THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH " Don't touch me! " she gasped. FRONTISPIECE. See page 79. THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH A NOVEL BY LOUISE MAUNSELL FIELD WITH FRONTISPIECE BY JOHN NEWTON HOWITT BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY 1917 Copyright, 1917, BY LOUISE MAUNSELL FIELD. rights reserved Published, September, 191? 8. J. 1'AKKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U.S.A. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I INTRODUCING Miss WYNNE . ... 1 II THE PERFECT KNIGHT 25 III ONE MAN AND Two MAIDS 44 IV Miss CORNELIA'S CODE . . . . . .56 V HER HOUR 71 VI HOOPS OF STEEL 81 VII ON UNFAMILIAR PATHS 97 VIII NITA SHUTS THE DOOR Ill IX AFTER MANY DAYS 123 X THESE TWAIN 140 XI THE ACQUIRED VIRTUE 155 XII MRS. FORSYTHE ENTERTAINS . . . .171 XIII OUT OF THE DARK 192 XIV ELSIE DECLARES WAR . 206 XV THE TURN OF THE BALANCE .... 229 XVI "NOTHING MATTERS ANY MORE" . . . 239 XVII REVELATION ... ^ .... 252 XVIII LOVE AND LOYALTY * i . . . 262 XIX THE MOMENT OF TRIAL . ... . . .272 XX THE LITTLE GODS ENJOY THEMSELVES . 288 XXI AN END AND A BEGINNING 310 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH CHAPTER I INTRODUCING MISS WYNNE IT was after six o'clock, and the throng of arriving and departing guests, which for two hours had crowded Mrs. Carton's rather small drawing-room almost to suffocation, was thinning a little. The welcoming smile on the hostess' lips had become a fixed, mechanical grin: her debutante daughter Florence, in whose honor all these people had assembled, had lost the excited flush which earlier in the afternoon had done much to redeem her de- cidedly plain features, and now looked en- viously down through the open doors to the dining room where some of the girls of the re- ceiving party, wise through experience, had found seats for themselves and Were chatting gayly with the few young men who had re- sponded to Mrs. Carton's invitation. All this 2 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH Mrs. Haight noticed as she greeted that lady and exchanged conventional pleasantries with the tired debutante. She could have passed a rigid examination as to the looks and clothes of mother and daughter, the cost and number of the bouquets massed on piano and mantel- shelf, the personnel of the guests and passed it triumphantly. Long practice had taught her how to gather considerable information with a few quick glances. Still talking to the hostess, she looked about the rooms, searching for the three persons who together comprised the principal reason for her own presence at this coming-out tea. One of the three was her eldest daughter, who was to meet her here at a quarter past six. She was a little early, however, and there was still no sign of Geraldine ; but this was of small im- portance, since Rudolph Drake had not yet come. Suddenly a group at the farther end of the dining room parted, and a young girl, emerg- ing thence, sped across the intervening space with a kind of soft rush, as if on wings. With her came an instantaneous impression of light and joy, of swift, sure, graceful movement, of a flash and sparkle like that of sunlight on INTRODUCING MISS WYNNE 3 leaping waters. It was as though a fresh, in- vigoraiing breeze straight from the sea had blown into the dull, overheated room. And now she was speaking with an enunciation so beautifully clear that her words were not in the least jumbled or indistinct, quickly as they were uttered uttered with a certain dainty im- patience which suggested that she found speech too slow a means for conveying thought. "Oh, Cousin Caroline, Mr. Matthews says he'll give us a New Year's Eve supper and dance if you'll chaperon it! Will you?" she demanded eagerly. Mrs. Carton's mechanical smile softened un- til it became quite human. In theory she dis- approved of Nita Wynne's impetuousness ; for her own daughter's sake she was often a trifle jealous, not so much of her good looks as of that gift of personality which made her always a notable, frequently the central figure in a room; but somehow she invariably found her- self unable to resist the charm of the girl's actual presence. The tired debutante bright- ened as if she had caught a little of the other's overflowing vitality. "Why yes; I I suppose so." Mrs. Car- ton hesitated, not because she disliked the plan, 4 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH but because hesitation was her ingrained habit of mind. "Only I want to know " She paused, and Mr. Atkinson Matthews, the wealthy, elderly widower, who was both financially and socially a model of solid con- servatism, now spoke. He had followed Nita, though at a pace commensurate with his age and avoirdupois : "My grandnephew, Donald For sy the, will be back in New York by then, I hope, and I want him to know you all. So I thought this little supper Ah, Mrs. Haight, how do you do?" He shook hands with Mrs. Haight, who greeted him most cordially. In spite of his sixty years he was still eligible, and Geraldine's continued spinsterhood was becoming a matter of grave concern to her mother. Turning now to the young girl, he added with a little smile : "You and I will arrange the details later, Mrs. Carton. Nita couldn't wait to settle any- thing!" "Now that's not fair, Mr. Matthews!" she laughed with an infectious gayety which made those about her smile in involuntary response. "You know you said "My dear Nita, how are you? I've been INTRODUCING MISS WYNNE 5 just dying for a chance to tell you how sweet you look!" Nita stiffened instantly; and ice could not have been colder than was her formal "Good afternoon, Mrs. Ashurst." But Mrs. Violet Ashurst, Dakota divorcee and soldier of fortune, was not easily rebuffed. She was perfectly aware that she had no actual right to use the Christian name, and wished now that she had not done so. For purposes of her own she was resolved to be on friendly terms with Anita Wynne ostensibly, at least. "My dear, that gown of yours is a perfect dream!" she gushed, surveying the confection of snow-white tulle and silver tissue that fluffed crisply about Nita's straight, slim young body. "The way you manage to choose exactly the right things to wear is wonderful simply won- derful! I really believe you do better alone than if your dear mother was here to advise you!" She meant to flatter, but although a fairly shrewd woman, she was not clever enough to allow for feelings of which she was herself en- tirely incapable. Mrs. Wynne had been dead five years or more; how could Nita possibly 6 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH be hurt or displeased by any allusion to the fact? A dozen replies had leaped to the young girl's lips and been stopped there, partly by social training, partly by innate good breed- ing. But she believed Mrs. Ashurst intended to wound her, and so neither of these could control the wave of color under the transparent skin, or the angry glint in the gray-green eyes. Mr. Matthews saw she was annoyed, and though he did not understand the cause, he at once intervened. "Come back and tell the others," he said. "They mustn't" But before he began to speak, Nita had darted away from him, and now stood hold- ing a hand of each of the two dainty, rather old-fashioned little ladies who had just arrived. The Misses Cornelia and Sophia Van Vechten, distant connections by marriage of Atkinson Matthews, had been born and brought up in New York, like their parents and grandpar- ents and great-grandparents before them ; they were living encyclopaedias of information re- garding that social life of which their ances- tors had for generations been a part. Inclined though they were to be extremely critical of INTRODUCING MISS WYNNE 7 the young people of the day, they held Nita Wynne very dear, partly because some of their own beliefs and prejudices were hers by tra- dition and inheritance. Now she quickly took them to seats, saw to it that they were served with just what they preferred of the elaborate collation of bouillon and oysters, salad and cro- quettes and pates, biscuit and ices and fancy cakes which in those days when the twentieth centuiy had not yet emerged from babyhood it was customary to provide at afternoon re- ceptions, and herself hovered about, pouring forth a stream of gayest chatter touched with a certain pretty deference. Mrs. Carton and Florence, Mr. Matthews, Mrs. Haight, Violet Ashurst the eyes of each and every one of them followed her, but with quite different feelings. Mrs. Haight's gaze directed that of Ger- aldine, who had arrived during the brief dia- logue between Nita and Mrs. Ashurst. The mother's eyes moved and paused with a signifi- cance the daughter understood perfectly. This was Geraldine's eighth season, and the two had long since tacitly arranged a code of glances. If not entirely harmonious, they were at least working toward the same end. 8 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH And now, in accordance with that wordless ad- vice, Geraldine strolled forward and joined Mrs. Dane. The companion thus chosen was a rich woman and entertained lavishly; but it was merely an added bit of good luck that it was she who chanced to be standing just there, midway between the entrance door and the dining room. No matter who might come to share it with her, Geraldine did not intend to move from that strategically advantageous position until the event occurred for which she was waiting. She was none too soon. Nita, imploringly summoned, had left the Misses Van Vechten and returned to the joyous group in the dining room when Rudolph Drake at last appeared. In the mirror Geraldine could see him, speak- ing to Mrs. Carton ; now he was looking about, evidently searching for some one. Was it for herself? A month ago she would have smiled in happy security, but now In the flower- banked mirror she watched his gaze travel about the rooms ; watched it, and saw it rest on Nita Wynne, satisfied. But in order to reach that slender, white-robed figure he must pass close by her as she had arranged. She waited, forcing herself to listen and reply to INTRODUCING MISS WYNNE 9 Mrs. Dane's gentle commonplaces. He was approaching her, he was about to go on She wheeled around quickly, with proffered hand. "Why, Mr. Drake! I thought you never went to debutante teas!" It was perhaps not quite safe to say that, when only yesterday his sister, Violet Ashurst, had told her of his promise to join her at this one. But the remark might tempt him to speech, to defense and an explanation might deter him from going straight to Nita Wynne. And half unconsciously, half against her will, Geraldine glanced toward her rival and met the clear, gray-green eyes. An instant those two measured each other: in the glance of the one was defiance, in that of the other scorn. And both were deaf to the laughter of those little gods who revel in the ironies and inconsistencies of human life. Anita Wynne, barely twenty though she was, had gone too much into society not to know something about the silent, merciless competition from which she proudly held her- self aloof; if men admired her and sought her out, as Rudolph Drake had been doing ever since their first meeting in Mrs. Bartlett's box 10 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH at the Horse Show, why, well and good; she enjoyed their attention, but she would not move out of her path by so much as a hair's breadth in order to obtain it. And she had only contempt for girls who made themselves cheap, which in her opinion Geraldine unques- tionably did when she haunted the places where she was likely to encounter Mr. Drake, or, as in the present instance, frustrated his obvious intention of passing her by with merely a bow. Nita turned so that her back was to- wards the drawing-room, but some sixth sense told her that Geraldine was doing her utmost to hold Drake. Well, let her keep him if she could! Miss Wynne had not the slightest in- tention of stooping to a contest with her. But she was nevertheless acutely aware of his presence, waiting with taut nerves for his decision. He must come to her; come all the way: but she could not help hoping "And how is the Snow Queen this after- noon?" Drake's voice at her side gave Nita a de- licious little thrill, half of triumph, half of something not altogether unlike fear. For beneath the light tone in which he uttered the rather trite nickname he had given her because INTRODUCING MISS WYNNE 11 of the white gowns she usually wore there was a hint of earnestness, an anxiety and im- patience almost tender? She was not sure; she was conscious principally of the thrill, of the quick color that again, though for a very different reason, was flushing her soft cheeks. She smiled, and the heavily fringed eyelids drooped, hiding her happy eyes. No words, indeed, were required of her, for several of the group, all talking at once, were enthusias- tically claiming Drake's cooperation in the New Year's Eve project. He was exceed- ingly popular, and not one of them all was so unsophisticated as not to know that he had been more or less attentive to Geraldine Haight before meeting Nita; they felt and enjoyed the dramatic quality of the situation. In the other room, among the older and more experienced, its possibilities were even better appreciated, if less enjoyed. Mrs. Ashurst alone was entirely pleased, since a match be- tween her brother and Nita Wynne, frustrat- ing as it surely must Nita's probable and per- haps powerful opposition to certain plans of her own, would suit her very well. And she was not without pleasure in Mrs. Haight's dis- 12 JHE LITTLE GODS LAUGH comfiture ; they were both to some extent social buccaneers, and therefore antipathetic. "What a handsome pair they make, don't they?" she said, with a little nod toward Drake and Nita, standing together in the midst of a laughing group. She knew her remark was banal, but that did not trouble her. "Do you think it's going to er to amount to anything?" Mrs. Carton asked a trifle anxiously. She was a conservative woman, descended, like Nita herself, from a family which had settled in New York during Colonial days. She distrusted the type of go-ahead young Wall Street man which Drake represented, and still more the divorcee of questionable record, like his sister's. She would have pre- ferred not to admit either of them to her house, but they went and always had gone "every- where," and her conservatism was of the kind which cannot be independent even in its own defense. Violet Ashurst shrugged her shoulders- shrugged them a little too much. Her words and gestures, her clothes and her manners, were like her complexion over-emphasized. "I'm sure I don't know," she answered. INTRODUCING MISS WYNNE 13 "Rudolph never tells me anything about his affaires de coeur; perhaps because a good many of them haven't been the kind a man does tell his sister about. They're so extraordinarily careful of their sisters 1 But it certainly looks" She broke off with a suggestive little laugh. Not many guests remained now, and the group they had been watching had shifted, altered, re-formed, and presently melted away. As Mrs. Ashurst spoke, the two little Misses Van Vechten came timidly toward Drake and Nita, The man was barely able to conceal his annoyance at their approach, but the girl wel- comed them with a shade of relief. He was trying to go just a trifle too fast; she was not yet ready, not yet quite sure either of him or of herself. "It has been so pleasant to see you, dear child," said Miss Cornelia Van Vechten affec- tionately. "How do you do, Mr. Drake?" She paused an instant, and added in a tone whose soft wistfulness was like the scent of rosemary: "You will not object, I trust, if I tell you how greatly you resemble your father ; I knew him," she continued with gentle dig- nity, "very well indeed." At any other time Drake might have been amused or even touched by the quaint little gentlewoman, but now his "Thank you, Miss Van Vechten. I'm very glad to resemble him" was purely perfunctory. Fortunately two of his hearers were not analytical, and the third too young and inexperienced to distin- guish nuances of tone with any certainty. Miss Cornelia babbled gently on: "It is really astonishing to me that you young men in Wall Street should so successfully preserve your health. One would fancy you would suc- cumb to the strain." "Some of us do." Drake curbed his im- patience with difficulty, fearing to show ill- temper before Nita. Miss Cornelia sighed. "The responsibility must indeed be exhausting! Mr. Trent spoke of it so often! Probably you knew Mr. Trent? He advised us about our investments for many years. We have felt quite lost since his decease." "I thought his partner was carrying on the business," Drake said. "Yes; Mr. Hobbs. A very worthy man, no doubt, but one does not feel quite the same con- fidence We really know nothing either INTRODUCING MISS WYNNE 15 about him or about his family." Miss Cor- nelia lowered her voice. "It is far more agree- able to consult with a person who belongs among one's own friends! And especially now, when there is so much talk about rail- roads, particularly the North Eastern. We are most doubtful whether it would be wise to sell our er holdings, or keep them. What do you think, Mr. Drake? I know you are fully cognizant regarding such matters. Is the North Eastern in your opinion entirely ?" Drake hesitated an instant. Nita, who al- ready knew more about business than the Misses Van Vechten ever would or could learn, thought he disliked being so questioned in such a place, and grew convinced of it as the pause lengthened. At last he said, rather delib- erately : "Oh, the newspapers are always trying to get up some sort of a sensation. There's noth- ing the matter with the North Eastern. It's perfectly sound. A gilt-edged investment." Miss Cornelia brightened and said grate- fully: "We are so rejoiced to hear you say that! Mr. Hobbs has been urging us to sell, but now we shall feel quite confident. And the North Eastern has paid regularly for years." 16 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "Father always laughs about the North Eastern and says it's as sure as taxes," re- marked Nita gayly. "He put most of moth- er's money into it." Drake turned to her, opened his lips, and closed them almost with a snap. A thoughtful little frown gathered on his forehead. "I'm going to tell Mrs. Van Tighe what you say, Mr. Drake," the gently garrulous Miss Cornelia tinkled on. "She owns some North Eastern too, and so does Miss Pauristaine. They will be very greatly relieved." A shadow passed over Drake's handsome face. "Of course, we're none of us infallible. And my opinion " He stopped abruptly. "You are like your dear father in more than looks. He was always so careful and so con- scientious in his judgments! One might be sure his son Yes, Sophia, I'm coming. We are dining out, Mr. Drake, so you must excuse us for hurrying away. I assure you, you have taken a weight off our minds. It is such a comfort to have a gentleman's opinion, and although Mr. Hobbs is no doubt an excel- lent man, one does not feel quite the same con- fidence in his integrity one does in that of a INTRODUCING MISS WYNNE 17 person one really knows. Good-by, Nita dear. You must come to tea with us soon." And Miss Cornelia at last fluttered away, followed by her silent sister. Drake drew a long breath. "Good heavens, what a chatterbox!" "But she's such a dear!" Nita protested. "I'm very fond of Miss Cornelia." "Oh, I suppose she's all right, and she looks like a piece of Dresden china, but I well, I hate anybody who comes around when I'm talking to you! I don't get many chances to be with you, and I want to make the most of every minute. It's something to think about and live on all the rest of the time, when you're with other people. Do you ever think of me then? Won't you try to give me just a thought sometimes Snow Queen?" "I've been waiting for a chance to thank you for your flowers." The maiden instinct to evade and fence was strong, those days, in Nita Wynne. "They're lovely." "Then they're not altogether unworthy of you. Only they're not half lovely enough. Nothing is or could be !" She was seated now in a big armchair with a high carved back, while he stood at her side, 18 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH bending over her a little. As he spoke she touched her corsage bouquet of lilies-of-the- valley almost caressingly, looking up at him a trifle shyly, but with smiling lips and eyes And this was the picture which was in the minds of Geraldine and Mrs. Haight when they left the Cartons' house and turned to walk homewards. Cab-hire is expensive, and the cars uncomfortably crowded. Besides, walk- ing can always be explained as the result of a desire for exercise. For a time neither spoke. They trudged wearily along down Madison Avenue, both busy with unpleasant thoughts. At last Mrs. Haight said bitterly: "Well, Geraldine, you've managed to lose Drake too, it seems !" Her daughter did not reply, and after a while she went on, seeking in words some out- let, however unsatisfactory, for the venom which had been accumulating within her during the past hour: "I can't understand what's the matter with you; you've let one man after another slip through your fingers, and heaven knows you haven't any time to waste! If you don't get some one this season, I tell you frankly you'll INTRODUCING MISS WYNNE 19 have to have nervous prostration or go to your aunt in Sagwanack. I've kept Phoebe back for two years on your account, and Elsie'll be sixteen in a couple of months." Geraldine made answer quietly : "I'll go to Aunt Jenny's to-morrow if you want me to." "Don't be a fool! You know perfectly well I've spent every penny I could rake and scrape together on your clothes. I can't go now and buy others for Phoebe I haven't even paid for all yours. I did think you'd be settled de- cently long before this, and able to help me with Phoebe and Elsie. I don't know what's going to become of you all when your father dies!" It was not the first time by very many that Mrs. Haight had talked in this strain. Al- most from the day of Geraldine's birth her mother had planned and schemed "to marry her off well"; now, after numerous disappoint- ments, the qualifying adverb had been dropped. It was Mrs. Haight's firm belief that "any marriage was better than no marriage" for a penniless girl of good social position. And according to the standard set by their acquaint- ances, the Haights were very poor. Every dollar they had they spent, and they did not 20 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH know what it was to be out of debt. It was a desire to use every penny where it would do the most good i.e., make the most show that caused Mrs. Haight to sponge on the people she knew, whenever and however she could. And now Geraldine, at twenty-six, was classed among "the old girls," and Phoebe was clamor- ing for her chance. She had hoped that Ru- dolph Drake would solve a part of the prob- lem, and now he too had turned his back and walked away. In a more equable mood, she would have admitted that Geraldine had done her best to prevent his defection, but at the moment she felt she must upbraid some one, and it was safe to let loose her anger and disappointment on her daughter. "May I inquire what you propose to do?" she went on, her tone querulous beneath its sar- castic surface. "You must live somehow, you know." "I don't think it's necessary," Geraldine's lips and brow were sullen. The reply had been instinctive, not consciously borrowed. "Anyway " "You could earn your own living. Of course. I was sure you'd say that! And what kind of a living would it be, I'd like to INTRODUCING MISS WYNNE 21 know? As I've told you over and over again, Geraldine, the one profitable business for a woman is marriage. And when you look around and see the girls who've been able to get husbands of some kind or other, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You've got a stun- ning figure, you've had every opportunity, and here you are, an old maid on my hands!" Mrs. Haight had switched back from gener- alities to the main theme, and on this she con- tinued with scarcely a pause until they reached the house, and Geraldine was able to take refuge in her own room, behind a locked door, there to yield at last to the tears she had long repressed. For she had been deeply hurt that afternoon, and hurt in a way no one suspected, the girl who stifled her sobs among the pil- lows being a somewhat different person from the Geraldine inexperienced Nita despised and self-seeking Mrs. Haight fancied she could perfectly control. We do not always under- stand people quite so thoroughly as we are prone to suppose. It was not only in the thoughts of this mother and daughter that Rudolph Drake oc- cupied a prominent place. Nita Wynne, re- 22 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH turning home from the dinner to the receiving party which had followed the reception, dis- missed her maid and sat down before the pretty ivory- and crystal-strewn toilette table in her own pink and white, chintz-hung bed- room, that she might think of him and of the questions he suggested. He had made definite love to her that afternoon and in the brief hour after dinner, but had he meant it? Was he serious, or only trying to pass the time pleas- antly? When he told her he thought of her by day and dreamed of her by night, that his one and only desire was to please her, was it more than a pretty speech, such as he had per- haps spoken to many other girls to Geraldine Haight, for instance? The ingenuous scorn which always filled her at sight of Geraldine's maneuvers rose again. No nice girl would act in that way, she felt sure; nice girls didn't do such things. Neither did they wear extremely low-cut gowns, like Geraldine's, nor smoke cigarettes, as she very probably did and Mrs. Ashurst certainly! She wondered why the right kind of people by which she meant the well born and well bred received that horrid woman, with her gushing talk, her rouge, and her farcical divorce? She must be a great INTRODUCING MISS WYNNE 23 trial to Mr. Drake ! Naturally it wouldn't do for him even to hint at such a thing, but no doubt he disapproved of her suffered per- haps under his lively exterior. Her own fas- tidiousness made her shrink from the thought of there ever being any link between herself and Mrs. Ashurst, as it made her resent the idea that she might be regarded as Geraldine Haight's rival : that extenuating circumstances might exist in the case of either woman never entered her mind. But Mr. Drake it wasn't his fault She would have been honestly indignant had any one ventured to suggest to her that Drake's popularity, the fact that other girls wanted and tried to get him, had anything to do with the delight she felt when he turned from those others to her; even more indignant at any hint that his physical charm his height and broad shoulders, his merry blue eyes, hand- some face, and debonair manner had any con- siderable share in the attraction he undoubt- edly possessed for her, an attraction she was just beginning to admit to herself. Quite un- consciously she at once exalted love and de- based it; holding high her ideal of its mental and spiritual aspects, turning from all else with 24 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH distaste as from an evil, necessary perhaps, but an evil nevertheless. Hers was that ardent, exacting idealism of high-principled youth which looks for perfection a perfection shaped in accordance with its own untutored beliefs and will tolerate nothing that falls short of it, nor ever question its own ability to pronounce judgment. CHAPTER II THE PERFECT KNIGHT ON the following evening Nita Wynne and her father were alone at dinner in their home in East Sixty-fourth Street. The house was a high-stooped brownstone, ugly and gloomy on the outside, like the majority of New York residences built during the Eighties. Within, however, it was charming, for Nita's mother had been one of those exceptional women who possess an innate sense of line and color a sense her daughter had inherited and she had made her house at once comfort- able and harmonious, artistic and homelike. Since her death Nita had kept everything ex- actly as she had left it, and although the Wynnes, according to New York ideas, were not rich, and their establishment was but a modest one, few people who entered their house failed to like it or to be swayed, even if un- consciously, by its cheerful, pleasant at- mosphere. Over the rim of the coffee cup whose excel- 26 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH lent contents he was sipping with due apprecia- tion, Mr. Wynne regarded his daughter thoughtfully. He was contemplating the do- ing of something that would affect her very nearly, and he was not at all sure what her re- sponse to it might be. If she chose, she could make matters decidedly unpleasant. In the light of his half-determination, he seemed to see her with a new clearness, realizing with a sort of mental shock that he could not even conjecture how she would act in the given, or indeed in almost any situation. He was not in the least analytical, and heretofore he had taken his daughter very much for granted. Now, partly because of this new light, partly because of certain gossip which had been repeated to him, he had become somewhat abruptly aware that she was no longer a child to be petted and easily controlled, but a girl on the brink of womanhood ; and one endowed, moreover, with a strongly marked, exceptionally vigorous per- sonality. Looking at her from his altered point of view almost as he might have looked at an interesting stranger, he saw much that pleased and much that disquieted him. He considered her, feature by feature : the mass of wavy, light-brown hair piled high on the small THE PERFECT KNIGHT 27 head and falling over the low white brow in a soft cloud and a significant defiance of the cur- rent fashions hair full of golden glints, each tiny thread of it seeming to have an independ- ent vitality of its own ; the clearly marked eye- brows, many shades darker than the hair, whose pronounced arch gave a certain alert look to the whole face; the rather deeply set, gray-green eyes with their black-penciled irises and clear, fearlessly direct gaze. The short, straight nose had sensitive nostrils; the rounded chin, in which there was just a sus- picion of a cleft, exquisitely completed the deli- cate oval of the face ; only the mouth was ques- tionable, not yet definitely shaped in the lines which would one day indicate its owner's char- acter: it was flexible, vividly red, deliciously fresh and young. Significant details, many of them; yet in contemplating them thus sep- arately the essential thing, he felt, was lost, that essential which was not an affair of tint or curve, indefinable yet somehow making one think of a fountain springing upwards toward the sunshine sparkling, crystal-clear, rain- bow-hued. Eager, swift of thought and of movement, intensely, dynamically alive. . . . Nita had finished planning the dinner cards she meant to make for their next party; she liked to do them and often relied on her quaint or comic designs to start conversation and break any possible ice. Now she suddenly grew conscious of the long silence and her father's intent scrutiny. "Well, Dadsy, what's the matter? You've been staring at me for the last five minutes!" she exclaimed merrily. His brows relaxed, and he smiled. "I'm just beginning to realize that I have a grown- up daughter. It's a terrifying idea!" Her answering smile was a trifle uncertain, and the quick color rushed into her cheeks. With characteristic impetuosity she had leaped to the conclusion that he must have heard some of the talk about herself and Rudolph Drake which she knew was flying around. That he might have any private reasons or intentions never occurred to her; she had the usual un- questioning belief of youth that old or even middle age implies a state which will alter only as it is inevitably changed by the advancing years. And the fact was that her father and herself were neither so fond of each other nor so companionable as she rather naively sup- posed. THE PERFECT KNIGHT 29 But although she had, as her custom was, leaped to a conclusion, it was not an entirely mistaken one. Mr. Wynne was in truth think- ing that if this affair with Rudolph Drake should result in marriage, it would greatly sim- plify his own position. And he felt a little guilty, for though Drake, as a rising and astute young man, well regarded by the older mem- bers of the firm with which he was connected, was by no means an undesirable match from one standpoint, there were incidents in his per- sonal life, certain of those "affaires de cceur" mentioned by Mrs. Ashurst, that were really not at all Mr. Wynne freed his mind from these un- pleasant thoughts with a mental shake of an- noyance. He always declined to harbor un- pleasant thoughts, and he considered the sow- ing of wild oats a proper and necessary exer- cise. Why refuse to apply the theories in which he believed to one especial young man, merely because there was a possibility of that young man's becoming his own daughter's hus- band? Yet he was disagreeably conscious that it was only because it would suit his private plans so well to have Nita announce her en- 30 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH gagement that he was ready to welcome Ru- dolph Drake. While these ideas darted through his brain, Nita was speaking: "To tell the truth, Dadsy dear, it's just a wee bit terrifying to me too," she admitted a little shyly. Her recognition of her own womanhood had become closely connected in her thoughts with those iridescent fancies which had gathered around Rudolph Drake, and the addition made it seem a trebly delicate, perilous, and fascinating subject. It was the father who plunged. "I met Mrs. Ashurst yesterday on the Avenue and she was warning me to look out, that I had a most attractive and charming daughter. . . ." His smile became nervous as he saw the slight stiffening of Nita's delicate features. She hesitated an instant and then said with that incisive utterance which often gave an edge to her words, making them sound far more em- phatic than they really were : "I wish Mrs. Ashurst would let me and my affairs alone!" To her own ears that phrase held many im- plications, the thought of Rudolph Drake's re- lationship to Mrs. Ashurst being a veritable THE PERFECT KNIGHT 31 thorn in her flesh. She had all the usual intol- erance of youth and of sheltered feminine youth at that. For the idealistic, high-minded young girl is far more exacting in her demands that other people conform to her own exalted standards, far less likely to make allowances, than is the lad of similar age and type ; and this because of the simple reason that, among the well-to-do at least, he comes into contact with realities a good deal sooner than does she. "Don't you like her?" Mr. Wynne asked hurriedly. Nita had been absent-mindedly playing with her coffee spoon. Now she laid it down and looked across at him with frank, clear eyes, as unwavering as her speech. "No, Dadsy dear, I don't ! She smokes and makes up and drinks cocktails and and every one knows that she and Mr. Ashurst arranged their divorce. Nice women don't do such things." At that moment Mr. Wynne came to a de- cision. Thus there was good reason why it should make an impression on him : but was it an echo from the laughter of those little gods who delight in irony which fixed the incident and her own words in Nita's subconsciousness, 32 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH whence they were one day to arise to her con- scious mind, unaltered and unblurred? Certain it is that neither had any place in her thoughts on that crisp, sunny afternoon a little later in the month when she stopped her hansom the day of the all-conquering taxi had not yet arrived before an old-fashioned house in East Seventeenth Street, fronting Stuyvesant Square. She was going to tea with the Misses Van Vechten, and doing it at some small sacrifice of time and convenience, since the winter season was then in full swing, and her days and nights crowded. The house, formerly a dignified private mansion, retained much of its aristocratic air, though it was now divided into four apartments. The two little ladies, first and only tenants of the third floor, had lived there so long that to Nita the place seemed to have become a part of them the shell without which they would cease to be quite themselves. She was welcomed affectionately, and the violets she had brought accepted with gracious, though restrained thanks. For according to Miss Cornelia's code, "a lady" was always quiet and never made a fuss about anything; pleas- ures and pains should alike be met with dignity THE PERFECT KNIGHT 33 and calm self-control. Yet to the sisters, vivid, impetuous Nita represented embodied youth, while the harmless gossip she retailed to them was, save for a wedding or an occasional reception, the most exciting thing in their quiet lives. They were members of a tiny circle of widows and spinsters, all poor, all well born, and all fond of discussing and lamenting over the decadence of the society to which they had once belonged. Nita's anecdotes thus pro- vided themes for many a mildly animated dis- cussion over tea tables rich in Colonial silver and eggshell china. But this afternoon she had surprisingly little to tell, and her gay chatter faltered and stopped every now and then. For her daily life was becoming more and more a mere back- ground to her meetings with Rudolph Drake, and of these she could not speak. The two lit- tle ladies, watching her with adoring and undis- cerning eyes, wondered if she were quite well, although the appreciation she showed for the delicately browned muffins and luscious plum cake plum cake such as our great-grand- mothers used to make should have com- pletely reassured them. It was during one of these pauses that Miss Cornelia remarked, in 34 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH the casual tone she regarded as appropriate to the topic, any mention of money being a thing approaching dangerously near to vulgarity: "Nita dear, I sent a note to Mr. Drake the other day. It occurred to both of us upon reflection that it had been far from proper to speak to him about the North Eastern that Saturday afternoon at Mrs. Carton's tea. I trust he did not appear vexed, following our departure?" "Oh, no, not a bit." The fib was a very little one, Nita thought, and besides, it had been the interruption to their tete-a-tete which had an- noyed him, not the asking of his advice 1 "He seems to be a most amiable young man, just as his father was," Miss Cornelia com- mented gently, a far-away look in her soft brown eyes. She paused an instant with an unconscious, tiny sigh, and then added: "Sis- ter reminded me that it is his profession to ad- vise people, a thing for which he is accustomed to receive er pecuniary remuneration. Sis- ter has such a keen intellect ! Sol wrote and asked him to be so good as to pardon my ignorance and to tell er to tell me " Nita's sunshiny smile was very tender. "To tell you how much you owed him?" THE PERFECT KNIGHT 35 She knew Miss Cornelia to be quite in- capable of completing such a sentence unaided. Moreover, a new idea had darted into her mind. Was it possible that once, long ago, there had been something between Miss Cornelia and Rudolph Drake's father? Poor, dear, weak Miss Cornelia, so timid and nervous, terrified by spiders and thunderstorms, was just the sort of person to let happiness slip away from her through want of courage to take it. The little lady carefully adjusted the fine thread-lace ruffles over her delicate wrists and thin, blue-veined hands before she spoke. "He wrote a very kind note in reply a trifle brusque in its expressions, perhaps, but I un- derstand that it is no longer regarded as un- civil to be brusque in affairs of business. He said it would always be a pleasure to him to be of assistance to us, although he was far from certain of the value of his advice. So admir- ably modest !" "Do you think, Sister," queried Miss Sophia, speaking for the first time in at least half an hour, "do you think Mr. Drake at all re- sembles our Donald?" Miss Cornelia gravely considered this prob- lem during several seconds. "Not resembles, 36 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH perhaps ; not exactly resembles. Mr. Drake is fair, you know, and our Donald very dark. Yet there is a something, a certain aristocratic My dear Nita," Miss Cornelia spoke al- most abruptly, and with a nearer approach to something like excitement than Nita had ever before known her to show "my dear Nita, we haven't told you our great news. Our nephew Donald poor Serena's only child, you know is coming back to New York ! He intends to make it his home." "How delighted you must be!" Nita's re- sponse was sympathetic, but her thoughts were very far away from the unknown Donald. Mr. Drake must have written very nicely; he was an extremely busy person, but not too busy to be considerate. She was glad he had ad- vised dear Miss Cornelia and it was kind of him, for he didn't like to give advice, especially to women She suddenly realized that Miss Cornelia was just finishing an explanation, not one word of which had she heard. "And so then Donald accepted this position as assistant editor of the Colonial Magazine" she was saying. "Isn't that splendid!" Nita could only hope THE PERFECT KNIGHT 37 she wasn't blundering. Though she had not heard Miss Cornelia's explanation, she knew the Colonial Magazine to be one of traditions and dignity, which prided itself on its literary standards and standing. For a young man who couldn't possibly be over twenty-six or seven for Serena Van Vechten had been much the youngest of the three sisters to have obtained the post of assistant editor on such a periodical was no doubt matter for congratula- tion. But she had a vague impression that editors in general were a rather stuffy, priggish set of men very like schoolmasters. "Mr. Matthews is rather vexed about it," Miss Cornelia continued. "He wished Don- ald to enter upon a business career. Indeed, I understand he offered to procure him a po- sition with the Trans-Continental Trust Com- pany. Mr. Matthews is intimately acquainted with Mr. Carstairs, the President of the Com- pany." "Mr. Matthews said something to me about expecting a great-nephew, and of course I've always known you were related by marriage, but I didn't think of his nephew being yours too." Nita was doing her best not only to seem but to be interested. 38 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "He is Donald's great-uncle on his father's side. He is inclined to like Donald and to further his fortunes, but I fear that his is a somewhat er dictatorial nature, and our dear boy has an independent spirit," Miss Cor- nelia answered proudly. This statement contained an hiatus or two which Nita easily filled: she knew Mr. Atkin- son Matthews to be an elderly, rich, and child- less, almost kinless widower. A grandnephew whose "fortunes he was inclined to further" might reasonably regard himself as a young man with most satisfactory prospects so long as he did not clash with the old gentleman's habit of considering his will the one altogether righteous law. The doorbell tinkled electricity was a parvenu the ladies refused to recognize and Miss Cornelia blinked nervously, conscious of the little conspiracy wordlessly concocted be- tween her sister and herself. Nita heard colored Betsy speaking in her most dulcet com- pany tones, and expected to see old Mrs. Van Tighe or Miss Pauristaine; but it was neither of these who entered. A quick, yet oddly dragging step sounded in the hall, and Betsy threw open the heavy ma- THE PERFECT KNIGHT 39 hogany door with a flourish. "It's Mr. Don- ald, ma'am," she announced breathlessly. Donald Forsythe was half way across the dimly lighted room before he became aware that his aunts had a guest. And if Nita was surprised to see a vigorous young man appear instead of fat Miss Pauristaine or fragile Mrs. Van Tighe, her surprise was mild compared with his. For she was a rather astonishing figure to find in that quaint room, with its ancient portraits and ancient furniture, this young and vivid girl. Miss Cornelia introduced them with tremu- lous formality. Her heart was fluttering, and she was nearly speechless, now that the impor- tant moment had actually come; the moment for the beginning of the romance she had long planned in her innocently sentimental thoughts. But alas for her hopes ! After the first surprised scrutiny was over, her hero and heroine paid but little attention to each other. Forsythe decided that Miss Wynne was much too excitable and disturbing. Very pretty, certainly; but a girl who in all probability would presently develop into one of those rest- less modern women who want to know and to do, instead of remaining, madonna-like and 40 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH serene, above the battle. She only thought it a pity he was so ugly and had that slight limp. Her brain and fancy were occupied by an- other man one gallant, athletic, debonair. And she did not suspect how much that at- tractive exterior had to do with the knightly character she attributed to him, a character principally constructed out of the tiny inci- dents of his advice and note to Miss Cornelia. She knew the Misses Van Vechten would re- gard as "a trifle brusque" any communica- tion which ended "Yours truly" and not "Per- mit me, dear madam, with the deepest re- spect," and so on for at least a couple of lines. It was only a very tiny seed of faith which had been planted by these apparently trivial inci- dents, but it had fallen on prepared soil, where it sprouted and flourished with amazing rap- idity. Poor, affectionate, sentimental Miss Cornelia! In the imagination of a romantic, beauty-loving young girl, what chance could Donald Forsythe, plain of face and lame, pos- sibly have had against gay and gallant Ru- dolph Drake? Little, at best; and she herself had practically destroyed that little. But it was Donald Forsythe who gave the finishing touch to the knightly figure of Nita's THE PERFECT KNIGHT 41 fancy, adding courage to chivalry. Miss Cor- nelia was speaking of the North Eastern and "Mr. Drake's great kindness in advising them," when Forsythe asked: "Is that Rudolph Drake, Mrs. Ashurst's brother?" To impatient Nita, Miss Cornelia seemed extraordinarily slow in answering. What did this nephew of hers know about him? "Yes, Rudolph Drake: his father was Thomas Drake, you know, who married Edith Martin. Is he a friend of yours, Donald?" "No ; it was Ashurst who told me about him. I used to know Ashurst." "Ah! How interesting! And what did Mr. Ashurst say?" queried Miss Cornelia. Forsythe hesitated. He had spoken thoughtlessly, and now found himself in some- thing of a quandary. For the repetition of even a tithe of what Ashurst had told him would have shocked Miss Cornelia unspeak- ably, had he on his own part been willing to betray a confidence, which he certainly was not. Then came another memory, bringing relief. Quite ignorant of the effect of his words on one of his hearers, he said cheer- fully: 42 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "Why, it seems that Drake saved Ashurst's life once, when they were out sailing together. Something went wrong, the boom hit Ashurst, and overboard he went. He can't swim, and he might have departed from this world with rather unpleasant promptness if Drake hadn't jumped in after him and hauled him out." "How dreadfully Mr. Ashurst must feel now!" Nit a exclaimed and flushed a deep, embarrassed pink. For the phrase was a di- rect reference to the Ashurst divorce ; any men- tion of such a thing, and especially before a man, the Misses Van Vechten would consider most improper ; and indeed in her own opinion it was "not quite nice." "You mean since the divorce?" remarked Forsythe calmly. "Oh, well, the Ashursts never got along together, and they're much happier apart." He had been away from New York for many years, first at Harvard, then abroad, and he did not as yet quite know his aunts. "My dear Donald!" Miss Cornelia ex- claimed in a tone and with a look which con- veyed a rebuke for such heretical ideas and also a warning that a young girl was present. Forsythe gave Nita a quick, half smiling, THE PERFECT KNIGHT 43 half apologetic glance and turned his atten- tion to the plum cake, reminding himself that the freedom of speech to which he was accus- tomed in his own world of artists and writers "wouldn't go here." She met his look proudly, a certain wistful courage in her eyes that made him wonder rather hazily whether she would not after all be justified in chafing a bit against the conventions which walled her round. But it was in truth only a reflection of the picture in her mind the picture of Ru- dolph Drake, straight and strong and daunt- less, leaping overboard to save a drowning man. The girl's own brave spirit thrilled in response to the dramatic scene thus reenacted in her thoughts. "Without fear and with- out reproach." The splendid old phrase sang in her brain. A modern Bayard . . . her Bayard! CHAPTER III ONE MAN AND TWO MAIDS DURING the next few days Nita thought much and often about that episode of Ashurst's rescue. Her active imagination quickly expanded and elaborated Forsythe's somewhat meager narrative; insensibly the danger and the courage alike increased until their proportions became heroic, and Rudolph Drake "a very parfit gentil knight." Almost every evening she met him at some festivity or other, and this, he gave her plainly to under- stand, was the result of design, not accident. However, chance so ordered it that they were never alone together for more than a minute or two at a time, giving him scant opportunity for verbal wooing. But there are other ways than that of words, and when, on returning home late one afternoon from the usual round of teas, Nita found a florist's box awaiting her, a box which contained a delicately fragrant bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley, she did not need even a glance at the accompanying card to tell ONE MAN AND TWO MAIDS 45 her the name of the donor. So it was with his flowers at her breast and his transfigured image in her thoughts that she went forth to the dance given by Mrs. Bartlett, then the acknowledged leader of New York society, a woman who had many predecessors, but no successor. She was a little late, and Jimmie Dane, her partner, was watching for her near the en- trance to the ballroom, although the cotillion, which was to be danced before supper, had not yet been called. The sight of him reminded her that she had been guilty of a breach of etiquette in not wearing the flowers he had sent her. But those heavy American Beauty roses and Jimmie was an old friend, as well as one of the best-natured of mortals. "Hello, Nital" he exclaimed. "Gee, but you're a peach, all right!" Nita laughed happily, well pleased. The mirror had already told her that excitement had made her eyes and her complexion un- usually brilliant, but Jimmie's assurance was none the less welcome. She very much wanted to look her best just then. "Thanks, Jimmie. What an inordinate flatterer you are! And you're not angry with 46 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH me for being late and putting your flowers in water instead of wearing them? They were so superb I wanted to keep them." Which was quite true, if not the whole truth. Jimmie grinned. "Oh, that's all right! You're not late, but Caroline Lacy had her hooks out for me, and I wasn't going to be grabbed." As the only son of a multimillionaire, Jim- mie Dane had troubles of his own. Nita, who knew that Caroline Lacy be- longed to the huntress tribe of which she con- sidered Geraldine a member, met his glance gayly, her eyes dancing with fun. She was glad he was not provoked, both on her own ac- count and because she wanted to coax him into dancing at least once with Florence Carton a dance with Jimmie Dane meant, in those days, a good deal to a debutante. And she did not realize how very difficult it would have been for any man to be provoked with her that night, so sweet and radiant was she, so ex- quisitely touched with a new, ineffable gentle- ness which made that swift eagerness of hers seem like something bright sparkling through pearly tinted gossamer. ONE MAN AND TWO MAIDS 47 Drake, dancing now with Geraldine Haight, saw her enter, saw the lilies, and exulted. He had always been easily successful with women women of many a different kind and class but Nita was unlike those others, fastidious, proud, with an indefinable, elusive forbiddance behind her quick interest and ready sympathy which made her seem doubly desirable. It would be something to break down the de- fenses of this dainty, tantalizing maiden, this most perplexing blend of fire and snow! Fire and snow; unsullied in thought and word and deed. It would be no small achieve- ment to win her trust and to hold it. She would expect a great deal of the man she mar- ried, and he well, he had done a number of those things he ought not to have done; there was no denying that fact! But it was a fact about which, since it belonged to the past, she need never know anything, and with her be- lief in him as a stimulus he felt he could, and inwardly swore that he would, come up to the scratch. His muscles stiffening with resolve, he unconsciously tightened his hold on the partner he had forgotten, and Geraldine at once yielded to his arm. It was this too pro- 48 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH nounced yielding of hers which made him sud- denly aware that he held her more closely em- braced than was the custom at that time, when the "bunny hug" was still unknown to fame and fashion. With her rather voluptuous type of good looks she was decidedly alluring, and he not at all averse to accepting all she would give until it occurred to him that Nita Wynne's eyes might be upon them. A vague discomfort, not altogether unrelated to shame, assailed him ; dimly he felt, rather than under- stood, that he was even now falling below her standard, the standard he had promised him- self to live up to. His arm relaxed, and Ger- aldine paled a little ; no words could have hurt and humiliated her as did this implied rejec- tion a rejection which wounded something far deeper than pride. Nita, gliding past with Dwight Brainerd, noticed Geraldine's pallor and Drake's ab- stracted air. They were among the many apparently unimportant things destined to return to her mind in the years to come. Soon the cotillion was called, and ribbon, tissue paper, and tinsel trophies balls and banners, racquets and scarfs and parasols, pink and blue and many-tinted fluttered on the arms and over the heads of the dancers, adding more color to the gay scene reflected in the smilax-wreathed mirrors at which more than one girl, anxious or triumphant, glanced in passing. Blithe and buoyant Nita was too good a dancer, as well as too pretty, ever to lack partners, though the general fondness for dancing, as every one agreed and most women deplored, was waning fast, and the struggle to obtain enough men to go around was giving gray hairs to many an anxious hostess. Drake sought her out more than once with tribute of be-ribboned favors, but save for her pretty, demure thanks for the flowers, they scarcely spoke while they danced together through the various ingenious figures commanded by Monty West, most popular of cotillion lead- ers. Nita felt as though she were moving through an enchanted dream-world where one must go softly, lest the spell be broken. It was all rainbow-hued to her, shimmering, im- palpable as mist: and this rainbow-tinted mist suffused and transformed all things, within and without. Her every thought and sense was caressed, bewildered by it. The people about her, she herself, were no longer flesh- and-blood creatures dwelling on the matter- of-fact old earth, but the transformed inhabi- tants of a wondrous realm where all was light and color, music and joy and smooth rhythmic motion. When after supper she found herself alone with Drake in the conservatory, it all seemed part of the dream. The perfume of moist earth and flowers, the tinkle of water falling from a spray into a little marble basin, the cool dusk of this place where shaded lights were cunningly concealed amid the embowering foliage all these were appropriate as the sigh of the summer breeze over a daisy-pied meadow. And it was only an intensification of the enchantment that Drake was beside her on the marble seat, his hands clenched together on his crossed knees until the knuckles showed white, speaking passionate, beseeching words which seemed to penetrate her whole being, filling it with a delicious joy. She rather felt than heard what he was saying; his voice, his words were like music to which all her senses responded. . . . He was calling her his Snow Queen, his dearest, the only woman on earth he ever had ONE MAN AND TWO MAIDS 51 or ever could really love ; declaring his willing- ness to die at her bidding, to give the world for her smile, to do anything and everything. "You're my Snow Queen, my saint I adore you! Marry me, and I'll do everything you say. I'll make you happy, I'll love you al- ways, always oh, my darling " His voice died away in a hoarse whisper. It was the knight of her dreams who was pleading, the Prince Charming every normal girl waits and hopes for until life teaches her to prefer a man. Impulsive, undisciplined, in love with romance and with the glamour of debonair look and presence, tingling too with triumph that this man whom so many had striven in vain to win should declare himself her lover, she seemed to float in joy, soaring aloft in the rose-colored mist. And this dream sensation of hers showed itself upon her face in an ethereal expression which made Rudolph Drake feel that the gates of Heaven had indeed swung open and a white- robed angel of the Lord come down. He lit- erally trembled before her, this man who knew the seamy side of passion so well, this man with the blotted record and the reputation for busi- ness "astuteness." He did not venture to 52 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH touch her; the very thought of kisses seemed almost sacrilegious. But the wonder lasted only a moment, and Drake at least came back to earth with a shock as voices sounded near by, and Monty West appeared, searching for Nita. Drake could have annihilated him with pleasure, and Monty, perfectly aware of the fact, sympa- thized heartily. To take himself off, however, would have been altogether too obvious, and he could not think up a plausible excuse on the instant. He actually stammered out his con- ventional : "I think this is my dance?" Nita, sojourner in Fairyland, could not re- ply in words, but only rise assentingly. Be- sides, her inherited code demanded that each step forward be taken by the male. It was already so late that Drake knew he would not have another opportunity of being alone with her that evening. Either twenty- four hours' suspense, or a quick forcing of the issue He spoke hurriedly, and just a little breath- lessly. "May I come to-morrow, then?" She stooped to pick up her fluffy train; vol- ONE MAN AND TWO MAIDS 53 uminous skirts were the fashion, and hers spread far out over the floor in billowy waves of white chiffon. Looking down at it so that the long lashes hid her eyes, she answered quietly, albeit a trifle tremulously: "Yes; to-morrow at five." It was a promise ; he felt sure she would not have permitted him to come had she intended to refuse him. This was virtually then 1 be- trothal with Monty West, noted cotillion leader and already entered upon the career which was one day to be accurately described as "lurid," looking on and wishing himself a thousand miles away. He presently confided the story of his dis- comfort to Phil Lacy. "There I stood, feeling like an ass, and Drake glaring at me for all he was worth. But I tell you what, Phil, that little girl's got pluck! Didn't she up and make a date with him right under my very nose, and her eyes so bright afterwards you didn't dare look at 'em! It's wedding presents and rice, all right, all right!" Monty, a kindly soul at heart, meant no harm and had only indulged a natural loquac- ity; but Phil Lacy was made of very different 54 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH stuff. Wherefore he immediately asked Ger- aldine to dance and proceeded to tell her with additions what Monty had just related to him. According to his version, Nita was ac- tually in Drake's arms at the moment of Monty's entrance. While he talked he watched Geraldine closely, but if he hoped to see her flinch he was disappointed. She was prepared; for she had not been blind to Drake's joyous, exultant look as he came out of the conservatory, and she had herself well in hand. If there was a sha- dow in her blue eyes, and if her indifference was a trifle overdone, these were signs Phil Lacy was not clever enough to see. So he de- cided that Geraldine was "hard as they make 'em," and took care to impart his opinion and the reason for it to as many people as he could induce to listen to him. Within an hour, Nita Wynne's engagement to Rudolph Drake was an acknowledged fact to a large section of New York society. And no one paused to re- flect that had the girl thus discovered with Drake, for of course Phil Lacy's version had been accepted as the correct one, chanced to be Geraldine Haight, or almost any other, in- deed, than Nita Wynne, the whole affair would ONE MAN AND TWO MAIDS 55 have been regarded simply as an excellent joke, not as any assurance of an approaching marriage. Drake himself, slowly recovering from the intoxication of Nita's promise, began to guess the reason for the smiles and glances, the whis- perings and general aspect of "We know, but of course we're not going to say anything," and his triumphant air became a little more pronounced. A chance phrase or two gave him a clew to the story which was going the rounds ; but the thought of kisses, though still breath-taking, was no longer quite so over- whelming as it had once been. Nita had lost something, become less an object of wonder and of reverence to him, the instant he felt sure of her. But he was very happy; even more happy than exultant. CHAPTER IV MISS CORNELIA'S CODE ACCORDING to her own theory of what was right and proper in a situation such as hers, Nita should have lain awake all night. Instead of which she fell asleep almost as soon as her pretty head touched the pillow, and awoke only when the breeze, blowing the shade forward, let a long shaft of sunlight into the room. She was glad to see the sunshine, glad that this day of days should be bright and clear and beautiful. For on this day she would give Rudolph Drake her promise, would pledge herself to him for life. In her eyes an engagement was only one degree less binding than an actual marriage, and that, she thought, must be to a "nice woman" by which she meant a pure and honorable one nearly if not quite indissoluble. Of course, under cer- tain terrible conditions, a woman might be forced to live apart from her husband, but di- vorce and especially remarriage were, in her MISS CORNELIA'S CODE 57 girlish opinion, disgraceful and disgusting. There was nothing lax or even moderately flexible, about her ideas of right and wrong. Like most young people, she saw all things as black or white; good and evil seemed easy to distinguish and choose between then, when for her intervening grays did not yet exist. Instinctively, inarticulately, she prayed as she lay there wrapped in happy waking dreams dreams vibrant with a sense of adventure. She felt that she was about to start off on a wonderful journey through a mysterious, un- explored country. She was not at all fright- ened, but she was curious, intensely excited, thrilled with expectation of marvels and ro- mance. The familiar land of girlhood was very dear to her, but it had afforded no such consciousness of splendid daring as did the thought of this setting forth into the unknown. Always she had wanted to feel and to experi- ence, to fill her cup of life full, full to the very brim, refusing neither joy nor sorrow. That alert look, that radiant eagerness of hers, were not delusive. And with every tick of the clock it was com- ing nearer, nearer, that hour which was to be the richest she had ever known. On the stroke 58 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH of five he would be with her, and then and then A delicious shyness swept over her. Last night he had not even ventured to touch her hand, but now. . . . She buried her burning face in the pillow, quivering with emotions and sensations she did not understand. An intense restlessness possessed her. She left her bed, bathed and dressed, planning to take a long, solitary walk in the Park. But she had forgotten to ring for her breakfast, so there was a few minutes' delay while the tray was being prepared. And that tiny incident altered her whole life. For it caused her to pick up the morning paper and glance over it while she waited. And the first information it gave her was that the North Eastern had passed its dividend, was not likely to pay any for some time, and was in danger of being declared bankrupt. She was not a good enough business woman to comprehend more than a fraction of what was implied in the article she rushed through at a breakneck speed which would scarcely per- mit her to take in the words. But one thing she thoroughly understood : that the money the Misses Van Vechten had invested in the North MISS CORNELIA'S CODE 59 Eastern was almost certainly lost. And what this would mean to them her vivid imagination flung before her as in a succession of pictures cast upon a screen. Oh, it was too bad! Their little bit of an income And her father! He too had invested in North Eastern swiftly she dismissed that trouble. It was the salary he received as head of a flourishing real estate business which pro- vided their principal source of income. The loss of what he had in the North Eastern would be inconvenient, worse than inconvenient; but not ruinous. Oh, poor Rudolph! How dreadfully he must feel to think that his advice had brought such distress it must be worse than losing the money! And he had probably done that too. . . . She must and would speak to him at once She caught up the telephone which stood on a small table beside her bed, snatched the re- ceiver oflUthe hook and replaced it before Central could answer. No, not that way! She would wait until he came to her. Meanwhile she must do something! Her father, of course, had gone down-town, but she would hurry over at once to East Seventeenth 60 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH Street and see Miss Cornelia. The two little ladies were the worst sufferers, for while . . . Rudolph her thoughts paused shyly before the name was no doubt blaming himself bit- terly, he must of course realize that he couldn't expect or be expected never to make a mis- take. The breakfast tray now appeared. Nita had a healthy young appetite and was hungry, but she couldn't bear to take the time to eat much. She hurried into her trig tailored suit and adjusted the small velvet hat, perched on its fashionable bandeau high above the waves of light-brown hair. Feeling pleasantly ad- venturous, even in her distress, at doing an un- accustomed thing however insignificant, she hastened across to Third Avenue and took an elevated train. It was the quickest way, and the crowd and discomfort only added to her sense of daring. But when she reached the house in East Seventeenth Street all this dis- appeared under a flooding sympathy. Yes, Miss Cornelia and Miss Sophia were at home and would see her, so Betsy presently informed her in a hushed tone. For although it would never have occurred to the Misses Van Vechten to tell her any of their affairs, the MISS CORNELIA'S CODE 61 faithful old soul knew very well that some- thing was seriously wrong. There were no indications of disturbance in the prim little parlor. Each chair occupied its appointed place, not a speck of dust marred the polished surfaces of the mahogany tables and quaint old secretaire. And yet the at- mosphere was changed: peace and security were gone; apprehension had come. Nita moved about restlessly, in direct viola- tion of every tacit rule of the place. She ached "to do something," but what it might be possible to do she hadn't the least idea. It seemed to her a good half hour, but it was really only a few minutes, before Miss Cor- nelia entered the room. The little gentlewoman was dressed as daintily as usual; her tiny lace cap was as ex- actly placed, her fine lawn collar and cuffs as immaculate. Her manner had lost nothing of its quaint precision but her delicate eyelids were swollen and faintly pink. And when Nita came to her with a half suppressed, in- coherently tender exclamation, she kissed her fondly something which did not often hap- pen. It was the elder woman who spoke first. 62 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "Don't look so distressed, dear child," she said gently. "Oh, Miss Cornelia, I'm so sorry, so dread- fully sorry! I just couldn't stay away; is it very bad?" Miss Van Vechten hesitated an instant. Then she said, with a simple dignity that en- forced respect, "We have lost about two thirds of our income, Sister and I." "But what will you do?" exclaimed Nita, her young impetuosity seeming greater than ever by contrast with the other's calm. "We have made our plans," Miss Cornelia answered quietly. "For the past few days we have known that there was trouble. Mr. Hobbs so informed us, and the newspapers cor- roborated his statement." She paused, and Nita broke in quickly: "I haven't looked at a paper for weeks not until this morning. Then I read " "Mr. Hobbs, a truly excellent man against whom I fear we were formerly somewhat prejudiced, tried to save something for us," Miss Cornelia went on, "but he was able to ac- complish only a very little. We will have to retrench, of course." For the first time her sweet low voice faltered. "We are going to MISS CORNELIA'S CODE 63 to leave this apartment, and move far up- town." Nita caught her breath. The Misses Van Vechten had seemed so much a part of this home of theirs that it was difficult to think of them away from it. And they loved it so! "Dear Miss Cornelia, how brave you are!" she cried with mingled surprise and admira- tion. She had considered weak and timorous, almost nerveless, these two who were afraid of spiders and thunderstorms. The little lady drew herself up proudly. "When one has been born a Van Vechten, my dear, one cannot make a useless fuss or be a coward. It does not do to shame one's fore- fathers." It was an old-fashioned code, perhaps, this of noblesse oblige, but it was the one Cornelia Van Vechten held and practiced. "Certainly not!" Nita replied promptly. "But but can't something be done?" Miss Cornelia patted the girl's hand and smiled; the saddest, wintriest little smile "That is exactly what our Donald asked last night," she said; and added, with a tiny quiver in her calm voice: "The dear boy wanted to give us er pecuniary assistance" how dif- 64 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH ficult it was for Miss Cornelia to speak di- rectly of money! "but of course" her frail body straightened and stiffened just percepti- bly "but of course we would not dream of accepting help, even if he could afford to give it." Had it not been for that last clause, Nita might have ventured a protest; Donald For- sythe's implied poverty silenced her. There was only one thing. "Perhaps my father ?" "Thank you, dear child, I fear there is noth- ing that can be done." Again the little lady paused ; then continued, very gently : "I wrote to Mr. Drake, so soon as we were definitely in- formed of of what had happened. I was afraid he might reproach himself for counsel- ling us to retain our investments in the North Eastern, and be distressed." Nita appreciated the delicate feeling which had prompted both the act and the telling her of it. She had always been fond of Miss Cor- nelia and her silent sister, and now the self- possession, the quiet dignity, displayed by these two old-fashioned gentlewomen com- manded her admiration. They were holding their heads high, obeying their code when such MISS CORNELIA'S CODE 65 obedience was most difficult. She had come to the house on East Seventeenth Street prepared to wipe away tears and soothe lamentations; she remained to do reverence to a courage which seemed to her little less than heroic. In her own silent way, Miss Sophia reflected her sister's fortitude. Donald Forsythe, who presently dropped in for a flying visit, ap- peared more angry and perturbed than either of them, although he controlled his wrath until Nita and he were out of the house and walking slowly westward towards Fifth Avenue. Then he broke forth indignantly: "Of all the damnable outrages! I beg your pardon, Miss Wynne but that's exactly what it is." Nita could not help liking the outburst, al- though she thought it rather unjust, and an- swered : "Well, I don't suppose the North Eastern people want the road to be bankrupt!" "I'm afraid that's precisely what they do want. Some newspaper men I know have been talking to me, and they say " He paused, and Nita demanded quickly: "What do they say?" "They say it's all a put-up job. That the 66 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH North Eastern will be reorganized, and the shareholders told that if they'll come in that is, hand over more money they'll have some sort of a chance to get back what they've lost. Otherwise, they'll be wiped out. There were a lot of small investors like my aunts, people who can't afford to give out another cent. You see?" "But that's stealing!" Nita cried. Some- how it never entered her head to doubt his statement. "Of course it is morally. Only it isn't il- legal. There's a difference, you know! They've probably stayed well within the let- ter of the law. Though I can't but believe that if some one with money and influence would go into the thing, he might make it hot for a few of those estimable gentlemen who are shedding crocodile tears over the misfor- tunes of the poor investors !" "Why isn't it done, then?" exclaimed Nita indignantly. "I never heard of anything so infamous! They ought to be sent to jail, every one of them!" Her quick, sweeping gesture was a wholesale condemnation. He was as frankly if not quite as naively wrathful as she. MISS CORNELIA'S CODE 67 "The trouble is that the people who've been hit are the kind that can't afford to make a row women like my aunts and men of about the same kind superannuated clergymen and professors and so forth. That's what the lit- tle ring they say has engineered the whole busi- ness is banking on, unless I'm very much mis- taken. I'd fight them myself, if I had a little more coin nothing I'd like better!" The lowering of his heavy brows, the flash of his dark eyes as he turned to her, emphasized his words ; the vigor and energy of the born fighter were in his look and tone. For the moment his head, with its high cheek bones, hollow tem- ples, and sharply cut features, seemed almost hawklike. An instant the memory of certain bas-reliefs of the young Horus flitted across Nita's thoughts. "That's what I'd enjoy do- ing! As a matter of fact, I suppose I'll sub- mit, same as all the rest." His left shoulder jerked abruptly. Nita suddenly remembered what Miss Cor- nelia had told her about Donald Forsythe's re- fusal to enter the employ of the Trans-Con- tinental Trust, at the bidding of Atkinson Matthews. She had picked up a good many stray bits of information from the talk of her 68 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH father and his friends; she knew that several of the officers of the Trans- Continental were connected with the North Eastern. It was all more or less hazy to her, but it prevented her from even hinting at the possibility of an ap- peal to Donald Forsythe's great-uncle. "Oh, I wish I could do something!" she cried suddenly, throwing back her spirited little head as though delivering a challenge. He was so sore over his own powerlessness that the futile wish rather exasperated him. His thin, clever face was too expressive not to betray his annoyance, but Nit a was not suffi- ciently interested in him to notice it, although she had a half conscious feeling that she had known him for a very long time. When they reached Fifth Avenue, Donald excused himself, pleading a business engage- ment, and Nita went on alone, thinking so in- tently that she was surprised to find herself, in what seemed an astonishingly short space of time, at the corner of her own street. She ate her lunch in solitude and presently, as the time appointed for Drake's coming drew near, the impressions of the morning be- gan, not to fade, but to recede into the back- ground of her mind. She had entered so MISS CORNELIA'S CODE 69 thoroughly into the sorrow of those other lives that for a while her own affairs had been su- perseded. Now they came forward once more ; her own happiness once more possessed her wholly. Her lover was coming; she must make ready for him, make her gift altogether worthy his acceptance. That glimpse of baseness which her talk with Donald Forsythe had given her caused her to turn with in- creased admiration towards him, her own gal- lant, chivalrous knight. By contrast with that briefly visioned black, his immaculate white- ness shone yet more resplendent. She sent away her maid; no hands save her own should attire her for this, her hour of hours. She clothed herself afresh, selecting the daintiest from her abundant store of hand- made, delicately embroidered lingerie; to her there was something symbolic in the act. She held her breath with anxiety as she arranged the heavy coils of light brown hair; never be- fore, she thought, had the gold in it seemed so plentiful. She tried on half a dozen gowns, weighing their merits with an indecision strange to her, whose habit it was to jump at conclusions. At last she chose a white mous- seline de soie and spent ten minutes or more 70 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH adjusting the newly arrived lilies-of-the- valley at her slender waist: this adornment of herself for her lover was to her like part of a beautiful, solemn ritual. Flushed, radiant, tinglingly alive in every nerve and fiber of her being, she paused to look once again in the long mirror, surveying her- self with delight, laughing softly through sheer surcharge of joy. For her fearless, in- experienced eyes saw only the glory of her youth and nothing of its pathos; saw only the glad trustfulness with which she welcomed the future and nothing of the dangers of such overconfidence. The electric bell rang sharply, and the par- lor maid came in with Drake's card, exactly as though this were merely an ordinary call! Nita did not run down the stairs, she floated; treading not on wood and carpet, but upon rose-tinted, sun-flecked clouds. CHAPTER V HER HOUR SHE had directed the maid to show Mr. Drake into the library, where she knew they would be safe from casual callers. And as she reached the second-story hall, she was surprised to hear voices her father's first, then Rudolph Drake's. She had not expected to meet him in the presence of a third person, and she was disappointed and at the same time just a wee bit relieved. When she entered the library, the two men were standing together in the bay window, talking busily. She could not see either of them clearly, for the luminous golden haze that hung before her eyes. The first few words of greeting were an indistinguishable jumble to her; she was conscious only of Drake's pres- ence. Then she became aware that her father was speaking: " So I came up-town early. But I didn't 72 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH expect any such good luck as finding you here though I wasn't altogether surprised, either!" He laughed as he clapped the young man lightly on the shoulder. A second's pause, and he added, with a change of tone: "I'll take your advice and call Nilor up right away." "You'd better not mention " "That it was you who warned me to get out of the North Eastern? Not much I won't! That was a mighty good turn you did me, my boy. I'd have lost a tidy little sum if you hadn't told me about it all last month." He chuckled gleefully. "Stay and dine with us no need to dress. We're only too glad to have you just as you are, eh, Nita? You might have had to economize a bit, young lady, if he hadn't given me the tip to stand from under in time !" They were alone now, he and she. There was an instant's pause, and in the silence the clock struck five. Her hour had come her hour! He took a quick step towards her; and she recoiled a little, warding him off with out- stretched hands. He stopped, amazed. He did not in the HER HOUR 73 least understand. He only knew that she de- nied him : and that she was very lovely and very pale. "Nita Snow Queen!" he exclaimed en- treatingly. "I hoped last night when you told me I might come " Last night! Centuries had passed since then. The feeling of unreality which had held her then possessed her still; but the glorious dream was now a nightmare. And the man before her, her hero, her Bayard what was he? One phrase repeated itself, as though whispered to her over and over again: "He knew. Last month he knew." She spoke slowly, in a curious, muffled tone. "You warned my father to get rid of his North Eastern . . . ?" Neither her attitude nor the reason for her question was comprehensible to him. He had come for love-making, not financial discus- sion. "Yes, I did," he exclaimed impatiently. "Of course, I wasn't going to let your father Oh, Nita darling, don't keep me waiting any longer! I thought the day would never end How can you make me suffer like this, when I love you so!" 74 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH Again he came towards her; and again she recoiled. It was no longer only the world around her which was unreal, but she herself as well. This thing which seemed to have happened could not be an actuality ! It was only an ugly nightmare, from which she would awaken pres- ently. "It isn't that " Her phrases were broken, importunate as her thoughts. "But I don't quite understand and I must. You knew the North Eastern " He was becoming irritable. That such treatment should be meted out to him, who had felt so secure a conqueror! "I knew it had a mighty good chance of go- ing to smash, if that's what you're after. But I don't see what possible difference my know- ing or not knowing it can make to you." He spoke the truth ; he did not see. "You knew and you told Miss Cornelia it was all right perfectly safe " "So, that's it! Why, you little white angel you, what else could I do? I'd been let into a good thing and it might have spoiled it all for me and my friends if I'd given that chat- tering old woman a hint. She'd have gone and HER HOUR 75 talked to every one she knew. But you're so sweet and dear " Something in his eyes made her so change her position that the broad library table sep- arated them. "I don't expect you to betray your friends. You could have refused to answer her ques- tions." Drake hesitated. How could he explain that he had been using every possible oppor- tunity to strengthen confidence in the North Eastern, and that to him Miss Van Vechten had merely represented one such opportun- ity? "It wouldn't have done," he said at last in a tone of dismissal. "I'm sorry they were stuck, but I can't take care of every fool investor. If I can help them, I will, I promise you." He felt that he was being exceedingly gen- erous. "Now let's forget all about them! Last night you made me so happy " She interrupted him swiftly. Her eyes were bright, her color high, her slender form tense with revulsion. "Last night I believed in you," she said. "What on earth do you mean?" he de- manded. Disappointment, irritation, were 76 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH fast turning into anger. Suddenly a thought struck him, seeming to throw a flood of light on the situation. "You don't you cant sup- pose I warned your father because I thought the money 'd be yours some day?" "No, no!" she cried sharply. Characteristi- cally enough, such an idea had never entered her head. "Then what do you mean?" he repeated. To answer would have been to reveal all the dreams, all the iridescent hopes she had cher- ished. She could not have done this if she would. And so she replied brokenly, inad- equately: "I thought you very different. I did not know you would speak falsely and betray confidence." "You're out of your mind!" he exclaimed in amazement. "There's no use talking about it." Her voice shook a little. Around that gallant presence of his she had spun the exquisitely delicate web of her girlish fancies ; he had been the hero of her romance; but she would not, could not remember these things now. And she added quietly : "I think you had better go-" HER HOUR 77 He had been trying hard to hold himself in check. Anger, bewilderment, balked pas- sion, rising to flood tide, had their way at last. "You you cheat!" he cried, incoherent in his wrath. "So you've changed your mind, have you, and want an excuse Thought it would be fun, did you, to get me here and then I warn you I'm not safe to play with 1" The debonair lover was gone; in his place raged a vain, sensual man denied the thing he most wanted, the thing he had believed he held securely in his grasp. She was not in the least frightened, but she was very angry. It was intolerable that he should fall so far short of her ideal of him as to be unable to understand or even to take his dismissal quietly! She had not the faintest comprehension of his very real suffering, of the strength of the force she had unleashed and now expected to go to heel at a word, like a well-trained dog. Only she felt that she loathed this man who had been the prince of her enchanted kingdom and wantonly, ruth- lessly destroyed it. As he had once seemed to her compact of knightly virtues, so did he now appear devoid of any shred of honor or even decency. The rose-colored dream in which she 78 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH had been living was wrecked and worse than wrecked; it was defiled. And now his look, even more than his speech, insulted her. "Go!" she commanded, lifting her head with a defiant gesture, unconsciously dramatic. Never had she seemed to him so completely desirable as at this moment when she ordered him out of her presence as she might have or- dered something unclean. He too had had visions, visions of the time when she would be his. And though his dreams had been very different from those she cherished, they were destroyed no less than hers, and perhaps still more painfully. His reaction from an earlier mood was extreme as her own. He saw her only as the woman he wanted, the woman who had first tacitly promised and then denied him. The blood ran hot and swift in his veins, his pulses hammered, his throat was dry and burn- ing. His feeling indeed was near akin to that which has led more than one man to kill the woman who refused his love. He would take and hold and kiss her into submission, this ex- quisite, vivid creature who must who must 1 be his, no matter how, no matter what the cost. No shrinking, no outstretched forbidding hands would control him now. HER HOUR 79 She had caught up the heavy bronze ink- stand from off the writing table. "Don't touch me!" she gasped. And this time it was he who recoiled. They stood facing each other, both breathing heavily. A great blot of ink stained the front of the silvery gown she had chosen for this, her hour of consecration. It was she who broke the long, horrible si- lence. "Now will you go?" she demanded with all the haughtiness, all the white fury of offended Artemis. There were voices in the hall; the sound jerked him sharply back from the world of primitive passions into that of restraints and conventions. He moistened his dry lips, striving to speak. He could have cursed her in his rage and disappointment, there where she stood so white and fearless, with the great black stain on the front of her dress. And he could have fallen at her feet in a mad passion of penitence and supplica- tion. But the world of conventions had regained its hold; the fateful moment was gone, never to return. An instant only he waited, while the voices of Mr. Wynne and the clerk he had summoned died away. Nita heard the front door slam behind him. For a little while she stood motionless. Then she went to the writing table, methodically arranged paper and pens and replaced the ink- stand. Very slowly she unfastened the flow- ers she had adjusted with such tenderness and care, and laid them upon the table. She had worn lilies-of-the-valley for the last time. Presently she rang the bell for the maid. "I upset the ink," she said quietly, listening half wonderingly to her own calm voice. "Please get a cloth and wipe it up." "Oh, Miss Nita, your dress!" the girl ex- claimed in dismay. Nita gave a queer little laugh, glancing down at the white gown. "It's quite spoiled, isn't it?" she said. CHAPTER VI HOOPS OF STEEL IT was easy enough to explain Drake's failure to appear at dinner that evening, but Nita knew that the breach between them would soon be discovered and commented upon. And thought of comment was like a rude touch on an exposed nerve. What might not people say? She remembered thankfully her often repented promise to pay a visit to the Danes, at Elmstead; it would be a relief to get away from New York for a time. She rebelled against this thing which had hap- pened; that such pain and disappointment should have come to her filled her with youth- ful amazement. She was too young not to feel tragic, and she did not realize that her eager interest in living was quite unimpaired any more than she realized that she had been in love with romance and glamour, with an im- possible ideal made of dreams and moonshine, never with the man Rudolph Drake. He had 82 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH but served as a suitable lay figure on which to hang the gorgeous trappings of her fancy. - All of this did not render her disappoint- ment and wounded pride any less genuine and painful, but only less enduring. Drake had outraged her maiden dignity in a way she felt she never could forgive, and she attributed the rapidity with which she was able to dismiss his image from her thoughts to this indignation of hers, and plumed herself a trifle on her strength of character. It was all very young, some- what pathetic, and more than a little comic. But this successful dismissal was yet to come; she still mourned for her lost castle in the air, only she kept her mourning hidden. Resolutely she took her usual part in the various gayeties of the house party, to all ap- pearances as blithe as ever. And here per- haps she really did show something of the strength with which she credited herself. For whatever else might be imaginary, the hurt of disillusionment was genuine. Moreover, she had been ready to give; and the thwarting of the natural human impulse seemed to paralyze something within her. Thus she found it rather difficult to cope HOOPS OF STEEL 83 with a new adorer. This was Elsie Haight, that youngest sister for whose social future Mrs. Haight had once expected Geraldine to do so much. She was a remarkably pretty little person, guest and chum of the hostess' schoolgirl daughter Pauline. From the mo- ment of Miss Wynne's arrival, Elsie avowed herself "perfectly crazy about her," and im- mediately proceeded to impart all her joys and woes to the object of her admiration. At first Nita tried to discourage her, but Elsie was not at all thin-skinned, and required a far more pronounced snubbing than sensitive Nita was inclined to bestow. Before she was quite aware of it, she found herself installed as Elsie's chosen friend and confidante. "I do so envy Pauline!" Elsie sighed one rainy day, curling herself up among the cushions on the lounge in Nita's room, whither she had come ostensibly for advice as to the matching of hair and sash ribbons. "I do so envy Pauline ! She hasn't any sisters." "Why, Elsie, what a horrid thing to say!" exclaimed Nita somewhat conventionally. But then, as she reminded herself, she did not know Phoebe, the second Haight girl, who might be quite unlike Geraldine. 84 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "You'd feel the same way if you were in my place! It's beastly enough having to wear Phoebe's old duds made over and sometimes they've been Geraldine's too but the worst of it is that here I am, sixteen years old, and they've both got to be married off before I can come out," pouted Elsie, looking injured and almost tearful. Nita found the point of view interesting. She had never before been on intimate terms with any one who frankly admitted looking at things exactly in the way Elsie had been taught to regard them, and that curiosity about people in general, which was part of the thirst for ex- perience her recent indulgence in romance had temporarily appeased, was again becoming active. Openly desirous of hearing more, she said, "But Elsie, you wouldn't be able to leave school for two years at least, even if you were an only child." ' Elsie tossed her pretty nut-brown curls. "Oh, of course not. Only it will be lots more than two years; you just see if it isn't! Here's Phoebe, twenty and over. She's been waiting and waiting and waiting for Geraldine to marry somebody, so she could have her turn, HOOPS OF STEEL 85 and Geraldine's heaps better looking than she is. It's going to be awfully hard on me two old-maid sisters, and the family getting poorer and poorer every minute!" Her big brown eyes filled with the easy tears of self-pity. "Perhaps it won't be so bad as all that," an- swered Nita consolingly. "And think what a splendid time you may have, with two popular young married women to chaperon you and en- tertain for you!" Elsie's smile revealed a bewitching dimple. "I'll have a good time, all right, if I only get half a chance! You see, I'm so awfully pretty, and the way I can manage men Every one says I'm a born flirt. Why, our English master at school he's 'most forty, but he's terribly good looking, and he's dread- fully in love with me!" Which statement would have been truly amazing news to that overworked individual, could he have heard it. Elsie went on with a complacent little laugh : "I'll probably marry a millionaire some day. Mother says a girl can get more with less trouble by marrying a rich man than in any other known way." "But suppose you shouldn't happen to to 86 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH care for any rich man? What then?" Nita could not use the word "love" as lightly as Elsie did. "Mother says it's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as with a poor one, but that it's really better not to care too much, anyway. After the honeymoon's over, you needn't see much of your husband, and you can just go ahead and have a good time." It was not a gracious nor a graceful task to combat a daughter's repetition of her mother's teachings. Nita spoke with a touch of diffi- dence and a deepening of the wild-rose color in her cheeks: "You must remember though, Elsie, that marriage isn't all white satin and orange blos- soms and motors and an establishment. You've got to to go on living with the man you marry." "Oh, you mean the sex business," Elsie re- marked with, to Nita, breath-taking coolness. "Well, that's the price you've got to pay. Mother says that in this world you can't get anything for nothing, only if you're clever, you needn't pay much. And if a man's crazy about you, you can manage him lots more easily." HOOPS OF STEEL 87 "Why, Elsie, I thought you were so ro- mantic!" "Oh, I am awfully romantic! Now if I eloped with Max, there'd be lots of excitement, and the papers would all have columns about it, and it would be too terribly thrilling! But there isn't any fun or any romance to a mere ordinary marriage. If I run away with Max, I'll make a sensation; and if I marry a million- aire well, I'll make a sensation, and men can keep on falling in love with me just the same. Of course," she added, dimpling, "I'm count- ing on getting any man I want." Suddenly returning to her grievance, she went on: "Only I do think it'll be just too awfully mean if I'm kept back for Phoebe until there isn't any money left! Goodness only knows what I might have to take then! But of course, she wouldn't have the ghost of a show if I was anywhere around," she ended with a little giggle. Well, she certainly was very pretty! Snug- gling there among the many-hued down pil- lows, she reminded one of a luxurious, fluffy Persian kitten. And for all her worldly talk, she was very young, very irresponsible. Nita, though less than five years Elsie's senior, often 88 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH found herself treating her as if she were an innocently mischievous baby whom it was more or less her own duty to keep out of trouble. She had quickly discovered that Elsie was given to "crushes," as she called them, brief amourettes to which she yielded entirely and with no attempt at resistance. Just now she was in the very midst of one, its object a popu- lar baritone the Max to whom she had al- luded, and whose picture she wore in a locket hung around her neck. She had confided to Nita her intention of writing and asking for an appointment with this "perfectly divine" per- son, already five times divorced, and been dis- suaded therefrom with difficulty and an ingenious playing upon her dread of ridicule. It was this success which first awakened in Nita a sense of being, in some undefined, un- reasoned way, responsible for Elsie. At the time this sense of responsibility was good for her, giving her an immediate interest apart from her own shattered romance. She was too active mentally, too intensely alive to have brooded long over the ruin under any cir- cumstances, but it certainly helped her to shake herself free from the debris more quickly than she might otherwise have done. HOOPS OF STEEL 89 And then came a surprise which destroyed all her plans and threatened permanently to disturb that smoothly running daily existence she had accepted as a matter of course. The day she left Elmstead she received a letter from her father announcing his marriage to Rudolph Drake's sister, Mrs. Ashurst. That letter was a veritable bombshell to Nita. The idea that her father might marry again had never crossed her mind. Regarding a second marriage, when the first had been a happy one, as nothing short of an indecent breach of loyalty, the event would have hurt her, even had the second wife been a woman she respected and liked. And this second wife was Mrs. Ashurst Mrs. Ashurst, of all peo- ple! As a woman who smoked and rouged and had obtained a divorce with Mr. Ashurst's full consent some said, with his thanks and benediction she was one whom Nita's youth- ful ideas of right and wrong placed irrevo- cably among the goats. A rearranged family was something for which she had neither patience nor tolerance. And now a woman of the class she most despised was to enter her own home. It was worse than unpleasant; it was, as Nita said emphatically, "Absolutely 90 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH disgusting!" But only to herself, be it under- stood. For with all her frankness she had cer- tain reserves ; and she was very proud. This pride enabled her to greet the new Mrs. Wynne when the pair returned from their honeymoon, a few weeks later, with a courtesy quite irreproachable, if absolutely glacial. Between them an armed truce was speedily and tacitly established. They met at meals when guests were present, but otherwise led entirely separate lives. This constant state of preparedness was not good for Nita; the former Mrs. Ashurst chafed under it, and it reduced Mr. Wynne to a perpetual condition of apologetic sheepishness. He was uxorious as only an elderly man in the grasp of a late- coming infatuation can be; yet he knew he had dishonored himself in his daughter's eyes, knew she judged him with that ruthlessness of youth which is quite honestly blind to any save the most obvious of extenuating circumstances. There was a gulf between them, and although each occasionally stretched out affectionate hands to the other across it, it remained im- passable. Had Nita been older, more versed in the intricacies of human nature, and conse- quently more lenient in her judgments, had HOOPS OF STEEL 91 Mr. Wynne possessed a stronger character, or had they ever indulged in a downright quarrel, it might have been crossed. But there it lay between them, all day and every day, prohibit- ing that ease and freedom of speech which is the joy of human intercourse. Therefore was it impossible for him to ques- tion her regarding the break with Rudolph which had quite evidently occurred. He spoke to his wife about it, and she, who had looked forward to getting rid of Nita by speedy and due process of marriage, endeavored to cross- examine her brother, only to be met by a reticence and a sullen anger which surprised and dismayed her. Knowing as she did a good deal about his various liaisons, she naturally assumed that reports of them had somehow reached Nita's ears. This would account, not only for the young girl's attitude, but also for Drake's anger, his ill-concealed anxiety and discomfort when they met, as under the circum- stances it was unavoidable that they should meet, sooner or later. Of course, it was ab- surd of Nita to make a fuss about such things, but quite characteristic, thought Mrs. Wynne, with one of her exaggerated shrugs. The truth was that Drake had nourished 92 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH many hopes regarding the inevitable en- counter. It seemed to him unthinkable that because of what he considered as, at worst, a slight defection from the strict code of honor, he should forever lose the girl who was once ready to give herself to him. He called down innumerable anathemas on his own head for the collapse of his self-control, his display of a passion which he knew must have shocked and repelled fastidious Nita, whose purity he had so often compared to snow. But this was the kind of thing any woman, he believed, always forgave after a time. Was it not, when all was said, a tribute to her power? No; his loss of control could only have caused a temporary, frightened shrinking, easily atoned for by hu- mility and penitence. And surely the charge she had brought against him could not long separate them! Now that her ardent sympa- thy for those two little ladies why, if she took him back he would feel sorry for them himself! had had chance to abate, she would see that she had expected too much, expected conduct absolutely quixotic. More- over, though this he formulated to himself less clearly, he relied on his personal charm, on the good looks and gallant presence he had so HOOPS OF STEEL 93 often been told were irresistible. Let them but be given an opportunity But the good looks and gallant presence and debonair gayety had become distasteful to Nita, things fair and false, hiding corruption. She met him with the distant civility one might accord a stranger of doubtful reputation, and became every moment more annoyed with her- self for being fascinated, like any silly school- girl thoughts of Elsie's rhapsodies over her baritone played their part here by a mere handsome animal. And she never distrusted her ability to judge him; not because of vanity, but because the difference between right and wrong seemed to her so simple and obvious. This opinion is the prerogative of idealistic youth. From that first meeting, Drake came away sore, humiliated, and disappointed, though not disheartened. But as week succeeded week, month passed into month, and Nita's attitude remained unchanged, thwarting his every en- deavor at reconciliation, he became piqued and angry, as well as discouraged. The spoken and unspoken questions of his friends were a constant irritation to his festering vanity. He felt that he had lost caste, he exaggerated each 94 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH hint of ridicule or waning popularity. Ger- aldine alone seemed to him quite unaltered. He began to find balm in her society ; more- over, her heavy-lidded eyes, her voluptuous form, her slow, languid movements and long silences made her the very antithesis of Nita Wynne. He who had pleaded in vain, who had haunted the girl's presence, so he told him- self angrily, as abjectly as a whipped and starving cur, was here master and lord. No exactions, no setting up of impossible stan- dards ! And yet in the bottom of his heart he knew all the while that it was just because 'he was conscious of having fallen short of her ex- pectations that Nita had regained and now held all the wonder and reverence and adora- tion of which he was capable, all the wonder and reverence she had lost when he had be- lieved her willing to be his. Geraldine he regarded neither with wonder nor with rever- ence: he had actually trembled at the thought of touching Nita's hand; he felt condescend- ingly certain that he could kiss that full red mouth of Geraldine's whenever he pleased. Yet he was beginning to find it tempting. . . . How many of his fluctuating emotions Ger- aldine understood he did not know, neither did HOOPS OF STEEL 95 he greatly care. And never for one moment did he question the accuracy of his estimate of her. His vanity plainly hinted to him that to marry her would be to strike Nita in the face, to emphasize the significance of his outbreak that memorable afternoon. Because Ger- aldine had only one kind of lure for him, he took it for granted she was not merely inca- pable of exercising any other, but that the fact must be so obvious as to be generally compre- hended comprehended even by one like Nita Wynne. And so it came about that on a certain April evening, after dancing until they were tired and breathless, they sought the shadows of Mrs. Dane's big library. A broad, high- backed sofa was the seat they chose. Geral- dine sank down upon the thick cushions, her beautiful, scantily veiled bosom rising and fall- ing quickly with the panting breath which was not due solely to the exertions of the two-step. Drake was close beside her, and the sweet heavy perfume she affected rose in fragrant waves to his nostrils. Neither spoke ; they had little or nothing to say to each other, then or at any other time. He took her hand; and pres- ently his fingers went stealing softly upward 96 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH over the bare white arm to where a narrow vel- vet shoulder strap held the extremely low-cut bodice in place. She moved a little not away from him and smiled, lifting her eyes lazily to his while her head tilted backward toward his shoulder, showing the splendidly modeled lines of her throat to the best possible advan- tage. The warm crimson mouth was very near his own. . . . He caught her in his arms, kissing her lips, her cheeks, her throat, repeatedly, gloatingly. In that intoxication of the senses which she had at last produced he found oblivion from sore- ness and suffering, as well as another, very dif- ferent satisfaction. And he was blind to the pain which blended with and dimmed the tri- umph in her eyes. When Geraldine, next day, announced their engagement, he was quite ready and willing to be congratulated. CHAPTER VII ON UNFAMILIAR PATHS NITA received the news of the engagement with an outward polite interest and an inward shrug, entirely failing to see the con- nection between it and the events of that mo- mentous winter afternoon which Drake had hoped would be plain to her. Since Geral- dine's object was, as Elsie had said, to marry somebody who would and could pay her bills for the rest of her natural life, Mr. Drake would no doubt serve her purpose. She her- self would rather scrub floors for a living! ( Her acquaintance with that occupation being entirely theoretical.) As for him well, one could scarcely expect fidelity in love, or what he ventured to call love, from a trickster and a cheat! They were an excellently matched pair, she thought. The wedding took place early in the follow- ing autumn, with the usual accompaniments of flowers, tulle, satin, bridesmaids and "The Voice That Breathed O'er Eden." A large 98 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH portion of social New York witnessed the cere- mony, among others the Misses Van Vechten from their retreat above Harlem. They did not often leave the tiny flat on the fourth floor of an elevatorless building, but this was a special occasion; they wanted to show Mr. Drake that they did not blame him, as he doubtless blamed himself, for being the inno- cent cause of their misfortune. How much the loss of the money had meant to them, de- priving them as it did of most of the comforts and practically all the pleasures of their lives, even Nita did not know, but could only guess. Betsy was long since gone and her place re- mained unfilled. Some of the cherished silver and eggshell china had disappeared, but Nita understood how deeply any reference to their absence or any offer of assistance, were it ever so delicately worded, would wound the two ladies' sensitive pride. She did what she could; since they firmly though gently refused to take help even from Donald Forsythe, she did not dare try to do much. Him she met frequently, his relationship to Atkinson Mat- thews sufficing to render him persona grata in a society always ready to take any pre- sentable young man to its somewhat chilly bosom, but after that one vigorous denuncia- tion of those he considered responsible for the ruin of the many small investors who believed in the North Eastern, he never again men- tioned the subject. Had she understood him better, Nita would have recognized this as a sign that his desire to "make it hot" for the manipulators of the scheme had not dimin- ished; but neither she nor any one else sus- pected that he had a settled selfless purpose behind his apparently commonplace life. They occasionally had a pleasant little talk at some dinner or theater party, but it was always their social and never their real selves that thus encountered each other. Nita never forgot to mention these meetings when she went to see the Misses Van Vechten, which she did as often as she could, trying to talk as gayly as of old, despite the troublesome lump in her throat. They did not "make a fuss," and they would have been much annoyed had she made the tiniest kind of one. Now, as always, the sight of them, so frail and shabby and gracious, renewed her contempt for Ru- dolph Drake. Did Geraldine know what he was, she wondered; and knowing, would she care? 100 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH She went after the little ladies and insisted on driving them from the church to the recep- tion, where she was absorbed in them and in Elsie's delight over the removal of one of the inconvenient sisters and her own appearance as flower girl. Her thoughts thus preoccu- pied, she failed to notice the slight stiffening of Drake's face when it came her turn to congrat- ulate him, or the quick, sidelong look the bride gave her new-made husband, a look very dif- ferent from her usual slow glance. It was of Elsie and her problematical future that she was thinking as she drove home beside the stepmother with whom she appeared on formal occasions ; their relations might perhaps have become more cordial had they been less meticulously polite. Could she not do some- thing to help the pretty child who so often ran to her with her troubles counteract, to some small extent at least, the injurious atmosphere in which she was being brought up ? She half suspected that what Elsie valued in her was rather the patient listener than the adviser ; yet she knew she had exerted a restraining influ- ence, had prevented her from doing various things not only foolish, but actually dangerous. The rhapsodies about the baritone had given ON UNFAMILIAR PATHS 101 place to even more fervent ones over a young riding master with "the loveliest eyes!" who called himself a baron and subsequently eloped with one of his pupils somewhat, it must be confessed, to Nita's relief. Elsie might easily compromise herself beyond hope of social re- demption under the sway of 'that rashness so curiously contrasting with her acquired world- liness. She herself had been taught by experi- ence, and now she was forever done with ro- mance. She was thankful for her escape ; sup- pose she had not discovered what Rudolph Drake really was until after she was married to him what then? "Are you going on with me to the Cartons', Nita?" asked Mrs. Wynne. "Or shall I drop you at the house?" "At the house, please. I'm dining with Mrs. Bartlett to-night, and I've only just time to dress." But when she arrived home Nita did not im- mediately go to her room, although it was long after six; Mrs. Bartlett lived on Washington Square, and the dinner was to be at half -past seven, so that they could get to the Metropol- itan by the end of the first act. At the foot of the stairway she paused, wondering if her 102 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH father were in his room, wondering if they two were once more alone together as they had been for so many years. One of those loving im- pulses which had so often led her to reach vainly out to him across the gulf his marriage had opened between them, drew her on now. She would go and ask him how he liked her new gown. Up the stairs she ran and tapped lightly on his door. There was no answer, and she tapped again. Perhaps he had fallen asleep in his chair, as he had occasionally done of late. Or perhaps he had been detained down-town; the important meeting which had prevented him from going to the wedding might have lasted longer than was usual. She would just slip in and leave the violets she was wearing on his desk; that would please him. Once more she knocked; then opened the door. He was there, sitting in his big sleepy- hollow chair by the reading lamp, an unfolded newspaper on his knee, his head sunk forward on his breast. At first she thought he was asleep : she tiptoed forward, trying to make no noise, yet wishing he would awake and speak to her. A sudden fear seized her ; she ran to him and ON UNFAMILIAR PATHS 103 put her arms about him, drawing the heavy head down on her warm young shoulder. And as that inert head fell against her, she saw the hideously twisted face. . . . "My dear Miss Wynne," James Hamilton Carton, Mr. Wynne's lawyer and Mrs. Car- ton's husband, spoke gently and rather com- passionately, in the hesitating way which was habitual to him, and always fretted impetuous Nita "my dear Miss Wynne, please don't talk of troubling me. I shall be glad to ex- plain anything you er don't quite under- stand." Nita threw back her heavy crape veil with a quick, impatient gesture. "I wasn't altogether myself when you read me his will." She paused an instant to con- trol her voice. Mr. Carton, who had long since been told how she had found her father sitting in his chair just after the paralytic stroke which a fortnight later had been followed by the one that killed him, nodded gravely. "I would like to know exactly how much I have, please. I believe the house ?" "The house and its contents go to your er 104 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH to Mrs. Wynne," said the lawyer briefly, looking away from her. In the light of the knowledge which was his and which he must now pass on to her, her youth, her black clothes, her luxurious furs and daintily expen- sive air, made her seem doubly pathetic. He did not enjoy his task. Nita winced. The house and its contents: all her mother's purchases, all the furnishings of her home, the objects which had been famil- iar to her so far back as she could remember, now belonged to Mrs. Ashurst. She would not give her that other name ! She caught her lower lip in her little white teeth, striving to check its trembling. But although she had not as yet fully recovered from the nervous shock occasioned by her discovery on that bright autumn afternoon, she forced herself to ask steadily: "And what else?" "His personal property everything he had except the house and its contents Mr. Wynne divided between his er wife and you." "That means his bonds and and things of that kind?" "Yes. Quite right." Nita drew a long breath. Then she was not, ON UNFAMILIAR PATHS 105 as she had feared from her confused memory of the will as Mr. Carton had read it aloud to her, absolutely penniless. But she wanted thoroughly to understand her position. "In that case, I have an income of my own?" "Yes," Mr. Carton said again, and paused. The moment so unpleasant to him had come. "Yes; you have an income of your own er such as it is." "Such as it is?" Nita echoed quickly. How cruelly long-winded he was ! "Your father," Mr. Carton said slowly, his eyes on the pencil with which he was tapping the open desk before him, "your father, as you of course know, was not a rich man. He re- ceived er a large salary, but he spent all of it, and during er recent years, more than all of it. Most of what he er had left was in the house, which isn't mortgaged." Nita's nervous impatience was becom- ing almost uncontrollable. She spoke imperi- ously. "Please tell me exactly how much I have." "I can't tell you exactly until the estate has been settled up and the debts paid. But in round numbers" his manner was more delib- erate than ever "in er round numbers " 106 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "Well, how much?" "About twelve thousand dollars. Which if er wisely invested, means an income of er say six hundred dollars a year." Six hundred dollars a year! Her personal allowance had been nearly thrice that amount. She was silent a moment, trying to realize just what it meant, just what it was going to mean to her. "It seems on the face of it an unjust will," Mr. Carton explained apologetically. "But when Mr. Wynne executed it, shortly after his marriage, he er anticipated living until you should er yourself ' ' "I am not criticizing my father, Mr. Carton. I only want to know what I have to live on." "Oh, but of course, my dear young lady, you couldn't possibly live on your income!" Mr. Carton was so appalled at the thought that he actually omitted his customary hesitations and "ers." Nita rose. "Thank you very much, Mr. Carton. I won't take up any more of your time. Perhaps you could tell me, though, how soon I can expect to get my money?" "The principal is left in trust. Until you ON UNFAMILIAR PATHS 107 are thirty you only receive the er the in- come." Here was another disagreeable surprise. But this time she did not wince. "And that I will get at once, I hope?" Again Mr. Carton paused. He could not bear to tell her of the months which must elapse before even that would be hers. He was her trustee, and rich; not often generous, he sud- denly decided to advance the money out of his own pocket, mentally excusing himself for such unprecedented rashness on the ground that there was very little danger of his losing it and it would be only a few dollars, any- way. "Yes; on the first of December a week from to-morrow." Then she bade him good-by and left the office, very erect in her black clothes, holding her little head very high under the heavy crape veil, but feeling as though she had been flung overboard and was not at all sure of her ability to keep herself afloat. Six hundred a year! Six hundred a year ! The words kept time to the throbbing of the pulses in her aching temples. What was she to do? What could she do? One thing only 108 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH was certain: she would not live on the charity of the former Mrs. Ashurst. Returning from the lawyer's office, she went straight to her own room, locked the door, di- vested herself of her heavy outdoor garments, and sat down to consider the situation. What could she do to earn money? What faculty, what knowledge had she that was marketable? Like most girls of her class, even in these more enlightened days, she had been trained to financial dependence. Such a thing as earn- ing her own living had never even occurred to her, and here she was, face to face with the urgent necessity for doing just that very un- thought-of thing. Her income would pur- chase shelter of a kind, she supposed, and per- haps a little bread. But the rest? Where was that to come from? She danced well; but the craze which was to make that accomplishment valuable was still to come. She played and sang nicely; her French was Parisian, her Italian more than fair; but she knew how difficult it was for even an expert teacher to find pupils. People might take lessons from her in order to help her; she would be "one of my charities"; she had heard the phrase more times than a few. ON UNFAMILIAR PATHS 109 Her painting? She gave a little shrug; she had no illusions on the score of her talent. It sufficed for amusing dinner cards Dinner cards! Well, why not? Some of the shops kept them, but they were neither well done nor especially clever. People had al- ways spoken enthusiastically about hers; she would go to Bertrand's to-morrow and take some to show. If they liked and bought them, why then her problem was solved! Her pale cheeks flushed, and the old glori- ous sense of adventure tingled in her veins. With her usual optimism, her usual leaping at conclusions, she saw herself receiving large sums of money for pleasant and easy work which she could do at home At home ! She had no home now. This house and all its contents, except the furnishings of her own room, belonged to Mrs. Ashurst. Every moment she remained in it she was doing exactly what she had sworn she would not do living on that woman's bounty. She would go to-morrow, not to Bertrand's, but in search of some place, some corner, no matter what or where, which she could call her own. She wished she knew some one as young and 110 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH as poor as herself who could give her a little advice. Among all her numerous acquaint- ances there was not one self-supporting woman. And then she thought of Donald Forsythe. She didn't know him very well, and she needn't tell him how little money she had, but she could question him about rooms, and how and where girls like herself lived; he probably knew quantities of them. He would do his best for her, as he would for any one, whether man, woman, or child, who asked his help ; she was so sure of this that she took it as a matter of course. In a week the first install- ment of her income would be paid her, and come what might, on that day she would leave this house where she only lived on sufferance. And she would tell Mrs. Ashurst what she meant to do, now this very evening. CHAPTER VIII NITA SHUTS THE DOOR AFTER dinner, a dinner whose long silences were broken only by an occa- sional perfunctory remark, Nita said: "I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes, if you are not too busy?" "Suppose we go to the library? We might have our coffee there." The former Mrs. Ashurst spoke even more sweetly than usual. She had quickly decided that this would be an excellent opportunity to tell her stepdaughter that much as she re- gretted her inability, et cetera, it would be quite impossible for her to support two people on so small an income as hers, et cetera, et cetera. It pleased her to shape the phrases in her mind as she went up the short flight of stairs to the library, for this period of mourning was so deadly dull that it made any incident more than welcome. She meant to shorten it as much as was compatible with a due observance 112 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH of the conventionalities, but she had long since resolved not to give people any chance to say disagreeable things about her and had tempo- rarily abandoned rouge, pale cheeks being ap- propriate to a new-made widow. However, she did not intend to broach the matter at once, regarding this as one of the occasions when it is best to let the other person have the floor for a while. She settled herself in a corner of the sofa, dropped a cream pep- permint in her coffee, and meditatively watched it dissolve. Nita had slipped into one of the big up- holstered armchairs. Physically she was very tired and this room, so full of associations for her, seemed to sap her nervous energy. In this very chair had she often curled herself up, a big-eyed, wondering child, to pore over the marvels of The Arabian Nights; almost op- posite was the sofa whose tasselled fringe she had spent a happy and industrious afternoon hacking off with her mother's largest scissors in one of her innumerable games of make- believe Mrs. Wynne's inquiring glance gave the needed spur to Nita's pride. With a con- scious, determined effort she spoke firmly. NITA SHUTS THE DOOR 113 "I went down to Mr. Carton's office this afternoon," she began, and stopped. "Yes?" said Mrs. Wynne with polite inter- est, after allowing the pause to last just long enough. "He told me about the arrangements my father had made. I had not realized before what my position here was." "Yes?" said Mrs. Wynne again. Then she wondered whether the girl could possibly be going to ask for permission to stay where she was. Such a request would certainly give the situation a perplexing turn! "Of course I quite understand," she murmured sympa- thetically. "The shock and your illness " These were topics Nita did not intend to discuss. And she had no desire for the former Mrs. Ashurst's sympathy. "I'm afraid I'll have to spend a few days looking for a place to live." She wished she could announce that she had made arrange- ments to depart next morning. "And my in- come isn't to begin until the first of December. I'm going then." Mrs. Wynne decided that on the whole mat- ters were working themselves out very satis- factorily. She did not want to quarrel with 114 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH the stepdaughter who was socially so much more influential than herself, and though she must of course be able to tell people she "had offered the poor child a home," it would have been extremely embarrassing to have her ac- cept it. So she considered the situation a moment, and then remarked quietly, her eyes fixed on the very high-heeled black suede slippers crossed on the footstool in front of her: "I may as well tell you at once that I've put this house on the market. It ought to bring a fairly good price, and I can't afford to live in it unfortunately. ' ' She was surprised to hear an apologetic note in her voice. "All that," said Nita, very low, "is your af- fair, not mine." But she had a swift vision of the dear old house torn down or altered beyond recognition, its contents scattered to the four corners of the earth. "Yes, of course!" and again the apologetic note was in Mrs. Wynne's voice. "I only wanted you to know why I couldn't invite you to stay on here. I expect to get most of my income from the sale of the house." NITA SHUTS THE DOOR 115 Nita's clear eyes challenged her stepmother's reluctant ones, still busy contemplating the black suede slippers. Suddenly her frayed nerves snapped, and she exclaimed ; "I thought you were getting plenty of money from your former " She broke off, blushing hotly. She would have given much to be able to recall her words. Mrs. Wynne flinched. She dM not under- stand Nita's point of view, did not understand how degrading the girl thought it was to ac- cept money under such conditions. Only she realized more plainly than ever that it was not jealousy which had prompted Nita's attitude towards herself. She would have been more than human had she not met intolerance with intolerance, not longed to return scorn for scorn. "You're entirely mistaken," she replied in- dignantly. "I have practically nothing of my own." It was not necessary to explain that she had taken a sum down in lieu of alimony, intend- ing to live on this capital until she could find a second husband, and that it was nearly all gone when she at last succeeded. 116 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "That was the reason my husband disposed of his property as he did," she went on. "He wanted to protect me. Besides, at that time he thought indeed, we both thought you were engaged to my brother." This was a two-edged thrust, very gratify- ing to Mrs. Wynne. "We were both," she added gently, "greatly surprised and er grieved, when he told us he was to marry Miss Haight." The implication that it was for Nita they had grieved was grossly obvious. Nita gave a slight, indifferent little shrug. The former Mrs. Ashurst saw with disappoint- ment the failure of her thrust, and yet the girl seemed so white, so fragile, sitting there in her lusterless black ; the hands lying clasped on her lap were so slender, so helpless-look- ing! And she was so pathetically young, ap- parently so utterly unfitted to make her own way in the great outer world of which she was ignorant as any child! Oh, well, she had six hundred a year! She needn't starve, and it would do her good to learn something of her own lack of importance. Besides, she'd probably come and ask help long before she was in actual want an idea which NITA SHUTS THE DOOR 117 showed how little Mrs. Wynne knew her step- daughter. "I really do not think," Nita remarked with that chiseled enunciation which gave such peculiar emphasis to her words, "I really do not think we need discuss the whys and where- fores of the present situation. It exists ; surely that is quite enough." Something of irritation, something of com- punction, prompted Mrs. Wynne's next speech. The brief vision of Nita on her knees had vanished forever at sound of the clear, unhesitating voice. The personality behind those tones was more than dynamic, a force difficult to control, impossible to subdue. Broken the girl might be, but bent never. "Yes, you're right," she said slowly. "Still What are you going to do, Nita? We've never been friends, you and I " "That too," Nita interposed quickly, "is a matter we need not discuss." Her refusal to answer her stepmother's question was none the less pointed for being indirect. She had no belief in "that woman's" kindliness or good in- tentions. Mrs. Wynne made a slightly extravagant gesture of acquiescence. 118 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "Again I agree," she replied. "But up to now we've avoided taking tout le monde into our confidence, and I don't see why we shouldn't continue to do so. It seems to me it would be better in every way for us to meet now and then." An instant Nita considered the proposal. Her stepmother had made a direct, apparently straightforward appeal to her pride, to her instinctive desire to keep her personal affairs to herself. It did not occur to her that the former Mrs. Ashurst hoped thus to guard her- self from possible accusations and from the snubbing Nita's friends might give her should the facts of their relation become known. It was very quiet in this big, comfortable room which had once been the center of a house that was a real home, a house over which a solemn hush now brooded, as though it held its breath in anticipation of its fast approach- ing destruction. Through the curtained win- dows, closed to keep out the chill of the Novem- ber air, came only a distant murmur, punctu- ated occasionally by the insolent cry of a motor horn. It was as if that spirit of Death, which had entered so recently, now enveloped it all. And at the very heart of this foreboding NITA SHUTS THE DOOR 119 stillness, like a spark of flame amid a heap of ashes, sat Nita, intensely, gloriously alive, for all her mourning and fatigue and pallor. At last she spoke, slowly for her. Pride and common sense and loyalty to the dead alike advised a course other than the one in- clination would have chosen. Unless she meant to cut herself off from most of her friends, she could not avoid meeting her step- mother quite frequently and to be ostensibly on pleasant terms with the woman he had mar- ried was to do something towards shielding her father from criticism. Young as she was, she had had too much social experience not to know what would be said of him, once the provisions of his will became public property. "Yes, you're right. It will be best for us to see each other now and then." "C'est convenu, alors" Mrs. Wynne had been trying to stop using her once beloved French phrases, but the affectation had be- come a habit, and now they occasionally slipped out before she was aware of it. Somehow, of late these, like her exaggerated dressing and make-up, had been rendering her vaguely un- comfortable, though to the latter she had clung with a certain sense of defiance. She went 120 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH on hurriedly, still refusing to meet Nita's clear, steady eyes : "I'll probably stay here until I go out of town in the spring there's no sense in moving twice. Next winter I'll rent a small apart- ment in some hotel the Devonport, I guess. Anyway, I'll let you know, and you must be sure to give me your address." "Very well," Nita rose and stood, straight and slim in her flowing black robes, beside the big chair wherein a golden-haired child had once nestled, an enthusiastic, wide-eyed elf ab- sorbed in dreams and fancies. Now she hesi- tated ; habitual consideration for another's feel- ings, even when that other was this woman she despised, rendered it difficult for her to pronounce the words she was determined to speak. For she would accept nothing from the former Mrs. Ashurst. "Very well," she repeated; and then added, resolutely yet al- most shyly: "If you will be so kind as to let me know what my share of the household ex- penses during these past weeks amounts to, I will send you a check at once." Fervently she hoped that that part of her annual allowance still remaining in the bank would be enough to cover her indebtedness. NITA SHUTS THE DOOR 121 But should it fall short she had a few jewels. Not many, but they would probably suffice. Once more, Mrs. Wynne flinched. She too had risen now, and they stood fac- ing each other across the hushed room. Both were clad in unrelieved black, and this similar- ity of hue made more noticeable the austere simplicity of the one costume, the extravagance of the other. Girl and woman, bearing the same name, grieving or supposedly grieving for the same man, they strove to measure each other. And it was the elder whose eyes pres- ently wavered and fell. "Good night," Nita said, speaking, to her own surprise, in a tone which was almost one of compassion. "Good night." And walked quietly, unhurriedly out of the room. A week later, Nita Wynne left the home once hers, left it for the last time. And as she closed the heavy door, she felt that she was leaving behind her all her joyous, carefree youth. She was going out into the unknown going out entirely, fearlessly, adventur- ously alone. In spite of her grief, in spite of the homesickness which gripped her throat as the door shut, in spite of her vague sense that disappointments, perils even, were lying 122 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH in wait to confront her, her whole being thrilled with the old familiar consciousness of drama, the old eager desire to know and to experience. She expected trials and tests, and nerved her- self to meet them. For if she was stern, un- compromising in her judgment of others of Drake and Geraldine and the former Mrs. Ashurst she was not one whit less stern or less exacting in the demands she made upon her own soul: she was still young enough to believe with Portia that it is easy "to know what were good to do." And so, holding her life lightly in her hands, she set forth bravely on her voyage of discov- ery. CHAPTER IX AFTER MANY DAYS ALIGHT November fog hung like a veil of thinnest gray chiffon over Gramercy Park. The faint breeze could not tear it, had indeed scarcely strength enough to rustle the few dry leaves that still clung despairingly to the trees, or to stir the many that had given up the struggle and slipped resignedly to the ground. The hands of the great clock on the Metropolitan Tower, shining through the mist, pointed to five, as Nita Wynne, her day's work done, came to her sitting-room window. She had meant only to draw down the shade, but she lingered there by the window, looking out. She was fond of the big clock which had kept her company in many lonely moments, fonder still of the little park which had such numerous and diversified moods of its own. Yet now, after glancing at her friend the clock, she looked away over the bare trees to Twenty-third Street where cross-town cars bumped along moving bunches of lights 124 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH and the homeward bound crowd was beginning to blacken the sidewalks. She liked the con- trast of the quiet park with the lights of Lex- ington Avenue stretching out beyond in two long lines which seemed to draw together until they converged in a point, and the bustle of the cross-town thoroughfare. But sometimes the sight of that hurrying, turbulent life had a curiously saddening effect upon her, and she felt near akin to the woman of the poem: "The world meanwhile, its noise and stir, Through a certain window facing the East, She could watch like a convent's chronicler." Her own window faced north, not east, and her life was very far from conventual, yet she felt that behind the exterior differences the analogy was strong. She shrugged her shoulders with the old impatient movement. What more did she want; what was the cause of this restless de- sire to crowd her days full of experience which had grown with her growth and never left her even in her darkest hours ? During all the years ten, save for a week or two which had elapsed since she closed the door of the house in East Sixty-fourth Street behind her AFTER MANY DAYS 125 for the last time, her life had surely been full enough, varied enough, to satisfy the most exigent! She sank down on the broad, cush- ioned window seat, and clasping her hands about her drawn-up knees, let her thoughts drift back over the events and places of those busy years: That ugly, tiny room in West Twenty-ninth Street whither she had gone ten years ago in the full adventurous glow of youth and inex- perience! How well she remembered every detail of its shabby, fly-specked gentility, and that basement dining room where for the first time in her life she saw a cruet stand and tasted boarding-house fare! Her delight when the head of Bertrand's stationery department praised her dinner cards and gave her an order was still fresh in her memory; and would she ever forget that check, the first money she ever earned, her feeling of independence and of being a quite exceptional person? It had more than made up to her for all the discom- forts of the boarding house! A taste of the sweets of self-reliance, and then then that long, terrible summer, when she who had al- ways gone to the country by the end of May was obliged to stay in the heat-wilted city, 126 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH when there was no demand for dinner cards, and the little income she had not yet learned how to manage seemed to melt away like snow in her hands. . . . She could smile now as she remembered what an appalling, above all, what an astonishing tragedy it had seemed to the girl of hardly twenty-one, who was and who was not her very self! In her more abundant knowledge she realized that hers had been exceptionally good fortune. For what was it in truth but sheer blind good luck which had first set her feet upon the path she had since trodden so suc- cessfully? If she had not chanced to be pass- ing that old-fashioned, almost empty apart- ment house exactly at the moment when Dick Knowlton of the real estate firm of Knowlton, Mowbray, and Knowlton emerged from its shabby entrance! Or if he had not been re- duced to such a state of despondency as to be unable to refrain from exclaiming: "I wish to goodness I knew what was the matter with that miserable place! Here it is September, and I haven't rented a single soli- tary one of the vacant apartments. The build- ing's eating its head off, and I don't know what on earth to do. The rooms are large " AFTER MANY DAYS 127 He had stopped there with a disconsolate shake of the head, and some good angel had prompted her to say, conventionally enough: "It's too bad. I do wish I could help you." "I wonder if you could?" he had cried, catch- ing at a straw. "You know what women want, and it's the women we've got to please. Come in and look the place over, won't you?" Well, he was an old friend and she had gone with him into the building, feeling de- lightfully adventurous. She smiled again as she remembered her tour through the dusty, dingy apartments, her sense of importance, as though the fate of a nation hung upon her words ! But her femin- ine eyes saw much to which masculine ones had been blind, and her imagination, her inherited instincts for beauty and for home-making, had come to her aid. Soon she had begun to talk in her quick, eager way. And ready as they were to clutch at any feasible ideas which might help to render suc- cessful a building whose owner, Cuthbert Frayne, was one of their most valuable clients, the real estate firm had taken her advice, to the unspeakable disgust of a lazy janitor. In a little while the apartment was rented and 128 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH Nita fairly started on the work she had since continued with pleasure and profit. First Knowlton, Mowbray, and Knowlton, then other firms employed her. And pres- ently, thanks in great measure, as she later discovered, to the diplomatic and entirely un- expected endeavors of the former Mrs. Ash- urst, the owner of a certain huge caravansary on upper Broadway invited her to decorate and furnish an apartment as a sort of cross between a sample and an object lesson. This she did, making the diminutive rooms so at- tractive that she was asked to arrange others, and managers and agents sent her many of their tenants who wanted advice and help. The thing developed slowly, of course, but she had a rare knack for creating a homelike at- mojsphere, and her quick sympathy, interest, and enthusiasm, her way of taking everything as an adventure, proved important assets. As the years passed, her business grew until she now had about as much as she could attend to, and earned a very comfortable income. Yet sometimes she could not help being aware how fit a subject it was for the laughter of the little gods that she who had none of her own should spend her days arranging homes for other peo- AFTER MANY DAYS 129 pie. For the solitary dwelling, be it one room or twenty, is not and never can be a home. She jerked down the shade and turned from the window, at the same time dragging her thoughts away from her own loneliness. She had a healthy contempt for that very popular form of indulgence known as feeling sorry for one's self. There is always darkness enough in the world; to add one unnecessary shadow seemed to her inexcusable cowardice, and the "luxury of woe" of all luxuries the most selfish and unprofitable. Only by the resolute cul- tivation of happiness and that it could be cul- tivated experience had taught her did one prove one's possession of that good breeding w r hich always considers the feelings of other people. Now, while she moved about the room a charmingly comfortable, cheery room it was, with its soft warm golden browns on walls and curtains and cushions, its low, crowded book- cases, its etchings and Braun photographs, its inviting chairs, convenient tables and open fireplace giving a touch here and a push there, shaking up the cushions and readjusting the half dozen shaggy chrysanthemums in their 130 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH Japanese holders, she was thinking of a new problem, or rather, an old problem in fresh guise. It was not, she believed, one which af- fected her own private existence, save through that sense of personal responsibility she had long ago begun to feel towards Elsie Haight, now for six years the wife of Donald Forsythe. To Nita, as to the rest of their acquaintances, that marriage had been more than a nine days' wonder. Elsie's motives she had presently fancied she understood in part at least. For when Mr. Haight failed, disastrously and more than a little disgracefully, Elsie had found her- self confronted with the necessity of choosing between the drab life which was all her par- ents could give her, Geraldine's charity, or speedy marriage. Donald Forsythe was At- kinson Matthews' nephew, certain, so "every- body said," to be the old man's heir; and panic- stricken, fearing to delay lest worse befall, Elsie had grasped at the possibilities he of- fered her. His share in the business was far less easy to understand; Elsie's prettiness and distress had no doubt appealed to his sympa- thies, but surely there must have been some- thing more than this! Nita always dismissed AFTER MANY DAYS 131 the question by shrugging her shoulders at the extraordinary vagaries of which masculine pas- sion seemed capable. Her clearly marked, slightly arched eye- brows drew together in a perplexed little frown as she arranged her tea table and lit the al- cohol lamp under the burnished copper kettle. Her maid had gone out, and it was more than probable that some one would drop in for tea. Ah, there was the telephone! It might and often did ring fifty times a day, but to Nita the sound would never cease to suggest en- trancing possibilities. "Mr. Forsythe calling" was the message which surprised and a little alarmed her. Too imaginative not to cross bridges long before they were even in sight, she wondered whether Elsie could have the electric bell whirred, and she sped to open the door. Since Donald Forsythe married Elsie, Nita had come to know him very well. So now one look at his face had reassured her before he said: "I've come to talk business. I know it's out of hours, but now that Delvain's running the Colonial, the office is about as peaceful as Broadway on election night." 132 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH She smiled, replying somewhat tentatively: "He never could do the least thing without making a tremendous fuss about it." Her words she had partly learned to con- trol, but it was only by a conscious effort that she could keep her impatience out of her voice. It was many weeks since Carter Delvain had bought the Colonial Magazine, declaring he meant to make it popular and increase its cir- culation. If he carried out his plans, what would become of Donald Forsythe? Editor- ships are not to be picked up every day, and Atkinson Matthews had apparently no faint- est intention of dying for many years to come. But the Colonial Magazine as it had been and as it would be under the management of Del- vain "Yes; one has to get used to his fondness for the exclamatory and inflammatory," Don- ald said slowly. Then, after a brief pause, he added bluntly and almost harshly: "I'm stay- ing on." Was it matter for congratulation, or for condolence? When one considered. . . . An instant she stared at the little French coffee urn with which at his coming she had replaced the tea things. Presently she looked AFTER MANY DAYS 133 up, and their eyes met. He read the question in hers, and promptly answered it: "You see, he thinks I have talents which weren't allowed a fair scope on the old Colon- ial; so he's raised my salary to stimulate them and squelch any lingering inclinations I may have towards what he calls 'high-brow stuff.' Inclination versus income, inclination depart- eth forthwith, via the window; that's his theory. What he wants is 'cheerful, wholesome fiction, with strong heart-interest and plenty of punch.' ' Forsythe paused ; his left shoulder jerked, and he added laughingly: "Behold in me the future purveyor limping but de- termined of literary sugar-and-water for the quarter-educated I" "As bad as all that?" "As bad? Worse and more of it! All fic- tion suspected of the faintest literary taint is to be thrown overboard immediately if not sooner. But we're to have a high standard oh, a tr-remendously high standard! So high people of your kind won't even be able to see it." He stopped suddenly. They both knew why he felt constrained to accept this task he so disliked; but the reason was one they could 134 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH not discuss. He would not, indeed, have spoken so plainly had he not suppressed his irritation until an outlet of some sort had be- come an imperative necessity, frankness be- ing a luxury he was often obliged to deny him- self. For his marriage had been but a few weeks old when he realized that he had made the worst possible mistake realized, too, some- thing of the obligation he had taken upon him- self. And that sovereign ideal of loyalty which he held as the very source and fount, not only of honor but of what he would have called "just ordinary decency," commanded him to pay the full price of his mistake, every farth- ing of the obligation he had of his own free will bound upon his life. Men who loved and were happy with their wives did not need to be so careful in speaking of all that concerned them ; for him, eternal vigilance was necessary, if he would preserve his self-respect. Not by word or look of his must Elsie ever be appraised or criticized. But he was perfectly aware that she babbled about her grievances to whomso- ever would listen to her. Half consciously, he had noticed the disap- pearance of the tea he detested. It was one of Nita's many lovable traits that for all her busy 135 life and the eager interest in everything and every passing moment which still made ex- istence to her a series of adventures, she never forgot other people's prefer- ences. While they ate and drank in silence silence resulting not from the lack of things to say, but from the restrictions circumstances laid on speech he watched her with friendly, medita- tive eyes, remembering the girl who had flashed out upon him from the somber setting of the Misses Van Vechten's parlor. She had changed, he thought, both much and little. There were a few tiny lines about the corners of the luminous gray-green eyes, and the eyes were even steadier in their clear gaze ; the fear- lessness of ignorance had given place to the fearlessness of knowledge. The mouth had lost something, perhaps, of its richness of tint, but it had gained in strength and firmness. The old eagerness was there, the old swift ardor, but they were under better control. As she leaned back in the big chair, her attitude, relaxed though it was, conveyed no hint of limpness. She wore a gown of orchid-tinted Liberty silk made in mediaeval fashion with a curious old girdle of hand-wrought silver 136 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH about the hips a garment of the softest, most feminine description; and yet it was easy to imagine her as springing to her feet and riding forth on a crusade or as the leader of some for- lorn hope. "You know," he exclaimed suddenly, his thoughts returning to his own affairs, "you know, if you take it from the correct and humorous angle, this whole business is a mighty good joke! Think of the Colonial Magazine the Colonial! being run by Delvain; and with me, of all people in the world, as his managing editor! If any one had told me a few years ago that I'd ever work under Del- vain, I'd have laughed in his face or knocked him down. Made a vigorous and well inten- tioned attempt to knock him down, at least," he added with a slight grimace and that little upward jerk of the left shoulder which was habitual and entirely unconscious. "He'd probably have had to take the will for the deed!" ' Nita winced. His trick of lightly gibing at his own lameness was something to which she had never grown accustomed; it always gave her a queer little pang. "Perhaps you'll have more time to yourself AFTER MANY DAYS 137 now and be able to get along faster with your Trusts book," she remarked rather inconse- quently. There was an unusual, diffident note in her voice. Much as they had seen of each other during the past few years, thanks to Elsie's in- sistent maintenance of the intimacy, she had rarely been so conscious of the invisible, steel- strong web of restrictions which social custom as well as the canons of good taste and loyalty wove around them as at this moment, when she knew that he, the man she so liked and re- spected and whose loneliness she divined, real- izing it to be even greater than her own, longed to speak freely. How indeed was it possible for him to be frank without at least tacit re- proaches, tacit disloyalty? For it was not the magazine's changed policy which was of import, but his submission, and all that his submission implied. He welcomed the opening she had made for him. This long-contemplated book of his, The History of the Trust in America, was something they had often discussed. It in- terested them both, it meant a good deal to him, and yet it was in a way an impersonal, and therefore safe topic. It did not approach 138 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH those raw, quivering nerve-centers whose very existence he strove so bravely, and in general so successfully, to conceal. "Yes, it's going to give me a good deal more time. My business will be to buy names and give all due and proper assistance to the ad- vertising manager. No worrying about new writers! My gray matter will be spared that strain I'll keep it all for the mighty work no one will ever read. What fools we are to care so much, to fret and struggle and worry Oh, damn!" as the telephone rang "I'll bet my hat that's Elsie! I promised to go to dinner at the Drakes with her to-night I ought to be home now, getting ready. And I've never said a word about the business I came" "It's not late. Wait a minute while I find out Hello! Yes, this is Miss Wynne. This afternoon? Oh-h!" Her voice quiv- ered. An instant, and she spoke steadily. "I'll come up at once. Mr. Forsythe? Yes. Yes. Very well. I'll bring him with me. Good-by." The receiver clicked on the hook. She re- turned to Donald, pale now, and with trem- bling lips. AFTER MANY DAYS 139 "It was Dr. Macneven. Miss Cornelia " She choked, and could not go on. "What's happened?" Donald demanded. He had risen to his feet and stood waiting. "Miss Cornelia died an hour ago." CHAPTER X THESE TWAIN THEY were in a taxicab, hastening up- town. Elsie had been notified that her husband would be unable to go out to dinner with her, and Nita's own evening engagements had been canceled. Neither spoke as the cab bumped along, and if each divined many of the other's thoughts, more remained unknown. Nita understood Donald's sorrow, something of his rancor against those who had taken most of its scanty joys out of the pitiful gray life just ended. But he was entirely ignorant of that past which Miss Cornelia's death had brought back to her with a vividness no longer created by Rudolph Drake's actual presence; their relations with Elsie and with Mrs. Wynne enforced meetings which to Nita had speedily become commonplace if still slightly unpleasant. Now her contempt and disgust were revivified. Miss Cornelia was dead ; and he he was successful and happy! She THESE TWAIN 141 clenched her hands; at that moment she felt she would have been glad to hurt the man who was once her Sir Galahad. Donald spoke presently, as if to himself rather than to Nita: "They'd let me do so little for them! And they never complained. She was always proud " Nita's voice shook just perceptibly. "It's poor Miss Sophia I'm thinking of. She's al- ways depended on What will she do now . . . alone?" The experience gained in her own solitary years lent poignancy to her tone. He turned to her quickly. "You're right. It's easier for Aunt Cornelia. She's out of it all safe. But poor Aunt Sophia If she could come to me for a while " Neither the significance of the pronoun nor his hesitancy escaped Nita, though at the mo- ment her brain was busy with other things. What could be done for the helpless little old lady who all her life long had leaned upon her sister? At last they reached the flat and hurried up the four flights of stairs. At the door Dr. Macneven met them, and in the fewest possi- 142 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH ble words told them of the heart attack so quickly followed by death. He had arrived before the end, but she never recovered con- sciousness. "Miss Sophia is in there with her now. We can't get her away and I don't want to use force. See if you can persuade her." Nita went with him into the tiny bedroom, where a single low-turned tremulous gas jet gave just enough light to reveal the delicate, waxlike face, so peaceful and so still upon the pillow. All the care, all the anxiety were gone; on the sweet thin lips the shadow of a white smile hovered. Whatever the years had brought her of grief and worry and disappoint- ment, whatever trouble, whatever heartbreak had been hers, Cornelia Van Vechten was at rest now. But in a low chair beside the bed whereon that quiet figure lay crouched her sister. Bending forward, her little body, so frail and shrunken, seeming all drawn together, she sat with her eyes fixed on the placid face. It was as though all the flickering vitality within her were concentrated in that gaze. Nita could not speak. They had loved her very dearly, these two exquisite gentlewomen. THESE TWAIN 143 And now one seemed scarcely farther out of her reach than did the other. She went up to the little, withered, crouch- ing form, and knelt down and put her strong warm arms about the tiny waist which had once been its owner's pride. Her throat ached with unshed tears. "Hush!" whispered Miss Sophia softly. "Hush! She's asleep. They say she's dead, but I don't believe them. She wouldn't die and leave me all alone." "Dear, dear Miss Sophia!" Nita's voice was a caress. "Come, dear. Come with me, and let her sleep." For the first time in all the years Nita had known her, quiet Miss Sophia spoke with a touch of impatience: "No, Nita, no. I must wait here until she wakes . . ." Nita understood then that any efforts at persuasion would be worse than useless. And she mourned for the living more than for the dead who was "out of it all" now, and safe. A long time she knelt there, while her rare tears fell. Then she remembered Donald and the doctor, and rose. But as she moved, Miss Sophia's clawlike little hand clutched at the 144 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH delicate folds of the orchid-tinted gown she had not stopped to change. "Don't go. Stay with me. I think when she wakes she may want you, too." Nita pressed her warm lips to the thin, cling- ing hand: "I'll come back in just a minute, dear. I won't leave you," she promised. In the little parlor, with its pathetic shab- biness and still more pathetic tokens of by- gone ease and dignity eloquent of the grind- ing penury which had slowly crushed out two women's lives she told the men of Miss Sophia, and of her own decision to remain with her through the night. Dr. Macneven had already sent for a trained nurse, but he ac- quiesced at once in Nita's belief that she her- self might be of use. He was obliged to go on immediately to another patient, but he would come back later, and in the meanwhile Donald would remain. He entrusted Nita with a quieting draught to give Miss Sophia something he hoped would soothe her and make her sleep, when they could easily carry her to her bed. She was very light, he said, and the words brought Nita a twinge of pain ; were the thinness, the lightness, the result of sheer lack THESE TWAIN 145 of food? They had been so proud, so reticent! She went back to the bedroom, and gently and with a good deal of difficulty, coaxed the stricken little creature to take the medicine prepared for her. Then the long vigil began. Hour after hour Nita sat beside her, there where she crouched, seeming scarcely to breathe, showing consciousness only by her tight grip on the strong young hand. It had not been thought safe to administer a powerful drug, and for some reason the mild sedative was unable to reach the nerves, so strained and concentrated. Evening passed into night. Nita's thoughts wandered in centuries-old paths, seeking replies to the great, never- answered riddles of human existence, human destiny, returning again and again to the huddled figure at her side. Midnight came, but still Miss Sophia remained motionless, with fixed, unwavering gaze, and then And then at last she straightened up, and smiled, and dropped back with a weary little sigh upon the pillows ready to receive her. Her hold on Nita's numb fingers relaxed. She turned her head, and gave another little sigh, and then was quite, quite still. The shock and strain had been too great for 146 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH her enfeebled physique to withstand; a merci- ful blood vessel had given way. But it was several minutes before Nita realized that she had gone to join the sister who had been her unfailing prop and comfort throughout her life, the sister who she had been so sure "would not die and leave her all alone." In the gray November dawn Donald For- sythe and Nita Wynne stood alone together in the little parlor. Everything had been done that could be done as yet. Both were very quiet, but neither felt any horror of the solemn presence in the adjoining room, for neither was afraid of death. And in the calm passing of the two ladies there had been nothing grue- some, but only peace and beauty. It was at once of the living and of the dead that Donald now spoke, revealing a long hid- den, long cherished purpose, as he could not have revealed it save to one who shared his pity and his wrath, who had seen the victims suffer and die. "Ten years ago," he said in a voice gray and cold as iron, "ten years ago I swore to myself I'd do everything in my power to tear the cov- ering of legality and respectability off such THESE TWAIN 147 robberies. Those two embodied for me all the multitude of men and women with just a little money, who need protection so badly. The book" his left shoulder jerked "was a means rather than an end. I've been working, hunting facts, and now this Trans-Continental Trust scandal " Nita's dark-ringed eyes were alight with re- sponse and understanding. "Go on," she said quietly. Perhaps the past few hours had temporarily stripped away some of his habitual half cyn- ical, half humorous reserve, through the con- tact they had brought him with those ultimate realities beside which our usual conventional standards of action and speech become so utterly insignificant. . . . Certain it is that he spoke to her with a frankness he had never before used. "The North Eastern and the Trans-Conti- nental Trust were closely connected. And now Del vain is going to let me do some articles I've pieced things together bit by bit" Her quick intelligence bridged the gaps in his broken sentences. That libel suit of the Trans-Continental Trust Company versus The 148 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH Morning Star, which resulted in so much financial scandal and so many blackened repu- tations, had recently ended. She saw his op- portunities saw also something of the prob- able complications. And she had a strange feeling that for the moment at least they stood outside the material world, isolated, free. Frankly as he had spoken, she replied: "But what about Atkinson Matthews?" In that question, too, there were gaps: and even as she had bridged them, so did he. "I won't give up everything," he answered grimly. She perfectly understood \ he had sacrificed, was sacrificing enormously to the girl he had married. This vow, sworn so many years ago, he would keep, even should the keeping of it cause a break with Atkinson Matthews, and with Elsie but it was easy enough to divine what Elsie's attitude would be! It was long since she had made the slightest effort to con- ceal the fact that it was Atkinson Matthews' prospective heir she had married, rather than Donald Forsythe. Times without number had Nita heard her talk of what they would do when the old man died, treating Donald's THESE TWAIN 149 inheritance of his fortune as a matter of course, a thing absolutely certain, not one depending on the volition of an individual whom increas- ing age was rendering not only tyrannical but whimsical. And should a rupture come, as come it well might if these projected articles of his aroused any appreciable amount of com- ment, then the menace constantly hovering not far from that ill-assorted household would in- deed become a very present danger. She wondered whether Donald Forsythe fully rec- ognized this peril of which it was so impossible to speak. Without definite knowledge, partly through intuition, partly through chance glimpses of certain significant straws, she had come to believe that he did realize something of it at least. He did in fact realize as much as Nita sup- posed, and more ; to himself he summed a good deal of it up in one phrase: You couldn't count on Elsie. She had a way of twisting things, of finding interpretations of which no one save herself had ever dreamed, that made her a series of surprises and the surprises were usually unpleasant. Day by day he wondered more and more at the blend of pity and passion which had swept 150 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH him off his feet and into wedlock. That pity had played an important part in it all, he knew. Who, indeed, could have helped feel- ing sorry for Elsie, when the catastrophe of her father's failure came, just as she was pre- paring for her long anticipated debut? He had chanced to be in East Hampton, where she was at the time, and he remembered her pale little face, her obvious distress over the gossip. She had seemed so forlorn, so utterly adrift! And she had clung to him, who had believed his lameness must taint any woman's feeling for him with the pity he dreaded and shrank from. He knew now that he had been merely a convenient sympathizer and com- panion, not even the object of one of her many violent, transient infatuations. And he did not minimize the share her prettiness had had in his sudden, tempestuous wooing. A man too fastidious to be other than clean-lived, he had been to a certain extent coerced by a pas- sion of which he had since become a trifle ashamed. Thus had it come about that he had taken into his keeping the emotional, irre- sponsible little creature who, as he was now aware, regarded him as a sort of makeshift. And he had believed she loved him, had been THESE TWAIN 151 passionately grateful when she responded to his love-making with the fervor which now puzzled him whenever he thought of it. He got out of the car, and hurried with that quick limping stride of his down the side street toward Park Avenue, where stood the large apartment house in which Elsie and he occu- pied a very few feet of extremely valuable space. This apartment represented one of his concessions. He would have preferred more comfortable quarters in a less fashionable neighborhood, but to Elsie the necessity for keeping a large part of her clothing in boxes under her bed and using electric light at mid- day though her complaints about these and other inconveniences were almost incessant seemed as nothing in comparison with the ad- vantage of having No. Park Avenue on her cards. He let himself in, hoping against hope that she had gone out. He was very tired. "Well, Donald! Where have you been?" Elsie's greeting could not have been accu- rately described as cordial. She looked charm- ingly pretty, however, in her dainty negligee of lace and ribbon, with a rosebud trimmed boudoir cap resting lightly on her curls. 152 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH She bore the same resemblance to a fluffy Persian kitten now that she had had in those bygone days when she told Nita Wynne she intended to marry a millionaire. A tiny white dog with pink eyes and a resigned expression lay upon her knee, and she was busily engaged in tying a large pale blue satin bow on his collar. "Something's happened, Elsie." "Oh, has it? Well, I'm glad to know you had some decent reason for staying out all night!" A mixture of curiosity and hostility colored her tone. She was one of those women who believe they show their knowledge of the world by maintaining an attitude of suspicion toward the men whose names they have taken, while claiming the perfect confidence of those same men in and for themselves. An instant Donald compressed his thin lips. Then he said quietly: "Aunt Cornelia died yesterday afternoon." "Oh! How perfectly awful! Why didn't you tell me? I'd have gone right up there!" It was true; but well he knew how hyster- ically reluctant would have been the going. She went on, pulling out and patting the THESE TWAIN 153 loops of the big satin bow; "That was why they telephoned here from the office, then, just before you called me up. They said they didn't know Where were you ?" "At Miss Wynne's. Delvain wants me to get her to do some work for the magazine." The explanation was necessary, if tears and reproaches were to be avoided. But he felt that it was humiliating. "Oh!" said Elsie again, then turned her at- tention to the resigned Fluff. "Was 'urn a booful, booful 'ittie doggie, wiv 'urn's lovie boo wibbon on 'urn's collar?" She paused an in- stant, still busy with the bow. Suddenly be- traying the apprehension she knew it would not be "quite nice" to express clearly, she added: "Was Nita with you? Perhaps Miss Sophia'll live with her? It would be an aw- fully good arrangement now they're both " Every syllable grated on the man's weary nerves. "You needn't worry," he said with the iron- ical inflection which always made Elsie feel herself a martyr. "The shock was too much for Aunt Sophia. A blood vessel burst in her brain it killed her." "Oh, Donald, how can you speak so unfeel- 154 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH ingly!" Elsie wailed. "And your poor dear aunts were so devoted " She hesitated an instant. "I suppose they were awfully hard up?" He read her thoughts as easily as though they had been printed. And again the ironical inflection curved his voice. "I don't think they had very .much to leave me," he replied. Her eyes filled at once with the ever-ready tears. "Oh, Donald, how can you? And they're not even buried yet!" Every fiber in him shrank from the impend- ing scene. Emotional outbursts were a joy to Elsie ; him they harassed almost beyond en- durance. "Well, in the meanwhile I'll go and take a bath," he said, self-defensively brutal, and limped quickly out of the room. It was the fat Irish cook who, deciding that in all probability he hadn't had any breakfast, made fresh coffee and brought it to him. CHAPTER XI THE ACQUIRED VIRTUE "X/DU'VE no idea, Nita darling, how JL awfully queer Donald is!" Elsie ex- claimed in her most plaintive tone. "I thought he'd feel just terribly about his aunts, and he didn't care a bit, not one single You know he used to go and see them all the time at least he said he did. Of course, I had no way of knowing where he really went." "But Elsie, you've no reason to suppose he was lying to you!" Nita declared impetuously; then shut her lips tight and busied herself with the tea things, wishing she had held her tongue. It was several years since she had ceased trying to achieve the almost impossible feat of im- pressing Elsie with the bad taste of her fre- quent criticisms of her husband criticisms which Nita knew were confided to many besides herself yet not offend her. "Oh, my dear, you're not married!" the younger woman replied conclusively, using her 156 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH favorite and an unanswerable argument. "No man tells his wife the truth more than half the time! Poor mother used to say she thought it was always wise for women to have one or two babies, because then they could gen- erally get anything they wanted out of their husbands by threatening to divorce them and take the children. Besides, I never did believe Donald would bother so terribly much Of course you mustn't repeat this to any one, but I was awfully shocked at the way he talked right after they died!" Nita knew that Elsie was perfectly sincere. Had any relative of her own expired thus sud- denly, she would have had hysterics at the very least. "Perhaps Mr. Forsythe felt it more than he showed," she suggested quietly. Elsie shook her pretty head, on which the tiniest of hats was perched at the most extreme of angles. "My dear, I haven't lived with Donald for more than six years without learning all about him. He simply hasn't any heart! Even when my darling little girl " she sighed and put her scrap of a handkerchief to her eyes as she always did when she mentioned the child THE ACQUIRED VIRTUE 157 that, to her great relief, had never breathed "even then he was awfully hard and Oh, Fluffy darling, what are you doing?" Fluff, disregarded for a moment, was chew- ing at the detested blue bow with all the en- ergy of which his diminutive jaws were ca- pable. Elsie picked him up, twisted the bow back into place, told him he was "a naughty, naughty ittie doggie," and went on: "Donald's got a horribly moody disposition, and he doesn't appreciate anything you do for him. Now some men " Nita recognized the symptoms. Elsie, she knew, had something to tell her, and she wanted yet half disliked to hear the confidence. "Two lumps that's right, isn't it?" she asked, pouring out the tea. "I'm so glad I happened to order toasted muffins to-day I know you like them." . And she too was perfectly sincere. For if their friendship had been largely a matter of claims, conscious and unconscious, on Elsie's part, and of solicitude and guardianship on her own, there had been a time when she lay ill with diphtheria, and Elsie haunted the house, keeping filled with flowers the room from which doctors and nurses barred her. Nita 158 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH had never forgotten that episode and the testi- mony it gave of Elsie's affection and generos- ity. She did not know that the subsequent florist's bill had surprised and dismayed Don- ald Forsythe ; it is easy to be lavish with other people's money. "It's terribly hard on me, you know," Elsie continued, pouting her soft red lips, "but he never thinks of that. If I do say it myself, I've got an awfully affectionate nature, but all the same Why, he won't so much as take the trouble to be nice to Uncle Atkinson! Uncle was awfully angry because Donald wouldn't promise to vote for for Johnson or Hooligan or whatever the man's name was you know, the one that wanted to be mayor or governor or something. I told him he ought to promise so as to please Uncle he wouldn't have to do it, of course. But that's Donald all over!" It certainly was; for loyalty to his given word was Donald Forsythe's pet hobby if such a thing can be called a hobby. Long ago Nita had recognized this fact, though it had not made any particular impression upon her. Now Elsie's complaint stamped it on her mind. THE ACQUIRED VIRTUE 159 But she only passed the muffins for the third time, and said: "Well, then, why not take him as he is and make the best of it? You know he's really not at all a bad sort of a hus- band." "Oh, no not according to our American standards! He doesn't get drunk, he doesn't beat me, and as far as I know, he doesn't make love to other women. It's those delicate little attentions, the the soul sympathy, you know, foreign men " Nita gave her a quick, penetrating look. "Soul sympathy." That was a new idea for Elsie. Who had put it into her head? "Where did you learn so much about foreign men?" she asked, a careless tone soft- ening her clear-cut utterance. Elsie blushed, and stooped to feed Fluff with bits of muffin. Still bending down, she answered : "Well, I was talking to Count Czerniatow- ski the other night" It was coming, the expected confidence! "He's awfully clever and terribly subtle, you know, and he said he wondered at the way we American women endured our husbands' ne- glect of us." 160 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "Count Czerniatowski? Isn't he the draw- ing-room violinist?" "Yes. I met him at Nell Dane's the other night. It was one of her crushes, or she wouldn't have asked me" Elsie spoke petu- lantly. ff l can't afford to entertain her." Nita made no reply. This particular griev- ance was an old, old story. "The Count played some things," Elsie went on. "He only did it to oblige her. You know he won't appear in public. He says the bourgeois atmosphere of an American audi- ence is alien to his art." "Does he play well?" Nita inquired, with an irony her companion failed to perceive. "Divinely! And he's so terribly handsome tall and dark and pale, you know, with the loveliest eyes! When he looks at you, you feel he's penetrating awfully far He said he knew right away I wasn't happy." "Don't you think that was rather imperti- nent? Do have some more muffin!" "Oh, he says the artist soul can't be bound by the social limbo he's awfully eloquent, you know, and terribly melancholy. He wants to see me again. He says he can't be sure about the color of my aura until he views me in my THE ACQUIRED VIRTUE 161 own home and gets its psychic vibrations. He's awfully interested in my aura it's ter- ribly touching, you know!" She sighed, and took another muffin. Nita suppressed a smile. As she had sus- pected, Elsie was in the opening stages of one of those short-lived infatuations which were to her as a sort of emotional debauch. This Count, the authenticity of whose title Nita thought doubtful, had become a social semi- fad. Probably he was seeking more profitable game than Elsie. She devoutly hoped he was, and she knew Elsie took seriously every idle compliment paid her, believing that if a man flattered her he must be in love with her. While Elsie chatted on, her one subject the Count and his perfections, Nita was making up her mind to call on her stepmother, from whom she would hear all the latest gossip about the melancholy violinist with the lovely eyes and the touching interest in Elsie's aura. Since she had recovered from her chagrin at finding herself indebted to Mrs. Wynne's efforts on her behalf, they had been on surpris- ingly pleasant terms ; Nita, generous and com- punctious, giving her perhaps more credit for her kindliness than she altogether deserved. 162 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "Some day," Elsie was saying, "he's going to play a lot of his own compositions for me. He says my nature is strangely responsive. And he says I ought to change my name ; that Elsie's bad for me, and I ought to call myself Walburga or Euphrosyne, he isn't quite sure which." She twisted in her chair, poking at the cushions among which she presently snuggled. She loved softness and ease and warmth. Nita bit back the retort hovering on her lips. Her influence over Elsie, though perhaps not very great, was one of that irresponsible little person's principal safeguards. So long as Elsie talked openly to her Impatient as she was, she controlled herself to endure another half-hour's rhapsodies, and was at last re- warded by a change of subject. "Do come to dinner Thursday night, won't you?" Elsie begged. "I've got to have Ru- dolph and Geraldine, and I can't stand I've asked Dwight Brainerd he goes everywhere and I want another woman. Geraldine's so awfully superior since they got a motor! You know Rudolph's coining money, and it's making her just unbearable." Elsie's jealousy of her sister was another old THE ACQUIRED VIRTUE 163 story. She was disappointed and sore over her own marriage a mere makeshift instead of the brilliant match to which she had confi- dently aspired. And in some obscure manner she distorted her failure into a grievance against Geraldine, the once despised and now envied. Her single, cherished conso- lation was the thought of Atkinson Mat- thews. Nita was tempted to plead a previous en- gagement ; she liked Dwight Brainerd, but she did not care about meeting either Drake or Geraldine. It was only her desire to keep in close touch with Elsie throughout this period of the Count's ascendancy which caused her to accept the invitation. "You know, I'm not at all sure I ought to ask Dr. Brainerd," Elsie went on confiden- tially. "It doesn't seem kind You know he lets people talk about his wanting to marry Helen Carstairs, but if you could have seen the way he looked at me the other night! I was wearing some pink roses, and he said they just suited me! It's perfectly terrible how men I don't want them to be miserable, but what can I do?" Nita smiled, and for the several hundredth 164 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH time wondered at Elsie's ability to believe any- thing that pleased her. It was not until her guest was fastening her voluminous and expensive furs that she re- membered the appointment made with Donald a week ago, over the telephone. He was to stop in and see her after office hours ; he might appear at any moment, and she had forgotten to tell Elsie he was coming. She knew how close a watch that pretty little person kept on her husband's every movement, in accordance with her theory that no man could be trusted except, of course, the temporary object of her adoration. But it was too late now to speak about the matter, and anyway, it was a mere business arrangement. Only for his sake she was glad that there was a good ten minutes' interval between Elsie's departure and his ar- rival. He dropped into the comfortable chair she indicated with an unconscious little "Ah!" of satisfaction that betrayed his fatigue. Dur- ing the month which had elapsed since they stood together in the gray November dawn they had scarcely exchanged a word. Now she noticed that the hollows at his temples were deeper than usual, the shadows under his eyes THE ACQUIRED VIRTUE 165 broader and darker; she guessed that he had been doing double work, and was showing the effects. The North Eastern, the Trans-Con- tinental Trust, all that complicated financial web in whose center sat John Korner, while subsidiary spiders helped to spin it out and over and around the mere thought of tracing its intricacies was enough to make one dizzy! She said nothing, but quietly substituted strong bouillon for the coffee she had intended to give him. "Elsie left only a few minutes ago," she re- marked tentatively. "She was telling me about Nell Dane's musicale." "You didn't go, did you?" "No; I had Mary Nelson and two or three other people in to dinner. I'm a bit sorry not to have heard that Count Czerniatowski play, though. Is he any good?" "Oh, he plays fairly well does the fiery, im- passioned stuff and reels back exhausted when it's over. Whereupon the assembled multi- tude thrills and reaches for handkerchiefs." Nita's eyes twinkled; he had told her all she wanted to know. Borne on the strong northwest wind came faint yet distinct the sound of the tower clock, 166 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH striking six. He listened, counting the strokes. "It's later than I thought. Now about those articles. We want a series on Furnish- ing the City Flat. Will you do them for us?" Nita demurred. "You know I've never written anything." "What difference does that make? Your name's well known, you're an expert in your own line, and we've a first-class photographer. We want some common sense in our articles to balance the fiction. Think, only think, I do beseech you, of the number of your fellow mor- tals whom you may save from being engulfed in cosy corners and having their eyesight de- stroyed by 'artistic' lamp shades!" Nita's smile brightened her face as with sun- shine. "On purely humanitarian grounds, then" "Oh, certainly! They're the only ones with which the Colonial has any concern nowadays. We're all for home and uplift and sweet, rosy optimism. Everything for the best in the best of worlds that's the way to build up your sub- scription list. It's really very amusing." He stretched out his long legs, and leaning back in the big chair, regarded her quizzically. THE ACQUIRED VIRTUE 167 "I wish to goodness that man had never bought the Colonial!" she exclaimed impul- sively. "It's a miserable shame " She checked herself, as she was so often obliged to do, and turned down the spirit lamp with such vigor that she extinguished the flame and had to relight it. "Why scorn an energetic and profitable policy of sweetness and uplift? I assure you the Colonial's at least three times as popular as it used to be!" "I'm beginning to be sorry " Again she checked herself, flushing and breaking the sentence sharply. She had no right . . . His left shoulder jerked. "Your judg- ment's a bit harsh, isn't it?" "And yours?" "Mine? Oh, 'madame, ce n'est que pour riref There are two sides to everything, tragic and comic. I choose to look at the comic one, that's all. And then I well, I'm part of the comic side myself." "Or the tragic." No sooner had the words passed her lips than she would have given a great deal for the power to recall them. 168 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH A shadow went across his face, momentarily obliterating its smiling irony. "Perhaps! Only that's the one I won't look at. It's so abominably easy to see it and feel sorry for yourself! Which to my mind isn't exactly estimable. I'd rather laugh at it all. That way leads to tolerance some- times even if one only limps along it." "I don't think your way of laughing is ex- actly what I'd call tolerant!" "Very likely it isn't; that's an acquired virtue otherwise it's not a virtue at all." "We're usually told it is." "Oh, the conventional moralizing! Pure poppycock, most of it. I'll wager anything you started out yourself with all sorts of cast- iron rules of conduct; most people especially most women do who have any strength of character worth mentioning. Own up now; didn't you see everything and everybody as all white or all black?" His glance was half quizzical, half laughing ; but the laughter was very gentle. "Yes, I did," she answered honestly. "And now? Think of some of the people and things j r ou condemned ten years ago, when I first knew you." THE ACQUIRED VIRTUE 169 Up into Nita's conscious mind leaped words she herself had spoken in her untrained and in- experienced youth: "She smokes and makes up ... nice women don't do such things." How positive she had been then! And to- day why, among her best, most valued friends were women who did both. She nodded, a little ruefully. "I felt sure of my ability and my right to judge ten years ago." "Quite so! You're learning, you see gar- nering experience. And experience plus the intelligence and imagination that together with good will make up understanding, equals tolerance the true and genuine kind." "But if I'd started with it, had more for- bearance, more charity to begin with " she protested. She was thinking of her step- mother. "You might have escaped some pretty hard knocks, but it would have been because you didn't stand up and take them. Tolerance that isn't learned, that doesn't develop from understanding, is poor, sloppy, slushy sort of stuff mere laziness, half the time, or lack of moral backbone. It's almost as bad as being easy on yourself and hard on other people." 170 JHE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "Even on those who like the new Colonial?" He chuckled. "That's one on me, all right! Oh, well, perhaps when the millenium comes, the best work will be the most popular. But at present " His shrug dismissed the subject. Return- ing to the question of the articles, they settled certain necessary details. Then he took his leave. After he had gone, Nita went into her pretty, quaintly furnished bedroom to dress for a din- ner at the Cavanaghs'. While her hands moved quickly and skillfully among the wavy masses of her light-brown hair, her thoughts glided back over the talk of the afternoon. And it was on Elsie's words and tones that they lingered, rather than on Donald For- sythe's ; she was directing and controlling them, actually, but not yet consciously. CHAPTER XII MRS. FORSYTHE ENTERTAINS THURSDAY night came, clear and cold. There had been a heavy storm during the afternoon first snow, then sleet and now the trees and bushes of Gramercy Park were covered with a thin, glistening coat of ice. Overhead, a moon nearly at the full looked down with serene contempt at the winking arc lights, and irradiated the frost-enveloped park, turning it into a place of exquisite, shimmering beauty. Each leafless branch, each tiny twig had its place in the sparkling crystal network that made the little enclosure a veritable Land of Faerie. Even the forbidding iron railing had the Ice King done his very best to trans- form into silver and spun glass: but man's handiwork is far less susceptible to his magic touch than is Nature's. Nita lowered the window of her taxi as they skirted the park, breathing in the glittering, champagnelike air with that exceptional keen- ness of enjoyment which was characteristic of 172 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH her. She reveled in the beauty that was one result of the storm, and entirely forgot how the pitiless, sleet-laden wind had impeded and chilled and buffeted her that afternoon. Not until the cab had jolted over the Twenty-third Street car tracks did she lean back and begin to consider the ordeal no, ordeal was too strong a word the discomfort which was be- fore her. They certainly were not pleasant, these occasional meetings with Rudolph Drake and his wife! He would probably be as- signed to her, while Mr. Forsythe struggled with Geraldine ; talk about misfits ! And what a pity it was that Elsie and Geraldine insisted on giving each other dinner for dinner. Why should they consider it necessary to eat to- gether just so many times a year, because they chanced to be related? There was neither affection, nor sympathy, nor even liking be- tween them. Phoebe had married an English- man and gone abroad to live, or no doubt she would have thought it her duty to dine her sis- ters, however little she might care for them. The phrase drew her wandering thoughts to Elsie's latest well, "crush" the schoolgirl slang best expressed it. She remembered the riding master with whom Elsie had talked of MRS. FORSYTHE ENTERTAINS 173 eloping until she herself had laughed her out of the notion, and wondered whether this so- called Austrian Count were not a person of much the same caliber. Only it was less easy to manage Elsie nowadays! And she was as capable as ever of compromising herself. Had she but married the desired millionaire, she would have been safe. With sufficient money to take the social position she regarded as her right, she would have eschewed risking it, dreaded a newspaper scandal. Discontent fostered her emotional debauches, and if ever there should come a man who made serious love to her, who considered the game worth the candle ! Nita looked straight at the facts as she knew them, blinking nothing, yet aware that behind those she could see and understand there were others, strange, repellent. She was fond of Elsie; she believed that even if "the child" did enjoy emotional de- bauches, it was always with the conviction that the latest was the ultimate great passion. The streets were in the wretched state which is their normal condition after a snowstorm; this one, like ninety-nine out of every hundred, had taken the Street Cleaning Department by surprise. The taxi could progress but slowly, 174 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH and Nita had time to do a good deal of think- ing before she reached the apartment house on Park Avenue. Dwight Brainerd, a bachelor and successful physician, had just arrived: Nita was a minute or two late, and there was as yet no sign of the Drakes. Elsie rushed to greet her friend. "Oh, Nita dear," she wailed, "I do have the most awful luck ! Uncle Atkinson telephoned a little while ago and asked if he might come up for dinner! Isn't it dreadful? After I'd got my table all arranged and and every- thing!" Nita was used to Elsie's habit of making a tragedy out of every morsel of inconvenience. But she knew from experience how the arrival of an extra guest may ruin the best-laid plans ; and Elsie's were never any too well devised. "Shall I do the table over for you?" she asked quickly. "I'm sure I can make it look all right. And if anything's likely to give out, I can " Elsie interrupted her. "I've just thought! There is something oh, Nita dear, do tell Uncle you think I don't look a bit well, and it's an awful pity I haven't a motor so I'd get out of doors more it would do me such lots of MRS. FORSYTHE ENTERTAINS 175 good! He might take the hint from you you've always been a favorite of his, you know!" Nita laughed. She had done a good many things for Elsie, but this particular request she had not the faintest intention of fulfilling. Apart from other considerations, she knew At- kinson Matthews far too well. "One look at you, Puss, and he'd think me an unmitigated romancer. You're the very picture of health." "Oh, but I'm really not all right, you know, and if " Donald was coming toward them, and having some idea how he would regard her little scheme, she snapped the sentence off short. Pausing an instant to survey Nita's exquisite costume of rose-pink satin, tulle, and silver Miss Wynne, it must be admitted, had an entirely feminine and perverse desire to look her best whenever she encountered her former lover and his wife she went on: "Geraldine's sure to be late. She thinks it's so awfully to be late and keep every one wait- ing. Next time I go to dinner with her, I mean to be a good three quarters of an hour Isn't that a new gown, Nita?" The question she had tried not to ask had slipped out in spite of her. 176 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH Nita smiled. "Yes; just as new as new can be." "How awfully lucky you are!" sighed Elsie lugubriously. "I wish Z had a lot of money of my own. It must be awfully nice to be able to do just as you please!" Remembering the long day she had spent working over estimates, arguing with an obsti- nate husband and a foolish wife, each of whom wanted the apartment they had recently rented decorated with a different kind of sight- destroying horror, trying to persuade a su- percilious architect not to put a wardrobe in the one place where there was decent light for a dressing table, correcting other people's blunders and fighting the storm, Nita's eyes twinkled with mirth at that last remark. And happening to catch Donald Forsythe's glance, she saw that he understood, understood not only the irony but also the pitiableness of Elsie's wail. "I can't tell you how terribly I envy you!" that pretty little person went on: her percep- tions were far from keen. "If it wasn't for my p'ecious ittie doggie-dog, I don't know what I'd do tiss muvver, 'tweetness!" She hugged Fluff too tight, and he yapped a pro- MRS. FORSYTHE ENTERTAINS 177 test, whereat she petulantly threw him on the floor. "You have such lots of fun!" Elsie vibrated between envy and scorn of Nita's self-supporting, spinster independence, the envy being usually expressed in her own husband's presence. Now, as she again picked up and caressed the resigned Fluff, she looked sidewise at him to see what effect her remark had had ; she had never become accustomed to his impassivity, hoping always to succeed in making him wince. "Miss Wynne gets more fun and excitement out of just living than any one I ever knew," Forsythe said. "Aren't you ever bored?" he added, turning to Nita. As lightly as he had asked the question, she answered it. "No, I don't believe I ever am! I get angry and cross and even blue sometimes, but bored never. People are so entertaining! I had to tackle a choice pair to-day; the man wanted peacocks on the walls of a room about eight by ten, and the woman thought large red and purple chrysanthemums would be 'awfully stylish'!" The instant she had spoken she remembered with dismay Elsie's constant use of the ad- 178 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH verb. But that charming little person, like the majority of us, was quite unconscious of her own tricks of speech. So she joined in the laugh which followed Nita's description, though why it should be thought funny she hadn't the least idea. Big chrysanthemums were "awfully stunning!" And then Geral- dine appeared in the doorway, with Rudolph Drake's handsome head and broad shoulders showing behind her. "Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry we're late," she said in a rather indifferent tone. "The streets are in such a wretched condition our motor could scarcely get through them. We wouldn't b'e here yet, if Williams wasn't such a competent chauffeur." "I didn't expect you for at least half an hour. You know you're always late, no mat- ter what the weather's like," replied Elsie tartly. Those allusions to the motor and the chauffeur had rubbed the Persian kitten's fur the wrong way. "It is so difficult to find time for all the things one has to do!" Geraldine replied per- functorily, and turned to shake hands with Forsythe, leaving Elsie to welcome Drake with what cordiality she could muster. MRS. FORSYTHE ENTERTAINS 179 But he was quite indifferent to the quality of her greeting. During the moment Geral- dine paused in the doorway he had caught sight of Nita Wynne, and from that instant the consciousness of her presence absorbed him to the exclusion of all else. The girl who had lost something of her glamour when he believed her ready to be his, had regained it all and more once he realized that she had definitely drawn herself out of his reach. Unattainable, she had never ceased to be wonderful and de- sirable, an ideal to be worshiped and exalted. He believed her perfect, and whenever con- science pricked him, he would say to himself that if Nita had married him, he would have been another and a very different man. It would have been worth while then, to make an effort, with her love and pride for a reward! But Geraldine well, Geraldine was his wedded mistress; that was the long and the short of it. In spite of Elsie's troubled anticipations, it was Atkinson Matthews who was the last to arrive; but his reception was of the warmest, nevertheless. "Oh, Uncle Atkinson, I'm so awfully glad to see you!" she cried with much enthusiasm. 180 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "It was just too terribly sweet of you to come out in this awful weather !" "I hope I didn't" "Oh, you didn't put me out a bit not one single solitary bit! We're always so awfully glad to have you, we wouldn't care how much trouble you made us !" Which was not the most tactful of remarks. Atkinson Matthews smiled. Elsie had overdone it; she so often overdid it! Immediately after his coming, they went in to dinner, Elsie uncomfortably aware that Geraldine's critical eyes would note every de- ficiency. In lighting the candles, the maid had carelessly scorched the fringe of one shade; Geraldine instantly saw it, looked at the burned place long enough to call every one's atten- tion to it, and let her gaze wander away to her husband. Elsie flushed; she was a poor housekeeper, and though too lazy to remedy her shortcomings, found their results irritat- ing. "What a dreadfully dull affair that last musicale of Nell Dane's was! Weren't you bored to death, Elsie?" remarked Geraldine, as she unfolded her napkin. "You were wise, Miss Wynne, not to go." MRS. FORSYTHE ENTERTAINS 181 ff l enjoyed it very much!" Elsie exclaimed. The Persian kitten had claws, and thought she saw a chance to use them. "But of course one has to be really musical in order to appreci- ate Count Czerniatowski's playing!" "Yes; so he told me." Donald's mockery was entirely lost on two out of the three women. "Surely, you don't think him an artist!" Geraldine, like her sister, did not know Chopin's Marche Funebre from the Trovatore Miserere, but she could speak about matters of which she was ignorant with far more assur- ance than Elsie was ever able to acquire. Dwight Brainerd good-naturedly inter- posed. "I suppose that's one of the questions people will quarrel over until Doomsday. Not Czer what's-his-name's playing, but whether some particular type of performance is or is not art." Understanding his purpose, Nita came promptly to his assistance. But knowing more than he did of the underlying complica- tions, she dexterously twisted the subject. "Just think, though, how much less inter- esting life would be if even professional critics agreed ! I was talking to Margaret Lane yes- terday about her new book. She says most 182 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH of the reviewers like it, but each has a different 'why/ " "Well, no two people ever read the same book or see the same picture," put in Forsythe. "That sounds like a bull, doesn't it! But you know what I mean." Elsie giggled. She had a fixed idea that giggling and gayety were synonymous. "Or look at any matter from the same- point of view," added Drake, feeling that he ought to say something. "And speaking of points of view, did I tell you I met Carstairs of the Trans-Continental Trust the other day?" He had turned to Forsythe, speaking with that change of tone, a change so slight as to be almost imperceptible, which always came when he addressed his brother-in-law. Be- tween the two men there was an instinctive antagonism, unreasoning, never openly ac- knowledged by either, even to himself, yet of which each was secretly aware. "No; how is he?" Donald replied somewhat carelessly. "Serene as ever, I suppose." "Of all the nonsensical blunders," Atkinson Matthews, who had been silently devoting him- self to his dinner, now exclaimed abruptly, "of all the nonsensical blunders, that Trans-Conti- MRS. FORSYTHE ENTERTAINS 183 nental affair was the worst! I tell you, the way these fools are interfering with business is ruining the country! Reform's all very well, but it's got to be taken in mighty small doses if it's not to do more harm than good." "Well, I think you're right." Drake was speaking the truth, but it was a truth empha- sized by that unavowed hostility. He knew how widely Forsythe's opinions differed from those of his great-uncle. "If they don't stop pretty soon, jamming fool laws Lord knows we need a rest!" The exclamation came as with a jump; he lifted his wine glass hurriedly and drained the contents; his hand shook as he set it down. Brainerd noticed the start and the trembling; his first glance at Drake had told him that the younger man was drinking more these days than was good for him. "Indeed we do!" For the moment Ger- aldine spoke with evident sincerity. "What's the use of stirring up things so? It only up- sets people and hurts business." "That's sense!" declared Atkinson Mat- thews emphatically and returned to his dinner, leaving Elsie to wish that it had been she who had evoked his commendation, not Geraldine. 184. THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "But the Trans-Continental Trust crowd were a set of thieves 1" flashed out Nita. Forsythe's lips twisted in an ironical little smile. "I'm afraid you don't appreciate the divine right of the strongest to take and to keep. Korner's as sure that any interference with him is Use majeste as the veriest Hohen- zollern of them all." "How can you talk so, Donald?" Elsie ex- claimed angrily. "Uncle Atkinson says busi- ness men ought to do just as they please, and of course he knows!" "An aristocracy of money kings, beyond and above the law," said Dwight Brainerd lightly. "Is that the idea?" "It's all very well for you to laugh, Doc- tor," responded Geraldine reproachfully, "but if you were the wife of a Wall Street man, you'd know what hardships such disturbances bring. We'd have had our car a year sooner if it hadn't been for the Trans- Continental row. Wouldn't we, Rudolph?" Drake nodded rather gloomily. He was thinking that should any fresh disturbance come within the next year or two, they would have to give up more than the car. "I hear some of the little lambs are object- MRS. FORSYTHE ENTERTAINS 185 ing to being sheared, instead of displaying that docility which befits all well-bred sheep," For- sythe remarked a trifle drily. "Some people have made money though," Brainerd said, endeavoring to help along the conversation. "They say Cuthbert Frayne cleaned up nearly half a million." "Frayne always was a lucky beast." Drake's sullen tone seemed to close the sub- ject. A minute's silence fell on the ill-assorted group; and the waitress considerately chose that instant to let a couple of spoons drop on the floor. Nita saw Geraldine's smile, saw Elsie wince before it, and rushing to her friend's assistance, destroyed the pause with a bit of harmless gos- sip. For a little while the three women chatted amicably enough ; Drake and Forsythe and Atkinson Matthews sat thinking very dif- ferent thoughts; and Brainerd surveyed them all with a detached and meditative gaze. Surely, the bringing of these people into a more or less close relationship was a prank of the laughing, mischief -loving little gods! He looked from soft, childish Elsie to Geraldine, slow-moving, full-bosomed, as bare of shoul- 186 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH ders and back as was socially permissible, with heavy lidded eyes and reddened, sensuous mouth; then let his gaze pass on to slender, supple Nita, alert, vivid, reminding him of a Damascus blade encased in a silken sheath. Presently his glance wandered back to Elsie, who was leaning forward now, so that the can- dlelight shone upon her face. And something about the soft lips, something in the expression of the half -closed eyes, arrested the attention of this physician who had given much time and study to psycho-analysis. He was not sure, but he believed he glimpsed certain possibili- ties, neurotic and worse. He felt uncomfortably as though he had spied into another's privacy and caught sight of some deformity usually concealed. Drake's eyes too were wandering from one to another of the three women. He was wish- ing he could get away, could be alone some- where where he could drink enough to dis- perse the thoughts and desires that buzzed and whirred about him like so many hor- nets. After dinner, Atkinson Matthews joined Nita; his old, indulgent liking for her had never diminished. Elsie, chattering disjoint- MRS. FORSYTHE ENTERTAINS 187 edly and perfunctorily to Rudolph Drake, hoped Nita was impressing upon him her need of a motor; for a time expectations of coming joy ran high within her. Then, as D wight Brainerd left Geraldine and strolled across the room to Nita, she thought she saw her oppor- tunity to clinch the matter. "I've hardly been able to say a word to you, Uncle Atkinson. How are you feeling now- adays?" she asked solicitously. "Oh, pretty well pretty well for an old man." His quick, shrewd glance belied his paternal smile. He had never been fond of Elsie. "You really must take care of yourself. It wouldn't do for you And they say there's lots of pneumonia around this winter," she added hopefully. Atkinson Matthews' smile had become sar- castic. "Don't worry about me," he replied. "I'm a very cautious person." "I don't suppose I ought to talk," Elsie went on; here was her chance to discover whether Nita had succeeded in getting her what she wanted. "Nita's always scolding me and telling me I don't get out into the air half 188 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH enough. Did she say anything to you, Uncle?" "No; she probably thought you'd tell me yourself if there was anything wrong." So Nita hadn't even asked She hadn't any motor herself she couldn't afford one probably she was jealous it was perfectly horrid of her to be so selfish These thoughts rushed, tumbling over one another, through Elsie's small brain. She could not stop to sort them out, but that Nita had been "perfectly horrid" was her dominat- ing impression. She must try to do something for herself. "Oh, no, indeed! I'm the last one to com- plain, even when I'm almost worried to death. Everything costs such an awful lot nowadays, you know ! Donald and I have a terribly hard time trying to make ends meet, but Z never say anything." Donald caught the last sentence, and his thin lips pressed tightly together. If only she would refrain from such open begging! Never in his life had he cringed to any one for help or favor, and now she, his wife . . . Nita, too, had heard Elsie's extremely plain MRS. FORSYTHE ENTERTAINS 189 hint, and she spoke to Forsythe rather hur- riedly: "I've finished a draft of the first arti- cle, but I'm not sure it's right." "I'll drop in and take a look at it some day soon; I'll call you up, and we'll arrange a time." Nita made a swift gesture of assent, and Elsie wondered what on earth they had been talking about. Just then the Drakes' car was announced, and Geraldine, who all through the evening had been watching her husband with a certain veiled anxiety, said: "Come, Rudolph, we must go; I'm tired, if you're not. He does three men's work and never seems to mind it in the least," she added, turning to Matthews. The words were commonplace enough, but something in the tone caught Nita's quick ear. It was not the first time that some trifle had made her ask herself whether it could be that Geraldine really cared? Had cared, per- haps, all along; married for reasons other than those which she herself, in common with the rest of their little world, had assigned to her? Had she, with that blind self-confidence of youth which fancies it sees so clearly, been un- just to Geraldine? Her thoughts thus engaged, she scarcely no- ticed Drake. But Elsie glanced at him, and saw with surprise that his eyes were fixed hun- grily, worship fully on the clear-cut face and slender throat above the rose-pink gown. Un- observant as she was, she could not miss the import of that look. She wondered whether Nita were really as indifferent as she seemed, and if so, why ? To no man's admiration would she herself have been thus insensible! But Nita was a hard, unsympathetic sort of person at bottom, just like Donald! And men were such fools! Sometimes those cold women It had been silly of her to look up to Nita all these years, when she herself was really so much the better, as well as the prettier of the two! She'd never look up to her again I She knew now what Nita was! Why, she could have wheedled that motor out of Uncle Atkinson as easily but she was too mean to try, even when she knew her Elsie's health depended on it ! No one was willing to do anything for her. Uncle Atkinson was a horrid old pig; Donald ought to have asked him for an allowance insisted upon it any decent man would! It was only because he didn't want her to have MRS. FORSYTHE ENTERTAINS 191 things and Nita didn't want her to have things they were all against her. But she knew Nita now; she'd never trust her any more. . . . So the growth of years withered in an hour. CHAPTER XIII OUT OF THE DAEK 4 'TT'ES, I think I see now what you mean. JL Thanks ever so much ! It's very good of you to take such a lot of trouble." While she spoke, Nita was collecting the scattered sheets of manuscript; this done, she looked up, her luminous gray-green eyes meet- ing Donald Forsythe's dark ones frankly and smilingly. "Oh, I thought it would be better to show you then you'd be able to manage the rest without any bother." His glance was clear and frank as her own. "I bought the last number of the Colonial" Nita said, "and took a look over it to see if I could get any notion how the articles were put together." "Did you read Barnaby's serial?" Forsythe asked, with a mischievous twinkle. Nita nodded: then they both laughed. "It's a great work," declaimed Donald with mock solemnity. "I assure you, it's a great OUT OF THE DARK 193 and noble work! Just wait until that hero of his, the gallant youth from the untrammeled West, really starts off!" Nita's smile had faded; she spoke impetu- ously, and as if she were thinking aloud. "It's getting on your nerves," she said. An instant Donald hesitated; then he grasped again at that manner of careless amusement he wore like a cloak, swiftly caught and wrapped it close around him, almost as though he feared to lose it. "Oh, no," he replied very lightly, very in- differently. "After all, it's merely a question of demand and supply. Fortunately, the stock of twaddle is practically unlimited. Va- rieties of it appear constantly. Now, this eve- ning, for instance, we're going to Geraldine's to hear Count Czerni-what's-his-name talk about 'The Relation of Music to the Planetary Forces.' " "I thought Geraldine rather scorned the Count? She seemed to the other night, when Elsie spoke of him." "He wasn't much of a success at Nell Dane's. But since then Mrs. Vansorton and her crowd have decided he's the eighth wonder of the world at least." 194 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH To Nita's straightforward temperament this talk, which had so little to do with their thoughts, was disagreeable to a degree. De- terminedly she laid hold upon it. "I read your North Eastern article," she said abruptly. The words were simple even to triteness; but they conjured up a multitude of memories, flung wide the entrance to a long vista of possibilities. "And the newspaper comments? They're mild as yet ; I've only been called an anarchist, a savior of society, and a few other things. Perhaps when the third and fourth appear the first two are merely gentle preliminaries." "If you call the one I read gentle !" "I assure you it is comparatively speaking. Only points out the error of their ways in a tender, almost fraternal manner." "Burning at the stake for the good of their souls!" "Precisely 1" And beneath the light, play- ful 'tone she suddenly caught a glimpse of something hard, inflexible as wrought steel. "The North Eastern people gave me my first instruction in Nietzschean ethics as applied to business. I'm greatly indebted to them. And what I owe, I pay." OUT OF THE DARK 195 It was a pagan creed, perhaps, this that he avowed so frankly; but it struck a responsive chord in Nita. Then, with a desire to slip away from the serious note which was partly intentional, partly instinctive, she exclaimed mischievously : "But what about the acquired virtue?" An instant he looked at her, not understand- ing the allusion; then a smile crinkled the cor- ners of his eyes, and he said with a not quite complete return to his usual light tone: "Tolerance? It can be carried to excess, even when it's acquired and I haven't amassed any large quantity of it I Besides, one doesn't tolerate vermin." "Then you class John Korner ?" "With other rats." "You're determined to carry it through?" "To the end." The lightness was all gone now. "But will Delvain ?" "Delvain won't kick, so long as the circula- tion keeps on growing. For lo! The adver- tiser loveth a large circulation, and by his grace is it that a magazine flourisheth and waxeth stout!" "He'll risk a libel suit?" Nita persisted. 196 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "Not much danger of that! The Trans- Continental tried it." And then at last she gave utterance to a part at least of the thought which lay in the back of each of their minds. "What does Mr. Matthews say?" Donald paused. By nature less impetuous than Nita, he had long known how needful it was for him to bridle his tongue, and that with curb and snaffle. Atkinson Matthews, his wishes and his fortune, formed one of Elsie's favorite subjects of speculation and complaint. Therefore he replied slowly, though with an attempted return to the careless, half mocking tone he so often used: "Oh, he came into the office a few days after my article appeared and read me the riot act in at least six different languages. I know you can stand a certain amount of profanity, but well, one of the office boys chanced to overhear a few fragments of his discourse, and fainted on the spot!" "With horror, or admiration?" laughed Nita, swift to comprehend and meet his tone. "Oh, admiration! He's been trying to rival him ever since." She started to speak, and checked herself. OUT OF THE DARK 197 The short winter twilight was fading; on the tall buildings to north and west lights shone in straight, encircling garlands. There was a brief silence, not empty, but crowded with things unspoken, more than half divined. And this time it was Donald who changed the subject, and changed it far from dexterously. "You don't think very much of that man's playing, do you?" He did not suspect how much of his hidden anxiety he was betraying by this recurrence to a matter already discussed and laid aside. But Nita understood. And in the shield- ing dusk she winced a little, not quite knowing why. "No, I do not," she replied emphatically, adding almost at random: "He has a certain theatrical sense " Donald's shoulder jerked. "That's it, ex- actly! It's his melodramatic quality Geral- dine and the rest are so wild about. They'll be tired of it before long." "It's perfectly sickening, this rushing after first one craze and then another no matter what, if only it's the latest thing!" Nita burst out, quite unpremeditatedly. "Oh, I know it's 198 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH only silliness and the sheep instinct, but when life's so short, and there are such heaps of really worth-while things to do and to enjoy, all this fussing and fuming about clothes and fashions and the newest dance step and the latest fad we all waste so much time on seems perfectly imbecile!" "From a notoriously well dressed woman and one of the best dancers in New York " he began, but she interrupted him, throwing out her hands in a swift protesting gesture. "Oh, I know, I know! And it's just that my own waste that frightens me! When I think how much of my life is gone, and how little I've done with it, how much I meant to do, and how many of the big things have slipped by " She paused abruptly. She had given vehe- ment, incomplete, and rather incoherent ex- pression to a mixture of thoughts and feelings which had long been fermenting in her mind. Something of the old thirst for life and yet more life, something of the old eager craving for experiences of any and every kind, some- thing of the astonished dismay which seizes so many of us when we realize that our youth is going, realize "the little done, the undone OUT OF THE DARK 199 vast," compare the splendid hopes with which we started out and our actual achievement, met and mingled in those brief phrases. And behind all these lay that consciousness of spiritual isolation which comes to us all at times, when the solitude of our own souls frightens fus, and we stretch forth groping hands. "If you feel that," said the man almost harshly, "what about me? What do you think 7 " ' He stopped, breaking the phrase. For an instant they sat staring at each other through the gathering dusk of the February afternoon dusk which while they were talk- ing had become darkness lighted only by a few rays from the lamps in Gramercy Park. And both were aware of a sudden nearness; and both were aware of an indefinite, gripping fear, as though some shadowy, phantasmic monster had leaped upon them out of the gloom. For the first time in all the years of their peaceful friendship, each felt that a crisis had come. Only an instant had passed when Nita sprang to her feet and touched the switch but- 200 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH ton on the wall. A soft light flooded the quiet, homelike room, thrusting them apart who for that instant had drawn close unbelievably close to each other. "There!" she exclaimed. "That's better, isn't it? I fancy I was beginning to see spooks !" Her voice was a little unsteady, and she avoided Forsythe's glance; yet that instant of nearness was already beginning to seem unreal. After Donald had gone, Nita changed her gown. There was no apparent reason for do- ing so ; only one guest was coming to dine with her, and the Liberty confection of delicate pinks and grays into which she slipped was of much the same type as the wistaria-hued one of which she divested herself ; it was a yielding, half instinctive, to an impulse into which she refused to probe. Unconsciously she was try- ing to dismiss Donald Forsythe from her mind, to fasten her thoughts on the coming visitor. She might have found this dismissal impossi- ble had she not been interested in her expected guest as well as fond of her. Mary Nelson had been brought up in a small town by an uncle and aunt to whom happiness here meant OUT OF THE DARK 201 hell fire hereafter. With the best intentions possible, they had mentally starved her until she at last managed to break away and become one of New York's many self-supporting women. But the traces of her revolt never left her, and she still regarded her cigarette case as a banner, and a cocktail as a Declara- tion of Independence. Now as, dinner finished, she sprawled in the biggest of Nita's chairs, a cigarette between her awkward fingers, she looked across to where her hostess sat perched in her favorite place on the window seat, arms clasped about her knees, spirited little golden-brown head thrown back, talking quickly, with swift-flung words and an occasional eloquent movement of her expressive hands: "I've known Helen Carstairs for years never well, she's quite a bit younger than I am and I must say I'm sorry for her. Mr. Car- stairs is one of the pleasantest men to meet you can imagine perfectly charming manners. Every one liked him and thought him a fine specimen of the American business gentleman Heavens !" Mary Nelson spoke slowly, with many pauses: "I wonder what he thinks of him- 202 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH self now. He's a thief, of course ; but do you suppose he was a deliberate " Nita, her quick comprehension rushing to the end of her friend's sentence, broke in : "A deliberate thief! Ye gods and little fishes, how could he be anything else? Why, Mary, it went on for years ! Organized cheat- ing that's what it was!" "I know." Mary's forehead puckered pain- fully with the effort to express the idea in her mind. "It looks that way it is that way, of course. But don't you suppose he somehow made things seem different " "Twisted the whole business about until he was able to justify himself in his own eyes?" Mary nodded gratefully. As so often hap- pened, Nita had clothed her thoughts in the phrases she herself was unable to find for them. "Um-m!" Nita stared meditatively out over the park. "I doubt it! What makes you fancy ?" "Only this" and again Mary's brow puck- ered as the long-considered creed was slowly pronounced "only this: I don't believe any one any one who's normal or whose mind hasn't been hasn't been " "Perverted?" OUT OF THE DARK 203 "Yes ; perverted when they were young, ever deliberately does anything very wrong without without " "Fixing it up until it looks all right ?" Nita bent forward eagerly; her slight body seemed poised as for a spring. "And then when realization comes I won- der! Can you imagine yourself doing any- thing you thought really really wrong, Nita?" "Oh, but I have lots of times!" Mary brushed the admission aside with a clumsy gesture which scattered cigarette ash all over Nita's deep-toned Chinese rug. "I don't mean little things little fibs and little naughtinesses." She had been about to say meannesses, but changed the word. Noth- ing of that sort could be made to fit in with her somewhat exalted idea of Nita Wynne. "I mean a big wrong a a " "A moral crime?" Once more Mary nodded her assent to the other's interpretation. But this time silence followed. For Nita was again conscious of the vague terror which had shivered through her that afternoon. And with the terror came not the laughing protest with which a few years 204 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH weeks, perhaps earlier she would have met the question, but doubt. Doubt of herself which was pain, a certainty that she had never yet been tested. It was only for a moment that this indefinite fear and definite doubt held and shook her, but it was a moment which remained in her mem- ory as a landmark. "I don't know," she said. And now it was she who spoke slowly, looking up at the sky where gathering clouds obscured the stars. "If I was tempted enough how can I tell?" "That's just it how can any of us tell? And then we haven't all the same standards don't think the same things wrong and that mixes it up dreadfully. Now my uncle and aunt they thought they were only doing their duty. I can see that now " The talk drifted away into an impersonal discussion, but through Nita's brain certain phrases kept running: "Tolerance that isn't learned is poor, sloppy, slushy sort of stuff. ... As bad as being easy on yourself and hard on other people." Charity forbearance. Mary had acquired these, had learned to understand the point of view of those relatives she had once regarded OUT OF THE DARK 205 simply as tyrants. But as for her, Nita Wynne She had been, perhaps was even yet, hard on other people! If the test should ever come, would she flinch and be easy on herself? CHAPTER XIV ELSIE DECLARES WAR WINTER merged into spring, the pleas- ant, unshadowed spring of 1914. Nita felt that the season had affected her to an un- usual extent, bringing both a loss of energy and an increase of restlessness. It seemed to her as though she were waiting, marking time the time that was slipping away so fast accomplishing nothing worth while. It was her belief that as every human being owes to others the conditions which enable him to exist, it is his or her duty to justify that existence by rendering to the world the very best return that he can for value received. She still loved her own work, but it no longer impressed her as sufficient. With Elsie her relations had become just a trifle strained. For from resentment because Nita had not used on her behalf the influence with which she mistakenly credited her, Elsie had rapidly progressed to a belief that she had ELSIE DECLARES WAR 207 somehow worked against her. Her thoughts were not clear, even to herself, but she felt in- jured, and in her attitude towards her old friend there was now a certain distrust, a cer- tain incipient hostility. She had begun to watch for offenses, and they, expected and looked for, are sure to come. Nita was by no means unaware of the change. But though it troubled her a little, the trouble was more than counterbalanced by the new note in Elsie's talk about the Count. If she put more emphasis than ever on his ad- miration of herself, it was emphasis which had become just a bit supercilious. The air of amusement with which Donald, who knew that opposition was as flame to tinder, had through- out treated the affair was beginning now to have its effect, and when Elsie avowed that she had always thought Count Czerniatowski a fortune hunter, "like all those foreign noble- men, you know," Nita felt sure the crisis was past. Nevertheless, and for the first time in all the years during which a rather one-sided in- timacy had existed between them, Elsie puz- zled her. Never before had invitations to dine at the Forsythes' been so showered upon her, 208 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH and yet with every meeting she grew more and more conscious of that incipient hostility. She tried to tell herself it was all imagination, but her instincts refused to be cheated. Was her long service as a kind of safety valve at an end? Yet Elsie was more than ever lavish with protestations of affection, especially when in June they both went down to East Hampton for the summer. And Nita insisted to herself that her fancy had been playing tricks with her. So it happened that they were having tea together on a certain July afternoon. The Fourth was just over, the majority of the men had gone back to town, and most of the women were resting and recovering from the holiday. Consequently the broad veranda of the Maid- stone Club had a somewhat forlorn look, two or three tea tables merely emphasizing the gen- eral effect of empty spaces. "Of course," Elsie remarked plaintively, "of course you know I never find fault with people. I'm always ready to make allow- ances, but I do think it was awfully mean of Geraldine not to ask me to that lunch she gave last May! Suppose she did invite only half ELSIE DECLARES WAR 209 a dozen! People must have thought it aw- fully queer my own sister. It gave me one of my headaches, and you know what my head- aches There's Evelyn Acland, going over the golf links! / don't think she's so awfully pretty; do you?" "Yes, very pretty; her complexion " "Well, you know she was perfectly devoted to Doctor Brainerd for an awfully long time. I told Donald I but you know how he is! And of course it wouldn't do for me to say much. Poor man! I do feel sorry for him, but how could I help it if he Who's that man over there? Do you know him ?" "It's Mr. Frayne. I've met him." Nita's tone was not enthusiastic. "But Elsie, who on earth told you that ridiculous story about Evelyn and Doctor Brainerd? There's not a word of truth in it." She spoke earnestly, for the tale Elsie had repeated was gossip of a kind she particularly disliked. Not the slightest attention, how- ever, did her protest receive. When a man appeared, Elsie's interest was immediately and irremovably focussed. "Oh!" she exclaimed joyfully. "He's seen you he's c6ming this way!" 210 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH Before Nita could reply, Mr. Frayne had approached and was shaking hands with her, a thing he would assuredly not have done had almost any other of his numerous acquaint- ances been in sight; it was only the fact that he had no choice save that of her society or a magazine which drove him to her. For Miss Wynne disliked Cuthbert Frayne, regarding him as an excellent example of a type she did not in the least admire, and he, being aware of her dislike and lack of admiration, cordially re- turned the former and was irritated because her business success and social position extorted his respect. He was at that time a man of between forty and forty-five, of medium height and very heavily built, with bright, china-blue eyes, a short, thick neck, and a number of little tufts of coarse hair growing out of his ears and nostrils. He admired himself hugely, partly because he was very rich, partly because he was in his own opinion a man of strong character. Certain it was that he usually had his way, and at the same time contrived to keep within the letter of the law. He never allowed scruples or a regard for the rights and feel- ings of any one else to stand in his path, hav- ELSIE DECLARES WAR 211 ing no use for what he tersely and inclusively described as "damned nonsense!" "This is luck!" he exclaimed with that ap- pearance of hearty good humor which had misled more than one unfortunate individual. "I've been yawnin' my head off in the billiard room, knockin' the balls around and wonderin' what on earth I could do with myself. Have tea with me, won't you?" The arrival of the waitress with the loaded tea tray made only one answer possible, but Nita's tone was frosty: "We've already ordered tea, thank you. This is ours, coming now. Perhaps you'll join us?" He responded by dropping heavily into a chair he never sat down, but always dropped and Nita was obliged to introduce him to Elsie. "Your husband old Matthews' nephew, Mrs. Forsythe?" he asked at once. Then turning on the waitress before Elsie could an- swer, he demanded: "Say, haven't you got any cake to-day? Just the regular truck? Stupidest lot of old fossils runnin' this club I ever struck! Should think some of the live ones 'ud get hold of things and shake 'em up a 212 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH bit. I would, if I was down here more. Is your husband that Forsythe?" "Yes ; Mr. Matthews is my husband's great- uncle. Do you know him?" Elsie's tone was as cordial as Nita's had been cool. "Oh, Lord, yes! Funny old codger, ain't he? Got some good sound ideas, though. Guess he don't much like the way Forsythe's been layin* into the North Eastern?" It was distinctly a question. Cuthbert Frayne never lost a chance of acquiring in- formation, information, that is, of the kind he called practical. Elsie looked bewildered. She occasionally read some of the fiction published in the Colonial, but never any of her husband's articles. And she was trying to remember where and what she had heard of this Mr. Frayne. Suddenly it came to her; her own dinner table, Doctor Brainerd's voice; "They say Cuthbert Frayne cleaned up nearly half a million." "What do you mean?" she asked. "Why, those articles he's been writin' for the what's-it's-name the Colonial." "I've never looked at any of them," Elsie faltered plaintively. "You know, Mr. ELSIE DECLARES WAR 213 Frayne, I'm awfully stupid about business and figures and things. I knew Donald had been writing about the North Eastern. It's that big railroad, of course?" Frayne chuckled. "It's gettin' to be a pretty mad railroad ! Of course, there's never much doin' in summer nothin' goin' on now but the Mexican squabble and so people are glad to have somethin' to talk about." Nita spoke quickly, crisply. "Those arti- cles are making talk, then? Well, when the next comes out the August one " "Oh-h! You've read it already?" His meaning was as unmistakable as it was insolent. Nita flushed and was furious with herself. "I'm a contributor to the magazine," she said haughtily. "I see it in proof." "Yes yes. I see. I see," Frayne an- swered. "And so the next is to be hot stuff, is it? Well, August's a good time for that sort o' thing." Nita, disdaining to reply, sat watching the cloud shadows chase each other across the white lines of the sand dunes and over the rippling, wind-ruffled waters of the little pond, drifting on until they disappeared beyond the tree-clad, 214 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH rising ground farther along. The beauty of it all restored her serenity. What, after all, did Cuthbert Frayne or his opinions matter to her? "It's against the railroad, then? I thought the articles were just about it! Uncle Atkin- son won't like that." Elsie's tone was at once anxious and appealing. "Do please tell me more, Mr. Frayne," she added, as if requesting advice from an oracle a manner very pleasing to this man who loved to domineer. "Well, it seems your husband's got his own ideas about business, and the way the North Eastern people have been runnin' theirs don't suit him." "Oh, is that all?" Elsie felt vaguely relieved. "All?" Cuthbert Frayne laughed loudly. "All? I guess they think it's enough!" Elsie puckered her pretty forehead,, per- plexed and dismayed. In her broad-brimmed white straw hat piled with snowdrops and clinging, transparent gown semi-nudity was the fashion that summer she looked more soft and warm and Persian-kittenish than ever. But she was planning to use her claws on her husband the very first time he came down from New York for a week-end. Why hadn't he ELSIE DECLARES WAR 215 told her what he was doing? Of course, she wasn't going to be bothered reading his stupid old articles why hadn't he gone in for some- thing interesting like like oh, well, some- thing he could have gotten lots of money out of! She wasn't fit to be so loaded down with worries and responsibilities and after all she'd done for him, too! Exactly what these meritorious deeds of hers were she would have found it difficult if not impossible to state, but she was sure they were innumerable. Nita glanced at the tiny, green-enameled watch on her wrist, and rose. "I must go now," she said. "I'm dining out." Elsie glanced up, started to speak, and stopped. Nita might return to the Inn if she pleased. There was no reason why she her- self should not remain where she was and go on talking to Mr. Frayne. She gave him an appealing, sidelong glance as she replied: "Very well, darling. I think I'll stay here a little longer." Her tone was indifferent ; but there had been no shadow of indifference in her look. Nita went through the clubhouse and turned down the road leading to the Inn. But de- 216 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH spite her excuse, she did not immediately go indoors, but continued towards Main Street. There the peace of the little town pond, bor- dered with ancient, drooping willows, the soft deep lights and shadows caressing water and trees, the silver poplars turning the pale under- side of their leaves to the cool breeze, sun- drenched, fragrant with the scent of roses and honeysuckle from the many village gardens, soothed her ruffled temper. Elsie waited until she was sure Nita was out of earshot, and then remarked pensively: "Nita Wynne's awfully clever, isn't she ? You know she makes just heaps and heaps of money/' "She's done mighty well," Frayne admitted grudgingly. Respectable women he mentally divided into two classes : those who earned their own living, and those who did not. The former he considered grossly overpaid if they received more than twenty dollars a week. What could women of that sort, the rejected of men, as he liked to believe them, do with all that? The latter, of course, might have just as much as their husbands or fathers could give them, for thus they became walking testimon- ials of prosperity. ELSIE DECLARES WAR 217 Elsie found his tone encouraging. She spoke in her prettiest, most confidential man- ner: "Well, you know I'm not a bit like that not a bit clever about business, I mean and it's awfully hard on me sometimes when I don't understand. You see, if I'd been told what Donald was doing " "I don't know as I could explain." "Oh, but I don't want you to!" Elsie cried quickly. Explanation would have wearied her almost as much as it would have bored him. "I don't care a bit about the horrid old rail- road, I never could see any use in a woman's learning about such things awfully unfemi- nine, I call it. It's Uncle Atkinson I'm think- ing of." He laughed again. "That's sensible! It's how it may hit you you're worry in' about?" She gave two or three vehement little nods, and he drew his chair a trifle closer. "Mind if I smoke?" Without waiting for her answer, he lit a very long, very black cigar and went on; "Say, that feller who's just gone off in the racer's got a horn like mine! Hear it? Regular 'Hi, there, you! Get out o' my way !' I like that sort. Well, I suppose your husband knows his own business and his own 218 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH uncle, but I should say that if he's lookin' to get anythin' from Matthews " "Yes?" "He's runnin' an almighty big risk of get- tin' left." "Oh, how awfully mean of Donald!" she cried. "When he knows I She broke off, winking back the ever-ready tears. Again and again, since his discovery a few weeks after their marriage that she was confidently counting on his inheritance of At- kinson Matthews' fortune, had Donald warned her not to expect anything from the dictatorial old man who might easily take it into his head to cut them off with the proverbial shilling, but she had never been willing to pay any attention to him. Unless absolutely forced to do so, she never believed anything that was not pleasant. "You could do with some of the old man's coin, eh? And you ought to have it ! There's nothin' so well worth spendin' money on as a pretty woman I Some fellers would be darned glad to have Forsythe's chance!" Elsie blushed prettily ; with pleasure, not an- noyance. Anything might be pardoned a man who admired her and said so ! She had aired her grievances against her husband often and ELSIE DECLARES WAR 219 to people of both sexes, but few of them had proved so sympathetic as this Mr. Frayne. She felt sure they were going to be very good friends. They stayed there talking until the shadows grew long over the tennis courts and the rolling golf course far beyond them, that stretches out to Hook Pond and the low-lying sand dunes which separate it from the ocean. And when at last they bade each other good night, it was with reluctance and an engagement to go motoring together next day. Nita had of course been aware from the first that trouble would come so soon as Elsie learned of Atkinson Matthews' wrath. What she had not expected was the ill temper pres- ently manifested towards herself: Elsie ob- viously avoided her and sulked openly. As they were both staying at the Inn, they met a dozen times a day, and Elsie's spoilt-child be- havior was quickly noticed and freely dis- cussed, though always behind Nita's back. But it was two or three weeks before the storm broke. Donald, looking thin and tired, came down to East Hampton for a brief holiday. Elsie had fully intended "to give him a piece of her 220 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH mind" at once, but an invitation to tea at Mrs. Lemaine's proving too attractive to be resisted, she was away when he arrived ; so they had no opportunity for any private talk before din- ner. Afterwards Ted Bryant's insistence brought them both, with Nita, into one of the small card rooms for bridge. Donald, wearily hoping to defer the scene with Elsie which his knowledge of her told him was surely coming, yielded quite willingly to Bryant's entreaties; Nita with reluctance, and a feeling that since trouble was inevitable, the sooner it came the better; and Elsie because she could not bear to refuse any man's flatteringly worded request except her husband's. "Haven't had a decent rubber for a week," Bryant remarked, as he shuffled the cards. "Every one's stark staring mad about these new dances. I tried to get that man Frayne to play one night he's a shark at it but he was huffy and wouldn't. Know him, For- sythe?" "Yes; he's rather interesting; he runs so true to type." "Where did he get his money from, any- way?" Bryant asked. He felt that his al- lusion to the dancing craze had been tactless, ELSIE DECLARES WAR 221 and was glad to find another, almost any other, subject. "Oh, his father made a fortune during the Civil War, supplying paper-soled shoes to the Federal troops, nice, flimsy things that gave the men's feet abundant ventilation. His son keeps up the business, and prospers even as did his sire." Bryant laughed. "Guess he doesn't need to envy the old man his luck in living in war time!" Forsythe's face grew very grave. "Per- haps he'll have the same luck himself." "Oh, nonsense! There'll never be another big war. It would cost too much ; the nations couldn't afford it. Austria and Russia are just snarling at each other, that's all." Bry- ant spoke in the easy, confident tone so many people used during those last days of July, 1914. "I hope you're right, only I don't trust Germany." "Oh, Donald, stop talking your awfully scary politics and hurry up and deal. You couldn't go, not if there were a dozen wars, so why fuss?" exclaimed Elsie pettishly. "Bit of an alarmist, isn't he, Mrs. For- 222 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH sythe?" Bryant said hastily, trying to cover over the brutal allusion to Donald's lameness. "Let me see two spades." For a while the game proceeded in apparent peace. Yet Nita was aware that the tension was increasing moment by moment. She felt, rather than saw, the other woman's growing restlessness, and she was not surprised when between two deals Elsie asked abruptly: "Have you seen Uncle Atkinson lately, Donald?" " The question sounded innocent enough; but Nita recognized it as the first rumble of the coming storm. Donald thrust out his lower lip in a funny little grimace. "I had that pleasure a few days ago. One no trump." Elsie was not to be turned aside so easily, yet she still evaded the direct issue : "How is he?" "I may be wrong, but in my humble opinion he possesses vigor enough for at least a score of tolerably energetic persons," replied Donald rather grimly. "Your bid." Had Fate not been against him, he might have succeeded in delaying the tempest until they two were alone together ; more he did not ELSIE DECLARES WAR 223 hope to accomplish. He could not prevent the summoning of Ted Bryant on the "long dis- tance" which interrupted the game and left him practically defenseless. The closing of the door seemed to shut him in, a prisoner. From without came the sound of laughing voices, the sweet fragrance of the summer night ; but not one of the three who sat together about the green-topped card table was con- scious of anything save the presence of the other two. Through Donald's long fingers the cards sifted automatically, over and over again ; in the room itself this soft swish of card against card was the only noise. Nita's nerves were tingling; every muscle drawn taut, she sat erect, instinctively bracing herself for the com- ing attack. The light from the chandelier above caught the gold threads in her coiled hair, turning it into a coronet; her finely mod- eled throat, pure white as it rose from the filmy black of her evening gown, her small, nobly carried head, were those of a young Victory. Yet never in her life had she felt so helpless. Elsie was not clever enough to finesse suc- cessfully; moreover, she had goaded herself on until she was too angry even to try. Suddenly she leaned forward, resting her arms on the 224 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH table; her little hands clasped and unclasped spasmodically. ''Donald, what did Uncle Atkinson say about those awful articles of yours?" It had come at last. Vaguely, inconse- quently, he wondered who had given her the specialized information out of which that ques- tion must have sprung, certain through long experience that she had never obtained it for herself. Strange that no one had done it be- fore. He bent his lips into a smile, but his eyes were somber: "My dear Elsie, I may be old-fashioned, but in the presence of two ladies I really can not repeat what my extraordinarily eloquent uncle said!" Elsie understood the hint and tried to sneer. "Oh, you needn't remind me Nita's in the room! I'll bet she's known all about this hor- rid mess you've gotten into for ever so long. She wouldn't tell me anything oh, no! Trust her for that! You think yourselves mighty clever, you two, don't you, treating me like a child and ridiculing my friends the way you did Mr. Frayne just now! I'm sick and tired of being watched every blessed minute!" The irritation she had been storing up and 225 brooding over for months ever since the night when Nita's refusal to lie to Atkinson Mat- thews had first aroused her resentment had burst out like some fermenting liquor. But it might have evaporated harmlessly, had it not been for Cuthbert Frayne's encourage- ment, above all, his suggestion of Nita's guard- ing care. Neither of the two against whom the out- break was directed made any reply. They had in truth treated her as the childish, irre- sponsible being she had proved herself, was proving herself now. Nita sat motionless, her lips compressed, her face very pale. Donald's heavy eyebrows were drawn together ; his dark eyes looked almost black; and they never moved from his wife's angry countenance. Elsie had only paused for breath; an in- stant, and she resumed her tirade all the more vehemently because she was already fright- ened, quaking at her own recklessness, half wishing she had held her tongue. "Yes, I am just tired and sick of it all! I mean what I say, too! You've got to show me some consideration whether you want to or not. The very idea of your making Uncle Atkinson mad at you, when you know per- 226 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH fectly well I'd never have dreamed of marry- ing you if I hadn't thought he'd die soon and leave you his money!" "That will do, Elsie," Donald said in the stern tone she heard from him only when she had exceeded the limits of his almost bound- less patience the tone before which she in- variably quailed. "We'll postpone this dis- cussion to some more suitable time." "That's what you always say! I tell you I'm not a child, and I won't be treated like one I won't, I won't! I'll kill myself, I'll kill myself, I tell you and when I'm dead then you'll be sorry you're a nasty, mean, cruel " Sobs choked her. She gave one glance at Donald's rigid face and ran out of the room and through the crowded hall to the stairway, crying unrestrainedly. He did not move to follow her; for experi- ence had taught him that after one of these scenes, with their shameless stripping away of all decencies, all reserves, it was wisest to leave her to herself awhile. But heretofore they had been reserved for him alone; and so he was newly and very bitterly ashamed. There was no way of shielding her, no possible means ELSIE DECLARES WAR 227 of covering up the unabashed display of her- self which she had made. It was done ; words were useless; only his shoulder jerked, and his long lean fingers played mechanically with the scattered cards. An instant later Bryant returned. "I'm so sorry," Nita explained quietly. "Elsie has a headache and has gone up to bed." She scarcely heard his polite regrets. All her thoughts were absorbed by that which she had just heard and seen. Presently she knew Bryant was gone, and that Forsythe had arisen and stood facing her. "So it's come." "Well, she was sure to hear " "Yes; I'm not altogether sorry. Only I wonder " He broke off; an instant his mis- ery-filled eyes stared at her blankly before he added harshly: "I can't give up this one thing!" For her, with her knowledge old and new, that brief phrase held volumes; all the anguish of his repeated self-questionings, all his en- deavors scrupulously to fulfill every claim his marriage made upon him, all his disappoint- ment and thwarted hopes echoed in and through it. And with this understanding 228 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH came memory of the hour when they two stood together in the gray dawn, that hour and all the events leading up to it. Again she heard his steady voice telling her of the cherished purpose, of the ten years' toil. He had foreseen this crisis then, and then as now he had declared he would not yield. He must not, should not, give up this one thing he had saved out of the wreck! , "No," she declared emphatically. "You've worked too long, and" intuition leaped to her aid "it's too late now. What's done is done." He nodded. "You're right. And it wouldn't be dealing squarely with Delvain. He's a mighty decent sort, at bottom straight as they make them." But it was not until she thought it over afterwards that she grasped the full meaning of that tribute, and realized that he too was gaining through experience, winning a broader vision, a deeper, truer understanding. CHAPTER XV THE TURN OF THE BALANCE NITA found herself in a decidedly unpleas- ant position. For Elsie, appearing late the following afternoon, refreshed by a long, sound sleep and bearing no traces of her re- cent hysterics traces there were, but they showed only in the shadows under Donald's eyes met her with an aggrieved air and the stiffest of formal salutations. Had they not been staying in the same house, the situation might have contained elements of relief for Nita, a certain lifting of responsibilities. As it was, the daily encounters under the eyes of half a hundred more or less gossip-loving women, whose curiosity, long since aroused, had been on the qui vive from the moment Elsie rushed through the hall in tears, were distinctly disagreeable. Nita knew her world far too well not to be perfectly aware of the kind of thing that was being said. And she could not defend herself by word or deed, for 230 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH departure would have taken on the semblance of flight. This for a very few days ; then personal mat- ters were submerged in the anxiety with which she watched the incredibly swift gathering and breaking of the war cloud. Many of the peo- ple caught in the war zone were acquaintances of hers ; some of them were her friends. Then came the President's proclamation of neutral- ity, the dread of panic, the closing of the New York Stock Exchange, and keenly felt by patriotic Nita, in whose veins ran the blood of those brave men and women who founded colonies and built a nation the shame of the United States' failure to protest against the rape of Belgium. Her business had recalled her to New York by the first of September, and full as her days were in this, her busiest season, she somehow found time to take a course in First Aid, in the preparing of bandages and the dressing of wounds. For she was one of those who be- lieved that the American sense of justice would soon force the United States to enter the con- flict. Subconsciously she welcomed the activ- ities which crowded her waking moments and sent her to bed so tired that her sleep was in- THE TURN OF THE BALANCE 231 slant and profound; she did not want time for introspection. She, who had never before shrunk from confronting her own mind and heart, now felt an unacknowledged dread of both, an unacknowledged wish not to discover that which they might have to reveal. In obedience to this unacknowledged wish, she used to keep her thoughts busy, while going from place to place, by repeating to herself the instructions given by the physician in charge of the First Aid class. And it was this mental preoccupation so carefully cultivated which, although she never knew it, turned the balance for Rudolph Drake and turned it forever. They met late one rainy afternoon, as she was hurrying to keep an appointment. She was trying to recall the exact phrase the doctor had used and, absorbed in the hunt, she passed Drake by quite unaware of his proximity. But he believed she had seen and deliberately avoided greeting him. And that very day the firm with which he was connected had col- lapsed like a house of cards. And he knew he could not face the impending investigation. He had been wandering through the streets for hours, dazed, numb as though some vital nerve had been severed. The consciousness of 232 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH present ruin and future disgrace had held him in a vice-like grip which seemed to check the very current of his blood. His legs and arms, his feet and hands, were as leaden things which did not belong to him. His mind was a blank ; he neither felt nor thought nor suffered. And then he met Nita Wynne, and she walked past him with head erect. It was as though the sight of this woman who to him was the living embodiment of all that was sweet and high and noble his re- ligion, a religion in which, backslider though he was, he nevertheless devoutly believed had been the one thing needed to rouse him from his apathy. The merciful numbness passed; the vice-like grip had become an iron cage. He was no less a prisoner than before, only he had become conscious of the bars, could dash himself against them. And now his mind be- gan involuntarily to form pictures pictures that moved swiftly, ruthlessly across the screen of his quivering consciousness. He had been able to excuse himself, been able to condone his own wrongdoing, so long as it remained unknown. And he had meant only to borrow the money in order to satisfy the claims of the more importunate of the many THE TURN OF THE BALANCE 233 creditors now clamoring around him, thanks to years of consistent living beyond his income. He had had the gambler's faith in his luck ; the swing of the financial pendulum would surely carry him to riches, sooner or later. Indeed, he had been rich more than once on paper. And he had had a scheme which promised great things. But for the outbreak of the war and consequent closing of the Exchange A newsboy offered him a paper and was answered with a curse. He felt a dull surprise at finding himself before the door of the apartment hotel in which he lived. He suddenly realized that he was wet to the skin and very tired. Then he re- membered with a dull sort of relief that Ger- aldine was out of town on a brief visit. Her questions, her solicitude, would have been as so many lashes falling upon raw wounds. There was nothing she could give that he wanted now. Curious that the little sitting room with its gilt, garland-patterned Empire furniture should be quite unchanged! How cheap, how futile it looked! Well, that was what his life had been, cheap and futile. And it would be worse. 234 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH To-morrow probably, in a very few days at the latest, they would find him out. He would be arrested, he supposed. Then he would have to get bail somehow. And if he did? What was it all for, anyway? Cheap and futile. Oh, what a fool he had been ! What a fool ! What a fool! Ten years and more ago, the moment of choice had come. But he had not recognized it for what it was. And he had said the easy, the expedient thing, taking what had seemed to him an opportunity. Once he had planned to win a girl's love and trust win them, hold them, deserve them, so long as life should last. He had aspired ; and it was even then too late. His head ached and throbbed. In his tem- ples the pulses beat hard and fast, with tiny, pitiless hammer-strokes. He flung himself down on the frivolous little gilt sofa, and sat staring straight before him with eyes which saw nothing save the wasted years slowly marching past, never to return. With an odd sense of detachment, he watched his phantom self, seeking feverishly for money by day, seeking feverishly for pleasure by night. Constant excitement, a half-conscious struggle to fight off thought. THE TURN OF THE BALANCE 235 Hanging over the ticker, hurrying with gay parties from theater to cabaret, from theater to cabaret, dancing, drinking, until the empty laughter came easily from his hot lips, craving more and more fiercely the stimulus of excite- ment and of alcohol ... or worse. What of value, what of happiness, had there been in it all? Cheap and futile! Well, it was over now, the old way of life. And that which was to take its place? He shivered. He was standing in the dock, he faced the jury, he was conscious of hundreds of curious, merciless eyes, staring, staring- God! He could not endure it. There must be some way out, some way of escape ! Escape? To be hunted down, and cap- tured, and dragged back. The dark waters of despair rose quickly; they were at his lips, he was choking, drown- ing And now he was suddenly aware of a new presence in the room. Over there in the shadowy corner it crouched, a loathsome, shapeless Thing. It moved; it was coming nearer to him, that incarnate Fear. Nearer it came; and nearer; nearer yet . . . He started to his feet with a strangled cry; 236 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH the movement awoke him from his trance. His head ached and throbbed. He must rest, must cease thinking, must sleep, else he would go mad. He must sleep; must sleep He felt in his pocket for the little box of white powders, so precious, so difficult to pro- cure. For several nerve-racking months there had been no sleep for him without drugs. His fingers closed over the box; he drew it forth and switched on the light. The sudden glare stung his burning eye- balls ; but without light he might take an over- dose and find, not sleep, but death. Death. The thought touched him like a gentle hand. What good was life to him? Cheap and futile in the past; in the years to come A trial and prison he shivered. He was afraid to live. . A coward; yes, he was a coward. No won- der Nita had refused to notice him! And after to-morrow when he stood before the world a convicted thief Here it was in his hand, the means of escape and rest Deliberately, mechanically, he went to the carafe standing on a side table and measured the proper amount of water into a THE TURN OF THE BALANCE 237 tumbler. He must be careful to take neither too much nor too little. It was with a feeling of security such as he had not known for years that he raised the glass to his lips. It was done. He had passed out of the world of living men. A few moments of con- sciousness were all that were left him. And now a sudden, overpowering desire wrung his very heartstrings a longing for the sound of Nita's voice, for the sight of Nita's face. The love which had drawn to and in- corporated within itself all that was best in him, the love which he had cherished in his heart as an ideal, disregarded often but never absent, rose up now in its might, sweeping shame and regret and fear aside, dominating this ultimate moment, claiming expression. He must speak to her, must tell her somehow that al- ways, always .... Making his difficult way to the flimsy little rose-painted desk he found a sheet of Ger- aldine's scented, pink-tinted notepaper, and began to write. At first the pen moved rapidly. Then drowsiness began to dull his senses. The pen slipped, blotting the paper; the poison was at work. His hand faltered and stopped; and 238 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH went on again, slowly and yet more slowly He sank forward over the rose-painted desk, amid the dainty silver and crystal appoint- ments with which it was strewn . CHAPTER XVI "NOTHING MATTERS ANY MORE" DRAKE'S suicide was something of a shock to Nita. Memory brought back the debonair young man she had regarded as a veritable knight of romance ; imagination pic- tured him lying dead, there in the frivolous little hotel room. But she was a different per- son from the crude young idealist who had made of handsome, weak-fibered Rudolph Drake an impossibly immaculate hero. All that past in which he had played so prominent a part was over and done with; she looked at it from across a gulf of hard-working, thought- crowded years, looked at it compassionately, with a better, clearer understanding alike of herself and of him, but as if from a great dis- tance. And the Rudolph Drake she had occa- sionally met during recent years had seemed to her a complete materialist, one whose only desire and creed was to eat, drink, and be merry. And for all her better understanding, 240 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH her wider vision, this was a type for which she had no use and but slight sympathy. The theft which had been the propelling cause of his suicide was carefully hushed up, and it was generally believed to be the result of a nervous breakdown due to overwork. He had once taken some shares of a motor-boat stock in payment of a bad debt, and that stock, suddenly developing into one of those "war babies" which brought unexpected riches to their owners, made it possible to cover up his peculations. But all this happened later, and at first it was only known that he had left little or no money a fact of which Nita's step- mother presently informed her. "It serves Geraldine right," she declared with that air of perfect rectitude possible only to those conscious of possessing an assured in- come. "She spent money like water. / never could afford to dress as she did always in the very latest fashion. No wonder poor dear Rudolph killed himself with overwork!" "I understood from Elsie that he was mak- ing a great deal of money," Nita said, remem- bering the younger sister's oft-reiterated envy of Geraldine's gowns and hats and generally lavish expenditure. But she could not help " NOTHING MATTERS " 241 smiling a little at the former Mrs. Ashurst's righteous indignation. "Hu-umph! Elsie!" Mrs. Wynne's ex- clamation was an unreproducible mixture of snort and sniff. "Elsie's a perfect little fool. By the way, I hear she's running around with that man Frayne. She'll get herself into a bad scrape one of these days, see if she doesn't," she added hopefully. Gossip was now her main interest in life. "Oh, she likes to flirt, but there isn't a bit of harm in her; it's just play." Nita spoke carelessly, but during the next few days her stepmother's hint often recurred to her. There might be, probably was, scarcely any foundation for the gossip, and yet Well, whether or not one admired Cuthbert Frayne, he was not a person to be lightly dismissed! She felt anxious, and she might have gone to Elsie and tried to close the breach between them, had she not known the uselessness of any such attempt. Elsie would have taken it merely as justifying her own course; if she were ever again to have any in- fluence over her, it was from Elsie's self that the first movement toward reconciliation must come. And then something happened which for a time drove all else from her mind. She had returned from a meeting of one of the Belgian Relief committees late one after- noon, and with her hat still on, was standing by the table in her sitting room, glancing with characteristic rapidity over the little pile of let- ters delivered during her absence. Her sim- ple gown of gray-blue silk with Vandyck collar and cuffs of Brussels point clung closely to her slender, supple figure. Under the shadow of her broad-brimmed hat with its single sweeping plume, her eyes seemed more than ever luminous, her profile more clearly, de- cisively cut. The proud carriage of the small head, the buoyant poise of the graceful body, the swift movements of the delicate hands, all contributed something to the general effect of alertness, of a readiness to be up and doing, off and away. More than ever now, in these days when her abilities and her sympathies alike were responding generously to the many de- mands made upon them, did she seem intensely, gloriously alive, so alive that beside her the ma- jority of people appeared half moribund. Dynamic, full of energy and vitality, she re- sembled some radiant spirit of light " NOTHING MATTERS " 243 The electric bell rang sharply, and Nita glanced away from her letters, a slight frown wrinkling her smooth white brow. She had given strict orders to telephone up the name of every caller, but the new elevator boy was stupid. She turned to the open door. On the threshold stood a black-veiled, black- robed figure one she had never thought to see there. Her heart was beating quickly as she silently ushered Geraldine into the room. And yet was it really Geraldine? For as her unexpected guest flung back the long crape veil which had enshrouded face and form, Nita could not help starting a little. That bloodless face in which the once bold eyes looked so unnaturally large, thin, with sunken temples and gray lips could it in truth be Geraldine's? Her pity, more than her sur- prise, held Nita dumb. A long moment the two women stood silent, staring at each other as though neither had ever actually seen the other before. All the life in Geraldine's worn body seemed concen- trated in her resolute, burning eyes. And still she gazed steadily, searchingly at Nita, stand- ing there so slight and supple, so tense and vivid and electric. 244 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "You did not expect to see me here." Ger- aldine's voice was very low ; the words dragged as though speech were an almost intolerable effort. "No: you have something to tell me." It was a statement, not a question. Just perceptibly, the other woman winced; it was as if some overstrung nerve quivered painfully to the vibrations of that crystal-clear voice. "And yet," she murmured, apparently speaking to herself, "and yet you're not really so beautiful. I don't understand." A sigh of utter weariness stole through the gray lips, and Nita pushed forward an arm- chair. Geraldine sank into it, and Nita waited, waited with tingling nerves Presently the tired voice was heard again : "I found Rudolph's body. I got home that night. But I had come too late. He was dead." Tearlessly, steadily, without break or quiver were those words spoken. And yet Nita shrank back aghast, as from a crater suddenly yawning open before her. Every other feel- ing was lost in pity ; pity, not for the man who ' NOTHING MATTERS " 245 had fled out of life, but for the woman she had long despised. And again the weary voice, inflectionless, without touch of color or emotion, went stead- ily on: "This was lying under his hand. He had written it at the last when he was dy- ing." Out of the little black bag on her wrist she took a sheet of scented, pink-tinted notepaper and unfolded it carefully, looking at it with dry eyes, holding it in fingers that did not tremble. It was Nita who trembled : the flooding pity was becoming an anguish. For a moment there was silence. A long shaft of sunlight, stealing through the western window, rested softly on Geraldine's black draperies. Then Drake's widow held out the little sheet of paper. "He wrote to you. So I have brought you this. He wanted " Weary tone, dragging words, expressed only a great fatigue ; but the rare tears rose to Nita's eyes, blinding her so that she could scarcely read the scrawled, incoherent phrases. She saw her own name repeated again and 246 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH again: "Nita Nita! I love you I've al- ways loved you forgive . . ." And she flung out her hands to Drake's wife, and the message Drake had scrawled in his last conscious moments fluttered to the ground. "I'm sorry!" she cried, her voice breaking. "I'm very, very sorry!" Her own words rang in her ears, useless, in- adequate but what was there to say? And suddenly she was swept back through the years; she was one of a multi-colored throng of dancers; past her glided Geraldine on the arm of Rudolph Drake, she very pale, he flushed, preoccupied And the bit of paper, by means of which a wrecked and broken man had striven to reach the woman he loved with a love that remained when all else crumbled away before on-coming death, lay upon the floor unnoticed. For the agony of the living was the greater, and had blotted out the agony of the dead. Then for the first time Geraldine's masklike face changed a little, and though when she spoke the words still dragged, a faint hint of relief, a faint hint of surprise tinged the color- less tone as she said slowly, with the accent of one who accepts as true that which had for- " NOTHING MATTERS " 247 merly seemed unbelievable: "You never loved him." And she stooped and picked up the fallen paper, smoothing it out gently. The strain of this interview was racking sensitive, impressionable Nita. But with an effort of her strong will she controlled her shiv- ering nerves and said quietly: "What do you mean? Why did you come here and bring me that yourself? I don't understand." She made a little gesture toward the paper in Geraldine's hand as she unconsciously echoed Geraldine's phrase. And presently Rudolph Drake's widow looked up, and spoke : "No, you don't understand," she said very slowly. "And yet and yet the truth is here." She touched the paper tenderly. "He loved you. I knew it always. Oh, he cared for me too in a way. A man can love two women, but differently. He gave you his best, and I I took what I could get. You drew out all that was finest in him, somehow. I never could learn your secret, and so It was only what was left that I could touch, his lower, weaker the rest was gone, out of my reach. And yet you never loved him. I 248 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH might have known But I was afraid, I was afraid" the word came shuddering from the bloodless lips. "I realized from the very first what what kind of love it was he gave me. And when I saw him lying dead, I thought perhaps if I hadn't taken it hadn't worked to get it he might have had the happi- ness he wanted some day. I could only satisfy what was worst in him. And so I tried to make that the larger part. I know now what I did to him. But since there never could have been anything else, anything dif- ferent, since you did not love " She paused and drew a long, full breath. "I can keep sane now," she said. Nita could not speak. And after a while Geraldine went on in a monotonous, inflectionless tone the tone of a sleepwalker: "He wasn't all mine," she said dully, "he wasn't all mine ever. Not even dead. I used to think sometimes how you'd gloat over it all and me if you knew. When I found that paper, I tried to burn it, but I I couldn't. Then I saw how it might help me to learn what I had to know. My humiliation, your triumph just didn't count any more. That's " NOTHING MATTERS " 249 why I came, to find out whether you cared. Now I'm satisfied." The broken, monotonous speech ended. And minutes sped while the woman Rudolph Drake had loved and the woman who had loved him sat gazing at each other. For Nita was stricken dumb. After one horrified gesture of repudiation when Geral- dine had spoken of her as "gloating" over her unhappiness, she sat motionless. She scarcely dared even to pity the woman who faced her, so calm in the majesty of her great grief. This sorrow was immeasurable, beyond sympa- thy as it was beyond tears. Compared with it, every emotion she herself had ever known seemed dwarfed into insignificance. A won- der that was akin to awe possessed her. Surely such agony implied a depth and a great- ness of character Could she, who had once deemed herself Geraldine's superior, ever feel pain like this? The power so to love and to suffer The small old-fashioned clock upon the mantel shelf ticked on inexorably. The ray of sunlight had shifted; it no longer caressed the black-robed figure but settled happily on Nita's slender form, which now seemed to draw 250 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH to itself, magnet-wise, all the surrounding light and color. And still the silence remained un- broken in that quiet room where the very air was tense, vibrating yet to those monotonously spoken words which had expressed a boundless passion, a passion which had absorbed a woman's whole nature, been in very truth her life. Nita felt the strain, the steady, search- ing gaze of those haggard eyes, becoming un- endurable. "Good-by." Geraldine rose abruptly, draw- ing the thick veil over her face. Her purpose was accomplished. And then at last Nita spoke. And still it was of the living that she was thinking far more than of the dead. "I didn't want to take or to keep anything from you," she said earnestly. "I didn't know I was keeping anything from you. It seemed all over and forgotten." The other woman, who was already moving slowly toward the door, paused a moment. "Yes, I know," she said at last. The faint touch of emotion was gone from her voice, leaving it as toneless, as utterly weary and drained of all feeling as it had been at first. "Such things just happen. In the very be- ' NOTHING MATTERS " 251 ginning, before people said you were engaged to him, I believed you'd taken him from me for your amusement. I thought that a long time. I used to hate you. I wish I could hate you still. But nothing matters any more." The door closed behind her. Automatically Nita went to the window and flung herself down in her favorite place among the heaped golden-brown cushions. She felt as though the monotonous tones of that tired voice would never cease to echo in her ears. "Nothing matters any more." The weary, dragging words came again and yet again. "Nothing matters any more." And she knew that the brief sentence held a complete truth. For there was one woman in the world whose heart was broken, one woman to whom nothing mattered any more, now Ru- dolph Drake was dead. CHAPTER XVII BEVELATION FOR a while the memory of Geraldine and the things Geraldine had said fairly haunted Nita. Busy as she was in that outer world where efforts to mitigate the horror once deemed impossible now held imperious sway, the inner realm of her thoughts had space and to spare for her own past, her own trial and judgment. Dim, dusty recollections were dragged forward into the light, and with the appearance of each, the severity of her self- questioning increased. A great doubt pos- sessed her: Had she failed Rudolph Drake in his hour of need, and so failing him become in some measure responsible for the final tragedy? The break had been inevitable. She could not have married him, knowing what she did and being what she was. But had she been gentler, less unsparing in her condemnation then and since ? REVELATION 253 For he had given her his best ; all that was in him of gold. Gold smothered in dross and in meaner than dross, but gold nevertheless. He had given his best to her, his worst and she faced quite frankly her knowledge of what that worst must have been to the woman who had yielded her all to him, surrendering her heart and soul, her very self, so completely that now when he was gone she had nothing left; neither love nor hate, pride nor hope: nothing . . . save the power to suffer. Never would Nita forget that during long years she had held Drake's wife very cheaply, judging wholly by appearances and from the outside, blind to the truth that from thence no real understanding is possible. Seeing at first only the surface littlenesses and imperfections, she had taken them for the whole ; now rushing, generous and remorseful, to the other extreme, she tried to ignore them altogether. She had learned a lesson, been humbled in her own eyes, she who was once so sure of herself, so prone to see character and conduct as all black or all white. And again she remembered Donald's words: "Tolerance is an acquired virtue- else it isn't a virtue at all. It must come from understanding" understanding ob- 254 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH tained through experience, and none too easily! This inner enlightenment, together with her unflagging energy, made her one of the most efficient as well as one of the hardest workers on the Relief Committee. For her ardent par- tisanship, her tendency to rebel rather than to submit, were no whit diminished. Often they stood her in good stead, sometimes they re- sulted only in mental turmoil. It was no use, for instance, to rage inwardly because, with the coming of the Great War, Donald Forsythe's series of articles was brought to an abrupt close by the politic Delvain. It was one of the minor wrecks which the mere shadow of Jug- gernaut's car had sufficed to bring about. Ten years' labor, ten years' planning and persist- ence, ten years' holding fast to one purpose despite all objections and obstacles and dis- couragements and then, in the very moment of accomplishment, a catastrophe utterly un- foreseeable destroyed it all in an instant! He had declared proudly: "What I owe, I pay," and the power to pay had been taken out of his hands just as he was in the act of settling his debt. Oh, but it was cruel, unjust to rob him of that one thing to which he had clung so des- REVELATION 255 perately ! cried Nita in the depths of her pas- sionate soul. It was no surprise to her when Forsythe ap- peared at the Headquarters, no surprise to find herself frequently working side by side with him. Little as they had seen of each other since Elsie's outbreak at East Hampton, they immediately and without effort slipped again into the comfortable grooves of their former relations. Speech and silence had always been easy between them, . untroubled save when thought of Elsie intervened. And now, when both were busy, hand and brain alike, with un- selfish work and unselfish problems, a tacit avoidance of merely personal matters, of Elsie, and of the difficult guardianship they had once shared, though unequally, was very simple. For the victims of a nation ran amuck, they toiled, two among a great Fellowship of the Compassionate. And then, all in an instant, the thunderbolt struck. It was late April, and an unusually severe heat-wave had been suddenly followed by a cold snap. Now that it was nearly six o'clock, the wind was cool enough to make fast walking not only pleasant, but necessary if one chanced 256 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH to be wearing thin clothing. Donald and Nita, coming from a sub-committee meeting at Mrs. Cavanagh's, both felt the want of air and exercise and together swung along down Fifth Avenue, she with her light buoyant step, he with that quick limping stride of his to which she had long since become accustomed. For a while they went on in an uncon- strained, companionable silence, each finding a rest for tired brain and rasped nerves in the other's mere presence. And the tempers of both had been sorely tried that afternoon by a speaker who, having been invited to talk about one subject, had insisted on discoursing upon another and very different one. It was Donald who suddenly exclaimed, al- most explosively : "I don't know which I hate the most a neutral or a pacifist!" Nita gave a quick little shrug. "One's a liar the other may not be that, at any rate." He assented with a nod. "You're right. Honest neutrality at a time like this it isn't possible except for a cad, a coward, or an ego- maniac.*' "And then they actually have the nerve to adopt a 'holier than thou' attitude, and prate about their liberality, and wide sympathies, REVELATION 257 and loving kindness!" Nita declared indig- nantly. "It's mighty easy to misapply names, and call 'broad-mindedness' and 'brotherly love' what is really nothing but a lack of moral back- bone make it an excuse for doing the easy instead of the difficult thing. Sometimes, I suppose, it's honest self-deception; but more often it's nothing but sheer rank hypocrisy." "Well, our pacifist friend was sincere, at least, even if he did talk a string of pretty ab- surdities and want to turn the earth over to the thugs and thieves and cutthroats !" "Yes, and the queer part of it is, he seems to imagine that all men who don't agree with him must have a hankering to become thieves and cutthroats themselves." He paused an in- stant and then, his equanimity restored, went on in his usual half -whimsical tone and man- ner: "Should yonder eminently respectable- looking citizen suddenly evince an uncontrol- lable desire to throttle the life out of me, I'd certainly do my best to disappoint him, and if I happened to injure him seriously in the process, I wouldn't regard it as my bounden duty to expire either with remorse or melan- cholia. Which doesn't imply that I have any 258 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH designs on his windpipe, so long as he treats mine with all due and proper respect." "The difference seems to escape our pacifist friends entirely. Carried out to a logical con- clusion, their theory would do away with all locks and police and a number of other things necessary at the present stage of civilization, and let the enterprising burglar burgle at his own sweet will." Her tone changed, and she added seriously: "It's as though they had a blind spot or a sort of mental paralysis brought on by horror. I suppose if we real- ized truly realized, any of us, all that's actu- ally going on over there now, at this very mo- ment " She caught her breath. "We'd go mad." For once it was he who finished her sentence. "It isn't safe to stop and think." Her clear voice was very low. "We may be obliged to stop and think. If the Lusitania Devlin Morris has had one of those anonymous warning letters." "Is he going to pay any attention ?" "No; he sails to-morrow just the same, and so does Geraldine. She's going to join Phoebe in Devonshire." The Englishman Phoebe Haight had mar- REVELATION 259 ried was now with his regiment "somewhere in France." "But surely there are limits even to what the Huns will do! Besides, they must know it would mean war with the United States. We've stood a lot, but when it comes to letting them murder our own people that's just a little too much!" "I should hope so! But they're insane vanity-mad, blood-mad. And we we sit quiet and endure and gabble about 'friendly relations!' If we'd only spoken out when Belgium was invaded said to Germany: "You shan't do this thing" think where America would stand to-day in the eyes of the nations!" "It might have flung us into the war," Nita answered, with head held high and kindling eyes. "We might have lost some of our 'safety' and 'prosperity,' but we'd have saved our souls!" "And it might have prevented the war 1 If the other neutral nations had followed our lead, and I believe that's what they would have done" "At least we'd have had a right to talk then about ideals and standing for humanity!" 260 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH His shoulder jerked with the quick, invol- untary movement she knew so well. 1 'People tell us it wasn't any of our business. Our business! We despise the man who doesn't go to the help of a woman or a child in danger, whether he's ever seen them before or not. And then we try to excuse what amounts to national instead of mere personal cowardice by chattering about 'our business!' We let hundreds and thousands of women and chil- dren be tortured and killed and and worse without lifting a finger to save them, because years ago, in what was practically a different world, we didn't sign one particular treaty, and so it isn't any of 'our business!' Our " His voice snapped. "Heaven knows I've no right to talk!" It was as though some force which had broken from his control were driv- ing the words out. "I'm a cripple not a man. God! If I could only go and help!" A part of the enveloping cloak had fallen. For the first time in all his life he had per- mitted another human being to see something of what his lameness really meant to him that lameness he usually treated so lightly, so non- chalantly, speaking of it as though it were a thing rather amusing than otherwise. REVELATION 261 And Nita understood understood the chaf- ing of the present, the heavy burden so gayly and gallantly borne in the past. His rebel- lion, his pain were hers. And because she felt with him, not merely for him, she could not utter a word. Only in the semi-darkness of the almost empty Avenue she touched his hand with her gloved fingers. He gripped them fast; and it was as though an electric shock had passed up her arm. An instant the lights danced before her eyes. And then then she saw his face, illumined by the glare from a show window. It might have been a moment, it might, for all she knew, have been an hour before he turned to her, slowly, with a resolute control of movement and of tone, and said "Thank you" very quietly. But though he spoke so calmly, he was pale even to the lips. For he had realized the full meaning of his self -revelation ; and with the knowledge there came a great fear. CHAPTER XVIII LOVE AND LOYALTY AFTER a sleepless night, Nita fell towards dawn into a heavy slumber from which she awoke to find that for her the aspect of the world was changed. Looking back, she won- dered at her own blindness. Had she not from the very first been perfectly contented and in sympathy with Donald Forsythe? Had she not turned to him in her perplexity, ten years and more ago? Had she not liked ever since to consult him, longed for his ap- proval, fiercely resented all that stood in his way? And now Nita Wynne one of a triangle! Nita Wynne, involved in a " situation a trots!" Here indeed was matter for the mirth of the little gods. The idea of such a thing had never crossed her mind, so incredible did it seem. She would as soon have expected her- self to turn pickpocket. "Can you imagine yourself doing anything you thought really wrong, Nita?" LOVE AND LOYALTY 263 She remembered Mary's question. No; face to face with the plain issue, she could not so imagine herself. Yet here she was, stranded on perilous rocks against which the great waves thundered, where a single false step How was he feeling now? For the truth had come to him, as suddenly as to herself: she knew that with an intuitive certainty far beyond all doubt or question. Both had drifted, both awakened to hear the surge and thunder. Yet she knew the whole truth, while he was his more than a half knowledge? His face had been full in the light, hers partly in shadow. Back into her mind sprang memory of Elsie's complaint that Donald had refused to promise what Atkinson Matthews wanted, be- cause the promise was one he could not keep, Elsie's cry "That's Donald all over," and her own recognition that the refusal was charac- teristic. This recognition, what did it not im- ply now? Loyalty: loyalty to word and bond and Elsie. The necessity of at once deciding on her fu- 264 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH ture course weighed heavily on Nita. All drifting was must be ended forever. But what to do? How to find and choose the way which would be the best for all three? Her eyes once open to the truth, she faced it cour- ageously, evading nothing. That other woman, the woman who loved Drake, had come to her to learn whether she had indeed stood between him and any, even the remotest, chance of happiness, because thought of such a possibility had rendered her pain intolerable. It was with Geraldine's face, Geraldine's fear before her eyes that Nita sought desperately for a way of helping Don- ald Forsythe. And it was while she was thus striving to put all thought of self aside that to her amaze- ment Elsie, dainty and Persian-kitten-like as ever, with Fluff on her arm, walked into the room. "Oh, Nita dear, I just couldn't keep away any longer! I'm so terribly unhappy!" And, dropping the little dog, Elsie threw herself into Nita's arms, sobbing on her shoul- der while Fluff yapped an accompaniment. There are moments in every life when it seems as though one's fate were entirely con- LOVE AND LOYALTY 265 trolled by the mischief-making, mirth-loving little gods; such a moment had now come to Nita Wynne. Mechanically she asked the obvious, un- avoidable question: "Why, what's the mat- ter, Elsie?" Elsie dried her eyes, reflecting that her nose might get unbecomingly red if she wept much longer, and answered with many little sniffs impeding the words: "G-Geraldine s-sailed to-day, and I'm s-so lonely!" In spite of her pain and perplexity, Nita al- most laughed aloud. The idea of Elsie cry- incr for Geraldine for Geraldine with whom o she wrangled every time they met! "It's too bad!" As had so often happened in the past, Nita spoke with an irony which was entirely lost on Elsie. "I w-went down to see her off" the sniffs were subsiding "and took her some orchids. Itf r> er a man I know had just sent me a dozen perfect beauties, the awfully expensive kind. You know orchids look awfully snappy on black, and Oh, dear, I felt so horribly, having her go off like that!" Nita's only thought was of the threats made against the Lusitania. 266 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "Of course you must be anxious," she said gently. "But I wouldn't worry if I were you. I don't believe even the Germans would be fiendish enough to sink a passenger ship full of noncombatants." "Oh, I wasn't thinking of that!" exclaimed Elsie naively. "Of course, Geraldine will be all right. But I do think she might have stayed with me I can't understand such self- ishness Z'm not a bit that way, and I But it's perfectly awful to have men go crazy about you the way they will keep doing over me!" "Is it the Count?" Nita asked perforce. In her own mind she had long ago concluded that that astute gentleman had simply made use of Elsie, and played upon her vanity. "Well er partly," Elsie spoke with a hesitation evidently meant to be noticed. "He tries to pretend he's awfully indifferent, but it's just put on I can see that. You know I've always understood people awfully well!" "I don't think you need trouble about him. He's not the sort of person to do anything des- perate." Before the words ceased to vibrate, Nita remembered the man who had done some- thing desperate. "It's terribly easy for you to talk, Nita! LOVE AND LOYALTY 267 You're so cold and But I'm not made that way. Besides," added Elsie with infinite sat- isfaction, licking up, so to speak, every avail- able bit of cream with extended little pink tongue, "you've never been through the sort of experiences I've had! Of course I don't talk about them, but I could tell you stories ! If only I wasn't so tender-hearted I Oh, do be quiet, Fluff!" For Fluff was making a series of little rushes at a footstool and yapping in a way Elsie usually described as "too awfully cute for anything," but at the present moment found exasperating. So she caught up the little dog, administered several sharp slaps that made Fluff yowl and Nita wince, and went on: "What was I talking about? Oh, yes; I was just saying I hated to hurt and of course, Mr. Frayne That startled Nita. "Mr. Frayne?" Elsie blushed. "Well, he hasn't said- much. You know he's one of those terribly strong, silent men " Nita was entirely satisfied. She was inti- mately acquainted with Elsie's propensity for believing that every man who complimented 268 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH her adored her. Elsie had missed her accus- tomed confidante, her accustomed audience; that and that alone, had brought her here. If only she had stayed away after all these months! Unconsciously Nita sighed and pushed the heavy hair back off her burning forehead. "Does your head ache? You look awfully pale." Elsie spoke in her prettiest, most caressing way. "A little it's nothing. A touch of neu- ralgia, probably." "Oh, you poor thing! I know what neu- ralgia is ! I suffer from it awfully. Why, last night, after I'd been out in the wind you re- member how it blew yesterday? I thought I'd be taken right off my feet passing the li- brary ! I'd been shopping till I was just ready to drop I got some hand-embroidered blouses, wonderful bargains, you know, and just too awfully sweet! They didn't fit me of course I knew they wouldn't, they weren't anywhere near my size, but I thought I might as well have them sent home; I can return them in a day or two Well, when I got home, I thought my head would split! I don't believe any one has such awful head- LOVE AND LOYALTY 269 aches as I do," she added with satisfaction. "And Donald isn't a bit sympathetic. He says I'd be all right if I'd eat a sensible lunch ; he's terribly unfeeling! But if anything's wrong with him Why, just last night " Donald last night! If only she would talk of something, anything else ! Nita could have screamed with pain; but she merely clenched her hands until the nails made angry marks on the soft palms. Unconsciously merciless, Elsie went on: "Well, last night was a fair sample. He never came in till awfully late, and then of course he didn't want any dinner said he was too tired to eat and didn't care for any. Of course it was rather cold I had to have some- thing, and I wasn't going to wait forever: I knew he- could have gotten home per- fectly well, if he hadn't stopped to go to one of those stupid Belgian they're none of his business! I told him so, and he was awfully cross. Of course he didn't say anything, but I could see You've no idea, Nita, how aw- fully hard it is to get along with a fussy, self- ish person like Donald!" "Too tired to eat out awfully late." The words bit into Nita's consciousness as though 270 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH they had been so many drops of carbolic acid. She knew why he had not returned home until after the dinner hour, though it was still early when, almost in silence, they parted at her door. Her torturing imagination pictured him tramping the streets, unable to enter the place he called home and face the life he had made for himself, fighting, fighting She said something what, she never knew. Only she presently became aware that Elsie was talking of Helen Carstairs' recent mar- riage, and was dully grateful for the change of subject. At last Elsie declared she must be going. "The buses get so crowded! I do wish I had a car!" Elsie never walked over three blocks under any combination of circumstances. "It's been so awfully nice to have a good long talk with you, Nita, darling, and hear all you've been doing! Come along, baby dear. Where's muvver's p'ecious ittie darling?" she added, looking around for Fluff, who was thoroughly enjoying his brief liberty. He had discovered Nita's work basket, and thought that as a plaything it left nothing to be desired. "Oh, angel 'tweetness!" Elsie exclaimed, LOVE AND LOYALTY 271 trying to extricate the little dog from a tangle of silk and thread. "I'm afraid he's gotten your things into an awful mess, Nita darling, but I know you don't mind. 'Urn was a naughty, naughty ittie sing!" She took Fluff in her arms and showered him with kisses a proceeding to which he sub- mitted with the hopeless resignation of one who has suffered much and often. When Elsie at last was gone, Nita gave a long shuddering sigh of relief. Suddenly she put her hands to her throat and flung herself face downwards on her sofa, biting her lips until they bled. In after years she always shrank from the memory of this, the darkest hour of her life. CHAPTER XIX THE MOMENT OF TRIAL r I THROUGH days which afterwards re- M. mained in her memory as one long and hideous nightmare, Nita fought for self-mas- tery. And little by little, as the pain that was with her wherever she went and whatever she did, dogging her every footstep, greeting her with the dawn of every new day, haunting her throughout the endless watches of the dragging nights, became a familiar instead of a strange companion, her will began to assert itself. She had been beaten to her knees, but remain there she would not. And at last she was able to grip her pain and throttle it into submission, that she might ask and have an an- swer to the question: "What was best for him?" That was what mattered now that and that alone. Something she must do ; she could not go on meeting him casually, for in every such en- THE MOMENT OF TRIAL 273 counter there was danger Danger for him, danger of increasing that sense of having failed in perfect loyalty which she knew was to him as gall added to his already bitter cup. No glittering generalities about the inherent rights of passion embellished for her eyes the downward road. She would never be easy on herself; she had learned to see other peo- ple's black and white soften into gray while her own retained their sharply marked difference. And the distinction was as plain to her now as it had ever been. So there in the pleasant room overlooking Gramercy Park, Nita Wynne faced her pres- ent and her future with honest, unswerving eyes. Her point of view was essentially di- rect and simple: A promise could not be broken without dishonor. Before God and man, Donald Forsythe had bound himself by a solemn pledge; she knew that to him as to her it was a thing which at all costs must be held inviolate. And an added force to the compulsion of that pledge was given by Elsie's very deficiencies -the pitiless, inescapable claim of the weak upon the strong. She was no other now than she had always been. They could buy happiness, he and she, only 274 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH at the price of self-respect. And she well knew all that self-respect and honor and loy- alty meant to this man she loved so dearly, this man of the cynical tongue and the knightly soul. But what was she to do? Inaction was in- tolerable to her now, as always. And sud- denly, sharply, hideously, the answer came came with the shrill cry of a newsboy, flinging horror to the shuddering air. For the unbelievable had happened; the Lusitania had gone down. "It means war," Mary said quietly. In the darkness of the room, a darkness modified only by the shaded light from a small desk lamp, Nita's face appeared luminously white. And there was a note as of distant bugles in her voice, although she spoke as quietly as her friend and even more briefly. "It must," she said. There followed a moment's silence. Mary's nerves were tingling. She felt that Nita, sit- ting there so motionless, outwardly so unex- cited, was in truth a veritable human dynamo, a center of force which charged the air with electricity. And impelled by this sense of an 275 abundant, concentrated power, she asked al- most breathlessly: "What are you going to do, Nita?" It was the question which had once before been put to her, under very different circum- stances and when she was a very different per- son ; it was the question she had been putting to herself, consciously and sternly, or uncon- sciously and imploringly, during all these re- cent, emotion-packed days. And now she re- plied swiftly and without any shadow of wav- ering : "I'm going to do my best over there." "Won't you wait?" The broken phrase was eloquent. "No!" The monosyllable snapped like a whiplash. "Would you wait while you watched a fire sweeping forward? Wait while you watched people burn, because they weren't your own? God knows I can't do much! But what I can do I will." "You've made your plans?" "Yes; as soon as the news came. The Cavanaghs are giving a hospital unit to France. They're going over with supplies themselves on the next Cunarder. And I'm going with them." 276 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH She broke off there. True child of a gen- eration which was shy, half-ashamed of emo- tions, the sentences which rushed to her lips seemed to her extravagant, high-flown. But the fire that had been smoldering in her eyes was a clear blaze as she added simply: "I've got to do something definite in the fight against them " Had she said pirates, Huns, spawn of Hell, or even summed the whole up in the one word Prussians, it would scarcely have thrilled her hearer as did that pronoun, spoken as she spoke it. A long time the two women sat in silence. The tragedy indeed meant more to Nita than even Mary guessed, for Geraldine was of those who had gone down with the stricken ship, dying bravely and, as Nita correctly sur- mised, gladly. And Devlin Morris too was dead, Donald's friend, the young lawyer for whom great things had been predicted; these and others they both had known. She remembered the bitter cry in which Donald had given vent to his grief and rage at his own powerlessness. So far as was hu- manly possible, she would fight for both. There where France and England, Belgium THE MOMENT OF TRIAL 277 and Russia and brave little Serbia strove in a death-grapple with the Powers of Darkness- there, where he could not, she would go. Serv- ing him and God. She saw her way clear at last; in exaltation she trod the heights, con- secrated and unafraid. All through the brief, busy time of prepara- tion, this sense of consecration remained with her. And then for she was no saint, but only a faulty woman, impatient, warm-blooded it suddenly vanished, and she was left with only the consciousness that a parting which might well prove lifelong yawned like an open grave between Donald and herself. She believed the soul destined to "carry, high through death, her cup unspilled," that a lifelong parting was not a parting forever: but she craved the hu- man joy, the years spent side by side in human companionship. Something higher, finer, nobler, might be in store for them; but they would have missed the best this life has to give. She longed to see and to speak with him once more; she feared a last interview with its pos- sible shattering of hard-won self-control, but how could she go to face death, as face it she must and would, without so much as a word, 278 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH a handclasp? And yet if it were to help him, to save for him his faith in himself The struggle was still being waged within her, when she learned that the power of de- cision had been taken out of her hands. Elsie announced that she was coming down to see her off, and had insisted upon Donald's ac- companying her. "There may be a riot or or anything," she tearfully protested over the telephone. "It wouldn't be safe for me to come by myself, and I do so want to see the last of youl Oh, I hope America will keep out of this awful war!" Neither Elsie's fear, nor her evident belief that their good-by was to be good-by indeed, had any especial effect on Nita. Both were swept away by the thought of seeing Donald once again. She nerved herself to that encounter as she did not need to nerve herself to the obvious perils of the crossing. Yet what had she to fear from it? Nothing, to the eyes of many; the loss of the most precious thing in the world, to her own. The day so longed for, yet so dreaded, came at last. Nita met Mr. and Mrs. Cavanagh with Doctor Macneven, the physician who was to be in charge of the hospital unit, at the pier. The doctor had served with the American Red Cross in France during the dark days of 1914, returned to the United States for a brief, much-needed rest, and was now going back. Nita, who had known him for years, would or- dinarily have had much to say to him, but now, all her senses were alert for the sight of a thin, clever face, the sound of a familiar, dragging step. She went down to her stateroom, made a few necessary arrangements, and hurried up on deck again. The day was bright and clear, with a brisk breeze, and the waters of the har- bor danced and sparkled in the sunshine. Yet though a beautiful, it was not a joyous day; for over there by the New Jersey shore lay the interned liners, black, massive, sullen. And from them there seemed to emanate, like a dark and poisonous vapor, something of the evil spirit directing the nation whose flag they flew. And extending far up the river, in lines of white dots, was the American fleet the fleet upon which so much, it was then believed, might soon depend. "Oh, here you are, Nita!" Elsie's rather 280 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH high-pitched voice made Nita start, although she had been expecting to hear it. She forced her stiff lips into a smile. "Such a time as we had getting on board!" Elsie continued excitedly. "You wouldn't believe the awful amount of red tape I didn't think we'd ever be able to manage it, but Donald And then they knew I'd lost my darling sister on the Lusitania" She put her handkerchief to her eyes, feel- ing herself to be an object of intense inter- est. Nita introduced her to the rest of the party and noticed, with disappointment and relief so intermingled that she could not have told which feeling predominated, that Doctor Mac- neven and Donald For sy the had fallen quickly and easily into talk. They were old friends, and had many sympathies and ideas in com- mon. But though he talked to the doctor, his eyes never left her. "It's an awfully solemn business, going off like this, isn't it?" Elsie chattered on, putting into heedless, uncomprehending speech some- thing of that which lay deep down in the hearts of all the others, "Do be sure and have THE MOMENT OF TRIAL 281 your life-preserver handy, Nita. If I were you, I'd put it on and keep it on." Nita, the stiff smile still bending her lips, forced herself to answer: "Oh, no, you wouldn't !" She was doing her courageous best to speak lightly. "They're too uncomfortable. You'd find you couldn't possibly sleep in one." "Well, I don't see how you'll ever be able to sleep one single wink, anyway! When you think that the very next minute !" She shivered with a pleasant, vicarious sense of imminent danger, looked up at stately Mrs. Cavanagh and went on, relishing what she felt was a most impressive statement. "Of course, you know, all this awful business comes home to me more than to most people. You know my darling sister was lost on the Lusitania." Nita turned away her head with a feeling of repulsion she could not altogether repress. The minutes sped. And presently a warn- ing bell clanged. There were only a very few moments left. He must come to her now! So far he had successfully avoided her, but now he must take her hand and meet her glance. And then . . . would he be able to maintain his air of mere calm friendliness, or 282 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH would there flash into his eyes that look she had once seen in them, that look which having seen, she could never forget? And suddenly, through some subtle, inexplicable intuition, she knew he would be able to suppress the betraj^- ing light, unless she wilfully evoked it. Steel- strong, trained through many difficult years, his will could master even that force, did she not join with it against him. And now her own craving heart sprang up in revolt, tugging frantically against the bonds of honor, cry- ing out that she could not leave him thus. They must have their supreme moment of mu- tual confession, though it be followed by life- long regret. And the issue lay in her keeping, her con- trol. She knew that with unreasoned, abso- lute certainty. Let her but show him the truth, and all she now hungered and thirsted for would be hers. Surely it was no crime a look, an instant's happiness! That joy grasped, what mattered the after sorrow? She was willing to pay the price. She was willing to pay the price; was she willing that he should pay, too? Plainly as though it were some electric sign flashing out at midnight, the alternative appeared before THE MOMENT OF TRIAL 283 her. He was as yet uncertain of his self -be- trayal: she knew that, for sheer intensity of feeling had rendered her clairvoyant. By forcing herself to play the mere friend who had no need of concealment or fear, she could convince him that he had revealed nothing. It rested with her to give him back his self- reliance, to restore to him his belief in his own unstained loyalty, to assure him that his secret was his still, held close and inviolate. All this she could give to render the long road stretch- ing before him, if not smooth, at any rate far less stony. All this or a moment's joy, fol- lowed instantly by shame, a sense of failure, of dishonor. And this her doing, who had sworn to hold their love high above all that might stain or soil it! Thoughts like these rushed, fragmentary, chaotic, through Nita's mind, emotions rather than ideas. And beneath and penetrating them all there echoed the memory of a weary voice speaking slow, difficult words: "Noth- ing matters any more." Again came the clang of the bell, followed by a warning call. Elsie jumped up in the middle of a sentence. "I suppose that means we've got to go," 284 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH she said regretfully. "Good-by, Nita darling! Do take care of yourself and write if you ever if you ever have time. Come on, Donald, we must hurry! Good-by, dear, good-by!" She hastened towards the gangway. Nita saw Donald shaking hands with the doctor; then he turned to her. "Good-by, Miss Wynne," he said. His voice was a little hoarse, a little strained. The moment had come, the moment when she must choose for both. An instant she wavered and temptation had her by the throat. She had tasted joy; with her whole heart and soul, with every nerve and fiber of her being she craved that which she could get so easily, so very easily. And again the tired voice was in her ears : "Nothing matters any more." Did anything, could anything matter to her, save Donald Forsythe's ultimate good? One man who had loved her was dead. Him she had somehow failed; but this other who loved her and whom she so loved, him she would not fail. And she had seen the great fear dawn in his eyes, she saw the dread that was in them now. She would kill his fear that he had been false to his own ideals, give him loyalty and honor to be his companions through the years. For she had learned life's difficult lesson of relative values, and she knew what was of greatest worth. Leniency to- wards others, because of the impossibility of knowing the truth about their temptations and resistances, yes; but never a compromise with one's highest standards for one's self. Only a couple of seconds elapsed between Donald's "Good-by, Miss Wynne" and the instant when Nita faced him, her hand out- stretched, a sweet grave smile on her lips. But in that flash of time she had met the supreme test, had fought her battle, and emerged vic- torious. "Good-by," she said. "Please remember me to all our friends on the committee." Voice and smile were held steady, unfalter- ing. If she spoke with a touch of solemnity, it was no more than the occasion warranted. And then he was gone, hurrying with his quick limping step across the gangway to the pier and Elsie. Darkness closed over Nita; she swayed and caught at the rail to steady herself. For a moment she clutched it, blindly, despairingly. A long, slow shudder passed through the 286 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH huge vessel, and that movement seemed to dispel the darkness. Once again Nita saw the sunlit river, the jagged sky-line, the veil of smoke which hung festooned over the city, the brilliant blue above, the little group of peo- ple standing on the shore. Then river and sky and shore vanished. She saw one face, one only. The ship trembled again. A tiny line of water appeared between it and the wharf, a line which broadened slowly at first, then faster and faster. And still Nita saw noth- ing save Donald Forsythe's face. He stood perfectly still, not moving even to make a ges- ture of farewell; but she knew he was watch- ing her. For the second time in her life she had closed a door behind her; for the second time in her life she was going out alone, into the unknown. Wider and wider grew the space between them as the steamer advanced in stateliest fashion towards the sea. The little group on shore became blurred, merged presently into a formless mass. Slowly, steadily, relentlessly, the great ship moved onward towards those lands over which the war-cloud hung. And 287 to Nita Wynne, standing there alone, as she believed that henceforward she must always stand, there came again that solemn sense of consecration the touch of God's hand laid upon her soul. CHAPTER XX THE LITTLE GODS ENJOY THEMSELVES fTlHE August sun, reflected back from a A brick wall on the opposite side of a nar- row court, poured a steady stream of heat into Donald Forsythe's small private office, though it was only about half -past nine o'clock. The day was not an exceptionally warm one, but the little room was already like an oven. And yet Donald dreaded leaving it, as leave it he must early in the following week, for East Hampton and Elsie. He was thinner than ever, if that were pos- sible, the lines of his irregular profile more sharply cut, the hollows at the temples more pronounced, the dark eyes more deeply set. His life, never particularly easy, had been doubly difficult since that April day of which he scarcely dared to think. Always he had found his one anodyne in work, and during these past months he had toiled as never be- fore. THE LITTLE GODS 289 The telephone rang imperiously; he failed to recognize the voice which asked: "Is this Mr. Forsythe Mr. Donald For- sythe?" "Yes. Who's speaking, please?" "This is Cuthbert Frayne." "Who? I didn't get" "Cuthbert Frayne." "Oh! Good morning, Mr. Frayne." Donald did not allow any note of surprise to enter his voice, but he nevertheless won- dered what on earth Cuthbert Frayne could possibly want with him. There had been months, during the past autumn and winter, when Frayne rather annoyed him, as being the object of one of those transient, silly infatua- tions of Elsie's. But all that had apparently ended some time ago, and much to his relief, since otherwise it would have been out of the question to allow Elsie to go to the country without him, while to require her to remain in town was practically impossible. "Are you alone?" Both the question and the tone in which it was asked were peculiar, and Donald replied promptly and with some curiosity: "Yes; quite alone." 290 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "Then Forsythe, go to East Hampton this morning. Take the ten-seven train. Don't wait go now." "Why, what in the name of " "I can't explain. Only go! And see here, Forsythe. Whatever happens, remem- ber, Z told you to go." The receiver clicked on the hook as, before Donald could say another word, Frayne rang off. He tried to get the connection renewed but without success, and from Frayne's of- fice received only an assurance that he had not been down that day and was not expected be- fore the late afternoon, if then. The whole affair was perplexing; slight as was his acquaintance with Frayne, Donald was sure there was some good reason for his mysterious was it advice, or warning? He had spoken with unmistakable sincerity and there was nothing of importance to be done in the office and just time to catch the ten-seven train. Donald shut his desk. Owing to the breaking-down of a gravel cart at a grade crossing, the train was more than an hour late, and Donald had plenty of time to think the whole matter over quietly before they drew into the station at East Hampton, THE LITTLE GODS 291 a little after two. He had sent no word of his coming, partly because it seemed unnecessary, partly because of a peculiar, foreboding in- stinct. And it was this same sense of tangled issues which led him, once arrived at the Maid- stone Inn, to go unannounced straight up to Elsie's room and knock at her door. The "Come in!" was immediate, as though such a summons had been expected. He opened the door. Elsie faced him, dressed as for a journey. She was fastening her gloves. A packed suit case with her initials on it stood ready beside her. And as she saw him she gave a queer, muffled, animal-like little cry and shrank back. Fluff, tucked under her arm, yapped shrilly. Donald closed the door, and with his back to it stood silent, looking at her. He had a curious feeling of unreality, of playing a part whose every word and gesture had been ar- ranged long ago. "Well?" he said presently. Elsie's cheeks were touched with rouge: it stood forth now, startling against her pallor. Her eyes were full of fear. She had been keyed up to meet another and a very different situation; the existing one had come too sud- 292 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH denly for her rather slow wits to make the im- perative changes, imperative adjustments. She could not take hold of it and protect her- self on the instant as a cleverer woman might have done. "Why are you here?" she gasped. The words meant little; the tone much. Only the surface of his mind was occupied by her. Underneath, he was wondering how and why Cuthbert Frayne had come to know and to give him that warning message. So his reply was long delayed, and she could not en- dure the strain. "You shan't stop me!" she cried sharply, hysterically. "You shan't, I tell you, you shan't! I'm going to him I don't care what you say, I don't care what happens." The rising sobs choked her. Donald, still standing silent, his back against the door, saw red for a moment. A brief, furious rage, unreasoning, atavistic, caught and shook him. He was suddenly sure that it was Cuthbert Frayne to whom Elsie alluded, and had Frayne entered his presence at that instant, he would indubitably have had him by the throat. Then swiftly as it had come, his rage sub- THE LITTLE GODS 293 sided; had not Elsie, in accordance with her own expressed wish, long ceased to be his wife in anything but name? Between them no mental or spiritual bond had ever existed. Why should he, a reasonable man of the twentieth century, yield to the possessive, dog-in-the-manger instinct of the primitive brute? His composure regained, he looked her up and down wonderingly. He had long known the potentiality that was within her of this sud- den recklessness, this sudden willingness to fling aside the social position about which she talked so much, seeming to value it so highly. Always he had marveled at the streak of primitive passion in the otherwise worldly and calculating Elsie, aware that it might at any instant transform her into a little animal, ready to sacrifice to her immediate desires and appetites all that she usually cared for most. One could not, he knew, count on her, count on her reactions to any given stimulus, as it is possible to do with most people. But he was not a physician, and he did not fully under- stand, did not see the whole truth as Doctor Brainerd had glimpsed it on that winter even- ing when the pink-shaded candlelight falling 294 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH on Elsie's face had revealed that which he felt guilty for having observed. Donald's voice was tired and pitying, rather than angry, as he asked quietly and a little wonderingly: "Is it Cuthbert Frayne?" She had quailed at sight of him, and she quailed still. She tried to answer, tried to protest, but could not. It was as though he had brought with him an arctic frost, congeal- ing her hot blood. And just at that moment a knock sounded on the door, and they heard the voice of the Irish porter, saying: "The carriage is coom ter take yer ter th' thrain, m'm." Donald opened the door, so placing himself that he screened Elsie. "Mrs. Forsythe has changed her mind. She isn't going to-day," he said. He had not the faintest doubt of the power of his will over hers, of his ability perfectly to control her actions, so long as he was with her in person. For these were facts which had been demonstrated many times. The door closed again, and turning, he re- peated his question in a slightly altered form: "It is Cuthbert Frayne?" She nodded ; then broke into a shrill, hysteri- THE LITTLE GODS 295 cal cry: "I will go to him I will I will! I hate you! I've hated you for years! I won't" At the moment she really believed she had hated Donald for years; but she was in truth quite unable to cherish any strong feeling for any length of time, and what she now called hatred was only a mixture of irritation, dis- appointment, and a vague dislike. Donald knew this, and he smiled a little; for to him she could not but seem rather absurd. "You're going to stay here in East Hamp- ton for a while, anyway," he said, with the quiet determination against which she had long since become aware that her resistance was as futile as Fluff's, though this did not prevent her from attempting feeble combat. She threw herself face downwards on the bed, crying unrestrainedly, like the spoilt child she so greatly resembled. "Oh oh ! I wish I was dead! Every- body's horrid to me," she wailed. "I'll kill myself I will! Then you'll be sorry you treated me so! I will kill myself I don't care " "Oh, no, you won't," Donald remarked with calm conviction. "Oh, no, you won't. You 296 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH will sit up and listen to me. Now then," and something, the ring of command in his voice, perhaps, made her obey, though the tears were still running down her face, streaking the rouge and powder, and the great gulping sobs convulsed her slender throat "now then; you were going to run away?" "Y-yes." The word came reluctantly, de- spite her previous outbursts. The expensive French hat of blue straw which matched her suit had been knocked awry, giving her a some- what dissipated appearance. "You were going to Frayne?" The ring of command was still in his voice. For answer, she sobbed violently. He paused; then said with the utmost de- liberation: "It was Frayne who telephoned me to come down here to-day." That made her gasp. "Oh, he wouldn't! He wanted me to wait to go to Reno or some- where and get a divorce, but I I couldn't bear / don't mind the scandal! I love him I" A fresh spasm of sobbing choked her. But that broken confession had dispersed all uncertainty for Donald, making clear the mystery of Frayne's warning. Had the train THE LITTLE GODS 297 been on time, he would have arrived before Elsie's preparations for departure were well under way. His coming would almost cer- tainly have stopped her, while he himself easily might, and very likely would, have re- mained entirely ignorant of the step she had intended to take. A little more quickness of wit on her part Frayne wanted everything arranged legally and in strict accordance with established so- cial customs: Elsie thought only of getting what she wanted with the utmost possible ra- pidity. And she wanted it, he realized, as she had never wanted anything before. Only he did not know that this was simply because Frayne was the first man who, since her mar- riage, had done more than flirt a little with her. He must see Frayne, and at once. "Dry your eyes and wash your face, Elsie," he said authoritatively. "We're not going to let you make a fool of yourself." And with an odd appreciation of the irony of it all, he suddenly recognized that he had linked himself with Cuthbert Frayne. He went down to the office, engaged a room for the night, and calling up Frayne's place 298 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH of business on the telephone, made an appoint- ment to meet him there next day, all with that same odd feeling of unreality, of playing a part previously written and even rehearsed. Then he walked down to the beach and lay awhile on the sand. It would be wise to leave Elsie alone for a time ; and he really had noth- ing more to say to her. Consequently he was not in the least dis- turbed when on the following morning she sulked, refusing to speak to him. His busi- ness now was with Frayne, and for that in- terview he would need all his energies, all his self-control. The appointment was for five o'clock; in- terruptions being distinctly undesirable, Don- ald had chosen a late hour. He was shown at once into the room where Frayne awaited him, a good-sized thickly-carpeted apartment smell- ing strongly of hot leather and stale cigarette smoke. In after years that combination of odors always brought Frayne's face into Don- ald's mind as he saw it then, anxious, with keen, uneasy eyes. For a moment the two men stood measuring each other across the wide oak table which separated them, both aware, the one awk- THE LITTLE GODS 299 vvardly, the other with a certain bitter amuse- ment, that they were ignoring all the conven- tionalities of their unconventional situation. It was Donald who at last broke the silence : "I thought it best that we should meet and talk this affair over quietly," he said. And no one would have guessed that at sight of Frayne the unreasoning, atavistic rage had leaped up in him once more and been sternly repressed. He, the lamester, could dominate only by force of will and brain; and he meant to dominate. Frayne nodded, with a relieved expression which caused Donald to add in the rather caus- tic tone he sometimes used: "Of course, I know that according to all the established rules for a matter of this kind, we ought at least to be breaking chairs over each other's heads. Take it all in all, though, I'm not thirsting for your blood just now. And I'm perfectly willing to suppose that you'll restrain any latent desire you may have to im- bibe mine." "That's right," Frayne's reply was compre- hensive, if not eloquent. He was in truth more than a trifle bewildered. "Well, then, suppose you give me a brief 300 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH history of the whole matter. I really think I may be wrong, but I really do think I have some small claim to enlightenment." Irony was a weapon Frayne did not under- stand. He was, however, neither a weakling nor a coward, and if he knew nothing of rapier play, he was at least capable of wielding a bludgeon with some efficiency. Only just now a bludgeon seemed rather out of place. He drew a long breath, and began: "I met the little lady last summer, and oh, I guess you know well enough how these things start off! I ain't a villain out of a movie show" in moments of excitement Frayne occasionally lapsed into the vernacu- lar "but where's the harm in a bit of flirtin'? 'Least, that was what Z thought. And then I found I was gettin' in deeper and deeper. She well, she wasn't happy." For the first time he squared his big shoul- ders and glanced aggressively at Donald, who gave a little nod. "I know!" he said sympathetically. "She made you feel sorry for her, didn't she? I know!" A blow would have been less humiliating to Cuthbert Frayne than that pronouncement, so THE LITTLE GODS 301 spoken. For a blow he could have returned, while against this hint that he had been what he himself would have termed "an easy mark," he was powerless. Donald saw with entirely carnal satisfaction that his flick of the lash had drawn blood. Frayne had a confused, exasperated sense that it was he who should be triumphant, con- descending to this cripple, to this husband whose wife was ready to leave him at the lift- ing of his Frayne's little finger. It was his to be superior, his to sneer. And yet he was aware of inferiority, of being dominated mentally and morally, by one he could have disposed of, physically, with ease. His irritation showed in voice and manner as he replied bluntly: "Yes, she did. Damned sorry." Donald held up a protesting hand. "There, there!" he said in the soothing man- ner he knew to be particularly galling to Frayne. No person on earth is so exasperat- ing as the opponent who is able to keep his temper after we have lost our own. "Don't get excited ; it's much too hot." But for all his soothing tone, his nonchalant manner, his knowledge that it was he who dom- 302 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH inated the situation, the consciousness of his physical inferiority to Frayne was like a gnawing tooth within him. Frayne glowered at him, speechless for a moment. Then he managed to control him- self so far as to be able to snap out: "Well, what the devil are we to do, anyway? What are you going to do?" "You think that's the question?" "Of course; ain't it?" Donald smiled; and again that feeling of unreality and a part rehearsed, swept over him. "If you'll pardon my saying so," he re- marked pleasantly, "your point of view seems to me a trifle shall we call it, medieval? Will you be so good as to tell me frankly just how you think I am to settle affairs for the three of us? I'd really like to know." Frayne opened his mouth to speak, but no words came, and he sat staring at Donald and looking somewhat like a huge, embarrassed, gasping fish. Concrete issues he could man- age, whether they were of men or of events, but these subtleties perplexed him hopelessly. Characteristically enough, he had endeavored THE LITTLE GODS 303 to dispose of his difficulties by dumping them on another man's shoulders. And still that other man waited for a reply, ' an ironical smile just touching his clean- shaven, thin-lipped mouth, as though he read Frayne's thoughts and considered them amus- ing. "A man ought to be able to manage his own wife." Frayne was perfectly aware of the banality of this remark, but he could think of no other. Donald's smile became a wee bit more pro- nounced. "How, please?" he inquired. "By lock and key, physical violence, or will power? The first two methods are obsolete in fact, they're actually illegal and the third requires con- stant exertion. Oh, I admit that face to face with Elsie, I'm entirely capable of govern- ing her, but surely you don't expect me to remain face to face with her for the rest of my natural life?" "Then you mean to let her do as she darned pleases?" Frayne's exclamation was unmis- takably tinged with alarm. "Not altogether. But if your respect for the proprieties hadn't induced you to call on 304 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH me for assistance You see?" A shrug completed the sentence. "What did she tell you?" Frayne demanded brusquely. It was quite needless to explain that he had believed Elsie possessed of a quicker wit than was hers. "That you wanted her to go to Reno and get a divorce, but she objected to the neces- sary exile. I understand it was your strong desire to have everything done decently and in order." Frayne hesitated. As well almost as Don- ald himself, he knew the word "exile" had been substituted for another. Presently he said with a certain blunt straightforwardness which was not without dignity: "Well, not to beat about the bush any, it's this way. I'd like to marry the little lady. I guess we'd hit it off first-rate. She's my sort, and she ain't yours. She don't care a hang about the things you like; all she wants is plenty of money and the kind of good time I'd give her. Ain't that so?" Donald nodded. "Yes," he said slowly, "yes, you're right." "But you see it's this way, 4 ' Frayne went on, encouraged by the other's attitude. THE LITTLE GODS 305 "Scandal wouldn't suit my book not by a long shot. I'm a self-made man, socially, and I've had to do some pretty stiff climbin'. I mean to climb higher yet, but I couldn't do it with a wife other women wouldn't know. See?" "I see. But you can hardly expect me to become greatly exercised over the difficulties of your social career." "No; but that ain't all." Frayne was speaking now with obvious embarrassment. " 'Twouldn't suit her either. You know how women are, once they've kicked over the traces! And she's the sort that if she ever thought she was outside " He broke off with an imploring glance at Donald, drew forth a large silk handkerchief, and wiped his moist forehead. "I understand," said Donald quietly. "Go on." Frayne paused. He very much did not want to go on. The thing in Elsie which Doc- tor Brainerd had divined and Donald felt, the thing which underlay and complicated the en- tire situation, he was vaguely aware of, but without knowledge or understanding. "Well," he went on at last, "there ain't much 306 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH more to say. If you and her get divorced, then she can marry me all straight and regu- lar. But I wish" Again he broke off, and again Donald forced him to continue : "Go on!" "I wish it could be managed without her goin' off all alone to a place like Reno. Here in New York where people know her it's dif- ferent." Donald glanced up quickly, with a half sup- pressed exclamation: "Ah! You see the danger too, then?" "You bet I do! I didn't at first, but now " "It's the obstacle which occurred to me.' Frankly, I have a certain feeling of re- sponsibility. And yet I don't quite see how a smash-up of some sort is to be avoided." A long pause; in the stillness a couple of flies buzzed insistently. At last Frayne said with a curious mixture of diffidence and bravado : "There's a way if you'll take it." "What's that?" "Let her divorce you here." THE LITTLE GODS 307 Donald's shoulder jerked. "But that means " Frayne had intended to say one thing; he substituted another. "Providing legal evi- dence. It's often done." "Yes, I know" "Of course, if you insist on Reno," Frayne continued thoughtfully, "I suppose between us we can make the little lady agree." "If I insist! Really, my dear Mr. Frayne!" "Oh, damn it all! I forgot!" Frayne's consternation was as sincere as it was ludi- crous. "Sittin' here talkin', we two "It's not quite the usual thing under the cir- cumstances, is it? But it seems so much more sensible than coffee and pistols for two, for instance." Frayne started, and looked uneasy, and Donald smiled a little. He had dominated, as he had meant to do; he could feel confident that if he yielded, he yielded to his own belief that he was doing what was right and just, not to Cuthbert Frayne. For he knew that it was Frayne who feared him, not he Frayne. "Of course," he said encouraginglyhe could afford to be encouraging now! "of 308 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH course, if things weren't exactly as they are" He stopped there. He could not add that if he had had a spark of love left for his wife, or if he had thought her one who required more than material and sensual satisfactions, he would be opposing with all the strength of his wit and his will the man with whom he now talked so quietly. Frayne continued eagerly: "Of course, I know I'm the one who ought to pay the shot all right, if anybody's got to pay! If we didn't have such a damfool divorce law in this State there'd be no trouble. It would be just a plain matter of correctin' a mistake, and no harm done to anybody. But as things are " Again Donald's shoulder jerked. "As things are, it looks as if I might have to make myself legally culpable in order to keep Elsie from spoiling all the rest of her life ! Thanks to you " But he stopped there. For he knew Elsie too well to hold Frayne entirely, or even prin- cipally responsible. Frayne or another the first who seemed likely to satisfy the demands of her real self, unfastidious beneath the so- cial veneer, greedy, sensual, materialistic, un- THE LITTLE GODS 309 intelligent. There was no doubt whatever in his mind that Frayne was right when he de- clared that he would "hit it off first-rate" with Elsie. She would be at once happier and safer with Frayne, who could give her all she wanted, than she had ever been with him ; mat- ters had so fallen out that he could best fulfill the pledge and obligation he had taken upon himself by leaving her free to become the wife of this other man. He smiled a little grimly as he thought of the smirch he must put upon his own name, the infidelity of which he must become apparently guilty in order that the very essence of loyalty might be preserved. And when he left Frayne, he had agreed seri- ously to consider "the one way." Surely, the little gods were enjpying them- selves ! The grim smile was still on Donald's lips as he got into the elevator, for he believed that this thing which he had practically agreed to do, far from removing the barrier between Nita Wynne and himself, would render it for- ever impassable. CHAPTER XXI AN END AND A BEGINNING rTlHE first bit of information about the A ironic twist Donald's affairs had taken that Nita received, came to her one April morning, as she lay in her steamer chair, propped up with pillows, and watched the sunshine sparkling on the waters of the Irish Sea. Nearly a year of hard work, "some- where in France," and constant strain, mental and moral as well as physical, had temporarily exhausted her usually abundant stock of vi- tality. The doctors had ordered her to go home and rest, under threat of a possible in- validism, and she was now on her way from Liverpool to New York, her common sense telling her that she was incapacitated for the kind of work she had been doing during the past months, while in her own country she could add her voice, her testimony, feeble though both might be, in protest against con- tinued and shameful inaction. For the AN END AND A BEGINNING 311 Lusitania had been followed by the Arabic and the Ancona; the crowning atrocity of the Sw- sex had brought forth one more example of epistolary talents, and the United States was still, officially at least, on friendly terms with the murderer nation. Nita thought of the hos- pital near Paris where she had served, of the children in the little English coast villages, foully done to death by Zeppelin bombs, of the faces of the Belgian refugees But these were thoughts against which she had been warned. She moved a little, and the edge of the fur rug in which she was wrapped to the chin touched her cheek caressingly. She drew forth one hand and stroked it with an almost childish delight. It was so pleasant to remember that such soft and lovely things still existed in the world! And now she was going back home. Once more the problems of that individual life, of whose importance to herself she had come to feel almost ashamed, must be met face to face. Not that she had ever forgotten or tried to evade them; only to one of her sympathetic temperament self-abnegation had seemed in- evitable, a mere matter of course there in France, where a nation set the example. 312 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH For a long time Nita lay alone, soothed by that gentle lapping of the water she was so soon to exchange for the clash! bang! of the New York streets. She was dreaming rather than thinking, for her brain seemed partly be- numbed by the very force and multiplicity of the impressions it had received during the past year: yet what she had seen was after all but a tiny fragment of the stupendous whole. And now as she reclined there, temporarily out of it all, the one thing clearly present to her mind was a sense of fellowship, of being herself one in a vast, closely knit organization of indi- viduals, strikingly different, strikingly alike. She was proud, very proud, of her own small part in this fellowship, while humble as never before in her opinion of herself. For she had seen what men and women mere ordinary, everyday men and women can become; real- ized as a living, splendid fact what she had heretofore only believed in a vague, theoretical way : that in humanity divinity abides. She was presently aroused by the appearance of the steward, bringing letters forwarded from her hotel in London. Nita read several with mild pleasure, and at last came to one in her stepmother's sprawling hand. Mrs. AN END AND A BEGINNING 313 Wynne loved to pour forth gossip, and as let- ters offer a means of doing this unchecked by interruptions, she was the most faithful of cor- respondents. Her writing was fairly legible, and Nita went idly through paragraph after paragraph of small talk, which if it told of an existence that now seemed very remote, was nevertheless restful to one who had been living at a tension which strained body and nerves to the breaking point. She turned a page: "I have one piece of news I'm sure will sur- prise you," Mrs. Wynne wrote. "Elsie has divorced Donald Forsythe, and in this State! The case was tried before a referee, and so far as I can find out, no one knows much about it. Well, it only goes to prove what I've always said: Any woman can get a divorce if she really wants one. Watch the man; that's all there is to it." Nita gave a little gasp and sat up straight, eagerly looking for more. But the next sen- tence switched to a different topic, and she dropped back again among the pillows, un- consciously crushing the letter in a hard grip. Lightning-swift her thoughts raced back over the years, seeking an explanation; the seem- ingly obvious one she had instantly dismissed, 314 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH as unworthy of even the briefest consideration. She knew Donald Forsythe too well. Some- thing of the truth she divined almost instantly, but the actual, rather ironical way it had come about, she could not even guess at. Her belief was that her dread had been justified, and Donald permitted Elsie to obtain the divorce in order to save her good name. Such were the outlines of the affair as she saw them, not wholly unlike the fact, only more crude, more glaring in color. It was when she tried to fill in those outlines that she found herself at- tempting the impossible. Passing from this vain endeavor, she sought to gauge Donald's mental attitude toward the situation and toward herself. It was then that she came nearest to the full truth, al- most as near, indeed, as it is ever possible for one human being to come to the mind and heart of another. She remembered the sacrifice she had made, the ideal of loyalty she had held so high. And humbly, from the very depths of her soul, she thanked God that in this one thing at least she had not failed. There might, prob- ably would be, whispers and innuendoes; the law would forbid them to marry in their own city and State. All that these unpleasant- AN END AND A BEGINNING 315 nesses would mean to him, loving and reverenc- ing her as he did, she very well understood; but she intended to brush them aside. Before the high judgment seat of their own con- sciences they would stand, he and she, free from blame. And once again a weary, dragging voice echoed in her ears: "Nothing matters any more." What matters, what does not matter : some- thing of this was among the lessons the years had taught her. Of these and many other things she thought long and often during the following week while, lying at ease in her steamer chair, she drew in fresh vitality with every breath from the sea she dearly loved. And sometimes mem- ory took her back to the girl who had been so sure of herself, so ready to pronounce judg- ment on others. "Tolerance is an acquired virtue else it isn't a virtue at all," Donald had said. How much of it had she as yet acquired, who had once had so little? And suddenly she remembered an episode of her youth, her own emphatic: "She smokes and makes up and drinks cocktails, and every one knows that she and Mr. Ashurst arranged their divorce. 316 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH Nice women don't do such things." She could hear herself saying that, could see the dining room in her old home, her father seated on the other side of the damask-covered table. How positive she had been then! The days of the voyage, the first few days after her return slid by, shadowy as a remem- bered dream. It seemed to her that her real life was temporarily suspended while she waited for the meeting which was to be at once an end and a beginning, to give significance to her existence, past, present, and future. But when a week had passed, she understood that if it was to come at all, it must come either through chance or her own doing; and chance might be so slow, might act so awkwardly ! Two weeks and more had gone, and she was again established in the little apartment on Gramercy Park, when one afternoon she sat down at her desk, wrote a brief note, and dis- patched it on the instant only to wish heart- ily that she could undo the impetuous act the moment the missive was safely in the box. There is such a terrifying finality about the posting of a letter! Yet to the outsider this one would have seemed simple and impersonal enough: AN END AND A BEGINNING 317 My dear Mr. Forsythe, It has occurred to me that several rather in- teresting and perhaps useful articles could be made out of my experiences in France and England. As I know very little about arrang- ing for such things, I am venturing to ask you to come in some afternoon this week and give me a little advice. I have been ill, and am still unable to go around very much, else I would not trouble you. Very sincerely yours, ANITA WYNNE. Businesslike and unromantic, surely! Yet Nita flushed crimson every time she thought of those somewhat stiff phrases. She hoped he would come immediately she hoped he would not come at all I And then she rebuked herself for giving so much as an instant's consideration to the traditions and standards of behavior inherited from generations of women to whom a husband meant not only a mate but also a food-and-clothes purveyor. For ten years and more she had faced the world, standing erect and unaided on her own two feet. She was glad now that circumstances had thrust her out of the ranks of the dependents, Although it seemed long to her, in clock measurement the time was short between her 318 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH sending of the note and Donald's appearance. She had mailed it late one afternoon, and the next his quick limping step sounded in the hall outside her door. She rose and stood waiting, lithe, tense, seeming as of old poised ready for flight. But when he entered and took her outstretched hand, she could not see his face for the mist that dimmed her eyes. And she never knew how long the silence lasted. Presently they were seated, she leaning back in the big chair which was Mary's favor- ite, he sitting straight and stiff, rigid as never before in her presence. And his first question came almost tonelessly, as if an effort were re- quired just to force it through his lips: "You've been ill?" She smiled, a little wistfully ; somehow, with the breaking of the long silence, ease had come to her. More than ever did she resemble a crystal-shielded flame. Her slender form, her long, thin, nervous hands, seemed refined to the very utmost, as though the inner fire had burned away all the dross, leaving only an ex- quisite, transparent shell for the radiant spirit to inhabit, "Yes," she said quietly; and though she AN END AND A BEGINNING 319 thought she spoke in her usual tone, her voice had never before been so musical, so velvet- soft. "Yes, a little. I worked too hard, of course. Every one does over there." A shadow passed across her face, darkening her eyes for a moment. She would never forget what she had seen "over there." "And now?" If the breaking of the silence had brought ease to her, for him self-control was becoming more difficult every instant. Her fragile look, the wistful smile, the passing shadow all these indicated a need which appealed to every fiber of manliness within him. "And now," she repeated, speaking very quietly, though the slim hands clasped together in her lap held each other in a tense grip, "and now I want to pick up all the threads I've dropped in the past eleven months. I want to find out" she forced herself to finish the sen- tence, though the violent beating of her heart made her almost breathless "what has hap- pened to all my friends and why." He drove straight at what he recognized for the real meaning of her words; fencing, eva- sion, seemed unworthy, almost an insult to her. "You know, then?" 320 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH An instant she hesitated, but only that she might master the choking constriction of her throat. And in one brief sentence she ex- pressed her faith : "I know you have saved Elsie," she said. He had been staring out of the window with eyes that saw nothing of either park or street. Now he turned towards her sharply, as his shoulder jerked in the old familiar way. Loyal to the end, he would have denied the implication, but could not with those beloved eyes upon him. "Who is the man?" she asked gently. "Cuthbert Frayne. They will be married next month." Why refuse to admit what she would surely know in a very little while ? "Then what we both tried so hard to pre- vent ?" For the first time in all the years that difficult joint guardianship was thus openly acknowledged. But he interrupted her with a quick gesture of denial. "No I not that." "Tell me ; I want to think as well of her as I can." And bluntly, minimizing as far as he could Elsie's wrong, laying all possible stress on his own shortcomings, he told her what he had AN END AND A BEGINNING 321 thought never to reveal to any human being. When he had finished, she was silent for a time, while her knowledge both of him and of Elsie supplied many of the gaps his chivalry had left unfilled. Then very slowly she asked : "And what of you?" "I've left the Colonial, and I'm joining the staff of the National Review/' "Oh, I am gladl" she exclaimed, the old eager interest in tone and manner. For the National Review, a weekly paper recently started by a little band of exceptionally intelli- gent men and women appealed, and was in- tended to appeal, to educated and public- spirited readers, and was achieving a success very unlike that sought by the Colonial. While they talked, the light had faded. The corners of the room were full of shadows ; everywhere outlines were softened. And with the shadows, memories came thronging. "But you?" Donald spoke brusquely, almost violently. For his heart had leaped at that note of eager interest in her voice, "You won't go back." She shook her head; and the mouth which character had shaped into lines both strong and sweet quivered a little. 322 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH "Not for a time, at least." Something of the struggle and the agony, the sacrifices and the heroisms she had witnessed and shared found expression now through the new, deep thrill in her tones. "It was all very wonder- ful. I'm just beginning to see fiow wonder- ful" She paused, unable to find words, she whose speech had always been so swift, so impet- uous. And neither of them remembered the osten- sible reason for his presence. Suddenly he rose ; the strain and the conflict were becoming too great for his endurance. He dared not stay. And Nita realized his pain and his struggle, and all the strength of her being cried out in protest. Her head swam, every nerve quiv- ered. She felt dumb, helpless, stricken; yet she rose and faced him, and words fell from her stiff lips : "I went over there mostly because you wanted to go and couldn't. I tried to do good work for both of us," The last words were scarcely more than breathed; but he heard them and took a quick step forward. Then he recoiled. AN END AND A BEGINNING 823 "For both of us? You don't mean you can't mean " A moment her Hands covered her face, obe- dient to the centuries-old instinct. She dropped them, and confronted him proudly, with head held high. Let him understand if he would. "Nita . . . ? Dearest!" He caught the slender hands in his, and stood looking down at her for one breathless instant, questioning, incredulous. All the complicated, perplexing web of lives entan- gled with theirs fell away now. They were alone together as on some mountain peak. And there was only one thing that mat- tered. Swiftly he drew her to his arms, and she went gladly, yielding her lips, proud to give herself to this man she loved more nobly even than he knew. A little later, as they sat together on that window seat from which Nita had so often looked out, alone, over Gramercy Park, Don- ald said : "And I told myself I mustn't even dream pf trying to make you care for me, mustn't ever 324 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH tell you I loved you, because " He broke off there, and his voice grew suddenly grave. "Dear, how can I dare ask you to marry me? You know what it means; going out of the State and and all that." She laughed softly and very happily ; yet she did indeed know what it meant, knew far more definitely than he, as a woman always under- stands what "people will say" far better than any man ever can. "As if that mattered!" "And I've so little to offer you! Uncle At- kinson never forgave me for those North East- ern articles, though since the war came, he's been willing to speak to me." The words were uttered in all sincerity. He did not know that to Atkinson Matthews, once Major Matthews of the Union Army, his grandnephew's stand for American honor and association with the American Rights Commit- tee had obliterated everything else; nor that because of this, he, Donald Forsythe, would find himself before many months were passed the astonished possessor of a comfortable in- come. Nita laughed again. "What difference does that make? You have your work and I mine; AN END AND A BEGINNING 325 I don't intend to give it up, I warn you. We shan't starve!" "I wonder if any woman ever lived one half so sweet and strong and lovely and gener- ous" She lifted her hand in quick protest, dearly as she loved to hear him praise her. He kissed the delicate fingers, and there was a short, well- filled interval before she said, gently but very seriously: "Don't put me on a pedestal, Donald. It isn't where I belong, dear, and it isn't a bit comfortable. If you try it, I'll fall off and hurt you. Just your good comrade . . ." Another lovers' interlude, and then she went on, giving expression to her thoughts in happy, perfect assurance of his sympathy and compre- hension : "Do you remember what you once said about tolerance being an acquired virtue? It's taken a good many years to teach me even a little bit of it and a good many people too. Dear Miss Cornelia, and my stepmother, and Ru- dolph Drake, and Geraldine Geraldine above all!" She broke off there, realizing how she her- self would be judged when her marriage be- 326 THE LITTLE GODS LAUGH came known, how she herself would once have judged any woman in a similar position. It was another bit of irony for the little gods to laugh over; but only the little gods would laugh, and that just because they were little, and so could not entirely understand. He spoke adoringly: "But, sweetheart, if you hadn't started out with all those fixed ideas of right and wrong, you wouldn't be now what you are. It's only the big people, the idealists, who begin that way, and then are taught by experience by life. If you'd been smaller yourself, you wouldn't have expected so much of everybody else." She smiled up at him. "I wonder \ n she re- plied softly. "I wonder! To sympathize to understand " And the little gods were still. THE END By the author of " The Broad Highway" THE DEFINITE OBJECT Bj/JEFFERY FARNOL Frontispiece by F. Vaux Wilson. $1.50 net A vivid and enthralling romance of New York. Chicago Herald. We do not hesitate to say that Mr. Farnol has here pro- duced not merely his own best work but also one of the best works of fiction that any one has put forward this season. We have read none in which so many and so very different characters stand out more vital and distinct. New York Tribune. Readers will delight in Mr. Farnol's story which moves presto to the end. It is one of the most diverting tales of recent months. Boston Herald. It is written with a whimsical and infectious gayety, a lightness of touch and blitheness of spirit, which are quite exhilarating. New York Times. LITTLE, BROWN & CO., PUBLISHERS 34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FAOT A 000 131 123 2