m 
 
 mi KEYS of 
 
 THE CITY
 
 r 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 presented to the 
 UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SAN DIEGO 
 
 by 
 
 Tom Ham
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY
 
 THE 
 KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 BY 
 OSCAR GRAEVE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1916
 
 Copyright, 1916, by 
 THE CENTURY Co. 
 
 Publithed, September, 1916
 
 To 
 M. E. G.
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 PAET I
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 CHAPTEE I 
 
 UNTIL David Wells was twelve years he had 
 scarcely a playfellow. A gentle and imag- 
 inative boy, he did not possess those qualities 
 which command the friendship of the youth of his 
 own generation, no matter how keenly he longed 
 for it. But aside from this his isolation was no 
 phenomenon. It is easily explained. 
 
 Along the Shore Road of that suburb of Brook- 
 lyn well named Bay Ridge, perched high on the 
 cliff overlooking New York harbor, were many 
 large and beautiful homes, old houses for the 
 greater part, with wide lawns and verandas with 
 fine Colonial pillars but, beneath the cliff, for many 
 a mile, there was only the little red house where 
 David lived with his father and mother. And his 
 father made his living by fishing and renting out 
 boats, which was more than ample reason why the 
 mothers of the Shore Road residences should for- 
 bid their offspring to play with the fisherman's 
 boy. Occasionally the lure of the rowboats and 
 the gray old wharf drew these children down de- 
 
 3
 
 4 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 spite their parents ' commands, but with the cruel 
 and unvarnished snobbery of childhood they let 
 David see plainly enough that they were conde- 
 scending, and unless he was hard pressed by lone- 
 liness he would have none of them. He had his 
 pride as well as they. 
 
 Then Nora Davenport came down to the Bay 
 Ridge shore for the summer with her father and 
 mother and a certain Colonel Craig, and at this 
 household, especially at a peculiar air of bravado 
 which Mrs. Davenport flaunted before them, the 
 neighboring ladies suspected the worst, withdrew 
 their skirts, and walked by the house, which the 
 Davenports rented, with averted glances. Ac- 
 cordingly little Nora Davenport was as severely 
 shunned as David ; in the most natural way in the 
 world the two detached little bodies drifted to- 
 gether and became dear friends. 
 
 It was one afternoon in June that they first fell 
 into companionship, 
 
 David had not yet emerged from that period in 
 which digging in the sand and erecting all sorts 
 of forts and battlements and castles was an en- 
 grossing pastime. He was delving deep into a 
 pool when Nora, sauntering aimlessly along the 
 beach, encountered him and halted. 
 
 "What is it a tunnel?" she asked after three 
 minutes of silent inspection.
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 5 
 
 The boy had been acutely aware of her- pres- 
 ence, even of her approach, but he said nothing, 
 only dug the more furiously until she made the 
 advance. Then he looked up eagerly enough. 
 "No, it 's not a tunnel." 
 
 "Is it just a plain pool?" 
 
 "No, it 's an aquarium. When the tide comes 
 in and goes out again I expect there '11 be a lot of 
 killies in it and maybe a crab." 
 
 "What are killies?" 
 
 "You know little fish." 
 
 "Minnows?" 
 
 "Some people call 'em that." 
 
 She waited a minute. "You can find them in 
 all the old pools around here without digging new 
 ones. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, but it 's more fun to dig your own pool. 
 Then you feel as if you owned it. ' ' 
 
 She took a step forward, and David was able 
 to see her perfectly without betraying his interest 
 too obviously. He saw at once, of course, that she 
 was a stranger, and he appreciated in a vague 
 way that she was expensively dressed. Her 
 short, white skirt stuck out primly starched and 
 her thin, straight, black legs were sheathed in 
 stockings free from the darned patches which in- 
 variably disfigured his, while on her small feet 
 were low, black shiny shoes with silver buckles.
 
 6 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 Suddenly in the midst of his inspection she flopped 
 down beside him and sat with her legs crossed. 
 It was done with so enchanting a disregard of the 
 effect of wet stones and sand upon white linen 
 that it quite won David's heart. 
 
 "What do you do with the minnows and crabs 
 when you catch them?" she asked, bending over 
 to peer into the pool, her straight little nose 
 wrinkled with the intensity of her inspection, her 
 wide black sailor hat pushed so far back upon her 
 dark brown hair that it resembled a somber 
 halo. 
 
 He gave her a quick glance, wondering if she 
 were worthy of his confidence, and finally trusted 
 her with a stammering and red-faced, "Oh, I I 
 make believe.'* 
 
 "Fairy stories and all that?" 
 
 "No, not fairy stories. I 've outgrown them, 
 but stories about heroes and princesses and 
 kings. ' ' 
 
 "Those are fairy stories." 
 
 ' ' No, they 're not, ' ' he exclaimed, anxiously try- 
 ing to make the subtle difference clear; "there 'a 
 no witches or fairies in 'em; just people like you 
 and me, people that could be real, only they 're of 
 noble blood and do wonderful things. ' ' 
 
 "I believe in fairy stories," she said; but not 
 to be outdone by him in knowledge, added quickly :
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 7 
 
 "Of course, I don't really, truly believe in them. 
 I just make believe I believe in them. It 's much 
 nicer. ' ' 
 
 There fell a little silence upon them, and the 
 girl picked up a round white stone and threw it 
 far so that it fell into the open water beyond the 
 pools and the rocks. The way she did it called 
 forth David's admiration and he felt an over- 
 whelming desire to know more about her. 
 ' ' What 's your name 1 " he asked. 
 
 "Nora Davenport. I 've only come down to 
 Bay Ridge for the summer. We live in New 
 York in the winter, but every summer we go away 
 somewhere near enough to the city for my father 
 and Colonel Craig to go there every day." 
 
 "Who 's Colonel Craig?" 
 
 * ' Oh, he 's a sort of uncle, I guess. He always 
 lives with us." 
 
 Then David told her his name and who he was, 
 fearful that when she heard she would declare, as 
 so many others had done, that she would not be 
 allowed to play with him. She did nothing of 
 the kind, however, but merely sat and looked at 
 him with her wide, gray eyes. So the two chil- 
 dren studied each other, half-hesitant, half-bold, 
 with beating hearts, wondering, as all of us do at 
 times, whether here at last was the true comrade 
 to whom we can tell everything, before whom we
 
 8 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 can pour out our innermost thoughts and feel- 
 ings, knowing that they shall receive not ridicule 
 but sympathy, not criticism but understanding. 
 They were very much interested in each other, 
 but they took the most elaborate precautions to 
 hide their interest. When for the second or third 
 time their eyes met questioningly, they were over- 
 come with confusion, and they turned their gaze 
 to the bay and the little waves which spread their 
 fringed and rounded edges like soft filmy lace 
 upon the sand. 
 
 The June afternoon hung between five and six. 
 It was a very golden afternoon. A fine and won- 
 derfully transparent golden curtain had de- 
 scended from heaven, or rather it was as if some 
 one had scattered tiny golden flakes like a light 
 snowstorm turned golden, over the trees and the 
 grass and the water. Even the blue sky looked 
 golden, a black bird hung aloft in its golden bowl, 
 and there was a golden haze in the air. The 
 green and brown shores of Staten Island, a full 
 mile across the bay, appeared startlingly near; a 
 white spire rising from among pale green trees 
 shone against the blue sky. And ships with sails 
 vividly white crept over the water without creat- 
 ing a ripple, as if drawn by invisible wires. It 
 was all very still, just the little waves met and 
 frothed, whispered and parted.
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 9 
 
 At last David jumped to his feet with: "-Have 
 you seen the City from here?" 
 
 "The City!" % 
 
 "Yes. If you climb out on those rocks, from 
 the farthest one, that great big black one, you 
 can see New York. I often climb out there to 
 see it. But you '11 have to be careful because the 
 rocks are wet and covered with seaweed the 
 water 's deep all around there. But I '11 help 
 you. ' ' 
 
 She threw back the heavy strands of her hair 
 with an impatient hand, "Let 's race down," she 
 suggested, flashing him a challenging glance, 
 which he was to come to recognize as characteristic 
 of her. 
 
 She saw that he was ready and her slender body 
 straightened and was off with the gliding smooth- 
 ness of a bird's flight. It was all David could do 
 to keep up with her and it was she who actually 
 reached the rocks first. She knew by his expres- 
 sion that he was piqued, so she put her hand on 
 his shoulder and said, breathless and laughing, 
 "Don't be angry because I won. I know it 's 
 made you mad just because I 'm a girl. Think of 
 me as a boy, I don't want any odds. If you do 
 that we '11 get along lots better." 
 
 "I '11 help you over the rocks." He extended 
 his hand, his touch of vexation vanished.
 
 10 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 "No, I don't want your help." Nora was al- 
 ready on the third rock, balancing for the fourth. 
 
 * ' The water 's deep. ' ' 
 
 "I can swim," she threw back over her shoul- 
 der. 
 
 "Bet I can beat you swimming." 
 
 "Bet you can't!" 
 
 "We '11 see some day." 
 
 They reached the last rock and gave their atten- 
 tion to the City. From the beach it could not be 
 seen as the curving shore hid it from view, but 
 from here it loomed large in the distance, stately 
 and impressive, yet shadowy and mysterious, like 
 the Phantom City of a dream. Although many 
 of the highest buildings were not yet erected and 
 the kings of them all were not to rise for many 
 a year, the pinnacles of the City already leapt to 
 meet the low evening sl$y which hung around 
 them like violet and pink veils. 
 
 David sat down on the rock and rested his chin 
 on his hanH, gazing at the City, silent so long 
 that Nora asked impatiently, "What are you 
 thinking about!" 
 
 "I 'm thinking it 's like Far Cathay." 
 
 "What 's Far Cathay?" 
 
 * ' I don 't know. I read it somewhere. ' ' 
 
 "Have you ever been to the City?" 
 
 He shook his head. "Not to'New York. I've
 
 THE KEYS OP THE CITY 11 
 
 been to Brooklyn quite often. Mother takes me 
 about twice a month when |he goes to see ^ier law- 
 yer. But never to the City we see from here. ' ' 
 
 "You '11 go some day?" 
 
 He did not reply immediately, but arose and 
 stood facing the City, gazing at it eagerly, in- 
 tently, with longing and yet with a little defiance. 
 * ' Yes, I '11 go. I often dream of going. Oh, I 
 want to go. ... I want to be a man, there in 
 the City, ^rking away for something. And yet 
 it 's so big, so looking as if it did n't care ! But I 
 want to go ; I 'm not afraid of it." 
 
 Nora considered his words, a crease between her 
 frowning little eyebrows. She was sitting with 
 one leg drawn up and her hands slightly grimy 
 from seaweed and sand, clasping her knee. Some- 
 thing in what David had said carried its thrill to 
 her. ' ' Oh, I wish I were a man ! ' ' she exclaimed 
 savagely. 
 
 David dropped beside her; he had appeared 
 older standing, facing the City, but he was quite 
 boyish and commonplace again. "Why?" te 
 asked absently, seeing how near he could get his 
 foot to the water without actually wetting it. 
 
 "Well, it seems to me all that a girl can make 
 believe is she 's going to be married some day 
 and have a lot of children. I don't like to make 
 believe that."
 
 12 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 "What do you make believe then?" 
 
 "Oh, I pretend that I 'm sailing somewhere 
 with a pirate crew, and sometimes I 'm the cap- 
 tain and, of course, I 'm a man then, and some- 
 times I pretend I 'm a beautiful white captive 
 stolen from the Morocco coast and, of course, then 
 I 'm a woman." 
 
 David was deeply interested; here was a girl 
 with an imagination he immediately acknowledged 
 the peer of his own. "What do the pirates do to 
 the beautiful white captive f ' ' 
 
 "They all fall in love with me and then they let 
 me go free." 
 
 "Oh, go on, I bet they wouldn't. The captain 
 would take you to his hut on a desert isle and from 
 there you 'd be rescued after many years by an 
 English nobleman and " 
 
 "No, I wouldn't at all," interrupted Nora, sur- 
 prised and displeased at his temerity in tampering 
 with her story; "I wouldn't do that at all." 
 
 "What would you do!" 
 
 "I don't know. I know when I 'm really pre- 
 tending, but I can't pretend when you keep on 
 spoiling things. ' ' 
 
 The afternoon was fading; gray and somber 
 violet were taking the place of gold. Nora 
 scrambled to her feet and cried, "Lord, I bet it 's 
 late. I have to go home to dinner. If I 'm late I
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 13 
 
 have to eat in the kitchen; although I 'd just as 
 lief only they leave out the peppermints at the 
 end of the dinner in the kitchen. ' ' 
 
 1 'I have to go home, too,'* said David. 
 " There 's mother now. See her out on the boat 
 landing? She 's looking around. She don't see 
 me." He called and waved his hand and the 
 woman, when she saw he was coming, waved in re- 
 ply and, turning, disappeared into the little red 
 house. 
 
 The children clambered back over the rocks. 
 David offered his hand, but Nora firmly refused it 
 and as a consequence, slipped and almost fell. 
 
 ' * I told you you 'd better let me help you, ' ' cried 
 David exultantly. 
 
 "I didn't fall, did I?" retorted Nora tartly. 
 
 "You almost did." 
 
 "Well, what you almost do doesn't count." 
 
 When, at last, they stood firmly on the sandy 
 beach, there was an awkward pause. 
 
 "I '11 see you to-morrow," Nora said presently, 
 kicking at a smooth white log drifted in from the 
 sea. 
 
 David's hands were buried in his pockets and his 
 feet were firmly planted far apart as he gazed at 
 her and said: "Perhaps you 'd rather play with 
 some of the others. If you would you 're welcome 
 to, but I 'd rather know now." He said it defi-
 
 14 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 antly, but he was glad she could not see the anx- 
 iety with which he awaited her answer. 
 
 "Oh, they won't play with me. I don't know 
 why," she said, in a matter-of-fact tone as if long 
 since she had given up the problem as insolvable, 
 "so let 's just us two be friends. I 'd rather have 
 a boy for a friend. Girls are so silly. ' ' 
 
 "All right," he replied seriously; but his heart 
 sang joyously. And he would have liked to have 
 said more, to assure her of his devotion and humil- 
 ity, but he could find no words to express them. 
 
 He watched her as she ran down the beach and 
 up the cliff, swinging her large sailor hat as she 
 ran. At the top of the cliff she turned and called, 
 but he could not understand what she said. So he 
 simply waved. Then he went home to his supper, 
 aglow with happiness and a vibrant excitement.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THEOUGH David's earliest memories ran 
 the murmur of waters. It was like the ac- 
 companiment of an old and plaintive song. Years 
 afterward, when life had buffeted and bruised and 
 taken its toll of him, by merely closing his eyes he 
 could hear the murmur of waters outside the win- 
 dow of the little white room in which he was born. 
 And the room itself he could see distinctly in its 
 every detail. His earliest remembrance was of a 
 morning when he had lifted himself on an elbow 
 and gazed out the small dormer window from 
 whose sill Virginia creeper and honeysuckle waved 
 their leaves in the soft wind. For on that morn- 
 ing, for the first time, he realized what Beauty is. 
 His white cot had a patchwork quilt; bright 
 green and red were its predominating colors, al- 
 though a salmon patch with a pale blue flower in its 
 center was prominent. His mother had made the 
 quilt before he was born, here in the quiet house, 
 awaiting his coming. . . . Then there was a white 
 washstand with red banded towels hanging on a 
 rack beside it; an old humpbacked bureau with a 
 round mirror which caught and threw back the 
 
 15
 
 16 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 morning sunlight; one or two low chairs with 
 thatched seats, and a rag carpet on the floor. 
 
 But better than the room he remembered the 
 view from the window. Out there the waters con- 
 tinuously whispered so that he was conscious of 
 their voices even in his sleep. A short, square- 
 nosed dock pushed its way into the protesting 
 ripples, and moored to it the flotilla of rowboats 
 ceaselessly rocked. And whenever David in later 
 years thought of the view from his window spring 
 was upon it, glorifying it ; the syringa bushes and 
 strawberry shrubs were always in bloom, sending 
 up their heavy scent ; the slopes of the cliff shone in 
 the sun and were pied with yellow and white 
 flowers ; the beach was silver and on the beach the 
 blue water, the wonderful blue water, tossed its 
 foam. 
 
 David's was the only room upstairs in that little 
 red house so closely tucked beneath the cliff that 
 it seemed to carry half its weight on its sturdy 
 roof. Downstairs it spread itself out as a man 
 with a pack on his back spreads his feet to get a 
 firm foundation. There was the kitchen where the 
 meals were eaten as well as cooked, the big square 
 room in which his mother and father slept, and the 
 parlor which was held sacred to Sunday and at 
 best only used in winter when David's mother sat 
 there in the late afternoon in a rocker by the win-
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 17 
 
 dow reading the Bible or the Pilgrim's Progress. 
 In summer she sat outside on the veranda with the 
 book lying open on her lap and her eyes turned to- 
 ward the sea, as if she expected some one who 
 never came. 
 
 David never understood his mother; he stood 
 very much in awe of her even when he was the 
 smallest of toddlers ; she was so silent, so inflexible, 
 and she went about her household duties with lips 
 so tightly pressed together, with such a rigid and 
 bitterly uncomplaining air. 
 
 But towards his father his feelings were quite 
 different. He understood him perfectly and he 
 loved him very much. He was ridiculously proud 
 of his father 's strength. Often he had watched ad- 
 miringly while his father lifted one of the heavy 
 rowboats over his head and carried it, with steady, 
 unwavering steps up above high-water mark to be 
 painted or overhauled. 
 
 Mr. Wells often took David with him on his fish- 
 ing trips. Occasionally they went as far as the 
 ocean side of Staten Island in quest of bluefish or 
 weak fish. Once or twice, to David's delight, they 
 spent the night at an old weather-beaten inn on the 
 south shore of the island, built before the Eevolu- 
 tion, full of the most mysterious passages and 
 corners. Here with David safely tucked in bed 
 John Wells descended to the bar. But long before
 
 18 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 David fell asleep, he would hear his father 's deep 
 voice roaring out wild songs of the sea with a 
 chorus of his cronies taking up the refrain at the 
 end of each verse. Thrilling stuff for the small 
 boy upstairs, hugging the musty-smelling bed cov- 
 ers to his chin, with mad fancies of pirates and sea 
 robbers careening through his mind. . . . 
 
 One thing which David noticed and which his 
 parents never imagined he noticed, was the way 
 in which his father attempted to be affectionate 
 with his mother, to secure her hand, to put his arm 
 around her waist, to touch the back of her neck 
 with his lips as she stood gazing out the window 
 with that expectant look in her eyes. And David 
 noticed his mother always discouraged these at- 
 tempts, and he grew very sorry for the big man 
 who was his father. But he knew quite well that 
 he must never show his sympathy nor must he even 
 betray his intense interest in these things. 
 
 No friends ever came to the little red house. 
 The only visitors were people to inquire whether 
 Mr. Wells could supply them with some extra nice 
 porgies on Friday or a fine mess of eels on Mon- 
 day. Then, of course, on Saturday afternoons and 
 all day Sunday in bright mild weather there was 
 an endless stream of men, women, and children who 
 came to hire boats : young men with their chatter- 
 ing, beribboned sweethearts; family parties of
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 19 
 
 Germans ; men in groups of two or three equipped 
 with fishing tackle and smelling most unpleasantly 
 of whisky. 
 
 For many years David's only playmate was the 
 beach and its myriad treasures shells and the 
 driftwood, pools and their inhabitants, which so 
 conveniently lent themselves to fable and story, 
 and the hundreds of strange things which the sea 
 threw up. Later there were Books ! They opened 
 a world of romance. There was a public library in 
 Bay Eidge not then the red and white brick Car- 
 negie Library which was to supplant it, but an 
 humble library which found shelter in a corner of 
 the huge wooden building called the Atheneum 
 where church concerts and entertainments were 
 given. To this library David made pilgrimage at 
 least thrice a week. At first fairy stories and then, 
 as soon as the librarian permitted, books of the sea 
 and adventure by Captain Marryatt, Mr. Henty, 
 and their fellows. A year or two after he dis- 
 covered Dickens and Scott and, of course, Jules 
 Verne. 
 
 So his life was lived mostly alone until into it 
 swept Nora Davenport, very real, very tangible, 
 and inexpressibly adorable.
 
 CHAPTER in 
 
 HOW that summer sped ! It was a summer of 
 perpetual silver mornings and golden after- 
 noons that, as if, under the wand of an enchanter, 
 melted one into another and swept on like a stream. 
 
 Nora and David were always together, swim- 
 ming together, running down the beach together, 
 evolving innumerable stories together and gener- 
 ally disputing their ending. Nora always insisted 
 upon an unhappy ending "Because things al- 
 ways end unhappily really," she said, her dark 
 eyes glowing with intensity ; while David held out 
 for the more conventional happy-ever-afterward 
 ending. "Because," he said, with a solemn shake 
 of his head, "that 's as it ought to be." 
 
 Quite early in the summer Pip appeared on the 
 scene. Pip was a small black and brown dog with 
 tremendously bowed front legs and an amiable and 
 cock-sure-of-his-welcome expression, despite two 
 protuberant and particularly fierce looking front 
 teeth. He also boasted an abbreviated tail that 
 did a terrific amount of wagging. He was prob- 
 ably some breed of bulldog and when Colonel Craig 
 
 20
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 21 
 
 presented him to Mrs. Davenport who in turn 
 passed him on to her small daughter, it was claimed 
 that he had a most remarkable pedigree. But al- 
 though Pip looked like a bloated prize-fighter who 
 had won every contest in which he had figured, he 
 was extremely genial and friendly. He was not 
 proud. He soon became passionately devoted to 
 Nora who really very much spoiled him, picking 
 him up in her arms and fondling him the while he 
 gazed up into her face and panted, with his red 
 curling tongue hanging out of his mouth and his 
 ridiculous tail doing its best to beat a brisk tattoo 
 against her blue serge skirt. 
 
 Nora lavished on him all the endearing names 
 she could invent, and with Nora that was a very 
 great number. David pretended to be disgusted 
 at this until Nora was out of sight and Pip left 
 in his charge when he was hardly better than 
 she. 
 
 Pip followed them everywhere. He was even 
 with them on the raft. They built it behind a 
 weather-blackened shed that had begun its career 
 as a boathouse, but was now used as a bathhouse 
 by the Dodges who owned it. The children took 
 extraordinary precautions to prevent discovery, 
 for they did not want to be interfered with nor 
 their purpose divined. Secrecy increased the in- 
 terest of their labors a hundredfold. It eventually
 
 22 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 turned out to be a staunch and seaworthy craft. 
 Which was fortunate. 
 
 David's part was to haul the logs up the beach 
 and behind the shed. (Nora lent a hand with the 
 larger ones.) And then Nora and he took turns 
 in sawing and hammering, while Pip lay out in the 
 sun, blinking and ready to sound the alarm if 
 any passers-by appeared. 
 
 Nora discovered a length of wire rope in the 
 tool house of her garden and that virtually solved 
 the problem of holding the raft together. But 
 when, after six days' constant labor, it was fin- 
 ished, they found it so heavy they could not move 
 it. It could not be budged an inch. 
 
 "We should have built it down by the water!" 
 exclaimed Nora, giving the mass of logs a last in- 
 effectual tug, concluding with an exasperated kick, 
 and then sitting down on it disgustedly close to 
 tears. 
 
 "But everybody would have known," said 
 David. 
 
 "It just comes of your wanting to pretend it was 
 a secret warship." 
 
 David gazed at her sorrowfully ; prior to this she 
 had entered into the idea of secrecy with enthusi- 
 asm, and besides, he now remembered, it was she 
 who originally suggested building the raft in back 
 of the boathouse.
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 23 
 
 But he said nothing and merely stood dejectedly, 
 his hands in his pockets, regarding Nora with re- 
 proach and the raft with hatred. 
 
 At last, as the afternoon was getting short, they 
 were obliged to call upon David's father to help 
 them. Nora was the spokesman. Mr. Wells 
 agreed to launch the raft if they promised not to 
 sail out of the little cove. They immediately and 
 cheerfully promised. 
 
 He left them standing on the strand, hanging to 
 the rope attached to the raft, which was serenely 
 bobbing up and down on the broken waves of the 
 little bay. But as soon as the big man passed from 
 their sight David and Nora simultaneously leaped 
 aboard and pushed out. They had oars and a long 
 pole for punting, and they had prepared, days ago, 
 the story to accompany the important ceremony 
 of launching. 
 
 They were Nihilists escaping from Siberia and 
 more immediately from a pack of bloodthirsty 
 wolves by way of the raft. They just reached it in 
 time, as the bloody fangs of the foremost wolf 
 snapped at their heels. Pip, standing on the shore 
 gazing after them reproachfully, was the pack of 
 wolves. But alas for the illusion of the plot! 
 He plunged into the water and swam after them, 
 which was exciting as far as it went but, eventu- 
 ally, they had to lift him out of the water and up
 
 24 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 on the raft instead of beating him off with oars 
 and discharging their last shot at him which the 
 truth of the story demanded. 
 
 1 1 Pippins ! ' ' exclaimed Nora, ' * why could n't you 
 stay on shore ? Now we can't play we 're Nihilists 
 because there 's no use escaping if you 're not es- 
 caping from anything." 
 
 For a time they merely drifted around the little 
 bay, with the erstwhile bloodthirsty wolf sleeping 
 contentedly in the sun. Presently David, who had 
 been musing, brightened with : ' ' We can make be- 
 lieve we 're De Soto going down the Mississippi 
 and the shores are lined with savages. ' ' 
 
 "Was n't he buried in the river at midnight?" 
 
 "Yes; we can bury Pip." 
 
 "No; he's wet enough already; besides he 
 would n 't make a very good De Soto except when 
 he 's being buried. ' ' 
 
 "Well, let 's play the first part anyway." 
 
 In their zeal at getting away from the savages 
 they did not notice they were drifting rapidly out 
 of the inner bay and past the line of rocks whose 
 arm was its chief shelter. They did not realize it 
 until a current took hold of the raft and carried it 
 with swift hands out toward the open bay. David 
 plied the oars frantically and Nora found the pole 
 useless for the bottom was yards beyond its reach. 
 
 Finally they gave it up and looked at each other
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 25 
 
 with white faces. Only Pip was undisturbed. 
 
 "We '11 surely be seen and picked up," said 
 David, as if Nora had asked him a question. 
 
 But the worst of it was that night was coming 
 on. Both the shore and the bay were deserted ex- 
 cept that at a distance, close to Staten Island, a 
 few large boats and barges lay at anchor. 
 
 "Let 's yell!" suggested Nora, lifting up her 
 clear young voice with : "Help ! We 're drifting 
 out!" 
 
 The raft was now seesawing dizzily with the mo- 
 tion of the large waves and the water curved and 
 broke over the raft so that they were wet up to 
 their waists. Nora had to pick Pip up and hold 
 him in her arms to prevent him from being swept 
 overboard. 
 
 "I wonder if we 're going to be drowned," said 
 Nora in a small voice. 
 
 ' ' Don 't be silly ! ' ' said David bravely, and added 
 less confidently: "Do you think we ought to 
 pray?" 
 
 "I think it will be better to keep on yelling!" 
 said Nora, and tucking Pip beneath her arm she 
 made a trumpet of her hands and called lustily. 
 
 "We ought to hang up a flag of distress," sug- 
 gested David, after a few moments of vain shout- 
 ing. 
 
 "It 's almost too dark to see it," answered Nora,
 
 26 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 but she stripped off her white petticoat and David 
 tied it to the punting pole and held it aloft while 
 their eyes searched the shore. 
 
 "I think somebody 's coming!" cried Nora ex- 
 ultantly. 
 
 David stopped waving to gaze with her towards 
 the shore where smaller objects were no longer dis- 
 tinct. "It 's a man in a rowboat," said Nora. 
 "I 'm sure he sees us." 
 
 Presently the boat rounded the point of rocks. 
 "It 's my father," said David. 
 
 It was he and before very long he had caught up 
 with them. The afternoon had blended into twi- 
 light ; in half an hour it would be dark. But in the 
 dim light they were able to see that John Wells' 
 face, usually so red and jovial, was now quite 
 white. He reached out and grasped the side of the 
 raft. ' ' Jump in ! " he ordered bruskly. l ' Quick ! ' ' 
 
 Nora with Pip, then David, clambered in, and 
 John Wells rowed them home. 
 
 When they were on the shore Nora stood de- 
 fiantly in front of the big man. "You 're not go- 
 ing to whip David, are you?" Her lips were blue 
 with cold and her wet clothes clung to her. "We 
 didn't mean to break our promise. We just 
 drifted out. It was just as much my fault as his, 
 so if you 're going to whip him, whip me, too. ' ' 
 
 To her intense surprise, and somewhat to her in-
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 27 
 
 dignation, John Wells merely picked her up and, 
 kissing her, told her there were to be no whippings 
 at all. 
 
 Nora ran home where a cold dinner awaited her 
 in the kitchen, but no questions were asked as her 
 parents had gone to the city. 
 
 But David's mother, as part punishment, part 
 preventive of colds and other ills, made him go to 
 bed immediately and gave him a liberal dose of 
 physic. "I 'd much rather had the whipping," 
 muttered David disgustedly. 
 
 They never saw the raft again; it probably 
 drifted far out to sea or was thrown up on some 
 lonely beach. But neither David nor Nora ever 
 forgot it. 
 
 It was during the raft-building period that David 
 saw Nora's mother for the first time. He thought 
 she was the most beautiful woman in the world but 
 he did not like her. 
 
 It came about in this way: David had ham- 
 mered his finger instead of the nail and Nora, in 
 far greater alarm than he at its bruised appear- 
 ance, insisted that he run up to the house with her 
 and there she would put liniment on it and band- 
 age it. This was done upstairs. Coming down 
 they passed the door of the sitting-room, the room 
 with the high windows overlooking the bay. Mrs.
 
 28 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 Davenport was in there with Colonel Craig to 
 whom Nora owed Pip. Mrs. Davenport called to 
 Nora while David hung awkwardly in the back- 
 ground. 
 
 "Who f s the boy?" Nora's mother asked. 
 
 And Nora answered: "That 's David my 
 chum. ' ' 
 
 At which Mrs. Davenport and Colonel Craig 
 smiled at each other and David hated both of them 
 for the manner of their smiling. 
 
 Finally David was dragged into the room and 
 introduced. Mrs. Davenport, a large blonde 
 woman in a shimmering, lacy gown, was lying on 
 a divan; Colonel Craig was standing beside the 
 mantel, tapping the end of a cigarette on his silver 
 cigarette case. The woman put her hand on the 
 boy's head. "You 're going to be a good-looking 
 man, ' ' she said, prodding his cheeks with her long, 
 white fingers. "I trust you look after Nora. 
 She 's such a tomboy I 'm always worried about 
 her." 
 
 "Yes, ma'am," stammered David; while Nora 
 murmured, "I can look out for myself, I guess." 
 
 Then Mrs. Davenport with a pretty little gesture 
 dismissed them, and they ran out of the room and 
 down to the beach, vaguely conscious of an im- 
 mense sense of relief at getting out of the per- 
 fumed atmosphere of the room.
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 29 
 
 Several times Nora accompanied David and his 
 father on their shorter fishing trips. She threw 
 over her line with theirs. 
 
 * ' I hate the feel of the worms ! ' ' she exclaimed, 
 wrinkling her nose in disgust as she fastened the 
 wriggling worm on her hook. 
 
 "I '11 bait it for you," offered David, reaching 
 out to take the hook from her. 
 
 But she would have none of his assistance. 
 "No, I '11 do it myself. Anything you do, I can 
 do, too." 
 
 But the summer, the long, long summer, could 
 not last forever. July blazed; August bloomed 
 and withered. In September when everything was 
 at its goldenest, when along the cliff the poison ivy 
 burned scarlet and yellow and the sea wore a soft 
 misty mantle of purple, when the golden-rod 
 bloomed and white and purple wild asters lined 
 the water side of the Shore Road, the Davenports 
 decided to go back to New York. 
 
 David himself had to return to school the fol- 
 lowing Monday. 
 
 Nora came down to the little red house to say 
 gjood-by. The van with a wonderful picture of 
 Washington Crossing the Delaware on one side 
 and the Storming of Quebec on the other, was al- 
 ready before the Davenports ' door. 
 
 ' * Let 's walk along the beach, ' ' proposed David.
 
 30 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 He knew of course why Nora had come, but he 
 had not previously known this was the day of de- 
 parture ; Mrs. Davenport was a woman of sudden 
 impulses. 
 
 They strolled along the beach and Pip followed. 
 Pip could not understand why neither Nora nor 
 David would throw sticks in the water for him to- 
 day, although he stopped in front of every piece of 
 driftwood and gave short, imperative barks to at- 
 tract their attention. 
 
 "I 've decided to give you Pip," Nora said at 
 last, breaking the long silence. 
 
 "I '11 be awful glad to have him," answered 
 David. "He '11 miss you terribly." 
 
 "Yes, but it 's better for him to be down here 
 with you than in a New York apartment. He 's 
 very fond of you almost as much as he is of me. ' ' 
 
 "He likes me but you lots, oh, lots, better," 
 said David generously. 
 
 "Besides I wanted to give you something to re- 
 member me by and Pip 's the thing that 's dearest 
 to me." 
 
 "I 'd remember you anyway," mumbled 
 David fiercely. 
 
 They turned back and neared the rocks from 
 which you could see the City. 
 
 "Shall we climb out and have a last look at the 
 City!" suggested David rather forlornly.
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 31 
 
 " No, we '11 see it soon enough." 
 
 Again a silence an engulfing silence ! 
 
 The day was inexpressibly sad ; a mist was gath- 
 ering over land and water and the damp air clung 
 chillingly. Even the golden-rod looked dimmed. 
 
 "We we Ve had a fine old summer," said 
 Nora. 
 
 David nodded. 
 
 "I don't think we missed the children who 
 would n't play with us !" 
 
 "We have n't missed them a bit." 
 
 "Are you ever coming back?" he asked. 
 
 "I heard mother say she liked it down here 
 we 'd come back again next summer." 
 
 David brightened. "That 's fine rthe winter 
 is n't so long with school and everything." 
 
 But he looked at her sadly and she stirred un- 
 comfortably under the open misery of his gaze. 
 He looked like Pip when one scolded him. Pip 
 himself was busily engaged in chasing down the 
 beach. Nora whistled to him and he came bound- 
 ing back to them, holding a broom handle trium- 
 phantly between his jaws. He thought at last Nora 
 would throw it into the water for him. But she 
 paid no attention. "I think I '11 have to go," she 
 said to David. ' ' The carriage leaves at five. ' ' 
 
 David fished in his pocket and produced a small 
 white box tied with a pink string which he awk-
 
 32 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 wardly handed to Nora. "I bought this. I had 
 some money in a bank. I wanted to give you 
 something to remember me by, too." 
 
 Nora carefully brought it forth from its wrap- 
 pings. It was a gold heart-shaped locket on a fine 
 gold chain. ' ' Oh, David ! ' ' she exclaimed. * * You 
 shouldn't " 
 
 Then she handed it to him saying: "I 'd like 
 you to put it around my neck. ' ' 
 
 He did it with trembling fingers. He had no 
 idea of what ailed him to-day. But he felt as if 
 the whole world were coming to an end with Nora 's 
 departure. 
 
 They reached the path which led to Nora's 
 house, a path which had been worn almost en- 
 tirely by their own feet. Here Nora held out her 
 hand. "Good-by. Hold Pip tight else he '11 fol- 
 low me. ' ' 
 
 David held the dog in his arms, his fingers 
 through the collar. ' ' Good-by, ' ' he answered. 
 
 "Good-by, Pippins dear." Nora stooped and 
 kissed him on the brown spot on one side of his 
 black head. 
 
 Pip stretched out his tongue and panted. He 
 did not understand the proceedings; by all the 
 rights of precedence and custom he should be 
 scrambling up the path ahead of his mistress ready 
 to salute her at the top with a welcoming bark. He
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 33 
 
 did not understand, but he did not like the com- 
 plexion of things in the least. 
 
 David broke through his thicket of embarrass- 
 ment and said: " Would would you mind kiss- 
 ing me good-by, too, Nora?" His face slowly 
 burned red at his request. 
 
 For answer Nora turned and kissed him, and the 
 color of her face was the color of his. It made her 
 angry to feel this way with David; she always felt 
 so thoroughly at ease with him. 
 
 So she said nothing more, but climbed up the 
 cliff path, taking the first few steps slowly and 
 then, suddenly, starting to run as rapidly as she 
 could. She did not once look back, although David 
 had counted on her doing so. 
 
 Finally when she had vanished, he sat down on 
 the beach, holding the struggling Pip in his arms. 
 " Don't you care, Pippins," he whispered. 
 "She '11 be back. It 's only a winter, Pippins 
 only a long, long winter." 
 
 But Pip, realizing at last his struggles were en- 
 tirely superfluous, merely gazed at David with re- 
 proachful eyes that seemed to say, " It isn't fair, 
 David honest, it is n't." 
 
 And David agreed with him.
 
 CHAPTEB IV 
 
 NEXT June, the year following, David received 
 this letter. It was the first letter he had 
 ever received : 
 
 Dear David: 
 
 I'm not coming down to Bay Ridge this summer. Mother 
 has decided to take a cottage at Far Rockaway. 
 
 I have often thought of last summer and the good times 
 we had. I wonder whether we would have as good times this 
 summer even if I did come. I've grown quite a lot. I'm 
 almost two inches taller and even thinner than I was. Mother 
 said to Colonel Craig that I was a fright and he said some- 
 thing about the ugly duckling. Of course I knew what he 
 meant. I do think I'll be beautiful some day. Of course 
 mother is beautiful, but I don't want to be beautiful in that 
 way. I'll have brown skin and dark hair, and I hope I'll 
 stay thin, even skinny. Mother is always worrying about get- 
 ting fat, and always doing things to keep her weight down 
 except give up candy and pastry, which are just what 's mak- 
 ing her fat. 
 
 This is an awfully long letter for me. I'm awfully sorry 
 I 'm not coming down. I thought about it nearly all last 
 night after mother told me. How is Pip? Give him my 
 love you, too. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 NORA DAVENPORT. 
 34
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 35 
 
 The letter arrived in the morning. David read 
 it, and then taking Pip down the beach, read it 
 again aloud to him. Pip always pricked up his 
 ears at the mention of Nora's name, and stared you 
 straight in the eyes, and now David tried to make 
 him understand by saying, "Nora, no! Not this 
 summer, Pip ! ' ' and by shaking his head, but it is 
 doubtful if Pip quite comprehended what it was all 
 about, although he looked properly dejected and 
 discouraged. 
 
 Then David walked farther along the beach with 
 his hands in his pockets and Pip at his heels. He 
 had counted a great deal on Nora's return. He 
 did not realize how much until this letter put his 
 hopes to flight. He had often thought about it and 
 pictured her coming down the cliff path to meet 
 him, swinging her sailor hat, her lips parted, the 
 familiar little wrinkle between her straight eye- 
 brows. The winter had seemed nothing more than 
 an interval preparatory to her return. There 
 were so many things he had planned to tell her, so 
 many things which he did not understand, which 
 puzzled him exorbitantly, and which he would have 
 liked to discuss with her. 
 
 For one thing there were his father and mother. 
 A great wonder had arisen in him this winter, or at 
 least the wonder had taken form this winter, as to 
 why his father and mother had ever married.
 
 36 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 They were so ridiculously unsuited to each other 
 his big, gruff father, loud of voice, red, boister- 
 ous, smacking of the sea and of the common peo- 
 ple who toiled and labored all their li ves ; and his 
 mother, quiet, with her soft voice and gentle 
 speech, which only served to emphasize her inflex- 
 ible demeanor and the straining of her eyes which 
 always looked as if they had seen things lost never 
 to be recovered. David did not understand it ; he 
 would have liked to have talked it over with Nora. 
 He did not think it would be disloyal to his par- 
 ents. Talking it over with Nora would be like 
 thinking it over by himself no more treasonable 
 than that. 
 
 He came to a halt before the string of rocks 
 that ran out into the bay. He had changed this 
 past year, he thought. He felt a little contemptu- 
 ous of his former self; the self of the fairy stories 
 and the pool-digging ; he was now reading Dickens, 
 Scott, and Bulwer-Lytton. He had also read a few 
 of Dumas' novels. He no longer even enjoyed the 
 books of boys' adventures which formerly had so 
 excited him. He was no longer a child child- 
 hood had left him this past winter. And the long 
 winter evenings, spent before the driftwood fire in 
 the kitchen, had been devoted to wondering about 
 Nora and himself, life and the world. . . . 
 
 Nora had changed too, he thought. He tried to
 
 37 
 
 picture her grown thinner and two inches taller. 
 But he could only see her as she looked when she 
 said good-by to him that afternoon last September, 
 gazing at him seriously and holding out her small 
 freckled hand. 
 
 He answered her letter that night. In his reply 
 he told her how sorry he was that she was not com- 
 ing to Bay Ridge that summer ; also he told her a 
 great deal about Pip ; how he had been in several 
 fights with a big yellow dog from up the Shore 
 Road and how he had come out victorious, but 
 with a permanently disfigured ear, and also that 
 he had grown heavier but cleverer than ever. 
 But when he sent the letter he felt it was a very 
 sorry affair, containing altogether too much about 
 Pip and altogether too little about how disap- 
 pointed he, David, was because he would not see 
 her that summer. 
 
 He waited for an answer from day to day, 
 but possibly she never received it at any rate, he 
 never had a reply. 
 
 His hopes flew to the next summer but the 
 Davenports did not return to Bay Ridge, nor did 
 they the following summer. Several years passed 
 and he heard no more from Nora. 
 
 Meanwhile the uneventful but restless, strangely 
 disturbed years of his adolescence lay upon him. 
 They were occupied by school, by reading, by go-
 
 38 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 ing out on fishing trips with his father, by groping 
 through a labyrinth of dark ideas and sensations, 
 by endless questionings . . . 
 
 Each year David gained different ideas, dis- 
 carding his old ones as he discarded his old, worn- 
 out clothes. As he looked back upon these years 
 afterwards, there were only two impressions that 
 remained distinct with him. They stood out like 
 white sails on an empty sea. One was the loss and 
 the constant thought of Nora, who represented all 
 of woman and almost all of friend he had ever 
 known. And the other was the Great Dream. 
 
 The Dream had crept in upon him formlessly al- 
 most while he was still a child, even before he knew 
 Nora. It had stayed with him and grown and 
 gained body and soul as he grew. Sitting out on 
 the rocks from which you could see the City rising 
 white and majestic from the sea, the Dream be- 
 came clearest and most real to him. And at night, 
 with the stars shining overhead, or with the rain 
 whipping in his face, he trudged along the shore 
 with dear old Pip silently following and the Dream 
 took possession of him so that he was hardly con- 
 scious of where he walked or how the night length- 
 ened or whether the wind blew cold or hot. He 
 lost himself in his dream. 
 
 What was this Dream? It is almost impossible 
 to describe it : it was so vague, so shadowy, so lack-
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 39 
 
 ing in semblance and form. It was the dream that 
 Youth always dreams; Youth's compact with the 
 future, hidden in rosy clouds. It was like a poem 
 that is never written or a song that is never sung. 
 It was as beautiful as moonlight on water and as 
 intangible; as musical as a breeze in a pine tree 
 and as fleeting. It was the eternal and unreal 
 dream of Youth conquering the world, Youth that 
 does not know where it goes nor why. Only one 
 thing was clear to David and that was that this 
 dream was to help his fellow men in some way, 
 make them happier, kinder, more charitable to one 
 another. 
 
 Sometimes it did take shape. For a little while, 
 for instance, David thought of becoming a 
 preacher. He fancied religion would furnish him 
 a tool with which to fashion his dream into form. 
 He became a passionate Christian. He went to 
 church every Sunday morning and evening; when 
 the minister spoke from his pulpit David swayed 
 with his words; when the Revivalists called for 
 converts he stumbled down the aisle and knelt at 
 the altar, weeping, torn with remorse for he knew 
 not what; once or twice he stole into the church 
 alone in the afternoon when it was dim and de- 
 serted, and there on his knees prayed to be shown 
 the light, the path, prayed for faith and righteous- 
 ness; mumbling phrases that reflected the minis-
 
 40 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 ter's sermons, phrases coined two thousand years 
 ago, of whose meaning he was almost ignorant. 
 
 But suddenly, after a year or two, this fervor 
 deserted him as abruptly as it had come. An inci- 
 dent hastened its departure. 
 
 He discovered an unfortunate girl, a silly child 
 of startled eyes and red lips ; he had known her at 
 school, and somehow she was led to confess her 
 trouble to him. He in all confidence went to the 
 minister, and the minister, an eminently respect- 
 able and incompetent man, hemmed and hawed and 
 finally said he would see what could be done of 
 course the matter must be gone into carefully it 
 was very sad . . . There was a delay. Meanwhile 
 the girl disappeared, God alone knows where. 
 And for many years after that, despite his 
 mother's protests, David did not enter a church. 
 
 But the Great Dream still remained, although it 
 had been shaken ; it came to possess him more com- 
 pletely than ever. For a time it had taken a side 
 path, but it was in the highway again triumphant. 
 Yet it never took definite shape. Whether he was 
 to send forth his message in a book or in a won- 
 derful poem, or whether he was simply to go out 
 and spend his days working for the happiness of 
 the poor in the City, he could never decide. But 
 he had no doubt that time would bring the solution. 
 
 Out on the rocks he sat often of afternoons with
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 41 
 
 his eyes on the City and his thoughts wrapped 
 around him like a warming blanket. In a book he 
 had read of a great man who had come to a famous 
 city ; they had thrown open the gates to him, beau- 
 tiful girls had spread flowers in his path, and the 
 Lord Mayor had given him the keys of the City. 
 The keys of the City ! It had a magic ring, that 
 phrase. David could not forget it. It seemed to 
 him that some day he was to be given the keys to 
 the City, that wonderful city over the waters rais- 
 ing its proud head to the very heavens. 
 
 Then, in the midst of these dreams, violently, 
 like a blow between the eyes, came the shock of his 
 father's death. 
 
 The equinoctial storms arrived late that Sep- 
 tember and they were preceded by many long, 
 calm, sleeping days of mirrored skies and water. 
 It was a season in which bluefish were scarce and 
 David and his father went greater distances out to 
 sea than they had ever ventured before. Then 
 school commenced (David was going to high school 
 in Brooklyn by now) and John Wells went on his 
 fishing trips alone. 
 
 David came back from school one afternoon 
 about half-past four to find low, ragged, dirty 
 clouds scudding across the shuddering sky and the 
 wind blowing so that the trees and bushes on the 
 cliff bowed low beneath its force. An occasional
 
 42 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 bird swept startled and shrieking through the air. 
 
 In the morning when he had left the sky had 
 been as blue and the bay as calm as it had been for 
 weeks, but now, at last, the equinoctial storms 
 were arriving. 
 
 His mother did not answer his call as he entered 
 the little red house ; going outside he found her on 
 the wharf gazing out to sea, her skirts blowing 
 and flapping around her in the wind, her hand 
 shielding her eyes. She reminded David of a 
 painting he had seen recently in the Brooklyn Art 
 Museum where he had spent a few of his after- 
 noons. It was entitled * * The Sailor 's Wife, ' ' and 
 his mother stood there now in the same position 
 as the woman was shown standing in the pic- 
 ture. 
 
 When he put his hand on her arm and looked at 
 her questioningly, she told him his father had, as 
 usual, gone out for his second trip about twelve 
 o'clock as soon as he had delivered some orders on 
 the Hill and had finished his lunch. Even then the 
 sky threatened but the big man had merely laughed 
 she could not reason with him. 
 
 David stood beside his mother on the wharf un- 
 til the rain came. Staten Island was blotted out 
 by its flood. Even the waves in the sheltered lit- 
 tle cove tumbled and raced angrily upon the beach. 
 Outside, in the open bay, the waters tore and
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 43 
 
 boiled and the waves threw their white crest slant- 
 ing, high in the air like beautiful mad women ; the 
 whole air was full of flying salt spray until the 
 two, standing on the dock, seemed lost in an insane 
 whirl of water and howling wind there was noth- 
 ing else. But they stayed there, holding fast to 
 each other, until darkness came and the rain swept 
 down in blinding, wind-driven sheets. 
 
 "He 's put in at Staten Island," said David, 
 when finally he had drawn his mother indoors. 
 
 But she looked at him with strange, unbeliev- 
 ing eyes. 
 
 They ate no dinner. About ten o'clock, when 
 the storm was at its worst, Mrs. Wells insisted on 
 building a huge fire of kerosene-soaked driftwood. 
 They started it beneath the shed on the iron mat 
 pulled from beneath the parlor stove, but as soon 
 as the blazing pile was placed out on the wharf 
 where it could be seen from the bay, the waves and 
 the rain leaped to put it out. 
 
 David went to bed at midnight, but he could not 
 sleep. He thought of his father out there in the 
 rushing waters, in his small, pitiably unfit boat, 
 and still more he thought of his mother and of her 
 behavior to-night. He could not but help think of 
 a woman harassed by remorse. And then sud- 
 denly he saw his father, as he had seen him many 
 times, approach his mother and try to put his
 
 44 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 arm around her waist, or to kiss her only to be re- 
 pulsed. . . . 
 
 He knew- his mother was still downstairs at the 
 window watching. He could not understand her. 
 She did not love his father. A thousand things 
 had shown that. And now here she was, with 
 hard, staring eyes and trembling lips. 
 
 David lay in bed and puzzled over it as he 
 had puzzled many times. He tossed restlessly. 
 After an hour he decided to go down and per- 
 suade his mother to go to bed. 
 
 He found the kitchen and bedroom empty; the 
 stove was red and a pot of coffee was boiling on 
 it. But his mother was nowhere to be seen. He 
 opened the door and when his eyes became accus- 
 tomed to the darkness, he saw her standing out on 
 the wharf again in the wind and the rain, gazing 
 out to sea. He called to her but she did not hear 
 him. He slipped a rubber coat of his father's over 
 his night shirt, drew on a pair of rubber boots, and 
 went out to her. He had to draw her forcibly into 
 the house. But she would not go to bed. 
 
 David decided to wait downstairs with her and, 
 pulling a large chair in from the parlor, he placed 
 it in front of the stove and threw himself into it. 
 But he fell asleep and slept until dawn and then 
 awakened to find her still sitting at the window
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 45 
 
 with the pale gray daylight outside and the coffee 
 still boiling on the stove. 
 
 His father never returned . . . 
 
 They found his dory smashing itself to bits in 
 the surf beyond Fort Hamilton and, later, they 
 learned that he had put in at Staten Island and had 
 gone to the Inn where he occasionally stayed, but 
 after a few hours of drinking he had disappeared. 
 His cronies did not realize until too late that in 
 half drunken egotism and courage he had made 
 good his boast to take his small boat out to sea 
 in defiance of the storm, because, as he said, he did 
 not want the wife and the boy to worry. 
 
 His father's death swung David squarely be- 
 fore the enormous problem of his future.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 AFTER his father 's death David continued to 
 go to school for a week or two, until one 
 Sunday he and his mother had a long talk regard- 
 ing his future and what he was to do now to pre- 
 pare for it. 
 
 Mrs. Wells had evidently been premeditating 
 this talk. She was ready with a host of sugges- 
 tions and explanations. 
 
 "Now, David," she began, as soon as they were 
 seated in the parlor to which she had led the way 
 in a formal fashion, "we must consider that I 
 have my personal income of about five hundred 
 dollars. Aside from that we have nothing. It 
 isn't enough to help you through college as I 
 would like to do. We may be able to scrape along 
 so that you can finish high school. But you are 
 seventeen now almost a man. The question is, 
 Would n't it be better to have you start in business 
 immediately? You have two years more at high 
 school in business they would mean considerable 
 progress. " 
 
 "I could earn some money by fishing after- 
 
 46
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 47 
 
 noons, and with the money we get letting out boats 
 on Saturdays and Sundays " suggested David. 
 
 Mrs. Wells drew herself together; a set look 
 came into her face a look of determination. 
 "We 're through with that," she said, "entirely 
 through with it that part of our life is finished. 
 I don't want you to have anything to do with fish 
 and boats," suddenly her voice changed 
 "Oh, my son," she cried, "if you knew how it has 
 made me suffer how it has broken me! I hate 
 this place! I Ve always hated it! And these 
 people ! I 'm depending on you to enable us to 
 get away from here. I 'm praying for your 
 success. We must go where this isn't known, 
 where we can take our proper place as gentle- 
 folk." 
 
 David was very much moved. "I '11 do any- 
 thing you say, Mother ' ' ; and awkwardly, because 
 she had never awakened these feelings in him be- 
 fore, he came over and knelt beside her ; he put his 
 hand over hers. After a moment, however, she 
 stooped and kissed him quickly and said: "Now 
 go back to your seat and we '11 talk the thing over 
 more sensibly." 
 
 David, abashed, arose and returned to his chair. 
 
 There was a short pause, during which his 
 mother seemed to be gathering together and re- 
 arranging the sequence of her thoughts.
 
 48 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 "What business or profession have you thought 
 about ? ' ' she finally asked. 
 
 David had, as a matter of fact, never thought 
 about any ; of course his Great Dream was really 
 his purpose in life, but he could not explain this 
 wonderful dream to the silent and stern woman 
 sitting opposite him even though she was his 
 mother. 
 
 "I I haven't thought about anything in par- 
 ticular, "he said, realizing that the admission 
 made a sorry figure of him. 
 
 "I wish you were more practical," remarked 
 Mrs. Wells with a sigh, "but I can't blame you. 
 I have always been very practical very but at a 
 crucial moment, in a moment of madness, I threw 
 all my common sense to the winds!" She knitted 
 her brows and sat with her fingers plucking at the 
 coarse cheap stuff of her mourning dress. Pres- 
 ently she resumed, in a manner that suggested she 
 spoke reluctantly of these things: "I have a 
 brother who is a lawyer, but I don't like to ask 
 favors of him unless it 's absolutely necessary." 
 
 "My uncle a lawyer!" David burst out. To the 
 fisherman's son it was almost as if some one had 
 announced to him that his uncle was one of Scott's 
 heroes or the Duke of Westminster. 
 
 His mother frowned at his enthusiasm. "He 
 is a very famous lawyer and a very hard man. I
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 49 
 
 doubt whether he would help you, but if you wish 
 very much to study law, I might see him." 
 
 "If I studied law I 'd have to know more Latin, 
 I think, ' ' said David eagerly. * * That would mean 
 two more years at high school." 
 
 "I have a cousin who is in the insurance busi- 
 ness," went on Mrs. Wells, ignoring David's last 
 remark, as if she herself had considered and 
 passed on the question of his becoming a lawyer. 
 " He is secretary of a big company on Wall Street. 
 Probably you 'd do better there." 
 
 The name "Wall Street" called forth David's 
 instant interest. He had of late read and heard a 
 great deal of Wall Street. It seemed marvelous 
 careers in finance and adventure (with which you 
 could surely link up altruism) awaited almost 
 every youth who once got a foothold in that mirac- 
 ulous street. 
 
 1 ' I should like that ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 "Very well," replied his mother, pleased this 
 time at his eagerness, "I shall write Henry to- 
 morrow and ask for an interview." 
 
 David, carried out of his usual reserve, felt 
 that now was the time to confess to his mother his 
 Great Dream; it boiled within him and burned to 
 be told, but when he began confusedly in broken 
 sentences, his mother raised a protesting hand. 
 "I wish you would leave me alone, David. This
 
 50 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 stirring up of old memories, of people I have tried 
 to forget, has been very painful. I should like 
 to be alone awhile." 
 
 So David whistled to Pip, who was never al- 
 lowed in the parlor, and the two of them went 
 down the beach. When they reached the point 
 where you could see the big white house which the 
 Davenports had occupied that eventful summer, he 
 stopped and gazed up at it. Another family from 
 New York had rented it the past season a family 
 which flowered in white-flanneled youths. But 
 none of them had noticed David ; on the beach and 
 on the Shore Road above they had passed him as 
 unconscious of his presence as if he did not exist. 
 One day one of the girls, a black-haired, slim girl, 
 dropped a white ribbon and David picked it up 
 and ran after her with it. She thanked him pret- 
 tily with a smile that reminded him of Nora. 
 
 He thought of this incident now as he stood be- 
 low, gazing up at the white house. He pretended 
 Nora was up there and that he was going up to see 
 her and tell her he was to start in business in Wall 
 Street and that his uncle was a lawyer, and a 
 cousin, secretary of a big insurance company. He 
 had often dreamed of Wall Street out there on the 
 rocks Wall Street and Broadway and Fifth Ave- 
 nue, and other famous streets. He pretended he 
 was walking upon them now, and Nora was beside
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 51 
 
 him, and everybody turned to look after Nora and 
 to envy him. 
 
 The cliff path was lined with a few late wild 
 asters and scattered stalks of golden-rod with the 
 bloom gray with age. They made him think of the 
 last time he had seen Nora when she said good-by 
 to him on this spot where he was now standing. 
 Suddenly he found pretending a mighty empty and 
 unsatisfactory sort of game so he walked on 
 along the beach. 
 
 Pip, who was getting fat and old, began to limp, 
 a trick of his when tired. David picked him up. 
 "Come on, old Pippins," he said, rubbing Pip's 
 ear, "we '11 go out on the rocks and rest until sup- 
 per time. We '11 dream, old Pippins that 's 
 what we '11 do. And don't you care because 
 you 're getting old, Pip. I '11 soon give you a gold 
 cushion and ice cream like the little girl in the 
 rhyme, don't you remember? Ice cream every 
 day, you old glutton of a Pip, and sausage and 
 chocolate and you '11 see Nora again before you 
 die. Yes, you will, I '11 promise you that. For 
 it 's Wall Street, Pip ; it 's business ; it 's being as 
 good as anybody else ; it 's taking us back to Nora ; 
 it 's doing all sorts of good to all sorts of people 
 that 's what it is, Pippins." 
 
 But when they got out on the rocks, Pip, despite 
 all this enthusiasm, promptly and quite phleg-
 
 52 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 matically went to sleep, his black muzzle on his 
 master's knee, and left David to dream alone. 
 
 On Thursday, Mrs. Wells received an answer 
 to her letter to her cousin, saying to bring David to 
 the office the following Monday and after an in- 
 terview he would be able to decide whether he 
 could find him a position in the office or not ; that, 
 of course, it would have to be a very modest posi- 
 tion to begin with all the employees had to start 
 from the bottom ; it depended entirely upon them- 
 selves how rapidly they worked their way up ; that 
 they had so many applications, and so forth. 
 There it ended very abruptly with a curt and crisp, 
 "Yours truly, Henry Stanton." 
 
 Friday, David went to high school for the last 
 time. He could not feel very much regret at leav- 
 ing; he had few intimate friends there; he was 
 eager to take up the new life, the business life. 
 He did not like abandoning some of his studies, 
 French and German, political economy and Eng- 
 lish, but he found comfort in thinking he would 
 continue them by himself. 
 
 Saturday, his mother bought him a new suit of 
 ready-made clothes with other furnishings a new 
 tie and boots and a smart, brown Derby hat. On 
 Monday morning she inspected him very carefully 
 in his new finery, turning him around several times
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 53 
 
 while she studied the details of his appearance. 
 The scrutiny satisfied her. "Yes, you '11 do, 
 David," she said. "You already look almost like 
 the grandson of a gentleman a few more years 
 and there '11 be no traces of fish and of letting out 
 boats on Sunday." 
 
 David was absurdly pleased at her approval. 
 He threw a surreptitious glance at himself in the 
 mirror ; his new blue suit certainly was the best he 
 had ever had ; he thought he looked as well as any 
 of the white-flanneled youths of whom he had 
 caught a glimpse on their way to the City yester- 
 day. 
 
 Mrs. Wells, too, this Monday morning, was most 
 carefully and elegantly attired. She had on a 
 black silk dress which, although even to David's 
 unpractised eye looked decidedly out of style, was 
 of a very rich and heavy sheen; a fine lace collar 
 beautifully yellow with age was around her neck 
 and an oval gold brooch held it together an oval 
 brooch with a pink and white cameo in its center. 
 
 They left the little red house at half -past eight 
 and taking the trolley and the ferry from Hamil- 
 ton Avenue, arrived silent and excited at the of- 
 fices of the Inland Casualty Company a few min- 
 utes before ten. These offices were in a great 
 granite building that was lofty but unimpressive. 
 But the offices themselves were all that one could
 
 54 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 possibly expect. They had walls of white marble. 
 Placed at intervals huge columns of marble, 
 streaked and flecked with blue and orange lines, 
 supported the ceiling, and there was much gilt iron 
 work and shining mahogany. The splendor of it 
 took David's breath away; the only thing that he 
 had ever seen that compared with it was the statu- 
 ary room of the Brooklyn Art Museum. 
 
 A well-dressed youth with deferential manners 
 took Mrs. Wells ' name to the secretary of the com- 
 pany, Mr. Henry Stanton, her cousin. 
 
 After a short wait, they were ushered into a 
 small bare office with a huge desk, at which sat a 
 thin nervous man with eyeglasses and with his 
 hair parted with extreme nicety in the exact center 
 of his head. 
 
 "How do you do, Henry?" said David's mother 
 composedly, holding out her hand and apparently 
 oblivious of the fact that she had not seen her 
 cousin in fifteen years. 
 
 "How do you do, Jane," said Mr. Stanton, ris- 
 ing from his chair and pulling another chair for- 
 ward for her with an impatient, abrupt motion. 
 Then he turned to David. ' ' So this is your son f ' ' 
 
 Mrs. Wells nodded and David felt his hand 
 quickly seized and then dropped. He pretended 
 to appear at ease, but he felt a lump rise in his
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 55 
 
 \ 
 
 throat when he attempted to speak and he did not 
 know where to put his hands. 
 
 The interview was short. Mr. Stanton fired 
 several brief and, what seemed to David, irrele- 
 vant questions at him and then rang a bell. 
 
 "Send Mr. Keep to me," he demanded of the 
 boy who answered the summons. 
 
 Mr. Keep appeared. "This is my cousin's son, 
 David Wells, of whom I spoke to you, Keep. He 
 is ready to start work at once." 
 
 David was led out to a large room of many 
 desks over which dozens of clerks were bending, 
 busily writing. Mr. Keep showed him where to 
 put his hat and coat and then led him to a desk 
 on which were piled stacks of cards. His duties, 
 it was explained, consisted in arranging the cards 
 alphabetically and then placing them in a cabinet 
 of drawers that stood directly in back of him. 
 
 In a very few minutes David understood the re- 
 quirements. Mr. Keep nodded approvingly and 
 left him. Several times during the day he reap- 
 peared, but David needed no assistance. At half- 
 past twelve he was told he could have an hour off 
 for lunch. 
 
 Thus his business career began in Wall Street at 
 seven dollars a week. 
 
 From the very first his work was a tremendous
 
 56 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 disappointment to David. He had expected ro- 
 mance and discovered routine; he had looked for 
 adventure and found drudgery. For the life of 
 him, try as he would, he could take no interest in 
 handling and sorting stacks of cards all day. 
 These cards contained the names and addresses of 
 policy holders, and sometimes David sat and won- 
 dered what the owners of the names were like he 
 would try to picture people who corresponded to 
 the names. It was while he was in one of these 
 reveries that Mr. Stanton, who, unknown to David, 
 had been watching him, said sternly: "You '11 
 have to do better than that, David. Work faster. 
 Put some ginger into your work." 
 
 David flushed guiltily. For a few days after 
 that he worked hard but before long he fell back 
 into his desultory ways. He dreamed and thought 
 of the time when he would be able to do something 
 that really mattered, that was really important. 
 
 What did interest him, however, was his trip 
 between the City and Bay Eidge night and morn- 
 ing and the plunge into the crowded city streets 
 at noon. He liked to feel himself one of a million 
 workers. He liked to rush along with the crowds 
 and feel that he had a place here a very tiny place 
 in the huge city. 
 
 Often he went without lunch so that he could go 
 down to the Battery and walk along the sea wall
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 57 
 
 and watch the immigrants arrive, swarthy Italians 
 with rings in their ears and stolid powerful Ger- 
 mans with tight coats and short, mussy-looking 
 trousers, and Russian Jews with hope sparkling 
 in their eyes; or so that he could explore South 
 Street and wander out on the docks and see the 
 cargoes the sailing vessels brought in, wondering 
 from what strange countries they came. He also 
 liked to walk along lower Washington Street and 
 gaze in the windows of the Armenian shops where 
 laces, gorgeously embroidered wraps, and weird 
 smoking implements set him dreaming of Aladdin 
 and of the Thousand and One Tales ; occasionally 
 he followed the crooked windings of Pearl Street 
 and pretended to identify the old, gable-roofed 
 buildings as belonging to worthies of New Am- 
 sterdam in which of course, he knew he was 
 wrong, but would not admit it. 
 
 Meanwhile the card sorting went on in a lamen- 
 table manner. The world was so full of wonder, 
 and cards bore such a meager relation to it all. 
 David hungered for the day when he could do big 
 things in business. Then he told himself he would 
 be able to prove his value. But now there was the 
 tediousness of waiting. . . . 
 
 When the first of the year arrived David found 
 to his intense surprise and delight that his salary 
 was raised to ten dollars a week ; also he was pro-
 
 58 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 moted from sorting cards to the bookkeeper's desk 
 where he made various entries regarding policy 
 holders in a large book with a red leather cover. 
 
 At first, he was interested in the new work, but 
 eventually it became as monotonous as the card- 
 sorting. 
 
 A year later his salary was again raised but he 
 was still kept at the high desk, writing the same 
 things over and over in another large book with a 
 red leather cover. The only advantage of the 
 endless repetition was that it became so mechani- 
 cal he did not have to think of it. He could send 
 his thoughts where he willed he could dream to 
 his heart's content. 
 
 Then came the spring again. His father had 
 been dead a year and a half, and he had been going 
 to business all that time with the woeful progress 
 shown. But the year and a half had meant great 
 progress in other ways than in business. 
 
 The slim boy was becoming a man; his shoul- 
 ders and chest were broadening, expanding. 
 Sometimes, standing in front of the mirror of his 
 little room, drawing in deep breaths, through the 
 open window, as a physical culture magazine di- 
 rected, he wondered boastfully if his strength 
 were equal to his father's. He began, too, to pay 
 attention to his personal appearance, to select his 
 scarfs with care, to wear his clothes jauntily, to
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 59 
 
 see that his shoes were always well polished. He 
 even went so far as to invest two months ' savings 
 in a suit at Brokaw Brothers, a shop which a com- 
 panion at the office assured him was the only place 
 in town for a young fellow to buy his clothes. 
 Mrs. Wells' horror at his extravagance was leav- 
 ened by her pride in his gentility. She told him 
 once that he greatly resembled her father. That 
 pleased him immensely, for Mrs. Wells had a 
 daguerreotype of her father which showed a 
 proud, eager face above a black silk stock and a 
 snowy frill of shirt. 
 
 So David, after these months in the City, was on 
 the surface no longer the raw youth. The stamp 
 of the town was upon him. While underneath 
 there was still the mass of guileless questionings, 
 the dreams, and the fancies, these, too, were pass- 
 ing. The knowledge that lies in wait in the City 
 streets was reaching out for him, the traps that 
 life sets for the unwary were awaiting him. 
 
 He remembered the shock one night when walk- 
 ing along a West Side street; he at last realized 
 what a woman who spoke to him wanted. When 
 she stopped him he thought she was going to ask 
 to be directed somewhere . . . and he had bent an 
 attentive ear. He had hardly known before that 
 such things existed ... of course he had realized 
 it vaguely . . . but not in that way that sordid,
 
 60 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 commonplace, horrible way. He shook his head 
 at her and passed on with a curious burning sensa- 
 tion in his throat ; he walked for blocks and blocks 
 before the grip the thing had taken on him van- 
 ished. Afterwards he had guarded against such 
 encounters but all the time he was rilled with a 
 wild curiosity and a strange dread. 
 
 Yes, David changed in that year and a half 
 changed greatly. 
 
 One Saturday afternoon in May when the office 
 force of the Inland Casualty Company was 
 granted a half -holiday, David journeyed home, 
 ate his lunch, and then calling Pip, started to 
 walk along the Shore Road. 
 
 They passed the white house and David saw the 
 windows were open and there was an air of ex- 
 pectancy about the place; people were moving 
 down for the summer. Again David thrilled 
 perhaps now, at last, it was the Davenports again. 
 But he had been disappointed too often to watch 
 and wait. 
 
 He walked down the road farther and stood 
 leaning on the fence that serves as a guard rail 
 to prevent horses going over the cliff which falls 
 steeply from the road at this point. It was a 
 clear day the sky showed a few tumbled clouds 
 that faintly suggested the pinnacles and roofs of 
 a fairy city; the water sparkled, the beach lay
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 61 
 
 like a silver crescent in the sun. David gazed at 
 the water and thought of Nora and of business and 
 of how bitterly disappointed he was in it and of 
 his Great Dream and of life and of the women 
 he passed in the street of all of these things he 
 thought in a muddled, fragmentary way. 
 
 Suddenly he was aroused by a voice saying be- 
 tween laughter and tears, " David, hello! and 
 Pip, too! I was just coming down to look for 
 you! Oh, dear old Pip, but aren't you fat!" 
 
 David swung around with a sob in his throat. 
 
 It was Nora. 
 

 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 'TV TOW first," said Nora, perceiving instantly 
 JL II that David was shaken and husky-voiced 
 and uncomfortable at her sudden appearance; 
 "now first," she said, striving to put him at his 
 ease, "let 's look each other over carefully and see 
 just how much we Ve changed. ' ' 
 
 "You 're changed entirely!" cried David after 
 a minute or two, during which he took in all the 
 charm and loveliness of her, the soft dark hair 
 braided around her head, the gray eyes sparkling 
 and yet a little wistful, the firm red lips. * ' You 're 
 not at all as I remember you. You 're entirely 
 grownup." 
 
 "Well, for that matter, you 're grown up, too, 
 David. But somehow you haven't changed; I 'd 
 have known you anywhere. ' ' 
 
 "Are you down for the summer!" 
 
 Nora nodded; her face clouded for an instant. 
 "Yes, mother and father and Colonel Craig de- 
 cided we might as well come down here again. 
 It 's so convenient to the City. We Ve been all 
 over creation since that summer, David we went 
 
 62
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 63 
 
 to Europe two years ago. Oh, I 'm quite finished 
 now I 'm ready for society " a shadow again 
 crossed her face "the sort of society we get." 
 
 "Nora, I 've started in business," said David. 
 
 "Oh, I'm so glad!" exclaimed Nora. She 
 made him tell her all about it. It started with 
 his father's death. "I always loved him he was 
 so so real/' put in Nora. 
 
 They sat down on the grass on the edge of the 
 cliff with Pip between them, his head cocked ap- 
 preciatively as Nora fondled his ears. David in 
 his recital of his business career varnished mat- 
 ters over a trifle. His vanity would not permit 
 him to tell the exact truth. But soon they had 
 exhausted business and they commenced talking 
 of the long summer of their childhood the sum- 
 mer which each decided was the happiest of their 
 lives. 
 
 "What a wild little beast I was," said Nora. 
 "I don't think I've improved much; of course 
 naturally I 'm more self-possessed and quiet and 
 very young ladylike, but beneath it there 's the 
 same old independence, and the running and rush- 
 ing and climbing and shouting. How we used 
 to race around do you remember the raft? And 
 how we used to make up stories 1? ' ' 
 
 "Don't you still make them up?" he asked 
 anxiously.
 
 64 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 "Yes, I do," she admitted, "but it is n't as much 
 fun as it once was." 
 
 "Yes, it is. I know. The only difference is 
 it 's another kind of making believe it 's bigger ; 
 it means more. ' ' 
 
 She gave him a quick glance. "Oh, David, 
 you 're such a dear such a silly old kind of a 
 dear. And after the people I Ve been thrown 
 with women who think of nothing but men, and 
 men who oh, just the rottenest old set of men. 
 . . . Why, David, do you know it might be only 
 yesterday that we sat here together as children 
 and wondered about the ships that sailed by and 
 threw stones at bottles in the water and lay back 
 on the grass and made up stories about the clouds 
 ... I feel I know you just as well. ' ' 
 
 He looked at her a little shyly. "At first I 
 thought you were going to be different," he said, 
 "you look so so elegant and proud; I was aw- 
 fully afraid, Nora, but when you began to talk it 
 was all right it was just all right. Was n't it, 
 Pippins?" 
 
 Pip wagged his tail enthusiastically it cer- 
 tainly appeared perfectly all right to him. . . . 
 
 They saw each other frequently during the sum- 
 mer days that followed, and they tried to pretend 
 they were on the same footing they had been as 
 children but inipalpably, inexorably walking like
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 65 
 
 a ghost between them, shadowy but distinct, was 
 the change the years had brought about. Nora 
 was no longer a child but a woman and David was 
 no longer a child but a man. They were not on 
 the same footing toward each other and even 
 while they pretended they knew they were not. 
 The old freedom of glance and of action was gone. 
 Yet for a time they were successful in keeping 
 up the pretense. 
 
 Among the guests that now came to the Daven- 
 port house were younger men who came to see 
 Nora. There was one man especially but he was 
 not so young. David met Nora walking with him 
 one day on the Shore Eoad and he was introduced 
 to him. He was a Mr. Walter Bradford. David 
 felt quite awkward before him. He was so 
 splendidly dressed and carried such an air of dis- 
 tinction. He had a heavy, handsome face with a 
 crisp blond mustache turned up at the ends and 
 large, heavy-lidded eyes, and his deep voice gave 
 utterance to his words so crisply, so authorita- 
 tively. 
 
 David saw Nora with him often. He saw them 
 riding together, walking together, and one day 
 when he stayed home from business with a cold, 
 he heard their voices below, and then later from 
 his window saw them far out on the bay. Mr. 
 Bradford was rowing and Nora was sitting quite
 
 66 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 still in the boat, her hands folded, evidently listen- 
 ing to him. Occasionally he stopped rowing and 
 rested on his oars, leaned towards her. . . . 
 David's paper card house of pretense fell to 
 pieces; he knew from that moment that he loved 
 Nora with a love that was entirely different from 
 his childhood love ; it was friendship, perhaps, but 
 it was friendship that flamed and desired. With 
 it was a great humility he knew that he had no 
 right ever to speak to Nora of his love that she 
 would never listen to him. 
 
 He could no longer bear the sight of her out 
 there with the other man. He threw himself back 
 in the bed and lay glowering up at the ceiling with 
 its white paper silvered with tiny stars. With 
 all the ardor of his awakened love he wished that 
 he were a child again, with a child's easily satis- 
 fied wants and desires. 
 
 The next time he met Nora he asked her to go 
 rowing with him. 
 
 "Any time you ask me," she answered readily. 
 
 "We '11 go to-morrow afternoon, then," said 
 David, for to-morrow was Saturday when he had 
 his half holiday. 
 
 All this time David was still busy with his 
 Dream his Dream to do something for his fellow 
 men. Ever since Nora's return he had been 
 awaiting a suitable opportunity to tell her about
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 67 
 
 it. During the past winter he had decided that he 
 might become a poet and, night after night, he had 
 sat in his little room writing endless, formless 
 rhymes. He tried to pack so much of his dream 
 stuff into them that they were quite meaningless 
 but, out of the mass of them, he had at last evolved 
 one which showed, he believed, something of what 
 he was capable of doing. It ran two full pages of 
 fool's cap and the rhymes at the end of the lines 
 were quite perfect. It bore the title, ' * The World 
 and I," and it began, "The world is a wide, wide 
 plain and I a spirit must slay to set it free." 
 
 Saturday afternoon when he and Nora went 
 rowing he took this poem with him. When they 
 were some distance from the shore he let the boat 
 rest in the current, and after explaining the 
 Dream to Nora he read her what he had written. 
 
 But she took the papers from him, tore them 
 in half, and threw them into the water. "David, 
 that's rot!" she cried. "You're becoming 
 obsessed with that idea. You don't want dreams. 
 You want life. There 's nothing in that nothing 
 to make men happy. It 's vague, it 's formless, 
 it 's chaotic. Forgive me! but I can't let you go 
 on in that way; you ought to see the reality, not 
 the dream." 
 
 David was dumbfounded, embittered. He 
 watched his beloved poem over which he had
 
 68 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 toiled for weeks, the only fruit of his years of 
 dreams, go floating away on the waters. At first 
 he was going to jump after it and rescue it. But 
 Nora's words arrested him. Finally he turned to 
 her and said in a colorless voice: ''It was only 
 roughly done. It did n 't give you any idea of what 
 I 'm going to do do you hear? Of what I 'm 
 going to do some day, Nora!" 
 
 Nora shook her head. "I don't know, David," 
 she said. ''You 're trying to get at things back- 
 wards. After you 've worked and worked and 
 lived and loved and suffered especially after 
 you Ve suffered then maybe you can put it into 
 form. But now you have n't lived you have n't 
 worked you haven't suffered your whole life 
 has been a dream ! ' ' 
 
 "How do you understand these things?" he 
 asked incredulously. 
 
 Nora hesitated. "I don't know, David. They 
 seem to come to a woman before they do to a man. 
 It just seems to be instinct with me. I see you 
 wrapped up in this Dream of yours and the only 
 thing that will bring you out of it is suffering. 
 Oh, I see you broken, David broken by suffering, 
 but then after that I see you live ! ' ' 
 
 David picked up the oars and rowed on, puzzling 
 over Nora's words. He did not comprehend 
 them entirely. He had not worked nor lived nor
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 69 
 
 suffered. But he loved ! He knew that now. He 
 knew it with all his heart and soul and body. 
 And yet he could not tell Nora that he loved her. 
 Perhaps that was how he was going to suffer. 
 He wondered if she loved the man Bradford. 
 Suddenly the words rose to his lips despite him- 
 self, and leaning forward he threw them at her 
 passionately : 
 
 "Are you in love with Bradford?" 
 
 Nora did not answer immediately. She flushed 
 and was vividly conscious of her flush. "He 's 
 married, ' ' she said presently. 
 
 David said nothing and after a silence, she 
 asked, "Why?" 
 
 "You seem to be fond of him," muttered David, 
 bending over the oars and sending the boat for- 
 ward with a jump. 
 
 Nora hesitated ; then, without looking at him she 
 began quietly, "I 'm going to be frank with you, 
 David. I 've learned a lot the last few years. I 
 can't help it if I 've become a little cynical and 
 hard. You know the men and women who come 
 to our house are not very respectable. They 're 
 a gay, light-hearted lot. Some are clever and all 
 that, but each of them has a flaw. They 're not 
 first class. I 've become used to them. But one 
 always has to be on one's guard." 
 
 David looked at her in surprise. He did not
 
 70 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 know where her words were leading, and what 
 she said was in itself a surprise. The Davenports 
 had always moved in a society so far above any- 
 thing he had ever known that he thought criticism 
 impossible. 
 
 Nora continued: "I 've always thought of you 
 as you were that summer, David oh, it was fool- 
 ish of me. You had to change, to become a man. 
 But I Ve always thought of you as a friend a 
 loyal old friend. I Ve always liked to think I 
 could bank upon you. But now, you too are 
 changing even more than you ought. You 're 
 jealous. I saw it in the way you spoke about Mr. 
 Bradford. Oh, I want you as a friend with all 
 that other sort of thing left out. Don't don't 
 you think you can be ? " 
 
 They gazed at each other steadily for several 
 seconds tears of whose presence they were un- 
 conscious stood in their eyes. At last David 
 dropped his gaze. ' ' I think I can, Nora, ' ' he said. 
 
 "Let 's shake on it." 
 
 They shook hands while the boat rocked; they 
 shook hands seriously, unsmilingly. Then David 
 rowed back to the shore. 
 
 And during the rest of that summer, during 
 their many walks in which they discussed books 
 and life and each other with remarkable freedom, 
 David did not betray by word or glance that he
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 71 
 
 loved Nora the more with every day of his life. 
 
 But betrayal came. It thrust itself upon them 
 the day in September when they took their long 
 swim together and when David, in an unguarded 
 moment, let his heart speak. 
 
 They had planned and prepared for this swim 
 all summer. Midway between the Bay Ridge and 
 Staten Island shores there is a submerged rock, 
 and by the rock a bell-buoy swings. David made 
 a point of swimming out there once each summer. 
 When he told Nora about it she insisted that she 
 was going to swim with him that year. And the 
 preparation and the practising followed. 
 
 Finally the Sunday morning they had decided 
 upon arrived. 
 
 It was six o'clock. The sun had already been 
 up for some time. It threw long, blue shadows 
 on the beach and the air sang of morning. The 
 sea lay before them calmer than they had ever 
 seen it before, they thought. It looked cool, pale 
 green and so softly inviting that it seemed to be 
 extending caressing arms to them. 
 
 They walked down silent to the water's edge; 
 the tide was going out. Nora slipped off her 
 cloak and stood forth in her bathing suit, laugh- 
 ing, shaking her head in the morning breeze. 
 Youth and the morning, the buoyant air and the 
 sunlight, centered in her.
 
 72 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 "It 's a long swim, is n't it, David?" she asked, 
 shading her eyes with her hand and peering across 
 the water to where the bell-buoy rocked, hardly 
 visible from here. 
 
 He nodded and looked at her questioningly ; he 
 thought possibly she was going to flunk. 
 
 "Well, then off comes this idiotic skirt," she 
 said. She unfastened it and with a deft throw 
 landed it back on the beach with her cloak. Then 
 she threw back her head, raised her arms and ran 
 into the water like a spirit released. 
 
 "Come on, David," she called, already in water 
 up to her shoulders. "Come on! It 's just right. 
 We '11 have to swim fast to keep warm." 
 
 David plunged into the water after her. They 
 were off! Their long strokes sent them forward 
 rapidly; their hands splashed the water into pale 
 green bubbles and they left little ripples of foam 
 behind them. They swam close together, Nora 
 on her right side, David on his left ; they did not 
 talk, but occasionally smiled into each other's 
 faces. 
 
 Midway Nora changed from the side to a breast 
 stroke. * ' Tired I ' ' asked David. 
 
 She shook her head, swam a short distance on 
 her back, and then, rested, struck out again with 
 the long over-hand stroke that David had taught 
 her.
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 73 
 
 At last they reached the buoy and climbed upon 
 it. It had a ledge running around it on which 
 they sat, too winded to talk at first. They swung 
 their legs to and fro over the side ; the buoy rocked 
 with the waves at intervals, the deep-toned bell 
 rang over their heads, startlingly, with a weird 
 sound. The shore hung low in the distance ; water 
 stretched its blue and green valleys all around 
 them. 
 
 ' ' A few years ago we 'd now be making believe 
 we were shipwrecked on a desert island," said 
 Nora. 
 
 "If we only were!" exclaimed David. 
 
 Nora pretended she had not heard. Her hair 
 had partly slipped down from beneath her crimson 
 bathing cap and fell around her face. She took 
 off the cap and began to wind her hair tightly 
 around her head again. She caught David eyeing 
 her, so she asked, smiling, "Well?" 
 
 "You look so so funny, Nora so absurd. I 'd 
 like to gather you up in my arms and swim away 
 with you forever." 
 
 Nora immediately sobered. "Now, David!" 
 she said. "You can't begin that; you know you 
 can't. Eemember our bargain. You '11 spoil it 
 all." 
 
 But as she sat there still swinging her legs, her 
 hands clasping the edge of the platform on which
 
 74 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 they sat, her lips parted, and smiling in a secret 
 little fashion to herself, her slim body outlined in 
 the black clinging suit, David felt all his resolves 
 and promises, all his carefully erected barriers, his 
 humility and pride, swept away by an irresistible 
 desire to touch her, to hold her in his arms, to 
 press his lips against hers. ' * Nora ! " he cried, ' ' I 
 love you! I can't help it! It 's no use pretend- 
 ing I know now it is n't. I want you to be my 
 wife. Of course we 're awfully young. But, oh 
 Lord, how I '11 work for you, Nora. I '11 stop 
 dreaming. I '11 give you just as good a home as 
 you have now." 
 
 Nora gave him a quick glance; her eyes were 
 full of reproach and of pity. "Why did you say 
 this now, David?" she cried. "Why now of all 
 times! I didn't want this from you. You were 
 to be my friend my bully good friend that 's all 
 and it was enough. It is just what I needed 
 just what I needed now of all times. ' ' 
 
 David's thoughts flashed to Mr. Bradford. He 
 didn't know why he thought of him at that 
 moment, but there he was with his handsome, 
 tanned face and his large, heavy eyes. 
 
 "I 'm sorry I said anything, Nora ; I 'm awfully 
 sorry. I meant to stick to our bargain. I 've 
 tried. But somehow things just gave way with 
 me."
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 75 
 
 Nora arose to her feet. She held out her hand 
 to David. "Here, I 'm going to dive. Steady 
 me." 
 
 When the next wave came along she plunged in- 
 to its green depths and David was obliged to fol- 
 low. 
 
 They swam silently back to the shore, more tired 
 in body and soul than when they raced so gaily out 
 into the morning. Now the sun was high and 
 shone brazenly on the waters. Nora fagged to- 
 ward the end ; her overhand stroke with which she 
 bravely started out failed her and she swam on 
 her back, and then with the old primitive breast 
 stroke. David offered her assistance, but she 
 shut her lips tightly, shook her head, and labored 
 on. At last their feet touched bottom, and Nora 
 staggered up the beach and fell flat on the dry 
 sand and lay there panting for a few minutes 
 while David ran for her cape, skirt, and sandals. 
 
 Presently she stood up and put them on. Then 
 she smiled. ' ' Well, I did it, did n 't I, David ?' ' she 
 said, giving him her hand. "No, please don't 
 walk up with me. I 'd rather go alone." 
 
 During the rest of that month he saw but little 
 of her. He heard indirectly that the Davenports 
 had decided to stay in Bay Eidge until after 
 Thanksgiving Day. But he saw Nora herself only 
 a few times on the Shore Eoad, and then all he
 
 76 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 got from her was a brief nod and a smile. Some- 
 times he wondered bitterly if she was not pur- 
 posely avoiding him. The bitterness was no less 
 keen because he knew the reason why.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THEN came that wild and eventful November 
 night which was to remain vivid in David's 
 memory all his life! 
 
 He looked out of the door after helping his 
 mother clear away the supper dishes. There was 
 a high, wet wind blowing and the waves howled 
 like beasts of prey. At first he decided to put on 
 his boots and oilskin and tramp along the beach 
 as he often did in such weather, but the driftwood 
 in the open fireplace beckoned invitingly. So he 
 drew one of Stevenson's romances from the shelf 
 on which he kept his few books and throwing him- 
 self into a big chair before the fire he read for 
 an hour or two. But even the charm of "Prince 
 Otto" could not keep him awake after ten o'clock. 
 He kissed his mother good night and went to bed. 
 
 Upstairs in his little room the fury of the night 
 was more evident. His window was shaken as if 
 the wind would tear it from its frame. But a 
 storm was too familiar to David to keep him from 
 slumber long. . . . 
 
 It was almost two hours later that he was 
 
 77
 
 78 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 aroused by noises so persistent and so unusual 
 that they made themselves heard beneath the roar 
 of the wind and the thunder of the waves. He 
 sat up. Pebbles, one after another, were steadily 
 hitting the pane of his window. He jumped from 
 the bed and looked out. Dimly he could make out 
 a cloaked figure standing below and at once he 
 knew it was Nora. 
 
 He opened the window slightly and all the 
 storm seemed to invade the room but he heard her 
 call, "I must see you, David." 
 
 He pulled on his shoes, slipped on his coat and 
 trousers and ran downstairs to the door. Nora 
 was already awaiting him. She entered quickly, 
 walked past him without looking at him, and went 
 over to the fireplace, where she stood gazing down 
 into the dying embers of the blaze. 
 
 "I want to talk with you alone, David/' she 
 said presently, without turning. "Where is your 
 mother?" 
 
 "In bed long ago. She won't wake up." 
 
 Nora raised her head and he saw her face. She 
 was not the Nora he knew. Something had 
 changed her terribly. Her eyes were large and 
 brilliant, they were like the eyes of a person sud- 
 denly shot from darkness into a brilliantly lighted 
 room ; there was something hectic and feverish in 
 her entire appearance, in her agitated movements,
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 79 
 
 in the way her fingers plucked at her coat. She 
 could not be quiet. It was as if a whip were on 
 her shoulders, a whip that kept her moving up 
 and down the room with short, quick steps. 
 Once she threw herself into the large chair but 
 immediately she was up pacing again. And David 
 thought of a wounded white gull he had picked 
 up on the beach once; he had imprisoned it in a 
 crate but it had beaten its wings so madly against 
 the bars that in order to save its life he had been 
 forced to free it. 
 
 David did not speak to Nora. He did not know 
 what to say. There were no prison bars he could 
 let down for her. Yet he saw that she was in 
 trouble, trouble as desperate as the wounded 
 gull's. 
 
 Finally she lifted her eyes to his and said in a 
 voice so even and subdued that it seemed utterly 
 out of harmony with her appearance, ' * Do you re- 
 member when, years ago, the other children were 
 not permitted to play with me?" 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 "I Ve just found out why." 
 
 But David could not find the words to question 
 her. 
 
 "My mother is " Nora checked herself so 
 abruptly it seemed as if she had bitten off the rest 
 of that sentence; in a minute she continued,
 
 80 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 "Colonel Craig is my mother's lover. I just 
 found it out yesterday I found it out in the most 
 horrible way. It 's killed me, David. It 's 
 killed the Nora that was me and left some 
 one else, some one I don't understand." Her 
 two hands flew to her throat and ripped the fas- 
 tenings of her cloak apart so that her full, round 
 throat was revealed. "David, I 'm on the rocks. 
 I 'm going to pieces." 
 
 "Nora, dear!" cried David and that was all he 
 said, although he wanted so much to say more ; he 
 wanted to go to her and soften her ; to erase this 
 new and appalling hardness that had come over 
 her; he wanted to caress her, to banish the open 
 misery that stared forth from the pallor of her 
 face. And he thought, "Oh, dear God, if you '11 
 only help me to make her weep!" But deeper 
 than his desire to do these things was the knowl- 
 edge that he must do none of them ; that if he did 
 she would leave him as abruptly as she had come. 
 
 "I don't understand why I didn't see it long 
 ago," Nora continued, in that unnaturally calm 
 and even voice. "I suppose everybody in our 
 crowd, in our rotten, fast crowd, knew it. He 's 
 been paying for everything, David. Everything 
 I own, everything I have, my clothes, my educa- 
 tion, all from the man who " She turned away 
 again and now she threw back her head and, fever-
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 81 
 
 ishly, impatiently, pushed back the strands of dark 
 hair that fell over her forehead. * ' You know what 
 I 'm like, David. You know how I 've always 
 hated things of that sort and how I 've faced 
 things with courage, held up my head because I 
 thought I was so far out of that muck ! All the 
 time this was waiting for me, waiting to pull me 
 down into the mud ! ' ' She extended her arms with 
 the hands, palms down on either side of her; she 
 closed her eyes and shuddered. 
 
 David found his reluctant tongue. "It does n't 
 matter to you, Nora, it 's not your fault. You can 
 leave and go out and make your own life." 
 
 "Yes!" said Nora, "I can!" 
 
 He looked at her, alarmed. What did she mean? 
 "You are going to leave?" was torn from him. 
 
 "To-night." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "I am going with Walter Bradford." 
 
 "But he 's married?" 
 
 "What difference does that make to me now?" 
 
 "Nora, you can't do this !" cried David. "You 
 don't know what you 're saying. My God, Nora, 
 you can't!" 
 
 "I must get away from home," she said quietly. 
 "Don't imagine I haven't thought it all out, 
 David. I 've wept over it, wept as one weeps but 
 once in a lifetime" Her voice rose a little
 
 82 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 " Don't you see I 'm mad to get away? Where 
 else can I go? Don't you see there 's nothing else 
 for me to do ? I Ve never been taught to support 
 myself. I 've never been taught to do anything 
 else than live with a man, earn my living in that 
 way. What does it matter if I go as wife or 
 mistress? What 's the difference? There 's no 
 other way for me. And what does it matter what 
 becomes of me now? I 'm outside the pale. I am 
 my mother 's child. ' ' 
 
 * ' But your pride ? ' ' 
 
 "My pride!" she echoed bitterly and, for the 
 first time, David realized what her suffering had 
 been. 
 
 He went over and stood beside her. " There is 
 something else another way. You can come here 
 and live with us, with my mother and myself. 
 You can learn to do something for yourself. You 
 can learn to become independent. ' ' 
 
 For a moment she hesitated. "If only you 
 hadn't said that you loved " she began and 
 stopped, arrested at the grief, the racked, quiver- 
 ing grief of his face. 
 
 "Nora, don't say that!" he cried. "I couldn't 
 help loving you, but don't say it 's helped bring 
 this about. I won't love you any more. I '11 
 strip this love from me ; I '11 whip it out of my- 
 self. I '11 swear that you '11 never see it again. ' '
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 83 
 
 u But after all," she said a little wearily, 
 "we 're forgetting the most important thing of 
 all." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 1 1 That I love Walter Bradford and that he loves 
 me." 
 
 There was a long silence. Outside the Novem- 
 ber wind blustered and splashed the window with 
 raindrops that glistened as they ran down the 
 panes; a bedraggled branch of evergreen kept 
 beating with weary insistence against the shutter ; 
 far out on the bay they could hear the sirens blow- 
 ing, and near by the anger of the waves dashing 
 on the beach where they had played as children. 
 
 1 ' I am going, David, ' ' said Nora at last, wrap- 
 ping her cloak around her. 
 
 "You are going with him to-night?" 
 
 "The carriage will be up on the cliff at twelve. 
 My bag is already there beside the road. I had 
 to tell you before I went, David. I had to stand 
 right with you if with no one else." 
 
 David slipped across to the door, locked it, and 
 pulled out the key. "I am going to keep you here 
 till dawn," he announced. 
 
 A smile trembled on Nora's lips; for the first 
 time her face softened and tears visited her eyes. 
 She went over to the chair he had taken and put 
 her hand on his shoulder. "Oh, David, dear old
 
 84 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 David," she murmured. " Don't you see that 
 isn't the way to remedy it? Don't you see that 
 I Ve got to work this out for myself in my own 
 way? I 'm no longer a child but a woman, and I 
 can't be locked in like a child. It is n't so simple, 
 so wonderfully simple as all that, David. You can 
 lock my body in, but who holds the key of my 
 soul? It 's my soul that is going out to-night, 
 David, out into the wind and the rain. It 's going 
 to seek light again, sunshine again. Pray for it, 
 David, but don't try to imprison it." 
 
 David sank into the depths of his chair. He 
 leaned over, his face buried against his sleeve. 
 Without a word, his free hand held up the key to 
 her. 
 
 She took it, hesitated, and stooping, kissed him. 
 "David, if only I could love you. And I do I 
 love you better than any one in the world but not 
 in the way you want, my dear." 
 
 She crossed over to the door and waited, but he 
 neither looked up nor spoke. So she unlocked the 
 door and stole out.
 
 CHAPTER VET 
 
 ON the gray monotone that was now David's 
 life stood out one fact that became insistent. 
 His mother was displeased with him. It worried 
 him the more because her health was no longer 
 what it had been. She was no longer the firm and 
 vigorous personality that had ruled the household 
 in his boyhood days. Very often now those tones 
 that had been so full and inflexible became broken 
 and querulous. 
 
 "I thought by now you 'd be making enough so 
 we could leave here, David," she said to him one 
 day. "I 'm wondering if I '11 ever leave this 
 place before I die." 
 
 Thus David knew she was not satisfied with the 
 progress he was making with the Inland Casualty 
 Company. Indeed he was not satisfied himself. 
 Entering names and figures into a large book with 
 a red cover, day after day, week after week, month 
 after month, was at best a stale and monotonous 
 duty. He could not become interested in it. He 
 had given up trying. 
 
 Six months ago under the stimulus of Nora 
 Davenport's presence he had determined to find 
 
 85
 
 86 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 another position which would employ his brain 
 and not press him down to the level of an automa- 
 ton. But he was hindered by the thought of his 
 mother's disapproval and he also entertained a 
 lingering hope that his cousin, Mr. Stanton, would 
 come to his rescue. Then Nora had gone away 
 with Walter Bradford and with her going left him 
 inert, suffering, devoid of ambition or purpose. 
 The trouble with David now was that he did not 
 care about anything. He took his mother's dis- 
 approval without protest. 
 
 Each storm that winter seemed to leave its im- 
 press on Mrs. Wells. It was as if it stole through 
 the tightly closed doors and windows of the little 
 red house and buffeted and shook her. When 
 eventually the first warm spring days came she 
 eagerly welcomed them out on the veranda which 
 faced the sea. But even the bright sunshine failed 
 to warm her body grown so feeble and wax- white. 
 David was obliged to prepare their simple meals 
 almost entirely by himself while his mother sat by, 
 seemingly quite happy and content, talking of 
 matters of which he knew nothing. 
 
 "We 're ready to go driving, Mother, please 
 hurry," she said once in an urgent, excited 
 whisper. 
 
 Presently David had to admit to himself that 
 her mind was failing, but the horror of the thought
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 87 
 
 was leavened by the gaiety of her demeanor. 
 When he was not confronted by the spectacle of a 
 trembling old woman he could imagine that a 
 young girl was chattering out there in the sun- 
 shine. Every morning Mrs. Wells arrayed her- 
 self most carefully in the black silk dress, the lace 
 collar, and the cameo pin, and from somewhere 
 she brought forth a small black lace fan spangled 
 with gilt sequins that constantly kept her hands 
 busy. 
 
 She had grown so helpless that David wanted 
 to stay with her all day. But once, when he 
 lingered, she seemed to recall her gaze from the 
 distance and said reprovingly, " Business, David! 
 You must go! You must be a gentleman some 
 day." 
 
 Poor dear old Pip was aging too. He spent his 
 days in the corner near the fireplace, regarding its 
 empty cave disapprovingly through bleared eyes. 
 Age and weariness and hopelessness surrounded 
 David. 
 
 So the spring deepened, and life ran on and 
 nothing mattered. 
 
 Then, one evening, David returned from the City 
 and found his mother, as usual, sitting out on the 
 veranda but as he approached her she seemed to 
 have fallen together in the chair. An icy hand 
 clutched at his heart.
 
 88 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 "Mother!" lie cried, but she did not answer. 
 " Mother!" he repeated stepping closer, but there 
 was still no answer. 
 
 Presently he realized that she was dead and he 
 fell at her feet weeping . . . old Pip waddled out 
 after a time and with his faithful tongue licked the 
 back of his prostrate master's neck. But even 
 this did not comfort him. 
 
 David, bewildered, not knowing what to do, what 
 arrangements to make, appealed to Mr. Stanton. 
 That gentleman calmly took charge of affairs, 
 notifying a number of Mrs. Wells ' other relatives. 
 Accordingly the day of the funeral found the little 
 red house beneath the cliff crowded with such a 
 company as it was never meant to hold. Besides 
 Mr. Stanton, there was David's uncle, the lawyer, 
 a stern, thin man with a heavy nose and over- 
 hanging eyebrows; two thin sisters in black silk, 
 very elegant and soft-voiced, who murmured in 
 turn, repeatedly, "Poor Jane! What a hideous 
 mistake she made!" There was also a stout 
 old gentleman with gold-rimmed spectacles which 
 he constantly polished with a white silk hand- 
 kerchief, and there were others of like pat- 
 tern. 
 
 David felt a sudden and violent hatred for all 
 these people. The feeling came to him that none 
 of them cared for his mother; they had simply
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 89 
 
 come now that she was dead to pry into the little 
 house whose door she had held shut against them 
 for so long, hiding from them her regrets and 
 her longings. He caught the two thin sisters gaz- 
 ing around curiously at the room while their long 
 noses from behind the handkerchiefs they held 
 before them, sniffed twitchingly into corners. He 
 slipped out and went up to his own room, closed 
 the door noiselessly, and sat by the window. His 
 eyes were dry and burning. He only came down- 
 stairs at last when Mr. Stanton called to him that 
 the carriage which was to follow the hearse was 
 waiting for him. 
 
 Then afterwards he came back to the house 
 alone. 
 
 He was glad the mourners had gone, glad to be 
 alone, but he did not know what to do with him- 
 self. Unrest seized him. He walked around the 
 house, from one room to the other. A strange 
 feeling came to possess him that he continually 
 met his father and mother, and stranger still, he 
 also met himself at various ages. He thought of 
 his mother. It seemed to him that he had loved 
 her more than he had ever suspected. He missed 
 her horribly. 
 
 Finally he dug Pip out of his corner and held 
 him on his lap while he sat looking out the window 
 at the dark waters glimmering under the stars and
 
 90 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 he wondered about life and death and the eternal 
 mystery of things. 
 
 The summer stole by drearily dragging October 
 behind it. It was almost a year since Nora's 
 elopement. 
 
 Mr. Stanton summoned David into his private 
 office one day. 
 
 4 'Be seated, David/' he said. 
 
 David sat down, wondering what was to come 
 and yet not deeply curious. 
 
 "I have been watching you carefully, my boy," 
 said Mr. Stanton. "You have been here three 
 years and you do not show the hem! develop- 
 ment we expect from our young men." 
 
 "My work has not been interesting," said 
 David. "If you could give me work in which I 
 could use my imagination " 
 
 "We do not need imagination here," said Mr. 
 Stanton, meticulously emphasizing the right 
 words. "We need application work lots of 
 hard, painstaking effort that is what we de- 
 mand." 
 
 David was silent. 
 
 "I do not think you are exactly adapted to the 
 insurance business," continued Mr. Stanton, bal- 
 ancing the tips of the fingers of one hand nicely 
 against the tips of the other. "You 're not prac- 
 tical. But I want to give you every possible
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 91 
 
 chance. Suppose you go out and take a walk and 
 think things over. Come back and see me in an 
 hour. ' ' 
 
 David was glad to get the unaccustomed outing. 
 He walked down Broadway to the Battery and 
 stood by one of the stone posts of the sea wall 
 with his hat off. He tried to think of business 
 and of what he should say to Mr. Stanton on his 
 return, but he could not keep his mind on it; he 
 could only think of the Statue of Liberty uplifting 
 her torch out there in the harbor, and he tried 
 to imagine the feelings of the immigrants when 
 they first see it how it must thrill them so that 
 they raised their heavy faces toward it with 
 prayers on their lips how it must raise hopes 
 that too often were to be thrust underfoot in the 
 New Land of Promise where luxury is only for the 
 efficient and the well-trained and the grasping, and 
 where no one is satisfied with anything but 
 luxury. 
 
 He became lost in this maze of thought and did 
 not notice that he was overstaying the time Mr. 
 Stanton appointed. He did not get back to the 
 office until two hours after he left it instead of the 
 one which had been granted him. Mr. Stanton 
 was awaiting him with an open watch on his desk. 
 
 "You are late," he began sternly. "It is char- 
 acteristic of you. I am disappointed, David."
 
 92 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 As David said nothing but merely waited, he 
 asked sharply: "Well, have you decided?" 
 
 "I '11 try to do better to work harder," said 
 David, "but I can't promise." 
 
 "You can't promise?" 
 
 "If you give me work that will interest me 
 that I can lose myself in that will grip me oh, 
 then I '11 promise to make good!" cried David 
 eagerly. 
 
 Mr. Stanton snapped his watch shut. "We 
 can't give you such work. You are only wasting 
 your time here. You will get two weeks' salary 
 as you leave to-night." 
 
 "I 'm discharged?" gasped David. 
 
 Mr. Stanton turned to his desk and took up some 
 papers with: "If you wish to put it that way. 
 You may refer to us for for a reference as to 
 your personal character and and family connec- 
 tions." 
 
 David continued to gaze at him for a minute. 
 Then he swung around and walked out. 
 
 So his three years in business, the career on 
 which he had embarked with such high and ardent 
 hopes, with flags waving and trumpets blowing, 
 ended in utter shipwreck. The worst of it was he 
 realized it was his own fault ... he had never 
 cared . . . never tried. 
 
 That night he arrived home at the little red
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 93 
 
 house and prepared his supper as usual. But 
 after it was all ready and on the table he found 
 he could eat nothing. So he cut up some meat on a 
 plate, mixed it with bread, and gave it to Pip. 
 
 It suddenly occurred to him that he had no place 
 to go to-morrow, nothing to do. A great feeling 
 of loneliness, an engulfing sense of being utterly 
 alone, fell upon him. He took his hat from the 
 rack and went to the door. Pip jumped up to ac- 
 company him, but David shook his head. 
 
 "Not to-night, Pip," he said gently. "It >s all 
 alone, to-night." 
 
 When he was out on the beach a thousand 
 thoughts assailed him like embittered furies. It 
 was not so much that he had lost his position, but 
 it was the last of a number of events that had 
 followed fast one upon the other to break his 
 spirit. He thought of the afternoon when he and 
 Nora were out in the rowboat and Nora had told 
 him he would have to suffer before he really lived ; 
 that his spirit would almost have to be broken 
 with suffering before he saw things as they are. 
 . . . Well, it was broken now it was utterly 
 broken. 
 
 First there had come Nora's elopement, her 
 downfall, as he could not help but put it, and this 
 had been the cause of the cruelest suffering, and 
 then his mother's death, and now, last of all, but
 
 94 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 somehow more than he could bear, his failure in 
 business. And his Great Dream his Dream to 
 be of help to his fellow men what of that? It 
 had colored and filled the years of his life almost 
 since he could remember it had colored and filled 
 them as sunshine fills a spring morning. And 
 now it was vanished. It was as if it had never 
 been. It left life shadowy and dark and full of 
 foreboding, as sunlight leaves a swamp on a 
 moonless night. He was lost in a swamp of dark- 
 ness he knew no directions he had no aim he 
 saw no light anywhere he wished the swamp's 
 slime would rise up and cover him and draw him 
 down into its awful depths. 
 
 After a while the thousand thoughts ran to- 
 gether and clotted, forming a shapeless, heavy 
 mass that weighed upon his brain and pressed up- 
 on his heart. He continued to walk along the 
 beach but he did not know where he walked. Oc- 
 casionally he stumbled over rocks and pieces of 
 driftwood. The lights of Staten Island blinked 
 and danced and shivered, and they were like eyes 
 that watched him relentlessly, curiously, as if they 
 expected he was going to do something. The Oc- 
 tober air crept around him, the sea murmured, and 
 it seemed to him that each had a dark and unutter- 
 able message for him. 
 
 Finally, almost without intention on his part or
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 95 
 
 even consciousness of where he was going, he 
 found his feet in water and continued to wade out 
 into the water. It was very shallow the tide 
 must be out it took a long time to reach the deep 
 waters where oblivion lay where the solution lay 
 where problems were solved and broken spirits 
 mended. 
 
 The water was up to his knees. It was icy. 
 It numbed him. Suddenly he stopped. He 
 thought of Pip of the faithful little animal 
 grown old and feeble and helpless. There was no 
 one to feed him; he was locked in the house, and 
 he would starve he would simply starve. David 
 saw him watching for his return his brown eyes 
 fixed on the door. So he would die. Pip would 
 never give up hope he would always believe in 
 him, always depend on him, always trust in him 
 until the end came. 
 
 And could he, David, fail him? 
 
 Then David, standing there with the cold water 
 clutching at him, lapping at his knees, felt his brain 
 clear. The cold touch of the water revived him. 
 What was he about? This was a coward's way. 
 He had always been a dreamer, he had failed be- 
 cause he was a dreamer, but he had never been a 
 coward. He threw back his head and faced the 
 shore. 
 
 1 ' HeU ! " he cried aloud. ' ' Oh, hell, it can 't end
 
 96 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 this way!" and he made for the shore with long, 
 resolute strides. 
 
 But it was another David that came out of the 
 water; the Dreamer was gone and the Dream 
 was ended.
 
 PAKT II
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 DAVID came forth from the water that night 
 with his dreams and fancies gone. The 
 waters had not covered him but they had swept 
 away the illusions which he had cherished so long 
 as if they were loose garments which the current 
 had seized and carried off. 
 
 And something fine had perished there in the 
 waters off the Bay Ridge shore, something fine 
 which nearly all youth possesses and which the 
 State, if it had been a wise State, would have taken 
 and trained and made of service to itself. 
 
 For David came out of the water intent only on 
 himself and his own success. There was left no 
 thought for others' happiness. He was deter- 
 mined to get ahead, to get money and power for 
 his own aggrandizement. The passing days hard- 
 ened his resolutions. For the first time his ambi- 
 tions became those which every young man of that 
 period was supposed to be consumed with. "Get 
 rich!" said the world. ''Get rich honestly if you 
 can, but anyway, get rich!" David determined to 
 obey the command. He must be a success finan- 
 
 99
 
 100 
 
 cially. Underneath this determination was an- 
 other: he wanted passionately to show them (and 
 by "them" he meant Henry Stanton and all his 
 kind) that he had in him the stuff which makes 
 success ; the shrewdness and skill and energy which 
 bring a poor young man out of the gloom of ob- 
 scurity into the light of prosperity. 
 
 Gone was his desire, that dear desire, to help his 
 fellow men ; gone all those roseate, altruistic ideals 
 of his youth in which he had visioned himself a 
 savior, a prophet, and a leader who with magic 
 words drew humanity on towards the heights. 
 Now he was determined to climb, but to climb 
 alone, to leave the sweltering mob far behind 
 and to ally himself with those who sit in ease far 
 above the wants of the common lot. And some- 
 where mixed up in these new ambitions, part of 
 them, was the belief that they would bring him to 
 Nora. 
 
 But between David and success lay ten years. 
 
 Ten long and bitter years they were! Many 
 times, the only thing that stood between him and 
 starvation was the five hundred dollars a year, 
 which his mother had left him, so invested that he 
 could obtain only the interest and not the capital. 
 This ten dollars a week at least guaranteed him 
 the dubious comfort of a cheap boarding house in 
 Brooklyn; at least it saved him from joining the
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 101 
 
 ranks of those shadows who darken the doorways 
 of gin mills, and the passageways of lodging 
 houses along the meanest streets of the city . . . 
 
 After he left Bay Eidge he had first lived in a 
 boarding house in Pacific Street, not far from the 
 ugly red and yellow brick of the Long Island Kail- 
 road station a district thick with boarding houses 
 of a cheap and respectable sort, hiding their worn 
 carpets, their white metal beds, their frayed and 
 spotted linen, behind the neat brownstone fronts 
 of the private houses of a past generation. Where 
 doorways and steps had once glittered immaculate 
 they now showed stains and the marks of perpetual 
 passings ; where windows had shone spotless, cur- 
 tains now hung awry, shades were drawn at crazy 
 angles. 
 
 When the interminable stews of that first board- 
 ing house turned his stomach sick with loathing, 
 David moved to another house down the street. 
 From there to another in the same neighborhood 
 to many others. 
 
 As he drifted from one living place to another, 
 so, unskilled, untrained, inefficient, he drifted from 
 one job to another. His solitary equipment was 
 his imagination and for that he could find no 
 market. He sank to the depths of doing odd jobs 
 around a saloon in Livingston Street, a down-at- 
 the-heels, ill-smelling joint, evil with age, with a
 
 102 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 back room to which women brought their men to 
 bargain with them over wet, shiny tables ; he rose to 
 the heights of reporting for the * ' Brooklyn Eagle ' ' 
 and showed not a little skill in writing news but 
 a woeful lack of energy in gathering it. He was 
 a clerk in a hardware shop; one of the thousand 
 employees of a huge department store ; during one 
 summer when the street car company took on 
 extra men he was a conductor on the Coney Is- 
 land line. 
 
 And yet, do you know, through all those lean 
 years he never lost faith in his destiny. His belief 
 in his ultimate success stayed unshaken. It was 
 that belief which urged him to abandon one job 
 after another, which kept him searching. After 
 he had been at work in a place for three months or 
 four he would say to himself, "This is not it! 
 This is not what I want," and again he would go 
 drifting. Lean years, bitter years, and yet, 
 strangely, not altogether unhappy years ! Confi- 
 dent of the future,he saw her beckoning with rosy 
 finger. Meanwhile there was life itself unrolling 
 before him, the rich and variegated life of a big 
 city, a panorama which passed before him full of 
 all sorts of interesting and wonderful pictures. 
 There were the streets with their hurrying 
 throngs, there were the shop windows with their 
 displays of merchandise from all the world rugs
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 103 
 
 and pictures, cigars and cigarettes, candies, 
 groceries, fruits, sporting goods, canes and um- 
 brellas even women's clothes he found interest 
 in all of them. When he sauntered out of his 
 lonely boarding house of an evening and wan- 
 dered down Fulton Street, a change in the display 
 of the windows of one of the big department stores 
 was an event. Then there was the reading-room 
 of the library in Third Avenue, very pleasant in- 
 deed of a rainy night, with illustrated magazines 
 and periodicals to look over ; and there was Pros- 
 pect Park with its winding walks and the old ceme- 
 tery lying hidden on the slope of a hill and, best 
 of all, there was Brooklyn Bridge, with the black 
 water glimmering below with the gold of reflected 
 lights and the stupendous mass of the city, shim- 
 mering evanescent, wonderful, before him. 
 
 And every once in a while the panorama of life 
 reached out and drew him into its folds so that 
 he danced along with it, no longer merely a by- 
 stander who watched it roll by. 
 
 For he came to know, fleetingly, many men and 
 women clerks, employees of the street car com- 
 pany, barkeepers, reporters, old people in the 
 boarding houses living frugally on their savings, 
 waiting, it seemed, for dissolution. And David 
 studied them all, wondered about them all, asked 
 himself, "What are they getting out of life? Am
 
 104 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 not I going to get more out of it than they are?" 
 There was something about David that drew 
 people to him, made them confide in him, made 
 them desire to be friends with him both men and 
 women he attracted, but especially women. Per- 
 haps it was his voice which was deep and tender, a 
 little slow, a little lazy, as if it had taken some 
 quality from the murmur of the waters on the Bay 
 Ridge shore ; perhaps it was the way in which his 
 head was set solidly upon his shoulders, the broad, 
 well-modeled expanse of these shoulders and the 
 depth and curve of his chest; perhaps it was the 
 perpetual and rather wistful questioning which lin- 
 gered in the depths of his eyes a questioning 
 which many women tried and failed to answer. 
 For David still carried in his eyes the pain of the 
 blows which had been dealt him in his youth, the 
 blows which had shattered his idealism and which 
 had led him once to seek oblivion in black waters. 
 And this appeal in his eyes, combined with the 
 splendid and vigorous body which he had inherited 
 from his father, aroused women's curiosity, mag- 
 netized their interest, and made them wish to offer 
 comfort and solace. 
 
 But always (during these years) there was but 
 one woman for David, whether he saw her as a 
 child in a sailor hat waving good-by to him from 
 the top of a cliff or whether he saw her as a hunted
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 105 
 
 creature telling him of her desperation, while out- 
 side the little red house the November winds 
 howled their derision. 
 
 A curious change came over David's attitude to- 
 wards Nora Davenport's elopement as the years 
 sped by. At first he could not help but think she 
 had done a monstrously wicked thing; she had 
 * 'fallen"; she was a bad woman by every doctrine 
 of right or wrong. But, as the sand slipped 
 through the glass, as he saw intimately on his 
 journeying into the lives of many men and women, 
 as he experienced himself the emotions which 
 swayed them, and the conditions with which they 
 must do battle, he realized that life is not a thing 
 of black and white, of sunshine and shadow, wrong 
 could be right and right, wrong, in such varying 
 degrees that it was confusing, dizzying, impossible 
 to arrange and classify, to fix the line of demar- 
 cation. Eventually Nora became to him a heroine 
 of romance, a glamorous being. But whether he 
 thought of her in earlier years as a condemned 
 woman or, later, as a glorified one, he never 
 thought of her without a quickening of the breath 
 and a melting of the heart. 
 
 His devotion to Nora, however, did not rob him 
 of all sense of other women. Life drove on and 
 youth held the whip. While his relations with 
 most of the women he came to know were simple
 
 106 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 and friendly and innocent enough, there were ex- 
 ceptions. 
 
 It was through one of the exceptions that his 
 success was brought about.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IT was during one of his many periods of un- 
 employment that David fell in with Nell Fer- 
 guson. He had just moved to a new boarding 
 house in State Street and during the long spring 
 evenings when he sat outside on the stone steps 
 alone, below the chattering group above him, she 
 took compassion upon him and gathering her 
 skirts about her moved her round straw "seat" 
 down next to his and sat beside him. 
 
 "I hope I 'm not intruding on your thoughts," 
 she said, as introduction. "It 's sort of lonesome 
 when you come to a new boarding house and don't 
 know a soul, ain't it? I know because I been up 
 against it myself." 
 
 She was older than he and so, she thought, it 
 was not too unladylike to make the advances. He 
 looked like such a nice boy and so lonely. The 
 other boarders, of course, would tease her about 
 it. But pity and the maternal instinct urged her 
 on. 
 
 Nell Ferguson had red hair that only needed a 
 little more attention, a more knowing arrange- 
 ment, to make it very beautiful ; like a copper vase 
 
 107
 
 108 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 that needs burnishing to bring out its color. Her 
 eyes were green, distinctly green, set in a face so 
 pale that it was like a white mask. Her lips were 
 thin and moistly red and her figure was of the 
 slimness that has seen its blossoming and fallen 
 back into virginal lines the "old maid," they 
 called her in the boarding house, although she was 
 but a few years past thirty. She overflowed with 
 nervous energy; when she walked her feet went 
 pat, pat, pat, very rapidly and jerkily; her body 
 slanted a little to one side as if she were sailing 
 before a wind and when she talked her hands ac- 
 companied her words in quick little gestures. 
 This animation gave her a certain charm . . . and 
 her laugh was like the peal of tiny bells beneath 
 glass. 
 
 As Nell Ferguson and David, after that overture 
 on the steps, advanced into friendship, as they 
 walked down the street together to get an ice cream 
 soda at the corner drug shop and, later, when they 
 took trolley rides down to Coney Island, spring, a 
 sweet mild, tumultuous spring, assailed them. 
 Even State Street washed clean by spring rains 
 shone whitely with spring sunshine and the soli- 
 tary tree the block boasted carried all the season's 
 significance in its pale green branches. It seemed 
 quite natural that Nell should slip her arm 
 through David's, that beneath the soft cloak of ad-
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 109 
 
 vancing night their hands should meet, their fin- 
 gers intertwine. It meant nothing, Nell Ferguson 
 assured herself. She was so much older than the 
 boy and she knew her world, her world of offices 
 and boarding houses with a knowledge so keen that 
 it was cruel. 
 
 As for David, he was not nearly as sophisticated 
 as Nell. He liked Nell immensely, but love her? 
 not a bit of it. He analyzed his emotions suf- 
 ficiently to come to that decision. Occasionally in 
 sentimental moments, when he pressed her arm or 
 held her hand, he tried to pretend it was another's 
 arm, another's hand, but he had knowledge enough 
 not to let Nell know this. And he had kindness 
 enough. He was twenty five now and he had had 
 his experiences, but he felt that Nell was a "good" 
 girl and not for anything would he have violated 
 that goodness. 
 
 And the spring, intent on its own work, laughed ! 
 Busy with its brush and broom, its spade and its 
 watering pot, the spring laughed ! More sensuous 
 than the soft music of stringed instruments, more 
 alluring than the light of shaded candles, more in- 
 toxicating than the stealth of pale gold wine, more 
 potent than all these cheap and artificial things, 
 the spring mocked them. 
 
 One night in late June, almost three months after 
 their first meeting, they returned from a trip to
 
 110 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 Coney Island. Down there, the sea lying like a 
 mirror beneath the stars had held them late. It 
 was past midnight when they reached the boarding 
 house. On the steps they lingered. 
 
 " Don't go in yet, Nell," David pleaded. "It 's 
 too beautiful. We can see almost as many stars 
 here as down by the ocean. Let 's sit here a little 
 while." 
 
 ' * No. I 'd better go in, ' ' Nell said, and her voice 
 was so strained that David turned in surprise to 
 look at her. 
 
 " You feel all right!" 
 
 " Yes yes!" 
 
 ' 'Then don't go in just yet." 
 
 She sat down reluctantly a little distance from 
 him, tense and still, all her habitual little nervous 
 movements stilled. When his hand, following its 
 custom, sought hers, touched hers there in the 
 shadow, he found it frozen. "Poor cold little 
 hand!" he murmured, and placing it between his 
 own tried to warm it. He drew her to him. And 
 in a minute she was in his arms. She kissed 
 him with her moist quivering lips. "Oh, David, 
 forgive me!" she sobbed. "It wasn't my fault. 
 I was fighting against it. You would n 't help me. 
 You would n't let me go." 
 
 But the flame of his emotions had leaped to meet 
 hers. No, he wouldn't let her go now. He felt
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 111 
 
 curiously as lie had felt once when he had stayed 
 under water too long; there was the same pound- 
 ing in his ears ; the same surcharged pressure of 
 the blood as if it would burst the skin. No com- 
 punctions had he now. 
 
 The step of a passerby sounded. 
 
 ''Let 's go into my room," Nell whispered, her 
 face damp with tears, close against his ... 
 
 Naturally it was not long before Nell Ferguson 
 knew the events of David's life as a rugmaker 
 knows the pattern he is weaving all except the 
 part Nora Davenport had played in it. She knew 
 his ambitions, too, and how he had come by those 
 ambitions, and while she had not understood him 
 entirely when he had told her of his earlier dreams 
 and preoccupations she could sympathize with his 
 present purposes. Furthermore she had faith in 
 him even though for three months now he had 
 been unable to find work. 
 
 At night when they sat on the steps together or 
 walked through the summer streets after the heat 
 of day had passed, she did what she could to en- 
 courage him, strengthen his belief in himself. 
 "It 's only the chance you want, David," she re- 
 cited. "There was Willie Marshall, a feller I 
 knew. He never could seem to get ahead, went 
 from one job to another like you. Then, one day,
 
 112 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 his uncle died and left him a little, run-down 
 grocery store on Atlantic Avenue. Well, it seemed 
 Willie had a knack for running a grocery store 
 but no one had ever guessed it ... now he 's got 
 eighteen stores all over the city. It 's like that. 
 You got to find your chance. But you got to keep 
 looking, David." 
 
 One July evening she followed him up to his 
 room from the dinner table. She was, he could 
 see, greatly excited. Her green eyes were shin- 
 ing like grass with the sun on it and in each pale 
 cheek glowed a spot of color. "Say, David, 
 there 's a job open in our office. Not much of a 
 job eight dollars a week as bill-clerk. But it 's 
 something to start on. And B. Foster and Com- 
 pany is a good concern to work for treat you fine. 
 I been raised every year since I been there. 
 Maybe you could work your way up maybe it 's 
 just the opening you want." 
 
 "Eight dollars sounds like a lot to me now, Nell. 
 I '11 go over first thing in the morning." 
 
 "Let 's see how you look." She took his arm 
 and without ceremony pulled him over to the wall 
 where a thin gas jet sputtering beside a yellow 
 pine bureau added its warmth to the heat of the 
 room. David's forehead was beaded with sweat 
 and he knew well enough that his gray suit worn 
 thin and shapeless at certain vulnerable spots was
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 113 
 
 not fit for the close inspection. Nell pursed her 
 lips reflectively and shook her head. "That 
 suit 's pretty well done for and your cuffs are 
 frayed. ' ' 
 
 "I >ve got a better shirt," he protested, flushing 
 at the frankness of her criticism, for he was al- 
 ways sensitive about his appearance. 
 
 "Ain't got any money hidden away, have you?" 
 
 David drew forth a crumpled dollar bill and a 
 few pieces of silver from his pocket. ' ' That 's all 
 till I get my ten next week. ' ' 
 
 "Well, I '11 tell you what I '11 do. I '11 give you 
 the money and you go down to Abraham and 
 Strauss' to-morrow morning as soon as it opens. 
 They 're having a sale of men's twenty-five dollar 
 suits for sixteen fifty. You get one, a nice plain 
 blue one; blue looks so cool for summer, and for 
 Heaven's sake see that it fits better 'n the one you 
 got on. Then as soon as you get fixed up in it you 
 come right over and apply for that job. You got 
 a good chance 'cause they ain't advertised it yet." 
 
 "I can't take your money, Nell." 
 
 "You can't?" she demanded hotly. "And why 
 not? Sure you can. You can pay me back, can't 
 you?" 
 
 "Yes, I could pay you back in a month if I get 
 the job, but suppose I don't get it? " 
 
 "You got to get it, that 's all. They '11 give it
 
 114 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 to you if you show 'em you want it bad enough." 
 
 Finally she not only gave him the money for the 
 suit but for a blue necktie with white spots and for 
 a straw hat as well . . . 
 
 David got the job and with his first week's 
 salary bought Nell a box of chocolates and two dol- 
 lars ' worth of American Beauties. 
 
 "If you 're going to spend your money as fool- 
 ish as that," she admonished him, "you '11 never 
 get ahead never ! ' ' 
 
 But she took the roses to her room, wept over 
 them a little, and secretly was a thousand times 
 more pleased than if he had paid her back imme- 
 diately the entire sum he had borrowed from her.
 
 CHAPTER in 
 
 IN Greenwich Street, in the center of an area of 
 tangled, truck-crowded streets, where the food 
 the city consumes stands in crates and boxes be- 
 neath sheds that roof the sidewalks into long, lit- 
 tered passageways through which the pedestrian 
 with difficulty picks his way, where the clanging 
 street cars add to the confusion and the trains of 
 the Ninth Avenue Elevated lend their shrieks and 
 groans to the turmoil of the streets below; in the 
 midst of this chaos and confusion was located the 
 old building which the firm of B. Foster and Com- 
 pany had occupied for thirty years. 
 
 It was, as such things go, an ancient concern, 
 burdened with traditions, with methods of doing 
 business that were fast becoming obsolete. The 
 business, as you could readily tell if you stood be- 
 fore the wide-doored main entrance and savored 
 the pungent odor of roasting coffee, was chiefly 
 dealing in these small brown berries. But teas 
 and various spices also played their part. The 
 firm bought these commodities from the importers 
 and, with a comfortable margin added, sold them 
 
 115
 
 116 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 to grocers, general stores, and hotels throughout 
 the Eastern States. It was not until several years 
 later, after David had developed the idea of pack- 
 ing tea and coffee in bright red shiny packages, 
 that their business became national in scope. 
 And by that time, of course, they had built that 
 large structure, towering over the other huddled 
 buildings of the district, which they now occupy, 
 and they were importing their own teas and cof- 
 fees from the far ends of the earth. 
 
 The place that David found that first day was 
 small and humble enough, not nearly large enough 
 nor important enough to house his great ambi- 
 tions. The main floor of the building, piled high 
 in the rear with sacks of coffee, was given to ship- 
 ping purposes ; on the floor above it were the offices 
 and the three or four additional floors were all 
 devoted to " stock" more coffee in its rotund, 
 burlap bags, chests of tea with strange markings 
 and pictures pasted on their straw faces, tins and 
 bags and barrels of cloves, mustard, pepper, and 
 other spices. 
 
 David's first two years with B. Foster and Com- 
 pany were uneventful enough. He slaved away at 
 his desk from morning till night, making out bills 
 from the order slips which came to him from the 
 shipping clerk in batches of twenty and thirty at a 
 time. He was rapid and accurate at the simple
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 117 
 
 arithmetic the work demanded and he satisfied his 
 employers without in any way attracting their 
 special attention. At the end of the first year he 
 found an extra two dollars in his weekly pay en- 
 velope. 
 
 It was only because of Nell that he clung to the 
 job. By turning his head he could see her, one of 
 a dozen girls, bending over their typewriters, and 
 the patience of those stooping shoulders, that 
 glossy red hair fixed so steadfastly over the click- 
 ing keys, somehow gave him a renewed sense of 
 duty. He hated the work. It was so deadly 
 monotonous. He hated it with the intensity of 
 hate he had given his task of filing cards, long 
 ago in the office of the insurance company. Al- 
 most ten years, he thought sometimes, and still at 
 this horrible, meaningless drudgery which made 
 life a mockery, and often he found himself asking 
 that old question which had now become like the 
 cry of a tortured soul, ' ' Is this all is this all that 
 I am going to get out of life?" And he felt that 
 he must rebel, that he could not let this be all. 
 But Nell held him. 
 
 When they walked home together at night to- 
 wards Brooklyn Bridge, he said to Nell more than 
 once, "I can't stand it much longer. Soon I 
 shan't be fit for anything else." 
 
 And she took his arm, let him feel the warm
 
 118 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 pressure of her fingers, with, "I heard some of 
 them saying there '11 be great changes there when 
 old man Foster dies. Maybe there '11 be some- 
 thing for you then, David." 
 
 Meanwhile the chance which was to make David 
 a success was close upon him. 
 
 At Nell's suggestion he had taken up the study 
 of stenography and typewriting at a night school. 
 He never was diligent enough to master the former 
 but he did get so that he could typewrite fairly 
 well, and one day he asked John Powell, the junior 
 partner, if he could have a machine on which to 
 write his bills. 
 
 John Powell, who in the slang of the day was 
 known as the "live wire" of the concern, readily 
 gave his consent. David found, after a little prac- 
 tice, that he could do his work so much more 
 rapidly on a typewriter that half his day was left 
 idle. Time moved more sluggishly than ever. 
 
 But one afternoon the junior partner, noticing 
 David sitting idle, handed him a batch of letters. 
 
 "See if you can answer these," he said. "You 
 ought to know enough about the business by now 
 to be able to do it without having to be told what 
 to say." 
 
 David seized upon this new work eagerly. The 
 letters he had to answer were from storekeepers 
 in Troy, in Rome, in Columbus, from many small
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 119 
 
 towns and villages. They were quite ordinary 
 letters, asking for information about prices, ship- 
 ments, errors in weight, but as David read them 
 over he had a vision of alert, eager little men, 
 pencils behind ears, with bald foreheads, coat- 
 less, looking at him appealingly. These small 
 matters were momentous to them. As if each let- 
 ter were a personal appeal he set to work to satisfy 
 it. 
 
 The closing bell rang and, for the first time, 
 David did not hear it. Outside the wrought-iron 
 railing Nell stood trying to attract his attention, 
 asking by her attitude whether she should wait for 
 him or go home alone. Mr. Powell approached 
 and stood gazing over his shoulder, watching him 
 with an amused twinkle in his eyes and David 
 noticed none of these things. 
 
 For at last he had been given work which how- 
 ever humbly, claimed his imagination, and at last 
 he had found himself . . . 
 
 That night David could eat no dinner. The pot 
 roast and boiled potatoes grew cold on the plate 
 before him. 
 
 "I Ve got it, Nell,*' he kept saying to her over 
 and over, after he had induced her to go walking 
 with him ; "I Ve got what I can do. ' ' 
 
 Nell smiled sympathetically and said nothing 
 but her eyes did not smile.
 
 120 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 The next morning after Mr. Powell had read the 
 letters which had been laid in a neat pile on his 
 desk, he summoned David to his private office and 
 pushed a chair towards him with: " Close the 
 door and sit down ; I want to talk with you. 
 
 "I 'm afraid you Ve been hiding your light 
 under a bushel, Wells, ' ' he began. ' ' These letters 
 are well, they 're remarkable. They won't do 
 at all, need toning down, but there 's something 
 about them, something friendly, intimate," over 
 his glasses he regarded David with interest 
 "I 'm going to put you in training, my boy. 
 I 'm going to make you chief correspondent. 
 We need young blood in this concern. We 're get- 
 ting ossified. Nobody sees it but me. I 've had to 
 fight for every innovation. There 's a future here 
 for you. But you must promise to stick to me 
 and by me." 
 
 David nodded, too amazed to speak. 
 
 This was the period during which the stiff and 
 formal letters of business, the trite and awkward 
 conventional phrases, were just beginning to be 
 replaced by somethiBg else, something more human 
 and natural. It was the period during which a 
 few progressive business men had discovered that 
 you could write to a man as you talked to him, 
 that letter writing could be made an art, that an 
 imaginative appeal could be made to a buyer that
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 121 
 
 would open his purse strings as the magic word 
 11 Sesame" opened the door of the cave. 
 
 And David, under the direction of John Powell, 
 did make his writing of letters an art. His suc- 
 cess was astonishing. His letters created cus- 
 tomers where personal visits from the firm's sales- 
 men had failed. 
 
 "The trouble with most business men is that 
 they lack imagination," said Mr. Powell to David 
 and he seemed to be voicing David's own 
 thoughts. "Business has been conducted with in- 
 credible stupidity. Perhaps not all businesses 
 finance, railroading there, of course, they simply 
 had to have imagination. And in the professions 
 there they have specialists, men trained to think 
 in certain ways. But in an ordinary next-to-the- 
 ground business like ours there has just been 
 blundering, stumbling along, no knowledge of the 
 field at large, no knowledge of the forces that make 
 a man buy, make a hundred men buy, a million 
 men . . . make 'em buy again and again. If only 
 I had a free hand " his eyes became dreamy, dis- 
 tant, while David sat by worshiping this mirac- 
 ulous man who had so accidentally discovered 
 him and who so well appreciated imagination. 
 "Well, some day I shall have a free hand," said 
 Powell, bringing his gaze back to earth and to 
 David. "I can manage young Foster all right.
 
 122 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 It 's the old man who stands in the way. You 
 must stick to me, David. How much are you get- 
 ting now? I '11 see if I can get a raise for you 
 next month. I have the ideas, but I can't express 
 them, can't get them on paper as you can. I can 
 see this business growing, growing . . . after old 
 Foster gets out of the way. Think of it ! Beach- 
 ing all over the globe, into every nook, every 
 corner, to bring in the things the American public 
 wants, can be made to think they want. We '11 
 sell 'em at a fancy price, too, David. Goes better. 
 We '11 go up together, you and I. And it isn't 
 the money so much it 's the fun of it the game. ' ' 
 
 Thus Mr. Powell spoke to David often and 
 David grew to look upon him as the most remark- 
 able man he had ever known. Between them 
 sprang up a friendship apart from their business 
 associations. John Powell at that time was a man 
 of forty five, a smallish man with a round body 
 and a big round head. But his legs were short 
 and thin. They scarcely seemed capable of sup- 
 porting that big body especially that large head 
 with its prominent Eoman nose and heavy jaw. 
 When he stood up David sometimes thought of 
 him as Punch tottering on his frail limbs. He was 
 a bachelor and lived in an apartment of his own 
 uptown with a Japanese valet to look after him. 
 
 "Can't stand women around me," he told David
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 123 
 
 once, when he had carried him off to dinner with 
 him. "Always fussing, meddling, tidying things 
 up. I 've got use for only one kind of woman 
 and that isn't the good kind. Good women de- 
 mand too much, tie a man down, stop his work, get 
 a strangle-hold. " 
 
 He also told David that night of how he had 
 come to New York, a poor boy from the country. 
 "The s&me old story," he said with a grim laugh. 
 "The same old privations at first . . . but we 're 
 getting somewhere now. I 've got a foot on the 
 ladder and it '11 take all hell to shake me loose. ' ' 
 
 So David with John Powell's help also got his 
 foot on the ladder, and with his skill in writing let- 
 ters started to climb. But meanwhile on the other 
 side of his life, the personal side, forces were at 
 work upon him, influencing him, shaping him, 
 changing him . . .
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 OME day, dear, you '11 want to be free of 
 me," Nell said more than once, "and when 
 that time comes just tell me. I don 't want to stand 
 in your way. I don't want to hold you a day 
 longer than than you want me to. ' ' 
 
 David always tried to reassure her when she 
 took this tone. But secretly he often found him- 
 self wishing that the affair were over that it had 
 never been begun. He had never cared enough to 
 justify it. He had just been swept into it as a 
 straw carried by a current of water is swept into 
 a muddy pool in which it lies helpless, slowly re- 
 volving. He could not see his relations with Nell 
 clearly; his feelings in regard to them went 
 through so many phases. Sometimes he was 
 ashamed of them, imagined what people would say 
 if they knew especially such people as John 
 Powell and the Fosters, father and son, who held 
 his destiny in their hands. Sometimes he justi- 
 fied himself by saying that he was simply follow- 
 ing nature's dictates he was neither better nor 
 worse thajo. other men. Sometimes he became ter- 
 
 124
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 125 
 
 ribly sick of the whole thing, rebelled against the 
 obligations it imposed upon him. Often he blamed 
 himself severely, held himself to account but just 
 as often he felt that it had been forced upon him, 
 that he was, in a measure, guiltless. But always 
 he told himself that he must do the square thing by 
 Nell. 
 
 Meanwhile he found and it disturbed him 
 greatly that Nell could not keep up with the new 
 interests his increasing income opened up to him. 
 He developed a taste for modern literature; the 
 best of it, and bought and read avidly the books 
 of Wells, Galsworthy, translations from the Eus- 
 sian novelists. And it hurt him that Nell could 
 not share his passion for these books, that when he 
 loaned them to her, after one or two attempts, she 
 left them lying unread on her table. And he had 
 many other new interests which remained as closed 
 as the books to her. In the old days he had been 
 glad enough to go on trolley rides with Nell, little 
 excursions on which they had each paid their own 
 share of the expenses, to go on walks ending up 
 with a "treat" at an ice cream parlor or, more 
 rarely, a beer-garden. But now that he had more 
 money, these simple pleasures did not satisfy him 
 he wanted to go to theaters, expensive restau- 
 rants, roof-gardens. 
 
 He tried to get Nell to go with him, and while
 
 126 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 he often succeeded he never succeeded without pro- 
 tests from her. 
 
 " Ain't you spending too much, David?" she 
 sometimes asked, awed by the prices on the menu 
 which the waiter placed in her hands. "Why 
 can't we have dinner at the house we pay for it 
 anyway and then go to the theater afterwards ? ' ' 
 
 But David thought of John Powell's glowing 
 promises and smiled at her fears. He went so far 
 as to try to induce Nell to accept some clothes and 
 jewelry from him, even some money, but she shut 
 her lips and shook her head until her red hair fell 
 in little loose coils around her pale cheeks. 
 
 David indulged in other extravagances that 
 made her gaze at him sadly. Once when he came 
 down dressed in dinner clothes (they were going 
 to the theater) she said, "You 're getting too grand 
 for me, David," and in a half -whisper, "if I don't 
 look good enough for you " 
 
 But David denied the imputation indignantly 
 and he was sincere in his indignation. Neverthe- 
 less he wished that Nell would let him buy her 
 some fashionable clothes, such as the other women 
 wore in the places he now frequented. He under- 
 stood Nell's scruples but he wished he could over- 
 come them. 
 
 He had bought the evening clothes ready made, 
 for a dinner party to which John Powell had in-
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 127 
 
 vited him a dinner party which was held in the 
 main dining-room of one of the big uptown hotels, 
 the brilliance and gorgeousness of which took 
 David 's breath away. And the party itself was a 
 revelation this was an experience totally new to 
 him. The champagne flowed so plentifully it set a 
 new standard of extravagance for him ; the women 
 with their dazzling teeth and jewels, their sleek, 
 lustrous hair and bare shoulders, embarrassed 
 him. "And I 'm nothing but a clerk living in a 
 cheap boarding house in Brooklyn," he thought. 
 Very small he felt very insignificant. But his 
 new evening clothes were reassuring, and John 
 Powell said, his hand on David's shoulder, "This 
 is a young man who 's going to make his mark in 
 the world." Under that spur, David took him- 
 self in hand and found somewhat to his surprise, 
 that he could converse quite intelligently with the 
 most brilliant of the women, could return sally for 
 sally. 
 
 "You '11 do, my boy," said John Powell in his 
 apartment later he had invited David to stay all 
 night with him. ' ' It took me some time to get on 
 to the ropes when I first got enough money to go 
 in for this sort of thing. All you need in New 
 York is bluff. Just pretend that you Ve been 
 used to all this show and glitter all your life. 
 Don 't be surprised at anything. If they serve you
 
 128 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 soup in gold plates take it as a matter of course." 
 
 That was the first of many such parties to which 
 John Powell invited David. And after each one 
 David went back to the State Street boarding 
 house with a greater loathing of its stale smells 
 and worn furniture and monotonous greasy fare. 
 John Powell kept urging him to come over and 
 live with him. "You can pay your share of the 
 expenses whatever you can afford if it 's the 
 thought of coming free that 's keeping you back," 
 he said. 
 
 But as Nell had held him to his position with 
 B. Foster and Company, in the early days, so now 
 she held him to the boarding house in Brooklyn. 
 
 So their affair dragged on ... 
 
 Then one night very late, David stole out of 
 Nell's room, carrying his shoes in one hand and 
 there before him stood the landlady. 
 
 "An* so Mrs. Jenkins was right," she said with 
 tight lips, "an' I kep' telling her she was a 
 grumpy old busybody. Well, who 'd 'a' thought 
 it." 
 
 The next morning Nell and he were told they 
 must leave the boarding house immediately. "I 
 never had such goings-on in my house before," 
 said the landlady and her eyes glittered like hard 
 black coals in her worried, toilworn face. "I Ve 
 always tried to run a respectable house an' now
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 129 
 
 look at the name you give me. The other boarders 
 would all give notice if you don't git out an' I 
 don't know as I 'd blame them." 
 
 David had spent a sleepless night. Disgrace in 
 the eyes of these people came hard; doubly hard 
 because he despised them all. And now what was 
 he to do in regard to Nell? Try as he would to 
 find a solution, an escape, there was only one 
 only one, if he were to abide by his vow "to do the 
 square thing" by her. For Nell was disgraced, 
 too. And for a woman the disgrace was harder to 
 bear inexpressibly harder to bear. But how un- 
 utterably hard it was to see his visions of a rich 
 and variegated life in New York vanishing, of the 
 fine flow of his new interests checked even his 
 success imperiled. 
 
 Nevertheless, stifling a tumult of protests, of 
 sick dreads, that lay like a swamp beneath what 
 he considered his duty, he asked Nell to marry 
 him. This was in the parlor, a horrible room of 
 red plush furniture and frowning crayon portraits 
 to which he and Nell had retired for a consultation 
 while the outraged landlady, arms folded, hovered 
 in the hallway outside like a bird whose nest is 
 being violated. 
 
 At his stammering words Nell put her hands one 
 on each of his shoulders and looked into his eyes 
 long and searchingly. Then slowly she shook her
 
 130 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 head and her lower lip quivered like a child's. 
 "No, my dear, I ain't the wife for you. I 've seen 
 this coming a long while ever since the day you 
 wrote those first letters and Mr. Powell made such 
 a fuss over you. You 're going up, David, up and 
 up, and I got to stick to my own level. I tried so 
 hard to understand those books you were so crazy 
 about and I could n't see anything in them. And 
 it 'd be like that in everything. I 'd just hold 
 yer down and all your swell new friends that you 
 talk so much about would laugh at me and be sorry 
 for you. And David " she turned her head 
 away for she did not want him to see the tears in 
 her eyes "I know you don't really want to marry 
 me not really. You 're just asking me because 
 you think it 's the right thing to do. And it 's 
 awful nice of you it 's just what I expected of 
 you but I love you too well, dear, to be fooled. ' ' 
 
 Her generosity stung David into new avow- 
 als, but Nell's determination was not to be 
 shaken. 
 
 "I might as well take my medicine now, David," 
 she said, "better now than later on when I 'd see 
 hate in every look you gave me. I can stand this 
 but I I couldn't stand that, David." 
 
 When he had quieted down, she said, ' ' Now I 've 
 got to look for another boarding house." 
 
 "I can't stand another cheap boarding house,
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 131 
 
 Nell. Let me fix up a nice little apartment for 
 you. I '11 go to live with Mr. Powell. ' ' 
 
 She moved over to the window and drawing 
 aside the patched lace curtains, stiff and blue from 
 many washings, stood gazing out into the street 
 along which little blotches of soiled snow lay melt- 
 ing in the warm sun. Presently without turning, 
 she said, "I Ve never taken any of your money, 
 David. Everything I Ve given you I Ve given be- 
 cause I loved you. Somehow, that 's kept me 
 from being ashamed. I 'm not sorry for any of 
 it. Don't ever feel that you are to blame. If you 
 ever think of me and you will sometimes, won't 
 you f just think that you Ve given me more hap- 
 piness than I ever expected to have. And now, 
 good-by, dear. You go first. If we go together 
 all the old women upstairs will hang out their win- 
 dows and gossip all the more. Besides I want to 
 talk with Mrs. Tupper. She 's been nice to me at 
 times and I don't want to leave her thinking I 'm 
 altogether bad." 
 
 David packed his belongings into a taxicab and 
 drove to Mr. Powell's apartment on Lexington 
 Avenue, feeling that he had behaved like a cad 
 and yet puzzled as to how he might otherwise have, 
 acted. Yet, despite himself, he experienced an 
 overwhelming sense of relief in his liberation. 
 New York instead of Brooklyn, a luxurious bache-
 
 132 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 lor apartment instead of the boarding house, John 
 Powell and his radiantly prosperous friends in- 
 stead of the clerks and stenographers, the gossip- 
 ing old men and women why it was like being 
 born anew into a golden world. And he made 
 numerous stern and rigid resolutions. 
 
 Then, of a sudden, he dived down beneath the 
 taxicab seat and with great difficulty extricated 
 one of his traveling bags. Opening it he took out 
 a small leather case and from the case drew out a 
 photograph. It was a faded photograph, taken by 
 an amateur in the days when amateur photog- 
 raphy was very bad indeed, but dim and frayed as 
 it was it showed David very clearly, as if it were 
 taken yesterday, a little girl with straight spindly 
 legs and big serious eyes standing on a beach with 
 a wide sailor hat in her hand. It was a long time 
 since David had looked upon that photograph . . . 
 a long time since he had felt he wanted to look 
 upon it.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 UNTIL David's marriage he lived with John 
 Powell, for almost three years. And he 
 found these years more abundant and full than he 
 had ever imagined they could be. Eventful years, 
 crowded with new sensations, new experiences. 
 He learned very many things ; learned the art of 
 associating with beautifully gowned, charming 
 women and with wealthy, self-confident men, busi- 
 ness men mostly but occasionally others painters, 
 journalists, actors, dramatists. He learned how 
 to enter a fashionable restaurant with non- 
 chalance; how to order a dinner that gained the 
 approval of the head- waiter; how to lounge ele- 
 gantly and at ease wherever he went no matter 
 how distinguished or rich his host or hostess. 
 Fortunate years, too, in which money flowed into 
 his pockets so readily that he never cared how 
 easily it flowed out again. 
 
 So the fairy tale of the fisherman's son rounded 
 itself to perfection; he was now a prince in the 
 city and the keys of the city which opened all 
 doors to him were in his hand. After a year or 
 
 133
 
 134 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 two of this life it was, indeed, hard to recognize in 
 David the shy and diffident youth who long ago on 
 the Bay Eidge shore had dreamed away his early 
 years visioning the things he would do to serve 
 his fellowmen; who, later in Brooklyn, had fled 
 from one boarding house to another in search of 
 some alleviation from the sordidness to which ten 
 dollars a week, and seldom more, condemned him. 
 
 As a balance to the luxury and idleness of his 
 nights, there was the work of his days hard, un- 
 remitting work which interested him immensely. 
 John Powell in the office was an entirely different 
 man from the John Powell who sat at the head of 
 a dinner table and saw that his guests were di- 
 verted and entertained and filled to repletion with 
 the finest wines and foods. He was no easy task- 
 master. "When you work, work hard and when 
 you play, play hard," he told David, "but keep a 
 sharp line between the two. ' ' And David found it 
 amusing to picture John Powell playing hard; 
 with his immensely heavy body and his short thin 
 legs, he looked as if he 'd topple over at the first 
 swift step; but it was difficult to think of him as 
 other than working hard. 
 
 The affairs of B. Foster and Company had fash- 
 ioned themselves very felicitously for David's, or 
 rather, for John Powell's purposes. While David 
 was still living in Brooklyn, old William Foster
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 135 
 
 went out one mild wet day without his rubbers, 
 caught cold, and died within a week. He was the 
 head of the concern, its founder, and of late years 
 the chief impediment to its progress. He would 
 have none of these * ' dangerous, new-fangled ways 
 of doing business," as he called them. His oppo- 
 sition to the telephone, to female stenographers 
 and clerks, had become legends around the office, 
 fables which the older employees recounted to the 
 younger in moments of confidence. A generous 
 and firm supporter of his church, a large con- 
 tributor to those charities of which he approved, 
 he would rather have died, said John Powell, than 
 see his firm's name attached to a newspaper ad- 
 vertisement. 
 
 Old William Foster's death left the concern in 
 the hands of his son, Avery Foster, and of John 
 Powell who had for years been awaiting this op- 
 portunity. For Avery Foster was to quote John 
 Powell again ' ' a weak sister. ' ' He was a man of 
 forty nine, hiding his thin, dull face behind an um- 
 brageous black beard, and he thought a great deal 
 more of his horses than he did of his business. 
 He was glad enough to let the management slip 
 into the capable hands of John Powell, especially 
 when the wisdom of the course was so obviously 
 shown in increased profits. 
 
 Almost immediately after old Foster's death,
 
 136 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 B. Foster and Company began to advertise on so 
 large a scale that it set their competitors wagging 
 their heads and prophesying ruin within a twelve- 
 month. "They needed old Foster, after all, to 
 hold 'em down," ran the gossip. "It 's John 
 Powell doing this with his crazy ideas." 
 
 But when Avery Foster, white beneath his black 
 beard, came to Powell with reports of this talk, 
 the latter smiled grimly, set his teeth, and said 
 never a word except to David, later. * ' Damn old 
 fossils," he said. "They certainly got Avery 
 scared. But they can't even see a thing when we 
 set them the example, show them the way. Well, 
 when they go against the wall" he shrugged his 
 thick set shoulders, and puffed away at his cigar 
 with keen enjoyment. 
 
 John Powell's justification came even before it 
 could be expected. The business spread all over 
 the country ; a branch was opened in Chicago, an- 
 other in San Francisco; instead of buying from 
 importers as they had formerly done, their own 
 buyers were established in China, in Japan, in 
 South America wherever one was needed, and 
 they put up that large red brick Foster Building 
 on the corner of Franklin and Hudson streets 
 which still dominates that district of the City. 
 
 In all of this growth and progress David had a 
 hand; Avery Foster's influence was almost negli-
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 137 
 
 gible ; occasionally, true to his training, he uttered 
 a protest, but while John Powell appeared to give 
 these criticisms his attention, he never let them 
 influence him. He forged ahead as if his plans 
 were laid long ago while he still chafed under old 
 William Foster's restraint and as if, now that the 
 restraint was removed, he simply had to follow 
 the lines marked out previously. 
 
 It was really in the privacy of his own sitting- 
 room in his apartment, a big brown room glowing 
 with an open fire and filled with deep soft leather 
 chairs, that the destinies of the firm were molded. 
 It was there that David and he consulted, some- 
 times early in the morning after they had returned 
 from the theater or a party in one of the res- 
 taurants. 
 
 It was there, for instance, that they decided on 
 the name of a new package coffee a name which 
 was to flame at some time or other from every bill- 
 board in the country, to flash from electric signs, 
 to dance in street cars, to emblazon in three 
 colors the back covers of magazines ; to become 
 eventually as familiar to the housewife as the 
 name of her eldest born. 
 
 David had seen at his printer's a short time 
 previously some examples of the highly decorative 
 packages which the Germans were using for their 
 food products and that night as they rode home
 
 138 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 from the Astor, he told John Powell about them. 
 
 1 ' We ought to put out an orange and black pack- 
 age with an attractive name,*' he said they had 
 entered the apartment "Something that when 
 it stands on the grocer's shelf can be seen a mile 
 off. That 's the sort of advertising that 's been 
 neglected. Possibly because it doesn't cost any- 
 thing and therefore its value is not forced upon 
 us." 
 
 John Powell lowered himself carefully into the 
 depths of a big chair, shook off his pumps and, 
 leaning over, prepared himself a highball from the 
 whisky, ice, and seltzer which the Japanese serv- 
 ant by custom always left standing on the table in 
 preparation for his master's return. 
 
 "What could we call it, David?" he asked. 
 "Got an idea?" 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 "What 's the word they always use in connec- 
 tion with coffee good coffee ? ' ' 
 
 "You mean aroma?" 
 
 "That 's it. Why can't we call it 'Aroma Cof- 
 fee'?" 
 
 "Too obvious. Besides you can't copyright a 
 descriptive adjective." 
 
 The two sipped their highballs thoughtfully, 
 gazing at the wood fire which threw its warm, 
 leaping light like a huge fan, softly waving to and
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 139 
 
 fro over the shadowy slumberous brown walls, the 
 silky rugs, the vivid Chinese porcelains and 
 touched the Sorolla so that its lone figure stood 
 out like a thing alive. David stretched out a 
 hand and seized a pad and pencil from the 
 adjacent desk. He wrote various words upon 
 the white paper, stopping occasionally to gaze at 
 his work as a painter squints at his canvas. 
 
 1 'How 's that?" he asked, holding the pad so 
 that John Powell could see the single word he had 
 placed in large letters upon a fresh sheet. " Just 
 by placing an 'M' in front of ' aroma ' we get a 
 good name 'Maroma.' " 
 
 "Damn good!" said John Powell, after a mo- 
 ment's consideration. 
 
 ' * Shall I go ahead with the design of the labels ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' Sure ! We '11 give 'em that Connoisseur 
 Blend. It 's cheap and a fine flavor but it never 
 took under its old name. People did n't know how 
 to pronounce it." 
 
 He drew on his cigar slowly, his eyes half closed. 
 Presently without moving, he said, "We Ve 
 traveled a long way, David, you and I, the last few 
 years. But we 're going farther, much farther. 
 We 're not through yet not by a long shot. You 
 just stick to me. I need you and I 'm willing to 
 pay you what you r re worth. How much are you 
 getting now f ' '
 
 140 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 "Six thousand." 
 
 "Satisfied?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, that isn't the stopping place, under- 
 stand. I '11 get you into the firm one of these 
 days. But don't get married. That '11 end it all. 
 Takes the go out of a man, all the creative power" 
 he waved his hand "kills his imagination."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SO swift was the rush of events the first two 
 years David spent in New York, so breath- 
 lessly was his day filled from the time the Japa- 
 nese valet called him in the morning till he fell 
 into bed again usually long after midnight, that 
 he had no leisure for thought. For two years 
 he did not ask himself those familiar questions, 
 "Is this it? Is this what I want out of life?" 
 
 The changing seasons flew by, winter flowed into 
 spring, spring melted into summer, and he was 
 barely conscious of their passing. 
 
 But even the charm of work that called for all 
 the imagination he could give it and even the 
 novelty of living with all the careless and beauti- 
 ful ease that money can buy, palled in time. He 
 discovered a flaw in the golden and overflowing 
 cup from which he now drank. 
 
 He still thrilled to John Powell's talk of na- 
 tional commercial conquests, of the completion of 
 order and efficiency in a business in which there 
 had been little but chaos and blundering, but John 
 Powell was often away of late on trips to the 
 
 141
 
 142 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 Chicago branch or the San Francisco branch, and 
 while he was away affairs did not run so industri- 
 ously down at the big new building of B. Foster 
 and Company. With the main dynamo absent 
 the machinery slackened a little ; the clerks did not 
 rush so quickly from desk to desk with their 
 papers; the office manager was less strict about 
 punching the time clocks; even the porters down 
 in the shipping rooms loaded the bags and boxes 
 upon the waiting line of motor trucks with less 
 vivacity. And almost unconsciously David found 
 himself a party to this general letting up in the 
 pace. Often he sat idle at his desk while old 
 doubts and resolutions long dormant, began to as- 
 sert themselves. 
 
 One day it was a day of young April and from 
 the window at which he sat he could see the roofs 
 of the City glimmering after a shower which had 
 been quickly succeeded by dazzling sunlight he 
 caught himself wondering whether there was not 
 more to life than this piling up of profits, this mad 
 desire to make money, more and more money, dis- 
 guise the game as you would under such high 
 sounding names as efficiency and creative business 
 enterprise. He realized that he had in a modest 
 way achieved that ambition which had been born 
 of dark waters and a tortured soul, the ambition 
 to make himself a material success, to prove that
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 143 
 
 he could be such a success. And now he was 
 hungry for some other purpose. A great and un- 
 mistakable void had opened up within him. He 
 needed a purpose, a worthy purpose to set him go- 
 ing again. But what purpose? 
 
 He found, too, in this new phase of questioning, 
 that he was beginning .to lose his enthusiasm for 
 the dinner parties, the dances, the entire round of 
 gay festivities, enacted chiefly in the restaurants, 
 which at first had seemed so brilliant and so allur- 
 ing, so completely yes, he confessed it the aim 
 and end of existence. The smart chatter of well- 
 dressed, well-gowned people, the sophisticated 
 comments on plays and books and morals and on 
 life generally, that had once impressed him with 
 their cleverness and intelligence, now had a hollow 
 ring to his ears. 
 
 At this time, too, he became quite well ac- 
 quainted with Evelyn Foster, the daughter of the 
 senior partner, and, after listening so long to the 
 innuendoes and self-revelations of the women to 
 whom John Powell had introduced him, he found 
 her innocence and naivete wonderfully attrac- 
 tive. . . . 
 
 He passed several months in this state with a 
 feeling of hopeless futility. 
 
 John Powell celebrated his return from San
 
 144 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 Francisco by having a dinner party in his own 
 apartment. He had the dinner served by a fa- 
 mous restaurant and from the wide circle of his 
 friends he picked the flower to grace his board that 
 night. 
 
 "I want them all to be good sports," he said to 
 David, the evening of the dinner. ' ' This is going 
 to be a real party. I Ve been planning it all the 
 way back from the coast. ' ' 
 
 * ' You are counting on me f ' ' asked David. 
 
 "Of course I 'm counting on you." 
 
 "I wish you 'd let me out of it." 
 
 John Powell scrutinized him from beneath his 
 heavy eyebrows. "What 's the matter? 111?" 
 
 David shook his head. "Just out of sorts. 
 I 'm getting so tired so deadly tired of this sort 
 of thing. ' ' 
 
 John Powell tipped his cigar at an acute angle. 
 "In love!" he shot at David. 
 
 David did not answer and after a pause, John 
 Powell swung on his heel and threw over his shoul- 
 der: "We '11 talk this over after the party. 
 There 's not time now. But I hope you '11 stick. 
 It '11 be damn inconvenient if you leave a place 
 vacant now." 
 
 So David "stuck." 
 
 It was the type of party which a few months ago 
 would have left him breathless with anticipation. 
 It was made up of what some New York satirist
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 145 
 
 once called, "Owe best lobster palace society." 
 Strange creatures these, who live in small rooms 
 tucked away in huge hotels so that they may 
 emerge into the rosy glare of restaurants and 
 theaters, gowned in silks and velvets, brilliant with 
 diamonds, dragging their males after them ; whose 
 only interests are eating and drinking and gossip- 
 ing, seeing and being seen; who in summer fly 
 from the heat of the city to some resort which as 
 nearly as possible approximates their beloved 
 Broadway Atlantic City, Long Beach or, if they 
 have funds sufficient, some French watering place. 
 There came to John Powell's rooms that night 
 it was late September Lily Carello, formerly 
 of grand opera but now, owing to a fondness for 
 sweets and wine, uplifting the comic opera stage ; 
 her husband, Lester Ford, the novelist; Mr. and 
 Mrs. Clarence Pettit, whose entrance in a restau- 
 rant was the signal for all the headwaiters to rush 
 forward and bow ; there came also Paul DeWay, a 
 ghost of a man with sunken eyes and thin sneering 
 lips, who, it was claimed by his friends, had the 
 cleverest tongue in New York ; Mrs. Arthur Jack- 
 son, a dowdy middle-aged woman whose antics 
 were the delight of the yellow newspapers ; Harold 
 Lee, who was doing his utmost to do away with the 
 fortune his father had left him ; and, in addition, 
 three young women who belonged neither to the
 
 146 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 stage nor society but by considerable dexterity 
 managed to maintain a foothold somewhere be- 
 tween the two. 
 
 A typical gathering, thought David bitterly, as 
 he sat back in his chair surveying them while the 
 waiters sent by the restaurant, placed mushrooms, 
 filet of sole, breast of young turkey and numerous 
 other things before him and kept his glasses filled 
 to the brim with sparkling wines, red and white 
 and pale gold. A typical gathering on which all 
 the high ambitions, the lofty purposes of his youth 
 were shipwrecked, lost. 
 
 While the talk bubbled and laughed with the 
 champagne, while Lily Carello sang in a throaty 
 voice, one of Musetta's arias a part which had 
 helped to make her famous John Powell sat at 
 the head of the table, his head a little to one side, 
 smiling slightly as if he were an emperor who had 
 commanded these people to come before him and 
 amuse him. And, indeed, he had. With his 
 money, which was power, he had spread this feast 
 before them, set them dancing, their tongues fever- 
 ishly clacking for his amusement. David thought 
 he detected beneath John Powell's smile a shade 
 of derision, of contempt, as he gave his ear to 
 Lily Carello, who with upraised, clasped hands, 
 whispered to him. 
 
 The waiters, moving with incredible softness
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 147 
 
 and rapidity, cleared away the debris of the din- 
 ner and left little gold-banded cups of black coffee 
 and tiny thimble-like glasses and crystal bottles 
 shining with deeply, beautifully colored brandies. 
 David studied the waiters to see if they, too, were 
 contemptuous of these people whom they served 
 so skilfully, but their white smooth faces were 
 blank with an ecstasy of devotion; they did not 
 seem to have any eyes. 
 
 Presently the three colored musicians who had 
 played discreetly all during dinner struck up a 
 loud and quick refrain ; the harpist threw back his 
 head and attacked the strings as if he had sud- 
 denly gone mad ; the violinist swayed to and fro ; 
 the banjoist beat on his instrument as if he were 
 sounding a summons in the depths of an African 
 forest. 
 
 The floor was cleared and every one arose, found 
 a partner, and whirled around in an abandon of 
 movement. . . . 
 
 It was after four when the last taxicab waiting 
 below clattered away. 
 
 John Powell caught David's arm. " Don't go 
 to bed," he said; ''I want to talk with you. Now 
 tell me what 's the matter with you. ' ' 
 
 "Nothing 's the matter except that I 'm thor- 
 oughly sick of this sort of life like to-night. I 
 want something more decent, less artificial. ' '
 
 148 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 "You 've got your work, have n't you? That 's 
 decent enough, isn't it ?" 
 
 "Yes, but even that in the last analysis is noth- 
 ing more nor less than making money. I 'd like 
 to do something that would do people good, would 
 make oh, it sounds awfully foolish, I know but 
 that would make the world a better place to live 
 in." 
 
 "The trouble is you Ve had too much time on 
 your hands while I 've been away," said John 
 Powell savagely. "You Ve been brooding and 
 you 're young. Got too much idealism left. 
 Don't you know there 's nothing in idealism 
 just dream stuff never gets you anywhere. Look 
 at the reformers when they get in office just 
 make a mess of things, just putter. It 's the 
 trained politicians who give us a good govern- 
 ment. What if they do get their little graft for 
 doing it? It 's the men who take off their coats 
 and get to work without any thought of ideals or 
 reforms that accomplish things." 
 
 "Those people who were here to-night are not 
 accomplishing much." 
 
 "Do you imagine I take them seriously? If I 
 did I would n't have them here. I want relief, re- 
 laxation, so I can go back to work to-morrow re- 
 freshed, renewed. Study people, make use of 
 them, this man for this purpose, that woman for
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 149 
 
 that purpose. But don't let them make use of 
 you. That 's my philosophy. ' ' 
 
 * ' That 's why you 're making use of me ? " 
 
 "Sure, it is. But it 's paying you, isn't it? 
 Besides, that is n't why I asked you to come and 
 live with me. I liked you. I was weak enough to 
 feel that I needed some one to whom I could give 
 a little more of myself than I gave to the mob of 
 them and that 's my confidence. And now 
 you 're thinking of chucking me." 
 
 He was walking excitedly up and down the room 
 with short, jerky steps. His large face was very 
 red with the wine he had drunk, and David thought 
 that he looked more than ever like Mr. Punch. 
 But he found no amusement in the thought. 
 
 After a brief silence, Powell turned on him 
 again with: "Who 's the girl?" 
 
 "What girl?" 
 
 "Oh, there 's some girl, some sweet, young thing 
 responsible for all these new fancies of yours. ' ' 
 
 David hesitated, decided not to name her, and 
 impulsively came out with : "It 's Evelyn Foster." 
 
 "That milk-face? Why, she 's like her father. 
 She 's not a girl; she 's a pattern." 
 
 "Please " began David. 
 
 But John Powell, his face still more flushed, cut 
 him short with a wave of his hand. "Don't ex- 
 pect me to sentimentalize, my boy. I 'm too old.
 
 150 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 Purity, innocence, sweet girlish charm why, my 
 God, David, if you marry her she '11 make you 
 walk a path so narrow you '11 never be able to look 
 around you just ahead, always straight ahead. 
 Whatever put her into your head? Ambition?" 
 
 "You mean, am I marrying her because she 's 
 Avery Foster 's daughter f ' ' 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 David clenched his fists. ' ' I wish she were n 't. " 
 
 "You '11 get ahead all right without that boost. 
 I '11 see to that." 
 
 1 ' You don 't understand. ' ' 
 
 "For Heaven's sake, David, don't spring that 
 old romantic stuff. Let 's talk like men not like 
 heroes of a second-rate melodrama. I understand 
 all right. She 's caught you in the net of her 
 gentle pose of knowing nothing about this horrible 
 world. My God, nobody has the right to claim 
 any virtue for knowing nothing at this stage of 
 existence. Damned ignorance, I call it. Worse 
 than ignorance damn pretense. Nobody can help 
 knowing things what with newspapers and books 
 full of sex, sex, sex, as if there were nothing else. 
 I know Evelyn Foster, know her well. She 's her 
 grandfather all over again. 'No, we can't do 
 that, I 'm afraid. It isn't ethical.' I can hear 
 her saying it now just as he used to say it hold- 
 ing things back, blocking 'em, keeping you from
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 151 
 
 growing, growing, growing. Don't I know! 
 Didn't I have twenty years of it? And now 
 you 're letting yourself in for the same thing. 
 And marriage is a much more ticklish affair than 
 business, David." 
 
 Presently in his perambulations he came to a 
 halt beside David and laid his hand on his shoul- 
 der. U I 'd rather see you marry that Honeywell 
 girl who was here to-night. She 's fast as Hell 
 but she knows men knows they can't be tied down 
 to a perfectly respectable life and keep growing. 
 Evelyn 's an angel an ignorant angel. They 're 
 the hardest kind. Think it over, David." 
 
 He waited but David did not speak, so he said, 
 "Well, I 'm going to bed. Good night." 
 
 David did not move for some time after John 
 Powell had left him. He sat staring at the burnt- 
 out embers of the wood fire and he was thinking 
 as he had thought so many times of late, ever since 
 he had come to know Evelyn Foster, how utterly 
 sick at heart he was of this pagan life he had been 
 living. Of its uselessness. Of its purposeless- 
 ness. Two years of it. More than two years of 
 it, for he supposed ever since he had left Bay 
 Ridge, abandoning the idealism of his youth, he 
 had lived a pagan life, an absolutely material life 
 in which his whole idea, the one thing which had 
 animated him, had been to forge ahead, to be a
 
 152 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 success. And this silly snatching at pleasure, 
 dead fruit from a metal tree. Where had it led 
 him? To such women as Lena Honeywell, to such 
 a life as to-night's party had typified. 
 
 And David thought of all the women he had 
 known. A troop of rustling, smiling shadows 
 flitted by. First, Nora Davenport, dear Nora 
 she was, indeed, a shadow now, worn almost into 
 oblivion by the many impressions that had 
 crowded to efface her. And he thought next a 
 little sadly and furtively of Nell Ferguson. He 
 had never ceased to reproach himself (when he 
 thought of it which, alas, was not often!) of the 
 part he had played in Nell's life, although she 
 had told him never to blame himself. Perhaps 
 that was why he did reproach himself, because of 
 her generosity, her unbelievable unselfishness. 
 
 He never saw Nell now. She had left B. Foster 
 and Company's employ, sought a position else- 
 where. Perhaps because of him, perhaps because 
 she could not bear the sight of him as a stranger. 
 
 Then he thought of that gay and seductive 
 creature John Powell had called the Honeywell 
 girl. But he thought but briefly of her; there 
 were too many others like her ; women of a night, 
 of a mad week of a season's infatuation perhaps. 
 
 Last he thought of Evelyn Foster. She seemed 
 like a tender and delicate flower, white-petaled,
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 153 
 
 fresh, fragile, against the background of gleaming, 
 passionate blooms he had known. The thought of 
 her was like a wave of air deliciously fragrant, 
 breaking over him. 
 
 "If only I were half good enough for her," he 
 muttered bitterly. 
 
 But he felt he was not never could be; the 
 slate of his life was heavily marked and scratched. 
 And still he could not help but hope. 
 
 She could aid him to start anew if she only 
 would to begin all over again, to generate a new 
 and useful, decent life simple, sincere, fine. 
 
 Into that room sickly with the atmosphere of 
 dead flowers and burnt cigarettes, flickering with 
 the dimness of pink-shaded candles, crept the 
 clear light of morning. David lifted his eyes to it 
 with a tense expression on his face. As that pure 
 light came into the murkiness of the room so would 
 Evelyn come into his life, he thought. 
 
 And with that image of her, he went to bed.
 
 CHAPTEE VII 
 
 AS far back as the days in which he had slaved 
 away at the billing desk, David had caught 
 visions of Evelyn Foster. She occasionally came 
 to the office to meet her father, to accompany him 
 home or perhaps, to lunch with him. A fair visi- 
 tor from another world she had seemed to David 
 in those days, a being remote and alien, one of the 
 blessed few who dwelt in the clouds while he toiled 
 with the millions bound to the earth. Once when 
 he was struggling in a jam of people trying to 
 fight his way to a trolley car at the New York end 
 of Brooklyn Bridge, he had seen her handling the 
 reins of her smart little trap, taking her father 
 home, while the groom, arms folded, sat behind, 
 and it seemed to him he was only one of thousands 
 who followed her with envious eyes. 
 
 She was quite young when he had seen her first, 
 for he remembered her hair worn in a loosely tied 
 strand hanging down her back. Beautiful hair it 
 was, of a gold so pale it was more silver than 
 gold. 
 
 Later, of course, as he rose from the ranks, he 
 came to meet her. It was after he was made ad- 
 
 154
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 155 
 
 vertising manager of the concern that Mr. Foster 
 first introduced him to her. She wore her hair 
 high on her head, then, partially concealed beneath 
 a little, round, black fox hat that added sheen and 
 luster to the silvery-gold hair ; and he remembered 
 how the color mounted to her thin and delicate 
 cheeks as she said, "I begged father to introduce 
 me, Mr. Wells. He says you Ve done so many 
 wonderful things in the business. I don't quite 
 understand what I 'm awfully stupid about busi- 
 ness. Won't you come to tea some afternoon and 
 tell me something about it I " 
 
 She telephoned him a day or two later, repeat- 
 ing the invitation and naming an afternoon. 
 
 He went only to be so impressed, so awed by the 
 big brown Foster house on Brooklyn Heights, by 
 the butler in livery and by the chattering, high- 
 voiced group of young people surrounding Evelyn 
 Foster, that he got no enjoyment out of the event. 
 Afternoon teas, butlers, and young ladies with a 
 distinguished manner were altogether beyond him 
 at that time he was still living in the boarding 
 house in Brooklyn and had not yet profited by the 
 example of the restaurant society of New York. 
 He tried to pretend he was enjoying the tea with 
 lemon in it that Miss Foster handed him and that 
 he understood the conversation about dances and 
 country clubs and motors, but he knew that his
 
 156 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 pretense was a poor success. And he was ab- 
 surdly conscious of a button that somehow, at this 
 most unfortunate moment, had detached itself 
 from the coat of his blue sack suit. 
 
 "I say, old man, don't you think the French cars 
 have it all over the American?" said a youth be- 
 side him, in a dark gray, tight-fitting cutaway. 
 
 "I don't know," David confessed, conscious 
 that the youth gave his answer a disgusted stare. 
 
 But despite the failure of that encounter, David 
 did not lose interest in Evelyn Foster, nor she in 
 him. The next time she invited him to tea, which 
 was some months later, he had moved to New 
 York. And one of the first things he bought was 
 an afternoon coat of dark gray. So he went to 
 the big Foster house with assurance, confident 
 that he would meet Evelyn Foster's friends on 
 their own ground. But he found her alone except 
 for her mother, a stout, matronly woman, who 
 talked of the weather and how much she admired 
 wholesome young men, in such a pleasant and 
 commonplace way that she did not frighten him in 
 the least . . . and after a little while she withdrew 
 unobtrusively. 
 
 The rear windows of the Foster house opened 
 on the harbor, and the sun had fallen behind the 
 huge pile of buildings opposite, leaving a long 
 string of gray clouds against a sky that was like a
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 157 
 
 strip of salmon-colored silk. A pageant of boats, 
 black against the dark blue water, constantly 
 passed up and down, and presently David found 
 himself telling the girl opposite him of how, as a 
 child, he had sat upon the rocks of the Bay Eidge 
 shore, and tried to imagine what the City would 
 come to mean to him. 
 
 She listened intently, her lips slightly parted, 
 the lace on her bosom falling and rising slightly 
 with her breathing. 
 
 "Is n't it splendid, " she said, "that your dreamo 
 should come true that you should come to the 
 City and conquer make a name for yourself 
 create success out of nothing?" 
 
 "A very modest name a very small success." 
 
 "Oh, but you are just beginning" she leaned 
 towards him with clasped hands 1 1 Father says 
 you have such good ideas and that Mr. Powell 
 1 eaves so much in your hands for you to carry 
 through. ' ' 
 
 "But his are the ideas!" 
 
 "I know, but I am sure putting them into exe- 
 cution is half the task. I suppose you are very 
 fond of Mr. Powell. You are living with him now, 
 are n't you?" 
 
 "Yes. He 7 s the biggest man I Ve ever met." 
 
 "You '11 think it very silly of me to criticize," 
 she said with a little self-deprecating movement
 
 158 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 of her hands. ''While I admire him, I don't like 
 him. He gives me the impression that he would 
 stop at nothing to gain his ends. He 's so ag- 
 gressive and so well, so uncouth. I don't believe 
 he thinks of anything but money. As if there 
 weren't so many bigger, finer things in the world 
 . . . things of the spirit it 's so hard to express 
 what I mean." 
 
 "I think I know what you mean," said David 
 huskily, and he thought, beautiful as the harbor 
 was in the afterglow of sunset, she was more beau- 
 tiful ; in her white dress, she was like a silver spirit 
 drooping in the wicker chair. 
 
 "I thought perhaps you would rather come here 
 while I was alone," her voice went on a little hesi- 
 tantly, broken most charmingly into halting syl- 
 lables. "You didn't feel at home with all that 
 crowd before, did you? I don't blame you. 
 Strangers always embarrass me, too. But then 
 father and mother have always kept me so shel- 
 tered from people from people and things too 
 much sheltered, I sometimes think." 
 
 "I haven't been sheltered," laughed David. 
 
 "No, of course, you have n't. But then there 's 
 no reason why you should be. It 's different with 
 a girl ... I don't suppose girls should know too 
 much about life ... it 's so horrid really, isn't 
 it?"
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 159 
 
 And David thought how delicious it would be to 
 take her frail body in his arms and protect her 
 forevermore from the advancing forces of life, 
 the things that were indeed, he knew too well ! 
 "horrid," bestially "horrid." 
 
 But intimate as that conversation had seemed, 
 David did not see much of Evelyn Foster for a 
 year or two. His new life in New York occupied 
 him so thoroughly that he made no attempt to see 
 her, but she stayed in the hinterland of his con- 
 sciousness, a very charming and restful personal- 
 ity. Then, one summer, she invited him to spend 
 a week down at her father's country place on Long 
 Island, and these seven days, filled with bathing 
 and sailing parties, of evenings on a moonlit 
 veranda and long walks by day along the sand 
 dunes, brought them much nearer together. 
 
 That was the summer he experienced his first 
 reaction from the gay life to which John Powell 
 had introduced him, and Evelyn Foster seemed to 
 personify all the things to which he had set his 
 eyes in contrast with all the things which had 
 grown nauseating to him. 
 
 At first, of course, he had no more idea of 
 marrying her than the mariner has of possess- 
 ing the star which guides his course. She was 
 utterly unattainable. She was like a water lily 
 blossoming over the brackish waters of the pool
 
 160 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 the muddy pool which his life had become. 
 
 But as that summer passed and the autumn ad- 
 vanced an autumn so protracted that it held 
 summer's ardor in a cooler clasp until far in De- 
 cember he began to hope and to wonder. Eve- 
 lyn's soft and elusive personality began to domi- 
 nate his thoughts, to fill his brain with a very 
 sweet and intoxicating perfume. 
 
 She was kind to him. It was a constant marvel 
 to him how kind she was. Once he said to her, 
 "Could you forgive many unforgivable things 
 in a man's life, Evelyn? Things that he does 
 not realize the hideousness of until he meets an 
 absolutely good and innocent woman?" 
 
 She flushed a little as if the subject were dis- 
 tasteful to her and gave him a wide and uncom- 
 prehending stare. But presently a little tremu- 
 lously she said, "I 'm so ignorant of the forces 
 that govern a man's life and of the temptations 
 that beset him. But I do realize that a man is 
 fashioned differently from a woman is less ac- 
 countable perhaps, is sometimes forced into 
 things." 
 
 He took courage at her words and set forth to 
 press his suit with swift purpose. He was amazed 
 that his Goddess combined such wisdom with such 
 innocence. 
 
 And when he asked her to marry him one March
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 161 
 
 afternoon she consented very simply, very sweetly. 
 "I knew that you were going to ask me some day, 
 David," she said, smiling up at him although her 
 eyes were wet with tears. "I shan't make any of 
 the silly remarks a woman is supposed to make at 
 a proposal. I shall be very glad to marry you, my 
 dear." 
 
 To David's further surprise there was no op- 
 position on the part of either Mr. Foster or his 
 wife. It was not until later that David learned 
 that their opinions concerning their daughter's 
 interest and affairs were supplied them, for the 
 greater part, by the daughter herself.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 you 've committed yourself!" cried John 
 Powell, when David told him of his engage- 
 ment. "Well, I suppose it had to be. But I 'm 
 damned if I '11 congratulate you. Why should I? 
 What are you to be congratulated on? You 're 
 through with progress that 's what you are. 
 Don't I know Evelyn Foster? Haven't I seen 
 her grow up to own her father and mother, body 
 and soul, to start them dancing at her bidding as 
 if they were dolls stuffed with sawdust? She 's 
 been petted and pampered all her life. She 's the 
 final personification of all this American sentimen- 
 talism about women a sweet girly girl, crowned 
 as if she were an empress, treated as if she were a- 
 goddess. I don't know that it 's all her fault. 
 Circumstances have made her. Now she 's tak- 
 ing you for a husband because she thinks she can 
 run you as she runs her parents. You '11 be more 
 of a waiter than a husband. ' ' 
 
 "She 's marrying me because she loves me," 
 said David stoutly. "What other reason could 
 she have t Who am I ? What can I offer her that 
 she does not already possess ? ' ' 
 
 162
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 163 
 
 "Oh, as for that, she 's probably come to care 
 for you somewhat. All emotion has n't been flat- 
 tered out of her. And you 're too modest. There 
 are a lot of things about you that make you a de- 
 sirable possession. You Ve got a good-looking 
 face and a well set up body and a fair intelligence. 
 You 're amiable and kind and in evening clothes 
 you almost look like a gentleman. What more 
 could Evelyn Foster ask for? If she were poor, 
 she 'd demand money in addition. But she 's got 
 more money than she '11 ever need and so you 're 
 a logical selection. Probably you 're still a little 
 rude and uncouth, as she 'd put it, but she '11 enjoy 
 polishing and shining you and making you a deco- 
 ration to the home and an ornament to society. ' ' 
 
 David laughed. "I bought my first cutaway to 
 go to one of her teas. ' ' 
 
 ' * And by that showed her you were amenable to 
 her requirements" he sat puffing at his cigar 
 thoughtfully, his face set in a scowl, his heavy jaw 
 pressed against the chest that rose to meet it. 
 Presently he lifted his fist and brought it down 
 with a resounding crash on the table. "Where 
 will go all our big plans and projects now ! Bang ! 
 Exploded ! Up into the thin air. I '11 have two 
 reactionaries in the firm of B. Foster and Com- 
 pany to deal with now. It 's a hell of a way to 
 pay me back for the interest I 've taken in you
 
 164 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 a selfish interest, I admit I saw I could use 
 you. ' ' He quieted again and finally gave a long 
 sigh of resignation. "Well, I can see your side 
 of it. I don't suppose I ought to blame you. 
 Why should you worry about anything? You 
 said your ambition was to be a successful business 
 man and now you 're capping that ambition by 
 marrying a rich wife. You '11 run around in your 
 motor, you '11 go with the best people, as they call 
 themselves ; you '11 get to think more of what Mrs. 
 La-di-da said about your wife's newest evening 
 gown than you ever did about creating a big, na- 
 tional business." 
 
 David jumped to his feet angrily. "Why 
 should you think I shall ever be such an idiot?" 
 
 John Powell rose after him and seizing his arm 
 swung him around roughly so that he could see 
 into his eyes. After a moment he said, shaking 
 his head a little sadly, "What 's the use of my 
 ranting in this way? You '11 have to work out 
 your own destiny, my boy. Maybe you won't 
 settle down to to oblivion. Maybe you 're not 
 through. But there 's a long fight ahead of you. 
 I know Eveljtn Foster and her kind too well. 
 She '11 want all of you or none of you. You '11 
 be happier perhaps if you let her have her way." 
 
 It was easy for David to toss aside John Powell's
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 165 
 
 warnings with a slightly contemptuous shake of 
 his head. What did he know about women good 
 women? On his own confession he preferred the 
 other kind. And so without any appreciation of 
 the finer, truer type of womanhood, how could he 
 be expected to understand them f Besides he was 
 too full of Evelyn Foster's charm to think of much 
 else. He was passionately devoted to her, he ad- 
 mired too intensely all those little evasions, those 
 little aloofnesses that were a part of her. He was 
 happy just to sit opposite her and watch her 
 daintily pick an orange apart or lift a cup to her 
 lips with a grace that was all her own. 
 
 He even did his work better, he told himself, his 
 perceptions were keener, his judgment clearer be- 
 cause of her. She was an inspiration to him. 
 Certainly he did go through his tasks with a vim 
 and energy that cleaned them up quickly, left part 
 of his afternoons free to devote to her. At half- 
 past three or four he walked past John Powell's 
 office in which the latter was bent over his desk or 
 pacing the floor dictating letters to a stenographer 
 with an air of bravado that said, "Find a flaw in 
 my day's work if you can!" 
 
 One spring afternoon he was hurrying up Fifth 
 Avenue to meet Evelyn at the Hotel Manhattan 
 where they were to have tea together. He had
 
 166 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 passed Fortieth Street and was in front of the new 
 library, when the face of a woman coming down 
 the avenue toward him made him blink his eyes 
 incredulously. Ten years slipped away from him 
 and he was a boy on the Bay Ridge shore again. 
 ... It seemed to him that Nora saw him the in- 
 stant that he saw her. He came to a dead and 
 breathless stop ; then sprang forward to meet her 
 outstretched hand with his. 
 
 "Hello!" he cried, "Nora, is it really you!" 
 and found he could say no more. They stepped 
 close to the marble railing, out of the way of the 
 stream of passersby, and a minute later were 
 chatting as light heartedly and familiarly as if 
 they had parted amidst flowers and sunshine only 
 yesterday. 
 
 That was the best, the finest part of the meeting, 
 thought David afterwards, that here after ten 
 years, with all the chasms and gaps and wide dif- 
 ferences that a decade brings, that here they were 
 to meet again and feel as if the years had never 
 been. 
 
 He had a hundred questions to ask her; a hun- 
 dred questions parched his lips. Where was she 
 living? What had become of Bradford? Had she 
 married him? Was she still living with him! 
 They were questions which had forced themselves
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 167 
 
 upon him time and again since the night she had 
 said good-by to him in another world down in the 
 little red house. 
 
 But he found that he could ask her none of these 
 questions. He could simply gaze at her as if his 
 eyes would never get their fill. She had changed 
 a little but not much. Some of the bravery, the 
 flame of her bearing, had gone ; her gray eyes had 
 saddened a little ; it seemed they had grown darker, 
 the long eyelashes a little heavier ; the lines of her 
 firm lips drooped a little. Nevertheless she was 
 the same dear Nora; her eyes rose to his as 
 steadily as ever and her hand was as firmly given, 
 her clasp as unfaltering as of old oh, she was the 
 same Nora! There was no mistaking it. Sud- 
 denly a vast and golden reassurance flooded his 
 soul ... if she had not changed then things were 
 All Bight with her a thousand demons bowed 
 their heads, a thousand strings within him leaped 
 into harmony. 
 
 And while his thoughts were thus pouring tor- 
 rentially beneath the surface, they talked of trivial 
 things, their words were empty and meaningless 
 . . . and presently they realized this. 
 
 David glowed with an inspiration. "Why not 
 go back to the beach to-morrow, Nora? I 've 
 never been back. We can talk there really talk. 
 We can tell each other everything about ourselves.
 
 168 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 We '11 spend the whole afternoon there. Why 
 not?" 
 
 Nora's eyes were shadowy with reflections. "I 
 don't think it would do " 
 
 "Please, Nora." 
 
 "Well, perhaps. It won't be the same though." 
 
 "I know but let 's go and see." 
 
 "All right," she capitulated, with a smile that 
 showed her surrender was complete. 
 
 They agreed to meet at the Thirty-ninth Street 
 ferry at two o'clock the following day. David 
 proposed taking a taxicab down but Nora laughed 
 mockingly, "Is that the way you 're going back, 
 David ? What had our childhood to do with taxi- 
 cabs? Where 's the illusion? What has hap- 
 pened to your imagination?" 
 
 So they parted reluctantly but full of the mor- 
 row. 
 
 "Why are you so quiet, David?" asked Evelyn 
 Foster, at tea, later. "You look as if your 
 thoughts were miles away. And you haven't 
 passed me the toast." 
 
 "I met a friend this afternoon I have n't seen in 
 years not since I left Bay Eidge. ' ' 
 
 "A woman?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Evelyn asked nothing more and he decided not
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 169 
 
 to tell her of the morrow's excursion. That, he 
 thought, belonged only to Nora and himself, was 
 dedicated to the dream-days of the past.
 
 CHAPTEE IX 
 
 AS David hurried across South Street, he 
 caught sight of Nora coming from the Sub- 
 way station. He watched her as she paused be- 
 fore the little flower stand that nestled tucked in 
 the wall beside the entrance to South Ferry. 
 David ran toward her, beckoning. 
 
 ' ' The boat 's in, Nora, ' ' he caUed. * < Hurry ! ' ' 
 
 She looked up, smiled a greeting, and came 
 hurrying after him, her hands full of sweet peas. 
 The guard laughingly held the gate open for them 
 until they slid through. 
 
 The boat was comparatively deserted, for it was 
 hours before it would receive its freight of home- 
 goers. They mounted to the upper deck and 
 placed camp chairs in the shelter of the pilot house 
 so that it would protect them from the wind. The 
 bright sunlight glittered on the deck around them 
 and on the waters so blindingly that they could 
 not gaze upon it. 
 
 "Well?" asked Nora, after they were settled 
 and after David had regarded her in silence long 
 enough. She had on a plain dark blue suit and she 
 
 170
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 171 
 
 had pinned the sweet peas against her bosom so 
 that they fluttered in the spent breeze that drifted 
 around the pilot house ; she wore smart, mannish 
 little brown boots and a small felt hat with a 
 feather stuck in it at exactly the right angle a hat 
 which made David think of Rosalind in the forest 
 of Arden. 
 
 "Well, what?" asked David. 
 "What are we going to talk about?" 
 "A million things. First of all, where have you 
 been?" 
 
 1 ' Only for the past year in New York. ' ' 
 "That 's why I Ve never seen you. I looked 
 everywhere for years. Finally, I gave up. I 
 thought you were lost to me forever. Are you 
 here permanently now ? ' ' 
 
 "I 'm living in Brooklyn in the remotest part 
 of Brooklyn." 
 "Not Bay Ridge?" 
 
 "No, quite the other end of Brooklyn." 
 The boat was now rounding Governor 's Island ; 
 the old fort stood out in faded brick over which 
 the sunlight threw kind mellow shadows ; dredges 
 were at work filling in new ground, adding a long 
 tongue of land like the tail of a kite to the island. 
 ' ' Everything is changing and being changed, ' ' said 
 Nora. "I wonder if we will find Bay Ridge 
 changed?"
 
 172 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 "I don't know; I hope not," said David thought- 
 fully and a little sadly. 
 
 They watched the Brooklyn shore slip by, low at 
 the water's edge, with many covered wharves and 
 square warehouses, rising beyond in dwellings, 
 interspersed with the steeples of churches; pres- 
 ently, the high fence that shuts in Erie Basin was 
 before them and beyond, at a height, the melan- 
 choly trees and grass of Greenwood. 
 
 Nora and David spoke but little ; they were con- 
 tent to be with each other again. Their hearts 
 beat high with the spirits of memory and of ad- 
 venture. 
 
 The boat ran into the slip with a gentle thud, 
 and at the landing they boarded an open trolley 
 car. Here it was no longer the place of open lots 
 and ramshackle buildings that they remembered. 
 A terminal company had taken possession of the 
 surrounding territory and erected towering fac- 
 tories of gray concrete and warehouses and built 
 wharves that pushed their hooded heads far out 
 into the bay. 
 
 It was not until they were past Sixty-fifth Street, 
 once called City Line, however, that they reached 
 the regions they had really known. Here it be- 
 came appallingly evident what tremendous changes 
 the City's growth had brought about in the past 
 ten years. At Sixty-ninth Street there was still
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 173 
 
 the cluster of low wooden stores to which David, 
 as a boy, had been sent on errands almost daily, 
 but all around them had risen block after block of 
 red brick flat-houses with the ground floors given 
 to shiny new shops. The trees that had formerly 
 arched their branches over the street were all 
 gone to make way for the flagstone pavements and 
 the relentless telegraph and telephone wires. 
 
 Nora and David alighted from the car at Sev- 
 enty-third Street and walked toward the Shore 
 Eoad. The flat-houses and shops did not extend 
 below Third Avenue, but along these side streets 
 little villas lay in orderly rows, with spiked rail- 
 ings guarding them and spare grass plots in 
 front villas all hopelessly alike, swinging into 
 view one after another with patterned monot- 
 ony. 
 
 They walked on down streets cut recently 
 through the meadows they remembered with 
 daisies and clover in bloom. Finally the orderly 
 and settled rows of villas were left behind and 
 they came upon a riot of fresh upheavals just 
 breaking ground like monstrous plants putting 
 forth leaves and sprouts of wood and plaster. 
 Already in their incipient state, they were labeled, 
 "These Little Mansions for Sale at Seasonable 
 Prices." 
 
 Here it was immeasurably drearier than before
 
 174 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 for the low meadows still bled with their wounds 
 dark red piles of earth lay on the green grass 
 and scaffolding and lath and plaster spread itself 
 everywhere. Trees and bushes were broken or 
 stuck their heads forlornly through the debris as 
 if watching patiently- the approach of their in- 
 evitable doom. And in and out of the litter moved 
 the busy builders, whistling at their work; the 
 sound of their hammering and sawing and shout- 
 ing split the air. 
 
 At last David and Nora reached First Avenue 
 the Shore Eoad was only a block distant. As 
 yet the City had spared this part only an oc- 
 casional new house rose knee deep and alien in the 
 meadows with a thin path trodden brown leading 
 to its door. 
 
 Out of the depths of her disappointment Nora 
 whispered hopefully, * * I think the Shore Eoad will 
 still be the same, David; that 's all that really 
 counts. ' ' 
 
 But when they reached the Shore Road the 
 changes were cruelest of all. 
 
 For those mysterious beings who masquerade 
 under the name of Authority had cut down all the 
 trees and bushes and wild growth which had for- 
 merly flourished in abandon along the cliffside. 
 Everything was now severely in order as if a hot 
 iron had Men passed over it. The banks of the
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 175 
 
 cliff were smoothed down and robbed of the de- 
 lightful crevices on which flowers had once 
 bloomed and from which vines and bushes had 
 flung flowering arms to greet the sea. All was 
 gone ! Instead, the cliff sloped gently to the sand 
 and it was evenly sodded with close-clipped grass, 
 broken with brown and yellow patches . . . 
 
 The sun beat down starkly on law and order; 
 the breeze was gone. 
 
 David did not look at Nora. He was heartsick. 
 He was bitterly disillusioned. He had come back 
 here with Nora to visit the scenes of their child- 
 hood and he had found them so utterly and sadly 
 changed. And it made him think of how his life 
 was changed, too, of how all the dear fancies and 
 hopes of his youth had been pressed out of him, 
 leaving him a solid and unimaginative business 
 man. What right had he to memories f . . . Their 
 excursion so eagerly planned was settling down 
 into a dismal failure. 
 
 They walked down the slope of grass to the 
 beach. Nora refused David's hand and he thought 
 of the day she had refused to let him help her over 
 the rocks. 
 
 "Bet I can beat you swimming," he said, sum- 
 moning up spirit enough to smile into her face, 
 and when she flashed back at him, "Bet you 
 can't!" it brought a little gaiety back to them.
 
 176 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 "Let 's go down to the rocks and sit there and 
 talk," suggested David. 
 
 "Yes, let 's," she agreed. 
 
 But they looked for the string of rocks in vain. 
 They had been removed to make way for a break- 
 water of concrete, filled with rock, which kept the 
 sea out of the tiny cove and turned it into a placid 
 pool of slumbering water. 
 
 Suddenly Nora halted and exclaimed: "Why 
 even the little red house, your little red house, is 
 gone!" 
 
 David nodded ; he had already noticed it. ' ' Yes, 
 I 'm glad it is. It has no place here." 
 
 "Yes, I 'm glad it 's gone," Nora agreed, after 
 a minute. 
 
 They made their way out upon a new dock bear- 
 ing a freshly painted sign, "City Property No 
 Trespassing," and settled themselves on the far 
 edge where a ledge offered a seat. In the dis- 
 tance, as of old, the City, swathed in veils, loomed 
 against the horizon. 
 
 "Do you remember how you used to sit here and 
 dream of what the City would mean to you? 
 .What it would do to you?" asked Nora. 
 
 Very soberly David nodded. 
 
 "What has it done, David?" 
 
 And he told her. Everything he told her. Of 
 the dreary years spent in Brooklyn boarding
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 177 
 
 houses, of Nell Ferguson, of B. Foster & Company 
 and John Powell and, finally, of the success that 
 had come to him. 
 
 "The keys of the City," Nora said, after he had 
 concluded; "to think, after all, David, that they 
 should be presented to you." 
 
 "Presented to me?" 
 
 "Well, the keys to the City are success and the 
 money it brings. They open all doors." 
 
 David remembered, then, how he had told her of 
 the famous man who had come to a great city 
 and been presented with its keys, and how he had 
 wondered and hoped that he might be so famous 
 some day that the keys of their city would be given 
 to him. 
 
 They sat in silence for a time. Nora had her 
 back to a post, her head tilted so that it rested 
 against it ; her white veil was lif ted and her eyes 
 closed. The sweet peas at her bosom, a little 
 wilted, were very fragrant. David studying her 
 face, abruptly realized she was older. She looked 
 tired now. How old was she? A year younger 
 than he. She was over thirty ! He could hardly 
 credit it ... oh, the years, the swift silent 
 years ! . . . One of her heavy tan gloves slipped 
 from her lap and he stooped to pick it up, retain- 
 ing it in his hand, turning it over and over with a 
 curious expression in his eyes. And now he
 
 178 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 thought how strange it was that he knew nothing 
 of Nora, of her life for the past ten years al- 
 though sitting beside her she seemed so near and 
 so utterly familiar to him. As if in answer to his 
 thoughts, when he looked up, he found Nora 's eyes 
 upon him. He flushed slightly and dropped the 
 glove upon her lap. For a moment longer they 
 stayed silent while the waters gurgled and sucked 
 at the piers of the dock below them; then Nora 
 said: 
 
 "I suppose you want my story now?" 
 
 "Not unless you want to tell ' 
 
 "I want to tell you, David." 
 
 "I want to hear very much oh, very much," he 
 confessed. 
 
 She paused as if loath to begin while he waited 
 intent. 
 
 "I Ve left Walter Bradford." 
 
 "You never married him?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You 're living alone!" 
 
 "Yes. I 'm making my own living." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 For a full minute she did not answer; then, 
 finally: "I suppose it 's simpler to begin at the 
 beginning. When I ran away with Walter I de- 
 termined to stick to him forever. Even after I 
 found that I no longer cared for him it seemed the
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 179 
 
 only thing for me to do the only way to keep 
 afloat. When a woman takes a step of that kind, 
 you know, things pull at her, pull downward all 
 the time other men find out and take weaknesses 
 for granted." 
 
 David asked savagely : * * Bradford treated you 
 well?" 
 
 She nodded. "He grew quite to respect me 
 oh, that was hard, David to make him respect 
 me. He had affairs with other women; he could 
 not get along without excitement of that kind; it 
 was what he lived for. And I got so that I I did 
 not mind them. They came and went, all more or 
 less mercenary and vile. But he got so that he 
 no longer classed me with those other women; 
 he got to look upon me almost as a wife ; at least, 
 as a fixture, a habit. Do you understand what I 
 mean ? He used to come to me with his petty little 
 sorrows and failures. I was his harbor, his home. 
 He grew quite fond of me in that way " 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 "I thought there was nothing else for me to do 
 that it was my only salvation. I came to be- 
 lieve that a woman should bow her head to con- 
 vention, she must regard what people say, what 
 they think. When I started out I did n 't think 
 so. I began life by thinking I could do as I 
 pleased. I wanted to have the same liberty a man
 
 180 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 has. But I just went smash. You know I Ve 
 always hated muck I didn't want that sort of 
 liberty. But I wanted freedom, freedom to act 
 and talk and think as I pleased. Of course cir- 
 cumstances played their part in smashing me. . . . 
 With a man it 's different. The world makes it 
 awfully hard for a woman to be brave and inde- 
 pendent and fearless. Once let her step outside 
 the palings aad the wolves are at her, leaping for 
 her throat. ... It takes courage . . . David, if it 
 had n't been for you, if I had n't remembered you 
 all those years, I should have thought all men 
 beasts. I should have given up. For when I 
 realized the trap I had so willingly stepped into, 
 I became reckless. But at last I decided to make 
 the best of it. I decided the only thing for me to 
 do was to stick to Walter until death came to him 
 or to me. For six years I endured it ... and 
 then I changed. ' * 
 
 There was another silence while David waited. 
 Nora relaxed from the rigidness which held her; 
 she leaned her head against the post again and 
 closed her eyes. It was in this attitude, that she 
 presently resumed : 
 
 "Then another man came into my life Carl 
 Ellis a Westerner from Colorado ; a clean, strong 
 man, crude, simple, wonderfully tender. Walter 
 knew him in a business way. We were living in
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 181 
 
 Chicago then and Walter brought him home to 
 dinner at our little apartment near the Lake front. 
 He came several times. He thought that I was 
 Walter's wife. Suddenly he discovered I don't 
 know how that I wasn't. It broke him all up. 
 I hadn't known he cared for me until then he 
 was one of the few men who wouldn't let a mar- 
 ried woman know, not even by a look. He went 
 back to Colorado. Before he went I told him my 
 whole story as you know it, David. He heard of 
 you, too, of what you had meant to me. He wept 
 for me that huge man weeping ... it was awful, 
 actually awful. So he went home. I have never 
 heard from him nor seen him since although I 
 wrote him when I came East. ' ' 
 
 "You loved him!" asked David huskily. 
 
 "No, but I wanted him to know I had broken 
 away from Walter and all that." 
 
 1 1 How did it come about ? ' ' 
 
 "Well, after Carl had gone I got to thinking 
 things over slowly; you know how a thing keeps 
 revolving in your mind, creeping upon you gradu- 
 ally until you can't think of anything else. I be- 
 gan to ask myself if after all, it was the right thing 
 to stick to Walter if it were the only thing to do. 
 And at last it seemed to me it wasn't that I 
 should get away make my own living. How? 
 That was the next question. So I studied stenog-
 
 182 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 raphy and typewriting, went to school while Wal- 
 ter was at business. At last I felt I knew enough 
 to take a chance. So I cut loose I left Walter. ' ' 
 
 " How did he act!" 
 
 "There was a scene. His wife had died a year 
 or so before. He offered to marry me. But the 
 offer came too late. My heart was mad with the 
 thought of freedom. . . . Well, I finally got a posi- 
 tion at starvation wages but I managed to keep on 
 and I got a better position. At last, after a year, 
 I had saved enough to come East. You see I 
 wanted to get as far away as possible from Walter. 
 I was in constant fear of meeting him. When I 
 arrived here a year ago, I obtained a position in 
 Brooklyn in a factory as stenographer. Now I 'm 
 the private secretary to the head of the firm and 
 making a very decent salary very decent for a 
 woman. ' ' 
 
 ' l Have you heard anything of your mother f ' ' 
 
 ' ' She is dead. I never saw her again. ' ' 
 
 " Your father?" 
 
 ' ' Of him I know nothing. ' ' 
 
 She sat very quietly, still intent upon her story ; 
 her hands were folded in her lap ; her lips tremu- 
 lous. Evening was approaching with a noisy twit- 
 ter of birds ; the shore and the bay were regaining 
 some of their old charm with the softening light. 
 The hard orderly lines of the sodded cliff and the
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 183 
 
 ugly upheaval of the breakwater melted beneath 
 the golden light of sunset. From afar came the 
 sound of whistles announcing the end of the 
 workers ' day. 
 
 Nora arose. "It must be getting late," she 
 said, staring out over the undulating water with 
 unseeing eyes. 
 
 They walked back along the beach and up the 
 cliff. Before the white house where Nora had 
 lived, they paused. It had fallen into disrepair 
 and needed painting; it had grown strangely 
 smaller with the years. 
 
 "Things appear so ridiculously impressive when 
 one is a child," said David. 
 
 They waded through the meadows where the 
 sporadic growth of new villas stood deserted in 
 the hush of evening. The hammering and shout- 
 ing and bustling had ceased for a little while. 
 Night was drawing the torn meadows to her cool 
 bosom. They crossed First Avenue and came 
 upon the orderly rows of small houses set behind 
 their handkerchiefs of grass. The houses now 
 showed lights, and red-globed lamps with beaded 
 fringes shone bravely in small parlors of impec- 
 cably varnished woodwork. Past it all stole David 
 and Nora like two shades who had no place in the 
 happy, well ordered commonplace life these little 
 houses represented.
 
 184 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 They did not speak except in short detached 
 sentences until they were on the ferryboat again. 
 Then David told Nora of Evelyn. He had in- 
 tended telling her to-day, but finally when the City 
 was sp near, its huge buildings towering over them, 
 he found he had to force himself to it. 
 
 "I am going to be married, Nora," he said ab- 
 ruptly. 
 
 "Yes," said Nora in a very low voice, and sud- 
 denly she lifted her hand to her hat and let her 
 veil fall over her face. 
 
 "Yes," he repeated. 
 
 After a moment she said, "I 'm glad, David. 
 I 'm awfully glad. At first I was n't but I think 
 it 's probably the best thing. ... I think you '11 
 be happy. You ought to be. I should think any 
 woman would be happy with you. What 's her 
 name?" 
 
 "Evelyn Foster." 
 
 "Foster?" 
 
 "My employer's daughter." 
 
 "I should like to see her." 
 
 "Yes, you must meet her sometime," he said 
 quickly and a slightly embarrassed pause fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 When they reached New York, David proposed 
 dining together uptown. But Nora shook her 
 head.
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 185 
 
 "I know the quietest little place near Wash- 
 ington Square, ' ' he urged. 
 
 She would not be persuaded. "Good-by, 
 David," she held out her hand. "I '11 take the 
 subway. I '11 leave you here, please." 
 
 "But, Nora!" he exclaimed. "You haven't 
 told me where you are living nor when I can see 
 you again!" 
 
 "Do you think that it 's wise, David?" 
 
 "Wise ! Oh, what rot, Nora. It is n't as if we 
 still cared for one another or, rather, as if I cared ; 
 you never cared. ' ' 
 
 "No, I never cared," she echoed, in a lifeless 
 voice. 
 
 "Then why shouldn't we see each other oc- 
 casionally?" 
 
 She did not answer for a minute. "I think it is 
 better that we don't, David. Please don't misun- 
 derstand me," she put her hand on his arm. 
 "You 're a brother to me, a friend, but I think I 'm 
 wiser in this. We must take no chances. I must 
 not come into your life again, and especially not 
 at present." 
 
 "I don't understand " 
 
 She smiled, but in her eyes there was an ex- 
 pression he could not fathom. 
 
 "Grant me one favor, Nora," he said finally, 
 when he saw he could not alter her decision. He
 
 186 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 took a card from his pocket, penciled an address on 
 it. * ' If you should ever need anything anything 
 I have if you should want money, sympathy, 
 help, anything a man can offer, anything a friend 
 and a brother can offer, will you promise to call 
 upon me? It will make this parting a lot easier 
 for me. It will make me almost happy to know 
 that if anything goes wrong with you, I '11 learn of 
 it and can help to set it right again. ' ' 
 
 She took the card and slipped it into her pocket- 
 book. "I promise," she said solemnly. 
 
 She gave him her hand and let him hold it for 
 a minute while he gazed at her under the yellow 
 glow of the Subway entrance lights, with a 
 troubled, perplexed questioning in his eyes. 
 
 Then she left him.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THAT night very late, after he was quite sure 
 John Powell was asleep in his room down 
 the hall, David stole forth from his bed. There 
 was something that would not let him sleep. He 
 went over to his bureau and drew forth from the 
 lowest drawer, where it had long lain hidden, a 
 small white cardboard box. He thought he owed 
 it to Evelyn to destroy the articles it contained. 
 He picked them out one by one they were piti- 
 fully meager a dented silver thimble that Nora 
 had lost on the beach, the letters she had written 
 him after the first summer, and the small photo- 
 graph in the brown leather case that showed her 
 as a child standing on the sand that was all. 
 David examined them carefully, read the letters 
 and gazed long upon the photograph . . . their 
 destruction became impossible. 
 
 "What a sentimental ass I am," he remarked to 
 himself, "but I 'm sure Evelyn wouldn't mind." 
 
 So he replaced them in their box within the 
 bureau drawer and crept back to bed. But still 
 sleep did not come . . . 
 
 187
 
 188 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 He did not see Evelyn for a week, while over 
 the telephone her voice asked plaintively what 
 kept him away. She even sent him a short note 
 asking him if he were ill, if she had done anything 
 to offend him and he did not answer it. 
 
 He went back to her, finally, very contrite and 
 repentant, telling himself that his marriage to her 
 would solve his problem, silence his memories. 
 And so tender and thoughtful was he in this atti- 
 tude that he managed to win her consent to an 
 early marriage. 
 
 "Are you quite sure, David, that you love me?" 
 she asked, her arms around his neck. " After all, 
 I don 't suppose I can give you very much. I don 't 
 know sometimes I think I 'm not meant for mar- 
 riage. Some things about it seem to me so so 
 horrid. Sometimes I even wonder oh, David, 
 forgive me! if I love you enough. I 'm selfish, 
 utterly selfish. I Ve been spoilt I realize that. 
 All my life everything has been given me; I Ve 
 been smothered with gifts and pleasures until I 
 think the real me has died. But if you left me, 
 if some other woman took you from me, I should 
 be mad with jealousy ... I care enough for 
 that" 
 
 Never had David found her so charming as in 
 that rare moment of frankness. He thought of 
 what John Powell had said of Evelyn and told
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 189 
 
 himself that a woman who confessed her weak- 
 nesses was a woman indeed. 
 
 "Evelyn, I look upon my marriage to you as a 
 safe haven, deep with happiness," he said and he 
 believed what he said. "If you refuse to marry 
 me now, God help me. ' ' 
 
 And so one day at high noon they were mar- 
 ried in Christ Church on Brooklyn Heights with 
 music filling the air and flowers banked high 
 around them, and Evelyn's friends, brilliantly 
 attired, crowding the church, and the reception at 
 the big Foster home afterwards. 
 
 David went through it all in a dazed condition. 
 People's faces were a blur before his eyes and he 
 dropped the ring as he was about to place it on 
 Evelyn's finger and remembered groping around 
 on the carpeted floor searching for it in the dim 
 light. 
 
 Afterwards only two impressions remained dis- 
 tinct with him. 
 
 One was Evelyn descending the stairs as they 
 were about to go away. She wore a traveling suit 
 of light gray which made her seem more radiant 
 even than her white wedding gown ; her eyes were 
 shining, her cheeks flushed but, nevertheless, she 
 was wonderfully calm, quite mistress of herself. 
 
 The other impression was John Powell, who had 
 at last been prevailed upon to come, wringing
 
 190 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 David's hand as he was about to step into the 
 motor, and saying, "Forget what I said, my boy. 
 God give you happiness! I shall miss you, 
 David." 
 
 Then the closed automobile moved swiftly and 
 silently away and he was conscious of Evelyn's 
 eyes, a little frightened, upon him. It seemed to 
 him that they were absolutely isolated from the 
 rest of the world, they, two, as if they had each 
 been cast separately upon a desert island and had 
 suddenly come face to face. She had been given 
 to him to protect and cherish through all the rest 
 of her life and his life . . . very tenderly he put 
 his arms around her shoulders and drew her to 
 him and with the kiss he gave her then he felt that 
 one book in his life was closed and a new one 
 opened with blank pages on which he could write 
 what he willed.
 
 PAET III
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 DURING the honeymoon, David discovered 
 the tenacity of purpose which ran, like a 
 steel wire stiffening silk, through the frail body of 
 his wife. She was so accustomed to her own way 
 that she could not brook contradictions of any 
 kind, could hardly understand them. They in- 
 furiated her, galvanized her into white and speech- 
 less anger. This spirit manifested itself at first 
 in many small ways. Evelyn was a Puritan. She 
 had a number of prejudices which were not 
 founded on reason but which had been handed to 
 her intact, by her parents, much as they had 
 handed her bread and butter when she was a child. 
 Certain things were wrong because she had been 
 told they were wrong. 
 
 With these fixed beliefs to back up her argu- 
 ments she laid a hand on some of David's personal 
 habits and with pouting lips and contracted eye- 
 brows said, "I wish you would n't smoke so much, 
 David. It 's bad for you especially cigarettes. 
 Won't you please be moderate for my sake? I '11 
 limit you to a box a day." 
 
 193
 
 194 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 She viewed askance his friendly overtures to 
 people they encountered in their travels, in the 
 trains and the hotels, and once when he had ac- 
 cepted a stranger 's invitation to have a drink with 
 him she had been so outraged that she refused to 
 speak to him for half a day. 
 
 Evelyn demanded, too, a great deal of attention, 
 he found, in small and foolish ways. It angered 
 her curiously to have him slight or forget these 
 demands. One evening, when he had failed to 
 open a door as she was about to pass out of a 
 room, she turned upon him with a cold and un- 
 smiling : "I see I shall have to teach you some of 
 the manners of a gentleman." 
 
 The memory of that remark stung for several 
 days although he did his best to forget it ... 
 
 Apart from these trifling discords, however, the 
 friction of one nature adjusting itself to another, 
 their honeymoon was a long and intoxicating duet. 
 Evelyn showed, in her melting moods, that she 
 could be wonderfully soft and tender. In love she 
 was a sweet creature. 
 
 But toward the end of the journey David 
 secretly found himself thinking gratefully of its 
 termination. Honeymooning was too rhapsodic. 
 It contained too little of the sterner stuff of life. 
 It was a strange custom, he thought, this honey- 
 mooning, which brought two people so irrevocably
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 195 
 
 face to face, day after day, exposing them to each 
 other so constantly in such a fiercely intimate light. 
 It did, indeed, demand its madness, its glamour. 
 It overdrew so heavily, at the very outset, the 
 fund of common sympathies, interests, and ideas. 
 It was, he concluded, a relic of that time when a 
 bride did not ask so much leniency in a husband 
 nor a groom so much intelligence in a wife. It 
 was somewhat obsolete. It belonged to that 
 simpler period when the wife was the vine and the 
 husband the oak. 
 
 David discovered many things about Evelyn to- 
 ward the close of their travels and each new dis- 
 covery was utterly surprising. He felt somewhat 
 as if he had started out with some one he knew 
 quite well and was returning with one whom he 
 had met on the way and was only beginning to 
 know. Curtains had been torn away but new and 
 more subtle ones had replaced them. 
 
 He found, for instance, that Evelyn did not have 
 any real liking for books or plays. He imagined 
 that she would not feel their loss greatly if through 
 some unimaginable catastrophe they were all done 
 away with. She read books because she heard 
 people talk about them and she went to plays be- 
 cause the theaters drew their audiences. Nor did 
 she have any but a feeble interest in the things that 
 were happening in the world. For a time, he
 
 196 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 found great amusement in her method of reading a 
 newspaper and he chaffed her about it until it sent 
 her into a sullen mood. She would pass hastily 
 over those columns which told of the big events of 
 the day and come to anchor before a divorce suit 
 or some other recital of scandal . . . she found, 
 as if by instinct, the queerest little items no mat- 
 ter in what corner of the paper they were tucked 
 so long as they dealt in personalities, tepid and 
 spiced. But her training was such that in discuss- 
 ing it, she would end up by saying with a shake of 
 her little head, "How can people do these awful 
 things?" 
 
 She was happiest, he noted, at dinner in the big 
 dining-room of the hotel in Quebec where they 
 stayed for a fortnight. There she commented with 
 avidity on the dresses and manners of the people 
 who sat at other tables. She sparkled with ani- 
 mation, seemed confident of her own charming ap- 
 pearance; her conversation, slightly malicious, 
 very naive, ran on amusingly. As if her position 
 as a married woman gave her new freedoms, she 
 would lean towards David and whisper, "Do you 
 think that woman over there with black hair is a 
 bad woman? Look how she 's fondling that man's 
 hand. A lady wouldn't do that, would she!" 
 
 In the past, before their marriage, she had ig- 
 nored that type of woman when they had encoun-
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 197 
 
 tered her in restaurants, had sat with averted eyes 
 and pursed lips. But now it was as if marriage 
 had given her the right to peer, to ask questions, 
 to unveil a hard and relentless curiosity. David 
 could not help thinking of a pretty child suddenly 
 released from a dark closet, standing on its thresh- 
 old, blinking, disapproving, afraid to come out and 
 yet too interested to go back. 
 
 Evelyn did have the gift of dressing well. It 
 was her means of expressing herself. Neither 
 ribbon nor buckle ever struck a discordant note. 
 The color scheme of her attire was worked out 
 as carefully and painstakingly as a designer's. 
 When she spoke of other women's clothes it was 
 with the authoritative air of an artist discussing 
 amateurs. Much of the triumph of the artist, too, 
 was hers as she passed through a crowded room 
 with the eyes of every woman, appraising, won- 
 dering, curious, following her. 
 
 Such was the Evelyn that David had mar- 
 ried. . . . 
 
 It was in June that they returned to New York. 
 As they were to spend at least two months that 
 summer with Evelyn's parents in their country 
 home at Woodmere, they decided to postpone all 
 plans for their own homemaking until autumn.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 WOODMEEE lies flat on the south shore of 
 Long Island within easy commuting dis- 
 tance of New York. Where, not so long ago, the 
 wild duck flew croaking over marsh grasses and 
 through clumps of stunted cedars, the villas of the 
 well-to-do now raised their sloping roofs and red 
 brick chimneys, crowding closer together each 
 year. 
 
 Down at Woodmere, that summer, people spoke 
 of the fortunate marriage Evelyn Foster had 
 made. David "Wells was such a nice young man, 
 so devoted to his wife. The two of them were al- 
 ways together; if David played his indifferent 
 tennis or golf at the country club, his wife always 
 sat on the wide veranda of the club house watch- 
 ing him. It was as such things should be, of 
 course, said everybody, but unfortunately they 
 were so seldom as they should be. It was so re- 
 freshing to see an ideal example of a newly mar- 
 ried couple. In the quieter young married set 
 down there David and Evelyn quickly found their 
 place. They were welcomed as a thoroughly de- 
 
 198
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 199 
 
 pendable addition to the ranks of the respectable 
 and law-abiding. 
 
 This country life which centered around the club 
 house where the dances were held and where the 
 tennis and golf tournaments took place, was new to 
 David and he found it very delightful. It was so 
 idle and luxurious, so carefree and healthy. It 
 was such a normal and graceful use of wealth. 
 These people never seemed to have a want or de- 
 sire which they could not immediately gratify and 
 at the same time their wants and desires were all 
 so perfectly natural and becoming. Playing 
 games, swimming, dancing it was almost childlike 
 in its simplicity. When one was tired there was a 
 deeply cushioned chair waiting in a shady corner ; 
 when one was thirsty there was an iced drink to be 
 had for the touch of a bell ; when one was hungry 
 there was everything one could wish for brought 
 graciously by sleek and smiling waiters. ' ' This is 
 the real thing!" David told himself. "This is 
 what I have always wanted!" The keys of the 
 City had unlocked another door for him. 
 
 Often, at night, Evelyn would come to him and 
 put her hands on his shoulders, saying, "I 'm so 
 proud of you, David. Everybody likes you. And 
 you look so well in your summer clothes. You 're 
 really quite decorative, dear " Then, with an 
 air of confession "For a time on our honey-
 
 200 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 moon, for just a little time, I wondered if we were 
 going to get on together. How silly it was of me. 
 I 'm so happy now. If only we could always be as 
 happy as we have been this first summer. ' ' 
 
 "How ridiculous! What are you afraid of, 
 poor, foolish little thing?" 
 
 "Oh, David, we 're so happy that somehow it 
 does n't seem right. It seems to me sometimes as 
 if we '11 have to pay for this happiness with sor- 
 row." 
 
 Then David would put his arms around her 
 (very lovely she looked with her pale gold hair in 
 braids down her back) and pet her into reassur- 
 ance. 
 
 In September, Evelyn aroused herself from the 
 summer's lethargy and developed a violent inter- 
 est in house hunting. She journeyed to the City 
 nearly every day for a week or two. At last she 
 told David she had found a most attractive apart- 
 ment on Brooklyn Heights, not far from the big 
 Foster house. 
 
 "But I thought we were to live in New York?" 
 protested David. 
 
 "New York rents are impossible. Besides, I 
 want to stay near the people I know." 
 
 Although David wondered why he had not been 
 consulted in the matter, he decided to say noth- 
 ing further. He had long since learned that to
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 201 
 
 cross Evelyn's will was but to provoke a quarrel 
 in which, sooner or later, he was forced to capitu- 
 late. One of the reasons for the summer's suc- 
 cess was that he had learned that lesson. 
 
 Evelyn's feverish activity was resumed after 
 a brief intermission. It was directed now against 
 furnishers, painters, paper-hangers, tradesmen 
 of various sorts. She returned to Woodmere 
 evenings, sometimes later than David himself got 
 back from business. Dark circles of fatigue were 
 beneath her eyes, her voice was plaintive with 
 weariness. She refused all invitations, retired 
 early, and had David read her to sleep while she 
 lay propped up in bed, her thin shoulders buried 
 in pillows, her braided hair a silver rope upon the 
 blue silk of the wrap she wore. "I suppose it 's 
 selfish of me, David," she said, "but, after all, it 's 
 for your sake as well as mine that I 'm working 
 this way. ' ' 
 
 "Why don't you let me help? Don't you trust 
 my judgment in furniture and carpets ? ' ' 
 
 "I 've dreamed for years of what my own 
 home shall be like. I don't want any interference 
 from a mere man. I know you '11 be pleased, dear. 
 I 'm not going to let you see a thing until it 's all 
 ready. You have your business. This is mine." 
 And pulling his head over towards her she ran her 
 fingers through his hair, rubbed her smooth cheek
 
 202 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 against his, saying in a childish voice which she 
 affected now and then, "Let Evelyn have her 
 way. Be a good boy, David. Little Evelyn 's so 
 tired." 
 
 Finally, one October morning, according to her 
 instructions, he said farewell to Woodmere and 
 reported that evening at his new home. She even 
 had to tell him how to find it. That seemed a huge 
 joke to them. 
 
 Walking smartly down from the Subway, he 
 discovered a shining, white-stone apartment house 
 in Montague Street which corresponded with 
 the number Evelyn had given him. The waters 
 of the bay glimmered not far away and a tree in 
 the yard of an old house next door glowed crim- 
 son against the sky. He stepped into an elaborate 
 marble hallway and feeling as if he were a 
 stranger paying a call in an unknown house, was 
 lifted in a small gilt cage to the fourth floor. A 
 smiling maid in a neat black waist and white 
 apron answered his ring. 
 
 "Is my wife here?" David asked awkwardly. 
 
 She burst out laughing from behind a portiere 
 and threw her arms around him. " Is n 't it fun, 
 David? And is n't it ridiculous 1 Now, I '11 show 
 you around." She barely gave him time to re- 
 move his coat. Hand in hand, they wandered 
 from room to room. He found each furnished ex-
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 203 
 
 quisitely; his store of appropriate adjectives was 
 soon exhausted. In the living-room there was an 
 open fireplace ; green draperies hung at the doors, 
 chrysanthemums in a tall vase stood on a mahog- 
 any desk, and old prints in dark wood frames were 
 on the walls. The dining-room held furniture of 
 dull brown oak and curtains of a peculiarly vivid 
 deep blue. Evelyn's bedroom was gay with chintz 
 and pillows, water-colors, photographs, and white 
 furniture. It was not until he came to his own 
 room that the least discord was struck. For at 
 the sight of chintz and white here, too, he frowned. 
 
 " Don't you think it 's a little overdone for a 
 man's room?" he asked. 
 
 Evelyn pouted and dropped his hand. "Of 
 course, I knew you 'd find fault with something. ' ' 
 
 She stood drooping and chilled for a minute or 
 two. " You can have it changed if you wish," she 
 suggested at last. 
 
 "No, I suppose I '11 get used to it," he said re- 
 luctantly, and she bloomed again. 
 
 "But I have n't shown you the real jewel of the 
 apartment. I Ve kept it hidden till the last. ' ' 
 
 She led him back to the living-room and with 
 the air of a priestess presiding at a rite, pulled a 
 green curtain away from the wall. A painting 
 was revealed. 
 
 "It 's a real Anton Mauve," she whispered rev-
 
 204 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 erentially. "I bought it at auction. Don't ask 
 me what I paid for it. ' ' 
 
 "But you 've ruined me, Evelyn!" he cried in 
 consternation which was not altogether feigned. 
 
 "I Ve paid for everything, " she said, and waved 
 her hand generously. "Everything out of my 
 own money. That 's my share, David." 
 
 "But, Evelyn" 
 
 She covered his lips with her rosy ones. "To 
 what better use could I put my money, dear?" 
 
 "I feel like a male Nora in this doll's house," he 
 said later. 
 
 But Evelyn did not understand him. "Doll's 
 house!" she echoed. "Well, if you 'd had to pay 
 the bills you would n't call it a doll's house !" 
 
 The maid entering discreetly announced dinner 
 and they went into the dull brown and blue room 
 together and sat glowing happily at each other 
 across the silver and crystal. 
 
 Gradually into the routine of their quiet eve- 
 nings at home, evenings devoted to books and the 
 newspaper, perhaps a game of cards or to de- 
 sultory discussions of the day's incidents, came a 
 slight feeling of unrest. "We '11 have to do some 
 entertaining, I suppose, David," Evelyn said. 
 "What 's the use of having a Mauve if you can't 
 show it to any one? Besides people will be get-
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 205 
 
 ting back to town. They '11 expect us to do some- 
 thing for them, if only to repay them for their wed- 
 ding presents. ' ' Slipping over to the desk, she be- 
 gan to select names for a dinner party, jotting the 
 favored ones down on a long slip of paper, scratch- 
 ing some out after they were down, substituting 
 others. 
 
 1 'Why not ask John Powell? " asked David, from 
 his chair beside the lamp. 
 
 1 <I don't like him." 
 
 "He 's done so much for me, Evelyn. He 's the 
 person I should most of all like to entertain in my 
 own home." 
 
 1 'Some other time, then," she murmured petu- 
 lantly. "I 'm only going to have people I like at 
 my first dinner party. ' ' 
 
 The affair turned out very felicitously. Evelyn 
 sat at the head of the table, flushed and trium- 
 phant. 
 
 "Do you think everybody had a good time?" 
 she asked afterwards. "The soup was too salty, 
 did you notice, David? Did you see how Alice 
 Donaldson pushed it away from her ? I hate peo- 
 ple like that. But I think it was a success, don't 
 you?" 
 
 That first dinner party was the beginning of 
 many. They received invitations in return and, 
 almost before he was aware of it, David found
 
 206 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 himself hurrying home every afternoon to dress to 
 go one place or another. A round of meaning- 
 less social affairs seemed to get him in its hard 
 grasp. 
 
 ' * We are going to the Perrys ' to-night, David, ' ' 
 Evelyn would say at breakfast she made a point 
 of having breakfast with him, attired in a loose 
 silk wrap, yawning, and with a keen appreciation 
 of the sacrifice she was making to her duty as a 
 wife. "If you leave the office a little early, we '11 
 motor -down to the Perrys'. The trains to Doug- 
 laston are so uncertain. I made arrangements 
 with mother yesterday to use her car." 
 
 "But, my dear, I can't leave the office early every 
 day. I 'm ashamed to pass John Powell's office. 
 You see if I neglect my share of the work he has 
 to shoulder it. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, just this time, David. I shan't ask it 
 again. ' ' 
 
 Even David's Sundays were arranged for. 
 Every Sunday Evelyn and he were compelled to 
 have dinner with the Fosters a long, tedious din- 
 ner of many courses. The climax of the Fosters ' 
 Sunday was reached in that dinner. They did 
 not believe in "doing much on Sunday," as they 
 expressed it. After church in the morning the 
 whole day was left idle for them, except for the 
 momentous dinner. It assumed importance of
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 207 
 
 immense proportions and it dragged its weary 
 length through an interminable succession of 
 dishes. 
 
 After dinner they sat, heavily overfed, in the 
 long drawing-room; Mrs. Foster and Evelyn dis- 
 cussed their friends and their dresses, whispers 
 of marriages, of births and deaths floated through 
 the room; Mr. Foster nodded over the Sunday 
 paper; David walked restlessly up and down the 
 room, puffing furiously at one cigar after another 
 Mrs. Foster approved of cigarettes even less 
 than Evelyn, but cigars, for some reason or other, 
 were not held to be as vicious as cigarettes. 
 
 While David paced he thought of the hideous 
 Sundays of his youth, when his mother would not 
 let him go out on the beach to play because it was 
 4 'wicked" to do so on the Sabbath. "You can 
 play every other day in the week. It 's not proper 
 on Sunday, ' ' he could remember her saying. Her 
 voice seemed to echo through the large drawing- 
 room of the Foster house, with its ornate, silk-cov- 
 ered chairs and damask portieres. He thought 
 how ironical it was that, after so many years of 
 freedom, he should feel the chains of this outgrown 
 conventionality once more. 
 
 One Sunday he revolted. 
 
 "I 'm not going to your father's to-day," he 
 announced.
 
 208 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 Evelyn regarded him incredulously. "Why 
 not?" 
 
 He floundered for reasons. "I don't want to 
 go. It 's insufferable." 
 
 "But what will' they think?" 
 
 "I don't care what they think. You go and I '11 
 stay home and read. ' ' 
 
 "But I have n't arranged for dinner, home." 
 
 "I 'd rather go without dinner than go there." 
 
 She made a gesture of helplessness and re- 
 peated, "But why?" 
 
 "That unnatural formality those deadly old- 
 fashioned ideas about behaving one way on Sun- 
 day and a different way on all other days. ' ' 
 
 "I understand, my dear," she said appealingly, 
 "but they don't. They 're too old to change. We 
 can't change them now and there 's no sense in 
 shocking their feelings they 'd be hurt terribly 
 hurt, that 'sail." 
 
 He sank deeper in the chair as if it were a refuge 
 and resumed his reading. "Well, I 'm not go- 
 ing." 
 
 "But what will they think?" 
 
 "I don't give a damn what they think." 
 
 She turned from him, pale and shaken, and went 
 to the telephone. He heard her say : ' ' We shan 't 
 be around, David does n't feel well." 
 
 Then she returned to sit with him. He looked
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 209 
 
 up from his book to find her weeping silently. He 
 tried to disregard her and found that his book had 
 lost all interest. He flung it down and jumped to 
 his feet with: "Oh, it 's too bad too damn bad 
 that such a little thing should upset you so. ' ' 
 
 She gave him a wet and reproachful glance. ' ' It 
 is n 't a little thing to me, David. ' ' 
 
 He could resist no longer and found her re- 
 sponsive to his caresses. "I suppose I did act like 
 a brute, Evelyn." 
 
 She melted into his arms with a babble of inco- 
 herent remarks. "They 'd think it so strange if 
 I came alone. They 'd think we 'd quarreled. 
 And if they knew you did n't want to come, David, 
 they 'd feel so hurt. You '11 go next Sunday, 
 won't you?" 
 
 In desperation he promised, and found he was 
 caught up in the endless chain again. 
 
 It was that way in many things. . . .
 
 WHY weren't they happy? What did they 
 demand of each other I There was no an- 
 swer to the questions except the presence of the 
 questions themselves. 
 
 They had been married over a year. Even the 
 second summer, spent like the first in the home of 
 Evelyn's parents at Woodmere, had lost its 
 glamour. The golf, the tennis, the motoring, the 
 idle luxurious life, all were the same; even the 
 people were the same and yet David was not 
 satisfied. Why? He did not know. It was as 
 idle to question as it is to analyze the weariness 
 that overtakes one on spring days or the sadness 
 that weighs one down when a certain strain of 
 music is sounded. 
 
 It was as if the first summer were temperate 
 and sunny, with the green of trees and grass wet 
 with fragrance ; as if the second summer were hot 
 and dusty, with every little leaf and blade of grass 
 dried, browned, and withered. One summer's 
 beauty, of course, was as full bosomed as the 
 other's, but it seemed to David as if one held all 
 and the other none. 
 
 210
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 211 
 
 It was, too, as if their tempers had become 
 parched and dried, grown brittle, suddenly break- 
 ing forth into sparks . . . 
 
 They returned to Brooklyn earlier that autumn, 
 feeling that possibly in the seclusion of their own 
 home there would not be so much cause for discon- 
 tent. Mrs. Foster's yearning solicitations and 
 Mr. Foster's clumsy interference had grown in- 
 tolerable. 
 
 But the change brought little surcease. 
 
 It was a constant battle between them Evelyn 
 battling for possession, David for freedom. He 
 felt that Evelyn wanted to possess his every 
 thought and feeling his every interest. She was 
 actually jealous of his business. 
 
 "What does it matter if the business does suf- 
 fer a little?" she once asked him. "We have 
 plenty of money. There 's so much more to life 
 than mere money-grubbing. It 's so sordid." 
 
 "But don't you understand, Evelyn? It isn't 
 just the money. It 's the fun of the thing a 
 man 's got to do something. ' ' 
 
 "Yes, but he has no right to place his business 
 above everything else, including his wife's happi- 
 ness. Oh, I Ve heard of such cases and of how 
 they 've ended." 
 
 David shrugged his shoulders. "I 'm afraid 
 you get too many of your ideas from exaggerated
 
 212 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 novels. Look at it this way: I get paid for do- 
 ing certain work. If I don't do it, it 's cheating." 
 
 ' ' But you 're a member of the firm now. Some 
 day you '11 be the head of it. John Powell will 
 have to take his orders from you. He 's in back 
 of all this silly conscientiousness of yours. I can 
 see that. Money and work that 's all he knows. 
 He does n't appreciate the finer things." 
 
 "What finer things?" 
 
 "I can't explain exactly, but going out and see- 
 ing people, nice people. Entertaining broaden- 
 ing oneself all that." She spread out her hands 
 in an ineffectual gesture. 
 
 "If I am not going to do the work, I had better 
 resign. ' ' 
 
 Evelyn looked up hopefully. "If you resigned 
 we could go abroad for a year or two. ' ' 
 
 Her calm acceptance of his statement maddened 
 him. He slapped his hand on the table. * ' I have 
 no intention of resigning. My work 's the only 
 thing I have left." 
 
 "What do you mean by that?" 
 
 "I mean that sometimes I feel as if I were los- 
 ing my individuality, Evelyn. I 'm becoming an 
 automaton. You 're robbing me of all incentive, 
 all ambition, by making me so damned comfort- 
 able. It isn't good for a man." 
 
 She gazed at him bewildered while the tears
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 213 
 
 gathered in her eyes. ''And you blame me for 
 doing that!" she cried. 
 
 David felt that he would have liked to weep with 
 her. The pity of it ! She could not look at things 
 with his eyes not for the shortest minute could 
 she see a thing as he saw it ! Nor could he take 
 her viewpoint. It was as if they each used a lan- 
 guage which the other only partly understood. It 
 was as if, husband and wife, they lived with a 
 heavy veil between them through which neither 
 could see the other clearly. 
 
 They had their great battle one October eve- 
 ning about a month after they had returned from 
 the country. 
 
 David found Evelyn in the living-room that 
 night. She stood before the fireplace awaiting 
 him, her very attitude one of accusation, of bitter 
 reproach. 
 
 "Will you please explain those things?" she 
 said, pointing dramatically to a little litter of ar- 
 ticles on the table. 
 
 He recognized the silver thimble, the letters, the 
 faded photograph of Nora taken on the beach so 
 long ago. Across the back of his neck he felt a 
 stinging sensation as if some one had struck him. 
 
 "Evidently you Ve been searching through my 
 personal belongings." 
 
 "Nothing of the kind!" she threw back at him.
 
 214 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 "Babette found them in the lowest drawer of your 
 bureau this morning when she was cleaning and 
 brought them to me. ' ' 
 
 ' ' They are nothing more than remembrances of 
 my childhood. ' ' 
 
 "Of a love affair!" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What business had you to keep them after I be- 
 came your wife? Don't think I didn't have re- 
 membrances. I burned bundles of letters. You 
 should have done the same. It was only fair to 
 me." 
 
 "Perhaps it was that I cared for them more than 
 you did for yours," he said. 
 
 She swayed as if he had struck her, then leaped 
 across the room, seized the little group of things 
 from the table and threw them into the open fire. 
 Flame leaped up, a few black scraps fluttered, over 
 a bright coal a little puddle of melted silver formed 
 and they were gone. 
 
 David made no motion to restrain her nor to 
 rescue his possessions. But he felt the heat and 
 the burn across the back of his neck swell and 
 grow, steal around as if a hand were choking him. 
 "You shouldn't have done that, Evelyn," he said 
 quietly. 
 
 She made no answer but threw herself on the 
 couch, her body shaking with sobs ; presently she
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 215 
 
 raised her face from her arms to say, "I wish I had 
 the courage to leave you. ' ' 
 
 Suddenly David felt calmness descending over 
 him; it was as if he viewed this vulgar outbreak 
 from a distance, as if he were another person. He 
 seated himself on the edge of the table and lighted 
 a cigarette. " Perhaps that would be the better 
 way, Evelyn. ' ' 
 
 She looked up at him, shocked, her eyes round 
 and large in a face red with weeping. 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "We have n't made much of a go of it, do you 
 think? There has n't been much sympathy or un- 
 derstanding. Oh, I know I 'm as much to blame 
 as you. Neither is to blame, for that matter. It 's 
 just that we did n't fit, we two. But if it 's a fail- 
 ure, let 's acknowledge it. Let 's get out of it as 
 best we can." He was conscious that as he went 
 on her incredulity grew with his words. "We 're 
 more or less modern. We know marriage isn't 
 the sacred thing it was once supposed to be. It 's 
 a partnership. If there are no profits, it 's better 
 to break up, put up the shutters, close the shop. 
 The horrible thing is to let it drag on endlessly." 
 
 She sat up straight, rigid with horror. "Oh, 
 how awful ! ' ' she cried. ' ' How can you say such 
 things ! It 's sacrilegious ! It 's immoral ! It 's 
 putting us on a plane with the animals ! ' '
 
 216 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 They gazed at each other with hate hate that 
 was founded on misunderstanding and fear 
 chiefly, perhaps, on hopes that were not and never 
 could be realized. 
 
 Presently David arose, put on his hat and coat, 
 and went out. He walked on heedlessly but, as if 
 he were animated by a purpose which he did not 
 consciously know, he made for the river front. He 
 walked out on a dock. Below him, beneath the 
 stars, the water gurgled and sucked and whispered 
 to him. It was as if the waters had called to him, 
 as if in his childhood the voice of the waters had 
 impressed itself upon his very soul, and when he 
 was in trouble called to him and offered solace. 
 The waters were to David what the moist brown 
 earth is to some men. . . . 
 
 He went back to the apartment late and, undress- 
 ing stealthily, crept into bed. But he had not been 
 there long when he heard the creak of the door 
 and a faltering footstep. Evelyn stole into bed 
 beside him ; her hair hung loose and lustrous over 
 her shadowy white nightdress. She slid her body 
 next to him, put her arms around him, placed her 
 lips against his. Then as if even that did not 
 satisfy her, she took the long strands of her hair 
 and wound them around his neck. . . . 
 
 "David, my husband," she sobbed. "I was so 
 afraid so afraid you might not come back. I
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 217 
 
 can't let you go. I have made you a little happy at 
 times, have n't I? I don't care if there were other 
 women before me, but I can't bear the thought of 
 others coming after me . . . taking my place. 
 Forgive me, dear, and kiss me. Kiss me again 
 again and again."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 EVELYN'S baby was born that winter. 
 David decided that here, at last, was a bond 
 between them. Innumerable storied incidents and 
 scenes came to his mind with a familiar Biblical 
 quotation to point the moral. There was some 
 truth in the worn old sentimentalities after all. 
 A holy and hushed feeling pervaded the house be- 
 fore the birth. . . . David, uplifted, stole around 
 on cushioned feet, consumed with anxiety, filled 
 with vague promises to the future if everything 
 went well. And after the child was born he re- 
 membered thinking that he and Evelyn had created 
 a living thing out of their own flesh and blood and 
 that it was perfectly natural it should link them to- 
 gether. 
 
 But the presence of the child, while it created a 
 readjustment of the relations between Evelyn and 
 himself, did so in an entirely unexpected manner. 
 After Evelyn had recovered from an illness which 
 proved exceptionally severe, she turned her entire 
 attention to the baby. Something had been put 
 into her arms which gave full scope to her mania 
 for possession. Here was a small being whose life 
 
 218
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 219 
 
 she could arrange and order to her heart's con- 
 tent; who, in fact, with lusty voice and tiny, 
 doubled-up fists insisted upon the most meticulous 
 notice. 
 
 During those first months when the little girl 
 hung barely suspended over the line of life which 
 she had so recently crossed, Evelyn was with her 
 almost every minute. Even at night she yielded 
 her place beside the crib reluctantly to the nurse. 
 David recalled Evelyn during that period con- 
 stantly bending over the baby, placing her fingers 
 to pressed lips if he entered the room, turning upon 
 him the alarmed oval of a pale face grown slightly 
 hollow beneath the cheek bones, with eyes enlarged 
 with apprehension. She was continuously ar- 
 ranging the child's blankets, smoothing them, 
 standing by to see that the milk was of the proper 
 temperature, always busy, always occupied with 
 one detail or another. David sometimes won- 
 dered if her feverish attentions did not retard the 
 child's progress towards well-being. 
 
 So, he found before long, with a sense of amaze- 
 ment that the personal freedom for which he had 
 fought had come to him unasked. Evelyn had no 
 time for him. . . . 
 
 Like a man in a strange city, like one groping 
 from dark to light, he began to feel his way back to 
 his old life. He sought out former acquaintances
 
 220 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 and friends, started to fill in the crevices and gaps 
 which his marriage had so entirely filled and then 
 so abruptly left empty. 
 
 One of the first persons he renewed his friend- 
 ship with, of course, was John Powell. The first 
 night he went up to call on Powell he was fortunate 
 enough to find him at home and alone. David had 
 not been there since his marriage and the sight of 
 the familiar brown room, so comfortable and 
 masculine with its large chairs and heavy table, 
 bare of all irrelevances, nursing in its corners the 
 odor of tobacco, was like a warm bath to a chilled 
 body. He bathed himself in its atmosphere, let it 
 sink into the very pores of his body. As he stood 
 there in this room which had always had its wel- 
 come for him, a room with the individuality of a 
 beloved book or a warm and voluminous dressing- 
 gown, he could not help but contrast it with the 
 room he hated his own room in the apartment, 
 the place of chintz and white paint which had al- 
 ways had the ill grace to remind him that Evelyn, 
 and not he, had bought and paid for its furnishings. 
 
 "It 's so good to see it again, John," he said to 
 his host, with an apologetic air for his long silence. 
 
 The relations between the two men since David 's 
 elevation to membership in the firm had undergone 
 a subtle readjustment; despite the difference in 
 their ages they had easily fallen into the habit of
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 221 
 
 addressing each other by their first names and it 
 was no longer the employer speaking to his em- 
 ployee but two men of equal standing consulting 
 with reference to each other's opinions. 
 
 On this occasion John Powell was very tactful. 
 He made no comments upon David's return, asked 
 no questions. He sat, with his eyes upon the fire, 
 allowing David to saunter around the room from 
 one friendly object to another until he finally set- 
 tled himself in the chair which in former days had 
 been considered his. Then when he had come to 
 anchor, Powell pushed over the cigars and the flask 
 of whisky with an abrupt, "Help yourself." 
 
 Nevertheless, despite the older man's discre- 
 tion, there was some constraint. Their attitudes, 
 the very positions in which they sat Powell deep 
 in his chair, his chin on his chest; David, lolling 
 back, one leg thrown over the cushioned arm of his 
 chair were marvelously like a hundred other eve- 
 nings when they had sat thus together. And it was 
 in this likeness that the strangeness lay. For al- 
 most three years of unknown impulses and inter- 
 ests stood between them. Their eyes brushed oc- 
 casionally with inquiring glances; John Powell 
 could not altogether conceal his itch to question. 
 What had brought David back? Why? Had 
 Evelyn and he quarreled? He was ready enough 
 to console or advise, even to be silent if that were
 
 222 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 better, but he must know something of the nature 
 of the ground over which he must travel to the 
 other's confidence. Ever since David's mar- 
 riage he had seen him practically every day in the 
 office but his presence in the apartment to-night 
 for the first time in so many months only empha- 
 sized the chasm that had opened up between them 
 so far as their personal affairs were concerned. 
 
 "I suppose you Ve been having the same old 
 parties 1 ' ' David asked. 
 
 "Did you expect reformation?" 
 
 * ' Of course not. Same old crowd t ' ' 
 
 "Some have dropped out. But we don't miss 
 them, David. Plenty more to take their places. ' ' 
 
 "The king has but to command, John." 
 
 Powell looked his inquiry. 
 
 David chuckled. "I sometimes used to imagine 
 you as a ruler, John, demanding his players to 
 come before him and amuse him. Your parties al- 
 ways had that sort of a feudal air." 
 
 Then the tension again. It was not until they 
 were fairly started on the subject of business that 
 the discomfort vanished. 
 
 "Say, David, I 'm thinking of opening a branch 
 in London," Powell said presently. "Competi- 
 tion's awful over there but lots of room for it 
 the English swill tea. Besides it would be 
 quite a stunt to put it over the English fellows
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 223 
 
 carrying the war into the enemy's country. 
 They 've been ready enough to come over here, 
 Lipton and the rest of 'em, and try to get our trade 
 with their damn 'His Eoyal Majesty approves* 
 stuff ! What do we care what His Majesty drinks ? 
 We can go over there with some real American ad- 
 vertising, like that department store fellow Self- 
 ridge, isn't it? knock 'em off their feet. How 
 would you like to run over and look over the 
 ground?" 
 
 "I don't suppose Evelyn would like me to go 
 without her." 
 
 John Powell digested this remark, chewing 
 viciously on his cigar. The remark had thrown 
 light on dark places. So he was not free of 
 Evelyn? She still held him. He gave vent to a 
 touch of bitterness. ' * Has n 't gotten over the idea 
 of holding you fast, eh? I thought the kid might 
 have satisfied her. ' ' As David did not answer, 
 he added : ' ' Oh, well, we '11 drop the thought of it 
 for the present. Maybe I '11 go myself next 
 spring." 
 
 When David arose to go, later, John Powell ac- 
 companied him to the door. He placed his hand 
 affectionately on the other's shoulder. "Say, I 
 saw those posters you got up for Maroma. Fine 
 fine ! Best thing you 've done in a long time.
 
 224 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 We need something new, David. More ginger! 
 It 's been pretty hard sledding for me alone. I 
 miss your enthusiasm, my boy got no one to talk 
 to. Can't you get the habit of running up here 
 nights a couple of times a week? I won't ask too 
 much. Don't want to get Evelyn going so she 
 won't let you come at all. Say, she hates me, 
 does n't she? I Ve got her number and she knows 
 it. Well, we won't talk about it. Tip me off when 
 you 're coming so I '11 be sure to be here." 
 
 " Yes, I '11 do that." 
 
 "Good!" John Powell's face shone. "We '11 
 start growing again new plans, new ideas grow- 
 ing and growing. London Paris, maybe, the 
 whole world ! ' ' 
 
 They laughed together in a triumph of optimism. 
 
 "It is like old times !" said David. 
 
 Thereafter he did go up to John Powell's at 
 least once a week. Occasionally, they had dinner 
 together. He savored his new freedom with the 
 keenest relish. 
 
 But, fine as it was, there was something missing. 
 One afternoon, musing at his desk, he thought sud- 
 denly of Nora. She seemed to come full-bodied 
 from out the background of his thoughts and stand 
 before him. The desire to see her became irre- 
 sistible.
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 225 
 
 He did not know where she lived. He had not 
 seen her since the day, shortly before his marriage, 
 when they had gone back to the beach together 
 that day filled with the sad sweetness of old 
 memories. She had refused him her address (and 
 he could see her standing beneath the yellow glow 
 of the subway lights, shaking her head solemnly 
 and saying, " I 'm wiser in this, David " ) . But she 
 had told him, he remembered, that she was living in 
 Brooklyn Not Bay Ridge "the other end of 
 Brooklyn." 
 
 With some absurd excuse to himself, he started 
 pilgrimages to Williamsburg, Greenpoint, those 
 outlying districts of Brooklyn which had always 
 been an unknown country to him. He explored 
 miles of streets filled with little wooden houses and 
 new tenements, overflowing with aliens, districts 
 where no one seemed very wealthy and no one very 
 poor, where thousands upon thousands of per- 
 fectly commonplace people pursued busily a com- 
 monplace life which seemed mysterious and 
 strange to him. Into many women's faces he 
 peered but he never saw Nora. Once he followed 
 a slim, firm-stepping figure for blocks but when 
 the girl paused before the lighted window of a 
 millinery shop, he saw how ridiculous his mistake 
 had been. 
 
 Then some weeks after he had abandoned these
 
 226 
 
 trips, one blowy March morning when flags stood 
 rigidly out from flagpoles and the sky was filled 
 with long torn strips of clouds, he found a letter 
 from Nora awaiting him on his desk.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 EVELYN awoke at times from her absorption 
 in the baby to demand imperatively that 
 David take her out somewhere. 
 
 "I '11 go mad if I stay in the house any longer," 
 she said once. "Take me to dinner and the 
 theater. I don't even know what 's going on. 
 Let 's go to see something that will cheer me up. ' ' 
 
 In the restaurant, blooming with gay dresses, 
 bubbling with chatter, she seemed to forget her 
 duties. A sparkle came to her eyes, color to her 
 cheeks. 
 
 "It 's wrong of me to let myself go so," she 
 reprimanded herself. "If Euth were only 
 stronger. Do you think this dress looks all right, 
 David? It 's fearfully old fashioned." 
 
 "You 're the prettiest woman in the room," 
 David assured her. 
 
 She did indeed look lovely in the dress, whose 
 black lines cut vertically at the throat revealed the 
 whiteness of her bosom and arms. Her hair was 
 wound carelessly around her small head and little 
 tendrils escaped and glinted like polished silver in 
 the light. 
 
 227
 
 228 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 David was very happy to be out with her. Now 
 that she demanded so little of his time, he was per- 
 fectly willing to give her more than she asked. It 
 was somewhat like their dinners together before 
 they had been married, and the thought came to 
 him that if they had never been married they 
 might have always remained good friends. 
 
 She detected the smile on his lips and questioned 
 him. He spoke of his thoughts reluctantly. 
 
 1 'Why, we 're good friends now, aren't we?" 
 she asked, and she let her hand rest on his for a 
 minute. "We Ve given up asking too much of 
 each other. I, for one, am perfectly contented 
 with things as they are. ' ' 
 
 " Don't you ever feel the lack of something?" 
 he asked after a minute. 
 
 A little frown appeared between her eyebrows. 
 1 ' Yes, I do, sometimes, ' ' she admitted. ' ' But then 
 Euth cries for me and I forget everything else. 
 It was awfully kind of Providence to give me a 
 child, David." 
 
 "Yes, it was awfully kind," he agreed thought- 
 fully.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 NORA'S writing was unfamiliar to David and 
 he tore her letter open carelessly, but his in- 
 terest soon quickened and came to attention as he 
 read: 
 
 Dear David: 
 
 I must see you. I need your advice. Will you meet me on 
 the Sixth Avenue "L" Station at 28th Street, uptown side, 
 any evening this week? Let me know. 
 
 NORA DAVENPORT. 
 
 There followed a Brooklyn address the * ' other 
 end of Brooklyn" address. 
 
 David, of course, sent his answer flying without 
 delay. He named the following evening at 
 eight. . . . An impatient day crept by, a long 
 night, another day. . . . 
 
 He hurried through his dinner that evening with 
 Evelyn's eyes following the swift movements of 
 his knife and fork, the hurried dismissal of one 
 plate after another. 
 
 "You have an engagement?" she asked. 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 229
 
 230 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 1 'I had hoped you would walk around to my 
 mother's with me. Her rheumatism is troubling 
 her, and I said I 'd run around." 
 
 "I 'm sorry. You '11 have to ask one of the 
 maids to act as your escort." (The Fosters did 
 not consider it proper for a lady to be alone in the 
 streets after nightfall.) 
 
 "I suppose you 're going up to see John Powell 
 again ? ' ' 
 
 "No not to-night." 
 
 She did not question him further. She had be- 
 come accustomed to his wanderings, almost indif- 
 ferent to them. 
 
 When he stepped out into Montague Street a 
 few minutes later, he found it raining. The March 
 night, however, was mild and melancholy. He 
 hurried up to the Subway. Fast as the train 
 glided through its tunnel, it did not run fast enough 
 for his anxiety. At Brooklyn Bridge he jumped 
 out, ran up the steps, jostling those who descended, 
 and plunged into a taxicab. The swift swaying 
 of the car as it bumped over the cobbles soothed his 
 unrest, answered some need within him for the 
 violence of haste. 
 
 He arrived at the Twenty-eighth Street Elevated 
 Station at quarter to eight. Fifteen long minutes 
 to wait. The rain had turned into a drizzle which 
 blew like a wet cloud into his face, and the air had
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 231 
 
 become chilled. David buttoned his coat to his 
 ears and paced up and down the platform. He 
 stopped and leaned over the railing, gazing down 
 into the street. Sixth Avenue was disfigured with 
 one of the inevitable upheavals which are tribute 
 to the City 's growth ; around red lanterns that 
 hung on poles a little knot of men labored and dug 
 and carried beams and ropes hither and thither. 
 
 The fine rain drifted irritatingly like spray 
 blown from the sea. There was no avoiding it. 
 He moved back to the roofed section of the plat- 
 form but even here the wet followed, and he hoped 
 Nora would wear sensible clothes while he re- 
 proached himself for not fetching an umbrella. 
 
 Just before eight he saw her step out on the 
 platform and gaze expectantly up and down its 
 length. He hurried forward, a huge excitement 
 filling him. With outstretched hands they met. 
 
 It was so good to see her again. The joy of the 
 encounter flooded him, left him speechless. And 
 how well she looked ! He remembered that the last 
 time he had seen her, she had seemed like a spirit 
 harassed, as if something had crushed the fine and 
 valiant essence of her, as if life had done its best 
 to beat her into submission. But that seeming 
 was gone now! She stood before him, confident 
 and fearless ; only her eyes were warm and moist 
 with their greeting. She had dismissed the doubts
 
 232 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 and sorrows. What a brave figure she was, after 
 all, trim with clean-cut outlines, her hair coiled and 
 bound in a shining knot at the back of her head 
 dark and lustrous, smooth as the wings of a bird. 
 
 At last she spoke. "How good it is of you to 
 come, David." 
 
 "How glad I was to come." 
 
 "I 'm up against a problem. Will you help 
 me?" 
 
 He nodded his eagerness. 
 
 She threw her quiet, sure glance around the 
 station; a bevy of people waited for trains; no 
 sooner were they carried away by one train than 
 others took their places, standing patiently in 
 groups waiting to continue their journeyings. 
 
 "Let 's go down and walk around. I can't talk 
 here," she said. 
 
 "What about the rain? You Ve no umbrella 
 nor have I. I can buy one. Or shall we go into 
 some restaurant, find a quiet corner, and talk 
 there?" 
 
 "No. I 'd rather be outside to-night. It 's so 
 good to be out. This coat of mine is rainproofed 
 and " she extended a hand, palm up to the 
 heavens "it 's little more than mist. But what 
 about you ? Are you all right ? ' ' 
 
 "Of course," he laughed. 
 
 They descended to the street and walked up
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 233 
 
 Sixth Avenue. The rain transformed New York 
 into a fairyland. The yellow and white lights 
 quivered in long reflections on the pavements glit- 
 tering with wet. It had become a city of shining 
 jade set with strips of silver, red, blue, and yellow 
 especially yellow yellow that danced and sang 
 with intensity. The elevated railroad structure 
 overhead was an arch of mysterious and incredible 
 delicacy, fine spun, its heavy steel beams and 
 girders transformed into intricate lacy designs; 
 the automobiles and taxicabs were monsters plung- 
 ing with glaring eyes out of one bed of mist into 
 another; over the roofs of the buildings floated a 
 pink and sparkling cloud of haze like the light of 
 Eoman fire. 
 
 4 'Is n't it wonderful on a night like this?" said 
 Nora with a long breath. "I don't often get the 
 chance to see it." 
 
 She walked beside David, matching his long 
 strides with her own, her head and shoulders 
 thrown back, asking no favors. The collar of her 
 tweed raincoat was turned up around her neck ; her 
 hands were buried in her pockets ; her small brown 
 felt hat sporting a white cockade fitted closely over 
 her head, allowing but a few dark strands of hair 
 to escape and curl in the dampness. She could al- 
 most have been mistaken for a slim boy. 
 
 Until they were beyond Herald Square, they
 
 234 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 walked in silence. But when after crossing 
 Broadway, the street quieted and their path was 
 less obstructed, they fell into easy conversation. 
 At Fortieth Street, they swung to the right and 
 walked several times around those two square 
 blocks which hold the Public Library and the little 
 park to the west of it. Meanwhile they attacked 
 the problem which had brought Nora back to David 
 and their talk harmonized with their swift prog- 
 ress around and around the square. 
 
 "You remember I told you about the man who 
 was in love with me until he found I was living 
 
 with falter?" 
 
 "The Westerner?" 
 
 "Yes Carl Ellis." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "I told you I had written him when I first came 
 East, telling him what I had done. I never heard 
 from him until recently. He wrote me telling me 
 frankly that he had gone home intending to forget 
 me. He tried to. For years he 's been working 
 working like hell he wrote trying to put me out 
 of his mind. A short while ago his mother died. 
 That removed a great obstacle and left him with 
 a terrible loneliness. He says that he has never 
 cared for many women that I 'm the only one 
 who has ever claimed him body and soul. He can 't 
 forget me. He 's fought it all out with himself.
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY . 235 
 
 He 's overcome his prejudices * foolish' he called 
 them. He wants to see me again. He wants to 
 marry me. ' ' 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 Nora came to a stop. She threw out her hands. 
 ' ' What am I to do, David ! ' ' 
 
 "You care for him?" 
 
 "I hardly feel I know him. I liked him im- 
 mensely. I respect him, and admire him. I think 
 he 's a big man really big. But love him no ! ' ' 
 
 1 i He might make you happy. ' ' 
 
 "Happy?" she shrugged her shoulders "It 's 
 a meaningless word. Content perhaps that, 
 more than that useful ! That 's the bait he of- 
 fers me. He says there 's work for me to do out 
 there in his town. He himself has been doing all 
 sorts of reform work lately that was part of his 
 program of forgetting. Now he wants me to come 
 out and join forces with him. He 's started a 
 trade school for boys teaches them useful things 
 takes them out of the street and turns them into 
 artisans, skilled, proud of their work. He says I 
 can do the same thing with the girls. Fit them out 
 for the battle. How did he know that would ap- 
 peal to me so tremendously, David ; appeal to me 
 more than anything else 1 ' ' 
 
 "I begin to respect him, too," said David 
 soberly, and he thought with bitterness of his own
 
 236 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 aimless life, which, it seemed to him now, had been 
 spent in escaping from one futility to another. 
 
 "Think of the blessedness of preparing those 
 poor little girls for life, instructing them, helping 
 them to grow up wise and beautiful, equipped to 
 make a decent living for themselves or to become 
 mothers of a finer, nobler race. Oh, I know I 'm 
 idealizing it, exaggerating the possibilities. But 
 Carl, you know, has the money loads of money. 
 It would be such a worth while mission!" 
 
 1 'The thought of your own untrained youth 
 goads you on?" 
 
 "Yes, it does. It would be my revenge on 
 things for making me face my destiny so unpre- 
 pared. Where I was cheated I would see that a 
 hundred went forth equipped." 
 
 They strode half a block without speaking. 
 Presently David came forth with : 
 
 "I don't see what 's holding you back, Nora." 
 
 "The price. Marriage with a man I don't love. 
 I 've seen what the horrors of that are, remember, 
 although I wasn't married." 
 
 "You can't compare this man and Walter Brad- 
 ford." 
 
 "No, but under certain conditions you can come 
 to hate a good man as passionately as a bad one." 
 
 "Is love necessary? I 've often wondered if 
 it 's nothing more than a myth an ideal. ' '
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 237 
 
 She gave him a swift glance. "Have you al- 
 ways thought that?" 
 
 "No, not always," he admitted grimly, after a 
 minute. 
 
 ' ' But I was not talking of the conventional idea 
 of love," she explained quickly and a little impa- 
 tiently. "But something is demanded. The 
 woman must be ready to surrender. I 'm not. I 
 can't bear the thought of it." 
 
 "Why won't he offer you that work the work 
 that tempts you so without marriage ? He 's big 
 enough. You make him seem as if he were. Why 
 couldn't you go out there and work with him 
 'join forces' as he said without marrying him?" 
 
 She smiled sadly. "You don't know him. 
 He 'd make me that offer readily. For he knows 
 that if I come out there, sooner or later, I '11 marry 
 him." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "His power his, what some people call, 'mag- 
 netism.' 
 
 "But in that case, he 'd have won you to the 
 point of surrender. The repugnance would be 
 gone. ' ' 
 
 She frowned thoughtfully. After a while she 
 said, "Yes." and again, "Yes." 
 
 They were rounding the square for the third or 
 fourth time. Over Broadway hung a million
 
 238 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 lights ; circles and splashes and splintered streaks 
 of light were painted on the wet pavements. 
 David suddenly realized how much he had enjoyed 
 this walk with Nora. It would go down in history 
 among the memorable hours he had spent with her 
 and he thought of his life as a book in which there 
 were certain pages illuminated as the monks used 
 to illuminate their manuscripts, and these pages 
 were the days he had spent with Nora. And now 
 soon she would be gone gone forever no. more 
 pages of illumination but the dead routine of black 
 and white, black and white. . . . 
 
 He turned to let his eyes drink their fill of her 
 while they could, and he saw a slight tremor shake 
 her. 
 
 ' ' Are you cold ? " he asked bruskly. 
 
 She gave him her hand for answer. He found it 
 icy. At once, his imaginings and his fancies van- 
 ished; gone was the glory of the jade and gold 
 night. 
 
 "Why didn't you tell me!" he demanded an- 
 grily and as the doorway of the Beaux Arts Cafe 
 loomed in sight, "Let 's go in here. We '11 get 
 something hot to drink." 
 
 "Isn't it too late?" she hesitated. "I have a 
 long journey ahead of me." 
 
 "I '11 send you home in a taxi. ' ' 
 
 They passed through a revolving door, de-
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 239 
 
 scended a shallow flight of steps and a brilliantly 
 lighted, noisy, crowded room burst upon them. 
 The whiteness of many cloth-covered tables dazzled 
 them, the glitter of glasses and carafes, the sheen 
 of silken dresses and the bare arms and shoulders 
 of women dotted here and there with the intense 
 black and white of men's attire . . . and, as they 
 stepped into the room, the orchestra set up a vio- 
 lent and hilarious strumming and a dozen couples 
 whirled around a square patch of cleared floor in 
 the center of the room, locked and swaying in the 
 mazes of the dance. 
 
 "I look so rain-soaked and shoddy," whispered 
 Nora, but David took her arm and led her to a small 
 table in a far corner. Presently amber cocktails, 
 steaming coffee and mushrooms, brown and 
 creamy, clasped tightly within small earthen dishes 
 were brought to them. 
 
 Over her cup, Nora's eyes scrutinized the 
 dancers. "It 's all new to me," she said. 
 
 ' ' Have you buried yourself to such an extent as 
 that?" 
 
 ' ' Recovering from my wounds. And working 
 working hard. ' ' 
 
 "You 're still in the same place?" 
 
 "Yes. I Ve really become quite important over 
 there. * Executive assistant,' they call me. It 's 
 a factory, you know. They manufacture coats for
 
 240 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 women. And they seem to think I have good judg- 
 ment regarding fabrics and styles. Picture me a 
 successful business woman!" 
 
 "You like your work?" 
 
 "Immensely. At first I only took it seriously in 
 order to forget myself but now I take it seriously 
 because I can't help myself. It has a hold on me. ' ' 
 
 "Then why, Nora, are you so anxious to enter 
 this new work that Ellis offers you ? ' ' 
 
 "Because when I look into the future I see 
 blackness nothing else." 
 
 The waiter solicitously withdrew the earthen 
 dishes robbed of their treasures and replaced them 
 with squares of pastry of a flaky tenderness and 
 Benedictine, shining like burnt gold in its tiny 
 glasses. 
 
 "How selfish I Ve been!" cried Nora. "I Ve 
 drowned you in my sorrows. Of yourself I Ve 
 asked not a word. Are you happy?" 
 
 David's face told her more than he would per- 
 mit himself to utter. As if she divined his 
 thoughts, she impulsively leaned forward and 
 placed her hand upon his. 
 
 "It 's not quite all right then?" 
 
 "Not quite." 
 
 "You 'd rather not tell me?" 
 
 "I don't think it 's quite fair to Evelyn, do 
 you?"
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 241 
 
 "No perhaps not." 
 
 He did tell her of his daughter, however, and 
 something of his business and the success that had 
 come to him. 
 
 Afterwards he asked, "Have you come to any de- 
 cision about going West, Nora f ' ' 
 
 "I shall write Carl he may come East and see 
 me. Then perhaps I may go back with him on 
 my own terms. ' ' 
 
 A sadness fell over them at that for they were 
 both thinking that if Nora went back with Carl 
 Ellis it would definitely end their meetings, rare 
 as those meetings had been. But neither spoke of 
 their thoughts, and presently Nora slipped her 
 arms into her coat and David called for the waiter 
 and settled his bill to that gentleman's smiling 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Outside, beneath the portico, David handed Nora 
 into a taxicab, gave the chauffeur his directions, 
 paid him, and turned to say good night. 
 
 Very humbly he asked, "May I see you soon 
 again?" 
 
 Nora looked at him with a sudden pity. She 
 seemed to see all at once that his was no longer 
 the romantic figure of youth ; his hair had thinned 
 a little, the temples were bared, he was stouter, 
 heavier, as if his body had lost its fire, was settling 
 down into the solidity of middle age. But more
 
 242 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 than in the physical aspect of him, she was struck 
 by the pathos in his voice. It was no longer the 
 young voice which demands ; it was the older voice 
 which entreats. Meltingly, she leaned forward 
 and gave him the warmth of her sympathy. 
 
 " Come and see me soon. You have my address. 
 Good night, dear friend. "
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 TWO nights later David traveled by trolley 
 northeast over vast stretches of Brooklyn, 
 past endless low houses and apartments, little 
 shops set in rows like lighted cells, past dark 
 streets with lines of trees running down their 
 sides, streets which at half-past eight seemed to 
 have closed their shutters for the night and gone 
 to bed, past a noisome area of gas tanks and ware- 
 houses. 
 
 Presently he reached the unknown Scott Street 
 in which Nora lived and he alighted from the 
 trolley. Two blocks east, ran Nora's instruc- 
 tions. . . . He found a dwarfed apartment house, 
 smug in its newness, lifting its spick-and-span 
 brick walls beside the garden of an old frame 
 house. There was no elevator, but he was greeted 
 in the entrance hall by a card bearing Nora 's name 
 tucked over a shining brass bell which he pushed. 
 The door clicked. He entered and ascended to the 
 top floor. There Nora awaited him framed within 
 the oblong of her own doorway. 
 
 Her glance was a trifle shy as she took his hat 
 
 243
 
 244 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 and coat, but there was no lack of warmth in her 
 cordial, "Hello, David. Doesn't it seem funny 
 and nice to have you calling on me in my own 
 home?' 7 
 
 He followed her into a small sitting-room. 
 There, at once, he saw how she had impressed her 
 personality upon the impeccable stolidity of the 
 room, how she had fought and vanquished its un- 
 compromising walls, its white mantel with the 
 pseudo fireplace ; its cold parterre floor. Flowers 
 had given valiant aid. In tall vases and low bowls 
 they stood everywhere. And along the window 
 sill was a line of blooming plants and spreading 
 ferns. Warm rugs softened the floor, shaded 
 lights defied the walls, and curtains of a gaudy 
 Russian design successfully outraged the builder's 
 dream of a perfect gentility. Best of all, the side 
 window gave a glimpse of the garden of the old 
 house with the black branches of a pine tree whis- 
 pering in the wind, so close to the window that it 
 claimed kinship with the plants within the room. 
 
 "So this is your hiding place," David said. 
 "It 's quite charming." 
 
 They settled themselves in cushioned wicker 
 chairs and presently Nora came smiling with a 
 coffee percolator and brandy, an electric toaster, 
 and a jar of anchovy paste. 
 
 "You '11 have to help, David," and she set him
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 245 
 
 to work buttering toast while she tested the coffee 
 with a knowing air and spread anchovy over the 
 toast he had buttered. All the while the perco- 
 lator bubbled, its fat little body gone mad with 
 glee. 
 
 As if by agreement neither of them spoke of the 
 things which lay with warm fingers next their 
 hearts. These topics with which their emotions 
 were inextricably entangled they left severely 
 alone. Yet all the while these unspoken things 
 trembled between them. Their conversation was 
 like one held over a telephone in fear of eavesdrop- 
 pers. But they found satisfaction in their guarded 
 words. Freely and gladly they talked of books 
 and plays, of customs and conventions. And it 
 was wonderful to them to find in how many things 
 they agreed; every once in a while they had the 
 comfortable intimacy of feeling they walked hand 
 in hand through many questionings and perplexi- 
 ties. 
 
 While Nora told of the plays she had seen, of 
 the meetings she had attended suffrage meetings, 
 meetings where the wrongs of labor had found 
 voice, where freedom from one oppressor or an- 
 other had been demanded, David gazed at her 
 admiringly, drinking in the vivid stream of her in- 
 terests, trying to match them with his own, eager to 
 let her know he sympathized and understood. At
 
 246 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 last he said reproachfully, ' ' Here, I Ve been think- 
 ing of you as a hermit, Nora, shut off from the 
 world, and all the while you Ve been gadding end- 
 lessly, seeing and hearing and thinking a thousand 
 things of which I Ve barely known. All the while 
 your life has been so much richer in experience 
 than mine. * ' 
 
 "Oh, I run over to New York whenever there 's 
 anything special," she confessed gaily. "The 
 Irish Players, and whenever Mr. Shaw comes to 
 town, and once in a while don't laugh, David! 
 a Casino musical comedy or a Winter Garden 
 show. I Ve heard Mrs. Pankhurst speak, and I 
 saw the Paterson Strike Pageant. I Ve been 
 down on the East Side to an I. W. W. meeting and 
 up on the West Side to many a fashionable Suf- 
 frage Tea, and, as you say, I Ve given myself lots 
 to see and hear and think about . . . and it 's all 
 been interesting tremendously interesting." 
 
 So they chatted while the last vestige of toast, 
 the last drop of coffee, disappeared. 
 
 "My dear, you 'd better go," said Nora at half- 
 past ten. 
 
 David disobediently lighted another cigarette. 
 "I 'm too happy to go." 
 
 Nora shook her head at him. "Then I shall 
 make believe, as we used to long ago. You may 
 only come and visit the princess as long as you
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 247 
 
 obey her slightest wish. When you disobey, the 
 spell is ended and the door swings closed for- 
 ever. ' ' 
 
 1 ' Is that make-believe ? ' ' 
 
 " Not altogether." 
 
 "Very well." He sighed and arose. 
 
 But he had a question to ask which would not let 
 him go, and yet which he found painfully difficult 
 to utter. He paced the room once or twice, ex- 
 amining with unseeing eyes, a print or two. Fi- 
 nally he swung around: 
 
 "Nora, have you written him!" 
 
 Her face at once reflected the somber tone of his. 
 "Yes. Last night." 
 
 * ' When is he coming f ' ' 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 He took a stride forward. "I am going to ask 
 you a great favor. You will go out there, I know. 
 Can't I see you often very often in the time 
 that's left us!" 
 
 Her hands fell passively before her. She sat 
 deep in silence. Presently she gave him a long 
 and intense scrutiny, her eyes raised to his. Then 
 she asked: "Is it fair to your wife? Is it fair 
 to Carl? Is it fair to us, David?" 
 
 "What does it matter?" There was despera- 
 tion in the way he threw that question at her 
 the desperation of a man who is asked to argue
 
 248 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 when he sees the raft floating away from him and 
 the numbing waters creeping over him. 
 
 "Is it wise, David?" 
 
 "Can't we be done with wisdom for a little?" 
 he cried hotly. "It 's only asking for a tiny 
 measure of folly, Nora. Of course, if you are 
 afraid ..." 
 
 She sprang to her feet. "I 'm not afraid." 
 
 "Then why?" 
 
 She shook her head, calm again. "Oh, it is 
 folly, David, deepest folly!" Then, after another 
 long searching look: "Do you wish it very 
 much!" 
 
 "Oh, very much, my dear." 
 
 She threw her arms wide. "Very well! See 
 me every day every hour that we can manage to 
 have together. As if I were condemned to so- 
 briety all the rest of my life, let me drink deep. 
 I Ve thirsted long enough." Impulsively she 
 slipped her hand into his. "Does that satisfy 
 you?" 
 
 Ten days they had together before Carl Ellis 
 came East to claim his Nora. Ten evenings they 
 had dinner together, sat next to each other at the 
 theater, shoulder warm against shoulder, rode 
 home together in a taxicab over the wide sweep of 
 the bridge with the arch of an illimitable velvet sky 
 stretching overhead, two tiny atoms rushing along
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 249 
 
 with the swaying of the car, fingers touching fin- 
 gers sometimes, only to be withdrawn quickly, fur- 
 tively and wretchedly as if fire had touched fire 
 two tiny beings ecstatic with pain and glory and a 
 happiness that was half despair, beneath a vault 
 of heaven so lofty and remote that David won- 
 dered sometimes whether it mattered (so small 
 they seemed), what emotions possessed them and 
 tore at them or whither those emotions carried 
 them.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE miracle was that David's life apart from 
 Nora went on as smoothly as if she were not 
 a passionate intruder upon his existence. He 
 found rest in the monotonous round of his every- 
 day duties and habits. They were like the hours 
 of sleep in contrast with hours of a feverish ac- 
 tivity. The ordinary reality of his days became 
 the unreality. He moved through it with the in- 
 credible swiftness with which one travels through 
 the blurred episodes of a dream. Each morning 
 he had his rolls and coffee with Evelyn, kissed her 
 good-by, journeyed to the office with a crowd of 
 other shadows engrossed in their newspapers, 
 read letters and answered them, talked over plans 
 with John Powell a John Powell who scrutinized 
 him a little closely these days with anxious eyes 
 saw various men, printers, representatives of ad- 
 vertising agencies, of magazines, of newspapers. 
 Then after the routine of healing commonplaces 
 came the enchanted nights again . . . 
 
 But one morning, the unreality stabbed through 
 the reality, claimed its place there, swept aside the 
 curtains, and asserted its presence. 
 
 250
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 251 
 
 It was at breakfast with Evelyn. He became 
 aware of her voice demanding his attention. 
 
 "You '11 be out again to-night?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 She leaned forward so that her bosom, grown 
 round and full since the child's birth, rested on 
 the table's edge. One hand as if guiding her, lay 
 flat on the cloth, palm down, extended toward him. 
 
 "It 's every night now. Is it a woman?" 
 
 He hesitated, perceived that it was useless to 
 answer anything but "Yes." 
 
 She drew herself together harshly, shuddered, 
 her hands, clutching, covered her face. Pres- 
 ently she withdrew them and showed dry eyes and 
 drawn lips. "It hurts, David." 
 
 For a moment, confesson ran to his lips, but he 
 found he could no more talk to Evelyn of Nora 
 than he could talk to Nora of Evelyn. His jaws 
 closed over his expostulations. But this much 
 he admitted through guarded lips, "It will soon 
 be over. She will soon be gone out of my life for- 
 ever. ' ' 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "She is going West to be married. Meanwhile 
 she permits me to see her out of pity for me. ' ' 
 
 She weighed his words, seeming to twist and 
 turn them, searching for the truth in them as one
 
 252 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 sifts a handful of sand in search of a lost jewel. 
 "Pity for you oh!" she exclaimed at last, and 
 convulsively she choked a sob. Again she leaned 
 towards him, hand extended, her eyes bright and 
 hard with intuition. "Is it that one whose pic- 
 ture I burned f ' ' 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You Ve always cared for her!" she broke out 
 passionately. "Always ! more than you 've ever 
 cared for me ! " 
 
 David finished his coffee, laid down his napkin. 
 Arising, he stood awkwardly indecisive. He was 
 sorry for Evelyn. Yet it was so difficult to show 
 her he was sorry. For the one thing that would 
 comfort her he could not offer could not even 
 pretend to offer. Presently he forced himself to 
 her side. Beneath the hand he placed gently on 
 her shoulder he felt the flesh quiver, but she did 
 not attempt to avoid the contact. "I 'm terribly 
 sorry, Evelyn," he said. 
 
 She turned to him beseechingly and her eyes 
 now were pools of trembling tears. "Why have I 
 failed so utterly? I Ve given you everything 
 everything! I did not know how to give more. 
 Perhaps if you had taught me f " 
 
 Her question was unanswerable and, once more, 
 he saw the walls of misunderstanding between
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 253 
 
 them. He withdrew his hand and walked over to 
 the window. From there he went back to his seat 
 at the table and dropped into it. 
 
 " Don't you think you would be happier if you 
 were free, Evelyn? If you could make your life 
 ever repair this blundering? You can be free, 
 if you wish, you know. ' ' 
 
 She gazed at him bewildered as if he were of- 
 fering her a flask containing some vital fluid which 
 she did not know how to open. 
 
 "You alone can get the divorce, " he supple- 
 mented. 
 
 Her face was bitter with disappointment. She 
 shook her head slowly. "0h, that sort of free- 
 dom ! If only it were freedom ! ' ' 
 
 She sat staring dazedly before her, her eyes 
 fixed, as if death had first terrified her and then 
 turned her cold and inanimate. 
 
 So he left her. But this time she was not to be 
 dismissed so easily from his thoughts.
 
 CHAPTEE IX 
 
 THE taxicab jolted to a stop before the door of 
 the dwarfed red brick apartment house and 
 David leaped out to extend a hand to Nora. 
 
 But instead of saying "good night," and leav- 
 ing a cool hand in his for a moment, she mur- 
 mured, "Come upstairs a minute, will you? I 
 want to tell you something." 
 
 So they left the taxicab mumbling below and si- 
 lently climbed the stairs to the top floor. Nora, 
 removing her coat as she walked, preceded David 
 into the sitting room and switched on the shaded 
 lights, while David followed, every nerve alert 
 with questioning. He saw that her eyes were 
 slightly wider than usual and beneath a matter-of- 
 fact manner which was obviously manufactured, 
 her movements were restless and agitated. 
 
 Presently, after setting an ornament aright on 
 the mantel and brushing a speck of dust from the 
 table, she faced him with, "He 's coming to-mor- 
 row, David!" 
 
 "Carl Ellis?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 254
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 255 
 
 He said nothing but sat down heavily in one of 
 the wicker chairs. Something in his face hur- 
 ried Nora on to explain more gently, "I did not 
 want to tell you until I had to. I was trying to 
 tell you all the way home in the taxi but I could n't. 
 I did n't want to spoil our last night together until 
 its very end. ' ' 
 
 "Our last night together!" he echoed hopelessly 
 and then in a different tone : ' ' But why our last 
 night? You 're not going back with him right 
 
 "No, but I shall follow him in a few days and 
 those few days will be very busy, my dear, pack- 
 ing, arranging things at the office ' ' then with an 
 impulsive gesture "Oh, what 's the use of 
 pretending, David. After I have promised Carl 
 to go with him, I shan't dare to see you any 
 more. ' ' 
 
 He leaned forward, his voice dark and thick 
 with emotion, ' ' Not dare ? Why 1 ' ' 
 
 She gave him no answer to that. Instead, after 
 an eventful pause she said irrelevantly, "There 
 are cigarettes and Scotch on the table. Help 
 yourself if you will. ' ' 
 
 He arose and poured himself a little whisky and 
 was amazed to see how his hand trembled as the 
 golden fluid spilled into the glass. ' ' Will you have 
 some ? " he asked.
 
 256 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 "No, but light me a cigarette." 
 
 He drank the whisky first and the fiery liquid 
 steadied him. 
 
 She took the cigarette from him and, after a 
 puff or two, forgot it, let it burn itself into a 
 long thin silver ash that dropped unheeded to the 
 floor. 
 
 "I should like you to meet Carl, David." 
 
 He shook his head, "No!" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Isn't that asking a little too much of me? 
 Much as I like the man I could not help betraying 
 how much I hated him. ' ' 
 
 She went to the window where the pine tree 
 spread its somber branches against the sky. 
 When she turned it was with a rebellious air. "Is 
 it asking more of you than it is of myself?" 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Oh, let 's be done with hypocrisy for one night, 
 David. Don't you know I love you?" 
 
 A very fever of denial shook him. ' * Love me ! " 
 he cried. "Me! You 've never loved me, Nora. 
 You Ve never given me the slightest hope : not 
 since we were cfiildren together. I 've always 
 loved you yes !" his eyes swept over the past 
 "Yes, it 's always been you even when you were 
 but a memory to me. But now you come with this 
 wild tale of loving me when we have each finished
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 257 
 
 patterning our lives so that the other is left out of 
 the weaving." 
 
 She laughed and laughing, moved from the win- 
 dow and settled down on the couch with a vivid red 
 and yellow pillow in back of her dark head that 
 dear head over whose crown the lustrous hair was 
 arranged as smoothly as a bird's wings. She 
 lifted the cigarette to her lips, found it wasted, 
 crossed quickly over to the table, and lighted a 
 fresh one. Calmly she sat down again, utterly 
 quiet she was except for that quick movement of 
 her hand to her lips with the smoke a gray cloud 
 slowly spreading over her head. 
 
 Suddenly she dropped the cigarette to the floor, 
 stamped a foot upon it, and leaned forward, her 
 hands clasping her knee. 
 
 "It was in Chicago that I first realized I loved 
 you. It was there, during those horrible beastly 
 days, that I came to realize it." 
 
 "But why didn't you let me know?" 
 
 "How could I let you know? I was a prisoner. 
 When I had freed myself and came back to New 
 York it was you I wanted to see. David, I told 
 you otherwise but to-night we shall tell the truth 
 to each other and nothing else. I went back to 
 Bay Eidge looking for you but could not find a 
 trace of you. When we did meet by accident that 
 day, what did I find? Oh, I was very cautious. I
 
 258 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 did not want to betray myself until I found out 
 how it was with you. And what I did find was that 
 you were to be married. ' ' 
 
 "But why did n't you give me a chance? Why 
 did n 't you give me an inkling of how you felt ? " he 
 asked with a gesture of appeal. 
 
 "I had already done enough harm to your life, 
 my dear. I swore to myself that I should do no 
 more. I saw, the day we went back to the beach 
 together that I might win you back but I should 
 have despised myself for doing so. You were 
 happy, I thought, you had made a success of your 
 life. You were insuring that success by marriage. 
 Should I interfere ? No, it was too contemptible a 
 thing, David, even for me to do." 
 
 "But why are you telling me this now?" 
 
 "Why? Because now you are placed out of my 
 reach and I am out of yours. As you say we have 
 each finished patterning our lives with the other 
 left out of the weaving. But I Ve told you, David, 
 because I could not help telling you. It was des- 
 peration and it was weakness but I could not help 
 it." 
 
 She still sat very quiet, hands folded together, 
 and suddenly he found that he must be nearer 
 to her. He sprang from his seat and sat on the 
 couch beside her, seizing her listless hands within 
 his.
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 259 
 
 "Isn't there some way out for us, Nora?" he 
 cried. 
 
 She smiled at him bravely. ' ' No. ' ' 
 
 ''If I should get a divorce?" 
 
 "Do you think I 'd let you do that? Do you 
 think I could take you away from your wife 
 when I would not do that before she was your 
 wife?" 
 
 * ' But you know I 'm not happy not even mak- 
 ing her happy. ' ' 
 
 "It is n't only that, David. There are all sorts 
 of other things to reckon with. There 's your 
 business, your child, your friends oh, I 've 
 learned my lesson too well, David, to think I could 
 rob a man of everything and get much happiness 
 out of the theft." 
 
 He released her hands. "And you call that 
 love. ' ' 
 
 "I call that more than love love with under- 
 standing. ' ' 
 
 He arose to go but found that he could not go. 
 Invisible forces pulled him to her. Abruptly the 
 emotion which had been pent up within him all 
 evening, that had gathered force night after night 
 for days past, broke its barriers and overflowed. 
 "Oh, Nora, I feel that it is all wrong!" he cried. 
 "You love me and I love you I Ve always loved 
 you. Everything else is shadow, unreality.
 
 200 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 Nothing else matters. There must be some way 
 out." 
 
 She shook her head sadly. Eising she came 
 over to him, very tall and radiant, very slim. She 
 put her hands on his shoulders and leaning for- 
 ward, kissed him. But there was no rapture in 
 that kiss, only the sadness of renunciation. ' ' Now 
 go, my dear, ' ' she said, and with a choking, broken 
 little laugh, ''your taxicab bill will be enormous."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THREE days later he had a note from her. 
 ' ' It 's all arranged, ' ' she wrote him. ' ' I fol- 
 lowed your plan quite closely. He is going back 
 Wednesday and I 'm to follow Sunday. He 's to 
 let me take up the work and he 's not to speak of 
 marriage for three months at least. Poor thing, 
 he was so heartbroken ! He had expected to rush 
 me off my feet, carry me back as his bride with a 
 trip to Bermuda for our honeymooning. He had 
 actually bought the tickets for the trip, flourished 
 them despairingly before me. That shows the as- 
 surance of the man. I 'm not a bit disappointed 
 in him, David. Memory did not gild him in the 
 least. He is fine. Really a big man. You should 
 hear him talk about his Trade School. One has to 
 go to the West for real enthusiasm. You 'd like 
 him, David. Honestly, I think you would." 
 
 There followed a brief white gap in the note 
 and when the writing began again it was less firm 
 and clear. David had to puzzle over words. 
 "You mustn't try to see me. This is hard to 
 write but I don't feel that I could stand it. Please 
 don't try please don't." 
 
 261
 
 262 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 To that appeal David despatched a wild and in- 
 coherent answer and two days later he had an- 
 other note. ' ' I Ve just emerged from a breathless 
 spell of packing to send you this message. With 
 my love, David. What a lot of things one gathers 
 around in a few years of housekeeping. I 've 
 some nice things. I Ve a blue Chinese bowl and a 
 Japanese print and two battered candlesticks I 'm 
 going to leave behind for you. My chief est treas- 
 ures, these. They have a little corner to them- 
 selves in which they sit so proudly, aloof in the 
 mess of debris. Every time I pass them I say to 
 them, 'You are for David, my dear David, and 
 ou are always and forever to remind him of his 
 Nora.' " 
 
 That letter ended up with a blotched postscript 
 which brought the tears to David's eyes. "I Ve 
 tried to keep things out of this note but they 
 would n't be kept out. No, you must not see me, 
 David. If you love me, don't try to see me. I 'm 
 fighting and this sort of a fight it is much better 
 to wage alone. It is hard, my dearest one oh, it 
 is hard. Damn things anyway, damn them and 
 damn them, and damn them ! Now, I do feel bet- 
 ter." 
 
 David, counting each day on the calendar as the 
 condemned man in his cell marks off each day from 
 the days that are left him, realized presently that
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 263 
 
 it was Saturday Nora's last day but one in New 
 York. 
 
 That afternoon, however, there was another note 
 very brief, this one. "I find I must see you be- 
 fore I go. I am taking the 7 :55 train to-morrow 
 evening Pennsylvania Station. I shall be there 
 a half hour before train time. Come if you will. 
 We can't be very emotional in the Pennsylvania 
 Station, can we ? "
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THIS, then, was her last night! To-morrow 
 evening at 7:55 she would be gone. 
 
 David found himself tossed restlessly around his 
 apartment. He sat for awhile at the other side of 
 the library table from Evelyn, who was sticking 
 a needle in and out of white material stretched taut 
 upon a round wooden frame. Her placidity irri- 
 tated him. He threw aside the evening paper, 
 picked up a magazine, ran over its stupid articles 
 on the reformation of a crook, digging the Panama 
 Canal, on aeronautics, its fluffy tales of young men 
 and women living in an impossibly simple and 
 happy world. 
 
 He walked back to the dark dining-room and 
 stood looking out of the window into a gray and 
 shadowy courtyard. There he surprised himself 
 estimating what money he had of his own to be 
 called upon in case of emergency and discovering 
 himself doing this, he laughed grimly at the for- 
 lorn hopes which prompted it. 
 
 The apartment became too small for him and he 
 let himself out the front door, conscious of 
 
 264
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 265 
 
 Evelyn's eyes following him, placid no longer but 
 dumb with an appealing entreaty and questioning. 
 
 Outside the large freedom of the night welcomed 
 him. . . . His feet moving swiftly, irrevocably, 
 one after the other, carried him to the trolley line 
 the same trolley line over Which one night, not 
 long ago, he had traversed endless areas of the 
 City. Uncontrollable forces had their way with 
 him; when a car came along he swung himself 
 upon it. "What am I about!" he asked himself, 
 in a stupor that was helplessness. 
 
 Little stores like lighted cells, empty streets, 
 tree-guarded, close-shuttered, huge round gas 
 tanks spreading their sickly sweet poisonous odors 
 he was swept swiftly by all these. At the re- 
 membered corner he jumped off. 
 
 The old garden next to the spick-and-span apart- 
 ment house had arrayed itself in some tentative 
 garments of spring. The familiar perfume of 
 seringa bush and strawberry shrubs came to him 
 through the paneled fence. He reached the door 
 of the house with poignant memories of childhood 
 aroused by these homely perfumes crowding upon 
 him. Looking up, he saw a light shining forth 
 from Nora's sitting-room windows . . . and as 
 he looked, as if she had leaned out and held up an 
 arresting hand, the impetus which had carried him 
 thus far, deserted him. He sat down as one over-
 
 266 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 come with weariness upon the stone steps. And a 
 picture came to him of that room upstairs with its 
 flowers in round red pots along the window sills, 
 the curtains of Russian design, and the wicker 
 chairs in which they had sat opposite each other. 
 He could see Nora moving around, preparing the 
 feast they had shared the first night he had visited 
 her. How deftly she moved, how smoothly with a 
 tiny welcoming smile hovering around her lips. 
 Then suddenly his vision of her changed ; she be- 
 came a trembling, frightened Nora, and he remem- 
 bered her words, "If you love me, don't try to see 
 me." 
 
 Into the cup of his hands, his head fell, and his 
 legs quivered with weakness as if he had run 
 breathlessly for miles. A passerby eyed him curi- 
 ously, steering her feet into a semicircle to avoid 
 him. A little boy, running along sucking at a 
 candy on a thin stick, came to a sudden halt before 
 him but at a little distance, and gazed at him with 
 hope and expectancy. But as David did not move 
 he hopped away, disappointed, turning occasion- 
 ally to peer back at him. Presently David lifted 
 himself and stumbled away. The lights of a 
 saloon shining garishly on a far corner beckoned 
 him. He entered through a swinging door and 
 drank whisky two, three, four glasses he did 
 not know how many.
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 267 
 
 Making for the door again, the bartender ex- 
 tended a sturdy grip and clutched him with, "You 
 ain't paid yet, Mister." 
 
 David threw down a bill and was allowed to de- 
 part, while a small knot of men standing before the 
 bar laughed raucously. 
 
 Again the trolley, a wheeled thing of many lights 
 crowded with blurred black masses which might be 
 people ; again the interminable rows of little houses 
 and shops smothered now in darkness. He ar- 
 rived at last before the marble hallway of the house 
 where he lived and without pause, went on. The 
 water called him he could hear the whistles of 
 boats, the fog horns, the shrill river voices. 
 
 Down a steep hill he half fell, half ran, past a 
 nodding watchman, out upon the wide and uneven 
 expanse of a dock. At last the waters lay before 
 him, singing, soothing, black and mysterious, 
 clutching to their bosom a thousand lights, yellow, 
 red, green, like a woman jealous of her jewels. 
 
 Slowly a consciousness of where he was came to 
 him, a consciousness of the stillness and darkness 
 of the unfathomable night. And it was good ! It 
 was solace! It crept over him, over his burning 
 brows and fevered body, cooling him, like the pres- 
 sure of a firm, beloved hand. His brain cleared. 
 And he found that he could think clearly and co- 
 herently.
 
 268 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 Better that things were as they were, he told 
 himself. Better that they were as they had to be. 
 Better that Nora should go away with her West- 
 erner than take the meager, hidden, hypocritical 
 life of love which was all that he could offer her. 
 And he thought of himself and Nora abroad in the 
 land, fleeing from discovery, endlessly pretending, 
 forced constantly into all sorts of small and mean 
 and shameful dissemblings. But into the calm 
 reasoning of his thoughts broke a small fury of 
 anger. "Damn him!" he cried. "Damn him! 
 What right has he to take her away from me? 
 She 's mine. I loved her first. I 've loved her 
 best. I Ve always loved her." 
 
 That fury shook him and passed. 
 
 After a while he began to wonder about himself. 
 Why was he condemned to suffer? Why was all 
 that was dearest to him invariably snatched away 
 from him? Never had he known complete realiza- 
 tion of any ambition. Impersonally he wondered. 
 Like a long script of manuscript his life unrolled 
 itself before him. 
 
 Why had he failed? Why was he created to 
 dream and yet never to realize a dream? The 
 awakening found him clutching dead sea fruit al 
 ways. He had had so many dreams, so many sorts 
 of dreams. Never a one came true. Perhaps it 
 was because in the very beginning he had not been
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 269 
 
 true to his first dream, his greatest one, the one in 
 which he had aimed to be of service to his fellow- 
 men. Never had he been of service to any one. 
 Not one! Ineffectual, he was. Terribly ineffec- 
 tual! 
 
 Yet he had never been selfish. He had meant 
 no one harm. Yet he had done them harm gross 
 harm. Poor little uncomprehending Evelyn he 
 had done her harm. She had not understood, had 
 not seen things as he saw them ; therefore he dis- 
 missed her. The others before Evelyn. All of 
 them in varying degrees had suffered in their love 
 for him. And to Nora, w v hom he loved best of all, 
 if he had had his way he would have done the 
 greatest harm. He would have carried Ijer away 
 from the respect of men the respect which after 
 so many cruel years she had just regained. 
 
 Then he thought of his accomplishments, of his 
 material success. After he had achieved it, he 
 had found it dross. What was this spell that had 
 been put upon him that sent him from one woman 
 to another, from one ambition to another, and that 
 never left him satisfied for long? 
 
 Unlike that king of old whose touch turned 
 everything to gold, his touch turned everything to 
 brass to brass or, more accurately, to ashes 
 ashes that passed away, blown away as the night
 
 270 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 wind blows the reflected stars from off the face of 
 the waters. ... 
 
 He had given too little of himself, that was it. 
 He had asked for everything and given noth- 
 ing. . . . 
 
 Presently all thought left him and he stood like 
 one of the creaking posts, there by the waters, 
 until the first light of morning crept over them and 
 turned them gray.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE next evening David waited beneath the 
 lofty ceiling of the Pennsylvania Station. 
 He had arrived there long before the time set by 
 Nora, and every second minute he had compared 
 his watch with the great iron hands of the clock 
 hung over the north stairway. He had wandered 
 around, but never very far nor very long from the 
 meeting place. He had exhausted the possibili- 
 ties of the shop windows within the main entrance 
 the haberdasher's with its gaily colored scarfs, 
 its caps and collars and shirts, the toy shop with 
 its dolls and furry bears and a thing of steel that 
 lifted sand to a tower and then dropped it; the 
 book shop with its array of jacketed novels. 
 
 Long since he had exhausted these, and now 
 stood impatient and restless beside the doorway 
 which opened into the vast room from which one 
 descended iron stairways to reach the trains. 
 
 When he had fully decided that Nora had 
 changed her mind, had taken an earlier train to es- 
 cape him or wildly impracticable this! had 
 found it impossible to carry out her plans, he saw 
 
 271
 
 272 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 her crossing the wide expanse of floor toward him. 
 He ran towards her, waved away an insistent por- 
 ter, and seized her bag himself. 
 
 She was smiling bravely. She reminded him of 
 a bird eager for flight, and he could not help but 
 feel resentful of her self-possession and courage. 
 "My taxi broke down," she said. "How much 
 time have we?" 
 
 He did not have to consult any clock. "Only 
 fifteen minutes," he answered ruefully. 
 
 They walked over to the gate where her train 
 waited. Impatiently people rushed by them, while 
 they found, gazing sadly into each other's eyes, 
 that they had no words. A sense of calamity, of 
 the irrevocable, was upon them. From a distance 
 they could hear a guard, with powerful distinct- 
 ness, announce the stations at which Nora's train 
 halted. 
 
 As if that urged him on, David fell into a furious 
 pleading. Gone now were all his great resolu- 
 tions of the night before. "Don't go, Nora. 
 Whatever is wrong or right, this is wrong. You 
 don't love him. You love me. I have more than 
 three thousand dollars. We can go away together 
 anywhere. We can make a start somewhere 
 else." 
 
 "Like the people in books," she put in. 
 
 "No, like real people like you and me real
 
 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 273 
 
 flesh and blood. Nora, this will break me. I 'm 
 through with living if you go 
 
 "You don't mean ?" she broke in with dis- 
 tended eyes. 
 
 "Oh, I don't mean killing myself. Worse than 
 that A living death ; my life 's been all wrong 
 for lack of you. I need you. I always have. 
 That is what I wanted. That is what has been 
 lacking," and as if he had by accident stumbled 
 upon the truth he repeated, "Yes, that is what has 
 been lacking." 
 
 She shook her head, tears in her eyes, her lips 
 pressed closely together. "I must go," she said. 
 
 She passed through the gate, for the guard had 
 called an imperious summons. He would have 
 barred David's way but David pressed a bill into 
 his hand and forced himself past. He was dumb 
 now. His pleading had been ineffectual inef- 
 fectual again! He was like an actor who had 
 spoken his lines because they were given to him 
 to speak but who must now be silent until the end 
 of the comedy. 
 
 Together they reached the long platform against 
 which the train lay with level steps. 
 
 "Good-by, my dear," said Nora, and she took 
 her bag from him and kissed him. 
 
 But he held her fast; with all his strength, one
 
 274 THE KEYS OF THE CITY 
 
 hand gripping each of her arms, he locked her to 
 him. 
 
 1 ' David ! ' ' she cried. * ' This is madness ! ' ' 
 
 "Yes, it is madness," he echoed. "But it has 
 to be." 
 
 A commotion burst around them, guards called 
 to them; one guard shook David's shoulder. The 
 train began to move slowly, it gained headway; 
 like a serpent with jeweled sides it slid away. 
 Nora had ceased to struggle; a dead weight she 
 had fallen against David so that he had to sup- 
 port her. 
 
 The two of them, atoms in that vast place, stood 
 clinging together. The train had vanished. A 
 guard at the head of the stairs was still shouting 
 at them ; a negro porter stood near by, grinning at 
 them with white teeth. 
 
 David loosened his grasp and held Nora so that 
 he could see into her face. She moved back a step 
 so that his hands fell from lier arms. Wearily she 
 passed a hand across her eyes and gazed at the 
 black hole which had devoured the train. Then 
 with a sob, she moved back to David 's side and ran 
 her arm through his. 
 
 "What are you going to do with me now, 
 David?" she asked. 
 
 THE END
 
 M IIM ' '' ""I Hill I 
 
 A A 000007641 4