LIBRARY 
 
 University oi 
 
 California 
 
 Irvine 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 IRVINE 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 Fred Ventura Stewart
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO 
 ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
 
 TORONTO
 
 BY 
 E. B. DEWING 
 
 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1909 
 
 Att rights reserved
 
 PS 
 
 OS 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1909, 
 
 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1909. 
 
 NorSsoofc $r8 
 
 J. 8. Cashing Co. Berwick & Smith Co. 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
 
 When the Soul of Man does battle with the Forces of Nature, 
 it is the Forces of Nature which are deathless. 
 
 EGYPTIAN PBOVEEB.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE GIRDLE OF VENUS 1 
 
 II. THE CUCKOO . 22 
 
 III. VENUS ANADYOMENE 43 
 
 IV. CELEBRITY 67 
 
 V. ANTICLIMAXES 90 
 
 VI. JANE 112 
 
 VII. NATURE 139 
 
 VIII. L'lMAGINATION SENTIMENTALE 158 
 
 IX. THE REMARKABLE YOUNG MAN 182 
 
 X. MOTHER AND SON 206 
 
 XL IN THE MIDST OF BATTLE 223 
 
 XII. CONCERNING THE FLAVOR OF WINES .... 246 
 
 XIII. LAUS VENERIS 272 
 
 XIV. WEDDING-CAKE 302 
 
 XV. LA BELLE FRANCE 322 
 
 XVI. DUST AND LIGHT , 343
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE GIRDLE OF VENUS 
 
 "VENUS, one of the most celebrated deities of the 
 ancients, the goddess of love and beauty. In the Iliad 
 she is presented as the daughter of Jupiter and Dione 
 and in later traditions as the daughter of Euonyme 
 and Cronos, but the legend of Venus sprung from the 
 froth of the sea is the most known. She arose from 
 the sea near the island of Cyprus, or, according to 
 Hesiod, of Cythera, whither she was wafted by the 
 zephyrs, and received on the seashore by the seasons, 
 daughters of Jupiter and Themis. She surpassed all 
 the goddesses in beauty, and likewise had the power 
 of granting beauty and invincible charm to others. She 
 was the owner of a celebrated girdle which when worn 
 even by the most deformed excited love and rekindled 
 extinguished flames. . . ." 
 
 Emily Stedman closed her book. She was conscious 
 
 B 1
 
 2 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 of a fixed glare from the spectacles of the librarian's 
 assistant. Their possessor had evidently given them 
 an added polish; and it behooved her to treat them 
 well, for without them she would have been a meek 
 young woman enough. With them she struck terror 
 into the hearts of her beholders. That may have been 
 her purpose the savage custom of decorating the body 
 with bright paints and feathers is often attributed to 
 a similar one. Miss Smith would have denied the par 
 allel; but Miss Smith led a life of denials, she was 
 the assistant librarian at Hornmouth. And Emily Sted- 
 man was the only daughter of Hornmouth's most cherished 
 professor. 
 
 She sat very still. She could hear the scratching pen 
 of the young man next to her and the slow, even ticking 
 of the clock. She gazed a little longingly at the ponderous 
 volume before her. She couldn't carry on her highly im 
 portant researches in the presence of the spectacles. "Ve 
 nus sprung from the froth of the sea. ..." What had 
 Miss Smith to do with Venus? . . . Minerva, rather! 
 As she sat at her neat desk, pen poised in air, cataloguing, 
 labelling, the wisdom of the ages must have passed through 
 her arranging hands. Emily Stedman envied Miss Sniith 
 in the same moment that she despised her. She envied 
 her her community with the wisdom of the ages ; she de 
 spised her for the little use she made of it. If she herself 
 were strong and old, if she herself were the assistant 
 librarian at Hornmouth, the wisdom of the ages would 
 be something more to her than a mere dry mass of printed 
 paper ; it would be part of herself. Wisdom was the knowl-
 
 THE GIRDLE OF VENUS 3 
 
 edge of the minds of men ; and she with the knowledge of 
 the minds of men her vision was of great power and of 
 great glory, and the books in the Hornmouth library seemed 
 to her like living things. 
 
 But she never could be even an assistant librarian. 
 Wisdom, save for an occasional ecstatic licking of the 
 plate, was the thing most forbidden her. Born into a 
 fraternity of scholars, the joys of scholarship could never 
 be hers. There had been too many scholars already 
 too many bent shoulders and strained eyes ; the learned 
 blood was running thin. That she lived at all was a 
 triumph of mind over matter ; and she had a mind, even 
 at the age of fourteen. For many generations the learned 
 mind had been developed at the expense of the learned 
 body. 
 
 She looked a little longingly at the closed book on the 
 table before her and then her regard wandered to the 
 statue in the corner. This statue presented the goddess 
 of love as a naked and armless, but nevertheless dignified, 
 woman smoothly made who gazed out at a mutable 
 world with a slow, ruminating expression almost bovine. 
 She hadn't sprung from anything surely not from the 
 froth of the sea. Beautiful, but too calm, too passive. 
 Emily's ideal of Venus was the reverse of passive. She 
 saw her, rather, as a splendid, victorious figure vital 
 - restless a Bellona with dishevelled hair and a flam 
 ing torch, standing in the midst of a stormy ocean, her 
 mouth opened round in a great shout. For a young lady 
 who cared so much for wisdom, Miss Stedman had a won 
 derful fondness for war. When she lay awake at night,
 
 4 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 the shadows cast by her flickering candle were men fight 
 ing, and the various night noises, the crickets and the 
 locusts and the rustling wind, were the tramp of marching 
 feet. But war was also outside her reach, war and 
 wisdom, and now there was something else. She 
 looked at the statue in the corner. She couldn't have 
 worn the girdle of Venus even if she'd had it; it would 
 have been far too large. Venus was smoothly made; 
 Emily, in later years, when she developed a talent for epi 
 gram, called herself an animated broomstick. But she had 
 a mind, and the mind may wear much that the body must 
 cast aside. 
 
 She picked up the ponderous, leather-covered volume and 
 carried it to its shelf. It was a disagreeable shelf marked 
 'reference/ and with a further explanation stating that 
 books belonging on it could not be taken out of the library. 
 She had read that explanation many times; it applied to 
 most of the books she liked best. She turned and went 
 back to her seat at the big table, the table to the left; 
 there was another table to the right and two more facing 
 the high windows. Miss Smith's desk was to the extreme 
 left behind a sort of wire fence, and Dr. Guthrie, her 
 honored chief, was still more screened from the vulgar 
 gaze. Dr. Guthrie was a very wise man indeed. Emily 
 Stedman was firm in the belief that he had read all the 
 books in the Hornmouth library. There were books, books, 
 books, right to the ceiling; and there was a little iron 
 balcony halfway to the top which was reached by a little 
 iron stairway. Dr. Guthrie seemed to spend the greater 
 part of his time perched upon this balcony, his skullcap
 
 THE GIRDLE OF VENUS 5 
 
 pushed to the back of his head, his coat tails blown by the 
 breeze from the open window. But at heart he was a 
 calm man. The present touched him but lightly; he dealt 
 with the past ; the period of the Punic Wars was his especial 
 province. Dr. Rainor was a doctor of divinity ; his especial 
 province was the period of the future. Emily's father, 
 Dr. Stedman, dealt almost exclusively with the present 
 he was a biologist. 
 
 The students of Hornmouth University had the past, 
 present, and future thrust at them in compact, easily di 
 gested pellets, and during the process of assimilation they 
 sat at the library tables and took notes. There seemed, 
 Emily thought, to be more notes than students. She never 
 took notes, but she wasn't a student; she was merely 
 an ugly little girl at the age of fourteen it was a more 
 aggressive thing than plainness. 
 
 The library closed at six. One by one its occupants 
 glanced at the clock, collected their possessions, and went 
 out. Miss Smith at her desk was gathering up some papers. 
 Dr. Guthrie took off his skullcap and put it in his pocket. 
 Emily alone made no movement, and Miss Smith's spec 
 tacles had become increasingly intrusive. At last Dr. 
 Guthrie opened his little wicket gate and stepped out. 
 Emily looked up at him, and he met her startled eyes: 
 "Dreamer dreamer ! " 
 
 "Pardon me, Dr. Guthrie, did you speak?" 
 
 The doctor turned to Miss Smith. "Miss Smith, did I 
 speak?" 
 
 "I don't think so, Doctor." 
 
 "You see!" 
 
 Emily rose. "Good night."
 
 6 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 This intimate of war and power and wisdom this 
 worshipper of glory and love was terribly embarrassed 
 by the presence of Miss Smith and Dr. Guthrie. They had 
 always been merely the wax dolls she had dressed in the 
 elaborate garments of her fancy, the allegorical figures of 
 Wisdom. 
 
 "Good night," she repeated. 
 
 "Good night, Miss Emily" 
 
 It was as if the big table were executing a pas seul, 
 or the statue of Venus had stepped down from its pedestal. 
 
 The sun had set; but the autumn sky was still flushed 
 with it, and the buildings of Hornmouth, with their dull 
 brick walls and slate roofs, were surrounded by a vari 
 colored glory not their own. The new House of Mechanics, 
 brave in white marble and columns, bore a closer re 
 semblance than usual to an Athenian temple. It was a 
 gift from a rich alumnus, and though Hornmouth was 
 becomingly grateful, she was also somewhat disturbingly 
 aware of the contrasting shabbiness of her other architec 
 ture. Dr. Rainor called the new House of Mechanics the 
 vanity of the flesh. Emily's father, Dr. Stedman, called it 
 the vanity of the rich alumnus. Emily didn't know what 
 either of them meant, and she didn't care. She supposed 
 the statue of Venus was the vanity of the flesh, and the 
 bright color of the clouds and the sense of the fresh, clear 
 air. The dinner that she was going home to, the hot, 
 thick soup and cold meat and underdone potatoes, - 
 surely that wasn't the vanity of anything. Neither was 
 her shabby woollen coat. But her coat and her dinner 
 didn't seem to matter; she never thought about them; 
 and it was only the things she thought about which malr
 
 THE GIRDLE OF VENUS 7 
 
 tered. Hornmouth was given to displays neither of fash 
 ion nor of cookery. The coat was warm, and the dinner 
 sustained the body that wore it. Besides, she didn't 
 have to look at them. She could look, instead, at her 
 cousin, Ralph Parrish, who was now coming towards her 
 on horseback. His was the vanity of the flesh and of the 
 world and of the devil. 
 
 ii 
 
 'You hit too often, and you don't think enough. Wait 
 you've all the time there is. See where you want to hit, 
 and then hit hard. Meanwhile you'll get pounded, you say ? 
 What's the use of size and strength if you can't stand being 
 pounded? One smash and the other fellow's down and 
 out you're a bit sore, that's all." 
 
 A pale young imp, all arms and legs and faded gingham 
 dress, theorizing on the Gentle Art in order that a pair of 
 fledging giants may the better maim each other. Emily 
 Stedman giving a lesson in the art of war. This was better, 
 even, than the shadows cast by a flickering candle. This 
 was life instead of dreams; this was reality, and better 
 at the moment than all the wisdom of Hornmouth 
 University. 
 
 At the age of fourteen Emily Stedman's opinion on war 
 was eagerly sought. She had a fundamental detachment 
 from it which made her a fairly unbiassed judge. If she 
 herself had been fighting the dreaded boy who lived on the 
 other side of the hedge, how could she have seen the flaws 
 in Ralph Parrish's method of attack ? She would have been 
 too much blinded by the dust of battle. Instead, she had 
 sat at the safe distance of the stable-yard gate and hurled
 
 8 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 invective at once derogatory and weird at the con 
 quering enemy. Her cousin knew how to take his licking. 
 A bloody nose and a nasty cut over one eye, which seemed 
 somehow to get mixed up with his thick, light hair, were 
 only two of many small injuries. But he sustained them 
 all with graceful ease. He listened to Emily's little homily 
 quite as if his handkerchief wasn't increasingly scarlet and 
 a great red drop didn't occasionally splash into the puddle 
 in the road beside him. 
 
 "I'm not afraid of being pounded it isn't that I 
 can't wait " 
 
 "No, you're always at it." 
 
 "Too much; but I'm not afraid " 
 
 "You're afraid without knowing it. You can't help 
 yourself; Berry's fist looks like the biggest thing in sight. 
 But to him yours looks just as big." 
 
 Ralph doubled the discussed implement and meditatively 
 regarded it. 
 
 "Yours is just as big. My Lord ! if I had a fist like 
 that!" 
 
 "What would you do ? " Her cousin's curiosity was half 
 hearted. 
 
 "I'd lick Deny within an inch of his soul." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Like this " 
 
 Emily's arm shot out her thin little hand became a 
 ball of steel. Ralph Parrish staggered under the blow 
 - balanced a moment on the swinging gate and then fell 
 backwards into the muddy road. That was life, if you like. 
 It might, of course, be death. But if it were Emily 
 wouldn't, just then, have very much cared. She stared
 
 THE GIRDLE OF VENUS 9 
 
 down upon the limp, prostrate figure, curious at what she 
 had done, elated at her own unexpected strength. Her 
 cousin's whole aspect was very vivid to her. His rather 
 large face was white save where it was gory; his loose flannel 
 shirt was torn wide at the neck. At an age when most 
 boys are lean little beasts he had attained a certain splendor 
 of physique a splendor that stretched wide his thin 
 linen knickerbockers and condoned the exaggerated spread 
 of his mouth. As soon as nature permitted, he covered his 
 mouth with a mustache. It was the only feature he pos 
 sessed which was not altogether agreeable; it spread too 
 far ; it was like a mouth seen through a magnifying glass. 
 
 Emily sat there on the top of the gate for some time. 
 There were whole years of time which counted for less. 
 Then Ralph Parrish slowly rose to his feet. Emily won 
 dered, dimly, what he was going to do. She half expected 
 to be felled to the ground. Her triumphant moment 
 seemed over. There he was, tall and strong, and in his 
 dishevelled condition almost sinister. She slid down from 
 the gate. She would put the strength of her theorizing to 
 the proof ; she would meet her pupil in open battle ; if she 
 could knock him down once, she could do it again. Her 
 arm still tingled with the success of that first blow. Yet 
 with it all mixed with the joy of the prospective fight 
 she was terribly afraid ; and, unlike her cousin, she was 
 acutely conscious of her fear. 
 
 She waited, impatient, on the alert. "Well ? " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Aren't you going to hit back?" 
 
 Ralph Parrish looked at her silently. It couldn't have 
 been a very edifying occupation; she wasn't pretty; and
 
 10 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 behind the glitter of his slate blue eyes there seemed a sort 
 of latent reflection of her ugliness. 
 
 "Aren't you?" she asked again. 
 
 "Aren't I what?" 
 
 "Going to hit back" 
 
 "Why, no." 
 
 She had an inspired moment. "If I were a boy, you'd 
 hit back!" 
 
 Ralph Parrish was David singing in the tent of the awak 
 ening Saul. 
 
 "Yes, but you're not. You're a girl." 
 
 Then it was that she came closer yet to life. Ralph 
 picked her up in his arms and kissed her, a kiss strangely 
 mixed with mud and blood and the warmth of conflict. 
 
 in 
 
 The big hunter's moon was in its last quarter. It 
 balanced on the tip of University Hill uncertain, almost 
 drunken and then rose triumphant. The road stretched 
 upward very straight and very white, and a lantern on the 
 Stedman porch flickered and went out. The windows 
 of Dr. Stedman's study cast two patches of yellow light on 
 the dark grass. The doctor himself had gone in there some 
 hours before and locked the door ; he had this inhuman way 
 of shutting himself off from the disturbances of the outside 
 world. He carried the inverted eye the inner life to 
 an exaggeration. In the place where he now lives the in 
 verted eye has probably found its true orbit. . . . 
 
 Dr. Stedman's daughter looked up at her father's house 
 for what she thought would be the last time. In an upper 
 window the shade was drawn down, and she saw through it
 
 THE GIRDLE OF VENUS 11 
 
 the shadow of a figure moving about. It was her mother. 
 How little her mother knew. Emily knew a great deal ; she 
 and Ralph Parrish were going to run away. It was an 
 idea born of Emily's desire for life. 
 
 The road stretched upward, very white and very empty, 
 and the snapping autumn cold cut sharp ; but she turned her 
 collar about her ears; Ralph was waiting for her at the 
 upper railway station. They were going into the unknown 
 beyond University Hill beyond the village even 
 beyond the upper railway station. They were going to 
 Boston, and from Boston they were to take a ship. Emily 
 had never seen the ocean. And then they frankly 
 didn't know. But there could be a great deal of life be 
 tween then and now. Even if they were forced to turn back, 
 there would be the memory of this night, with the drunken 
 moon and the cold air and the darkness which didn't pre 
 vent the clearness the memory, not to mention the 
 actuality. Emily had a sense of extreme elation, of an 
 expectation so intense that it verged on fear. It was as if 
 she were possessed of some new power, some added, higher 
 faculty. 
 
 She went up the hill, past the college buildings, past the 
 new House of Mechanics, and down through the village. 
 A muffling cloth seemed to be taken away, and familiar 
 objects stood out in unaccustomed bareness. A little white 
 cat scampered across her path, and the church clock startled 
 her with one loud chime. The gravestones stood up 
 straightly like soldiers marching. There were dark door 
 ways and trim, square houses. The moon, hanging in 
 space, was performing marvellous feats of balancing. If 
 she could balance like that ! Her legs seemed to act of
 
 12 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 their own volition; she became aware that she was run 
 ning, but she felt no fatigue, and running was one of the 
 many things forbidden her. But she was strong now - 
 stronger than she had ever been in her life before almost 
 as solid and as splendid as he towards whom she was run 
 ning. Her mind, her little laboring brain, was fast asleep, 
 taking a great beautiful rest ; and her senses her sense 
 of the wind in her face and of her own new strength 
 were taking its place. She was beyond the village now. 
 Houses had given way to trees, and in front her path lay 
 through a wide, flat field. The little white cat had been 
 following her, and it dashed past her, a streak of deeper 
 white against the whiteness of the road. 
 
 She stopped running. Her blood throbbed up and 
 pounded at her temples. The sound of it drowned the 
 sound of her voice when she tried to call. And then came 
 the soft patter of the cat's returning feet. She called again; 
 she had a sudden horror of being alone. Alone on foot at 
 night we enter that world which is at other times always a 
 little ahead of us ; and Emily was very much alone. Be 
 sides herself there was the inquiring cat and the swaying 
 road and the drunken, balancing moon. Ralph Parrish 
 came to her across the wide field. He caught her as she 
 fainted dead away. 
 
 The upper railway station at Hornmouth was a small, 
 unimportant structure which had outlived its usefulness. 
 The patronage of the Hornmouth traveller had gone over 
 to the other line of road, and the station for that road was 
 in quite an opposite direction. In fact, the upper railway 
 station existed largely by virtue of the inertia which makes 
 it easier to live than to die. But it had its loyal friends
 
 THE GIEDLE OP VENUS 13 
 
 a select company of people who desired, for reasons best 
 known to themselves, either to leave or arrive at Horn- 
 mouth unnoticed. And there was a train which happened 
 to stop there in the very small hours of the morning, a train 
 peculiarly theirs. And they chose their hour well. Moon 
 light lent to the upper railway station a picturesqueness 
 natively foreign to it, gave it a look like the hut of the 
 wicked witch in the middle of the silver field; it only 
 lacked a wandering prince and princess. 
 
 The station-master came out with his lantern. The 
 train stopped. The awakened passengers stared sleepily. 
 And presently, with much grumbling, the train went on 
 again. He of the lantern gave a puzzled glance about, 
 and then went within and shook the fire in his stove to a 
 greater brilliancy. Beyond the edge of the silver field the 
 prince was carrying the princess farther and farther away 
 from the witch's hut and the fiery dragon. They couldn't 
 
 even together face it. 
 "Ralph" 
 "Emily" 
 
 "Am I very heavy?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Because if I'm heavy, you must set me down." 
 
 " And then ?" 
 
 "And then what?" 
 
 "After I had set you down, what would you do?" 
 
 " I think I could walk. Ralph " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I'm sorry I can't go. Some day I may grow stronger. 
 Some day the ocean isn't the ocean blue, Ralph, 
 like the sky ? And there are little white waves and bubbles
 
 14 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 of foam. I'll climb out to the bow of a big ship, and the 
 ocean will pass under me, and I'll have a house built on 
 the edge of a great cliff a house all my own " 
 
 "And I?" 
 
 "I have you without the house, you to carry me. I 
 should much rather carry you. Do you remember the day 
 I knocked you down?" 
 
 "That was yesterday." 
 
 "That was back back ever so far back." 
 
 "I don't understand." 
 
 They seemed to traverse great distances, the village 
 street was of an interminable length, and all the time the 
 moon balanced with tireless energy. Emily was cold; 
 Ralph took off his coat and wrapped it about her, and she 
 was too weak to resist. It was a slow progress that they 
 made, and became slower still as Ralph's muscles tired of 
 their burden. 
 
 "Emily" 
 
 "Ralph" 
 
 "Could you walk now, a few steps?" 
 
 "I'll do my best." But the road rose up in front of her, 
 a crooked, swaying mass. 
 
 It was under the shadow of the new House of Mechanics 
 that Ralph's strength utterly failed him. They sat down 
 together on the marble steps and watched the first paleness 
 of the sky. 
 
 "Ralph " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "Did you ever hear of the girdle of Venus?" 
 "No" 
 
 "Venus one of the most celebrated deities of the
 
 THE GIRDLE OF VENUS 15 
 
 ancients she was sprung from the froth of the sea, Ralph, 
 with the white foam all about her and a little cockle-shell. 
 She had a girdle a girdle of fire, with red flames. Do 
 you think she'd lend it to me? If I could wear it even 
 once 
 
 " ' Spotted snakes with double tongues, 
 Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen 
 Newts and blindworms, do no wrong 
 Bow, wow, 
 
 The watchdogs bark 
 Bow, wow 
 Hark, hark ! I hear 
 The strain of strutting chanticleer 
 Cry cock-a-diddle-dow ! ' 
 
 " That's Shakespeare, Ralph. It isn't just like that in 
 the book ; but it's no matter Shakespeare and Venus 
 Ralph!" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "At home they must never know." 
 
 The road was straighter now, very straight and very 
 white, and the moonlight faded in the dawn. 
 
 "Ralph, you go first." 
 
 Emily waited, a solitary little figure, half hidden by the 
 broad hedge ; and then she went back to her father's house. 
 The lights in Dr. Stedman's study were long since out, and 
 she was unobserved upon the stair. 
 
 IV 
 
 If wisdom is the knowledge of the minds of men, it is also 
 the knowledge of their bodies; and if there was one thing 
 more than another more, even, than the new House of
 
 16 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 Mechanics upon which the University of Hornmouth 
 prided herself, it was upon her possession of R. H. Stedman, 
 biologist and professor of biology. 
 
 Hornmouth appreciated R. H. Stedman. The outside 
 world didn't wake up to him till after his lamented death. 
 The outside world is still in the act of discovering his great 
 ness. But Hornmouth occupies the enviable position of 
 having known it all along Hornmouth even considers 
 that she made his greatness possible. She at least gave 
 him a hearth and home without a too great sacrifice of 
 leisure. And her devotion was one of those pure passions 
 which are wholly devoid of self-seeking, for Dr. Stedman 
 wasn't a very good professor. He took no pains to do what 
 is known in pedagogic circles as finding the level of his 
 classes; he even denied that they had a level. He didn't 
 care a straw for the good of the young idea; unlike most 
 biologists, he didn't care a straw for the good of humanity 
 itself. His researches, his discoveries, his marvellous books, 
 were achieved for the good of his own soul ; and what was 
 the whole University of Hornmouth, weighed in the balance 
 with Dr. Stedman's soul ? But Hornmouth was indulgent. 
 Dr. Stedman was her only luxury. 
 
 It was the very concentration of his purpose the in 
 tensity of his egoism that caused his greatness. He 
 won by sheer force of character or rather by sheer lack 
 of it. He bent to his own ends his wife and his house and 
 his University. He was a man apart, a being exempt from 
 the ordinary human burdens. He was an immortal mind 
 descended upon the earth to discover the secrets of the less 
 immortal body. What wonder that his path should be 
 made smooth? It was made more than smooth; its smooth-
 
 THE GIRDLE OF VENUS 17 
 
 ness attained to glassiness. But in the midst of all this 
 harmony there was one discordant note, one flaw, 
 his daughter. It seemed strange to him that he should 
 have a daughter; he had never somehow regarded himself 
 in that light. And Emily was rather more than an ordinary 
 daughter; she bid very fair to become another immortal 
 mind. There was hardly room in one house for two im 
 mortal minds; and the greater part of Dr. Stedman's 
 house was turned into a place in which were discovered the 
 secrets of the less immortal body. 
 
 Emily said that her father's study resembled nothing so 
 much as a desert swept by a cyclone. Emily resented her 
 father. She resented his strength. She resented his big, 
 barren room ; she failed to understand how any one could 
 spend the greater part of his waking hours there. Apart 
 from the very present question of its ugliness, the place was 
 so relentlessly a workshop. One set aside on its threshold 
 the garments of leisure and pleasure and came in stripped 
 for labor, the hard labor of the mind. She herself would 
 have preferred a softer surrounding delicate stuffs and 
 small broken spaces; her thoughts took too long journeys 
 with nothing to say them nay; they couldn't stand the 
 strain and pull. The external aspect made a great dif 
 ference in Emily's thoughts. She had a passion for the 
 thing she called beauty; beauty made her forget her ugli 
 ness; beauty was her dream. Her father's dream was 
 differently wooed ; her father took for it a different potion. 
 He went into his big room, his desert swept by a cyclone, 
 and locked the door. The sound of the turning key was 
 to him like the first notes of loud music; the very smell 
 that greeted his nostrils the smell which was not so much
 
 18 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 a smell as an absence of all other smells, a sort of atmos 
 pheric hollowness gave him a sense of potential excite 
 ment. In his own way Dr. Stedman was a poet ; and the 
 big untidy room, with its locked door and its strange smell, 
 was the habitation of his poetry. The desk, the rows of 
 books, the shabby leather chair, the queer metal tables and 
 instruments and the slimy pink things in the sealed glass 
 jars, all these were to him as the furniture of his own 
 mind. 
 
 Dr. Stedman's was the little yellow house just beyond 
 University Hill. It had pea-green shutters and a highly 
 varnished door by which you entered directly into the tiny 
 hall that was forced into use as a sitting-room. Dr. Sted 
 man's niece, Mrs. Parrish, had the mueh larger house just 
 beyond his; her grounds began at her uncle's back yard. 
 If the new House of Mechanics was beautiful, Mrs. Parrish's 
 grounds were exquisite. There were clipped hedges and 
 gardens and gravel walks, great elms and an old stone sun 
 dial. There were spaces of sunlight and spaces of shade 
 curved benches on which to sit and straight steps on 
 which to stand. And then came the house big and old 
 and yet gay; little Emily Stedman called it the smile of 
 the father of Pan. Her own house was small and new 
 and yet sad. It had nothing at all to do with Pan. But 
 it wasn't her own; it was her father's. Her father lived 
 in a desert swept by a cyclone, and the little yellow house 
 with the pea-green shutters was outside and apart. 
 
 In June the scent of the wet, fresh-cut grass blew in 
 through his windows, and his windows overlooked Mrs. 
 Parrish's grounds. He could rest his strained eyes when 
 ever he chose. When he wearied of nature embryonic, he
 
 THE GIRDLE OF VENUS 19 
 
 could rejoice in the spectacle of nature complete. And 
 on a certain June morning the one following his 
 daughter's fifteenth birthday his need of rejoicing was 
 very great. 
 
 There had been a little celebration. His wife had pro 
 cured a cake and candles ; and his niece, Mrs. Parrish, to 
 gether with her son, Ralph, had graced their festive board. 
 Dr. Guthrie, also. . . . It was a strange assemblage for a 
 child's birthday party the two learned doctors, the quite 
 unlearned niece of one of them, and the boy Ralph big and 
 blond and rather shy in the presence of his elders. Mrs. 
 Stedman had worn her best gown, and Emily was resplen 
 dent in stiff pink muslin. The big student's lamp had been 
 brought in from the sitting room and set on the dining table, 
 which was still further decorated by roses from Mrs. Par- 
 rish's garden. Dr. Stedman had felt unwontedly social. 
 He mixed his guests a curious and original drink, and they 
 drank to Emily and to the college year which was drawing 
 to a successful close. "When Hornmouth's year ends," 
 said Dr. Guthrie, "our year begins. When the students of 
 Hornmouth are flocking forth into the gay world gam 
 bolling like lambs let out to play we we are shut 
 ting our doors against the glorious summer weather, delving 
 among our musty volumes, and piercing the secrets of 
 eternity with our microscopes." The learned doctor paused 
 and refreshed himself with the original drink. "We 
 divide among us the great slain carcass of knowledge, and 
 our vigil is lit by the ignis fatuus over the marsh of our 
 exhausted brains. We have wasted our youth," he said, 
 "and we are wasting our age, in pursuit of unpursuable 
 things. But why? Because we must. When the day
 
 20 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 comes for us to answer to our good Lord for the use we have 
 made of our sojourn upon this earth, we may say we 
 may say " 
 
 "My soul ! he's getting drunk " 
 Mrs. Fairish frowned. "Be quiet, Ralph." 
 "We may say that for us this earth has been merely as 
 the winding pattern of a Persian carpet a Persian carpet. 
 We have watched it from an Olympian height. For us 
 nature has been but as so much material for our thought. 
 We are the end of nature, the last word; we are more 
 we are at once above it and beyond it. We, with our di- 
 ' shevelled aspects, our worn coats, our white mottled skins, 
 we are the end of nature. And you " Dr. Guthrie turned 
 to Ralph "you are the beginning. And you, madam," 
 his excited gaze rested on Mrs. Parrish, "you also are the 
 beginning. We are strange, alien creatures, and you 
 you are normal damnably normal !" 
 
 There followed a silence which Dr. Stedman's daughter 
 was the first to break. There she sat, with her pale little 
 face and exaggerated eyes, a creature as alien and as 
 strange as her guest's most flushed imagination could con 
 jure. "It seems to me," she said, "that we look at nature 
 from the point of view of father dissecting a rabbit, and 
 they ' she indicated her cousins "they look at it 
 from the point of view of the rabbit. And isn't theirs the 
 better way? Don't they, perhaps, get more out of it?" 
 And then this other strange being, this other immortal 
 mind, had risen from the feast and gone out to play. One 
 of the rabbits, personified by Ralph Parrish, had gone with 
 her. She was really only a little girl. 
 Dr. Stedman looked about at his big, barren room. In
 
 THE GIRDLE OF VENUS 21 
 
 the glaring morning light the room looked back at him with 
 an uncompromising stare. It was, as Emily said, a desert 
 swept by a cyclone. What Emily said would have to be 
 reckoned with. Last night she had sat in judgment upon 
 him; and his friend, Dr. Guthrie, had made a drunken 
 speech in which all his most sacred ideals were held up to 
 ridicule. Dr. Stedman wondered a little exactly what he 
 had put in that drink. He himself had waked that morning 
 with an unaccustomed feeling in his head. It reminded him 
 of his German student days. Those had been a long time 
 ago. Was it true that he had wasted his life in pursuit of 
 unpursuable things? Was it true, what Emily said, that 
 his niece, Laura Parrish, got more out of life than he did ? 
 He had always considered that he got so much. He was 
 seized with a sudden anger against himself and his work. 
 
 He opened his windows wider. The scent of the wet, 
 fresh-cut grass cooled his head. Emily was young Emily 
 could get away, while he ... He picked up one of the 
 sealed glass jars. The thing fell to pieces in his hand, and 
 its contents slid along the metal table and dropped with a 
 soft flap to the floor. That, he supposed that soft pink 
 lump was tiie unpursuable thing. It was not in pursuit 
 of it, surely, that he had mixed the abominable drink. In 
 pursuit, rather, of the damnably normal. And the dam 
 nably normal had given him a headache. And his daughter, 
 who bid so very fair to become another immortal mind, was 
 playing ball with Ralph Parrish. He could see her from 
 his windows. No wonder that Dr. Stedman's need of. re 
 joicing was very great.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE CUCKOO 
 
 SOME few years ago a woman probably an American 
 was wandering about among the shelves and tables of 
 the most noted bookseller in Paris. She was neither 
 very young nor very old, very beautiful nor very ugly; she 
 wasn't even according to the standards of Americans in 
 Paris very well dressed. She was rather a tall woman, 
 largely made, and when she spoke her mouth opened to an 
 unexpected length. Her eyes were, perhaps, her most 
 arresting feature; they had a tendency towards promi 
 nence, and were of a curious golden color not unlike the 
 deeper yellow of transparent amber. Besides being yellow, 
 they were at the moment slightly bloodshot. The Paris 
 sun was evidently too bright, though from the tone of their 
 possessor's skin it might seem that they had lately been 
 exposed to a sun still more powerful, for the woman who 
 wandered about among the book-shelves was deeply tanned. 
 In April that is in the north the flag of wealth and leisure ; 
 she of the golden eyes was golden in other respects also, 
 or the fortunate owner of golden friends. 
 
 Her companion made up in elaboration of costume what 
 she lacked. Her companion was not an American. It is 
 
 only a Frenchman who can wear a frock-coat in the morn- 
 
 22
 
 THE CUCKOO 23 
 
 ing without suggesting either politics or weddings. Politics 
 the Duke de Clopin had always managed to avoid; with 
 weddings he had not been so successful. The lady with 
 whom he had come to the book-shop, though not his wife, 
 was his wife's very intimate friend. She addressed him in 
 English. She had a slow method of speech, the outcome 
 of a successful battle with the Western burr, and also of the 
 habit of conversing with those to whom English was a 
 foreign tongue. "I see nothing that Lilla would like 
 nothing." 
 
 " Is there nothing ? A little book of verse a story " 
 The duke answered her in French, and it was in that 
 language that their talk went on. 
 
 She was turning pages bound in yellow paper. "They 
 are all the same, the seven deadly sins and an attempt at 
 wit. The tastes of maids and lackeys plus the talent to 
 express them." 
 
 "True, true. I remain faithful to my Hugo and my 
 Maupassant this clatter of voices that should be still is 
 too much. But is there not anything which you yourself 
 could use? That book under your hand " 
 
 " You forget that I have a daughter, a big girl of seventeen, 
 who pops her nose into everything." 
 
 "But she is with the good sisters at the convent." 
 
 "The good sisters at the convent can't keep her always. 
 There are moments breathless moments when she is 
 with me. And I more and more see that as the years go 
 on, she'll be more than a daughter; she'll be a problem, a 
 great, tall, beautiful problem." 
 
 "Ah but she will marry !" 
 
 "Without money, Maurice, and without position a
 
 24 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 little stray American. Whom, may I ask, will she marry ? " 
 The mother put it to him without hope. 
 
 " With you for a mother she will marry any one she pleases 
 any one you please." 
 
 The lady thus complimented made an untranslatable 
 exclamation. 
 
 "Oh, but she will !" the duke insisted. 
 
 "She isn't like me, you know. She has the fatal gift 
 of beauty." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 "Ah I have other qualities than beauty; qualities 
 which my daughter unfortunately lacks." 
 
 The duke was staring out at the lively Paris street. 
 "You have qualities which all other women lack. You 
 know what you have, better than I can tell it. You could 
 do anything, anything you would. An immortal descended 
 among us " 
 
 The joke was too good ; it was a very perceptible moment 
 before the immortal emerged from her laughter. "And 
 yet I have remained a widow for ten long years ! How is 
 it, then, that it will be so easy for me to marry my daughter 
 if I myself " 
 
 Her companion smiled into the curled depths of his 
 beard. "You have been true to the memory of your 
 husband." 
 
 "Inconsolable?" 
 
 "Inconsolable." 
 
 She looked at him. "It's too bad ! " 
 
 He met her look with all seriousness. "Yes. Mistaken 
 loyalty." 
 
 This had the effect of sending her across the shop.
 
 THE CUCKOO 25 
 
 "And all this time we haven't found a book for Lilla! 
 Lilla told me that she was endeavoring to improve her 
 English; I wonder if any of these " She had stopped 
 before a table on which were displayed some works in her 
 native language. 
 
 The clerk, who had left them, now came back. "Here is 
 a book which is being much talked of in America. If 
 Madame is an American, she has doubtless heard of it." 
 
 "I am choosing some books for Madame la Duchesse, 
 who is not an American; but what is this book?" 
 
 The clerk held out a slim volume in a showy, scarlet bind 
 ing. " ' The Cuckoo '" 
 
 "Ah, ' The Cuckoo/ I like the name. Do you think that 
 Lilla would like it?" 
 
 "The name?" 
 
 "No, the book." 
 
 The Duke de Clopin pondered. "It is not for me to say. 
 But if you like it, let us take it to Lilla, and on our own 
 heads be it if we do not make a success." He turned to the 
 clerk. "What do they say of it in America?" 
 
 "They say it is at once the most daring and the most 
 realistic thing that has appeared in years. If Madame " 
 
 Madame cut him short. "The seven deadly sins again 
 and in one little volume ! Well, I'll take it." She glanced 
 down over the duke's shoulder at the title-page. "'The 
 Cuckoo,' by Emily Stedman. And who, may I ask, is 
 Emily Stedman?" 
 
 ii 
 
 That question, the one put to the Duke de Clopin in the 
 Paris book-shop, was asked with increasing frequency.
 
 26 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 Asked and not answered. The personality of Emily Sted- 
 man was shrouded in mystery. A rumor was afloat that 
 the author of "The Cuckoo" was a man a prominent 
 clergyman who concealed both his sex and his identity 
 under a clever pseudonym. The prominent clergyman 
 came out with a vigorous denial; "The Cuckoo" wasn't at 
 all a religious bird rather the reverse. And then the 
 question was answered once for all by a photograph which 
 appeared in one of the better literary journals. It was 
 of Emily Stedman, and represented a slender little woman 
 of some thirty years with smoothly brushed hair and tight, 
 stiff clothes. The eyes alone redeemed it. In fact, the 
 eyes were so conspicuous at once so brilliant and so 
 large, and so set in darkness that had it not been for Miss 
 Stedman's obvious simplicity, one might have thought 
 them painted. The photograph was unaccompanied by 
 text ; but its name sufficed, and the prominent clergyman 
 breathed a sigh of relief. He valued his reputation as a 
 moral teacher; he felt it fragile and in jeopardy. 
 
 The publishers of "The Cuckoo" thanked their new au 
 thor for the loan of her photograph. They suggested that 
 an interview might prove commercially valuable. "In 
 these days personality is the great asset. The public likes 
 to know what its favorites eat for breakfast and when they 
 get up and go to bed. 'The Cuckoo 7 has hit the bull's-eye 
 of popular success, and we want it to stay there." They 
 wrote to their new author at her native town of Hornmouth 
 and received a reply to the effect that an objection to pub 
 licity was of course unfair to them. Miss Stedman's pub 
 lishers were intimate friends of the New York Star's man 
 aging editor. A representative of that paper was sent to
 
 THE CUCKOO 27 
 
 Hornmouth without delay. An interview with the author 
 of "The Cuckoo" was news important news. 
 
 The Star's representative arrived at Hornmouth in the 
 afternoon. He had come all the way from New York to 
 Boston and from Boston to Hornmouth, and it was early 
 summer and a Saturday at that; and he had expected a 
 holiday. Instead, he found himself at what seemed to his 
 heated vision the uttermost end of the earth with a task 
 before him which could prove nothing but dull. He 
 thought regretfully of his lost holiday; he and his young 
 wife had planned it together. He himself aspired to the 
 hand of the Muse, but he himself had as yet dismally failed. 
 Journalism he pondered. He was forced to make his 
 living by journalism. He was at the beck and call of Red 
 ding, the managing editor, and of Keene, the city editor; 
 and he felt himself a better man than they. And now he 
 was to add a feather to the laden cap of Emily Stedman. 
 Who was she, a little New England old maid, to have 
 written the sensational book of the year ? while he ... 
 Her house was a longer distance 'from the station than he 
 had supposed; the sun was hot, and he had eaten a heavy 
 lunch on the train. He mopped his perspiring brow 
 and flicked the dust from his shoes. That must be the 
 house of genius the little yellow house with the green 
 blinds. 
 
 The representative of the Star rang the bell. After some 
 delay the door was opened by an untidy elderly person, 
 who seemed uncertain concerning Miss Stedman's where 
 abouts. "She may be in and she may not. I guess if 
 she is, she's busy, and if she isn't " The elderly person 
 paused.
 
 28 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "Will you kindly take her my card? I think that she's 
 expecting me." 
 
 The elderly person let him in at this, and he wandered 
 about the tiny sitting-room while she went off to find Miss 
 Stedman. The place was in great disorder; a trunk stood 
 in the middle of the floor, gaping its contents, a worn horse 
 hair sofa was pushed crookedly against the wall, and a mass 
 of books and papers covered a small table. The elderly 
 person came back. Miss Stedman would see him. 
 
 He was guided through a little passageway into a large, 
 dim room, which he thought at first to be empty. Fresh 
 from the bright summer light, he was unaccustomed to 
 dimness. He waited a moment, and then he became aware 
 that there were two people in the room, a man who was 
 sitting on a wide bench in the farthest corner and a woman 
 who stood with her back to him looking out through the 
 drawn curtains of a big window. The man rose to his 
 feet. "Well, Emily, I must be going. I'll see you 
 later." 
 
 "Yes, I'll see you later." 
 
 Emily turned about and looked at Ralph Parrish with 
 cold eyes. The representative of the New York Star was 
 coming towards her across the wide, bare floor. To her 
 he was also the representative of success. She cared a great 
 deal about success tangible, solid success. To gain it she 
 had taken the thing she cared about her ability to create 
 - and forced it into a misshapen bottle. She had written 
 "The Cuckoo" not because it pleased her, but because she 
 thought that it would please the public; and the repre 
 sentative of the Star was a proof that she had been correct. 
 Now she could write anything she pleased go anywhere
 
 THE CUCKOO 29 
 
 she pleased. The Star might have saved the expense of a 
 journey. Miss Stedman was moving to New York the 
 following week. Royalties were pouring in in a thickening 
 stream. It was one of the cases where the end justifies the 
 means. 
 
 Ralph Parrish paused in the doorway. "We dine at 
 seven. You won't be late ?" 
 
 He still had a tendency to linger, and when he had finally 
 left Emily felt forced to answer the reportorial glance. 
 "My cousin, Mr. Parrish. His mother lives in the big 
 house next to this, and I happen to be dining with her 
 to-night." It seemed amusing that her first step as a 
 public character should be an explanation of Ralph Parrish. 
 He had always in some way been concerned with her first 
 steps. 
 
 There was a moment of silence almost embarrassment 
 and the journalistic habit rose to the top. " Is this room, 
 this room that we're in now, where you do your work?" 
 
 "Yes. It used to be my father's study." 
 
 "Is your father a writer?" 
 
 "My father was a biologist. He wrote, of course. He 
 died two years ago." 
 
 There was the conventional murmur of regret. "And 
 your mother?" 
 
 "She died two years before my father." 
 
 "You live alone?" 
 
 "Practically that. I move to New York next week. 
 I'm going to take a little flat a little flat all my own." 
 
 "But isn't this house your own ?" 
 
 " In a sense, of course. But I prefer to start afresh. For 
 what else did I write 'The Cuckoo' ?"
 
 30 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 The young man stared. "Isn't writing 'The Cuckoo' 
 a curious way of starting afresh?" He was becoming ac 
 customed to the dim light, and he saw Emily Stedman quite 
 vividly now. It was true, what Redding had said, that it 
 was a good chance for a story. On one side "The Cuckoo" 
 sensational glaring scarlet-bound ; on the other, 
 Emily Stedman, with smooth hair and sharp, pale features. 
 As in the photograph, the eyes were the original touch 
 the thing that differentiated her from other pale ladies living 
 alone in New England towns. And the tall, blond young 
 man with the obviously metropolitan clothes was a sort of 
 cousin which the usual spinster didn't have at her beck and 
 call. The representative of the Star saw in the story he 
 had been sent to obtain the possibilities of real art. If 
 he could get the atmosphere of Miss Stedman's house 
 the shabby, weather-stained, little yellow house which 
 surprisingly contained this great, dim room with dark- 
 curtained windows and massive furniture . . . 
 
 "You have exquisite things," he ventured. 
 
 "One or two yes." 
 
 "This room is just as your father left it?" 
 
 "No, with him it was quite bare arranged for his 
 biology with metal tables and that sort of thing. My 
 cousin, Mrs. Parrish, gave me all this. She knows I care 
 about having things I like she knows how much it really 
 matters to me. In certain chairs I feel insignificant; in 
 certain rooms I feel altogether wrong; but here I've 
 managed with her help . . . Why, in that chair over there," 
 Miss Stedman pointed " the big one with the carvings, 
 I feel myself quite splendid !" 
 
 "You feel in yourself a change?"
 
 THE CUCKOO 31 
 
 " Yes. But I mustn't talk about myself." 
 
 "Yourself, I assure you, is the very thing I'm here to 
 make you talk about." 
 
 "It's an intimate personal sketch that you're after 
 the sort of thing that my work can't give?" 
 
 Redding had said something of that nature. The words, 
 intimate and personal, always fell easily from his lips ; but 
 Redding's ambassador was unprepared to be so soon dis 
 covered. " You've always lived at Hornmouth ? " 
 
 "Always." 
 
 "Then, of course, you've been to college here?" 
 
 "No, I've never been to college." 
 
 "Now, that's interesting, the daughter of a scientific 
 man who's lived all her life in a college town and hasn't 
 been herself to college. Perhaps you don't believe in the 
 higher education of woman?" 
 
 "It's the very thing that I believe in most." 
 
 "Yet in 'The Cuckoo' you make it out a failure." 
 
 "Oh, in 'The Cuckoo' I make everything out a failure !" 
 
 "I don't think you at all realize what a sensation your 
 book has created. It's the sensation of the hour. You've 
 done what we're all striving for it's extraordinary 
 extraordinary." 
 
 Miss Stedman smiled. "It is rather extraordinary, isn't 
 it? I think it's because I came at it from the outside." 
 
 "The outside? " The inquirer was in darkness. 
 
 "Besides, 'The Cuckoo' was written with a purpose." 
 
 "Really? Why, I thought it singularly without a moral 
 lesson." 
 
 " It at least pays my railroad fare away from Hornmouth ; 
 and isn't that a purpose?"
 
 32 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 The representative of the New York Star found Miss 
 Stedman herself quite as extraordinary as the fact of her 
 having written "The Cuckoo." 
 
 A 
 
 III 
 
 "The Cuckoo" did rather more than pay Miss Stedman's 
 railway fare from Hornmouth. She, who for her luxuries 
 had feasted on the crumbs which fell from the moderately 
 stocked table of the Parrishes, and for her necessities had 
 depended on the scant income of a college professor, now 
 found herself, at least according to the standards of the 
 place she was leaving, a woman of wealth. Yet she 
 wasn't unduly elated. She had merely done the thing 
 which she had set out to do, and this didn't strike her as 
 rare. Two years before she had stood at her father's 
 grave and watched the dark, rain-soaked earth being thrown 
 over the coffin. It had rained, she remembered, for many 
 days, and her new, cheap mourning was splashed with mud. 
 Her black gloves were sticky with moisture, and the tails 
 of the undertaker's horses drooped. She had turned away 
 with a fierce determination. Tears, not of grief, but of excite 
 ment came into her eyes. She had gone back to the little 
 yellow house and with her own tired hands cleared away 
 the rows of books, the metal tables, the queer pink contents 
 of the glass j ars. She brushed the mud from her new clothes 
 and folded them away. The next day "The Cuckoo" was 
 begun. 
 
 It was not her first book. There had been another, "The 
 Blind Alley," blind in more ways than one ; and two or three 
 inarticulate masses, as inarticulate as the contents of the 
 glass jars, ideas worked at beyond all hope of clearness
 
 THE CUCKOO 33 
 
 or abandoned in mid-ocean at the call of another vessel. 
 And then came the glaring, flagrant "Cuckoo," the book 
 written with a purpose. "The Cuckoo" was the essence 
 consciously extracted of Emily Stedman's vulgarity. 
 Dr. Guthrie, the librarian of Hornmouth, had once called 
 her a dreamer. There are dreamers whose dreams are of 
 the past and dreamers whose dreams are of the future. 
 Emily never considered that she had a past to dream about. 
 But every one, even a man on the eve of being hanged, has 
 at least the possibility of a future. At fourteen Emily's 
 future was all before her; at thirty it was still the thing 
 she thought about the thing which mattered. Hers was 
 the creative as distinguished from the historical mind. It 
 was the undiscovered country that was to her the country 
 of romance, the book she hadn't read that seemed alive, 
 the place she hadn't been to that was fraught with memories. 
 She left Hornmouth, the place she'd been to all her life, 
 without a single look back. For her it was as done for as 
 a scientific manual which has outlived its period. She 
 said good-by to Miss Smith, whose spectacles contained 
 a more magnifying lens than when she had first noticed 
 them; and to Dr. Guthrie, whose skullcap now served a 
 purpose other than ornamental. She observed that the 
 professors at Hornmouth seemed to grow older with the 
 years and the students younger. The new House of Me 
 chanics had surrendered its claim of newness to a still more 
 glittering structure, and the upper railroad station had 
 been done away with altogether. But, nevertheless, the 
 Hornmouth that at the age of thirty Emily bade a perfunc 
 tory farewell to was very much the same Hornmouth she 
 had attempted to leave at the age of fourteen without
 
 34 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 any farewell at all. And she herself was surprisingly un 
 changed. 
 
 She leaned back luxuriously in the upholstered seat of her 
 Pullman car. She was getting nearer and nearer to the 
 undiscovered country farther and farther from the one 
 whence she had come. In an hour she would be in Boston, 
 and after Boston, New York. She had been to Boston 
 before. She knew its crowded, wavering streets and vine- 
 covered houses. It always seemed to her merely a sort of 
 glorified Hornmouth, a Hornmouth suddenly waked one 
 morning to find itself the possessor of theatres and shops and 
 great noisy railways. She had never been to New York. 
 She was glad now that she hadn't ; it would burst upon her 
 with a full freshness of impression. Her projected vision 
 of it was of a place altogether gorgeous, a city of towering 
 buildings and wide, smooth streets, a vortex of perpetual 
 motion revolving in a strangely mingled glare of sunlight 
 and electricity. It was the vision she had solidified in 
 "The Cuckoo." 
 
 She watched the sunlight flickering on the gayly patterned 
 carpet. It was a carpet brave in reds and greens and 
 it clashed vigorously with the polished woodwork. The 
 stiff plush curtains made still another note of color. And 
 not content with that, there was an ornate decoration of 
 inlaid yellow which appeared at well-chosen intervals as 
 a sort of frieze. The whole car was as hideous as ill-guided 
 ingenuity could make it, and yet the worshipper of beauty 
 liked it perhaps she went back to the original intention 
 of the designer, which was undoubtedly to convey a sense 
 of abounding luxury. She'd had little enough of luxury 
 in the past, and the gay colors and polished woods sym-
 
 THE CUCKOO 35 
 
 bolized that future which was all before her. She felt 
 herself rushing in barbaric splendor through the austere 
 New England landscape. The very vibration of the mo 
 tion gave her pleasure ; yet any one placed in such a way 
 that they could not see her widely staring eyes might have 
 thought that she was dozing. She might have been suf 
 fering from the reaction following some high emotion ; and 
 her black clothes the same which she had so forehandedly 
 folded away two years before would have seemed to 
 make this latter assumption more than possible. She 
 was, in a sense, fresh from the presence of death. For her, 
 Hornmouth was death, and the rushing train and the un 
 discovered country towards which it was taking her was the 
 reverse side of the medal. 
 
 Opposite her were two boys, Hornmouth students of the 
 newer type fresh-faced lads whose pursuit of knowledge 
 sat upon them but lightly. It was plain from their talk 
 that they also were bound for New York. They discussed 
 at some length the error of having spent a dollar on their 
 Pullman seats. A dollar in New York would appear to 
 bring larger returns. It seemed to be a city of. perpetual 
 joy, and over this joy there reigned a lady of their unmis 
 takably intimate acquaintance by the name of Anna. 
 Anna was apprised of their coming and would be waiting 
 for them with outstretched arms. There was another lady 
 named Alexandra but no Alexandra was the name 
 of a theatre a theatre where Anna sang. Anna's singing 
 was something which the whole town sat up for ; Anna made 
 it sit up. Miss Stedman couldn't understand why Anna 
 didn't sing at an earlier hour. This lack of comprehension 
 from the author of "The Cuckoo" !
 
 36 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 The author of "The Cuckoo" liked youth youth in the 
 abstract. Youth closer than that was sometimes disap 
 pointing. But these boys were not closer than the other 
 side of the aisle, and their talk financial and theatrical 
 amused her. She wondered a little at the vastness of 
 their experience. Birds of such plumage had no need of the 
 enlightenment of an institution of learning. Its chief use, 
 they seemed to think, was the chance it offered for saving 
 money to spend in the city of joy. And then, again a men 
 tion of the dollar wasted on their Pullman seats. There 
 was another dollar, irretrievably gone, though not, from 
 their talk, quite wasted. One of them had bought a book 
 which he said that the other could not appreciate. This 
 statement was productive of argument. Their listener 
 heard her father's name. Was it biology they were dis 
 cussing ? They were strangely going to ask Anna's opinion. 
 Anna was evidently a lady of versatility. Again the name, 
 Stedman. It was too much Miss Stedman turned her 
 head. There was a sudden quiet, and two young men who 
 hadn't, for all their wisdom, forgotten how to blush. 
 
 "By George! That's her!" 
 
 In the excitement of the moment, grammar was unre- 
 spected. 
 
 Emily Stedman wondered if this were fame. It was fame 
 not sufficiently abstract. She had taken the thing she 
 cared about and thrown it upon the world twisted and mis 
 shapen, and she now surprised the world in the act of receiv 
 ing it. Her eyes met the eyes of the two boys. Her 
 embarrassment rose to theirs. She felt herself, with her 
 pale little face and straight black dress, inadequate to the 
 situation. She should have been clothed in scarlet like her
 
 THE CUCKOO 37 
 
 book. As the author of "The Cuckoo" she was an object 
 to excite mirth. 
 
 rv 
 
 All day heat had held the city in its grasp. It was the 
 strong, unworn heat of early June, and the city could do 
 nothing but limply wait to be released. A little before sun 
 down there was thunder and lightning and straight, cool 
 rain, and then a clearing wind. Mopping handkerchiefs 
 came down from perspiring brows ; wilting collars straight 
 ened to almost their former stiffness; horses lifted their 
 tired heads and trotted out briskly; the clanging bell of 
 an electric car sounded shrilly on the freshened air. There 
 was a banging of doors and a craning of necks out of win 
 dows. Everywhere the city stretched its cramped muscles 
 and went on at quickened stride. Even the great, puffing 
 trains that rumbled their way out from the Grand Central 
 Station seemed to puff and rumble with a greater energy. 
 The station itself was clogged with humanity; the wide 
 mosaic floor trod and retrod by thousands of feet. Men 
 and women and children came in and out of the constantly 
 swinging glass doors. Everywhere there was a sense of 
 hurry and of noise. It was as if the heat and the storm had 
 galvanized the city, and it had rushed, on the new power 
 of its wings, to the Grand Central Station. 
 
 But Ralph Parrish hadn't rushed. He had come there 
 very deliberately for the purpose of meeting his cousin. 
 Her train was late. He waited. It was the merest luck, 
 his being in New York. He lived there, it is true, but he was 
 the kind of young man whose habitation is simply his base 
 of supplies. It would seem almost as though he lived in a
 
 38 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 place very much as some people many to have it off 
 his mind. Distances didn't exist for him. Paris, Russia, 
 even Hornmouth, were equally within his range. And 
 his occupation favored his nomadic tendencies; he was 
 connected with the tanning of pelts he was the junior 
 partner in a firm of wholesale fur dealers. He had no hand 
 in the actual trapping of the animals, neither did he stand 
 behind a counter and sell the finished product ; but he filled 
 one of the intermediate niches of the industry exceedingly 
 well. He filled everything well one couldn't conceive 
 that he ever might do anything else. 
 
 Nature, in the excitement of working in the large in 
 the unaccustomed thrill of a profusion of magnificent ma 
 terialshad, with Ralph Parrish, bungled a little the 
 details. To say that he was handsomer at first glance than 
 at second, seems, to one who hasn't had the wonderful 
 privilege of that first glance, to be damning with faint praise. 
 Without being in the least effeminate, he had a sort of beauty 
 which is more often possessed by women than by men 
 a beauty which benumbs (fortunately) all faculty of criti 
 cism. It could no more be analyzed than could be given, 
 after an icy plunge, the exact temperature of the water. 
 His very lack of finish absence of detail might easily 
 be mistaken for ruggedness and strength. It saved him 
 from the slightest aspect of indecision. He had gone 
 through all the stages of youth with colors flying; he had 
 been a beautiful baby, a superb child, a splendid boy, and 
 he now was a man that most men and all women turned to 
 look at. His thirty years of life merely intensified and 
 made more clear the fact of his being an extraordinary 
 start.
 
 THE CUCKOO 39 
 
 Parrish waited for his cousin in that part of the station 
 called the concourse, the half-enclosed, cagelike structure 
 where the trains come in and out. He succeeded in stand 
 ing a little apart a little out of the way of the rushing 
 stream of humanity. Humanity in the mass bored him; 
 many things bored him ; one of the reasons that he liked 
 his cousin, one of the reasons that he was waiting for her 
 now, was that she never bored him. She always had for 
 him a quality of surprise; she affected him very much as 
 the thunderstorm affected the wilted city she quickened 
 his heavy pulse. Though at the comparison of herself to 
 a thunderstorm, little Emily Stedman would have been 
 the first to laugh. It may have been the reason of his cool 
 ness and freshness his attitude of aloofness. He had 
 within him the possibility of so much action, and half the 
 time he didn't bother with it. The people were rare who, 
 like Emily, had seen him bloodstained and mudstreaked 
 hot from battle. 
 
 He took out his watch. Twenty minutes late, the guard 
 had told him, and it was past that now. He grew impa 
 tient. He stood back of the waiting people, his head raised 
 above theirs. The great iron gate slid wide. The train at 
 last, thank heaven, was in ! A slow procession came up the 
 long platform, and he scanned it for a little woman in black. 
 But there were many little women in black ; smallness and 
 blackness seemed the rule. During his search his eye was 
 caught by an object which obviously wouldn't assist it. 
 It was an object he couldn't at the moment class it more 
 exactly which seemed to emanate from the high crown 
 of a lady's hat. It was moving up the platform rather 
 behind the rest of the procession, and in color was like an
 
 40 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 Irishman's flag on St. Patrick's Day. Parrish had it now, 
 it was a feather, a green feather set at an angle defying 
 all the laws of gravity. He still vainly searched for the 
 little woman in black ; but none suited him, and out of so 
 many he surely might have chosen. The green feather was 
 lost to sight. His attention was again diverted from his 
 true quest. But no, the green feather had appeared again 
 as aggressive as ever, and nearer. It had come to a stop 
 before him. The hat it arose from so bravely was worn by 
 his cousin. 
 
 "Well, Ralph, don't you know me?" 
 
 "My dearest Emmy!" 
 
 The hat itself was a marvel. The hair beneath it was 
 even more bewildering. A storm of puffs and curls caught 
 and moulded in blackened bronze. And then the sharp 
 white face with the exaggerated eyes and the slim figure 
 in the plain black dress. 
 
 "You're late." 
 
 "Am I? I found that in Boston I had two hours to 
 spare." 
 
 "Is Boston the origin of that?" 
 
 "That?" 
 
 "The new gorgeousness." 
 
 "Yes; do you like it?" 
 
 "It takes away from the lovely appearance of virtue 
 which your company usually lends one." Parrish burst 
 out into loud, faunlike laughter. "Now one will have to 
 expiate one's sins in some other way." 
 
 "Isn't my company expiation enough, even with gor 
 geousness? Oh, Ralph, Ralph, it's good to be here, and 
 it's good to be with you "
 
 THE CUCKOO 41 
 
 There was a question of Emily's hotel, quiet, as best 
 suited a lady alone. Ralph would escort her there; but 
 they would dine first. 
 
 Emily's first view of New York was the usual one from 
 the steps of the station. Except to native New Yorkers 
 it's either that, usually, or the view from the harbor; and 
 Emily, in her intense appreciation, had no regret for the 
 more picturesque prelude. The dusk of the long summer's 
 afternoon was fading into night, and lights were beginning 
 to gleam out in rows and circles and patches. Yet it 
 wasn't a glare of electricity Emily noticed that. The 
 wide street gave an effect of dimness, and the soft, fresh 
 smell which the storm had left might almost have been 
 the smell of rain-soaked earth. She had a sense of never 
 having been so close to nature. It was nature in a new 
 aspect. 
 
 They dined in a place of marble and gold. It was much 
 more the New York of "The Cuckoo" than was the dim, 
 wide street they had left ; and even here she felt that "The 
 Cuckoo" hadn't quite hit it off. Her projected vision had 
 gone wide of the mark it moved on jerking wires. They 
 drove to her hotel, and passed on the way the two Horn- 
 mouth boys, also driving. With them was an elaborate 
 young woman who might have been Anna. Emily recog 
 nized them and felt less a stranger. The city was hold 
 ing out kindly, welcoming arms to her ; and later, alone in 
 her hotel, with her bag unpacked and her body cleansed 
 of the dust of travel, her gratitude verged on the senti 
 mental. She was a visionary, a sentimentalist of the 
 future, and to her the only true home-coming was into a 
 new place. There she was, up twelve stories in the air in a
 
 42 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 room of flowered paper and mahogany ; and on her bed was 
 tossed a vivid green hat. It returned her contemplative 
 gaze, unblinking. As it lay there with the curling feather 
 it resembled a bird of strange plumage. The resemblance 
 moved the author of "The Cuckoo" to a rather lonely 
 hilarity.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 VENUS ANADYOMENE 
 
 THE Duke de Clopin lay in his berth looking out at the 
 blue disk of ocean presented by his port-hole. It was a 
 bright blue, and with a movement in its brightness which 
 suggested both sun and wind. Sometimes the paler blue 
 of the sky would descend and slice away the upper half of 
 this disk of ocean, and sometimes a white sail would destroy 
 it altogether. The duke was conscious of a gentle rocking 
 like the motion of a ship at anchor in a breeze. And it 
 gradually dawned on his awakening reason that as a matter 
 of fact the Jungfrau was at anchor. Her captain had told 
 him only the day before that at Larnaca in the island of 
 Cyprus they were to stop for coal. The Jungfrau needed 
 that commodity with startling frequency, but the duke was 
 not a man groaning under a weight of bills. His wife was 
 one of the richest women in France. The marriage of 
 Lilla Rothelieu and Maurice, Duke de Clopin, almost 
 attained the dignity of an alliance. But Lilla was not 
 proud; she was fond of her husband, adored her yacht, 
 and worshipped at the feet of her American friend, Mrs. 
 Dench. 
 
 In this last she was not alone. Mrs. Dench was the wo 
 man, neither very young nor very old, very beautiful nor 
 very ugly, who had ended a rather protracted visit to a 
 
 43
 
 44 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 book-shop by purchasing "The Cuckoo." Her husband, 
 Christopher Dench, had been in the diplomatic service; 
 and since his death his widow had more than kept up with 
 the high powers of the land. She was one of the lesser 
 marvels of civilized Europe, and no one could have told you 
 why. The Duchess de Clopin worshipped at her feet : the 
 duchess was aware in herself of certain indecisions, certain 
 lacks ; her wealth and rank had the strange effect of making 
 her almost painfully modest ; she felt herself born to a con- 
 spicuousness to which she was inadequate ; and Mrs. Dench, 
 who had been bora to nothing, would have been so ade 
 quate to a conspicuousness the most exalted. Yet she was 
 neither young nor beautiful, and the length of her mouth 
 always surprised one afresh. The Jungfrau rarely made a 
 voyage without her. No one, so the duchess said, could so 
 quiet the many nerves of Mme. Rostov, no one could so 
 amuse the Princess Karina, and surely no one could manage 
 the gentlemen of the party with so competent a hand. 
 The duke shared his wife's admiration. Some people went 
 so far as to say that it was his wife who, like a good wife, 
 shared his. But people said very little about Mrs. Dench, 
 considering her happy gift for conspicuousness. Perhaps 
 it was just that she was so constantly on view that they 
 didn't have the opportunity. 
 
 The duke put out his hand and touched an electric button 
 at the side of his berth. He touched it twice. That was 
 a signal for his breakfast to be brought to him. Formerly 
 he had breakfasted on deck. That morning hour, the shin 
 ing, brass-trimmed deck, the little racing waves and the 
 smooth tropic sky, and no one to disturb his peace in 
 these, had nerved him for the long day. He often won-
 
 45 
 
 dered why the day seemed so long and that hour so short. 
 And then the precious hour had been spoiled ruined 
 desecrated by a tall young woman who gazed at the duke, 
 the ocean and the sky with an equal gravity. She was 
 Mrs. Bench's daughter, and the duke gave up his hour and 
 breakfasted in his stateroom. Mrs. Bench had once called 
 her daughter a problem ; that was well and good, the duke 
 thought, but it was unnecessary that she make a problem 
 of other people. He refused to be analyzed and judged. 
 Emily Stedman found the young gay. The duke found 
 them grave. 
 
 "And I'm not sure," he had said to Mrs. Bench, "that 
 they are not nearer to the eternal verities than we. 
 Laughter is, after all, merely our recognition of the absurdi 
 ties of fate. A creature like your daughter, dewy with 
 innocence, what does she know of the absurdities of 
 fate? She regards us all as miserable sinners; she judges 
 us by her own exquisite standards " 
 
 "I'm afraid you make my daughter out a prig !" 
 
 "Ah no " 
 
 "Well, even if you did, I would see what you meant. 
 I can't begin to apologize enough for having forced her 
 upon you ; but it resolved itself into a question of her com 
 ing or my not coming. The nuns tell me they have taught 
 her everything they know; there is no reason for her being 
 with them longer, and schools I mistrust. But really she 
 doesn't bother, does she? She is quite content to sit by 
 herself, and she goes to bed early." 
 
 "Bother!" The duke was horrified. "She gives to us 
 a distinction which even the princess can't give. But 
 have the nuns really taught her everything they know?
 
 46 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 Was that the only reason, dear lady? Between friends 
 there should be absolute frankness. I thought that perhaps 
 the presence here of young Gadillon might have some 
 thing" 
 
 "I thought of that; but Jane won't look at him. She 
 thinks he's vile unspeakable ; she finds an obstacle in 
 Mme. Rostov, as if there were not always a Mme. Rostov. 
 What is a poor mother to do with a penniless daughter who 
 has views ? I think that some day I shall take her back 
 to America to Ohio." 
 
 "Ohio? " 
 
 " Yes; I once lived in Ohio. I believe I was born there." 
 
 "And Jane?" 
 
 " Oh, Jane was born in Vienna. There's the absurdity of 
 fate, if you like." 
 
 "Jane is still young." 
 
 "She will recover from that." 
 
 "And she has beauty." 
 
 "Yes, she's decorative enough. She ought to be on a 
 ceiling or a fresco or in a church somewhere where she 
 would have no other work in life but to look out upon a 
 passing world with those big, grave eyes of hers." 
 
 "But she does that as it is." 
 
 , "Ah you don't know Jane! She has views. I'm 
 always expecting her to do something wholly weird join 
 the Salvation Army something like that. As it is, she 
 brings in stray cats and dogs. In Paris last spring our 
 rooms were overrun with them ; I had to put a stop to it, 
 the proprietor complained. I do not know which would 
 be worse, stray animals or the Salvation Army. Imagine 
 me with a daughter in the Salvation Army !"
 
 VENUS ANADYOMENE 47 
 
 The duke, imprisoned in his stateroom, amused himself 
 while he breakfasted by recalling this talk with Mrs. Bench. 
 Talks with Mrs. Dench were always worthy of recall. And 
 the daughter evidently lacked humor. He imagined her 
 now with her grave gaze bent upon Cyprus. Cyprus was 
 out of the duke's range of vision ; his stateroom faced the 
 open sea. The name had a certain music, Cyprus 
 Cyprus, he repeated it over to himself. It was supposed 
 by the ancients to be the birthplace of Venus. He toyed 
 with the supposition. He remembered a picture at the 
 spring Salon of a large woman who balanced with surprising 
 firmness on the crest of a wave and smiled fixedly at a 
 bewitched fisherman. It was called "La Naissance de 
 Venus," but suggested, rather, the birth of a new era at 
 bathing resorts. The true birth of Venus, thought the duke, 
 is in our own souls. But the old myth had a charm. He 
 mused for a space on the personality of the goddess . . . 
 Neither very young nor very old, he imagined her, and with 
 a beauty of such an original sort that it was more than 
 beauty a great vital force. The duke admired sheer 
 physical strength. He lay back among his pillows, and his 
 thin-lidded eyes closed. Venus would arise from the sea, 
 parting the waters on either side the island of Cyprus 
 the blue water on either side . . . 
 
 There was the loud sound of shouting. It grew more in 
 sistent a babble of tongues. The voice of Mrs. Dench 
 and the ascendant present rose clear above the phantom 
 voices of the duke's dream. Mrs. Dench was standing 
 in the narrow passageway between the staterooms and talk 
 ing to some one within. She was in a condition of high 
 excitement.
 
 48 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "There's an enormous white yacht- " she rolled the 
 V richly "enormous and she's flying the American 
 ig!" 
 Truly, the voice of the ascendant present. 
 
 ii 
 
 "If you knew how bored I was, if you knew how un 
 speakably bored I was, you would not hesitate to send for 
 the people on the big white yacht." The Princess Karma 
 turned to her hostess : " If they were not Americans, I would 
 not ask it ; but Americans are always respectable 
 always and always amusing. Dear Lilla, you must 
 send for them; I ask it. Mme. Rostov and I are bored to 
 distraction. Are you not bored, Mme. Rostov? No? 
 Well, you are young; you have a man, you always have a 
 man last winter it was that young American man, so 
 very handsome, M. Parrish. Now it is M. Gadillon al 
 ways some one. But I have no man ; I am old and ugly and 
 not even rich. I must be constantly amused. I can make 
 people amuse me yes, I can at least do that. Ah, you 
 think I am a rude old woman, saying I am bored on your 
 beautiful ship, and the sea air so good for me !" 
 
 In her day the Princess Karina herself was beautiful. 
 That day was past. In her day the fact of her rank was 
 the least important fact about her. That day was also 
 past. In her day, besides beauty, she had wit and grace 
 and distinction. Her wit had curdled, her grace had fled, 
 but her distinction had, if anything, increased. As she sat 
 in her low wicker chair, with a background of sea and sky 
 and all around her gayety, and at least a semblance of youth, 
 she gave an impression of extreme age age so ruthless
 
 VENUS ANADYOMENE 49 
 
 and so appalling that it didn't at all suggest the passivity 
 of approaching death. She came from a hard soil, a 
 harder soil than those about her, and she made no com 
 promise with time. Her black wig rivalled the raven's wing 
 to which her hair had formerly been compared ; her cheek, 
 of the tone of dried leather, was firmly touched with ver 
 milion. The effect produced was that of a warring Indian. 
 
 Mme. Rostov turned her lovely head and looked out to 
 sea. On one side of her sat the princess, on the other 
 M. Gadillon; that was compromise in its purest essence. 
 Compromise, to Mme. Rostov, was as the breath of her 
 nostrils. She compromised with her dressmaker and with 
 M. Gadillon ; she even unlike the princess compromised 
 with time. Her hair, her color, her figure, were a succes 
 sion of compromises. She finally turned from the sea and 
 let her charming eyes rest full upon the princess. "It is 
 as you say the yacht is very big and very white, but for 
 myself I am content." 
 
 "I am sorry that I cannot be content in your content 
 ment." 
 
 The princess's temper was never of the best ; but to-day 
 she felt the heat, which seemed to rise in spirals from 
 the water. On the Jungfrau's awninged deck powerful 
 mechanical fans stirred the warm air to a breeze ; but the 
 wind of the early morning had died, and the ocean itself was 
 as still as a painted drop scene at the theatre. The big 
 white yacht with the American flag swung her bow a little, 
 almost as slowly as the hour-hand of a clock. The sails 
 of the queer foreign ships hung flat. 
 
 Mme. Rostov threw back the heaviest of her white veils. 
 "Well, what does Lilla say?"
 
 50 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "Lilla has nothing to say." 
 
 Their conversation was carried on in French in deference 
 to this last-named lady, and it was still in her native tongue 
 that she presently addressed them: "I shall write a note 
 at once, and they shall all come to lunch. Whoever is on 
 that yacht will have the opportunity of coming, and I shall 
 make use of the princess's name." 
 
 She rose ; but Mrs. Bench was on her feet simultaneously. 
 "Ah stay where you are let me write the note. 
 I will say that you and the princess desire their presence 
 they can't refuse and it will be in English in Eng 
 lish " She was gone, through the cabin door. 
 
 The duchess stared after her. "Is she not a wonderful 
 woman ? Jeanne ! Jeanne ! Come here, Jeanne ! How 
 does it seem to have a mother like that ?" 
 
 Jane Dench didn't respond. She was out of range of the 
 duchess's sharp French voice. In fact, if she hadn't been 
 so far off, it might have been said of her that she had delib 
 erately turned her back on the assembled company. She 
 was reading. And she gave to her book a concentration 
 of attention which raised the little scarlet-bound volume 
 lying in her lap nearly to the importance of the crystal ball 
 upon which the Eastern mystic focusses his thoughts. 
 She gave herself to the full luxury of solitude. The duke, 
 Lilla, the princess, Mme. Rostov, M. Gadillon; the three 
 or four men of indeterminate age, nationality, and occupa 
 tion who shed upon the Jungfrau the light of their complet 
 ing presences, all did rather more than bore her. As Mrs. 
 Dench had said, what was a poor mother to do with a pen 
 niless daughter who had views ? Complete, incontestable 
 ugliness would have been preferable; but Jane Dench
 
 VENUS ANADYOMENE 51 
 
 wasn't ugly, though she still had about her a little of the 
 abrupt awkwardness of youth. She leaned far back in 
 her steamer chair, and there was something almost boyish 
 in the bent knee, the long, sharp angles of the body. 
 
 "Jeanne ! Jeanne ! " the duchess persisted. 
 
 At last she was heard. Jane unfolded herself from the 
 complications of her chair, and came forward. "Madame, 
 a thousand pardons you were calling me?" There was 
 surely nothing abrupt in her manner. It had, on the con 
 trary, a kind of gentleness. 
 
 "Yes, Jeanne, I was calling you." 
 
 There was a silence during which Jane stood looking 
 down at her hostess and including in her grave, expectant 
 gaze her hostess's guests. She was as strange as out of 
 key with her surroundings as was the Princess Karina. 
 Lilla hesitated an instant longer. "I was going to ask 
 you a foolish question, Jeanne, but I think better of it. 
 It was really the pleasure of your company that I desired. 
 Tell me, what is your book?" 
 
 Jane laughed. "Oh, it's not mine, it's yours! Mother 
 advised me not to read it, and I wasn't reading it. But 
 a book near by makes one feel busier thinking, by itself, 
 is such a fearful waste of time." 
 
 One of the completing men became interrogative. 
 "What do you think about, mademoiselle? What are the 
 thoughts of a young girl ? Ah if I but knew them ! " 
 
 "What do I think about ? To-day I was thinking about 
 the little brown men in the boats." 
 
 "Are they so fascinating?" 
 
 "No, they're dreadful; but it's just because they're 
 dreadful"
 
 52 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "You luxuriate in horrors?" 
 
 "Never!" 
 
 "Then what? " 
 
 "They're absolutely foreign, those little brown creatures, 
 foreign to anything I know anything about and yet 
 there they are, you know; they exist." 
 
 "Is it an awakening within yourself of a sense of your 
 lack of knowledge?" It was the duke who spoke. 
 "That awakens within all of us, that sense. But think, 
 my dear child, how much wiser you are than others of your 
 age and sex. You at least have seen the little brown men. 
 Think of the people that you have seen. Besides this charm 
 ing circle you know the good nuns at the convent; you 
 have had glimpses of society society in all its phases 
 
 you have had advantages, my child, rare advantages 
 for studying your kind for observing other people. We 
 each live in a universe of our own, Mademoiselle Jeanne, 
 and outside our universe there are other universes, and 
 beyond them still others. It is difficult for some of us to 
 believe in these other universes it is difficult for some of 
 us to believe in any but our own. The little brown men 
 help us to see the world whole." 
 
 "Yes, yes, I know. But with me it's always the other 
 universes the other people the little brown men 
 the people on that yacht the people in other houses " 
 Jane was beyond herself. She was breaking the silence of 
 eighteen years. " Now, mother " she began and stopped. 
 
 "Yes?" said Lilla. " Mother ? That was what I was 
 intending to ask you." 
 
 "Why, mother's different. She sees the world whole 
 
 like a map." Jane turned to the duke, "Of course she's
 
 VENUS ANADYOMENE 53 
 
 had what you call advantages what you say I've had. 
 She's seen the people in other houses !" 
 
 "My dear Mademoiselle Jeanne, she doesn't have to see 
 them, her own house is so very big." 
 
 Jane stared. "Mother's ? Why, she hasn't got one !" 
 
 "Literally, no. Metaphorically, yes. When all our 
 houses are fallen to dust, your mother will smile at us from 
 her window. We accept passively. Your mother takes 
 the reverse of passively. Yet I don't wish to make 
 your mother out a thief, even metaphorically. But she 
 is one, she is one after her fashion. She takes us, she 
 picks us up with a skilful turn of her strong wrist, she 
 slings us into the bag she carries over her shoulder " 
 
 "She's never done that to me," said Jane. 
 
 The duke smiled. "Your mother, my child, is an im 
 mortal." 
 
 "An immortal? Who?" Mrs. Dench had returned. 
 
 "It is you." 
 
 "I? How charming!" 
 
 "I was' explaining to your daughter a little theory, not 
 new, about the individual universe." 
 
 Mrs. Dench was vague. "Oh, I felt sure that you and 
 Jane would get on. I've sent the note. The captain, you 
 know, is my very good friend." She took her choice of 
 proffered chairs. "What is that book, Jane?" 
 
 "The novel about New York. I wasn't reading it." 
 
 She leaned over and plucked it from her daughter's easy 
 grasp. "Ah you shouldn't !" 
 
 M. Gadillon turned from a contemplation of the embroid 
 ered intricacies on Mme. Rostov's sleeve. "I thought the 
 book very interesting. So many books have such elabora-
 
 54 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 tion. That is so simple. One reads it as one eats one's 
 dinner or takes a drink." 
 
 The princess voiced her appreciation. "Ah, you young 
 men you young men you're a lazy lot. Thirty years 
 ago men worked for their pleasures !" 
 
 "Ah in Russia." 
 
 The little scarlet-bound volume had again changed hands. 
 It was the duke who had it now. He indicated with an 
 expressive forefinger the name on its title-page. "There's 
 a woman a woman without a house of her own." 
 
 Mrs. Dench again was vague. "How do you know?" 
 
 "From reading her book. It has no reality." The 
 duke greatly valued reality. 
 
 in 
 
 The big white yacht with the American flag was smoth 
 ered in fine black dust. For her also, Larnaca, in the island 
 of Cyprus, was a town of coal. A collier lay alongside, 
 and little brown men brothers of those Jane Dench so 
 wondered at filled bags with the precious fuel, and these 
 bags were raised to the deck of the yacht, from whence 
 they were thrown into the bunkers. It seemed an endless 
 task ; the bunkers were devouring beasts, the dust rose black, 
 the Mediterranean sun beat into the deck. The time for 
 coaling ship, said John Barlow, was the early dawn. John 
 Barlow spoke as one who knew. He was the owner of the 
 big white yacht. As to the question of time, his captain 
 agreed with him ; and on the strength of the agreement was 
 offered and accepted a cigar. 
 
 It seemed that Larnaca objected to the coaling of two 
 foreign yachts at once. It overtaxed her resources. The
 
 VENUS ANADYOMENE 55 
 
 problem was one which rarely arose, however, and when 
 it did, it could be arranged. In the case in point, the French 
 yacht, owned by no less a personage than the Duke de 
 Clopin, had been first served. The task, begun at dawn, 
 was finished while it yet was early. At the hour when Mr. 
 Barlow was condoling with his captain, the Jungfrau was 
 as fresh and clean as a new-scrubbed puppy. Mr. Barlow 
 glared at her vindictively. In his own country he was the 
 one to be first served. In his own country he was a force 
 to be reckoned with politically financially gas- 
 tronomically. Especially gastronomically. He was the 
 inventor, the manufacturer, and the patentee of those melt- 
 ingly delicious, medicinally wholesome, delicately brown 
 puffs of nourishment Barlow's Barley Buns. His yacht 
 was named the Ballerina, with few to appreciate the jest. 
 
 On the deck of the Ballerina, in that part farthest re 
 moved from the coaling activities, a young man was stand 
 ing. His elbows were resting on the rail, his head in his 
 hands. He had handsome hands bronzed from the sun, 
 but delicately made. Rather surprising hands for the son 
 of John Barlow. And the head which they seemed to sup 
 port was rather a surprising head. In fact, David Barlow, 
 from his hands to his head, and probably his feet, was as 
 surprising as any delicate and complicated mechanism 
 a chemist's scales a surgeon's instrument the machines 
 by which inventing electricians conquer time and space. 
 He himself was a machine from which all unnecessary bulk 
 had been eliminated. He was hard and fine almost to 
 brittleness, as compact and as distinct as a bronze statuette. 
 His attitude of dejection had in it nothing of limpness; it 
 was the attitude of a young hawk, or a terrier, alert, but still,
 
 56 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 whose alertness is suddenly caught and held by the snap of 
 a camera. 
 
 The ocean was blue and still and clear. David Barlow 
 watched it, his restless glance shifting back and forth be 
 tween two points. One of these was the French yacht, 
 the other was merely like a concentration of brightness in 
 the midst of the glare; it was as if on a white sheet there 
 appeared a whiter spot. All around was glitter and blind 
 ing sun, and this was a flash as of steel or the wet silver 
 scales of a great fish. But young Barlow's trained eye 
 knew it for the flash of oars and a boat, brass-trimmed 
 He wondered what message the French yacht had for the 
 Ballerina what friends had unexpectedly appeared. He 
 had thought that for the time he was free of his friends ; 
 he had succeeded in giving those of them that were his 
 father's guests what they loudly insisted upon calling 
 shore leave; and his attitude of dejection had in reality 
 been one of enjoyment of his aloofness. 
 
 Like many people who find themselves good company, 
 he was essentially an unsocial being. He had his moments 
 of sociality ; but the constant abuse by his father's guests 
 of the thing the term implied was making these moments 
 rare. They were like a herd of buffalo, his^ father's guests, 
 forever pushing to the centre of the herd. It was either that 
 with them or else in the long starlit evenings a curious 
 pairing off, chairs drawn two and two all over the deck. 
 David arranged his chair in like manner, and generally 
 found that the only subject he had in common with his 
 neighbor was the universal one of love. The next day 
 sometimes before that he despised himself with all 
 the hard intensity that was in him; he despised himself,
 
 VENUS ANADYOMENE 57 
 
 not for the fact, but for the company it made him keep. 
 If he had been the only man in the world to make love 
 lightly on a starlit night, he would have come forth with 
 his estimate of himself unscathed. But ten feet away, 
 clearly outlined in the dimness, there was usually a rotund 
 and not too young fellow-fool who was as much moved to 
 sentiment by the champagne he had drunk at dinner as was 
 David Barlow by the tingle of his nervous blood. He 
 despised the fellow-fool as much as he despised himself. 
 Youth was the only excuse for that sort of thing; that 
 sort of thing and age were, thank heaven, anachronistic ! 
 He saw before him a vista of blessed years quite unhampered 
 by fair neighbors and starlight. Those were the years when 
 he would conquer the world not as Alexander, by force, 
 but through men's minds. What else was the use of 
 Barley Buns, of vast wealth? For himself he had few 
 wants. Money was lead tied to his feet; it made him a 
 target for women and removed the necessity of a daily 
 wage. But he was studying law. It was to be law at first, 
 and then, by an easy transition, politics, and perhaps an 
 eventual ship of state to replace the Ballerina. 
 
 He still watched the tender from the French yacht. It 
 was nearer now and seemed to be pressing in upon his 
 planned-for solitude. It was more than a point of greater 
 brightness ; it was a point larger and larger of irrita 
 tion. He found himself disliking it with absurd violence. 
 It had a sort of impertinence in the midst of the great, quiet 
 ocean which the native boats quite lacked. It was a sharp, 
 false note, and had the effect, finally, of driving him from 
 his post. He owed it to himself, he felt, not to be bothered. 
 The thing reminded him of a little French dancer whom he
 
 58 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 had once seen and not admired. She had worn gold slippers, 
 and they flashed from her draperies much as the oars of her 
 countryman's boat flashed from the water. Her dance had 
 been a flicker of motion, seemingly as uncertain as the flight 
 of a scrap of paper in a breeze ; yet it had impressed him at 
 the time and he still carried its memory as being 
 almost unbelievably studied and designed. That so much 
 thought should be expended on so slight an end ! David 
 Barlow was a small young man, and his thoughts, like his 
 caligraphy, tended towards the large. 
 
 He walked the full length of the deck, his hands in the 
 pockets of his short duck coat, the brim of his sailor's cap 
 turned till it nearly touched his rather high-bridged nose. 
 A dancer's golden slippers a rope shirt would have made 
 to him a more sympathetic appeal. Though he had never 
 possessed one, perhaps because of that, a rope shirt 
 came very near to being his ideal of a garment. He had a 
 leaning towards the ascetic, even the monastic ; he found 
 fasting a finer pleasure than feasting, the joys of work 
 greater than the joys of play. And yet the joys the ar 
 dors of which he was capable, while quite apart from the 
 things of the flesh, were equally removed from the ardors 
 of prayer. It was in a prayer to himself that he put his 
 belief. Upon the day when he stood on the deck of the 
 Ballerina, this prayer to himself had attained its greatest 
 urgency. The whole of life was spread before him. 
 
 Visions are sometimes associated with vagueness. David 
 Barlow's visions were marvels of exactness. This summer 
 was to be his last ; after this the vagaries of nature were to 
 pass unnoticed ; henceforward it was to be law and order ; 
 one more year of Law School, he knew all about that. He
 
 VENUS ANADYOMENE 59 
 
 knew the firm that he was to enter on graduating ; he even 
 knew the corner of the office where they would place his 
 desk. Joan of Arc tending her sheep and dreaming of armed 
 men couldn't have seen her visions more clearly. And he 
 was ready ready as an instrument of tempered steel. 
 And because he had been able to conceive so much, his 
 chance of success was high. Then his visions and his 
 prayers and his hard-earned solitude were broken and dis 
 turbed by a small, irrelevant object a flash of greater 
 brightness in the midst of the bright, still ocean. It was 
 nothing but the boat from the French yacht; but to rid 
 himself of the consciousness of it, he went below to his 
 stateroom and locked the door. 
 
 IV 
 
 John Barlow, together with his son David, was on his 
 way to lunch with the Duke and Duchess de Clopin aboard 
 their yacht, Jungfrau. On the strength of the invitation 
 he nearly forgave them the incident of the coaling. Yet 
 he wasn't overflattered. He'd not been bom yesterday, 
 had John Barlow, and he knew very well that lunching with 
 a ducal pair near the island of Cyprus was a very different 
 thing from partaking of a similar meal with them near the 
 city of Paris. He had accepted, nevertheless ; the duchess's 
 note was written in excellent English, and mentioned, also, 
 a lady of many impossible names and the title of ' princess/ 
 Considering the fact of the princess, Mr. Barlow couldn't help 
 a wholly unworthy sense of relief when he realized that his 
 guests couldn't possibly be communicated with. They 
 were off, the Lord knew where, exploring Larnaca, perhaps 
 gone up into the island, there were salt pits, they might
 
 60 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 go there. So it was only himself and his son who were able 
 to take luncheon aboard the Jungfrau, and Mr. Barlow 
 had the satisfaction of knowing that they were both fully 
 equal to the occasion. 
 
 Mr. Barlow was proud of his son. He had a distinction 
 which seemed quite uncontaminated by the Buns. David's 
 mother poor lady, the ocean had an impossible effect 
 upon her, and she had remained in America David's 
 mother was in the habit of saying that he lacked the Chris 
 tian virtues; but this statement David's father couldn't 
 comprehend. He considered that his son even erred a little 
 on the side of the virtuous; he surely was the reverse of 
 dissipated ; he neither drank, gambled, nor kept wild com 
 pany ; and money perhaps because he was familiar with 
 it in a quantity which apparently lessened its value he 
 used very sparingly. But David's mother said his lack of 
 virtue went deeper than that, and she should have known. 
 His father watched him as he sat in the bow of the tender. 
 He had taken off his hat, and the noon sun beat down on his 
 bared, close-cropped head. His fine, chiselled profile was 
 sharply outlined against the sea. He was indeed a son to 
 be proud of, an heir which any potentate in Europe would 
 find it hard to equal. In the soul of John Barlow the 
 American eagle fairly screamed. 
 
 In the soul of David nothing screamed. The young 
 hawk had turned lamb. The expedition was not of his 
 choosing. He felt a lamb led to the sacrifice. And the 
 distance between himself and the big French yacht was 
 constantly growing less. He looked up. It was as if a 
 corner of Paris were suddenly transplanted to the Mediter 
 ranean. There were wide, gayly striped awnings and
 
 VENUS ANADYOMENE 61 
 
 painted woods and bright rugs ; the little port-holes glistened, 
 and high in the air the many pennants seemed stirred by 
 an invisible breeze. Some one was singing in a light soprano 
 voice to the strumming accompaniment of a guitar. 
 
 " Vien, Poupoul vien, Poupoul vien 
 Vous avec moi ce soir " 
 
 It was the year of "Vien, Poupoul." 
 
 He presently discerned a woman dressed in black standing 
 at the rail. She was holding a pair of marine glasses to her 
 eyes, evidently the better to watch the tender's approach. 
 She gave an impression of age, even at that distance, and it 
 occurred to David that instead of marine glasses she should 
 have had a distaff and flax. Her companions wore light, 
 bright dresses and were scattered about the deck in various 
 attitudes of leisure ; but she was occupied and inexorable. 
 She turned, and her sharp exclamation reached the new 
 arrivals : 
 
 "Look ! There are only two ! " 
 
 It was said in French, and seemed by its tone to be an 
 accusation. 
 
 "Well, my dear princess, we have done our best." 
 
 The woman who had answered disappeared down the 
 companionway. She had a deep, rich voice, and seemed 
 used to command. David thought her to be the duchess. 
 
 There was a moment of noise and confusion a jabber 
 of tongues and the gang-plank was lowered. The Bar 
 lows were met by their host, a pale little man, exquisitely 
 attired; and the woman who had gone below wasn't the 
 duchess, for the duke immediately presented them to his 
 wife a lady quite other. The strange old creature in
 
 62 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 black was the heralded Princess Karina. She stared at 
 them: "Were there not more on your beautiful boat? 
 A gay assemblage?" 
 
 David, whose French was more fluent than his father's, 
 answered her question. 
 
 "Ah there were more, you say, only they had gone. 
 Where had they gone ? Where is there to go ? " 
 
 David again explained. 
 
 "Ah I am disappointed I am sad." From the point 
 of view of the Princess Karina Mrs. Dench's note had failed 
 in its mission. 
 
 Mme. Rostov paused in her song. "You are so often 
 sad." She turned to the duchess. "Lilla, please present 
 these gentlemen." 
 
 "With this lady it is always these gentlemen," said the 
 princess. 
 
 M. Gadillon picked at his guitar. "With these gentle 
 men it is always this lady." 
 
 Things had surely come to a pretty pass when the Prin 
 cess Karina could be openly defied; a long absence from 
 cities and the wear and tear of civilization distorts the sense 
 of values the sense of what is due. The Barlows bid 
 fair to become a cause of battle. They bowed low to Mme. 
 Rostov. She addressed the elder. It was a type she ad 
 mired, full habited, with a look of power in the heavy 
 cheek-bones. "You speak French, monsieur?" 
 
 "Very little." 
 
 "Russian?" 
 
 Mr. Barlow didn't speak Russian. 
 
 Mme. Rostov made an attempt at English, however, and 
 for the rest of the day John Barlow was not to be reckoned
 
 VENUS ANADYOMENE 63 
 
 with. M. Gadillon joined a distant group, which had the 
 effect of bringing forward Jane. 
 
 "I saw you while you were still in the small boat, Mr. 
 Barlow," she said to David, and gave him her hand to shake. 
 He admired her beauty. 
 
 "You are compatriots," the duchess said. 
 
 Jane smiled. "I know we are. Isn't it nice?" 
 
 David Barlow found her bold or at least Europeanized. 
 "Do you come from New York, Miss Dench?" 
 
 "No. You see I've only been to America once, when I 
 was a very little girl. My mother and I have always lived 
 over here." 
 
 Young Barlow looked in vain for a so far unidentified 
 woman. They were standing in a circle on the forward 
 deck Mme Rostov, John Barlow, the duchess, the prin 
 cess, David, Jane, and the duke. 
 
 "I," said David, "have spent most of my life in America. 
 This is for me an exceptional adventure." 
 
 "What do you do in America?" It was the princess's 
 question. 
 
 "I study law." 
 
 "The law. I know. And what does your father do ? 
 
 David was on the edge of a reckless mood. "My father? 
 He is a manufacturer of buns. Have you never heard of 
 Barlow's Barley Buns?" 
 
 The company gasped. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said the princess, "a baker." 
 
 "Yes," said David, "a baker." He was vaguely re 
 minded of comic opera. These people had spoiled his 
 solitude, but the entertainment they offered him was worth 
 that.
 
 64 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "In your strange country an occupation is not thought 
 degrading." 
 
 "Not if it is sufficiently successful." 
 
 "Not if it provides you with a plaything like that." 
 The duke indicated the Ballerina. "May you be as suc 
 cessful with the law." 
 
 "Successful?" asked the princess. "Why, it won't be 
 necessary !" 
 
 It was a conversation which John Barlow wouldn't have 
 cared about. The difficulties presented by the foreign 
 tongue were fortunate fortunate, also, the distraction 
 incident to servants appearing with cooling glasses. But 
 the princess had a tenacity of purpose. 
 
 "Mme. Rostov " she called, "Mme. Rostov " 
 
 The circle had broken and widened, and Mme. Rostov 
 was some little distance away conversing with John Barlow 
 in her pretty, halting English. 
 
 "Mme. Rostov," the princess insisted, "your American 
 friend, Mr. Parrish, was he not in trade ? Did he not have 
 an occupation?" 
 
 "Really, I do not remember. It did not impress me." 
 
 "You are very forgetful." 
 
 The princess again turned to David. She was making 
 the best of a lack of a gay assemblage. But David would 
 rather have talked to Jane Dench. He admired her beauty, 
 and her presence in that gathering was unexplained she 
 was so obviously unattached, so obviously wasn't one of 
 them. Her position didn't seem to be dependent, and yet 
 it surely wasn't on the plea of congeniality that she was 
 there. His own guests would have been far less inappro 
 priate. Theirs was only a difference in feather from the
 
 VENUS ANADYOMENE 65 
 
 Jungfrau's party; hers was a difference in specie. He 
 couldn't decide whether she was either extremely bold or 
 extremely shy. Her companions were not this last. He 
 still looked for the mother with whom she had always lived 
 'over here.' He thought that lady mythical. It was all 
 a riddle, and his legal curiosity awaited the solution. But 
 the princess had yet other riddles to propound. 
 
 "Tell me, Mr. Barlow, what kind of a woman is Emily 
 Stedman?" 
 
 "Emily Stedman?" 
 
 "Yes, she is an American. She wrote a book that we 
 are all discussing here, and I feel that you must know." 
 
 "I never heard of her." 
 
 "Oh, but you must ! I half expected her to be on your 
 beautiful boat." 
 
 David made an appeal to Jane. "What are they talking 
 about?" 
 
 It was in English, and in English that Jane replied. 
 "I don't know, I'm sure. You see I haven't been allowed 
 to read the book." 
 
 Jane didn't strike him as a person whose reading would 
 be restricted. Decidedly, David Barlow thought her bold. 
 
 "So you do not know this Miss Stedman ? " It was again 
 the princess. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "But you shall. In your country these things are ar 
 ranged so simply. She is worthy of knowing, I assure you. 
 Her book for myself I read little English, but I can still 
 see that her book is very clever. Oh, she is worthy of know 
 ing ! " The princess became aware that her listener 
 was not giving to her his full attention in fact, at the
 
 66 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 moment, was not giving to her any attention at all. He 
 was looking towards the companion-way, from which that 
 mythical lady, Mrs. Bench, the mother of Jane, was emerg 
 ing. But it was not as the mother of Jane that- David 
 Barlow saw her. 
 
 There are certain phenomena which are always a little in 
 advance of their explanations. Electricity the human 
 brain life itself. Nearer and nearer come the answers, 
 and yet not near enough. And added to these is still an 
 other, not older, perhaps, but longer puzzled over. For 
 this last the explanations are many. It is called an arrange 
 ment of nature, alike shared by the birds of the air and the 
 beasts of the field a chance further tip of the scales of 
 liking an unfolding sympathy of soul the expression 
 of man's sense of beauty. This much-defined phenomenon 
 is love with man, an emotion. Love, supposedly, was 
 the emotion that made the bronze in David Barlow's cheek 
 deepen and widen till the deeper color overspread his brow 
 and his eyelids and even his throat. But if it were love, 
 it could be explained; and the emotion which suddenly 
 descended upon him has always remained as far from a 
 fitting interpretation as electricity or the human brain or 
 life itself. 
 
 For a very perceptible moment he was incapable of move 
 ment, and then he turned to find Jane Dench looking at him 
 with a new, odd expression.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CELEBRITY 
 
 "THANK you, Mrs. Mellish, for what you have been so 
 kind as to tell me." Emily Stedman rose and extended 
 her hand to her visitor. Her other visitor, Ralph Parrish, 
 had long since gone, and the striking of the little gilded, 
 clock on the mantelpiece had reminded Mrs. Mellish of the 
 lateness of the hour. 
 
 "It seemed best, my dear, that you should know what 
 is said." 
 
 "You came especially for that? You were kind. If 
 you'd spoken when Mr. Parrish was here, your kindness 
 would have been complete as it is, I shall have the dis 
 agreeable task of telling him myself." 
 
 "But what will you tell him? What can you tell him? 
 I don't understand " 
 
 Mrs. Mellish was surprised at Miss Stedman's sudden 
 laughter. "Is it a subject that a woman of my age can't 
 touch ? You know if what you said were true, it would be 
 the easiest thing in the world for us to talk it over quite 
 pleasantly. Even as it is, I think I know my cousin well 
 enough to make him see it." 
 
 "But are you sure you see it yourself?" 
 
 "Do I see that other people don't see those people 
 
 67
 
 68 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 who have appeared on me from heaven knows where, that 
 have nocked to my little success, the little poets and the 
 little scribblers ? The fact that they have time for me 
 shows what they are. They crowd into the light of my 
 lamp, and now they throw mud at me. What possible dif 
 ference can it make what they say, or what they think 
 they see?" 
 
 "But don't you care?" 
 
 "Why should I care ? What they say isn't true." 
 
 "Ah, you don't have to tell me that !" 
 
 "Why do I not? Though it's hardly a case where my 
 word is of value." Emily smiled at Mrs. Hellish, who was 
 gazing at the rather dismantled tea-table. 
 
 "Your word, my dear !" 
 
 Emily insisted. "It's of no value !" Her eyes followed 
 the direction of her guest's. "You'll have something 
 more ? Do." 
 
 Mrs. Mellish again saw that it was late. "I couldn't 
 really," 
 
 There was a silence which Emily broke. "Why, Ralph 
 Parrish and I were children together. We've grown up 
 side by side. I knocked him down once he lay sprawling 
 in the mud. We were a bad pair; death and destruction 
 followed in our wake; we stole our neighbors' apples and 
 we caught their fish ; we used to lay traps for the professors 
 and frighten the students at night. It all comes back to 
 me the old time. Why, it seems only yesterday that we 
 ceased to kiss each other good-by !" 
 
 "And why did you do that ?" 
 
 "We were too old; we might have been misunderstood." 
 
 "But if you are misunderstood without that "
 
 CELEBRITY 69 
 
 "We might just as well is that what you mean?" 
 
 Mrs. Hellish looked up quickly. "If kissing each other 
 good-by would give you any pleasure " 
 
 "Think of the moral horror we escape ! We at least can 
 have an inner consciousness of rectitude." 
 
 "Would it really give you a moral horror? You some 
 times have a frivolity in your method of treating serious 
 things. I hardly know what to think " 
 
 "Wouldn't it give you a moral horror, Mrs. Mellish, 
 kissing a young man good-by, a young man who was 
 neither your husband nor your son nor your fiance* even 
 if he were your first cousin once removed? " 
 
 "What it would give me has nothing whatever to do with 
 it." 
 
 "You don't judge me, then, by your own standards?" 
 
 "I've seen too much of the artistic temperament; I've 
 had it in my house, I've dined it and I've wined it, I might 
 almost say I've cultivated it " 
 
 Emily cut her short. "I know. It's an excuse " 
 
 "But you've nothing to excuse." 
 
 "And even if I had?" 
 
 Emily's adviser drew on her gloves. " I don't know what 
 to think. You're quite hopeless." 
 
 "I'm sorry if I seem to treat my friends' opinions lightly. 
 It's very difficult to escape the comment of the idle." 
 
 "If it wasn't for the gravity of the situation, I should say 
 that you didn't try to escape it that you rather enjoyed it." 
 
 "I've never enjoyed anything so much in my life before. 
 The situation's exquisite." 
 
 Mrs. Mellish turned in the doorway. "Ah, my dear, you 
 don't mean what you say "
 
 70 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 Emily waited and presently heard the door in the entry 
 close. The little gilded clock struck the quarter hour. She 
 looked at it, and in doing so caught sight of her own face in 
 the glass over the mantelpiece. Her attention was arrested 
 by an expression which she'd never seen there before, an 
 expression strangely verging on the triumphant. She 
 studied the face in the glass almost as though it were not 
 her own, as though it were something new and curious 
 the face of an intruding lurker in the shadows behind her. 
 But the triumph had been but a flash in the pan; as she 
 looked, it went quite away. She put up her small, thin 
 hands and smoothed her elaborately coiffed hair. The lace 
 of her sleeve fell back from her arm. The dim light of 
 dusk and lamp lent her a kind of beauty; it was that she 
 stared at now, and her eyes never left the eyes in the glass. 
 As she looked she repeated it over and over. " The moral 
 horror the moral horror the moral horror " 
 
 ii 
 
 Ralph Parrish was walking up Fifth Avenue at the close 
 of the day. At the avenue's lower end was the firm of 
 wholesale fur dealers of which he was a member, and at its 
 upper was the Town Club of which he was also a member. 
 It was at the Town Club that he lived. An organization 
 which made up in comfort what it lacked in fashion, a 
 league of business men of a prosperity sufficient to pay for 
 luxuries, it yet excluded from its lists even a suspicion of 
 the Hebraic, and had other qualifications some of them 
 mysterious to the layman which made its membership 
 not merely a question of finance. It filled in the great city
 
 CELEBRITY 71 
 
 a long-felt need ; Parrish, in having been one of its organ 
 izers, felt himself a benefactor. 
 
 It was Parrish's daily habit to walk from his office to his 
 club; and he had another habit, almost as frequent, which 
 was to break his walk by turning in at a street in the late 
 thirties. When he thought about it at all, which was rare, 
 he was afraid that he was becoming as much a creature of 
 habit as the rest of his kind. For a case in point his nomadic 
 tendencies were deserting him. He hadn't left his own coun 
 try, except by the urgent necessities of fur dealing, since a 
 year from the previous June, and it was now November. 
 He had even been wonderfully faithful to his country's largest 
 city. He had stayed in New York through all the past 
 summer, through all the heat and deadness, and now the 
 air was cold with a first flurry of snow. The flakes clung to 
 his mustache. The pavements were made slippery. 
 
 He hesitated a moment at the street in the late thirties, 
 and then turned in. The bad weather promised him a quiet 
 talk, and he would yet have the credit of coming at an hour 
 likely to be interrupted. His intimacy with his cousin 
 was the subject of some comment, and Emily had shrewdly 
 suggested a courting of publicity as an effective means of 
 stopping it. She had a levelness of head in this day of her 
 celebrity. Parrish arrived at her little apartment to find, 
 as he had hoped, that her parlor was empty. He didn't 
 like her friends, and he was glad to be saved the necessity 
 of seeing them. He had a sort of dread of them ; he knew, 
 none better, his cousin's possibilities ; and if the people who 
 hung about her had been of the marrying kind, he might 
 have dreaded something like that. As it was, his dread 
 was none the less vivid for being hi its nature vague.
 
 72 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 Miss Stedman was lying down, and begged a moment's 
 grace. Ralph Parrish waited. Her little gilt-trimmed 
 parlor always struck him with a fresh wonder. It was such 
 a very far cry from Hornmouth. It was like nothing so 
 much as the inside of a milliner's bonnet box. Or, at least, 
 it was the way the inside of a milliner's bonnet box ought to 
 look, and it was to the everlasting shame of milliners that 
 it always didn't. The great gay-patterned chintz which 
 ran riot over the furniture, the bright brocade drapery 
 of the piano, the leopard-skin rug, and the light silk curtains 
 were all notes in a surprisingly harmonious whole. The 
 result, if inclined to the theatrical, was still undeniably 
 pleasing. Theatrical acrobatic what you will it 
 fairly demanded applause. Emily Stedman herself fairly 
 demanded it. She had kept her cousin waiting, given him 
 a chance, if he hadn't done so a million times before, to 
 examine every ornament in the little glass case, and when 
 she at last came in, her pause at the door was as if she had 
 stopped to gaze out over imaginary footlights. The bra 
 vado of the room was repeated in her manner. The spin 
 ster look, the invalid's shawl, the stiff, starched clothes, the 
 firmly placed glasses, was what she had lately endeavored 
 to avoid ; and her endeavors had been rewarded by complete 
 success. She challenged the beholder to say that they were 
 not; or to say, on the other hand, that she had gone un 
 necessarily in the other direction. 
 
 " Isn't it abominable weather ? " 
 
 "Frightful." 
 
 "I was taking a nap." 
 
 " I hope I didn't wake you up." 
 
 "No, not in the least."
 
 CELEBRITY 73 
 
 She sat down at her tea-table. " I still have some of the 
 cake you liked." 
 
 "That's cautious of you." 
 
 " Cautious?" 
 
 "Placate me placate me give the animals what 
 they want." 
 
 "Ah you think you need to be placated with wedding- 
 cake?" 
 
 "Heaven forbid! Was it wedding-cake? I didn't 
 know." 
 
 "Why do you say, ' heaven forbid ' ?" 
 
 "Because wedding-cake presupposes weddings, and as 
 the only wedding that at all concerns me would be either 
 yours or mine, why, heaven forbid that I should like it !" 
 
 "It wouldn't do, would it? " 
 
 "Hardly" 
 
 "Yet think of the joy of Cousin Laura. If either of us 
 married, a weight would be lifted from her soul." 
 
 His mother's name gave Parrish a moment of embarrass 
 ment. Embarrassment was the thing which had most 
 arisen between them since Hornmouth and that afternoon, 
 a year and a half ago, when Emily had felt the need of ex 
 plaining him to the representative of the New York Star. 
 In the little yellow house there hadn't been room for em 
 barrassment; it had been so full of Emily's childhood and 
 Ralph's, every nook and corner had been so packed with 
 dreams with the secrets of the immortal mind ; and the 
 big bare room the desert swept by a cyclone had been 
 so occupied by those of the less immortal body. The little 
 yellow house had had all it could do. And then Dr. Sted- 
 man had left it for a more eternal dwelling, and his daughter 
 had come to New York.
 
 74 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 Fairish watched her as she struggled with the weight of 
 the silver tea-service. He always watched her before he 
 went to her assistance. The large tea-pot she never could 
 quite lift. Parrish cherished the rather original theory 
 that Emily, that daughter of science and learning, was at 
 heart a barbarian. The solidity of her silver was this 
 theory's strongest proof. Though as for the large tea-pot, 
 he himself had presented it to her. 
 
 She gave him his tea and his wedding-cake without 
 further comment. 
 
 "By the way," he asked, "how did you happen to come 
 by such an immense supply?" 
 
 "Of the cake, you mean? Why, I went into a shop and 
 ordered it." 
 
 " Yes, I know. But how did you happen to do that ? " 
 
 " I wanted the shop-girl's views on matrimony. I went 
 to a shop where I wasn't known " 
 
 "You pretended that the cake was for yourself?" 
 
 "Did I have to pretend?" 
 
 "Oh, good Lord! " 
 
 Emily looked up into his handsome, amused face. " You 
 think it's childish in a woman of my age. That shows that 
 you don't know. There are things you can't begin to ap 
 preciate things you don't possess imagination " 
 
 "And after imagination?" 
 
 "After that a realization of the fleeting nature of time, 
 my dear Ralph." 
 
 "You don't mean I'm to go?" 
 
 The door-bell pealed out. There were voices in the hall. 
 
 Parrish rose. "Perhaps that would be best." 
 
 Emily was reading a card which the maid had brought
 
 CELEBRITY 75 
 
 in. She turned. "But you mustn't go " And then 
 more sharply, " You mustn't go !" 
 
 " If it's any of the strange beings that you gather in from 
 the roadside " 
 
 "That's just what it is. Ah, Mrs. Hellish, my abomi 
 nable cousin here was on the point of running away." 
 
 Mrs. Mellish smiled archly. "We mustn't let him do 
 that!" Archness didn't become her. Parrish reflected 
 that few things would. He resigned himself to his unlucky 
 fate. The lady considered herself a patron of the arts, so 
 he had heard, and in her leisure moments dabbled in spirit 
 ualism. She pressed Emily's hand in both her own. " My 
 dear, how are you? How is the great work?" 
 
 "My book?" 
 
 " Yes, your new book. We wait breathless. What is it 
 to be? Tell me, Mr. Parrish, is it another 'Cuckoo' ?" 
 
 "I don't know, I'm sure. Miss Stedman doesn't confide 
 in me about her work." 
 
 " Really really ? I should insist. And what did you 
 think of her article in last Sunday's Courier?" 
 
 " I don't think Mr. Parrish sees the Courier." 
 
 "No? But you should have seen it on Sunday, Mr. 
 Parrish. The article was called ' Views on Matrimony 
 Gathered by the Author of "The Cuckoo." ' Well worth 
 reading, I assure you." 
 
 Parrish looked at the tea-table. "That explains it, the 
 cake I see I see " 
 
 "One must live," said Emily, "and the Courier pays." 
 
 "It's well for the author of 'The Cuckoo' to talk of 
 paying!" 
 
 Emily smiled. "The reports of my royalties have been
 
 76 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 exaggerated. I must make the most of my opportu 
 nity." 
 
 Fairish accused her of a thirst for gold. 
 
 She denied it. It wasn't so much a thirst for gold that 
 she had, as a dread of a lack of it. Poverty meant Horn- 
 mouth, and an acceptance of her Cousin Laura's invitation 
 to live with her. She was still pushing on to the undis 
 covered country. Hornmouth she knew. Her Cousin 
 Laura she knew. She was even beginning to feel that she 
 knew Ralph Parrish. Her telling him so, however, was 
 always provocative of his favorite, "Oh, good Lord ! " 
 
 in 
 
 Instead of a vortex of perpetual motion, Emily Stedman 
 had found New York a city of magnificent quiet. The 
 vortex might go on outside her doors ; but her little apart 
 ment in the late thirties was the centre of calm in its midst 
 a calm more absolute than any Hornmouth had ever 
 provided. There was a sense all about her of the life of 
 many people; her windows looked out over the roofs of 
 many houses; and yet the view from her big writing-table 
 was one of sky and sun rather than of the disfigurements 
 devised by man. Emily had never lost the feeling which 
 had come to her on first arriving, first seeing New York 
 from the steps of the Grand Central Station, that of being 
 closer to nature than she ever had been before. Even the 
 great white buildings which reared their heads into her 
 daily kingdom of sky and sun seemed far more a part of 
 nature than had seemed the bare New England hills she 
 had left. And at night when the hotels had turned into 
 shells of light and the office buildings were mere black
 
 CELEBRITY 77 
 
 masses against the sky, and she had drawn back her cur 
 tains and sat quite in the dark gazing out she was not 
 only near to nature; she was alone with it. 
 
 The little poets and the little scribblers who flocked to 
 her success were a less necessary part of her existence than 
 Ralph Parrish supposed. Individually they were nothing 
 to her, and collectively they were the allegorical figures 
 in the decorative canvas of her celebrity. And when she 
 arrived at her real celebrity, the celebrity quite apart 
 from notoriety, allegorical figures would be in the way. 
 This real celebrity was yet to come. She was writing a new 
 book in whose wake celebrity was to follow. She had al 
 ready named it, "Mrs. Dallowfield." The audience she 
 had made with "The Cuckoo" wouldn't like it, and would 
 wonder at her not having continued in the path she had 
 marked out for herself; but "Mrs. Dallowfield" could find 
 an audience of her own. 
 
 The book was to be solid with the quality which flashes 
 here and there through "The Blind Alley," and makes up 
 for all the transparent patches and the stumblings the 
 quality which even brushes the flagrant "Cuckoo" with the 
 tip of its wing. This was the quality of Emily Stedman's 
 genius. It was as elusive as a hat lost in a wind, and she 
 was forcing it, inch by inch, to the service of " Mrs. Dallow 
 field." It was like making a loaf of bread entirely of yeast. 
 There were times when she was appalled at the difficulty 
 of her task. As well build, single handed, one of the great 
 structures outside her window as represent life through the 
 medium of language. Or perhaps it was easy enough to 
 represent it if you really saw it. And there were times when 
 she was appalled in the other direction. She would stop
 
 78 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 short and gaze out, unseeing. "Mrs. Dallowfield," in her 
 mortal dress of yellow paper traced by ink, seemed so 
 precious as to be almost holy. The glory of "Mrs. Dal- 
 lowfield's" future didn't bear thinking of. Her creator's 
 state of mind might be compared to that of a man on the 
 eve of his marriage with the woman of his choice. 
 
 Ralph Parrish didn't care the snap of his ringer for the 
 glory of " Mrs. Dallowfield's " future ; that was one thing, and 
 he quite another. They were two separate forces meeting 
 only subconsciously in his cousin's complete assimilation, 
 and consequent employment, of his own wider field of view. 
 Her own was of necessity cramped. Her frequently re 
 clining posture gave her an opportunity of studying the 
 ceiling rather at the expense of other opportunities, and even 
 her view of the ceiling ran risk of obliqueness. But if she 
 herself had been in the thick of the fray, how could she pos 
 sibly have written about it without spoiling her pen and 
 blotting her paper? Ralph Parrish had no pen to spoil 
 and no paper to blot. 
 
 It was a Saturday, and still November. Six months would 
 make it May; in May, Emily thought, "Mrs. Dallowfield" 
 would emerge from chaos, a completed creation in May, 
 if all went well, without pain and without a darkened 
 room. The pain came in sharp thrusts of torture above 
 her eyes and at the back of her neck, and the darkened 
 room followed. It was Dr. Jeffries who insisted, and 
 Emily took it for granted that Dr. Jeffries knew. His bill 
 would indicate it; but he didn't display his knowledge 
 when he advised her against work, for without work how 
 would his bill be paid ? Perhaps he thought that without 
 a darkened room there would be no work. Emily sat at her
 
 CELEBRITY 79 
 
 big table surrounded by "Mrs. Dallowfield's " dismembered 
 parts. It was one of the times when she was weighed down 
 by the magnitude of her undertaking aghast at her own 
 temerity. Yet she knew, through some inner conscious 
 ness blessed of the artist, that in her hands the consum 
 mation of "Mrs. Dallowfield" was safe. It kept her up, 
 this inner consciousness; it bridged the periods when the 
 skill seemed gone from her pen; but now she had no need 
 of it; she was stopping work for the day; it was Saturday 
 and Ralph Parrish was coming to lunch. 
 
 Afterwards they were to see a much-talked-of actress, 
 a Russian ; her play was Russian, too, but in ,a play of that 
 sort the language wouldn't matter. Emily meditated on 
 the subject of plays. Her own "Cuckoo" had been 
 dramatized, and had failed. Success so largely depended 
 on the popularity of the actor. Parrish had seen the Rus 
 sian in St. Petersburg, and she was not without honor even 
 in her own country. The door-bell rang. That was the 
 consequence of living in an apartment; even in the late 
 thirties all one's guests were sharply heralded. 
 
 "I came up straight." It was Parrish. 
 
 "You didn't go to the club first?" 
 
 " No. You're not ready ? " 
 
 Emily explained her lateness by his promptness. 
 "You'll wait? Lunch isn't till one." She left him in 
 order to make amends for her negligence. 
 
 It seemed his most frequent occupation that of waiting 
 for his cousin. He waited for her in railway stations and 
 in her apartment in the late thirties mostly the latter 
 which also gave him the before-mentioned, much-to-be- 
 desired opportunity to examine the ornaments in the little
 
 80 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 glass case. It was an opportunity which he again didn't 
 take advantage of. The newest page of " Mrs. Dallowfield," 
 with the ink barely dry, topped the yellow pad on the big 
 table. He was aware that in glancing at it he was a little 
 outside his cousinly privilege. 
 
 " not agree with you " and then quotation marks. 
 Obviously the end of a sentence. There was a new para 
 graph quotation marks again. He read : 
 
 " But it has no reality, I assure you. That little moment 
 when they thought it had, that brought the reality nearer. 
 I had a sense of triumph. I've reached out after the tan 
 gible so many times, and that was the nearest that I ever 
 came. In heaven one's greatest possession may be an eter 
 nal peace of soul; but on earth one's greatest possession is 
 something much more like war. I say 'one' advisedly. 
 It's only the picked few who have it who are allowed it. 
 For appreciation is as necessary to the full enjoyment " 
 
 The sentence was unfinished. Parrish wondered what 
 Emily was talking about now. In a finished state her ideas 
 might be more clear, though they were always prone to 
 vagueness. Vagueness, however, wasn't a fault of "The 
 Cuckoo's." He wondered if it was true, what people said, 
 that she had genius. The word meant little to him, less 
 than what people said. That brought to him the thought 
 of something else they said ; he didn't have to wonder if 
 that were true. Had he reread the newest page of "Mrs. 
 Dallowfield," he might have found there an idea faintly 
 pertinent, even though unfinished. But he might have 
 balked at the analogy thus implied between himself and 
 war. For a man of such great physical strength he was 
 rather markedly on the side of peace. He still waited.
 
 CELEBRITY 81 
 
 He should have gone to the club first. A maid, becapped 
 and beruffled, a being quite other than the stern hand 
 maiden of Hornmouth, announced lunch. 
 
 " Miss Stedman wishes you to have it. She will be with 
 you directly " 
 
 No, he couldn't do that. His impatience wasn't a matter 
 of hunger. He hoped that his cousin's delay didn't mean 
 a toilet even more striking than usual. At best, they were 
 a conspicuous couple. It was a conspicuousness that Par- 
 rish disliked; it gave him a sense of awkwardness, like 
 having to stoop in order to pass through a door that is too 
 low. His conspicuousness was a gift of nature Emily's 
 wasn't. Others, less contrasting, might pass unnoticed; 
 they never did ; and it was this double glory to which Par- 
 rish objected. Emily, on the other hand, seemed to court 
 it. She was very much of a child, thought her cousin, in 
 spite of her celebrity and her thirty odd years a child 
 as well as a barbarian. 
 
 The woman for whom he seemed to spend so much of 
 his time in waiting had also, he was afraid, a child's appall 
 ing, unreasoning fickleness. She had a phrase, constantly 
 used, "When a thing has outlived its usefulness . " It 
 had an almost commercial ring. But she meant it in its 
 more aesthetic sense when a thing was for her no longer 
 beautiful, that was the moment to let it go. She used the 
 adjective in its broadest meaning, though with Parrish she 
 could have used it in its narrowest. But Parrish flattered 
 himself that it was something more than his mere physical 
 perfection which had kept his usefulness alive, yet it surely 
 wasn't his beauty of soul, and he was incapable of further 
 probing. He was afraid that this highly desirable attribute
 
 82 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 whatever it was might be suddenly, unwittingly lost. A 
 sudden movement might stir and disturb it beyond hope; 
 though a movement in just the right direction . . . What 
 was the right direction ? He found himself in the awkward 
 predicament of not knowing. He usually had a certain 
 rough intuition about women, the sort of sense by which a 
 mountaineer finds his way down the side of a mountain; 
 but with his cousin this path-finding instinct failed him. 
 That was her greatest attraction, her special little attribute. 
 Even if she were but a pale literary lady, part New Eng 
 land old maid and part barbarian, he liked her better and 
 longer than any woman he had ever known. He had wild 
 moments of wondering whether he mightn't eventually 
 ask her to marry him. But before he could make up his 
 mind, there always appeared the lowering possibility that 
 she might refuse him. And opposed to this, and even more 
 distasteful, was the possibility that marriage was her end 
 and aim. 
 
 Whatever it was she wanted with him, she was so con 
 structed that when she got it she would want it no longer. 
 His usefulness would be outlived, his mysterious attribute 
 gone. She might, of course, never get it that was his 
 safety a safety almost feminine. And then Parrish's 
 rough, path-finding thought came back to the sad mistake 
 of a movement in the wrong direction. His dread had the 
 quality of a premonition. He felt that he stood in imminent 
 danger of losing his unfathomable one. That sudden, 
 injuring, stirring movement might be made by another than 
 himself, by one whose knowledge of the right direction 
 would dwell at his finger-tips. But Parrish couldn't guard 
 against that he centred all his energies upon keeping
 
 CELEBEITY 83 
 
 himself just where he was. If the accomplishment of this 
 feat gave a handle to scandal, why, he regretted it deeply. 
 
 rv 
 
 "Ah, you wore the brown dress ! " Parrish's tone dis 
 played his relief. 
 
 Emily, reentering the room after her prolonged absence, 
 responded to this with one word "Lunch !" 
 
 "Is it ready?" 
 
 " Long ago didn't you know ? You should have had 
 it." 
 
 "Oh, that was all right. I didn't want it. I imagine 
 that the Russian can wait." 
 
 Emily was putting away "Mrs. Dallowfield." "And 
 I thought that Russians were such an impatient lot. 
 You'll have to translate her bit by bit, you know." 
 
 "If you're depending on me to translate the play, why, 
 I don't speak Russian." 
 
 "You've been there." 
 
 " Yes, but I've always had to manage with French." 
 
 Emily's dining room opened directly out of her parlor. 
 When the white-painted folding doors were at their widest, 
 the two rooms seemed one; half closed there was visible 
 a pretty vista of polished mahogany and silver. To the 
 pair who finally sat down to a long-delayed meal, the vista 
 was the other way about; but that also was pretty, and 
 though opposite one to another, they were so seated as to 
 both have the advantage of it. Conversation at Emily's 
 very often took the form of comment on the use she had 
 made of her space the success of her decorative scheme. 
 She was always adding some new bit which provoked
 
 84 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 admiration, or moving those she already had. Her friends 
 were quite in the habit of breaking their necks over furniture 
 freshly arranged. The big writing-table had to be by the 
 windows in one room and the dining-table remain in the 
 middle of the other; but beyond that they never could be 
 sure. Ralph Parrish was the only person fully initiated 
 into the puzzle of his cousin's changes. He usually made 
 them with her, lending his strong hand to the new placing 
 of a sofa or the rehanging of a picture. It had been on the 
 previous day that he had assisted in moving the piano. 
 
 "Do you think it looks well now?" Emily asked. Her 
 eyes had been fixed on it as she drank her soup. 
 
 "Yes, very well." 
 
 " You see, where I had it before, it was rather in the way. 
 If the room were two feet wider " 
 
 "If you'd taken the apartment downstairs, the room 
 there is fully that." 
 
 " Yes, Ralph, I know, but I like the view here." 
 
 "And nine weary nights of stairs when the elevator 
 stops." 
 
 " Yes the other night you told me, and how Mrs. 
 Mellish said she would never come to supper here again. 
 But she will; she would come again if there were twenty 
 flights of stairs to go down." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "How so? Why, she'd sell her soul to find out about 
 me." 
 
 "What is there to find?" 
 
 " Nothing whatever. But curiosity about me is as gen 
 eral as it's unaccountable. I'm like a mongrel dog, fright 
 fully imperfect, but with an individual kink to its tail and
 
 CELEBRITY 85 
 
 set to its jaw. I'm a sort of an anachronism or is it 
 anomaly?" 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know." He was amused at her volu 
 bility; her tendency to chatter was one she generally had 
 the strength to control. But to-day she was tired, and, 
 on the top of that, she was excited. It was one of her mo 
 ments, comparatively rare, of being excited by him. Like 
 sweet wine, Parrish required the right moment the more 
 so, as instead of following the usual course of wines, he had 
 come with the years to an occasional flavor of syrup. Still, 
 there he was, always a bottle ready in her cellar; and the 
 cellars of pale literary ladies are in that direction none too 
 widely stocked. They must slake their thirst as they may, 
 and thank their good Lord for the chance. Emily, brought 
 up in an atmosphere of science, didn't believe that she had 
 a good Lord ; but even if she had, her thanks would not have 
 been too tempered by reservations. A life which didn't 
 contain at least a substitute for Ralph Parrish was beyond 
 her conception. 
 
 They were not as late for the theatre as they had expected 
 to be, or perhaps the Russian idea of time lacked precision, 
 for the curtain rose as they took their seats. In spite of the 
 shortness of her life in New York, Emily had already seen 
 more than one production of the play, "Hedda Gabler." 
 It made to her a very strong appeal she refused, even, to 
 consider it wholly pessimism. Besides its marital infelici 
 ties and sudden deaths, it had, she thought, an apprecia 
 tion of the joy of living. She had seen the title role played 
 by an Englishwoman who brought to it a magnificent 
 physique and an infinite capacity for portraying boredom, 
 and again by a young, much-talked-of actress, a panther-
 
 86 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 like lady whose attraction was none the less sensuous for 
 being a matter of angles rather than of curves. But this 
 soft little Russian, whose obviously Slavic origin seemed 
 so oddly at variance with her blondeness, who sent the con 
 ventional conception of Hedda Gabler to the four winds 
 of heaven and made of her a smooth kitten purring by the 
 domestic hearth, this soft little Russian held her in her 
 easy grasp and brought the hard tears close upon the 
 laughter. The alien tongue was forgotten in the under 
 standing which seemed to stretch across the footlights from 
 the actress to the writer an understanding which had 
 to make up, hi part, for the absolute lack of it existing 
 between the actress and the majority of her audience. 
 But as Emily said to Parrish at the end of the first act, 
 turning towards him as she did so a tense, white little face, 
 "The glory of knowing that you yourself are great is the 
 only true glory." 
 
 For Emily, however, there were really other glories, of 
 which not the least was that of finding herself happy. 
 On this afternoon she was as purring, as contented, as the 
 Russian kitten who basked before the stage fire across the 
 footlights; but her enjoyment was a finer thing than mere 
 contentment; it came from nerves stretched tautly in tune 
 and the perfect pairing of circumstance. For Parrish was 
 seated beside her, and she was witness of an histrionic art 
 to which she would have taken off her hat even if to do 
 so hadn't been a theatre rule. She was emotionally at the 
 crest of the wave; she had reached that high point of appre 
 ciation which so made for her quality of genius. And she 
 had the happy faculty of impressing upon Parrish her own 
 mood he saw things through her which, except through
 
 CELEBRITY 87 
 
 her, he wouldn't have seen. It was a faculty almost on the 
 borderland of hypnotism, of telepathy. It is certain at least 
 that she could consciously or unconsciously acquaint him 
 with her thought without the awkward wordy medium. 
 Ideas sometimes floated about in his spacious head which 
 could be accounted for in no other way; it was one of the 
 reasons why he liked her so much. She acted as an inter 
 preter of himself to himself; she seemed to cast a brilliant 
 light by which he found it possible to see. He saw her there 
 in the seat beside him with a wonderful clearness; he saw 
 the play almost as she did. 
 
 In the second act was the scene between Hedda and her 
 former lover over the photograph album, conceived by the 
 Russian kitten in a spirit of barely sheathed claws. It is 
 a scene in itself great, but with the Russian kitten it didn't 
 have to be: "Ah, hush ! That was my name in the old 
 days when we two knew each other I can't allow this." 
 And at the entrance of Tesman, her husband, "This is the 
 view from the Val d'Ampezzo, Mr. Lovborg. Oh, yes, there 
 are the Dolamites " the husband leaves "You may 
 think 'du,' but you mustn't say it." Her lover speaks of 
 theirs having been a comradeship in the thirst for life 
 recalls her threat to shoot him, thinks her not having done 
 so cowardice "But my not shooting you wasn't the way 
 in which I most showed cowardice ! " She persuades him 
 to go to a supper at the house of Judge Brack. Drink 
 ing had been one of his vices before his reformation, and at 
 the supper drinking will obviously be the chief source of 
 entertainment; but in recklessness Lovborg goes. JBe 
 is to return at ten o'clock in order to take home Mrs. Elv- 
 sted. Mrs. Elvsted is the woman who has worked his
 
 88 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 reformation, and an old friend and schoolmate of Hedda's. 
 "Oh, Hedda, why did you do that? Why did you send 
 him?" "It will give him control of himself he will be 
 a free man for the rest of his life." "He will come back at 
 ten ? " " As I see him so and no otherwise " 
 
 They sat there, Emily and Parrish, he seeing it almost as 
 she did, and knowing with another attention, not occupied 
 with the drama, that she was there in the seat beside him, 
 she uplifted to a point of appreciation which was in itself 
 genius. With her as with him, it was the perfect pairing 
 of circumstance, the two dominating presences, that counted 
 
 each other and the art of the Russian kitten. But the 
 Russian was a kitten no longer. She paused with her hand 
 raised to the red hangings of the Tesman drawing-room. 
 She was very quiet, very still, and her voice when it came 
 
 had in it the surprise of a spring, "To-night at ten 
 o'clock Eilert Lovborg will be here with vine leaves in his 
 hair ! " 
 
 Ralph Parrish knew enough Russian to understand that. 
 "Ah Emmy! " 
 
 Something seemed to leap between them in the half 
 darkness. 
 
 The sluggish audience was moved to a faint applause, 
 and in response the curtain slowly reascended. The actress 
 was yet standing there, her hand raised among the draperies 
 
 very quiet, very still and succeeding in attaining, 
 in spite of her stillness, to the absolute presentation of hu 
 man passion. She showed it to you in its fine, hard essence; 
 it was as if you had beheld the interdicted contents of a 
 suddenly opened box. 
 
 Emily and Parrish gave the effect of blinking a little hi
 
 CELEBRITY 89 
 
 the full glare of lights. Emily, with her store of invalid 
 memories, was reminded of a sick-room at night suddenly 
 illuminated by the nurse. Light, then, as it does at no 
 other time, forces its color upon the consciousness. The 
 color of the light that flooded the front of the house was 
 nearly white. Emily remembered that long afterwards 
 that and the excitement which possessed her, which was 
 more than appreciation, more than contentment, more 
 than tuned nerves. 
 
 "Ralph, there's some one trying to bow to you " 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " Don't you see in that box, the extraordinary old 
 woman dressed in black, holding the opera-glasses?" 
 
 " By Jove ! It's the Princess Karina ! Pardon me just 
 for a moment." Parrish was obviously stirred.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ANTICLIMAXES 
 
 JOHN BARLOW was engaged in his favorite occupation 
 that of looking at his son. It was, he told Emily, an occu 
 pation he'd had little enough chance at of late; and the 
 spectacle of the young David familiarly seated in his own 
 drawing-room, even though he was talking with a Russian 
 princess, warmed the very cockles of the elder Barlow's 
 heart. 
 
 " Yes, it's good to have him back it's good to have 
 him back. It was a year ago last summer that I left him. 
 He came with me as far as Paris and then suddenly decided 
 to come no farther." 
 
 " Your son went with you as far as Paris and then didn't 
 return to America?" 
 
 " You see it was like this. We were cruising in the Medi 
 terranean, and when we left the Mediterranean, David went 
 with us as far as Paris ; and then, instead of coming on to 
 New York, he stayed in Paris. In fact, I believe that he 
 afterwards went back to the Mediterranean. He's a queer 
 boy. And at one time I thought he would some day make 
 a name for himself in the law." 
 
 "Oh, but he yet may !" Emily was feigning an interest 
 which she did not feel. John Barlow was her host at a 
 dinner of which she and the Princess Karina were the guests 
 
 90
 
 ANTICLIMAXES 91 
 
 of honor, and if he desired to talk about his son it was for her 
 to follow in his lead. He couldn't talk about his son, to the 
 Princess Karina; he lacked a language in which to do so. 
 
 "I can't say that I agree with you, Miss Stedman; I 
 think that David's law was a castle in Spain. And of course 
 it isn't as if he had to earn his living; but still, I should like 
 to see him make a name. I don't mind confiding to 
 you that I should like to see him famous. He's got it in 
 him!" 
 
 "Perhaps he'll marry a famous woman," said Emily. 
 
 "You, for instance." 
 
 Emily laughed. "Why not the Princess Karina?" 
 
 "Oh, she's a bit old for David. He's only twenty-five, 
 you know." 
 
 "Really? He seems more than that. But he's the sort 
 of young man with whom age doesn't matter. The day 
 I first saw him he was with the princess, and most devoted." 
 
 "When was that?" 
 
 " I was with my cousin, Ralph Parrish, at the theatre." 
 
 "And he was at the theatre?" 
 
 "He and the princess. My cousin knew her in Russia, 
 and she was so kind as to remember him. She invited 
 us to sit with them in her box or rather to sit with her, 
 for when she first saw us she was alone. Your son had gone 
 out to get a programme, and he returned to find us en 
 sconced. He wasn't pleased." 
 
 The father protested. "Why, yes, he was he was 
 pleased to death. He told me he was. 'I've just had the 
 pleasure of spending an hour in the company of Emily 
 Stedman.' 'You don't mean the woman who wrote "The 
 Cuckoo"?' I asked. 'The very same ' And as for the
 
 92 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 princess, she was shouting with joy, 'You must have her 
 here you must have her here ' David translated it 
 for us, and you see we did our best !" 
 
 " So the princess is staying with you ? I didn't know " 
 
 "Yes. She's been intending to make the trip for years. 
 She's always heard so much about New York, and never 
 having been here, never even having been in America, 
 she felt rather out of it. She finally made up her mind just 
 at the time that David was coming back, so he looked after 
 her a bit on the steamer and then brought her straight 
 here. She hates hotels." 
 
 "Ah," said Emily, "you see he is devoted !" 
 
 "Yes; but not to the Princess Karina." 
 
 "Then there is some one " It struck Emily that she 
 was carrying her feigned interest too far. If Mr. Barlow 
 wished to discuss with her the affairs of his son, that was 
 his business; but considering the fact of her having, up to 
 a month ago, never so much as heard of the Barlows, it 
 would be easy for her to be accused of prying. 
 
 "If he were devoted in the way you say," said Mr. Bar 
 low, "he'd hardly be batting about Europe with her and 
 coming over on the steamer with her and bringing her here. 
 Would he now?" David's father smilingly demanded a 
 denial. "Would he?" 
 
 At that moment Emily's impression of the Barley Bun 
 King was very much that which had so attracted Mme. 
 Rostov. As he sat there facing her in his big gilded parlor, 
 his legs crossed, his whole being expressive of the content 
 ment of a strong man newly fed, the impression he made 
 on her was of tremendous power. How could the son of 
 a man like that fail to be an anticlimax ?
 
 ANTICLIMAXES 93 
 
 She finally brought out the thing demanded of her. 
 "Well, no, I suppose he wouldn't not in just that way. 
 But tell me, isn't it a rather complicated process, having 
 a lady of the rank of princess staying in the same house with 
 you and that house yours ? Aren't there questions 
 which constantly arise? I always imagined a princess as 
 travelling in state with a host of retainers, and having at 
 hotels the royal suite." 
 
 " Oh, it's nothing like that. Merely a maid, so my wife 
 tells me, and meals in her room at peculiar hours." 
 
 "It's good of you " 
 
 " Not at all ; we feel honored. And besides, David 
 insists." 
 
 Emily looked up. "And I suppose that you're glad to 
 get David at any price even with the princess." 
 
 "Yes, if he'll stay." 
 
 "Does he think of returning to the Mediterranean?" 
 
 "I can't make out that he does." 
 
 The subject of all this discussion came up at this. He 
 had left the princess in the safe hands of Ralph Parrish, and 
 he felt that the moment had arrived to devote himself to 
 her whose celebrity was a thing of her own making. 
 
 "What is it, father, that you can't make out?" 
 
 John Barlow seemed fairly caught. Emily gave him her 
 aid. "We were discussing your affairs in the most shame 
 less manner hoping that the Mediterranean wouldn't 
 again claim you." 
 
 The younger Barlow laughed. "You speak as if the 
 Mediterranean were a devouring beast!" 
 
 " Why not a siren who sits upon a rock combing her hair 
 in the sunlight?"
 
 94 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "Who forever calls me into the deeps?" asked David. 
 
 "Put it like that." 
 
 "Who knows but that I may go?" 
 
 "Where into the deeps?" 
 
 "No, back to the Mediterranean." David Barlow had 
 an ease of manner rather surprising in one so young 
 so young, and at the same time so masculine. Ease, in 
 this particular, presupposes precocity, and precocity usually 
 follows in the wake of effeminateness. David Barlow's 
 precocity was less a matter of character than of circum 
 stance. There were certain things of which he had learned 
 the value too soon. Ease of manner in a situation requiring 
 delicacy might be one of these. For one so young he must 
 have been in a good many situations requiring delicacy, 
 and his enforced knowledge of how to treat them had worn 
 him a little fine. Between his restless terrier's eyes there 
 was a line which might have been of pain. His hammered 
 bronze profile was an even more intricate piece of work 
 manship than it had been on that sunlit morning a year and 
 a half ago when he had stood on the deck of the Ballerina, 
 his elbows resting on the rail, his head in his hands. But 
 to one who had seen him then, and saw him now again for 
 the second time, the increased intricacy of his profile 
 wouldn't make up for its increased whiteness. He had a 
 look of having been broken upon a wheel which he then 
 quite lacked. 
 
 To Emily, who had never seen him before the other day 
 at the theatre, and who therefore came at him quite fresh, 
 as it were, he seemed merely a rather pale young man of a 
 type she knew very little about. In fact, she wondered 
 why his family not to mention the Princess Karina
 
 ANTICLIMAXES 95 
 
 should be looming so large on her horizon. She supposed 
 that was the price paid for celebrity if people were suffi 
 ciently insistent, it was hard to avoid them; and of course 
 the celebrity was just what made them insistent. Of this 
 new group it was the Princess Karina who most dogged her 
 footsteps. Emily found herself better known in Europe 
 than she had supposed; the princess told of a cruise made 
 bearable by her book. 
 
 "You must have had a stupid time!" Emily's French 
 was shockingly bad. 
 
 "Indeed, no without 'The Cuckoo,' who can say? 
 But with it " 
 
 " I thought that the albatross was the usual accompanier 
 of voyages." 
 
 There was a laugh from David. 
 
 The authoress turned to him. "What difference does it 
 make what bird ? " 
 
 "As long as it is a bird of good omen? None." 
 
 They were all together at one end of the big room, David, 
 Emily, the princess, and John Barlow. The princess had 
 lately joined these latter three, leaving Ralph Parrish alone 
 with his hostess. The rest of the dinner guests had gone, 
 and something in the expression of Parrish's back told 
 Emily that he was waiting for her to do the same. Not 
 that her going really concerned him, for this wasn't one of 
 the houses from which he could himself see her home. 
 That was only done in the case of mutually intimate friends 
 who would be sure not to think it queer, and the Barlows 
 were but the most casual acquaintances David a friend 
 of the princess and the princess a friend of the Rostovs, 
 Monsieur and Madame, whom Ralph Parrish had known in
 
 96 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 Russia. Emily wasn't sure but that she was a little jeal 
 ous of the princess; she represented a page in her cousin's 
 life of which she herself hadn't had the turning. Her sense 
 of possession was disturbed. Yet she knew that there must 
 be many such pages; a pale little literary lady couldn't 
 expect to have the whole of a big man like Parrish in her 
 keeping. 
 
 She looked at him now. He was being bored. But it 
 was a condition only obvious to one who knew him well; 
 he always had beautiful manners, and he was giving to his 
 hostess what seemed to be his closest attention. Mrs. 
 Barlow, in her turn, was apparently giving him hers. 
 There was a positiveness in all she did a positiveness and 
 a quality of triumph. It was as if the fact of her having 
 married John Barlow and living to tell the tale was in itself 
 a matter for congratulation "I married him and I kept 
 his house, and I even presented him with a son, and here 
 I am! " That was her attitude. She was small and 
 sharp, and, to those who could forgive these attributes, 
 handsome. The princess immediately called her La Petite 
 Caporalle. It was true she sat her chair as a soldier sits 
 his horse though without straddling. 
 
 How, indeed, could the son of such a pair fail to be an 
 anticlimax ? 
 
 II 
 
 The Barlows, led by John, frankly added themselves to 
 the list of Miss Stedman's admirers. The little poets and 
 the little scribblers had to make way; Mrs. Mellish found 
 her lion roaring at another board; Ralph Parrish was in 
 the awkward predicament of a man whose rival occupies the
 
 ANTICLIMAXES 97 
 
 impregnable fortress given by years and an aiding and 
 abetting family. 
 
 It was one of those times for which Parrish seemed 
 destined when there was nothing to be done. He again 
 waited. It occurred to him during the leisure thus engen 
 dered that his intimacy with his cousin depended rather 
 appallingly on chance. On that epoch-making occasion 
 when they had gone together to the theatre, they were 
 nearer to what would have been his ideal of the situation 
 than ever before. There had been a moment between them, 
 Parrish remembered it without being able quite to place 
 it, but a moment with no sequence. He had a tendency 
 to swear at the Princess Karina. She had cut the thread. 
 He found himself flooded with memories against which 
 Emily didn't hold her own; but then when you came to 
 that, who else was there, on this side of the Atlantic, who 
 could? The flooding memories were conquerable. To 
 turn out the intruding Barlows required some definite ac 
 tion, and with that he didn't know for what he might let 
 himself in. 
 
 The Barlows had no such dread. John Barlow's fortress 
 was impregnable. He always had a fondness for the small 
 and sharp in women; and the small and sharp combined 
 with a bewildering elaboration of wit and charm and deli 
 cacy! his only regret was that Miss Stedman was too 
 old for his son. And even if she hadn't been, he understood 
 that she was already bespoken. "When you and Mr. 
 Parrish marry " He brought it out when she was again 
 dining at his house. 
 
 " Believe me, Mr. Parrish and I will never marry " 
 
 "Each other or somebody else?"
 
 98 OTHER PEOPLES HOUSES 
 
 "Each other, I meant. Of course, I can't answer for 
 what Mr. Parrish may do in regard to somebody else." 
 
 "But you can answer for yourself?" 
 
 "Oh, quite!" 
 
 Barlow smiled. "You're wedded to your art?" 
 
 "Not in the least!" 
 
 The denial was at once so firm and so gay that Emily 
 Stedman's admirer was moved to ask another question, 
 "Then what are you wedded to?" 
 
 It was a question which Emily waived. " I would be such 
 an appropriate subject for matrimony," she said at last. 
 
 For a moment Mr. Barlow trembled for the sanctity of 
 his dinner-table. He had heard that Miss Stedman's 
 conversation was not at all guaranteed, and what could 
 one expect with "The Cuckoo" ever ready to announce the 
 ringing hour ? but, nevertheless, he felt that in pursuing 
 the subject further he was taking his life in his hands. 
 " You mean ? " He paused. 
 
 "I mean just what I say. Imagine me as anything but 
 Emily Stedman!" 
 
 "Would marriage so change you?" 
 
 "Why, it might even kill me. " 
 
 "Anything that killed you we could never forgive." 
 
 "But fancy what a success I'll be in heaven." 
 
 "If marriage is your road to heaven, my dear lady, by 
 all means take it." Barlow again felt the ground under 
 his feet. "Take it," he repeated, "take it " 
 
 "You advise me to die for love? Oh, I may die without 
 that. But I suppose your idea is that as long as I must 
 die anyway, I may as well do so for something worth while. 
 People don't, you know, die for things worth while. In
 
 ANTICLIMAXES 99 
 
 heaven it must be the things one hasn't done that one 
 regrets not those one's done." 
 
 "I thought that in heaven one didn't regret." 
 
 "Oh, surely ! For in hell there can't be time " 
 
 "Hell's busier. I see." 
 
 "I like the way you accept my authority ! What do I 
 know about it?" She turned to her other neighbor, and 
 Barlow heard her address him with the note of gayety still 
 forced high. "Tell me, don't you think it queer, Mr. 
 Barlow's acceptance of my authority about heaven and 
 hell? " 
 
 As he still looked at her, her bedecked though exposed 
 little back so oddly surmounted by the turned profile of 
 her eager white face, John Barlow's admiration was 
 suddenly completed by a sense of pity, a sense which was 
 not made less by either Miss Stedman's gayety, her celebrity, 
 or her tangible, enviable success. He felt sorry for her 
 much as he might feel sorry for a waif who sold apples at a 
 street corner. 
 
 From one point of view he was right. Emily Stedman 
 was undeniably a sister of the waif who sold the apples; 
 but the relationship and here it was that he was wrong 
 the relationship was not one to excite pity. His guest 
 had herself claimed it, brought it upon herself, and with 
 herself to thank, pity was unjust. Waif hood is the con 
 dition preferred of the egotist, and Emily Stedman was 
 an egotist before she was anything else. To her, waif hood 
 was a synonym for independence ; she was stray, but she was 
 ownerless. She was free to go and to come her freedom 
 was only bounded by her opportunity. And her oppor 
 tunity what was that? As the boundary of so much
 
 100 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 freedom it seemed, in one direction at least, to be even 
 more of an anticlimax than little David Barlow, as the son 
 of his parents, couldn't fail to be. It seemed to be Ralph 
 Fairish. 
 
 Parrish wasn't at this second dinner of the Barlows. 
 He wasn't always asked with his cousin. There was no 
 real reason why he should be why, for that matter, 
 any one should be. It was one of the causes of her success 
 as a celebrity that Miss Stedman was wonderfully un 
 attached. At this second dinner of the Barlows she was 
 quite among strangers. There was not one in all that 
 parallelogram of faces which a few weeks ago she had ever 
 seen. She wished that Parrish always would be asked with 
 her. No matter how great a length of table lay between 
 them, and it usually managed to be considerable, the 
 sight of him and the sense of his presence gave her less a 
 feeling of lightheadedness. Lightheadedness was the dis 
 advantage of complete waifhood, and it occasionally verged 
 on dizziness. Her lightheadedness was all to do with her un- 
 attachment wouldn't an only sailor in a small boat in 
 mid-ocean have occasional moments of it ? But the glory 
 to the egotist of a lonely communion with the open sea ! 
 Yet the sailor's egotism, if it led him to refuse aid from a 
 passing steamer, would be called insanity. 
 
 As Emily looked about her, she felt like an actor in a 
 company of travelling players who finds himself alone upon 
 the stage facing a new audience in a new town. With her 
 freedom and her loneliness and her new audience who 
 didn't know the play, there were wonderful possibilities of 
 opportunity. And her freedom was bounded only by that. 
 
 When she left, David Barlow himself saw her into her cab.
 
 ANTICLIMAXES 101 
 
 "David, see that Miss Stedman gets off safely " His 
 father had said it to him, and his acquiescence was drowned 
 in Miss Stedman's laughter. "Speed the parting guest ! 
 I should think you would want to get me off safely; it's 
 after eleven o'clock. If this habit of lateness grows on me, 
 the next time I come, I'll have to bring my bag and stay. 
 Of course, we were having a lovely talk, and that may be 
 some excuse, but nevertheless " 
 
 "What is the conventional hour for departure?" David 
 asked of her as together they came down the broad stairs 
 which led to the hall door. The Barlows' was the newer 
 type of house with the hall door on a level with the street 
 and the parlors above. 
 
 "After dinner the conventional hour? I'm sure I 
 don't know. When the first woman leaves, I suppose." 
 
 "It's snowing!" 
 
 Emily didn't have to be told. She felt it in the first soft, 
 cool breath that came in through the opened bronze door. 
 
 "In the country there'll be sleighing." 
 
 "Don't speak of sleighing I hate it. Miles and miles 
 of bleakness and black trees against the snow and cold, 
 and the constant tinkle of bells Here, where there is 
 no sleighing and no great frozen spaces, and the good gray 
 pavement shows through the whiteness, or at most you can 
 scrape the whiteness away with an inquiring foot here, 
 with the smothered sound of wheels and horses' hoofs " 
 
 David interrupted her. "And automobiles !" 
 
 "Yes, and automobiles " 
 
 "You like it better?" 
 
 "Much, much better." She stood with David watching 
 the cabman come to life under the spell of the butler's
 
 102 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 whistle. He had been sitting on his box with the droop 
 peculiar to his kind a droop expressive of utter hope 
 lessness, in a slough of despond so low that the falling snow 
 couldn't possibly reach him. The butler's whistle had a 
 magical effect. He became, immediately, an able member 
 of society. "You know I oughtn't to keep you here, bare 
 headed and with no coat " 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "You'll catch cold. You must remember this isn't the 
 Mediterranean!" 
 
 "Indeed, no." 
 
 The butler's hand was on the handle of the cab door. 
 He inwardly agreed with Miss Stedman that a hatless and 
 coatless condition was dangerous. But that lady didn't 
 seem to practise what she preached. She stopped halfway 
 to the cab: "You won't go back there?" 
 
 "There?" 
 
 "To the Mediterranean." 
 
 David laughed. " I'll try not to !" 
 
 His adviser's reply was still more merry. "Of course, 
 what you can't guard against is having the Mediterranean 
 come to you." 
 
 "Mohammed?" 
 
 "Exactly." 
 
 "But I'm not a mountain." 
 
 "Indeed you're not! Ah, I really mustn't keep you 
 here." 
 
 With John Barlow's admiration for Emily, pity was the 
 completing note the note that made the admiration 
 perfect. Pity was merely the beginning of Emily's ad 
 miration for his son. It came over her, this sense of pity,
 
 ANTICLIMAXES 103 
 
 and without the slightest apparent cause or at least his 
 momentary exposure to the elements was an insufficient 
 one. As she stood there in the white soft night, she was 
 suddenly conscious of an instinct which she had thought 
 herself without in fact, she had rather prided herself 
 upon being, in this particular, the exception of her sex. 
 It wasn't love. She already knew something of that, and 
 this was quite strange to her. It was an instinct fatal to 
 the egotist the instinct a mother has for her child. It 
 was only very slightly that it stirred within her; she was 
 aware of it most through the causelessness of her sense 
 of pity. 
 
 She turned and got into her cab. "Good night !" 
 "Good night ! Does he know where to go?" 
 Emily repeated the address in the late thirties. Through 
 the medium of David and the butler it finally reached him 
 to whom it would most do good. The effect given was 
 that of a secret countersign being passed from mouth to 
 mouth. 
 
 "Well, for the last time, good night." Emily smiled, 
 and leaning forward met with her own her young host's 
 extended hand. 
 
 There he stood, slim and straight. He was like a curious 
 ghostly etching, sharply black and white save for a faint 
 compromise of gray where the snow had settled on his 
 shoulders. In the dim light his hair showed for black, and 
 black, also, were his clothes, his line of white starting with 
 his waistcoat and the front of his shirt. Emily, her white- 
 wrapped figure outlined against the interior darkness of the 
 carriage, was almost as colorless as he. They might have 
 been two modern spirits of the storm, bora of it and gone
 
 104 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 with its passing, as ghosts are born of the midnight hour and 
 go with the crowing of the cock. 
 
 in 
 
 "Heyeh, Miss Stedman, I got something foh you!" 
 The elevator boy at the address in the late thirties brought 
 forth from his pocket a rather crumpled piece of paper. 
 "The other boy he went off duty at half-past ten, and 
 he said I'se to be sure to give it to you right smaht when you 
 come in and see ! I don't forget to do it " There was 
 a gleam of teeth in the black face. 
 
 . Emily unfolded the paper, which was unnecessarily large 
 for the message it contained : " ' Mr. Parrish called up at 
 nine and again at ten.' He telephoned?" 
 
 " Yas'm, he telephoned." 
 
 "Did he leave any message?" 
 
 "I don't know, m'm. Sam he wrote what's theh, and 
 he went off at ten-thirty. He said I'se to be sure to give 
 it to you and " 
 
 " Yes, you did. I'll remember to thank you. How late 
 do you stay on?" 
 
 "One o'clock." 
 
 The latter part of this conversation had taken place in 
 the elevator, which had now reached the ninth floor. The 
 negro paused, however, before he drew back the iron gate. 
 "Is theh anything I can do foh you, Miss Stedman, befoh I 
 go? I'd be real pleased anything." He presented to 
 her a mind as open as his countenance, but Miss Stedman 
 said no. 
 
 "No," she repeated as she stepped out of the elevator, 
 her latch-key ready in her hand.
 
 ANTICLIMAXES 105 
 
 She found her apartment cold. The beruffled little 
 maid had gone out, leaving the steam turned off. The 
 beruffled little maid was a snare and a delusion, besides 
 staying out far too late. As she knelt down to arrange the 
 steam, Emily promised herself that she would speak to her 
 in the morning; and in the morning she would telephone 
 Ralph. Twice at nine and again at ten she won 
 dered. But now the important thing was to get warm 
 and to get to bed. She had that subtler form of the in 
 stinct of self-preservation which is given to the invalid; 
 she knew the exact line of fatigue not to overstep, and to 
 night she had almost reached it. Her lightheadedness 
 gave a hint of becoming a physical fact. She looked for 
 ward to the morning ; the morning was the time of strength 
 and rested nerves. But there were many things to do be 
 fore that. She seemed to be wearing a million garments 
 and to take from her hair endless hair-pins. The presence 
 of the beruffled maid would have simplified the unfastening 
 of her dress. 
 
 Half her consciousness was occupied with these minor 
 difficulties, the other half with the information so faithfully 
 conveyed by the elevator boy. She reread the rough, 
 pencilled scrawl. Twice at nine and again at ten. 
 Once, she could have understood. She had thrust the thing 
 into her mirror between the frame and the glass ; and there 
 it faced her, an object seemingly incongruous. The scrap 
 basket gaped for it. And after all, why shouldn't Parrish 
 have called her up twice ? He probably wanted to see her 
 the state of mind was not unprecedented. 
 
 At last she was divested of the million garments. The 
 process left the room disordered, or would have done so if
 
 106 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 the garments in question hadn't been so small and so orna 
 mental. The floor the chairs the pretty white bed 
 were dotted and strewn with them, from the long white 
 glove its expressive empty fingers spread wide to the 
 slipper which lay in the middle of the rug kicking defiance 
 at its mate. It was of satin and had a suggestion almost 
 bridal. Emily remembered the cake of which Ralph 
 Fairish had liked the flavor but not the implication. His 
 admiration of her slipper would probably have a similar 
 reservation abstractly, as a slipper, even not abstractly, 
 as her slipper, he would like it immensely ; but as a wedding 
 slipper no. Why, Ralph Parrish could have crushed it 
 in his hand, breaking the thin sole backwards and wrenching 
 away the heel ! The vivid vision of him suddenly filled 
 his cousin's eyes and was the instinctive cause of her sudden 
 putting on of a garment as elaborate as any which she had 
 taken off. 
 
 The steam was making strange sputtering noises in the 
 pipes. Emily felt the warming iron. It seemed to take 
 so long ; by the time the room was really fit, she would be 
 in bed with the blankets up about her ears. She opened 
 the door into the parlor. That was better, and stepping 
 across the coldly polished floor she went to the windows 
 to draw the curtains closer. Outside was a world of faintly 
 moving white a motion of flakes not unlike the vibrating 
 background of a cinematograph. Far below came the 
 muffled clang of an electric car. She arranged the curtains 
 and stepped back into the room. She was in that first 
 stage of the approach of sleep when sounds jog the senses. 
 She was usually rather nocturnal of habit, but to-night bed 
 was her goal, and, being so, it was queer she didn't reach it
 
 ANTICLIMAXES 107 
 
 sooner. At the moment her power to reach anything was 
 slight. Her fatigue had got beyond her desire for rest. 
 If rest meant exertion before it could be attained, it was 
 hardly worth while, and she felt that there were so many 
 things yet to do. She drew the folds of her elaborate gar 
 ment more closely about her ; it was a creation of Oriental 
 splendor, red, with an intricate and contrasting embroidery. 
 The noise of the steam had changed to a dull, spasmodic 
 pounding; it would have been better, she thought, never 
 to have turned it on. It would have been better her 
 attention wandered ; she was trying to remember some of 
 the many things between her and rest. She started at the 
 rattle of a key in the door. 
 
 It was the beruffled maid returning. The maid was kind, 
 and gave her a hot drink and put her to bed. 
 
 She slept heavily and awoke in the looked-for morning 
 with the strong sense upon her of having missed while 
 sleeping the thing which had made the morning looked 
 for. The morning was the time of strength and rested 
 nerves. She was rested to the point of dulness, and as for 
 strength lying in bed she was hardly in a position to tell. 
 But there had been something else which the morning was 
 to have brought forth; she was too fresh from sleep to 
 name it; she felt only that it was this which had 
 escaped her. 
 
 She lay there, very still, and it was presently borne in upon 
 her awakening senses that the million garments of the night 
 before were nowhere to be seen. The beruffled maid must 
 have put them away. It was her first hint of the lateness 
 of the hour, and looking at her watch she found it nearly 
 noon. The maid heard her stirring and came in with break-
 
 108 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 fast. It was decided not to speak to her about her being 
 out at night. 
 
 "Ah, you did sleep ! " She was of French origin and pro 
 nounced it ' slip.' " You did slip ! But then you were tired. 
 Mr. Parrish telephoned this morning very early, but I 
 would not disturb you, so I said to him that you were out. 
 He was surprised." 
 
 "I don't wonder. He telephoned last night twice. 
 He left no message?" 
 
 A comment was ventured. "He is very constant." 
 
 The comment was ignored. "I can't help feeling that 
 this is a holiday Sunday or Christmas or New Year's " 
 
 "The snow makes it so still." The expressive French 
 shoulders shivered. 
 
 "You don't like it still?" 
 
 "Not like this." She looked towards the window. "And 
 the snow has not yet stopped." 
 
 "Yes, it's a real blizzard," said Emily, and then irrele 
 vantly, " With breakfast so late I shan't require lunch. 
 I mustn't forget to telephone Mr. Parrish," she continued 
 half to herself. Her eyes had fallen on the conspicuously 
 placed paper. But she didn't telephone him for some hours. 
 She dressed and settled herself to a long afternoon of work. 
 
 It was one of the unwritten laws of the cousins' intimacy 
 with each other that he should always come to her unasked. 
 It was a pleasant fiction between them that he was the busy 
 one, of many occupations and engagements ; and that any 
 moments which he could spare from these would anyway be 
 devoted to her, and when he couldn't come, he couldn't 
 so asking was superfluous. The idea had its root in 
 the past, and Emily's celebrity left it untouched. He
 
 ANTICLIMAXES 109 
 
 continued to come whenever he could; sometimes she 
 couldn't see him witness his late failure at the tele 
 phone. Her imagination played about this evidence of 
 constancy. His constancy didn't usually show itself in 
 just that way; he was anything but craven. Emily's im 
 pulse was to find out what it was all about, but she had 
 a sort of passive self-control which checked it, a respect 
 for the old unwritten law. Yet what was any law, written 
 or unwritten, if her preoccupation with it interfered with 
 "Mrs. Dallowfield"? 
 
 It was on occasions such as these, when her preoccupation 
 rose above her will, and her ability to create was blocked and 
 befogged, that Emily Stedman doubted her own talent 
 her own fitness for her task. Her task was self-imposed, 
 and at the present consisted of bringing "Mrs. Dallowfield" 
 to life. "Mrs. Dallowfield," in her mortal dress of yellow 
 paper traced by ink, was as real to her and as vivid as an 
 actual physical presence. She had believed in her, and 
 from this belief she found it impossible to separate her be 
 lief in herself. Now these two beliefs seemed tottering, and 
 she faced the supreme horror to the egotist. She should 
 have had for " Mrs. Dallowfield" a concentration of atten 
 tion that was nearly pain, and instead she was occupied 
 with the scotching of a harmless impulse. And there had 
 been times when she had deludedly thought her fitness 
 for her task bordered genius. Her self-control suddenly 
 wavered and broke. If the impulse was so harmless and 
 what was it, after all, but the very human desire to satisfy 
 her curiosity ? if the impulse was so harmless, why not 
 obey it and have done with it? Ralph Parrish desired to 
 speak with her she, equally, desired to speak with him.
 
 110 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 The simple impulse was as incongruous with the fuss made 
 about it as. the rough, pencilled scrawl of the elevator boy 
 was incongruous with its position between the gilded frame 
 and polished glass of her mirror. She went into her room 
 and got it. She no longer required the reminder. 
 
 The young woman whom Parrish's firm of wholesale fur 
 dealers employed as a telephone girl was rather more in 
 telligent than the usual run of young women so employed. 
 She told Emily that Mr. Parrish was out ; in fact, she thought 
 he was away, and further than that, she didn't know. He 
 hadn't been at the office that day, or if he had, she hadn't 
 seen him. His inquiring cousin was persistent and evinced 
 a tendency to argue. A person in authority was called. 
 Emily explained her relationship another impulse, less 
 simple. Mr. Parrish ? Mr. Parrish had been called away, 
 most unexpectedly. In fact, it was hardly that ; for the 
 exigencies of their business required the presence, on the 
 other side, of a member of the firm, and Mr. Parrish had 
 offered to go. He had left in great haste, sailing that 
 morning. His cousin would doubtless hear from him. 
 She politely was sorry to have troubled them. The trouble 
 was nothing. 
 
 She came back to the big writing-table, from whose well- 
 blottered top "Mrs. Dallowfield" gazed drearily up at her. 
 She noticed that the vibrating whiteness still continued 
 outside the window ; she saw a spot of ink on the cover of 
 the dictionary; and the exact tone of the wall-paper a 
 pinkish yellow with a slightly darker stripe was suddenly 
 very clear to her. The chairs, the sofa, the little glass case 
 all the objects with which she had grown familiar 
 clamored for her attention as loudly as though they were
 
 ANTICLIMAXES 111 
 
 fresh from the dealer's ; the whole expression of the room, 
 for once bare and bleak, forced itself upon her regard. The 
 veil which is usually interposed between objects and a 
 consciousness of them, the better to safeguard the occupied 
 brain against intruding perceptions, seemed to be torn away. 
 
 Emily stood before the big table. Her hands were em 
 ployed in smoothing out the bit of crumpled paper that she 
 had so oddly taken with her to the telephone. She looked 
 at it dully ; her perceptions were paying for their period of 
 activity. Her perceptions of what use were they now ? 
 It was as if a great, opaque sheet, a thousand times thicker 
 than any veil, were drawn down in front of her. She had 
 to feel for her chair, and having attained it she leaned for 
 ward until her cheek rested on the smooth, gay paper which 
 was "Mrs. Dallowfield's " abode. It was not to "Mrs. Dal- 
 lowfield," however, that her cry went out a cry so shrill 
 and so strangely sharp that the beraffled maid came running. 
 
 " Oh my own my love ! "
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 JANE 
 
 JANE BENCH was sent by her mother to look for a gold 
 bracelet which that lady thought she had left, the night 
 before, on the table in the smaller salon. The Benches 
 were occupying an apartment belonging to some friends 
 who didn't care for Paris in January. They were able to 
 gratify their whims, and they let their really gorgeous place 
 at a rental merely nominal ; and Mrs. Bench, with her keen 
 Western eye for a bargain, had sealed the transaction then 
 and there with a check for half the amount. It was her con 
 stant effort to make her checks rare, but this one surely 
 brought large returns. Even Jane agreed to that, and Jane 
 was not given to agreement. Her mother's check would 
 have brought larger returns for Jane, however, if she had 
 been allowed to make use of the charming sitting-room 
 with which the new splendor of their space provided her. 
 She did, of course, use it; but just when she would have 
 liked to most, when the smaller salon was dotted with a 
 polyglot collection, princes of the realm, rich Americans, 
 expatriated Russians, just then was when she was 
 turned from her sanctuary neck and crop, and made to shed 
 the light of her angel presence over the assembled company. 
 Last night had been a case in point. 
 
 112
 
 JANE 113 
 
 The vivid memory of it struck her full in the face as she 
 opened the door of the smaller salon. She had sat there, 
 the chair upon which she had sat was still by the pink shaded 
 lamp in the farther corner, she had sat there, among her 
 mother's friends, her grave gaze bent upon her embroidery. 
 Her mother considered her the most perfect specimen of the 
 jeune fille in France; she openly referred to her as her 
 greatest triumph "My greatest triumph, and it's part of 
 her perfection that she wishes to blush unseen but I 
 don't allow that !" Bits of idle talk seemed still to fill 
 the air along with the stale tobacco smoke. Chairs other 
 than Jane's were drawn out of their accustomed places. A 
 tray with glasses hadn't been removed. If ever a room were 
 haunted by the ghosts of the departed, it was the smaller 
 salon at nine o'clock in the morning. Jane found the gold 
 bracelet and fled. 
 
 Mrs. Dench was having breakfast. As her daughter came 
 in to her, she was in the very act of covering a poached egg 
 generously with salt. She then inserted a knife into its 
 midst and watched the spreading of the yellow yolk with 
 almost the same intentness with which a surgeon would 
 watch the effect of an operation. Dressed as she was, tai 
 lored and stiff, in fresh linen and well-pressed cloth, which 
 in spite of its simplicity^ had an air of experience in dressing, 
 she might tempt one to carry the comparison of the surgeon 
 further. She had the unscrupulous quality that great 
 doctors are said to possess and a delicate use of her rather 
 heavy and masculine hands. The very sensitive observer 
 might be forgiven a slight shudder even at her method of 
 -dealing with the bladder-like surface of her egg. She didn't 
 at all suggest the pampered mistress of a gilded salon the
 
 114 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 idol before whom princes of the realm and rich Americans 
 sent up their incense in clouds of tobacco smoke. One sus 
 pected her of a knowledge of tobacco smoke which went 
 deeper than that. If there were any liberties to be taken in 
 her gilded salon, she would be the one to take them she 
 would be the one to tilt back her chair and relax her soul 
 from the stress of the day's work. And, for her, one perhaps 
 saw as a background for the day's work, the bare, sunlit 
 spaces of a hospital ward. 
 
 Bare, sunlit spaces were what Mrs. Dench most suggested, 
 the spaces of her own Western prairie with waving grass, 
 or the open sea or the desert. That was the first impres 
 sion, a large simplicity, a veneer of smoothness. But then, 
 as you looked, you became aware that your heel was caught ; 
 the intertwining hieroglyphics of a glazed Chinese vase were 
 nothing to her intimate, delicate detail. She was like a 
 great plain, wind-swept, over which there had passed cara 
 vans of which the wind hadn't altogether obliterated the 
 footprints. Yet so much had passed that even the foot 
 prints were blurred ; the personal bias the personal prej 
 udice was quite alarmingly absent. And out of this 
 smoothness there came, paradoxically, a personality. 
 Mrs. Dench was a triumph of personality. That was the 
 beginning and end of her, that and a suggestion of a splendor, 
 a sort of tropical vegetation which was guided and bound 
 by the coldness and hardness of the North. 
 
 It was sometimes wondered how Jane could be her 
 mother's daughter. Jane's beauty had the gleam and glitter 
 of angels' wings; her eyes were gray like a nun's gray dress, 
 and her smile, coming from the long mouth her one ir 
 refutable resemblance to the maternal side was the smile
 
 JANE 115 
 
 of a young postulant who gazes at the world from closing 
 convent gates. But her smile was all for the convent not 
 for the world she was renouncing. Jane Bench had 
 had the world forced down her throat; she preferred the 
 convent. During the past year she had quite forgotten the 
 existence of the little brown men in the boats; her world 
 was the world of her mother's friends; and she gravely 
 felt that her curiosity about it was dead. Last night she 
 had sat in its midst, and her eyes had barely once left her 
 embroidery. Before David Barlow had gone to America, it 
 had been very different she had liked to look at him. 
 It was of him that her mother presently spoke : 
 "Ah you found the bracelet ! I thought it was there. 
 It's one of David's votive offerings and not a thing I should 
 care to lose." Mrs. Dench had taken it from Jane's hand 
 and slipped it over her own. It incased her strong, smooth 
 wrist in a circle of gold not unlike that smaller circle which 
 she wore on the fourth finger of her left hand. From the 
 fourth finger of her right there gleamed a splendid sapphire, 
 and a signet ring large and black kept it company. 
 She was not at all bejewelled; jewels wouldn't have suited 
 her. Her eyes, with their tendency towards prominence 
 and their color like the deeper yellow of transparent amber, 
 were so much more extraordinary than any jewels she 
 could possibly have afforded. It had not been a question of 
 affording the gold bracelet ; that, as she said, was a gift from 
 David. A young man with the enormous sales of Barlow's 
 Barley Buns back of him could treat the gift of a bracelet 
 with the necessary casualness; though, as it happened, 
 the gift of this one had a special significance. He had 
 sent it, Mrs. Dench now told her daughter, on the day of his
 
 116 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 departure. "It was so charming of him so delicate 
 not to send anything more " 
 
 "Not to keep sending?" 
 
 "No not to send a more elaborate thing. It's so 
 simple, so unpretentious, it doesn't flaunt his riches in 
 our poor faces." 
 
 "It doesn't have to," said Jane. 
 
 "Doesn't have to?" 
 
 "We see his riches without that." 
 
 "Ah we do " 
 
 "His going makes a difference." 
 
 "I don't understand " 
 
 "Why, the duke's not so rich ! " 
 
 Mrs. Dench still seemed vague. "The duke? I don't 
 see. But you sound appalling. I don't think you know 
 how appalling you sound !" 
 
 But Jane went on, unheeding. "We haven't the use of 
 Mr. Barlow's automobile; we haven't fresh flowers every 
 day" 
 
 "Oh if that's what you mean !" 
 
 Jane turned. " What else could I mean ?" 
 
 Mrs. Dench glanced up quickly. "You know you're 
 really not half so much of a fool as you make yourself out. 
 Even if you are the most perfect specimen of the jeune 
 fiile in France and my greatest triumph, your lovely inno 
 cence can be carried too far. If you carry it as far as that 
 with strangers, you'll be misunderstood; take it from me 
 you'll make a mistake people will think I've coached 
 you." 
 
 "And isn't that just what you're doing, mother?" 
 
 Jane's mother gave it up. "You're hopeless hopeless ! "
 
 JANE 117 
 
 She presently returned to the subject of the bracelet, 
 slipping it off her hand as she walked from the breakfast 
 table to the long window. "It has an inscription that's 
 why I didn't care to lose it. It's only visible with a magni 
 fying glass, but still, there it is !" 
 
 "What does the inscription say?" 
 
 Mrs. Dench hesitated : 
 
 " ' For you the jungle and me the sea spray, 
 And south for you and north for me ' 
 
 It's Swinburne at his most rabid, but I don't think it will 
 contaminate you." 
 
 "That's exactly what Mr. Parrish said last night." 
 
 "About Swinburne?" 
 
 "No, not that. I forget now just what it was about, 
 but when you sent me in to entertain him him and Mme. 
 Rostov and to say you'd be in directly, he said it about 
 something oh, no, it was Mme. Rostov who said it " 
 
 "In defence of her own precious talk? She would need 
 to, because Mme. Rostov's talk frequently contaminates 
 me, and I'm forty-four." 
 
 "Ah," said Jane, "it's age that counts !" 
 
 ii 
 
 Jane Dench was sitting on a bench in the Luxembourg 
 Gardens watching some children skip rope. In Paris, 
 thought Jane, even the children were sharp and knowing. 
 These wore the neatest plaid dresses moulded tightly to 
 their straight little figures and flaring widely at the hem. 
 A 'bonne' with starched white cap strings shared Jane's 
 bench and served to show how absolutely differently two
 
 118 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 people may do the same thing. She was also watching 
 the children and sniffing up the clear morning air; but as 
 she did so she gave an effect of extreme activity, her watch 
 fulness was to the last extent vigilance. Jane's watchful 
 ness, though equally intent, seemed more concerned with 
 some inner vision a vision of which the children only 
 pointed the moral and adorned the tale. Neither did Jane 
 take the clear morning air into her lungs in quite so evident 
 a manner. It enveloped her in a first haze of spring through 
 which the winter coldness found it hard to penetrate. She 
 opened her furred jacket at the throat; Paris wasn't St. 
 Petersburg. 
 
 In the Luxembourg Gardens, Paris was at its best. The 
 newer part across the river didn't please her half as well ; 
 that was the part which contained the smaller salon the 
 apartment which Mrs. Bench had snapped up at such a very 
 nominal rent. Perhaps that was just the reason she didn't 
 like it. The Luxembourg Gardens always brought before 
 her the memory of a beautiful year which she had spent near 
 them at a funny little boarding-school. The school was 
 very cheap, but incidentally very good, and she had been 
 extremely happy there. It was the year before she was sent 
 to the convent, and she had been happy there, too, but that 
 was different. There at the convent they didn't take 
 the scholars out every bright afternoon exactly at three 
 and let them play in the Gardens. They did at the little 
 school, in batches of twelve, dressed in black alpaca and 
 with their hair brushed smoothly back. Jane remembered 
 how they looked, all those dark little French children, and 
 among them she herself, tall, and by contrast blond. 
 Sometimes those most favored of fortune were allowed to
 
 JANE 119 
 
 make purchases of the old women in the booths wonder 
 ful purchases of tops and confections and queer wooden 
 dolls. That was ten years ago, and the booths, from a 
 distance, hadn't changed ; close at hand they were smaller 
 and shabbier, and the wares they displayed were less alluring. 
 But what could you expect for one sou two sous some 
 times fifty centimes? You still got a great deal for your 
 money in Paris, though not as much as formerly. Jane 
 remembered the inexhaustibleness of a twenty-franc piece 
 sent by her mother in lieu of that lady's company at 
 Christmas. The returning holiday makers had been made 
 green with envy at the stories of reckless extravagance told 
 by the few children who, like Jane, had not left the school. 
 There were advantages in waifhood waifhood modified by 
 twenty-franc pieces. 
 
 It was the sort of morning which inclined one to dwell 
 upon advantages, and Jane felt that her own were greater 
 than she had at times supposed. Her nationality was one, 
 and the way because of it in which she could wander 
 about unattended and unmolested. To the Frenchman 
 impertinently disposed English and Americans were a 
 law unto themselves ; they went out alone and they didn't 
 expect to be bothered ; they consequently weren't, and Jane 
 could sit there on her bench beside the streamered 'bonne' 
 quite as if she were a little milliner's apprentice. Her sense 
 of contentment was great. She was glad, after all, that she 
 lived on the other side of the town ; it made of this charmed 
 spot a place to come to. She felt sure that nowhere else in 
 all Paris was the air so springlike and the children's voices 
 so amazingly shrill. 
 
 "Un deux trois quatre cinq " They
 
 120 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 counted as they skipped. Faster and faster the rope cir 
 cled round them, and when at last they stopped breathless 
 with a triumphant " quatre-vingt-dix ! " Jane clapped her 
 applause. She would have liked to applaud all the hurry 
 ing people on the long paved walk; in the distance she 
 especially noticed a young man in a brown suit who swung 
 his cane. Their hurry made for her leisure. She could sit 
 quite still and watch. Her wooden bench was a throne 
 before which her kingdom passed in review; she was the 
 Lady of Shalott gazing into the magic mirror. 
 
 The young man in the brown suit amused her most. 
 He was probably an Englishman. No one but an English 
 man could be so big and at the same time so jaunty. This 
 one had all the jauntiness of an Englishman newly arrived in 
 Paris. She wondered that he should be in the Luxembourg 
 Gardens when the Bois was open to him. The words of a 
 song popular in her early childhood came into her head. 
 
 " As I walk along the Bois de Bologne 
 With an independent air, 
 You can hear the girls declare 
 That he must be a millionnaire " 
 
 She found herself humming it. The song went on most 
 touchingly. The girls sighed and winked their other eye, 
 and it finally appeared that the singer and object of these 
 attentions had broken the bank at Monte Carlo. 
 
 " And 7 to Monte Carlo went 
 Just to get my winter's rent. 
 
 Dame Fortune smiled upon me as she'd neVer smiled before 
 And I have lots of money. I'm a gent ! " 
 
 Jane would never have accused the young man in the brown 
 suit of not being a gent in that meaning of the word at least.
 
 JANE 121 
 
 It was evidently the only one, however, for he had stopped 
 before her and lifted his hat. She had a rushing sense of the 
 imminent disagreeable ; but she looked up squarely and met 
 his eyes. 
 
 "Why, Mr. Parrish!" 
 
 "Miss Bench." 
 
 "I thought you were an Englishman." 
 
 Ralph Parrish laughed. " You didn't think of me as any 
 thing, as just now you didn't know me." 
 
 "Well, you see I had it all arranged that you were an 
 Englishman and why you were, so knowing you was a sur 
 prise." 
 
 "Don't you ever know Englishmen, and do you usually 
 bestow so much thought upon strangers ? May I sit down ? " 
 He had done so before she had a chance to reply ; he had a 
 way of considering things of that sort settled beforehand. 
 
 The 'bonne' got up and left them. 
 
 Parrish looked at her as she reseated herself a short 
 distance away. "She doesn't like us?" 
 
 "She doesn't understand English," said Jane. 
 
 "And you do? You understand all her misinterpreta 
 tions all her reasons ?" 
 
 "Why, of course. She thought you were what I believe 
 you call in New York a masher, and she thought I didn't 
 mind." 
 
 Parrish stared. "In Europe you take things for granted, 
 don't you ? The doctrine of original sin and all the rest of 
 it " He seemed comfortably to stretch himself to this 
 doctrine as he crossed his well-turned legs and laid his cane 
 upon his knee. 
 
 "Well, you see," said Jane, "in Europe there are so many 
 things to be taken for granted dreadful things."
 
 122 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "Oh, come, you're too pessimistic; it's surely not worse 
 than America." 
 
 "I don't know America." 
 
 "And you do know Europe? And here I am discussing 
 morality with you. What would your mother say?" 
 
 Jane ignored his question, and when she at last spoke it 
 was contemplatively rather than boastingly. "Oh, the 
 subjects that people discuss with me ! " 
 
 "And it all rolls off you like water off a duck's back? 
 You are a marvellous child. But that's because you've 
 been so beautifully brought up. Your mother's a marvel 
 lous woman I take off my hat to her." 
 
 "Every one takes off his hat to mother." 
 
 "On your account?" smiled Parrish. 
 
 "Oh, no, on her own. I don't matter." 
 
 "When a pretty girl says she doesn't matter " Par- 
 rish's manner conveyed a hint of the situation's hopeless 
 ness. Then he looked up at her out of his handsome eyes, 
 and the situation wasn't so hopeless. "You're a marvel 
 lous child, and you're exquisite." 
 
 " Is that the sort of thing you say to Mme. Rostov ? " No 
 one but Jane could have achieved it without impertinence. 
 
 Parrish was visibly embarrassed. "Why, I tell her the 
 truth just as I'm telling it to you, or I'd tell it to your 
 mother. But as you're all very different, the same things 
 wouldn't apply to you the same things wouldn't be truths. 
 So, no, it's not the sort of thing I say to Mme. Rostov." 
 
 In the nunlike Jane there suddenly arose an unconquer 
 able impulse. "You're a gay deceiver! " The words, 
 with their burden of coquetry, were out of her mouth. 
 
 It was the one thing needed to complete her companion's
 
 JANE 123 
 
 reckless ease. "Isn't that what women are supposed to be 
 for?" he asked. 
 
 "To be deceived?" 
 
 " Yes, to be deceived." 
 
 "Imagine mother!" 
 
 "Oh, you'd have to get up pretty early to deceive your 
 mother." 
 
 "And me?" 
 
 "I should hate to try." 
 
 "That's because you'd have mother to answer to." 
 
 Parrish stared . ' ' You know you take a fellow off his feet . ' ' 
 No newly arrived Englishman could have been jauntier. 
 "Yes, you take a fellow off his feet and to think that 
 when I saw you last, you were a little girl in short dresses !" 
 
 " Yes, I remember. That was one of the vacations when 
 mother could have me." 
 
 "She made a great point of having you," said Parrish. 
 "She'd talked about it for months before; and when you 
 finally appeared, with the convent pallor still fresh, she led 
 you before us 'This is my little girl' To remember you 
 then, and now to see you ! " 
 
 "I've changed?" 
 
 "To use a bit of New York slang which you probably 
 have never heard you've won out." 
 
 "That's sweet of you." 
 
 "Tell me," Parrish presently asked, "what is your 
 mother going to do with you ?" 
 
 "She's going to marry me." 
 
 "It should not prove difficult." 
 
 "Well, you see she's particular and I'm particular and 
 we're not particular in the same way."
 
 124 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "Your particularities, combined, exclude from the lists 
 almost every one?" 
 
 "Exactly." 
 
 "Why won't you take me?" 
 
 "I should be delighted; but I'm not sure of mother." 
 
 "How could she ask for anything better?" 
 
 Jane caught his spirit. " She couldn't possibly." 
 
 "It's a pact?" 
 
 "A pact." 
 
 Jane was enjoying herself immensely. It was the kind 
 of talk with which she was very familiar from the point of 
 view of the spectator, but with which a closer contact had 
 never proved successful. She had usually shrunk from the 
 closer contact, and now she surprised herself. She had 
 talked to men talked to her mother's friends. She had 
 had the longest talks with little David Barlow ; but it was 
 difficult to be really happy with one whose whole attention 
 was given to some one else. While Ralph Fairish, however 
 much he might be absorbed in Mme. Rostov or even in Mrs. 
 Dench, had a certain largeness of capacity especially 
 now, when his energies were not taken up by the require 
 ments of wholesale fur dealing; for he had finished his 
 labors and was taking a much needed and much deferred 
 rest. Jane had not been far wrong when she had discerned 
 in his distant, cane-swinging figure a certain holiday de 
 meanor. It was still in the gay spirit of holiday that he 
 continued to address her: 
 
 " If it's a pact that you should take me, that I should take 
 you off your mother's anxious hands " He looked from 
 his companion's laughing face to the populated stretch of 
 paved walk "If it's a pact, what a pity it is that there
 
 JANE 125 
 
 lacks an opportunity to seal it. Oh I beg your pardon. 
 I'm afraid you think I've carried the joke too far." 
 
 Jane had taken talk of the pact lightly enough, but at 
 mention of the sealing, she turned helplessly scarlet. The 
 blush was accomplished without consciousness of embarrass 
 ment ; that followed after, and with it shame and a second 
 scarlet flood. The subject of kisses was among those which 
 people had discussed with her, for in spite of Mrs. Dench 
 ever present to be answered to, that lady numbered among 
 her friends many whose enterprise exceeded their caution ; 
 but it was a subject with which she had proved herself 
 fairly competent to deal. Her beautiful innocence was 
 tempered with a kind of superficial experience. It was 
 an experience, however, which didn't include the holiday 
 humor of youth. Youth put the thing in a new, strange 
 light. She was a moment in conquering the scarlet, a 
 moment in getting to her feet. 
 
 "Won't you walk home with me?" 
 
 "It strikes me you're very forgiving." 
 
 She gave him her most conventual smile. "Not in the 
 least." 
 
 m 
 
 Parrish not only walked home with her; he stayed, at the 
 invitation of Mrs. Dench, to lunch. Besides Parrish, that 
 hospitable lady to-day grouped about her midday board 
 the Duke and Duchess de Clopin and M. Gadillon. The 
 Rostovs were conspicuous by their absence. "Had I 
 known you were coming ! " she intimated to Parrish that 
 the omission would not have occurred. He accepted it 
 manfully. There was a time in his glorious leisure for
 
 126 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 everything. Two weeks more of strolling about with his 
 hands in his pockets, and then back to the city of work. 
 "You don't know what it means to me, this glimpse of a 
 place where work isn't the only thing in the world !" 
 
 Mrs. Bench searched back in a dim memory of America, 
 and doubted if it were quite as bad as that. 
 
 "Yet, it is it's an eternal pull. There's no let-up. 
 Over here you have time." He was sure. 
 
 M. Gadillon agreed with him about the mistake of a too 
 prolonged effort. He spoke as one who knew, for he had 
 lived in America one whole winter. The height of the 
 buildings impressed him. 
 
 Conversation ran on, touching lightly here and there. 
 One of their number, the Princess Karma, was paying a 
 visit to New York, and from her letters it was plain she found 
 it as much a city of pleasure as Parrish did of work. Par- 
 rish had seen her and verified this point of view. 
 
 " Of course if she had lived all her life in Northern fast 
 nesses," Mrs. Dench threw out, "I could easily understand 
 what a jolly place New York would seem to her; but as it 
 is, what she likes there is quite beyond me." 
 
 "And yet," said the duchess, "you spoke the other day 
 of sometime going there yourself." 
 
 "Oh, if I ever decided to go back, it would be for Jane." 
 
 "Forme, mother?" 
 
 "Yes. Surely it wouldn't be for me!" Mrs. Dench 
 leaned back a little in her big carved chair at the head of 
 the long table. "Jane has a passion for America," she 
 explained. "As she's had only the briefest look at it, it's 
 rather queer a sort of instinctive nostalgia. So some 
 day just when you're all least expecting it we'll
 
 JANE 127 
 
 pack our trunk. We'll follow in the princess's footsteps 
 and pay a visit." 
 
 M. Gadillon was reassuring. " Oh, you will not mind it. 
 The upper part of New York, the shops, the theatres, 
 the avenues, it is not so very unlike Paris. It is down 
 town that is so strange." 
 
 "And besides," said Parrish, "you know the Barlows." 
 
 "Yes?" His hostess was frankly puzzled. 
 
 " It's at the Barlows' that the princess is staying. If you 
 were really nice to them " 
 
 "Yes?" Mrs. Bench interrupted him. 
 
 Parrish carried it off with a laugh. "Why, if you were 
 really tremendously nice to them, you know, why, you 
 could follow in the princess's footsteps still more closely!" 
 
 "And stay with them? I shouldn't think of so far pre 
 suming on my friendship with young Mr. Barlow. The 
 princess is privileged. The princess is alone in the world 
 and can do what she pleases. I am not alone in the world 
 far from it. It's plain you know nothing of the respon 
 sibilities of motherhood, Mr. Parrish." She pronounced it 
 richly ' motherrhood' 
 
 For a moment Ralph Parrish had an impression of a 
 woman quite other than the one he had known for several 
 years past as Mrs. Dench. The Mrs. Dench he had known 
 was essentially cosmopolitan and suave, occupying her 
 slightly anomalous position in the world with an easy grace 
 which made it for her eminently right. She was without 
 protruding angles and limiting prejudices ; her golden and 
 rather prominent eyes could gaze as unabashed upon the 
 nakedest savage as upon the most uniformed emperor. 
 She was without country and without age almost with-
 
 128 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 out sex, if by sex was meant the usual flaunting femininity. 
 And now something in those rolled ' r's ' something in her 
 expression as she had replied to Parrish made him see 
 her as a woman, no longer young, whose well-kept house was 
 in that part of the world known in America as the Middle 
 West, and upon whom the responsibilities of ' motherrhood ' 
 sat heavily. 
 
 All this was in the moment it took him to look away from 
 her to his plate. His plate was of intricate design and har 
 bored a comestible which surely was not of the Middle 
 West that might be safely said, even though its exact 
 origin was effectively disguised. Parrish toyed with a mor 
 sel on the end of his fork, and noted the delicate tracery 
 of the fork's silver. The doily beneath his plate was of 
 lace; between its meshes the table showed its black ma 
 hogany. Then his appraising merchant's glance lifted 
 to the room itself with its high ceiling and panelled walls. 
 The long windows were heavily curtained and gave an effect 
 of dimness which went to prove that Paris wasn't all gilt 
 and sunlight. If it wasn't for the unmistakable foreignness 
 and greater gorgeousness, Mrs. Bench's dining room bore 
 a strong resemblance to the big room at Hornmouth after 
 Emily Stedman had cleared away the metal tables. It 
 was the room at Hornmouth spread for a feast ; Miss Sted- 
 man's cousin saw the analogy, saw also the absolute 
 difference of its inhabiting spirit. The woman in the linen 
 shirtwaist who leaned back in the big carved chair and 
 placed upon its arm her heavy white hand was Circe in the 
 midst of her orgies. And then a view of that vast section 
 of country known as the Middle West again obtruded itself. 
 
 Parrish's array of facts tottered. The silver, the cur-
 
 JANE 129 
 
 tains, the blackness of the mahogany, the sleek- jowled 
 serving-man who stood behind Mrs. Bench's chair, the dishes 
 of fruit that were so like the dishes of fruit in an old tapestry, 
 surely these were facts, and facts congruous with the 
 woman he had known. His repeated rehearsal of them, 
 which might seem lacking in taste and erring on the side 
 of the commercial, was really a sort of rubbing of his eyes 
 to assure himself of his perfect wakefulness a sharp 
 pinching to fight off the absurd hallucination born of 
 'motherrhood.' And there were other facts why, there 
 were certain things he knew about Mrs. Dench ! The things 
 no one said, but every one was aware of ; the reservations ; 
 the doors one did not open and yet in not doing so, didn't 
 one take upon one 's self a great deal ? Parrish fell into a 
 tangle of doubting. The things he knew his array of 
 facts again tottered. It was a tottering galling to his 
 self-respect, for he had never been given to imaginations 
 about his friends ; he hated to brand himself as a suspicious 
 old woman ; it were better almost that his facts, 
 disagreeable as they were, should stand firm. Surely his 
 hostess was a little too suave and a little too easy; her 
 surroundings, however accidental and however temporary, 
 succeeded in always being a little too gorgeous; in her 
 gilded salon the masculine element too greatly preponder 
 ated. Yet as for this last, there were the duchess and the 
 princess and Mme. Rostov. Mme. Rostov Parrish 
 shook that in his teeth. But above all these there was the 
 wonderful spotlessness of Jane. The value of that couldn't 
 be overestimated, even in all that Mrs. Dench might con 
 stantly say about it. 
 Jane sat opposite her mother at the long table between
 
 130 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 the duchess and M. Gadillon, Parrish and the duke flanking 
 their hostess. After ' motherrhood ' there had been a pause 
 which the duke now ended. " Do you know, it is a curious 
 thing that in the year or two during which I have known 
 young Mr. Barlow I have never once eaten a Barley Bun?" 
 
 "Oh, I have," said Mrs. Dench; "they come in boxes, 
 fifty centimes at the English-American grocer's. I saw 
 them in the window as I was passing with David, and I made 
 him go in and get me some." 
 
 " You were cruel." 
 
 " David didn't mind. On the contrary, he was rather proud. 
 I have yet to see the thing that David can't be proud 
 about. He'd hate to be accused of not being, you know, 
 of being ashamed of his father's business. I had diffi 
 culty in restraining him from eating his buns in the street. 
 He carried the package under his arm like a furled banner." 
 
 Parrish smiled. " I should think he would treat it with 
 honor. The riches it has brought him in are fabulous. 
 Why, in New York they have a house which takes up half 
 the block, and if you know what that means in New 
 York!" 
 
 "You know them?" 
 
 "I think I told you that I dined there at the request of 
 the princess." 
 
 "Is the princess free to request whom she pleases?" 
 The inquiry was Jane's. 
 
 "Why, Jane! If she requested Mr. Parrish, wouldn't 
 they jump at the chance?" 
 
 "Yes, mother, of course they would." 
 
 The subject of this discussion accused Miss Dench of not 
 appreciating him. She assured him that she did. There
 
 JANE 131 
 
 was in Jane's give and take a suggestion of her mother's 
 ease. 
 
 "Didn't the Barlows, Mr. Parrish?" 
 
 "Didn't the Barlows what?" 
 
 " Appreciate you ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid not, entirely." 
 
 "That's hard on them." She relapsed into silence. 
 
 Mrs. Dench again took up the thread. " I've heard that 
 Mrs. Barlow, David's mother, is such a charming woman. 
 You've met her?" 
 
 "Yes when I dined there. She's very clever, very 
 quick what you call very American." 
 
 "She's like her son?" 
 
 "I really can't say. I'm hardly sure what he's like him 
 self; he seems complicated. Are you sure?" 
 
 "What David's like?" 
 
 "Yes what David's like." 
 
 Mrs. Dench's glance shifted to the foot of the table. " If 
 you want to know what David's like, why don't you ask 
 Jane?" 
 
 IV 
 
 The Duke de Clopin was ushered in by the same servant 
 sleek of jowl who was in the habit of standing behind Mrs. 
 Dench's dining chair. He was ushered in and left alone 
 for a time amply sufficient for him to repent of his folly 
 in having come. His was a fool's errand. He could no 
 more turn Mrs. Dench from her course than he could, single- 
 handed, change the direction of a great flowing river. She 
 was going to leave Paris; she was going to America to live; 
 and the only wonder was that she hadn't done so long before.
 
 132 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 The duke felt himself inadequate to the situation. He 
 faced it, and faced the great door through which Mrs. Dench 
 would presently enter, much as a lion tamer new to the 
 game faces the opened entrance to the cage. He would 
 make a fight do his best and more than that could no 
 man do. The platitude rose to his lips as he turned and 
 looked out through the long French windows to the wide 
 boulevard below. 
 
 'La Belle France' stretched before him. It seemed as 
 if it were he himself who was leaving it. Mrs. Dench had 
 known it and loved it. She had appreciation, she had 
 understanding, she had sympathy, and the good God had 
 given her an excessive charm. It wasn't so much a ques 
 tion of what she would do without France as what France 
 would do without her, and the desolation of France came 
 to a point in the desolation of the Duke de Clopin. He 
 nervously smoothed the very round silk hat which, accord 
 ing to a fashion slightly past, he had not abandoned in the 
 hall. He was, as always, exquisitely attired; his pointed 
 beard was trimmed and combed, and his light gloves and 
 slender cane were the perfection of the haberdasher's art. 
 As he stood there before the windows, very straight and 
 very tense, he might have suggested to undiscriminating 
 Anglo-Saxon eyes the proprietor of a large dressmaking 
 establishment come himself on the delicate mission of pre 
 senting a long-owed bill to a distinguished customer. His 
 nervousness visibly increased. He turned from the window 
 to a reinspection of the door through which Mrs. Dench was 
 to appear. 
 
 The servant came in and laid a cloth for tea. The duke 
 didn't like tea, but at that hour Mrs. Dench always had it.
 
 JANE 133 
 
 It was a habit dating from a year which she had once spent 
 in England; she had a tremendous capacity for picking up 
 habits of that sort and making them her own. She 'had a 
 capacity for making things her own, and often an utter irre 
 sponsibility about them afterwards; of this her leaving 
 France to its fate was an example. She would never return, 
 he felt sure. It was final complete. But there was still 
 the bare hope upon which he had come. 
 
 The big doorway in the end of the room changed from 
 blankness and darkness to splendid actuality. The duke 
 looked up with the hope in his eyes and addressed Mrs. 
 Dench as Grace. 
 
 "Maurice " She gave him her hand, over which he 
 bent low. " I've been all day packing. It's a task the 
 accumulation of twenty years ! I had everything brought 
 up from the warehouse and spread out in one of these in 
 numerable rooms. I was dust from head to foot." 
 
 Her visitor wasn't listening. 
 
 "Grace, I have come to ask you to stay." 
 
 "Stay where?" 
 
 " Here anywhere ; but not to leave not to go to 
 America." 
 
 She had sat down and he was standing before her. There 
 was in his manner a suggestion both of acquisitiveness and 
 of anger ; but she turned it aside as her wide mouth widened 
 in a smile. "My dear, dear Maurice, isn't that a rather 
 strange request?" 
 
 "If you refer to my right to make it " 
 
 "I don't refer to anything of the sort. You ask me to 
 upset all my plans give up my stateroom unpack my 
 trunks "
 
 134 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "Ah it's more than a mere question of staterooms 
 and trunks!" 
 
 "You ask me," Mrs. Dench continued, "to reverse a 
 decision that I've arrived at after the maturest considera 
 tion to disarrange my entire future. And in order, 
 simply, that you may continue to have the pleasure of my 
 society! My dear, dear Maurice, I am not sufficiently 
 altruistic " 
 
 The duke made light of the adjective. "Altruistic? I 
 did not expect it." 
 
 Mrs. Dench waited. "You expected?" 
 
 "The heavens to fall, I suppose." Her visitor turned 
 away. " Is there nothing that you would stay for ? Noth 
 ing which would keep you?" 
 
 She came out with a statement remarkable for its irrel 
 evance. "You know perfectly well that you're tied hand 
 and foot." 
 
 "I believe you enjoy my bondage." 
 
 " Enjoy it ? I deplore it. You get on my nerves, walk 
 ing about; sit down." 
 
 The duke did so. "I think it's there that you touch the 
 secret of your departure. I get on your nerves." 
 
 " Is that your motive in coming here to-day vulgar 
 curiosity to find out why I'm going?" 
 
 " Oh, you are ruthless ruthless ! You finish with a 
 thing and you toss it away. That is why you are so power 
 ful ; you have no conscience, no regrets." 
 
 "You make me out like the car of Juggernauth. I'm 
 really not as bad as that. It strikes me I'm not bad at all 
 to let you talk to me like this." 
 
 "Why do you not ring for Auguste to show me out?"
 
 JANE 135 
 
 "Because that's not the sort of thing that I do with old 
 friends." Mrs. Bench was again smiling, and as the duke's 
 surprise deepened he was caught up in the swirl of her 
 laughter. He laughed in spite of himself, for hers came 
 peal upon peal with the wide mouth open and a gleam of 
 teeth and redness. He always saw her like that, with one 
 feature dominant. Sometimes it was her eyes or the large, 
 smooth oval of her face. It seemed as though his vision 
 wasn't of sufficient range or strength to take her whole and 
 unblurred. 
 
 She gave him his tea, and it was several minutes before he 
 reverted afresh to his impending doom. "Lilla says that 
 she will miss you." 
 
 "I know. She even came herself to tell me so. You 
 don't appreciate Lilla. Ah you think I shouldn't have 
 said that ! But the fault was yours for bringing up her 
 name. My friendship for you and my friendship for your 
 wife have always been so apart. When I said, a moment 
 ago, that I deplored your bondage, you know that I meant 
 nothing against her. I am not wholly ungrateful. Where 
 should I be now if it were not for the Duchess de 
 Clopin?" 
 
 "Just where you are." 
 
 "Literally, yes. Figuratively, no. Think what she has 
 done for me." 
 
 " You do for yourself. She has done nothing but admire 
 and adore you." 
 
 " Yes, but think what her admiration means. Much more 
 than even yours much, much more." 
 
 The duchess's husband had little to answer against that. 
 "To you it means more?"
 
 136 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 " Don't be an utter fool ! It means more to the princess 
 and the Rostovs, all the people who come here, Mr. Par- 
 rish " 
 
 "And how much does Mr. Parrish's admiration mean?" 
 
 " To Mme. Rostov?" 
 
 "No. To you." 
 
 "It fortunately doesn't mean very much, for it doesn't 
 exist." 
 
 The duke was incredulous. "His admiration for you 
 doesn't exist?" 
 
 "I assure you, no. Why don't you ask how much it 
 means to Jane ? First Mme. Rostov then Jane I 
 only come third." 
 
 " Oh, my angel you third ! " 
 
 "Third, or perhaps thirty-third, for all I know. He 
 doesn't get on to me at all. But the subject of Jane brings 
 me to an answer to your question. I'm leaving for the 
 reason I gave you all the other day at lunch for Jane. 
 You don't believe me? Nevertheless, we sail next Sat 
 urday from Havre the first of March which date we've 
 carefully chosen because it's also the date of Mr. Parrish's 
 departure, and we'll have the unutterable convenience of a 
 man to look after us on the voyage." 
 
 "Does Mr. Parrish know?" 
 
 "Of course he knows. He's overjoyed." 
 
 The duke looked at the stunted orange trees which grew 
 in the green tubs outside the windows on the iron balcony. 
 "Oh, my angel! What man wouldn't be?" 
 
 " If you think it's he I'm planning for Jane, you're quite 
 mistaken." 
 
 "Perhaps it's he you're planning for yourself?"
 
 JANE 137 
 
 "I only wish I was presumptuous enough. He doesn't 
 look at me!" 
 
 "Is it to make him look at you that you're leaving for 
 America?" 
 
 Mrs. Dench chose to disregard her guest's disregard of her 
 given reason. She smiled. "When I come to the pass 
 when I have to make young men look at me, I'll let you 
 know!" 
 
 "Grace, Grace " And for the third time the duke 
 repeated, "Mon ange "
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 NATURE 
 
 As she lay, propped up by pillows, Emily Stedman could 
 see through her fluttering curtains a square of sky which 
 seemed to have hit upon the happiest shade of blue; and 
 by raising her head ever so little she could see the ocean 
 that stretched out beneath it and purred gently in the 
 foggy winter sunlight. Everything does what it has to 
 do gently in Ocean City. The sojourner finds himself in 
 a place of no work, no worries, no fixed hours, no problems ; 
 in a place of inconsequent coming and going. He finds 
 himself with the usually feather-like time weighing 
 heavy. But, granted he is as other sojourners, a seeker 
 after health, this heaviness of time is the thing most 
 counted on to help his quest, the thing also most 
 counted on to swell his weekly bill. In January there was 
 absolutely nothing to do but to gaze out at the alternating 
 brightness and dulness of the sea. 
 
 The sea purred gently. At last the Mother of Mysteries 
 was securely harnessed to the uses of civilization; at last 
 every facility afforded for her quiet enjoyment. There she 
 was, outside Emily Stedman's window, and in storm there 
 were breakers as far as the eye could reach; but the water 
 which the nurse brought to Emily's bedside had run into 
 
 138
 
 NATURE 139 
 
 the pitcher in a clear, gentle flow, quite unsullied by storms 
 and waves and bits of broken wreck. 
 
 The nurse bathed her face, and the salt sting sent the 
 faint color to her cheeks. Dr. Jeffries had recommended 
 Ocean City in almost the same breath that he had diag 
 nosed her case; its comparative nearness to town, and yet 
 touched as it is by the Gulf Stream its extraordinary 
 mildness, made it the place above all others for her to come 
 to. For the strength to do so, she had waited in a darkened 
 room, and she now waited, propped up by pillows, to recover 
 from the fatigue of the journey. It was now the middle 
 of January, and she had been there since the first day of 
 the New Year. 
 
 Dr. Jeffries had found her illness the result of overstrain. 
 He banished "Mrs. Dallowfield." When Emily had asked 
 him what he expected her to do with the leisure thus thrust 
 upon her, whether she was to learn knitting, he had 
 given her one of his sharp, quick looks and suggested that 
 she learn laziness. She proved an apter pupil than she 
 would have imagined possible. In town, with the darkened 
 room and the pain that beat at her head like a hammer and 
 sawed its way in jerking descent to the tips of her little 
 upcurling toes, mere existence seemed a struggle the re 
 verse of laziness. But here mere existence was the easiest 
 thing in the world. To lie in the pleasant sunlight with a 
 soft pillow under every aching throb and to watch the white 
 curtains flutter she would be content to do that forever. 
 The window was open a full dozen inches, and the room was 
 filled with a soft, warm, salty breeze. The breeze made the 
 carnations on the wall-paper nod their heads; they were 
 so big, so much bigger than any gardener could possibly
 
 140 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 achieve, no wonder that the slender stalks were inadequate. 
 A bowl of real ones stood on the dressing-table; Emily 
 liked to see them reflected in the mirror. 
 
 The nurse, a young woman whose tight print dress seemed 
 to incase an unresisting surface, found her a rather trouble 
 some charge. She would lie for hours without stirring, 
 and then suddenly demand the most surprising things 
 a pink bow to be fastened on her nightgown in the place 
 of the blue one which already adorned it, or a book when 
 reading was forbidden her to be placed by her side. 
 The books she most demanded were her own "Cuckoo" 
 and a translated edition of the "Discourses" of Epictetus. 
 They bridged the gulf of the years as best they could, the 
 the scarlet and the scholarly cheek by jowl; and whether 
 it was the contrast that amused her or some resemblance 
 indiscernible to the layman, the nurse did not think to 
 ask. Bathing the brow from which these fancies emanated 
 was more in her line. Miss Marden had the virtue of being 
 very much interested in her profession; she regarded the 
 life, and sometimes the death, which came under her notice 
 entirely from the professional standpoint. But she took it off 
 this standpoint to a certain extent at least, when she 
 took off her print dress and went out every afternoon at four, 
 the apotheosis of the tailor-made, to see the sights and get 
 the air on the board walk. Emily looked at her then with 
 envious eyes ; she wondered the thought struggled with 
 the pain in her head why it was that those whose vocation 
 it is to care for the sick should always be so inhumanly 
 strong. They were strong physically, but the constant 
 contact with disease gave them mentally a kind of bias; 
 it was only a great one, like Dr. Jeffries, who could keep
 
 NATURE 141 
 
 his soundness perfect. It was all nonsense, the ennoble 
 ment of a ministry to the suffering ; the suffering dragged 
 their servitors down to their level, and their level was low 
 Emily hated it with the passionate hatred of one who 
 herself has trod it. She welcomed the coming of her be- 
 ruffled little maid who sat with her when Miss Harden was 
 out. 
 
 It came to Emily with a sense of shock that she was never 
 left alone. There was always some one, either the maid 
 or Miss Marden, and failing these, one of the servants of 
 the hotel. What did they think she would do? Get up 
 and clamber out of that sunny, curtained window? Her 
 imaginative curiosity had got the better of her, and she had 
 asked what was below. There was nothing below for fifty 
 feet, and then a hard gravelled path. The time was near, 
 she hoped, when she would reach the gravelled path in 
 the usual way, by the elevator; but till then she could 
 very well not bother with it. She would have to wait 
 till the carnations on the wall-paper ceased to nod their 
 heads. Miss Marden talked of that halcyon period and 
 explained, also, the complications of the rolling chair. The 
 rolling chair was an institution for which Ocean City was 
 famed; a giant baby carriage or go-cart made of wicker, 
 its especial point of beauty was its lack of unpleasant 
 invalid associations its use didn't stamp one; it was at 
 Ocean City universal. 
 
 But she was very content to let the future, with its rolling 
 chairs and its gravelled paths and its closer view of the 
 Mother of Mysteries, take care of itself. The future was 
 almost as blank as were the pads of yellow paper which 
 she would send to town for the moment Dr. Jeffries recov-
 
 142 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 ered from his prejudice against work. She realized dimly 
 that at present the doctor's prejudice might be founded on 
 common sense her brain creaked on its hinges; her 
 ideas were like garments bulging from the sides of a smashed 
 trunk, and came and went in struggle and consciousness. 
 But later the doctor's prejudice would be sheer quackery. 
 The blank yellow pads were the only things the future held 
 for her; the rest of it was all on a level with the present 
 all sky and sun and soft salt breeze, and blankness. 
 The blankness was relieved by the shadowy figure of a 
 problem the great one of money. It might mean a 
 return to Hornmouth and an acceptance of her Cousin 
 Laura's invitation to live with her. The blank yellow 
 pads were the ladder over that wall. 
 
 Mrs. Parrish had learned of her cousin's illness only 
 through the medium of her morning paper; but she had the 
 reprehensible feminine method of arriving at conclusions, 
 and her jump this time landed her at a connecting link 
 between that and her son's departure. Emily ill and Ralph 
 in Europe. She scented a climax in the phenomenon which 
 she neither condoned, approved, nor understood. An ani 
 mated broomstick an inactive spider giving what 
 strength she had to a field of endeavor which held for him 
 not the slightest interest, it would seem as though the 
 young man who would be fairly loyal for a period of years 
 must have an ulterior motive. Mrs. Parrish's New England 
 morality toyed with that ; but it had its ramifications, 
 this morality, and she joined her son in his dislike of the 
 implication of wedding-cake. 
 
 She was spending the winter months with some friends 
 in Boston; and when the news of Emily's condition had
 
 NATURE 143 
 
 reached her, her conscience, which, like her morality, had 
 its ramifications, put her aboard the first train for New 
 York. There had been nothing for her to do, however; 
 she found the apartment in the late thirties teeming with 
 doctors and nurses, and in their midst a guarded, darkened 
 room. By her right of relationship a package of letters 
 had been intrusted to her charge; she was to do with them 
 as she thought best read them keep them destroy 
 them. She had used her judgment; but there was one 
 over the disposition of which her judgment had retired, 
 defeated. Her conscience had its ramifications, and the 
 letter whose superscription bore her son's handwriting she 
 had infamously bribed the beruffled maid to take to Emily. 
 It was against all rules and all precedents. In doing so she 
 had endangered her own as well as her cousin's life. It 
 was the sort of thing that one might expect of a gambler, 
 but hardly of the first lady of Hornmouth. But the first 
 lady of Hornmouth came at it by way of her conscience, 
 with perhaps a touch of that venturesome spirit with which 
 her ancestors had embarked for a new world on the over 
 crowded Mayflower. 
 
 ii 
 
 As Miss Harden entered the room, Emily thrust some 
 thing out of sight among the closed pages of Epictetus; 
 but the action had been too wavering to escape that argus- 
 eyed young woman's notice. She came over to the side of 
 the bed. "You know you mustn't write." 
 
 "I wasn't writing." 
 
 "You mustn't read, either." She turned to the beruffled 
 maid. "You may go now; I'll stay with Miss Stedman
 
 144 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 till dinner." She waited for the maid to leave. "Just 
 think what Dr. Jeffries would say if he knew you were dis 
 obeying orders! What would he think of me? You see 
 how it places me ! I'm here to get you well, and if I don't . . . 
 Why, I was thinking only yesterday that I would let you 
 lie on the sofa for an hour ; but if you disobey the doctor's 
 orders, you won't be strong enough ! Oh, well, we'll say 
 no more about it." 
 
 Emily was unexpected. "I'm not sure that I want to 
 say no more about it." 
 
 Miss Harden waited, slowly smoothing the crisp folds of 
 her dress. 
 
 Emily watched her. " I was reading a letter a letter 
 from my cousin." 
 
 "But you're not supposed to receive letters." 
 
 "I received this one before I left town." 
 
 "Through what means?" 
 
 "Through his mother. My cousin's mother "she 
 answered Miss Marden's stare. 
 
 The stare crystallized to hardness. "That was scarcely 
 the thing for her to have done." 
 
 "Pass in a forbidden communication across the lines? 
 I suppose not ; but my cousin's mother is a very remark 
 able woman." 
 
 "You're speaking of the cousin who's in Europe?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I've heard you mention him." Miss Marden put out 
 her hand. " Don't you think that I better take his letter 
 and keep it for you till you're strong enough to have 
 it?" 
 
 "What do you think's in it?"
 
 NATURE 145 
 
 "Why, I haven't the slightest idea! Come let me 
 put it away." 
 
 The closed pages of Epictetus were held firm. "Ah, no, 
 I won't let you put it away; but wouldn't you like me to 
 read it to you?" 
 
 Miss Harden allowed the strangeness of her patient's 
 offer to sink into her mind. It was repeated, "Wouldn't 
 you?" 
 
 " If you care to if you'll then let me put it away " 
 
 " I'll then let you tear it up ! I've finished with it. You 
 see you found it out too late. I know its disturbing con 
 tents through and through." 
 
 "I should think you would!" The pages of Epictetus 
 had given up their treasure and Miss Marden held aloft a 
 paper as worn and as crumpled as the one presented to 
 Emily by the elevator boy on the eve of her illness. 
 
 " There. Now, if you'll bring over a chair and sit down ! 
 Suppose that you read it to me." 
 
 "You're sure you wish it?" 
 
 " Quite sure. Now begin." 
 
 Miss Marden read through with unction the elaboration 
 of the steamship letter-head; she read the date, felt in her 
 hand the thin foreign paper, and then turned to Emily half 
 apologetically. "It begins, 'My own dearest Emmy' " 
 
 " I know how it begins. Goon." 
 
 "As you say 
 
 " ' MY OWN DEAREST EMMY : If you will be out when I 
 call you up, how am I to see you? How, rather, am I 
 to hear your sharp little voice at the other end of the wire, 
 and how are you to hear mine ? I am off you'll never
 
 146 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 guess to Europe. Furs, furs, furs. I'll bring you a 
 collar to prove that I'm speaking the truth and to match 
 your big muff. This isn't a bribe like the presents which 
 the husbands in the farces give their wives when they've 
 come home late. Besides, I shall be back before you know 
 I'm gone. My going's not a matter of my own choosing; 
 but I need hardly tell you that. To stay at home and 
 worship at your little feet even to eat your wedding-cake 
 would any man in his senses leave ? 
 
 " 'Write me at the Paris branch; I shall be there most of 
 the time. This must go by the pilot. 
 
 " ' Ever your cousin, 
 "'R. L. P. 
 
 " ' Here I throw my reputation to the four winds of heaven 
 and write ten crosses at the bottom of the page with the 
 usual significance of crosses. You see, with so many miles 
 of blue water between, you can't object. The advantage 
 is unfair.'" 
 
 There was a silence broken only by the sharp bank-note 
 crackle of the letter which Miss Marden folded and refolded. 
 It wasn't until she had finished her self-appointed task that 
 she asked the question uppermost in her mind, "When 
 are you to be married?" 
 
 "I'm not engaged." 
 
 "Oh." 
 
 " I suppose you think that makes it still queerer that I had 
 you read my cousin's letter." 
 
 "Why, not at all." Miss Marden had seen queerer things 
 than that. " It's pleasant to feel that you have a devoted
 
 NATURE 147 
 
 young man even if you're not engaged to him, and your 
 having me read his letter is a way of telling me all about it." 
 
 "I suppose it seems queer to you that I should have a 
 young man?" 
 
 " Why, not at all. But don't you think that you better 
 try to sleep?" 
 
 " I'm not sleepy. Give me the letter." Emily took it 
 and tore it with surprising strength into small pieces. " It's 
 not the kind of thing that if I die I should like left behind 
 me," she explained her action. 
 
 "But you're not going to die !" 
 
 " Not now of course but some day when I've done 
 all the things I've planned." 
 
 "Won't you try to sleep?" 
 
 Emily gathered up the torn bits of paper into the palm 
 of her hand, picking them from the slippery silk surface of 
 the bedquilt. " It's plain how much in love with me he is, 
 and how he hated leaving." She brought out the lie 
 bravely; it was a lie that Ralph Parrish would have had 
 her take for truth, but it was too late. She remembered 
 one thing vividly, like the screech of a whistle in the midst 
 of a fog, the voice of the person in authority at the firm 
 of wholesale fur dealers telling her that Mr. Parrish had 
 offered to go. Emily could have stood anything but that. 
 The torn bits of paper in her hand were so much evidence 
 of his hypocrisy. Her own almost equalled it, however, 
 as she turned to Miss Marden her bright, light eyes. "If 
 he had his way, I should be in a position always to accom 
 pany him on his fur-dealing journeys." 
 
 "That you're not going to be married isn't his fault? 
 Well, that's very nice."
 
 148 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 Emily had buried her face in her pillow ; and Miss Mar- 
 den, after a moment's staring out into the rapidly increasing 
 dusk, drew the shades and turned on the most distant and 
 most protected light. She sat down, presenting to Emily's 
 tear-blurred vision a neat striped gingham back, and 
 brought forth from her deep pocket a little bag of sewing. 
 She was soon deftly at work upon a garment so minute that 
 it would seem to the inexperienced eye quite useless. It 
 was to add to the comfort and happiness of a newly arrived 
 niece a niece whose position as the fifth child of a not 
 too affluent father made additions to her wardrobe most 
 welcome. 
 
 m 
 
 Emily was in the smooth state of convalescence, not well 
 enough to be irritable, but quite well enough to be immensely 
 pleased at being brought back to life. She took, in fact, 
 an almost morbid interest in her fellow-creatures. She 
 sat about for whole days in the parlors of the big hotel, 
 with the inevitable novel and the inevitable light wrap, 
 and it was a choice between her fellow-creatures and the 
 Mother of Mysteries. The Mother of Mysteries alternately 
 roared and purred. Emily wasn't yet quite strong enough 
 to like her seeing her, as she did, for the first time. Her 
 gaze turned inward, toward her fellow-creatures; and they, 
 scattered at random, a sparse dozen occupants of the sun 
 parlor's two hundred and fifty cushioned wicker chairs, 
 were mostly an unedifying spectacle. Women, with here 
 and there what Mr. Meredith calls ' a certain limp order of 
 men'; and children, pathetic and thin-legged, who, wrapped 
 and muffled beyond all semblance of humanity, played in
 
 NATUKE 149 
 
 the health-giving sand : these were the inhabitants of Ocean 
 City, the fellow-creatures that were given Emily to interest 
 herself in. 
 
 But many people in a small place are nothing in point of 
 constant contact to few people in a large place. The sparse 
 dozen occupants of two hundred and fifty chairs day by 
 day close in their ranks. Otherwise their sense of isolation 
 turns more and more to a sense of impending doom. They 
 feel like the early comers at the theatre, and the great blank 
 curtain and the patches of empty seats are the repeated first 
 note of the dramatic suspense. Ocean City in midwinter, 
 with its long, clean stretches of emptiness, its bright, hard 
 sunlight, its wonderfully successful escape from the odor 
 of carbolic, was a great machine prepared to take care 
 as hotel men say of thousands, and in February the 
 thousands had not yet arrived. There were other elements 
 besides the sea which seemed harnessed to the uses of 
 civilization; and civilization had gone farther than that; 
 had, for once, gone beyond human need. Nothing had 
 ever before been so swept and garnished to the point of being 
 positively cleared for action. And then action was the one 
 thing forbidden. 
 
 That is the corner-stone of Ocean City's success the 
 preparation for action denied. It creates energy and then 
 stores it away; the pressure of strength becomes higher and 
 higher. It's the place beyond all others this much-per 
 fected civilization in which to become a vegetable ; the 
 place in which that difficult process stands most robbed 
 of its difficulties. 
 
 But for Emily this didn't entirely hold good. She had 
 resources within herself. Day by day, with her returning
 
 150 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 strength and her stiffening fibre, her gaze turned more and 
 more inward till even her fellow-creatures were left far 
 without. They seemed to do nothing but sort over their 
 various ragbags of ailments, and Emily's own was so very 
 much fuller that she didn't consider theirs worthy of a 
 single inquiring finger. But ailments were, at their most 
 numerous, stupid; and Emily's inward gaze was directed 
 rather at those parts of her make-up which were unimpaired. 
 So far she admitted that she'd made a mess of it ; but there 
 was always the future. On the title-page of the "Dis 
 courses " of Epictetus was a translated quotation from 
 Marcus Aurelius : " Consider thyself to be dead and to have 
 completed thy life up to the present time ; and live accord 
 ing to Nature the remainder which is allowed thee." 
 
 If one excepts the usual modern association of the word 
 'nature,' that was after all the lesson she had learned. 
 She knew that in her own way she had had Ralph Parrish ; 
 and now, in spite of a million 'Dearest Emmys' and ten 
 million crosses, she knew that she had lost him. She had 
 never before realized how much her possession of him had 
 been a part of herself. Now that part was necessarily dead. 
 It had been buried decently and with ceremony during 
 the weeks which she had spent upon her back, propped up 
 with pillows. She could look upon its grave with coldness, 
 and her enervated fancy even summoned to it a certain 
 mild disgust. Her disgust was more for what might have 
 been than for what had actually occurred. There had 
 occurred so very little. It would formerly have been char 
 acteristic of her to have regretted that. But now, with her 
 new exaggerated sense of moral values, she was glad that the 
 grave covered so few rotting bones. Graves of that sort
 
 NATURE 151 
 
 were usually well filled. But it was a sort that few people, 
 looking at the pale little woman with the hollows under the 
 eyes and the drawn formation about the mouth, would have 
 suspected her of possessing at all. She was hardly the type 
 of the unhappy heroine of romance. Those late bugbears 
 the spinster look, the invalid's shawl, the stiff-starched 
 clothes were discovered to have virtues. She would have 
 liked to procure the rope shirt which had once been 
 little David Barlow's ideal of a garment. She had blindly, 
 and without being able exactly to track it down, the desire 
 to immolate herself upon a sacrificial altar, the instinct to 
 purge herself of her imaginary sins. And it wasn't because 
 she believed in a hereafter and eternal damnation. The 
 pendulum had swung, and she was clinging to it as firmly 
 as when it had been at the opposite side of the clock. As 
 she looked across at this opposite side, the decent burial and 
 the newly made grave didn't seem to her a sufficient barrier. 
 It was the kind of soul climax which in Catholic countries 
 fills the convents. 
 
 The large, dim interior of a church, with incense and 
 candles and the organ loud and low in the midst of the quiet, 
 and the robed figures of priests whose seeming smallness 
 made significant the insignificance of man in the presence 
 of the Infinite even that palliation was outside her grasp. 
 She had the misfortune to have been brought up in an at 
 mosphere of science, in the distant worship of an abstract 
 moral ideal, when an ideal so concrete as to verge on 
 imagery would have suited her best. The strain of bar 
 barism which her cousin had been clever enough to decipher 
 would only have had to be carried a little farther, and she 
 would have found nothing unsuitable hi the exorcising of
 
 152 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 the evil spirit by the beating of tom-toms. As it was, she 
 would have felt securer in some manner of protected and 
 sanctified ground. The abstract ideal left her cold. The 
 egotist's God is within himself, and with her the greater 
 part of that was buried. She was left as religionless as she 
 was rudderless. She felt very strongly that she had yet 
 to find herself, and at her age she felt that it was time. 
 Even her faith in the future tottered. It wasn't so all be 
 fore her as she had supposed. What guarantee had she 
 that that ' remainder which was allowed her ' would be any 
 less wasted than what had gone before? Wasted 
 she used the word with all the emphasis, all the fluency, 
 which had formerly gone to the service of "Mrs. Dallow- 
 field." 
 
 She had suddenly, in the very different surroundings of 
 the hotel sun parlor, the sharp recollection of a small, shabby 
 room with a table laid with a white cloth and roses and a 
 student's lamp. She remembered the reddish amber color 
 of the mixture in the cut-glass pitcher, and the green leaves 
 floating through it like the fishes seen through the glass 
 sides of an aquarium. When Dr. Guthrie filled his tumbler, 
 they came out like fishes over a waterfall. Dr. Guthrie, 
 she remembered, had filled his tumbler uncommonly often. 
 He drank her health the festivity had been in honor of 
 her fifteenth birthday and the health of the college year, 
 then drawing to a close. Dr. Guthrie's speech had been 
 the climax of the occasion : " When the day comes for us 
 to answer to our good Lord for the use we have made of 
 our sojourn upon this earth, we may say we may say, 
 that for us this earth has been merely as the winding pattern 
 of a Persian carpet for us nature has been but so much
 
 NATURE 153 
 
 material for our thought. We have wasted our 'lives in 
 the pursuit of unpursuable things " 
 
 It came back to her with sufficient clearness, the impres 
 sion that phrase had made upon her. It was surely not in 
 pursuit of unpursuable things that her own life had been 
 wasted in pursuit, rather, of what Dr. Guthrie had called 
 the damnably normal. And the damnably normal hadn't 
 been with her a success. 
 
 The apartment in the late thirties, which was like nothing 
 so much as the inside of a milliner's bonnet box, typified 
 to her the thing which another turn in the road might have 
 made wholly hers. Fate had thrust her out of the way of 
 the engine, but its hot passing breath was still in her face. 
 The thing she had missed was the damnably normal; for 
 her it was that which had proved unpursuable. She 
 remembered the boy Ralph sitting beside her, big and blond 
 and silent, slowly consuming his second portion of her 
 birthday cake not wedding-cake, this time, but wonder 
 fully like it in construction. She supposed that he was a 
 part of the nature to which the learned doctor referred. 
 
 She had once called the big room at Hornmouth a desert 
 swept by a cyclone. It had been quite as impersonal 
 quite as abstract as that. As abstract as the immortal 
 mind of R. H. Stedman and the secrets of the less immortal 
 body which were so bound up with it that even when R. H. 
 Stedman died and the metal tables and the pink masses in 
 the glass jars were taken away, the room still held its former 
 suggestion. That had been the second rising of the curtain, 
 the period of "The Cuckoo," the tireless struggle to escape, 
 like the struggle of an animal caught in a trap. Then came 
 the late thirties, with celebrity and Ralph Parrish and
 
 154 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "Mrs. Dallowfield." In looking back, "Mrs. Dallowfield" 
 occupied an unfairly inconspicuous place in the procession. 
 "Mrs. Dallowfield " was the fine unfinished flower of genius, 
 the glow from the living coal. It was "Mrs. Dallowfield" 
 who consecrated the apartment in the late thirties, conse 
 crated it as she consecrated Emily's possession of Ralph 
 Parrish, that part of herself whose fresh-made grave she 
 could regard so dispassionately. It was the danger of 
 graves, the things which might be accidentally buried in 
 them. Emily's genius was in its very nature elusive it 
 might have slipped in along with the falling earth. That 
 part of herself concerned with the possession of Ralph 
 Parrish was so awkwardly mixed with "Mrs. Dallowfield," 
 and "Mrs. Dallowfield" was the genius. 
 
 But 'the remainder which was allowed her' was to be 
 consecrated in a new way. This was the new act again 
 the theatrical metaphor the new rise of the curtain. 
 Emily looked about at the empty chairs. The act had 
 evidently not yet begun. It had a setting as impersonal 
 as abstract as the big room at Hornmouth. This was 
 in its favor, for the late thirties had been a triumph of the 
 personal, the concrete. Her little apartment had been called 
 'bijou' until the decorated walls must have rung with the 
 adjective 'the bijou expression of her own bijou person 
 ality/ And then the generously proportioned Ralph had 
 pulled this intensely bijou habitation down about his ears. 
 She would never go back there. 
 
 Far better than that was this polished, swept expanse, 
 with the empty chairs and the sense of blankness. In one 
 corner there were a pertinent number of ladies playing 
 bridge. They did nothing to disturb the quiet; they
 
 NATURE 155 
 
 barely moved a muscle of their dull, white faces, and their 
 speech hushed and spasmodic sounded remarkably 
 unlike human intercourse. As Emily watched them she 
 wondered if it was the real end and aim of this highly 
 perfected civilization that dull, white-faced ladies should 
 play bridge undisturbed and another, who didn't play 
 bridge, should repair ravages done to a system hardly 
 worth repairing. Perhaps the coming crowds were a pleas 
 ant fiction, a fairy story which the owners of this marvel 
 lous place amused themselves by telling. The owners were 
 probably a dignified group, whose fortunes were already 
 made, and Ocean City was a harmless fad of their declining 
 years as some men have greenhouses or model farms. 
 Usually, however, the owners of such places spend a good 
 deal of their time in them ; and in February, save for flurries 
 of week-end activity, Ocean City was singularly free from 
 the presence of the uninjured male. The injured were there, 
 a limp little handful, who evinced a tendency to hide away 
 from the possible sight of their more fortunate fellows. 
 Occasionally a plaided cap and a steamer rug might be seen 
 in the sunny recess of a piazza, and in passing the stair 
 which led down to the billiard room, there might sometimes 
 be distinguished the sharp click of ivory. 
 
 Emily, far from objecting to this lack of masculine 
 society, rather rejoiced in it. She shouldn't much care if 
 the glimpse of plaided cap and steamer rug was as near as 
 the opposite sex should ever again be to her. And men, 
 shorn of their strength, never seemed quite like men to her ; 
 her ideal of manhood was so bound up with her ideal of 
 Ralph Parrish, and he shorn of his strength one's 
 wildest imagination couldn't compass it. The plaided
 
 156 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 cap and the steamer rug were symbols of limpness and 
 injury ; in fact, it was presupposed that any man coming to 
 Ocean City in February for a protracted stay, branded him 
 self as a non-combatant one of the wounded carried in 
 the carts on a march, thrown in haphazard among the 
 impedimenta. 
 
 There was a climax in the game of bridge. The players' 
 voices rose to a compelling pitch, and Emily turned her 
 head. As she did so her attention was caught by a figure 
 whose chief claim to it was that it appeared to have arisen 
 out of nothingness. She could have given her oath that a 
 moment ago there had been no one there. She had been 
 looking at the bridge players and thinking of them, and then 
 her eyes and thoughts had wandered, or become more 
 concentrated, and now there it was, halfway between 
 herself and the card-table, directly in her line of vision 
 the seated figure of a young man reading a newspaper. 
 
 His back was towards her and his bent head was turned 
 away ; but in spite of this, the thing after the mystery of 
 his presence which most struck her was his utter lack 
 of anything approaching limpness. He gave, for all his 
 stillness, an impression of extreme alertness, and the two 
 attributes were not generally so markedly combined. Emily 
 experienced the same slight shock with which she might 
 have come face to face, around a corner, with a more than 
 ordinarily lifelike group of waxworks. The uncanny 
 stillness and the uncanny alertness and the distinctness so 
 defined as to suggest brittleness, the edges of his coat, she 
 noticed, were very sharp and dark in the morning sunlight, 
 the idea, unmistakably conveyed, of an exceedingly 
 clever marionette : all these phenomena were of a character
 
 NATURE 157 
 
 to hold the attention which the apparent suddenness of 
 the young man's arrival had originally caught. Emily 
 stared at him much as she had previously stared at the 
 bridge-playing ladies. Her curiosity never dormant 
 was aroused ; her interest in her fellow-creatures expanded 
 to include him. She felt sorry for him in spite of his alert 
 ness ; he was so sharp and fine, and from the thinness and 
 whiteness of the hand which was visible to her, he might 
 have been as ill as the limp gentlemen in the plaided caps. 
 It was just his little inhuman quality, which was probably 
 his way of being limp, that added to his intensely dramatic 
 effect. He might have lately passed through the forging, 
 tempering fires of the nether world, been moulded and 
 chiselled and set upon the stage as a puppet, the labor pf 
 whose making mounted to extravagance. 
 
 Emily was sorry for him, and she found herself wondering 
 what, if his back were so exceptional, must be that side 
 of him which with cleverly managed puppets is generally 
 most shown to the audience. As if in answer to her thought, 
 he folded his newspaper and rose, turning uncertainly. 
 She got straight to her feet. 
 
 "Why, Mr. Barlow! "
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 L'IMAGINATION SENTIMENTALE 
 
 "Do you suppose they're real?" 
 
 "I don't know, I'm sure; but if they are, and you want 
 them, it's an opportunity not to be missed." 
 
 "You know, real ones real moccasins are the most 
 comfortable things in the world." 
 
 David Barlow and Emily were lingering in front of a gayly 
 decked booth purporting to contain the handiwork of a 
 savage race. There were other booths the whole walk 
 was bordered with them but they mostly, at that season, 
 presented an unattractively blank exterior ; they were nailed 
 up as tightly as miniature arks, as tightly as though they 
 were about to be launched in the ocean which spread out 
 before them some twenty yards away. These booths were 
 generally for rent or for sale, and there showed through their 
 freshly painted surfaces a veiled hint of past owners 
 past occupations. It was only occasionally that one was 
 found ready for the stray early worm ; and it seemed as if 
 even these had arisen at the summons of a false dawn at 
 the summons of the famous Ocean City air, which carried 
 with it such a sense of the coming spring. The booth where 
 the savage trinkets were displayed was the most thoroughly 
 awake of any. Its proprietor, the trace in whose blood 
 
 158
 
 L'lM AGINATION SENTIMENT ALE 159 
 
 was well emphasized by costume, eyed the occasional passer 
 with an unflagging energy. When he found two people who 
 bade fair to purchase some of his most expensive wares, it 
 was an occasion to bring forth the exercise of all his skill. 
 His price might rise, but not to a prohibitive height; the 
 correct gauging of what would just fall short of it was a bit 
 of clairvoyance not to be despised. 
 
 " Ver' fine, ver' fine. Me sell many." 
 
 His hawkish eye was passing in rapid review from the 
 overcoat in the pockets of which David Barlow had thrust 
 his gloved hands, to the neat, strong shoes that incased that 
 young man's neat, strong feet. Yes, he might be rich; he 
 presented to the world such an unrumpled surface 
 though this, after all, might be a quality inherent within him; 
 and the proprietor was accustomed to young men, who, if 
 they were rich, displayed it more unmistakably. And the 
 lady one could tell a great deal by the lady was of an 
 inconspicuousness which verged on the insignificant. On 
 the whole, no David Barlow was adjudged not rich. 
 The price named was little more than fair. 
 
 "I'll take one pair," said the lady, and it was strangely 
 she who brought out her purse. 
 
 "Oh, come ! This is my party " 
 
 "Indeed, no." 
 
 "But indeed, yes." 
 
 "I saw them in the first place I stopped it is I that 
 shall wear them." 
 
 " It would offend you if I insisted ? " 
 
 "Almost that." 
 
 "Then I can't see but that I must sink my own wishes. 
 But you surely won't mind if I also buy moccasins ?"
 
 160 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "For yourself?" 
 
 "No, for some friends who as they aren't here can't 
 very well be so scrupulous." He turned to the proprietor. 
 "I'll take two pairs, and of a larger size." 
 
 The hawk eye gleamed. Its error was proved by this 
 further prodigality of buying, but it might yet be retrieved. 
 "The larger size they cost more." 
 
 Gleam unexpectedly met gleam. "Oh, no, they don't !" 
 
 "They cost more." 
 
 "When you gave the price, no size was stipulated." 
 Barlow set down his money upon the counter. His gesture 
 was final. "Take it or not as you please " And then 
 to Emily "I dislike being cheated." 
 
 Emily presently returned to her former contention. 
 "You understand how it is about the moccasins? You 
 see it's very different, you're getting them to give to friends 
 who aren't here ; but if I'd let you pay for mine, I should feel 
 them on my conscience as well as on my feet every time I 
 wore them. It's the principle of the thing, as it was the 
 principle not the actual fifty cents that mattered to 
 you now about the price of the larger size." 
 
 David was carrying them under his arm wrapped in two 
 separate packages. He laughed. "You're the most con 
 scientious person I've ever seen ; but, believe me, I do under 
 stand your point ! To be really frank, isn't it partly their 
 being moccasins, which are nothing more or less than bed 
 room slippers, that would make my presenting them to you 
 a too intimate privilege, a kind of liberty?" 
 
 "In a sense, yes. But you see that doesn't explain my 
 full approval of your getting them to present to friends 
 who aren't here."
 
 I/IMAGINATION SENTIMENTALE 161 
 
 David smiled. "Well, that would hardly be your affair, 
 would it ? It doesn't somehow touch you so closely. And 
 besides, they wouldn't be apt to pay me for them after I had 
 brought them to them as a gift. That would be a shade of 
 conduct too fine-spun even for you." 
 
 "No, my conscientiousness doesn't extend to that. I'm 
 afraid you think me prudish, but I assure you I'm not. 
 I could even see the view of some one who didn't agree with 
 me at all. For them, their view might be equally right, and 
 I shouldn't think any the less of them for it." 
 
 "For them their view is right." 
 
 Emily looked up. "When you say 'them' ?" 
 
 "To whom do I refer? Why, to the people whose view 
 you said you were broad enough to see those whose 
 conscientiousness hasn't had an awakening." 
 
 "It's a question," said Emily, "which every woman has to 
 answer for herself." 
 
 "The question of being presented with moccasins?" 
 
 "Yes, practically that. But I suppose you think it 
 absurd that a little old maid of a hundred years old should 
 make such a fuss about it." 
 
 David was thinking of something else, for his reply was 
 hardly gallant. He reached a familiar conclusion "It's 
 age that counts. After a certain age those things are re 
 garded differently. One has a larger liberty. Now you 
 wouldn't expect a woman of forty-five " 
 
 "But, my dear young [man, I'm not forty-five! I'm 
 not even thirty-five " 
 
 "Ah you misunderstood me grossly ! Did I ever say 
 you were?" 
 
 Something in his manner and in the tone of his voice
 
 162 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 made her look at him harder than was her habit, and the 
 result of her investigation seemed to be shown by her next 
 words, "You're almost as tired as I." 
 
 "I, tired? Never." 
 
 "It's like you to deny it, and to swear solemnly that 
 you're not here to rest, but for the pure joy of it. But you 
 know one doesn't come here for the pure joy of it; you are 
 tired terribly tired, and I'm afraid I've walked you off 
 your feet." 
 
 " What a liar you make me out ! And isn't it I who have 
 walked you off yours?" 
 
 "Shall we return to the days of our infancy?" 
 
 "And get ourselves wheeled back? I think that for me 
 that would be rather ignominious; but for you " David 
 broke in upon the revery of a negro chairman who was dis 
 consolately gazing out to sea. "You're not engaged?" 
 Upon receiving the desired answer, he gave the name of their 
 hotel. 
 
 Emily, as she was helped into her promptly gotten con 
 veyance, tucked in and bundled up, had a sense of having 
 been skilfully diverted from her object. There had been 
 something which she had been about to say, something 
 which her thoughts were on the point of leading her to, 
 and now for the life of her she couldn't think what it was. 
 She was inclined to the opinion that David Barlow was a 
 remarkable young man. He was really in no need of pity 
 in fact, he seemed rather startlingly capable of taking care of 
 himself. His acuteness had quite escaped her in New York ; 
 he had been so worn and so white, with his restless eyes and 
 the suggestion of pain which he always had about him so 
 carried along by the swift current of some invisible exigency.
 
 I/IMAGINATION SENTIMENTALE 163 
 
 But now he was like a man who rode it gallantly, steering his 
 well-riveted craft and raising aloft as a protection from the 
 elements all his shields inhuman acute alert. 
 
 He was bent on making himself agreeable. His atten 
 tions shouldn't end with a care for Miss Stedman's physical 
 welfare. As he walked by her side he chatted gayly, draw 
 ing her notice from one to another of the sights and sounds 
 about them in a manner that showed him at once amusing 
 and observant. " One has it to one's self now, but at Easter 
 have you ever been here then ? why, it's a swarming 
 mass." She would have known that he objected to a swarm 
 ing mass. " Do you know," he went on, "what I call it in 
 this country? Not the Great Unwashed, but the Great 
 Newly Washed. On all sides are signs of recent scrubbing, 
 recent brushing, recent powdering. Think of their an 
 cestors!" 
 
 "They don't suggest ancestors." 
 
 " Hardly. Though I'm sure I haven't the least right to 
 be snobbish about it." 
 
 " But you have a father " 
 
 " Yes, a great one and a mother. Don't forget her. 
 And I have two married sisters ; but they're not ancestors, 
 are they ? Not even a collateral branch." 
 
 "But they will be to your descendants." 
 
 "Oh, my descendants! It's more likely," said David, 
 "that I'll be to theirs. But we're becoming mixed. 
 Genealogy is evidently not our strong point. We both have 
 fathers, yours was an even greater man than mine, and 
 you've been cleverer than I, for you've managed to shine for 
 yourself in the midst of your father's light." 
 
 " I should call it shining quite outside it, but go on."
 
 164 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "They do illuminate a different area 'The Cuckoo' and 
 'The History of Modern Physiology'; but I should think 
 that if anything, 'The Cuckoo' illuminated the larger." 
 
 "But with my father it wasn't only the 'History' 
 think what he himself contributed to that history the 
 extraordinary discoveries that he himself made " 
 
 "And you have made none? 'The Cuckoo' isn't based 
 on your own direct investigations?" 
 
 " If I were not a hundred years old, you'd be exceedingly 
 impertinent." 
 
 David Barlow laughed. "Oh, if you're a hundred, I'm 
 a hundred and fifty ! " 
 
 " Do you know, I believe you are ! " 
 
 This conception of his age was one which he seemed wholly 
 to accept. To Emily his youth was always patent; it 
 colored his other characteristics and completed them; it was 
 constantly reminding her that her own youth was a thing 
 of the past, and that however white and worn David Barlow 
 might be, he nevertheless still had his chance. But he 
 took quite another view. It seemed that he had started 
 out with a very definitely planned career, and then it had 
 been cut short at its inception by circumstances unforeseen 
 which had kept him on the other side and prevented him from 
 finishing his term at Law School. She remembered having 
 heard something of the kind from his father, but it wasn't 
 yet clear to her why he couldn't now go on where he had 
 left off. 
 
 He had thought of that, he told her one morning as they 
 sat together in the great sun parlor, united by their mutual 
 lack of knowledge of bridge he had thought of that, 
 but his plans were unsettled. He might return to college in
 
 L'lM AGINATION SENTIMENTALE 165 
 
 the autumn, and he might go to Paris the French were a 
 wonderful people wonderful. It was the difficulty of 
 Barley Buns, that they removed the actual necessity for 
 labor, and unless a man had a pretty definite aim why, 
 Miss Stedman must surely see the tree it put him up. 
 
 " You look forward to a life of idleness ?" 
 
 " I don't look forward. I'm unsettled. A man needn't 
 believe in his life, you know, but he has to believe in his 
 work. And my belief in mine has gone. I may get it 
 back I don't know I may find something else. There 
 are many things fine things open to a rich man's son. 
 There are social reforms and charities, and always the im 
 mense political field." 
 
 " You bar the making of more Barley Buns ?" 
 
 " That seems hardly worth while, does it, when there are 
 already so many?" 
 
 "Perhaps not." 
 
 "And then," said David, "it's an abuse of the gifts the 
 gods have given you, to make Barley Buns when all these 
 other things are open to you." 
 
 "But if you let them also go by the board, is that not, 
 equally, an abuse?" 
 
 "Oh, but I shan't! I'm not settled yet I haven't 
 decided. The law with me was always only to be a stepping- 
 stone to politics. It's the personal power in politics that 
 used to appeal to me. It doesn't now." He spoke with 
 surety "I don't seem to care. I would be content if I 
 had control of myself." 
 
 Emily had difficulty in exactly following him. "And 
 haven't you?" 
 
 "I don't know. Sometimes I think I have, and some 
 times "
 
 166 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "Sometimes don't think so much about it !" 
 
 She seemed very much in earnest, and he didn't at once 
 answer her. "But if I don't think about it, how am I to 
 know?" 
 
 "The people who have most control of themselves are 
 usually the ones who don't know consciously. And they 
 are the great forces of the world. They're so tremen 
 dously occupied that they haven't time to bother. There 
 may be certain finenesses that they miss; and some of 
 them are occupied with good and some with evil ; but they 
 are the great forces. All this idle speculation " His 
 preceptor indicated just how idle she thought it. 
 
 "What would you have me do ?" 
 
 "Go on with your work, even if at the moment you don't 
 entirely believe in it." 
 
 "Ah you do think me worthless ! But I can't go on 
 with my work. I don't think I've told you that I'm expect 
 ing some friends here. They arrive next week, Monday, the 
 ninth of March. And if I went on with my work, I should 
 have to leave, which I'm afraid would upset their plans." 
 
 "And aren't your own plans more important?" 
 
 "There was a time when I thought so." 
 
 n 
 
 David Barlow brought it out so simply that it hardly 
 seemed a confession. His realization of its true nature, and 
 consequent flood of embarrassment, came later when he 
 caught the expression in his companion's face an enlight 
 enment like the clearing away of a fog. 
 
 "That's true friendship," she said, "sacrificing your own
 
 I/IMAGINATION SENTIMENTALE 167 
 
 convenience to the convenience of others. I hope your 
 friends appreciate it." 
 
 "Oh, I'm sure they do. Mrs. Dench, especially, isn't 
 apt to let anything escape her observation." 
 
 "And Mr. Dench?" 
 
 " There is no Mr. Dench. He's dead. The family 
 consists of Mrs. Dench and her daughter. When they 
 come, you'll surely still be here, won't you ? I want you to 
 meet them; they're exceedingly clever, and you're sure to be 
 congenial." 
 
 "Is the daughter very young?" Emily asked. 
 
 "Well, no, she's five-feet-nine." 
 
 "Quite grown up!" 
 
 "Oh, quite ! By which I don't mean that she's what is 
 known as ' advanced.' On the contrary, she's very quiet." 
 
 "And they're coming here next week Are they 
 Americans ? " Emily couldn't have told why she thought 
 they were anything else. 
 
 " At heart and by birth, yes. But they've lived in Europe 
 so long in fact, Jane was born there that I'm afraid at 
 first they'll feel a little lost." 
 
 " I promise you I'll do my best to make them find them 
 selves." 
 
 " Oh, if you would I couldn't imagine anything nicer !" 
 David's thanks showed him almost too grateful. But that 
 he was aware of this came out in his very next sentence: 
 " Not that they need a guide they're exceptionally ac 
 customed to looking after their own needs. Wherever they 
 happen to be, they make it seem in a day as though they'd 
 lived there always. Mrs. Dench arranges things ! I 
 think it was in Budapest that she took some hideous little
 
 168 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 rooms in a hideous little hotel, and at the end of an hour, 
 why, you would never have known them." 
 
 " The hotel or the rooms ? " 
 
 "Both, really; the foyer was so crowded with waiting 
 celebrities, and the rooms they looked like a royal suite ! 
 Mr. Bench," David explained, "was in the diplomatic 
 service." 
 
 " I suppose he became very famous, and now his family 
 are reaping the fruits of his fame. For the daughter it's an 
 other case of famous father." 
 
 "I should say it was more a case of famous mother. 
 Ask the Princess Karina she adores her." 
 
 "Adoring her seems the fashion. And what is it I 
 feel that I can ask you because you've already told me so 
 much what is it especially about her ? Simply great 
 charm or great intellect or what?" 
 
 " You'll really have to see her for yourself." 
 
 "It's her beauty" 
 
 "Oh, no, it's Jane that's beautiful." 
 
 " Then it's as the mother of beauty ? But you said it 
 was a case of famous mother." 
 
 " Yes, it's she she herself. You'll have to see her and 
 to know her. I first did so in the Mediterranean, near the 
 island of Cyprus." 
 
 "A Venus Anadyomene? " 
 
 "Yes yes that's it! Venus arisen from the sea. 
 She was on a celebrity's yacht." 
 
 "I should think that a yacht would be the only method of 
 really enjoying the Mediterranean " From David's slight 
 self-consciousness Emily recognized the method as his. He 
 had surely found Barley Buns as lucrative as she had found
 
 L'lM AGINATION SENTIMENTALE 169 
 
 them indigestible. "But you see it's only wonderful beings 
 like the Benches who have at their beck and call all the 
 luxuries " 
 
 David cut her short. "I was afraid you were getting 
 that impression." 
 
 "What impression?" 
 
 "You know very well the impression I mean; and it's 
 emphatically wrong emphatically not so." 
 
 Emily laughed. "My dear young man, there's no need 
 of being so emphatic about it !" 
 
 There was a pause heavy laden. Emily wasn't sure, 
 after all, that little David Bariow was so capable of taking 
 care of himself as she had thought. His cleverness his 
 alertness had deserted him. He was stupidly flounder 
 ing, getting himself with every step more entangled in the 
 skein; and he now at her sharp pulling up suggested the 
 terrier to which he had formerly been compared, after a 
 whipping. But her pity, usually so ready for him, wouldn't 
 come. She felt herself to be ruthless, and in the grip of a 
 power which urged her to be more so. She had liked her 
 young man liked him for himself she had been at the 
 beginning of something very charming, an entertainment 
 provided by the fates to cheer onward her faltering, recover 
 ing footsteps: an entertainment quite free from the ob 
 jections and dangers besetting that other one provided in 
 like manner for what might be called the period of her youth. 
 
 In liking David Barlow she was still fairly loyal to her 
 new, changed attitude towards his sex. If far removed 
 from that portion of it typified by the steamer rug and the 
 plaided cap, he was equally removed from that typified by 
 Ralph Parrish ; and it was this last which Emily's new start
 
 170 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 most proscribed. And that part of herself which was so 
 lately dead and decently buried was given by him no impulse 
 to stir in its grave. If cremation had taken the place of 
 burial, he might be said to have risen phoenix-like 
 from the ashes. It was an accident of birth that had placed 
 him in the twentieth century, an accident of birth that his 
 father was the Barlow of Barley Buns. He had really 
 stepped out of an early French comedy, donning the garb 
 of modernity to the accompaniment of soft laughter. The 
 laughter, Emily knew, was not on his side. He would have 
 been better to have stayed in his rightful period ; modernity 
 didn't suit him. She had heard vaguely that John Barlow 
 was the only one who was proud of his son, and was thought 
 to see with prejudiced parental eyes. He had started well, 
 but Barley Buns were too successful he didn't have to be. 
 It wasn't, as the princess had said, necessary. Yet he was 
 alert and he was hawkish he was highly charming. 
 He had risen, phcenix-like, sent by the fates ; and now he 
 was to be snatched away by a ranging lady of uncertain 
 years and certain fame, the* foyer of whose hotel was 
 blocked by calling celebrities, and who had lived abroad 
 so long that at first in her own country she would feel a little 
 lost. 
 
 The only wonder was that her admirer talked of her so 
 frankly. It was either very nai've of him nai'ver than 
 any young man of twenty-five ever was or else very 
 subtle. Emily began to suspect David Barlow of Machia 
 vellian depths of cunning. He was even more worth while 
 than she had thought. She had advised him to go back 
 to his work ; but that was as far as her self-sacrifice went ; 
 it didn't extend to advising him to remain and go over
 
 L'lM AGINATION SENTIMENTALE 171 
 
 before her very eyes to the camp of Mrs. Bench. Emily 
 pictured a nervous clutching of the few remaining days. 
 
 Besides, she feared that Mrs. Dench would prove a too 
 heavy load for her slim shoulders. And that she needed 
 shoulders however slim was plain from her admirer's 
 rather marked bid for them. But she had a daughter, and 
 wasn't a daughter sufficient support? This one would be 
 gawky and probably of an emphasized youth, a silent 
 monument to the one-time existence of Dench, who, his 
 widow might constantly remind one, had been in the diplo 
 matic service. Emily had a faculty for projecting her 
 imagination into the unknown, illuminating with it the 
 hidden corners, and as the talk about Mrs. Dench had 
 progressed, her imagination proved a faithful emissary. 
 Her vision was vivid of a small, highly finished woman 
 preferably Titian-haired with a faux air of being exceed 
 ingly well dressed and speaking many languages even 
 English with exceeding fluency. She figured this charm 
 ing creature as throwing a priceless scarf over a hotel table, 
 tacking a priceless embroidery to a hotel wall, bringing 
 out of a huge battered trunk a real Russian tea-service, 
 and herself luxuriously reclining in soft, flowing garments; 
 while the daughter, clad in a starched white muslin that had 
 the air of having shrunk in washing, silently and awkwardly 
 handed about nondescript cakes. The daughter gave just 
 the necessary final touch. 
 
 The pause which had followed Emily's pointing out of 
 David Barlow's excess of emphasis was finally ended by 
 that young man himself. "I'm afraid it's been stupid for 
 you this talk about a woman whom you've never even 
 seen. It's more than rude of me. I apologize." He
 
 172 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 hesitated in a search for the right tone. " The Benches 
 are the sort of people that their friends can find nothing 
 better to do than to talk about, to marvel at, to praise. 
 I'm sure you'll become one of the wondering number. You 
 see," he looked up at her, his capability of taking care 
 of himself was again apparent, "I like them well enough 
 to want you to like them." 
 
 "When you know the Benches," Emily helped him out, 
 " you're provided for for life ? All your stray bits of talk 
 and of thought?" 
 
 Again his gratitude was touching. " Exactly !" 
 
 in 
 
 It was during the few precious remaining days which 
 seemed as unfruitful as they were fleeting that Emily 
 received a letter from her cousin, Laura Parrish. It was 
 merely a repetition of the same old question, the same duti 
 ful, cousinly offer. Now that Emily had been ill and now 
 that she was so much better, wouldn't she again consider 
 the invitation she had so often refused and come to Mrs. 
 Parrish at Hornmouth? Wouldn't she take pity on a 
 poor lone widow who had come to the shadowy slopes? 
 Her path seemed fairly strewn with pity and with widows. 
 
 Mrs. Parrish had been one as far back as Emily could 
 remember. In fact, her first remembrance of her cousin was 
 of the first moment of her widowhood. There had been a 
 riderless horse, a search too soon rewarded, and the strange 
 apparition in the Stedman doorway of a white, staring face 
 that wept and made other noises even less human, and that 
 proved, upon investigation, to belong to Laura Parrish. 
 Emily's attention had been more or less diverted from
 
 I/IMAGINATION SENTIMENTALE 173 
 
 disaster by Ralph, who at sight of his mother's extraordi 
 nary guise stopped short in his play and joined his protests 
 loudly with hers. The protests had ceased. Mrs. Parrish 
 had settled herself to a life like the glow leading from a 
 conflagration. She was as inconsolable as Mrs. Dench. 
 Emily remembered a portrait of the deceased big and 
 blond and bearded which hung over the mantelpiece 
 in his widow's parlor. He must have been, if that were 
 possible, even a more exuberant specimen of masculine 
 beauty than his son. His portrait was what is known in 
 popular phraseology as a speaking likeness; the smiling 
 face, seeming always to come a little out of the canvas, 
 sometimes had the effect of coming even farther than that 
 and following one around the room. 
 
 It was the thing most vivid to her as Emily reread Mrs. 
 Parrish's letter, the thing that most typified the Hornmouth 
 to which she had the chance of returning. She had once 
 called her cousin's house the smile of the father of Pan. The 
 appellation still held. And what had she, with her new 
 exaggerated sense of moral values and her new rise of the 
 curtain, to do with Pan? She was at breakfast, and she 
 looked about her at the big, light dining room sparsely 
 dotted with people as a new garden with plants. She 
 watched the darky waiters sleekly and silently moving 
 among the white-covered tables, unlading their overladen 
 trays and responding to the morning greetings of their 
 employers. At a near table there was an old lady in a 
 knitted shawl who was consuming a vast quantity of 
 muffins. She thoughtfully munched them and thought 
 fully gazed out at the ever present ocean. There was 
 another old lady, more modern, who read a newspaper
 
 174 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 through round, wide-rimmed glasses, and ominously rattled 
 it as she turned the sheet. It was a more fitting setting and 
 they more fitting fellow-guests for a pale little authoress 
 than even Hornmouth could provide. 
 
 Yet Emily had never before been so tempted to accept 
 her cousin's offer. It had never before appeared to her in 
 the light of a temptation; but then it had never been at 
 one with the impulse to turn her cheek from a coming 
 blow. Mrs. Parrish was leaving Boston for Hornmouth 
 on the same day upon which Mrs. Bench was due to arrive 
 at Ocean City. Emily could go out of one door while Mrs. 
 Dench was coming in at the other ; she liked David Barlow 
 far too well to stand by while a woman like Mrs. Dench had 
 him in her clutches. It was a chance heaven sent. 
 
 But what of the chance to stay to be in at the fight 
 to see the drama which the rising curtain would disclose? 
 To watch David Barlow, ever repaying of watching, in the 
 paces and convolutions that Mrs. Dench would undoubtedly 
 put him through ? And Mrs. Dench was a woman the like 
 of which Emily happened never to have seen. She could 
 for once immolate herself though not on that sacrificial 
 altar which she had so lately desired on the altar of 
 broadening experience. In watching David Barlow she 
 could even forget that she liked him. It all depended upon 
 her ability to regard the thing as a spectacle of which she 
 herself was merely one of the favored and exceptionally 
 closely seated spectators. She promised herself that she 
 could; she would have promised anything; the undiscovered 
 country was calling to her. The temptation, she suddenly 
 found, was all on its side. She was face to face with 
 it, and face to face, also, with the solution of her whole be-
 
 L'lM AGINATION SENTIMENT ALE 175 
 
 draggled little life. Her cousin needed her. The two 
 women would settle down together in the shadowy slopes 
 bury the hatchet and smoke the pipe of peace. She 
 again turned to Mrs. Parrish's letter. 
 
 Somewhere in its neatly written pages was a sentence 
 that came out of them very much as Mr. Parrish's por- 
 traited face came out of the canvas, " Ralph, as I suppose 
 you know, gets back next week." She hadn't known, and 
 the source of the information only showed what a promi 
 nence Hornmouth would give to the newly made grave. 
 On his return the dutiful son would make one of his flying 
 visits there to find Emily snugly ensconced. She felt now 
 that she couldn't stand a repetition of his lie about having 
 been forced to go. The bare sight of him couldn't be any 
 thing but painful. She hadn't seen him since she had cried 
 out in the extremity of her checked passion for him and 
 since she had come to look at the grave of this passion with 
 coldness. But she knew how he would appear; her in 
 quiring fancy took in all the details of his attire, from the 
 very yellow travelling bag with which he always returned 
 from a journey to the blue necktie that exactly matched the 
 blue in his eyes. He would take up too much room; he 
 would fill the landscape almost too handsomely. He 
 belonged to a period at once earlier and more universal 
 than that mirrored by French comedy. 
 
 Her path was barred on either side by an ordeal. On 
 the one the meeting with Ralph, on the other the meeting 
 with Mrs. Bench, and the spectacle of the injuries that 
 unknown lady would undoubtedly inflict upon David 
 Barlow. 
 
 That young man was following what seemed to be the
 
 176 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 fashion in Ocean City, and reading the newspaper. It was 
 propped, for his better perusal, against a conveniently 
 shaped water carafe, and its contents so absorbed him 
 that he hadn't given Miss Stedman his usual pleasant smile. 
 He presented her, however, with the neat, fine outline of his 
 profile. He looked young and sharp and so very far from 
 decadent that he rather disclaimed his connection with the 
 period which Ralph Parrish so antedated. He was young 
 and sharp and the very finest essence of the masculine ; his 
 was a masculinity compared to which Ralph Parrish's was 
 as the residue from which that essence had been refined. 
 And still the suggestion slightly inhuman of a mar 
 ionette, a figure in wax. Emily looked at him and was 
 overcome by her own helplessness. Her new, returning 
 strength made her chafe at it, and chafe at the convention 
 that prevented her from getting up and going over to David 
 Barlow where he sat at breakfast and picking him up and 
 carrying him away. 
 
 rv 
 
 "You're getting well; but you're not getting well fast 
 enough." Dr. Jeffries stood aside to let Emily pass out of 
 her room, and his pronouncement was cut short by a diffi 
 culty that she experienced in locking her door. He had 
 to come to her assistance, and it was a moment more, as 
 there were people in the long corridor leading to the ele 
 vator, before he was free to go on with it. " You say you're 
 a hopeless invalid and will never be well; but you know 
 there isn't any necessity for any one's being a hopeless in 
 valid not any. And with you it's not a case of hypo 
 chondria, don't misunderstand me. Why, every time that
 
 I/IMAGINATION SENTIMENTALE 177 
 
 I examine you, I marvel at the things you put up with. 
 You have grit but have a little more get well !" 
 
 Emily responded to all this by a question. "You'll 
 stay to lunch ? We can have it now." 
 
 " Thank you just a bite. Then I must be off. I ran 
 down especially to see you, and I have an engagement which 
 makes it imperative, my being in town at five." 
 
 "Even on Sunday?" 
 
 "Even on Sunday. Why, I wouldn't dare say it to 
 most women, but I'm sure you'll understand I haven't 
 been to church except for a funeral in twelve years ! That 
 shows how busy I am. Do you think I've any chance of 
 heaven ? I've cultivated a habit of early rising, and I'm 
 beautifully clean." 
 
 " I believe those are the two principal qualifications. But 
 a great doctor should be let in without examination." 
 
 "Ah I don't approve of honorary degrees !" 
 
 Dr. Jeffries could well afford not to, with a half-dozen real 
 ones to his credit. Yet he wasn't at all the typical scholar 
 or even the typical physician. He was like a man who 
 had lived his life a very long way from human ills ; his eyes 
 were like eyes that had gazed at far, sunlit horizons rather 
 than at the printed page. He might, for this last, and for 
 the tightish cut of his vivid blue clothes, have been a naval 
 officer on shore leave ; though for this last, had he been in 
 the navy, he was of an age to have been retired. He was 
 frequently mistaken for an Englishman because he spoke 
 without a twang and had a certain brusqueness of manner. 
 
 "I can't conceive," he said at lunch, "of a better place 
 than this in which to rest. In fact, I can't conceive of a 
 place half as good." He smiled with his clear, light eyes
 
 178 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "Yet I can't help feeling that there's something about it 
 you don't quite like. Physically you're as much better 
 as is possible considering that you're hardly improved 
 nervously. You're living at a pitch that would kill most 
 of us. There's a disturbing element somewhere; and if 
 it's appurtenant to Ocean City, why, leave ! If you say so 
 I'll take you back to town with me in my machine this 
 very afternoon now in half an hour." 
 
 "My things" 
 
 " Why do you have a maid ? But I see you won't come." 
 
 "I couldn't possibly. Besides, you're wrong. There's 
 no disturbing element. I like it here immensely." 
 
 "And you don't think it any business of mine? It's 
 sometimes hard for a doctor to remember that he's not a 
 sort of miniature Almighty. But if you really want my 
 advice, I think you've been here long enough. Go some 
 where where it's absolutely quiet." 
 
 " But it's quiet here ! You see it at a disadvantage on 
 Sunday; people are down for the day and from Saturday 
 till Monday, but I assure you that from Monday to Saturday 
 it's as quiet as a mouse." 
 
 Dr. Jeffries seemed to take the assurance with reserva 
 tions. "I've had patients," he told Emily, "who have 
 been greatly benefited by a cruise on a freight steamer 
 which carried no other passengers. Something might be 
 arranged. If you're now living at the wrong pitch, that 
 would at least change it." 
 
 The pun was execrable, but Emily took it up. " Change 
 it? Rather. And would I finally be able to return?" 
 
 " Not to your original pitch no. But you'd be prac 
 tically well."
 
 L'IMAGINATION SENTIMENTALE 179 
 
 "Yet it would only be a very clever mend?" 
 
 " Yes, a very clever mend. But what more can you ask? 
 And it rests with you, whether you're to give yourself the 
 benefit of a very clever mend or remain a cracked dish laid 
 away on the pantry shelf. Think of your work, save your 
 self for that " 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "Then save yourself still more." 
 
 "Then there wouldn't be any work, I'm afraid. There's 
 little enough as it is." 
 
 The doctor arrested in mid-air the passage of his fork. 
 "Oh, if you look at it like that ! It's not normal." There 
 was a pause which he presently ended by regarding with 
 suspicion an article of food that his patient was about 
 to take up. "I wouldn't eat it if I were you. You're 
 at least willing to do my bidding in matters of that kind, 
 aren't you? Now that Miss Harden has gone " 
 
 She cut him short. " In matters of what kind am I not ? " 
 
 " You refuse point-blank to change the thing I call 
 the pitch at which you live." 
 
 "But I couldn't change it even if I would." 
 
 " Ah, yes you could but you like it too much. You 
 get too much enjoyment. It's a form of dissipation." 
 
 " I should say you'd hit upon the wrong word, but put it 
 so." 
 
 " Oh, I know what I mean I know what I mean !" 
 
 Emily was afraid that if she followed his instructions, she 
 shouldn't recognize herself; she would be mended, she told 
 him, so cleverly that she'd be altogether new. 
 
 "And you wouldn't care for that?" 
 
 "With the greater part of me already dead, if the rest 
 of me were new, why, what would I have left?"
 
 180 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 Dr. Jeffries misunderstood her. "But that's just it 
 
 it would not then be dead. It would come to life 
 normal, splendid life." 
 
 Her answer was startling. " Heaven forbid !" 
 
 She was looking towards the door. David Barlow, as 
 
 the last of a little group of people who were entering it, 
 
 seemed like a solidifying of her thoughts. 
 The great doctor followed the direction of her look. " Of 
 
 course, we all have our objections, but I can't say that I 
 
 see yours. I never yet heard of anything better than health 
 
 even at the cost of being altogether new." 
 
 Emily wasn't listening. It was now apparent that the 
 little group with which David Barlow had come in was 
 bound to him by a closer tie than mere simultaneousness 
 of entrance, for he had seated himself with them at another 
 table than his own in the farther end of the room. The 
 little group in number hardly worthy of the name 
 consisted of two women, a young very tall one and an older 
 one not quite so tall. In the brief near glimpse that Emily 
 had had of them, the older had struck her as being educated 
 and competent and dignified ; she wore a very good gown, 
 and walked with an ease and grace to which her inclina 
 tion to stoutness only seemed to add. As they passed, the 
 younger's face had been turned away, and beyond the fact 
 of her being strong and tall and slim, Emily hadn't taken 
 her in. The thought that rushed over her was how much 
 these people evidently relatives of David's would 
 interfere with the plans of Mrs. Dench, who was coming 
 with her daughter on the morrow. 
 
 Something of this was conveyed in David's manner. His 
 excitement though suppressed might have been of a
 
 L'IMAGINATION SENTIMENTALE 181 
 
 sort which a man has with a knotty problem presented him 
 to solve before a specified and rapidly approaching hour. 
 He was carrying his problem gallantly, with laughter and 
 hawkish head held high, and as Emily watched him at the 
 distant table, she had inconsistently the desire to help him 
 out of his predicament. If she could have got his intruding 
 relatives away, she would have done so willingly. 
 
 Dr. Jeffries was still looking where she was. "You say 
 you wouldn't care for being altogether new. Now the 
 pale young man and the large woman and by Jove ! 
 the beautiful girl I don't wonder you stare now, what 
 would they care for?" 
 
 The question, meant in all lightness, had on her an un 
 looked-for effect brought over her, suddenly, the sensa 
 tion of rising tears made something very vivid to her 
 which before hadn't been so clear. 
 
 "I don't know, I'm sure. I wish to heaven I did. I'd 
 give anything in life to know what one of them cared for." 
 
 The physician used an expletive so violent that its only 
 excuse was sheer, blind wonder. It was proof of the size 
 of the great room the appalling privacy which Ocean 
 City, among other things, provided that no one stirred. 
 
 " You haven't yet definitely said whether you'll take my 
 advice." 
 
 "I can't leave. It's as you say, I get too much enjoy 
 ment where I am." 
 
 "Then there's nothing I can do. You've made your 
 choice." He, too, was staring now staring at David 
 Barlow "Ah believe me "he turned full about 
 "believe me that's not the way to get well ! "
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE REMARKABLE YOUNG MAN 
 
 "THE Benches have come. They're over there by the 
 big sofa, and extremely anxious to know you. Of course 
 I realize that it's hardly tact to bring you up to Jane ; but 
 then, on the other hand, would it be so to bring her mother 
 up to you ? Won't you simply waive ceremony ? " 
 
 "Need you ask?" said Emily, and then irrelevantly 
 " They came a day before they were expected, didn't they ? " 
 
 "Yes, almost straight from the steamer." 
 
 The women who were standing a little distance away 
 in the dimness of the hotel sun parlor at dusk were the same 
 women whom Emily had seen at lunch. She had all 
 at once the sensations of relief, bewilderment, and dis 
 appointment; and an odd sense of waiting, as if, in spite 
 of anything that David Barlow might say and he should 
 know the real Mrs. Dench and the real Jane had not yet 
 arrived. They might appear at any moment, the Benches 
 of her preconceived idea the mother a little worn, per 
 haps, but considering her certain years worn wonderfully 
 well; the daughter starched and awkward and angular. 
 But as the moments fled and they still didn't, Emily was 
 left to reconstruct her shattered fancy as best she might. 
 
 It was Mrs. Bench who presently herself waived ceremony 
 
 182
 
 THE REMARKABLE YOUNG MAN 183 
 
 and advanced to meet her across the wide, carpeted floor. 
 But Jane was in her mother's wake, and it was Jane whom 
 Emily saw first. Her impulse was to challenge David 
 Barlow " Why didn't you prepare me why didn't 
 you give me some semblance of warning? And after 
 all our talks ! " But Jane had her hand in a firm short 
 grip, and she was left with only the little inward take of the 
 breath which accompanied with her any too violent emotion. 
 Instead of the starched awkwardness of her vagrant fancy, 
 she found herself confronted with a grace, a charm, a color, 
 a symmetry she hunted in vain for a fault. Jane had the 
 untouched quality of newly fallen snow or the ocean at 
 early morning the quality which one was immediately 
 afraid wouldn't couldn't last. And nothing to come 
 could be so good. Even the loss of her abruptness, her 
 young angularity, would be a change for the worse. The 
 clear, jewelled eyes; the long mouth, not too red; the su 
 premely simple nose and smooth, slim cheek; the straight 
 line of throat; the voice softened by contact with many 
 languages ; it seemed an appallingly rich treasure box from 
 which these could be drawn haphazard. But Jane Bench 
 didn't suggest a treasure box, either rich or poor. She was 
 instead a tall young sapling, that somehow didn't 
 sprawl, and had caught in miraculous perfection the line 
 of beauty. 
 
 There was something else that Emily wished to say to 
 David Barlow another charge to make ; though this time 
 of a nature complimentary. She wished to tell him that 
 he'd been very clever he had been more deeply subtle, 
 even, than she had thought and she would have liked 
 to ask him why he'd been at such pains to be so clever
 
 184 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 at such pains to conceal from her the fact of its being Jane, 
 and not her mother, who made the Benches what they were 
 
 and himself the most beautiful, deepest red. Jane looked 
 at him straight, and then she turned her rather fixed regard 
 upon his friend. 
 
 " It seems so splendid to get back. We passed through 
 our own country, when was it, mother ten years ago ? 
 
 but we've been away so long that we can't believe it 
 when we post our letters with American stamps 1" 
 
 "Don't you like being away?" 
 
 "We like it very much of course." 
 
 "We like everything very much," said Mrs. Dench; 
 "we're wily, battered old diplomats, and everything is 
 always right." 
 
 Emily caught at the word, 'diplomats/ as a drowning 
 man catches at a straw. Mrs. Dench was a diplomat's 
 widow the word confirmed it. For her dignity she might 
 have been the widow of a prime minister. No station 
 would have been for her too exalted. In the place of Titian 
 hair and the patched remnants of beauty, she had hair 
 frankly grizzled at the temples and a general appearance 
 making no pretence to loveliness. But she had a presence. 
 Emily was inclined to spell it with a capital 'P.' It was 
 a presence in itself carried to a point of high art, redolent of 
 European courts and a civilization perfected through cen 
 turies a presentation of herself, an ease of manner, which 
 went far towards lessening Emily's disappointment. The 
 reconstruction of her shattered fancy was already begun. 
 She found it a task not unworthy. 
 
 "Our trunks have come," Mrs. Dench was saying, "and 
 I think we'd better see to them. You'll be here at dinner ?
 
 THE REMARKABLE YOUNG MAN 185 
 
 I never feel capable of any rational conversation till I un 
 pack my trunks not that there's anything in them 
 but it's a moral support, knowing that one's few rags and 
 trinkets are home again." 
 
 "Mr. Barlow's been telling me that you work the 
 most marvellous transformations turn cottages into 
 castles " 
 
 " We're certainly very clever at it," she included Jane; 
 " we have to be. Over here they give you a telephone, an 
 electric light, a brass bedstead, and a scrap basket. Over 
 there you get anterooms, corridors, white and gold salons. 
 Here they're so afraid you won't know they're modern; 
 there, they're so afraid you won't know they're old. Well, 
 we'll see you later." As Mrs. Bench smiled, Emily dis 
 covered where Jane came by her length of mouth. She 
 watched her as, still in her mother's wake, she went down 
 the long vista of the room, looming off into the dimness. 
 It was to Mrs. Bench, however, that her next words re 
 ferred : 
 
 "Tell me, in every country does your friend speak not 
 only the language, but the vernacular?" 
 
 "She speaks whatever she likes." Bavid Barlow was 
 also gazing at the end of the room through which the mother 
 and daughter had made their exit. "She's not in the least 
 what you were prepared for, is she ? You're disappointed. 
 You were prepared for I don't quite know what." 
 
 " Bisappointed ? Never less so!" Emily laughed. 
 " I'd rather counted on a mass of red hair " 
 
 " Why don't you say frankly that you'd rather counted on 
 a woman dyed and painted?" 
 
 "Hardly that!"
 
 186 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "You see, it's as I said. Mrs. Dench is exceedingly 
 quiet." 
 
 "And isn't Jane quiet?" 
 
 " Jane doesn't have to be anything else." 
 
 "She doesn't, does she? What with a mother and a 
 beauty. Why didn't you tell me it was Jane?" 
 
 "It?" he objected. 
 
 "You know quite well what I mean." 
 
 "Oh, but it isn't !" he brought out. 
 
 " You imply that she's merely the lamb led to the sacrifice 
 the beautiful votive offering the maiden chained to 
 the rock?" 
 
 "I imply that she's nothing of the sort !" 
 
 Emily was aware that she had in some way trodden upon a 
 guarded grass patch. Where Mrs. Dench was concerned 
 David Barlow seemed given to overemphasis; but she 
 respected the grass patch and this time let it pass. She 
 told him her impression of the Presence how she admired 
 it, and how she felt sure she should admire it more and more. 
 "A woman," she said of Mrs. Dench, "with a mind " 
 
 David was pacified. " Yet she's a creature of action 
 not of theory." 
 
 "I can see that." 
 
 " She's one of the great forces you remember our con 
 versation of the other day ? what you said of idle specu 
 lation, how the really great ones were so tremendously 
 occupied that they hadn't time to bother? Well, Mrs. 
 Dench is less given to idle speculation than any woman, 
 who as you say has a mind, I ever saw. She's as you 
 say, Venus arisen from the sea. You have a way of putting 
 things you hit upon the right word, the right phrase.
 
 THE REMARKABLE YOUNG MAN 
 
 Venus arisen from the sea " David sincerely commended 
 her for her aptness in this one, and Emily didn't remind 
 him that it was coined before she had seen the lady whom 
 it was supposed to define. 
 
 "You say " Emily brought out they seemed to 
 hurl back each other's words " you say, or rather you 
 intimate, that Mrs. Bench is tremendously occupied " 
 
 "And you wonder at what? I suppose she really isn't, 
 in the strict sense of the term, except for looking after 
 Jane and doing the innumerable things that women do 
 shopping and arranging their clothes and all that. But 
 it's an occupation for her to be herself. She's action 
 she's force she's vital and splendid " 
 
 "Ah you're the most remarkable young man! " 
 Emily's voice narrowly escaped harshness. 
 
 ii 
 
 "Mr. Barlow tells me you're the Miss Stedman." 
 
 "I'm afraid the other ladies of the name of Stedman 
 wouldn't admit it." 
 
 "They'd have no right not to. The extraordinary thing 
 is, you know " Mrs. Bench paused; "the extraordinary 
 thing is that you should have written a book that I wouldn't 
 let Jane read. I don't care what she reads behind my back ; 
 but when she comes to me out and out well, she never 
 got beyond the first chapter, did you, Jane?" 
 
 "No, never." Jane smiled. 
 
 "Oh, if she finished the first chapter of 'The Cuckoo' !" 
 said Bavid Barlow. 
 
 "She might as well have gone on? Not at her age, 
 Bavid."
 
 188 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 It was after dinner on the day after the next the inter 
 vening one having been spent by Emily flat on her back 
 and the Benches and David had come in from the dining 
 room to find her in almost sole possession of the big sun 
 parlor. She had been sitting there trying to read by the 
 light of a gayly shaded lamp a little lonely and a little 
 depressed since she also had come in from the dining 
 room some half hour before. She had gone through with 
 the full ceremonial of dinner, her darky waiter more as 
 siduous than ever, and her desire for nourishment less. It 
 was better, however, to be downstairs among the lights and 
 the wide spaces than upstairs in the company of the be- 
 ruffled maid, who sewed eternally and who rocked eternally 
 in the rocking-chair that she had asked permission to carry 
 into her tiny room that opened out of Emily's. Emily 
 had watched her through the opened door for what was little 
 short of two whole days watched her and listened to 
 the whining French song with which she helped to speed 
 the hours now that her mistress was well and wouldn't 
 be disturbed. It was true the carnations on the wall-paper 
 had ceased to nod their heads. But Emily had come 
 down down among the lights and the people and the 
 wide spaces, and if she felt a trifle lost and a trifle at sea 
 without the charming escort to whom she had so rapidly 
 become accustomed, it wasn't anybody's business but her 
 own, and she could keep a bold front. She had answered 
 her cousin Laura's letter in the negative, and she therefore 
 had a sense of having burned her bridges behind her. A 
 bold front was the only possible one. The Benches and 
 David Barlow found her more than usually gay. 
 
 "The question of age " she spoke in reference to Mrs.
 
 THE EEMAEKABLE YOUNG MAN 189 
 
 Bench's remark to David, " the question of age does, 
 I suppose, make a difference." 
 
 "Oh, immense!" Mrs. Bench seated herself beside her, 
 and she couldn't help a certain retrospective amusement 
 at Bavid's request that she make the path of the home 
 coming exile smooth. The exile was already so much more 
 at home than she so easy and so competent and so ut 
 terly without need of protection or care. Emily could see 
 that upon first acquaintance she hadn't begun to appreciate 
 her or even to see how much there was of her to appreciate. 
 The let-down from her preconceived vision had been sharp. 
 For that matter, it still remained so. But she had of her 
 attractions the infallible feminine proof Bavid Barlow 
 was in love with her, and Bavid Barlow was a young man 
 whose taste she respected. The attractions must be there. 
 If she still couldn't help taking them a little on faith, it 
 was a perfect faith. 
 
 She smiled at Jane. " Yet they say that America is the 
 paradise of the young girl all the books are written for 
 her all the plays " 
 
 Mrs. Bench broke in. "Ah if you call the young, 
 unmarried American female, a young girl ! Those that I've 
 seen reminded me of either boys or fools or something for 
 which in France we have no polite name. And it goes 
 without saying that 'The Cuckoo,' or even a work far more 
 elaborate, couldn't do them harm." 
 
 " I see you've no love for the American product." 
 
 "Quite frankly, I haven't. In fact, the proper bringing 
 up of my own young girl " the mother placed a hand on 
 her daughter's shoulder " was my strongest reason for 
 spending so many years on the other side."
 
 190 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "Just as now," said David, "you're coming back on her 
 account." 
 
 Mrs. Bench looked at him with a momentary sharpness. 
 "Exactly so." 
 
 Emily supposed it part of Jane's proper bringing up that 
 she was as unmoved as detached during this intimate 
 discussion of her as though she had been both deaf and 
 dumb. Her mother's censorship of her literature didn't 
 quite seem to extend to the things that might be said before 
 her. But perhaps she was girded against these by the armor 
 of innocence with which her proper bringing up had en 
 chained her. Emily imagined that it would be necessary 
 in Europe, an armor of that sort; and it was the demand 
 which had undoubtedly created the supply. 
 
 "Mr. Barlow says you're coming back on your daughter's 
 account I hardly see " Emily paused invitingly; she 
 found Mrs. Bench's methods inconsistent. 
 
 "Jane became very homesick, and I feel that she's now in 
 a position to choose. You see, with her bringing up America 
 won't hurt her." 
 
 Jane unexpectedly came to life. "I'm immune !" 
 
 "And warranted," said David, "not to come out in the 
 wash." 
 
 "Will there be & wash?" 
 
 "Mondays always." 
 
 "And you're backing me?" 
 
 "Bown to my last cent." 
 
 "Then I'll do my best." 
 
 "Thanks." 
 
 It was now Mrs. Bench who was oblivious ; her detach 
 ment was even more perfect than had been her daughter's.
 
 THE KEMARKABLE YOUNG MAN 191 
 
 They carried the relation of parent and child to a very high 
 point. It was perhaps a different conception of this rela 
 tion from that familiar to Emily ; but she had never before 
 seen a conception so thought out. It reminded her of the 
 very perfected ideal of it set forth by Confucius, the great 
 prophet of the Chinese. Confucius was a gentleman whom 
 she had met with in the course of her scholarly browsings, 
 and he had a rule of three for every relation in the whole 
 social organism. He started from without rather than from 
 within; he believed that the first step towards virtue is to 
 assume its aspect, and he set down this aspect very pre 
 cisely, he left nothing undefined. He was the prophet of 
 the older civilization, as Mrs. Bench was to Emily 
 its priestess a civilization older and older and older ; 
 why, Mrs. Dench went back to the beginning and was 
 Venus arisen from the sea. Emily had for it David Barlow's 
 authority. And Jane was the maiden chained to the rock. 
 Andromeda the daughter of Venus ... To Emily belonged 
 the distinction of establishing in mythology a new relation 
 ship. 
 
 in 
 
 "Jane and I pile ourselves into one of our little cubby 
 holes, and then we have the other for a* place in which to 
 gaze at our own souls undisturbed. In a hotel, you know, 
 one is usually entirely occupied in gazing at other people's ; 
 but we've lived in a hotel so much that other people's souls 
 have rather lost their novelty; while our own " Mrs. 
 Dench paused. 
 
 Emily wasn't sure that they either of them had a soul, and 
 she happened to be entirely occupied in gazing at the soul
 
 192 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 of David Barlow. That seemed a tangible, definite thing; 
 and hadn't lost its novelty. From where she sat on the 
 little gilt-trimmed sofa that Mrs. Dench had brought with 
 her, in some miraculous manner, from Paris, she had a 
 fairly good opportunity for observing David Barlow's 
 soul at least as much of it as was visible to the naked 
 eye. And it struck her there was visible a good deal. She 
 had sometimes watched the progress of food down the trans 
 parent gullet of a young bird, and had the same impression. 
 It seemed really as tangible and as definite as that. The 
 hammered bronze exterior was, after all, only an exterior. 
 Her imagination didn't balk at a bronze statuette luminous 
 from within. 
 
 As David hovered over Mrs. Dench's real Russian tea- 
 service that part of Emily's prophecy had come true 
 he might have been a young husband, invaded by friends 
 rather prematurely, and doing the honors of his new house 
 with suppressed excitement. His excitement flashed forth 
 in bright sparks from underneath his apparent calm 
 his apparent air of being absolutely at home. Any one 
 would have been at home in that charming, drapery-hung 
 room ; hung in light, soft, foreign stuffs it was, and the hotel 
 carpet covered with light, soft rugs. A few really good 
 pieces a vase of Chinese porcelain, a water color at 
 tributed by many to the great Watteau were made to 
 show to their best advantage ; and for the rest, the common 
 place, dark-stained furniture didn't much matter. The 
 French sofa raised the general level of that, and there were 
 books books with yellow paper covers and covers of limp 
 black leather. The limp black leather predominated. The 
 Denches were very religious in a sacerdotal, ritualistic sort
 
 THE REMARKABLE YOUNG MAN 193 
 
 of way ; Jane, even, had serious leanings towards the Church 
 of Rome. She had contemplated it with wistful eyes more 
 than once, but on the afternoon in question she seemed to 
 be more occupied in contemplating David Barlow. 
 
 Emily's regard encountered hers, as is natural when two 
 travel the same road. Mrs. Bench's seemed also to take that 
 direction. There was one particular moment, when the 
 road towards the young David was positively blocked with 
 gazing, which reminded Emily of that moment among a 
 box full of ladies at a theatre when a man appears in their 
 midst. They all turn with their light, fine dresses and sweep 
 ing plumes, and he black-coated and insignificant 
 awkwardly receives their homage; the difference being 
 that she and the Denches were not in sweeping plumes. 
 But it was an occasion which deserved them. She had 
 saved up for it all day in order to be bright and fresh, and 
 at the appointed hour, in a frock which had memories of the 
 period of the late thirties, and with her sharp little nose 
 well powdered, she had walked down the length of an end 
 less corridor and made sure of the number on the door before 
 she gently tapped. The number on a hotel door had always 
 seemed to her an extraordinarily unimportant method of 
 marking the difference between one planet and another. 
 Two closed doors, side by side, and they were as alike as 
 peas in a pod; open them and you had the entrances to 
 separate human habitations. She wondered if horses had 
 the same sense of variety about their stalls. 
 
 She had tapped and been told to come in. She found 
 David Barlow already there, and the graceful, tangled 
 length of Jane filling the gilt sofa. There was a brief instant 
 before she got to her feet, an instant during which Emily
 
 194 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 was conscious of having come into a warmer zone. Some 
 thing had been said or was about to be said. There was 
 an air either of recovery or preparation. Jane was looking 
 at her mother's visitor, and he was looking at the Chinese ! 
 vase though this last was felt to be merely by chance. 
 
 "Mother'll be in directly. She was lying down, and the 
 hour escaped her. My word ! Aren't you smart ? Every 
 one's smart in America what becomes of the old 
 clothes?" Jane ran through her fingers a bit of the lace 
 of Emily's sleeve. She herself had on a white dress not 
 unlike the dress of the projected vision only it wasn't 
 starched and supposedly hadn't shrunk. 
 
 "But you're smart, too; and besides, you're something 
 so very much better than smart. Isn't she ?" Emily asked 
 of David Barlow, but didn't kindle a responsive gleam. 
 He explained which hadn't been at all apparent that 
 he was trying to start the lamp for tea. 
 
 "Won't it light?" 
 
 "It will light, but I don't think there's enough alcohol." 
 
 "I'd help you," said Jane, "but I don't really know any 
 thing about it; I've never " 
 
 "Jane mustn't touch it !" Mrs. Dench came in "She'd 
 blow herself into a thousand bits. Here, I happen to 
 understand it, let me." 
 
 " You've seen it used in its native land ? " 
 
 "Often and often. Don't you remember, Jane, that 
 afternoon at the princess's when Mr. Parrish and Mme. 
 Rostov were at the height of their affair?" 
 
 "And Mr. Parrish dropped his cup and it spilled all over 
 Mme. Rostov's gown? Of course I remember." 
 
 Mrs. Dench made an odd transition. "Mme. Rostov's
 
 195 
 
 husband has the best manners of any man I ever saw. He 
 talked to me about Egyptian religion the entire afternoon." 
 
 "Let us all immediately talk to you about Egyptian 
 religion," said David. 
 
 "It wouldn't signify now. But if you were married, 
 David, and your wife were brazenly flirting with a good- 
 looking young American ! Well, M. Rostov had just 
 reached that part of the 'The Book of the Dead' where 
 the heart is weighed in the balance with Truth, when 
 smash went Mr. Parrish's cup. He of the manners didn't 
 move an eyelash 'Ah your countryman! ' and 
 then the heart and Truth went on." 
 
 "The princess always made her own tea," said Jane; 
 "she was very proud of it, and it seemed that broken 
 cup a frightful waste; but Mr. Parrish was so beauti 
 fully apologetic." 
 
 "Mr. Parrish was so beautifully everything. I entirely 
 sympathized with Mme. Rostov. It was one of the most 
 complicated bits of her complicated little life; but if I 
 had the chance of a man like that, I'd be complicated, too." 
 
 "Ah mother if you had the chance " 
 
 "He looked," Mrs. Dench said to Emily, "the way Apollo 
 ought to have looked, but didn't. His eyes were the most 
 extraordinary slaty blue. " 
 
 It was at this point that David gave tongue: "You 
 know, Ralph Parrish is Miss Stedman's cousin. They were 
 brought up side by side." 
 
 Emily verified the news. "Yes, I shouldn't have let 
 you talk on without telling you. I'd apologize if I had the 
 faintest kind of an excuse to offer. It was one of those 
 unaccountable lapses "
 
 196 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "Not at all, the fault was ours. It only shows what I've 
 always said to you, Jane, only this time I didn't practise 
 what I preached; how unsafe it is to gossip. Not that 
 we really had anything to gossip about. In Europe," 
 Mrs. Bench explained to Miss Stedman, "there are certain 
 things which are regarded differently we have, over there, 
 a tendency towards a broader view " 
 
 "A view of which Americans in Europe take advan 
 tage? " 
 
 "To a certain extent yes the thing is unavoidable. 
 One's eye becomes accustomed, just as in Paris one's eye 
 becomes accustomed to the made-up faces of the women 
 and the queer, tight clothes of the men." It was charm 
 ing of the diplomat's widow so to put herself in the mere 
 travelling American's place, and also to make Ralph Par- 
 rish's excuses at the same time that she made her own. 
 "When a man's as handsome as your cousin, why, what 
 will you have? Every woman on the spot is sure to be 
 mad about him, and he'd be but a poor, inhuman stick if 
 he didn't occasionally respond. You won't lay it up against 
 him, you won't perhaps mention? You see, we're very 
 good friends with him he just now happened to be on the 
 same steamer with us coming back, the intimacy one gets 
 into on a steamer is proverbial, and we should hate to 
 have him think we'd been telling tales out of school." 
 
 Emily assured Mrs. Bench that he'd never have the 
 chance to think anything of the sort. It could very well 
 pass without reference. In fact, she didn't know when she 
 would see her cousin again; New York and business would 
 probably hold him for many months to come. 
 
 "But Ocean City's surely not too far for a Sunday's
 
 THE REMARKABLE YOUNG MAN 197 
 
 visit ? We were given to understand that to be one of its 
 chief attractions." Mrs. Dench waited. 
 
 "Ralph doesn't even know I'm here, unless his mother 
 has told him. We're both abominable correspondents. 
 He wrote me the merest line, and I haven't yet got round to 
 answering it. But of what am I thinking ? He'll be down 
 to see you of course " 
 
 "It's just possible. But you know the fleeting nature of 
 the intimacy one gets into on a steamer that's also 
 proverbial." 
 
 David Barlow, having set the ball rolling by his mention 
 of the tie existing between the absent and the present, had 
 been content to rest upon his laurels. He now, however, 
 considered that the ball had rolled far enough. He thought 
 to change its direction: "Parrish is such a striking chap; 
 once having known him, even on a steamer, it would be 
 hard to forget him. At least, the impression he would leave 
 wouldn't be fleeting. There's something something al 
 most conspicuous " 
 
 Emily laughed. "Oh, don't be afraid. He's quite 
 frankly conspicuous." 
 
 "Conspicuous," added David, "in a very delightful 
 way." 
 
 "You're right in defining the sort of conspicuousness," 
 Mrs. Dench put in, "there are so many sorts. Jane, here, 
 finds it conspicuous that we see so much of you !" 
 
 It came, a bolt from heaven a pistol-shot in a quiet 
 street. It brought them straight from Ralph Parrish to 
 David Barlow, from Russia to Ocean City, from what was 
 for most of them a somewhat distant afternoon to an after 
 noon as little distant as it is possible for an afternoon to be.
 
 198 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 It brought Emily from an enforced digging among her 
 newly buried treasure to a sniffing of the flowers which had 
 fast grown up in the enriched soil which covered it. Her 
 manners must have suffered by comparison with M. Ros 
 tov's. 
 
 "As if any one," Mrs. Bench went on to David, "could 
 possibly mind our seeing you ! As if we cared whether they 
 minded or not ! And yet Jane objects in her opinion 
 it's conspicuous !" 
 
 Jane's brows were cloudy. "That's what I was telling 
 him, mother, just before Miss Stedman came in." Jane 
 showed a certain seemly distaste for linen publicly washed. 
 Her mother vigorously scrubbed it with an utter forgetful- 
 ness of the sensibilities of the passer. Though in this case, 
 the only passer was Emily Stedman. She had sometimes 
 seen the presence of a young child similarly disregarded. 
 
 Mrs. Bench didn't really forget her, however. She gave 
 her a cup of tea before she replied to Jane. " You say you 
 were telling him, Jane ? It strikes me it's hardly your affair. 
 If an old lady like me battered and worn as I am 
 isn't capable of looking after herself and her family, why, 
 I should be greatly surprised. I've somehow always man 
 aged it abroad." 
 
 "America isn't abroad." 
 
 The diplomat's widow smiled. "Jane's crazy about 
 America." 
 
 Bavid Barlow's regard had again turned to the Chinese 
 vase. He was looking closely at its smooth, porcelain sur 
 face, evidently in a vain effort to decipher some characters 
 deep under the glaze. It seemed he had the talent they 
 all found so useful the ability completely to detach him-
 
 THE REMAEKABLE YOUNG MAN 199 
 
 self, to sit unmoved in the midst of battle. He now turned 
 and faced it. "America's a pretty good place. It never 
 occurred to you, Miss Stedman, that it might appear out of 
 the way?" 
 
 "America out of the way? " 
 
 " No, the Benches and myself." 
 
 "Why, of course not !" 
 
 When Emily left them, David Barlow was still there. 
 He was a valuable, brittle object as valuable as any they 
 possessed. She feared his breakage. And in case of that, 
 who would there be to gather up the bits ? 
 
 rv 
 
 Emily had said on leaving that she was bound straight 
 for her own room. She pleaded letters and sewing. But 
 instead of that she went straight downstairs. Solitude 
 didn't attract her; and her solitude, she felt sure, would be 
 too greatly populated; she didn't feel herself up to coping 
 with it. Even as it was, in spite of the backs and profiles 
 of bridge-playing ladies and the occasional passing of a bell 
 boy, she still could see the clouded brows of Jane, her 
 mother's easy, all-including smile, and little David Barlow 
 clear and fine and surrounded by women as a wrecked 
 sailor by water. It was partly in his defence that she had 
 come away; he had seemed to be having trouble enough 
 without her. It is true she had looked over her shoulder, 
 but her look fed on emptiness; he hadn't followed her. If 
 he had, Jane and her mother could have fought it out be 
 tween them. 
 
 She wasn't sure exactly what it was they were to fight. 
 Her more vivid vision was of David and herself. She al-
 
 200 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 ways had the last, and the vision of David of late spent a 
 great deal of its time perched upon her shoulder. Some 
 times the feel of it there amounted almost to a physical 
 consciousness of weight. It was manifestly unfair that 
 a mere chance acquaintance should so install himself. 
 Though as for that, wasn't every acquaintance conse 
 quently every friend, every one save those bound by ties 
 of blood tossed to us by chance ? Emily wondered at 
 the omnipotence of the Fates, and was brought back sharply 
 by a kick from the perching vision. It clamored and 
 sported with nothing to say it nay, the Benches its welcome 
 playmates. A jostling human mass would have been far 
 less insistent; and a jostling human mass was just what 
 Ocean City, at that season, prided itself upon lacking. 
 Later, when the crowd arrived, it would be a very different 
 story ; but now it was all long stretches and empty spaces 
 and a cleanliness which verged on the medicinal. 
 
 Emily went to the window. The ocean was gray and 
 opaque and pricked by flurries of snow. It struck her with 
 a sense of relief that the place was vulnerable to such a thing 
 as weather. It had been so made to order so uniformly 
 mild and sunny and here was a southeasterly storm 
 of the sort that must have existed since the beginning of 
 time. Civilization was powerless in the face of it. She 
 could hear faintly, through the inner, the rattling of the 
 outer window glass, and far out to sea a mere speck on 
 the dim horizon a little fishing-boat was fighting the 
 elements. To-morrow there might be a wreck. There had 
 been some early in the winter with strange objects washed 
 in shore. But she had begun to think that, too, a myth a 
 pleasant, or unpleasant, fiction. Except her visions, every-
 
 THE REMARKABLE YOUNG MAN 201 
 
 thing was doubtful, everything mythical. They were real 
 and solid, and the most real of all was taking advantage of 
 the growing dimness to bother her again. If it hadn't been 
 for the necessitated change of costume and the nearness of 
 dinner, she would have gone out into the storm. The salt 
 wind and the surf and the stinging snow might have broken 
 the image in her heart. In her concern with the aspect of 
 the bright morning hour when she walked with the Benches 
 and David, she had forgotten the aspect of hours less bright 
 forgotten, at last, all other aspects but that of Mrs. 
 Dench's wonderful, jewel-like room and its great civilized 
 setting. 
 
 But if she had gone out, she would have missed seeing 
 Jane, and seeing Jane was a pleasure she never knowingly 
 missed. She turned from the window to find her close, and 
 looking at her in a preoccupied fashion much as David, 
 a while before, had looked at the Chinese vase. She must 
 have blinked a little as her eyes encountered the light, for 
 the first thing Jane said was to ask if she were sleepy. 
 
 " Sleepy ? Never less so ! And what are you doing so 
 far from your own fireside?" 
 
 "I don't possess one. What, might one ask, are you 
 doing so far from yours?" 
 
 "I don't possess one, either." 
 
 "I think there isn't one in the house," said Jane; "this 
 whole place is heated in the most remarkable manner by a 
 system of pipes." 
 
 Emily ventured that the term, 'fireside/ might not imply 
 the presence of the actual blaze, and Jane didn't refute her. 
 
 " You see," she went on, " even if I had a fireside, a real 
 one, it wouldn't really be mine. I'm not of age, and noth-
 
 202 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 ing belongs to you till you're of age. It's held in trust. 
 I know all about that ! There are the most beautiful things 
 being held in trust for me a necklace that belonged to 
 my grandmother Bench, and money enough to buy a cat 
 and some knitting yarn and a little house somewhere in the 
 very centre of America Ohio, probably. Ah then I'll 
 have a fireside ! I'll ask you to visit me, which I'm sure 
 you'll love." 
 
 "And what will you have done with your mother?" 
 
 "Oh mother!" Jane gave the first note of a laugh 
 "mother hates Ohio. She was born there." 
 
 "And you were born in Vienna?" 
 
 "Yes how did you guess? Did David tell you? 
 David's a darling, isn't he? We're the very best friends in 
 the world, he and I. Of course, he's terribly young not 
 that he isn't years and years older than I " She made 
 another uncompleted attempt at laughter. "We were 
 cruising about the Mediterranean and anchored off Cyprus 
 to get coal, I think it was when we first discovered 
 him. We were on the Duchess de Clopin's yacht and the 
 Princess Karina, whom you said you knew, was there too. 
 The princess got bored it was rather her habit. Her 
 boredom finally reached a point when something had to be 
 done ; and we welcomed the relief promised by the Barlows' 
 yacht, anchored close by, and also with coal as an aim. We 
 didn't know it belonged to them, I'm afraid if we had, we 
 wouldn't have been any wiser, but it ended by mother's 
 writing a note, using the princess's name as a sort of excuse 
 for our impudence. The result was the Barlows, in the most 
 marvellous little tender, all glistening brass; and sitting in 
 the bow, a little apart, his dark head bare, was David.
 
 THE REMARKABLE YOUNG MAN 203 
 
 I think from his pleasure that he'd been bored, too." Jane 
 opened wide her long, slim hands. " Seeing him now 
 pale and drawn you can't imagine him as he was then 
 bronzed from that tropical sun " 
 
 "But I can ! I can perfectly " 
 
 "Ah you can?" Jane was reckless. "He's been 
 through so much he's been put through so much " 
 
 "So much?" 
 
 "Paper hoops," said Jane, "the sort they have at the 
 circus. They're pink and yellow, and sometimes green, and 
 the pony gallops on as hard as ever he can and the clown 
 jumps through and lands on the pony's back again all safe 
 and sound. The ring-master cracks his whip " 
 
 David Barlow had said that Jane was quiet. If this was 
 what he called quiet she was wound up as tightly as an 
 eight-day clock, and all her talk had barely loosened the 
 springs. 
 
 "You regard Mr. Barlow as a clown ?" Emily asked. 
 
 "Oh, not a bit ! A clown's awkward and ugly, while 
 David With some women if a man's small, it goes with 
 out saying they don't think him handsome. Now, with 
 me " she paused, "with me a small man's absolutely 
 fatal. That sounds as if my experience of them had been 
 vast, which isn't at all the impression I wish to convey, 
 is it ? When I'm firmly settled in my little Ohio house, I 
 should hate to look back on a varicolored past. Though 
 I assure you it could have been varicolored if people hadn't 
 been so afraid of mother. She's taken care of me in the 
 most masterly manner. Why, I've never even been in 
 love ! And I've never, never," she was smilingly bent on 
 carrying things lightly "had any one hi love with me."
 
 204 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "Why, your path must be strewn with prostrate forms 
 and what of the people afraid of your mother?" 
 
 "They don't count." 
 
 "In a list of victims they should count. Even the clerk 
 at the desk the scrubby young man who's there in the 
 afternoon is transfixed when you go by." 
 
 "Ah that's because I go by! Mother once said a 
 clever thing about me she's always saying clever things 
 and they're mostly about me she said I was a decorative 
 impression. A decorative impression ' Jane repeated 
 it slowly and turned on her new friend her still laughing 
 face. " Doesn't it hit me off to a dot ? " 
 
 How long it was that Emily stood there by the window 
 after Jane had left her, she couldn't have begun to say. 
 But as she went in to dinner rather later than usual, it must 
 have been for some time. Perhaps she wandered about a 
 little and then came back, for she had the distinct remem 
 brance of Jane stooping low over a bookcase a bookcase 
 which was not visible from her place by the window. 
 She couldn't drive out an impression she had caught the 
 same that had made her quite impertinently ask what 
 Jane was doing so far from her own fireside. She had had 
 the air of being very far indeed and without sufficient 
 cause ; the air of aimless waiting with which she might have 
 whiled away an unexpected hour at a railway station. It 
 was a little as if she had been rather perfunctorily obeying a 
 command to run along and play. " If your mother and her 
 visitor are taking up the parlor that should by rights be as 
 much yours as theirs, why, come to me ! I haven't a 
 Russian tea-service and I haven't a beautiful sofa, but I've 
 crackers and jam and a fairly comfortable lounge. It will
 
 THE REMARKABLE YOUNG MAN 205 
 
 be the cosiest sort of a time two little girls together." 
 There was a moment when Emily had considered saying it. 
 If there had been anything that she could have really 
 done for Jane, any way in which she could have really 
 eased her pain, she would have been too glad. But she 
 feared she might prove but a clumsy comforter, and her 
 instinct of self-preservation verged on habit. She was 
 going through enough on her own account. Like David 
 Barlow, she had her stint of paper hoops, and she was tense 
 with exertion. But David had youth and probably no 
 perching visions ; Jane also was possessed of the same asset 
 and the same lack. As for the first, Miss Stedman was in 
 clined, in the presence of so much of it, to overestimate its 
 value. The second the lack of the perching visions 
 was not a proven fact. The two who had youth might have 
 them also, they might be haunted and harassed as much 
 as she, Jane by David's and David by the vision of Mrs. 
 Dench, a heavier load than any the very apex of 
 visions.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MOTHER AND SON 
 
 RALPH PARRISH was sitting in his room at the Town 
 Club surrounded by all the paraphernalia of travel. A rug, 
 an umbrella, and a cane were made to form one of those 
 happy families of circus tradition. A half-emptied bag 
 lay open upon the floor. A trunk, strapped and locked, 
 stood against the wall where the expressman, assisted by one 
 of the Club porters, had lately set it down. The end nearest 
 Parrish was well posted over with labels of foreign hotels and 
 steamship companies and railways; they were the neces 
 sary final touch to the bright checker-board beauty of its ex 
 terior the labels of wisdom without which a trunk is 
 merely a receptacle for possessions. This one was especially 
 designed for foreign travel it had lightness combined 
 with strength, and a hard, polished surface impervious 
 to any but the most insistent scratches. And of these 
 there were but few ; as few almost as those maintained 
 by its possessor. His was a surface equally impervious; 
 and it was just because of this, just because of his hardness 
 and his polish, that labels and scratches affected him in 
 very much the same manner they were the necessary 
 completion of his newness they made him fitter and 
 readier than ever. 
 
 He sat there in his room at the Town Club staring about 
 
 206
 
 MOTHER AND SON 207 
 
 at the visible signs of his journeying. It was only their 
 number and variety that withheld his attention from those 
 less visible. He was, at best, little given to introspection, 
 and he now stopped short at a consciousness of fatigue. 
 It was as near to fatigue as he ever remembered to have 
 come. Never before, surely, had oak supported by steel 
 yielded to his tread hi simulation of a ship's motion ; and 
 never before had the glare of a bright March morning, re 
 flected upward from melting snow, translated itself in his 
 mind's eye to the glare of blue water. It was Sunday, 
 and the wide avenue down which his windows faced was 
 filled with people on their way to church. They walked 
 slowly, in ordered groups of twos and threes, and Parrish 
 caught the masculine gleam of silk hats and the glimmer of 
 feminine plumes. They seemed prepared to take their 
 worship calmly, more as a relaxation than an inspiration, 
 a sedative rather than a stimulant. It was a part of the 
 day's rest and a proven refutation of American excitability. 
 Parrish, fresh from Europe, was in a position to make 
 comparisons. 
 
 He would have been, that is, if he hadn't been far too 
 busy. He had spent the previous day surrounded by 
 customhouse officials and furs and the personal effects of 
 the Benches, who were returning to their own land with 
 the accumulation of twenty years. There had been dinner 
 at the Palazzo Hotel, and after that the dauntless travellers 
 had taken in a theatre. They had risen at what seemed 
 close on Sunday's dawn, however, and by dint of a Hercu 
 lean effort the feminine members of the little trio had car 
 ried out their original intention and left for Ocean City 
 their accumulations attached and uninjured. Parrish was
 
 208 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 newly from this as he sat in his room at the Town Club, 
 gazing about him. He had little more than time to catch 
 a train which would get him to Boston late that afternoon. 
 He would have several hours in which to see his mother, 
 who herself was on the eve of spreading her wings for Horn- 
 mouth, and by starting from Boston at midnight he would 
 be back in New York and could count on reaching the office 
 of his firm of wholesale fur dealers early Monday morning. 
 He had rung for a servant to help him repack his bag, and 
 his speculations, his perceptions of the visible and invisible 
 signs of his journeying, were all confined to the moment that 
 he waited for an answer to his ring. It was a moment 
 like the islands of safety in the middle of the crowded 
 boulevards of the city he had come from. 
 
 He rose and stretched his arms above his head. He 
 didn't really wish to go to Boston. The temptation not to 
 was as strong as any of those with which he had lately 
 dealt. But if he yielded if he didn't go it would be a 
 question of going to Hornmouth, and that couldn't be for a 
 disgracefully long time two weeks, certainly. His 
 mother expected him ; it was his duty not to disappoint her. 
 But his duty or rather his sense of it was weakened by 
 his fatigue. It was a fatigue moral as well as physical; 
 and to face Mrs. Parrish's mild eye, to submit to and return 
 her maternal embrace, to tell her glibly all his news and to 
 lend a sympathetic ear to hers it was too great a strain 
 for his fatigue to bear. He longed for the simple refresh 
 ment to his soul given by a Sunday spent in the smoking- 
 room of the Town Club, surrounded by those of his own sex 
 and age and occupation, his own sex, especially. His 
 world of late had been too exclusively peopled by women.
 
 MOTHER AND SON 209 
 
 He even welcomed with uncommon friendliness the man 
 who came to assist him with his bag not, thank heaven, 
 English. He thanked heaven that the Town Club had the 
 independence of its nationality, and gave the preference of 
 its employment to the native born. Parrish characterized 
 foreign servants by a round American adjective. Perfected 
 in service by the practice of generations, with a knowledge 
 of their place gained in the same manner, they nevertheless 
 were the owners of begging, extended palms that Parrish 
 compared unfavorably with the fair remuneration for value 
 received of his native land. And was it such an advantage 
 that knowledge of place ? even though one greatly 
 sought ... He preferred the uncertainty of democracy. 
 
 The man who was packing his bag asked him how he had 
 liked Paris. "You've been there before, sir, haven't you? 
 It must be a grand place. I wouldn't mind going there 
 myself some day get some gentleman who wanted some 
 one to look after him. But I expect those situations is 
 generally given to ones who can 'parlez-vous.' I have a 
 friend who can talk French just like a Pareesian, and he 
 got a situation to go all around the world with one of our 
 wealthiest millionnaires. He sent me a postal from India." 
 There was a pause and a smile of reminiscence "It 
 wasn't a patch, though, to the postal he sent me from Paris. 
 It was as much as my reputation was worth. The fellows 
 downstairs was all guying me. It was something fierce." 
 He of the endangered reputation had his head buried in 
 Parrish's now opened trunk, and he presently emerged with 
 his search rewarded. "There you'd better take two 
 collars, hadn't you ? Something fierce . . . Over here the 
 police would have been down on the store that sold it like
 
 210 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 a flash but there . . . From what I've heard I wonder 
 if they have any police." There followed an anecdote told 
 behind a shielding hand. 
 
 "It's a different point of view," said Parrish. 
 
 "Yes, I guess that must be it. But you only touched 
 the high places, I expect. You can hardly tell about things 
 of that sort." 
 
 Parrish smiled. "Your friend who sent the post-card 
 could, without doubt, tell more. But do you think that 
 post-cards don't exist in the high places?" 
 
 " Oh, I'd never think that, sir. I've lately been reading a 
 book about the wickedness of the European aristocracy. 
 I always knew that even dukes and duchesses wasn't above 
 their little bit of fun. Why, even here well, we Americans 
 don't let any too much get by us but we've always got 
 the police." 
 
 "You believe in the police, George?" 
 
 "Why, without the police where would you and I 
 be?" 
 
 Parrish had turned to the window and was again looking 
 out. "It's one of the few questions I've never asked my 
 self, George. And yet indirectly it's the police that 
 are forcing me to take the noon train for Boston. Oh, 
 don't be alarmed; I'm not an escaping criminal ! There's 
 such a thing as the police of our own consciences." 
 
 George took a liberty. " I don't ever recollect your having 
 talked like this before, sir !" 
 
 Parrish transgressed all the rules of etiquette and taste. 
 "It's the result of too much feminine society, George." 
 
 George took it concretely, "One of those Pareesians 
 I know the sort. But I never heard I never heard of
 
 MOTHER AND SON 211 
 
 their affecting a gentleman like that." He suddenly 
 straightened himself from his packing. He had the 
 dawn of an idea, and cursed his former thick-headedness. 
 "Wouldn't you like a bromo and seltzer, sir, before you 
 go to the station?" 
 
 "You seem to think I'm drunk," said Parrish, and looked 
 about for his hat. 
 
 n 
 
 Ralph Parrish never appeared so altogether charming as 
 when he bent his strength in the service of the weak. 
 Especially was this true of him when he did so in the service 
 of his mother. Mrs. Parrish was in her later years a rather 
 spare little woman with a mild eye and carefully dressed 
 gray hair. She had brought up her son the way he should 
 go, and now she could fold her hands and reap the fruits of 
 her labor. What wonder if he knew how to assist her with 
 her wrap forestalling in that office the head waiter of the 
 big Boston hotel ; what wonder if his manner as they entered 
 together the dining room contained just the right shades of 
 deference, affection, and respect ? 
 
 They were dining at a hotel, not because his mother's 
 friends hadn't extended their hospitality to include him, 
 but because there they would have a better opportunity 
 to talk than would be possible at a family dinner-table. 
 There would be so much to say. Even in the scanty hour 
 which had elapsed since the arrival of Ralph's train, so 
 much had been said, and Mrs. Parrish was still eager. The 
 tie between the mother and son was a singularly close one. 
 Mrs. Parrish had beneath her mildness a certain brute 
 courage, and Ralph had beneath his strength a certain mild-
 
 212 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 ness an aspect almost domesticated. Perhaps it is his 
 most domesticated aspect which is here most insisted upon, 
 and it is an aspect to which the least mild of men often lend 
 themselves best. A bull in a china-shop picks his way as 
 daintily as may be. They know, somehow the barbarians, 
 the men of iron and even without a mother's training 
 how to arrange a wrap and place a chair. Ralph placed 
 his mother's with such extreme care that that lady looked up 
 at him with questioning eyes. 
 
 "Ralph, dear, if it wasn't for the fact that you have in 
 finitely more money than I, I should say that you were pre 
 paring the way for a ten-dollar bill. Is there anything 
 which I can do? You know that what's mine is yours; 
 and if it's my right hand you want, cut off at the wrist, or 
 the house at Hornmouth or the sudden death of any of our 
 friends, why, come to me !" 
 
 Ralph laughed . ' ' What a bloodthirsty mother you are ! ' ' 
 
 She answered him irrelevantly. "You know you're 
 not looking well. You've lost ten pounds." 
 
 "Most people would call it an improvement. Lost ten 
 pounds, and you suggest that you lend me ten dollars it's 
 manifestly unfair. But you're wrong as you can be ; I swear 
 that I never felt better, and I've no awful secret if that's 
 what you mean. I left no wife pining for me on the coast 
 of France, and I haven't spent and wasted my substance in 
 the gambling hells of Europe. In fact, I've managed to 
 make of my trip a very good thing financially and from 
 the viewpoint of a vacation. Now I've told you all the 
 news all." 
 
 "You've been too good about telling me and I should 
 never ask your confidence. What right have I to the con-
 
 MOTHER AND SON 213 
 
 fidence of a man full-grown in mind and body, a human 
 being with a hundred times my capability and a thousand 
 times my experience ?" 
 
 "It's not a question of right; and besides, you've all the 
 right in the world. Let me see, I think I've told you about 
 the lovely girl on the steamer and her most amusing 
 mother ? They were the sort of pair that made me wish 
 I possessed the reproductive faculty of the artist im 
 mensely typical coming back to their own country after 
 an absence of years for the very good reason that over there 
 a girl without money stands so little chance." 
 
 "So little chance?" 
 
 "Yes, of marrying." 
 
 "You mean they discussed it with you?" 
 
 " I'm afraid they did or at least Mrs. Dench did. 
 She'd learned the European frankness." Fairish was as 
 frank as she "She asked my advice as from one man of 
 the world to another. I wish I could have referred her to 
 you you'd be the very one to tell her." 
 
 "I'm afraid I don't quite understand what it was she 
 wished to know." 
 
 "Why, just what I've said the best way of launching 
 her daughter." 
 
 "You mean socially?" 
 
 "Socially and with an eye an eye to eventually 
 marrying her." 
 
 "What a dreadful woman !" 
 
 Ralph rose in her defence. "Not dreadful simply 
 frank. Women are mostly such hypocrites about things 
 of that sort. You, of course, never having had a daughter, 
 can't tell what you'd do."
 
 214 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "I certainly shouldn't discuss her future with strange 
 young men." 
 
 They were off on an argument seemingly as abstract as it 
 was far-fetched. All that there had been to say was still 
 unsaid. Mrs. Parrish's eagerness was fed by a fluent dis 
 sertation on the hypocrisy of women in matters of the 
 heart, the freedom of choice allowed by American mothers 
 to their daughters, the doubtful wisdom of such a course. 
 Ralph's fluency ran away with him. Mrs. Parrish's sup- 
 -port of her countrywomen and of liberty sounded by com 
 parison weak and halting "I can't agree. A girl, simply 
 because she is unmarried, is not a fool or a slave to be sold in 
 the market-place. She's a free agent with a right to choose 
 for herself. Our system is not perfect, our divorce courts 
 are crowded, but nevertheless " 
 
 " Nevertheless, you wouldn't have it otherwise ? Ah if 
 it wasn't for the side you're on, I should say you were con 
 servative. Let me put it to you like this. If you were 
 getting a horse or an automobile, the only one you ever 
 expected to be able to afford, you wouldn't pick it out all 
 yourself, just because you liked its looks. You'd hunt up 
 if that were possible the services of an expert who had 
 your best interests at heart. Now, a girl, in getting a hus 
 band, has the services of her mother without any hunting 
 at all." 
 
 " You consider the mother an expert in husbands ?" 
 
 "It goes without saying she's more of an expert than the 
 girl. A woman like Mrs. Dench who knows the ropes 
 why, she's qualified absolutely to decide. Jane is lucky." 
 
 "Who's Jane?" 
 
 "Mrs. Bench's daughter. She's lucky," Ralph believed
 
 MOTHER AND SON 215 
 
 it, "and not in the least a slave to be sold in the market 
 place. If she were " He intimated that the market 
 place would never hold the buyers. 
 
 "And all this you got to on the steamer? You made the 
 most of your time." 
 
 "You know the things one gets to on a steamer/' Ralph 
 brought out. 
 
 "March is a little cold for moonlit decks," said his 
 mother. "And besides, which would be your companion on 
 such occasions the mother, with her knowledge of hus 
 bands and ropes, or the lovely girl?" 
 
 "Why not both?" 
 
 "Oh, I'm not to be caught with chaff of that sort!" 
 The mild eye gleamed. All the Parrish women were mild 
 the women mild, the men inclined to the reverse. 
 
 "You're not to be caught. You're unbelievably clever. 
 Now if you had a daughter " 
 
 "It rests with you, Ralph; but what use would it be? 
 I would never have the chance to show my skill, for she'd be 
 already provided for." 
 
 Ralph colored. His mother regarded him in amazement. 
 With a quick, fluttering movement she put out her hand 
 across the table and laid it on his. "It's not the lovely 
 girl?" 
 
 "You've always given me credit for the usual amount of 
 common sense." It was uncomplimentary to the lovely 
 girl. 
 
 Mrs. Parrish covered her surprise with a little tinkle of 
 laughter. " I've never had cause " She stopped. "You're 
 of good New England stock which, by the way, reminds 
 me that with a horse the question of pedigree "
 
 216 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "But, mother dear, you're almost as frank as Mrs. 
 Bench!" 
 
 in 
 
 Meeting for the first time in three months, it seemed as 
 though Ralph and his mother had slipped away from their 
 usual familiar footing. They couldn't for the moment regain 
 it. Generally in such cases the returned wanderer has a store 
 of traveller's tales with which to fill the breach ; but Ralph's 
 store was too tightly packed to be easily dislodged, and it was 
 at the door of the eternal verities that the one nearest the 
 top should concern the Benches. He would have called it an 
 unaccountable impulse, his choice of them as a topic of con 
 versation, almost as unaccountable as the impulse which 
 had sent him to Europe in the interests of fur dealing 
 three months before. If he had been asked why he had 
 gone, even if he had had the will to answer, he couldn't 
 have done so. The chance came, and its coming had sug 
 gested his acceptance of it. But his reasons extended be 
 hind that ; they were many and vague and his reasons 
 were usually few and clear. His going had something to do 
 with Emily Stedman something to do with the Barlows 
 occupying her so much ; something to do with an impulse 
 to break a slender but tightening chain, and something to do 
 with a letter which he had received from Mme. Rostov. 
 
 It was a merely ordinary bit of kindness from one who 
 was always kind; but it had brought to him vividly the 
 recollection of a happier, fuller period, and the charm the 
 surface of which didn't evade one. Mme. Rostov's charm 
 cried out sharply; its evasions were all intentions and its 
 surfaces mile-posts to those beneath. Her letter had been
 
 MOTHER AND SON 217 
 
 full of it and full, also, of the charm of Paris, its haze and 
 its sunlight and its unmistakable foreignness. As Ralph read 
 it, he could have imagined himself standing in the 'Place de 
 la Concorde' looking up the 'Champs-Elysees' either 
 there or in the salon of the small hotel that the Rostovs 
 always patronized on their yearly visits to the city of pleas 
 ure. At any rate, he hadn't had to imagine himself at 
 either of these places two weeks later. He arrived osten 
 sibly in answer to Mme. Rostov's letter, and his masculine 
 humanity helped him to eat the dish the gods laid before him. 
 He had turned from it to rediscover his old acquaintances, 
 the Benches. And now he was in Boston dining with his 
 mother. He had never before so realized the jerking con 
 sequent to a rapid covering of distances. 
 
 He wasn't as much of a cosmopolitan as he had thought 
 himself. The true cosmopolitan makes no distinction 
 between one surrounding and another is equally at 
 home in all ; and Ralph Parrish wasn't in the least at home in 
 the dining room of the big Boston hotel. He saw it with the 
 false eye of the outsider, and it was colored by the falseness, 
 from the garishness of the painted ceiling to the brilliancy of 
 the strips of carpet intersecting the polished floor. The 
 waiters outdid each other in an imitation of hurry and the 
 diners in an imitation of gayety. In Paris the gayety was 
 the real thing; it was flesh of its flesh and bone of its bone; 
 but in Boston just that sort of gayety didn't quite succeed. 
 It was as if a gently bred New England lady preferably 
 the daughter of a distinguished man should appear 
 before the footlights of the music-hall stage in spangles 
 and tights. 
 
 He looked across at his mother. She was the real thing
 
 218 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 as real and as complete in her own way as were the Benches 
 and Mme. Rostov in theirs. He felt that he had always 
 been too close to his mother rightly to appreciate her ; and 
 his present lack of a familiar footing made him see her 
 whole made him see her in all her beautiful perfection. 
 She occupied the place of honor in his gallery of women; 
 and how many men were there, he considered, who could 
 honestly say that of their mothers? Was it perhaps a 
 reflection on his choice of feminine friends ? Though as for 
 that, there was Jane Bench to keep the standard up, and 
 there was Emily Stedman. The standard was one of 
 goodness Jane's goodness was undeniable; Emily's good 
 ness he ungallantly wondered if it were a mere freak of 
 the Fates. She had certainly committed a sin not generally 
 attributable to good women. She had lowered her cousin's 
 respect for himself. For it was not conducive to this respect 
 the realization that the woman who had occupied him so 
 much for so many years should suddenly cease to do so. 
 The fault must be hers therefore the sin. By his impulse 
 to break the slender but tightening chain, he had not meant 
 quite that. 
 
 He told his mother with engaging frankness that he had 
 Emily on his conscience just a bit heavily. It had been a 
 question of his going at the moment, or not at all, and he 
 hadn't even had the time to bid her good-by. He had 
 telephoned, but she had been out. He had written, but her 
 answer had gone astray. And here he was back again and, 
 save for the purchase of a trifling gift, he hadn't done a 
 thing about her. His mother knew the way time slipped 
 
 ahead ? 
 
 i 
 
 His mother knew.
 
 MOTHER AND SON 219 
 
 "How is she?" asked Ralph. 
 
 "She's very much better." 
 
 "You mean she's stronger? Isn't that splendid! Dr. 
 Jeffries had some new idea up his sleeve before I left, and if 
 he really carried it out, that was the great thing about 
 her doing so well with her writing, it gave Dr. Jeffries a 
 bigger chance " 
 
 "But Ralph you say before you left before you 
 left she wasn't ill!" 
 
 "She certainly wasn't well !" 
 
 The table between them became a wall of incomprehen 
 sion across which they stared blankly. 
 
 "You mean that before you left she had already begun to 
 break down ? I thought it a sudden collapse." 
 
 Ralph confessed to the fact of being completely at sea. 
 
 "Didn't you know that Emily nearly died?" 
 
 Emily's cousin couldn't fail to understand that. "For 
 the love of the Lord ! " 
 
 "Not entirely, Ralph." 
 
 "Tell me " 
 
 "It was, as I say, a break-down physical, nervous, 
 everything. Her servant found her lying in a heap on the 
 floor. She was ill for weeks ; but now all danger's past 
 she's up and about, and the same little Emily." 
 
 Ralph Parrish had colored with the force of his emotion. 
 " I never was told I never heard ! " 
 
 "I thought of course you knew." 
 
 "How should I know? You might have written." 
 
 "I thought you knew it seemed somehow more a mat 
 ter between you and her. We're not much in the habit 
 of discussing Emily. "
 
 220 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "You never liked her." 
 
 "I liked her very much. On Uncle Richard's death I 
 went straight and asked her to live with me. I've done it 
 again; but she refuses flatly." 
 
 "You must bring her round it's the only solution 
 I'll go to see her to-morrow. She must think me a cad, 
 never to have given any sign for all these months, and she 
 poor little woman I can see her lying there day after day 
 and finally winning out getting well by her own sheer 
 courage. I can see her " He repeated it, but the vision 
 was distant and dim. 
 
 "She's not living in New York now," said Mrs. Parrish. 
 
 "No? Then where " 
 
 "She's moved, bag and baggage, to Ocean City." 
 
 Parrish stared. "Come that's too impossible !" 
 
 "Why, it's not impossible at all. It's the very place for 
 her to be the very place." 
 
 "She must leave." 
 
 " You'll have to talk with Dr. Jeffries about that. And, 
 besides, why should you care where she is ? If it's as you 
 say, that you've made no sign for all these months, she 
 might have died for all you would have known, why 
 should you take it upon yourself, as soon as you set foot 
 upon land, to remove her from the place she's selected quite 
 without your advice?" 
 
 "Won't you accept my word for it, mother, that Ocean 
 City's not a good selection ? You must remember that she's 
 our cousin, yours and mine, and it's our duty to keep an 
 eye-" 
 
 "You mean that Ocean City's not respectable?" 
 
 "I should hardly " Parrish hesitated "Ocean City's 
 perfectly respectable of course."
 
 MOTHER AND SON 221 
 
 "Then what ? Emily's not a child, you know. You're 
 not experimenting with your European ideas about the 
 bringing up of daughters? And even if you were, you'd 
 have no right ; Emily's not our daughter either yours or 
 mine. I've asked her to Hornmouth ; what more can I do ? " 
 
 " You see, mother, it's like this " Parrish met the still 
 questioning gaze of the lady whom he addressed and drew 
 back. "I can't explain you wouldn't understand. 
 It's simply that I should like to make up to Emily for my 
 former delinquencies, and if she's at Ocean City, I shan't 
 be able to there won't be room." 
 
 "It will take room?" 
 
 "Ocean City's not New York " 
 
 As she looked at her son there passed through the 
 mother's mind the same idea that had come to George, the 
 servant at the Town Club. Not that it was an idea with 
 which she was in the habit of explaining Ralph's ambigui 
 ties ; but she kept a mind open to the free passage of ideas 
 however new. She glanced with suspicion at the half- 
 emptied bottle of light wine which had accompanied dinner, 
 and decided her suspicion to be groundless. It must have 
 been before that and it was outside her jurisdiction. 
 
 "Ocean City's not New York," Ralph wisely repeated. 
 
 "Naturally not. But if you're worried about her isola 
 tion, I take it from something she said in her last letter 
 that she's not entirely alone. Those very rich friends of 
 hers what is their name? are also stopping at the 
 'Tidewater.' " 
 
 "Is she at the 'Tidewater'?" 
 
 "Yes. It's considered one of the best hotels there 
 also one of the quietest. I remember the name of her
 
 222 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 friends now Barlow; they're the bun people. She 
 mentioned only the son ; she found him charming Why, 
 Ralph ! What's the matter ? ' ' 
 
 He had the effect of having completely forgotten his 
 mother's presence. He spoke the name of the Barlows' 
 son, and then more softly, "What an unholy mess!"
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 IN THE MIDST OF BATTLE 
 
 THERE came a day filled with the warmth of early 
 April. Ocean City fairly glittered with light and air and 
 people. The booths along the walk were opened, with 
 fresh signs and wonderful wares. The blue of the sea 
 reflected the blue of the sky. The once mythical crowds 
 were mythical no longer ; they were arriving in ever increas 
 ing numbers ; they were like the swelling wake of a jubilant 
 procession. 
 
 It reminded the Benches of the Italian Riviera the 
 daughter painfully, the mother pleasantly. Emily 
 wondered why, if the Riviera were Mrs. Bench's ideal 
 the standard by which she measured Ocean City why she 
 had wandered so far afield. Was it, as she said, in order 
 that Jane should not become absolutely expatriated that 
 she had come to the 'Tidewater Hotel'? Emily couldn't 
 tell at all. And Mrs. Bench struck her as a woman upon 
 whose reasons it would be futile to ponder. As she sat 
 there, far back in her wheeled chair, half buried under the 
 contents of a florist's window which she had passingly 
 admired her large, intelligent face rising up out of the fresh 
 spring blooms, she reminded Emily of an early pagan idol 
 whose worshippers had, been spurred by prospective war or 
 famine or pestilence to an unwonted devotion. It was 
 
 223
 
 224 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 David Barlow who had constituted himself the high priest 
 of the sacrifice. She had seen the flowers and liked them, 
 and they were hers. He had come out of the shop, his arms 
 laden, and been rewarded with a smile and a command not 
 to forget Miss Stedman and Jane. It put these ladies in a 
 slightly awkward position, this having to accept of an un- 
 spontaneous gift, but they eased the situation by, for the 
 moment, placing their share with Mrs. Bench's. It made 
 a magnificent mass all the flowers together and it was 
 their scent mixed with the scent of the sea that called the 
 Riviera so vividly to Mrs. Dench's mind. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "the whole thing is wonderfully like 
 don't you remember, Jane, it was just a year ago; no, 
 a little more than a year, that we were there? The same 
 jolly little] party. Only you weren't with us then, Miss 
 Stedman." 
 
 "I wish I had been." 
 
 "Why do you wish that?" asked Jane. "You wouldn't 
 have liked it. Would she, David?" 
 
 "The Riviera ? I don't know, I'm sure. I thought Miss 
 Stedman liked everything. You told me once," David 
 had turned and was now addressing her "you told me 
 that everything amused you. You said, I think, that you 
 caressed your pleasures patted them and fondled them 
 and made the most of them." 
 
 It was the sort of thing which, once said, it was useless to 
 disown. 
 
 Mrs. Dench laughed. "I can't imagine patting and 
 fondling and caressing the Riviera. It's too tremendous. 
 And besides, some of the people " she pondered "it's 
 the people in Ocean City that give the place away, the people
 
 IN THE MIDST OF BATTLE 225 
 
 and the clothes. If they all had clothes like yours, Miss 
 Stedman your clothes have an air, and your hats!" 
 She professed her admiration for Miss Stedman's hats. 
 "Now that one you have on You understand that the 
 proper function of a hat is to amuse. Dresses, gloves, 
 shoes they can't be so very amusing ; they have certain 
 other functions which come first. But a hat ! Why, that 
 one you have on is the most delicately witty thing I've seen 
 in this country. That combination of colors those con 
 trasting feathers Of course, on me a hat like that would 
 be not so much amusing as comic, and on Jane a hat like 
 that would be in bad taste. At her age one goes in for the 
 inconspicuous; and besides, it's not her type. But on 
 you " 
 
 " It w mine?" 
 
 "Yours?" 
 
 " My type to be amusing to wear witty hats ?" 
 
 "Oh, absolutely!" 
 
 "Is that the reason," asked Emily, "is it because I'm 
 amusing that you've been so extraordinarily nice to me?" 
 
 " We nice to you oh, my dear ! " Mrs. Dench gazed 
 for a while at Jane and David, who had gone on a little in 
 advance. "You know, even if I hadn't liked you so im 
 mensely, Jane, there, would have made your life a burden. 
 She's taken the most tremendous shine to you says you 
 and she have so much in common speaks of a sort of 
 bond. Trust Jane for finding a bond between herself and 
 the people she likes !" 
 
 It seemed somehow to be not in Jane's favor, her clever 
 ness in this direction, and Emily put in a word in her de 
 fence: "Isn't the mere fact that she likes them and in 
 
 Q
 
 226 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 consequence they can do nothing but gratefully adore her 
 isn't that in itself a bond?" 
 
 " I don't know I sometimes wonder. But please don't 
 for a moment think that I'm not delighted at any bond 
 between Jane and you." 
 
 Emily laughed. "Yet you didn't allow her to read 
 'The Cuckoo.'" 
 
 Mrs. Bench cut her short. " The author of ' The Cuckoo ' 
 is hardly the friend I should have picked out for her ; but 
 unfortunately my field for picking is very limited. It's 
 extremely bad for a young girl to be eternally cooped up 
 with an old woman like me, and there you have it !" 
 
 " But we're forgetting Mr. Barlow. Isn't he all the friend 
 any girl needs?" 
 
 Mrs. Bench's gaze had never left him. " He's a handsome 
 little chap, isn't he ? And when it comes to making himself 
 useful running errands and buying trinkets " 
 
 " Is he a friend you'd have picked out for her if your field 
 for picking had been less limited?" 
 
 The inquiry fell on sharpened ears. "He's a man 
 you're not the situation's not the same. She likes him, 
 of course, very much indeed. That's just it she likes 
 him too much. And it's from finding a bond that I'm 
 trying to keep her. It's why I'm so glad about you and her; 
 you'll occupy her. I don't want her to marry so young." 
 
 Emily gasped. " You think she'll marry Bavid Barlow ? " 
 
 " For the future it's my dearest hope ; but I'm trying 
 to keep it from reaching that point yet." The diplomat's 
 widow gayly launched into American slang. "Not yet, 
 you know, but soon but soon !" 
 
 In looking back upon this moment it has always been a
 
 IN THE MIDST OF BATTLE 227 
 
 source of surprise to Emily that she didn't make some public 
 demonstration sit down in the middle of the walk, kick 
 her heels in the air, shout, cry, make it plain that she didn't 
 for the moment know where she was. From the point of 
 view of the spectator she was surely getting well paid for 
 her courage in having stayed at the performance. The 
 curtain was up, the drama on. It was true that Mrs. Bench 
 was a woman the like of whom she happened never to have 
 seen. David Barlow was in love with her, and Jane was in 
 love with David Barlow. To complete the circle there 
 should be some one in love with Jane, some one who should 
 in turn be loved by Jane's mother. But no, Jane's mother 
 would not be vulnerable to the tender passion. If she were 
 why, if she were, Emily hoped that she would be there 
 to see. The abstract enthusiasm of the spectator was taking 
 the place of perching visions. The egotist was learning to 
 efface herself. The drama swung better without her. 
 
 There were still times when her own part in it rushed over 
 her. The pitch at which she lived screeched ever upward ; 
 the perching visions doubled and trebled and quadrupled. 
 They were all of David Barlow David bareheaded in the 
 bow of a boat David hovering over Mrs. Dench's tea- 
 table David reading his morning's paper. She had once 
 been occupied in watching his soul. She had found it easy 
 to comprehend. A good deal of it had been visible to her 
 from where she had sat on Mrs. Dench's gilt-trimmed French 
 sofa. It had been to her a tangible, definite thing some 
 thing beyond the perching visions, beyond the beguiling 
 personality. And soul was merely another, larger word for 
 mind. It was the mind that held her and puzzled her 
 a man wasn't carved in bronze for nothing.
 
 228 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 Now Jane Emily triumphed over Jane Jane didn't 
 care the snap of a finger for David's mind. She loved him 
 for his ' beaux yeux' the set of his head upon his shoulders, 
 the deft movement of his hands, the neat, strong poise of his 
 neat, strong body, the sound of his voice and the sound of his 
 laugh. Emily would have paid Jane, and paid her high, for 
 the memory of that day in the Mediterranean with the two 
 coaling yachts, the bright, hard sunlight and David. She 
 wondered if he saw her if he looked up at her from the 
 little brass-trimmed tender, or if from the first he had eyes 
 only for her mother. Jane's heart must have gone to him 
 straight. It had not been with her a question of growth 
 and months and flowers springing from new-made graves. 
 Emily's passion looked beside hers a very slender thing 
 indeed. Her youth recognized his youth, and with Emily 
 1 Emily's youth didn't exist. And surely youth was a 
 necessary concomitant of passion, and love without it as un 
 real for all the use it was as the feast seen through the 
 glass of a cake shop's window. But mightn't mind or soul, 
 or whatever you chose to call it, take the place of youth ? 
 Though what was mind, after all, in comparison with perch 
 ing visions ? 
 
 Emily's thought was tangled. She took refuge in the 
 simple evidence of her senses. There, ahead of her, walking 
 side by side, were Jane and David, a notably fine pair of 
 young people, possessing between them riches and beauty. 
 What more natural than the thing Emily's companion so 
 grandly intimated? Mrs. Dench would not be the first 
 mother who had sacrificed herself to the happiness of her 
 daughter. 
 
 Emily finally gave voice to a sentiment previously 
 brought out by Ralph Parrish. " Jane is lucky."
 
 IN THE MIDST OF BATTLE 229 
 
 " You mean you so like David ? " 
 
 " Immensely don't you ?" 
 
 " Why, of course. But then the extent of my liking for 
 David amounts almost to prejudice." 
 
 "Every one likes David." 
 
 " Yes, every one," said Mrs. Dench. And that seemed 
 the end of that road. 
 
 But Emily still had a word. "He's tremendously un 
 selfish." 
 
 " You've seen it too ? Of course, Jane and I " Mrs. 
 Dench paused. " Why, the things we could tell you about 
 David's unselfishness ! It never seems to occur to him 
 that he himself has needs. He has ideas about his clothes ; 
 but beyond that he might as well be a pauper. Even in the 
 matter of things to eat " 
 
 "With his family," Emily broke in, "it's just the other 
 extreme. Life with them is one great, gorgeous meal. 
 John Barlow has given the public the sort of food they like 
 they in turn give him the sort he likes. But that's not 
 David." 
 
 " Never ! And yet I imagine that in this country he's 
 not appreciated. Tell me, he always refuses to talk with 
 me about his work, what does he intend to do ? Do you 
 know ? I've gathered something very vague about political 
 ambitions." 
 
 "So have I something very vague." 
 
 " I'm to take it that he's that very rare bird, a member of 
 your American leisure class?" 
 
 "So I should think." 
 
 Mrs. Dench found it funny. "I've been told it's a 
 class which is largely recruited from laundress's husbands
 
 230 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 and the gentlemen who earn their living by voting for Presi 
 dent." 
 
 "There we have the political ambitions " 
 
 But Mrs. Dench was lost in thought. " It's somehow not 
 like him to rest on his father's laurels." 
 
 " No, he's not exactly the type of rich man's son." 
 
 "It's a type I know very little about," said Mrs. Dench. 
 
 Emily also protested her ignorance. 
 
 She had Mrs. Bench's sympathy; and that lady suggested 
 that as the geologist reconstructs the whole of an extinct 
 animal from a single bone, so might they gain a knowledge 
 of all rich men's sons from their knowledge of David. 
 
 "But if he's not the type! " 
 
 " What matter ? Besides, there's rather a dearth at Ocean 
 City of any sons at all. We should be duly grateful for 
 even an uncharacteristic specimen." 
 
 "If we all had an equal number of turns," said Emily 
 Mrs. Dench was not the only woman in Ocean City who 
 could be remarkable "if we all had an equal number of 
 turns, our gratitude would be boundless. But since you and 
 your daughter arrived well I suppose I had my turn 
 before that happened." 
 
 She stood, aghast at her own impertinence, but Mrs. 
 Dench answered her far above her deserts. " You had your 
 turn your opportunity and you failed to grasp it." 
 
 Mrs. Dench was laughing, but Emily put a question in all 
 seriousness. "What would have been your conception of 
 my 'grasping' it?" 
 
 The amber eyes, with their tendency towards prominence, 
 stared fixedly. "I would have had no conception. The 
 thing's preposterous. You haven't even had your turn.
 
 IN THE MIDST OF BATTLE 231 
 
 But now won't you for a moment emulate David's example, 
 and sacrifice yourself in the cause of others? Won't you 
 make up some excuse to go on in front and join those two? 
 1 think Jane's turn has extended long enough." 
 
 "I thought it was Jane," Emily said, "who objected to 
 seeing so much of David don't you remember that after 
 noon when we took tea with you ? so if you object also, 
 why, I can't understand why you see him." 
 
 "Oh, Jane doesn't object to seeing him herself! She 
 objects to my seeing him. She objects to my seeing him, 
 and I object to her seeing him. It's plain that we either 
 don't trust each other or him." 
 
 "Him? " 
 
 "Yes, and if we don't trust him, we certainly shouldn't 
 wish each other to be contaminated. Which, as David 
 would say, of course I don't mean." And then Mrs. Dench 
 rather abruptly changed the subject. Her new one was 
 Ralph Parrish. She talked of Ralph Parrish all the way 
 back to the hotel ; and Emily at first puzzled pres 
 ently evolved the explanation that she did so because 
 she desired to mitigate any impression she might have con 
 veyed of David's undue importance. If she had been in 
 discreet, she now gave the effect of wishing her indiscretion 
 to be disregarded. It was astonishing how much trouble she 
 took about it: 
 
 " You tell me it's Mr. Parrish's mother who is really your 
 cousin? It must be delightful to have relations. Mine 
 are so very scattered why, I haven't sat down to a family 
 Christmas dinner for twenty years ! The Parrishes are 
 Bostonians, are they not ? Mr. Parrish told me that for him 
 self he infinitely preferred New York; but men are apt to.
 
 232 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 I know very little about either city. Washington is more 
 in my line. Speaking of Washington, I believe your cousin 
 is not, like David, interested in politics." 
 "No, neither church nor state nor army " 
 Mrs. Bench looked up. " I imagine him hardly suited to 
 the church, and of course the army is unoriginal." 
 
 " But so is the thing he's in unoriginal the great field 
 of commerce, the tanning of pelts." 
 " Is he clever at it this tanning of pelts ?" 
 "He doesn't actually do it himself, you know." 
 "Oh, I know." Mrs. Bench waited . . . 
 "Yes," Emily finally went on, "I believe he's very clever 
 at it. He has the knack of getting on with people mak 
 ing himself right with all sorts of men." 
 
 Mrs. Bench confessed that if she hadn't their word for it, 
 both his word and Emily's, she never would have 
 guessed his occupation. " He suggests leisure, great golden 
 leisure his energies seem all dormant and his strength 
 unexerted. He's like a magnificent animal basking in the 
 sun." 
 
 "Oh, that's his pose. He's learned that a pose " 
 Mrs. Bench interrupted. " He's learned a great deal. " 
 "But he doesn't expect his poses to be believed !" 
 "Then when they are, he gets more than he bargained 
 for. Why don't you have him down here?" 
 
 Emily answered obliquely. "Wouldn't he be dreadfully 
 on our hands ? He'd find it dull, and through sheer pride 
 we'd be forced to entertain him. Now if Jane weren't 
 already so occupied " 
 
 "Oh Jane!" From her manner of pronouncing it, 
 Emily caught the impression that Mrs. Bench wasn't
 
 IN THE MIDST OF BATTLE 233 
 
 entirely satisfied with her daughter's name. "Jane " 
 she repeated it. "Jane's not so occupied as you think." 
 
 "Perhaps it would be just the very diversion needed to 
 bring it to a point." - 
 
 "It?" 
 
 "Your plan for her and Mr. Barlow." 
 
 " Oh, to be sure. But really, all joking aside, why don't 
 you have him down?" 
 
 " Why don't you?" 
 
 "You know, I think I will." 
 
 It struck Emily as a coincidence, the handwriting of 
 Ralph Parrish's mother on the envelope of a letter which 
 she found in her mail-box half an hour later. The coinci 
 dence was too striking the letter was opened with an un 
 canny sense of possible disaster, and it was in a voice that 
 barely concealed her relief that she, turning, spoke to Jane. 
 
 Jane was also getting her mail, and she raised her eyes 
 from an examination of it. "Pardon me, what did you 
 say?" 
 
 "I said that my cousin, Mrs. Parrish, is coming here. 
 She's to stay one week, and she arrives to-morrow." 
 
 "Oh,.I'msoglad!" 
 
 Emily stared. " Now, why ? " 
 
 "Why? Because mother does so long for the society of 
 an older woman. It's frightfully bad for her, being eternally 
 cooped up with a mere chit of a girl like me." 
 
 History repeated itself almost word for word: "We're 
 forgetting Mr. Barlow." 
 
 "Oh, she has David, if that's what you mean." 
 
 "Doesn't she like David?" 
 
 " Almost too much. But that doesn't prevent her longing
 
 234 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 for some one of her own age and sex some one with whom 
 she can metaphorically speaking sit on the front porch 
 and embroider doilies." 
 
 Emily again stared; but Jane was looking at her very 
 straight and very gravely. "She positively longs " 
 And didn't this longing exactly coincide with the idea of 
 Mrs. Bench's character to be gained from the hopes and 
 fears that she had so recklessly confided that very morning ? 
 If it hadn't been for this for the wonderful way in which 
 Mrs. Bench had explained herself Emily would have 
 thought her daughter's gaze almost too straight and too 
 grave. 
 
 ii 
 
 "Well, Cousin Laura!" 
 
 "Emily" 
 
 The two women had spied each other out on the crowded 
 station platform, and were now upon each other with little 
 pats of greeting. 
 
 "I'm so glad so glad " 
 
 "Are you really?" 
 
 " Yes, I am ; and I appreciate it your coming all this 
 way just for me." 
 
 " You got me a room ? " 
 
 "A good one, with an ocean view, just around the corner 
 from mine." 
 
 "I was afraid you might have difficulty so near the 
 crowded season. I suppose it's filling fast. Now, my 
 trunk I have my check " 
 
 Emily summoned one of the 'Tidewater' porters. 
 "Here," she explained, "all that is done for you you
 
 IN THE MIDST OF BATTLE 235 
 
 forget we're a city of invalids. We're done for, done for, 
 done for, from morning till night." 
 
 "Yes, of course." 
 
 The 'Tidewater' motor-bus hissingly awaited their pleas 
 ure. They had it to themselves on the way back, as 
 most of the guests of that hotel arrived by a special morning 
 train. Mrs. Parrish would have done so, too ; but she had 
 taken advantage of her passage through New York to 
 accomplish some necessary shopping, and as it was, the 
 hours at her disposal fled all too quickly. 
 
 Emily asked for news of Hornmouth. There was none 
 it hadn't stirred an inch or changed a hair. " Dr. Rainor 
 Dr. Guthrie still?" 
 
 " Yes still. No one has died of any note." 
 
 " It's really all one expects of Hornmouth, isn't it ? But 
 tell me you left there yesterday you've been practi 
 cally on the wing ever since. And I know what it is, even 
 the little trip from town. Why, you must be exhausted !" 
 
 "Not at all. When I start out to do a thing " Mrs. 
 Parrish intimated the rest. 
 
 Emily was on the point of asking her what it was that she 
 had started out to do. The mild eye blazoned forth a 
 motive more important than a mere cousinly visit. But it 
 was just because of this that Emily saw the futility of a 
 question. She saw it still more clearly after the bus had 
 deposited them at the big columned facade of their hotel and 
 Mrs. Parrish had put down her name in the register. There 
 was a motive, surely, behind the mild, scrutinizing stare with 
 which she took in every nook and corner of her new surround 
 ings ; and a motive in the question she put to Emily imme 
 diately upon ascending to the privacy of their rooms :
 
 236 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "What sort of a hotel is the 'Tidewater' ?" 
 
 "Why, don't you see?" Emily included everything in 
 her gesture. 
 
 " I see it's big and clean and expensive. But that's not 
 what I meant." She laid aside her coat and gloves. " No, 
 that's not what I meant." 
 
 Emily waited. 
 
 The wait was rewarded. " Is it respectable ?" 
 
 "Why, the management probably makes the usual effort 
 to keep it so." 
 
 "And can they always tell?" 
 
 "Well, when they can't tell " 
 
 "It doesn't matter, does it? Is it the biggest hotel 
 here?" 
 
 "No, there's one bigger the 'Balliol Castle.' It's 
 showier and a little more expensive and a far fitter sub 
 ject for your doubts." 
 
 Mrs. Parrish was standing in front of the mirror taking 
 off her hat. What it lacked in trimming was made up in hat 
 pins, and they bristled militantly when she finally set it down. 
 There was something militant, also, in the attitude of its 
 owner something suggesting the soldier who pitches his 
 tent in the enemy's country. She suddenly turned upon 
 Emily. " If the ' Balliol Castle' is the sort of place you say, 
 why in heaven's name don't people like the Benches 
 go there?" 
 
 "The Benches ? I didn't know you knew them." 
 
 "I don't know them I've heard of them from Ralph." 
 
 " Ralph must have sadly maligned them if what you inti 
 mate about them you heard from him." 
 
 " Indeed, he didn't. He didn't say a word against them.
 
 IN THE MIDST OF BATTLE 237 
 
 It's just from what he didn't say that I drew my conclusions. 
 Men are such innocent lambs where women are concerned." 
 
 Emily laughed. "I should hardly call Ralph an inno 
 cent lamb!" 
 
 "Well, on that your opinion's worth more than mine. 
 Tell me, do you know the Benches well ? Do you see a 
 great deal of them?" 
 
 Emily was puzzled. "Why do they interest you so 
 greatly? Though they're perfectly respectable, they're not 
 at all your sort. What is it about them ? " 
 
 " If they're not my sort, it would seem that they were 
 hardly yours, my dear. But you haven't told me whether 
 you saw them a great deal. Do you ? " 
 
 " Why, no only through David Barlow." 
 
 "You mean the son of Barley Buns?" 
 
 "Yes, the son of Barley Buns." 
 
 "And do you see a great deal of him?" 
 
 " No, not a great deal. You know how it is in a place like 
 this with nothing to do but see people." 
 
 " How does it happen that Mr. Barlow's here is he ill ?" 
 
 "No, not in the least." 
 
 " I see. It's simply a case of too much money. But why 
 is he here is it on your account?" 
 
 "Can you imagine it?" 
 
 " Hardly, but in these days you never can tell. Does he 
 see a great deal of the Denches?" 
 
 " Yes, he's with them all the time. I have every reason 
 to suppose that he's going to marry Jane Dench." 
 
 Mrs. Parrish's voice was suddenly pitched sharp. "And 
 I have every reason to suppose that he's going to do nothing 
 of the sort ! "
 
 238 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 " I have it from her mother, but if you know more surely 
 if your authority's better than that " 
 
 "You have it from her mother?" 
 
 "Straight yesterday morning." 
 
 "When is the wedding to take place?" Mrs. Parrish 
 was nothing, if not direct. 
 
 Emily hedged. "It isn't quite as definite as I seem to 
 have led you to think. It's simply that I have it from her 
 mother that he wants to marry her, and she's very much in 
 love with him, and Mrs. Bench is holding them back for the 
 present. She doesn't want Jane to marry too young." 
 
 "Why, I understood that marrying Jane was Mrs. Bench's 
 whole reason for coming to this country !" 
 
 "Well, there's a mistake somewhere." 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Parrish, " there's a mistake somewhere. 
 You must think it queer, my asking all these questions about 
 people whom I don't even know ; but I came here under the 
 very wrong impression that it was Ralph Jane was going to 
 marry, and I had a certain maternal curiosity. He got back 
 from Europe changed and queer and silent, and when he did 
 open his mouth it was to talk of these people; though I 
 could see they were really the one subject he was trying to 
 avoid. It wouldn't have done, you know you can 
 see that. Though how I could have prevented it ... 
 Those sort of people would be open to the financial argu 
 ment, and I could have engaged to cut Ralph off without a 
 cent. The boy makes such a comfortable sum I don't 
 know " The boy's mother sighed with relief. "But as 
 long as what you say is true, and you have it from her 
 mother, it's a problem that we shan't have to consider. 
 Come, let's go downstairs. Can't we have tea? I should 
 like to see what it is I've escaped."
 
 IN THE MIDST OF BATTLE 239 
 
 III 
 
 It was the hour which they seemed to make so much of at 
 Ocean City, the hour before dinner. Mrs. Parrish was en 
 joying it to the full ; she had already rested from her travels, 
 and was now as she said highly refreshed and pre 
 pared for anything. In her whole-hearted desire for adven 
 ture, she rivalled her cousin Emily. The adventure which 
 should by rights have been hers had been unexpectedly 
 removed. Her son was safe; the name of Parrish didn't 
 need defence; and there stretched before her an entire 
 week in which her only occupation would be to live down 
 the past afternoon. She had the disturbing sense of having 
 made a fool of herself before her cousin. It was only an 
 impression an intuition that she had had about Jane 
 Bench; and to come to Ocean City on the strength of an 
 impression to blurt out all her fears into the ears of 
 Emily Stedman it left no doubt about her having made 
 a fool of herself. The fact was clearly reflected in the 
 sarcastic little face which Emily turned to her ; and an ad 
 venture any adventure would have lightened the at 
 mosphere. She couldn't get away from that white little 
 face, so like her own in general racial aspect and so unlike 
 in the more individual marks. It was as though her own were 
 twisted to a comic mask as though it were riddled with 
 sharp accents. Emily was cleverer than she; the face 
 showed it, and she exploited her cleverness. Mrs. Parrish 
 never had thought this last to be quite in good taste. 
 
 The two women sat there in the very centre of the big sun 
 parlor, frankly waiting for something to occur. They had 
 had tea, and they had changed their dresses for dinner, and
 
 240 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 they had told each other, for the tenth time, how glad they 
 were to be together. Emily had recounted the details of 
 her illness, and Mrs. Parrish had praised her present look of 
 health. The climate of Ocean City received favorable 
 comment. Mrs. Parrish felt its benefits already " I'm 
 prepared," she said, "for anything " 
 
 And into this expectancy came the rather inadequate 
 figure of David Barlow. He had stepped for a moment 
 within their range of vision and responded with such alacrity 
 to Emily's greeting that she felt justified in asking him to sit 
 down. Mrs. Parrish liked him immediately. 
 
 "I've heard of you from my cousin and from my son, 
 and I once had the pleasure of meeting your father. It was 
 at a charity directors' dinner in Boston." 
 
 " Oh, yes, he's very much interested in that work." 
 
 "Indeed, you don't have to tell me ! I'm on the Board, 
 and I know what he's done." 
 
 " He's done a great deal, I believe." 
 
 " It's really wonderful. And his knowledge of the condi 
 tions I had a most interesting talk with him, and I 
 couldn't help wishing that we had him in Boston; but, of 
 course, New York can't spare him." 
 
 David always lent a willing ear to praise of his father. 
 "It's a marvel to me," he said, "how he finds the time to do 
 half the things he does. He has his business interests and 
 his charities and a finger in the political pie, and he rarely 
 lets a year go by without Europe. He gives one such a high 
 ideal of energy that for one's self one might as well aban 
 don trying to reach it." 
 
 "That's a sentiment unworthy of his son," Mrs. Parrish 
 smiled.
 
 IN THE MIDST OF BATTLE 241 
 
 "There, you see ! It's hopeless to be worthy." 
 
 Emily asked the immediate cause of his pessimism. 
 
 " I'm abandoned," he told her; " till you held out a welcom 
 ing hand I was wandering about in a way that was enough to 
 make any one pessimistic." 
 
 "You poor young man !" 
 
 . " Thank you for your sympathy. I need it, I assure you. 
 I went for a stroll after lunch and returned to a desert. 
 There was no one to give me tea oh, no thank you, 
 you've probably had yours and it's too late no one 
 to amuse me at all. I felt a certain hesitancy about foisting 
 myself upon you; I knew you had Mrs. Parrish." 
 
 "Where are your little friends?" 
 
 "I caught the briefest glimpse of them all excitement 
 over a telegram. They haven't had a second to spare me." 
 
 "His little friends? " Mrs. Parrish begged enlighten 
 ment. 
 
 Her begging was lost in the rapid flow of David's narra 
 tive. " I asked them what had happened, and they didn't 
 even bother to answer me. I know when I'm not wanted; 
 I came away." 
 
 "You had a hard time." 
 
 " Why, I even implored Jane to come and play with me ; 
 but Jane couldn't her mother answered for her Jane 
 was taking a nap. I jeered at the excuse for its falseness, 
 but Mrs. Bench was unmoved " 
 
 "Oh, the Benches !" said Mrs. Parrish. 
 
 "Bon't you know? We were speaking of them only a 
 few moments ago Mrs. Bench and her daughter " 
 
 Mrs. Parrish knew. 
 
 "They're the only people you can speak of down here,
 
 242 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 aren't they?" David put it to Emily, "I never saw such 
 a dull collection. There's you and the Benches and, perhaps, 
 me, and absolutely no one else ! I'm afraid, Mrs. Parrish, 
 that you'll find it dull." 
 
 The mild eye regarded him. "I didn't come to Ocean 
 City for gayety. And if you don't find it dull but, of 
 course, with you the situation's different " She smiled 
 at him in a manner which made him turn a puzzled face to 
 Emily, and Emily promptly took it upon herself to 
 explain : 
 
 "My cousin persists in the foolish illusion that she's 
 tottering on the brink of the grave. She fences herself in 
 with an idea of age, and she looks upon the situation of 
 every one her junior as 'different' from her own." 
 
 The manner and meaning of Mrs. Parrish's smile had been 
 befogged. "I believe," she said, "that in these modern 
 days there is no such thing as age. We're all the same 
 the child of ten and the woman of fifty our situations 
 our knowledge our way of life." 
 
 "You and Mrs. Bench should get together. She sym 
 pathizes with you absolutely." 
 
 "Mrs. Bench! " Emily stared. "Mrs. Bench goes to 
 the other extreme. She's the very exemplification of all 
 that Mrs. Parrish objects to!" 
 
 That lady protested amid the general laughter, and Miss 
 Stedman admitted putting it too strongly. Mrs. Parrish 
 held secretly the opinion that this would be impossible, 
 but her protestations continued loud: "I have one thing 
 to thank her for even before I've the pleasure of her ac 
 quaintance, and that is the pleasure of Mr. Barlow's. If 
 she hadn't so insisted on her daughter's nap "
 
 IN THE MIDST OF BATTLE 243 
 
 David appreciated her putting it like that. " You soothe 
 my shattered pride. Mrs. Bench would have none of me 
 
 she was absorbed in her telegram." 
 
 Emily suggested that the telegram might have been im 
 portant. 
 
 "More important than I?" David asked. "Oh, if it 
 were, she would have told me." 
 
 Emily again explained. "If it were anything requir 
 ing immediate action, Mr. Barlow's aid would be inval 
 uable." 
 
 "True devotion! " said Mrs. Parrish, smiling. 
 
 The big doors at the farther end of the sun parlor were 
 thrown wide. They led into the dining room, and their 
 opening was an announcement of dinner. Several people 
 
 those who in David's judgment were not to be spoken of 
 
 rose to take advantage of their opportunities. They 
 had been waiting for this very moment the hands of a 
 great clock, pointing to seven, upheld them. But Emily 
 didn't dine till the half-hour. Neither did the Denches; 
 and as David made their hour his, the opening of the doors 
 didn't directly affect Mrs. Parrish, who continued to await 
 her adventure. She looked inquiringly at her cousin. 
 Couldn't they have dinner? But her cousin was talking to 
 David. The conversation since the opening of the doors 
 had taken on a more spasmodic character. The chief 
 weight of it fell upon Emily, and she proved herself equal 
 to her burden : 
 
 "Doesn't it seem to you that we have a quite dispro 
 portionate number of meals ? There's nothing to do here 
 but eat we live from feeding time to feeding time. 
 We're fast becoming the most arrant sensualists."
 
 244 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "Oh hardly!" 
 
 " Well, I admit it's rather the blind and passive sensualism 
 of invalids and children. We're petted animals in a gilded 
 cage " 
 
 "Speaking of pessimism!" said David. His eyes kept 
 turning towards the other doors those through which 
 one would have to come in order to enter the room from 
 the hall and so pass by to the dining room doors at the 
 farther end. 
 
 Emily valiantly held him. "It's not pessimism. It's 
 merely the artist in me seeking to clothe the external 
 aspect with drollery. At heart we're not petted animals 
 
 at heart we're not sensualists. Our hearts are untouched 
 
 our" 
 
 It was Mrs. Parrish who cut her short. "Oh, Emily, 
 look ! Look at the lovely girl ! " 
 
 "It's Jane Bench," said David, "and her mother." 
 
 There was a third figure that David didn't for the moment 
 connect with them, the figure of a man, big and blond and 
 oddly familiar; it was only the dimness of shaded lights 
 that made him not instantly recognizable. Mrs. Dench 
 was sure that he should be, however. She came straight 
 towards Emily straight towards Mrs. Parrish she led 
 him, and Ralph Parrish followed, a magnificent trophy of 
 her spear. 
 
 Mrs. Parrish had risen; but she made no pretence of 
 meeting her son halfway. As she watched his approach, 
 she stood still with a stillness which was barely disturbed 
 by his surprised halt, his broken exclamation 
 
 "Mother!" 
 
 She kissed him tenderly, though her first words were to
 
 IN THE MIDST OF BATTLE 245 
 
 Emily and cabalistic to the rest. "You see my authority 
 is better than that." 
 
 " Not necessarily " Most of Emily's strained eagerness 
 was for the look of triumphant happiness in the eyes of Mrs. 
 Dench. 
 
 Jane turned to Parrish, softly apologetic. " I knew your 
 mother was here and it quite went out of my head to tell 
 you the good news. But you know it now, and it's all 
 the more delightful." 
 
 And then some one effected an introduction between the 
 three women.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 CONCERNING THE FLAVOR OF WINES 
 
 A WRITER a writer with a book like "The Cuckoo" 
 to her credit, appealing as it does both to the critic and the 
 cash-girl gets abominably keen on the nuances of the 
 human relation, the small differences between Tweedledum 
 and Tweedledee. A writer of that sort has to it's her 
 stock in trade, her box of tricks. Even the relations which 
 most intimately concern her, she views from a distance 
 sufficient to see them whole. She doesn't let a good thing 
 slip through her hands merely for want of proper watching. 
 Sometimes, of course, a thing crops up which would seem to 
 the lay mind almost too good, too intimate, an observation 
 too inverted, but the habit of analysis still clings. It's a 
 form of self-consciousness; but civilization itself is a form 
 of self-consciousness. Highly civilized beings who are not 
 of the ink-ridden brotherhood learn to extract the full flavor 
 from the wine which they roll upon their tongues. 
 
 Emily's wine, perhaps because she came to it with an 
 accumulated thirst, had never before had a flavor so am 
 brosial. It touched and held the aromatic mean between 
 cloying and bitterness, the acrid balancing the sweet to 
 which she had once been an uncomplaining victim. Her 
 
 246
 
 CONCERNING THE FLAVOR OF WINES 247 
 
 cellar, and the houses of most pale literary ladies are 
 constructed without one, her cellar was widely stocked. 
 It could claim kinship with the best. She might have up 
 bottle after bottle a mouthful here a glass there 
 and there would be no sensible diminution in the dusty 
 rows below. 
 
 She had never before been so in the midst. The human 
 relation had never before been so stripped for her inspection. 
 And it wasn't the view outside her window that she was 
 watching, or the activities of the people next door. Other 
 people nonsense. It was excruciatingly, terribly her 
 self; herself in her relation to Ralph Parrish, herself in 
 her relation to David Barlow, to Mrs. Bench, to Jane, to her 
 cousin Laura. And once in relation to them altogether 
 
 herself. Yet she felt herself above them as the extended 
 toe of a music-hall dancer is above her audience, or the chirp 
 of a grasshopper above thunder. - The battle raged about 
 her; she likened herself to the angel of victory hovering 
 overhead, but her observations downward and inward 
 
 showed her wings dulled with dust. 
 
 The dust was the finest flavor of the wine. She was in 
 the midst appallingly. 
 
 Ralph Parrish had come back ; and with him her old pas 
 sion, refreshed. The newly made grave was robbed of its 
 treasure. The pendulum had swung again. That part of 
 herself concerned with her possession of her cousin was 
 capering about, indecently unaware of its shroud. Par 
 rish had come back, a new Parrish, matured and thinned and 
 confident, none the less splendid for a certain condensation 
 of modelling. His eyes were more than ever of slate; and 
 the closer clipping of his mustache didn't quite hide the
 
 248 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 wide mouth, hardened in its wideness and always curled 
 a little upward from the white, straight teeth beneath. But 
 the surface was still smooth and sleek; the magnificent 
 physical presence was still there, the spread of shoulder 
 and length of limb. Emily felt that she had never before 
 really seen him. He had always been too near, the mag 
 nificent physical presence too taken for granted. He had 
 gone away; and it had been without sight of him that her 
 passion had come and lived briefly without light, like a 
 thing killed by birth. And now it was born again. 
 
 It always seemed to choose for this feat moments of stress 
 moments which would be in themselves sufficiently full. 
 But the fulness intrinsic to this last one might have been 
 forever lost save for Emily's fixed habit of analysis. Her 
 faculties were jerked to a multiplied activity; her vision 
 and her hearing, and, as Parrish had turned to her from his 
 mother's embrace and taken both her hands in his, her sense 
 of that she didn't miss any of it. She saw clearly the 
 triumphant happiness in the eyes of Mrs. Bench, Jane's 
 unwonted softness, her cousin Laura's tense excitement. 
 Then the splendor of the physical presence had been too 
 strong; she was blinded to everything but that; she had 
 stood there with her hands in Parrish's and the whole cur 
 rent of her strength was centred in those hands. Thoughts 
 came tumblingly, queer, inconsequent images. She re 
 membered quite vividly the University library at Horn- 
 mouth and the faces of her father and mother. Tunes ran 
 in her head not in any way suggested by the one which 
 the hotel orchestra was playing. Verses, headless and tail 
 less, repeated themselves with syncopated insistence : 
 " Soon to glory shall he rise ..."
 
 CONCERNING THE FLAVOR OF WINES 249 
 
 "... And her loud steeds fret not, 
 Nor lift not a lock of their great white manes ..." 
 
 "The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, 
 And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold ..." 
 
 The last was a memory from a childhood's admiration of 
 Byron. It had extraordinarily little to do with the present 
 circumstance. 
 
 " And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold ..." 
 
 She had looked up into Ralph Parrish's smiling face. 
 She was suddenly aware, through a sentence yet unfinished, 
 a gesture still in progress, that all this had taken but a bare 
 instant of time. It was as if time had stopped, especially 
 for her. She had looked from Parrish to David Barlow, 
 and the David Barlow she had loved went to nothing under 
 her eyes. He was a being of visions of unreality a 
 puppet made only in the workshop of her own mind. In 
 his place was a young man, small and rather pale, with a 
 well-cut profile and a slightly nervous manner. 
 
 ii 
 
 " I was terribly sorry to hear you'd been ill, Emily. But 
 you are better now, aren't you? You're looking splendid. 
 Isn't Emily splendid, mother?" Parrish smilingly de 
 manded corroboration. 
 
 " She's certainly better than I've ever seen her." 
 "Oh, my dear, I'm better than any one's ever seen me !" 
 Mrs. Dench looked at her. "It's a triumph for Ocean 
 City, isn't it?" 
 
 "It's a triumph," said Parrish, "for Emily's own little 
 pluck. She simply determined she'd get well, and she did.
 
 250 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 I think " he turned to her "I think it was bully of 
 you!" He was like that from the first moment of his 
 visit singling her out making it clear how glad he 
 was to see her. 
 
 They were all dining together at Mrs. Bench's table 
 the widow had seen it was the only thing and they 
 formed, even in the vast spaces of the 'Tidewater/ a fairly 
 conspicuous group. There was Jane, always lovely, and 
 Mrs. Bench who had Presence, and Emily in a gown which 
 Ralph Parrish l had not been the first to praise. Ralph's 
 mother lent an air of distinction, and the two men were a 
 sufficient contrast to be something more than furniture. 
 It was a festivity a celebration and they all did their 
 best towards its success. Conversation didn't stay at any 
 thing so sombre as illness. What was illness, after all, but 
 an absence of health? And health meant beauty, and 
 beauty But beauty could be imitated. 
 
 Ralph denied it. "There's a stuff made in Paris that 
 comes in a bottle, and you put it on with a sprayer or a 
 blowpipe or something of that sort. You come out the 
 most wonderful pink; but that's not beauty!" 
 
 "Hardly. But doesn't it in time wash off?" 
 
 "I believe not. It's supposed to go with you to the 
 grave; though you wouldn't have a grave, would you, 
 till long after you'd ceased to use it? The alternative's 
 too horrible." 
 
 " Beath might strike one unawares," said Mrs. Bench. 
 
 "Well, it's surely better," Emily thought, "to meet 
 death pinkly " 
 
 Echoes of their mirth reached the very end of the dining 
 room.
 
 CONCERNING THE FLAVOR OF WINES 251 
 
 "Isn't Emily a wonder, mother?" 
 
 Mrs. Parrish gave her assent. 
 
 Emily, thus lauded, went on. It reminded her of the 
 brief day of her celebrity. "You see," she said, "if one 
 can't have beauty, one can at legist have the other thing in 
 an interesting manner not asjppne^lack. of bloom were 
 merely the result of stupid ailmelits^Arid that's where the 
 
 contents of the bottle comes in ?!! 
 
 
 
 " You speak as from an intimal^nowledge " 
 
 "Not half as intimate as the one you speak from." 
 
 "How should you? I've but lately come from Paris." 
 
 Mrs. Bench shook her head. "Poor old Paris never 
 escapes. She is almost as much an object of public jest 
 as the mother-in-law." 
 
 "It seems unnecessary, doesn't it? But I think Ralph 
 merely meant that as he'd been to Paris, and as it's in Paris 
 that this famous cosmetic is made " Ralph's mother 
 shielded him from even the suspicion of vulgarity. 
 
 Again there was laughter. 
 
 Emily took it upon herself to ask the question which had 
 been on the tip of Mrs. Parrish's tongue ever since her son's 
 arrival, "How long do you expect to be here?" 
 
 "Probably till Monday." It was then Friday. 
 
 Emily counted up the days "Two whole ones and a 
 little over." 
 
 He was at some pains to explain how he had arranged it. 
 He and another man had been going down to the other 
 man's place somewhere in Delaware, just for a whiff of the 
 real spring, and then this other man suddenly couldn't go. 
 Parrish was stranded with all his plans made. He re 
 membered Ocean City. He had been promising himself
 
 252 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 the pleasure of looking in on them there and now the 
 promise was fulfilled. Here he was. He flung himself 
 on their mercy and hoped they'd entertain him. He was 
 sure he was upsetting things dreadfully ; but he was so past 
 redemption so hardened that he simply didn't care. 
 He'd telegraphed to Mrs. Dench, to be sure they wouldn't 
 be too thunderstruck, and as he had said before here 
 he was. His manner seemed jokingly to inquire what they 
 intended to do about it. 
 
 Mrs. Parrish watched him during the progress of this dis 
 course with that little air she often had, of tremendous in 
 terest combined with a certain mental reservation. In 
 times past she had frequently listened to her husband in 
 much the same way. The interest paid. She got some 
 thing out of it, even if not quite what it was intended she 
 should get. That was clear from the very apprehending 
 glance which she threw across the table to Emily and held 
 there in vain for an answering luminosity. None came. 
 Emily's eyes were occupied with Parrish's. It was curiously 
 from Jane that she had her response, and Jane was the 
 enemy. 
 
 Jane had been living up to her reputation for quietness, 
 devoting herself almost exclusively to the business of din 
 ner and not caring whether or no she appeared a bit dull. 
 Perhaps she knew how hard it would be for any one as beau 
 tiful as she ever to appear dull. Her dulness translated 
 itself into a sort of soft acquiescence, a tender, brooding 
 maidenliness. She listened to Ralph Parrish's description 
 of his predicament, his reasons for having thrust himself 
 upon them so suddenly, and offered no comment. Then 
 she looked up slowly a movement of eyes rather than of
 
 CONCERNING THE FLAVOR OF WINES 253 
 
 head and caught his mother's apprehending glance full. 
 The glance wavered and dropped, as though traitorous, and 
 met hers again. Understanding answered understanding, 
 and smile answered smile. Speech would have spoiled it. 
 The understanding which sprang up between the two 
 women the older and the younger was of Ralph 
 Parrish, and needed nothing to complete it. Jane went on 
 with the business of dinner, summoning a passing waiter to 
 minister to a want still unsupplied. 
 
 "We don't care why you're here, you know, as long as 
 you're here. We're so glad to have you for any reason at 
 all that it's not a bit necessary for you to apologize." 
 David Barlow had been positively longing, as Jane would 
 have said, for a brother at arms. Hard, brittle object 
 as he is represented as being, he had been enveloped by 
 women as by so much wrapping. He was beginning to 
 feel himself hardly a man in a world of men. He welcomed 
 Parrish with a very real cordiality. "No," he repeated, 
 "it's not a bit necessary for you to apologize." 
 
 "Then I won't," said Parrish; "I'll devote all my ener 
 gies to making the most of my time." 
 
 Emily's laugh broke high. "This way, ladies this 
 way don't crowd ! " 
 
 "Isn't it lucky we have David as a sort of consolation 
 prize?" It was Jane's only contribution to the gayety of 
 her fellow-diners. 
 
 They all laughed, but Mrs. Parrish was unexpectedly 
 appreciative. "My dear Miss Dench what a theory!" 
 The first lady of Hornmouth nearly swallowed her handker 
 chief in her effort to quell a too great indignity of mirth; 
 but whether it was amusement at the implied comparison
 
 254 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 between David and her son or merely appreciation of the 
 wit of Jane, even Emily, whose perceptions of the scene were 
 very much alive, couldn't quite make out. 
 
 She came to a decision, however, when, at a late hour, 
 after the long evening had spent itself and Ocean City was 
 
 collectively speaking asleep, she heard a timid knock 
 at her door and opened it to admit her cousin. Mrs. Par- 
 rish was prepared for bed with a certain New England 
 precision. The sprig-patterned wrapper, the tight gray 
 braids hanging over each shoulder, the starched ruffle of 
 her nightgown, all contributed to an effect of extreme 
 personal nicety. Here was a woman who didn't throw 
 herself upon her couch with the emotions of the day still 
 warring. She set her house in order at frequent intervals, 
 physically and mentally. It was in the furtherance of 
 this last that she had come. She was not given to mid 
 night conferences, and she didn't indulge in them unless 
 she had something important to say something which 
 wouldn't wait till morning. 
 
 "I've changed my mind !" 
 
 Emily didn't understand. "Changed your mind 
 about what?" 
 
 "My dear, I thought I'd tell you that Miss Dench 
 Jane I've never liked any one so much." 
 
 "You rather wish now that it were true that Ralph 
 were going to marry her?" 
 
 "I've never seen any one so suited to him." 
 
 Emily set down upon her toilet-table the steel instrument 
 with which she had been filing her nails. "But her mother 
 
 what do you think of her mother?" 
 
 "I shall simply have to accept her. She's undoubtedly
 
 CONCERNING THE FLAVOR OF WINES 255 
 
 dreadful, but she's not glaringly, conspicuously dreadful 
 a stranger wouldn't know " 
 
 "Why do you think she's dreadful?" 
 
 "Don't ask me I couldn't tell you why. But it's 
 not her mother that Ralph is going to marry !" 
 
 "Aren't you taking a good deal for granted?" 
 
 "You mean " 
 
 "I mean that you've no guarantee that he either is or 
 isn't going to marry either of them." 
 
 "Is he attentive to the mother?" If he were, the ad 
 venture would at last seem to have arrived. 
 
 "Is he?" said Emily; "why, if you asked me, I should 
 say yes." 
 
 "The engagement must be broken." 
 
 "Oh, there's no engagement !" 
 
 "Of course not. I mean the engagement, if there is any, 
 between Miss Dench and Mr. Barlow." 
 
 "You want the coast quite clear for Ralph? But sup 
 pose he doesn't intend to land there? I said, you know, 
 that I thought him attentive to the mother." 
 
 "The mother nonsense!" Mrs. Parrish voiced her 
 scorn. She explained at some length that Ralph was not 
 that sort of man. She became still more lucid, "I don't 
 say that he wouldn't be capable of going any length you 
 like, but he'd marry the daughter." 
 
 The comic mask of Emily's face was folded and crum 
 pled in laughter. "My dear Cousin Laura, where's your 
 morality?" 
 
 "When I see a girl like Jane Dench, my morality upholds 
 me in leaving no stone unturned to secure her for my son." 
 
 " If he will, he will, you know; and if he won't, he won't."
 
 256 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "You think I shall do no good? You don't understand 
 him in the least!" 
 
 "Aren't you glad that I don't?" 
 
 "Oh, you'd be quite impossible for Ralph." Mrs. Par- 
 rish's attention was momentarily diverted "Tell me, 
 why do you powder your nose at this hour?" 
 
 "It's a special kind of powder that's supposed to be very 
 beneficial to the skin." Emily buried her whole face in its 
 midst and emerged white, but triumphant. "Very bene 
 ficial. You said I would be impossible for Ralph for 
 whom would I not be?" 
 
 " Why not for Mr. Barlow ? " Mrs. Parrish was nothing 
 if not direct ; but it was clear that Emily thought her plan 
 the best joke she'd heard in years. The wine was of a 
 flavor delicate and varied ; and Emily, in spite of the ful 
 ness and fatigue of her day perhaps because of it was 
 well able to appreciate it. 
 
 She let her cousin wait for a reply. It finally came. 
 "Never never in the world ! " 
 
 in 
 
 Parrish arranged his mother and Emily at the far end of 
 the long piazza the end that turned and gave a view of 
 the gorgeous, windy sunset he tucked them in, he bundled 
 them up ; he was as devoted, as deferential, as if they hadn't 
 been merely his two nearest living female relatives. He 
 stood there facing them, his back against a great white 
 column, one hand on the piazza railing, in the other his 
 interminable cigarette. He was perfectly easy, perfectly 
 given up to the enjoyment of the moment. His ease and 
 his enjoyment were like a great hand laid soothingly upon
 
 CONCERNING THE FLAVOR OF WINES 257 
 
 the troubled unrest of his companions. For Mrs. Parrish's 
 natural gladness at her son's presence was tempered by the 
 disquieting sense that he should have been with Jane 
 that he was wasting precious time; and Emily's gladness 
 was not so much tempered as fused and parched by the 
 desire to have him to herself. The precious time was going, 
 second by second and minute by minute. It seemed to 
 her as though she had waited for this all her life this 
 seeing love face to face. The years when she had known 
 Parrish at Hornmouth, the period of the late thirties, the 
 new-made grave, the vision of David Barlow, all these were 
 but the developing experiences which now enabled her 
 really to see. 
 
 She was quite shameless. She was absolutely aware that 
 when Parrish wasn't with her, arranging her wraps and her 
 chair, telling her in a thousand ways how much he liked her, 
 he was performing similar offices for Mrs. Bench. And that 
 was where her shamelessness came in, for she didn't care. 
 In fact still more shameless as she looked on at Mrs. 
 Dench and her cousin, the thrill of the spectator was not 
 unknown to her. She was the first, or rather the only one, 
 fully to take the situation in. A novelist becomes of 
 necessity sharp in matters of that sort, and her intimate 
 knowledge of Parrish made it all the simpler she knew 
 so well what with him certain looks and expressions meant. 
 Though there was extraordinarily little upon which one 
 could lay a finger. It seemed to be an achievement of the 
 intangible by two people who neither of them suggested it. 
 They were essentially of the same race; without a physical 
 resemblance they had yet come out of the same mould; 
 and it would have been more than stupid of them not to
 
 258 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 have finally found each other out. And to the spectator, 
 artistically inclined, their finding left little to be desired. 
 They understood each other's language without a fault ; and 
 their difference of years was a mere moment in the aeons 
 that had passed since they had been young together 
 upon Olympus. Which circles about again to the ques 
 tion of time, and Emily's appreciation of its fleeting 
 nature. 
 
 If she had waited all her life for this unblinded faculty 
 of sight, she had also waited for the opportunity to use it. 
 It was upon her now her opportunity her turn 
 and the chances were strong that it might not be again; 
 for Ralph Parrish was no longer hers, even in the sense 
 that he had been during the period of the late thirties. 
 But his past his future even that part of his present 
 which didn't concern her troubled her but little. There 
 was a part of his present which did concern her ; that time, 
 rapidly running out, when he was with her, devoted, defer 
 ential and admiring, and she basked in the light of the 
 magnificent physical presence. That was her opportunity. 
 Her conception of grasping it wasn't too beyond the bounds 
 of the possible ; it wasn't much that she asked the tan 
 gible that part of his present which did concern her to 
 be made wholly hers. If she was in the midst, it only showed 
 her what the midst might really be. Her vision of it was 
 vivid but she'd done with visions ; she wanted memories. 
 This, her opportunity, might pass and leave behind only the 
 memory of a vision splendid, if you like 
 
 She stirred in her wrappings, and leaned forward to re 
 arrange the hanging fringed border of the steamer rug which 
 Parrish had tucked about her knees.
 
 CONCERNING THE FLAVOR OF WINES 259 
 
 "You're not comfortable !" It seemed, the way he said 
 it, a horrible condition. 
 
 "Yes, I am; but I'm not very warm." 
 
 Mrs. Parrish's sense of responsibility was roused. 
 "You're not warm? Why, that won't do get up and 
 walk about." 
 
 "I think I will." 
 
 Parrish stooped to pick up the rug which Emily in ris 
 ing let fall. "I'll come with you. Mother, won't you? 
 We'll just have a turn about the piazza." 
 
 "No thank you, Ralph, I'll stay here. Why don't you 
 look up the Denches and ask them to have tea with us?" 
 
 " I hardly like to bother them. They're with Barlow." 
 
 "A man who lets himself be beaten by little Mr. Bar 
 low ! " 
 
 "I don't know what you mean " Parrish might have 
 said more, but Emily was waiting for him. 
 
 She took his arm. "These early spring days are treach 
 erous. A chill descends But Parrish cut her short : 
 
 "Tell me what does mother mean?" 
 
 "What she says, I suppose, or rather what she intimates." 
 
 "And what does she intimate?" 
 
 "That she hasn't any use for a man who lets himself be 
 beaten by David." 
 
 "Well, I must say she goes wading in queer puddles !" 
 
 They walked in silence to the opposite bend of the 
 piazza. At the bend they swung about, and it was on this 
 homeward stretch that they again found words. "Do you 
 know, there's a question I should very much like to ask 
 you?" 
 
 "Well," said Emily, "ask it."
 
 260 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "I don't know whether I've the right to." 
 
 "You won't know, will you, till you've asked it?" 
 
 " It's this. Why is mother here ? " 
 
 "To stay with me." 
 
 "Is that really the reason? I'm afraid you'll think me 
 prying, but it's a matter that rather concerns me, as I had 
 the impression that she was here on some business of mine." 
 
 "What business of yours could she be on?" 
 
 "That's what I don't know. It goes without saying 
 I'd be perfectly charmed to explain anything to her. My 
 life, as you know, is an open book. He who runs may read 
 who was it said, he who reads may run ?" 
 
 "I don't know. Were they thinking of you?" 
 
 Emily felt a tighter pressure on her arm. "Oh, I'm 
 frightful!" Parrish seemed to exult in his frightfulness, 
 for his gayest laugh rang out. "Yes, I'm frightful, but 
 we won't talk of that. These early spring days are, as you 
 say, treacherous a chill descends. You're warmer now ? 
 Tell me if I set too much of a pace." 
 
 "Indeed, no." 
 
 "You're the same bully little girl. I shouldn't call 
 the great Miss Stedman a little girl, should I? But you 
 are little ; and as for your age, I think my standard's grown 
 horribly high, because I think any one under well, we 
 won't say what any one under that a mere chicken." 
 
 They reached the far end again and exchanged greetings 
 with Mrs. Parrish. "You're quite all right?" 
 
 "Quite all right! " 
 
 Parrish was giving himself up to the enjoyment of this 
 moment also. In fact, it was to his talent for giving him 
 self up that he owed his success in the art of wholesale fur
 
 CONCERNING THE FLAVOR OF WINES 261 
 
 dealing. When he worked he worked, and when he played 
 he played the line between was clearly defined. 
 
 "Why didn't you answer my letter?" 
 
 Emily replied to him in the same gay vein. "Why 
 didn't you send me another?" 
 
 "I was so mortally hurt by your neglect. Even if 
 you were ill and couldn't write yourself, you could have at 
 least sent me word. It's not the way to treat an old friend 
 and cousin." 
 
 "But it surely wasn't the way to treat one to go off 
 without saying good-by." 
 
 "My dear Emmy you know I tried to get you on the 
 wire. I couldn't wait over; the steamer sailed. You surely 
 can guess how I must have felt at not being able to get you ! " 
 It was in the nature of an accusation, and the blame seemed 
 hers Parrish went on. "Do you remember my letter?" 
 
 "Perfectly." 
 
 "I mentioned in it a fur collar to match your big muff. 
 It's waiting for you in New York. You'll take it, won't 
 you, to show we're still the same?" 
 
 "The same?" 
 
 "As good friends as ever." 
 
 "You got it especially for me?" 
 
 "For whom else ? And it's very new. I assure you it will 
 be quite in it for next winter. It's flat with a sort of ruffle, 
 and then another band of fur on the edge of the ruffle." 
 
 Emily laughed with a joy more than adequate to the 
 prospective ownership of the collar. "I'll take it," she told 
 him, "and bless you for the thought." 
 
 "Then we are the same?" It was just because they 
 weren't, and never could be, that Parrish talked of it so
 
 262 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 much. He wanted, for some reason of his own, to make 
 her think so to bridge the winter's gulf. It might have 
 been that without this bridge his enjoyment of the moment 
 would be incomplete. There was something almost fawn 
 ing, like the psychic counterpart of the leaping endearments 
 of a great dog, in his constant reiteration to his cousin of 
 the fact of his continued affection. 
 
 And she accepted it as she did the collar without too 
 much questioning. For once reasons and causes didn't 
 trouble her; all her analysis was focussed on the result. 
 The result was the increasing of her opportunity. She 
 was feverishly afraid of its passing; she clung to Parrish 
 in a very agony of fear, and her joy came in a sudden realiza 
 tion that this very clinging was a part of the tangible she 
 asked for. He felt the little clinging creature, and the 
 chord of masculine humanity, with him so glaringly easy 
 to strike, responded. He held her close with a supporting 
 arm. It was sufficiently commonplace, this linked walk 
 on a hotel piazza, but the commonplace perhaps because 
 she had never had it was translated by Emily into a sort 
 of glory. The author of "The Cuckoo" was very young in 
 the observances of love; her excursions into the tender 
 passion had always been so largely a matter of her own 
 sentimental imagination, fine-spun subtleties of talk and 
 of thought, that that which might weary the more sophisti 
 cated with its vulgar triteness seemed to her neither vulgar 
 nor trite. She might have been capable, had the oppor 
 tunity offered, of covertly holding Parrish's hand or sitting 
 less covertly upon his knee. It was as if she had 
 thought and talked herself out ; there was nothing left for 
 her but the magnificence of the physical presence. She
 
 CONCERNING THE FLAVOR OF WINES 263 
 
 gave herself up to it as Parrish did, more abstractly, to his 
 enjoyment. They arrived by different roads at very much 
 the same place. 
 
 rv 
 
 " Emily ! Ralph ! " Mrs. Parrish had pursued them 
 down the entire length of the piazza. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "I've just received a message from Mrs. Dench asking 
 if we won't come up and have tea with her in what the bell 
 boy calls her private sitting-room." 
 
 "Are you going?" asked Parrish. 
 
 "I think so; are you?" 
 
 "Shan't we all?" 
 
 Emily added her voice to the rest. "Does she mean at 
 once?" 
 
 "She must; it's late." 
 
 "There's nothing in the nature of dressing?" 
 
 "Oh, I'm sure not." 
 
 They made their way inward, and Parrish placed his 
 thumb on the elevator bell. "Any one would think," he 
 said, "that we'd never had tea before. I've never passed 
 such a restless day nobody seems to be able to stay 
 in the same place for five minutes at a time. To-morrow 
 being Sunday, I suppose we'll be more calm the little 
 dove of peace will descend among us " 
 
 The door of the private sitting-room was open in cordial 
 greeting and, at her guests' approach down the long hall, 
 Mrs. Dench herself came out to them. "Ah here you 
 are. Mrs. Parrish, I'm so glad ! You'll forgive my infor 
 mality, but I've been rather expecting you all the afternoon,
 
 264 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 and it suddenly came over me that I hadn't said anything. 
 Of course, you wouldn't know." 
 
 Mrs. Dench was at her most urbane, and her urbanity 
 lent to the simple, friendly gathering a certain aspect of 
 ceremony. She offered to the other widow the compli 
 ment of her hospitality: "Cream? Sugar? " It was 
 clear to them all that the other widow was eating her salt. 
 To say that Mrs. Dench was not glaringly, conspicuously 
 dreadful seemed a very negative method of describing her 
 high dignity. It really took a situation like this to show 
 her to the best advantage, to show how perfect her com 
 mand of it could be. Ralph Parrish, with the freemasonry 
 of his sex, was one of her intimate circle; David Barlow 
 also ; even Emily, with the lesser freemasonry of the single 
 state, hovered on its edges ; but Mrs. Parrish was of another 
 element entirely. The fact of her foreignness was plain, and 
 Mrs. Dench's treatment of it was masterly. If she was 
 obviously the hostess, she was no less obviously the wan 
 derer but lately returned from distant, unenlightened parts. 
 She begged that the newer civilization of the West might set 
 her straight, and in payment she would provide real Russian 
 tea from a real Russian samovar. It was to be a sort 
 of hands across the sea, lion lying down with the lamb, 
 arrangement. 
 
 "You know," she said, "I think jt's cosier in a place that 
 one can call one's own, even though two weeks before some 
 one else was calling it his own. Jane and I are perfect 
 Arabs, we pitch our tent wherever there's an oasis in the 
 desert; we arrange the little handful of our household 
 gods" 
 
 "They're so very charming your household gods."
 
 CONCERNING THE FLAVOR OF WINES 265 
 
 Mrs. Parrish herself had a tendency towards the pure 
 colonial, but she could still appreciate that Mrs. Dench's 
 things were rare of their kind. 
 
 "Ah thank you . The small rug is old Chinese, and that 
 reddish water color is supposed to be a Watteau, but beyond 
 that I haven't anything." 
 
 "You're much too modest !" 
 
 Parrish had been talking with Jane. He now turned. 
 "Mrs. Dench's modesty is the one thing which stands in the 
 way of her success in life." 
 
 "I know it," said the lady thus censured; "so you've 
 always told me." 
 
 Parrish laughed. "So I always shall. Apropos of noth 
 ing at all, I was thinking how nice it would be if to-morrow 
 we should all celebrate the day by going to church. Don't 
 you think we might? It would give us such an orderly 
 feeling for the afternoon, and as I have to go back the next 
 morning at the crack of dawn " 
 
 "I'll go to church with you," said Jane. 
 
 "And I," said David Barlow. It was pathetic, the com 
 fort he took in Parrish's society. 
 
 Emily explained how it was in the merest self-defence 
 that she would join herself to the expedition. She would 
 have to prove herself as religious as the men. 
 
 Mrs. Dench addressed Mrs. Parrish. "That leaves the 
 old ladies. Shall we stay at home, or shall we go hand 
 in hand?" 
 
 Mrs. Parrish was taken a little by surprise. "Why, if 
 you don't mind, I think I'll stay." 
 
 " You're wise. I'll stay too." 
 
 "You see," said Mrs. Parrish, "I'm rather a queer person
 
 266 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 about church. Unless there's a clergyman whom I es 
 pecially care to hear, or unless it's to uphold the honor of my 
 family at Hornmouth, I feel that I'm equally saved by a 
 quiet morning by myself." 
 
 "By yourself I too so many people all at one time 
 it's too much. Americans take care of their souls so 
 stiffly. For me I prefer the freer continental interpreta 
 tion of Sunday." 
 
 "There's a great deal to be said in its favor." 
 
 But Parrish couldn't agree. "We need to be held to 
 account occasionally made to put our best foot foremost 
 at least once a week. There's an instinct of order which is 
 usually suppressed, and on Sunday we should give it an air 
 ing. I hate to see things at loose ends. There should be a 
 time a time for gathering them up." He was standing 
 before the window in one of his easy, characteristic attitudes, 
 and he looked down upon the little company which his 
 presence so dominated with an air as if what he said would 
 be accepted. He left them no choice. He was installed; 
 his position there in the charming, drapery-hung room was 
 assured. The rest of them, with the exception of his host 
 ess, were but passers distinguished, if you like honored 
 and welcomed and made much of but, nevertheless, 
 passers. 
 
 Emily received it full this impression of his establish 
 ment there ; and she was reminded of that other afternoon 
 when she had had tea with Mrs. Bench and received the 
 same impression about David Barlow. Where was David 
 Barlow now ? The question could only be put in its slangier 
 significance, as he was obviously sitting on the French sofa. 
 But where was he as the centre of the group where was
 
 CONCERNING THE FLAVOR OF WINES 267 
 
 he as the masculine pivot upon which the feminine forces 
 turned? It was said at the outset that he presented the 
 masculine in great perfection was its very finest essence, 
 of a fineness and hardness which approached to brittleness, 
 with the compactness of bronze and a hawkish gleam which 
 contrasted oddly with the suggestion unmistakably con 
 veyed of a cleverly constructed marionette. He had 
 been too fine, too hard ; his brittleness was never designed 
 for rough wear. It had reached a point of attenuation ; it 
 had reached with Parrish's new splendor for comparison 
 a kind of meagreness; the hawkish gleam missed fire; 
 the marionette was left pathetically without motive power. 
 Emily's love for him ended as it had begun with a sense of 
 pity. 
 
 Her pity couldn't last, however. Her sense of it could 
 hardly hold its own against her sense of so much else. She 
 was in the midst. The flavor of the wine clung to her palate ; 
 the wine itself ran riot through her blood. She felt that the 
 whole of living was to be concentrated into the time which 
 would elapse before the morning after the next, and that 
 time was already slipping. She was on the edge of a great 
 excitement. The line that divides the credible from the 
 incredible was rubbed out. She looked straight away down 
 a vista which contained at the other end Ralph Parrish. 
 Her chance of the tangible had never before been so close; 
 she stood ready to grasp it as she might; her scruples proved 
 their tact by their absence. It was her first acquaintance 
 with temptation; but she didn't at once identify it as that. 
 Her conception of temptation was of a struggle ; there was 
 nothing of struggle in this simple, unobstructed view. She 
 stood ready the desire for life was strong upon her
 
 268 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 it depended on her cousin. The situation was stripped to its 
 simplest elements; there was not room for the hesitations 
 that would usually arise. 
 
 There had been no word between Parrish and herself. 
 They had walked together on the 'Tidewater' piazza, arm 
 in arm, talking in a half -flirtatious, half -cousinly way of 
 indifferent matters; and Emily, by the very simplicity 
 of her desire, had unerringly touched a responsive chord. 
 He had held her close, head bent down to hers; and she, 
 with her ringers clasping the rough cloth of his coat sleeve, 
 felt as she had before, when he had turned to her from his 
 mother and taken her hands in his, that all her strength and 
 her possibilities of strength and of sense were centred 
 there. 
 
 That first contact had been the beginning of her great 
 excitement. She was still held miraculously on its perilous 
 edge. She waited for the full force of it to burst. It 
 hadn't burst as she had walked with Parrish on the 'Tide 
 water' piazza; it wouldn't do so, surely, now as she drank 
 her tea with Mrs. Dench and Jane and the rest. She had a 
 sense of waiting of a suspense which caught her breath. 
 She found herself counting the time which measured the 
 length of her opportunity with a new impatience. She 
 thought of the calm certainty of the morning after the next, 
 and prayed for its coming. Parrish would have left, and 
 she, with her time run out, would have eased her fatigued 
 tenseness over the memory of her opportunity, either seized 
 or lost. 
 
 The morning after the next. She counted on by 
 the afternoon after the next Ocean City would have again 
 lapsed into its earlier, gentler ways. She would retire more
 
 CONCERNING THE FLAVOR OF WINES 269 
 
 into herself; she would let the Benches and David Barlow 
 decide their problems without her. With her returned pas 
 sion there had come to her the strong vision of "Mrs. Dal- 
 lowfield." She was sending for blank yellow pads, and 
 during the next months she would set herself to the task of 
 making them less blank. Her counting rushed on and took 
 in the possibility of a return to the late thirties. If she 
 did that, what about the measure of her opportunity? 
 Wouldn't it be extended indefinitely ? With Parrish there 
 
 at the Town Club at the offices of the wholesale fur 
 dealers the late thirties between . . . But she felt that 
 she only deceived herself; her cousin's future did not belong 
 to her. It belonged at least that part of it with which 
 she might have been concerned to the women in the 
 window of whose parlor he was then standing. He might 
 leave Ocean City on Monday; he might go to the farthest 
 end of the earth, but his position in front of that window 
 
 in front of any window which the Benches might call 
 their own, however briefly was an assured, familiar 
 thing. 
 
 In the late thirties his position had been assured also 
 
 he had been free to come and to go; there was a welcome 
 for him, a cigarette, a cup of tea, often a dinner. But all 
 that was of the past; Emily bowed before the new order. 
 Her bowing was actual; it took more strength than she was 
 in possession of to hold herself erect ; but this very lack of 
 strength had its own rewards. It seemed to make lighter 
 the atmosphere to make of it a thinner medium in which 
 that which was usually hidden from sight showed clear. 
 Though she felt, rather than saw, the new order. She looked 
 for its visible sign and found it in a certain gleaming strange-
 
 270 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 ness in the eyes of Mrs. Bench. It was as if a flame crossed 
 them rapidly, flaring and flickering, and leaving in its path 
 a deepened amber a dilated prominence. Mrs. Bench 
 was still devoting herself to her most honored guest, still 
 occupied with a treatment of the situation; but there was 
 in her eyes that which was utterly at variance with her occu 
 pation. It was something back of the playing flame, only 
 lighted by it as a streamer is tossed by a wind a hard in- 
 tentness almost masculine in its unveiled meeting with 
 Parrish's more general regard. He turned away from it 
 instinctively with a little gesture of deprecation which 
 happened to fit in with a view he happened to be expressing 
 about the continental Sunday. He didn't believe in it 
 at all. 
 
 Jane was also of his opinion. 
 
 Bavid Barlow frankly didn't know. 
 
 Emily cared less. She was bent like a reed before Mrs. 
 Bench's hard intentness. She saw her opportunity winged 
 for flight. It was as if she put out her hands to keep it, and 
 suddenly it was too late the time that measured it was 
 over had never been. 
 
 On the plea of a very real fatigue she made her adieus. 
 Sympathy flooded her. She always seemed so well, and it 
 was hard to realize she really wasn't. Was there nothing ? 
 Not a thing. What strength she had got her into the 
 hall. She felt better then, but it seemed more a matter of 
 will than of actual steps by which she reached her room. 
 She shut and locked the door shut and locked the door 
 leading into the room occupied by her maid. She picked 
 up a kind of knitted coverlid that hung folded over the back 
 of a chair and wrapped it round her. Then she walked
 
 CONCERNING THE FLAVOR OF WINES 271 
 
 deliberately over to her bed and lay down. She lay there, 
 still at the edge of her great excitement, still waiting for the 
 full force of it to burst. It did so presently in loud, wrench 
 ing sobs. Her whole body was shaken; she cowered and 
 recoiled, and her sobs tearless were like these flinching 
 movements made audible.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 LAUS VENERIS 
 
 THE reflection of the sun's light still in the sky dimmed to 
 grayness; and the wind veered to the east, driving in from 
 the sea a thin sea fog that came through the open window 
 and hung about the room in little vaporous masses. They 
 settled lightly here and there, touching objects of their 
 choice with slender, floating tendrils which themselves 
 rested and clung, letting the larger masses pass them. 
 Emily was conscious of soft moisture on the cheek unpro 
 tected by her pillow, and the knitted coverlid was wet. 
 She was conscious, also, of the smell of the salt and the 
 heavy break of the surf below. She found herself waiting 
 for it, listening as the sound gathered and deepened and 
 seemed to hang suspended breathlessly. She thought of the 
 sea as a giant clock with ticks widely interspaced. 
 
 It didn't tell her, however, the thing for which clocks are 
 supposed to exist. It might be midnight; it might be the 
 darkened hour before dawn; it might be early evening. 
 She had been aware, dimly, of sounds within the 'Tide 
 water' of that nameless movement which even in the 
 quietest of hotels makes itself felt at the dinner hour. There 
 had been in the air the faint scraping of violins, a vibration 
 rather than music. She had heard at her door the solicitous 
 
 272
 
 LAUS VENERIS 273 
 
 voice of her cousin Laura. But now the sounds within the 
 'Tidewater' had sunk to a blessed quiet; the booming surf 
 had undisturbed and glorious possession. It was loud and 
 deep and even; and under its mesmeric influence she must 
 have fallen into a light doze, for she knew that people were 
 knocking at the door which led to her maid's room, and 
 she was hopelessly incapable of either speech or action. 
 The knocking continued more and more sharp, and at last by 
 a Herculean effort of will she emitted an answering mono 
 syllable. She was told that she had locked the door 
 both doors. The fact seemed self-evident. She must open 
 them. But why? In order to let them in. And who 
 were they? Her maid and her cousin Laura. But she 
 detected the deeper masculine burr. The request in this 
 key took the note of a command. She rose and made her 
 stumbling way across the floor, fumbled with the lock, and 
 at last stood revealed in the flooding electricity. 
 
 She was a strange little figure, with her crumpled dress 
 and her disordered hair and her face, that was usually so 
 evenly white, blotched and congested with the recent force 
 of her excitement. It had not left her more charming 
 this excitement. She was ugly as all things, at once violent 
 and small, are ugly. She blinked owlishly in the sudden 
 light, and at the same time succeeded in directing at her 
 visitors an angry curiosity like that of a burrowing animal 
 driven by intruders to the mouth of its hole. She didn't 
 speak at first. No one spoke. But when she did, it was 
 with the point and emphasis of an accusation : 
 
 "Dr. Jeffries!" 
 
 The great doctor, who had been standing a little behind 
 Mrs. Parrish and the maid, now moved in front of them.
 
 274 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 " Miss Stedman I happened to be passing I thought 
 that I would stop in and see how you were " 
 
 " Happened to be passing at half-past three in the morn 
 ing? You were doing nothing of the sort! You came 
 all the way from New York especially to stop in you 
 were sent for by Mrs. Parrish." That lady was seared in 
 the heat of her cousin's rising anger " Why Mrs. Parrish 
 took it upon herself to send for you is beyond me quite. 
 Who am I to be treated like a child, lied to and managed ? 
 Who am I? It's half-past three " Emily pointed to a 
 small metal timepiece which was conspicuously placed on 
 the bureau " half-past three and you all come knocking 
 at my door, disturbing my night's rest, working yourselves 
 up into a state of nerves because you think I'm ill. You 
 ought to be abed and asleep. I'm not ill not in the least. 
 I never was better in my life." She followed Mrs. Parrish's 
 downward glance. "You think it strange that I should 
 have gone to bed in my clothes. Haven't I a right to go to 
 bed in my clothes? You think it strange that I didn't 
 have any dinner. Haven't I a right not to have it ? One 
 might think that I occupied a prison or a very modern and 
 modified sort of tomb, instead of being a free citizen of a 
 free country. A free country Mrs. Dench can have 
 her Paris and her Riviera, all her things " 
 
 The last sentence was punctuated and cut short by the 
 sudden retirement of the speaker. She seemed to have 
 decided that she had said enough; the key grated in the 
 lock. Her would-be benefactors couldn't get away from the 
 realization that they had been unceremoniously turned out; 
 the door was shut directly in their kindly faces. They were 
 a second in recovering from the surprise of it, and then
 
 LAUS VENERIS 275 
 
 Dr. Jeffries illuminated the situation with an, "Ah you 
 see ! " 
 
 "Aren't you going to do anything?" 
 
 "My dear madam, what can I do?" 
 
 A clutching fear was at Mrs. Parrish's throat. "Is she 
 
 is she ? No, I can't ask it !" 
 
 Dr. Jeffries turned to the maid. "Would you very kindly 
 step out into the hall for a moment ? Now," he said, " what 
 is it you can't ask?" 
 
 Mrs. Parrish looked up at him in a vain effort to read in 
 his wise eyes an answer to her unspoken question. "Oh, 
 tell me without my asking it's too horrible." 
 
 The doctor waited. 
 
 " It's about Emily Emily's mind." 
 
 "You wonder if she's losing it?" 
 
 "That's it. Ah, you must tell me absolutely " 
 
 "I do tell you absolutely. She's as sane as you or I." 
 
 Mrs. Parrish's fear still held her. "You'd swear?" 
 
 " On my honor." 
 
 "I didn't mean, you know, that she was a raving maniac 
 
 merely queer unstrung " 
 
 "You're right," said Dr. Jeffries, "when you say she's 
 unstrung." 
 
 Mrs. Parrish made him sit down, and did so herself. 
 She again begged him to be frank with her to tell her 
 what he thought without reservation. For if she couldn't 
 understand Miss Stedman's case, who was there who could ? 
 She was her own cousin, her nearest of kin, and who had a 
 better right? Dr. Jeffries demanded in return a frankness 
 on her part also. A doctor was always at a disadvantage, 
 coming in from the outside, and it was only fair to minimize
 
 276 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 it as far as possible. Mrs. Parrish did her best to put him in 
 possession of the facts. She told him how well her cousin 
 had seemed, how she had been struck from the first moment 
 of her arrival by her for her splendid condition. It was 
 hard to believe she'd been ill at all; her illness seemed to 
 have done her good rather than harm. At dinner she had 
 amused them all 
 
 "When you say all ?" 
 
 " Myself and my son, who arrived unexpectedly, and some 
 friends who are stopping here, a Mrs. Bench and her very 
 charming daughter and young Mr. Barlow, who, as you 
 know, is the son of the Barley Bun man." 
 
 Dr. Jeffries suggested the word 'animated' as a possible 
 description of Miss Stedman at dinner. "And then what? 
 What happened after that?" 
 
 "Nothing that I can recall. We had a talk late that 
 night about a matter which concerned me far more than it 
 did her." 
 
 "You're sure?" 
 
 "Sure?" 
 
 "Sure it didn't contain for her some hidden meaning?" 
 
 "Oh, absolutely!" 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " This afternoon she complained of feeling cold, we 
 were sitting on the piazza, so I made her get up and walk 
 about. Mrs. Bench asked us to tea, and it was while we were 
 having it that this attack must have come to her. She left 
 us abruptly, and as she didn't appear at dinner, I went to 
 her room to inquire how she was. She sent me away 
 rudely it was almost as if she'd sworn at me. I was 
 worried, I had a sort of panic "
 
 LAUS VENERIS 277 
 
 "And then?" The doctor held her to the facts of her 
 narration. 
 
 "And then I met young Mr. Barlow in the hall. He 
 seemed to divine my trouble; he asked me if there was any 
 thing he could do. It was he who suggested sending for 
 you. We telephoned you know the rest. You caught 
 the midnight train; Mr. Barlow met you at the station; here 
 you are. I can see that you curse me for cheating you of 
 a night's sleep." 
 
 "Ah I've learned not to think of that." He seemed 
 bent on a close examination of the wicker arm of his chair, 
 and Mrs. Parrish hesitated to interrupt him. She left him 
 to his silence, and her patience was at last rewarded. "I 
 trust you'll understand," he said, "that it's wholly in an 
 effort to get at the facts that I ask you if this young Mr. 
 Barlow hasn't a rather personal interest in your cousin?" 
 
 "Not at all. I'm sure I wish he had; I couldn't imagine 
 anything nicer; but he's very much interested in another 
 young lady." 
 
 "Is his interest in this other young lady comparatively 
 recent?" 
 
 "No, I think it's been going on for some time." 
 
 "This talk you'll pardon my persistence this talk 
 that you and Miss Stedman had last night, did it concern 
 Mr. Barlow?" 
 
 "No, only indirectly. It concerned my son." 
 
 "The reason I ask is that she's evidently been through 
 some great excitement received some vital shock but 
 of course if you have no knowledge of it, there's nothing 
 more to be said. She's not ill, and she's not insane. She 
 ought to be diverted amused taken away. It's the
 
 278 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 sort of thing before which we find ourselves particularly 
 helpless." 
 
 "I'm sure you're mistaken about her having received a 
 shock. Isn't it merely a return of her first illness ? " 
 
 "In a sense, yes. But it's not as serious. A woman like 
 your cousin gradually burns herself out. She hasn't it in 
 her to receive vital shocks very often. They take, you 
 know, a certain native vitality." Dr. Jeffries rose. 
 
 "You're going?" 
 
 "As I said, it's the sort of thing before which I find myself 
 helpless. Divert her amuse her take her away." 
 
 Mrs. Parrish rose also. "Just one word. Would you be 
 so very kind as to settle this little matter with me? I feel 
 a responsibility about your having come, and as long as you 
 can really do nothing for my cousin . . . My address is 
 Hornmouth." 
 
 He treated the question of settling with the disdain of 
 greatness. "Hornmouth's a charming old town. I al 
 ways remember with such pleasure a visit that I once paid 
 there to my old friend and teacher, Dr. Rainor." 
 
 "You know Dr. Rainor?" 
 
 "Indeed, yes, and I've had the honor of meeting your 
 uncle, Miss Stedman's father. His death was a sad loss to 
 science." 
 
 "Ah I know" 
 
 Dr. Jeffries had got into his overcoat, and he was now 
 drawing on his gloves. " You come of a very distinguished 
 family, Mrs. Parrish, a line of scholars and scientists of 
 which you may be justly proud. In this present-day world 
 of glitter and rush a whole-hearted devotion to an intellec 
 tual cause is rare. Your little cousin," he nodded towards
 
 LAUS VENERIS 279 
 
 the closed door, " your little cousin, there, has a gleam of it. 
 I have never read her book. I get little time for the contem 
 porary novel, and I imagine 'The Cuckoo' comes very much 
 under that head. If it wasn't for this bothersome habit of 
 hers of going completely to smash . . . The force of the 
 engine is too great for the strength of the machine. She 
 hasn't learned to economize it ; there's a constant waste of 
 energy going on within herself. She's possessed with a 
 perfectly normal desire for the normal things with which 
 normal people furnish their lives; she hasn't learned the 
 great lesson that those things are not for her. It's the old, 
 old story of the man who tries to lift himself by his boot 
 straps." 
 
 Mrs. Parrish had with difficulty been keeping up with her 
 celebrated visitor's exuberance of imagery. She cloaked 
 her breathlessness " Ah how well you understand her ! " 
 
 "Passably, passably. Well, I must be off. I hear my 
 faithful automobile snorting impatiently. It followed me 
 down here, as there is no train back which would get me in 
 town at the time I must be there. Good-by." 
 
 He was gone, and Mrs. Parrish remained where he had left 
 her, staring blankly at the blank white door which led into 
 her cousin's room. 
 
 ii 
 
 "I suppose you've heard the extraordinary news?" 
 Mrs. Parrish shot it out at her son before he had even had 
 time to unfold his napkin. She had been waiting for him 
 and had watched him with an undisguised impatience as he 
 made his leisurely way through the big dining room. His 
 perfection irritated her. She herself was a trifle worn from
 
 280 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 her night's vigil ; she had effaced the look of it in an added 
 spotlessness, if such a thing were possible, but the strain 
 was there. He was so marked by the absence of strain, so 
 sleek and so shaven, his night's sleep and morning's toilet 
 so successful. He had been like that as a boy, meeting the 
 new day with a freshness which confused the less fortunate ; 
 he had been then, as now, often the cause of the surrounding 
 disturbance. 
 
 He unfolded his napkin and spread it across his well- 
 trousered knees; he picked up the menu card and wavered 
 long in a choice between bacon and eggs and broiled mack 
 erel. "What news?" 
 
 "About Emily." 
 
 "No, I've heard nothing about Emily except that she 
 wasn't feeling very well last night." 
 
 "She was feeling extremely ill, but it hasn't prevented her 
 from going to New York." 
 
 Parrish stared. "To New York? I should think it was 
 extraordinary!" 
 
 "It would be difficult," said Mrs. Parrish, "for anything 
 to be more so." 
 
 " But I don't understand. How did she get to New York ? 
 There is no train early Sunday morning." 
 
 "She went in Dr. Jeffries' automobile." 
 
 "Dr. Jeffries?" 
 
 "I sent for Dr. Jeffries because she seemed ill, and when 
 he came, she shut the door in his face she would have none 
 of him. We had a little talk, he and I, and when he went 
 down to get into his machine to go back, there he found her 
 sitting waiting for him. He returned and told me, but he 
 wouldn't force her to stay ; he said if she really wanted to
 
 LAUS VENERIS 281 
 
 . go, it was the best thing for her. We saw to it that she was 
 well wrapped up " 
 
 "Mother dear I think you all must have gone out of 
 your heads ! Why didn't you call me ? " 
 
 "You'd have done no good. And you must remember 
 that it was nearly four o'clock. Mr. Barlow gave me all the 
 assistance necessary. He got Dr. Jeffries for me he 
 calmed the hysterics of Emily's maid he explained to the 
 night clerk what a usual proceeding it was that a lady should 
 decide to go to New York at four in the morning. Really, 
 he was most kind." 
 
 "Has she left for good?" 
 
 "Yes, for good. Her things are being packed now." 
 
 Parrish was suddenly struck with a happy possibility. 
 "Is Barlow packing them?" 
 
 His mother seemed to consider the question unworthy. 
 He changed his tone. "But why why? What put it 
 into her head?" 
 
 "You mean the idea of her sudden departure? You 
 know more about that than I do. She left with your name 
 on her lips." 
 
 Parrish was obviously worried. "What in heaven's 
 name?" 
 
 "She said I was right about you you were capable of 
 anything." 
 
 "Capable?" 
 
 Mrs. Parrish made a supreme effort. " I think she thinks 
 that you and Mrs. Dench are what shall I say ? well, 
 that there's more than there ought to be between you. I 
 think it's why she's leaving she doesn't like it." 
 
 " If it were true," said Parrish, " I shouldn't like it myself.
 
 282 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 My standards may be low, but they're not as low as 
 that!" 
 
 11 You mean?" 
 
 "I mean I'm not given to poaching on other men's 
 preserves." 
 
 Mrs. Parrish was slow. "Whose preserves do you 
 mean?" 
 
 "To be disgracefully frank, I mean David Barlow's." 
 
 "But Emily gave me to understand that he was practi 
 cally engaged to the daughter." 
 
 "The daughter fiddlesticks !" 
 
 Jane, in a dull black dress, she always wore black on 
 Sunday, was eating a solitary breakfast, and she smiled 
 over at them from her distant table. The dress was com 
 mented on. Mrs. Parrish thought the custom savored of 
 Romishness. Her son rather liked it. 
 
 "Well " Mrs. Parrish hesitated, "it surely is a fault in 
 the right direction. Does Mrs. Dench? " She paused, 
 expectant. 
 
 "Mrs. Dench ? Lord, no ! " 
 
 "She seems to be a very interesting woman. She's 
 been in such interesting places. She was telling me some 
 thing of her nomad life last evening." 
 
 Parrish broke open a muffin. "Yes," he said, "she's a 
 perfect mine of anecdote." 
 
 "But on the whole I prefer Jane." 
 
 "In spite of the black dress?" 
 
 "In spite of the black dress." 
 
 Jane came over to them when her breakfast was ended 
 and inquired about their cousin. "I'm so sorry that Miss 
 Stedman's not feeling up to the mark. If there's anything
 
 LAUS VENERIS 283 
 
 we can do, mother asked me to tell you, we'd be only 
 too delighted." 
 
 "Why, thank you, you're kind; but Emily was feeling 
 better and she's gone to New York most unexpectedly." 
 
 "She hasn't ! Well, of course, then she must be feeling 
 better." 
 
 "Oh," said Parrish, "ever so much !" 
 
 "I'm glad," said Jane, "ever so glad." She lingered and 
 hovered, and Parrish, who had arisen to his feet at her 
 coming, asked her to sit down with them. But she couldn't 
 do that. "Mother is not yet up, and she'll wonder where I 
 am. You're not forgetting, Mr. Parrish, that you're going 
 to church with me?" 
 
 "Never in the world !" 
 
 "Ah, you mustn't . . . I'll be downstairs at half-past 
 ten." 
 
 Parrish watched her as she turned away, slim and tall, 
 and his slate eyes deepened as if to the deliberation of a 
 problem. He liked Jane almost as much as his mother liked 
 her; he was very much alive to her rare qualities; he 
 realized, perhaps more than his mother, their advantages. 
 With most young men Jane's beauty and the strong fresh 
 ness of her youth would sufficiently recommend her; but 
 Parrish had seen beauty before the contents of a bottle 
 and the gift of nature and he didn't find it for certain 
 purposes all-sufficing. It was the perfection of Jane's moral 
 fibre rather than that of her physical which made to him the 
 greatest appeal. It was her wonderful goodness. Her 
 goodness was an impregnable fortress through which she 
 looked and behind which she stood. That was as it should 
 be; there was no such thing as a semi-fortified ground.
 
 284 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 But Jane's goodness was not merely a matter of the specifi 
 cally feminine virtues. She could be depended upon to do 
 the right thing ; she had a sense of honor as well as of virtue ; 
 she walked the straight path because for her it was the 
 only one. 
 
 Later, as he knelt beside her in the church of her faith, 
 Parrish's consciousness of her goodness reached a sort of 
 spiritual exaltation. He felt himself in the presence of a 
 divine thing ; he felt uplifted carried out of his perfect, 
 usually too retentive, body. There was something far more 
 splendid than the planet of which he had always been such 
 an able inhabitant, and it seemed as though for a moment he 
 had a blurred glimpse of it. It surely wasn't the church at 
 which he was aware of looking so fixedly, or the quiet 
 ordered congregation, or even Jane's golden head bent in 
 prayer. The April sunlight slanting through a stained 
 window slanted straight towards it, and the gold grew 
 luminous like metal or a torch held in dimness. It was her 
 only brightness ; the black-robed figure might else 
 have been that of some slender, ministering nun, it seemed 
 so far removed from earthly glories. 
 
 But wasn't it, after all, merely an intenser earthliness 
 an intenser physical being than is possessed by the ordinary 
 mortal which made Jane seem transcendent ? There was 
 nothing about her of the pictured angel haloed in heavenly 
 light. She brought to the spiritual something of her 
 mother's dominance; she bent to its uses something of 
 Mrs. Bench's extraordinary force. Parrish remembered 
 another spring Sunday, a Sunday on which in the course of 
 wholesale fur dealing he had found himself marooned in 
 London. In quest of diversion he had walked the empty
 
 LAUS VENERIS 285 
 
 Sunday streets and had come upon a band of Salvationists 
 singing at a street corner. They had lifted strong voices to 
 the praise of their God, and their faces, rugged from hard 
 ship, shone vivid in the soft London haze. Parrish had 
 stood by with bared head ; he felt himself then, as now, in 
 the presence of a divine thing he felt uplifted, carried out 
 of himself and then, as now, the rushing pulses of life 
 had swept him off his feet; the earthly power of the strong 
 voices and the rugged faces had been the final note. 
 
 He noticed the clearness of Jane's outline, firm against the 
 light, and the fine straightness of nose and brow. It was 
 her physical perfection no, it was her physical nobility, 
 which was also moral. She would do the right thing, she 
 would recognize the right thing when it came her way; 
 and she would bring to this second, more difficult task all 
 the unspoiled sight of youth. 
 
 They walked back together in the sunny midday. 
 The sun had burnt away the fog and the wind had died, 
 leaving the sea like the great wrinkled skin of an elephant's 
 back. The air was soft, much as it had been upon that other 
 Sunday, and vitalized through its softness with salt and 
 flowers and the indefinable chemistry of crowds. For the 
 crowds had come to Ocean City; they were no longer a myth 
 and a promise. It was as if Emily, in leaving, had sent 
 them in her stead ; they seemed to have sprung up in the 
 night or gathered as to a fire. The place had been filling 
 at times imperceptibly, and now suddenly it was full. 
 Even the week before, when the Benches were reminded of 
 the Riviera, it had not been like this. It had been cleared 
 for action; the suspense had been held and had risen; the 
 question had been asked. And now came the action itself
 
 286 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 no longer denied and the answer. But Emily wasn't 
 there to hear it. She had left before the play was over, dis 
 turbing its smooth course by the confusion of her departure. 
 The play went on without her, and Parrish should not be 
 too much condemned for his part in it. His occupation 
 with the moment his moment, always precluded his 
 occupation with those past. It had been for him a mere 
 flash in the pan, a final flaring his impulse of yesterday ; 
 his impulse of to-day rested on solider foundations. It was 
 conceived of his reason, his cold admiration forged in 
 the exaltation of his soul and returned again to his reason., 
 the nebulous beginning of an idea. 
 
 in 
 
 At the desk of the 'Tidewater ' the church-goers came upon 
 David Barlow. He explained that he had been settling 
 his weekly bill, and taking that opportunity for a little 
 conversation with the head clerk. 
 
 " Complaints?" 
 
 "Oh, dear no, praise. Of course you pay here, but you 
 get a good deal." 
 
 "Indeed you do," said Parrish. "Why didn't you come 
 with us to church ?" 
 
 "Yes," said Jane, "why didn't you?" 
 
 He thrust forward a pile of newspapers that he was carry 
 ing under his arm. "I got started on these. They were 
 too fascinating." 
 
 "I'll say this for you !" Jane told him. "You're compli 
 mentary !" 
 
 "Well, I saw you starting out and I had a sense a 
 sense I should say I had the sense " He hesitated.
 
 LAUS VENERIS 287 
 
 "Not to come?" Jane helped him, "You needn't have, 
 at all. There was no reason, was there, Mr. Parrish ?" 
 
 "I should say not !" 
 
 Jane looked about. "Where's mother?" 
 
 "I don't know; I haven't seen her." 
 
 Parrish asked the same question concerning his mother. 
 
 "I don't know that, either. She was in the sun parlor a 
 while ago. We had the nicest chat; she and I get on beauti 
 fully." 
 
 "Ah," laughed Parrish, "now I see why you didn't come 
 with us. I'm my mother's natural protector, and you'll 
 answer to me if you harm a hair of her head !" 
 
 "Let's go up," said Jane; "I think mother's upstairs, 
 and, being Sunday, I think she'll have something for you." 
 
 "Not for you, too?" 
 
 "No, not for me. It's what you Americans call a 
 cocktail." 
 
 They were convulsed with the humor of it. 
 
 Jane was right in her surmise. The cocktail, in its 
 scattered parts, was waiting for them Mrs. Dench, also. 
 She confronted Parrish with his sanctity, "You're a true 
 saint, and besides, think how stupid it is for Jane to have 
 to go alone !" 
 
 "Don't you ever?" 
 
 "Oh, often and often. But there's something a little 
 unsatisfying to me about the church at Ocean City. Every 
 one has his religion, you know, if he's fortunate enough to 
 discover it ; he goes to it as a Swedenborgian soul to his hell, 
 and avoids all others like the plague." She altered the 
 position of one of the black leather-covered volumes, seem 
 ing in some way to point her moral at the same time that she
 
 288 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 made room for the pail of ice brought by a bell-boy. "Set 
 it here that's right thank you. David, you didn't 
 go. Fm surprised; you're so overjoyed at having another 
 man to speak to, that I shouldn't think you could let him 
 out of your sight for a moment. Now, a woman could exist 
 quite pleasantly if she never saw another woman from one 
 year's end to the other but a man " 
 
 "A man," said Jane, "has so many little habits which 
 lose half their point unshared." 
 
 "You mean his little drinks and his little smokes? Be 
 cause I don't think David's dependent on those, and besides, 
 I'm always ready to sacrifice myself to the good cause I'll 
 smoke with him ; I'll even upon an occasion like this drink 
 with him, though alcohol's a friend of my arch-enemy, fat, 
 and therefore occasions like this are rare. It seems to me 
 that man's desire for his kind goes deeper than that. If 
 not in these days a superior animal, he's still generally 
 conceded to be a different one ; and with another of his own 
 kind he finds a greater peace." 
 
 "He takes off his coat and rolls up his sleeves?" 
 
 "Yes, that's it. There's an ease of talk and silence, an 
 understanding and an equality. It's the thing I envy 
 most, the casual companionship between men." 
 
 "You should have been one, mother." Jane called it 
 from the next room, where she was taking off her hat. 
 
 Mrs. Dench appealed to Parrish. " If you had a daughter 
 like that, what would you do ?" 
 
 "The question is, what would I do if I hadn't ?" It had 
 been decided by common acclaim that Parrish should have 
 the concocting of the American national drink, and he was 
 deep in his task. 
 
 "That," said Mrs. Dench, "is your present predicament."
 
 LAUS VENERIS 289 
 
 "Do you think me clever enough to get out of it ?" 
 
 "I should hate to see you try." 
 
 "My dear Grace " 
 
 David Barlow had been circling about in a rather aimless 
 fashion, looking here and there, examining with accustomed 
 eyes Mrs. Dench's little store of treasure, effacing himself as 
 he had grown to do when the conversation did not particu 
 larly include him ; but at the pronouncing of his hostess's 
 more familiar name he turned his head. It was the kind of 
 thing for which one had to be prepared with Mrs. Dench ; 
 she allowed her friends a freedom a freedom of which in 
 some ways David Barlow had never availed himself. There 
 were ways in which he had, of course ways which might 
 make his drawing of a line seem absurdly quixotic; it was 
 usual to carry all the freedoms along together; but that 
 was his own affair. He had never called her Grace; 
 to do so would strangely seem to him impertinently lacking 
 in respect. It was very often, in the ordinary course, Mrs. 
 Dench, and once he remembered it was Light of my Life, 
 but that had been drowned in her derisive mirth. Parrish 
 called her Grace, with the casualness with which he might 
 call him Barlow. That was it it was the tone, not the 
 name, that had shocked him to stillness. It was a tone he 
 had never achieved with any woman not even back in 
 that glittering period before he had stood on the deck of the 
 Ballerina and watched the boat from the French yacht. 
 
 It had come to him, a flash of greater brightness in the 
 midst of the bright, still ocean, bearing the message which 
 was to destroy him. Before that he had had faith in himself, 
 visions of greatness and glory. After, the visions were all of 
 Mrs. Dench, and the glory was all hers. If he had been given
 
 290 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 to foisting the blame for his woes upon an unkind Provi 
 dence, he would have cursed the fate which had brought him 
 to her. She had seemed to wait, like a net set by a fisher, 
 with the blue depths of the Mediterranean all about her; 
 and he was a fish with golden scales. He remembered the 
 prettier metaphor of Emily Stedman Venus arisen from 
 the sea. The Duke of Clopin's yacht was her cockle-shell. 
 The Duke de Clopin had called her Grace; but it hadn't 
 seemed to matter. Nothing mattered then but her whose 
 name it was. And, before, he had despised love. He had 
 looked forward to a long vista of blessed years entirely 
 without it. He would still have despised it, except that 
 you didn't despise a power that tossed you about at its 
 whim flung you and shook you and held you on the 
 point of its sword as a struggling insect is held on the point 
 of the scientist's scissors. A power like that was worthy 
 of something better than an egotist's scorn. 
 
 But its very strength was fatal to his egotism, fatal 
 to his faith in himself his own, individual entity. He felt 
 it slipping from him this precious armor of his personality 
 and a glimpse he caught of himself in one of Mrs. Dench's 
 gilded mirrors showed him a David Barlow whose hardness 
 was worn sharp and whose fineness thin. He lived, 
 moth-like, at the edge of the consuming fire, and he found 
 himself powerless to go, much as Emily sleeping 
 had been powerless to answer the knocking at her door. 
 
 It came to him that the mirror into which he looked was 
 his. His, also, the little silver paper-cutter with the stones 
 set in the handle, and the rug on which he trod. He was a 
 fish with golden scales; but the value of the net couldn't 
 be reckoned in gold. It could be reckoned only in the thing
 
 LAUS VENERIS 291 
 
 that he had paid, and he'd paid the price to which no man 
 has the right the thing underneath the golden scales 
 the man himself. It was in moments of doubt like these 
 that he questioned if any net was worth that; it was his 
 old dislike of being cheated, the appraising instinct which 
 had made his father the king of Barley Buns. He ques 
 tioned, and as he questioned he remembered. He was filled 
 with the held impressions of things inconsequent and inti 
 mate, a face which in the dimness gave a mask-like illusion of 
 empty eye sockets a mouth cut from hard coral mo 
 ments of a kind of ultimate contentment and moments, 
 whole periods, of a light excitement. He had had the 
 dream and the reality all in one ; the goddess had reached 
 down into the hidden depths and brought forth the brute, 
 glorified. Who was he, to question? He remembered 
 the little lights along the foreign shore. 
 
 Fairish announced that his cocktail awaited a verdict. 
 Jane was called from the other room. "You've got to try 
 it," Parrish told her, "whether you like it or not " She, 
 as her mother, confessed herself for once willing to be sacri 
 ficed on the altar of fellowship. 
 
 They gathered about the centre-table, with its odd medley 
 of books and bottles and priceless treasures, and they held 
 their small amber-freighted glasses well aloft. Jane looked 
 at David and her mother looked at Parrish, and a kind of 
 embarrassment seemed to pass about from one to another. 
 "Well," said Parrish, "here's how." 
 
 IV 
 
 One of the many things in which the 'Tidewater' took a 
 just pride was its thought for the privacy of its guests.
 
 292 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 There was the big sun parlor, the big dining room, and the 
 long piazza ; but there were, besides these, several smaller 
 rooms adapted to quieter social intercourse, and also, on the 
 upper floors, a number of upstairs piazzas or balconies. 
 The convalescent could bask in the warm sun with little 
 chance of being disturbed, friends could talk, and as the 
 evenings grew less wintry the flirtatiously inclined could sit 
 and watch the moonlight on the water. But April was still 
 a bit early for that ; it hadn't yet occurred to people to sit 
 out of doors in the evening, and the hibernating habit still 
 clung. Mrs. Dench and Parrish had undisturbed possession 
 of the very balcony which was later most sought out. 
 
 Parrish's mother had decided to return to Hornmouth, 
 stopping on her way through New York for a glance at 
 Emily. She had taken her departure that afternoon, and 
 Parrish had seen her to her train with a regret tempered by 
 relief. He had answered gayly her Delphic parting word 
 about leaving him to work out his own salvation ; and now 
 here he was, with the sea below him and the sky above him, 
 and Mrs. Dench at his side. It was Mrs. Dench's idea. 
 She had brazenly told him that she wanted to talk to him. 
 She had told David to entertain Jane and Jane to entertain 
 David, and installed them each in a corner of the gilded 
 sofa. The very brazenness of it had left Parrish a little 
 dazed, and all he could say on arriving at the balcony, which 
 seemed her planned-for goal, was to repeat what had so 
 startled young Barlow. 
 
 "My dear Grace " 
 
 "You think I'm vile, don't you? But I wanted to talk 
 to you, and now that your very charming family have gone, 
 I see no reason why I shouldn't."
 
 LAUS VENERIS 293 
 
 "It ought not to have been a question of their going, 
 for they never should have come." 
 
 "It was inopportune of them or rather, it was you who 
 were inopportune !" 
 
 "I?" said Parrish. "I wasn't thinking of myself; I've 
 fortunately nothing to conceal from them." 
 
 Mrs. Dench laughed. "And I have? Well, you never 
 can say that I didn't play the right part." 
 
 "Did I ever? No one knows, better than you, how the 
 right part should be played. I'd trust you to the end of the 
 earth with a new-born babe." 
 
 "I think that's been proved by the way I've brought up 
 Jane." 
 
 "Oh, don't take too much credit to yourself about Jane. 
 Jane has a character which I'm sure I don't know where she 
 got-" 
 
 "There's one thing about you, you don't flatter. Why 
 didn't she get it from Christopher Dench? He was a 
 saint far too much of a saint for the diplomatic service; 
 he died young. But Jane won't die young; she has in her 
 enough of me to save her. Do you know I have a plan for 
 her ? If I can carry it through, it will smooth out many 
 little difficulties." 
 
 "Tell me." 
 
 " It's to marry her to David. What do you think of it ? " 
 
 "I think it's appalling!" 
 
 "Why appalling? She's horribly in love with him, and 
 it would keep him in the family at the same time that it set 
 me set me " Mrs. Dench hesitated. 
 
 "Set you free? Why, she wouldn't touch him with a 
 ten-foot pole ! Nor he her."
 
 294 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "You think not?" 
 
 "My dear woman, I know not. She may be dying of love 
 for him, but there's a thing called decency which she gets 
 from her father. You spoke once of the responsibilities 
 of motherhood. You've met them, I'll admit, but you've 
 used them to your own ends. In arranging so comfortably 
 for Jane, and accidentally setting yourself free though 
 as for that I can't see but that you're free enough now 
 what is there that you want to do with your freedom ? " 
 
 "I won't point out to you how well this comes from you." 
 
 Parrish looked at her. "My vanity's not so colossal as 
 that." 
 
 "It has every cause " 
 
 He faced the peculiarity of his position. "Since when," 
 he asked, "have you grown so beautifully methodical?" 
 
 "It's not I, it's you." 
 
 "Perhaps you're right. Do you remember that astound 
 ing last week in Paris when you suddenly decided to come 
 home and I was foolish enough to think it was for me? 
 When I learned later, through my mother the poor lady 
 seems hopelessly entangled that it was for David Barlow, 
 that David Barlow was here, I was very near to damning 
 him and you and the whole thing." 
 
 "It was for you." 
 
 "And David?" 
 
 "David doesn't count." 
 
 Parrish met this with levity. "I'm glad I'm not he !" 
 
 " You never would be. Tell me if you so damned me, 
 why did you come here?" 
 
 "It's a certain dislike I have of loose ends. I wanted to 
 straighten things out know where I stood."
 
 LAUS VENERIS 295 
 
 "And have you found out?" 
 
 "It's exactly where I stood before." 
 
 "And where was that?" 
 
 "Why, nowhere!" 
 
 "And will it always be nowhere ?" 
 
 "Always" 
 
 "Why?" said Mrs. Bench. "If I do what I say, marry 
 David to Jane " 
 
 "But you'll never marry David to Jane it's quite im 
 possible, and besides, I have no wish to make it impossible 
 that I marry her myself ! " Parrish brought it out sharply 
 almost officially. His manner savored of the junior 
 partner in the firm of wholesale fur dealers. 
 
 Mrs. Dench's scorn was splendid. "If you think she'd 
 touch you with a ten-foot pole ! " 
 
 "She'd have no reason not to." 
 
 "Don't you call Mme. Rostov a reason?" 
 
 "Perhaps but not to be mentioned in the same breath 
 with Jane's reason for not marrying David." 
 
 "You mean me?" said Mrs. Dench. 
 
 "Yes, to be brutally frank, I mean you." 
 
 "I see you think the fact of David Barlow's having 
 been my lover quite puts it out of the question, his ever 
 being my daughter's husband." 
 
 "Don't you think so?" said Parrish; "because if you 
 don't, you're hopeless !" 
 
 Mrs. Dench accepted it. "Tell me," she presently asked, 
 l< when was this wonderful plan of yours evolved ?" 
 
 It seemed that it had come to him at all definitely but a 
 very few hours before, though his liking for Jane had ex 
 tended back it rather antedated his liking for her mother.
 
 296 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 And as for this last they surely needn't go into it. 
 Their memory of the astounding last week in Paris was still 
 green. He hadn't liked her, and suddenly he liked her 
 very much. She had occupied his speculative thought, and 
 suddenly the abstract occupation had turned. 
 
 The thing she had which wasn't beauty ; the sort of mas 
 culine good-fellowship which he followed gayly till the door 
 shut behind him; the vastness of her comprehension only 
 equalled by the vastness of her experience the sum of 
 her charm was like the charm of a place much loved, a great 
 city endless and ageless, the very quantity of whose treasure 
 appalls the spoiler, weakening his capacity of plunder. 
 There was a sense, with Mrs. Bench, of infinite leisure. 
 There was no hurry into recklessness ; recklessness with her 
 stepped a slow measure so slow that its true nature was 
 concealed a very different matter from the light, mad 
 cadence, like a Slavic dance trod lightly, which was Mme. 
 Rostov's rendering of the thing the term implied. But 
 the more rapid motion was better suited to the exigencies 
 of a mutable world. The other, bred of a conception of 
 time borrowed from the immortals, didn't always arrive. 
 It arrived in one sense in a high achievement of the in 
 tangible. There was nothing between Mrs. Bench and 
 Ralph Parrish, and yet there was everything. But though 
 not of the flesh, that everything was equally not of the 
 spirit the first circumstance was felt to be accidental, 
 the second went deeper. Their affinity had its being in 
 something almost racial in its physical foundation. If 
 Mrs. Bench had been ten years older and had had a son, 
 Parrish would have been the very son expected of her. 
 And wasn't this relation exactly what he was proposing 
 the outcome of his plan for Jane ?
 
 LAUS VENERIS 297 
 
 She seemed to take it, however, as more to Jane's ad 
 vantage than to her own. She asked him what Jane had 
 done to deserve it. 
 
 "It's not what she's done it's what she is." 
 
 "She's young, she's strong, she's beautiful, she has a kind 
 of intelligence and a character which seems to you in a 
 daughter of mine unexplained, you see I admit all her 
 qualities, but I yet don't see why you're not very well 
 off as you are." 
 
 "I am very well off. But I've come to a point when I 
 should be better off married to Jane you don't realize 
 how rare all her qualities are you don't appreciate her !" 
 
 "No," said Mrs. Bench, "I'm beginning to hate her. 
 She's come between you and me. Before that it was David, 
 and before David it was Maurice de Clopin " 
 
 Parrish was aware of her breath coming heavily. He rose 
 to his feet. "Let me go to her with clean hands " 
 
 "You mean Jane?" 
 
 "Yes, I mean Jane." 
 
 "Can't you ever forget that she's my daughter?" 
 
 He turned and stood facing her. " I don't want to forget 
 it." 
 
 "That's it, you don't want to. Well, go to her then, and 
 with hands as clean as you please, but I don't think she'll 
 marry you. She loves David, and David's hands " 
 
 Parrish made a motion of arrest. "Spare me, please, the 
 sordid particulars." 
 
 Mrs. Dench met his command. ."There are no sordid 
 particulars about David's feeling for me. It's the most 
 exquisite thing I've ever seen. He gives me his whole soul 
 he gives me himself "
 
 298 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 There was a vague note of laughter from Fairish. 
 
 "Yes, you can't understand. You think that because 
 you have what you call clean hands, your feeling for me is the 
 most exquisite thing I've ever seen." 
 
 "I assure you, you mistake me !" 
 
 "Not as much as you imagine. You think that you've 
 reached the very pinnacle of virtue, while really it's not 
 virtue that you have to thank, but your sense of what is 
 convenable. If I were dyed and painted if I were in 
 the picture . . . But I'm not; my hair shows the gray, and 
 I'm the mother of the young woman whom you greatly 
 admire. Does it strike you you're taking a tremendous 
 risk ? If you can't overlook her being my daughter, how 
 can you overlook my being her mother? It's surely not 
 in her favor " 
 
 Parrish stared amazedly. The responsibilities of mother 
 hood. The phrase ran in his head. If these were they, his 
 impulse was to put Jane forever out of their reach to 
 take her away, at once, to-morrow, to marry her, whether 
 she would or no. But she would. He staked his faith on 
 her ability to do the right thing, and it wouldn't be the right 
 thing for her to marry David Barlow. This was a way out ; 
 she must see it. He staked his faith, also, on her ultimate 
 satisfaction with her bargain, and felt himself not unduly 
 vain. 
 
 He had lost the thread of his companion's discourse. 
 "I'm much more complimentary about Jane," he found her 
 saying, "than she is about me. It's a thorn in her flesh 
 that circumstances force her to live with me. She doesn't 
 appreciate what I've done for her." 
 
 "You take her into your confidence?"
 
 LAUS VENERIS 299 
 
 "She's not a fool!" 
 
 "I suppose, when Jane is married, you'll return to Europe. 
 You came over, you know, especially with that end in view, 
 and, having accomplished your purpose " 
 
 She who was past-master of the tortuous became suddenly 
 direct. "Why don't you marry me instead of Jane?" 
 
 Parrish vainly searched for words that would not come. 
 
 "Why not? Tell me why not? I'm a widow, and 
 there's no law, is there, against marrying widows?" 
 
 Parrish shook himself from his dumbness. "You're 
 upset you're not yourself you don't know what you 're 
 saying." 
 
 "I know quite well. I'm endeavoring to satisfy your 
 sense of what is convenable. I'd do for you what I 
 wouldn't do for any one living. And don't for an instant 
 suppose that I don't know what a fool I am ! Now I'm 
 above all laws I'm free to come and to go, the responsi 
 bilities of motherhood are the only ones I have, and I can 
 see you think that even those don't weigh me too heavily. 
 People say that one can't be above all laws, that one pays 
 for one's sins a hundred fold. I'm afraid I don't quite 
 know what people mean. I've never paid. Perhaps I'm 
 cleverer than other people; perhaps I'm luckier; perhaps I'm 
 merely not the same. But that's all over now. My luck 
 must have turned, and as for my cleverness why, I tell 
 you I know what a fool I am ! I'm forty-four, and I've 
 never had anything but a kind of reflection of other people's 
 passions, never one of my own, and now it's come to 
 me. I think I see you as they have sometimes seen me. 
 Perhaps you don't understand. It's not the kind of thing 
 one usually says, but my reserve, what you euphemistically
 
 300 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 call my modesty, is sadly lacking that, I suppose, is one 
 way in which I've paid. I want you don't you see ? 
 and I swear that to my dying day I should make you a 
 magnificent wife." 
 
 Mrs. Bench's voice, low and insistent, ceased. Parrish 
 heard it through a blur in which when it ceased it was 
 carried on by other voices that rose to Mm in a distant mur 
 mur from the piazza and from the board walk below. Along 
 the walk lights were strung, a row each side in narrowing 
 perspective till they seemed to join; and the sky overhead 
 was dotted with stars. A dog barked and was silenced. 
 There came a snatch of laughter from the piazza, and a song 
 started and stopped. The sea was calm, and Parrish was 
 only dimly aware of its swishing beat. His brain was con 
 fused as by fear, and what there was left clear was focussed 
 on the swathed, seated figure before him. He saw Mrs. 
 Dench in all her dignity sharply silhouetted against the 
 doorway which led into the lighted corridor. He tried to 
 answer her, but instead of an answer his words formed an 
 interrogation. 
 
 "What have I done?'" 
 
 "As you said of Jane, it's not what you've done, but what 
 you are." 
 
 "It's extraordinary " 
 
 "What you are?" 
 
 "Lord, no!" 
 
 "You won't have me?" said Mrs. Dench, and suddenly 
 laughed with the humor of it. 
 
 But Parrish was deadly grave. "I won't have you I 
 can't it's Jane " 
 
 "I've told you that I hate Jane."
 
 LAUS VENERIS 301 
 
 "I wish to God you hated me," said Parrish; and then, as 
 his horror gripped him "You're the most abominable 
 woman I've ever seen !" 
 
 "Oh, my dear, be careful what you say it's too beauti 
 ful a night " 
 
 His disgust of her mounted to numbness, and it was still 
 numbly that he bent down till the two wide mouths met. 
 She spoke to him through his kisses, a broken inarticulate 
 speech picked from the love language of many tongues 
 "Cheri caro mio my own dear love " And with 
 her strong arms about him she drew him close, and he felt 
 the magnificent beat of her heart against his own. He 
 straightened and stood ; his hour had come, and he brought 
 to its facing all his new confidence. 
 
 " If it's what I am you love me for, let me tell you that 
 what I am is utterly vile. I'm on my way to Jane good 
 night." 
 
 Mrs. Dench watched him as he passed through into the 
 lighted corridor.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 WEDDING-CAKE 
 
 THE apartment in the late thirties was more than ever 
 like the inside of a milliner's bonnet box. The afternoon 
 sun coming through the gayly curtained windows couldn't 
 find a single dingy corner. The little glass case glittered 
 and shone ; the brocade drapery hung from the piano in crisp 
 folds ; the leopard skin rug lay on the floor in a feline ecstasy 
 of outstretched paws. There were flowers in two great blue 
 bowls, yellow jonquils and tulips that seemed to catch and 
 hold the light which was further reflected by the white 
 apron of the maid who was setting the tea-table. 
 
 It was good to be back in New York; the cheerful rattle 
 of cups and silver testified to its goodness. Ocean City, 
 in spite of its name, was not really a city ; it was all very well 
 for a time, but after that time it palled. In New York one 
 had friends and diversions; one's horizon was not bounded 
 by the attentions of bell-boys and porters. The beruffled 
 little maid had a very superior young man, a young French 
 man whose position in a fashionable hair-dressing establish 
 ment was of the highest. He spoiled her for baser metal. 
 And then, in New York, there were the diversions provided 
 by Miss Stedman the people who dropped in at tea-time 
 with talk well worth hearing, and the little dinners that it 
 
 302
 
 WEDDING-CAKE 303 
 
 was a pleasure to serve. In a place all one's own the drama 
 of life was more neatly constructed than was possible in 
 that which was desecrated by the trampling feet of thou 
 sands. The apartment in the late thirties was the beruffled 
 maid's ideal of a home; its nervous straining in the wake of 
 beauty seemed to her the apotheosis of elegance and ease. 
 It was in such a nest that her mind's eye pictured herself 
 and the hair-dresser on the ground floor, perhaps, that 
 would be more convenient for business, and with the big 
 windows offering a background for much gilded lettering. 
 Here would be the table for manicuring her own especial 
 province and here the curtained space for the deeper 
 mysteries of the hair. The little glass case enlarged itself 
 in her productive fancy to a case displaying creams and 
 powders, a spangled ornament or so, and a false curl. 
 
 But this was the merest dream. It took money to marry 
 and set up in business for one's self. It would mean years of 
 saving, and saving was a torture to the flesh when one loved 
 ease. It was strange Miss Stedman did not marry. Mr. 
 Parrish had treated her badly, to be so attentive and then 
 suddenly to cease his attentions. He was in town at the 
 very moment, yet he never came there now. She remem 
 bered him so well as he used to come, such a splendid 
 figure of a man; she remembered the set of his collar and 
 the hang of his coat. She guessed from something her 
 mistress had let drop that he was paying his court to the 
 tall young lady who had been at Ocean City, Miss Bench 
 it was she who was coming to tea he might do worse, 
 though her beauty was rather of the English type. And 
 Miss Stedman accepted the situation with the most sur 
 prising calm.
 
 304 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 All day she wrote at the big table by the window, and all 
 day the blank yellow pads grew less blank. No Persian 
 weaver sitting cross-legged before a loom could be more 
 faithful to his task. She wove her fabric close and fine with 
 the strong, fine thread of her genius passing and repassing 
 along the loom of her riper maturity. "Mrs. Dallowfield" 
 awoke under the new touch as though blown upon by the 
 breath of life. It seemed as if all of Emily Stedman's 
 foiled desire for it went to her making ; the memories, the 
 visions, the little ghosts that clustered about the desecrated 
 grave " Mrs. Dallowfield " was like a rolling snowball gath 
 ering them all. And Emily was at once her servant and 
 her master, driver and driven. Sometimes she felt herself 
 pushed forward by a force which seemed other than her 
 own, and again it was by her own sheer effort of will that 
 she wrote "Mrs. Dallowfield." She would sit there, day 
 after day, at the big table by the window, weaving her 
 fabric and herself being woven into it. She wove with the 
 thread of her genius, and the genius was herself and the 
 loom was herself and "Mrs. Dallowfield" was herself. She 
 defied all known physical laws and lifted herself by her own 
 boot straps, Dr. Jeffries to the contrary. 
 
 April had stretched to May, and now June was near. She 
 wondered what the summer would bring forth. It seemed 
 that it could have nothing left to bring, except perhaps a 
 more definite announcement of Ralph Parrish's engagement 
 to Jane. And spring might rob it of this last shred, for Jane 
 was coming to tea, and for what else could she come but to 
 tell her definitely the good news ? Emily knew it already. 
 She had seen her cousin met him in a car and he had 
 been as full of it as an egg of meat ; she had a letter from her
 
 WEDDING-CAKE 305 
 
 Cousin Laura in which the space between the lines was more 
 than usually taken up, and one from Mrs. Bench that 
 frankly intimated the approach of a family relation. "We 
 feel very near to you, dear Miss Stedman, and perhaps the 
 parting of our ways is not for long. " 
 
 The thing she didn't understand was why she was osten 
 sibly kept in the dark. In fact, her perplexity didn't stop 
 there ; the news itself was sufficiently strange. Why Parrish 
 should take Jane, why Jane should take Parrish the clean 
 slate of her comprehension was crossed and recrossed by 
 varicolored chalk; she gave up hope of making it out. 
 There had been so much talk talk that went for nothing ; 
 and with the expectation, moment by moment, of Jane's 
 hand on the door-bell, she prepared herself for more talk 
 still. But she was becoming hardened. One definition 
 of a gentleman is a man whom nothing surprises; and, 
 though hardly apt in the case of the softer sex, she felt that 
 if it had been, she might soon qualify. It was the result 
 of her plunge into diplomatic waters. She could smile at 
 it and treat it lightly, this plunge ; her own life was unreal 
 to her in proportion as "Mrs. Dallowfield" took on life's 
 reality, and in proportion also as her pain increased. 
 She met it with a kind of apathy, the stupor of the tortured ; 
 the pain was there, but it was some one else's pain, and Ralph 
 Parrish was the desire of some one else's heart. 
 
 Jane had telephoned early in the day to make sure that 
 her friend would be in. They had left Ocean City they 
 were stopping at the 'Palazzo' and could she come? 
 She wanted to see her very much indeed. 
 
 The hour for that consummation at last arrived. Emily 
 rose to greet her. "Miss Dench. This is nice ! "
 
 306 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 She was caught up in a swirl of arms and ruffles. " You 
 dear!" 
 
 The warmth of the reception was unlocked for. Jane 
 was not usually given to demonstrativeness, and Emily 
 in spite of herself drew back a little. It was the merest 
 shadow of a movement; but it gave her a broader view, 
 helped her to see that Jane's enthusiasm was largely a 
 matter of hiding her confusion. The young lady was 
 visibly abashed. She seemed to find her mission difficult, 
 and it was to get it over with as soon as possible that she 
 announced it even before she had found a chair. "I sup 
 pose you know that Ralph and I are going to be married. 
 I came to tell you. " 
 
 "I wasn't entirely unprepared." 
 
 "You couldn't have been of course. I suppose you 
 think it queer that Ralph isn't the one to tell you. He 
 wanted to be, but I wouldn't let him. I wanted to tell you 
 all myself, I " 
 
 Emily cut her short. "I think him a very lucky man." 
 
 "And don't you think me a lucky girl ?" Jane smiled at 
 her from beneath the brim of the wide English hat that was 
 a survival of a past London spring. 
 
 "Yes, you're lucky; but, my dear, when any one's as 
 beautiful as you are, it's not a question of luck. You simply 
 crook your finger and it's done !" 
 
 "Oh, but it wasn't like that. I'd known Ralph for 
 years before he even thought of it. In fact, we neither of 
 us rushed in. I've been taking all this month fully to make 
 up my mind." 
 
 "You've made it up now?" 
 
 "Oh, quite ! I think it's the very best thing I can do."
 
 WEDDING-CAKE 307 
 
 Her hostess laughed. "Why, you're head over heels in 
 love with him." 
 
 "No," said Jane, strangely, "really I'm not. But I have 
 a dreadful sense that I some day may be." 
 
 "Why dreadful?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know. Don't you think it dreadful? To 
 be so persuadable " 
 
 Emily gave her tea. She admired the big silver kettle, 
 and was told it had come from Ralph. 
 
 "He gave it to you?" 
 
 "You're not jealous?" Emily jested. 
 
 "Oh, I realize that you and he were terribly thick; but 
 I'm not a bit fussy. You know his mother has the most 
 adorable old silver at Hornmouth. It's the most adorable 
 place, altogether ! Ralph and I spent Sunday there." 
 
 It awakened memories. "I was born and brought up at 
 Hornmouth hi the little yellow house next door to 
 theirs." 
 
 "Yes, I heard you were. But I don't remember any 
 little yellow house; I think it's been torn down quite 
 recently. Mrs. Parrish said something about it; I can't 
 just remember " 
 
 "And where was your mother while you were at Horn- 
 mouth?" 
 
 "Mother came up from Ocean City when I did on Friday, 
 and went straight to the 'Palazzo.' She's done most of 
 my shopping for me. Did you know I expected to be 
 married in June? There's so much to get." 
 
 "And David where is he?" Emily had divined that 
 the subject of David might prove awkward, and had not 
 meant to broach it.
 
 308 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 But Jane was calm. "David's in town with his 
 people. He came up on Friday, too. His father's one of 
 the most charming men." 
 
 "You've known him, haven't you, for some time?" 
 
 "As long as I've known David; but I haven't seen so 
 much of him. He called on us yesterday. Mother said it 
 was curiosity, but I said it was nice." 
 
 Emily searched about for a suitable comment, and, find 
 ing none, was silent. 
 
 Jane had been leaning back as far as her very erect little 
 chair permitted, her hands twined about her crossed knees, 
 her head bent forward. She gave the effect of not knowing 
 quite where to put herself and getting out of the predica 
 ment with grace. She now straightened. Her whole tone 
 changed. "Do you remember what I once said to you 
 about David?" 
 
 "You mean about how much you liked him?" 
 
 "Yes. Well, it was true." 
 
 "I never doubted it!" 
 
 "Not before no. But now you might think I hadn't 
 meant it. It was foolish to say." 
 
 "But you didn't say a great deal," Emily protested; 
 "there was nothing of any sort definite " 
 
 Jane looked at her. "Really? I felt afterwards as 
 if I'd said a lot." 
 
 "You spoke of his having been through so much. You 
 gave me to understand that he was very changed." 
 
 "I gave you to understand that I adored the ground he 
 trod on ! Well I did. But would it seem horribly dis 
 loyal if I said that I was beginning not to?" 
 
 "As you're on the point of marrying another man, I
 
 WEDDING-CAKE 309 
 
 think it would seem horribly disloyal if you said anything 
 else!" 
 
 "Ah disloyal to the other man disloyal to Ralph! 
 It's he I have to think of now. But I do think of him. 
 David grows less distinct. And after Hornmouth 
 I mean the Sunday we spent there " Jane's brows 
 were troubled with a first comprehension of a universal 
 truth. 
 
 Emily hazarded a conjecture. "Wasn't there some talk 
 about your marrying David?" 
 
 " I believe there was. But you don't know it wouldn't 
 have been the right thing ! " 
 
 II 
 
 If, before, everybody had seemed to unite in not telling 
 Emily the good news, they now displayed an equal unity 
 in the other direction. On the heels of Jane's visit came 
 one long and voluble from Parrish; also one from David 
 Barlow, of which it formed the chief topic. Letters poured 
 in a hurried line from Mrs. Dench, a triumphant paean 
 of praise from Laura Parrish, a judicial word from Emily's 
 old friend, Mrs. Mellish. The very pavements rang with 
 it, and wherever Emily went, it was the sole thing suggested 
 by her presence. Ralph Parrish always trod a path rather 
 marked ; he had a certain native conspicuousness which in 
 this hour of his joy didn't desert him. The Town Club 
 was alive with interest, and the senior partner in the firm of 
 wholesale fur dealers facetiously calculated the effect on 
 the price of furs. Who was Miss Dench ? Emily was asked it 
 twenty times the Denches' celebrity was strictly indige 
 nous to Europe and she always pointed to Jane herself
 
 310 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 as an answer to that question. "Who is she? Why do 
 you ask? Look at her ! " 
 
 Together the young lovers seemed to complement and 
 add to each other's beauty. They were the sort of pair 
 after whom strangers turn to look; their arrival at any public 
 centre was a signal for a general craning of necks. It would 
 be an ideal mating a union in which the chances were 
 all for success health, brains, and beauty, and sufficient 
 gold to pay the piper. 
 
 Emily called at the 'Palazzo' and found Jane and her 
 mother up to their ears in bridal preparations. The wed 
 ding was to be a quiet one a bare half-dozen intimates 
 but Jane was too orthodox to go to the sacrifice unar- 
 rayed. Emily was brought directly in and space made for 
 her in the midst of the confusion. She felt herself already 
 of the family. A veil of tulle and lace was exhibited for 
 her admiration. She touched it delicately. "The veil?" 
 
 " Indeed it is." 
 
 "It's not just what we should have picked out," said 
 Mrs. Dench, "but your American prices are so absolutely 
 ruinous. We had to call a halt somewhere ! I had a piece 
 of Mechlin which would have been just the thing, but in 
 the excitement it seems to have taken wings. However, 
 I should never suggest that the chambermaid at Ocean City 
 knows " 
 
 Jane brought forth a jewelled ornament, pearls and sap 
 phires set in silver. It was her future mother-in-law's gift, 
 and had belonged to generations of Parrishes. Mrs. Dench 
 vouchsafed that she would wear it to the altar, fastened 
 in her veil so. 
 
 Emily applauded. "She'll be a vision !"
 
 WEDDING-CAKE 311 
 
 Jane was modest. "Hardly that. And I'm going to 
 such a smart tailor for my suit. It's that new, thin serge " 
 
 "For the price," said her mother, "it should be cloth of 
 gold. Upon my word, I never saw anything like your 
 prices. Living on the other side, one doesn't realize it. 
 Now over there " An intimate garment was held up 
 for view, and there followed an elaborate comparison. 
 "What do you do? Mrs. Parrish says she has her things 
 made in the house. That may be possible at Hornmouth. 
 But when there's the question of time to be dealt with 
 You know it's on the 5th?" 
 
 "You've decided?" 
 
 "Yes. You see the steamer I preferred sails on the 
 6th and that gives the young people time to get away 
 before me." 
 
 "You're sailing? I didn't realize " 
 
 "Yes, I'm back to my old haunts. The Duchess de 
 Clopin has asked me to spend the summer with her. She 
 has the most charming chateau near Tours, and how could I 
 refuse?" 
 
 " You couldn't ! But you're coming back ? " 
 
 "To visit Jane? I may, if she asks me very prettily." 
 
 "Oh, mother!" 
 
 Emily murmured the conventional regrets. "Your 
 friends will miss you." 
 
 "Oh, they'll somehow manage ! Now that I have Jane 
 so beautifully provided for, there's really nothing to keep 
 me, and why should I make myself uncomfortable when 
 the reason is taken away ? I frankly am not sympathetic 
 with my own country. - 1 suppose it's that I've lived away 
 from it so long."
 
 312 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "I adore it," said Jane. 
 
 "Well, Jane, you've got it, haven't you? You're going 
 to stay here. Don't you think, Miss Stedman, that Jane 
 ought to be a very happy girl?" 
 
 " But isn't she?" 
 
 "In a sense, yes. But when she's with Ralph, she'll 
 sit for hours and stare at him as if he were a new specimen 
 from the Zoo. We all know he's a joy to behold, but it's 
 not as a joy that Jane beholds him " 
 
 "Really, mother!" 
 
 "No, not as a joy, but rather as a mirror with which she 
 looks into her own inmost depths. I'm sure I don't know 
 what she sees there. She has reached the introspective 
 period, but she's young she'll recover ! After the 5th, 
 everything will be quite all right." 
 
 "It's quite all right now, mother, I assure you it 
 is." 
 
 "It's tremendously exciting, anyway." 
 
 The talk drifted on, and Emily asked about the future 
 plans of Ralph and Jane. Had they made any? Where 
 were they going to live ? For the summer in a near suburb 
 where Ralph could come in and out, and later there was the 
 possibility of a tiny house in the sixties near Lexington 
 Avenue. They might be able to secure it at a sum not too 
 beyond them, and the wish closest to Jane's heart was a 
 place she could really call her own. It was to be, in part, 
 her contribution to the general economy. She had a small 
 inheritance from her grandmother, and for years it had been 
 rolling up for just such a contingency. 
 
 Emily left the ' Palazzo ' with a sense of greater cheer than 
 she had had for weeks. She had held in her hand the wed-
 
 WEDDING-CAKE 313 
 
 ding-veil, fingered and priced the wedding-garments, talked 
 of houses and living. It seemed to make compassable the 
 measure of her loss reduce it to the level of mundane things. 
 She tried to imagine herself in Jane's place, and failed. 
 Would she be having wedding-veils and thinking of houses ? 
 She would be encircled by too infinite a glory. Or perhaps 
 there was no glory; perhaps the glory was all in her own 
 mind. People married every day, and wedding-garments 
 filled the shops. But as for marriage for herself she had 
 never considered it. Could it be that there was a greater 
 glory when one didn't consider it ? She felt herself on the 
 edge of sophistry. 
 
 She was walking home; the distance was not too great, 
 and the heat was as yet chiefly noticeable for the promise 
 it held out of more. The avenue was gay with a rapid, 
 ceaseless movement, and on either side shop-windows 
 glittered. She looked at them in passing; there were 
 jewels, clothes, and furniture, all of a kind to be classed 
 among the luxuries, and yet in the aggregate taking on a 
 dignified importance. They were the outward symbols 
 of prosperity, the material rewards of success. But among 
 them all there was nothing quite to rival the Chinese rug 
 or the French sofa or the porcelain vase, and the clothes 
 were no better, surely, than those she had come from seeing. 
 According to that measure, Mrs. Bench's success was match 
 for any. Emily pondered. Her brain seemed to rejoice in 
 problems. 
 
 in 
 
 The 5th of June dawned warm and clear. Emily had been 
 waiting for it through all the long, dark hours, and from
 
 314 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 her thankful hailing of the light it might have been her 
 wedding-day instead of Jane's. She watched the objects 
 in her room change from formlessness, and heard outside 
 her window the first twitter of an adventurously soaring 
 sparrow. Her eyes ached, and as the day grew brighter 
 she shut them, but sleep would not come. The marriage 
 was at twelve. That hour seemed very near. The little 
 handful of well-wishers were to group themselves about the 
 altar steps, and after the service they were to follow on to the 
 'Palazzo' and to breakfast. David, the Barley Bun King 
 himself, an uncle of Jane's who had come all the way from 
 Ohio, and two or three intimate friends of Parrish's with 
 out whom, he said, he would feel the ceremony incomplete 
 these were the guests, other than Emily. These, with 
 Mrs. Dench, Mrs. Parrish, the clergyman, and the bridal 
 pair, were to constitute the entire company. Emily had 
 a new gown and a hat all lace and flowers. Some one other 
 than Jane could have wedding-garments. It was early, 
 not yet six, but she rose and went to the wardrobe which 
 contained them. Two hours later the beruffled maid, 
 bringing in her breakfast tray, found her asleep with the 
 dress and hat laid near. 
 
 She woke her. " You get cold, and then you be not able 
 to go to see the wedding !" 
 
 "Oh, I shall see that whatever happens !" 
 "Mademoiselle has lived in Paris for many years." 
 Emily missed the connecting thought. "Yes? " 
 "When you sent me yesterday to find if I can help in any- 
 things, she talked French, so I could never tell. She gave 
 me a handkerchief she bought in Paris. Her fiance came 
 in, but she send him away like this " A chair was
 
 WEDDING-CAKE 315 
 
 graphically seized by its two arms and pushed. "She was 
 so gay. " 
 
 "Well, why shouldn't she be gay?" 
 
 But later, when the magic hour of twelve arrived and she 
 walked up the long, dim aisle on the arm of her Ohio uncle, 
 Jane was not gay. Her friends waited for her at the altar 
 steps, a little patch of life and brightness in the midst of the 
 empty church. There was a moment like the snap of a 
 string, and she was among them, and Parrish stepped out to 
 meet her. Then the minister's voice broke the tenseness. 
 The most intimate of Parrish's intimate friends passed him 
 the ring. Emily, leaning forward, saw the gleam of it as 
 it found its final resting-place. She saw the back of Par 
 rish's bent head they were kneeling now and the line 
 of his neck above his collar. She heard the minister's 
 voice "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of 
 the Holy Ghost " What had that to do with it ? "The 
 Lord mercifully with His favor look upon you and so fill 
 you with all spiritual benediction and grace that ye may 
 so live together in this life that in the world to come you 
 may have life everlasting." 
 
 It was over. The plan was that the wedded pair should 
 lead the way and the others follow them. But Jane paused, 
 uncertain. Parrish held his arm ready for hers. She still 
 waited ; and as she stood there, looking about from one to 
 another of her surrounders, Emily noticed that her eyes 
 swam with tears. She suddenly smiled the sun breaking 
 through clouds and suddenly, so quickly that half the 
 company had to be afterwards told what it was that had 
 happened, she turned to David Barlow, who was standing 
 next her mother, and kissed him. Then she took her hus-
 
 316 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 band's proffered arm and led the way down the aisle to 
 the church door. 
 
 . David covered his embarrassment as best he could. 
 "Well, David," said the elder Barlow, "it seems that you're 
 the favored guest " And one of Parrish's intimate 
 friends professed to envy him. It was hardly reverent to 
 talk thus lightly with a sacred rite yet so close; but the 
 bride's own aberration had cleared the path. The pressure 
 of surprise found relief in laughter. "Jane was over 
 wrought," David explained it to Emily; "it must be a 
 fearful strain on a girl. Think of it !" Emily thought of 
 it all the way back to the 'Palazzo.' 
 
 There had been a tangle of arrangements outside the 
 church. The bride and groom had got away in one carriage; 
 Mrs. Dench and Mrs. Parrish and the two older men had 
 taken another; Parrish's friends had started to walk, and 
 David and Emily had found themselves in front of the 
 deserted church*in a plight which David had solved by hail 
 ing a hansom. The hansom succeeded in getting into 
 blocks that the earlier carriages had the start of ; even the 
 pedestrians outstripped it; its occupants arrived upon an 
 already festive scene. Mrs. Dench had done the thing with 
 her accustomed perfection. The hotel rooms had all the 
 illusion of the drawing-room floor of a private dwelling. 
 Instead of the usual forced glitter of a hired setting, the 
 sense it conveys of being used for purposes of jollification 
 day after day and night after night, the scene of Jane's 
 bridal feast produced the effect of a place brought forth 
 into sudden gayety from a commonly shrouding seclusion. 
 Where one entered, flowers and a stand laden with wedding 
 presents were the chief notes of decoration; and looking
 
 WEDDING-CAKE 317 
 
 through the widely open doors, one's eye was arrested by a 
 white-clothed horseshoe table daintily spread. 
 
 Mrs. Bench's transforming touch was everywhere. It 
 was the art that conceals art, that air of high festivity 
 and the apparent ease with which it was accomplished. 
 It was in its way as great an achievement as "Mrs. Dallow- 
 field." But while for "Mrs. Dallowfield " the possibilities were 
 unbounded, the possibilities for the more material creation 
 were bounded by hotel walls and glaring midday and a 
 handful of ill-assorted people. Emily recognized the 
 genius of a fellow-craftsman. There she was this fellow- 
 craftsman, big, splendid, very much in the ascendant. 
 One would have thought it her triumph instead of Jane's. 
 It was true, what Parrish had said, that no one knew better 
 than she what the right part was, and now her ability to 
 play it was proved for all time. 
 
 Even Emily, with her very imperfect knowledge of the 
 situation, felt that former measures of Mrs. Bench fell short. 
 There was Parrish, a little awkward and a little self-con 
 scious, responding to John Barlow's toast in an incoherent 
 sentence ; and the Ohio uncle, with a great air of discharging 
 a duty not altogether to his taste, of upholding the honor 
 of his house at a cost; and Mrs. Parrish, a gray dove with 
 folded wings; they were gathered from the ends of the 
 earth, and Mrs. Dench united them in her comprehensive 
 grasp. She held the reins, and there was nothing for it 
 but the pace which suited her best. 'This marked develop 
 ment of the social gift in one who was not, economically 
 speaking, an addition to the social body . . . Emily was 
 off on one of her long journeys of interrogation. She finally 
 arrived at Jane's solution. Mrs. Dench should have been
 
 318 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 a man. As a man there again the path of inquiry 
 beckoned. 
 
 The breakfast was faultless. The champagne was praised 
 by John Barlow, who knew almost as much about cham 
 pagne as he did about Barley Buns ; and the cake a 
 monument of cupids and lovers' knots stood forth in all 
 the bravery of its sugary perfection. It was shameful to 
 mar it; but Jane did so, and two of the 'Palazzo's ' most 
 impressive waiters passed about the cut portions. As 
 Emily took hers, she addressed her cousin . ' ' Your wedding- 
 cake, Ralph " 
 
 "Not at all," said Jane, "it's my wedding-cake !" 
 
 Mrs. Dench calmed them. "Don't fight, girls, it will be 
 everybody's wedding-cake presently." 
 
 The Ohio uncle voiced his appreciation of the jest. 
 
 Jane was more communicative than the usual bride. 
 "Now, do you know what you must all do? You must 
 put a piece under your pillow and dream, and the person 
 you dream about will be your fate." 
 
 He who had envied David was warmed by the cham 
 pagne. "Well, now I suppose, Mrs. Fairish " Jane 
 started "I suppose that if I dreamt of you, your hus 
 band wouldn't like it, and, as I should hate to incur his dis 
 pleasure, I think I won't follow your suggestion." 
 
 "Your dreams won't bother me," said Parrish; "dream 
 ahead." 
 
 "You see, Mr. Stokes, you're safe!" Mrs. Dench had 
 always the right word. 
 
 Mr. Stokes refused to be comforted. "I'm sure I wish 
 I weren't safe " 
 
 "And then, if I know Jane, you'd be wishing you were,"
 
 WEDDING-CAKE 319 
 
 Mrs. Dench tossed it back. It was a kind of ball with which 
 she was not wholly unfamiliar. 
 
 "If you do " said Stokes, a trifle in the dark. 
 
 "Jane, annihilate him for the doubt." 
 
 "What doubt, mother?" 
 
 Parrish was on the rack. 
 
 The clergyman, Emily's neighbor and an old friend of the 
 family, found in the play of tongues matter for felicitation. 
 "I'm quite overwhelmed," he told her, "at the spectacle 
 of so much happiness. In fact, I always am at an occasion 
 of this sort, and with two such magnificent young people " 
 
 "You don't become hardened? You see happiness so 
 often." 
 
 "Ah it's one of the compensations of my calling, the 
 happiness I see ; for think of the sorrow also. Yes, the joy 
 with the sorrow; it's all in the day's work." 
 
 Emily thought it a boon to have a day's work so 
 varied. 
 
 "Indeed, yes, to feel that in some way however small 
 one is of help to one's fellow-man to comfort him in 
 his sorrow, assist him in his joy " 
 
 Jane slipped away to change her things, Parrish also, 
 and Mrs. Dench excused herself to have a last word with 
 her daughter. The irrepressible Stokes followed Parrish 
 close. "We must keep an eye we mustn't let him 
 get away " 
 
 "Do you think it likely?" 
 
 "You can't tell. There's a machine waiting at the pri 
 vate entrance, and we'll meet them there. If they should 
 try to escape us but they won't." He was off on his 
 self-appointed guard.
 
 320 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 " Where are they going ? " Emily asked Mrs. Fairish ; " but 
 I suppose it's a secret." 
 
 . "Oh, it's no secret! I've lent them Hornmouth. But 
 they won't go anywhere for long, as Ralph can't get off. 
 He spent so much time abroad in the winter that he's 
 rather tied." 
 
 "Of course, he must be." 
 
 The clergyman had duties elsewhere, and John Barlow 
 had an appointment at his office. The hour surprised them, 
 and they fled. One of Parrish's intimate friends had sworn 
 he'd be down town, but he simply wasn't going to keep his 
 word. He was going to see the thing through at whatever 
 sacrifice ; it was not for nothing that he had been all day 
 cherishing to his bosom a bag of rice. Mrs. Parrish begged 
 him not to be too wild in his demonstrations. He must 
 remember that the private entrance of the 'Palazzo' was 
 private only by comparison. 
 
 "Oh, I shan't make a row! Surely a handful of rice 
 won't matter. I should expect Ralph to do the same for 
 me." 
 
 They were sitting about the rather dismantled table, and 
 it was suggested that they wend their way downwards. 
 They were only waiting for Mrs. Dench. She appeared 
 while they were discussing it. "Jane's ready, and Ralph 
 and Mr. Stokes are bidding each other a tender farewell. 
 Stokes has ordered a large quantity of Scotch and soda 
 that Ralph won't touch he says it would be a mistake 
 after the champagne they're arguing it out between 
 them, and it's going on in my room, which I was good 
 enough to lend Ralph to dress in. Jane's gone in to see 
 what she can do."
 
 WEDDING-CAKE 321 
 
 The Ohio uncle had his first familiar glimpse of society 
 in the great metropolis. 
 
 They adjourned to the private entrance. Emily felt as 
 though they had been moving from one place to another 
 since early dawn. It was unbelievable that this at last was 
 their final destination. She was Alice at a March Hare's 
 tea-party, and her adventures couldn't have ended. David 
 Barlow was near her, and she was on the point of asking him 
 what came next, but was saved from the absurdity by the 
 rather precipitate arrival of the bride and groom. They 
 darted out from a hitherto inconspicuous elevator. " We've 
 left Stokes locked in your room! " Ralph hurled it at 
 his mother-in-law, and she skilfully caught in her hand the 
 key that accompanied it. 
 
 Jane paused at the topmost step, her skirts gathered 
 about her as though for flight, her laughing head thrown 
 back. Then, with one straight, sweeping motion, she was 
 down the steps and into the automobile. Ralph Parrish 
 followed, and Emily caught it full the peace in her eyes 
 as she made room for him beside her.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 LA BELLE FRANCE 
 
 AFTER eight days of an unbroken blue horizon, punc 
 tuated on the eighth by the cliffs of Devon and Cornwall, 
 eight days of throbbing screws and rushing waters, to wake 
 into a quiet and a silence and to see framed round in the 
 port-hole the slated roofs and gray masonry of Boulogne 
 it ranks with the remembered moments. Mrs. Dench, 
 usually not sensitive to the purely external impression, re 
 membered this one always. But to her it was more than 
 external, it was very deeply personal; it marked for her 
 a new stage, a home-coming that was strangely lacking in 
 the elements of home-coming. Boulogne was France and 
 France was home, or if it wasn't, what was? Surely not 
 America. She realized suddenly that all she cared about 
 was there : Jane she did care about Jane, without Jane 
 she missed the responsibilities of motherhood and David, 
 to whose presence she had become accustomed, and Ralph 
 Parrish. Besides these, who was there in the whole world 
 at the news of whose violent demise she would turn a hair ? 
 
 In her own way she had always cared for Jane ; though 
 the time was not far distant when people, other than Jane, 
 had been less definitely discriminated. People were very 
 much alike; they were divided, for ease of handling, into 
 
 322
 
 LA BELLE FKANCE 323 
 
 types and races and classes, but their common humanity 
 was stronger than any mere variation of it. Stronger, in 
 Mrs. Dench's sight, and more important. Though by 
 nature and by circumstance a citizen of the world, she had 
 chosen France as her headquarters, because in France this 
 common humanity was the thing most emphasized- It 
 seemed strange to her that the only people for whom she 
 cared should none of them be of that country. It gave her 
 a sense of expatriation with which as a citizen of the world 
 she was unfamiliar. She had no deeper interest in the 
 country lying back of the gray masonry and the slated 
 roofs than had the personally conducted party of tourists 
 who jostled her on the main deck; less deep, perhaps, 
 because for her it lacked a saving novelty. She knew it 
 so well its conformation external and internal, the whole 
 structure of its social fabric, the satyr's leer which was, after 
 all, only an expression of its common humanity, and was 
 seen at its best and broadest in France's great city. It 
 was her great city, too, the city that spoke to her and once 
 or twice had sung to her she remembered that last Paris 
 week and had up to now met all her needs, spiritually, 
 physically, mentally. She was on her way there to-day. 
 Paris was the last stage in her journey to Tours. 
 
 She arrived at the 'Gare du Nord' at high noon and drove 
 straight to her hotel, where the mademoiselle at the desk 
 fairly drowned her in a greeting flood and the proprietor 
 himself came forward with gestures of welcome. They 
 had reserved for her in response to her cable the very suite 
 which she and her daughter had so often occupied together 
 during their briefer Paris sojourns. They hoped she would 
 be content. The little salon had red velvet curtains that
 
 324 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 might have graced a Napoleonic palace and only half 
 screened the unexampled view of the street ; and the bed 
 room, looking as it did only upon the court, made up for this 
 carelessness by a rather gorgeous pair of brass bedsteads. 
 There was a feeling of home-coming; the lady from Ohio 
 couldn't deny the comfort of it. She wondered if on the 
 morrow she would like Tours as well. She wondered, for 
 one breathless, sinking moment, why she was going there. 
 But if Tours was the price of escaping from the spectacle 
 of Parrish's happiness, it could not prove too high. 
 
 Brushed and fed, she had business at her banker's and 
 her dressmaker's. It led her through wide streets, filled 
 to the edges with the teeming life of a Latin race, a life 
 grimacing and struggling and giving the effect of surviving 
 against odds. It was only with the aid of extended palms 
 that it accomplished it even then. The beggar, the shop 
 keeper, the cocotte the predatory instinct was strong in 
 them all ; it balanced their humanity, and it was their hu 
 manity or knowledge of it which made their preda- 
 tions practicable. Mrs. Dench felt herself familiarly one 
 of them, and was unmindful of the smirch. In Paris she 
 and they were in the majority ; they were of the ruling class, 
 and she was buoyed by the ascendancy. It put her in the 
 right and Ralph Parrish and Jane in the wrong. Made bold 
 by her support, she rated the newly married pair with the 
 Ohio uncle, who had come to his niece's wedding, so he 
 had told her mother, amid the protestations of his family 
 an intimation sufficiently trying. But now she breathed 
 a freer, more friendly air. Steeped in it, she drove along 
 the arcaded 'rue de Rivoli.' She saw through iron palings 
 the sunny slopes of the Tuileries Gardens and fancied them
 
 LA BELLE FRANCE 325 
 
 peopled by past generations of French lovers, chiefly, 
 strolling arm in arm and hand in hand, and sitting and 
 kneeling and lounging on the soft, smooth grass. At this 
 vision she was very much aware of the presence of her un 
 accepted passion. But her pity for herself was almost 
 equalled by her pity for Ralph Parrish. He had missed his 
 opportunity. He must now be moving into that little 
 suburban house; she pictured it filled with half-unpacked 
 trunks, and Jane standing in the midst young and helpless 
 and beautiful yes, very beautiful. The mother shut 
 her eyes to shut out her imagination of Jane's beauty. 
 
 Jane had been beautiful even in the days when she used 
 to come awkwardly forward in response to her mother's 
 request and allow herself to be made known to her mother's 
 friends. She would be home from the convent for a holi 
 day, and she kept her convent shyness; her mother's friends 
 filled her with terror. Those were the days when Ralph 
 Parrish could hardly have been called one of them ; he was 
 merely a young man there in the wake of Mme. Rostov, 
 very handsome and very American. Mrs. Dench had 
 admired him as she admired certain classic representations 
 in the Louvre. She had been quite aware that he didn't 
 like her ; but she was accustomed to people's not liking her. 
 They either did or didn't and employed no half-measures. 
 
 But the time came when our young man went over to the 
 opposite camp. Again Mrs. Dench remembered that last 
 week in Paris : the first day of it, dawning as other days and 
 giving no sign that a last week was on the threshold, and 
 stretching on into afternoon with a barely discernible 
 emanation of its potentialities. Jane had been away, 
 spending a day and night with an old lady her god-
 
 326 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 mother, who had moved from Vienna to Auteuil and as 
 a consequence there was rather more talk than usual in the 
 little gilded salon. Mme. Rostov always frankly said that 
 she never could do herself justice in the presence of Jane, 
 and now in her absence she did herself more than that. 
 Speech had seemed blown from her rouged little mouth, light 
 like froth ; she soared to winged heights of jest and fluttered 
 and pirouetted, winning for her pains the applause of 
 M. Gadillon. It was Mme. Rostov's hour. Even her hus 
 band admitted it, and the De Clopins were entranced afresh. 
 Parrish was alone left cold. Mrs. Bench had likened her 
 Russian friend to a hunter whose call brings to him all the 
 game in the forest except that for which it is meant. In 
 fact, she had been so occupied with this analogy she 
 had little sympathy with the vanquished, the least one 
 could ask of them was a graceful and quiet retreat her 
 attention had been so taken up with the situation in ques 
 tion, that it was a moment before she had been aware that 
 Parrish's attention was all for her. He was looking at her, 
 and her eyes inquiringly met his. He had answered still 
 silently and silently seen the fluttering departure of Mme. 
 Rostov with her husband. M. Gadillon followed. The 
 duke and duchess in leaving took with them a charming 
 young Austrian, the wife of a cousin of the duke's. 
 
 Parrish had walked back from the door to the table, and 
 Mrs. Dench had watched him a trifle aghast as he lit an 
 other cigarette. "Let's talk for a while you're not out 
 for dinner you said you weren't. I've never felt that 
 I've really had the chance to know you " The sublime 
 impudence of it had held her enthralled also, as the time 
 went on, the sublime impudence of his having the chance
 
 LA BELLE FKANCE 327 
 
 
 
 and never in a sense fully taking it. There had been 
 a waiting hang an atmosphere tense with possibility 
 and once, on the upper balcony of the 'Tidewater Hotel,' 
 he had so far yielded to his impulses as to kiss her. The 
 thing was unique in her wide experience. She wondered if 
 it was because she herself had cared so much. 
 
 That had been in February it now was June. Her 
 life had gone quickly during the past months; the steady 
 swing of it had left her breathless. It left her, however, 
 very much where she had been before. Except for her 
 daughter's marriage, her situation was unchanged. There 
 was Tours on the morrow, and in any case there would have 
 been Tours, the duchess probably extending her hospitality 
 to include Jane. The problem of Jane would never again 
 arise. But Jane had been useful as well as beautiful; 
 she had given to Mrs. Bench's position a certain solidity, 
 had done for her in that direction almost as much as the 
 duchess herself. Jane's mother was not ungrateful. 
 
 Her cab had turned into the 'rue des Pyramides' and at 
 the point where that thoroughfare meets the 'avenue de 
 1' Opera' it narrowly escaped collision with a vehicle which 
 was moving rapidly down the avenue. The cabman 
 wheeled his horse parallel with the other; and Mrs. Dench, 
 shaken out of her abstraction by the suddenness of the 
 movement, found herself side by side with the solitary oc 
 cupant of the more elaborate turnout. As the smoothness 
 of his own course had been undisturbed, it took a moment 
 more to rouse him. She leaned forward and put out her 
 hand in greeting, " Maurice, mon cher ami ! " 
 
 The duke saw her, and from his answer it seemed that he 
 thought his good fortune not possible.
 
 328 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 II 
 
 The duchess welcomed Mrs. Bench to Tours with a grace 
 and a cordiality which were only equalled by that lady's 
 response. Never before had the friendship between the 
 two been so close. If the duchess was conscious in herself 
 of certain indecisions, certain lacks, which the presence of the 
 other tended to offset, Mrs. Dench in turn saw certain de 
 fects in her own make-up, and her hostess was the very 
 woman to redeem them. This system of mutual benefit 
 was as workable a foundation for a friendship as any; it 
 had supported this one for many years and was strengthened 
 by the break of months. The duchess lost and forgot her 
 self in admiration of the robuster personality, and Mrs. 
 Bench's more material sense of gain flourished apace. A 
 warm welcome at the 'Chateau Bouce-AmeTe' was doubly 
 precious to a lone, daughterless widow. 
 
 The duke, who shared his wife's admiration and had been 
 known occasionally to lose and forget himself in his own, 
 found this cemented friendship a mitigated blessing. It 
 gave either woman, separately, so few moments for him. 
 And there was little pleasure in sitting with them under 
 the cherry trees in the walled garden in the morning and 
 facing them in the big barouche in the afternoon. Pe 
 sought to console himself for their separate neglect by long 
 walks with the young Rodrick, son and heir of the Be 
 Clopins, who was home from his English school on a holi 
 day. He felt that in that direction he had never before 
 made the most of his opportunities; he had never before 
 seriously considered himself as a father. His daughters were 
 a meek little pair wholly surrounded by instructors and
 
 LA BELLE FRANCE 329 
 
 governesses, and of Rodrick he had always stood rather in 
 awe. He had not remembered that at fifteen one was so 
 perfectly master of the situation. From his round silk hat 
 and Eton collar down to his polished shoes, Rodrick was 
 complete a Frenchman in miniature graver than most 
 Frenchmen, perhaps, but with a ready wit and an accus 
 tomed swing to the light cane he was rarely divorced from. 
 
 The father was surprised to find his son's completeness 
 not altogether external. He had been informed that his 
 scholarship left much to be desired; but he now felt that 
 this was atoned by Rodrick's exceptional aptitude for pick 
 ing and retaining odd bits of information that the more 
 conscientious student hasn't the time to acquire. This 
 aptitude, wholly French, and ripened on the sunny slopes 
 of an English public school, had its flower in a broad theo 
 retical sophistication. It was theoretical the duke felt 
 sure that at fifteen it couldn't be based on a personal con 
 tact and it might as well be theoretically right as theo 
 retically wrong. Their long walks bred longer talks, and 
 during the course of these he would endeavor to instil into 
 his son certain moral precepts which were the ideal, if not 
 always the practice, of his class. Moderation balance 
 
 a code that barred the injury of others; honor with 
 women, as the duke understood it, one's mother sister 
 
 wife the wife of a friend any woman whom there 
 was a chance of ever making one's wife and for the rest 
 a graded rule in which the code barring injury to others 
 was still to be remembered in all its ramifications : that was 
 the text of his sermon, the substance of his philosophy. 
 His pulpit was a seat cut in the stone wall which in remote, 
 wooded places bordered the grounds of ' Douce-Amere.'
 
 330 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 In front a stream picked its way among moss-grown rocks, 
 and overhead the branches of the trees shut out the sun. 
 To the duke heated from his walk the shaded cool 
 ness was grateful ; even the young Rodrick found it kindly, 
 and advantage was usually taken of a mutually sym 
 pathetic mood. 
 
 The duke was discoursive, his son in turn receptive and 
 controversial, and the older man had to meet arguments 
 and answer questions. He sometimes found himself 
 utterly refuted and was aghast at the wisdom of fifteen: 
 " If, as you say, there is a graded rule, it must land one 
 finally among women with whom there is no honor. Then 
 the rule stops, and then what ? " " Honor to one 's self " 
 "Ah you hadn't mentioned it. But if one should be 
 willing to throw it to the winds " " My son, there are 
 depths even in the abyss " But this and similar fine 
 nesses were above fifteen's refutation, and for answer 
 Rodrick would flick the moss with his cane. The thing 
 that really interested his precocious little brain was also 
 the thing his insular training had taught him was none of 
 his business. 
 
 Women, collectively and theoretically, he could discuss 
 forever without once encroaching upon the conventions; 
 but woman, singly and concretely, the woman of reality 
 and not of theory, her he must not mention. Mrs. Bench 
 appealed to his young imagination; his curiosity played 
 about her, and, though up to now he had seen her but rarely, 
 he had always remembered her. He had caught from his 
 elders the trick of filing away a picked portion of his ac 
 quaintance for future reference a portion which very 
 much included Mrs. Dench and for her the future ref-
 
 LA BELLE FRANCE 331 
 
 erence had arrived. Her position in his family would have 
 alone made her worthy of his speculation ; but she had other 
 claims besides. When he was a very small boy, it had been 
 the habit of the ladies who frequented his parents' house 
 to take him on their knees and fondle him and make much 
 of him. This had always bored him, and he had had the 
 sharpness to divine it was not for him, but for the gentle 
 men whom they looked at the while under drooping lashes. 
 But Mrs. Bench, on the contrary, had seemed unaware of 
 his existence. The English in him liked that, and the youth 
 which despises pretence. 
 
 She still ignored him, and thereby gave his imagination a 
 free field. Boyishly he wanted her to notice him. He 
 wanted the chance to notice her, to see for himself what it 
 was that held her admirers enchained, the fact couldn't 
 be blinked that she wasn't young, and he never recognized 
 the predestined failure of the enterprise. But his discovery 
 was already made, had he but known it, his search rewarded, 
 in the very reason of his desire for it. Woman of reality 
 as she undoubtedly was, Mrs. Bench had as a gift from her 
 God the talent of throwing about her a kind of emanation of 
 mystery. She performed this feat without conscious ef 
 fort; she had no longing for the role of femme incomprise; 
 though her mystery was, after all, not quite of that sort 
 it was nearer a species of hypnotism a personal mag 
 netism compelling conjecture. She was pitched loud in a 
 harmony all hers ; it had been Emily Stedman who had said 
 of her that she made the rest of the world look like a pho 
 tograph underexposed. It remained for Rodrick to say 
 O f her or rather to think of her that she made the 
 Buchess de Clopin look like a fool.
 
 332 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 He felt for his mother the true Gallic adoration, and it 
 was the one thing he had against Mrs. Dench, this new as 
 pect of his mother. He saw it with eyes prematurely 
 acute, the same eyes with which he saw the various aspects 
 of Mrs. Dench herself. When she was driving he rode by 
 her swiftly on horseback, and when she looked from her 
 window in the morning, he was engaged with his fencing 
 master on the lawn below. He knew intuitively that she 
 admired bodily skill. She had a good deal of her own. In 
 spite of her heaviness, she carried herself like a dancer; 
 if her movements were slow, they were also rhythmic, and, 
 more than anything, you felt her life from head to toe. She 
 was the inspiration of a fairly scholarly poem which later 
 created something of a stir in the English public school, 
 coming as it did from the pen of one whose scholarship was 
 not of the highest. It was in Latin and dedicated to Venus : 
 
 " Filia mundi, mater amoris " 
 
 The Latin master still has a copy of it in his possession. 
 The duke was not so favored. But that such a poem 
 existed, though he afterwards forgot it, he at one time 
 knew. He happened to stumble upon one of the moments 
 of its fabrication. Seeing a slit of light under his son's door 
 night after night into the small hours, he at last took it 
 upon himself to assert his parent privilege, and entered to 
 find Rodrick surrounded by dictionaries and scrawled paper. 
 There was an almost guilty confusion, and the duke begged 
 a thousand pardons for the liberty. He had not realized 
 that his son was occupied ... It was nothing nothing, 
 that is to say, weighed in the balance with the honor of his 
 visit,
 
 LA BELLE FRANCE 333 
 
 Thus entreated, the duke sat down. " Is it not better 
 to confine your studies to the day?" He always did so. 
 These were not studies. No, what then? He had 
 long admired the ode as a poetic form, and regardless of 
 incredulous eyebrows he went on to explain that these were 
 experiments; he hoped eventually to bring forth out of 
 chaos a finished product. He gave his father : 
 
 " Filia mundi, mater amoris " 
 
 It was thought to lack originality. Another example 
 of his muse was tried and judged : 
 
 " Arnica maris et soror sideris " 
 
 "Why don't you show it to Mrs. Bench?" 
 
 He fancied the last rag of his concealment torn away. 
 "Why Mrs. Dench?" But in the same breath he recog 
 nized the arrival of his opportunity. The self-imposed 
 interdict was removed; he could talk; he could probe; he 
 could discover. "Why Mrs. Dench?" 
 
 " Because I divine that she an extraordinary woman, 
 Rodrick, believe me she is in some way at its source ; 
 you have felt and garnered the thing I shall designate, for 
 want of a better rendering, as that which you English would 
 call her ' aura.' " 
 
 Rodrick was bold. "You've felt it too?" 
 
 "Ah how could I not?" 
 
 "As you say, an extraordinary woman." The gesture 
 which accompanied this corroboration was so infinitely 
 world-weary a settling and a stretching, feet extended, 
 hands in pockets, head bent forward at the arbitrary angle 
 of his chair that it struck the duke as infinitely droll.
 
 334 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 He laughed, and his laughter had the effect of bringing from 
 Rodrick a fresh boldness: "You see, if you think she's 
 extraordinary, knowing as you do all the extraordinary 
 circumstances of her life, and therefore understanding them, 
 what must I think her, coming from the outside and not 
 understanding a thing?" The poem was put by in the 
 interests of actuality; his chance to talk of woman, singly 
 and concretely, might be long in repeating itself. He 
 momentarily expected to be pulled up for his impertinence, 
 and made the best of his time. "You can't know," he 
 told his father, " the way I feel about her." 
 
 "Is it necessary that I should?" 
 
 "Ah you don't see what I mean. It's the ambiguity 
 of her situation that I feel; she's either a friend of my 
 mother's or a friend of yours " 
 
 "She's no friend of mine," said the duke; "in the depths 
 of her heart she hates me." 
 
 "Then why?" 
 
 " Why didn't she stay in America? She hates every one 
 else equally; but nevertheless it's a question I've often 
 asked myself." 
 
 "Of course, at Tours, she gets her summer cheaply." 
 
 " But that's not the reason she didn't stay in Amer 
 ica!" The duke spoke more to himself than to his 
 son. 
 
 But his son took him up. " She'd get her summer quite 
 as cheaply there ? Or is it that she's not mercenary ?" 
 
 "Now that Jane is provided for, why should she be?" 
 
 "Jane?" 
 
 " Her beautiful daughter who married Mr. Parrish." 
 
 "Was providing for Jane her reason for ever being?"
 
 LA BELLE FRANCE 335 
 
 "It's often occurred to me that Jane will have to answer 
 to the good God" The duke cut himself short. "I 
 forget, at times, that you're only a boy." The rebuke had 
 been slow in coming. There was a pause, fraught with 
 embarrassment, while Rodrick gathered up the scattered 
 beginnings of his poem. 
 
 in 
 
 At Tours and at the chateau the days followed one upon 
 the other with more incident than accident. Rodrick 
 crossed the Channel to his school, the Princess Karina 
 back from America settled herself in his place with an 
 appearance of permanence, and Mme. Rostov, it was said, 
 had dismissed M. Gadillon once for all. When she arrived 
 at Tours, she and her husband took it on their way up 
 from Biarritz, she had in her bag a new admirer, one of 
 her own countrymen and, it was whispered, high in the Rus 
 sian government. M. Rostov's manners were still of the 
 best. The charming Austrian, wife of the duke's cousin, 
 paid her husband's relatives a visit, and autumn found 
 ' Douce- Ameire' the perfect scene of perfect pleasures. 
 Mrs. Dench was reminded of the water-color in her pos 
 session, the one attributed by many to the great Watteau. 
 Civilization must have travelled far, surely, and perhaps 
 turned the corner, when gayety could be brought to such a 
 point. 
 
 In America, also, civilization had travelled; and to such 
 purpose that it had forged ahead of humanity itself, which 
 in the mass had builded better than it knew accomplished 
 feats which in their greatness belittled the individual work 
 man. In France humanity was in the lead; civilization
 
 336 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 might have journeyed, but it had done so in the service of 
 its masters. It made for perfect pleasures and high, 
 mature joys, and the convenience of people who knew the 
 game and yet played it. In America the playing of the 
 game was largely left to those who had to eke out in spon 
 taneity and youth what they lacked in skill. A real profi 
 ciency was looked at askance. Mrs. Bench knew the Amer 
 ican argument that the most decent excuse for a real 
 proficiency was a real, and Americanly rare, leisure; and 
 even then were the more fine-spun complications worth 
 while ? In America when they occurred they ended in the 
 divorce courts; but that wasn't proficiency. 
 
 America seemed very far away from ' Douce-Amere.' 
 If it had not been for the Princess Karina and the Paris 
 Herald and an occasional letter from David Barlow or Jane, 
 Mrs. Dench might have thought it ingulfed by a tidal wave. 
 The princess was full of anecdote there in the ' Metro ' 
 there was no premiere dasse ; one rode, democratically, 
 with all the world ; and as for cabs ! they were for mil- 
 lionnaires. At the Barlows' she had had at her service one of 
 their automobiles; but after, when she had visited friends 
 in Boston and then taken an appalling journey to Chicago, 
 she had been more left to find her own methods of locomo 
 tion. Chicago had made much of the Princess Karina, and 
 she in turn had liked it, even though she found it more 
 typical of the great country across the water than were the 
 cities of the East. Mrs. Dench found it far too typical ; 
 when she had lived in Ohio, before Christopher Dench had 
 taken her to Washington, she had done all her shopping 
 there. The princess scanned the pages of the Paris Herald 
 for news of Chicago friends who were due to arrive in Paris ;
 
 LA BELLE FRANCE 337 
 
 Mrs. Bench assisted her and was rewarded by seeing a 
 notice of "Mrs. Dallowfield." 
 
 The book that the author of "The Cuckoo" had been 
 engaged upon for so long was finally before a waiting public. 
 It was too soon yet to tell with what results. It seemed to 
 lack "The Cuckoo's" extraordinary virility its realism 
 was of a gentler sort; but genius was there, unmistakably. 
 A letter from David Barlow confirmed this report. Miss 
 Stedman had worked herself to the bone, the book was out, 
 and the material rewards of success were still to come; 
 though their coming didn't worry her strangely. She 
 was cleverer than ever, and he confessed himself won. Mrs. 
 Dench felt safe in the confession's frankness. He had begun 
 his long-delayed last year at Law School. 
 
 Jane, in a letter which arrived by the same mail, dis 
 missed "Mrs. Dallowfield" with a line. She'd seen it 
 advertised she hoped the book of her husband's cousin 
 wouldn't be too dreadful. They were leaving Blythedale 
 Heights for the house in the sixties near Lexington Avenue. 
 They had finally secured it at a sum which Jane thought 
 they could barely afford; but Ralph would not balk at 
 the extra thousands; it was modern and pretty and alto 
 gether suited them. They'd been very busy buying fur 
 niture, though the few bits Mrs. Dench had left behind her 
 had helped them out with the parlor, and Ralph's mother 
 had sent them a crate of things from Hornmouth. The 
 dining room was to be pure colonial, but in the parlor two of 
 Mrs. Parrish's chairs were to rub elbows with the famous 
 French, gilt-trimmed sofa. They were to keep three ser 
 vants two women and a strong boy ; in New York it 
 seemed a fairly adequate force; in Europe, of course, it
 
 338 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 would be nothing. In the spring they would need more. 
 Jane stated, without equivocation, that in the spring she 
 was expecting a child. 
 
 At ' Douce- Amere' the news was discussed with continen 
 tal simplicity. Mrs. Bench felt herself already a grand 
 mother. She could have wished that Jane had not told her ; 
 or perhaps the fault was her own, for she had gone straight 
 with the letter in her hand to find the duchess. 
 
 In October the days were still mild, and the duchess was 
 sitting in her favorite walled garden embroidering a gold 
 cloth which was destined to grace the altar of the Tours 
 church. Her friend's news brought her to her feet. She 
 professed to envy her her happiness: "With all my heart 
 I envy you. I long for the moment when I may take in 
 my own arms a grandchild. The little Berthe and the little 
 Celeste are still young, but I have ideas for them oh, 
 yes, I have ideas ! This must indeed be a crown to your 
 labors a reward for your unselfishness. You took that 
 horrible voyage across the Atlantic you immured your 
 self in a terrible place called 'Ocean City' but now you 
 must feel that your nobility was not in vain." 
 
 Mrs. Dench replied briefly, "Not so fast, my dear, not 
 so fast!" 
 
 They had attracted the attention of Mme. Rostov, who, 
 with charming rusticity, was bending low over a late-bloom 
 ing flower. Her Russian was not far distant. The two 
 came up to demand the cause of the excitement, and the 
 duchess unhesitatingly gave it to them. Mrs. Dench was 
 again congratulated and felt, for perhaps the first time in 
 her life, a certain embarrassment. It was an embarrassment 
 that the others did not share. "And Jane was so pretty,"
 
 LA BELLE FRANCE 339 
 
 Mme. Rostov was heard to say as she wandered back to 
 her flower. 
 
 Despite the clemency of the weather in Tours, the occu 
 pants of ' Douce- Ame're' were planning to fly south. The 
 Mediterranean called; the Jungfrau was being put into 
 commission. There was a villa in the island of Cyprus 
 they had once stopped at Cyprus for coal that had a 
 walled garden not unlike the garden at ' Douce-Amere. ' 
 The duchess had seen it and loved it and, such was the power 
 of her wealth, now possessed it. Should they weary of 
 life on the ocean wave, it awaited their pleasure. Olive 
 trees grew in the garden, and the other side of the wall was 
 lapped by the waters of the Mediterranean. They could 
 fancy themselves tossed there by wind and storm, the 
 duchess told them, and Mme. Rostov shivered. Her 
 Russian might visit them, coming down from the north by 
 way of Constantinople and the Black Sea. Mme. Rostov 
 thought it wonderful to be able to gather one's friends and 
 one's friends' friends wherever one went. It would almost 
 seem like Paris, the only place in the world where one's 
 friends were, without gathering. But Jane's letter now 
 made it doubtful whether the gathering would be complete. 
 The duchess had a high ideal of the responsibilities of 
 motherhood; she thought of Mrs. Dench as leaving for 
 America just at the time when Cyprus and the Mediter 
 ranean would be most worth while, and hardly believed 
 her assurance to the contrary. 
 
 "I wouldn't go for anything on earth. I've done with 
 my native land; it could only be a pain to go there. Jane, 
 if she cares to, may occasionally come to me she can 
 fight that out with her husband."
 
 340 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 The duchess stared. " Fight ? " 
 
 "It would be a fight, I assure you." Mrs. Bench pointed 
 to her daughter's letter which now lay on the seat beside 
 her "But he there sends me his regards ! " 
 
 "I thought you and he were very good friends." 
 
 "We are. Can't there be regards between friends?" 
 
 " But you say that there would be a fight if Jane were to 
 visit you." 
 
 "It goes without saying that a young husband doesn't 
 altogether countenance a separation from his wife, however 
 brief." 
 
 "He might come, too; before he was married he came 
 often enough. His occupation what is it, the buying 
 and selling of furs? brought him." 
 
 Mrs. Bench admitted the truth of all that. "When he 
 comes, I'll let you know, my dear." 
 
 To talk of him made him less real to her seemed to 
 cloud the clearness of her remembrance as a window-glass 
 is clouded by scratching. She had strangely brought to her 
 passion a certain freshness, and there were times when it still 
 held her even when she was most occupied with the highly 
 civilized joys of l Bouce-AmSre.' It was then she was most 
 aware of its hovering presence; the joys and beauties of 
 ' Bouce-Amere ' palely resembled other joys and other 
 beauties, the brief joy of her passion and the beauty of the 
 week the last one in Paris. She might, on a larger 
 scale, have been Emily Stedman battling with visions of 
 Bavid Barlow. There were times when the feast 'Bouce- 
 Amere' spread before her turned to ashes in her mouth; 
 she wanted water, and talk of it partly quenched her thirst. 
 She who had been an advocate of action rather than of
 
 LA BELLE FRANCE 341 
 
 theory had never before realized the value of talk. She 
 more than once so far forgot herself as a diplomat's widow 
 as to be tempted to talk to Mme. Rostov. She felt sure that 
 lady would have understood; but of course it was impos 
 sible. Mme. Rostov had never talked to her. She would 
 not confess herself the weaker, if for no other reason. 
 
 And it happened that there were other reasons to burn. 
 Not least among these was her own saving sense of the ri 
 diculous; she didn't see herself as the victim of a hopeless 
 passion for the husband of her beautiful young daughter. 
 Neither did she see herself in that aspect through the eyes 
 of Maurice de Clopin. Her tenure at 'Douce-Amere,' 
 Cyprus, the Mediterranean, depended almost as much upon 
 him as it did upon the duchess. She wouldn't foolishly 
 jeopardize it; it was too valuable. Mrs. Dench had, happily, 
 a kind of large common sense which had come to her aid in 
 the direction of her affairs before now, and she was fully 
 aware that even for her the Maurice de Clopins didn't grow 
 on every bush. He cared about her ; she would do her best 
 not to shatter his illusion. She knew enough of the char 
 acter of illusion to appreciate its fragility. One laugh on 
 the wrong side of the mouth, and it might lead to another 
 and yet another. She would find herself carried on the 
 wings of laughter to the wrong side of the door. There 
 would be nothing left for her then, except, perhaps, David 
 Barlow. She had once thought of David as a match for 
 Jane ; the plan had miscarried, and she now wondered if 
 she might do no worse than some day marry him herself. 
 She would send for him from the Mediterranean, and he 
 would come. The audacity of the idea made to her its 
 strong appeal, even though the last man whom she had 
 asked to marry her had unqualifiedly refused.
 
 342 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 But the contingency would never arise. The duke's 
 illusion had nothing to shatter it. It was he not she 
 who lived at the edge of the volcano. The dread that she 
 might leave was ever present to him. During her last ab 
 sence it was plain that he had suffered the tortures of the 
 damned. "You'll stay with us; you'll go south with 
 us? " 
 
 She reassured him. "I'll stay till you turn me out 1" 
 
 "Oh, my angel, we'll never do that !"
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 DUST AND LIGHT 
 
 "And all about were dust and light, 
 Two things from which glory is made." 
 
 VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 NEARLY two years had passed since the representative of 
 the New York Star had called upon Miss Stedman at Horn- 
 mouth. He had done so then at the instance of Redding, 
 the managing editor; and journeyed rather against his 
 inclination all the way from New York in order that the 
 columns of the Star might be enlivened by an interview 
 with the author of "The Cuckoo." In those two years 
 Fortune had modestly knocked at his door. A series of 
 happy turns of her wheel had put him in command of a 
 journal of his own a small weekly organ, the underlying 
 purpose of which was to further the combined interests of 
 a number of publishing houses; but also containing de 
 partments devoted to politics and the drama, besides an 
 occasional example of the scribbler's art it assumed to 
 criticise. These examples were often unworthy. The 
 new editor bestirred himself. As the opportunity offered, 
 he personally visited those writers whose pens had a recog 
 nized skill and put before them terms it would be hard to 
 refuse. 
 
 343
 
 344 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 It was in the discharge of this business that he found him 
 self again at Hornmouth. He had learned that Miss Sted- 
 man had returned there from New York, and that she was 
 engaged upon a third immortal work. His head spun at the 
 prolificness of writers, he thought them a race possessed 
 of driving devils. No sooner had they breathed deep from 
 one finished labor than they were in the midst of another. 
 "The Cuckoo" "Mrs. Dallowfield " what would be 
 the next ? Whatever it was, he desired to secure for the 
 Folio its serial rights. In "Mrs. Dallowfield" Emily Sted- 
 man hadn't duplicated "The Cuckoo's" popular success; 
 but she had done something infinitely more worth while; 
 her audience made up in quality what it lacked in quantity; 
 her reputation began to rest solidly. 
 
 In his note he had recalled himself to her recounted the 
 occasion of their other meeting so she greeted him as an 
 old acquaintance. 
 
 "You remembered," he said, "when I was here?" 
 
 "Of course I did. Only you weren't here; you were in 
 the little yellow house next door that has since been torn 
 down. You see, I'm now living with my cousin, Mrs. 
 Parrish. I've permanently taken up my abode with her." 
 
 He had learned that, too. He broached the object of his 
 mission ; but Miss Stedman wasn't at all sure that she could 
 meet him. It was a thing she didn't care about, binding 
 herself before a book was finished she was too uncertain. 
 
 "Uncertain?" 
 
 " I have to do my work when I may. It might be years 
 before I could turn anything over to you. All my life, 
 you know, I've carried on my back the burden of ill health." 
 
 Her back hadn't bent under it; it had rather stiffened
 
 DUST AND LIGHT 345 
 
 to a conscious straightness. She carried her burden more 
 like a banner; it shone brilliant in the paleness of her skin 
 and the queer lightness of the eyes that were so set in dark 
 ness. Samson-like, her strength seemed to be concen 
 trated in her hair, which was dull and thick and brushed 
 high from her brow. Her visitor thought he remembered 
 it parted and flat. But two years had left their mark on 
 Emily Stedman in other ways than the dressing of her hair. 
 It was not the obvious mark usually left by years; it was 
 mental rather than physical, and so much a matter of the 
 inner being that the editor of the Folio discerned it but 
 vaguely. 
 
 As the author of "The Cuckoo" she had rejoiced in an 
 eagerness almost an appetite for the life that was all 
 before her. It had been the chief cause of "The Cuckoo's" 
 success that though the subject was very consciously base, 
 its treatment was very unconsciously fresh. She had come 
 at her baseness with the invalid's immaturity, the invalid's 
 inexperience, and also the invalid's unspoiled relish the 
 sort of idealization of the vulgar of one who has for it no 
 terms either of suggestion or comparison. As the author of 
 "Mrs. Dallowfield," her eagerness was narrowed to certain 
 definite desires; her immaturity had hardened, and so been 
 transmuted; her inexperience was less absolute She still 
 carried her burden, or her banner, her horizon was still 
 in a measure bounded by her physical limitations ; but she 
 was within an ace of extending it, within an ace of the ac 
 complishment so much dwelt upon by the spiritually 
 minded, that of leaving her physical limitations behind 
 her. Her body had always been to her a hindrance, not a 
 help; it was the curved mirror in which she was forced to
 
 346 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 see, and the feat she so narrowly escaped performing was 
 that of turning squarely away and looking at the world 
 undistorted. Her life was a constant knocking at the wall. 
 As it is said that spirits knock to be taken back to their 
 earthly estate, so she made the effort to be removed from 
 hers without the complicity of death. 
 
 It was this familiarity with the wall, and the unreflected 
 glimpses which she had indubitably had, that gave her, 
 as the author of "Mrs. Dallowfield, " a relish for baseness 
 less unspoiled. As the author of "Mrs. Dallowfield," there 
 were passages in " The Cuckoo" which filled her with horror. 
 Yet she was glad that she had written them while she could ; 
 they had paid her railway fare away from Hornmouth, had 
 made possible the development of her immortal mind. 
 Her two years had been for her a mingling of failure and 
 success. In knocking at the wall she had bruised her 
 knuckles; in pursuit of what Dr. Guthrie had once defined 
 as the damnably normal, she had grown short of breath. 
 She was worn as fine as a stone over which a stream has 
 passed; she was worn smooth also, and as she stood there 
 in the big parlor at Hornmouth there was something in her 
 smoothness and her fineness, the darkness of her hair and 
 the whiteness of her skin the dark note repeated in her 
 gown and the white in the handkerchief she twisted with 
 slim, nervous fingers something which would have made 
 it not altogether strange if she had suddenly gathered her 
 skirts about her and vanished into thin air. She had a 
 kinship with the supernatural; she gave an effect not quite 
 human; you felt that her pursuit of the damnably normal 
 had somewhat signally failed. 
 
 But to the editor of the Folio her failures didn't count.
 
 DUST AND LIGHT 347 
 
 For his purpose she was all on the side of success. Her name 
 on the cover of his journal would have a definite value. 
 He gave it to her in cold figures. 
 
 She still refused. She couldn't promise anything; she 
 was really uncertain. 
 
 "It's my risk, you know, if you're uncertain. If my 
 terms don't seem to you good enough " 
 
 " They're more than good they're generous ; but I'm 
 now so arranged that terms don't matter. As I think I 
 once told you, 'The Cuckoo' took me out of Hornmouth. 
 Well ' Mrs. Dallowfield' has brought me back. If 
 my new book should take me out again, I should feel like a 
 Jack-in-the-box. I live with my cousin; the pleasure of 
 my company is all she desires in return for her hospitality, 
 and my own few separate wants are easily supplied." 
 
 The editor smiled. "So you can't be reached?" 
 
 "No, I can't be reached." 
 
 " You know I'm not sure that you like the Folio ! " 
 
 " I like it immensely." 
 
 " Of course, if that's the case, I've nothing to say." 
 
 " What could you ? You go back to New York to-night ? " 
 
 "No, I'm spending a few days in Boston. I've some 
 business there." 
 
 She consulted her watch. "I think there's a train at 
 five-five. I'll have you driven to the station." 
 
 He couldn't think of troubling her, but she was firm, and 
 his hesitations were interrupted by the sound of wheels on 
 the gravel driveway. " There you see ! it's the carriage 
 now. You'll have to take it." 
 
 "As you say." 
 
 She had crossed the room to the windowed side, and she
 
 348 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 now turned. "It's Mr. Barlow. I'd utterly forgotten he 
 was coming!" 
 
 She concealed her forgetfulness from its object, however, 
 who was upon them the next moment, a young man as 
 hard and fine and smooth as she. For a spinster of uncer 
 tain years the editor of the Folio thought Miss Stedman 
 wonderfully rich in young men. Two years ago he had 
 found her in the company of her tall, blond cousin, and he 
 now left her in that of Mr. Barlow, who, she explained, had 
 just come from the place to which he was just going he 
 was studying law at Cambridge. 
 
 She gave the departing editor a moment's grace before she 
 confronted David Barlow : " Jane has a son." 
 
 David was pulling off his gloves. "Bully for Jane! 
 When?" 
 
 "This morning. Cousin Laura is with her, and tele 
 graphed." 
 
 David laid his gloves side by side upon a table. "I 
 thought perhaps Mrs. Dench " 
 
 "So did I, but she hasn't." 
 
 He was suddenly almost fierce. " Why the devil should 
 she?" 
 
 "She shouldn't. She'd be like a fifth wheel to a 
 cart." 
 
 David made some inarticulate reply to this as he laid his 
 hat beside his gloves. He was struck by a new phase of the 
 situation. " I'll go to the hotel in the village." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Why ? With Mrs. Parrish not here, don't you see ? " 
 
 "Of course I see. But you'll have dinner first." 
 
 "It's not inconvenient? You must be so excited."
 
 DUST AND LIGHT 349 
 
 "My dear David, it's just because I'm excited that I want 
 you to cheer me up !" 
 
 "I'll do my best." 
 
 His best didn't seem much to boast of; he was more than 
 usually quiet. Dinner did little to animate his gravity, 
 and the work of enlivenment fell wholly upon Emily. She 
 faced him in the big dining room from whose walls there 
 gazed down generations of Parrishes. "David, David, do 
 you think they know that to-day their ranks have been re 
 cruited?" 
 
 "They?" 
 
 "Why, old Carrington Parrish sitting up there in the 
 bottle-green coat, and General James on the other side, and 
 the original Praise God who built with his own hands the 
 stockade every one lived in for so long. Do they know?" 
 Her fancy played about that conceit. 
 
 " It's always struck me," she went on, " that if Praise God 
 Parrish hadn't been so busy building stockades, he'd have 
 built something far less meritorious. Don't you see with 
 what difficulty he's fastened his Puritan collar, and how his 
 eyes are everywhere but on the Bible beside him ? I know 
 the portrait is merely a copy of a miniature that was painted 
 before he left England, and it may malign him. Do you 
 realize, David, that some day my little cousin will be sit 
 ting here, at this table, in this very room, having din 
 ner?" 
 
 David looked up. " Your little cousin and Mrs. Dench's 
 little grandchild." 
 
 "That's true." 
 
 "She should have come." David spoke more to himself 
 than to his companion.
 
 350 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 " Perhaps she couldn't." 
 
 " Nonsense ! ' ' 
 
 They went on in silence with the conduct of dinner. At 
 last Emily ventured. " If she had come, would you have 
 seen her?" 
 
 "How could I not?" 
 
 " No, she's not invisible ! But I thought that perhaps 
 under the circumstances " 
 
 "What circumstances ?" 
 
 But Emily didn't balk. " You never quarrelled ? " 
 
 " Never. Mrs. Dench quarrelled with Ralph Parrish. 
 She told me that America wasn't big enough to hold them 
 both." 
 
 "Ah wouldn't that explain her not coming?" Emily 
 was proud of her find, but David Barlow told her that with 
 such an extraordinary woman as Mrs. Dench, explana 
 tions were hopeless. 
 
 There was a note of impatience in Emily's reply. " Oh, 
 she's not half as extraordinary as you think !" 
 
 David rose and came over to her side of the table. 
 "You're not jealous?" 
 
 Her eyes communed with the roving ones of Praise God 
 Parrish. " Jealous ? I ' ve no right." 
 
 ii 
 
 In late May and early June Hornmouth was more than 
 ever charming. Mrs. Parrish's lawn was vivid like emerald; 
 her hedges newly clipped were green walls of foliage and 
 the earth in her garden was soaked dark from the spring rain. 
 Beyond the garden rolling pasture lands met the pale 
 spring sky; and in the orchard lately fallen apple blossoms
 
 DUST AND LIGHT 351 
 
 lay white upon the ground. It was the one time in all the 
 year when the Northern climate abated its violence; the 
 sharp colds of winter were left behind and the fierce heats of 
 summer were still to come or it might be that the two 
 had met and blended to the palliation of both. It was a fu 
 sion the vigor of whose separate parts oddly resulted in an 
 exceptional delicacy. The florid redundance of the more 
 Southern spring was replaced by a spareness and a fineness ; 
 at Hornmouth budding vegetation didn't have too easy a 
 time; that which survived attained the uniform perfection 
 of the fittest. 
 
 The windows of Emily's room were open wide to the 
 sunlight which served, at Hornmouth, a purpose utilitarian 
 as well as aesthetic ; for Mrs. Parrish's housekeeping was of 
 the relentless sort, and sheets, blankets, and pillows were 
 scattered in commanding positions. Emily's bed had been 
 subjected to the process known as stripping, while she her 
 self was still completing her toilet. She stood before the 
 mirror putting on her hat. She was dressed unmistakably 
 for town, and a small trunk strapped and locked gave 
 further evidence of impending travel. 
 
 She was thus leaving Hornmouth in the full freshness of 
 its happiest season taking the long, trying journey to 
 New York with the sole object of laying a ghost. It had 
 bothered her and haunted her and beckoned her, had come 
 to her shrouded and white, and none the less appalling for 
 being but the ghost of a place the ghost, or the vision, of 
 the apartment in the late thirties. The late thirties haunted 
 her. The little gilt-trimmed parlor, that was like nothing 
 so much as the inside of a milliner's bonnet box, seemed to 
 cry out to be lived in. She had left it, merely turning the
 
 352 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 key in the door, and she pictured the gayly patterned chintz 
 faded white from the sun and the polished dining table dull 
 with dust. Her lease had had a year yet to run, and it had 
 been her intention to send for her things at her own good 
 time. But her own good time had been slow in coming; 
 she hadn't sent, and now when she thought of it she dreaded 
 to see damaged reminders of former glories. She saw them 
 in her mind's eye, these former glories; she saw how at 
 Hornmouth they wouldn't be in keeping it was one more 
 reason for procrastination. But there was another reason 
 
 less worthy she had merely turned the key in the door 
 
 it would be so very easy to turn it the other way. That 
 was her temptation; the ghost of the late thirties beckoned 
 her to come back. Without Ralph Parrish it might prove 
 a rather empty joy; but she felt at times ready to take 
 the risk of it. Day by day her temptation had worn upon 
 her, and she had caught it so near to victory that she at 
 last decided to remove it beyond all reach of possibility; 
 she would have the late thirties swept bare even at the 
 cost of having her precious former glories cut for kindling 
 wood. 
 
 The apartment in the late thirties was the nearest ap 
 proach she had ever come to a house of her own, an edifice 
 raised by her own effort to fill her own need. She felt for it 
 the passion of possession; from the leopard-skin rug to the 
 little glass case, it had been all so intimately hers. She felt 
 herself in deserting it false to a kind of trust. Yet wouldn't 
 she have been falser in not deserting it? Wasn't her real 
 trust not a house but a God-given talent which it rested 
 with her not to squander and debase ? In Hornmouth her 
 talent could ride free; in the late thirties it would be
 
 DUST AND LIGHT 353 
 
 weighted by the editor of the Folio. The late thirties 
 without the editor of the Folio ah, she hadn't the 
 strength for struggle ! The blank yellow pads that had once 
 seemed to her her one avenue of escape from Hornmouth, 
 now, by her loyalty to them, led her straight back there. 
 
 To-day she was going to New York, and a week from 
 to-day she was returning to Hornmouth, houseless. She 
 would lay her ghost with thoroughness; she would reside 
 henceforth solely in her God-given talent. And that 
 talent had been nourished by her residence in the late 
 thirties. She gave the devil his due. 
 
 Mrs. Parrish drove with her to the station. "For a 
 person who isn't strong," she said, "you do the most sur 
 prising things !" It had been Mrs. Parrish's idea that the 
 extermination of the late thirties should be put in the 
 charge of Ralph. He was there, on the ground; he could 
 set movers to work and stop in himself on his way down 
 town in the morning. Emily could explain by letter the 
 matter of disposition. 
 
 But his cousin refused to impose on him anything of the 
 kind. He had quite enough to think about without being 
 bothered with her old furniture. " We mustn't forget," said 
 she, " that he's the father of a family." 
 
 " My dear, we're not likely to forget it. You bring it to 
 our attention twenty times a day !" 
 
 Emily denied any such garrulity. 
 
 Mrs. Parrish put a question, "When will you see them 
 to-morrow?" 
 
 "Probably. I'll find out from Jane when it would be 
 best." 
 
 "You'll dine there."
 
 354 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 " Ah but I don't want them to feel me on their minds. 
 They are wrapped up !" 
 
 "If it wasn't for the baby, they wouldn't have heard of 
 your going to a hotel ; but they still have two nurses, and the 
 house isn't enormous." 
 
 Emily caught her up. " It was you who mentioned the 
 baby this time !" 
 
 " I can mention the baby all I like. It's not the baby's 
 existence, but Ralph's paternity, which always seems espe 
 cially to strike you." 
 
 "Well, don't you think it is rather appalling?" 
 
 Mrs. Parrish didn't in the least. "To-morrow, then, 
 you'll see them?" It was her last word at the station. 
 
 "Yes, to-morrow," Emily smiled from the car window, 
 and would have been surprised to know herself braver than 
 Mrs. Dench. 
 
 The morrow was a Saturday. She found to her grief that 
 it would be impossible to begin the task of extermination 
 till the following Monday. The clerk at the van company 
 was adamant in the face of her entreaties. In June Satur 
 day was a half-holiday, and had been so since the beginning 
 of time. Emily solaced herself with shopping and a solitary 
 lunch at Gaillard's. She might have lunched with Jane; 
 but she was almost morbidly sensitive about bothering her, 
 and it wasn't till after the hour for that meal was past that 
 she made her presence known to her over the telephone. 
 She was scolded for her tardiness and told to do for it all pos 
 sible penance. There had been another who hadn't been as 
 sensitive as herself. David Barlow was on from Cambridge, 
 and he had dropped in in the morning and stayed on; he 
 came to the telephone and spoke to her.
 
 DUST AND LIGHT 355 
 
 The house near Lexington Avenue was of the newer base 
 ment sort. From the street one went down to the entrance 
 instead of up, and the little square of lower level thus formed 
 was decorated on either side by bay trees in tubs. Emily 
 didn't at once find the bell, which was concealed behind a 
 column, and as it was a moment more before her ring was 
 answered, she had time to see that, in spite of her baby, 
 Jane didn't neglect her front stoop. Within there was still 
 further proof that the young Mrs. Parrish was worthy of 
 the old ; the white-painted staircase was spotless, and the 
 rugs which covered the hall were not guilty of a single turned 
 corner. But the visitor's approvals were cut short by Ralph 
 and David, who came out to her from a little room where 
 they had been smoking and escorted her up to the parlor. 
 Jane would be with her directly. 
 
 " You haven't been here," said Ralph, "not since we were 
 in order. In the autumn, I remember, things were hope 
 lessly mixed." 
 
 "They're certainly not mixed now," said David. 
 
 Emily was equally appreciative. " They're charming ! I'd 
 thought of offering you your choice of my few possessions 
 you know I'm moving out of my apartment for good but 
 it really might seem an impertinence, you have so much." 
 
 " Indeed, we haven't I'm sure we'd be only too glad - 
 you must talk to Jane." 
 
 " Does she rule you, Ralph, with a rod of iron?" 
 
 Ralph Parrish smiled till his teeth showed beneath his 
 mustache. " I should say she did ! Here I'll go and see 
 what's keeping her." 
 
 Alone with her, David turned to Emily. "Why didn't 
 you tell me you were coming to New York ? "
 
 356 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "Would you then not have come?" 
 
 He answered her only indirectly. "My luck must be 
 with me or I wouldn't have seen you at all. It was the 
 merest chance, my being here, and I want, very particularly, 
 to see you. I was coming to Hornmouth next week." 
 
 "Ah I hope you'll still come I hope that seeing me 
 now won't save you the necessity." 
 
 "Oh, it's not a necessity !" 
 
 "The luxury, then." 
 
 David was importunate. "I really want to talk to you. 
 Where are you going when you leave here?" 
 
 " I think to Thirty-seventh Street; I haven't been near 
 there, and I won't vouch for its condition, but if what you 
 have to say to me is so very important if you'd care 
 to come with me " 
 
 "I should care to, tremendously." 
 
 Emily's eyes were on the door through which the family, 
 Parrish, were momentarily expected to appear. "I'm so 
 anxious to see Jane; I haven't seen her, you know, since 
 Christmas, when she and Ralph were at Hornmouth." 
 
 "And of course you must be very anxious to see your little 
 cousin and to hear him." 
 
 "To hear him?" 
 
 "Yes, can't you?" 
 
 Emily listened, and she presently distinguished a sound, 
 faint yet sharp. She waited, and it came again clearer and 
 louder, a shrill, broken crescendo of wails, though as lacking 
 in conscious expression of grief as the crying of an animal. 
 It was the voice of instinct, as discriminated from that of 
 emotion, and compelling like the grating of a file. 
 
 "He has strong lungs your little cousin."
 
 DUST AND LIGHT 357 
 
 "Yes yes, indeed he has ! Ah, Jane I am glad." 
 The door had yielded its treasure, and Jane stood before 
 them, very tall and fair, with her son in her arms. "I 
 thought you'd like to see him." 
 
 Emily laughed. "He evidently didn't wish to be seen." 
 "Oh, he didn't care! We think he doesn't like to be 
 brought downstairs. He's in collusion with his nurse, who 
 insists it's bad for him." 
 
 "If he is," said his father, "he shows abominable taste. 
 His nurse is hideous." 
 
 "His nurse doesn't have to be anything else," Emily 
 turned to David, "his sense of beauty has enough to feed 
 upon as it is." 
 
 "Ralph," said Jane, "that's a compliment for us. " 
 Emily was looking at her little cousin with the awkward 
 eyes of one who is not a child lover. She suspected Jane of 
 intending to offer her the privilege of holding him, and it was 
 a privilege she could very well do without. She was occu 
 pied in wondering how she could gracefully refuse it, and 
 was thankful as the moments went by without giving her 
 the chance her suspicion was unfounded. Her little 
 cousin was a being far too precious to be toyed with, more 
 precious even than the Chinese porcelain vase that 
 Mrs. Dench had left behind her and that now adorned 
 Jane's mantelpiece. But in spite of his value it was, as 
 Mrs. Parrish had said, more the fact of his father's paternity 
 than that of his own little existence which Emily thought 
 striking. 
 
 She had never seen Parrish more splendid. It was as if 
 his wife and child had lent to him a dignity a nobility. 
 His roughly drawn perfection, which had always had the
 
 358 
 
 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 merit of being past dispute, was now bathed in the becoming 
 light of a kind of glorified domesticity. The hint he some 
 times gave of triteness was lost and forgotten. But ^ 
 marriage had done for him was incalculable : he 
 man who had found himself; he stood 
 place, his faults resolved to virtues, t 
 youth fallen from him like a discan 1 
 whose one imperfection a bn' 
 was something the very rever- 
 error of which to be intoler" 
 Her beauty had the 
 From the man at her 
 learned what was f 
 human brotherho< 
 cently fitted to i 
 
 Emily had fir 
 frankly given 
 again addres^ 
 all," she sai 
 
 Jane tor 
 you are fi 
 
 David 
 desiraV 
 
 B 
 
 lou( 
 quiv 
 be wi 
 
 In t 
 "They 
 
 "Did 
 
 : 
 
 uch 
 
 bftened. 
 enediction. 
 er arms she had 
 sson of
 
 DUST AND LIGHT 359 
 
 III 
 
 "The Duke de Clopin's dead." 
 
 Emily was engaged in fitting a key in the lock of her 
 apartment door. At David's announcement she barely 
 looked up. "Is he? You mean that friend of Mrs. 
 
 Dench's?" 
 
 i 
 
 "Yes. They're the people she's been staying with since 
 Jane's marriage." 
 
 The lock yielded. "Things will be in a mess, you know 
 I doubt, even, if I can give you tea." 
 
 David didn't want tea. 
 
 The parlor was covered with fine, light dust. To get 
 rid of the close smell of it they opened the windows, and 
 it wasn't until this task was completed that Emily evinced 
 any further interest in Mrs. Dench's friend. "How did 
 he die?" 
 
 "He was drowned, in bathing, near his villa in Cyprus." 
 
 "The Mediterranean claimed her own ? " 
 
 "What do you mean by that?" 
 
 The question was ignored. " How did you hear ? " 
 
 "How should I, but from Mrs. Dench ?" 
 
 "Of course, I forgot. Come, are you afraid of getting 
 your beautiful clothes spoiled if you sit down?" 
 
 "It's not as bad as that." 
 
 Emily looked about her. "It's pretty bad. I shouldn't 
 have left it so long. There isn't a thing here that 
 Jane would thank me for introducing into her spotless 
 place." 
 
 "Why, the little glass case I know she'd love, and besides, 
 you're not sworn to furnish Jane's house for her."
 
 360 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 "It's not a question of being sworn." 
 
 "Of course not, it's a pleasure." David's tone changed. 
 "You're not impressed with my news." 
 
 "Well, you see, never having known the duke " 
 
 "But you've often heard of him." 
 
 " Oh, I've heard of him. I always had the impression of a 
 figure vaguely pathetic." 
 
 "Yes, I know. And yet I envied him with all my heart. 
 His life was so simple; his codes and his problems pointed 
 all one way; his house wasn't divided against itself " 
 
 "Like yours?" 
 
 " Yes by Jove ! like mine ! " 
 
 Emily had no comment to offer, and David didn't elabo 
 rate his theme. He watched a ray from the afternoon sun 
 as it played with the reddish wood of the writing-table. 
 Emily waited. He picked up the veil which she had un 
 pinned from her hat and passed it and repassed it through 
 his fingers. 
 
 The action seemed to open the flood-gates of his speech : 
 "Do you remember once, a long time ago before you 
 went to Ocean City before you were ill a snowy night 
 when you dined with us and I afterwards put you into your 
 cab and we stood there in the snow, talking? " 
 
 "Quite vividly." 
 
 " You do ? It was the first time, I know, that I saw you 
 as anything but one of my father's celebrities. He finds a 
 celebrity in every bush. Our place at Long Head I may 
 go down there to-night is fairly overrun with them. You 
 see, I'm making a particularly pretty speech you're sure 
 you don't mind?" Emily was sure. David went on: 
 "Father's celebrities are as citizens sometimes not so desir-
 
 DUST AND LIGHT 361 
 
 able. But he has his illusion. And it came to me that 
 night that with you it wasn't an illusion; you weren't that 
 sort; you had an entity of your own which was in itself 
 thoroughly worth while. Generally, I feel rather sorry for 
 father's celebrities; he doesn't often happen on the real 
 ones I'm not forgetting it was I who introduced him to 
 you and they circle about in the light for a brief space and 
 then sink back into their obscurity. But you you 
 wouldn't ; and besides, you strangely turned the tables by 
 being sorry for me ! I've wondered, since, exactly how sorry 
 you were or are." 
 
 Emily met his eagerness. "I'm less sorry than I was, 
 I think. You're less helpless." 
 
 "Did I strike you as helpless then?" 
 
 "For a moment, I remember, I should have liked to 
 protect you I'm sure I don't know from what " 
 
 "Do you remember asking me not to go 'back to the 
 Mediterranean?" 
 
 "Yes, and it must have seemed to you a strange 
 request. I meant it half in laughter." 
 
 "Yes, I know, you couldn't have meant it in anything 
 else ; but it's the other half of your meaning we're dealing 
 with to-day." He had crumpled her veil hopelessly, and 
 he laid it back on the sofa between them. 
 
 She didn't understand, and he told her, as if that made all 
 things clear, that he had in his pocket a letter from Mrs. 
 Dench. 
 
 " The one about the duke's death ? It's curious that Jane 
 hadn't heard." 
 
 "Yes, Parrish would have seen it in the paper." 
 
 "Heard from her mother "
 
 362 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 " Her mother hasn't written to her. She's waiting till her 
 plans are more settled." 
 
 " It alters her plans ? I didn't know." 
 
 "Why, yes, of course. The duchess has very generously 
 asked her to stay on indefinitely ; but she couldn't do that 
 it wouldn't be dignified." 
 
 Emily acquiesced. She was pretending to a greater 
 clearness than she felt. It was all a complication she 
 would have designated as ' foreign ' and let go at that ; but 
 it seemed, in David's eyes, to be in some way concerned with 
 herself. She wished to be shown the connecting link: 
 "What have I to do with the duke's death and Mrs. Bench's 
 plans and the extreme generosity of the duchess? Mrs. 
 Bench is not planning a visit to Hornmouth ? Because for 
 that she'd have to answer to Cousin Laura, and as you 
 say she's quarrelled with Ralph " 
 
 Emily's tone was lively, but Bavid's was deadly serious. 
 " You have nothing to do with the duke's death or his wife's 
 generosity, but with Mrs. Bench's plans I'm cherishing the 
 hope that you'll have a great deal in fact, that you'll 
 spoil them utterly." 
 
 "My dear! " 
 
 "When you asked me not to go back to the Mediterranean, 
 as you say, it was half in laughter. You didn't know what 
 you were asking; you didn't know me. You were vaguely 
 sorry for my youth's so evidently having had a hard time of 
 it ; but where I went couldn't have very deeply concerned 
 you. Now, you know me ; you've seemed to like me at 
 least, if you haven't, I can't imagine why, during the past 
 year, you've put up with me so much why, metaphori 
 cally speaking, you've always let me crumple your veil.
 
 DUST AND LIGHT 363 
 
 If it weren't that the sense of adventure was in us both 
 worn a little thin, I might, you know, have crumpled it ... 
 It is said that the burnt child dreads the fire, which is non 
 sense, for it's only the burnt child who doesn't dread it; 
 he's learned with infinite pains that he's its master. 
 And besides, you like me I can see that but with you 
 it's not been a question of fire, for you're not in the least in 
 love with me." 
 
 "No, not now. Which only shows, that I'm not blown 
 by every passing breeze." 
 
 " Do you call me a passing breeze ? " asked David. " But 
 you have kept your head. I want you to lose it now." 
 
 Again she exclaimed. 
 
 "Ah, yes you can call me my dear forever; but that 
 doesn't mean that you'll do what I ask." 
 
 Emily's gaze was held by a special flower in the brightly 
 patterned chintz cover of a chair across the room. "What 
 is it that you ask?" 
 
 "Marry me." 
 
 She looked at him in utter, blank amazement. "You 
 call that losing my head ? I should say, rather, it was you 
 who'd lost yours !" 
 
 "Then you won't?" 
 
 "I can't think that you mean what you say. It's some 
 ghastly notion of humor " 
 
 But David showed no gleam of it. "Why is it so impos 
 sible?" 
 
 "What has it to do with the Mediterranean ?" 
 
 "It would mean that I shouldn't go back there." 
 
 "Ah I see. It's Mrs. Dench's plan that you should." 
 
 "Mrs. Dench has done me the honor to reconsider an offer
 
 364 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 of marriage which I made to her almost at the outset of our 
 acquaintance." 
 
 "If you're engaged to Mrs. Dench " 
 
 " But I'm nothing of the sort ! Since I asked her to marry 
 me and she refused me, I tell you, point-blank, she 
 laughed me to scorn I grew to recognize my error 
 since I asked her to marry me, the circumstances are utterly 
 changed." 
 
 "Yes," said Emily, "so I've come to see. I didn't at 
 first I was stupid I thought it was Ralph ; but it 's all 
 come clear why you couldn't marry Jane why you 
 were at Ocean City everything I've fitted together 
 all the pieces " 
 
 David Barlow's only answer was a brow shot with pain. 
 " I want to assure you," he said at last, " that she has no hold 
 on me whatever!" 
 
 "You mean she has no definite right?" 
 
 "No right no claim no power " 
 
 "If she has none, you surely don't need me as a little 
 picket fence to keep her out ; and against the kind of right 
 you prove she has, I should be a magnificent protection ! 
 You say she can't hold you you prove that she does " 
 
 "It's a strange way of proving it, to ask another woman 
 to marry me." 
 
 "Why do you have to marry?" 
 
 "Why can't things go on as they were before? Because 
 they can't. Because I've a life and a career and a duty to 
 myself, and a duty to my mother and father and the fortune 
 that will some day be mine." 
 
 "And what would happen to all that if you married Mrs. 
 Dench?"
 
 DUST AND LIGHT 365 
 
 "Not as much, you know, as if I didn't marry her." 
 
 "Oh, my dear, a great deal more! You're weak 
 weak !" Emily rose. The young man had never appeared 
 to her in a less complimentary light. "And what would 
 happen to all that," she asked, "if you married me ?" 
 
 "Nothing whatever." 
 
 He was still seated, and she put a hand on his shoulder. 
 " If you think so, it shows you don't know. You want to do 
 the best you can with the bad start you've made you 
 have ambitions so you come to a little invalid, a good half- 
 dozen years your senior, who has strangely ambitions 
 of her own ! Why, the kind of assistance I could give you 
 you're not strong enough to stand up against." 
 
 David's gloom turned to jest. " The way you sum it up, 
 who would be?" 
 
 " Ralph Parrish." 
 
 "Then who would have married Jane?" 
 
 "You." 
 
 "And Mrs. Bench" 
 
 Emily thought hard. " Perhaps the duke shouldn't have 
 been drowned." 
 
 David cast at her the accusation to which Ralph Parrish 
 with more cause had once treated Mrs. Dench, 
 " You're the most abominable woman I've ever seen ! " 
 
 " If the things I say amuse your vitiated taste " 
 
 He replied to this by getting to his feet and taking the 
 hand that had caressed him in both his own. "I can't 
 see why you won't marry me. You'd have advantages." 
 
 " Yes, the advantages would all be on my side ; and if you 
 don't mind, why should I ?" 
 
 " I don't say that ; but why should you mind ? If you're
 
 366 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 the most abominable woman I've ever seen, you're also the 
 most superbly selfish. It's one of the things I've liked you 
 for" 
 
 "We have met on an equality. Though I once told Mrs. 
 Dench that you were the least selfish man I'd ever seen. 
 That was before I knew you." 
 
 "And what did Mrs. Dench say?" 
 
 "She agreed with me thoroughly. But I think you 
 weren't selfish with Mrs. Dench you couldn't be her 
 own selfishness prevented." 
 
 " Oh, she was colossal !" 
 
 "I believe you're afraid of her." 
 
 "Of course I'm afraid of her." David Barlow threw 
 back his slim hawk's head. "I'm afraid to death of her!" 
 
 "It's under the shadow of her sword, then, that you've 
 made love to me?" 
 
 "You haven't the right to be jealous; you haven't yet 
 said you'd marry me. You haven't yet even told me why 
 you haven't said it." 
 
 Emily went back to the sofa; David followed her. The 
 ray from the afternoon sun had shifted its allegiance from 
 the reddish wood of the writing-table to a yellow stripe in 
 the wall-paper. 
 
 "No, I'm not jealous. As you say, I haven't the right. 
 Mrs. Dench possesses you far too completely whatever 
 right there is, is hers. It may be one not recognized by 
 any of your courts of law ; but it's as real why, David, 
 her right in you is the only real thing about you, the only 
 real thing you have left !" 
 
 " I haven't seemed to you real ? " 
 
 " No not even when you've held my hand and crumpled
 
 DUST AND LIGHT 367 
 
 my veil and given me your light fires to play with. You see, 
 with all that, I've got to know you, and it's only since I've 
 known you that I've known how little reality you had. 
 In those first days at Ocean City I rather retarded my con 
 valescence by imagining myself in love with you. I 
 bothered with the mystery of your immortal soul. I don't 
 know how much soul you had when you started out, but 
 you've no more now than a puppet on a string !" 
 
 "Mrs. Bench has that, too?" 
 
 " Every scrap. She caught you at the right moment, and 
 she neatly pithed you. When I found I didn't love you, 
 I thought it was merely because I loved some one else very 
 much more " 
 
 "Ralph Parrish?" 
 
 "Yes, Ralph Parrish. But he married Jane. He 
 married Jane, and Mrs. Dench went back whence she had 
 come. You and I liked each other we've always done 
 that and it seemed the logical, the agreeable thing, 
 that we should in a measure console each other. And 
 how have we succeeded? It's been shadow shadowing 
 shadow, the blind leading the blind " 
 
 "Then you aren't real, either?" David was amused 
 through his gravity. 
 
 " But I never was ! That's why I have so much need of it 
 in other people. I've longed for the tangible, the normal 
 things; but I'm not so deceived that I think I should get 
 them by marrying you." 
 
 " Ah you'd get something very much better. You've 
 often talked of the undiscovered country. We'd explore 
 together any country you like " 
 
 But Emily cut him short. "We'd be two restless spirits
 
 368 OTHER PEOPLE'S HOUSES 
 
 wandering together the bright slopes of eternity phan 
 toms pursuing a phantom joy " 
 
 "We'd have our careers our ambitions." 
 
 "We'd have them without that." 
 
 "You mean you'd have yours," said David. "You've 
 found out the worst I'm a selfish phantom who's given 
 his best to another woman and yet you like me. I can't 
 see why, then " 
 
 "You can't see why, on the strength of my liking, I 
 shouldn't do what you ask ? I might, if you offered me the 
 David Barlow that Jane saw sitting a little apart in the bow 
 of the ship's tender, his dark head bared to the sun. But 
 that David Barlow what there is left of him it isn't 
 within your power to offer me. He belongs to Mrs. Dench." 
 
 " You seem to think she's made a thorough job of it !" 
 
 " Oh she has and I know what I'm saying, for I 
 hope I shan't be misunderstood when I tell you that Ralph 
 Parrish has made of me a job almost as thorough." 
 
 "Then by that same token do you belong to him?" 
 
 "Part of me." 
 
 " And the other part ? That seems my chance." 
 
 " Oh, no, that's the chance of ' Mrs. Dallowfield's ' suc 
 cessor." 
 
 "Then you won't marry me?" 
 
 " You're fresh from the house near Lexington Avenue, and 
 you ask me that? Imagine you and me . . ." 
 
 "We never could emulate them. But you can't expect 
 all the marriages to be like Jane's and Ralph's. They're, 
 as you say, so damnably normal. They're so young." 
 
 "But, good heavens! aren't you young? Younger 
 than Ralph?"
 
 DUST AND LIGHT 369 
 
 " Yes," David smiled, " but I've paid for my sins." 
 
 " You have, haven't you ? It seems unfair that Ralph 
 Parrish shouldn't have paid for his." 
 
 " Ah Ralph's sins haven't lost him his immortal soul !" 
 
 "No," said his cousin, "and it's not because he had no 
 soul to lose. But somehow his sins didn't touch his soul 
 they were sins of the flesh " 
 
 David looked away. "Mine have been of the flesh." 
 
 " Yours yours have been of the flesh and of the soul and 
 of the mind. You're marked and scarred and for you 
 the wages are " 
 
 "Not death?" David hoped. 
 
 " No, not death the Mediterranean." 
 
 He turned from her, his youth all white and drawn. " I 
 believe you're right." 
 
 She picked up her crumpled veil. "For the duke they 
 seem to have been both. The luck's on your side." 
 
 " Oh the luck ! " He made to her no final appeal. 
 
 Emily looked about her at her apartment in the late 
 thirties, filled with dust and glaring light, and she presently 
 heard the door shut on what was, in a sense, the one real 
 opportunity of her life. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 2B
 
 WILLIAM ALLEN WHITER 
 A Certain Rich Man 
 
 Cloth, $1.30 net 
 
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 every page is woven with threads of human nature, life as we know it, 
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 people who fill his four-hundred odd pages. ... It deserves a high 
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 "An American novel, home-grown in home soil, vital with homely 
 American motives, and fragrant with homely American memories, Mr. 
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 is full of a very moving interest and is agreeable and beautiful." The 
 New York Sun. 
 
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