panic. "I forgot 
 the cream." 
 
 "Must you have cream in your tea?" asked Tony, 
 wonderingly. Well, it might possibly be achieved. 
 At least he would make a bold pretense of gratifying 
 her whim. He turned to the top of the stairs and 
 in the tone of lord of the manor, called: 
 
 "Primrose!" 
 
 "Oh, please ! I never take cream in my tea." 
 
 "Neither do I," responded Tony, exceedingly re- 
 lieved. "Never mind, Primrose!" he called down 
 the trap, after the fashion he had so happily assumed, 
 then in his own boyish way he turned to the-girl again.
 
 THE FAIRY SERVES TEA 179 
 
 "Neither do I take cream in anything. It's too 
 fattening.** 
 
 As he reseated himself and Marjorie passed him a 
 cup of tea, she remarked, easily and quite as if they 
 had known each other for years : "I like cream nice 
 *<id thick on big strawberries, or whipped on top of 
 chocolate," 
 
 "If you*U promise to come again, I'll promise to 
 have strawberries and chocolate and cream. Mean- 
 while, may I offer you some of my cake. I can recom- 
 mend it. And by the way would you have far to 
 ROB*?" 
 
 He handed her a slice of cake, which she took with 
 a smile of thanks. 
 
 "Why should I answer?'* she laughed. "You ex- 
 plained my coming so beautifully." 
 
 "H'm ! Yes I" he answered, dubiously. "But er 
 don't you think I was a trifle sketchy as to de- 
 tails?" 
 
 "You insist upon having the details?'* she teased. 
 
 "I entreat.'* 
 
 "Suppose I tell you a story?" 
 
 "I can think of nothing I should like better," he 
 said, helping himself to a sandwich. 
 
 "Well, then," she began. "Once upon a time a
 
 180 THE CINERELLA MAN 
 
 rich little girl came from a far country to live alone 
 in a big house with her father." 
 
 Tony half arose from the soap-box with a start as 
 he asked her, in ominous alarm : 
 
 "You're not the rich girl from next door, are 
 you?" 
 
 "You must not interrupt like that," reproved Mar- 
 jorie. "This rich girl was very lonely, so she en- 
 gaged a companion." 
 
 "Oh, you're her companion ?" assumed Tony, with 
 a sigh of relief. 
 
 "I told you not to interrupt," she reminded him, 
 raising a finger in playful rebuke. "Now, this com- 
 panion was a sort of poor relation. She was also 
 much alone, and weary of the world. One day, she 
 heard of a young man who lived at the top of the 
 house next door " 
 
 "Sir Romney-of-the-Long-Tongue told the Veiled 
 Princess about the poor young man?" 
 
 "The Veiled Princess?" she repeated, bewildered. 
 
 "Yes. That's what I call the billionairess who 
 lives in the adjoining palace. I suppose Romney told 
 her, and she told you." 
 
 "It may have happened that way," conceded Mar- 
 jorie. "But the heroine of my story " 
 
 "The Princess's companion?"
 
 THE FAIRY SERVES TEA 1 8 1 
 
 "Of course ! Well, she never would have known a 
 thing about her neighbor if it had not been for this : 
 
 ' 'He rules no realm ! He's more than king I 
 A woman's joy his harvesting! 
 He spins no song, he rears no dome ! 
 Out of his heart he builds a home.' ' 
 
 Tony Quintard's face lighted up with flattered de- 
 light as the clear, low tones of the girl gave forth 
 these lines, to the music set to them by Albert Sewall. 
 His voice shook as he exclaimed: 
 
 "My lines! You sing them as though you like 
 them ! . . . Romney told me that the Princess " 
 
 "Will you please not interrupt?" reproved Mar- 
 jorie. 
 
 "Forgive me. I was just curious, you know. Rom- 
 ney said the Princess liked the song. I I wondered 
 if you did." 
 
 "It was the song that gave the Princess's compan- 
 ion the courage to to venture across the roof from 
 her window to yours." 
 
 "Across the roof?" he cried, rising from his soap- 
 box to look out of the window. "By Jove ! I never 
 thought of that. You have plenty of nerve." 
 
 "It is perfectly safe," she laughed. "Only a very 
 cold crossing."
 
 182 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "You're wonderful !" he assured her, admiringly. 
 
 "Oh, I'm quite strong. See!" She held out her 
 arm, with her small white fist clenched, laughing. 
 
 "Ah! A marvelous muscle!" He touched her arm 
 shyly with the tip of his finger. "May I have another 
 cup of tea, without interrupting your thrilling narra- 
 tive?" 
 
 "Your song was your letter of credit," she told 
 him, refilling his cup. 
 
 "It was ! I got three dollars for it," he laughed. 
 "They give you twenty-five cents a line. I remember 
 wishing I'd written two or three more lines while I 
 was about it." 
 
 "It was worth twenty-five dollars a line," was her 
 indignant comment. 
 
 "Thank you," he returned, rising to bow, and 
 gravely reseating himself. "I wish you were an edi- 
 tor. But I have interrupted you again." 
 
 "I knew that anybody who could talk to your heart 
 like that must be awfully nice " 
 
 "I am believe me," Tony agreed, laughing. 
 
 "So well, I thought it would be only neighborly, 
 you know, if I should er call on you. Don't you 
 think so ?" 
 
 "Nothing could possibly be more neighborly. It 
 is an old and delightful custom, which I am glad that
 
 THE FAIRY SERVES TEA 183 
 
 you, in the kindness of your heart, have revived. But," 
 waving to the feast before them, "you have gone the 
 custom one better, thank you." 
 
 "Oh! These?" she smiled, glancing at the trunk. 
 "Well, I I could not help that. It was only in the 
 way of of looking after you. My mothering in- 
 stinct, I suppose." 
 
 "Which you got from your mother, doubtless." 
 
 "Yes," she returned, and her tones were a little 
 uneven, while a film dimmed her eyes. "My mother 
 was was such a a sweet mother ! She was always 
 looking after people who hadn't mothers. Or who 
 were ill, or sad, or lonely!" 
 
 "I understand," he murmured, so low that she 
 could barely catch the words. 
 
 "I knew you would," was her soft response. 
 
 "I've been calling you my fairy godmother, you 
 know. I always felt that I must have one some- 
 where." He extended his hand across the trunk, as 
 he continued, smiling: "Welcome! I am delighted to 
 meet you ! But, to be absolutely authentic, you should 
 have a cap. Under the circumstances, however, I 
 think the hood you wear will do very well. Probably 
 it is more becoming than a cap." 
 
 "The hood should, of course, make me invisible," 
 she reminded him.
 
 1 84 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "I am glad it is not that kind of a hood." 
 
 "You understand," she went on, "I didn't intend to 
 be seen. I thought it would be so jolly such a lark 
 to have a hand in your Christmas, and disappear 
 without being discovered." 
 
 u But it's ever so much better that I discovered 
 you," he declared. "And, technically speaking, it 
 should not have been otherwise. Fairy godmothers 
 always appear to their beneficiaries, and give good ad- 
 vice with their gifts." 
 
 "But I don't know you well enough to give you 
 any real gifts, as fairy godmothers do." 
 
 "Not real? These things you have brought me arc 
 most substantial. And let me teli you I think it was 
 very jolly very sweet of you to take so much 
 trouble." 
 
 "It has made me very happy that you No one 
 
 could have accepted these foolish little things more 
 graciously." 
 
 "I accepted them in the spirit in which they we "e 
 given." 
 
 She gazed at him with a thoughtful expression for 
 a moment. Then she burst out, impulsively : 
 
 "You are the Cinderella-man !" 
 
 "The Cinderella-man?" he questioned, with humor- 
 ous surprise.
 
 THE FAIRY SERVES TEA 185 
 
 "That's what I've been calling you to myself," she 
 confessed, with a little blush. "I hope you don't 
 mind." 
 
 "I shouldn't mind if you called me 'Towser' I" he 
 declared, heard]'
 
 HIS NEW SECRETARY. 
 
 THERE was a rather long pause, which ended 
 when their eyes met and both broke into 
 laughter. 
 
 "What will you take for your thoughts?" quizzed 
 Tony. 
 
 "Yours?" she flashed back. 
 "Ladies first!" 
 
 "Well, I was thinking that we are going to be good 
 friends." 
 
 "Thank you," he responded, heartily: "There's no 
 doubt about it!" 
 
 "Now you know my thoughts, it is your turn," she 
 reminded him. "Pay up !" 
 
 "I was thinking," he rejoined, echoing her tone, 
 "that I'm glad you are not the Veiled Princess." 
 
 She looked at him with surprised concern. "You 
 dislike princesses so much?" 
 "I do, outside of books." He was emphatic. "Rich 
 186
 
 HIS NEW SECRETARY 187 
 
 girls in the flesh are conceited, empty-headed bores!" 
 he added warmly. "And their families are worse. If 
 a man pays a princess the slightest bit of attention, 
 her family immediately suspects he is after her 
 money." 
 
 "Ah! You have had an unfortunate experience?" 
 Marjorie's blue eyes were downcast. 
 
 "I? Never! I never paid any attention to prin- 
 cesses and I never, never will!" 
 
 Marjorie glanced at him from beneath her sweep- 
 ing lashes. She liked the positive opinions of this 
 plain-spoken young man. And yet she wished he 
 were not so sure that he would not like at least one 
 rich girl. 
 
 "I'm the last one in the world to take the part of 
 princesses," she declared. "But I do think you are 
 rather hard on them." 
 
 "But, consider! Does a poor man a poor work- 
 ing man, in particular want to ruin his life by marry- 
 ing a millionairess ?" 
 
 "How can she ruin his life?" 
 
 "In a dozen ways," he rejoined. "First of all, he 
 couldn't expect her to live as he has been used to 
 living. That would mean that he must accept assis- 
 tance pecuniary assistance from either the prin- 
 cess herself or her family. That would be the death
 
 188 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 of his self-respect. Second, it would kill his ambition. 
 There would no longer be the actual, biting necessity 
 to work, and necessity is a great spur to ambition. 
 Third, without ambition, without work, he would 
 become a most unhappy wretch. Fourth, all the joy 
 of not knowing what is coming next the filip of 
 speculation would be removed from his life. Fifth, 
 and, for the time being, the last he never would 
 have what I imagine to be the most profound of 
 satisfactions the privilege of taking care of a 
 woman all by himself working for her, struggling 
 for her, suffering for her." 
 
 Tony had unconsciously become more and more 
 earnest as he thus expounded his convictions. At the 
 end, as he realized that he had been somewhat ora- 
 torical, he smiled a little in half apology. Neverthe- 
 less, he was pleased to see that she looked at him in 
 sober approval. 
 
 "I I agree with you," she said, seriously. 
 
 "I was sure you would." 
 
 "But suppose," she ventured, "just suppose, you 
 know, that you should happen to run across a prin- 
 cess who cared nothing about money only the things 
 you speak of, and and that you should like her very 
 much " 
 
 "My dear fairy godmother," he interrupted, laugh-
 
 HIS NEW SECRETARY 189 
 
 ing lugubriously, "such a princess doesn't exist 
 outside of a book. 9 " 
 
 "I said 'just suppose!* You'd pay some attention 
 to her? You would not turn up your nose at her, 
 would you?" 
 
 "No !" he laughed. *Td be fearfully polkc to her." 
 
 "Yon might even grow to to like her?" 
 
 "Certainly. I might even grow to be quite fond 
 of her." 
 
 "Well, then, 9 * she announced, 1 "jpmpiianflyj "the 
 Veiled Princess next door is like that." 
 
 "Impossible! I can't believe it. It's just your 
 loyalty to her." 
 
 "No, indeed. I can prove it to you. Let me bring 
 her to call some day." 
 
 He started from his seat in alarm, hands raised 
 in protest. 
 
 "Please please don't ! I really should be terribly 
 put out. I'll take your word for it. I'fl believe what- 
 ever you wish me to believe " 
 
 "I think yon might be a trifle more hospitable.' 9 
 
 She said this with a pout that was as charming as 
 everything else she did. 
 
 "It isn't that I'm inhospitable," he explained. Tin 
 cowardly. I'm more afraid of a princess than I should 
 be of a polar bear. 99
 
 1 90 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "Anyway," she said, holding out her hand, "you're 
 not afraid of me." 
 
 He took her hand, but with regretful raising of 
 his brows. 
 
 "You are not going so soon?" 
 
 "I must. I have my my duties." 
 
 "I'd forgotten ! Then, it wouldn't be kind in me 
 to keep you. By the way, I think this belongs to you." 
 He picked up the rosette from the table. "I'd like 
 to keep it. It's been a source of inspiration to me." 
 
 She laughingly acknowledged her loss. 
 
 He pointed to the manuscript on the table. Then 
 he picked up a sheet of it and read : 
 
 "Love, whose feet are shod with light, 
 Lost this ribbon in her flight. 
 Rosette of the twilight sky, 
 Waft to me Love's lullaby!" 
 
 The girl listened and, when he had finished, he 
 saw that she was holding out the violet rosette to him. 
 
 "Keep it in payment for the verse." 
 
 "You like it?" he asked, very much flattered. 
 
 "Ever so much. Any one who can write songs 
 like that should write an opera. Why don't you write 
 an opera? There's a lot of money in operas. Did
 
 HIS NEW SECRETARY 191 
 
 you know they are offering a prize of ten thousand 
 dollars for an opera, at this very moment?" 
 
 "Yes, I know," he laughed, as he picked up his 
 manuscript and shook it at her playfully. "This is 
 the book that's going to win the prize." 
 
 "Oh! Oh! Really?" Her eyes widened with 
 surprise. "May I see it? May I?" 
 
 "Of course." He handed the pile of written pages 
 to her. "You don't have to read it, you know." 
 
 "How nearly is it finished?" 
 
 "Oh, I'll have it done in time!" he assured her. 
 "Can you read my handwriting?" 
 
 "It 15 rather scriggly," she admitted. "But I can 
 make it out." Then, as with a practical thought, she 
 continued: "You know, you should have this type- 
 written." 
 
 "I suppose it should be. But " 
 
 "I have a typewriter " she interrupted, quick* 
 
 "I don't think I could manage one." 
 
 "But 7 can. . . Let me type your man' 
 for you?" 
 
 "That would be an imposition." 
 
 "I'd love to do it," she insisted, brush!' 
 objections. "And I'd take awfully goo' 
 manuscript." 
 
 "It would be splendid of you to
 
 1 92 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "Then you will?" 
 
 He took the' manuscript from her and lovingly 
 turned over the sheets while she looked on. 
 
 "It would be a wonderful favor," he answered, "if 
 you will. All but the last two pages. That will be 
 up to the end of act two." 
 
 "And I'll finish the rest as you give to rne." 
 
 You'll be helping me tremendously," he continued 
 handing her the manuscript. 
 
 "It will make me happy if I can help you even the 
 least little bit." The color rose in her cheeks as she 
 spoke. She finished hurriedly: "Now I must go." 
 She turned to the window. 
 
 "Just a moment!" protested Tony. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 He picked up a broom from a corner of the room 
 and waved it significantly. 
 
 "I want to sweep the snow off to make a path 
 for you across the roof." 
 
 Before she could remonstrate he had forced open 
 the window with a tug, in spite of the frost, and had 
 climbed out to the roof, where he went to work in- 
 .dustriously with the broom. In a moment he opened 
 the window and peered into the room. 
 
 "May I trouble you for the salt?" 
 
 "Salt?" she repeated, puzzled. Then as she saw
 
 THE NEW SECRETARY 193 
 
 what he wanted it for, she laughed and took a salt- 
 shaker from the trunk, saying, as she gave it to him : 
 "You are so nice and thoughtful." 
 
 "There's no danger of your slipping now," he said 
 as he came into the room and closed the window. 
 "Oh, the basket ! Why didn't I think of putting you 
 in it and sleighing you across?" 
 
 "Thank you. I'd rather walk," she laughed, pos- 
 sessing herself of the manuscript, and holding out her 
 hand to him in farewell. 
 
 "Now that you've found the way," smiled Tony, 
 "you'll come again?" 
 
 "I must!" she reminded him, simply. "You've en- 
 gaged me as your secretary." 
 
 "That was clever of me. When shall I see you 
 again?" 
 
 "That will depend entirely upon the Princess. I'll 
 come my first afternoon out. She may let me off to- 
 morrow. You see, it will be a holiday." 
 
 "A holiday!" He hesitated. Then he felt in his 
 waistcoat pocket. "I wonder if you would be good 
 enough to accept this little Christmas present?" 
 He was like a boy as he withdrew his fingers from the 
 pocket, brought forth the gold chain and locket that 
 Primrose had found in the drawer, and dropped it 
 into her palm.
 
 i 9 4 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Her eyes lighted up with wonder. "It's very beau- 
 tiful and old," she said, softly. 
 
 "It is a hundred years old," he told her. "Perhaps 
 more than that. It has a picture of my my real 
 mother in it." 
 
 "Your mother? Oh !" holding it out to him. "I 
 couldn't take anything so precious 1" 
 
 "That's just why I'm giving it to you," he said, 
 gently. "Because it is precious." 
 
 She touched the locket with the tips of her fingers 
 as it lay in her other hand. Without looking at him, 
 she spoke in the manner of one making a dear and 
 solemn pledge: "I'll take it and keep it for you" 
 she paused. "So long as we are friends." 
 
 He took her hand and led her to the window. 
 
 "Good night I" said he, as he helped her over the 
 sill. "Good night, little fairy godmother!" 
 
 She followed the path he had made for her through 
 the snow. Over her shoulder she called to him: 
 
 "Good night, Cinderella-man! Merry Christmas!" 
 
 "Merry Christmas," he called after her, and stood 
 there watching until she disappeared around a chim- 
 ney. Then he closed the window and, pulling up a 
 chair to the table, picked up his brier pipe, filled it 
 with tobacco, and smoked thoughtfully long after the 
 room became quite dark.
 
 "Cood-by, Cinderella-man!'
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A FEW CHANGES. 
 
 THE old year was dying. It was a week after 
 the afternoon on which the fairy godmother 
 served tea to Tony in his attic, finishing the 
 entertainment by taking away two acts of his opera 
 so that she might transcribe them in typewriting. 
 
 In that week a great change had come over the 
 aspect of Tony's domicile. The window had been 
 washed, for one thing. That was something that had 
 not happened to the window in ages. So long as 
 enough light penetrated the glass to enable him to 
 write and he could make out the time by the church 
 clock when he looked out, Tony tacitly assumed that 
 the window was clean enough. 
 
 But when a certain young lady insisted that the 
 panes should be washed and polished forthwith, Tony 
 took counsel of Primrose, and that faithful individual 
 applied himself to the task so efficiently that there 
 was a noticeable increase in the light of the apart- 
 ment while daylight lasted. 
 
 195
 
 196 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Other improvements there were, too. New chintz 
 curtains formed lambrequins at the window, while 
 other curtains of the same pattern concealed the 
 Gloucester hammock and the washstand, and replaced 
 the old calico drapery that had hung in front of the 
 recess used as a wardrobe. 
 
 The big, battered old trunk was still in its old place 
 near the head of the stairs, but had been so trans- 
 mogrified that it hardly knew itself. A daintily 
 trimmed couch cover enveloped it, and two embroid- 
 ered sofa cushions crowned it. 
 
 Moreover, the attic was fairly warm, although the 
 weather was just as cold as it had been on Christmas 
 Eve. But a new oil stove, glittering and very pleas- 
 ant to look at, stood between the trunk and Tony's 
 writing table, making him independent of the wretch- 
 ed little register in the floor which never attended 
 adequately to its business. Just now, however, the oil 
 stove was not alight. 
 
 A comfortable camp-chair, a folding card-table 
 just the thing for a bachelor's quarters and other 
 little comforts, decorative and useful, were about the 
 room, all silently speaking of the thoughtfulness of 
 somebody who knew instinctively what to do and 
 who, therefore, was necessarily a woman. 
 
 Primrose in whom there was no observable
 
 A FEW CHANGES 197 
 
 change, by the way was in the attic alone. He 
 seemed to be enjoying the new curtains very 
 much. He went from one to the other giv- 
 ing them a twitch this way and that, and put- 
 ting them into certain folds that he considered de- 
 sirable. 
 
 A tapping at the door in the trap that sounded as if 
 it were done with a walking-stick, broke off Prim- 
 rose's musings and made him shuffle hurriedly down 
 the stairs. 
 
 Directly afterward he came up again, following 
 a man in a fur coat. It was Romney Evans. A stick 
 in his hand evidently had been used to demand ad- 
 mittance. 
 
 "So Mr. Quintard is out?" were the first words of 
 the caller as he reached the top of the attic stairs, a 
 little out of breath. 
 
 "Yes, sir. Mr. Quintard said to me, as he went 
 down the stairs: 'I'm goin' out for a breath of air,' 
 he says. That means, knowin' Mr. Quintard's habits 
 as I do me own- that he's not likely to be back before 
 about half-past three." 
 
 Romney Evans looked at his watch, while Prim- 
 rose furtively glanced through the window at the 
 church clock. His manner clearly showed that he 
 wished the visitor had not come.
 
 i 9 8 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "In that case," remarked Romney, "I haven't long 
 to wait." 
 
 "I don't know, sir. Of course, there's no tellin'. 
 He might go for a longer walk than usual. He's 
 been workin' so hard that he needs exercise. When 
 he does come back he'll be wantin' to go right to 
 work again." 
 
 Romney Evans laughed at the too obvious anxiety 
 of the old man to send him away without seeing Quin- 
 tard. 
 
 "It's no use, Primrose. You can't get rid of me. 
 I'm going to wait. I've come here to see Mr. Quin- 
 tard, and here I remain till he comes." 
 
 He plumped himself into the camp-chair, crossed 
 his knees, and looked up at Primrose with an exasper- 
 ating smile. 
 
 "I wasn't thinkin' of such a thing as gettin' rid of 
 you, sir," protested Primrose. 
 
 "Then we might as well dismiss it as a topic of 
 conversation," returned Romney, adding, as he 
 waved his stick about the room: "Quite a metamor- 
 phosis!" 
 
 This last word was quite over Primrose's head. 
 He did not care to acknowledge that he did not un- 
 derstand its meaning, however, so he replied, sagely : 
 
 "You may be right, sir. But that in a way of
 
 A FEW CHANGES 199 
 
 speakin' is a matter of opinion, as Mr. Quintard 
 would say.'* 
 
 "There can be but one opinion Mr. Quintard has 
 struck it rich." 
 
 Romney made this statement tentatively, looking 
 hard at the old man the while. 
 
 "Yes, sir Oh, yes, indeed, sir," spluttered Prim- 
 rose. "He has had a bit o' luck. Still you know, 
 sir " 
 
 The roar of the Great She-Bear came from below, 
 as if she were uncomfortably near. The old man 
 stopped in the middle of a sentence and looked ap- 
 prehensively in the direction of the stairs. He had 
 sound reason for expecting trouble from that quarter. 
 
 "Primrose! Come down out of there! Hear 
 me?" 
 
 The head and shoulders of the grizzly-faced land- 
 lady appeared above the level of the floor, and she 
 was shaking one of her big fists at him. Before Prim- 
 rose could answer, and while he was still feebly grop- 
 ing for words that might conceivably present his case 
 in a favorable light, she caught sight of Romney. 
 
 "Huh! I didn't know the gentleman was here," 
 she growled apologetically. 
 
 Romney rose and bowed, while Primrose, believ- 
 ing he saw an opening, explained timidly:
 
 200 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "I was showin' him up. He's waitin' to see Mr. 
 Quintard." 
 
 "Well, if he is," snarled the Great She-Bear, turn- 
 ing upon her man-of-all-work, "you are not waiting 
 to see Mr. Quintard, are you?" 
 
 "No, madam," interposed Romney. "He was en- 
 tertaining me." 
 
 "If there's any entertaining to be done, /'// do it!" 
 she returned, shortly. Then, once more addressing 
 herself to Primrose with her characteristic gentle- 
 ness, she threatened: "Let me catch you here again, 
 you lump, and I'll take the broom to you." 
 
 "It was my fault," interposed Romney. "I'm 
 afraid I " 
 
 "No, it wasn't anybody's fault but his own," de- 
 clared the Great She-Bear, flatly. "You don't know 
 what a trial he is, the old reprobate! Potterin' and 
 dawdlin', and takin' it easy, when he's got his work 
 waitin'." 
 
 Primrose tried to express contrition in his counte- 
 nance. Unfortunately, he had the kind of face 
 which seemed to sag down and become downright 
 aggressive in its feebleness when he wanted to be pro- 
 pitiatory. To a creature of the Great She-Bear's 
 temperament it was unbearably aggravating. She 
 went at him fiercely.
 
 A FEW CHANGES 201 
 
 "Don't stand there with your mouth open ! Noth- 
 in's goin' to fall into it! Clear out, and be quick 
 about it! You've got the hall to sweep, the bannis- 
 ters to wipe down, and mind ! when you have that 
 done, you'll sift the ashes!" 
 
 Primrose groaned, and with a feeble "Excuse me, 
 sir," to Romney, plunged desperately down the stairs 
 out of sight. 
 
 "I ain't seen you since the day you paid Mr. Quin- 
 tard's rent," remarked the Great She-Bear to Rom- 
 ney, in an effort at polite conversation. 
 
 "That's my misfortune," he returned with a bow. 
 
 "You've been here since ain't you?" 
 
 "I've called once or twice." 
 
 "The way he has this place all fussed up, beats 
 me." Then with a cunning look at Romney: "I guess 
 you give him the money." 
 
 "I don't give Mr. Quintard money," replied Rom- 
 ney emphatically, seating himself in his camp- 
 chair. 
 
 He meant it as an intimation that he would prefer 
 to be alone, but the Great She-Bear had come up to 
 the attic to find out something, and she was not the 
 woman to be turned aside by mere reticence. 
 
 "I'd like to know how a man as poor as he is can 
 buy better curtains than I have in my best rooms,"
 
 202 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 she complained. "And, what's more, I'd like to 
 know how these things got up here." 
 
 Romney drew out his watch, studied it, and looked 
 annoyed. 
 
 "I generally know what comes into this house," she 
 went on. "All these changes new curtains, oil stove 
 and such have a queer look to me. There's 
 somethin' very queer about it. Don't you think 
 so?" 
 
 As she plumped herself squarely in front of Rom- 
 ney, to compel an answer, he was obliged to say some- 
 thing. So he repeated her own- word, interroga- 
 tively: 
 
 "Queer?" 
 
 "Queer! Yes! That's what I said!" she re- 
 joined, emphatically. "All this here ain't like a man. 
 Now, if a woman had this attic, she might be puttin' 
 up curtains and so on. But for a man to do it well, 
 it would be queer, as I said." 
 
 She might have said much more along the same line 
 had not her wrathful eye suddenly lighted on the 
 chiffon scarf at the end of the table. She glanced at 
 Romney, but he was looking another way. Slyly 
 she picked up the scarf, smelled it, and raised her 
 eyes suspiciously, muttering: "Scented, of course!" 
 Then, as Romney's attention was still diverted from
 
 A FEW CHANGES 203 
 
 her, she slipped the scarf under her apron with a leer 
 of triumph. 
 
 "I wonder if you are a relation of his?" she broke 
 out again. "A rich relation, maybe?" 
 
 "No," he replied, shortly. 
 
 "Could you be a detective, I wonder?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You don't talk much, do you?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 Finding Romney impossible from a conversational 
 point of view, she tried a hew tack, as she moved over 
 to the stairs : 
 
 "I guess you'll be waitin' for him?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The Great She-Bear was on the stairs by this time, 
 half concealed in the trap. From this forum she de- 
 livered her ultimatum, swiftly disappearing as soon 
 as the words were uttered: 
 
 "Well, you can say to him, for me, that if he can 
 live up here like a dude, he can pay my rent in ad- 
 vance it will be due on Monday !"
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ROMNEY ISSUES A DICTUM. 
 
 " WIT 7HEW!" breathed Romney. "Ah! There's 
 \ \ the church clock striking three. I won- 
 der how long Tony will " 
 
 He had risen from the camp-chair and strolled to 
 the window, stretching his arms as he went. One 
 glance through the panes and he started back, looking 
 for a place to hide himself. The curtain concealing 
 the hammock and washstand was the obvious retreat 
 for him, and he stepped behind it just as the case- 
 ment was pushed open. 
 
 Marjorie Caner's pretty face, framed by the "lib- 
 erty" hood, came into the room as she looked cau- 
 tiously around. Satisfied that there was no one there, 
 she stepped inside and closed the window. 
 
 Under one arm was a large, bulky envelope, and 
 in her other hand she carried a small basket. Trip- 
 ping to the table, she laid the large envelope there 
 and put the basket on the floor. Then she went to 
 
 204
 
 ROMNEY ISSUES A DICTUM 205 
 
 the top of the stairs and listened. Wih a little laugh, 
 she went back to the table, found a match, and lighted 
 the oil stove. 
 
 "There! It will be comfortable in here by the 
 time he comes. Let me see ! What else is there to 
 do?" 
 
 Romney stepped out from behind the curtain and 
 confronted her in inscrutable silence. 
 
 "Oh, Romney!" was her startled exclamation. 
 Then, placing a hand over her heart as if to control 
 its throbbing, she continued, in a relieved tone: "How 
 you frightened me !" 
 
 "So, young lady," he returned, sternly. "This is 
 what you are up to ?" 
 
 "Don't be cross with me, Romney!" she begged. 
 "I'm only doing what you wanted me to do looking 
 after Tony." 
 
 He broke into a laugh. Waving his hand about 
 the room, he remarked, dryly: 
 
 "You're making a thorough job of it, aren't you?" 
 
 "Oh, no !" she assured him. "There's so much 
 more that I could do. But I don't dare. He only let 
 me put up the curtains because I said I couldn't stand 
 the place without them." 
 
 "He doesn't think you buy them, does he?" 
 
 "No, no! Isn't it too dreadful? I have to fib
 
 2o6 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 about everything. Oh, Romney! I tell him they're 
 all my personal possessions, stored in the loft next 
 door, and that it's so much better to use them, because 
 they'd only be gathering dust !" 
 
 "And he believes you?" 
 
 "Every word I say," she returned, with wide-open, 
 penitent eyes. "I'd be terribly ashamed, only it's all 
 for his comfort like this stove. He thinks I bor- 
 rowed it from myself. So I did but I bought it. 
 Isn't it cute?" 
 
 "I've never seen anything so cute in all my life," 
 assented Romney, gravely. "It gives out real heat. 
 It looks as if one might even cook on it," he added, 
 as he removed his overcoat and dropped it on the 
 camp-chair. 
 
 "One does cook on it," laughed Marjorie, all in 
 a flutter. "Oh, Romney 1 it's really too wonder- 
 ful." 
 
 "I should say it is," agreed the lawyer. "Tell me 
 all about it!" 
 
 "Well, every day I come across the roof at about 
 half-past three, and bring what I call my 'tea' with 
 me. Of course, it's really for Tony. There's, oh, 
 lots of things ! Good and nourishing, you know 1 I 
 must fatten him up I After tea, just before I go, I 
 make him hot little messes for his dinner. I just love
 
 ROMNEY ISSUES A DICTUM 207 
 
 to cook ! And sometimes it smells so good that I 
 wish I could stay and have dinner with him." 
 
 "No doubt!" he commented blandly. "How does 
 he take these ministrations of yours?" x 
 
 "Oh, in the sweetest, jolliest way!" she answered, 
 enthusiastically. "So so matter-of-fact! . . . You 
 know, I'm just his fairy godmother." 
 
 "His what?" 
 
 "His fairy godmother who pops in and out! To- 
 day I've brought him the typewritten copy of his 
 opera. It's done finished! All but the editing 
 touching it up, you know. And oh, Romney ! it's 
 too beautiful! I love every word of it!" 
 
 "I'm afraid you are prejudiced." 
 
 "No, indeed I'm not. Grayson, father's secretary 
 who did the typewriting for me, on the sly says 
 it's better than 'The Merry Widow !' You know, it 
 has some awfully cunning jokes in it all mixed up 
 in the dearest way with the romance. The Cinder- 
 ella-man has a way of making what I'd call tender 
 jokes. They make you laugh and cry at the same 
 time. And it's all so like him so so oh! I don't 
 know how to describe it !" 
 
 She trailed off into rapturous incoherence. Words 
 failed her to express just how admirable this opera 
 of Tony Quintard's was. She could only gasp and
 
 208 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 wave her hands helplessly, with a wistful smile at 
 Romney. 
 
 He gazed at her thoughtfully in silence for a few 
 moments. At last, still regarding her with the steady, 
 kindly look that she had come to know and some- 
 times dread he said, slowly: 
 
 "I think I understand." 
 
 In a flash she knew what he was thinking. Her 
 wistful smile changed to a look of alarm. She 
 turned away from him, head averted. Sinking down 
 upon the cushioned trunk, she murmured plead- 
 ingly : 
 
 "Why why, Romney ! You you couldn't 
 think " 
 
 "Well, my dear, I only hope this isn't going to be 
 more than I bargained for," he answered, bending 
 down. 
 
 She snatched at his fingers and drew him closer to 
 her. Then she placed her hot cheek against his hand, 
 as she whispered: 
 
 "Oh, Romney! I've never been so so happy" 
 she paused. "And so miserable!" 
 
 The sobs had to come ! In a tempest they broke 
 forth, while she continued to cling to the hand of 
 one whom she felt was her only friend in the great 
 city the one person who understood her ! Her hood
 
 ROMNEY ISSUES A DICTUM 209 
 
 had fallen back, and he passed a comforting hand 
 over her bright hair as he told her softly that there 
 was nothing to cry about. 
 
 "It is quite possible that your Cinderella-man is 
 just as much in love with you as you are with him. 
 But, under the circumstances as any gentleman 
 would he refrains from declaring himself." 
 
 She shook her head and as she dried her eyes reso- 
 lutely answered, with forced calmness : 
 
 "No, it isn't that. He doesn't care! I can tell. 
 He's as sweet and nice as he can be as a brother 
 might be. But he's so so impersonal. He never 
 really sees me ! Sometimes he doesn't realize that I 
 am here. I'm like a puppy-dog to him. I'm sure he 
 never thinks of me when I'm away. Of course, his 
 mind is all on his opera. I understand that. Only 
 I w ish " 
 
 "Tony's probably too sure of your service," sug- 
 gested Romney. "Geniuses have a way of taking 
 things for granted. You must make him anxious." 
 
 "Oh, I couldn't do that." 
 
 "You must ! just a wee bit !" he persisted. 
 
 "But " 
 
 "Now, he expects you here this afternoon prompt- 
 ly at half-past three ?" 
 
 "Yes. I never was late but once. I sent Celeste
 
 210 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 for some strawberries for him, and she was fearfully 
 slow. I heard him whistling for me." 
 
 "Oh! He whistles for you?" And Romney whis- 
 tled softly himself. 
 
 "Ye-es," she answered, hesitatingly. "I told him 
 he should whistle if ever he wanted me outside of the 
 regular time." 
 
 "I see ! You were ahead of time to-day." 
 
 "I couldn't wait." 
 
 "You must wait this afternoon," he told her, firm- 
 ly. "Keep him waiting." 
 
 "Oh, Romney!" she protested. 
 
 "Do as I tell you. You must. Here 1 Take your 
 basket and your manuscript with you, and get out ! 
 Come!" 
 
 He gathered up the basket and large envelope, and 
 gave her his hand to assist her from the trunk. 
 
 "You really think I should go?" falteringly. 
 
 "Most certainly. And you must not come back 
 until at least ten minutes after I give the signal." 
 
 "You won't forget? You'll surely give me the 
 signal?" she asked, with sudden misgiving, taking the 
 basket and envelope from him. 
 
 "You may depend upon me. Now, let's decide what 
 the signal shall be. Usually, in plays and stories, it 
 is a light placed in the window. But that's not practi-
 
 ROMNEY ISSUES A DICTUM 211 
 
 cal here. What else can I do? I might throw some- 
 thing out of the window." 
 
 "No," she objected. "I won't have you messing 
 up my nice, clean roof. Nothing but rain or snow is 
 allowed out there." 
 
 "How would it do if I managed to hang one of my 
 best handkerchiefs out of the window? This one?" 
 
 He took a gaily-bordered handkerchief from his 
 pocket and waved it playfully before her eyes. 
 
 "That would do," she agreed. "Oh! There's a 
 door banging in the lower part of the house. I'm 
 sure it's Tony. He always bangs the front door!" 
 
 "Very well, then ! Out with you !" 
 
 He helped her through to the roof, taking the 
 basket until she was safely outside. Then he gave 
 it to her again and told her to hurry away. But she 
 stopped to warn him : 
 
 "Remember! He he doesn't know who I really 
 am. I'm so afraid that, if he should find out " 
 
 "Away! Away!" was all that Romney answered 
 as he closed the window.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 A GENIUS AT FAULT. 
 
 ROMNEY EVANS was apparently staring out 
 through the frosty panes, when the door of 
 the stairway in the trap closed with a bang 
 and Tony Quintard came bounding up the stairs. 
 
 Romney turned. He pretended not to notice the 
 disappointment in Tony's face, but he was glad to 
 see it there. 
 
 "Hello, Tony!" 
 
 Tony took the proffered hand and shook it per- 
 functorily. His answering "Hello!" was decidedly 
 lifeless, too. He stared about as if looking for some 
 one else. 
 
 "You don't seem overjoyed to see me!" Romney 
 told him with a reproachful smile. 
 
 "Why, yes, I am yes, I am !" was the preoccu- 
 pied response, as Tony took off his overcoat. "I'm 
 er awfully glad to see you 1 Sit down sit down, 
 won't you?" 
 
 212
 
 A GENIUS AT FAULT 2 13 
 
 He went over to the window, overcoat and hat in 
 hand, and peered through the glass. 
 
 "No, I won't sit down," returned Romney, secretly 
 grinning his satisfaction at Tony's perturbation. "I'm 
 not going to stay. I only dropped in to ask if you 
 hadn't changed your mind about the Princess." 
 
 "In what way?" asked Tony, throwing his hat and 
 coat upon the trunk, holding his hands over the oil 
 stove. "In what way do you mean?" 
 
 "About meeting her." 
 
 Tony looked up from the stove, as if the distaste- 
 fulness of the question had brought him to himself 
 with a jerk. Bowing with mock ceremony to his 
 friend, he replied with what might have seemed super- 
 abundant emphasis : 
 
 "I don't want to be rude, Romney, but no, thank 
 you." 
 
 "Well, I shan't insist," replied Romney, carelessly. 
 "By the way, I see you've been making yourself quite 
 comfortable here." 
 
 "Yes, yes," was Tony's quick assent. "A friend! 
 Lent me these things ! Awfully good of her, wasn't 
 it?" 
 
 "HcrF 
 
 Disregarding the surprise expressed in Romney's
 
 2i 4 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 tone as he repeated the pronoun, Tony went on, with 
 a great assumption of candor: 
 
 "Yes, old man ! And I don't mind telling you that 
 I'm expecting her every minute." 
 
 "Ohol" cried Romney, pretending to be shocked. 
 "Tony! Tony!" 
 
 "No, you're mistaken," interrupted the young man 
 and there was real distress in his face. "There's 
 no nonsense between us. This girl is simply doing 
 my typewriting that's all." 
 
 "Some scrubby female from a downtown office?" 
 
 "Scrubby?" roared Tony, indignantly. "Why, she's 
 one of the daintiest little things you ever laid your 
 eyes on." 
 
 "Ah ! And yet you tell me there's 'no nonsense' ?" 
 
 "There isn't !" rejoined Tony, still more warmly. 
 "We're friends friends! Very good, wholesome 
 friends !" 
 
 He strode to the window it seemed as if he 
 couldn't keep away from it and looked out anxious- 
 ly. Romney smiled behind the young man's back, at 
 last inquiring, with facetious solicitude: 
 
 "Does she arrive by way of the window?" 
 
 "What do you know about it?" snapped Tony, 
 turning swiftly to look at him. 
 
 "How should I know anything about it? But the
 
 A GENIUS AT FAULT 215 
 
 way you trot up and down to the window makes me 
 suspicious." 
 
 Tony went to the window and back twice before 
 he spoke again. Then, suddenly, as if he had made 
 up his mind in desperation, he said: 
 
 "See here, Romney! Can you keep a secret?" 
 
 "I'm a lawyer, Tony. Keeping secrets is the better 
 part of my trade." 
 
 "Well, then, she does come by the window," con- 
 fessed Tony. 
 
 "Oh, go on I" cried Romney, incredulously. 
 
 "It's a fact! And and you'll never guess who 
 it is." 
 
 "Never ! So you'd better tell me." 
 
 "It's my fairy godmother," declared Tony, im- 
 pressively. 
 
 "A minute ago it was your private secretary." 
 
 "That's the beauty of a fairy godmother," re- 
 turned the youth, with the air of imparting a remark- 
 able truth. "She can turn herself into almost any- 
 thing from a typewriter to a cook." 
 
 "She must be very handy to have about the house. 
 What's her name?" 
 
 "Blessed if I know." 
 
 "Oh, come, now, Tony I You must call her some- 
 thing."
 
 2i6 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "I do. I call her 'Godmother'." 
 
 Romney shrugged his shoulders impatiently, as if 
 tired of his friend's fencing. 
 
 "Are you going to tell me who she is, or not?" he 
 demanded. 
 
 "That's the secret!" rejoined the poet, dropping 
 his voice to a confidential whisper. "She's the com- 
 panion of your Princess next door." 
 
 "Oho! That's it, eh? And she sneaks over here 
 across the roof!" Romney started for the window. 
 
 "Yes, yes! Come away! She might see you!" 
 complained Tony, pulling him back. "If she were to 
 know anybody was here " 
 
 "I suppose this began by your flirting with her 
 across the roofs and chimneys?" 
 
 "It did not!" 
 
 "Oh, I don't blame you, my boy! As I recall her, 
 she is not unattractive." 
 
 "There is nothing to blame anybody about," re- 
 joined Tony, irritably. "I'm not going to tell you 
 how it began. But I want you to understand, once 
 for all, that there is nothing sentimental in our re- 
 lations." 
 
 "Oh, it's a business proposition, eh?" 
 
 "No, no !" negatived Tony, indignantly. "It's 
 it's a comfortable sort of oh, thunder I She's the
 
 A GENIUS AT FAULT 217 
 
 salt of the earth, and and all that ! Looks after me 
 in the most motherly fashion. Comes every day, 
 with my freshly typewritten copy and a tea-basket. 
 All very chummy, and so on." 
 
 "That's the way you see the affair," remarked the 
 lawyer, significantly. 
 
 "Excuse me !" broke in the poet. "I won't have it 
 called an 'affair'." 
 
 "Pardon me. You don't see it that way. But how 
 does she see it?" 
 
 "Just as I do, of course." 
 
 "Tony Quintard," warned Romney, solemnly, 
 "you never know what's going on in the back of a 
 woman's head." 
 
 "I have no curiosity to learn." 
 
 "That's all very well. But where are you two 
 drifting?" 
 
 "You old sentimentalist!" laughed Tony. "Your 
 mind is set on a romance that doesn't exist. Mine is 
 set on an opera that must be finished and mailed to- 
 night. Here's your rug!" he continued, picking up 
 Romney's coat and holding it out to him. "Crawl 
 into it. I've got to signal my godmother for that 
 manuscript." 
 
 As the visitor took his coat, and, with Tony's as- 
 sistance, put it on, he said, over his shoulder:
 
 218 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "You are a stony-hearted young pup!" 
 
 Without reply, Tony went to the window, opened 
 it and sent forth a whistle. 
 
 "That'll fetch her!" he remarked, as he closed the 
 window and took up his visitor's hat. "Here's your 
 hat, old top I" 
 
 "Look here, Tony! Do you regard that girl sim- 
 ply as a machine who grinds out your opera for you, 
 or as a charwoman who scrubs your floor?" 
 
 "She doesn't scrub my floor!" snapped Tony. 
 
 "But you do regard her as a sort of machine?" 
 
 "Oh, you make me tired! I don't regard her at 
 all. But I am profoundly grateful to her. And er 
 here's your hat!" 
 
 "She hasn't come yet," bantered Romney. 
 
 "I can't understand what's keeping her. She prom- 
 ised me the finished manuscript this afternoon." 
 
 There could be no question that the young man 
 was worried, and it tickled the older man to see it. 
 There was a broad grin on his face when Tony 
 opened the window and whistled again. Romney ven- 
 tured on a little advice. 
 
 "If she should come this afternoon " 
 
 "Oh, she'll come!" broke in Tony. 
 
 "She's pretty late now, according to schedule! But, 
 as I say, if she should come, take a little notice of her
 
 A GENIUS AT FAULT 219 
 
 the girl herself, I mean. Give her some thought. 
 A poet should never lose an opportunity to study the 
 species at first hand." 
 
 "What do you want me to do? Open her mouth 
 and count her teeth ?" 
 
 "No. Just open your eyes, and and count your 
 pulse" rejoined Romney. "But I don't believe she's 
 coming." 
 
 Tony regarded his cynical friend for a moment as 
 if he would like to throw him down the stairs. Then 
 he jerked open the window and whistled much louder 
 than before. No one came, and he turned to say, in 
 an anxious tone : 
 
 "Now, what do you suppose has happened?" 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed Romney, triumphantly. "You'd 
 miss her if anything happened to her, wouldn't you?" 
 
 "Oh, shut up !" 
 
 Tony sent a piercing whistle out into the sharp win- 
 ter air, and was screwing up his lips for another, 
 when Romney placed a restraining hand upon his 
 shoulder. 
 
 "I wouldn't go on whistling like that. She may 
 be ill!" 
 
 "A healthy girl like that doesn't get ill over night !" 
 
 "You can't tell. She might have caught the mumps 
 or measels."
 
 220 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "Would you go in next door, and slyly inquire?" 
 
 "And probably find her entertaining her young 
 man in the parlor," laughed Romney. 
 
 "Huh! It's not likely not at all likely!" 
 
 Tony plumped down to his table and began to 
 write, taking no further notice of his friend, who, as 
 he waved his handkerchief out of the window and 
 replied, calmly: 
 
 "If It isn't likely, at least it is possible. You your- 
 self owned that she's quite pretty." 
 
 "What's her name?" suddenly inquired Tony, ig- 
 noring Romney's remark. 
 
 "Her name ? Why, let me see ! Christian or fam- 
 ily name?" 
 
 "Both!" barked Tony. "Well, her family name 
 will do. What's that?" 
 
 "Her family name? Why er er Mudge!" 
 
 Tony Quintard swung around in horror. 
 
 "Mudge? Impossible! It couldn't be not that 
 girl!" 
 
 "I tell you it is ! Mudge, or or Fudge. Some- 
 thing that rhymes with 'budge'." 
 
 "Good Lord!" 
 
 "Is it important?" 
 
 "Only that I'm writing a note to her. I was going 
 to send it in, but if I don't know how to address it "
 
 A GENIUS AT FAULT 221 
 
 "Poor old Tony!" interrupted Romney. "Perhaps 
 I only say perhaps if you give it to me, I'll be 
 able to sneak it in to her." 
 
 "I'd be awfully much obliged," returned Tony, 
 brightening up. "Here's the letter. You may read 
 it if you like." 
 
 "My dear boy, I wouldn't dream of reading your 
 correspondence !" answered Romney, at the same 
 time adjusting his glasses. 
 
 "Yes, I want you to. I don't like to say things 
 behind people's backs." 
 
 "Oh, that's it, eh? Then I guess I will read it." 
 He took the letter, and composing himself comfort- 
 ably on the trunk, began aloud : " 'My dear Fairy 
 Godmother: I am hoping that you are late simply 
 because you have seen that eminent sentimentalist 
 and distinguished old bore, D. Romney Evans ' 
 "Thank you very kindly!" interjected Romney, 
 looking up " 'prowling about at my window. But, 
 thank God ! he is taking this note with him. Now the 
 fearful thought occurs to me that you may be ill. If 
 you are ill, send for a doctor at once, and I think 
 you'd better have two nurses. If you are not ill, 
 please remember that I am sitting here waiting for 
 that manuscript, which must go into the post to-night. 
 If I do not hear from you within ten minutes, I shall
 
 222 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 do something absolutely desperate. What it will be 
 I haven't the slightest idea. I shall depend upon 
 the inspiration of the moment. Oh, to be forgotten 
 by one's only Fairy Godmother! Forlornly yours, 
 THE CINDERELLA-MAN.' " 
 
 Romney burst into a roar of sardonic laughter. 
 
 "The Cinderella-Man! I suppose that's your idea 
 of a snappy nom-de-plume> eh? 'The Cinderella- 
 Man!' Ha, ha, ha!" 
 
 "It is not ! It's the name she gave me in a pretty 
 spirit of fun." 
 
 "Oh!" Romney apologized. 
 
 "Well," growled Tony, "are you going to deliver 
 my letter, or shall I call a regular messenger boy?" 
 
 "Certainly not," laughed the lawyer. "I promise 
 you that I'll do my best to get it to Miss Mudge." 
 
 He took the letter and sealed it in the envelope. 
 Then he moved to the staircase, smiling as if he were 
 enjoying a strictly private joke. Tony walked over 
 with him. 
 
 "Thank you ever so much, Romney! Of course, 
 you understand you are not always a bore, by any 
 means. Forgive me, won't you ?" he continued, hold- 
 ing out his hand. "You know all that in the letter 
 about you was only my foolishness. You're a bully 
 old brick 1 That's what you are."
 
 A GENIUS AT FAULT 223 
 
 "A good thing to stub your toe on," laughed Rom- 
 ney, and vanished down the stairs. Tony stood for 
 a few moments in front of his table, deep in thought. 
 
 He didn't understand. This was the first time his 
 Fairy Godmother ever had been late. 
 
 "I'll try it again," he said to himself. 
 
 Going to the window and opening it, he sent forth 
 a mournful whistle. There was no result, and he 
 was turning away when he noticed that it was snow- 
 ing heavily. 
 
 "Just my luck !" he grumbled. "The snow will keep 
 her away. She won't want to come over the roof 
 through all this. Where's that confounded umbrella 
 I had around here? Ah! there it is!" 
 
 He fished a dilapidated umbrella from a corner, 
 and with some difficulty managed to open it. The 
 cover was torn and several of the ribs were dislo- 
 cated. He shook his head in despair. 
 
 "I don't believe I could keep it over her head," he 
 said to himself. "Still, it might be better than noth- 
 ing if she does not bring one with her." 
 
 A tap at the window-pane made him start and turn 
 around. The next instant he had hurled the old um- 
 brella into a corner and hurried to the window. 
 
 "My Fairy Godmother!" he cried, and flung it 
 wide open.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 MAINLY TEMPERAMENTAL. 
 
 NEVER had the Fairy Godmother been so 
 welcome in Tony Quintard's attic. 
 She held a long envelope in one hand, 
 while on the other arm hung a basket. 
 
 Taking the envelope from her first, and then the 
 basket, he gave her his hand to help her down from 
 the sill. 
 
 She glanced at him timidly from the corner of her 
 eye as she came in. Was he angry? She could not 
 tell yet. 
 
 "Thank heaven, you've come at last 1" 
 By a strong effort, Marjorie contrived to make her 
 tone calm as she asked, innocently: 
 "Why, what's the matter?" 
 
 "You're so fearfully late," he replied, opening the 
 envelope as he walked to the table. 
 "Am I late?" she asked, sweetly. 
 "Late? Look at the time ! It's nearly four I" 
 224
 
 MAINLY TEMPERAMENTAL 225 
 
 He pointed out of the window in the general direc- 
 tion of the church clock, but his eyes were on his 
 manuscript. 
 
 "Nearly four? Why, so it is." 
 
 "I expected you a little after three!" 
 
 She had followed him to the table, and she was 
 very near to him as she asked, softly: 
 
 "You were anxious?" 
 
 Without looking up he replied in an absent-minded 
 tone: 
 
 "You are always so punctual, I thought you might 
 be ill." 
 
 "I was finishing your manuscript." 
 
 "Ah! It is finished? Capital! Is it all done, to 
 the very end?" 
 
 "To the very end." 
 
 She picked up the basket from the floor, where 
 Tony had carelessly dropped it, and set it on the 
 trunk. 
 
 "You know, you are awfully good," Tony said 
 cheerfully as he spread the manuscript on the table 
 and gazed at it lovingly. "Now I'll be able to get it 
 off to-night." 
 
 He seated himself at the table and squared his el- 
 bows. Then, dipping a pen in the ink, he prepared 
 to edit the pages. It would have been evident to the
 
 226 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 most casual observer that he was oblivious to every- 
 thing but the work before him. 
 
 But Marjorie was human, and it was pleasant to 
 hear words of praise from his lips even when rather 
 indifferently bestowed. 
 
 "So you were the least little bit worried about 
 me?" 
 
 Tony seemed not to hear. He was engrossed with 
 the manuscript, running the pages through his fingers, 
 so that he could survey the work as a whole. 
 
 "It looks fine, doesn't it?" he exclaimed, address- 
 ing no one in particular. "So professional!" 
 
 "I asked you a question," said Marjorie, a little 
 tartly, as she hung her cloak over the rail at the stair- 
 case. 
 
 "I I beg your pardon," mumbled Tony, more 
 distrait than ever. 
 
 She came nearer to him and she was pretty 
 enough in her dainty grey frock to have distracted 
 him from his manuscript for a moment, at least, if 
 he had glanced at her and repeated, distinctly: 
 
 "I asked if you were the least bit worried about 
 me?" 
 
 "Certainly I was worried about ymi?" he an- 
 swered, preoccupied, his head bent over his work. 
 "Er why shouldn't I be?"
 
 MAINLY TEMPERAMENTAL 227 
 
 It was not what Marjorie wanted, but she would 
 not give up yet. She made another attempt : 
 
 "When did you begin to be worried?" 
 
 "When you didn't come." 
 
 "Right away at half after three?" she persisted. 
 
 Tony jabbed his pen viciously into the inkstand and 
 made a great show of writing something on the manu- 
 script, as he jerked out, in an annoyed staccato: 
 
 "Yes yes ! Right away ! Immediately !" 
 
 Alas for feminine fatuity! Does a woman ever 
 really understand a man or, worse, a man who is an 
 author? Might not Marjorie have seen that Tony 
 was far away from her, in a world whose confines 
 were marked by the typewritten pages she herself 
 had prepared for his inspection? 
 
 Well, she might, perhaps, but she didn't. In- 
 stead, she glided still nearer to the table, as she mur- 
 mured: 
 
 "Were you very much worried?" 
 
 Tony gave it up temporarily. Throwing down 
 his pen desperately, he looked at her in beseeching 
 reproof: 
 
 "My dear Miss Mudgel" 
 
 "Mudge?" she echoed, in comic astonishment. 
 "Why, what " 
 
 "Yes," he continued, relentlessly. "I shall call you
 
 228 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 by your ill-fitting surname whenever you distract me 
 from my work. Now, like a dear, good Fairy God- 
 mother, go and get your your knitting, and leave 
 me to currycomb my masterpiece." 
 
 "You could have answered me in half as many 
 words," was her reproachful reminder. 
 
 "Miss Mudgef" 
 
 He thundered this at her, dramatically extending 
 his arm with pointed finger toward the other side of 
 the room. 
 
 Marjorie backed hurriedly away from the table, 
 and he resumed his work, taking no further notice of 
 her. 
 
 She picked up his overcoat and hat which he had 
 flung down when he came up the stairs and hung 
 them up in the recess behind the curtain. She patted 
 the coat with an affectionate little gesture, before she 
 left it on its peg. 
 
 On her way back to the trunk she looked across at 
 Tony. He was quite unaware of the look, or even 
 of her presence, as he hovered above his manuscript, 
 with pen upraised,' ready to swoop down upon any 
 defect. 
 
 From the trunk she took out some socks and 
 looked at one of them dubiously. Then, from a well- 
 equipped sewing-basket, she extracted a wooden
 
 MAINLY TEMPERAMENTAL 229 
 
 sphere known to the elect as a "mending ball." This 
 ball she dropped into a sock, revealing a disgraceful 
 hole in the heel. She shook her head. 
 
 "Oh, dear I" 
 
 Apparently she decided to try and repair damages, 
 for she proceeded to settle herself to work. Very 
 gingerly she took up the camp-chair and placed it at 
 the side of the stove. She had been absolutely noise- 
 less, and Tony did not seem to know that she had 
 moved. 
 
 Seating herself must also be done without the 
 slightest sound. It was a nervous operation, for she 
 had misgivings that the light chair, with its several 
 loose joints, might creak under her weight. 
 
 It occupied ten or fifteen seconds for her to sit 
 down. But she did it at last, without disturbance. 
 Then she seized the sock and began to darn. 
 
 She had taken only one stitch, however, before it 
 occurred to her that she was sitting sideways to Tony, 
 so that she could not look at him without turning 
 her head. That must be rectified. 
 
 "Just as I had myself settled 1" was her regretful 
 inward comment. "What a pity that I have to move 
 again!" 
 
 She arose and changed the position of the chair
 
 230 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 so that It faced Tony's table. Then, again lowering 
 herself into the chair with the greatest care to make 
 no noise, she breathed a sigh of relief, and after an- 
 other glance at Tony which, of course, he did not 
 see she applied herself seriously to the sock 
 repairs. 
 
 There was stillness for several minutes. Marjorie 
 had never darned before, and she was obliged to stop 
 and study the intricacies of her task from time to 
 time. It was during one of these thoughtful pauses 
 that an ejaculation of pleasure came from Tony. 
 
 "This is wonderfully clean copy," he broke out, 
 without looking up. "Not an error so far!" 
 
 Marjorie beamed in his direction, while Tony con- 
 tinued to scan his manuscript. Suddenly he snorted, 
 angrily : "Ah ! I never wrote 'luffing' 1 I *vrote 
 'laughing' !" 
 
 In a second she was behind him, looking over his 
 shoulder. 
 
 "Why, where's that?" she asked. 
 
 "In act one. This piece of business: 'Kiri-Sawa en- 
 ters, luffing.' ' 
 
 Marjorie ventured to place a hand upon his arm 
 as she looked down at the page. 
 
 "Oh? That? I I thought he was supposed to 
 be intoxicated, and that he came in luffing like a sail-
 
 MAINLY TEMPERAMENTAL 231 
 
 boat. You know 'luffing' is a nautical term. He 
 might have rolled in all on one side." 
 
 The argument rather impressed Tony, and he hesi- 
 tated before he changed the word. But he did put his 
 pen through it, and substitute "laughing," even while 
 he admitted, with a thoughtful nod: 
 
 "Yes, he would come in like that. So he would. 
 Still, we'll have 'laughing' in the manuscript." 
 
 Marjorie said nothing more. She went to the 
 stove and saw that the kettle was nearly boiling. 
 Then she seated herself, the sock in her hand, and 
 had just resumed her work when Tony shattered the 
 silence by saying, in a troubled tone : 
 
 "Here's a verse that has never satisfied me 1" 
 
 "You must not be so finicky about it," she warned, 
 "or you'll never finish." 
 
 "But, confound the rhyme !" wailed Tony, running 
 his fingers through his hair. "I can't let this go!" 
 
 "What is it?" asked Marjorie going to his side. 
 
 "It's the song of the guard on the battlement. 
 Here it is on this page. The first verse." 
 
 She took the sheet of manuscript from him, and 
 read, in her clear, sweet voice: 
 
 " 'The voice of the watch is a spell 1 
 He paces his beat "
 
 232 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "That's rotten!" interrupted Tony. "I only put 
 in 'spell' to make it rhyme with 'well' !" 
 
 "Wait a minute! I have it, I think," she cried, 
 hopefully. "How would this do? Here: 
 
 "'All's well! 
 
 It is the call of the sentinel !' " 
 
 "That's bully!" he shouted. "Give me the page. 
 Thanks! Now, listen: 
 
 "'All's well! All's well! All's well!' 
 
 "Three times ! Do you like that?" 
 
 "Very much," was her smiling answer, as he pro- 
 ceeded to chant the remainder of the verse : 
 
 " 'Is the song of the sentinel, 
 Who paces his beat 
 Through rain and sleet, 
 From roll of taps till morning gun, 
 Each hour cries, from sun to sun : 
 'All's well!' " 
 
 He was radiant as he turned to Marjorie, and she 
 
 reflected in her eyes the satisfaction that shone in his. 
 
 "Fine, eh?" he exclaimed. "What?" 
 
 "And at the end," she advised, "you should have 
 
 three 'All's wells!' The first by the tenor on the
 
 MAINLY TEMPERAMENTAL 233 
 
 stage, the second by the baritone at some distance, 
 and the third by the bass, away off." 
 
 "I see ! I see ! Thank you very much indeed. 
 That's ripping ! I'll put it in while it is fresh in my 
 mind. A jolly idea!" 
 
 While he sat down and wrote hard, in his impetu- 
 ous way, the girl, after a tender look at the back of 
 his head, with the disordered hair carelessly pushed 
 back from his forehead, moved softly over to her 
 camp-chair, and again attacked the sock with the big 
 hole in the heel. 
 
 It was nearly five minutes before anything else oc- 
 curred to break the monotony of darning. Then Mar- 
 jorie, as she felt that she was getting the better of 
 the hole by steady labor, allowed her satisfaction to 
 find vent in an unconscious humming of the music of 
 Tony's verse which Albert Sewall had set to haunting 
 music. 
 
 Her voice was very low, and if she had realized 
 what she was doing, she would not have supposed it 
 could reach the young man working with such ab- 
 sorbed industry at the typewritten sheets before him. 
 
 It chanced, however, that Tony's nerves were 
 strung up to such a pitch that his hearing was ab- 
 normally sharpened, and he caught every accent. He 
 glanced up with an expression of keen annoyance.
 
 234 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "How can I concentrate my mind when you are 
 singing at the top of your voice?" he complained. 
 
 "I'm sorry. But I was feeling so so happy!" 
 
 "I'll have to send you home," he threatened, "if 
 you don't stop being so violently happy." 
 
 "I'll try not to make so much noise about it," was 
 her meek response. 
 
 "Thank you !" he grunted. 
 
 He hammered away at his work for a minute, while 
 she began on another sock. Suddenly he looked up 
 and demanded: 
 
 "What have you to be so happy about, anyway?" 
 Then, hastily, as she was about to speak: "No, no! 
 Don't answer me or you'll start an engrossing con- 
 versation. What I want is quiet!" 
 
 Marjorie went on submissively with her darning.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A LOVE PASSAGE IMPROVED. 
 
 **^TTA HIS is a ripping act!" Tony condescended 
 
 to say, after a long silence. "Only, I don't 
 
 quite like the finish where the Princess 
 
 Wisteria slaps Prince Hollyhock's face and runs 
 
 away." 
 
 "But he was very impudent to kiss her right in 
 front of her own palace door," declared Marjorie. 
 "Any one might have seen them!" 
 
 "Any one might have seen them?" echoed Tony. 
 "What has that to do with it?" 
 
 "Everything! That's why she was so angry." 
 
 "I thought it was because he kissed her." .... 
 
 "Not because he kissed her," was Marjorie's confi- 
 dent assertion. "But because he did it so publicly." 
 
 "By Jove ! You know more about my heroine than 
 I do myself." 
 
 "Goose !" laughed Marjorie. "She couldn't possi- 
 bly be angry just because he kissed her. She loves 
 him already." 
 
 235
 
 236 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Tony was not convinced. He arose from his chair 
 and marched over to the stove, looking thoughtfully 
 across it at Marjorie. 
 
 "You're mistaken," he told her. "It is not until 
 the last act that the princess loves him." 
 
 "She loves him in the second," insisted Marjorie. 
 "But she doesn't say anything about it until the last." 
 
 "You're sure of that?" doubtfully. 
 
 "Positive!" 
 
 "If that's the case, there should be some expression 
 of it at the end of Act Two after the slapping." 
 He pondered for a moment. "How could that be? 
 . . . You'll have to help me work this out. Here I" 
 suddenly. "You are the princess." 
 
 "Yes," assented Marjorie, eagerly, as she put the 
 sock in her work-basket and stood up, ready to play 
 her role. "And you're the prince." 
 
 "Yes, yes ! Come over here 1 That's right ! Now, 
 I say so-and-so, and so-and-so, and so-and-so, and 
 kiss you !" 
 
 As he mumbled his "so-and-so's" he gazed in mock 
 rapture at Marjorie, finishing by making a dart at her 
 and kissing the air, several inches from her face. 
 Marjorie winked involuntarily at the sound of the 
 kiss, but stood her ground, waiting for the next thing 
 in the scene.
 
 A LOVE PASSAGE IMPROVED 237 
 
 "Now you slap me !" ordered Tony. 
 
 She gave him a very gentle pat on the cheek. 
 
 "Oh, harder!" he cried, impatiently. "I've got to 
 get into the spirit of the thing !" 
 
 "But," protested Marjorie, "you didn't really 
 kiss me." 
 
 He laughed, thinking only of the opera. 
 
 "Very well. We'll start all over again !" 
 
 "Oh, I didn't mean that," was her hurried dis- 
 avowal. "I was only explaining why I didn't really 
 slap 
 
 Tony interrupted by making a quick movement as 
 if he really would kiss her this time. But she stopped 
 him with a slap that was considerably harder than 
 the first one. 
 
 "That's better!" he decided. They both laughed. 
 "Now you run into the palace. Let's see. Where 
 is the palace ? Oh, the trunk, of course ! That's the 
 idea ! Stay there, while I " 
 
 Marjorie jumped up on the trunk, in the character 
 of the princess, and Tony, as the prince, went down 
 a few stairs, looking up at her. 
 
 "Now," he directed, "the princess appears at the 
 window above him, and hearing the prince laughing, 
 throws down the flower-pots at him. Curtain! Eh?" 
 
 But Marjorie had her doubts, and, as she leaned
 
 238 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 over the rail, looking down at Tony, she expressed 
 them modestly: 
 
 "Do you think that's the way she'd express her 
 affection?" 
 
 "It would be pretty effective. No doubt about 
 that." 
 
 Marjorie shook her head, while Tony looked at 
 her with more respect for her opinions than he might 
 have shown ten minutes before. 
 
 "Come back!" she commanded, suddenly, as she 
 jumped from the trunk. "Listen to me! When the 
 princess runs into the palace, she calls her two giant 
 Nubian slaves. She says to them, very angrily: 'Kill 
 that man !' and runs up to the window." 
 
 Marjorie illustrated by jumping upon the trunk 
 again. 
 
 "Now," she went on, "you are going away, laugh- 
 ing." 
 
 "I see," he said, as he went "laughing" down two 
 or three stairs and looked at her from the trap. "Go 
 ahead!" 
 
 "The slaves rush out," continued Marjorie. "They 
 seize you and are about to slay you, when I scream 
 from the window : 'Don't you dare hurt that man, or 
 my father will feed you to the tigers !' Curtain !" 
 
 As she gazed down at him, her face flushed with
 
 A LOVE PASSAGE IMPROVED 239 
 
 excitement and her eyes sparkling, he ran up the stairs 
 and took her hand delightedly. 
 
 "That's immense!" he declared. "The action 
 the psychology is right stunning! All it wants is 
 the proper dialogue the lines." 
 
 "You'll keep that in about the tigers, won't you?" 
 "Surely! It's such a nice, ladylike touch." 
 He was at the table by this time, and plumping 
 down in his chair, he seized his pen to write in the 
 changes. 
 
 "It makes me so happy to be able to help you, even 
 the least little bit," she ventured, as she followed 
 him. 
 
 "You've helped me a great deal," he replied, con- 
 descendingly. "Now, go away over to your chair, 
 and I'll let you know when I want you to help me 
 again." 
 
 "You won't forget that they are Nubian slaves?" 
 "No. I have it all down on my mental cuff." 
 He waved her away and began to write, without 
 looking to see whether she obeyed him or not. He 
 took it for granted that she would do as she was told. 
 It was difficult for Marjorie not to continue the 
 conversation. She had been so interested in the lit- 
 tle scene they had rehearsed not because it was the 
 fruit of her own suggestion, but because it meant
 
 2 4 o THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 progress for him. Now she found herself out of his 
 confidence again and it hurt her. 
 
 She could not repress a sigh as she moved slowly 
 over to the window. 
 
 "Good gracious!" she suddenly murmured, under 
 her breath, with a look at the church clock. "I did 
 not think it was so late. I must get tea." 
 
 Swiftly but silently she set about her preparations. 
 First, she removed the cushions from the trunk and 
 opened it, took out a small white tablecloth. Then, 
 placing the folding table opened up by the side of 
 the stove, she spread the cloth and on it arranged 
 teacups, a teapot, plates, forks, spoons, etc. In a 
 remarkably short space of time the table was neatly 
 set for two persons. And the best of it was that she 
 had done it all without the least sound. 
 
 Tony Quintard, deep in his work, seemed quite un- 
 aware of what was going on across the room. He 
 never looked in her direction at all, and it pleased 
 her that she had been able to do all this without dis- 
 turbing him. 
 
 "He works so hard that it would be a sin to annoy 
 him ever so little," she thought. 
 
 From her basket she took the good things that 
 were to go with the tea. There was half a baked 
 hawi, some salad, a bottle of olives, a jar of marma-
 
 A LOVE PASSAGE IMPROVED 241 
 
 lade, a plate of sandwiches and a very attractive 
 cake. 
 
 Having disposed these delicacies neatly on the ta- 
 ble, she brewed the tea, and soon the attic was fra- 
 grant with the odor of the comforting beverage. 
 
 Unfortunately at this stage of the proceedings, she 
 accidentally knocked a spoon from the table. It fell 
 to the bare floor with a terrifying jingle. 
 
 Instantly Tony sprang up with a howl. 
 
 "Upon my word ! How can I work when you're 
 making such a clatter?" 
 
 "It's time you stopped, anyhow," she interrupted, 
 composedly. "You must have your tea." 
 
 "Tea ! Tea ! How can I get this job finished 
 when you're always bothering to feed me?" he com- 
 plained hotly. 
 
 "You can't work without being fed." 
 
 "I can't work when I'm stuffed" 
 
 Marjorie's sense of justice moved her to reply 
 rather sharply: 
 
 "If you you stuff yourself, it is not my fault." 
 
 "I don't stuff myself!" retorted Tony, sharply. 
 "It's you! You're forever making me eat. Why, 
 you've kept me so stuffed for the past week that half 
 the time my brains have utterly refused to work." 
 
 Marjorie stamped her little foot impatiently.
 
 242 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "It isn't true. They've worked better than ever. 
 You said so yourself." 
 
 "Now you've upset me so that I can't work," he 
 bellowed angrily. 
 
 But if he expected sympathy on this score, he soon 
 found that he was mistaken. Marjorie knew that she 
 could not afford to pity him. If she did, he never 
 would consent to have tea. Her voice was as hard 
 as she could make it when she retorted: 
 
 "I'm glad of it!" 
 
 "Don't you realize that I must have this thing done 
 to-night?" he demanded with great indignation. 
 
 "You'll finish it much better if you stop and have 
 your tea first." 
 
 "For heaven's sake, let me finish it now," he en- 
 treated in a tone of intense exasperation, "while I 
 am in the mood!" 
 
 "You're not in the mood now. . . . And, the tea 
 will spoil!" 
 
 "Oh, hang the tea !" shouted Tony. "Here I am, 
 trying my best to keep myself in the atmosphere of 
 romance, and you keep dragging me out of it into the 
 commonplace of material things. If you'll leave me 
 alone for five minutes, I'll be through." 
 
 Tony had his own way. When she saw that he was 
 absolutely determined she retired from the contest.
 
 A LOVE PASSAGE IMPROVED 243 
 
 "Five minutes will do it," he grunted, contentedly, 
 as he resumed his work. 
 She did not answer.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 PRIMROSE AS CUPID. 
 
 TONY QUINTARD made a neat pile of his 
 manuscript after a while, and, as he did so, 
 remarked cheerfully, without looking at 
 Marjorie : 
 
 "There! It's done! Didn't have to change a 
 word in the last few pages. Awfully good typewrit- 
 ing ! . Do you know, you could make your living " 
 It was just as he reached this point in his jubilation 
 that his eyes roved across the attic in search of the 
 girl who had helped him so loyally in his task. 
 "Good Lord!" 
 
 She was sitting upon the cushions on the floor, and 
 her arms rested on the trunk, supporting her head. 
 Her soft hair was all Tony could see. Her face was 
 hidden in her arms. She was just a miserable little 
 huddle. He saw that she quivered with sobs from 
 time to time. 
 
 He ran to her and touched her shoulder. 
 244
 
 PRIMROSE AS CUPID 245 
 
 "Why, what's the matter?" he asked. "What's 
 wrong?" 
 
 There was no response, and Tony stood up with a 
 puzzled expression, which soon changed to one of re- 
 morse. Now that the immediate glamor of the opera 
 rolled away from him, he became vaguely suspicious 
 of himself. 
 
 What had he done? He ruffled up his hair in his 
 desperation and again bent over her. 
 
 "Why, I must have hurt you! But you know I 
 didn't mean to. When I am working I am not a fit 
 companion for a a prehistoric monster!" 
 
 He dropped on one knee by her side, gently endeav- 
 oring to see her face. 
 
 "I'm terribly sorry," he went on, earnestly. "And 
 you've been so wonderful to help me with my opera. 
 I don't know what I should do without you ! I'm so 
 impatient, so restless, all day until you come. Why, 
 you're just the dearest little pal in the world ! And 
 when you're gone, I'm terribly, terribly lonely. The 
 only thing that cheers me then is the thought that 
 you are coming again to-morrow." 
 
 The sincerity and tenderness with which he said 
 this was irresistible. At least, Marjorie found it so. 
 Shyly, she put forth a hand. He covered it with his 
 own, and for a moment held it without speaking. At
 
 246 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 last she looked up at him tearfully, and he burst 
 out: 
 
 "You poor little thing! You've been crying I" 
 
 "No!" sob "no, I haven't!" 
 
 She wiped her eyes on her apron, fighting back the 
 tears. 
 
 "I'm a beast!" he declared, vehemently. 
 
 "No no, you're not. It's all all right now." 
 
 "You forgive me?" 
 
 "Yes, of course." 
 
 She was smiling now, and Tony seemed to feel his 
 heart leap as he saw it. If he had stopped to think 
 he might have marveled that a girl's mood could have 
 such an effect upon him. But it was characteristic of 
 him to take things for granted, and he did not trouble 
 to analyze his feelings. Instead, he gently raised 
 Marjorie to her feet and led her to where the table 
 was set for tea. 
 
 "Ah, that's like my dear little Fairy Godmother! 
 Now what do you say to tea ? You know, I'm starv- 
 ing! Everything looks so good!" 
 
 His eye fell upon her open work-basket, and he 
 lifted from it the sock she had been darning. Ex- 
 amining it carefully, he exclaimed: 
 
 "By Jove ! You've been darning my socks !" 
 
 "Yes," she confessed in timid tones.
 
 PRIMROSE AS CUPID 247 
 
 "It's a beautiful piece of work," he declared, hold- 
 ing the sock closer to his eyes and turning it over to 
 admire it from all points of view. 
 
 "You you think it is all right?" she asked, with 
 shy pleasure. 
 
 "Right? It's marvelous! I don't see how you 
 do it. I know how hard it is. ... I've tried it my- 
 self." 
 
 Her appreciative little laugh was good to hear, and 
 when Tony joined in with a full, round "Ha, ha!" 
 laughter quite brushed away the last remnant of their 
 little difference. 
 
 He placed the camp-chair for her at one side of the 
 table and made her sit down. Then he brought his 
 own chair to the other side and smiled comfort- 
 ably. 
 
 "You know, I am famished!" 
 
 "I'm afraid this tea is too strong," she remarked, 
 as she poured out a cup. 
 
 "Not for me," declared Tony. "But perhaps you'd 
 better have a little hot water in yours." 
 
 He was as full of interest in the tea as he had been 
 in his opera a little while before. Jumping up, he 
 brought the kettle and poured some water into Mar- 
 jorie's cup. As he returned from replacing the kettle 
 on the stove, he said solemnly:
 
 248 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "That is one of the handsomest hams I've ever 
 seen." 
 
 "I hope you will like it." 
 
 "I shall, I know. How could I help it? I'm be- 
 ginning to feel like a party. . . . You don't know 
 what a relief it is to me to get that job off my 
 chest." 
 
 Before she could respond, they were startled by 
 three distinct knocks on the door at the foot of the 
 stairs. Tony recovered at once. 
 
 "That's Primrose ! He's crazy about you. I'll 
 have to let him come up for a minute." Then, rais- 
 ing his voice, he called: "Come in!" 
 
 "I shall be glad to see any one who is as good to 
 you as he is," said Marjorie, handing Tony a cup of 
 tea. 
 
 It was now that Primrose appeared. He was smil- 
 ing, apologetic and somewhat embarrassed. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," he stammered in his husky 
 tones. "I I was comin' up to see if if the oil 
 stove was burnin' all right." 
 
 "I think you'll find that it is behaving itself per- 
 fectly," laughed Tony. 
 
 Primrose shuffled over to the stove and turned his 
 back to it. As the grateful warmth permeated his 
 being, he smiled and folded his hands beatifically in
 
 PRIMROSE AS CUPID 249 
 
 front of him. Then he bobbed to Marjorie, beam- 
 ing on her benevolently. 
 
 "How-de-do, miss? I hopes you're feelin' as good 
 as usual." 
 
 "Yes, thank you. How are you, Primrose?" 
 
 "If I was feelin' bad which I ain't it'd cure me, 
 the sight of you and Mr. Quintard sittin' here to- 
 gether at the table," he replied. Then he added, with 
 a still more expansive smile : "It do look so cheery 
 and affable ! Like a little man and his wife, you 
 know." 
 
 Tony laughed heartily. He saw only the absurdity 
 of such an idea. Then, as he glanced at Marjorie, 
 he became aware that her cheeks were aflame with 
 embarrassment, and that she was dropping lump after 
 lump of sugar into her teacup without knowing what 
 she was doing. 
 
 Meanwhile, the devoted Primrose rambled on, in 
 his monotonous way: 
 
 "I often says to myself I says : 'Now, wouldn't it 
 be nice if them two " 
 
 Tony felt that now was the time to stem the tide 
 of Primrose's moralizing. He attempted it by offer- 
 ing the old man a plate of sandwiches. 
 
 "Have a sandwich, Primrose ! Have a sandwich 1" 
 
 "Thank you, very kindly, sir."
 
 250 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Primrose accepted the sandwich. Then, as he gave 
 signs of being about to break out again on the awk- 
 ward subject just where he had been interrupted, 
 Marjorie hastily cut off a huge slice of cake and ten- 
 dered it to him. 
 
 "You'll have a piece of cake, won't you?" she 
 asked, sweetly. 
 
 "Thank you, miss. . . . As I was sayin', you and 
 Mr. Quintard " 
 
 "Let me pour you a cup of tea," she interposed, as 
 Primrose, sandwich in one hand and slice of cake in 
 the other, seemed determined to keep on talking. 
 "You'll have some tea?" 
 
 "If you'd be so " 
 
 Primrose chanced to glance at Tony at this junc- 
 ture, and was puzzled to see that the young man was 
 shaking his head violently and motioning toward 
 the stairs. What he meant, the old man could not 
 tell. 
 
 "If you'd be so kind, miss, as as " But the 
 
 mysterious signals were still going on. So in desper- 
 ation, Primrose turned to Tony and asked, in rather 
 more distinct tones than usual: "What is it you're 
 wantin', sir?" 
 
 "Oh!" groaned Tony, under his breath, adding, 
 aloud, to Primrose: "Nothing! nothing! I was only
 
 PRIMROSE AS CUPID 251 
 
 thinking that the Great She-Bear well, you know I 
 She's likely to be looking for you." 
 
 It was a lucky thought of Tony's. Well he knew 
 that dread of the Great She-Bear was deeply im- 
 planted in his humble friend's bosom, and that the 
 thought of her catching him idle even for a minute 
 dismayed him to the point of panic. Primrose start- 
 ed in terror and glanced apprehensively down the 
 trap. 
 
 "I'm obliged to you for thinking of it, sir," he ac- 
 knowledged, forgetting everything else for the mo- 
 ment. "She's in a fierce humor to-day. I guess I'd 
 better be going." He waved the cake and sandwich 
 and bobbed to Marjorie. "Thank you very much, 
 miss." 
 
 "I hope you'll come to-morrow, Primrose," she re- 
 sponded, smiling; "at tea-time." 
 
 "If you don't mind," returned the highly gratified 
 Primrose. "Thank you! Thank you! Good-day, 
 miss !" 
 
 He shuffled slowly down the stairs. As the door 
 closed, Tony leaned back in his chair and looked at 
 Marjorie who, her head bent, was sipping her tea 
 with more earnestness and curiosity than ever he had 
 displayed before. 
 
 It seemed to have occurred to Tony suddenly that
 
 252 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 this unknown girl who had done so much for him 
 might have thoughts and aspirations aside from the 
 opera in which, after all, there was no reason for 
 her taking such a deep interest. It was not her opera. 
 
 He had reached this point in his musings when she 
 happened to look up, meeting his eye. Evidently she 
 was surprised at the thoughtful, steady way in which 
 he was regarding her. A questioning little smile 
 tilted the corners of her mouth. Then, as he con- 
 tinued to look at her without speaking, she dropped 
 her own eyes in embarrassment. 
 
 It was the first time the Cinderella-man had seemed 
 to consider her in any other light than as an automatic 
 adjunct to his operatic masterpiece.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE GATEWAY OF DREAMS/ 
 
 tea is cold, I'm afraid." 
 He did not reply, and she had the teapot 
 in her hand, about to pour some tea into his 
 cup when he held up a hand to stop her. 
 
 "Do you know," he said, very seriously, and as if 
 he never had thought of it before, "that you've told 
 me very little about yourself." 
 
 She put down the teapot and looked at him, won- 
 dering what was coming. After a pause, he went on: 
 
 "You're almost as much alone in the world as I 
 am, aren't you?" 
 
 "Almost." 
 
 Her tone was very subdued, and she could not keep 
 her eyes on his now. He saw that she was breathing 
 fast, and he knew that his question had somehow 
 struck home. 
 
 "I don't often think of things like this," he con- 
 tinued; "but, if I should die to-night, it wouldn't af- 
 fect a single soul." 
 
 253
 
 254 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 There was a world of pity in her eyes as she turned 
 them to him for a fleeting instant. But she did not 
 speak. 
 
 "If anything should happen to you" he went on, 
 more softly than before, "is there anyone who would 
 care very much?" 
 
 "No. ... Not now!" 
 
 "Ah, but there was some one ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Recently?" 
 
 For a few moments she did not answer, and Tony, 
 knowing that she would speak at last when she 
 could waited. 
 
 "My mother!" she whispered. 
 
 "Oh !" exclaimed Tony, sympathetically. "I didn't 
 know. . . . I'm awfully sorry." He was silent for a 
 while. Presently: "It's been a long time since 
 I lost my mother. But I still miss her. . . . 
 So I so I know how how sad and lonely you must 
 be." 
 
 Her lips quivered, and there was a mournful little 
 smile on them as she returned: 
 
 "I am sometimes!" 
 
 "It's worse at night isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Another pause, during which Tony seemed to for-
 
 'THE GATEWAY OF DREAMS" 255 
 
 get where he was, for he broke out, suddenly, with 
 an attempt at lightness: 
 
 "My mother made such a darned baby of me!" 
 
 "Of course she did," responded Marjorie, with 
 conviction. 
 
 "Yours must have made a a bigger baby of you." 
 
 "I don't know," was her reply. "But I can't get 
 used to going to sleep without having her tuck me 
 in. ... And I I put her to bed myself for her 
 last last sleep, away away over there all alone 
 in France and I'm here !" 
 
 Not much wonder that her head drooped and the 
 tears came into her eyes. That day in Nice, when 
 she returned from her shopping trip, full of the joy 
 of life, to find her mother stricken, came back to 
 her as plainly as if she were living it all over. She 
 covered her face with her hands. 
 
 Tony felt suddenly miserable. A wave of sym- 
 pathy for Marjorie swept over him, but it was not 
 just sympathy that suddenly made him see her with 
 new vision. 
 
 He drew from his pocket a folded white handker- 
 chief, shook it out, and silently slipped it into her 
 hand. She looked up at him and smiled. Then she 
 daubed at her eyes with his handkerchief, and he 
 looked and looked at her as if he were seeing her
 
 256 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 for the first time. When he did speak, it was to say, 
 very slowly: 
 
 "Do you know anything about marrying?" 
 
 Marjorie gazed up at him, waiting for some ex- 
 planation. He vouchsafed none, but looked deep 
 down into her eyes, filled with the wonder of his dis- 
 covery. 
 
 "You have the most wonderful eyes!" he mur- 
 mured, slowly. 
 
 Without waiting for her to speak, he strode over 
 to the window and looked out at he snow-covered 
 roofs for a moment. Then he came back and, stand- 
 ing behind her, slowly put out a hand as if he would 
 touch her hair. But he changed his mind and, in- 
 stead, thrust both hands into his pockets, drew them 
 out, and counted his store seventeen cents! He 
 gazed hopelessly about the room. 
 
 Marjorie turned to him. But he did not seem to 
 notice her movement, for he walked over to his table 
 and began to finger the manuscript of his opera. 
 
 "I wonder if this thing is any good?" he said, 
 aloud " 'The Gateway of Dreams !' ' 
 
 " 'The Gateway of Dreams?' " she asked, with 
 quick interest. 
 
 "Didn't I tell you? that's the title I've given the 
 opera. It came to me last night."
 
 "THE GATEWAY OF DREAMS" 257 
 
 "It's an inspiration!" cried Marjorie. 
 
 "H'm ! Yes ! But you never heard of a man 
 marrying on 'inspiration.' ' He looked at her fixed- 
 ly. "Yes, all I could offer a girl to-day would be 
 just a little inspiration. It can't be done!" 
 
 Marjorie had come to the table now near enough 
 to Tony to touch him, if she had desired. She looked 
 at him as steadily as he had at her a moment before, 
 and asked, with strained calmness: 
 
 "Wouldn't it be a sensible idea if you were to 
 marry a girl with a little money of her own?" 
 
 "No no I wouldn't marry a girl with money," 
 maintained Tony. 
 
 His quiet steadfastness to that idea made her 
 shrink away, but she did not yield her point. 
 
 "Some awfully nice girls come that way," she re- 
 minded him. "There's the Princess " 
 
 "Oh please!" begged Tony. 
 
 "It isn't fair for you to rje so prejudiced against 
 her," she fenced. "The Princess is the same sort of 
 girl that that I am." 
 
 "Oh, you're worth a million princesses!" 
 
 There could be no doubt about the sincerity of this 
 conviction. She knew Tony meant exactly what he 
 said, and yet considering everything it was with 
 some misgivings that she thanked him for his opinion.
 
 258 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Tony, quite unaware that there was anything equiv- 
 ocal in what he had said, gazed after her admiringly 
 as, moving back to the tea-table, she took the kettle 
 from the stove to replenish the teapot. 
 
 "Do have some hot tea?" she suggested, hurriedly. 
 
 But Tony's mind was far away from tea by this 
 time. He had been following a line of thought of 
 which he could not see the end, and yet which 
 might lead him to happiness. 
 
 "If I should win the prize " 
 
 He had spoken more to himself than to Marjorie. 
 But she caught it and replied, with quick encourage- 
 ment: 
 
 "I'm sure you will. You must!" 
 
 "You have great faith in the opera, haven't you?'* 
 he said. 
 
 "It can't fail!" she replied, in a positive tone. 
 
 "In that case," mused Tony, "I should have ten 
 thousand dollars." Then, hopefully: "A man could 
 marry on ten thousand couldn't he?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, indeed!" was her prompt answer. 
 
 She peeped into the teapot, to save herself the 
 necessity of looking at Tony. He was leaning across 
 the table, his face not many inches from her own. 
 
 "And my prospects would be mighty good," he 
 continued. "Especially, if the opera made a hit."
 
 "THE GATEWAY OF DREAMS" 259 
 
 "I think your prospects are awfully good now," as 
 she poured him a cup of tea. 
 
 "That's all very well," he returned, with a business- 
 like air. "But a man must have some ready money. 
 He can't ask a girl to take chances." 
 
 "A girl is always glad to to take chances" here 
 she handed Tony his teacup "when she's sure she 
 is taking them with the right man." 
 
 "Ah ! That's the marvelous thing about girls. But 
 a man doesn't like to ask them to take chances." 
 
 "You mustn't treat us as if we were perishable 
 freight," she smiled. "Though we like to have you 
 think of us that way sometimes." 
 
 "It would be the most wonderful adventure," he 
 exclaimed, dreamily. 
 
 "To sail into life," she went on, "with nothing but 
 love for a boat I" 
 
 "But you can't sail without wind," he continued, 
 with a comical expression of dismay. Then, in de- 
 termined accents: "By Jove! That opera of mine 
 shall raise the wind for me. 'The Gateway of 
 Dreams'!" 
 
 "The Gateway of Dreams P* she echoed. 
 
 Tony arose from his chair, and holding his teacup 
 above his head, as if proposing a toast, cried: "To 
 you, little Fairy Godmother!"
 
 26o THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Entering laughingly into the spirit of the conceit, 
 Marjorie clinked her cup against Tony's, as she re- 
 peated his words, "To the success of 'The Gateway 
 of Dreams' !" 
 
 It was at this precise instant that the censorious 
 visage of the Great She-Bear came up the trap, her 
 angry eyes fixed upon Marjorie.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 A SHATTERED PARADISE 
 
 SO sudden and unexpected had been the appear- 
 ance of the Great She-Bear that, for several 
 seconds, Tony and Marjorie stood perfectly 
 still, their teacups touching, while they gazed at this 
 creature who had so rudely broken into their Eden. 
 
 Furious as she was, a touch of grim pleasure re- 
 vealed itself in the face of the Great She-Bear. The 
 landlady prided herself on her perspicacity. She 
 often boasted that nobody could fool her, and most 
 of her time was occupied in trying to make such a 
 thing impossible. 
 
 Since she had seen how much more comfortable 
 and decorative Tony's garret was, and especially after 
 discovering the chiffon scarf on the young man's ta- 
 ble, she had decided that "something was wrong" 
 with her lodger. 
 
 What that "something" was she suspected to be of 
 the feminine gender. The scarf was part of a wo- 
 
 261
 
 262 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 man's attire, and she had shrewdly concluded that 
 only a woman could have converted that attic into 
 such a cheery and comfortable domicile. 
 
 Therefore, as she appeared, with all the ominous- 
 ness of the evil genius in a pantomime, rising, tower- 
 ing up through the trap, and found herself staring 
 at Marjorie Caner, she congratulated herself upon 
 her acumen. 
 
 "Mr. Quintard, take that girl out of here!" she 
 rumbled. It was her opening explosion, giving prom- 
 ise of heavier detonations yet to come. 
 
 Taken unaware, Tony was for a moment utterly 
 bewildered. Expressions of astonishment and puz- 
 zlement, rather than alarm, at first flickered across 
 his expressive face; but as he met the baleful, Puri- 
 tanical and steady glance of the Great She-Bear, a 
 sensation of apprehension swept over him. Instinc- 
 tively he put down his cup and held out a protecting 
 arm to Marjorie. She, herself had started up at the 
 first sound of that ominous command, uttered by the 
 intruder. Innocent as the girl was, entirely lacking 
 in experience with people of the Great She-Bear's 
 narrow and venomous type, her instinct gave her 
 some inkling of the deeper significance of the sneer 
 on the woman's coarse mouth, of the menace in her 
 sullen eyes. Instinctively, too, she caught the hand
 
 A SHATTERED PARADISE 263 
 
 that Tony held out to her, and her first fears were 
 somewhat lulled by his reasurring look of protection. 
 Her response was a slight tightening of her slim fin- 
 gers on his hand. 
 
 That pressure upon his hand brought Tony to a 
 realization of the catastrophe which had overtaken 
 them. At the same time his blood began to mount 
 hotly to his head. As he turned his shocked and 
 indignant face to the Great She-Bear, he heard her re- 
 peat, menacingly: 
 
 "I want you to get out of here, and take that girl 
 with you ! Now I know what's been goin' on up in 
 this attic." 
 
 For the moment, Tony's power of utterance had 
 deserted him. All he could say was a threatening: 
 "Hush! Hush!" 
 
 But the Great She-Bear was not to be hushed so 
 readily. "You take that girl out of here 1" she reiter- 
 ated, with more vehemence than ever. "This is a de- 
 cent house, and I'm a respectable woman!" 
 
 The full force of the woman's horrible misunder- 
 standing struck him, like a blow. "You don't know 
 what you're saying," he expostulated, in a low, trem- 
 bling tone. 
 
 "I'm saying that I won't have a lodger of mine 
 carrying on in his rooms with a hussy!"
 
 264 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "How dare you !" cried Tony. If the Great She- 
 Bear had been a man he would have throttled her. 
 It was all he could do to restrain himself. 
 
 "She's a hussy ! That's what she is I" She point- 
 ed a grimy, gnarled finger at Marjorie. 
 
 "Stop, I say stop !" Tony took a step toward 
 her, his hands clenched, while Marjorie, retreating 
 across the room, piteously held her hands to her ears. 
 
 "Where do you think you are?" The voice of the 
 Great She-Bear became more vehement. "I won't 
 have such goin's on up here, I tell you. You'll get 
 out of my house, you and that " 
 
 Tony's self-control collapsed suddenly, "Get out 
 of my room !" he cried. 
 
 "Take her where she belongs !" shouted the land- 
 lady, throwing down Marjorie's scarf which she 
 plucked out of her apron pocket. "I guessed what 
 was doin' up here when I found that thing 1" 
 
 "Get out of my room, you evil-minded beast, with 
 your rotten respectability !" Tony was trembling with 
 rage/ 
 
 "It's my room!" shrilled the woman. 
 
 Tony towered above her, the personification of 
 righteous wrath, while his voice rose hysterically: 
 "Don't speak! You've done your work! I'll leave 
 this place to-night, but you you leave now! Get out
 
 A SHATTERED PARADISE 265 
 
 get out you beast, or I'll throw you down those 
 stairs!" 
 
 The Great She-Bear's face turned a dingy white. 
 She saw plainly then that Tony meant what he said. 
 She turned, with baffled anger and muttering inaudi- 
 ble imprecations, and slowly descended the stain. 
 In a moment they heard the door slam below. 
 
 When Tony at last turned to Marjorie, he found 
 her standing by his writing table, pale, distracted, 
 horrified. She met his gaze, which begged forgive- 
 ness, with a piteous look of affection. 
 
 At first she had not comprehended die vile insin- 
 uations of that terrible woman. The baleful, sordid 
 idea was too dreadful to penetrate her frank con- 
 sciousness. Then it had struck her, all at once 
 hideously. 
 
 She looked heart-brokenly at Tony. As he re- 
 turned her gaze, he felt that this was the end of their 
 wonderful companionship in the attic. Beyond that 
 he could not see. 
 
 Slowly he put her things into the work-basket and 
 dropped the socks she had been mending into the 
 trunk. He picked up the scarf and saw her shiver. 
 He knew that she could never touch it again. He 
 folded it mechanically and laid it away out of her 
 sight. He gathered up her doak, draped it gently
 
 266 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 about her shoulders, and slowly opened the window. 
 She had followed him. Neither had spoken. They 
 could not speak. There were tears in her eyes. There 
 were tears in his. He gave her his hand. She took 
 it, held it closely to her. It was evident that she 
 longed for him to take her in his arms. He had never 
 been so tempted, but he knew it wasn't fair. He 
 tenderly put her from him and helped her over the 
 window ledge. 
 
 Marjorie stood there on the roof, still clasping his 
 hand across the sill. He stopped, kissed her hand, 
 and let her go. For an instant their eyes met, and 
 their hearts spoke "Farewell 1" 
 
 Suddenly she turned, with a little sob, and went 
 swiftly over the snow-covered roof, turned the corner 
 of a chimney, and was gone. 
 
 Tony closed the window slowly, leaned both arms 
 against the casement, his head bent and his face 
 pressed against the cold panes. 
 
 Then it came to him, with heart-breaking poig- 
 nancy, that their little paradise was shattered. A veil 
 had been drawn across his stars, his dream-city was 
 gone. He would never, never see it again I
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 LOVE SEEKS THE WAY. 
 
 DAYS, then a week, passed. Time moved with 
 heavy feet, and the littlest hours were dreary 
 ones for Marjorie. She had tried to settle 
 down to the dull routine of her father's house after 
 that darkling afternoon when she had parted from 
 her Cinderella-man. She had not seen him since, but, 
 through a single visitation of the faithful Primrose, 
 who had timorously sought her out, she had learned 
 that Tony was moving from the rookery next door. 
 
 It was early in the evening. Marjorie had just 
 come into the drawing-room, wearing the fluffy white 
 gown which set off her dainty prettiness so charming- 
 ly. She had found the big place empty, and, hardly 
 knowing what she did, glided over to the window 
 near the piano. It was from this window that she 
 had caught her first sight of the glow from Tony's 
 dormer. 
 
 There was no light there now, and as she looked, 
 she felt as though her heart were crying. 
 
 267
 
 268 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 The fact was that Marjorie was so unhappy that 
 she had begun to show it. Even Doctor Thayer, who 
 had been called in consultation to minister to her 
 listlessness and loss of appetite, had failed to make 
 a satisfactory diagnosis. 
 
 It was the coming of this same good doctor that 
 disturbed her melancholy reverie now. As Blodgett 
 announced him, the girl made a gesture of distraction 
 and slipped behind the heavy draperies of the window. 
 
 "I don't want to see him, Blodgett!" 
 
 "Very well, miss." 
 
 Blodgett made this response meekly enough, but 
 he pointed to the curtain as Doctor Thayer came to- 
 ward the piano, and departed, with the feeling that 
 he had done his full duty. 
 
 "Well," remarked the doctor, looking at the win- 
 dow drapery, "I've had patients hate me so that they 
 pulled the bed-clothes over their heads at the sight 
 of me. But I've never had one wrap herself up in 
 the drawing-room curtains. . . . Come, now ! Stick 
 out your tongue and I'll be satisfied I" 
 
 There was no response. So, after waiting a mo- 
 ment, he thrust the curtain aside and seizing Mar- 
 jorie playfully by the arm, drew her out of the recess. 
 
 "Please leave me alone," she pleaded. "I am not 
 your patient."
 
 LOVE SEEKS THE WAY 269 
 
 "Oh, yes, you are. I'm the house physician. I at- 
 tend everything in it, from the Great Mogul himself 
 down to the cat." 
 
 "We haven't a cat now," she corrected him. "I 
 gave it away. It frightened the canaries." 
 
 "But we have a kitten," he rejoined, laughing. 
 "And the Great Mogul telephoned me that the kitten 
 was sick." 
 
 "If you mean me, I'm not sick." 
 
 "You're not feeling very frisky, my dear. You've 
 lost your appetite, and you won't go out, even in your 
 brand-new, big red car." 
 
 "A red car!" she broke in, listlessly. 
 
 "Ah! You don't like the color of it? We'll 
 have it changed. What do you say to a nice sky- 
 blue?" 
 
 "I don't want a car," she declared, wearily. "I 
 don't want any of those horrid expensive things. I 
 don't want to be rich. I want to be poor." 
 
 "Then you are sick!" replied the doctor, with con- 
 viction. "Now this loss of appetite. We'll have 
 to stimulate your desire for food a little humor your 
 palate. To begin with, I'm going to give you a tonic. 
 It is very pleasant to the taste." He began to write 
 a prescription. "Your father says you ate no dinner 
 to-night! I'm going to order you a supper to be
 
 270 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 eaten on top of this nice cocktail I'm mixing for 
 you." 
 
 "I don't like cocktails," she interrupted, "and why 
 should I eat if I'm not hungry?" 
 
 "Here is what you are to have," he went on cheer- 
 fully. "Clam broth, white meat of the chicken, aspar- 
 agus tips on toast, and, if you like, you may have 
 vanilla ice-cream and lady-fingers. No tea no 
 coffee. I put you on your honor. I'll tell Blodgett, 
 as I go out, to give your menue to the chef! The 
 prescription I'll leave at the drug store myself and 
 have it sent around to you in a jiffy !" 
 
 He held out his hand. She took it with a smile, 
 saying: "Thank you for coming!" 
 
 "A pleasure, I'm sure ! Now, be a good girl," he 
 admonished; "take your medicine and eat only what 
 I've ordered. I'll drop in again to-morrow." Mar- 
 jorie made a wry face. "Good-night," he concluded, 
 laughing at her. "My regards to your father." 
 
 Alone again, Marjorie walked slowly back to the 
 casement, and settled there into the cushions, with 
 chin upturned to the attic, like a drooping little white 
 flower to the sun. 
 
 Presently the voice of Blodgett, announcing a vis- 
 itor, disturbed her. The butler was saying, with pro- 
 nounced superciliousness: "Miss Marjorie, that old
 
 LOVE SEEKS THE WAY 271 
 
 person from next door is here again. Ke insists 
 he must see you!" 
 
 The girl turned eagerly. "Yes, yes I Where is 
 he ? I want to see him at once." 
 
 Blodgett was too well-trained to make an exhibi- 
 tion of his feelings, but he plainly disapproved. He 
 shook his head surreptitiously as he returned to usher 
 in the shy and shabby visitor. 
 
 It was Primrose, of course. He regarded the dig- 
 nified Blodgett with some awe but no admiration. 
 He had a thorough knowledge of the superiority 
 vested in that individual by the great Morris Caner, 
 but there was something which the old man thought 
 unnecessarily disagreeable about him. He held the 
 belief that, but for the ill turns of fortune, he was 
 quite as good intrinsically as that well-fed butler. 
 As a matter of fact, Primrose could remember when 
 he was still better fed, certainly more smart. With 
 that thought he straightened himself up and made 
 quite a dignified entrance into the drawing-room, de- 
 spite the fact that he wore the dilapidated overcoat 
 which a festive master many years before had sported 
 at the races, and carried a quaint old derby out of 
 fashion these many years. They were ancient friends, 
 however, and had served him well through innumer- 
 able winters.
 
 272 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 Apparently Primrose had given more than casual 
 attention to his appearance. His mop of grey hair 
 was plastered down severely, and his wrinkled face 
 shone as clean and as bright as a polished door-knob. 
 For the moment he would have been quite happy 
 were it not for the presence of that disturbing, not 
 to say overbearing, butler. 
 
 A broad smile of simple adoration adorned his 
 face as he saw Marjorie coming toward him. He 
 bobbed to her respectfully. 
 
 "Good evenin', miss," he began. "Mr. Quintard 
 says to me " 
 
 "Oh, I'm so glad to see you," she greeted him. 
 "I've been so anxious!" 
 
 "Mr. Quintard says to me," repeated Primrose, 
 determined that he should not forget one syllable of 
 that important message, "he says: 'you go across the 
 room and leave 'em at her window.' ' 
 
 Whereupon he extracted from a cavernous pocket 
 of the great coat a pathetic-looking bunch of violets. 
 It was a small bunch, and crumpled, but still fresh. 
 The old man gave the flowers a shake to straighten 
 them out again, and placed them in the girl's willing 
 hand. 
 
 On the verge of tears, Marjorie took the violets 
 and held them closely to her cheek for a moment.
 
 LOVE SEEKS THE WAY 273 
 
 then slipped them into the girdle of her dress. 
 
 "You see," continued Primrose, "Mr. Quintard 
 didn't know I was goin' to see you. He doesn't know 
 I've ever seen you since he moved, that night." 
 
 "He is quite comfortable now with your sister- 
 in-law?" she asked. 
 
 "With my sister-in-law's aunt," corrected Prim- 
 rose. "Yes, miss. It's a very clean little garret he 
 has there, but I do miss the sight o' your curtains 
 and fixin's. And he has a fine view from his win- 
 dow, too. At night he can see one of them big ad- 
 vertising signs. It's a bottle of beer" Primrose's 
 tone grew warm "pourin' itself into a glass." 
 
 "That must be very interesting," she smiled. 
 
 "It is. It's so natural. It makes me thirsty to 
 look at it." 
 
 "Oh, by the way, Primrose, you must give me Mr. 
 Quintard's address. I want to return his manu- 
 script." 
 
 Marjorie took a pencil from the table and prepared 
 to write. 
 
 Primrose glanced sideways to see if she was ready. 
 
 "It's McDougal alley, miss number 417 " 
 
 "417," she repeated, as she wrote it down. 
 
 "And a half," he added. 
 
 "Oh, 417 and a half McDougal alley?"
 
 274 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "That's right, miss." 
 
 She took out her pocketbook and in silence offered 
 a five-dollar bill to him. He shook his head in smil- 
 ing refusal. 
 
 "It's very good of you, and I thank you kindly, 
 miss," he said. "But it's no use." 
 
 "No use? Why not?" 
 
 "Well, miss," explained Primrose, with the air of 
 one who had a rather difficult story to tell, "you know 
 that ten dollars you gave me for him?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, I tried to get him to borrow it off me 
 and he wouldn't; and off my sister-in-law's aunt 
 and he wouldn't. But the next day I had an idea. 
 You know when people die their names are put in 
 the papers. Sometimes a bit o' poetry goes with 'em. 
 So I says to Mr. Quintard: 'A friend o' mine has 
 jus' died an' his wife'll give ten dollars if you'll write 
 a piece o' poetry about him, tellin' what a great man 
 he was and what a loss he'd been to his family, so she 
 can stick it in the papers.' And Mr. Quintard bit, 
 miss he did ! He got the ten dollars he earned it ! 
 I've got the poetry. Every time I read it, it makes 
 me cry. I'm goin' to keep it an' have it stuck in the 
 papers when I croak!" 
 
 As Primrose finished this original narrative, he put
 
 LOVE SEEKS THE WAY 275 
 
 a corner of the precious many-colored handkerchief 
 to his eyes. 
 
 "What a dear old fraud you are," said Marjorie 
 gently. "You must take this money. You're so in- 
 genius, you can surely find a way to make him accept 
 it!" 
 
 "But he ain't needin' it now, miss," protested 
 Primrose. "The rent ain't much, and he don't eat 
 nothin' to speak of. Would you believe it, his appe- 
 tite is so poor " 
 
 The old man broke off suddenly, as from the tail 
 of his eye he glimpsed the austere Blodgett, who had 
 silently entered the room, bearing a small tray with 
 a bottle on it which had every appearance of being 
 fresh from the drug store. This he now offered 
 Marjorie, with never a glance in Primrose's humble 
 direction. 
 
 "Your medicine, Miss Marjorie I" 
 
 She took the bottle and dismissed the butler. She 
 seemed to be thinking. "You say Mr. Quintard's 
 appetite is poor, Primrose?" 
 
 "Werry poor, miss ! You wouldn't believe it, but 
 he turns up his nose at boiled beef and cabbage. He 
 don't care nothin' for food no more!" 
 
 Marjorie quickly unwrapped the medicine bottle 
 and her manner reflected the professional air of her
 
 276 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 father's physician. "We'll have to stimulate Mr. 
 QuJntard's desire for food," she declared, "and at 
 the same time make things easy for his tummy. To 
 begin with, we'll give him this tonic. Tell him it's 
 pleasant to the taste. The drections are there. I've 
 only scratched off my name." 
 
 The old man thanked her and put the bottle in his 
 pocket. 
 
 "Now, we must humor his palate," she went on. 
 "For supper to-night, we'll give him clam broth clear, 
 the white meat of chicken, asparagus tips on toast, 
 vanilla ice-cream and lady-fingers." 
 
 Primrose was nonplussed. "But where am I to 
 get them, miss?" 
 
 "Come back in an hour and I'll have Mr. Quin- 
 tard's supper ready for you. You could take it to. 
 him in a basket, couldn't you ?" 
 
 "I could, miss only " He hesitated. "I'm 
 
 afraid the Great She-Bear won't leave me off 1" 
 
 Marjorie looked girlishly imperious, every inch a 
 Caner. "Then you must leave her," she commanded. 
 "I intended to speak to you about this before. I 
 want to engage you as my footman to run errands 
 for me, bathe the canaries, exercise the dogs, and 
 keep the squirrels from fighting. I don't know the 
 wages of a footman, but you shall have them."
 
 LOVE SEEKS THE WAY 277 
 
 "Oh, miss," cried the grateful Primrose, clasping 
 his hands in ecstasy. "It would be like heaven to be 
 your footman. I I " 
 
 But he could not go on. Tears were always rather 
 hear the surface with him and he let them flow freely 
 now. 
 
 "Your footman! Your footman!" he sobbed. 
 
 "There, there, Primrose! Don't cry!" begged 
 Marjorie. "You're engaged. You must take this 
 five dollars. It is for you. The basket, with the 
 supper, will be ready in an hour. And and I want 
 you to come and see me to-morrow at noon." 
 
 "Thank you thank you very kindly, miss." 
 
 Primrose would probably have said much more. 
 But at this instant, through his mist of tears, he saw 
 Morris Caner and Romney Evans come into the 
 room, and he felt that retreat was indicated. 
 
 Even when he was out of the room, however, seek- 
 ing the servants' hall to wait for the supper that was 
 to be ready in an hour, he still kept on repeating rap- 
 turously: "Her footman! Her footman!" 
 
 There was at least one happy person in the great 
 Caner house that evening.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 MORRIS CANER HEARS A CONFESSION. 
 
 WHAT'S that old ragamuffin doing here?" 
 demanded Caner, irritably. "Who is he?'* 
 "I've engaged him as my footman," re- 
 plied Marjorie, calmly. 
 
 Her reply did not soothe the ruffl'ed millionaire. 
 
 "Good Lord!" he stormed. "You don't suppose 
 I want a tramp like that about my house?" 
 
 "That will be all right, Morris," put in Romney 
 Evans, laughing. "He'll take charge of the men- 
 agerie." 
 
 "Menagerie! Yes!" grumbled Caner. "This thing 
 has to stop ! Every time I come down stairs, I fall 
 over some strange animal." 
 
 Marjorie laughed mischievously, and half pushed, 
 half-led her father to the big throne-chair in the 
 middle of the room. 
 
 "I'm sorry, papa, but the puppies are all so young 
 yet. When they grow up, they'll learn to keep out 
 of your way." 
 
 278
 
 CANER HEARS A CONFESSION 279 
 
 Caner, growling and protesting, allowed her to 
 push him into the big chair. 
 
 Then she lifted the big, round blue pillow in the 
 chair behind him, gave it a few magic pokes and 
 shakes that softened and plumped it out, and adjusted 
 it to her father's back with a skill that brought from 
 him a grunt of satisfaction. 
 
 "There, papa! That's better isn't it?" 
 
 "I suppose it is," he returned grudgingly. "The 
 way you fix them. But I don't like the things." 
 
 "That's because you haven't had any one to make 
 you comfy. Now, put your poor foot on the 
 stool !" 
 
 The good humored affection of the girl had 
 thawed the ice-crust on Morris Caner's disposition 
 partly, at least. He allowed his daughter to lift his 
 leg and arrange his rheumatic foor on the stool, 
 while a not very hard smile came over his 
 features. 
 
 Morris would not have confessed it but he found 
 himself wondering why he had deprived himself of 
 such an adorable companion for so many years? He 
 was not the kind of man to confess that he ever made 
 mistakes. But, watching the dainty, white-clad figure, 
 as she hovered about him, ready to anticipate his 
 every wish, he muttered deeply in his soul that she
 
 28o THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 was "every inch a Caner," and he was proud of her. 
 But it was not in him to mention it. 
 
 Suddenly, with a girlish exclamation of pleasure, 
 Marjorie darted from his side and vanished behind 
 him. The fact that he could not easily move from 
 the kingly throne, in which she had seated him, ruffled 
 Caner anew. 
 
 "What is it, Marjorie?" he asked impatiently. 
 
 But the girl did not reply. Her quick ear had 
 caught the sound of a welcome arrival. She was 
 already in the hall and her voice rang out above 
 Blodgett's discrete murmur: 
 
 "Oh, Papa .Sewall! Papa Sewall!" she cried. 
 "Tell me! Have you read Mr. Quintard's 
 opera?" 
 
 Caner listened to Sewall's answering barytone: 
 "Yes, my child! Old Papa Sewall has read it! So 
 have the other members of the committee. I saw 
 to that !" By this time the pair of conspirators were 
 entering the room. 
 
 "What's that?" barked Caner from his chair. 
 
 "One moment, papa !" begged the daughter. Then, 
 to Sewall: "Well? Well? What do you think of it? 
 Isn't it wonderful ?" 
 
 "I'm sorry," answered the composer. "The com- 
 mittee won't have it the way it is I"
 
 CANER HEARS A CONFESSION 281 
 
 "Won't have it?" repeated Marjorie, her voice 
 barely audible in her surprise and disappoint- 
 ment. "Why, that's impossible! It's too beauti- 
 ful!" 
 
 "Fine! Fine!" agreed Sewall, heartily. "Yes, 
 yes ! That's what we all thought until we come to 
 the last act" 
 
 "The last act?" 1 
 
 "Yes. And what does your jackass of an author do 
 then ? He ruins his story by ending it tragically. The 
 thing calls for a happy ending." 
 
 "But it does end happily!" protested Marjorie, 
 puzzled. 
 
 "You're wrong! You're wrong! I'll prove it. 
 I'll show you the original manuscript." 
 
 On the table lay the opera as it had left Tony's 
 hands. Marjorie had been reading it that evening, 
 as she had done many times during die past week. 
 She snatched it up and brought it over to Sewall. 
 
 Morris Caner, keenly aware of the important 
 bustle in which he had no part, shifted uneasily in 
 his throne-chair, and called out, irritably: 
 
 "Marjorie! Marjorie! What's all this row 
 about anyway?" 
 
 "Just a second, papa!" was her reply. "I'm 
 busy!"
 
 282 THE CANDERELLA MAN 
 
 Caner relapsed into exasperated silence* 
 
 Sewall, with a casual wave to Caner, settled 
 himself down on the davenport to read the manu- 
 script. Caner regarded the proceeding with extreme 
 disfavor. 
 
 "What's Marjorie got to do with the opera of a 
 man I never heard of?" he grunted. 
 
 "I've had it typewritten for him," explained Mar- 
 jorie. 
 
 "You had it typewritten for him?" 
 
 "Yes, papa dear! Grayson did it perfectly I" 
 
 "Oh, you don't say!" Caner was sarcastic. "Ne- 
 glected my business to typewrite an opera. And for 
 whom, I'd like to know?" 
 
 "A friend of mine," said the voice of Romney, 
 who had been sitting at the piano, abstractedly turn- 
 ing over sheet-music. 
 
 "A real man of talent !" chipped in Sewall. 
 
 "A 1 genius !" agreed Marjorie warmly. 
 
 "A genius, eh! What's his name?" Caner asked 
 this sharply. 
 
 "Quintard," replied Romney. 
 
 "Anthony Quintard," supplemented Marjorie. 
 
 "Never heard of him !" was the final way in which 
 the millionaire dismissed Tony as an unknown and 
 unimportant individual.
 
 CANER HEARS A CONFESSION 283 
 
 "You will hear of him," said Sewall, emphatcally, 
 from the davenport. 
 
 "Yes, the whole world will," was Marjorie's as- 
 sertion, her eyes bright with enthusiasm as she looked 
 at the composer. 
 
 "Where did you meet him? That's what I want 
 to know!" insisted her father. "Romney introduce 
 you?" 
 
 "No," she answered. 
 
 "Yes," said Romney, simultaneously. 
 
 "Yes! No !" barked Caner. "What am I to be- 
 lieve?" 
 
 Romney came strolling over from the piano ?nd 
 stood in front of his ill-tempered friend. 
 
 "He's perfectly all right." 
 
 "He's a very nice young man," added Marjorie. 
 "Isn't he, Romney?" 
 
 "The best in the world." 
 
 "Did you introduce them?" demanded Caner, ad- 
 dressing himself impatiently to Romney. 
 
 "I told them about each other." 
 
 "You see, papa," explained Marjorie. "We were 
 neighbors. He lived next door " 
 
 "There?" inquired her father with real surprise, 
 pointing to the window.
 
 284 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "Yes. We we became acquainted. It is only a 
 step across the roof to his window." 
 
 "Good Lord!" ejaculated Caner. 
 
 "Good work!" suddenly came from the lips of 
 Albeit Sewall, in reference to the opera in his hand.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE THRESHOLD OF ROMANCE. 
 
 T"^ON'T you love the opera, Papa Sewall?" 
 1 called out Marjorie, entirely forgetting her 
 irate father for the moment. 
 
 "Fine!" returned Sewall, without lifting his eyes 
 from the manuscript. 
 
 "I suppose you stood at your w idow, making eyes 
 at him?" inquired Caner, return? g to the charge. 
 
 "No," returned Marjorie, ignoring the sarcasm, 
 "I climbed across the roof to his window." 
 
 "Romney!" exploded the millionaire, "the girl's 
 made a fool of herself!" 
 
 "Oh, piffle I" was all Romney vouchsafed in reply. 
 
 Marjorie looked in distress from one to the other 
 as she asked naively: 
 
 "Have I done anything I shouldn't?" 
 
 "Have you done anything you shouldn't!" thun- 
 dered her father. "You scrape acquaintance with this 
 Quintard person in the most extraordinary manner!" 
 
 285
 
 286 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "It was the best way I knew/' she protested. 
 
 "Perfectly good way!* 1 pronounced Romncy, 
 coolly. 
 
 "I wonder what the man must have thought of 
 you!" said Caner, with scandalized emphasis. 
 
 "He was very grateful to me. I helped him with 
 his opera." 
 
 "It's a wonder he didn't make violent love to you." 
 
 "I wish he had." 
 
 Marjorie made this dreadful admission in a very 
 low voice, but Morris Caner and Romney both heard 
 it. 
 
 "Do you hear that, Romney?" yelled Morris. "Do 
 you hear that?" 
 
 "She's honest," laughed Romney. "Like father." 
 
 "He never made the tiniest bit of love to me," 
 said Marjorie, rather mournfully. 
 
 "Why didn't he?" demanded Caner, shifting his 
 ground abruptly. "Doesn't he like your looks?" 
 
 "He likes my eyes" answered Marjorie, simply. 
 "He said so." 
 
 "Oh, he likes your eyes?" 
 
 "But he's very poor and fearfully proud." 
 
 "This chap's an artist!" ejaculated Sewall, still in- 
 tent on the opera. 
 
 "Oh, Papa Sewall!" exclaimed Marjorie, taking a
 
 THE THRESHOLD OF ROMANCE 287 
 
 step toward him, but stopping as her father's harsh 
 tones fell on her ear. 
 
 "Artist?" he sneered. "Scribbler! After you for 
 my money ! Marjorie, I tell you, yon shan't many 
 a beggarly " 
 
 "Don't be alarmed," she interrupted. "He may 
 be fond of me. But when he learns that I am your 
 daughter, m never see him again!" 
 
 "Oh! He objects to your father, eh?" spluttered 
 Caner. "Who does he think yon are, anyway?* 
 
 "I told him I was the companion of your daughter. 
 I had to. Tony does not want his wife to support 
 tarn,. He wants to support her. . . . Oh !" she cried, 
 in sudden supplication : "Be a good, dear papa, end 
 disinherit me!" 
 
 Moms Caner came boning out of the throne-chair 
 at this. He was accustomed to concealing his emo- 
 tions for business reasons. But this remarkable 
 prayer of his inexplicable daughter had hurled him 
 completely off his hafanri*, and he could no longer 
 bear to sit stflL 
 
 "What? what?" he gasped. "Say that again!" 
 
 "Disimktrit me ! Then I can go to Tony and tell 
 him I haven't a penny in the world. So so hell just 
 have to many roe. 
 
 "You're out of your mindl" shouted her father,
 
 288 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 stalking up and down, regardless of his lame foot. 
 "So is he!" 
 
 "You're out of your mind yourself, Morris," in- 
 terposed Romney, in his exasperatingly cool way. 
 "Take my advice. Disinherit Marjorie, and let her 
 marry Quintard." 
 
 "I will not disinherit her!" bawled Caner. 
 
 "Oh, please do !" begged Marjorie. 
 
 "Look here !" said Romney, earnestly. "Any one 
 who can make your daughter love him, is a man ! 
 Let her have her way. You won't make any mis- 
 take." 
 
 "I will not disinherit her!" repeated Caner. 
 
 "Oh, please do?" besought Marjorie. 
 
 "Good God ! Isn't it bad enough to think of your 
 marrying going away from me just when I've 
 found that I want to to have you near me?" 
 
 "Oh, papa!" 
 
 He took her hand and stroked it affectionately. 
 Then, as if ashamed of what he seemed to think senti- 
 mental weakness, he dropped the hand and strode 
 about the room before he continued, in a softer tone, 
 ns he faced her again: 
 
 "My dear, don't refuse me the one thing I can do 
 for you. Let me look after you make you happy.
 
 THE THRESHOLD OF ROMANCE 289 
 
 I want to give you the biggest bank account of any 
 girl in America !" 
 
 "Oh, dear, papa ! You are going to spoil every- 
 thing ! Tony won't have me rich!" 
 
 "What right has this young snip to let a matter 
 of money stand between him and a girl like you?" he 
 thundered. "It's absurd I" 
 
 "No, it's common sense," interfered Romney. 
 "Marjorie has found her own romance. Let her 
 have it." 
 
 "And how did she find it?" retorted Caner. "By 
 flirting with this young man on the roof ! . . . Mar- 
 jorie," he went on, sternly, "I positively forbid you 
 to cross that roof again." 
 
 "Very well, papa. I won't." Then very demurely 
 she added: "He's moved 1" 
 
 Caner choked. He tried to speak, but couldn't. 
 
 Albert Sewall made a diversion at this awkward 
 moment by coming from the davenport, slapping the 
 manuscript of the opera with the backs of his long 
 fingers. 
 
 "It's a little masterpiece !" he bubbled. "A master- 
 piece, I tell you !" 
 
 Marjorie jumped up and down, waving a hand over 
 her head in delight. 
 
 "Oh, Romney! He likes it! He likes it!"
 
 2 9 o THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "But Quintard must restore the last act as it is 
 here, or or I'll poison him !" 
 
 "You'll give him the prize, then?" said Romney, 
 eager to commit the composer to any indiscretion, if 
 it were only to Tony's advantage. 
 
 "The ten thousand dollars?" persisted Marjorie. 
 
 "I promise nothing," smiled Sewall. "I know 
 these authors." 
 
 Blodgett, the phlegmatic, came into the drawing- 
 room and stood silent for an instant. Then he an- 
 nounced, monotonously: 
 
 "A Mr. Quintard, to see Mr. Sewall." 
 
 Marjorie started breathlessly. "Tony!" The 
 word came out of her heart, where it was the most 
 familiar of all words. 
 
 She had already turned to run out of the room 
 when her father laid a hand on her arm. His voice 
 was not altogether unkind, but it was suspicious, as he 
 asked: 
 
 "Marjorie, what is that young man doing here?" 
 
 "/ sent for him," announced Romney. "And for 
 a very good reason." 
 
 "H'm ! More of your conniving," accused Caner. 
 "I'll see this young man !" 
 
 "Oh, papa!" 
 
 "He asked for me not you !" objected Sewall.
 
 THE THRESHOLD OF ROMANCE 291 
 
 Caner turned on him with his autocratic way and 
 retorted: "This is my house!" 
 
 Romney whispered slyly to Sewall, who countered 
 with: 
 
 "But this is my affair! The young man wants to 
 talk opera not railroads." 
 
 "You can have Mr. Quintard when I've finished 
 with him !" was Caner's dictum. 
 
 "I'll give you five minutes to finish him," laughed 
 Sewall, as he left the room. 
 
 Marjorie looked from her father to Romney and 
 back again, with a timid little sigh. 
 
 "Now, clear out all of you !" Caner ordered. 
 
 "Papa! Please!" 
 
 "That means you, too, N arjorie!" was his re- 
 minder. Then, to Blodgett: "Ask Mr. Quintard to 
 come in." 
 
 As Blodgett bowed and disappeared, Marjorie 
 went up to her father and clung to his arm for a 
 moment, as she looked pleadingly up into his face. 
 
 "You'll be very gentle with him, papa won't 
 you?" 
 
 "Yes, yes, yes!" he returned, impatiently. "Go 
 away!" 
 
 "Marjorie !" called Romney, from the door lead- 
 ing to the library.
 
 292 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 She followed Romney, but just before she went 
 out she whispered into her father's ear: 
 
 "Don't let him know that I am Marjorie. He 
 thinks I am his his fairy godmother!" 
 
 "His what?" 
 
 There was still a bewildered look on Morris Can- 
 er's face when, Marjorie and Romney having van- 
 ished, Blodgett ushered Tony Quintard into the 
 drawing-room, with just such an expression as a Ro- 
 man soldier might have worn while passing a Chris- 
 tian martyr into a den of lions.
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 ON COMMON GROUND. 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING the rigidity of Mor- 
 ris CanerY attitude, Tony Quintard seemed 
 to be entirely at his ease. He smiled benignly 
 on the multi-millionaire as he said, with boylish 
 frankness : 
 
 "You don't look like a composer!" 
 
 "What do you think I look like?" was the cool 
 rejoinder. 
 
 Tony indulged in a good long stare at the other's 
 stern face, and shook his head, as he asked, smiling : 
 
 "Is that a fair question?" 
 
 "Evidently I am not making a favorable impres- 
 sion," was the millionaire's gruff comment. 
 
 "No, no. It isn't that," disclaimed Tony, hastily. 
 
 Caner, in his grim way, enjoyed the obvious dis- 
 comfiture of his caller. Tony had begun to realize 
 that something was wrong somewhere. 
 
 293
 
 294 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 "Well, I'm not a musician," shortly confessed 
 Caner. 
 
 "I don't understand," returned Tony, looking 
 about him. "Mr. Romney Evans sent his car after 
 me with a message that I was to come here to meet 
 Mr. Sewall, about my my opera." 
 
 "Mr. Sewall will be here in a few minutes. I am 
 Morris Caner!" 
 
 "Morris Caner?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "This is your house?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Ah I" ejaculated Tony, who had recovered his 
 equanimity now that he knew he was only talking to 
 a money king not to a great musician. "Do you 
 know, I thought there was something familiar about 
 this street as we drove up. I used to be a a neigh- 
 bor of yours." 
 
 "You don't say," responded Caner, cynically. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 There was a pause, and Tony Quintard, burning 
 with anxiety to learn the verdict of his opera, wished 
 this man of millions would get out, to make room 
 for somebody more interesting Albert Sewall, the 
 composer, to wit. But Caner showed no disposition 
 to go. On the contrary, he leaned easily against the
 
 ON COMMON GROUND 295 
 
 immense grand piano with the air of one who had 
 settled down for a long stay. 
 
 "Don't let me keep you, Mr. Canerl" said Tony, 
 a trifle nervously. "And time, like yours, must be 
 valuable, even in the evening." 
 
 "I have nothing else to do," interrupted Caner. 
 Then, as Tony continued to pace between the piano 
 and the fireplace, he said, abruptly and with a note 
 of command in his tones: "Sit down!" 
 
 "Thanks !" Tony waited a moment while his host 
 seated himself, and then dropped down on the carved 
 stool that had recently supported the minnionaire's 
 rheumatic leg. 
 
 There was silence for a few seconds, while Caner 
 gazed at Tony, who returned the look just as steadily. 
 
 "You don't look like a poet," remarked Caner, 
 abruptly. 
 
 "I hope not," laughed Tony. 
 
 "But you are a poet aren't you?" 
 
 "I write verse, and other things." 
 
 "Think your work's pretty important don't you?" 
 
 "I think it's pretty good sometimes." 
 
 "Feel at all uncertain about your ability?" 
 
 "Not a bit," was the prompt rejoinder. 
 
 There was another little silence after this. Caner 
 felt that he was not sweeping this confident young
 
 296 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 fellow off his feet, as perhaps he had expected to do. 
 
 He returned to the charge with the quiet savage- 
 ness that he had often found effective in dealing with 
 men in Wall Street: 
 
 "A young man with your assurance ought to go 
 into business." 
 
 "Not this young man," returned Tony, positively. 
 
 "You poets don't think much of the business man. 
 I have heard that." 
 
 "You are mistaken, Mr. Caner. We think a lot 
 of him. It's quite a stunt to make a pile of money. 
 I've often wondered how it is done." 
 
 "I can tell you," snapped Morris, his face harden- 
 ing. "Foresight! That's how I made my money 
 foresight! In my mind, I saw that steel would be 
 the biggest thing in this country. I watched my 
 chances got in on the ground floor. It panned out 
 bigger than I had even dreamed." 
 
 "Ah! Dreamed it!" exclaimed Tony, laughing, as 
 if he thoroughly understood. "That's it! You 
 dreamed it imagined it ! That's how we all begin. 
 Poet or millionaire, it is the same story! We all see 
 it here first of all." 
 
 He tapped his forehead, and Morris Caner nodded 
 in acquiescence. This young man was interesting, at 
 all events.
 
 ON COMMON GROUND 297 
 
 "Well, well, Mr. Quintard. That puts us in the 
 same boat." 
 
 "Yes!" Tony's boyish laugh rang out. "I sing 
 while you row." 
 
 "But your singing doesn't pay you as well as my 
 rowing pays me," rejoined Caner, sagely, adding sly- 
 ly: "You are a clever young man. You ought to 
 marry into a wealthy family." 
 
 "Did you?" asked Tony, quickly. 
 
 The shot had struck home, it seemed, for Caner, 
 rising suddenly and avoiding Tony Quintard's eye, 
 replied with booming emphasis : 
 
 "No!" 
 
 Tony calmly crossed one knee over the other, 
 watching the millionaire. Then he uncrossed it, and 
 rising to his feet, said deliberately: 
 
 "That's how I feel about it, Mr. Caner." 
 
 The millionaire's back was toward Tony as the 
 latter expressed his sentiments on matrimony. But, 
 after a moment's hesitation, during which his mind 
 was working busily, he turned around thoughtfully: 
 "We were talking just now about money," he con- 
 tinued with a more friendly tone. "Shall I tell you 
 how I made mine?" 
 
 "You did tell me just now. By foresight." 
 
 "That is true. But I mean to give you a few de-
 
 298 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 tails. It might interest you. I made my start as a 
 three-dollar clerk, in a little, one-horse steel concern. 
 I lived on two dollars saved one. It took me five 
 years to buy my first coke-oven." 
 
 "What on earth did you want with a coke-oven?" 
 
 "Evidently you don't know much about the manu- 
 facture of steel." 
 
 "Not a thing," confessed Tony. 
 
 "Well, you can't make a pound of steel without 
 coke. I realized that the man who could control the 
 output of coke would have the steel industry by the 
 throat." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 "In my mind, I saw the slopes and ridges of the 
 Conemaugh Valley covered with my coke-ovens. 
 Then I saw my own mills turning out my own rails, 
 and my own locomotives hauling my own freight 
 over my own roads!" 
 
 "Go on!" begged Tony. "It is an epic!" 
 
 "The coke was the basic idea if you understand 
 me!" 
 
 "Understand you? I should say I did," enthused 
 the young man. "It's wonderful stupendous, what 
 you big fellows do ! You're all alike, you Captains 
 of Industry. Coke-ovens, mills, railroads, bridges, 
 tunnels, ships, canals ! You create them all here !"
 
 ON COMMON GROUND 299 
 
 Tony tapped his forehead. "That's the way you ex- 
 press your imagination. It's the same with the artist 
 who paints his picture, the poet who writes his song, 
 the musician who composes his symphony. We all 
 see it here in our minds first our Conemaugh 
 Valley lit with its coke-ovens !" 
 
 "I never thought of it that way," returned Caner, 
 half-smilingly. 
 
 Tony warmed up to his theme. "Why do men like 
 you care for art fill your houses with beautiful 
 things go wild with enthusiasm when you've picked 
 up a rare porcelain or a great canvas? It's simply 
 one master taking off his hat to the genius of an- 
 other!" 
 
 Caner was pleased. "That's a great tribute you 
 pay us," he beamed. "If what you say is true then 
 men like us should stand together." He offered his 
 hand to Tony. "It's a bargain? We're friends, 
 m'son?" 
 
 Tony grasped the proffered hand warmly. "No 
 wonder you're a big man," he said, happily.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 THE TURNING-POINT. 
 
 AS Tony and Caner stood there, hands clasped 
 in the big drawing-room, Sewall impatiently 
 burst in. He waved formal introduction, he 
 scarcely heard the conventional mentioning of his own 
 name as the millionaire turned Tony over to him. 
 "Confound you, my dear boy," he began without 
 preface, "what the devil did you mean by spoiling the 
 last act?" 
 
 "Don't you like it?" involuntarily asked Tony. 
 "Like it? No! Not at all! It will never do! 
 You'll have to go back to the original." 
 
 The tempestuous way in which Sewall plunged into 
 the heart of the matter warmed Tony to him. 
 
 "Of course if you think it better," he promptly 
 agreed. "I shall be delighted!" 
 
 "That's right! You are a good boy and leave 
 the rest to me." 
 
 300
 
 THE TURNING-POINT 301 
 
 Caner had been listening with a smile. The com- 
 poser always did amuse him when he didn't annoy 
 him and he was pleased that Tony's opera had won 
 favor. He broke in now with a chuckle : 
 
 "I'm going to see that Sewall gives you a good 
 contract, Quintard. That's as important to you as 
 the happy ending is to him." 
 
 "Oh, I guess that will be all right," laughed Tony, 
 who could not see anything but sunshine all around 
 him. "But," he asked, suddenly turning to Sewall: 
 "How did you know about the happy ending?" 
 
 "I had a look at your original manuscript !" 
 
 "But but " stammered Tony, completely be- 
 wildered. 
 
 "It seems that my daughter's companion had the 
 original manuscript in her possession," volunteered 
 Caner. 
 
 "Oh, yes yes! I see!" 
 
 "That was it," confirmed Sewall. "And she showed 
 it to me." 
 
 "Why, then," broke in Tony, in a strange flutter 
 that was not caused altogether by the bright pros- 
 pects of his opera. "Then I I owe all my good luck 
 to her!" 
 
 "Without a doubt !" The composer was emphatic. 
 
 Tony stared vacantly at Albert Sewall, as if he did
 
 302 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 not see him. Then, looking over at Caner, he asked, 
 with point-blank innocence: 
 
 "I wonder if your daughter would be good enough 
 to let Miss Mudge come down to see me?" 
 
 "Miss Mudge?" ejaculated Caner, while Sewall's 
 lips moved silently as they uttered the same words in- 
 audibly. "Miss Mudge?" 
 
 "Yes. I should like to thank her." 
 
 To do Caner justice, his sense of humor, always 
 present in really great men, combined with the whims- 
 ical nature of the situation, induced him to "play the 
 game." After one brief stare of amazement, he 
 started to move toward the door. 
 
 "I'll see if my daughter can spare Miss Mudge," 
 he said, over his shoulder, as he went out. 
 
 As soon as the millionaire had disappeared, Tony 
 turned quickly to the composer and asked anxiously : 
 
 "You feel pretty sure that the opra will be a go?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, yes, yes!" was the enthusiastic reply. 
 "It will be a sensation I I'm so sure of it that I'll 
 tell you what I'll do. If I cannot make those jack- 
 asses give you the prize, old Papa Sewall will take 
 the book himself. He'll hand you a thousand dollars 
 in advance and much more, if you need it until the 
 royalties come in." 
 
 "That would be magnificent of you."
 
 THE TURNING-POINT 303 
 
 "It is nothing nothing!" returned Sewall, care- 
 lessly. "But, wait a moment." 
 
 He took a card from his pocket and gave it to 
 Tony. 
 
 "This is my address. You come to see me to-mor- 
 row, at noon. We'll go over the script together." 
 
 He shook hands heartily. The young man's face 
 was aglow with happiness. 
 
 "I'm tremendously obliged to you, Mr. Sewall." 
 
 "Don't speak of it don't speak of it, my boyl" 
 chirruped the good-hearted composer, as he left the 
 room.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE PRINCESS. 
 
 TONY, in a happy frame of mind, wandered 
 over to the piano, sat down and began finger- 
 ing the keys without striking them. Pres- 
 ently his eye fell upon a sheet of manuscript music 
 on the rack before him. 
 
 "My songl" he exclaimed, in wonderment, im- 
 mensely pleased. He played it softly, humming the 
 words to himself until, of a sudden, he became aware 
 that he was not alone in the room. Glancing over 
 the top of the piano, he saw a girl, all in filmy white, 
 slowly approaching. He was fairly stunned. He 
 rose, with the music held mechanically in his hand, 
 and gazed at her, wide-eyed, breathlessly. He had 
 never seen her look so beautiful. 
 
 She paused, shyly, and blushed a little at the 
 
 thought that she had deceived this young man who 
 stared at her with that wonder-light in his blue eyes. 
 
 She felt guilty, remorseful. She only hoped it was 
 
 304
 
 THE PRINCESS 305 
 
 fair to deceive him, just a little, for happiness sake. 
 But now, she was afraid afraid that the truth would 
 have to come out afraid he would not forgive 
 her. 
 
 As she paused, he took a step toward her. "You 
 look like a fairy princess not a fairy god-mother," 
 he exclaimed in a hushed tone of admiration. 
 
 It was a very shy little hand that fluttered into 
 Tony's. That feeling of guilt oppressed her. She 
 was timorously wondering what he would say when 
 he found out that she was "the little rich girl next 
 door." 
 
 Woman-like, she resolved to avoid confession as 
 long as possible. She would trust to a good Provi- 
 dence to help her out. With that thought, some cour- 
 age returned to her. She smiled a little at Tony, as 
 she asked: "How are you, Mr. Cinderella-man?" 
 
 He did not hear the question. "How pretty you 
 are !" he whispered. It was just what he was think- 
 ing, and it seemed to be the most important thing to 
 say at that moment. 
 
 "I asked you how you were!" she countered, de- 
 murely. 
 
 "Oh ! I have been most miserable 1" There was 
 no doubting the truth of this statement. She saw mis- 
 ery in his eyes. He hastened to add: "But I'm very,
 
 3o6 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 very happy now." And he held her hand tightly in 
 his. 
 
 "About your opera ?" 
 
 "I didn't mean that so much though, of course, 
 I'm happy about it! Sewall has accepted it!" 
 
 "I knew he would!" She had always had the great- 
 est faith in him. 
 
 "I owe that to you !" The lover in him was speak- 
 ing now. 
 
 Marjorie shook her head, and asked him seriously: 
 "Why did you change it the last act?" 
 
 He ran his fingers through his thick, curly hair, as 
 he explained: "I was so unhappy so fearfully un- 
 happy after you had gone that night the old end- 
 ing didn't seem right. I rewrote it out of my wretch- 
 edness." 
 
 "You you missed me a little?" The girl's voice 
 was very low. 
 
 Tony looked directly into her eyes, as he answered : 
 "Oh, yes, yes, yes ! I never missed anyone so much, 
 and I didn't know how I should ever see you again. 
 It made me desperate! You can't understand how 
 wonderful it is to to be able just to look at you 
 once more!" 
 
 She laughed gently, happily. He loved her. Yes, 
 he loved her. There was no doubt about that. She
 
 THE PRINCESS 307 
 
 raised the long lashes of her bright eyes just long 
 enough for one glance to steal out. 
 
 "I'm glad to see you again," she confessed. 
 
 With boyish impulsiveness, he took her arm, and 
 led her to the settee below the piano. "Let's sit 
 down and talk to each other." Marjorie hesitated. 
 "You're free for a few minutes, aren't you?" 
 
 His question recalled to the girl the enormity of 
 her deception. At the same time she thought of a 
 way calculated to make her confession less diffi- 
 cult. 
 
 "Yes," she replied, "but don't you think it would 
 be be nice if you were to meet the Princess?" 
 
 Tony's rejoinder was positively and emphatically 
 negative, as he took hold of her arm and drew her 
 down on the settee beside him : "No no, thank you, 
 I'd rather not not now !" 
 
 What to say to him? How to begin? She must 
 have a moment more to think. She saw the manu- 
 script of the song, which he still kept in his hand. 
 "What have you there?" she asked, a little des- 
 perately. 
 
 "Oh, this ? It's my song ! I was wondering about 
 it. It's dedicated to 'Marjorie'!" 
 
 "That's the Princess's name," she returned quickly. 
 "She adores your song she thinks it is the most
 
 308 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 beautiful song she ever heard. So you see, you really 
 mustn't hate her any more." 
 
 "I don't hate her," Tony protested. "It's only that 
 I don't want to see anyone but just you. I've only 
 got room for you in my thoughts in my heart!" 
 
 It was coming the moment that she both longed 
 for and dreaded. She turned a little away from him, 
 so that he might not see the trouble in her eyes. 
 There was a pause, which seemed to her like eternity. 
 Then she heard his voice, very lowly and earnestly 
 and movingly, asking : 
 
 "Will you marry me?" 
 
 "I'm not sure that you'll want to!" She rose as 
 she said this, and moved a little away from him, her 
 face still averted. 
 
 He followed her quickly. "Not want to?" he ex- 
 claimed, puzzled, surprised. "Why, dear little god- 
 mother, I love you! It was all that I could do to 
 keep from telling you so that last afternoon in the 
 attic. But it didn't seem right then. I had nothing !" 
 He smiled ruefully, thinking of the seventeen cents 
 all that he possessed in the world. "Seventeen 
 cents not a prospect! I didn't know how I could 
 take care of you. And I've nothing yet! But," he 
 went on sturdily, "it's coming. Sewalll is confident 
 that the opera will be a success. He's even going
 
 THE PRINCESS 309 
 
 to give me a thousand dollars in advance that's one 
 hundred thousand cents. So now I feel that I can 
 ask you to marry me !" 
 
 She took another step away from him toward the 
 throne-chair. Her honest little heart was in a tur- 
 moil. "I wish I knew what I ought to do!" 
 
 "Do?" he cried, following her again, eagerly, re- 
 assuringly: "It's all very simple if you love me. 
 We could be married in the spring and go away to 
 the country to a dear, clean little cottage I know of 
 on the edge of a hill." He had dreamed that cot- 
 tage so well that it seemed real, down to the hum- 
 ming-bird that came every morning to visit the honey- 
 suckle. "I'll have enough to keep us going till the 
 royalties come in. We'd be happy there. What do 
 you say, dear?" 
 
 "Oh, it sounds heavenly to me," she confessed, al- 
 most tearfully. In a moment he would have taken 
 her in his arms, but she stopped him with a gesture. 
 He seized the hand that checked him, and tried to 
 look into her face, which she still kept turned away 
 from him. "I should love keeping a little home like 
 that for you," she went on. Then added, desper- 
 ately, "But I can't say 'yes' until you've asked the 
 the Princess!" She wheeled about and bravely faced
 
 310 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 him, thinking that now he must understand and for- 
 give her. 
 
 Tony was merely bewildered. "Ask the Princess?" 
 he echoed, wonderingly. 
 
 Marjorie looked at him beseechingly for the length 
 of a pulse beat and her pulse was beating very 
 rapidly then and saw that he didn't understand. All 
 that she said was : "Yes !" gazing wistfully at him. 
 
 Still he did not understand. So she turned again, 
 slowly mounted the footstool, and solemnly sat in the 
 great throne-chair. She thought she was being very 
 dignified, but she only looked what she was a dainty, 
 adorable little bit of feminity, nestled in the cavern- 
 ous depths of a chair much too big for her, with her 
 small feet, in their white satin slippers, peeping out 
 from under the filmy skirt and resting on the foot- 
 stool. Still, princesses do look like that some- 
 times. 
 
 She spread out her skirts with pathetic prettiness, 
 held out one of her little hands to Tony, and be- 
 sought him with a wealth of love in her voice, and a 
 timorous accent: "Please, ask the Princess!" 
 
 He stared at her unbelievingly for an instant. Then 
 understanding smote him. He recoiled, as though a 
 princess or a queen had struck him with her scep- 
 tre. It was in a subdued voice, breathless with cha-
 
 'Please, Aslf--lhe Princess"
 
 THE PRINCESS 311 
 
 grin and disappointment, that he asked, slowly, paus- 
 ing between each word: 
 
 "You you are the Princess ?" 
 
 Still holding out her hands to him pleadingly, she 
 answered, tearfully, self-accusingly: 
 
 "Yes ! Yes ! I've deceived you ! I'm the Prin- 
 cess ! I'm horribly rich and my father won't disin- 
 herit me!" The last came out with a gasp. He 
 should know all the truth! 
 
 There could be no doubt that he was desperately 
 hurt. It seemed to him that again his castle, that he 
 had built for their dear occupancy, had crumbled. 
 He looked at Marjorie, overwhelmed, speechless, 
 shocked, bewildered. At last he spoke, and the tone 
 of his voice told her how deeply he was hurt: 
 
 "You you haven't played fair!" he began. There 
 was bitterness, too, in his words, but his tone soft- 
 ened again as he saw the pain in her eyes. "You've 
 been so so kind so generous so adorable! I 
 couldn't help loving you and now I shan't be able to 
 stop." He turned a step away from her, unsteadily. 
 
 "You musn't stop !" she besought him. "Please go 
 on loving me !" He took another step away from 
 her and toward the door. She held him back with: 
 "Listen to me, Tony, dear. You're my prince and 
 I love you too well to spoil your dream. If you
 
 3 i2 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 don't want my money, I'll give it away. But you 
 must take me take me away to your clean little cot- 
 tage I'll keep it for my Cinderella-man in his own 
 way for it's my way, too !" 
 
 Moving as was this last appeal, Tony did not heed 
 it. Utterly bewildered, shaken, scarcely knowing 
 what he was doing, only with an instinct that he must 
 go away and never see her again, he started toward 
 the door, failing to catch, even for an instant, that 
 compelling, loving, heart-broken look that she sent 
 after him. 
 
 She felt then that she had lost him. With a sob 
 she wilted in the throne-chair, a little heap of fluffy 
 white, her face buried in her arms. 
 
 The sound of that sob gave Tony pause, even at 
 the threshold. He turned, and it came over him that 
 he was doing a terrible thing. What he should do 
 was not clear to him. Emotions, conflicting with 
 deep-seated principles, were having it out in heart and 
 brain, as he slowly came back to the throne-chair. 
 There he stood for an atom of time, looking down at 
 her, his eyes fastened upon a wisp of her hair where 
 it curled upon her neck and snuggled up lovingly 
 under the lobe of a rose-pink ear. 
 
 A sudden and irresistible longing for her possessed 
 him. Breathlessly he leaned forward and touched
 
 THE PRINCESS 313 
 
 her shoulder with his hand. Slowly she raised her 
 head and glanced up at him in wonderment. What 
 she saw in his face was only the same look that lovers 
 have given each other for centuries, but this look was 
 for her. She smiled her great happiness up to him 
 through her tears, and lifted her fresh sweet face to 
 him. He caught her, with a glad cry, up into his 
 arms and held her tightly, fearing that she was a 
 fairy princess indeed and might still escape him. 
 
 He said something to that effect, but she reassured 
 him with a kiss which is the best and the only way 
 to silence a lover's doubting. 
 
 If it matters very much to you, gentle reader, I will 
 tell you that they did go to live in that little cottage, 
 with Primrose for "footman," most happily; that 
 "The Gateway of Dreams" was produced and made 
 Tony so rich and so famous that the little Quintards 
 just had to move into a smart apartment, with a 
 southern exposure, away up high the ninth story, I 
 think where they kept boxes of geraniums on the 
 window-sills, canaries in cages and gold-fishes in jars, 
 not to mention the puppies even after they had grown 
 up. And once a week, regularly as clockwork, came 
 Morris Caner and Romney and Doctor Thayer and 
 that ministering angel Sewall, to dinner while Prim- 
 rose, looking as proud as a traffic policeman but
 
 314 THE CINDERELLA MAN 
 
 more amiable went about in a state of perpetual 
 bliss, serving the oysers cold and the soup hot, in that 
 heavenly place where he was head usher. 
 
 THE END.