THE STARLING
 
 Sarah held herself very still, waiting.
 
 THE STARLING 
 
 By 
 JULIET WILBOR TOMPKINS 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 The Seed of the Righteous, A Girl Named Mary 
 At the Sign of the Oldest House, Etc. 
 
 V can't get out I can't get out" said the starling 
 
 STERNE 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 JOHN ALONZO WILLIAMS 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT 1919 
 THE BOLUS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 PPE38 OF 
 
 BRAUNWORTH IL CO. 
 
 BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. V.
 
 THE STARLING 
 
 1 
 
 THE little Sarah, hovering at the gap in 
 the hedge, had hotly wondered if any one 
 wanted anything on earth as she wanted com- 
 pany. She always saw it as a bright tide, pour- 
 ing in past the green barrier to spread over the 
 lawn and leap up the steps, streaming through 
 the silent house, even into the sacred library, 
 filling the air with laughing sounds, and, when 
 it retreated, leaving some glorious little visitor 
 up in her own room, that they might whisper, 
 whisper, half the night, with smothered giggles 
 and a pretense of silence when a maternal hand 
 thumped the wall. Sarah composed notes of 
 invitation, set imaginary tea tables, dramatized 
 wild games with the piano at full blast, candy 
 pulls, charades, pillow fights little girls who 
 walked with their arms about her, boys who 
 last-tagged her on the steps oh, loving, riot- 
 ous, high-hearted Company! Spent with ex- 
 citement, she would fling herself upon her 
 
 1 
 
 2138481
 
 2 THE STARLING 
 
 mother : "Couldn't I have just three little girls 
 in to supper?" And always the same apologetic, 
 half whispered answer: 
 
 "You know, dear, it does disturb your fa- 
 ther!" Her strange little mother feared most 
 things spiders, cows, boats, tramps, dogs, 
 wind, elevators, the dark until it was a won- 
 der that she had the sheer heroism to live ; but 
 above all she feared disturbing Mr. Cawthorne. 
 
 Sarah had a generous imagination. If an 
 aunt sent her a postal card and she had ice- 
 cream at dinner, she would go to bed feeling 
 that the day had been rich with event. "A 
 great deal happens to me!" she often told her 
 mother, with the sudden shine in her eyes that 
 made older people lay kind hands on her. And 
 so she saw the old place as offering a thousand 
 unsuspected joys to company, if once it got past 
 the ungracious barrier of the hedge. 
 
 How Sarah hated the hedge! a solid ever- 
 green rampart twenty feet high, clipped to a 
 hard squared evenness, with here and there a 
 patch of dead brown in its gloomy side, always 
 smelling of dust, tasting of dust when one 
 nipped off a fat green tip in passing, and keep- 
 ing the ground in its shadow stark and deso-
 
 THE STARLING 3 
 
 late. Neighbors pointed it out to strangers 
 with the California pride in mere size, but the 
 strangers shivered, especially if it was a gray 
 day. Two giant eucalyptus trees dripped their 
 heavy leaves like slants of rain over the en- 
 trance, and the dark mansard of the house was 
 all that could be seen. The radiant garden, the 
 old croquet hoops in the grass and the pepper 
 trees full of natural cradles would never have 
 been suspected from the outside. And the roses 
 that had once softened the very mansard with 
 their high sprays had been cut away, as their 
 tapping and their nesting birds disturbed Mr. 
 Cawthorne. 
 
 Sarah was eleven a slender little girl with 
 stick legs and a pale, delicately in-curved face 
 slipped like a crescent moon between two long 
 falls of dark hair when the first miracle hap- 
 pened. There were to be three in her life, and 
 the later ones had more obvious consequences, 
 but none could match the astonished ecstasy 
 this first one brought, or the revelations that it 
 left behind. 
 
 It was Saturday afternoon, and some tradi- 
 tion that Saturday afternoon is a time of com- 
 panioned pleasures must come down in the
 
 4 THE STARLING 
 
 blood of little girls, for it always roused an 
 ache of dreams and desires. Sarah was hidden 
 away in a curve of the gravel drive, trying to 
 comfort herself with poppy-shows. To make 
 poppy-shows, punch half a dozen holes, thumb 
 deep, in gravel or soft earth, set in the bottom 
 of each a little pink rose or a tuft of heliotrope 
 or any bit of garden loveliness; cover with a 
 fragment of glass, dust the whole over with 
 gravel, then rub a small space clear and look in. 
 The effect is fairylike, mysterious, beautiful. 
 But, of course, the real charm lies in having 
 some one else to make rival poppy-shows, and to 
 exchange looks. Sarah composed half of hers 
 in the name of Ethel Alice, an imaginary 
 cousin. She was flat on her stomach with her 
 eye glued to a particularly happy combination 
 of blue lobelia and white jasmine Ethel Alice's 
 when her mother came hurrying in search of 
 her. She was a sweet, soft little woman with 
 something girlish and eager about her, some- 
 thing scattering and hazy and lovingly kind; 
 only her back was so frail that she always had 
 to be doing things to ease it, and she was so 
 easily frightened that Sarah gave a "Whoo-oo !" 
 at the sound of her step, to spare her a startled
 
 THE STARLING 5 
 
 jump. She jumped, nevertheless, coming on 
 her child's prostrate body, then laughed at her 
 foolishness as she dropped down on the grass. 
 Mothers as a rule can not fold up easily, and 
 require chairs, but Sarah's could curl down like 
 a child or a cat. She braced an arm across her 
 back, the fingers hooked into the other elbow, 
 but she was thinking only of the news that 
 glowed in her face. 
 
 "Darling," she said, "something nice is going 
 to happen!" They beamed at each other with 
 the good news hovering between them like a 
 shining bird, ready to burst into song. "A 
 week from to-day," she went on, deliciously pro- 
 longing the thrill, "you are going to put on your 
 best white dress no, you shall have a new one !" 
 
 "With a pink sash?" Sarah burst in. 
 
 "With a pink sash. And you shall stand by 
 the door and welcome" the song was begin- 
 ning to trill "as many nice girls and boys as 
 we can find!" 
 
 "Mother ! A party !" Sarah's voice sang out 
 so gloriously that Mrs. Cawthorne put up a 
 warning hand, and they smothered their laugh- 
 ter in an embrace. "But father !" Sarah 
 whispered.
 
 6 THE STARLING 
 
 "He is going away, dear, overnight. They 
 want him to speak down at Palo Alto Saturday 
 evening, and he can't get back." 
 
 "What got him to do it?" Sarah marveled; 
 but she could not stop for explanations. "Oh, 
 mother, company my company!" she cried. 
 "Can we play games?" 
 
 "All you like." 
 
 "And have things to eat?" 
 
 "Ice-cream and cake and candy and lemon- 
 ade " They had to embrace again. 
 
 "And make a noise?" 
 
 "Raise the roof!" 
 
 "Oh, mother !" Sarah looked as if she were 
 going up in rockets and Roman candles, and a 
 touch of trouble stilled her mother. 
 
 "But we can't have things different when 
 your father is home, darling," she urged, as if 
 some one had accused her. "I tried to have 
 parties when we were first married my back 
 wasn't so poor then, and I had more spirit ; but 
 it wasn't any use. It made him miserable, and 
 that made me miserable, and I don't think the 
 guests had a very good time!" She laughed, 
 a gay, frank little laugh, as young as Sarah's. 
 "There's no use doing things for happiness if
 
 THE STARLING 7 
 
 you don't get happiness out of them," she con- 
 cluded comfortably. "Now let us make a list 
 of the guests." 
 
 They wrote down twenty, chance acquaint- 
 ances or children of old family friends. There 
 were no schoolmates, for Mr. Cawthorne had 
 theories about education, which he regarded as 
 an affair solely of the intellect. Sarah at her 
 books was a credit to his system of governesses 
 and tutors, and he had never seen Sarah hover- 
 ing at the gap in the hedge, aching with her 
 great desire. The twenty, however, satisfied 
 her gloriously, and the notes were sent about 
 that afternoon by the gardener. Mr. Caw- 
 thorne would not have a telephone. 
 
 So began the most purely exquisite week that 
 any one ever lived. The twenty accepted with 
 a promptness that suggested an outside desire 
 to get inside the hedge. Mrs. Cawthorne never 
 expected or wanted to talk about anything but 
 the party, and she listened to all Sarah's pro- 
 posals with the promising openness of a fairy 
 godmother. The very secrecy of their plans 
 and preparations added flavor for there was 
 no sense in making Mr. Cawthorne think that 
 he was going to be disturbed.
 
 8 THE STARLING 
 
 "Of course, I would not keep anything from 
 him that he ought to know," Mrs. Cawthorne 
 occasionally said, in one of her spasmodic at- 
 tempts to act like a parent. "You understand 
 that, Bunny dear!" And Bunny obliviously 
 nodded away the interruption. It had not yet 
 occurred to her to question their general house- 
 hold law. 
 
 By Tuesday night it seemed to Sarah that 
 she could not literally, physically, could not 
 wait for Saturday. Already the old house was 
 peopled for her with flitting presences ; a bright 
 maze of game and laughter was continually 
 weaving before her eyes. Lessons proved so 
 impossible that they were given up unobtru- 
 sively, in order not to worry Mr. Cawthorne; 
 and Miss Wright, the governess, put in her 
 time hunting favors and decorations and gifts 
 for prizes. They could count on two free half 
 mornings while Mr. Cawthorne was at the 
 University, dealing with the Origin and Growth 
 of the Romance Dialects. In one of these the 
 piano was tuned, and the other saw a general 
 rush of housecleaning. When Friday came, 
 Mrs. Cawthorne was talking party from a 
 couch, where she lay very flat, and the circles
 
 THE STARLING 9 
 
 under her eyes looked as if they had been dug 
 out by a heavy thumb ; but her radiant interest 
 never faltered. According to all the laws of 
 little-girl nature, Sarah ought to have been 
 unbearably cross by that time ; but she was only 
 shiningly still instead of suppressedly noisy. 
 And then, at dinner-time, the library door 
 opened to let out trouble. Black frost never 
 fell more blightingly on a rosy garden. Word 
 came that Mr. Cawthorne's head had begun to 
 ache, and that he would have only a cup of tea. 
 
 The very maid who brought the word looked 
 pale. Mr. Cawthorne's headaches were rare, 
 but they lasted twenty-four hours, darkening 
 and hushing the house like a dreary enchant- 
 ment. He would do nothing for them, asked 
 nothing but the quintessence of his beloved 
 silence. Mrs. Cawthorne met the news with a 
 feeble murmur that it might pass off in the 
 night, but Sarah, after a stunned moment, hid 
 the wreck of her dreams in her elbow and stum- 
 bled out of the room. The sound that came back 
 from her flight made the two women stare at 
 each other in the human equality of grief. 
 
 "The pore child !" said Nelly, ready to cry her- 
 self ; but Mrs. Cawthorne's look was suddenly 
 fierce.
 
 10 THE STARLING 
 
 "She has got to have it!" she said under her 
 breath. 
 
 She herself had headaches weekly, sometimes 
 daily, and took reckless powders for them. She 
 knew the danger to one's heart, but she had long 
 ago learned to look on her body as a hopelessly 
 poor thing, to be patched up any old way, and 
 not bothered about more than necessary. Her 
 spirit flew just above it and let it follow as it 
 could. She who feared all the little harmless 
 creatures, every kind of safe adventure, could 
 have faced death and judgment any day with a 
 friendly smile. She could not now tell her hus- 
 band that Sarah must not have her heart broken, 
 but she was quite ready to commit a crime to 
 prevent it. Her hand did not falter ; she was only 
 glad that she had had the brilliant idea as she 
 slipped one of her strongest powders into his 
 cup of tea. She carried it to him herself. 
 
 "For, if it did hurt him, I don't want Nelly 
 in any way involved," she thought composedly. 
 
 Then she waited, smiling a little, pleasantly 
 hopeful, her hands holding up her back. In 
 half an hour the library door opened again and 
 Mr. Cawthorne came out. At a distance he did 
 not look formidable a small gray man with a
 
 THE STARLING 11 
 
 slight limp ; it was only close up, when he smiled 
 in his pointed beard, that one felt the power of 
 his unchangeableness. 
 
 "I believe I'm going to weather it this time, 
 Lisa," he said, rubbing eyes and brow with a 
 slow hand. He had a slow, drawling, humorous 
 voice, and students who cared little about Old 
 French took his course for the famous bite of 
 old Cawthorne's tongue. Because his fine eyes 
 smiled, they believed that he was secretly kind- 
 ly. "What did you do to that tea?" Mrs. Caw- 
 thorne jumped, but he was not looking at her. 
 "Was it very strong or a new kind ?" he added, 
 sitting down at the table. 
 
 Her breath of relief came on a shake of secret 
 laughter. "Both," she said. 
 
 "Well, it did me good. I think I can eat some- 
 thing." 
 
 She saw him supplied, then carried hope to 
 Sarah, who came up out of despair at a single 
 bound. Mrs. Cawthorne listened at her hus- 
 band's door several times that night, and, hear- 
 ing him breathe, always crept back to bed with 
 a silent laugh. He was perfectly well in the 
 morning, and mid-afternoon saw him set off. 
 
 The old mansard watched him pass the hedge,
 
 12 THE STARLING 
 
 then burst into activity all over at once. It 
 seemed to be shouting a festal chorus as its 
 furniture rolled from room to room and its 
 walls and chandeliers took on festoons and blos- 
 soming branches. Miss Wright had come to help, 
 the two maids and the gardener were all in it, 
 for this was to look a party as well as be one, 
 and there were games and jokes culled from 
 magazines that needed elaborate planting. And 
 then at last it was time to put on Sarah's new 
 white dress and tie her pink sash, and the com- 
 pany was coming in through the hedge. 
 
 At first, Sarah was conscious only of terror. 
 She gave her limp hand, but she was lost in a 
 blurred confusion ; trying to speak was like try- 
 ing to scream in a nightmare an agony of ef- 
 fort resulting in a dim hoarse squeak. Old ac- 
 quaintances offered an easy, "Hello, Sarah!" and 
 strangers smiled shyly into her face, giving her 
 her chance ; but the hedge seemed to have grown 
 up about her soul, leaving no gap. The moment 
 of greeting, instead of being a warm rushing 
 together, was ending in a dismal shrinking 
 apart, and a congealing stiffness threatened the 
 party. 
 
 Help came from a tall blond boy who lounged
 
 THE STARLING 13 
 
 in after the rest and stood beside Sarah, looking 
 on with an ease that was steadying. 
 
 "I dare say it's too much of a kid party for 
 me," he explained, "but I can help you run 
 things, and, if you have prizes, I won't win 
 them not many of them, anyway." His hands 
 identified treasures in his pockets. "I'm Robert 
 Russell, Jr., you know. My father is Doctor 
 Russell, so I dare say that is why you asked me. 
 Everybody knows him, of course. I suppose 
 those chairs are for Going to Jerusalem. I 
 know a better way to fix them makes it harder 
 but you can do it this way if you like. I'm 
 glad you're going to have games ; I hate dancing. 
 The girls' hair always gets in your mouth." He 
 surprised a laugh out of her, a breathless gasp 
 that seemed to open up the hedge, letting a 
 gleam of the real Sarah shine through. Success 
 was evidently a matter of course to him, but he 
 drew up one shoulder, then the other, in a lordly 
 approval of himself that included her. 
 
 "Want me to get things going?" he offered. 
 "I am pretty good at that, usually. You see, I 
 happen to know a lot of jokes and conundrums 
 and things. I sort of pick them up. You never 
 heard me do an Irish story, did you? Of course,
 
 14 THE STARLING 
 
 it's your party, not mine I promised m'mother 
 I'd remember that. But if you'd like me to tell 
 one now " 
 
 "Oh, if you would !" Sarah whispered. 
 
 He stepped out into the middle of the room, 
 graceful, handsome, assured, and Sarah thought 
 she had never seen any one so like a fairy-tale 
 prince ; not dreaming that she herself, stick legs 
 and all, with her delicately crescent face up- 
 lifted between two failing curves of dark hair, 
 would have made a delightful fairy-tale princ- 
 ess. From that moment the party was a suc- 
 cess. The first laugh took the frost out of the 
 air, and the program went with a swing. 
 
 It was very curious. All that bright eve- 
 ning Sarah felt the party going on about her, 
 and yet she could not seem to get into it. Every- 
 thing that she had dreamed came true for the 
 others: they galloped through the games and 
 found the concealed gifts and won the prizes in 
 a glory of laughter and flying feet ; but Sarah, 
 breathless, smiling, frightened, seemed always 
 to be following after, or standing alone, or 
 grasping in vain for some speech to fling out 
 as her confident guests flung their happy voices. 
 If they would have clustered about her and
 
 THE STARLING 15 
 
 given her time, she felt that she could have done 
 it oh, splendidly ! But they all knew their way 
 and scampered along it, sauve qui pent. Sarah 
 could have loved any one of them, but they had 
 it settled whom they loved, and it was only their 
 
 own good time that concerned them. 
 
 * 
 
 Robert Russell, Jr., assumed complete charge, 
 led the games, ordered the children into line, 
 made them laugh, yet checked them when they 
 grew too uproarious, and held always the undis- 
 puted center. At intervals he came back to 
 Sarah to explain his methods, and the burning 
 admiration in her lifted face must have touched 
 him, for he exchanged mottoes with her and 
 told her that they did things very 1 well at her 
 
 house. 
 
 ^*t 
 
 "Whenever you want any heljiwith a party, 
 
 I'll come," he offered. "You jt^st tell me in 
 
 , 
 
 plenty of time, for, of course, 1*8% asked a good 
 deal. It's because I'm lively, I suppose." 
 
 She could show him herself. "I'm lively, too," 
 she said in an eager whisper. "Inside I can be 
 all jumping and dancing and making lovely 
 jokes. But I don't know how to get it out." 
 
 That surprised him. "Why, you just open 
 your mouth," he decided.
 
 16 THE STARLING 
 
 Sarah opened it and he waited with interest, 
 but only a rush of laughter came. 
 
 "Well, if you can laugh like that, you've got 
 something to start on/' he assured her. "I knew 
 you weren't a stick. I said so." 
 
 The implication brought a wretched flush. 
 Robert did not suspect what he had done, but a 
 guest who stood near turned on him with cool 
 patronage. She was a composed, efficient little 
 pony of a girl, two years older than Sarah, with 
 a glorious mass of red-gold curls and an odd 
 white face that would have been handsome but 
 for too pale eyelashes. 
 
 "Look here, Rob Russell, if you are going to 
 be a doctor like your father, you'd better begin 
 learning what to say and what not to," she in- 
 structed him. 
 
 Robert bristled. "I didn't say anything !" 
 
 "You are always saying things; and you 
 never think how you'd like them yourself." The 
 girl put her arm about Sarah, not affectionately 
 which might have saved the day but with an 
 air of standing by her sex, for which Sarah 
 was faintly grateful. "You'll have an awfully 
 poor bedside manner if you don't look out. I 
 think Sarah is a duck," she added incisively.
 
 THE STARLING 17 
 
 "Well, so do I, smarty," said the injured Rob- 
 ert. "I'm going to dance the Virginia reel with 
 her." He led Sarah to the head of the forming 
 lines. "Dosey Warren does think she knows it 
 all," he complained darkly as their ways sepa- 
 rated. 
 
 Of all that difficult evening, it was the worst 
 moment when Sarah set out alone from the top 
 of the line to meet some one who undoubtedly 
 advanced, but whom she could not see for 
 fright. She had been rehearsed in the Virginia 
 reel with her mother and Miss Wright and two 
 rows of chairs and knew it perfectly that way, 
 but Robert's dire word seemed to have para- 
 lyzed her faculties. She could only fumble 
 through it, putting out always the wrong hand, 
 feeling them all hurling "Stick!" at her from 
 their cruel security. An Indian method of tor- 
 ture, pictured in one of her books, was humiliat- 
 ingly vivid to her as she ran the gauntlet of her 
 terrible guests. And this was her dream of 
 Company ! 
 
 No one else saw. Her mother, flattened back 
 now in the depths of the deepest chair, held out 
 a congratulating hand to her when she passed, 
 Miss Wright and Nelly beamed on the general
 
 18 THE STARLING 
 
 success. The guests, in going, came up to her 
 one by one to say that it had been perfectly 
 splendid, but even that momentary importance 
 could not comfort her or let her in. The party 
 was among their scarfs and cloaks, going out 
 the door with them and Robert Russell, Jr., into 
 the cool night ; it had only swept past her on its 
 way. Now the last echo of it had passed the 
 hedge, and Sarah turned back to the bright 
 empty rooms, strewn with wreckage of paper 
 caps and flowers and wrappings. Her mother 
 had apparently fallen apart at the last good 
 night, and was only a limp collection of loose 
 members piled in a big chair; but Sarah's sud- 
 den pallor roused her. 
 
 "Go right to bed, you tired little soul," she 
 commanded, taking up again the burden of her 
 limbs, and Sarah was glad to obey. 
 
 She could not sleep, of course. Her heart 
 ached like a great bruise. Hour after hour the 
 bitter blend of disappointment and shame and 
 loneliness poisoned every unforgettable moment 
 of the long ideal. She had been a failure, a 
 stick, and all of them, including Robert Russell, 
 Jr., would remember her with contempt. To the 
 last day of her life she would not have company
 
 THE STARLING 19 
 
 again. Nothing ever came true. She wished 
 she could die. 
 
 The fevered tossing ended at last in quiet. 
 Something better than sleep was coming to heal 
 the trouble. At first it was no more than a 
 fixed wonder, like a stare. Then a soft current 
 began to steal through all her body, stirring 
 warmly about her heart, and finally running 
 with a triumphant thrill down her right arm. 
 Sarah, very grave, but with a glow in her wide 
 eyes, stealthily lit the light, found paper and 
 pencil and bundled herself up in a quilt. For, 
 if she had an outrageous capacity for dreams, 
 she had also been given a secret comfort for 
 their failure. Brooding, intent, utterly ab- 
 sorbed, she began her poem of "The Party." 
 
 Rhymes sang about her in the still night, 
 lines that she could never have thought out in 
 cold blood came flowing down on the current 
 still pouring so beneficently through her being. 
 An hour passed like a moment, and another 
 struck before the inspiration began to fade. No 
 realism for Sarah ! Her saga told the party of 
 her dreams, all glow and music, love and laugh- 
 ter. The detail might be true to fact, but the 
 effect was shamelessly, exultantly, life-as-it-
 
 20 THE STARLING 
 
 ought-to-have-been. And when at last Sarah's 
 head fell back, the ache was forgotten, the party 
 had been made beautiful in her sight. 
 
 She was awakened by a ripple of laughter. 
 Her mother, twisted up in a dressing-gown, 
 stood beside her, and the daylight was the color 
 of noon. Overhead the gas still blazed, and the 
 bed was strewn with scribbled paper. 
 
 "We began to think you had passed away with 
 excitement," Mrs. Cawthorne said, laughing 
 again as she put out the gas. "Well, was it a 
 nice party?" 
 
 Sarah's dazed eyes had opened on some bleak 
 cloud, unformed as yet, but unbearable. Then, 
 before it could take shape, the scattered sheets 
 of her inspiration came like a sweet warm wind 
 to blow it away. There was her party in joy- 
 ous, living lines, romping down the pages ; real- 
 ity caught and fixed in the dream, and so made 
 beautiful. The truth of last night's experience 
 was not actually denied : it was only buried and 
 sown over with morning glories. Sarah's two 
 arms shot up with her radiant face between 
 them. 
 
 "Oh, mother, wasn't it heavenly!" she cried.
 
 II 
 
 LIFE was more eventful after the party. Its 
 fame spread, and though it was never re- 
 peated, Sarah was hopefully asked to other par- 
 ties for years to come. She always went to them 
 with the same exquisite joy; her heart sang, 
 "Girls and boys girls and boys !" as though she 
 ran to them, arms out. But she always brought 
 away an ache. They frightened and silenced 
 her. She stood about on the edges of the crowd, 
 breathless, tongueless, dazzled, and when she 
 was carelessly swept into its evolutions, her 
 exaltation became a shining stillness that the 
 others did not understand. Even then she knew 
 that she was not really in the middle of the 
 party; but she looked as though she were, and 
 she could be passionately grateful for that. 
 
 If there had been any one to help her, to lead 
 her out a little, to see that she danced well or 
 played tennis or even wore the right clothes, 
 the vivid imaginings of her inner life would 
 have made a place for her. She could think of 
 such enchanting things to say or to do, if she 
 had known how to offer them ! But her mother 
 21
 
 22 THE STARLING 
 
 only kissed her and waved her off, not dreaming 
 that there was anything more to be done, and 
 though the children were friendly enough, not 
 one ever chose her for a best friend. And when, 
 later, they boasted of their early intimacy with 
 her, she was simply grateful that they could so 
 remember that careless acquaintance. She kept 
 always a curious innocence. Robert Russell, Jr., 
 sometimes left a bright trail across her sky in 
 passing, but he was usually too occupied with 
 his own brilliant affairs to notice her. 
 
 Out of it all, however, Sarah was making a 
 vital discovery. The mothers, responsible, log- 
 ical and sitting on chairs, could not compare 
 with her frail little soft heap of a laughing, 
 scatter-brained mama, but the usual father 
 was a revelation. He joked and was joked 
 on; he didn't mind being disturbed; and 
 when a child's burning convictions were laid 
 before him, he did not glance them over as 
 though they were so many tadpoles, healthy, 
 no doubt, but incomplete and scarcely interest- 
 ing to a mature mind he talked them out with 
 a thrilling equality. Slowly but inevitably, 
 these glimpses into other homes bred trouble 
 for Mr. Cawthorne.
 
 THE STARLING 23 
 
 The trouble was very long in coming to the 
 surface. At sixteen it was only a childish out- 
 burst, ending in tears ; at seventeen the protest 
 was scarcely more mature, though the tears 
 were with difficulty kept back ; nineteen saw 
 the beginning of righteous courage and a tend- 
 ency to argue. This could be snubbed down for 
 a year or two, but in the twenties the experi- 
 menting young soul had begun to ask questions 
 with a lurking smile, and the days of Mr. Caw- 
 thorne's peace were numbered. Sarah was clear- 
 ing her young eyes of her mother's terrors, 
 breaking loopholes through the hedge that held 
 her captive. She was still making poppy-shows : 
 her eye at the apertures saw men and women in 
 combinations as lovely and unearthly as the old 
 arrangements of violet and jasmine, plumbago 
 and moss rose, under the magic bit of glass ; but 
 she had learned a pretty bodily dignity that hid 
 well her naive heart. A stranger would have 
 seen her as graceful and poised, and quite as 
 good a model for a fairy-tale princess as in the 
 days when she had stick legs and a face slip- 
 ping out like a young crescent moon between 
 two long falls of hair. 
 
 Shut in his library, delving with the minute
 
 24 THE STARLING 
 
 patience of a boring insect in a tiny dry corner 
 of scholarship, Stephen Cawthorne recognized 
 that he had a little girl somewhere in the house ; 
 and then suddenly one March day, when the 
 wind outside perfected the inner stillness, and 
 a manuscript that was a treasury of rare old 
 words had just been unearthed and submitted 
 to his judgment, he was made aware of a grown 
 daughter facing him across the desk, demand- 
 ing attention. 
 
 "Father, what am I for?" Sarah asked. She 
 could never do anything momentous like this 
 without an inner turmoil, a mingling of dread 
 and excitement, that only battle and murder 
 would have justified; but there was a thrill of 
 drama in the encounter that gave it a dreadful 
 joy, and the poised quiet of her own manner 
 felt like a new weapon in her hand. 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne lifted a reluctant head, his 
 eyes still making last snatches at the script be- 
 fore them. "H'm? What?" He was so many 
 centuries away from her that she waited for his 
 return before repeating the question. 
 
 "What am I for?" 
 
 He blinked at her in puzzled silence. "I don't 
 believe the philosophers have ever decided that,"
 
 THE STARLING 25 
 
 he said at last. "I can refer you to some very 
 searching works on the subject." 
 
 "Thank you," said Sarah politely ; "but all my 
 life I have been turned over to books for every- 
 thing. I have been persistently educated. But 
 what for? They say to little boys, 'What are 
 you going to be when you grow up?' but they 
 don't put the idea into a little girl's head, so 
 here I am, done with lessons, grown up, and I 
 don't know what it has all been for." 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne's look was mildly startled. 
 The young lines of the face before him set him 
 smiling at her claim, and yet, if it did not seem 
 to him much older, it was undeniably a few feet 
 higher up. His nod assented to her calling her- 
 self grown if she wanted to. Perhaps he was 
 also admitting that she looked like Somebody 
 not just another pretty girl, but a soul in the 
 making, for his glance lingered on the shadowy 
 face under the dark wings of heavy hair. Later, 
 a florid newspaper writer was to describe 
 Sarah's face as perpetually "lit by sunlight com- 
 ing through live oaks." 
 
 "Well, isn't being a daughter something?" he 
 asked. "I suppose eventually you will be a wife 
 God help you," he added with the glimmer in
 
 26 THE STARLING 
 
 his eyes that his students found so delightful. 
 Sarah hated it. It always seemed to threaten 
 the realm of things-as-they-might-be where she 
 lived her rich inner life. 
 
 "How can I marry? If ever I do meet a man, 
 I am so stupid and helpless. I am really very 
 poor, socially, father. And I don't know how 
 to make friends." The secret cry that woke her 
 every morning and went to sleep with her every 
 night came out in casual words: "I rather 
 think I want the world now. Hasn't the time 
 come?" 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne's averted glance told nothing. 
 By the tapping of the pen between his fingers 
 he might have been merely bored. "Nothing 
 in it, Sairy," he said in his laziest drawl. "Take 
 my word nothing in it." 
 
 "For you, perhaps. But, you know, I am me. 
 All the books in the world won't make me over 
 into a little you." She said that as though she 
 were not sorry, but he only smiled in his pointed 
 beard. "If I am to live on here, I want a home 
 that is not dead and buried. I want to learn to 
 make friends. Father, I am ashamed of being 
 so solitary." She made the confession with 
 that new smile she had been learning. "The
 
 THE STARLING 27 
 
 other girls go in twos and threes, but I am al- 
 ways by myself, and it is mortifying. It looks 
 as if there were something wrong with me. 
 Can't you see my side of it?" 
 
 He gave her an odd glance not hostile, and 
 not in the least apprehensive. It had even a 
 humorous commiseration, such as a shepherd 
 might feel for a rebellious lamb. 
 
 "You wouldn't d-d-disturb a poor c-cripple, 
 would you ?" he asked. His slow speech always 
 developed a stammer when he was evading 
 righteous demands. Sarah flung a swift warn- 
 ing at herself : "Stay grown up ! Stay grown 
 up ! If you get angry, I'll kill you !" 
 
 "Yes, I would; once in a while," she said 
 cheerfully. "Everybody has to compromise, 
 father. We give in and give in to you. Don't 
 you want to do your share of it?" 
 
 "N-n-no ; I can't say that I care to." He was 
 as immovable as the hedge. "You see, I'm do- 
 ing something," he consented to explain. 
 
 She seized on that. "But I want to do some- 
 thing. And other girls' fathers " 
 
 "Now see here, Sarah ;" his tone *vas all pa- 
 tient indulgence; "some day, in the course of 
 human events, this place will be yours, and you
 
 28 THE STARLING 
 
 can celebrate my passing with a series of the 
 grandest old b-b-blow-outs ever held. You can 
 have a lot of fun planning it. You wait for 
 that." 
 
 Their eyes locked, his narrowed with amuse- 
 ment, seemingly kindly, hers suddenly wide with 
 an anger that would not be kept down. 
 
 "What a dreadful thing to say!" It was a 
 new tone from her to him, or from any one to 
 him, and, after the impetuous words were 
 spoken, Sarah felt herself as outrageous as if 
 she had flung a stone. She sent a frankly 
 scared look after it, but, fortunately, her fath- 
 er's eyes had gone back to his manuscript. 
 
 "I always say dreadful things," he drawled. 
 "It's my long suit." 
 
 Finding herself miraculously not annihilated, 
 Sarah swiftly steadied herself on the new alti- 
 tude to which she had been swept. "It is not 
 fair to say them about death," she said gravely. 
 
 He looked up at that. "There's a lot of non- 
 sense talked about Sorrow and Loss," he ex- 
 plained with his most mellow smile. "We pull 
 down the blinds and all that, but, take my word 
 for it, Sairy, half the time the bereaved are 
 rather pleased than otherwise. People are a
 
 THE STARLING 29 
 
 good deal of trouble. It's a relief to be rid of 
 them." 
 
 Sarah hated that with a hot hatred that would 
 not be denied. "Then why not live so as to leave 
 them sorry?" she burst out. "You have only to 
 care a little about their happiness." 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne looked as if patience might 
 have its limits. "Get thee to a nunnery/' he said 
 wearily. "I don't know what you want, but 
 you are spoiling a morning's work." 
 
 Her anger had given her a new strength. "I 
 want freedom ! I want to ask people here and 
 not feel as if I had broken the ten command- 
 ments. I showed a girl the garden the other 
 day, and the whole time I felt guilty as if I 
 might be caught. Father, that is no way for a 
 grown girl to live !" 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne was no longer humorous. "It 
 would be hard to move at my time of life, but 
 if there has to be female gabbling about the 
 place, one of us has got to," he said curtly. 
 "And now if you please, Sarah " 
 
 "Oh, if it weren't for mother I would go to- 
 morrow!" she said on a deep note that her 
 voice had never before reached. He let her 
 leave the room without comment.
 
 30 THE STARLING 
 
 The dream of years had crashed down. Sarah 
 had believed that when she should be brave 
 enough to set the truth before her father he 
 would have to recognize it. She had foreseen 
 him as touched, a little ashamed, even. A new 
 intimacy was to have sprung out of the en- 
 counter. Enchanting scenes, playful, affection- 
 ate, had spun themselves like bright webs about 
 their future together. The glow of their home 
 life would stretch out beyond the hedge and the 
 world would pour in like a warm tide. Life 
 and love and people! But now she had shown 
 him the other side, and he had not cared, and 
 nothing ever came true. 
 
 She hid her failure in the depths of the gar- 
 den. The big wind, streaming in from the ocean, 
 made the hedge, for once, of some use, and she 
 paced up and down in its shelter without a rag 
 of dream-glamour to shield her soul from the 
 bleak w r ind of reality, or a trace of her newly 
 learned smile. Her face would have suggested 
 only midnight seen through cypress boughs to 
 her future admirer, if he had stood at the gap 
 in the hedge. 
 
 Some one did stand there, holding on his hat, 
 a long figure, humorously thin in the betraying
 
 THE STARLING 31 
 
 wind. A brown mustache spread out in a 
 vain attempt to fatten the gaunt face, but the 
 little deep-set eyes smiled as though they rec- 
 ognized the futility of trying to make anything 
 appear other than what it was. Seeing Sarah, 
 he stepped gratefully out of the gale into the 
 shelter of the green wall. 
 
 "I beg your pardon is this Mr. Cawthorne's 
 place?" His voice had a pleasantly trained qual- 
 ity, as though he spoke other languages as 
 easily as his own, and Sarah, assenting, felt a 
 shock of disappointment when he added, "I am 
 from the Recorder." He saw her secret with- 
 drawal there was nothing that he would not 
 see, and very little that would not set him smil- 
 ing if it came from a girl in a sheltered garden. 
 Some sense of a big outside world, a world 
 where trouble was a thing of blood and shame, 
 and dreams were about as important as hair rib- 
 bons, touched Sarah, threatening her righteous 
 grievance. She did not resent his amusement. 
 Her soul recognized its superior, and gravely 
 saluted. 
 
 "Father doesn't often see newspaper men," she 
 said with a softening hesitation. "You can try ; 
 but he hates to be interrupted in the morning."
 
 32 THE STARLING 
 
 His glance took in the quiet old house and the 
 peaceful garden. "I don't wonder," he said on 
 a long breath that told much. "I seem to have 
 blundered into Heaven." 
 
 "Heaven !" It was the story of Sarah's life in 
 one word. She had not meant to tell it to a 
 stranger ; but he was not like any stranger who 
 had ever crossed her path, and her sense of in- 
 jury was still perilously hot. 
 
 "Ah, of course ; you want to get out," he said 
 thoughtfully. His ease with her was like that 
 of other girls' fathers, kindly and pleasant, yet 
 sufficiently deferential to make her feel safe 
 with him. She suddenly knew that he was the 
 nicest man she had ever met. He did not dazzle 
 her and take away her breath, as Robert Russell, 
 Jr., did. He was more like an inspired young 
 uncle. When he repeated, "You want to get 
 out?" it was entirely natural to answer with 
 grave candor. 
 
 "Yes. But I would rather cut down the hedge 
 and let the world in." 
 
 "Cut down the hedge !" He shook his head as 
 though he could have cried over her. "Oh, 
 please promise that you will never do that !" 
 
 In truth, it had never before occurred to her
 
 "My father doesn't often see newspaper men," she said.
 
 THE STARLING 33 
 
 as an actual possibility. She measured her old 
 enemy up and down with an exultant thrill. 
 
 "It would burn wonderfully," she said with a 
 little reserved smile. 
 
 "Oh, horrible! What can I do to stop you?" 
 His distress was no less genuine because it 
 laughed. "Will you promise me that you won't 
 do it before your thirtieth birthday?" Though 
 his words made a direct appeal, his voice kept a 
 third-personal deference, as though he said, 
 "Will Mademoiselle promise me?" It made one 
 feel deliciously safe and free. 
 
 "But after thirty it would not matter," said 
 Sarah. "I shan't want things then as I do now." 
 
 His look was almost affectionate. "Well, then, 
 will you promise to send me word before you do 
 it, and let me come and have a talk with you ?" 
 
 She had a secret thought that it would be 
 very nice to see him again on any pretext and 
 it brought the sudden shine to her eyes. 
 
 "You can't change me," she said conscien- 
 tiously, tflbut I will tell you." 
 
 "Good." He took out a card with an address 
 in the corner. "That will always find me. And 
 I would come from Timbuctoo to save this last 
 quiet spot in the eternal boiler factory." He
 
 34 THE STARLING 
 
 shook her hand, as though he were going on to 
 the house, but after a couple of steps he came 
 back to look down on her over folded arms. 
 "Suppose," he began, "that you wanted to do 
 just one thing in life, wanted it so much that 
 you would sacrifice everything else so as to do 
 it. And then suppose, in your precious free 
 hours, when everything depended on quiet and 
 concentration, ladies next door were inspired to 
 do their vocal exercises, and babies did theirs, 
 and people below moved out and above moved in, 
 and fire engines stopped across the street, and 
 the cable car ran into a milk wagon, and the 
 telephone roared well, do you see my point?" 
 Sarah could scarcely wait for him to finish. 
 For once the inner hedge was down. "And sup- 
 pose you were all full of beautiful things you 
 could say to people, but you had grown up in 
 prison, and the wall was always there between 
 you and the party, and you never belonged, and 
 you were nearly dead of loneliness suppose you 
 dreamed out the most wonderful meetings, and 
 yet always found yourself helpless and stupid 
 and walled in " Her breath gave out, but her 
 vivid shadowy face sunlit through live oaks 
 told more than words.
 
 THE STARLING 35 
 
 "In that case," he said slowly, like one feeling 
 his way, "I would write out my beautiful 
 dreams and mail them through the hedge. Aha!" 
 he added as the color rushed to her forehead. 
 
 "But I never mail them," she stammered. 
 
 "Why not?" He evidently would not have 
 considered it crazy presumption, and a new 
 thrill shot through all her being. 
 
 "Oh, they are not good enough !" 
 
 "Probably not, as yet ; but mailing them say, 
 to me might help them to become so. I'm a 
 grand critic;" he was suddenly a little boy- 
 ish. "I could help you, I know. Will you let me 
 see something you have written?" 
 
 He could not know how all her faculties were 
 stampeded by the mad, glorious idea. People 
 were always to misunderstand her shyness be- 
 cause she could look so composed. After the first 
 flushed moment, she had the turmoil well hidden. 
 
 "You are very kind," she said, and he was 
 reminded to look at his watch. 
 
 "I think I know where your father would 
 stand on the subject of vocational education," he 
 explained, "but it is my duty to ask him. Please 
 don't forget that you have made me a promise 
 about the hedge." And then the nicest man in
 
 36 THE STARLING 
 
 the whole world had left her, and was being 
 admitted at the front door. Perhaps Mr. Caw- 
 thorne's work was not going so smoothly as 
 usual, for it was half an hour before the nicest 
 man came out again. He was making notes in a 
 little book as he went down the drive, and he 
 did not remember that there was any one to 
 glance about for. 
 
 In a normal home a man like that would be 
 asked to come again. He would be made so wel- 
 come that he would become a part of the beauti- 
 ful family life, instead of instantly going out of 
 it forever. Mr. Christopher Saxe, University 
 Club: there he was, easily within reach, but 
 they would never see him again. Desolate with 
 a new kind of loneliness, Sarah went in search 
 of her mother. 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne sat on the sewing-room floor 
 in a happy confusion of colored remnants, which 
 she was tearing into strips for a rag rug. She 
 was always falling on some new industry with 
 a reckless joy that presently put her to bed; 
 where the craze abruptly died. There was a 
 closet full of unfinished products behind her, 
 but her eyes were shining like' Sarah's over her 
 varied shades of blue.
 
 THE STARLING 37 
 
 "The darkest will be in the center, darling," 
 she began at once. "I couldn't get the real mid- 
 night blue that I wanted. Do you think I'd bet- 
 ter have a piece dyed? Or will this do?" 
 
 Sarah looked unseeingly at the piece held up. 
 "Mother," she began, "when you used to ask 
 people here whether father liked it or not 
 what happened? What did he do?" 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne considered, soberly at first, 
 then with her light ringing laugh. "Oh, dar- 
 ling, he was so bad ! I really should have liked 
 to slap his hands. Sometimes he was just un- 
 happy and restless kept sighing and twisting 
 in his chair, or getting up and wandering mis- 
 erably around he'd nearly make me cry. And 
 again he'd be wicked, and lead people on to say 
 silly things and contradict themselves for you 
 know, Bunny, the dearest, sweetest people aren't 
 always so very clever in their minds. And 
 sometimes he'd get an awfully stiff subject and 
 harangue oh, talk and talk till every one was 
 nearly dead ! Just badness, dear. He knew bet- 
 ter. And then afterward I'd cry and make a 
 fuss, but it never changed him. You can't." 
 
 Another moment of musing ended in another 
 laugh. "He was always saying in those days
 
 38 THE STARLING 
 
 that people must have the courage of their opin- 
 ions, but when they did he nearly murdered 
 them. I never dared ask any one who would 
 fight back. I think he really meant that they 
 must have the courage of his opinions ! But, of 
 course, he is a very brilliant and distinguished 
 scholar, Bunny, and we must never forget that," 
 she added in a belated attempt to sound like a 
 parent. 
 
 Bunny kissed her, but went away without 
 replying. The ache in her heart was not all for 
 herself; some of it was for her gay little 
 mother, breaking herself against that stone 
 wall. All her grace of spirit, her queer charm, 
 had been powerless; how could Sarah hope to 
 succeed? Sarah's charms were as potent in se- 
 cret, but they never came out before people. 
 And if she went forth into the world until she 
 had learned its ways, who would open drawers 
 and boxes for her mother, lest some little crea- 
 ture should lurk inside, ready to spring, or grope 
 behind the skirts in the closet for the nightly 
 burglar? Sarah saw an unprotected mother go- 
 ing to bed in a blaze of gas,. her hand over her 
 heart at every chance sound, eluding a snatch at 
 her ankles from every shadow, perhaps at last
 
 THE STARLING 39 
 
 encountering real peril up there alone the 
 stealthy movement, the flash of light, the cold 
 touch of steel Ah-h-h! 
 
 Sarah plunged her face in a sofa cushion to 
 stifle the scream in which her vision had ended. 
 For the moment she had actually been her 
 mother, tense and white and rigid, and she lay 
 exhausted, getting back her breath. She did not 
 laugh at herself. Her inner life was always 
 like that, a series of dramas, and she accepted it 
 as everybody's secret. Spent with emotion, she 
 lay very quiet, heavy eyes fixed on space, while 
 the healing comfort gathered from its unknown 
 source. She knew now what was coming the 
 living current that made all things whole and 
 new. When its delicious glow had reached her 
 heart and was tingling in her arm, she crouched 
 over note-book and pencil and began to write. 
 
 It was no longer poetry, but scenes, abrupt 
 fragments without beginning or ending. To-day 
 it was all of a father and daughter as they 
 would have been if Sarah had made the world. 
 There was a note-book full of such scenes, and 
 when the flow had ceased, Sarah turned back 
 to the others, idly at first, then with an idea 
 leaping in her blood. They were all of the
 
 40 THE STARLING 
 
 same father and daughter, they glowed with 
 affection and laughter and warm tears that 
 had always a happy ending ; why not make them 
 into a book? Christopher Saxe had told her 
 that she could! The iridescent webs that had 
 spun themselves in inspired hours could be 
 gathered up like tapestries and turned to beau- 
 tiful use. A story could be woven in, and a 
 lover, but it should be a father-and-daughter 
 book, the gayest, kindest little book in the whole 
 world. It came into being, great tracts at a 
 time, so fast that she could only take lightning 
 notes. When at last the inspiration died down, 
 she brooded over what she had conceived in 
 blank empty peace. A merciful year had 
 elapsed since the hurt of the last act.
 
 m 
 
 MR. CAWTHORNE must have thought 
 that he had dealt effectually with his 
 daughter, for she gave him no more trouble for 
 months afterward. Sarah, in truth, had found 
 an open door to life and love and people, a door 
 no bigger than the page of a blank book, with a 
 pencil for the key. The characters of her grow- 
 ing story were as real to her as Ethel Alice had 
 been to her childhood. Life, when it demanded 
 her presence, felt thin and watery and chilly 
 beside the mellow richness of her secret world, 
 and she escaped back at the first chance. The 
 protagonist, Richard Dockery, brilliant, hand- 
 some, easily powerful, most delicious of young- 
 hearted fathers, was taken from a living model ; 
 but Robert Russell, Jr.'s, mother never recog- 
 nized him, though she was to read Dickery 
 Dock more than once. The heroine, Virginia, 
 was Ethel Alice herself. Sarah's generous 
 heart had always given her the first bite and 
 the best jokes and the loveliest poppy-shows, 
 Sarah's mother heard every individual page 
 of the book from four to ten times, and kept 
 41
 
 42 THE STARLING 
 
 Sarah's courage alive by her amazed enthusi- 
 asm. Of course, in time, Mr. Cawthorne knew 
 about it, but he gave no sign, except to look 
 amused when Sarah came to the table with 
 burning cheeks and heavy eyes. On the day 
 when the package was returned from the type- 
 writer, two hundred and sixty fair pages, Mrs. 
 Cawthorne was in bed, recovering from an at- 
 tack of book-binding, but she read it all 
 through again. 
 
 "And now we will send it off to a publisher/' 
 she said, looking up at her genius with touched 
 and loving eyes. 
 
 Sarah made an excuse to carry away the 
 manuscript. She had a sickening duty to per- 
 form first : her father must see the book. Mrs. 
 Cawthorne had long ago declared that he need 
 not "For he never likes anything, Bunny, so 
 what is the use !" But Sarah had quietly made 
 her own decision. Perhaps, under the formal- 
 ity of treating her father properly, there lay 
 a hope that Mr. Cawthorne might not find it 
 so very bad, for her reluctance was shot 
 through with excited thrills as she pushed open 
 the library door. 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne was leaning back in his
 
 THE STARLING 43 
 
 chair, idle for once, perhaps dozing. For a 
 startling moment he looked old old and lonely ; 
 but it must have been a trick of the light, for 
 when his eyes opened he was the same imper- 
 turbable little gray man, of no particular age, 
 smiling in his pointed beard as he saw the 
 manuscript. 
 
 "Is that the magnum opus?" he asked, put- 
 ting out his hand for it. 
 
 She laid it before him feeling like a mother 
 who submits her child to inexorable law. 
 
 "Of course, it isn't very good;" she spoke 
 with brave lightness. "But I thought you ought 
 to read it." Then, seeing his keen glance close 
 down on her hapless and innocent text, she re- 
 treated, in terror of his smile. 
 
 It was an unspeakable afternoon. She could 
 not tell her mother what was going on, for sus- 
 pense made Mrs. Cawthorne ill, so, after a 
 stumbling attempt to read aloud, Sarah carried 
 her trembling spirit into the autumn splendor 
 of the garden. Cutting dead flowers and tying 
 up chrysanthemums helped her to work off the 
 hours, but could not ease the sick heaviness in 
 her breast or quiet the shaking of her limbs. 
 Every sound that might mean the opening of
 
 44 THE STARLING 
 
 the library door came like the rattle of tum- 
 brils at prison windows. Yet always, under- 
 neath, ran that terrible thrill of expectancy: 
 he might think it good ! She did not dare leave 
 the grounds lest she miss the first impulsive 
 moment; but the afternoon dragged on and he 
 did not emerge. 
 
 Her dream-power at last came to help her 
 through. A lovely scene of a proud astonished 
 father taking a newly discovered daughter to 
 his heart, brought relaxing tears to her eyes 
 as she prepared for the inevitable meeting at 
 dinner. It was so warmly real that for a mo- 
 ment she was only glad when her father came 
 into the dining-room. Then she met his quiz- 
 zical glance, and her heart shrank from him. 
 
 "Well, Sarah, you must have had a lot of 
 fun doing that," he said, laying the manuscript 
 beside her plate. "I have corrected the spelling 
 in a few places, but I suppose that was the type- 
 writer. I don't believe a child of mine would 
 spell develop with a final *e/ Is your mother 
 coming down?" 
 
 "No," said Sarah faintly. 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne shook out the evening paper 
 and folded it to dinner-table size.
 
 THE STARLING 45 
 
 "You have been well grounded in rhetoric," 
 he said, his eyes on the head-lines. "I did not 
 suppose you could express yourself with so 
 much variety. The style is very fair, for a be- 
 ginner." And, being served, he settled down 
 to read. 
 
 Sarah waited until she could steady her 
 voice. Then, "What publisher would you try?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "Publisher?" That was a new idea, and he 
 considered it dubiously. "Oh, I don't believe I 
 would publish," he concluded. 
 
 The worst had happened, and it brought the 
 courage of despair. 
 
 "Then you don't think it is at all good?" 
 
 His head-shake was tempered by other con- 
 siderations. "You couldn't call it literature. 
 No, it isn't good I suppose fundamentally 
 it's trash. But it is a pleasant way to occupy 
 yourself. And if you keep on, you may some 
 day do something when you know more about 
 life." 
 
 Know more about life ! The monstrous irony 
 of that from him, who had planted and nursed 
 the hedge, would have enraged her if she had 
 not been so crushed with disappointment. For
 
 46 THE STARLING 
 
 her father knew; no calling him hot names 
 could blur the fact that he knew about litera- 
 ture. Her book fundamentally was trash. 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne ate a placid dinner without a 
 suspicion of what he had done. Criticizing the 
 efforts of the young was all in the day's work ; 
 he dealt with the product, not with the pro- 
 ducer. If he noticed anything, it was that he 
 was allowed to read his paper in peace. Sarah's 
 pride kept her erect and dry-eyed; there was 
 even a dreary satisfaction in perfecting her 
 outer composure, denying him a glimpse of 
 her hurt to smile at. Mr. Cawthorne at last 
 finished his coffee and gave her the paper, tap- 
 ping the signed article he had been reading. 
 
 "There is some plain sense on the Japanese 
 bogy," he said. "I would read it if I were 
 you. The man is remarkably sound and wise 
 and right. He thinks just as I do." And he 
 limped serenely back to his library. When the 
 door had quite closed, Sarah gave the paper a 
 violent twist and threw it into the fireplace; 
 but the two main impulses of her being, to be 
 fair and to be courteous, still kept a precarious 
 dominance. 
 
 "It is not logical to hate a person because
 
 THE STARLING 47 
 
 he does not admire your work," she said, very 
 quietly and distinctly. "In fact, it is ridicu- 
 lous. And it isn't grown up. He is quite right 
 to call my book trash if that is the truth ; and 
 if in return I were to call him" suddenly her 
 eyes blazed and her jaw set "a horrid old pig 
 well, it wouldn't change the situation," she 
 concluded with restored politeness, rising and 
 gathering up the manuscript. 
 
 Telling her mother was not to be thought of 
 that night. Mrs. Cawthorne would not make 
 the slightest attempt to be cool and grown up 
 about it, and she would lose her night's sleep. 
 Sarah had long ago learned to hide all calami- 
 ties till morning. Then she told them lightly, 
 as though they were only good news a little 
 inverted. Already her protective love was 
 shaping a cheerful announcement of her fa- 
 ther's verdict as she slipped past her mother's 
 door, carrying the poor dead thing to the attic, 
 where it might have decent burial in her old 
 camphor-wood chest. 
 
 Her last doll was there, and her first fan, and 
 a rather meager collection of girlhood treas- 
 ures. She had never lacked the things that 
 money buys; but treasures are made out of a
 
 48 THE STARLING 
 
 girl's burning intimacies or the ecstatic jokes 
 of fellowship. There was a pencil that had 
 been Robert Russell, Jr.'s, but her possession 
 of it had no Robert-to-Sarah flavor; he had 
 merely lent it to her at a tennis tournament 
 and forgotten to come back for it. Sarah placed 
 the candle she had brought on an old bureau, 
 and, sitting on a corner of the chest, dug out a 
 grave at the very bottom for her manuscript 
 under the other trash. Her mother would not 
 have come alone to the big, shadowy, unfinished 
 place even by broad daylight, but Sarah had 
 shielded her for too long to have any little fears 
 of her own, and the ghostly old cave, tenanted 
 by cast off sewing-machines and broken cribs 
 and ugly Victorian furniture, gradually took 
 the outrageousness from the blow that had been 
 dealt her. It seemed to say that all bright new 
 things ended in trash. That was the common 
 lot. 
 
 "And now what? What is left? What can 
 I go on to?" she demanded, looking about her 
 like one newly wakened in a bleak place. The 
 rich companionship of the past months was 
 slain. Richard Dockery and Virginia, his 
 daughter, had been more real than any mere
 
 THE STARLING 49 
 
 flesh-and-blood relatives, but now a single word 
 had knocked the breath of life out of them, and 
 she was as far away as ever from life and love 
 and people. People! Sitting there like a 
 princess locked in a tower, she seemed to see 
 them streaming past the hedge, girls happily 
 together and youths hurrying after them, lov- 
 ers and bridal couples arm in arm, young fa- 
 thers and mothers smiling at each other over 
 what they held, mature men and women guid- 
 ing their communities and knowing some one 
 to speak to on every corner, kindly and tran- 
 quil grandparents, and everywhere, like daisies 
 in the grass, the darling babies; all belonging 
 together in a glorious human chain woven 
 round the earth. 
 
 "Oh, let me out, let me out!" she called to 
 them. The longing swelled, broke and re- 
 treated, leaving her drenched with a sadness as 
 fragrant as wet violets, as resonant as violins. 
 Sarah's imagination was like the retinue of 
 royalty, which, even for a single night's stop, 
 unrolls rugs and hangs tapestries ; it never left 
 her long in a bare room. And as the beauty 
 returned to her stripped world, her ancient 
 comfort began to stir warmly at her sides and
 
 50 THE STARLING 
 
 to flow in her right arm. Her fingers closed on 
 Robert Russell's pencil ; then she threw it down, 
 breaking herself loose from the spell. 
 
 "What is the use of writing if it is only trash 
 when it is done?" she asked aloud. The empty 
 days unrolled before her in a long gray scroll, 
 and her soul fainted before them. "I really can 
 not bear it," she said, very quietly, even po- 
 litely. "I am sorry, but I can not. This is the 
 end. I am going out into the world. I will 
 come back to mother as often as possible, but 
 I won't live like this another week. I will get 
 work I'll join clubs I will belong " 
 
 The silence of the old house was split by a 
 scream. It was a dreadful scream, mad, ago- 
 nized. No heart could have heard it without a 
 leap. Sarah sprang to her feet, but, for all her 
 quickness, she managed to close the chest and 
 blow out the candle as she flew. 
 
 "I'm coming, dear," she called. "Don't mind 
 I'm coming!" She ran down the stairs just 
 as Nelly came hurrying up, but neither looked 
 more than mildly concerned until they saw what 
 might have been an empty dressing-gown across 
 the sill of Sarah's room. Mrs. Cawthorne was 
 inside it, unconscious.
 
 THE STARLING 51 
 
 She was so long in reviving and then so 
 shaken and hysterical, that Sarah sent Nelly 
 out to telephone for the doctor. Mr. Cawthorne 
 had opened the library door and stood there 
 awaiting an explanation, but Nelly assured him 
 it was nothing. (There was no sense in dis- 
 turbing him.) 
 
 "The poor lady saw a mouse, most likely," she 
 apologized. 
 
 "No; I should say a rat at the very least," 
 Mr. Cawthorne decided with cold emphasis. 
 "Or perhaps a boa constrictor. The mouse cry 
 is less resonant." And he closed his door again. 
 It was very evident that he had been disturbed. 
 
 Up-stairs, Sarah was stroking the hands that 
 clutched her own and trying to find out what 
 had happened. 
 
 "I'm just an old fool, dear," her mother 
 sobbed. "Perfect idiot. But, you see, you 
 weren't down-stairs Nelly had seen you come 
 up; and I looked in all the rooms up here, but 
 I couldn't find you, and suddenly I was in a 
 panic. I couldn't stand it, not finding you. I 
 went back to your room, and as I opened the 
 door I told you I was an utter fool! Oh, I 
 suppose it was the curtain that flew out of the
 
 52 THE STARLING 
 
 window " She cried and clung and tried to 
 laugh. "Oh, Bunny, if you were so silly, I'd 
 put you to bed on bread and water !" 
 
 "You can't help it," Sarah argued reason- 
 ably. "You are made like that. You don't 
 scream half as often as you would like to." 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne grew quieter at once; her 
 hot grasp relaxed. "That's true, darling," she 
 said, brightening. "I put a beetle out myself 
 yesterday I didn't say a word about it to any 
 one. Oh, I know I ought to be killed for it," 
 she added, sighing. "But I tiy, Bunny, I try. 
 Your father never knows how hard I try. Of 
 course he heard. I dare say I've made his 
 head ache." 
 
 "Not so badly as yours is aching," Sarah said, 
 passing her finger tips over the white lined 
 forehead where the nerves visibly quivered and 
 throbbed. The eyes below looked up at her 
 with a gleam of amusement. 
 
 "Such a wise, steady old darling I might 
 have known you wouldn't go bounding out of a 
 window. By the way, where were you?" 
 
 "In the attic." Sarah heard wheels below 
 and rose relievedly from the bed. She did not 
 want to be questioned about her errand. Mrs.
 
 THE STARLING 53 
 
 Cawthorne, however, was too awed by her cour- 
 age to seek reasons. 
 
 "The attic! To think that I should have 
 mothered a young lion like you," she murmured. 
 
 "There's Doctor Russell, dear," Sarah ex- 
 plained, going to .the door. "I thought he'd 
 better " She stopped short, for the step on 
 the stairs had a young vigor, and she was look- 
 ing down on a smooth blond head. 
 
 "My father was out, so I ran over to see if 1 
 could be of any use," Robert, Jr., explained with 
 the deferential gravity of a very new practi- 
 tioner. "You know I am with him now," he 
 added, thinking she needed reassurance; but 
 Sarah's stare had only meant that his coming 
 was too good to be true. 
 
 Since she had seen him, he had taken on eye- 
 glasses and a more responsible deportment as 
 well as a small and foreign looking chin tuft, 
 a young man's compromise between his need of 
 years and his dislike of a beard. He was not 
 unaware of his very good looks, but he evidently 
 knew himself possessed of qualifications so 
 much more valuable that he could afford to for- 
 get them. To a critical eye he had an air of 
 throwing them in free.
 
 54 THE STARLING 
 
 To Sarah he was a figure of dazzling distinc- 
 tion. She had once seen him as a fairy-tale 
 prince, but now he was like a fine and wise 
 young king going about the business of his 
 realm. She put out her hand with the sudden 
 shine in her eyes. 
 
 "It is young Doctor Russell, mother," she 
 explained over her shoulder. (That was a de- 
 licious thing to call him "young Doctor Rus- 
 sell.") 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne, very flat, brightened all over 
 as the commanding figure drew up a chair be- 
 side her. 
 
 "Well, perhaps he can put some sense into 
 me. His father never could," she said. "I had 
 a fright, Doctor Robert, and I behaved very 
 badly; but I don't know what you can do 
 about it." 
 
 "There are several things I might do about 
 it;" he spoke with a largeness that suggested 
 limitless resource. "That is what we phy- 
 sicians are for, Mrs. Cawthorne to make you 
 behave better." He gave her a disciplinary 
 nod, and Sarah, leaning on the foot of the bed, 
 felt a thrilled longing to have the discipline in- 
 clude her. One could pretend to be mutinous
 
 THE STARLING 55 
 
 for the joy of feeling it tighten. "I have al- 
 ways wanted to get my hands on you," he added. 
 
 "H'm ! Undermining your father's business ?" 
 
 "I have no wish to do that," he explained 
 seriously. "But we younger men have new the- 
 ories about nervous disorders, and I happen to 
 have been rather successful in two or three 
 cases. Largely luck, I suppose." He drew up 
 one shoulder, then the other, very faintly, yet 
 enough to give Sarah a lightning vision of a 
 glorious boy standing over a breathless little 
 girl and explaining his extraordinary prowess 
 in social affairs. "We modern men take a 
 broader view of such disorders. We often have 
 to reorganize a patient's whole life, and to treat 
 her family quite as much as we treat her." 
 
 "You might reorganize me, but I don't advise 
 you to try it on my family," Mrs. Cawthorne 
 said. 
 
 "I don't know. Sarah looks amenable to re- 
 organization." He had always called her Sarah 
 on their rare meetings with a grave air of 
 having the right that derives from a childhood 
 intimacy; and Sarah had said "Robert" back 
 with a gay tremble in her heart. It was thrill- 
 ing to call any one so assured and lordly "Rob-
 
 56 THE STARLING 
 
 ert." "I think I could organize her." He looked 
 into her shadowy face just as her smile came 
 out ; the real Sarah was at the gap in the hedge, 
 the Sarah that endowed the world with such 
 magic and beauty that, later, it was to have 
 hours when it almost believed her. For the 
 moment Robert Russell, Jr., saw himself as she 
 saw him, and his glance came back again and 
 again for a renewal of the stimulating endorse- 
 ment. 
 
 "Oh, Sarah was born polite. You can do any- 
 thing with people who are born polite;" Mrs. 
 Cawthorne was looking gayer and younger 
 every minute ; "but I am afraid my husband 
 wasn't. He is really a very bad old man," shft 
 added cheerfully. 
 
 "We'll see about that." His nod said that he 
 would attend to Mr. Cawthorne later, but ef- 
 fectually. "Will you really let me study your 
 case? I will agree to make it all right with 
 my father." 
 
 "Oh, he gave me up long ago. He comes when 
 I frighten my family into sending for him, but 
 he only tells me funny stories. Do study me 
 I should adore it." Her laugh rang out. "But, 
 I warn you, I will never have a doctor when I
 
 THE STARLING 57 
 
 am very ill, for then I can't enjoy him. It is 
 too bitter, to waste a nice visit like that." 
 
 His father would have found that amusing, 
 but Robert took it as food for serious reflection. 
 
 "Then you don't see many visitors," he ob- 
 served, looking into her face with a concen- 
 trated interest that did her visible good. 
 
 "Oh, no one comes past the hedge unless he 
 is paid for it !" 
 
 He asked minute questions about her days 
 and occupations ; nothing was too trivial to in- 
 terest him* Her flashes of humor quite passed 
 him by, but Sarah decided that she liked him all 
 the better for that: it seemed to add to his 
 power. He could scarcely have shown a qual- 
 ity for which she would not have liked him the 
 better in that richly pleasant hour. His pres- 
 ence was momentous, and yet they were so cozy 
 together up there, the three of them. The day's 
 tragedy had grown remote, unimportant. 
 
 "I'm going to give you a night's sleep, and 
 then we will go into things more thoroughly to- 
 morrow," he said as he rose. "If I come in 
 rather often" his eyes rested on Sarah for a 
 moment "don't think I am running up a tre- 
 mendous bill. I do this for my satisfaction."
 
 58 THE STARLING 
 
 "Oh, there is money enough; and we spend 
 very little on amusement," was the strange an- 
 swer. She was a very strange little lady with 
 her gay eyes in a white spent face and her 
 child's laugh. 
 
 Sarah went down-stairs with him, lowering 
 her voice as they neared the library door, which 
 was slightly ajar. She would have hurried him 
 out, but Robert planted himself on the hall rug 
 to deliver his opinion. 
 
 "Do you know what you ought to do for your 
 mother?" he began. Sarah's eyes warned, im- 
 ploi*ed, but he saw only daughterly anxiety. 
 "You ought to cut down that infernal hedge," 
 he said in full and resonant tones. "It has been 
 smothering her all these years. It will smother 
 you, too, if you don't look out." He took her 
 hand, and his strength seemed to flow into her. 
 "You get it cut down that's my advice." 
 
 Dense silence behind the library door. 
 
 "Yes ; I think it is bad for us all," said Sarah 
 clearly. "Good night, Robert. Do come often. 
 You have done my mother good already." 
 
 She saw him out and closed the door. Then 
 panic seized her and she fled up the stairs.
 
 IV 
 
 FOR a long time one of Sarah's daily excite- 
 ments and no one looking on at her shel- 
 tered existence could- have suspected how many 
 excitements it concealed had been to search 
 the papers for the names of Christopher Saxe 
 and Robert Russell, Jr. She knew that Saxe's 
 name must gloriously emerge, sooner or later, 
 when the secret work to which he had been 
 feeding his life was accomplished. New poetry, 
 scientific discoveries, philosophy, research 
 Sarah looked over every field, and then with a 
 faint sinking ran her eye down the death lists. 
 For Robert Russell, Jr., she had turned to the 
 social notes, with a side glance at accidents by 
 land and water craft, and had occasionally 
 found him. That she should one night have 
 found him on her stairs would have been be- 
 yond even her power to dream. 
 
 And yet it had come true. Sarah had gone 
 out into the hall as casually as if it were Nelly 
 who was mounting, her heart secretly heavy 
 with the knowledge that, no matter what bold 
 resolutions she announced, she could not possi- 
 59
 
 60 THE STARLING 
 
 bly leave home and her poor little mother ; and 
 there, coming up as serenely as though it were 
 an every-day business, vigorous, distinguished, 
 grave with fine responsibility, was Robert. 
 That night Sarah lived the moment over and 
 over, always with the same delicious pause and 
 then the leap of amazed joy. The hour that had 
 followed, the mad daring of that last moment in 
 the hall, were good dream stuff, too, and could 
 be relived almost as often. Richard Dockery 
 and Virginia, his daughter, beloved companions 
 of many months, had been ruthlessly slain, the 
 magic carpet that she had spent years in weav- 
 ing to carry her over the hedge had been re- 
 duced to a little bundle of trash; but Sarah, 
 waking late the next morning, saw only the 
 drama of the coming day. When she went to 
 the window, she did not look off to the dark 
 mass of the city, spread along its hills beyond 
 the far glimmer of the bay, but down into the 
 garden, as though its sunny borders held happi- 
 ness enough. 
 
 Autumn rains had refreshed the earth, rested 
 by the long summer drought, and green was 
 bursting up everywhere, as if a mature and 
 vigorous second spring were at hand. Frost
 
 THE STARLING 61 
 
 had not yet dimmed the chrysanthemums and 
 salvia ran like fire beyond the lawn. Already 
 the day outside was warm, though the night 
 chill lingered in the house. Sarah came out of 
 her door a little later with jubilant energy, but 
 her mother, up and dressed, signaled a hasty 
 warning from her room. 
 
 "Your father didn't sleep all night," she ex- 
 plained in a whisper. "He is trying to get a 
 nap now, before he goes over to the Univer- 
 sity." She looked care-worn, guilty. "I did it, 
 you know, Bunny !" 
 
 "Well, I added to- it," Sarah confessed. 
 
 "Oh, did you, dear? He is frightfully upset. 
 He won't say anything he just bears it. And 
 the worst of it is, I am perfectly likely to scream 
 again any moment !" 
 
 Sarah had to stifle a laugh. "Come down and 
 have breakfast, anyway," she suggested, put- 
 ting out her arm, and they stole down the stairs 
 together like two girls. Safe in the dining- 
 room, Mrs. Cawthorne reverted to Sarah's ad- 
 mission. 
 
 "How did you bother him, dear?" 
 
 "I said things to Robert so he would hear. 
 I knew there would be trouble this morning."
 
 62 THE STARLING 
 
 "What things?" 
 
 "That the hedge ought to come down." 
 
 "Oh, Sarah!" Mrs. Cawthorne was shocked 
 and enjoyed the sensation; then vistas of past 
 struggles brought a slow head-shake. "You 
 can't fight people who make you sorry," she 
 said. "I used to fight, all those years and years 
 before you came; but whenever I went more 
 than- so far, he always had a headache. It was 
 so mean of him!" Her laughter was suddenly 
 uppermost. "I remember, when I insisted on 
 having your Aunt Sadi stay here his own sis- 
 ter! he went to bed with a fever afterward. 
 I don't know how you can fight that." 
 
 "The fever was real?" 
 
 "Oh, yes; but it is so easy to be ill!" Mrs. 
 Cawthorne had only a shrug for bodily troubles. 
 "If you think you have been wronged and let 
 yourself get wrought up, of course you have a 
 miserable headache or a temperature or in- 
 somnia." 
 
 "But it really is not square," Sarah argued 
 with her courteous little hesitation before the 
 harsh term. Sarah might have been the orig- 
 inal of the delightful, "I'm sorry that I spelt 
 the word, I hate to go above you." "To get
 
 THE STARLING 63 
 
 your own way by making people sorry no, that 
 truly is not sporting." 
 
 "Ah, my dear!" murmured her mother, but 
 Sarah did not heed. 
 
 Presently she came out of her thoughts at a 
 different place. "Was he just the same before 
 his lameness, mother ?" Mr. Cawthorne had been 
 thrown from a horse when Sarah was a baby, 
 permanently injuring his left knee. 
 
 "Just about, except that he loved walking. 
 Every day, rain or shine, he took a long walk." 
 
 "Did you go with him?" 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne clasped her hands behind 
 her head and blinked at memories she seemed 
 to find on the ceiling, a glimmer of laughter 
 growing under her fluttering lids. "I did try 
 to, Bunny; oh, I did! But you couldn't trust 
 him. He would say, 'Suppose we walk over to 
 the creek." Well, that was a nice safe walk 
 and I'd like it. But when we got started he 
 would always want to go on and climb Grizzly 
 Peak or something and cut across lots where 
 there was a bull or grass all full of snakes or 
 a loose horse, and open the gates of people's 
 barnyards with cross dogs raging out at us oh, 
 my dear, I used to be sick with apprehension
 
 64 THE STARLING 
 
 from the moment we started !" Her light laugh 
 rang out, taking it all as comedy. "And when 
 we would really just go to the creek and then 
 turn back, I would be so gay, I nearly danced !" 
 
 Sarah's troubled gaze had passed on to what 
 lay back of the tale. It was sometimes hard to 
 preserve the perfect idyl of dream-marriage 
 in the face of the parental instance ; and yet to 
 have marred that dream would have left her 
 heart so widowed that she had often to do a 
 little hasty rearranging of facts. 
 
 "He didn't know/' she urged. "He wanted 
 you with him, and he didn't understand." 
 
 "Oh, he knew; but he didn't care so long as 
 I didn't say it. If he could seem not to know a 
 thing, it never bothered him. And, of course, 
 I was ashamed of being such a goose, and did 
 my best to hide it. But when your knees are 
 shaking so that you can hardly walk, and your 
 mouth is so dry that you can't speak, it's hard 
 not to seem a little depressed. I never should 
 have minded being killed, or even badly hurt. 
 It was only being frightened that I couldn't 
 stand. Now and then I'd say, oh, so pleasantly ! 
 'You go on, dear, and I'll turn back ;' but he'd 
 come back with me and be so disappointed that
 
 THE STARLING 65 
 
 well, you know, Bunny, the bull was almost 
 better! I try to think it's my bad back that 
 makes such a coward of me ; and then they used 
 to bring girls up that way. It was always, 
 'Lisa mustn't get hurt!' when I was little. I'm 
 glad you are brave, darling. But that was one 
 thing that made me want to be very consider- 
 ate of your father. I knew I was a disappoint- 
 ment to him about walks." 
 
 Sarah, visualizing with painful clearness her 
 mother's terrors, came out at a startling dis- 
 covery : "Why, then I suppose you were almost 
 relieved when he couldn't take walks any 
 more !" But that shocked Mrs. Cawthorne. 
 
 "Oh, Bunny, dear ! It nearly broke my heart. 
 That's the way he made me sorry for all the 
 walks I had spoiled," she added with a sigh. 
 "It doesn't pay to be sorry. Better let your life 
 be swallowed whole than be sorry." Then she 
 started, turning to the windows. "Oh, my 
 dear!" she gasped. 
 
 A brisk motor had swung in past the open- 
 ing of the hedge and was winding through the 
 shrubbery, tooting freely at every curve. Its 
 final blast was delivered squarely under Mr. 
 Cawthorne's windows, where the gardener was
 
 66 THE STARLING 
 
 weeding the drive. Then the door-bell pealed, 
 and Robert Russell, Jr., was shown in. 
 
 "I hope I am not too early; we busy phy- 
 sicians have to come as we can," he said, struck 
 by the dismay of his patient's greeting. For 
 the moment Sarah had looked nearly as fright- 
 ened; then Robert's stalwart presence restored 
 her sense of proportion, reminding her how 
 things were outside of the hedge. After all, a 
 man's nap was not a life and death matter ! 
 
 "I am so glad you have come," she said 
 clearly, as though hoping that the words might 
 be heard up-stairs; but Mrs. Cawthorne had 
 given up all that years before. 
 
 "Oh, Robert, you must leave the car outside," 
 she exclaimed, her frail hands unconsciously 
 clutching his sleeve. "Your father always does. 
 Mr. Cawthorne hates them. And this morning 
 of all others, when he was trying to get a little 
 sleep I don't know what he will say !" 
 
 Robert looked down on her distress as though 
 he were studying an interesting phenomenon. 
 His father would have patted, soothed and 
 joked, but the son merely stood like a tower of 
 serene strength and thought her over. 
 
 "I suspected as much," he said. "I shall have
 
 THE STARLING 67 
 
 to begin with your family, Mrs. Cawthorne, be- 
 fore I" 
 
 "Perhaps you would like to begin with me 
 now?" said a suave voice from the doorway. 
 Mr. Cawthorne stood there, small and bland, 
 with a dire gleam behind his glasses. "I have 
 fifteen minutes that I can spare you before I 
 go to my class. I think I should enjoy a little 
 talk with you." 
 
 "Thank you. I should like it very much," 
 said Robert heartily. 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne made a frightened move- 
 ment, as though she would have saved him, 
 then sank into a chair. Even Sarah was pale 
 as they watched the little elderly man conduct 
 the big young one to his library and softly close 
 the door. 
 
 "Oh, Sarah!" moaned her mother, clenched 
 fingers at her mouth. 
 
 Her own pounding heart angered Sarah. 
 "Father can't actually hurt Robert," she ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 "Oh, he can half kill him! There are words 
 worse than swords. But it isn't the words 
 it's having your personality sucked out of your 
 body. I don't know how he does it it's chemi-
 
 68 THE STARLING 
 
 cal, Bunny! He leaves you a rag, a nonentity. 
 You defy him in your heart a million times, but 
 face to face you are like a hypnotized bird all 
 the strength and value drawn out of you !" She 
 had never spoken so before, never shown any- 
 thing deeper than a laughingly helpless deri- 
 sion, and Sarah was as startled as though the 
 familiar wall had developed a secret door. Mrs. 
 Cawthorne went on with suppressed passion: 
 "You can't fight a person who has no heart 
 not unless you have no heart yourself. You've 
 got to be willing to hurt even to the death ; and 
 if you have a heart, you aren't willing. You 
 would rather be wiped out than hurt any one 
 like that. Your own heart will defeat you, 
 dearest, will always defeat you. Don't try, 
 don't try !" Her clinging hands begged a prom- 
 ise, but Sarah's power to soothe rested on the 
 very fact that, for all her gentleness, she never 
 gave false comfort. 
 
 "He is human, mother; and, also, he knows 
 the truth when he hears it," she said steadily. 
 "He may fight it, but he knows. He is going to 
 hear a good deal of it from me. I am not afraid 
 any longer ; it is only a bad habit now. My body 
 shakes, but my mind doesn't." She even smiled.
 
 THE STARLING 69 
 
 "You know, I rather like him! One wants to 
 kill him, but he has charm." 
 
 A curious light transfigured Mrs. Caw- 
 thorne's face ; for the moment, a fragile loveli- 
 ness seemed to rise like the mirage of a lost 
 girlhood. "Ah, if you had known him thirty 
 years ago! Charm there never was such 
 charm!" Then the flush faded and she shook 
 away tears with her light laugh. "Don't marry 
 charm, Bunny; it is of very little use in the 
 domestic circle. Marry good, solid, common- 
 place qualities, health and affection and, if pos- 
 sible, no sense of humor." That brought back 
 her thoughts to the closed door across the hall. 
 "Oh, I am sorry for Robert. It was my fault," 
 she exclaimed. 
 
 She frankly watched, and Sarah less frankly 
 leaned on a chair back that was within range. 
 She had emerged crushed from that door too 
 often not to dread the appearance of poor gal- 
 lant Robert, who had gone so unselfishly to their 
 aid. They listened as though crashing sounds 
 might be expected. Sarah tried feebly to make 
 fun of their suspense, but when at last the door- 
 knob turned, her body was sorely shaken for 
 her champion's sake.
 
 70 THE STARLING 
 
 The door swung back, opened by a vigorous 
 hand, and the two men were revealed, framed 
 together : a large, serene, confident young prac- 
 titioner, every smooth blond hair in place, and 
 in his shadow a small, rumpled, baffled-looking 
 scholar with a hurried limp. Some new and 
 bewildering experience must have befallen Mr. 
 Cawthorne. Had a master of the rapier tried 
 to fight a mastodon, he might have given that 
 same shriveled and exasperated effect. 
 
 "We physicians have to tell people things 
 they don't want to hear. That is what we are 
 for," Robert was saying with a kindly patience. 
 "And we don't have any hard feelings if it 
 isn't welcome. We learn to leave our personali- 
 ties at home." 
 
 "I should be grateful if you would bring yours 
 v/ith you another time," was the sharp answer. 
 "I have a message for it." And Mr. Cawthorne 
 went out, shutting the front door with primitive 
 vehemence. 
 
 Robert came back to his case smiling con- 
 tentedly from a whole skin. 
 
 "Very clever man, Mr. Cawthorne," he an- 
 nounced. "Peppery, but we don't mind that. 
 We get the nurse's attitude hot words are no
 
 THE STARLING 71 
 
 more important than what is said in delirium. 
 Your husband and I are going to be great 
 friends before we are through, Mrs. Cawthorne. 
 And now shall we get down to business?" 
 
 LIrs. Cawthorne was looking up at him as 
 though he had returned from the jaws of death. 
 "You are an amazing person, Robert," she mur- 
 mured. "I think you will succeed." Sarah said 
 nothing, but she felt as a slim white yacht must 
 feel when an ironclad comes up the coast. 
 
 Robert descended from Mrs. Cawthorne's 
 room an hour later, drawing on his gloves with 
 an air of professional power that smote Sarah 
 deliciously under the second button of her 
 blouse. She stood by the front door in a droopy 
 garden hat and gauntlets, a flat basket heaped 
 with dark red chrysanthemums in her hand, as 
 different from the gay, go-ahead, unromantic 
 modern girls that he knew as the life inside the 
 hedge differed from the world outside. Their 
 fragrance was only orris; they might fall in 
 love or frankly challenge him to do so, but there 
 was no lingering poetry in the way they looked 
 at him, they could not to save their necks be 
 at the same time delicately aloof and yet hero- 
 worshipping.
 
 72 THE STARLING 
 
 "Sarah, I want to talk with you for ten min- 
 utes," Robert began with a preoccupied glance 
 at his watch. 
 
 "Come out into the sun," she said, and turned 
 back to the front steps, shutting the door that 
 they might not be overheard. "You are not 
 worried about my mother?" she added quickly 
 as he did not speak. 
 
 "Oh, no. Nothing of that sort." Robert sat 
 down beside her, but seemed indolent about be- 
 ginning. It was wonderfully pleasant there. A 
 little orange tree beneath them was already in 
 blossom, and the round bed of heliotrope across 
 the drive was still sweet. Sarah felt herself 
 opening like a flower in the sun. 
 
 "I can't sit on the steps like this that I don't 
 instinctively put out my hand for a little dog," 
 she confided. "I never had one, yet the ghosts 
 of little dogs trot about the garden with me and 
 climb into my lap when I sit down. Don't you 
 love the way a dog smiles up at you?" 
 
 He quite obviously loved the way Sarah 
 smiled up at him. "You ought to have a dog," 
 he said. "I prescribe it for you. I will find 
 you " 
 
 "Oh, no !" The idea made her laugh. "My
 
 THE STARLING 73 
 
 father hates dogs worse than he hates motor- 
 cars." 
 
 That brought him back to the professional 
 issue. He turned a disapproving look on the 
 hedge. 
 
 "Well, I let your father have it pretty straight 
 this morning;" he had a disciplinary nod for 
 Mr. Cawthorne. "I began with the hedge 
 abominable thing! but I very soon saw that 
 that was hopeless. We physicians have to have 
 a sort of instinct, when to go on and when to re- 
 treat." Again that faint drawing up of the 
 shoulders, which Sarah loved. "So I dropped 
 that and gave him my alternative: a winter in 
 the city." 
 
 "Leave home!" She could not take it seri- 
 ously. 
 
 "The sooner the better." He turned to face 
 her squarely. "Sarah, there is nothing organic 
 the matter with your mother. I had a long talk 
 with my father about her last night he takes 
 very much my view of the case ; and everything 
 I have seen this morning confirms my impres- 
 sion. She is frail, very highly strung, and this 
 life has had somewhat the effect on her that 
 solitary confinement has on a prisoner. I want
 
 74 THE STARLING 
 
 to get her into more normal conditions. 
 Shouldn't you like it yourself?" 
 
 "Like it?" Sarah's eyes brimmed with tears. 
 "Like it, Robert! Oh, I have been beating 
 against the bars ever since I can remember! 
 But my father will never " 
 
 "That's the sort of thing my father says 
 'Cawthorne won't.' We younger men say, 'By 
 George, Cawthorne has got to!' Of course, he 
 refused; blew up, in fact. I let htm. Then I 
 told him the same thing over again, and then 
 again. That's my method. You leave him to 
 me." Robert rose, buttoning his coat. "He 
 can stay here if he chooses, but you two are 
 going." 
 
 He was so tranquil with power that for the 
 moment she believed him. "You are like a 
 knight riding to the rescue," she said. "You 
 don't know oh, you don't know !" 
 
 He did not at all want to go. "Ride down to 
 the hospital with me," he commanded. "I shall 
 have to fly, but the run will do you good. As 
 your family physician, I insist on it." He held 
 back the door of the offending car, and with an, 
 "Oh, I couldn't!" still on her lips, Sarah found 
 herself stepping in. "I can't bring you back,
 
 THE STARLING 75 
 
 but you won't mind taking the trolley, will 
 you?" he added, starting the machinery with 
 skilful hands. 
 
 "I haven't any money." 
 
 "Then, of course, you will have to walk." 
 
 Their laughter ended in happy silence. Rob- 
 ert, who did only one thing at a time and did it 
 beautifully, gave his whole attention to running 
 the car, and Sarah, holding the brim of her gar- 
 den hat, smiled out from under it at the flying 
 world and called to it, "I'm getting out, I'm get- 
 ting out!" in her wildly beating heart. When 
 they jumped down at the hospital, she put up a 
 meek palm, and Robert, straightening a leg and 
 lifting an elbow, brought out a handful of sil- 
 ver with an amused and husbandly air. 
 
 "Better take more. Something might hap- 
 pen," he urged, but she would have only a nickel. 
 
 "If I took more, I should pay it back ; and it 
 is such fun not to," she said. The sheer fun of 
 it made her laugh to herself all the way home. 
 For once, life had had almost as much charm 
 as she could put into it in her dreams. 
 
 She knew that Mr. Cawthorne would be back 
 from the University by this time, and she 
 slipped into the house with excusable quietness,
 
 76 THE STARLING 
 
 but the library door stood open as though he 
 had been watching for her. 
 
 "Sarah !" he summoned her. There was none 
 of the usual amused drawl in his voice; he sat 
 sharply upright at his desk, moving his papers 
 about with quick irritable hands. 
 
 "Remember that your mind isn't afraid it 
 is only your body," Sarah warned herself as she 
 went in. It was hard not to propitiate, not to 
 offer a pleasantly innocent, "Did you want me?" 
 that would testify to a blameless conscience; 
 only in the last year or two had she put down 
 that weakness. She knew that she must look 
 grave and composed and fully capable of recog- 
 nizing it if any one made himself ridiculous, 
 and not even Mr. Cawthorne's merciless vision 
 could have seen how her heart was thumping 
 as she stood there, awaiting his explanation. 
 
 "Look here, Sarah, I don't want your mother 
 to have dealings with that young jackass;" a 
 final push at the papers launched him on his 
 subject. "If her health demands it, she can 
 call in the best doctor on the coast, or send East 
 for a specialist I don't care. But I won't have 
 this raw specimen experimenting on her or tell- 
 ing me how I should conduct my life."
 
 THE STARLING 77 
 
 Sarah spoke quietly, almost indifferently : "I 
 thought what he said was very sensible." 
 
 Her father visibly started, and then their 
 eyes locked. It seemed to Sarah as though her 
 whole future as her father's child hung on the 
 outcome of that look. "He is only a selfish lit- 
 tle man, very cross," she told herself, over and 
 over, and though on Mr. Cawthorne's side the 
 encounter ended in weary contempt, she knew 
 that she had not lost. 
 
 "Sarah, I'm a n-n-nervous man ;" he had sud- 
 denly relaxed into his most drawling stammer. 
 "For the truth's sake, I have to c-contradict 
 about everything you say, but I don't want any 
 a-a-argument about it. Your blond friend will 
 never make a success as a doctor. I admire him 
 unspeakably, but he has the hide of a r-r-rhin- 
 oceros and the understanding of a public school 
 defective. He ought to go on the stage. 
 Strongly as I am drawn to him, I must refuse 
 to encourage him in a mistaken career. I don't 
 want to hear him blow his horn again, inside 
 or outside of my house. Have I been perfectly 
 c-c-clear?" 
 
 Two furious little flames burned in Sarah's 
 cheeks and her quiet had grown rigid, but by
 
 78 THE STARLING 
 
 main force she kept her eyes as expressionless 
 as her voice. 
 
 "Mother has faith in him and that in itself 
 helps," she said. "And if she and I go to town 
 for the winter, he is not likely to trouble you." 
 
 She had at least broken through his guard; 
 his speech was suddenly sharp again. "Your 
 mother is about as fit to live in town as you are 
 to do any useful thing. Don't quote that 
 young man's nonsense, if you please. I don't 
 want him admitted to the house again. That is 
 all I have to say." 
 
 Sarah left the room without answering and 
 went straight up to her mother. Mrs. Caw- 
 .thorne lay on a couch, her hands clasped under 
 her head, her eyes happy with dreams. 
 
 "Oh, Sarah dear," she began at once, 
 "wouldn't it be fun if your father really -would 
 move over to town for a few months? Robert 
 suggested it, and told me about some furnished 
 apartments. I could go out and ride on the 
 dummies every day, and get to a shop now and 
 then, and be near your Cousin Frances. We 
 could go to matinees, Bunny or a movie!" 
 With her shining eyes, she looked almost girl- 
 ish. "Your father would have to cross the bay
 
 THE STARLING 79 
 
 twice a week for his classes, and of course noth- 
 ing on earth would make him do it, anyway; 
 but I have had such a beautiful time, playing 
 with it! I love the city, but, when I go from 
 here, I get there too tired. We'd slip out at 
 night, sometimes, darling, and see the lights and 
 the people. You would adore it! Nelly could 
 go with us, and Maria could get her niece to 
 stay with her here she would have a nice rest. 
 Oh, I have it all planned I've even packed the 
 trunks!" Her laugh rang out. "What could 
 we do to make that bad old man consent?" 
 
 Sarah had sat down on the couch, her face 
 averted, gently rubbing her mother, who had a 
 cat's love of being stroked. 
 
 "Suppose we go without him," she said. "He 
 would not be happy over there, and that would 
 spoil it for us." 
 
 "Leave him alone!" 
 
 "Why not? He lives alone here, anyway. 
 And Maria can take care of him." 
 
 "Oh, but, dearest !" A dozen fatal objections 
 struggled for precedence. "Maria wouldn't do 
 things nicely enough if I weren't here. He is 
 so particular. With all the pains I take, half 
 the time he won't eat his soup or his salad or
 
 80 THE STARLING 
 
 something. And he doesn't say much, Bunny 
 we must admit that. But when he gets up from 
 the table and goes away with that patient, half 
 fed air oh, darling, it does make me so 
 wretched !" 
 
 "And then you don't eat anything more your- 
 self;" Sarah's quiet was still a matter of a 
 clenched will; "but if you are not at the table, 
 he eats what is set before him without noticing. 
 I have seen that for years. I really think he 
 would be as happy without us. And I want to 
 go, mother. Very much. I almost think that it 
 is my right. Shouldn't I have a chance at life 
 before I am too old? I can't leave you, you 
 know, so oughtn't you perhaps to come with 
 me ?" All her softening hesitations, the caress- 
 ing tenderness of her hand, could not keep down 
 Mrs. Cawthorne's distress. 
 
 "Of course you should be having it, darling! 
 Ah, we will find a way. You can perfectly well 
 leave me " 
 
 "No. And you know it, mother." 
 
 "Ah, don't ask me to go ! He would make me 
 sorry, one way or another. And I can not bear 
 being sorry I have learned that. You know 
 he wouldn't like it."
 
 THE STARLING 81 
 
 "Yes; but he doesn't like Robert, mother. 
 He wants us to forbid him the house." 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne looked grave over that; then 
 she shrugged. "Oh, well, Robert is only an 
 amusement. And if he is going to come charg- 
 ing in and disturb your father I can write him 
 a very tactful little note. That doesn't matter 
 very much." 
 
 "It matters to me!" the words were at 
 Sarah's lips, but she crushed them back. Her 
 mother would have exclaimed, wanted to know 
 more, and there was nothing whatever to tell. 
 But, as the price of that suppression, she told 
 something else, baldly, without any of the usual 
 softening of harsh facts. 
 
 "He doesn't like my book, either. He read it 
 and he says it is trash. I am not going to pub- 
 lish it. He said it was a nice way to occupy 
 myself and that I might do something when I 
 knew more about life, but that this was funda- 
 mentally trash." 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne had risen up on one stiffen- 
 ing arm. Sarah was frightened when she saw 
 the blaze in her white face. 
 
 "Oh, cruel, stupid!" she breathed. "He 
 doesn't know what he is talking about. He is
 
 82 THE STARLING 
 
 ignorant, Sarah ignorant of everything but 
 the one thing he knows. Don't believe him. 
 How can he understand your book when he 
 hasn't a heart to read it by?" She rose, draw- 
 ing her dressing-gown tightly about her. 
 "Don't listen to him, don't let him crush you 
 down! Wait here!" 
 
 "Where are you going?" Sarah exclaimed. 
 
 "To speak to him!" she said from the door, 
 and closed it after her with an authority that 
 might not be questioned. 
 
 She came back in five minutes, still with that 
 exalted dignity, the composure of a wrath that 
 has transcended bodily frailty and hampering 
 compassion. 
 
 "I have told him that he does not know any- 
 thing about human beings, and that he judged 
 your book like a fool," she said harshly, throw- 
 ing off her wrapper and beginning to dress. 
 "And I told him we were going over to town at 
 once, you and I, to find an apartment for the 
 winter. I told him that it was your turn, and 
 that I meant to see that you got it; that he 
 wasn't going to swallow your life whole! 
 Hurry, Sarah bring a bag and we will stay all 
 night. Don't lose a minute!"
 
 THE STARLING 83 
 
 She was not to be answered in that mood. 
 Sarah slipped quietly out of the room, but a 
 moment later she was charging up the attic 
 stairs, to dive to the bottom of the camphor- 
 wood chest where the manuscript was hidden. 
 The other treasures, scattered right and left, 
 lay where they fell as she ran down, her book 
 clasped against her heart. Into the dead faces 
 of Richard Dockery and Virginia, his daugh- 
 ter, had come a flicker of life.
 
 OF course, as soon as the excitement of 
 catching the train had died down, Sarah 
 knew that it was not really true. She was 
 not going to get out as easily as this. A hedge 
 that has been growing for a generation can not 
 be brushed away in a moment. She played 
 up, discussed neighborhoods and rents and the 
 number of rooms they should require, responded 
 with unflagging excitement to the reckless holi- 
 day mood that had followed her mother's wrath ; 
 but all the time it was like a tantalizingly good 
 dream wherein the sleeper fights a growing 
 conviction that he is not awake. 
 
 The familiar trip across the bay had become 
 high adventure. Sarah stood up in front of 
 the ferry boat, that she might fee] it galloping 
 under her to the bright west and the purpling 
 mass of the city, flung over its hills and banded 
 down like Gulliver in Lilliput by its taut streets. 
 Their lunch hour was long past, so they went 
 first to the hotel, high above the town, and 
 walked carpeted miles to the two rooms and 
 bath that Mrs. Cawthorne had commanded. 
 
 84
 
 THE STARLING 85 
 
 "Isn't it fun!" they laughed, exploring their 
 comforts and comparing the views from their 
 respective windows. They were still more gay 
 at their table in the deserted lunch room, order- 
 ing barracuda and artichokes and alligator pear 
 salad and other delightful things that Mr. Caw- 
 thorne would not eat. 
 
 "If it were only real!" was Sarah's secret 
 cry as they set out on their quest. "If I didn't 
 know that it will come to an end any minute !" 
 
 The doubt followed her through every door- 
 way. Her mother was burningly in earnest, 
 they allotted the rooms and planned life in every 
 apartment that was worth considering, and yet 
 it seemed to Sarah as if the very janitors knew 
 that they were not really coming. By night 
 they had taken the refusal of two furnished 
 apartments, and were to decide between them 
 in the morning. Mrs. Cawthorae, still precari- 
 ously upright, suggested a theater after dinner, 
 but collapsed relievedly when Sarah declared 
 for bed. Sarah tucked her up and pretended to 
 believe that she would go right to sleep, for a 
 private drama awaited her in her own room, 
 and she was in a fever to be alone with it. 
 
 The hotel bedroom, hard and bright, imper-
 
 86 THE STARLING 
 
 sonally luxurious, with the lights of the city 
 stretched for crowded miles far beneath its one 
 great plate-glass window, had for her a roman- 
 tic charm that would in itself have been drama 
 enough, once the door was shut ; and yet it was 
 only the setting for the coming adventure. For 
 Richard Dockery and Virginia, his daughter, 
 mourned as dead, had been given another 
 chance at life. Sarah took out the manuscript 
 as she might have lifted the curtain that had 
 hidden their last rest. 
 
 For two hours she read only it was not like 
 reading; it was like running, and loving, and 
 laughing, and crying, and the warmth of kind 
 arms across happy shoulders. Such a father 
 and daughter, merry-hearted, teasing, unfath- 
 omably tender, perfect in loyalty, glad of each 
 other every good morning and no less close 
 when the shadowy lover had broken his difficult 
 way in how could their tale be trash! Mr. 
 Cawthorne knew literature, but was it perhaps 
 true that, as her mother had said, he did not 
 know hearts? 
 
 "I must find out," Sarah said aloud, and pre- 
 tended to hesitate, but she had known by the 
 fifth chapter what she was going to do. Chris-
 
 THE STARLING 87 
 
 topher Saxe had told her to write out her 
 dreams and send them to him. The book was 
 his doing, and he must judge. 
 She wrote a bald note : 
 
 "My father says this is trash and my mother 
 thinks it is beautiful. My father is probably 
 right, but I must give it one more chance. Will 
 you read it and tell me the truth ? You offered 
 to, once. You came into our garden in a high 
 wind. Perhaps you have forgotten but I must 
 know." 
 
 Then she addressed the parcel to Christopher 
 Saxe, University Club, and sent it by a mes- 
 senger. If Mr. Saxe was not in town, it was to 
 be brought back. For an hour she stood at the 
 window or wandered about the room, afraid it 
 would come back, afraid that it would not. 
 When at last she put out her light, she saw that 
 there was a line of light under Mrs. Cawthorne's 
 door, but she could not go and offer soothing 
 services. Life was too richly, madly exciting! 
 
 By her mother's face, in the morning, Sarah 
 knew that their flight was over; the ancient 
 habit had beaten her wrath, and her eyes were 
 harassed, guilty. Yet she still kept the flag of 
 revolt flying. 
 
 "Bunny, darling, I am a rag," she said gaily.
 
 88 THE STARLING 
 
 "We can't go back to those apartments this 
 morning, but I don't believe any one will snatch 
 them. You can go out by yourself and cruise 
 about, if you like. I think I can sleep. You 
 might look up the addresses on Pacific Avenue." 
 
 She talked on, defying the truth, and Sarah 
 tried to make cheerful answer ; but telling her- 
 self that she had foreseen it all along could not 
 lighten her disappointment. Yesterday she had 
 known that escape was impossible, but to-day it 
 seemed as though she had missed it by a hair's 
 breadth. She made her mother comfortable and 
 sent for breakfast, meeting her insistent good 
 spirits with a courteous sweetness that was 
 more touching than she knew. Mrs. Cawthorne, 
 in the middle of a laugh, suddenly covered her 
 eyes, which were drowned in tears. 
 
 "I tried, darling I did try," she stammered. 
 "If I weren't such a fool, I could do it. But that 
 poor old man, all alone he would die before he 
 would say that he minded it, but all night long 
 I have seen him, so gray and bleak and for- 
 saken ! I can't bear it, dear I can't." 
 
 "I know I understand. I knew it yesterday, 
 before you did." 
 
 "But, Sarah, you shall have it!" She caught
 
 THE STARLING 89 
 
 the girl's hand, pulling her down beside her on 
 the bed. "Now let us be sensible and practical 
 and see how we can manage it for you. There 
 is your Cousin Frances; but that is an elderly 
 household, and she hasn't much room. If only 
 your Aunt Sadi lived here ! You don't remem- 
 ber her, do you? She is so full of life and en- 
 ergy. If she should invite you " 
 
 Sarah's hand stopped the eager flow. 
 "Mother, dear! If I left you alone, don't you 
 know what I should see in the night? And 
 hear?" 
 
 "Ah, you darling! But what if I do scream 
 now and then? It isn't a killing matter." 
 
 Sarah kissed her and rose. "We will take an 
 afternoon boat back," she said. "But I make 
 one condition, mother." 
 
 "Anything!" Mrs. Cawthorne's eagerness be- 
 trayed the welling relief in her soul. 
 
 "That you don't give up Doctor Robert." 
 Sarah's color deepened, but she would not be 
 stopped by that. "I believe he can do you good ; 
 and I won't stand having him forbidden the 
 house. That is a solemn condition." 
 
 "Yes, dear ! But he can leave the car outside, 
 don't you think? We might concede that?"
 
 90 THE STARLING 
 
 Sarah had to smile. "Yes; we will concede 
 that." 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne settled down into her pil- 
 lows with a long breath of peace. "Send away 
 the tray, darling, and lower the shade," she 
 murmured. "Ah, you are such a dear " 
 
 Sarah presently went down the steep streets 
 into the thick of the city. The sun had lost its 
 summer glare and the trade winds were stilled ; 
 a ripe October beauty rose like a mist from 
 every amethyst shadow, and the bay spread a 
 sapphire band across every vista. It was a set- 
 ting for life and love and people to wrench the 
 heart of a prisoner on parole. Sarah could not 
 remember Richard Dockery now, or last night's 
 bold venture ; a book seemed a small matter be- 
 side the chance at life that she had missed. 
 
 She looked into the morning faces she passed 
 and at the happy crowds on the dummies : they 
 were all in twos and threes, girls going shop- 
 ping together, young women with very clean 
 babies, men hurrying to meet other men with a 
 wave for passing friends, married couples from 
 other cities everybody had some one, even to a 
 pig-tailed Chinaman with his little pink silk 
 son by the hand. Only Sarah went alone.
 
 THE STARLING 91 
 
 She sat down in a square in the heart of 
 town, between the hotels and the shops, feeling 
 as she used to feel when the party went on 
 about her and she could not find the way in. 
 There were lonely people on the other benches, 
 lonely, shabby, discouraged people slouched 
 down under their hat brims, looking on at the 
 spectacle of prosperous life, but their longings, 
 though different, were no fiercer than Sarah's. 
 
 "I want a friend! Send me a girl friend!" 
 She could have cried it aloud to the crowded 
 square; and at last, as though in answer, the 
 passing stream revealed a swirl of red-gold hair 
 under a dark blue toque and a cool efficient per- 
 sonality looking out through eyelashes that had 
 once been too light, but that had becomingly 
 and most adroitly browned since the Warrens 
 had moved to the city. 
 
 Sarah started to her feet. 
 
 "Dosia Warren!" 
 
 Dosia looked puzzled for an instant, then she 
 smiled as an older person smiles at something 
 quaint and young. 
 
 "Why, Sarah Cawthorne!" Her handshake 
 was impersonally kind rather than friendly, 
 just as her championship had been, a dozen
 
 92 THE STARLING 
 
 years ago, but Sarah was too happy to discrim- 
 inate. "You grew up, didn't you! I supposed 
 you were still a romantic little girl inside a big 
 evergreen hedge." 
 
 "Yes, I am afraid I am," said Sarah rue- 
 fully. "I don't feel half as grown up as you 
 look, Dosia!" 
 
 Dosia laughed. Sarah could always catch 
 her attention and make her laugh, for she had 
 never been as shy with Dosia as she was with 
 the other girls who had given parties years 
 ago. That first defense had bred trust, and the 
 term "duck," though dispassionately uttered, 
 had echoed hearteningly in Sarah's ears. She 
 had believed that she could have been "best 
 friends" with the competent, experienced little 
 girl if only Dosia had had time to give her a 
 chance. They had both liked to talk about 
 Life and Real Things, and Sarah could not un- 
 derstand that mental congeniality was not 
 enough for Dosia. Even at thirteen that so- 
 phisticated little person had known who was 
 "important" and who was not. 
 
 "Are you staying over here?" she asked as 
 they walked on together. 
 
 "Just to-day." A sigh rose in Sarah's voice.
 
 THE STARLING 93 
 
 "I hoped we should take an apartment for the 
 winter, but it isn't going to happen." 
 
 Dosia answered the tone. "Well, the first 
 winter is rather deadly. You see, you don't 
 lead anywhere. You can only ask people who 
 know each other anyway, without you." 
 
 Sarah was puzzled. "But won't they come to 
 see you?" 
 
 "Oh, to a certain extent," Dosia conceded. 
 "But not as they will if you lead to something 
 new. It is the doors you open that make you 
 count." 
 
 "Count," Sarah repeated worriedly. "Oh, 
 Dosey, I don't know what you mean by count!" 
 
 Dosia fairly pounced on the opening. Evi- 
 dently her experience had been much thought 
 over, and was ripe to deliver to an understand- 
 ing ear. "You ought to before you move to the 
 city. Our first winter was horrid. Then my 
 Uncle Charley came back from Alaska and 
 built a copy of the Trianon or something for 
 himself and Aunt Clara she ran a boarding- 
 house up at Nome during their dark ages, and 
 I believe he wanted to express that nothing was 
 too good for her. It was then that I began to 
 count. People were crazy to get into the Tria-
 
 94 THE STAKLING 
 
 non and not to stay there, but because it 
 might lead somewhere still more exciting, and 
 so on indefinitely. I could let them in, you see." 
 
 Sarah stopped short in the center of a street 
 and had to be pulled on to safety. 
 
 "But that isn't what I want one bit!" she 
 cried. "It's friends friends ! Girls I can talk 
 intimately with, like this men who come to 
 the house young married women who take me 
 up to the nursery people, Dosey, people!" 
 
 "Ah, yes the boys in for Sunday night sup- 
 per sing college songs and have lemonade " 
 Dosia was amused. "Go back to the village 
 then, my dear ; you won't find that in cities. In 
 a city you must count in some way; otherwise 
 you only know people like yourself, who don't 
 know anybody or lead anywhere." 
 
 "No, no, no !" Sarah was on fire. "You are 
 making a game of it, with people for counters 
 all alike but for their place on the board. 
 There's nothing growing about that. It's sport 
 instead of crops !" 
 
 "But, you funny child, I much prefer sport to 
 crops." 
 
 "Not to live on, Dosey! Why, your heart 
 would all wither up."
 
 THE STARLING 95 
 
 "Oh heart!" 
 
 "Yes, you have. Look how you always stand 
 by other women how you worked for suf- 
 frage and on the hospital board oh, I've al- 
 ways heard of you as doing things like that. 
 Why, that is the way we began don't you re- 
 member? You went out of your way to stand 
 by me. It was at my party." 
 
 "Oh, I do remember, vaguely wasn't Bobby 
 Russell lording it over you?" The picture 
 amused Dosia. "I probably welcomed the 
 chance to sit on Bobby ! I'm still doing it. Do 
 you ever see him?" 
 
 The name seemed to fill the earth with sweet- 
 ness and resonance. 
 
 "Oh, yes," Sarah breathed. "Oh, don't you 
 think he's splendid?" 
 
 Dosia sent a measuring look up into the 
 lighted shadowy face, and communication was 
 cut as though the hedge had risen up between 
 them. She seemed immeasurably distant and 
 superior. 
 
 "Oh, to look at stunning. But he ought not 
 to go in with his father; that is stupid. I in- 
 tend to make him move over here presently." 
 She stopped and put out her hand. "Now I
 
 96 THE STARLING 
 
 must jump on a car. I have a luncheon on, 
 and two committee meetings. Nice to have 
 seen you. Good-by!" And she was gone be- 
 fore Sarah could find a word. 
 
 The after effect of that brief meeting was a 
 curious chill. Dosia had not said, "Come and 
 see me;" perhaps that was why Sarah's step 
 would drag as she went on up the hill alone. 
 She did not at all mind Dosia's philosophy, 
 since they were looking for such different 
 things: Dosia wanted a complex social order 
 while Sarah wanted only friends and, some 
 day, a lover. Dosia had spoken as though she 
 owned Robert Russell, but Sarah had known 
 that there must be many other girls in his 
 life; she asserted over and over that she was 
 not so silly as to be hurt by that. 
 
 "Well, I had a girl to walk with, anyway," 
 she said as she crossed the hotel lobby to get 
 her key. 
 
 Some one had come in just after her, a tall, 
 remarkably thin man, whose brown mustache 
 spread out in a vain attempt to hide the creases 
 in his lean cheeks, even while his kind little 
 deep-set eyes smiled over the futility of trying 
 to make anything appear other than what it
 
 THE STARLING 97 
 
 was. He held a familiar package under his 
 arm, and the question in his glance was changed 
 to a lighted certainty as Sarah turned. 
 
 "I thought so!" he said, putting out his 
 hand. 
 
 The surprise was fortunate, for he caught a 
 gleam of the real Sarah springing out to meet 
 him as he never would have done if she had 
 had to traverse long halls after hearing him 
 announced. There was time for a revealing, 
 "Oh, Mr. Saxe !" before the inevitable panic of 
 shyness closed her up into a very composed and 
 colorless young lady. A murmur about "most 
 kind" would have discouraged a less discerning 
 person. 
 
 "I want a talk with you. Have you time? 
 Can't we sit down here somewhere?" The walls 
 of the big lobby were lined with velvet couches, 
 intended for knitting ladies listening to music, 
 but deserted at this hour. He led the way to 
 an isolated corner, and Sarah followed very 
 much as she would have followed to the oper- 
 ating-room pale, polite and silent. She was 
 spared the torture of preliminary conversation ; 
 even when they were seated he seemed in no 
 hurry to speak. He had rested an elbow on
 
 98 THE STARLING 
 
 the back of the couch, that he might face her, 
 and Sarah, outwardly a good soldier, inwardly 
 a shrinking, shrieking fugitive, drove herself 
 to meet his look. 
 
 A smile was growing in his face, spreading 
 up the lean creases, radiating out from the lines 
 about his eyes, a smile that had the quality of 
 an amused shout. It was not awestruck, per- 
 haps, but it held no ridicule, and above all it 
 was glad, heartily, generously glad. Sarah's 
 panic was wiped out by a breathless wonder at 
 what was coming. 
 
 "Some day," he began deliberately, "I hope 
 to stand for something in the world for an 
 inch or two of work well done. But my real 
 claim to glory will be that I discovered Sarah 
 Cawthorne!" 
 
 He could not quite mean it the way it 
 sounded ; there was too much amusement in it. 
 Sarah held herself very still, waiting. 
 
 "You asked me whether I agreed with your 
 father or your mother ;" he was suddenly seri- 
 ous. "They are both right; but your mother's 
 verdict is the only one that matters. When 
 your father said 'trash' he meant that it was 
 unreal, that it couldn't happen, that such peo-
 
 THE STARLING 99 
 
 pie and such a relation never grew on land or 
 sea. That is true." 
 
 "But why couldn't they be like that?" Sarah 
 burst in. "They only need love and gaiety 
 enough. I believed every minute of it 1" 
 
 "And that is why it is beautiful, and your 
 mother is right," he said quickly. "You have 
 written a fairy tale, believing in fairies that 
 isn't the way literature is made, but, dear Miss 
 Cawthorne, it is what the world is panting for, 
 tongue out. The public will simply lap it up!" 
 
 Sarah could not decide whether she was mor- 
 tally hurt or gloriously exalted. For all her 
 modesty, she had had glimpses of soaring pos- 
 sibilities, and to accept success on this lower 
 plane meant a moment of humiliation. Perhaps 
 he recognized this, for he went on with increas- 
 ing earnestness : 
 
 "And it is so splendidly worth doing. You 
 will give pleasure and rest and diversion to 
 tired and troubled people all over the land. 
 Why, take a battered, unillusioned old news- 
 paper hack like me;" his smile begged her to 
 believe in the reality of the comfort he offered. 
 "I happened to be at the club when it came, and 
 I took it home with me, meaning to read it in
 
 100 THE STARLING 
 
 a day or two, for I was dog tired; but after 
 a first glance I didn't put it down until it was 
 finished. And I came out of it warmed and 
 stirred, and wishing to heaven that I had a 
 daughter like that!" They laughed together, 
 and the comfort began to glow through Sarah's 
 chilled being. After all, that was good enough 
 for her to do! "You will make people believe 
 in your visions for a moment or two, and per- 
 haps- that will leave them just a little warmer 
 and kinder," he concluded. "Isn't that worth 
 doing?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. Oh, if I could !" 
 
 "Now I have taken the liberty of indicating 
 some changes." He moved nearer to her, open- 
 ing the package on his knee. "It doesn't need 
 rewriting your sentences are always alive and 
 charming; but in places the material could be 
 handled better. May I show you what I mean?" 
 
 He must have spent hours over the text, and 
 the result was for Sarah a priceless lesson in 
 construction. His points were luminous for 
 her; she seemed to leap forward in knowledge 
 of her trade. Her eager understanding finally 
 made him cry out in protest.
 
 THE STARLING 101 
 
 "It won't do you mustn't be so frightfully 
 clever! First thing you know, you will learn 
 too much and spoil your fairy tales." He closed 
 the manuscript with a slap. "Your whole fu- 
 ture lies in keeping your dreams intact. Go 
 back inside your hedge, little girl keep away 
 from real life as you'd avoid smallpox." 
 
 "Ah, but I don't want to," Sarah exclaimed. 
 "If I gave up longing for real life life and 
 people why, I should be so desolate, I couldn't 
 even dream." 
 
 "Oh, long for them that is all right long- 
 ing is the mother of the fairy tale ; but the good 
 God keep you from finding them!" Then he 
 happened to see a clock, and started to his 
 feet. "I must run. May I look at it again 
 when you have worked it over? Will you send 
 me word and let me come to see you?" 
 
 "But it is so far for you. I could come " 
 
 "No, no let me get inside that wonderful 
 hedge again before I die of noise !" He had her 
 hand, and, seeing how ablaze he had set her, 
 he laughed a little, giving it another shake. 
 "Oh, your dreams are safe enough for a while 
 yet," he admitted. "Let me come soon. We
 
 102 THE STARLING 
 
 want to get Dickery Dock into the early spring 
 list of new publications, don't we?" 
 
 "Oh, I do thank you!" Sarah said from her 
 big heart. 
 
 She told her mother all about it, sitting on 
 the side of the bed, and so brimming with good 
 spirits that Mrs. Cawthorne presently got up 
 and dressed and announced an appetite. She 
 could always be raised or prostrated by the 
 family mood. She was inclined to resent Mr. 
 Saxe's criticisms on the inspired text. 
 
 "He hasn't proved that he can write so much 
 better himself," she declared, ruffling like a 
 mother hen. 
 
 "Oh, he knows !" Sarah sang. "Let us hurry 
 home, mother; I want to get to work!" 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne, for the moment, had been 
 almost forgotten; but as they neared home his 
 shadow grew longer and longer, until it had 
 quite swallowed up his wife. 
 
 "I really did say dreadful things to him, 
 Bunny," she confessed. "Why, I never flew 
 at him so in my life. He hadn't a chance to say 
 a word back. That poor old man he must 
 have been so astonished. I don't know what 
 he will say now."
 
 THE STARLING 103 
 
 Sarah's heart was stout enough for anything 
 with Dickery Dock pressed against it. 
 
 "Well, he has won," she said blithely. "Here 
 we are, trailing home again. He can afford to 
 be generous this time." 
 
 "I hope he will think of that." Mrs. Caw- 
 thorne's sigh was dubious. "You know, Bun- 
 ny," she went on presently, "there are very few 
 men as generous as your father about money. 
 He never has cared about it in the least. I 
 didn't want him to make over so much to me 
 when we married, and I remember so well the 
 way he answered: 'It will spare us ever hav- 
 ing to t-t-talk about the d-damn thing/ " There 
 was a spark of laughter, quickly extinguished. 
 "I have never used it to go against him before ; 
 and that was one reason why I couldn't go 
 on. It seemed too contemptible ! But you want 
 to remember that about your father, dear. 
 With some men, it's 'What did you do with the 
 seventy-five cents I gave you a week ago 
 Friday?' I don't see how their wives bear 
 it." 
 
 Sarah privately thought that if Mr. Caw- 
 thorne had earned his comfortable property 
 instead of inheriting it, he might have been less
 
 104 THE STARLING 
 
 indifferent, but her mother was bent on piling 
 up his excellences, and she offered no resist- 
 ance. Before the gap in the hedge was passed 
 Mrs. Cawthorne had recalled a score of lovable 
 traits and acts, laying them like faggots on a 
 wavering blaze that was to see her through a 
 dark night. Her white dread as they mounted 
 the steps shook Sarah's sensitive body, in spite 
 of her mind's superior stand. She longed to 
 saunter in indifferently, and the consciousness 
 of their scared and abject entrance filled her 
 with wrathful mortification. 
 
 "Coming back is rather flat, and we can't 
 play it isn't," she admitted; "but, anyway, I 
 have Dickery Dock!" 
 
 The library door was shut, and the sounds of 
 their entrance and Nelly's greeting did not 
 open it. Mrs. Cawthorne walked herself up to 
 the knob, then enacted a change of mind based 
 on wiser second thoughts. 
 
 "After all, dinner time will be soon enough," 
 she murmured, and slipped up the stairs as 
 though pursued. 
 
 Sarah let her escape, then tapped on the 
 door and opened it. There was a grim pleas- 
 ure in defying her own reluctant spirit; it
 
 THE STARLING 105 
 
 gave her the level look of a rider who conquers 
 an unruly steed. 
 
 "We're back, father," she began. 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne lifted the reluctant eyes of 
 an aloof and patient scholar whose family was 
 growing wearisomely intrusive. 
 
 "So I see," he observed. "But wouldn't the 
 good news have kept till dinner time? I hap- 
 pen to be very busy." 
 
 It was impossible not to flush, almost impos- 
 sible not to apologize and back out. Sarah, 
 realizing that she had nearly been thrown, 
 tightened her rein and her caution. 
 
 "I am sorry to interrupt," she said with 
 grave courtesy, "but I have to say two things. 
 One is that mother has given up going to the 
 city for the winter. She wants to, but she finds 
 that leaving you alone worries her more than it 
 is worth." There was not a flicker of change 
 in Mr. Cawthorne's face, but Sarah believed 
 that she saw his body relax, as though he sat 
 more easily in his chair. Her curiosity sud- 
 denly sprang out in a question, as startling to 
 herself as it was to him: "Are you glad or 
 sorry?" she asked. 
 
 At first he obviously had no intention of an-
 
 106 THE STARLING 
 
 swering. "Then the straight honesty of it, or 
 her cool wait, had its effect. His eyes showed a 
 gleam of their habitual amusement. 
 
 "I don't like changes," he drawled. "And 
 your mother is not a disturbing person to have 
 about. At least, not usually." He remembered 
 yesterday and the smile vanished. "And now 
 number two?" he suggested, dipping his pen. 
 
 Two was harder; Sarah rode at it with a 
 rush. 
 
 "She is not going to give up young Doctor 
 Russell. She and I won't stand that." 
 
 The pen descended on the sheet. "Well, keep 
 him out of here, then," he said indifferently, 
 and Sarah found herself on the other side of 
 the door, dismounting with shaking knees and 
 very short of breath. 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne came out at dinner time, 
 seemingly unaware that a revolt had begun and 
 ended, and Mrs. Cawthorne was happy to be let 
 off on any basis, but Sarah found his imper- 
 turbability hard to bear. Though the revolt had 
 collapsed, he had met with a serious reverse 
 himself, and it was unfair to act impregnable! 
 She wished that her mother would not reveal 
 so openly the completeness of her surrender;
 
 THE STARLING 107 
 
 but Mrs. Cawthorne knew nothing of making 
 terms. She had hurt her poor old man and 
 was not being punished for it, and she could 
 only brim over with gaiety until she brought 
 on a headache of sheer happiness and had to go 
 to bed. As she passed her husband's chair, she 
 put a hand on his shoulder and kissed his 
 cheek. He appeared unaware of the little act, 
 offering no least response, and yet her happy 
 brightness was undimmed. Sarah, looking on, 
 had a startled conviction of ignorance. 
 
 "I have been living with them all my life, 
 and mother tells me everything and yet per- 
 haps I don't know how it really is between 
 them," she thought it out. 
 
 Doctor Robert, not dreaming how he had 
 been fought and bled for, dropped in that even- 
 ing, unprofessionally. 
 
 "I would have called up to ask if I might, 
 but you don't seem to have a telephone," he 
 apologized; but he had come down the long 
 room with no visible doubt of his being wel- 
 come. 
 
 All the Cawthorne rooms were huge, ponder- 
 ous with old furniture, and Sarah, rising 
 against the firelight, had made a slim and girl-
 
 108 THE STARLING 
 
 ish silhouette. The lamp at her elbow left the 
 greater part of the room in shadow, and he 
 was close to her before he could see her lifted 
 face. "A great deal happens to me!" it was 
 saying, and though he could not read the words, 
 Robert basked in their light. Dickory Dock 
 had lain in her lap, and she let it drop back 
 there, thrilled with the hope that he would ask 
 about it. 
 
 "My mother has gone to bed," she said. "We 
 have been having adventures, Robert we tried 
 to take your prescription. We actually went to 
 the city and hunted apartments." 
 
 "That's one thing I came in about;" Robert 
 had brought addresses, but she would not look 
 at them. 
 
 "It is perfectly clear and simple from the 
 outside we want to go, and ought to go ; but if 
 you were on the inside, you would see that we 
 can't," she explained. 
 
 Robert settled back in his chair, took a pur- 
 ple silk ankle into an easy clasp and smiled at 
 her with royal indulgence. 
 
 "There is no such word as 'can't' to your 
 doctor," he said with the disciplinary nod that 
 Sarah loved. It did something inexplicable and
 
 THE STARLING 109 
 
 quite delicious to her, so that she hated to keep 
 on arguing; though in this case she really 
 had to. 
 
 "But, no matter how much you tell your 
 doctor, he is still on the outside," she pleaded. 
 "You can't get everything over to him. Why, 
 Robert, you would have to come and live in 
 this family for twenty years to understand ex- 
 actly why we can't do the simple wise thing 
 of walking out." 
 
 "Why you think you can't," he corrected 
 her. "If I came and lived in this family" 
 he paused to smile to himself oyej^ome idea 
 "I stake my professional reputation that in six 
 months the hedge would be down, you'd have a 
 telephone and a car and a dog, your mother 
 would be a fairly well woman, and your father 
 would be waking up. I'd take you in hand!" 
 
 It was misery not to yield to his splendid 
 sureness. Every bit of her being longed to, 
 except her intractable brain, which hurt and 
 mortified her by knowing better. 
 
 "We are so tied together," she said apolo- 
 getically. "Tied by feelings we hardly know 
 ourselves. I think I could learn to telephone, 
 quite happily, in my father's house, but my poor
 
 110 THE STARLING 
 
 little mother couldn't. And feelings are as 
 vital as spines, aren't they?" 
 
 Only at a bedside did Robert really listen. 
 He gave his outer ears courteously enough, not 
 his attention. 
 
 "Now I will tell you about a case I had, 
 where the lady thought she couldn't," he be- 
 gan, settling down into deeper comfort. Sarah 
 was a magic listener; her very soul seemed to 
 come out to hear. Under the stimulus of her 
 shining response, Robert went on and on. He 
 had been entirely right in every case, and 
 Sarah, rejoicing, piled up in her memory the 
 list of his triumphs, as though she might need 
 it to confound some future critic. They had 
 both had a beautiful time when at last he rose. 
 He had not noticed Diokery Dock, but that 
 could wait. 
 
 "A man has called on me!" Sarah told her- 
 self, with a leap of the blood. "And it was 
 Robert!" The thought gleamed through her 
 pretty composure, and Robert lingered, resting 
 an elbow on the mantelpiece and smiling at her 
 very contentedly. 
 
 "I am not strong for the hedge," he said, 
 "and yet, by George, Sarah, it has given you
 
 THE STARLING 111 
 
 something that the modern girl hasn't got. 
 You are more of a lady, if you know what I 
 mean." 
 
 "More of a stick!" said Sarah, with a laugh 
 of forgiveness in case he should remember ; but 
 the word said nothing to Robert. "I met Dosia 
 Warren in the city, and oh, she was so grown 
 up and finished and sure of her way! She 
 made me feel like a blundering little girl. I 
 hate my hedge qualities, Robert." 
 
 The mention of Dosia's name brought a 
 faintly uneasy frown. An elephant is said to 
 fear a mouse. Robert was not diminished, but 
 he was bothered. 
 
 "Dosey Warren does think she knows it all," 
 he said, just as he had a dozen years before. 
 "She's a clever girl, and I like her, but you 
 can't teach her anything. She even wants to 
 tell me how to be a doctor!" He drew up one 
 shoulder, then the other, in subtle comment. 
 "She has got all the modern patter about wom- 
 an's place in the sun. Doctors have to hear a 
 Jot of that, but if girls only realized how it im- 
 presses us, they would drop it, I can tell you." 
 
 "But things are changing for women;" 
 Sarah spoke with reluctant honesty. "I read
 
 112 THE STARLING 
 
 books about it, Robert, and and I believe in it. 
 I can't help it." 
 
 "Read all you like;" he was benignant. "It 
 won't hurt you. You are what I call womanly, 
 if you know what I mean. It pleases me." 
 
 Sarah's joy missed a beat, but she was too 
 loyal to the dream-Robert to acknowledge it. 
 
 "We are going to be friends," she said gladly, 
 and then, with her hand in his, a strange thing 
 happened : she seemed to be swept by a mighty 
 wind that isolated them together, rushing about 
 them like a living wall, and through its confu- 
 sion to hear a voice saying that they would 
 be far more than friends. It was over in an 
 instant, and she had drawn away her hand be- 
 fore Robert could have known that it trem- 
 bled. He had not spoken ; he had only looked at 
 her with a blind fixity. 
 
 "And so we are not going to the city; but 
 you must do what you can for my mother here," 
 Sarah concluded, as though they had never left 
 the topic. 
 
 "It doesn't give me a proper chance," Robert 
 objected. They were walking slowly down the 
 room together. "Perhaps, if I had another talk 
 with Mr. Cawthorne "
 
 THE STARLING 113 
 
 She almost clutched him. There was no 
 laughter in her fright. 
 
 "Oh, Robert, you must let him alone ! Talk- 
 ing with him only makes things worse. And 
 you must leave your car outside, as your father 
 does. I agreed to that !" 
 
 He might have seen how he had been battled 
 for if he had not been so concerned with his 
 own professional dignity. "Under the circum- 
 stances, I think I must give up the case," he 
 said stiffly. 
 
 "Oh, no! Please, no!" The very gap in 
 the hedge seemed to be closing, and she cried 
 out, forgetting for once in her life the library 
 door across the hall. Her uplifted face showed 
 all her distress, as candidly as it might have a 
 dozen years ago, when it slipped like a young 
 crescent moon between two long falls of dark 
 hair. "You have helped her already you can't 
 give her up now," she cried, her palms pressed 
 tightly together against her dropping chest. 
 "Ah, come in often and see her, talk to her, 
 find little ways to help her. We do believe in 
 your advice, Robert. It is only that our lives 
 are swallowed whole, and we are helpless.", 
 
 His dignity had melted, leaving him very
 
 114 THE STARLING 
 
 kind. "I only want to rescue you," he said. 
 "And I mean to. I will go slowly if you say so. 
 But I do hate an egotist! We doctors have to 
 get the better of most of our prejudices, but an 
 egotist rouses the old Adam in me. It's an 
 idiosyncrasy, I suppose. I can overlook worse 
 things that's the funny part of it. Of course, 
 we see the cranky side of human nature that's 
 all right, we expect to. But when I meet a man 
 who's got an overdose of ego in his cosmos and 
 doesn't know it What is it? Sarah, what is 
 the matter?" 
 
 She had shrunk back, as though from him, 
 but, following her eyes, he saw that the door 
 across the hall stood open. The room might 
 have been empty; from where they stood, they 
 could see no one; yet the door seemed to stir, 
 as though it had only just settled back. 
 
 "Well, good night!" Sarah urged. Robert, 
 however, feared no man, and took a deliberate 
 leave. 
 
 "A little straight truth won't hurt him," he 
 murmured. "But if he is likely to make it un- 
 pleasant " 
 
 "Oh, no just go," Sarah breathed, and shut 
 him out.
 
 THE STARLING 115 
 
 She tried to walk past the open door as 
 though it were not concerned with her, but a 
 sound within startled her into a look. Mr. 
 Cawthorne stood under the chandelier, his 
 hands in his pockets, his head thrown back, 
 shaken with chuckling laughter. His half closed 
 eyes seemed to be sending their mockery down 
 his pointed beard at her as the crossed finger 
 sweeps the pointing finger in a child's gesture 
 of derision. In her astonishment, Sarah stopped 
 short, but the little laughs bubbling up through 
 him almost prevented speech. 
 
 "Sarah, I t-take it all back," he stammered. 
 "That young man is going to be the j-j-joy of 
 my life. Have him in often!" 
 
 Sarah went swiftly on without answering. 
 She had learned to resist his wrath, but she 
 had no way of meeting his laughter. She could 
 only hide from him her passion of anger.
 
 VI 
 
 SARAH worked so hard over her manuscript 
 that in two weeks the revised Dickery 
 Dock was ready for inspection; and then she 
 had to face the trouble that had been hanging 
 over her ever since that inspired hour with 
 Christopher Saxe. She ought to ask him to 
 dinner; it was not decent to let him come so 
 far and not give him dinner; and how could 
 any mortal understand that a girl who lived in 
 a comfortable, well served home nevertheless 
 could not ask him to dinner? 
 
 Suppose she did ask him and coolly told her 
 father that he was coming Sarah felt herself 
 gallantly equal to that. The problem was, how 
 could the meal be made anything but an ordeal? 
 Mr. Cawthorne might not actively object to 
 Mr. Saxe, but he would feel that his hedge was 
 being attacked, and he would take measures to 
 make every one so wretched that it could not 
 occur again. 
 
 His methods were diabolically clever. When 
 Robert was in the house now, comfortably hold- 
 ing forth to two contented women who loved to 
 116
 
 THE STARLING 117 
 
 hear him, Mr. Cawthorne would sometimes ap- 
 pear in the doorway and stand listening, his 
 pointed beard tipped out, under his dropped 
 lids an ecstasy of silent enjoyment. Robert 
 never saw him, but Sarah's flush did not fade 
 until long after the little gray man had gone. 
 Secretly defying him, hating him, even, could 
 not prevent his blighting the bright world and 
 for the moment cleaving the Robert before her 
 from the Robert of her daily dream. What 
 would he do to Mr. Saxe? 
 
 She talked it over with her mother, who at 
 first was very martial on the side of Sarah's 
 rights, but presently dropped to a weak sug- 
 gestion of tea "Perhaps it really would be 
 more sensible, dear!" 
 
 "But, mother, just look at it from the out- 
 side! It is silly, it's grotesque. This man is 
 taking a lot of trouble to help me, and the most 
 ordinary little courtesy in return I won't give 
 in like that ! I will not !" Sarah did not often 
 reveal herself so hotly, and Mrs. Cawthorne 
 yielded at once. 
 
 "Write him, dear, for any night you please, 
 and say that I urge his coming." She could go 
 further. "Do you want me to tell ?"
 
 118 THE STARLING 
 
 Sarah kissed her and even laughed, a for- 
 lorn little laugh, her mother looked so solemnly 
 prepared for the worst. 
 
 "Let us not take it so hard," she urged. "My 
 friend is coming to dinner that is all. Noth- 
 ing very dreadful can happen. I will tell father 
 when I hear from Mr. Saxe." And she went to 
 write her note, humming to show how unmo- 
 mentous it all was. 
 
 She asked him to come in the late afternoon 
 to see the revised manuscript and "stay to din- 
 ner," as that seemed to make the meal less 
 formidable, and he accepted in happy uncon- 
 sciousness. Sarah left her father in peace un- 
 til only a few hours separated him from this 
 new rebellion. She even let him finish his 
 lunch, though the suspense made eating physi- 
 cally impossible to her, and had driven her 
 mother from the room. 
 
 "Father, Mr. Saxe is coming to dinner," she 
 said casually as he was turning from the table. 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne stood in his tracks for a long 
 moment before he spoke. 
 
 "And who the deuce is Mr. Saxe?" he 
 drawled. 
 
 "He interviewed you once on the subject of
 
 THE STARLING 119 
 
 vocational education. We have become friends, 
 and he is helping me with my writing." 
 Sarah's fingers played careless scales on a chair 
 back as she stood confronting him. "He is com- 
 ing over from the city to work with me this 
 afternoon, so it seemed only decent to ask him 
 to stay to dinner." 
 
 She thought perhaps he meant to try her out 
 with silence, his pause lasted so long, so she 
 folded her arms and gave him back his look. 
 "Remember remember that your mind isn't 
 afraid!" she was crying out under her grave 
 composure. 
 
 "You know something about him, of course 
 and his antecedents?" Mr. Cawthorne began. 
 
 "Nothing whatever, except that he seems to 
 me one of the nicest men I have ever met." 
 
 "Almost on a par with young Russell?" The 
 lurking smile was a further test, but she met it 
 triumphantly. 
 
 "They are both gentlemen," she said quietly. 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne turned away again. "Well, 
 if he is as entertaining as my dear friend Rob- 
 ert, I shall welcome him," he said. "Couldn't 
 you get R-R-Robert to come, too?" 
 
 Sarah made no answer, and, glancing back
 
 120 THE STARLING 
 
 from the doorway, he must have seen how 
 white and rigid she was. His tone was suddenly 
 indulgent. 
 
 "Ah, Sarah, if you had a sense of humor, 
 you'd be a good deal more of a comfort to me," 
 he sighed. "Even your mother has got it I 
 don't see how you escaped. Without that you 
 really can't appreciate me." 
 
 "I am afraid I don't;" Sarah was politely 
 regretful. 
 
 "I g-gathered that from your book." The 
 memory of it put a gleam behind his glasses. 
 "You pictured there your ideal, I take it?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, I may be wrong; but I strongly sus- 
 pect that if a parent such as you have drawn 
 could take off his bright wings and come to you 
 on earth, in about one week you'd be shouting 
 for the disagreeable old crank Cawthorne to 
 take you back. He'd wear you out with his in- 
 fernal gladness. Nothing in it, Sairy take 
 my word for it, nothing in it." 
 
 He limped away, and Sarah, dropping her 
 face on her forearms, let the rare tears come. 
 He stripped all the beauty from her world and 
 gave her nothing to go on with, he was heart-
 
 THE STARLING 121 
 
 less, he was every bad word that she knew, and 
 yet she was no longer angry. The charm he 
 had for her had disarmed her, and her heart 
 was crying, "Oh, why can't we love each other, 
 why can't we make each other happy?" Sarah 
 did not know how to love unless she could* put 
 out her arms. 
 
 How any physique could have stood the daily 
 strain of Sarah's emotions would have been a 
 mystery to one clever enough to see past her 
 composure. All her developed self-control went 
 to hiding them; she never dreamed of trying 
 to live at a lower tension. The inside history 
 of the three hours that preceded Mr. Saxe's 
 coming would be credible only to another such 
 girl. First the glory, the wild and secret sing- 
 ing; then the fear, fear of failing and disap- 
 pointing him, the tortured memory of all the 
 moments when she had been helpless and in- 
 adequate before some chance at life and so had 
 seen it slip past as the motors slipped past 
 the gap in the hedge; then the two feelings 
 mixed, spurts of joy, stabs of fear, till the ex- 
 hausted spirit settled down into cold bleak 
 gloom, and an intelligent, highly educated 
 young woman was longing to be taken seriously
 
 122 THE STARLING 
 
 ill, that she might escape the ordeal of greeting 
 a visitor with whom she was not even in love. 
 
 "It really would be easier to die than it is to 
 be me," she murmured, a hand at her trembling 
 jaw, while Nelly was coming up with the card. 
 Then, good soldier that she was, she walked 
 down-stairs like any graceful young lady, pre- 
 pared to make a very trite remark to the effect 
 that it was good of him to come. 
 
 Mr. Saxe gave her no chance for formalities. 
 He stood watching for her, eyes alight with 
 mischief, his silence so full of suspended laugh- 
 ter that the greeting was left out altogether. 
 
 "I don't believe you will let me stay when you 
 hear what I have just done," he began. "I had 
 to do it there was no choice. But you are 
 going to hate me." He gave her a fair chance 
 to withdraw her favor, but for the moment 
 she did not even remember to withdraw her 
 hand, she was so happy and so relieved. If 
 people could always bring an excitement to 
 bridge the meeting! 
 
 "Since you are really sorry " she suggested. 
 
 "That is the worst of it I'm not! I have 
 saved your hedge." 
 
 "Saved the hedge?"
 
 THE STARLING 123 
 
 "With my two feet I stamped out the busi- 
 est little fire you ever saw, in a patch of dead 
 grass. Somebody's cigarette, I suppose. It 
 was low and quiet, and it was streaking for 
 that big, dry, fat, cypress wall. The wind was 
 exactly right, and there was not a human being 
 in sight. Now I ask you, man to man, what 
 would you have done yourself?" 
 
 She tried to think that she would have been 
 lawless, but gave it up with a little cry of 
 laughter. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know! It is too hard. Why 
 didn't you come another way?" 
 
 "There wasn't any other ; it was right by the 
 entrance. And, someway, it isn't in a man to 
 leave a fire when he can stamp it out. I knew 
 I was trampling on your heart's desire, but I 
 had to act, Sarah Cawthorne. Can you forgive 
 me?" 
 
 She played that it was very hard. "Oh, well, 
 I dare say the gardener would have put it out 
 with the hose," she said on a descending sigh. 
 "Come and show me the place." 
 
 She threw on a cloak and they ran out into the 
 chilly dusk and down the drive. Just outside 
 there was a strip of blackened grass, running
 
 124 THE STARLING 
 
 almost under the edge of the hated barrier. 
 The hedge loomed over them, untouched, three 
 times their height and five feet thick, more like 
 compressed green essence of tree than like 
 individual trees. No branch showed, no twig 
 slipped out to stir by itself. Secret passages 
 might have wound through its dense sides un- 
 detected. The dryness that, following the first 
 rains, had left the grass inflammable, had 
 grayed its rich green with a film of dust, and 
 spiders had sheeted it from top to bottom. 
 Over the narrow entrance the two giant euca- 
 lyptus trees squared naked elbows, from which 
 long tatters of bark flapped in the wind. 
 Sarah's voice lost its laughter. 
 
 "Ah, it would have been left wide open," she 
 said. 
 
 "But a telephone wire can get over it; and 
 there you have the whole world within reach." 
 
 "No, it can't. We have no telephone." The 
 admission always cost her a blush. She was 
 childishly ashamed of it. 
 
 "No telephone oh, bliss!" 
 
 He was smiling, teasing her, yet he meant 
 it. Robert knew better. She heard him de- 
 nouncing the abominable barrier with his fear-
 
 THE STARLING 125 
 
 less certainty, and her heart gave a leap for 
 the young splendor of him, and for the shining 
 mist of possibilities that lay along her horizon. 
 Truly, a great deal happened to Sarah! 
 
 "I will tell you before I cut it down because 
 I promised I would," she said; "but nothing 
 you say will make any difference. I know what 
 I want." 
 
 "There is a gap," he ventured. "One can at 
 least walk out." 
 
 "No. When I leave my poor little mother, 
 even for a few hours, something always hap- 
 pens to her." She looked up smiling, lighted. 
 "We are a queer family, Mr. Saxe !" 
 
 He spoke as simply as though it were the 
 most natural thing in the world to say: "You 
 seem to me a very lovely person." 
 
 She wished she were. To be "lovely," the 
 way he said it, sounded infinitely desirable. 
 "Ah, you don't know me," she sighed. 
 
 "Oh, don't I! Reading Dickery Dock has 
 been like spending a year in the country with 
 you. You don't dream how intimate my side 
 of our acquaintance is. I have to keep remind- 
 ing myself that you have no such key to me, 
 and that you must look on me as a stranger.
 
 126 THE STARLING 
 
 It is very hard to wait while you catch up, 
 Sarah Cawthorne!" 
 
 She did like him ! She needed no book writ- 
 ten by him to tell her that he was all she longed 
 for in a friend. 
 
 "I am not as far behind as you think," she 
 said with a reserved little smile, turning back 
 to the house. 
 
 They went in to the fire and a happy hour 
 over the book. Mr. Saxe approved the changes 
 and insisted that he should attend to its pub- 
 lication. 
 
 "I am getting out a book myself, so I know 
 all about it," he explained. Her burning inter- 
 est made him laugh. "Oh, nothing as delight- 
 ful as Dickery Dock! A long dry work on 
 journalism. I have a bee in my bonnet on that 
 subject what journalism could be. I have 
 been working at the book for ten years ever 
 since I left college and I dare say it will sell 
 some nineteen copies* But at least it will be 
 out of my system/' 
 
 The ten years had left him lined and worn, 
 good-humored about it, but unillusioned. He 
 carried a flavor of travel, as though his study 
 had led him into far lands and strange adven-
 
 THE STARLING 127 
 
 tures. Sarah wanted to know more with an 
 eagerness that no one harboring a spark of 
 youth could have resisted. So he told her of 
 his father's newspaper in a Massachusetts 
 town and of the ideas he had inherited as well 
 as those he had quarried out for himself ; of the 
 fine old sheet's downfall after his father's death 
 and of his pursuit of the idea through lean 
 years of baffling experiences. 
 
 "And so that is the story of my life," he 
 ended with a laugh at his own expansiveness. 
 "I am sure Desdemona listened just as you do 
 held herself up like a golden bowl while the 
 Moor poured on and on. I have told you all 
 my dreams and desires except one." 
 
 "And that one am I to ask?" 
 
 He showed her a bony wrist. "To get fat," 
 he confided. "I live on cream and potatoes and 
 all the stout ladies' forbidden fruits; I take no 
 exercise; I laugh every chance I get and look 
 at me ! I would give an argosy for a pound of 
 flesh, any day. What can I do?" 
 
 "Perhaps, if you were to become very, very 
 happy " she suggested. 
 
 He liked that, liked it increasingly as his 
 eyes rested on her.
 
 128 THE STARLING 
 
 "That is a beautiful idea," he said. "I will 
 try to become very, very happy. If you tell me 
 it is possible!" 
 
 "Oh, it is always just around the comer," 
 Sarah assured him. 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne came in, and Sarah had to 
 remember that dinner was before them; but 
 for the moment she was outside the hedge, and 
 the prospect did not seem very formidable. 
 Mrs. Cawthorne's gaiety, her curled hair and 
 her vivid enjoyment of the stranger, made the 
 girl smile as though she had been the mother. 
 
 "Dinner is served," said Nelly, and passed on 
 to the library door. 
 
 It was, after all, a distinguished scholar that 
 came out, and Mr. Saxe greeted him- as such, 
 with respect and liking; but Mr. Cawthorne, 
 who had expanded! liberally on the morning of 
 the interview, seemed now to have lost his 
 tongue. He gave the visitor a, limp hand and 
 a glazed eye, and shuffled to the table as though 
 he were a very old man. Mr. Saxe made sev- 
 eral attempts to get into communication; he 
 had evidently looked forward to the meeting, 
 and brought topics on which he wanted light; 
 but his host's hearing seemed to have failed
 
 THE STARLING 129 
 
 with his other powers, and nothing could dis- 
 tract him from the immediate business of his 
 dinner. Sarah, reading surprise and pity in 
 her guest's eyes, could have wept with anger 
 and beaten her father with her two hands. She 
 longed to cry out, "He is only bad!" But the 
 courage had been stricken from her and she 
 could scarcely word her pallid, constrained re- 
 plies to the company's faithful efforts at con- 
 versation. Mrs. Cawthorne, at first, did bet- 
 ter. If her husband's behavior enraged her, 
 it also gave her a dreadful desire to laugh, and 
 her gaiety stayed alight until Mr. Cawthorne 
 made his second move. 
 
 It was very subtle: only a patient laying 
 down of his fork after a first taste, the trying 
 and abandoning of other dishes with the same 
 silently borne repulsion, an occasional look 
 thrown over his shoulder, as though the serv- 
 ice dragged interminably. To Mrs. Cawthorne's 
 sensitive nerves the food at once became taste- 
 less, cold, ill chosen, and Nelly's waiting a tor- 
 ture. Not one of her own perceptions survived 
 to deny the universal condemnation; she was 
 all housekeeper, and a failure, and she no 
 longer could even smile. The family unease
 
 130 THE STARLING 
 
 became a palpable current, a physical corro- 
 sion eating into sensitive organs and hollow- 
 ing the cheer out of faltering voices. Mr. 
 Saxe, after doing his gallant best with no real 
 help, looked from the father's bent head to 
 the mother's strained absent face, then straight 
 into Sarah's eyes with a grave question. It 
 was so kind and direct, so free from small crit- 
 icism or conventional pretense that it gathered 
 her up like a strong arm and placed her be- 
 side him, unaf raid and equal to anything. 
 
 "Dinner is very good don't you think so?" 
 she asked, and her voice had a new note, as 
 though she had grown up another year or two 
 since they had sat down. "My mother is trou- 
 bled because my father is not eating, but I 
 think the dinner is tremendously good, don't 
 you?" 
 
 He did not understand all that he had done, 
 but he welcomed the new move with quick ap- 
 preciation. 
 
 "You don't half know how good it is you 
 can't," he exclaimed. "You probably have this 
 cooking every day; it is a matter of course to 
 you. Mrs. Cawthorne, if you knew what it is 
 to live between a boarding-house and a club, 
 you would insist on my having more pudding.
 
 THE STARLING 131 
 
 You would know that my refusal was only 
 manners." 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne's response was magic, and 
 stimulated them to fresh daring. 
 
 "I would have taken another browned potato 
 if you had," Sarah said. 
 
 "Words can't express how I wanted it. Ifc 
 is the concentrated essence of home, a potato 
 roasted with the meat. I could have cried 
 homesick tears over mine." 
 
 "Ah, and I thought they were cold or some-- 
 thing; that is why I didn't urge you." Mrs. 
 Cawthorne was shining and comforted, and 
 Sarah became wickeder than she had ever been 
 in her life. 
 
 "Very old people are cranky about food," she 
 said clearly. "Oh, my father doesn't hear a 
 word we say, Mr. Saxe; we can talk freely 
 before him." 
 
 "Sarah!" gasped her mother, but Sarah had 
 serenely gone on. 
 
 "Did you have a homy home when you were 
 little fried mush and pillow fights and baked 
 apples and gingerbread and backgammon?" 
 Sarah had not had a homy home, but she had 
 read and dreamed of them until she knew their 
 ways by heart.
 
 132 THE STARLING 
 
 His laugh was deep with feeling. "Oh, just 
 exactly that! And seventeen kid cousins all 
 over the place on Saturdays, and my own print- 
 ing press in the woodshed !" 
 
 "I had a party once in my childhood;" 
 Sarah's cheeks were aflame, but her voice only 
 laughed. "My father never knew about it 
 not till this day, for it would have disturbed 
 him. He went away overnight, so we had in 
 twenty children, and oh, it was so wonderful!" 
 She was looking back on the dream party, the 
 party of her poem. "We played games and had 
 prizes and ice-cream I wish you had come 
 to it." 
 
 "I am afraid I was editing the Yale Lit. 
 about then but you make me feel as if I had 
 missed the event of my life. Couldn't you give 
 another?" 
 
 "Yes," said Sarah. "When Dickery Dock is 
 published, we will have another." 
 
 She rose from the table, followed by an over- 
 whelmed and rather scared mother, but, as Mr. 
 Saxe would have accompanied them, the silent 
 host suddenly found his tongue. 
 
 "Stay and have a cigar with me/' he said 
 suavely, and Mr. Saxe obeyed.
 
 THE STARLING 133 
 
 The door was not shut, and from the draw- 
 ing-room they could hear the two men's voices, 
 quickening with interest. At first Saxe spoke 
 with a careful distinctness, but he very soon 
 forgot the supposed deafness. It was years 
 since Mr. Cawthorne had so exerted himself; 
 all his scholarship, the biting humor that had 
 made his classes famous, were placed freely 
 at the disposal of this strange young man. Saxe 
 took eager advantage, as though his intellectual 
 hunger were not often satisfied, but fear of 
 tiring the old gentleman finally made him rise 
 before he had received the hint. Mr. Caw- 
 thorne had a mysterious power of clearing a 
 room. Outwardly he did nothing; Sarah had 
 decided that it was the way he looked at the 
 backs of his hands. 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne had gone up-stairs, spent 
 with excitement, and perhaps not sorry, kind 
 American mother that she was, to let her 
 daughter have the visitor to herself. He lis- 
 tened absently to the apology she had left, his 
 eyes fixed on Sarah with a musing smile. 
 
 "You certainly are, as you said, a strange 
 family," he admitted; "but I like you oh, 
 enormously. There's a flavor, and a distinc-
 
 134 THE STARLING 
 
 tion your father is a remarkable man when 
 he wants to be." 
 
 "Exactly," said Sarah, and they laughed, 
 drawing their two chairs close to the hearth. 
 "Isn't it queer not to want to be, all the time ?" 
 she went on. "I was born wanting to be good 
 weren't you?" 
 
 He gave the question sober consideration. 
 "No; I was born wanting other people to be 
 good while I stood over them and told them 
 how," he decided. "I should have been a viru- 
 lent and obnoxious reformer if my mother 
 hadn't slipped into my cradle her sense of the 
 ridiculous. It's a devastating thing, that 
 sense. I launch my thunderbolt at modern 
 journalism, but all the time I see a thin gen- 
 tleman, very excited, turning a pea-shooter on 
 the Overland Limited. A reformer must not 
 know how he appears. It's fatal." 
 
 "But a reformer who did know wouldn't an- 
 tagonize so many people." 
 
 "My dear girl, antagonism is the harrow and 
 the plow, it is what makes reform live. At- 
 tacked, reform has to prove itself, and it grows 
 lusty in the process. My book will be three 
 times as effectual if it makes some of its critics
 
 THE STARLING 135 
 
 so hopping mad that they'll attack it. Don't 
 be afraid of a fight." 
 
 She thought of how she had fought that 
 night, and shivered. "Oh, I want pleasant- 
 ness," she cried; "warmth and love and pleas- 
 antness. All round me tight!" 
 
 "They will always be where you are," he 
 said, "but, just the same, isn't it your hurts 
 that give you ideas? Longings that are denied 
 blossom into Dickery Docks." 
 
 "Longings that weren't denied would blossom 
 into far, far better things. Being hurt may 
 give you ideas, but being blessed oh, that 
 might give you wings! I'd like to try it, any- 
 way." 
 
 "I don't believe in it for you, but I would 
 give it to you if I could just to see your eyes 
 shine." He said things like that so simply 
 that they could not make even Sarah shy. "I 
 should like to bring you happiness in great 
 boxes, like roses, and watch you open it." The 
 roses seemed to be there, between them, and he 
 might have thought it was their glow that was 
 suddenly reflected in her lifted face; but she 
 was looking past him, for a big and strikingly 
 good-looking man was coming down the long 
 room.
 
 136 THE STARLING 
 
 "Robert!" she said, and as she murmured 
 an introduction, Saxe's desire to see her eyes 
 shine was liberally granted. Robert greeted 
 the stranger with a well disposed sovereign's 
 cordiality, and as the two men stood together, 
 speaking of the fog that had rolled up from the 
 bay since the wind dropped, Sarah looked from 
 one to the other with the thrilled cry in her 
 heart "They're getting in!" Mr. Saxe was 
 not a bit good-looking ; beside the glorious Rob- 
 ert, his face appeared fleshless and even, just 
 now, a little grim ; but, oh, he was a wonderful 
 friend! And Robert was romance embodied. 
 Daily the gap in the hedge was widening. 
 
 "If the boats are being delayed, I ought to 
 start for home," Saxe said, and yet he lingered, 
 as though the foggy bay was a bleak prospect. 
 Robert took the bright center of the hearth 
 rug, looking down on Sarah, but kindly includ- 
 ing Saxe. 
 
 "This is the first moment I have had to 
 breathe since breakfast," he announced. "We 
 busy physicians lead a dog's life, Mr. Saxe. 
 We belong to everybody. Sarah, your not hav- 
 ing a telephone has its advantages. When I 
 was leaving the house, the maid asked the
 
 THE STARLING 137 
 
 usual, 'Where can you be reached?' and I said, 
 'I can't be!' Then I ran." He laughed, suc- 
 cess and satisfaction in every line of his pleas- 
 ant person, and Sarah's happiness bubbled over 
 in an answering laugh. Her glance went on to 
 Mr. Saxe to see if he too felt the sunny charm 
 of the moment, but his averted face was in 
 shadow and told nothing. "It is like touching 
 base to come here," Robert went on. "Can't 
 be tagged. Of course, when I can't come be- 
 cause I am expecting to be called, that's an- 
 other story." He laughed again, enjoying his 
 own discomfiture, enjoying everything that 
 concerned him. The general radiance lit in 
 Sarah a startling impulse to stand close be- 
 side him, her head against his big shoulder 
 but with a hand out to Mr. Saxe, who looked 
 rather lost and lonely in the shadow. 
 
 "Please both sit down," she urged. "You 
 make me feel that you are going, and 1 do so 
 like having you here !" 
 
 "I'm afraid I have to go rather soon;" Rob- 
 ert took Saxe's former chair, stretching him- 
 self out luxuriously to the fire. "A man who 
 works as hard as I do has to get his full night's 
 sleep. It's a curious thing I find I need ex-
 
 138 THE STARLING 
 
 actly eight hours. If a man can do his best on 
 less, I tell him, 'All right, go ahead, take 
 seven or six or any amount that suits your indi- 
 vidual constitution. Me, I need eight.' We 
 doctors can't always get what we need; I can 
 be up a whole night and you would never know 
 it; but I'm not at my hair-trigger best, and I 
 know it, I can tell you. How much do you take, 
 Mr. Saxe?" 
 
 Mr. Saxe was looking suddenly cheered and 
 lighted; but perhaps it was only because Rob- 
 ert's shadow had withdrawn itself. 
 
 "Oh, I am a newspaper man. I get what I 
 can, where I can I never add it up. The total 
 would be too appallingly small." He came over 
 to Sarah, his hand out "I don't dare sit down. 
 I am on my last pint of gas I mean, manly 
 resolution, and it has got to run me to the 
 boat." He held her hand warmly, closely, not 
 shaking it, but smiling down into her eyes as 
 though he still had a splendid reserve of what 
 he called "gas." "I am going to take the 
 child we settled that, didn't we? I shall bring 
 you a contract to sign in a very little while." 
 He put the manuscript under his arm and held 
 out a cordial hand to Robert. "I am glad to
 
 THE STARLING 139 
 
 have met you, Doctor Russell," he said with a 
 ring in his voice that brought Robert up for a 
 hearty answer. 
 
 "I like that man," he announced, when Saxe 
 had gone. "It's funny I take to people or I 
 don't in the first two minutes. That settles it. 
 Remember how it was at your party, years 
 ago? We were friends right straight off. Re- 
 member it?" 
 
 "Oh, do I !" It was a mere breath, a sigh for 
 memories almost unbearably poignant, and 
 Robert did not hear. 
 
 "Well, you were a little thing; you wouldn't 
 remember as I do. You were rather shy, I 
 think. I know I told a story or two and sort 
 of helped you out. We must have danced to- 
 gether half the evening." 
 
 He did not really remember, after all; for 
 they had not danced at Sarah's party, except 
 for the Virginia reel. She was so absurdly 
 hurt that she had to turn away from the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 "I am glad you liked Mr. Saxe," she said 
 hurriedly. "He is helping me with Robert, 
 shall I tell you a secret?" 
 
 "Go on," he encouraged her.
 
 140 THE STARLING 
 
 "I have written a book. Not a real serious 
 novel, of course, just a little one, but Mr. Saxe 
 thinks he can get it published. Perhaps I'm 
 an author!" She opened her secret before him 
 as though it had been Mr. Saxe's box of roses, 
 and looked for the response in his face, but she 
 found there only a faint uneasiness. 
 
 "A book!" he repeated. 
 
 She thought he was afraid that she might be 
 about to make a public fool of herself, and ha- 
 stened to reassure him with unresentful sweet- 
 ness. 
 
 "Oh, just a little story, Robert; nothing pre- 
 tentious or that matters. Only it has been fun. 
 And Mr. Saxe likes it. It's about a father and 
 a daughter." 
 
 His listening had grown absent, as though 
 his thoughts had been sent off in a new direc- 
 tion. "I mean to write books some day," he 
 said with a clearing brow. "Plenty of the big 
 medical men do. And they ought to. Now my 
 idea is " He settled deeper in his chair and 
 his topic, a shapely hand pointing his mean- 
 ings. If Sarah listened a little less devoutly 
 than usual, he did not consciously realize it ; but 
 he presently became aware of the hour.
 
 THE STARLING 141 
 
 "Well, I must go," he said, and dragged him- 
 self up. "It's awfully sweet here, Sarah. I 
 don't know a pleasanter place for a tired man 
 to drop in." He had her hand, and again that 
 strange thing happened, that sense of a rushing 
 wind that swept about them, shutting them in 
 together. Sarah had gone half-way down the 
 room with him before she knew in words that 
 he still held her hand. She drew it away, and, 
 fearing that it had made him think less of her, 
 she said a very composed and cool good night as 
 a counter-balance. After he had gone she still 
 stood in the doorway, looking out into the 
 heavy darkness, asking hot troubled questions 
 of the invisible stars. 
 
 Emotion subsiding, left, as always, dream. 
 Oddly enough, the central figure was not, at 
 first, Robert. The setting was Saxe's ferry 
 boat, feeling its way through the blind fog. 
 Crash and panic ; Saxe was saving women and 
 little children ; then he was in the water, strug- 
 gling alone. 
 
 "I'm coming I'll help you!" she actually 
 spoke the words, but was too intent on the 
 scene to hear them. She was wrenching off a 
 cabin door, and Robert was helping her. Now
 
 142 THE STARLING 
 
 they were on two doors lashed together, seizing 
 Saxe as he went down for the last time, drag- 
 ging him by main strength 
 
 "Well, Sarah!" The living voice, breaking 
 in on the intensity of her dream effort, nearly 
 made Sarah scream with the shock. She shrank 
 back, weak and trembling, her eyes fixed blind- 
 ly on her father as he slowly advanced. She 
 did not remember the unsettled score between 
 them until he stood confronting her, a gleam 
 behind his glasses. 
 
 "Well, father ?" She stiffened for the com- 
 bat, but wearily, and wishing that just this 
 once she might be let off. That dinner table 
 defiance seemed immeasurably distant. 
 
 "I said you hadn't a sense of humor," he 
 drawled. "I take that back. It's a queer sense 
 of humor it isn't just like mine, and I don't 
 know if I wholly care for it. But it's there, 
 Sairy it's th-th-there !" 
 
 She looked at him from remote depths of 
 emotional exhaustion, then closed the front 
 door and turned to the stairs. 
 
 "That wasn't a sense of humor, father; it 
 was life and death," she said over her shoulder.
 
 vn 
 
 CHRISTMAS was a difficult day in the 
 Cawthorne household. Mr. Cawthorne 
 never liked his presents. He did not say so, 
 robustly, so as to give his family a chance to 
 grow robust in return; he merely looked them 
 over with a dry, "Much obliged!" that stung, 
 or asked irritably what they were for. Sarah 
 had argued for years that there was no sense 
 in bothering him with gifts, and in January 
 Mrs. Cawthorne always agreed, but by Decem- 
 ber her heart would fail her. 
 
 "It does seem too mean, when I have five 
 presents for you, and you probably have seven 
 for me," she insisted. 
 
 "Eight," said Sarah jubilantly. 
 
 She was making tea for her mother, whose 
 enthusiasm in the matter of the five presents 
 had left her very flat. Sarah had pulled her 
 chintz couch to the fire, and the hour had a 
 pleasant homy quality, a glow and gaiety such 
 as she had put into every page of Dickery Dock. 
 The driving rain against the windows made it 
 unlikely that Robert would drop in, and though 
 143
 
 144 THE STARLING 
 
 his comings were the spring of all Sarah's new 
 jubilance, there was sometimes a curious relief 
 in knowing that he would not come perhaps 
 only because it left her free to go beyond the 
 reach of the door-bell. The hedge had never 
 imprisoned her so closely as did the fear of 
 missing Robert. 
 
 "Eight beauties/' she added, and their eyes 
 met and laughed over the fun of presents. 
 
 "Well, one of mine for you has three things 
 in it," her mother maintained. 
 
 "And two of mine are just little jokes," Sarah 
 reassured her. 
 
 "I dare say Robert will send you flowers or 
 something;" Mrs. Cawthorne spoke happily, 
 but without a trace of significance. She en- 
 joyed Robert's attentions, welcoming them for 
 Sarah as a girl's rights, and not dreaming of 
 the tumult in the well hidden heart so close 
 to hers. 
 
 "Do you really think so?" Sarah was sure 
 of it, but she wanted to hear it again. 
 
 "I know it. Why, darling, he brought you 
 candy on your birthday don't you remember?" 
 
 Did she remember! Her mother's perfect 
 unconciousness sometimes frightened Sarah; it
 
 THE STARLING 145 
 
 seemed to suggest that the whole thing might 
 be only one of her own iridescent imaginings, 
 that went out like bubbles at the touch of real- 
 ity. For all Robert's persistent coming, he 
 never said anything that Sarah would have 
 made a lover in a story say. It was only the 
 way he looked at her, and that strange clash- 
 ing confusion when he took her hand. 
 
 "I hope he will," she said with brave light- 
 ness. 
 
 "And Mr. Saxe, too," her mother piled it up. 
 "How many times has he been over, Bunny?" 
 Mischief glimmered in her eyes now, but Sarah 
 did not notice. 
 
 "Oh, three or four times," she said oblivi- 
 ously. "Mother, men do all the giving, don't 
 they? Girls don't even send them Christmas 
 cards?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know, dear. Perhaps not the 
 first Christmas." She sighed. "Women like 
 anything just because it is given them, but men 
 are so disobliging about presents. Do help me 
 with your father. His present hangs over me 
 like bad news. Every morning, when I wake 
 up, I think, 'What is that dreadful thing on my 
 mind?' " She laughed at herself, but feebly.
 
 X46 THE STARLING 
 
 "He did rather like the green leather footstool, 
 darling. He used it, anyway. Haven't you 
 thought of anything?" 
 
 "Mother, I have put my last inkstand at fa- 
 ther's breakfast plate," was the firm answer. 
 "If presents don't give pleasure, they are ab- 
 surd. And it isn't as if he took any trouble 
 over our Christmas. A gold piece each is very 
 easy." 
 
 "But he always gets bright new ones from the 
 bank, dear! Ancl you can't tell he may be 
 hurt." 
 
 "Oh, I shall have it out with him before- 
 hand." Sarah's courage had always a dash of 
 romance : she met difficulty like a knight riding 
 into the lists. "I shall simply tell him, with per- 
 fect candor and good humor " A hand touched 
 the door, and she stopped with guilty sudden- 
 ness as Mr. Cawthorne came in. 
 
 "I thought I heard teacups," he said. "Give 
 me some, Sarah. It is too dark to work and too 
 early to light up." 
 
 He sat down and accepted his tea, but made 
 no pretense of joining them ; his thoughts held 
 him in contented isolation. The fire blazed duti- 
 fully, but the ruddy glow that had irradiated
 
 THE STARLING 147 
 
 the hour was gone, and Sarah's resolution weak- 
 ened. After all, it would be easier to buy him 
 something than to have it out. 
 
 "There will be plenty to have out with him," 
 she admitted. She had not yet faced the prob- 
 lem that life would present if Robert Sarah 
 always stopped there, between a gasp and a 
 glow, and did something impetuously kind for 
 her mother. 
 
 "Thank you, dear," said Mrs. Cawthorne ab- 
 sently as the slipping rug was replaced. Her 
 eyes were on her husband's fine profile. "What 
 are you thinking about, Stephen?" she asked. 
 
 He looked up with his most mellow smile. 
 "About what a pretty girl you were when I first 
 knew you," he drawled, and enjoyed at his lei- 
 sure her silent astonishment. "Wasn't that 
 what you wanted me to say?" he added. "Ladies 
 always want something like that, don't they?" 
 
 "Not unless they are young enough to believe 
 it," she said with a short sigh. "I really wasn't 
 pretty," she presently went on. "I had a lot of 
 vivacity and expression, but a photograph al- 
 ways found me out. My features were all put 
 in wrong, and my chin was crooked, and I had 
 such horrid thin shoulders."
 
 148 THE STARLING 
 
 "Well, I m-married you," he offered dryly, 
 startling her into a laugh. 
 
 "You did," she admitted, and fell silent; but 
 he was not left long to his own undivulged 
 thoughts. "Stephen, do you remember the 
 Christmas party at the Grants' ?" That used to 
 be a yearly question; Mrs. Cawthorne had to 
 ask it when the breath of redwood wreaths was 
 in the house ; but Sarah had not heard it for a 
 long time now. She knew all about that party, 
 though it had happened many years before she 
 came. Mr. Cawthorne's eyes, called back from 
 the fire, had a patient glimmer for the incur- 
 able sentimentality of women. 
 
 "Young people used to waste a lot of time on 
 parties," he observed generally. "I think the 
 world has grown more sensible in that respect." 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne laughed at him. "You mole ! 
 They are doing it much more; only you don't 
 hear about it. How else can you throw young 
 people together?" 
 
 "Why throw them together?" 
 
 "It is a need of youth and sex you can't 
 deny that." 
 
 He put down his cup and rose, rubbing a slow 
 hand across his forehead. "Sex sex?" he re-
 
 THE STARLING 149 
 
 peated. "Are they still bothering about that 
 old bogy?" 
 
 They let him go without comment. At the 
 door he looked back to leave a warning. "By 
 the way, I hope no one's youth and sex will 
 demand any more conversation in the hall. It 
 is just as easy to talk somewhere else, isn't it? 
 I would suggest the attic." The door closed on 
 him, and Mrs. Cawthorne rose with the strength 
 of exasperation. 
 
 "He ought to get a birch rod for Christmas," 
 she declared. 
 
 "Oh, but think of the bleak dismalness of 
 being like that!" Sarah cried. "No glow in 
 life, no little affections and kindnesses, nothing 
 leaping in one's blood ! Why, mother, he seems 
 to me the saddest little man in the whole 
 world!" 
 
 "Now, Sarah !" Mrs. Cawthorne clutched the 
 girl's wrist, and even shook it. "Being sorry 
 for him has spoiled my life don't you get 
 sorry, too ! Don't do it ! He is a bad old man 
 you remember what your mother tells you! 
 Don't you ever be sorry!" Her voice rang with 
 warning; and then, as her own actual words 
 came back to her, she broke into a wail of
 
 150 THE STARLING 
 
 laughter, her arms thrown about her child. 
 "My dear, I am not an orthodox mother, I'm 
 afraid," she apologized. 
 
 Sarah went down-stairs on Christmas morn- 
 ing with the familiar reluctance. She and her 
 mother would have whole-heartedly exclaimed 
 and embraced over their presents if they could 
 have opened them alone together ; fcut Mr. Caw- 
 thorne's way of looking on, as though at some 
 quaint biological phenomenon, chilled the blood 
 and took the reality out of grateful words. Sa- 
 rah would have had the presents up-stairs, but 
 her mother could not so openly give up the tra- 
 dition that they were a family. 
 
 "And he does like to see the things," she re- 
 minded Sarah as they waited for him. "He 
 always looks at everything. If we can do any- 
 thing that interests him, Bunny !" 
 
 Sarah was not listening. All her power of at- 
 tention had fastened on a package laid at her 
 plate, addressed in Robert's handwriting. 
 
 "I know I am foolish, but I can't help hoping 
 he will like his lamp," Mrs. Cawthbrne went 
 on. "His old one is disreputable. Do you think 
 he will use it?" 
 
 Sarah had slipped the fateful package into
 
 THE STARLING 151 
 
 her lap. "I wish I could have given Robert 
 some little thing," she murmured. 
 
 "If we fill the lamp and light it here he 
 comes, dear!" And Mrs. Cawthorne straight- 
 ened up valiantly to the ordeal. Her life did 
 not lack drama. 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne had forgotten that it was 
 Christmas, and went back for the two gold 
 pieces, bright from the bank. He had put them 
 in red boxes this year, and Mrs. Cawthorne 
 found that touching. Then, settling down, he 
 confronted his lamp with a hostile stare. 
 
 "Oh, very handsome, very good," he drawled. 
 "Much obliged. I don't have to use it, do I ?" 
 
 The worst had happened, as usual, and Mrs. 
 Cawthorne accepted it without resentment. "I 
 hoped you would, Stephen ! Your old one is so 
 shabby." 
 
 "I like it shabby. And I am used to the smell. 
 I don't believe this would smell the same." 
 
 "It wouldn't smell at all!" 
 
 "I should miss that. I couldn't work as well. 
 What is this, Sarah? Oh, a book-rack. Very 
 pretty. Much obliged." 
 
 "It really isn't pretty ;" Sarah spoke in her 
 most polite voice. "I just bought any old thing."
 
 152 THE STARLING 
 
 "Sarah!" breathed her mother. Even her 
 father looked surprised. 
 
 "You see, you don't care for presents," Sarah 
 went on with a tranquillity that she felt to be 
 superb ; only her wrath over Mrs. Cawthorne's 
 disappointment could have given her the power. 
 "I used to worry and hunt and change things, 
 as mother does and be just as disappointed at 
 the failure. Then I wanted to give it up but 
 that takes so much courage. Cold-blooded cour- 
 age. So I simply made a Christmas gesture." 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne put down his emptied coffee 
 cup with the familiar glimmer dawning in his 
 eyes. 
 
 "You have too many youthful emotions, and 
 one can't depend on your sense of humor," he 
 observed, "but I sometimes think you have 
 b-b-brains, Sairy." 
 
 This was the test to stay grown up and 
 quiet after the excitement of making her stand 
 was over, to suppress all trembling resentment, 
 the weakness of after-wrath. She met it tri- 
 umphantly. 
 
 "I have a good right to them," she said with 
 a little polite smile. He laughed aloud, so ap- 
 preciatively that all her hostility melted, leaving
 
 THE STARLING 153 
 
 her with a new weakness to fight ; for he could 
 always awaken in her a girlish longing to love 
 him. 
 
 "I don't care I have Robert !" she told her- 
 self over and over, her hand caressing the hid- 
 den package. It seemed to answer her touch, 
 just as Robert's hand always answered. 
 
 She would not open it until her father had 
 left the room. When at last she was free to 
 unwrap a white vellum Tennyson, two feet 
 square, illustrated in water-colors, her beating 
 heart drowned out any sound from her private 
 judgment. She could have loved a red plush 
 album that came "Wishing Sarah a Merry 
 Christmas, from Robert ;" whatever he did was 
 divinely right. And Mrs. Cawthorne could be 
 trusted to admire anything that one showed her 
 with enthusiasm. 
 
 "But nothing from Mr. Saxe?" she asked dis- 
 appointedly when she had said all that Sarah's 
 joy demanded. 
 
 "Oh, Christmas isn't over," Sarah sang. 
 
 All day the song was in her voice or her ex^ 
 ultant silence. A few first weak violets were 
 out in the garden, and she hunted them until 
 her fingers were numb from the cold wet
 
 154 THE STARLING 
 
 preparing incense for the moment that must 
 come before the day was over. As though red- 
 wood and violet were not enough, she threw a 
 stick of eucalyptus on the fire when the tea 
 hour struck its thrilling "Now !" 
 
 "Merry Christmas!" called a pleasant voice 
 from the other end of the great room ; and Sarah 
 could not stay disappointed with Christopher 
 Saxe holding her two hands, shedding down on 
 her his abundant kindness. He really was the 
 nicest man in the whole world one might love 
 Robert and still admit that ! He had a florist's 
 box under his arm. 
 
 "If I had sent them this morning, I couldn't 
 have seen you open them," he said. "And I've 
 another present for you that you'll like still 
 better, but I am not going to give it to you yet." 
 
 "Oh, why not?" She was often shy and con- 
 strained with Robert, but never with Saxe. 
 There was something in the way he liked her 
 that gave her a magic security and freedom. 
 "Oh, please I am so happy anyway to-day 
 pile it up !" 
 
 His glance asked a grave question, but he 
 spoke lightly. "Just Christmas-happy? Or 
 happy in particular?"
 
 THE STARLING 155 
 
 "Oh, just life." She opened his box and cried 
 out over its contents; orange blossoms and 
 Marechal Neil roses bedded in deep purple 
 heliotrope. She brought water and arranged 
 them, standing back like a painter from her 
 effects ; then she returned to him with a sigh of 
 satisfaction. "What is the other present?" 
 
 "But, after you get it, you won't pay any 
 more attention to me," he objected. "I shall be 
 only so many feet of messenger. No. Sit down 
 here and make a fuss over me for ten minutes. 
 I need it, Sarah Cawthorne." 
 
 She looked into his face then, and, as he 
 looked steadily back, something was revealed to 
 her, something saddening, for which she did 
 not know the words. She sat down beside him 
 on the couch, 
 
 "I really don't know you very well," she said 
 wistfully. "I think we always talk about me! 
 All sorts of sad things may be happening to 
 you and I not know them." 
 
 "No, they are not," he said quickly. "There 
 is not a thing in my life that I wouldn't tell you, 
 if you had patience to hear it. Only as a topic 
 you are so much more interesting." He had 
 smiled away the shadow, and she was glad to
 
 156 THE STARLING 
 
 forget it. "My one real trouble is that I have 
 lost another pound somewhere between here 
 and the ferry." 
 
 "Running to catch it?" 
 
 "No ; running to get here. You told me once 
 how I might grow fat." 
 
 "Did I?" 
 
 "Yes. I was to become very, very happy." 
 His eyes, fixed on her lighted face, begged for 
 something, but she did not see. 
 
 "And aren't you?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You are spoiled," she reproved him. "You 
 have had the freedom of the world you haven't 
 been shut up inside a hedge! You have had 
 work and success, and known everything, and 
 when you liked people, you could go after them 
 you didn't have to sit still till they broke their 
 way in." The force of her old longing surged 
 up in her deepened voice. "You have no right 
 not to be very, very happy every day of your 
 life!" 
 
 "Ah, my dear!" It was a mere breath, and 
 the lifting and dropping of his hands completed 
 it. Then he laughed at himself, shrugging 
 away the moment. "You will be sorry you
 
 THE STARLING 157 
 
 scolded me when you see the other present," he 
 said, suggestive fingers at his breast pocket. 
 
 "Need I wait any longer?" 
 
 "Well, then!" 
 
 He took from a long envelope a typewritten 
 document. Sarah had gone as far as the party 
 of the first part, named Sarah Cawthorne, and 
 hereinafter to be referred to as "the Author," 
 before understanding burst upon her. 
 
 "My book," she said breathlessly. "You have 
 done it!" Her gratitude, her lovely manners, 
 struggled against some overwhelming need. 
 "Oh, I must just tell my mother!" she implored. 
 A moment later she was flying up the stairs. 
 
 She came back a very composed and proper 
 young author, with only the shining of her eyes 
 to betray her, and thanked him with earnest 
 formality. They took the contract to the desk 
 for her signature. 
 
 "Sit down with great care," he urged as he 
 pulled out the chair for her. "The least joggle 
 and it would all burst out." 
 
 Her composure visibly trembled. "What 
 would?" 
 
 "Your happy heart. You would jump up and 
 down, you know; you might even throw your
 
 158 THE STARLING 
 
 arms about my neck." He had passed the 
 hedge, as he always did; a peal of revealing 
 laughter welcomed him. 
 
 "I wish I could," she cried. "Oh, Mr. Saxe, 
 I really wish I could! I don't know how to 
 thank you enough in plain words." 
 
 "I will tell you how;" his cheerfully matter- 
 of-fact tone took all significance out of what 
 might come. "Aren't you nearly ready to stop 
 calling me Mr. Saxe? One can't do it until one 
 is ready, of course, but I hope you don't think 
 of me as Mr. Saxe. Do you?" 
 
 Sarah gave it candid reflection. 
 
 "No. I think of you as Christopher Saxe," 
 she decided. "But Christopher isn't a very 
 natural name to use, some way." 
 
 "Oh, I have never been called that." 
 
 "What did they call you at college?" 
 
 He looked down at his bony wrists with a rue- 
 ful smile. "Skinny," he admitted. 
 
 Again her laugh rang out. "Oh, that wouldn't 
 do. What do your sisters call you?" 
 
 "Bob. I don't know why. Oh, I believe it 
 was Bobbin when I was a little fellow some 
 comment on my behavior." 
 
 Sarah did not like Bob. "The thing to do,"
 
 THE STARLING 159 
 
 she thought it out, "is to make Christopher into 
 a natural and easy name because it means you. 
 For instance, I never intend to name my gentle 
 heroines Alice. I am going to make them so 
 really gentle that I can call them Kate or Bar- 
 bara without upsetting the impression. And I 
 will call my violent ones Celia, if I like or 
 Effie ! They will get the better of their names, 
 just as we do in life." She folded the signed 
 contract and gave it back to him. "Thank you, 
 Christopher. Happy New Year, Christopher," 
 she said. 
 
 "Happy New Year, Sarah," he returned. It 
 sounded like, "God bless you, Sarah !" and, with- 
 out knowing why, she found tears near her 
 eyes. Then the voice of voices magically cleared 
 them away. 
 
 "Merry Christmas!" called Robert from the 
 doorway. "Oh, how are you, Saxe? Merry 
 Christmas ! Glad to see you. Did you get your 
 present, Sarah? Did you like it?" 
 
 He had taken possession of them both, of the 
 room, of the universe, and Sarah's eyes were 
 shining up at him as the moon shines at her 
 lord the sun; but she greeted him in reserved 
 and gracious terms, like the perfect lady that
 
 160 THE STARLING 
 
 she was. She never squealed her pleasure at 
 him, as other girls did, or grew intimate in her 
 thanks, and Robert liked that. He had even 
 more than the usual wariness that life teaches 
 the good-looking, stalwart, well-born and pros- 
 perous male. 
 
 "I have been running a Christmas tree/' he 
 announced, alight with satisfaction and suc- 
 cess. "I don't know why it is people are al- 
 ways asking me to do things like that. I sup- 
 pose because I don't mind making a goat of 
 myself. It was at the Klondike Warrens' 
 you know, Sarah, Dosey Warren's uncle. They 
 live in a sort of palace, copy of Versailles or 
 something, and she had collected about fifty 
 poor children, so I did the regulation thing 
 white beard, red clothes, sleigh-bells. It was 
 good sport. I like kids always did. I like to 
 make them laugh. It is easy, of course any 
 one can ; you only have to have a knack at jokes. 
 I would pretend to read a name on a parcel: 
 'Heinrich Schlimpelhausen !' Of course, no one 
 would come forward. Then I'd say, 'Oh, hold 
 on, I've pronounced that name wrong. It's 
 Neddy Smith!' That got them every time." 
 
 The duet of his and her laughter satisfied
 
 THE STARLING 161 
 
 him, but Sarah looked at Saxe to see why it had 
 not been a trio. He was sunk back in his chair, 
 looking fixedly at Robert over tented fingers. 
 Robert's tale was only just begun, but suddenly 
 Saxe interrupted. 
 
 "I was a Santa Glaus once though I hadn't 
 any red clothes," he began. "It was in China. 
 I was ostensibly looking up an article on Christ- 
 mas in the Missions, though as a matter of fact 
 I was on the trail of something quite differ- 
 ent." His dropped voice hinted at sinister ex- 
 periences, and Sarah was torn between her 
 longing to hear and an uneasy sense that this 
 was not fair to Robert. Robert always had the 
 center. That was one of the undisputed laws 
 of the universe. He would be displeased if Saxe 
 kept it too long. An anxious glance showed him 
 as yet tolerant, even willing to hear; and then 
 she actually forgot him, uplifting herself like 
 Desdemona to receive Saxe's quiet tale. He had 
 reached the Mission in the same hour with a 
 whisper that it was to be attacked and burned 
 when the native children had left the mission 
 school that day. 
 
 "And so the point was that the children must 
 not go until help could arrive; and that was
 
 162 THE STARLING 
 
 seven hours," he explained. "They must want 
 to stay we didn't dare show our hand by lock- 
 ing them in. By jove, I'll never forget those 
 seventy little yellow moon faces lifted for the 
 signal that school was over, while we discussed 
 possibilities with an air of polite badinage. 
 Then some one thought of the Christmas tree." 
 
 Sarah by this time was in the thick of the 
 action. She helped drag in and set up the tree, 
 she was flinging upon it anything on which she 
 could lay her hands, suitable or absurd, she was 
 marching the children round to happy music 
 and leading them in games till the doors could 
 be flung open, she was luring in the mothers 
 who came to see why the children had not re- 
 turned; then she was flying to the kitchen to 
 start the improvised supper while Saxe began 
 the distribution of the crazy presents. 
 
 "I haven't Russell's knack at jokes, but I had 
 to be funny then or die quite literally," he ex- 
 plained. "Any one can be funny under those 
 circumstances. I was. I was frightfully funny. 
 Largely in pantomime, too, for of course they 
 didn't understand much. It takes a good deal 
 to break up a little Chink's composure, but I 
 did it. You couldn't have got them away. They
 
 THE STARLING 163 
 
 thought I was crazy, and that always appeals 
 to an Oriental. Heavens, what we didn't give, 
 them! Kitchen utensils, brushes and combs, 
 garters, old calendars, postage stamps, wedding 
 rings, as well as all the raw materials of the 
 presents they had been planning to make in the 
 next ten days and every one of us jumping a 
 foot at any chance sound, and then being busier 
 and merrier than ever. They never had such a 
 Christmas. They say it put the Mission solidly 
 on its feet for life. Half the local population 
 was under our roof by the time the bully Amer- 
 ican blue-jackets came clamp, clamp, clamp, 
 from the nearest railway station, and the neigh^ 
 bors decided that it wasn't a good season for 
 killing missionaries. I couldn't write it up, 
 for diplomatic reasons. Pity! I could have 
 made a good page of it. But, someway, I have 
 never wanted to play Santa Clause since," he 
 concluded. 
 
 Sarah, who was crying on the neck of a blue-, 
 jacket, had to know more. Quite unconsciously 
 she had left her chair for a stool beside Saxe, 
 and all her burning attention was fixed on him, 
 but gradually a growing expression under hia 
 half dropped lids brought her back to con-r
 
 164 THE STARLING 
 
 sciousness. The look was distinctly wicked: 
 there was good-humored malice in it, unholy 
 triumph. And so the spell was broken, and, 
 turning her head, she saw that Robert sat aloof, 
 looking abstractedly toward the ceiling and 
 drumming on his chair back with patient fin- 
 gers. That was catastrophe. She started up. 
 
 "I should prefer your Christmas tree, Rob- 
 ert," she exclaimed. "I wish I could have seen 
 you. Did you make yourself big and burly?" 
 
 "Not especially," said Robert. 
 
 The case was even worse than she had feared. 
 Sarah bent her whole heart to the task of cheer- 
 ing him, and secretly wondered that Saxe, usu- 
 ally so kind, made no effort to help her. Half 
 a dozen warmly interested questions had been 
 repelled before she happened on a successful 
 one. 
 
 "Was Dosia there?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. She was running the affair. It 
 was for her that I did it." That made Robert 
 feel better; he expanded to the topic. "Dosey 
 Warren has improved a lot lately. She's qui- 
 eter, more womanly. She has learned to listen, 
 if you know what I mean. She used to be the 
 sort of girl that just waits for you to get
 
 THE STARLING 165 
 
 through so that she can jump in, and you 
 couldn't tell her anything she didn't know. I 
 suppose clever girls go through a sort of cock- 
 sure stage, and then, if there's anything to 
 them, they get over it. She was really rather 
 nice with the kids." 
 
 Robert was all good nature again, but Sarah 
 looked grave and pale. Saxe rose with some re- 
 mark about a boat to catch, but she was scarcely 
 aware of his good night and his going. Robert, 
 however, relaxed in his chair and forgave the 
 world. 
 
 "Nice to be here," he said contentedly. 
 "Funny I always feel I've got home when I'm 
 here with you." 
 
 Sarah's sky suddenly brightened. She could 
 even smile a little. 
 
 "I'm a domestic sort of fellow, anyway," he 
 went on. "You wouldn't expect it of a busy 
 physician, on the go all the time, but there is 
 nothing I like better than oh, home, and all 
 that sort of thing. You do, too, don't you?" 
 
 Sarah would have liked anything on earth 
 that was suggested to her at that crisis. She 
 quite forgot the hedge. They confided to each 
 other their ideals of home, and marveled that
 
 166 THE STARLING 
 
 their tastes so coincided, and every moment the 
 subterranean current was sweeping them closer 
 and closer, until the final words seemed to await 
 only the next meeting of their eyes. And yet, 
 when Robert rose to go, they were still un- 
 spoken. He only held her hand a little more 
 closely than usual, then went out in unhurried 
 serenity, regally satisfied with things as they 
 were. She stood for a long time where he had 
 left her, then dropped her cheek to the hand 
 that still vibrated. The house seemed very still 
 and old and empty. 
 
 "I thought they asked you sooner," said poor 
 Sarah. 
 
 Something was bound to come out of the 
 hurts and delights of that momentous day, but 
 Sarah had gone rather forlornly to bed before 
 the healing comfort began to stir. At first she 
 refused to heed it ; she was tired and unhappy, 
 she did not want to write. Ten minutes later 
 she was sitting up, wrapped in a comfortable, 
 a blank-book on her knee. A love scene was 
 spinning itself before her fixed eyes, a gay, vi- 
 brant, man-and-woman duel ; and the man was 
 a real lover, who said all the things that woman 
 would have him say, under the veil of lightness
 
 THE STARLING 167 
 
 and laughter that made them bearable; while 
 the girl was a queen of hearts, elusive, mis- 
 chievous, and yet patently ready to be deeply 
 a woman when caught. It was an enchanting 
 scene, occurring about two-thirds through the 
 book that came into being with it ; when at last 
 Sarah's head dropped back, she knew that she 
 had only to turn her pencil loose, and her lov- 
 ers would build up between them the nicest love 
 story in the whole world, the book of love-as-it- 
 ought-to-be. When she woke up, hours later, 
 the gas was blazing down on her scattered 
 sheets as it had blazed years ago on her inspira- 
 tion of "The Party," and again reality, caught 
 and fixed in the dream, had been made beauti- 
 ful. She put out the light, and turned to sleep 
 again with her cheek on the hand through 
 which Robert had spoken. 
 
 "Wasn't he dear !" she murmured. "Oh, isn't 
 it all wonderful !"
 
 VIII 
 
 THE new book consumed Sarah like an inner 
 flame. She had found the door to delight, 
 and she was seldom on the outer side of it. She 
 never seemed to be making up the story. It 
 was given her, poured into her for two or three 
 hours at a time; then it was as abruptly cut off, 
 and all the will in the world could not advance 
 the tale one inch. Robert came and came, stay- 
 ing contented hours, but Sarah was no longer 
 in a hurry for the words he never quite said. 
 She could do them so much better by herself! 
 Once or twice she was shocked by a sudden im- 
 patience to have him gone, that she might get 
 back to the Robert of her dream. 
 
 She looked more spirit than flesh by the time 
 the almond tree was in blossom and Saxe 
 brought her her first big roll of proofs. She 
 had not seen him since Christmas, but she had 
 not realized how long that was until she faced 
 the change in him. 
 
 "You are working yourself to death," she 
 scolded. They were sitting on a bench under 
 the almond tree, in a sheltered corner of the 
 168
 
 THE STARLING 169 
 
 garden that held the sun. Beyond the white 
 blossoms was a sky of burning blue, and a bor- 
 der of violets at their feet heaped up the lavish 
 sweetness of the California world. "Christo- 
 pher, what is the sense?" 
 
 No one could have called Christopher good 
 looking, but he had the nicest smile in the whole 
 world. It seemed to irradiate the creases in his 
 lean cheeks ; the tired lines about his eyes only 
 served to spread it. "What you have been do- 
 ing to yourself is what I want to know," he de- 
 clared. 
 
 "Oh, I have something to show for it !" 
 
 "Well !" said Christopher, and brought out of 
 his overcoat pocket a very new book, which he 
 laid on her knee. Across the dark blue cover 
 was printed, "GOOD NEWS!" and his name, 
 Christopher Saxe. 
 
 "I wanted to call it Ideals in Journalism, 
 but I'd hate to tell you what the publisher said 
 to that," he explained. "And, after all, I don't 
 want to kill the book. If a good scream across 
 the cover will make people listen, then I'll 
 scream. I want to be heard." 
 
 "Oh, you will be!" Sarah was thrilled and 
 reverent before the book. 
 
 "I want the newspapers to scream, too but
 
 170 THE STARLING 
 
 for something worth hearing," he went on. 
 "Men are always endowing hospitals and libra- 
 ries why doesn't some millionaire endow a big 
 daily, put the sanest men he can get in charge 
 and turn it loose ? A well edited paper with no 
 private interests to serve, no secret motives " 
 He pulled himself up with a laugh. "Well, you 
 can read all that at your leisure," he admitted. 
 
 "Oh, it's splendid to be you!" Sarah ex- 
 claimed. "I feel like like a poodle or a little 
 girl in hair ribbons beside you." Her hand 
 caressed the fly leaf, on which was written, 
 "Sarah, from Christopher," and the date. "I 
 don't see why you bother with me. My father is 
 worth your while when he's good ; but, Chris- 
 topher, truly, I am not!" She looked all ready 
 to efface herself on the instant, and wanted to 
 argue against his smile, but he would not take 
 her seriously. 
 
 "Your father is a brilliant scholar," he con- 
 ceded, "but when it comes to sitting under an 
 almond tree with blossoms dropping on his hair 
 why, Sarah, he can't touch you. And he 
 couldn't have written Dickery Dock to save his 
 neck. Why aren't you more excited over your 
 first proofs?"
 
 THE STARLING 171 
 
 She glanced at them remotely and shook her 
 head. "I am glad they are there, but my heart 
 is somewhere else. I have something to tell you, 
 Christopher, something thrilling!" She was 
 not looking into his face, and the sudden fold- 
 ing of his arms across his chest told her noth- 
 ing. "It is a secret. Only my mother knows 
 it." She paused again, shy of telling even him, 
 yet smiling over the fun of it all. 
 
 "Tell me, Sarah!" 
 
 Something in his voice made her fear that 
 she had led him to expect too much, and she 
 hastened to explain. 
 
 "Oh, it is only another book but such a nice 
 one! Far more grown up than Dickery. I 
 want to call it Queen's Mate. Do you think 
 people know enough about chess to get the 
 point? I like the sound of it, don't you? It's 
 about Christopher, you aren't listening!" 
 
 His arms had dropped and he was looking 
 fixedly away over the top of the hedge to the 
 bald line of the foothills, green now against the 
 strong blue of the sky. He did not speak or 
 turn, but his hand, groping, found hers and held 
 it tightly. Sarah was surprised, but whatever 
 Christopher did was right in her sight. When
 
 172 THE STARLING 
 
 he turned back, he was smiling, a little breath- 
 less, like one who comes up from a plunge into 
 unknown and icy depths. 
 
 "Good work!" he said cheerfully, and gave 
 her hand a congratulatory shake before he let 
 it go. "When may I see it?" 
 
 "One minute I am dying to show it to you," 
 she confessed, "and the next I don't see how I 
 ever can. You see, it's a love story." 
 
 "I thought as much ;" he spoke grimly. "Well, 
 it isn't a totally new subject to me, you know. 
 I shan't be in the least embarrassed." 
 
 "Oh, you are so dear and understanding!" 
 Sarah burst out. "I don't believe there is any- 
 thing one can't show you. I have part of it 
 typewritten I did it myself." 
 
 "You?" He considered her shadowy, poetic 
 face and the big wave of her hair, then amus- 
 edly shook his head. "Oh, no ! I don't see you 
 sitting up at a machine." 
 
 "Come to the attic and you will." 
 
 "The attic?" 
 
 "You don't suppose we could keep a type- 
 writer where my father could hear it? If he 
 even knew it was in the house, it would drive 
 him crazy. We smuggled it in while he was at
 
 THE STARLING 173 
 
 the University, and we put a folded blanket and 
 a pillow under it oh, it has been such a lovely 
 joke!'* Sarah's laugh was deliciously young. 
 "Once I left the door open, and he said at din- 
 ner that he thought he had heard a woodpecker. 
 Mother and I nearly exploded." 
 
 Saxe did not find it altogether funny. "Aren't 
 you cold up there?" 
 
 "Oh, I wear a woolly bathrobe with a hood, 
 and a rug about my feet. I don't mind it ex- 
 cept when my hands get stiff. I learned out of 
 a book the touch method. I don't look at the 
 keys at all. I really was terribly clever at it, 
 Christopher." She jumped up. "Come and see 
 it ! Come and see me do it !" 
 
 Saxe would have gone anywhere on earth 
 when she summoned him like that, and he did 
 not realize what a perilous expedition it was 
 until they were embarked. Sarah left him in 
 the hall while she flew up to consult her mother ; 
 then the latter greeted him in dumb show from 
 the top of the stairs and signaled for a cau- 
 tious ascent. Communication was limited to 
 vivid smiles until all three were in the attic, 
 but they made no apologies. Their behavior 
 evidently did not seem to them unusual.
 
 174 THE STARLING 
 
 "Safe!" Sarah rejoiced. 
 
 The attic was not Mrs. Cawthorne's idea of 
 safety. She stood just inside the door, her skirt 
 wound tightly about her and a ready hand on 
 the knob, while Sarah uncovered the typewriter 
 and showed Saxe its perfections. 
 
 "Of course, you probably have seen one be- 
 fore," she suddenly remembered, ready to laugh 
 at herself, but Saxe remained grave. 
 
 "You make me feel as if I had not," he said. 
 "I have been taking mine as a matter of course, 
 quite forgetting that it is a wonder, a little 
 miracle. I shall go back to it with new vision." 
 
 "Play something, dear," said her mother ab- 
 sently, nervous eyes roving the corners. 
 
 Sarah went over to her, kissed her, and 
 pushed her gently through the door. "You wait 
 for us down-stairs," she said with mothering 
 compassion. 
 
 "Well, dear I am likely to scream any min- 
 ute if I stay," Mrs. Cawthorne admitted, offer- 
 ing an apologetic smile to Saxe through the 
 closing door. 
 
 Sarah came back concerned only with show- 
 ing off her new accomplishment, and seated her- 
 self before the machine under the skylight. A
 
 THE STARLING 175 
 
 long slant of sunshine, crossing the brown dusk, 
 spilled gold on the edges of her hair ; when she 
 lifted her face, closing her eyes to prove her 
 good faith with the touch method, she might 
 have been a young St. Cecelia playing her harp- 
 sichord. Saxe dropped down on the camphor- 
 wood chest against the wall and watched her 
 over folded arms. The kind little American 
 mother who had gone down-stairs did not dream 
 how the shadowy old cave of a place would 
 evoke the primitive man; but, knowing, she 
 would only have been sorry, and gone without 
 fear. Her innocence had a wisdom above that 
 of worldly experience. 
 
 Sarah thought she could do it a little faster 
 when she was alone. 
 
 "I pretended I didn't know you were there, 
 but, of course, I did," she explained, pulling out 
 the sheet. "There are several mistakes. I have 
 written, 'Nuns fret not at their convent's nar- 
 row roon.' But, still that isn't so bad for a 
 beginner. Come and see it." 
 
 "So you did remember that I was here!" 
 Saxe spoke harshly, not moving. 
 
 Sarah saw at once, with mortified clearness, 
 that she had been rude and egotistical, using
 
 176 THE STARLING 
 
 her guest simply as an audience, and she of- 
 fered earnest apology. "You are so sympathetic 
 I forget, and bore you. It is your own fault, 
 Christopher. You have spoiled me," she ac- 
 cused him, a quiver in her voice. 
 
 "Oh, good God !" he muttered, and rose to his 
 feet as though man could bear no more. "Sa- 
 rah, don't you understand? How can you be 
 such a blind bat?" 
 
 It was not at all like love in books: he was 
 hostile, scolding her; and yet in a flash Sarah 
 did understand. If he had kept alive a spark 
 of hope, her distress would have quenched it. 
 
 "Oh, no, Christopher!" 
 
 "Why not? Oh, I know you don't care a 
 red cent for me. I didn't mean to speak, but 
 there are human limits " A sigh shook him 
 like a sob. His voice, rough and strange to her, 
 seemed to be tearing its way through physical 
 barriers. "You needn't say anything. If I had 
 found you first you are everything in the 
 world that I love best in a woman. . . . 
 Oh, I could have made you care! That is the 
 unbearable part of it, that is what kills me. 
 . . . I have lost you by such a little!" His 
 hands closed on hers as though he would drag
 
 THE STARLING 177 
 
 her spirit to him by main force, but at their 
 touch all the fight went out of him, for the ter- 
 rified blood had receded, leaving them deathly 
 cold and helpless. "You poor little child," he 
 muttered, trying to warm them between his. "I 
 have frightened you half to death. I'm sorry, 
 sorry. But you had to know it, sooner or later. 
 I couldn't help it." 
 
 The sudden kindness hurt intolerably. She 
 caught away her hands to hide her face. 
 
 "Oh, no, no !" she breathed. 
 
 He drew up a chair beside her, trying for 
 her sake to make it seem less momentous. 
 
 "Dear Sarah, if you had not been preoccu- 
 pied, you would have seen it long ago. I won't 
 belittle it, even to comfort you ; but I can't bear 
 it if you are going to suffer, too. Sarah, if you 
 cry, I shall!" 
 
 She fought for composure, and he waited 
 until she could lift her head. She was never to 
 forget that first look that passed between them. 
 She had not known that there was an intimacy 
 like this, full of grave trust and unashamed 
 sorrow. 
 
 "You wanted life," he reminded her, as 
 though she might reproach him for disturbing
 
 178 THE STARLING 
 
 her peace. "You see, it can come in through 
 the hedge." 
 
 Sarah still could not quite believe her senses. 
 "You wanted to marry me, Christopher?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The unadorned word had an eloquence that 
 wrung her. 
 
 "I haven't meant to," she faltered. "I have 
 always thought you were the nicest man in the 
 whole world. And that was all." 
 
 "That is something. I shall carry it away 
 with me." 
 
 "Away?" 
 
 He had evidently not meant to open that sub- 
 ject, for he hesitated until she repeated her 
 frightened question: 
 
 "You are not going away?" 
 
 "Yes." He straightened up and went ahead 
 with it. "I am going out to the Orient." 
 
 "Oh, no!" 
 
 "Why not, Sarah?" 
 
 She had no answer for that except her own 
 unlawful despair, so she said nothing. 
 
 "I have finished here," he went on. "My book 
 is out, I am free. They are offering me a good 
 position on the paper, but I am tired of the
 
 THE STARLING 179 
 
 cable cars, I'm sick of the telephone! The far 
 East will feel quiet and different. And there 
 is plenty of work for me to do out there. I can 
 place a series of articles any time. Yes, I want 
 to go." 
 
 He was miles away from her already, at home 
 in strange lands that would never be more than 
 names to her, meeting new experiences, loving 
 some new girl while she stayed at home in her 
 green cage. Sarah's heart seemed to break 
 audibly in the sob that flung her down on her 
 new manuscript. 
 
 "I can't bear it," she said, over and over. "I 
 shall never get out. I can't bear it!" She had 
 not cried so since her childhood, but she felt no 
 shame. The protest came pouring out from be- 
 hind her clasped arms. "You are the first 
 friend I ever had and now you are going 
 away. My book will come out but you won't 
 be here or care. You can go wherever you 
 like all over the big gorgeous world while 
 I have to just wait and wait and wait 
 Oh, it is not fair, Christopher, it is not fair!" 
 
 He had listened rigidly, but there was no syl- 
 lable that could mean hope for him. Perhaps 
 he guessed what that bitter, "and wait "
 
 180 THE STARLING 
 
 meant, for he did not move or speak until she 
 had sobbed herself quiet, and then he was only 
 a kind friend, reasonable and little aloof. 
 
 "Your book will bring you new friends, Sa- 
 rah, dozens of them. No hedge can keep them 
 out. Of course, I shall wander back some day, 
 and then we will have a beautiful time. I am 
 not going to write to you if I can help it. It 
 is the only way. I'm sorry, but I have been 
 through oh, everybody knows what it is, I 
 suppose. Now I must get back to town." He 
 rose, then reconsidered, his eyes on her bent 
 head. "No suppose I read a chapter or two of 
 the new book," he said more gently. "There 
 won't be time to send it to me ; and I can't go 
 without knowing something about it. You are 
 never to forget that I discovered you, Sarah 
 Cawthorne." 
 
 She knew that he was giving her time to re- 
 cover from her storm before she faced him, and 
 his consideration nearly made her cry again. 
 She handed him the typewritten chapters in 
 silence, then put all her will into tranquillizing 
 her shaken body. An hour ago, she could not 
 have stayed in the room while he read her work ; 
 now, in their new intimacy, she loved sitting
 
 THE STARLING 181 
 
 there beside him, within reach of his hand, 
 hearing the quiet turning of the leaves. He was 
 reading all that she had typed. The light grew 
 so dim that he had to hold the manuscript high 
 up toward the skylight, but she felt his grow- 
 ing interest, and would not break in on it by 
 getting a light. When at last he laid down the 
 pages, they could scarcely see each other's 
 faces. 
 
 "Well?" Sarah asked, as he did not speak. 
 
 "Oh, it is good, charming, far ahead of the 
 first;" his tone was hurried, absent. "It will 
 sell by the million. Oh, yes you won't have 
 any difficulty with that. Just go ahead. It is 
 what people want." 
 
 She was puzzled, straining her eyes to read 
 in? his face what he was not saying. "Well, 
 then ?" she repeated. 
 
 "It's all right. Just go ahead like that. Con- 
 gratulations !" 
 
 "But you are not saying something," she in- 
 sisted. 
 
 He flung up his long arms with a smothered 
 shout of joy. "Sarah, you don't know the first 
 thing about love! You know the pretty game, 
 the flirtation, the instinctive play you're wav-
 
 182 THE STARLING 
 
 ing a white hand from a high lattice but, my 
 beloved little girl, you have never touched love 
 you have only dreamed dreams. You are not 
 awake !" 
 
 Sarah was mortally offended. She disliked 
 at any time to be called "young" ; but to have 
 the deepest experience of her heart denied and 
 derided was intolerable. 
 
 "I am sorry to contradict you, but you don't 
 know what you are talking about," she said, 
 keeping a precarious politeness. 
 
 He was exalted beyond the reach of snubs. 
 "Oh, don't I! You write prettily, delightfully, 
 about 'making' love, but it is all from the throat 
 up. Man's desire and woman's need you don't 
 know any more about them than you did the 
 night of your first party. You are not in love 
 with that man !" 
 
 "I am!" she flung back, and then grew hot 
 all over with shame and wrath. "You had no 
 right to make me say that," she accused him 
 sternly. "I shall not forgive it. I am glad you 
 are going away." 
 
 "I am not going away." His joy was dashed, 
 but he still triumphed. "I shall stay right 
 here."
 
 THE STARLING 183 
 
 They faced each other like enemies. 
 
 "I won't see you. You can never come here 
 again." 
 
 "As you say." He was angry, too. "I cer- 
 tainly am not coming against your will. But 
 I will not go away till the day you marry some 
 one else. Do you understand that?" 
 
 Her answer was caught back, and she lifted 
 a hand in warning. Her trained senses had 
 heard a step inaudible to him. She crossed to 
 the door and opened it. 
 
 "Your father has gone out to walk, dear, so 
 it is a good time to come down," her mother 
 suggested. "Doesn't Mr. Saxe want tea?" 
 
 "No ; he has to go now. He has been reading 
 my new story," Sarah explained, glad of the 
 dimness that veiled them. 
 
 "Oh, doesn't he think it is beautiful?" She 
 turned eagerly to Saxe, and his assent satisfied 
 even her. 
 
 "I have never read a story that gave me more 
 pleasure," he said, challenging eyes on Sarah. 
 She turned away with the rudest little shrug 
 she could achieve. 
 
 "You have been most kind," she said with the 
 edges of her lips.
 
 184 THE STARLING 
 
 And so he went, and Sarah tried to cover her 
 shameful admission by hating him, and being 
 cool to Robert. It was a sore-hearted and angry 
 time. The lovers in her new book quarreled 
 bitterly but oh, how deliciously they made up !
 
 IX 
 
 IN theory, when ladies are cool, lovers are the 
 more ardent, a retreat heightens the pur- 
 suit; but Robert's emotions had no regard for 
 tradition. He turned cool himself, and took 
 Dosia Warren to the theater. And though they 
 presently made it up, he kept a faintly guarded 
 air, as if, having failed him once, Sarah might 
 again lapse from the perfect admiration that 
 was her charm. 
 
 Sarah, looking on at his bodily splendor, the 
 sunny geniality of his heart (when no one had 
 stupidly wounded it), his growing importance 
 in his profession, the charm that lay in the way 
 he rolled a cigarette or threw back his head 
 when he laughed Sarah, seeing all these 
 things, cried in her aching heart, "If this isn't 
 love, then what is love?" Yet the hateful accu- 
 sation stuck like a burr, it forced her to think. 
 Heretofore she had kept Robert in a sealed 
 niche, as some people keep their religion, pro- 
 tected from the action of their brains and used 
 only for emotional purposes. Now she began 
 to ask herself formal questions about him 
 185
 
 186 THE STARLING 
 
 questions that could be triumphantly answered. 
 He was a good son, a man of upright life, 
 kindly, truthful, a hard worker think how one 
 could describe him in a letter! Of course she 
 loved him. She would have loved him for his 
 provable fine qualities even if he had lacked his 
 bodily charm. "From the throat up" what 
 on earth did that mean? Her love might be 
 love in the bud as yet, but it would burst into 
 full flower the first time he took her into his 
 arms and kissed her. 
 
 She felt now that she had not long to wait 
 for that moment. Something as potent as a 
 love philter was being prepared for her at full 
 speed, three thousand miles away. She had 
 said little about Dickery Dock, and Robert had 
 not seemed to take in the fact of her coming 
 authorship, so now she hid it until she could 
 lay her gift in his hands. It was to be a mo- 
 ment of grave beauty. Sarah always adored 
 the scene wherein the wife confesses to the 
 moved and utterly unprepared husband the se- 
 cret of her coming motherhood, and she fore- 
 saw the offering of Dickery Dock as a miniature 
 replica of that lovely revelation. Perhaps Sa- 
 rah's father was right about her sense of hu-
 
 THE STARLING 187 
 
 mor ; but surely it was better to have so reliable 
 and loving a heart ! 
 
 On the day that the ten author's copies came, 
 Mrs. Cawthorne was in bed. She stayed in bed 
 much more than usual this spring, but so casu- 
 ally, paying so little attention to where she 
 was, that her family had not realized the 
 change. The books, opened on the counterpane 
 beside her, had a hundred charms; even the 
 smell was enjoyable. And the cover was not 
 bad at all, when you considered what awful 
 covers some books had. 
 
 " 'By Sarah Cawthorne/ " she read aloud. 
 "I am glad I lived to see that. You funny little 
 girl growing up into an author !" 
 
 "It is a joke, isn't it!" Sarah admitted. "But 
 I haven't people enough for so many copies." 
 
 "Well, there is your Aunt Sadi. And Robert 
 you will give him one, won't you?" 
 
 Would she! Sarah smiled to herself, with a 
 leap of the heart. "Oh, yes," she said casually. 
 
 "And Mr. Saxe, of course." 
 
 The very name could scorch. Sarah had not 
 yet learned to live with the memory of what she 
 had told Christopher Saxe. It had obliterated 
 all that had gone before that moment. Only the
 
 188 THE STARLING 
 
 speediest possible declaration from Robert could 
 legitimatize it and wipe away the shame. 
 
 "It would please Nelly tremendously if I gave 
 her one," she said. 
 
 "Oh, yes, dear! And there is my copy, and 
 yours and your father's?" 
 
 "No," said Sarah, and then, hearing his step 
 in the hall, started up to close the door; but 
 she was too late. 
 
 He, also, had a book in his hand. 
 
 "Sarah, I have just run across this book by 
 your lanky friend Saxe," he said, coming in. 
 "The man is no fool ; why, I agree with almost 
 everything he says. He's got an old subject, 
 but he handles it with an inspired common 
 sense. I should like to Hello! What is all 
 this?" 
 
 "My book;" Sarah spoke defiantly and Mrs. 
 Cawthorne stiffened among her pillows, but he 
 did not notice. He had picked up a copy with 
 an amused glimmer that deepened as he turned 
 the pages, reading a line here and there. It was 
 very hard to bear. A passive blankness was 
 the best that Sarah could do. Inwardly she for- 
 got to go on breathing until he closed the book, 
 holding it off at arm's length.
 
 THE STARLING 189 
 
 "The cover suggests a valentine a valentine 
 designed by a German pastry cook," he ob- 
 served. "Well, I suppose you will get some fun 
 out of it now, and later you can live it down. 
 Rather a pity to have used your own name." 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne's face had flamed. "Sarah's 
 book will do more good in the world than all 
 your dry old writings put together !" she burst 
 out. 
 
 He looked in surprise from the red mother to 
 the pale daughter. "Have I trodden on the sus- 
 ceptibilities of the young author? Well, it will 
 do you good, Sairy. Prepare you a little for 
 what is coming. Wait till the reviewers get 
 after you !" And he limped away with an inter- 
 nal chuckle. 
 
 "Oh, he is the worst!" Mrs. Cawthorne ex- 
 claimed. "Don't mind him, darling." 
 
 Sarah pressed the thought of Robert to her 
 heart. "Oh, I don't mind anything," she said. 
 
 All day she watched for Robert, and all the 
 next day, not daring even to go to the attic lest 
 Nelly should inadvertently say she was out. The 
 following day she almost forgot him, for the 
 mail brought an intimation of the coming mira- 
 cle the second great adventure of her life.
 
 190 THE STARLING 
 
 "So that is what you have been doing inside 
 your hedge," Dosia wrote. "I saw your name 
 in the papers yesterday, in letters a foot high. 
 I have not read the book yet, but I am looking 
 forward to it. Meanwhile, won't you take 
 luncheon with me very informally next Friday 
 at half past one? Several of your old 
 friends " and so on. 
 
 Sarah accepted the advance as an unalloyed 
 and most touching kindness, and flew over to 
 the city to pick up what she could in the way of 
 personal adornment. There was no time to 
 have anything made, but she was not a person 
 whose clothes mattered very much. Her bodily 
 grace dominated them. When she came back 
 through the hedge, hurrying as always lest 
 something had happened to her mother, Robert 
 was leaving the house, and she had time for a 
 long look at him before he was aware of her. 
 
 Robert was low in his mind. His hands 
 sagged in his pockets, his foot kicked at the 
 gravel. Even the sight of her did not cheer him. 
 
 "Oh, Sarah!" he said unsmilingly. "You 
 weren't in, so I sat a while with your mother." 
 He seemed to be accusing her of something.
 
 THE STARLING 1S1 
 
 "Oh, then she told you about my book!" Sa- 
 rah was dreadfully disappointed. "I meant to 
 surprise you with it." 
 
 "I saw it announced in the papers." His 
 frown deepened. "Sarah, do you have to put 
 up with that sort of thing?" 
 
 "What thing?" 
 
 "The abominable publicity. Having your 
 name displayed like a breakfast food. I can't 
 tell you what a shock it gave me. You surely 
 don't like it!" 
 
 Her native truthfulness had never come 
 harder. "I am afraid I do," she said miserably. 
 "I have been so cooped up it is like having a 
 part of me get out, don't you see?" 
 
 Robert was not to be appeased. "I suppose 
 I am old-fashioned," he said stiffly, "but there is 
 something sacred to me about a girl's name. 
 If girls only understood how men feel about that 
 sort of thing, they wouldn't be in such a hurry 
 to rush into print, I can tell you." 
 
 With any one else, Sarah would have argued 
 that; but she hated to prove Robert in the 
 wrong. When her case was too good, she 
 changed the subject.
 
 192 THE STARLING 
 
 "They won't advertise much," she reassured 
 him. "It is such a harmless little book noth- 
 ing that any one need mind. I have a copy for 
 you. Won't you come in and get it?" 
 
 He came with a poor grace. Even the "Rob- 
 ert from Sarah" on the title page did not touch 
 him. The book's presence between them seemed 
 to make him uneasy; he was not like himself 
 until it had been thrust into a pocket. 
 
 "I shall begin to write in about fifteen years," 
 he said then, with a clearing brow. "My books 
 won't be novels, though." 
 
 "Of course not!" Her warm voice admitted 
 the inferiority of novels, and after that they 
 had a very nice time ; but it was cruelly unlike 
 the scene that Sarah had awaited. 
 
 "Love isn't very satisfactory except when 
 you are all by yourself," she admitted sadly 
 after her young lord had gone. 
 
 Girls to whom a luncheon is a matter of 
 course or even a bore could not understand 
 how Sarah lay burning awake the night before, 
 how she rode out into the morning on a charger 
 with a streaming tail, how her heart failed her 
 and she longed to get out of it, how she agonized 
 lest boats and cars be delayed, and so had to
 
 THE STARLING 193 
 
 walk the neighborhood for an agitating half- 
 hour because she was too early and then man- 
 aged to be ten racking minutes late. The draw- 
 ing room was a blur of faces and voices, and 
 Sarah, clutched by an insane fear that she might 
 not know Dosia when she saw her, crossed the 
 sill with the same grave, pale composure that 
 she would have shown on the steps of the scaf- 
 fold. And then the miracle began. 
 
 "Well, Sarah!" "Well, Sarah Cawthorne!" 
 "Sarah, I read it last night and it is perfectly 
 sweet!" Three old acquaintances had magically 
 become three old friends. Their ancient indif- 
 ference had given them glamour for the little 
 Sarah ; she found their present enthusiasm daz- 
 zling. And it made the strangers look at her 
 with interest, so that when Dosia put in a dry, 
 "Dear me, Sarah, how does it feel to be an au- 
 thor?" the true answer would have been, 
 "Like heaven !" 
 
 "But it is such a very little book," she warned 
 them earnestly. 
 
 They laughed as though she had said some- 
 thing witty, or wicked. Then Dosia put an arm 
 through hers and led her to the place of honor. 
 / !! during that enchanted luncheon the talk
 
 194 THE STARLING 
 
 kept its face to her. She did not say much 
 she did not have to; they had an air of taking 
 her value for granted while they proved their 
 own; and, so protected, she found the hedge 
 rolling back like a heavy mist, leaving her in 
 brilliant sunshine. She made no distinctions 
 among the guests: they were people at last, 
 people ! When they asked her to come to lunch- 
 eon or to tea, she accepted everything. And 
 Dosia looked on with a small wise smile under 
 the eyelashes that were no longer too pale for 
 beauty. 
 
 "Sarah can't trail over to the city every other 
 day," she interposed. "But she is coming to 
 spend a week with me before long, and you can 
 all ask her then/' 
 
 "Oh, Dosia!" Sarah was overwhelmed. 
 
 "Of course, it is one for you, Sarah, and two 
 for me they will have to invite me as well," 
 Dosia explained, and something in her cool 
 competent voice brought a momentary chill, a 
 consciousness of forces not understood and per- 
 haps not benign. For the moment, it was a 
 relief to say that she could not leave her mother. 
 
 "Bring her, too," said Dosia. "She shall have 
 a sunny room and be just as quiet as she likes.
 
 THE STARLING 195 
 
 Mother will write and ask her. I always liked 
 your mother. She has great charm." 
 
 The glow returned. "It is too good to be 
 true," said Sarah, "but I love your thinking 
 of it." 
 
 Dosia turned and looked at her with amused 
 scrutiny. "I am going to make a lion of you," 
 she said, dropping her voice. 
 
 "Why, Dosey?" The impulsive question had 
 an ungracious echo in her own ears, and she 
 would have caught it back; but Dosia never 
 denied that she had her reasons. 
 
 "Well, you count now for one thing: you 
 will shed a luster on me," she said, resting her 
 chin on clasped hands, white and jeweled. 
 "To meet Miss Sarah Cawthorne' that will 
 be quite an asset if they go on advertising you 
 at this rate." 
 
 She had spoken only for Sarah, and Sarah 
 recognized with a thrill of gratification that this 
 candor would never be for the others. Dosia 
 could trust her with it, as she had trusted her 
 the day they met in the square. Her compact and 
 efficient brain recognized a brain worthy to re- 
 ceive her discoveries. The swirl of her red 
 gold hair, perfectly arranged, her charming
 
 196 THE STARLING 
 
 clothes and her air of maturity, made her a fig- 
 ure of importance among these other girls. She 
 did not need to talk to them, and she seemed to 
 know it, merely keeping them going with an 
 occasional adroit touch. Sarah put by what 
 she had said, to be mastered later. 
 
 "Tor one thing/" she repeated. "Then 
 there is another thing?" 
 
 Dosia laughed a little. "You are much too 
 clever," she observed, turning back to her 
 other guests. 
 
 The invitation came the next day, and for an 
 exalted half-hour Mrs. Cawthorne thought that 
 she could do it. Then she gave it up, sinking 
 back relievedly among her pillows. 
 
 "Oh, Bunny, I can't ; but I don't want to hear 
 any nonsense about not leaving me," she de- 
 clared, her spirit still erect and laughing. "You 
 are too good that is your one fault. I won't 
 have such a model daughter." 
 
 "But I want you to go, mother!" 
 
 "Oh, I don't I can't. You go, and I will get 
 in Janet McGowan." 
 
 Sarah was troubled. "But she won't know 
 the things you mind the way I know them." 
 
 "I will tell her without shame."
 
 THE STARLING 197 
 
 "But, dearest, having a trained nurse will 
 make you think you are ill." 
 
 "Nonsense ! Janet's massage will be good for 
 me, and her gossip even better. I shall know 
 more about what is going on than you will at the 
 end of the week, I can assure you. Sit down 
 there and write that you will come, and at the 
 same time write to Janet. Mind your mother 
 without arguing." 
 
 Sarah rose and put on the garden hat that 
 she had thrown off when she ran up-stairs with 
 the letter. 
 
 "I shall telephone and find out if Janet Mc- 
 Gowan will be free before I write one word," 
 she announced. 
 
 "I should hate to be as unselfish as you are," 
 was her mother's comment; but the eyes that 
 followed her were adoring. 
 
 Janet could come, clothes were commanded; 
 for two hours every day, when her mother sup- 
 posed she was writing on her book, Sarah was 
 in a studio a mile away, taking dancing lessons. 
 Writing? That power had gone out as though 
 it had never existed. She looked at her manu- 
 script remotely, with a vague distaste, and 
 finally tumbled it into the camphor-wood chest
 
 198 THE STARLING 
 
 and closed the lid on it. She was living in the 
 week ahead as she had once lived in the coming 
 party, and her mother never tired of the topic, 
 but Robert met it at first with reserve, then 
 with definite objection. 
 
 "I like Dosia I admire her," he conceded; 
 "but a man of the world knows how to discount 
 a lot that she says. The hedge has kept you 
 like something precious, Sarah. I'd hate to 
 have you change." It was spoken almost like a 
 lover, and Sarah's heart ran to meet his. They 
 were sitting in the sun on the front steps, and 
 the spring radiance was on the old garden. 
 
 "I shan't change, Robert. At least, I shan't 
 throw away anything that you like," she prom- 
 ised gravely. That left him a perfect answer 
 "So you care what I like, Sarah!" She had 
 always a lighting vision of what he might say, 
 side by side with the disappointing actuality. 
 
 "You can't tell what you will do with a lot of 
 people flattering you and making a fuss over 
 you," he said, frowning. "I have had three 
 cards with, 'To meet Miss Sarah Cawthorne* 
 on them." He uttered that like an accusation, 
 and Sarah, for the first time in their history, 
 was moved to make gentle fun of him.
 
 THE STARLING 199 
 
 "I advise you to accept," she said. "She is a 
 rising young author, well worth meeting." 
 
 "A busy physician has little time for social 
 life," was the stiff answer. 
 
 "But the busy physician has read the book, 
 hasn't he?" She had tried to say that on sev- 
 eral previous visits, but had never been able to 
 get it out. Now it came of itself, naturally, 
 without visible tremor. 
 
 It was Robert who was embarrassed. "Oh, 
 yes yes. I meant to to speak of it." He was 
 strangely constrained. "I thought it very 
 sweet, very nice. I don't set up to be a judge 
 of novels but but a very nice little story, 
 I'm sure. I don't suppose I read a novel once 
 in ten months. There is always a pile of medi- 
 cal journals " He edged off from the subject 
 with evident relief, and Sarah in her kindly 
 politeness helped him to escape it altogether. 
 She did not understand, yet she dimly recog- 
 nized that if he had not liked the book, he could 
 have told her so at perfect ease ; it was having 
 to praise that so disturbed him. 
 
 "I can't read or do anything sensible with 
 Dosia ahead of me," she confessed. "Robert, 
 you will come to the big tea on the eighteenth,
 
 200 THE STARLING 
 
 won't you ? People don't fall ill on Sunday. It 
 is to be at the Klondike Warrens'. Aren't they 
 good, when they don't know me at all? I want 
 you to come to that." 
 
 "I can come for a little while, I suppose," he 
 conceded. "But don't count on me for any 
 dances. I hate dancing." 
 
 "The girls' hair always gets in your mouth," 
 she finished it for him, with a rush of laugh- 
 ter. But he had forgotten, and looked an 
 amazed question. 
 
 "I could go to a dance every other night if I 
 cared to waste my time that way," he held 
 forth. "I don't see why they keep on asking 
 me, but they do. I suppose because, when I do 
 go, I brace up and play the game. But when I 
 get home, I'm pretty apt to say, 'What's the 
 use?'" 
 
 "Pleasure is worth while, Robert!" 
 
 "If it is pleasure. I find the average girl 
 very tiresome. She can't talk of anything but 
 herself. You are too good for that' crowd, 
 Sarah!" 
 
 "Well, is there a better crowd that I could 
 get?" 
 
 "I don't see what you want of a crowd. We 
 are having a pretty nice time, aren't we?"
 
 THE STARLING 201 
 
 "Here?" 
 
 "Yes you and I here." 
 
 It was coming. Now, this minute, with no 
 more preliminary than that. His eyes said it, 
 his hand, taking hers from her knee, repeated 
 it. She had only to admit that it was good 
 enough, staying here with him, and the glory 
 of love would descend upon them. He held it 
 off, consciously, awaiting her decision. No 
 words were needed ; the air rang with his silent 
 demand. All the traditions of love and the 
 world well lost gave her only one answer; and, 
 because her honest heart could not make it, she 
 burst out with a reproach : 
 
 "You ought to want me to go, Robert! I 
 have been so shut in you ought to be glad that 
 I can get out !" 
 
 One did not lightly reprove Robert. The pen- 
 alty was immediate and severe. Love with- 
 drew, and he released her hand. 
 
 "I hope you will have a very nice time," he 
 said formally, rising. His eyes were those of a 
 stranger. "Remember me to Miss Warren, will 
 you ? Now I must run." He lifted his hat and 
 turned away. 
 
 "Robert !" It was more than a reproach it 
 was a stern and righteous rebuke.
 
 202 THE STARLING 
 
 "I beg your pardon?" 
 
 Sarah was shocked to the foundations. This 
 was the first trouble with Robert for which she 
 could not take the entire blame, and it hurt 
 dreadfully. "You are behaving very badly," 
 she told him. 
 
 Robert, his nose well lifted, was inspecting 
 the sky-line. "I am sorry," he said with ex- 
 treme courtesy, and then, as Mrs. Cawthorne 
 opened the front door, he went without a relent- 
 ing glance. 
 
 Perhaps Mrs. Cawthorne read his retreating 
 back. She sat down on the step beside her 
 daughter, and her "Well, dear?" opened the 
 way to any communication one cared to make. 
 
 Sarah was glowering over her doubled fists. 
 "Oh, mother, I do think men are unsatisfac- 
 tory!" 
 
 "Absolutely," was the cheerful answer. "But 
 they are the only thing we have got in that 
 line." Her eyes fell on a small gray man, limp- 
 ing up the drive. "We might as well make the 
 best of them." 
 
 "But they could so easily be everything we 
 want," Sarah exclaimed. "Some of them must 
 be. The lovers in books can't be all lies."
 
 THE STARLING 203 
 
 "If ladies wrote them, they are," Mrs. Caw- 
 thorne began, then caught herself up. "Write 
 them as they should be, darling, as women want 
 them. Maybe they will learn," she said hope- 
 fully. 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne was too near for any more on 
 that topic. They waited for him, Mrs. Caw- 
 thorne making room on the step in case he 
 wanted to join them. She never got over the 
 longing to present a family effect. He halted in 
 front of them, leaning on his stick, wicked eyes 
 on his daughter. 
 
 "What have you been doing to my dear 
 friend R-R-Robert?" He loved to stammer over 
 that name. "If he had had a horse out there, he 
 would have kicked it. As it was only a poor 
 dumb car, he couldn't do anything but jam its 
 levers." 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne always stood up for Robert ; 
 but lately her defense had lost its enthusiasm, 
 and she had often a troubled and incredulous 
 eye for her daughter. 
 
 "Oh, Robert would not hurt any living thing," 
 she said absently. 
 
 "Unless it was a 1-1-lady," he suggested. 
 "What I like especially about that young man
 
 204 THE STARLING 
 
 is that he has the courage of his feelings. If 
 he is disturbed in his mind, he will never de- 
 ceive you with a false blitheness, I'm that way, 
 too. It's a bond between us. We don't pre- 
 tend." 
 
 "You certainly don't," agreed his wife with a 
 faint sigh. "Perhaps that is why we do. Per- 
 haps some one has to, dear !" 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne mounted the steps to go in. 
 "I hate being called 'dear,' " he observed ge- 
 nially. 
 
 "I know, you do, Stephen!" She spoke with 
 quick apology. Sarah had turned on him a 
 blaze of silent anger, but Mrs. Cawthorne was 
 wholly without resentment. "It is a stupid old 
 habit. I don't really mean it, you know !" 
 
 He smiled at that, and she actually laughed. 
 She was still amused after the door had closed 
 on him. Sarah could not bear it. 
 
 "That was the most brutal thing I ever heard 
 a man say," she burst out, striking the step with 
 clenched fists. "He ought to be killed for it, 
 mother !" 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne looked on at her wrath with 
 loving compassion. "I think, darling, a good 
 many men are like your father, underneath,"
 
 THE STARLING 205 
 
 she said mildly ; "only their wives don't let them 
 say it, or even recognize it to themselves. Men 
 are not created like women, you know. But, of 
 course, a really able and clever woman makes 
 them think they are. That is civilization, dear. 
 Now do you want to come and get some roses? 
 The Gloire de Dijon is out." 
 
 "Oh, I don't understand life, I don't under- 
 stand anything," Sarah muttered, and went for 
 the scissors. 
 
 Since no human experience is permitted to be 
 perfect, Sarah had to carry a heartache with 
 her to the city; but it must be admitted that 
 she frequently forgot it. Dickery Dock and its 
 new California author seemed to be blazoned 
 on everything that could carry print, and Dosia 
 fulfilled the promise to make a lion of her with 
 a skill and lavishness that caused Sarah to cry 
 more than once, "Why, Dosey? Why?" 
 
 "For you don't need me," she argued, using 
 Dosia's language. They were up-stairs in 
 dressing-gowns, lounging over a cup of tea 
 girls together, just as Sarah had dreamed it 
 all these years. "And you don't want me to 
 love you. I could, but it would bore you 
 frightfully. You know everybody, go every-
 
 206 THE STARLING 
 
 where what can a mild little lionette like me 
 do for you ?" 
 
 "I am having a good time out of it for one 
 thing," Dosia maintained. 
 
 "But you never say what the other thing is," 
 said Sarah, and they laughed. 
 
 "Now you want to know who is coming to- 
 night," Dosia said, as though they had no more 
 time to waste on generalities. She treated the 
 visit like a campaign and did nothing without a 
 reason. "There will be only six of us father 
 and mother are going over to Aunt Clara. I 
 thought that would be better. George Moore is 
 for you. He adores poetry and his father is 
 Moore and Conklin. He would be a very good 
 person for you." Sarah's startled laugh 
 showed her ready to take that humorously, but 
 Dosia was entirely serious. "You will get on 
 with him he has a great deal of sentiment. He 
 can't endure me. The Tommy Harveys have 
 never read a book through in their lives, but 
 they have two stunning houses they are good 
 people for you to know. And then Mr. Hurd 
 for me. He is a big, burly, common old thing, 
 but he gives me tips on the stock market." 
 
 "Stock market, Dosey!"
 
 THE STARLING 207 
 
 "Rather. I doubled my allowance last year." 
 Dosia put down her teacup and dropped back 
 on the couch, stretching a satin slipper to the 
 fire. Chiffon sleeves fell back from the child- 
 ishly soft arms she clasped behind her red-gold 
 head. Everything about her, from the lace that 
 crossed her breast to the rather conventional 
 luxury of her surroundings, made her thrill- 
 ingly a fine lady in Sarah's eyes; and yet "I 
 ought to have been a man," she said impa- 
 tiently. "I could run things!" 
 
 "But you do," Sarah argued. "You run 
 everything and everybody, including your fam- 
 ily and the stranger that is within your gates. 
 What more do you want?" 
 
 "Oh, power, I suppose for one thing." 
 
 The phrase made them laugh again. 
 
 "And not love?" Sarah's voice dropped 
 reverently over the word. She was suddenly 
 homesick for Robert. 
 
 Dosia's eyes narrowed to two brown slits. 
 "Oh, yes, love," she said in businesslike assent. 
 "We don't all take it like melted moonlight, but 
 the curse is on us. That is why I wish I were 
 a man." 
 
 "But men love!"
 
 208 THE STARLING 
 
 "Yes and take and go their ways. Our 
 role is so abominably indirect and slow. The 
 feminine attitude modest waiting does exas- 
 perate me so." 
 
 "But would men like it, Dosey, if we made 
 the advances?" 
 
 "No. But why is what they like more im- 
 portant than what I like?" Dosia kicked an im- 
 patient slipper at the laws of life. "Oh, I 
 would cut out the whole thing if I could. But a 
 woman never amounts to anything until she 
 marries and gets it off her mind. Then she is 
 free to go ahead, she can become somebody." 
 Dosia rose. "Now, my young lion, we must 
 dress. Ring for Suzanne when you want help." 
 
 "Oh, but I want to talk," Sarah pleaded; 
 "about love and men and power and all the 
 things we don't agree on. You shock me to 
 death, you know only you are so interesting, 
 I have to put off the shock until I understand 
 better." 
 
 "I wouldn't understand too well," advised 
 Dosia, turning on the lights above the dressing 
 table. "You are undoubtedly a great deal bet- 
 ter person than I in the sight of Heaven. I 
 warn you, I am not a fine character."
 
 THE STARLING 209 
 
 "I don't believe it," said Sarah stoutly. "Look 
 what you have done for me." 
 
 Dosia gave her an odd glance in the mirror. 
 "Well, I have got George Moore for you," she 
 said, as though answering herself. "Now run 
 along. I will share with you the secrets of my 
 soul, but not of my toilet." 
 
 "Well, send word when I may come back;" 
 and Sarah dragged herself away. She did not 
 need an hour to dress, and could not conceive 
 how one extended it over so simple a process. 
 If nature had not been very good to Sarah, giv- 
 ing her bodily grace and hair that waved natu- 
 rally into place, her excellent clothes would have 
 availed her little, for she seldom knew what she 
 was doing when she put them on. She did not 
 dream over here as she did at home that 
 power had gone out as though it had never ex- 
 isted ; but she had so much to think about that 
 she had scarcely time to feel. Her quarrel with 
 Robert was a grievous wound and yet George 
 Moore did sound interesting! 
 
 "I wonder if I am shallow?" she asked her- 
 self, then gave it up and could not help being 
 happy. People every day, people! 
 
 Dosia would have made a brilliant press
 
 210 THE STARLING 
 
 agent. Every newspaper reader in the city 
 presently knew that Sarah was there, and who 
 was entertaining her. Sarah flatly refused to 
 be interviewed, but Dosia talked to the report- 
 ers, and even managed to present one without 
 explaining him. (It was he who described 
 Sarah's face as perpetually "lit by sunlight 
 coming through live oaks.") The book shops 
 telegraphed their reorders for Dickery Dock, 
 and by Sunday it was a matter of social impor- 
 tance to be invited to the Warrens' reception. 
 
 "Talk of Cinderella!" Sarah spoke solemnly 
 as the motor took them up the hills Sunday 
 afternoon. "All I asked was to get out through 
 the hedge. I never dreamed of asking to be 
 famous." 
 
 "Well, don't you like it?" Dosia asked. 
 
 Sarah thought that over. "The fuss over my 
 book makes me a little ashamed," she con- 
 fessed. "My father says it is trash, and all the 
 time I am perfectly sure that they think so, 
 too. I imagine fame is something that hap- 
 pens to other people, don't you ? It would never 
 be quite true, for one's self. But it does make 
 them want to know me, and I adore that. Oh, 
 friends, Dosey!"
 
 THE STARLING 211 
 
 "You are a queer child." Dosia was looking 
 on at her earnestness with good-humored 
 amusement. "I can't decide whether you are 
 a little girl of forty or a mature woman of 
 twelve. You are all theory as yet. You live 
 entirely in your head." 
 
 There it was again from, the throat up. 
 Sarah flushed resentfully. 
 
 "That is all you know about it," she said. 
 
 "Oh, I dare say you have had tremendous 
 affairs alone by yourself," Dosia conceded. 
 "But I don't believe you know what can hap- 
 pen, Sarah Cawthorne !" 
 
 Sarah had a rueful thought that with Robert 
 nothing really did happen. Then the forbid- 
 den memory of Saxe in the dusky attic leaped 
 into her mind and stayed there, in spite of her 
 shamed recoil. She had slammed the door shut 
 on the experience before its significance had 
 been revealed to her ; now, going back over the 
 scene, she began to discern some big secret 
 that she had not known at the time. Something 
 more than romance and affection had hovered 
 over her like a shadowy presence, something 
 grimly unadorned, as real as thirst, or death. 
 Whenever she went back to the attic, the pres-
 
 212 THE STARLING 
 
 ence would be there, waiting for her. The knowl- 
 edge had no words, but it shook her bodily. A 
 blaze of excitement followed, but she did not 
 want to talk any more about affairs, and what 
 could happen. 
 
 "It is too wonderful," she cried, turning 
 away from the window. "I don't mean the 
 bay and these glorious, loping old streets, up 
 and down I mean the houses, with some one I 
 know or am going to know every few blocks, 
 and some one to bow to every time we go down- 
 town. People, Dosey! Dozens, streets full of 
 men and women, and one hundred and fifty of 
 them coming this afternoon to make friends! 
 I have got three friends started for George 
 Moore does like me, and Constance Whitney, 
 and Isabel Olmstead. I tell you, they like me! 
 The hedge is down!" Then, as they pulled up 
 before marble pillars, shyness suddenly clutched 
 her. "Please stay near me," she begged as they 
 went in. 
 
 The most sophisticated good taste that money 
 could buy had beautified the Klondike Warrens' 
 palace, and the two simple, hearty, incongruous 
 figures lived complacently among their treas- 
 ures, remembering with some trouble what was
 
 THE STARLING 213 
 
 what, and as undisturbed by their footmen or 
 their fine guests as they had been by the min- 
 ers that had swarmed the boarding-house of 
 their dark ages. They showed Sarah the massed 
 flowers in the drawing-rooms and the feast in 
 the dining-room as simply as though she were a 
 patron who had given an order, and whom they 
 hoped they had pleased. Their unconscious- 
 ness of how very good it was of them troubled 
 her courteous soul. She tried to tell them, but 
 the shyness was growing worse every moment, 
 and her speech was stiffening into conventional 
 phrases. Before she could fight it down, other 
 girls arrived to help receive, and the company 
 was coming in through the hedge. 
 
 It was very strange it was unspeakably dis- 
 heartening. The history of the first party 
 seemed to be repeating itself. The little din- 
 ners and theater parties of the past week had 
 been made easy: seated between friendly souls, 
 turned toward her, Sarah had been lured out 
 so pleasantly that the process seemed as nat- 
 ural as blooming to a flower. Now she was con- 
 fronting a new test the real test, and the kind- 
 ly preparation went for nothing. She could not 
 do it. The guests were charming to her, but
 
 214 THE STARLING 
 
 she could not talk to them at a moment's notice 
 as they talked to one another, and so they 
 passed on to their own friends, leaving her 
 alone in the center of the party. Klondike mil- 
 lions had made an imposing setting, and the 
 easy, richly dressed guests accepted themselves 
 as what the newspapers call society, but Sarah 
 was unawed by externals; a country gathering 
 in a hospitable kitchen would have seemed to 
 her as hopelessly inaccessible. The hedge had 
 lasted too long. She could never carry freedom 
 with the ease of those who had grown up in it. 
 She was a failure, a stick. 
 
 And then, head and shoulders above the 
 crowd just as he had come years ago came 
 Robert. Sarah saw him from the other end 
 of the great room, and her day was saved. 
 From the throat up, indeed when her heart 
 was leaping like a dervish in her side! He 
 was a long time in making his way to her, for, 
 of course, every one stopped him, and she did 
 not once look toward him, but her eyes shone, 
 her laugh came easily, she could talk now 
 because it mattered so little what happened, 
 with Robert coming. And so people lingered
 
 THE STARLING 215 
 
 and a group formed, and suddenly she was in 
 the very heart of the party she, Sarah. 
 
 Dosia stood quietly at one side, and now 
 Robert was talking with her, not ten feet 
 away. Sarah could wait. It was good that he 
 should see how brave and gay she was with 
 girls and men, that he should be a little proud 
 of her even as she was proud of him. She 
 piled it high for him before she turned to get 
 her reward. 
 
 Neither Dosia nor Robert was there. Sarah 
 had been feeling his presence like a living cur- 
 rent, yet he was nowhere in sight. As soon 
 as she could break away, she moved through 
 the rooms, looking for him. She had to find 
 him. She could have run shrieking his name. 
 The great romance of her life seemed to be slip- 
 ping through her fingers ; she could not bear it. 
 
 Robert was not in the drawing-rooms or the 
 dining-room; then she saw Dosia coming from 
 the direction of the front door. Their eyes met, 
 but Dosia's seemed to deny the encounter. She 
 was busy receiving good nights when Sarah 
 reached her side. 
 
 "Oh, Sarah, I was looking for you," she said
 
 216 THE STARLING 
 
 at once. "Good night, Mrs Perry. You were 
 dear to come. Sarah, Robert Russell was here, 
 but he could not get at you, you were so sur- 
 rounded. Oh, good night, Frank. He left his 
 regards for you ; he had to run off. Good night, 
 Miriam. Yes, Sarah is leaving me to-morrow 
 isn't it hateful of her? You know Miss 
 Clarke, Sarah." 
 
 The long years of hiding her tumultuous emo- 
 tions had armored Sarah for such moments. 
 No one could have suspected the fainting sick- 
 ness behind her graceful composure. Dosia 
 was not waiting for an answer; she had not 
 even looked at Sarah. The good nights kept 
 them occupied until only the family was left. 
 They were to dine there informally. 
 
 "Well, Miss Sarah, how does it feel to be 
 famous?" Mr. Klondike Warren was looking 
 down on her with large kindly approval. 
 
 Her lips said, of course, that it felt perfectly 
 wonderful. She could not tell him that no 
 earthly glory mattered, since Robert Russell 
 had not come and spoken to her. 
 
 With a good night's sleep, Sarah might have 
 been able to resurrect the glory. Years later, 
 she would drag out the old experience and make
 
 Suddenly she was in the very heart of the party.
 
 THE STARLING 217 
 
 it a shining wonder for her children, a tale of 
 a little book that had slipped like a carrier 
 pigeon through the hedge, and brought a city- 
 f ul of people to greet her ; for her imagination 
 was a lavish vine and would beautify all the 
 road behind her, and run forward to blossom 
 up the very pillars of death. But her dream- 
 power was to be given no chance that night, 
 though they left early. 
 
 "Sarah must have one good long sleep, or 
 her mother will never let her come again," 
 Dosia explained when the car called for them 
 at nine o'clock. She had not spoken directly to 
 Sarah all the evening, and in the motor she 
 talked with her mother and father while the 
 guest leaned back in her corner. Her "Good 
 night!" and, "Sleep well!" were publicly said, 
 in the hall, and Sarah, having expressed what 
 a polite and appreciative guest should feel, shut 
 herself in to make what she could of the day's 
 failure. 
 
 No warm rush of poetry came to her aid 
 now. She did not want healing comfort; her 
 young soul stood erect and cried for under- 
 standing. Bed and the dark could not help 
 her. When the night was half gone, she threw
 
 218 THE STARLING 
 
 a dressing-gown about her and went to Dosia's 
 room. 
 
 Dosia had not gone to bed. She sat at a 
 table drawn up before her fire, luxuriously 
 wrapped and surrounded, but with a pile of 
 typewritten and printed papers before her, re- 
 ducing them to a report. She made Sarah po- 
 litely welcome, but Sarah had gone past the 
 need of phrases. 
 
 "Dosia, I want to understand," she said, com- 
 ing to look into the fire as though it could help. 
 "I have got to understand. Suppose a man loves 
 you loves you quite unmistakably. It is in his 
 eyes, his hands, he almost says it. Then can 
 he get over it, all in a minute? Can he love you 
 one day and not love you the next?" 
 
 Dosia carefully dried her pen before laying 
 it down. "I should say that was his long suit," 
 she observed. 
 
 Sarah shook her head as though to forbid 
 flippant words. 
 
 "You say things like that but I am in earn- 
 est. I have got to know. Is it true?" 
 
 "Yes. It is the first thing you learn. You 
 are so amazed that nothing from a man ever 
 surprises you again." Dosia put aside the table
 
 THE STARLING 219 
 
 and met the issue squarely. "Robert Russell 
 could not love any one who took the center," she 
 said. Sarah started, then stood very still, lest 
 she check what was coming. Robert had never 
 been discussed between them. "He can't for- 
 give it. That is why he doesn't go out more 
 he can't be sure of being always in the center. 
 He probably loved you while you were inside 
 your hedge, but when you wrote a book and 
 came out, you ended it. He won't forgive you." 
 
 Sarah was too astonished for pain. "But 
 that is too unworthy," she exclaimed. "That 
 is vanity, egotism it isn't generous. If it is 
 true, I could not love him. " 
 
 The indictment only made Dosia smile. "You 
 don't love Robert," she said. 
 
 The fiery "I do!" sprang to Sarah's 
 lips, but faltered there. She had come to learn, 
 not to fight. "Why don't I ?" she asked instead. 
 
 "You are only charmed by him. You would 
 give him up for the first serious flaw you found 
 in his character." 
 
 "Mustn't one love worthily?" 
 
 Dosia shrugged. "I don't live on that high 
 plane. To me it is enough that " She stopped, 
 but not in time.
 
 220 THE STARLING 
 
 "Then you love him, Dosia ?" They faced each 
 other stripped of pretenses. 
 
 "I suppose it is that. I want to marry him." 
 
 "You can say these terrible things of him, 
 and still want to marry him?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I don't understand!" 
 
 "There are things you will never understand, 
 Sarah. They are all rather ugly, perhaps; I 
 wouldn't try. I can give you reasons, if you 
 want them. He is successful ; presentable one 
 can be proud of him on the street; he won't 
 give me very much trouble I know exactly 
 how to keep him contented ; I want the married 
 position. He will do very well. Voila!" 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 Their eyes met with a shock of understand- 
 ing. 
 
 "No," said Dosia shortly. 
 
 Sarah turned back to the fire, and presently 
 made a fresh discovery there. 
 
 "So that was the other thing," she exclaimed. 
 "That was why you invited me, Dosia why 
 you wanted to make a lion of me. You knew 
 Robert, and so you did that?" 
 
 There was no bitterness in the question, no
 
 THE STARLING 221 
 
 reproach only the passionate desire to have 
 it all clear ; but Dosia flushed. 
 
 "I only hastened matters," she insisted. 
 "Robert had begun to suspect your brains, and 
 he was uneasy. He tells me things, you know 
 more than he means to. And he can't forgive 
 brains in a woman." 
 
 "But you have brains more than I !" 
 
 It was hopeless to make her understand. "Oh, 
 child, what if I have? I can drop them when 
 I please. Intellect doesn't matter to me as it 
 does to you; I don't have to express my 
 thoughts. I shall get him if I can. Very pos- 
 sibly I can't. What are you going to do?" 
 
 For the first time Sarah winced. "Oh, don't!" 
 she breathed, as though something a little too 
 dreadful had been' said. 
 
 "Well, you wanted the truth," Dosia re- 
 minded her. 
 
 Tears rushed to Sarah's eyes. "It is so 
 ugly !" she cried, and went blindly away. 
 
 Dosia rose, as though to follow, but, after a 
 thoughtful moment, she dropped back again. 
 Presently she drew up the table and went on 
 with her report.
 
 ANY change could kindle Mrs. Cawthorne's 
 animation. Even having Sarah go and a 
 nurse take her place was momentarily stimulat- 
 ing, and she waved Sarah off so gaily that the 
 girl could, for once, drop her sense of responsi- 
 bility. For two days the elation supplied a 
 fictitious strength. Mrs. Cawthorne and Janet 
 McGowan took an excursion on the cars, they 
 shopped, they "almost made candy," as Mrs. 
 Cawthorne wrote Sarah. Then the stimulus 
 suddenly failed and the worn body went down, 
 down, till it seemed ready to drop apart with 
 weakness. Janet, hiding grave concern under 
 Nova Scotian briskness, would have sent for 
 the doctor, but Mrs. Cawthorne forbade that. 
 
 "I am only resting," she explained. "I keep 
 up so for Sarah it is good to have a really 
 flat rest. You do what you are told, Janet 
 McGowan. And, for heaven's sake, don't make 
 me keep up for you!" 
 
 She knew herself that something was seri- 
 ously wrong, but she feared that if she called in 
 222
 
 THE STARLING 223 
 
 either Doctor Russell or his son the news might 
 get to Sarah, and she would not risk that. 
 
 "She would come home by the next boat the 
 darling!" she thought it out and waited in 
 loving patience for the week to wear itself 
 away. The days grew very long, the nights 
 were haunted and uneasy. Janet had Sarah's 
 room and would come at a touch on the wall, 
 but there was nothing tangible to excuse dis- 
 turbing her. Janet did all that an outsider 
 could but Sarah was inside, she knew with- 
 out telling. The longing for her rose to her 
 mother's lips like a cry, day and night, but she 
 kept it crushed back. 
 
 "You are worse than the hedge," she scolded 
 herself, one restless night; "or you would be 
 if I would let you." Then her own words came 
 back to her like a blighting discovery. She lay 
 very still in the dark to face it. If Sarah found 
 out what this week had been, she would never 
 leave her mother again. The hedge was a pal- 
 try barrier compared to the wall that would be 
 sealed by her need and Sarah's love. And she 
 had judged Sarah's father for the hedge. 
 
 "But I can hide," she argued eagerly. "I 
 will say, 'Oh, hello, Sarah ! Why did you come
 
 224 THE STARLING 
 
 back so soon? Janet and I are having a lovely 
 time !' ' She tried that over and over, but could 
 not make it sound convincing. "You have got 
 to," she told herself stoutly. "You must be off- 
 hand and casual as well as up and dressed. She 
 is to go every blessed chance she gets you 
 remember that, Lisa Cawthorne. A bad old 
 man in the family is quite enough; we are not 
 going to have a bad old woman, too. It can be 
 done. If you give her one glimpse of how glad 
 you are, I'll kill you !" Her arms went out, her 
 face quivered into tears. "Oh, I won't swallow 
 up your youth, my little Sarah," she wept. "You 
 would give it to me, whole; but I am just good 
 enough not to take it." The breeze from the 
 open window rustled a paper in the waste 
 basket, and she started up with a cry; but by 
 the time Janet McGowan had answered, she 
 was laughing. 
 
 "That old waste basket is always playing 
 jokes on me," she explained. "Yes, move it, 
 but go back to sleep as fast as you can. I am 
 all right." 
 
 Only Sarah could have known how shaken 
 she was, and Janet returned peacefully to bed. 
 When she had had time to fall asleep, Mrs.
 
 THE STARLING 225 
 
 Cawthorne stole to her medicine cabinet and 
 took down a box innocently labeled Bicarbonate 
 of Soda. 
 
 "It can't be any worse for me than lying 
 awake and screaming," she argued as the first 
 dizzying wave of oblivion floated her off. 
 
 The week was easier after that, her duty was 
 so clear. By Sunday she was even practising 
 her attitude on her family. 
 
 "I believe Sarah is coming home to-morrow," 
 she said casually to Mr. Cawthorne when he 
 came out into the garden where she was sit- 
 ting. It was a wonderful spring for roses: 
 they massed their glowing faces against every 
 available wall, they sprayed up in fountains 
 from every round bed, and waved from trel- 
 lises, and thrust in their heads at open win- 
 dows, till it seemed as though they had taken 
 possession of the world. Janet McGowan was 
 cutting them for the house, frequently bringing 
 some irresistible beauty to lay on Mrs. Caw- 
 thorne's knees. "At least, I think she is coming 
 Monday," she amended. 
 
 Perhaps she hoped that Mr. Cawthorne might 
 show a little of the joy that she was forced to 
 hide, but, of course, he did nothing of the kind.
 
 226 THE STARLING 
 
 The communication did not even reach his at- 
 tention. He stood before her savoring some 
 coming wickedness until she went to meet it 
 with a patient 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 He produced a newspaper clipping. "I'm 
 keeping this for Sairy," he observed, laying it 
 on her roses. 
 
 It was headed "Joy-writing." Mrs. Caw- 
 thorne needed only the opening sentence, "An- 
 other happy little stranger is in our literary 
 midst," and her husband's expression. 
 
 "Some penny-a-liner who couldn't publish 
 his own books to save his neck," she said hotly, 
 crumpling the slip in her hand. "Sarah shan't 
 see it ; she gets all the snubbing she needs from 
 her father. This is what I am saving for her." 
 And she brought out another clipping, headed 
 enthusiastically, "A fresh note in fiction 
 Dickery Dock full of charm Young California 
 author " 
 
 Her wrath and the clipping amused him 
 equally. 
 
 "You used to be a pretty fair judge of litera- 
 ture before your daughter took her pen in 
 hand," he said. "Curious, how motherhood can
 
 THE STARLING 227 
 
 sap the intelligence. George Washington was 
 right we should keep clear of entangling alli- 
 ances. Only it wasn't Washington I believe 
 it was Jefferson." He took a tea rose from her 
 knee and put it in his buttonhole. "I have nev- 
 er seen the garden look better," he added. 
 
 They talked about the roses, idly, without 
 much interest. Mrs. Cawthorne had been lux- 
 uriating in them before he came. It was 
 strange, how he could blight her world. After 
 he had limped complacently back to his study, 
 the sunshine was chilled, the spring rapture 
 had become a mere matter of plants. Even 
 Sarah's coming was no longer a song in her 
 heart. What sea-creature was it that could 
 turn the water in its vicinity black? 
 
 "Haven't I stayed up long enough?" she 
 begged of the nurse. 
 
 Janet lured her into a stroll, and presently 
 the sun was back in the heavens and Sarah 
 coming in the morning. That evening an im- 
 portant summons was delivered to Janet, and 
 Mrs. Cawthorne insisted that she obey it. The 
 poor lady had had a moment of dire panic at 
 sight of the telegram, and relief left her buoy- 
 ant.
 
 228 THE STARLING 
 
 "That is a big opportunity, Janet far bigger 
 than guarding me from the perils of the night," 
 she declared. "I shall sleep like a log my 
 Sarah is nearly here. And kind Nelly will 
 sleep in the next room, and do everything I 
 want. Now go along with you. There is noth- 
 ing the matter with me." 
 
 She looked so gay and secure, tucked up in 
 her big bed, a reading light at her elbow, and 
 kind Nelly ready to serve in any capacity, that 
 Janet finally went. 
 
 "I don't feel just right about it," she con- 
 fessed to Mr. Cawthorne, meeting him as she 
 went out. 
 
 "Oh, I will guard her," he drawled. Later, 
 he stopped at his wife's door to make the same 
 offer. 
 
 "If Nelly can't keep off the bogies single- 
 handed, you may come to me," he said. "Or I 
 will sleep across your threshold if you prefer." 
 
 Lights were lit, people were about. The face 
 she turned to him was vivid, laughing. 
 
 "Oh, I would rather have the bogies. But 
 you might come and say good night, for luck." 
 
 He came and passively allowed her to draw 
 him down and kiss him.
 
 THE STARLING 229 
 
 "A strange custom," he observed. "Utterly 
 unknown in some countries." 
 
 She held him for a moment, searching his 
 eyes, then dismissed him with a light push. 
 
 "Oh you!" she murmured. 
 
 His door closed, the house grew dark. Soon 
 it was clearly evident that Nelly was asleep in 
 the next room. The uncouth sound droned on, 
 hour after hour undoubtedly disturbing Mr. 
 Cawthorne. Whenever Mrs. Cawthorne began 
 to doze, it dragged her back; it sawed its way 
 through any covering. Knocking on the wall 
 discouraged it only for a moment. At last she 
 rose and sent the performer back to her own 
 distant room. Nelly wanted to sit up, but Mrs. 
 Cawthorne's dread of her husband's exaspera- 
 tion had wiped out every other fear. 
 
 "All I want is quiet," she declared. "Go just 
 as fast as you can!" And Nelly went. 
 
 She slept, after that, for several hours, but 
 the night was still dark when she suddenly 
 awoke, starting up as though she had been 
 called. 
 
 "What is it?" she said aloud. 
 
 There was no answer, nothing stirred, and 
 yet the stillness of the house felt like suspended
 
 230 THE STARLING 
 
 action rather than emptiness. The night seemed 
 to be holding its breath before some coming 
 sound. She listened right and left, every nerve 
 taut, for the first clue, the breath that should 
 release the approaching terror and give it at 
 least a name. She could feel it swelling about 
 her, rising to its full height and then there 
 was a sound, a small, definite, living sound 
 somewhere in the house. It struck her drawn 
 nerves like a blow on dynamite. 
 
 She was unconscious that she screamed. She 
 knew only that her husband had said she might 
 come to him. She ran wildly through the dark, 
 lost to direction, lost to everything, until even 
 the floor beneath her feet failed her, and she 
 went crashing into space. She would have 
 fallen the length of the stairs but for Nelly, 
 who had come creeping up, a step at a time, to 
 be sure that all was well. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Morning was in the room when Mrs. Caw- 
 thorne's eyes opened. Before they held any 
 memory, they met the sunlight with a look of 
 relief. Then they passed slowly from Doctor 
 Russell and the strange nurse to Nelly, hastily 
 dressed and red-eyed, at the foot of the bed,
 
 THE STARLING 231 
 
 and, beyond them all, sunk in a chair, a little 
 gray man whose head rested on his hand. A 
 voice said, "She is coming to," and there was a 
 stir about her, something was given her in a 
 glass. 
 
 "Why are they all here?" she wondered, and 
 recognized uneasily that she must be giving a 
 great deal of trouble. Surely Nelly wanted to 
 be at her day's work. Then she remembered. 
 
 "Oh, dear did I scream?" she apologized. 
 
 They said vaguely soothing things, but she 
 knew that she must have screamed, and that 
 Mr. Cawthorne had been seriously disturbed. 
 She tried to say something humorous and sorry 
 to him, but he was so far off, and he would not 
 look toward her, so she gave it up with a sigh. 
 Presently it occurred to her that even now, 
 when she was all right again, they did not go 
 away. Doctor Russell must want his break- 
 fast. She looked up at him in surprise. 
 
 "Oh am I badly hurt?" she asked. 
 
 "You don't seem to be hurt at all," was the 
 comfortable answer. "You didn't break any 
 bones, thanks to Nelly. You're badly shaken 
 up, that's all. Don't try to talk." 
 
 She closed her eyes, but presently opened 
 them on the same group.
 
 232 THE STARLING 
 
 "Am I keeping you all?" she murmured. 
 When she opened them again, only the strange 
 nurse was there. Mrs. Cawthorne considered 
 her for a long time. "Just what did happen?" 
 she asked in a stronger voice. 
 
 The nurse knew only that there had been a 
 fall. She did not even know if Sarah had been 
 told. Mrs. Cawthorne waited until she had 
 gone to breakfast and Nelly had taken her 
 place. 
 
 "Now, Nelly, tell me all about it just what 
 I did, and how you came to be there," she com- 
 manded in the comfortable voice of one who 
 settles down to a good story, and Nelly, so 
 lured, told of waking uneasy and stealing up 
 the front stairs since the door that led to the 
 back stairs creaked; and then the scream, and 
 her vain effort to make her own reassuring 
 voice heard, and the wild fall that she had 
 stopped. 
 
 "And if it was me that scared you, m'am, I'll 
 never forgive myself," she said with trembling 
 lips. 
 
 "Oh, you didn't," was the instant answer. 
 "You hadn't anything in the world to do with 
 it except to save my crazy neck. And I will
 
 THE STARLING 233 
 
 forgive you for that if I can. Whom have you 
 told about it?" 
 
 "Just Mr. Cawthorne, m'am. And when he 
 went out to call up Miss Sarah, she had started 
 for home." 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne's look jumped to the clock. 
 "She is on her way?" she exclaimed, so in- 
 stantly excited that Nelly would have gone for 
 the nurse; but Mrs. Cawthorne held her by a 
 hand on her arm, thinking furiously. 
 
 "Sarah must not blame herself for being 
 away," she worked it out. "She would, the dear 
 girl, and she 'must not. Help me, Nelly wait a 
 minute. There, that's it. She doesn't have to 
 know that I sent you away in the night. Let 
 her think that you were right there, taking 
 care of me, and that I ran amuck, and no one 
 could have stopped it. That's it. Promise me." 
 
 "I'd promise you anything, Mrs. Cawthorne." 
 
 "Remember! Now send Mr. Cawthorne to 
 me, alone." 
 
 Looking into the burning face, Nelly hesi- 
 tated, but a sharp, "At once !" had to be obeyed. 
 He must have been near, for he came imme- 
 diately, looking oddly unfamiliar with un- 
 brushed hair and blankly grave eyes. Mrs.
 
 234 THE STARLING 
 
 Cawthome had no time then to consider him, 
 She caught his wrist lest he should try to slip 
 away for doctors and nurses before she had 
 finished. 
 
 "Stephen, listen listen with all your might. 
 This is life and death. Sarah must not know 
 that I had sent Nelly away Sarah must not 
 blame herself! Oh, don't you see that?" She 
 shook his arm, but he could not seem to answer. 
 "She is so loving, so responsible if she blamed 
 herself, she would never leave me again. And 
 she must go, and go, and have lovely times. 
 The hedge is down for Sarah! Oh, you can't 
 smother her in it as you have smothered me!" 
 He started, but she had only forgotten the dif- 
 ference between what one thinks and what one 
 says. She went on without bitterness, as 
 though he would understand and even sympa- 
 thize. "Oh, how I hated it, hated it, hated it! 
 Sometimes it was like a green snake wound 
 tight about me I used to play that when it got 
 to my throat I could stop struggling and die. 
 But I suppose you forgive even your shroud 
 in time. I accept the hedge now I accept you, 
 Stephen I accept everything but smothering 
 Sarah ! And I should be worse than the hedge,
 
 THE STARLING 235 
 
 I'd be a vampire, if I did that. You can't stop 
 her now, and I won't. She has got out!" 
 
 "Lisa," he began helplessly, but she silenced 
 him. 
 
 "No wait. You have got to understand just 
 what Sarah is to be told. Nelly went to bed in 
 the next room you understand that?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "She was wide awake, looking after me and 
 I had a crazy fit, perhaps a bad dream. No one 
 could have helped me or stopped me. Nelly did 
 catch me before I was badly hurt. Now do 
 you understand?" 
 
 He went through it in a dry voice, his eyes 
 averted. 
 
 "You promise to stick to that? Swear it, 
 Stephen. You are a bad old man, but you keep 
 your word." 
 
 "I swear it, Lisa." 
 
 Her grasp relaxed and she seemed to sink 
 down through the pillows to some place of per- 
 fect rest. When she again opened her eyes, 
 Sarah was sitting close beside her. She smiled 
 into the grave young face. 
 
 "Had a good time?" she murmured. 
 
 "Not good enough to pay for having left
 
 236 THE STARLING 
 
 you," Sarah said, with a sigh that was half a 
 sob. 
 
 "You couldn't have helped it, dear! Didn't 
 they tell you?" 
 
 "Oh, yes; no one is to blame. But !" Sarah 
 laid her cheek on the limp hand. The gesture 
 finished the sentence, it dedicated her youth to 
 her mother's weakness. 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne's lids dropped to hide her 
 dismay. She was too weak to fight then, and 
 yet the fight could not long be put off. Sarah 
 must be free! All day the sentence beat on 
 her sick brain. Toward night she was stronger 
 and began to notice other things that she was 
 not for an instant left alone, that they did not 
 allow her to lift her head or even her hand. 
 When Doctor Russell came in, she sent away 
 Sarah and the nurse and demanded the truth. 
 
 "Am I going to die?" she asked cheerfully, 
 almost hopefully. 
 
 The doctor soothed, comforted and joked, af- 
 ter the manner of his generation. She was 
 good for twenty years yet; her heart had had 
 something of a strain, but a few weeks of care 
 and absolute obedience to orders would put her 
 on her feet again. He became grave over that,
 
 THE STARLING 237 
 
 graver than she had ever seen him. Her do- 
 cility must have no exceptions. 
 
 "But I couldn't be hired to stir or sit up ; and 
 I couldn't get anything you didn't prescribe if 
 I wanted to," she objected. 
 
 "Oh, I know you !" His sigh was humorous. 
 "I dare say you have seven nerve tonics and 
 sleep producers and dear knows what under 
 your pillow this moment." 
 
 She denied it, but looked a little guilty. "And 
 if you do get me up, what then?" she asked. 
 "Shall I just drag around, a bother to every- 
 body?" 
 
 That was nonsense, of course. Oh, she would 
 have to be careful and he told a funny story 
 of a man with heart trouble who had outlived 
 all his grandchildren. There was nothing to 
 worry about ; she had a comfortable home and 
 a devoted daughter. And she was not to say 
 another word that night. 
 
 He went away, and for a long time she kept 
 her eyelids down, so that no one knew what 
 went on behind them the selfless love and 
 pity, the wild search for a way out. Suddenly 
 she gave a little cry; then, hearing Sarah's 
 quick response, she laughed.
 
 238 THE STARLING 
 
 "Nothing, dear. I just thought of some- 
 thing." When her eyes were unveiled, they had 
 a look of shining peace that Sarah never for- 
 got. 
 
 A night nurse came at nine o'clock, but, find-, 
 ing out that she had been up all day, Mrs. Caw- 
 thorne sent her to Sarah's room to get a few 
 hours' rest. 
 
 "You can stay with me till you are sleepy, 
 Bunny, and then wake her up," she said. "Take 
 the big chair, darling, and presently I will try 
 to sleep. . . . That's right. Isn't this 
 cozy!" They smiled at each other. "Now tell 
 me about your week. No matter if you have 
 written me things tell them to me all over 
 again." 
 
 Sarah turned back to her gaieties with an 
 effort. That last hour in Dosia's room had 
 wiped the color out of vivid experiences; the 
 week's campaign had become tawdry, even vul- 
 gar, in the light of what Dosia had admitted. 
 Dosia was vulgar, too, and so was the common- 
 place luxury of her home, her obedient, com- 
 monplace family. Sarah had fled the moment 
 breakfast was over, drawing the hedge about 
 her like a fine lady's mantle. She did not want
 
 THE STARLING 239 
 
 to get out through Dosia's help! She did not 
 even want Robert if Dosia could want him, too. 
 
 Had she come home to a tranquil household, 
 by this time the ancient comfort would have 
 been stirring in her side, and she would have 
 healed herself by writing scenes of city gaiety, 
 set in the radiance of life-as-it-ought-to-be. But 
 this dreadful day had left the whole experience 
 a heap of unsightly rubbish. She told what 
 she could in a drowsy voice, hoping to soothe 
 her mother to sleep. When she stopped, Mrs. 
 Cawthorne rewarded her with a mother-sound 
 of loving inattention. She was evidently off 
 on some separate trail of thought, and, by the 
 light in her face, it had led her to high peaks. 
 
 "You know, Bunny," she began, "when I die, 
 you won't have to go through what so many 
 daughters do feeling that you didn't give 
 enough, didn't show your love. You have al- 
 ways been just an utter joy to me you've 
 given heaped up and running over. Remember 
 that." 
 
 "Mother!" Sarah begged, her eyes filling. 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne smiled at her. "Was I har- 
 rowing? I didn't mean to be. One thinks of 
 such things after an accident, I suppose. I
 
 240 THE STARLING 
 
 know, after my own mother's death well, I 
 had been a good and loving daughter, I am cer- 
 tain of that, just until that last year, when 
 I was engaged to your father. I was madly in 
 love, and, dearest, he wasn't a very easy man 
 even to be engaged to. It was not a happy time, 
 and I couldn't seem to bother about my mother. 
 No one on earth mattered to me but Stephen. 
 I ought to have pretended that she still mat- 
 tered, but I forgot that until too late. For, 
 in the middle of it all, she died before I 
 had a chance to wake up to her side of it. Oh, 
 I don't blame myself. I suffered horribly then, 
 but I know now that I couldn't have been dif- 
 ferent. And I had been warm and good until 
 that year truly. But that is where you are a 
 bigger person than I was. If you were in love 
 with three men, darling, you wouldn't grow cold 
 to me." 
 
 Sarah was always fair. "I might if you 
 weren't you," she said. "You would under- 
 stand, and wait." 
 
 "I would never do a hurt mouth at you, or 
 keep a grievance," Mrs. Cawthorne admitted 
 gladly. "We know how to be a family, don't 
 we? Now your father Sarah, if I passed on,
 
 THE STARLING 241 
 
 I think he might have some really horrid mo- 
 ments." 
 
 "I hope so," was the vigorous answer. "But, 
 mother, you are not allowed to talk." 
 
 "Well, I won't. But just one thing, dear: 
 when I go, don't let that bad old man be too 
 sorry." Her voice had a humorous tenderness. 
 "A little sorry wouldn't hurt him, but don't let 
 him suffer, darling. Of course, it looks un- 
 likely, but he might. He couldn't help being 
 himself, and I understood. Remember that, 
 won't you?" 
 
 Sarah kissed her, but made no promise. 
 Then she turned the light to a mere point and 
 drew her chair away from the bed. 
 
 "They won't let me sit with you if I allow 
 talking," she said. "Now not another word!" 
 
 "Not one!" was the contented assent. 
 
 She seemed to sleep very soon, and Sarah sat 
 motionless, thinking of mothers and love and 
 death. Beside such things, how unimportant 
 and remote it all became fame and parties and 
 Dosia and even Robert! They were like a 
 chapter in a book that she had finished. They 
 had kept her feverishly awake all the night 
 before, but now, when she tried to focus on
 
 242 THE STARLING 
 
 them, they became vague and floated out of 
 reach. Even Robert didn't matter 
 
 She must have dozed for an instant, for it 
 seemed to her as if her mother were bending 
 over her; she seemed even to hear murmured 
 words "Good night, my little Sarah!" Yet 
 that was impossible, for her mother was in 
 bed, helpless. Sarah knew that for a fact. Her 
 drowsy brain kept arguing about it until sud- 
 denly she was wide awake again, frightened at 
 her lapse. She stood by the window for a few 
 moments, to clear her brain, then seated her- 
 self rigidly upright. She did not mean to call 
 the nurse before midnight, but presently the 
 latter came in. 
 
 "I heard you moving and thought perhaps 
 you were getting tired," she said. "I have had 
 all the sleep I " She broke off with an ex- 
 clamation and turned up the light. 
 
 "You had better go," she said quickly, but 
 Sarah came straight to her mother's side. 
 
 Mrs. Cawthorne lay just as she had arranged 
 herself when Sarah turned down the light. Her 
 sleep had never looked so tranquil. She who 
 had so feared the little dark of night had gone 
 to meet the great dark with a friendly smile, 
 one hand flung out as though in welcome.
 
 XI 
 
 DOCTOR RUSSELL had known that at any 
 moment the exhausted heart might stop. 
 He would have made the best of a crippled life, 
 but now he made the best of death, so that 
 Sarah had to see it as a release, and could 
 grieve only on her own account. The things 
 her mother had said to her that last night 
 solemn things, though uttered so lightly lived 
 in her heart and filled it with a passion of grati- 
 tude. Except for poignant moments, she was 
 not wholly unhappy and not at all dreary, like 
 the little gray man who limped silently out of 
 his library to meals, and limped back again as 
 soon as possible. Sarah looked on at her father 
 with hard young eyes and made no effort to 
 reach him. Probably he was only disturbed 
 annoyed at the change and embarrassed by its 
 demand for emotion. She owed him nothing. 
 
 Robert came almost daily and was his best 
 self, the self he showed in sick rooms, kind, 
 strong, attentive; and Sarah sat opposite her 
 young lord with a sad wonder growing in her 
 eyes. She was grateful, full of affection and 
 243
 
 244 THE STARLING 
 
 appreciation, but she was also a little bored. 
 After all these months of intimacy, they seemed 
 scarcely acquainted. She had never really 
 talked to him, never shown herself as she did to 
 Saxe, and her listening had been an act of wor- 
 ship rather than of intelligence. Now her ears 
 woke up and mortified her by their relentless 
 report. His bodily beauty could still give her 
 an ache, but it was an ache of regret for things 
 gone by; and an evening with him began to 
 seem very long. 
 
 No word whatever came from Saxe. It was 
 incredible that he could remember a quarrel in 
 the face of death. Her side of it was utterly 
 forgotten, and she turned with longing to his 
 deeply human understanding, the encompass- 
 ing tenderness of his care for her; but there 
 was not even a card of sympathy, though the 
 mail rained them upon her from her new ac- 
 quaintances. Mr. Cawthorne's position and 
 Sarah's book had given the news prominence; 
 no newspaper man could have missed it. And 
 Saxe had not gone away, for every week his 
 paper published a- signed article- on the political 
 situation. 
 
 "Christopher, it isn't big, it isn't like you,"
 
 THE STARLING 245 
 
 she silently told him. "Even if you don't love 
 me any more and Dosia says they can get over 
 it between one day and the next you might at 
 least be sorry. Ah, I did think you would 
 come !" But four weeks passed and he made no 
 sign. 
 
 And then Aunt Sadi's telegram opened a 
 new world. She seldom wrote, but she had tele- 
 graphed reams since her sister-in-law's death. 
 She and her brother were frankly hostile, but 
 she had always taken an interest in "the fam- 
 ily child," as she called Sarah. 
 
 "Arrive Hotel Potter Santa Barbara Thurs- 
 day join me there for two weeks." 
 
 The message was like a strong hand at the 
 needed moment, for the first exaltation of 
 meeting death well was dying down, and the 
 girl was growing miserably lonely. She told 
 Nelly, and the cook, and even the laundress 
 working in the big pleasant laundry with Lady 
 Banksia roses framing the open door and win- 
 dows. Then, at lunch time, she told her father, 
 paying little attention to his reception of the 
 news. 
 
 "Tell me about Aunt Sadi," she urged. "Of
 
 246 THE STARLING 
 
 course, I don't remember her visit, but I seem 
 to remember a little white dog." 
 
 "Oh, yes; Sadi always gathers live stock; 
 she can't stop a night without picking up some 
 creature," he drawled. "She's a good woman, 
 but I never 1-1-liked her. She says just what 
 she thinks in a strong voice, and they are al-. 
 ways making her president of something. She 
 has my fine features, but not my intellectual 
 expression. Why do you want to go?" 
 
 A note of amusement was her only answer. 
 
 "Well, then," he amended, "what does she 
 want of you?" 
 
 "Just to be kind and friendly, I suppose;" 
 Sarah spoke in a lowered voice, and Mr. Caw- 
 thorne's eyes grew blank and fell away. He 
 never voluntarily made reference to their sor- 
 row, or mentioned his wife's name. 
 
 One beautiful thing left by that last evening 
 with her mother was that Sarah did not feel 
 guilty if she enjoyed anything. The next few 
 days she kept telling her mother that she was 
 almost happy, as though the hovering spirit 
 would be glad of the reassurance. Robert took 
 her to the train, burdening her with a mam- 
 moth box of chocolates, but his air of devotion
 
 THE STARLING 247 
 
 was growing a little mechanical. Perhaps the 
 antennae of his sensitive egotism had already 
 discovered her secret inattention. 
 
 "You were dear to come all this way with 
 me," she said earnestly as he stood beside her 
 section for good-by. 
 
 "Oh, I was glad to. I will run up and see 
 Dosia for a while." His eyes looked off over 
 her head to some remote prospect. "Do you 
 know, I haven't done that girl justice," he went 
 on. "She is very sweet and womanly when one 
 gets past a sort of worldly surface she puts 
 on. You know what I mean?" 
 
 "I am sure I do," said Sarah with a faint 
 sigh. 
 
 He took her hand for good-by, looking very 
 handsome and chivalrous with his bared head, 
 and other passengers watched them kindly. 
 Sarah, catching a glimpse of this, sighed again, 
 and wished that the text of real life would ever 
 come up to the pictures. 
 
 It was good to get away from the shadowed 
 house, from Robert, from the postman and the 
 incessant wearing hope of a word from Saxe. 
 The flight of the train to the south started up 
 the old cry, "I'm getting out ! I'm getting out !"
 
 248 THE STARLING 
 
 Sarah looked as though some great hand had 
 opened a cage door when she stepped down 
 from the sleeper into the morning sunshine. 
 
 She had been summoned for two weeks, but 
 in a week she was racing back again, pushing 
 the floor of the car to hurry it on, chafing at 
 every stop as though it imperiled her good 
 news. She kept telling her mother about it, and 
 hearing her warm response. That had been 
 one of the many splendid things about Aunt 
 Sadi: she had said, "Your mother " with no 
 change of voice or expression, as though she 
 were in the next room. That her mother should 
 become a forbidden topic had been terrible to 
 Sarah. Living or dead, she was a person to be 
 glad of, not to shut away in cold silence. And 
 Aunt Sadi had so perfectly understood her only 
 brother. The usual decent reticences were 
 never observed when relatives spoke of Mr. 
 Cawthorne. Perhaps in his case no pretense 
 was possible. Oh, it had been a human vitaliz- 
 ing week ; and it was only the beginning. Sarah 
 burst through the hedge as if she had run all 
 the way home, and though old habit hushed 
 her step before she reached the front door, her 
 face was incandescent as she swung it back.
 
 THE STARLING 249 
 
 She had not sent word of her coming, and 
 the silent unwelcoming house opened darkly 
 before her. Her new joy could not cross its 
 threshold, and for a frightened moment she 
 wished that she had not come: that she had 
 telegraphed her news and had her things sent. 
 She had forgotten the life-long power of that 
 closed library door over her spirit. And then, 
 because she was afraid, she went swiftly for- 
 ward and opened it. 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne sat in his usual place, but his 
 head was dropped forward and his hands were 
 folded in idleness. He looked horribly alone. 
 Even when he lifted his head, his spirit did 
 not instantly assert itself to deny the impres- 
 sion. His eyes blinked remotely. 
 
 "I believe I was asleep," he murmured, and 
 then, "Oh, Sarah! Is that you? Came back, 
 did you?" 
 
 "Just for a few days." Sarah was looking 
 into his face with arrested attention. "Have 
 you been ill?" she demanded. 
 
 He passed a hand over new lines and start- 
 ling hollows as though to rub them out. 
 
 "Oh, no. I have lost the trick of sleeping, 
 that is all. I can't seem to manage it at night."
 
 250 THE STARLING 
 
 He did not want to talk about that. "You look 
 well. How's Sadi?" 
 
 "Oh, splendid! 1 am going back east with 
 her, father, to stay a year. Perhaps longer. I 
 came home to pack up." 
 
 Their eyes met and battled, though she did 
 not know what his were saying behind their 
 dull stare. 
 
 "You are?" he said at last. 
 
 "Yes. I am the live stock she has picked up 
 on this trip." And Sarah laughed. 
 
 "You can leave R-R-Robert?" 
 
 The shadow that fell bleakly across her hap- 
 piness was not Robert's, but Christopher's. 
 And she must leave the place where Christo- 
 pher was, if only to get away from the hurt of 
 his silence and the agony of listening for him. 
 Even in Santa Barbara, she had started at 
 every sudden bell, and seen him in every long 
 figure that approached. 
 
 "There is no one I can't leave," she said, as 
 though for other ears. "I am so glad to go!" 
 
 "What will you do there?" 
 
 "Oh, live. And write. And make friends." 
 Her going needed no defense, and yet she had to 
 defend it. "You don't need me, and there is no
 
 THE STARLING 251 
 
 life for me here. I can't stand the hedge any 
 longer, and there is no reason I should. Aunt 
 Sadi's home is wide open, and there are dogs 
 oh, precious little dogs! And we have such 
 good times together, she and I. We laugh, and 
 we talk of mother, and she cares about my 
 books she had read Dickery Dock three times ! 
 We will travel together some day. Oh, it is 
 like getting out of prison!" She piled up her 
 indictment remorselessly, but he gave no sign 
 of comprehension. 
 
 "I suppose you are asking my consent?" he 
 observed. 
 
 "No. I am telling you," was the strong an- 
 swer. "I leave here next Friday. We are go- 
 ing back to Montclair for two months, then to 
 the Rocky Point cottage. I shall take every- 
 thing, even some of my books. I suppose Nelly 
 will stay on ; she knows all your ways." 
 
 "Oh, don't trouble about me ;" Mr. Cawthorne 
 pulled his papers toward him as though he had 
 been interrupted long enough. 
 
 "I want you to be comfortable," said Sarah 
 politely, and left the room. Afterward she 
 wished that she had not been quite so hard and 
 horrid. He might deserve it, but he did look
 
 252 THE STARLING 
 
 rather forlorn. That first sight of him hurt 
 every time she went back to it. The fun of 
 collecting favorite books and turning out her 
 desk was darkened. 
 
 Mr. Cawthorne did not seem aware that she 
 had been horrid; that made it all the worse. 
 Several times that day he appeared suddenly 
 where she was working, asking her aimless 
 questions and obviously not listening to her 
 answers. At twilight she heard him at her 
 door, and called out from her mother's room, 
 where she was resting; but he would not come 
 past the threshold. 
 
 "I was going to take a turn about the gar- 
 den, but I suppose you are tired or busy or 
 something," he said, his face turned away from 
 the unchanged room. 
 
 "No, I'm not. I only dropped down for a 
 moment." 
 
 Sarah rose from her mother's couch and went 
 out with him, troubled and on guard. He made 
 no attack, however. He talked about the 
 weather and the state of the lawn, and about 
 gardens he had seen in Italy in his youth, and 
 presently she saw, with an unwilling, sickening 
 compassion, that he was trying quite simply to
 
 THE STARLING 253 
 
 interest her. Her courteous soul could not re- 
 fuse such an advance. She told him about gar- 
 dens at Santa Barbara, and about excursions 
 they had taken, and the wonders of the beach. 
 No companionable silence was possible between 
 them : they had to talk every moment, as though 
 to deny that the situation held any complexi- 
 ties. When they went in, he wrung her heart 
 by thanking her. 
 
 "I know you are busy. Very nice of you to 
 spend so much time on a dull old party like 
 me," he said gravely as he went back to his 
 library. Sarah murmured some commonplace 
 and fled. 
 
 "I won't be sorry!" she declared, safe in her 
 own room. "He has brought it on himself he 
 has got to take his own consequences. Mother 
 warned me she was sorry, and it spoiled her 
 life. I won't be, that's all. He isn't pathetic 
 he is a bad old man. Now I will write to Aunt 
 Sadi." And yet she did not. She argued that 
 she was tired, and that the letter could wait 
 till morning. 
 
 She carried a book up to her own room that 
 evening, but presently she heard her father's 
 limping step, following. An absurd fright shook
 
 254 THE STARLING 
 
 her. The step seemed to come like some dread- 
 ful trailing fate, and the big house about her, 
 dark and empty, offered no hiding-place. She 
 might run screaming from room to room, but 
 the slow inescapable step would follow. She 
 sprang to her feet but there was only an im- 
 potent little gray man hovering in the doorway, 
 and she sank back ashamed of the melodrama 
 her nerves had invented. 
 
 "Sairy, I wonder if you would martyrize 
 yourself to the point of reading to me," he said. 
 "I have an idea that it might make me sleep. 
 And if I don't get back the trick of sleeping 
 pretty soon Any old thing. Dotty Dimple 
 would do/' 
 
 Life-long habit made the request flattering. 
 Sarah found a story and did her best by it, 
 happy when at last she caught his wandering 
 attention and held it. It would have been sweet, 
 having him there beside her and ministering to 
 him like any loved daughter, but for the need of 
 self-protection. 
 
 "I am not going to be made sorry," she 
 vowed, and, as though her inner stiffening had 
 ended the hour, he rose. 
 
 "That's enough you must be tired. I en-
 
 THE STARLING 255 
 
 joyed it. I dare say I can sleep now." At the 
 door he paused. "Good of you to have come 
 home before you went off altogether. I am 
 glad you did it," he said with his back to her, 
 and then the doors closed between them. 
 
 "Oh, I wish he wouldn't," Sarah muttered, 
 tears of exasperation in her eyes. He had no 
 right to make her sorry. 
 
 She could not sleep herself that night, and at 
 last she gave up and lit the light to read. Two 
 o'clock struck before she was ready to try 
 sleep again. She had stretched up her hand to 
 the light when a sound came from her father's 
 room across the hall the thud of a foot, and 
 then the quick flinging back of his door. Sarah 
 sprang to open her own door, and the sudden 
 light caught him at his threshold, showing a 
 face white and drawn. 
 
 "I heard her scream," he said. "Did you?" 
 Then, as the sleep cleared from his eyes, he 
 shrank back. "Dream, of course," he muttered. 
 "I dream it every night. It is better to stay 
 awake." And he closed the door between them. 
 
 In the morning Sarah went on with her up- 
 rooting, and still she did not write Aunt Sadi. 
 She could have refuted any argument, tri-
 
 256 THE STARLING 
 
 umphed in any combat ; but her father neither 
 argued nor fought. He only came in search 
 of her on thin pretexts, and lingered as if he 
 had merely forgotten to go, and broke her heart 
 by his labored attempts at conversation. All 
 day, under her courteous response, she defied 
 him : he was not going to make her sorry and 
 so swallow her whole, as he had swallowed his 
 wife. Then bed time came, and she saw dread 
 of the night looking out of his dulled eyes so 
 clearly that her kindness broke through and 
 ran to him. 
 
 "Leave your door open to-night, dear;" she 
 spoke as she might have to her mother. "I 
 will leave mine open, too. You will sleep bet- 
 ter, I know it." 
 
 He did not answer, perhaps could not. When, 
 long afterward, he opened his door, she called, 
 "Good night, father !" and still he did not speak, 
 but she heard a sharp breath that pierced her 
 last defense. 
 
 "Oh, poor old soul," she sobbed. "Oh, poor, 
 lonely little old man !" The fight was over. She 
 could not go. 
 
 Hours later she heard the distressed leap of 
 the night before, and called out at once:
 
 THE STARLING 257 
 
 "It's all right, father. It's all right." 
 
 He answered this time. "Oh oh, yes. Thank 
 you, Sarah. All right." 
 
 He did not sleep after that. She could hear 
 him turning and sighing. Finally she put on 
 a wrapper and went in to him. 
 
 "Father, I am not going east now;" she 
 rather flung it at him, for it was so wrong to 
 give in! "Perhaps I can go later; but now I 
 don't think I ought to leave you." 
 
 Speech came hard, but he did it. "Thank you, 
 Sarah. I don't seem to be just myself. I 
 suppose it will be a big disappointment to you." 
 
 "Yes," said Sarah. "Very big. I am not 
 staying because I think it is right I don't; I 
 think it is all wrong. You swallow our lives 
 whole. But, if I went, I should not be happy. 
 It would haunt me you all alone in this empty 
 house. Just as it did mother, when we tried to 
 go to the city. She was sorry and one can't 
 stand being sorry. Nothing pays if it makes 
 you sorry. I have fought it, but now it has got 
 me, too." Sarah's voice was suddenly despair- 
 ing. "I shall never get out. I give up. It is 
 all over." 
 
 She went away, shaken and sorrowful, but at
 
 258 THE STARLING 
 
 peace, and, under it all, warmly, blessedly re- 
 lieved for Christopher Saxe might yet come! 
 When she woke up, Mr. Cawthorne had gone to 
 his classes at the University, and they met at 
 lunch as though nothing intimate had passed 
 between them. Sarah had telegraphed and 
 written Aunt Sadi, and she spent the afternoon 
 restoring her possessions to their places. The 
 library door stood open, and whenever she 
 passed she saw her father seated at his desk, 
 pen in hand ; but the pen did not move. It was 
 almost too dark to sort books when he suddenly 
 appeared beside her. 
 
 "Sarah, I am going to give you something, 
 something very dear to me," he said. "I want 
 you to take it as a symbol of things I can't 
 express." He seemed to forget to go on, and 
 she waited, seated on the floor among her books, 
 looking up into his gray face. 
 
 "What is it?" she finally had to ask him. 
 
 "The hedge. You can have it. Cut it down 
 do anything you like." She could not speak, 
 and presently he went on. "She hated it. She 
 said it had been like a green snake, choking 
 her. . . . Death has a curious effect on the 
 living . . . Stevenson speaks of the 'im-
 
 THE STARLING 259 
 
 pure passion of remorse.' He was right, of 
 course. It is impure illogical. We do and 
 are with our eyes open. Why be sorry for 
 what was deliberate choice? And yet death 
 does something chemical, something more than 
 logic warrants . . . Old superstition work- 
 ing in us, perhaps grandmother weaknesses 
 handed down . . . and still" he looked 
 straight at her for the first time "we suffer. 
 We suffer," he repeated inaudibly. 
 
 Her heart wanted to cry out that she would 
 not take it, that she cared only for his peace, 
 but her brain judged better. 
 
 "I think it is right that you give it to me," 
 she said. 
 
 "Yes. And you may have more of the house. 
 More anything. I will not complain. You 
 are a good girl, Sarah." 
 
 She took his hand between both hers and 
 spoke with her face hidden. "No, not very. I 
 did not mean to tell you one of the last things 
 mother said. It was not to let you suffer. She 
 was merry about it you know how she would 
 be. She said, 'Don't let him really suffer. He 
 couldn't help it, and I understood/ " 
 
 She felt his hand tremble, but it was not
 
 260 THE STARLING 
 
 withdrawn. He sank down in the chair beside 
 her, and for a long time they sat together in 
 silence, father and daughter, as Sarah had 
 dreamed they should be. She would never fear 
 him again. She would take her rights oh, 
 even when she was so sorry that she did not 
 want them! There should be justice between 
 them; but also there would be love. She had 
 so longed to love him all these years ! And the 
 clinging of his hand told her that now she 
 might. His own hedge had been beaten down. 
 
 When he had left her she slipped out into 
 the garden for a look at her old enemy, cutting 
 blackly across the rose and gold of the western 
 sky. 
 
 "It is your last night," she told it, and would 
 have gone in search of the gardener to give the 
 news but for a sudden memory. She had stood 
 on that very spot on a day of high wind when 
 Christopher Saxe had first come through the 
 hedge, and she had made a promise: she was 
 never to cut down the hedge without first tell- 
 ing him. 
 
 "I would come from Timbuctoo to save this 
 last quiet spot/' he had said. It was a serious 
 promise. He had often referred to it. And
 
 THE STARLING 261 
 
 yet to approach him now, when he had left her 
 without a word in her great sorrow, was very 
 hard. Or, at least, Sarah pretended that it was. 
 She would not acknowledge how outrageously 
 glad she was of an excuse to break his silence. 
 
 The typewriter would be the coldest and most 
 formal mode of communicating, and she ran 
 up to the attic ; but she had not been there for 
 a long time, and she reckoned without its ghost. 
 She had lit the lantern that hung from a beam 
 and sat down at her dusty machine before she 
 was aware of it; then the swinging light sent 
 a shadow swinging up the wall, as though a 
 long figure had risen from the camphor-wood 
 chest to tower over her. And so the third great 
 adventure of her life was upon her. 
 
 The dusky old cave was as resonant as a 
 cathedral with a hidden organ. She sat motion- 
 less, her hands lying curled in her lap, her face 
 lifted to the revelation. The dream, the pretty 
 game, the crossing of looks and the touch of 
 hands that she had called love, mattered no 
 more than the treasures in the old chest. They 
 were only the garments of love ; she had found 
 the living soul and body. Love was grave, like 
 religion; fierce, like patriotism; silent and all*
 
 262 THE STARLING 
 
 giving, like maternity. It was so that she loved 
 Christopher Saxe. 
 
 Nelly's coming with Christopher's name 
 seemed the most natural thing in the world. 
 Even his quick step on the stairs could not 
 break in on her exaltation. She waited for him, 
 grave eyes on the door, and did not remember 
 to speak. To him she must have been only a 
 shadow against the lantern. He did not speak, 
 either, but when he came into the light she saw 
 that he breathed as if he had been running, and 
 though his lips were pressed tightly together, 
 his chin trembled. It was the face of a man 
 who has had an unbearable shock. 
 
 "Sarah, I didn't know;" the words had to 
 tear their way out. "I have only just this 
 moment heard. What have you thought of 
 me? Of course, you haven't thought at all 
 but I can't stand it, that I didn't know." 
 He dropped down beside her, taking her hand 
 in his and bending his face to it. She drew him 
 closer, her other hand curled about his head. 
 She had known, of course, that he had not 
 heard ; she had only pretended to doubt him. 
 
 He struggled on with his explanation. "I 
 plunged off into the redwoods that week. You
 
 THE STARLING 263 
 
 see, your name had been in the papers every 
 day till I couldn't bear it. You were so near, 
 and yet going farther and farther away. I 
 dropped everything, I tramped miles and miles, 
 and slept in my blanket, and fought the thing 
 out. When I came back I looked over the pub-, 
 lie news, but I didn't want to see local things. 
 And you going through all that Sarah, I can't 
 stand it. I would have come to you through 
 anything oh, I wish you could know that as I 
 know it! I can not fear it." His tears were 
 on her hand. She bent down until she could 
 draw his head to her breast. 
 
 "I know," she said. "I know everything!" 
 
 In her compassion, he was only her hurt little 
 boy ; but a man's arms closed about her, and it 
 was the face of a man, almost a strange man, 
 that was lifted so close to hers. She shrank 
 back with a frightened cry. 
 
 He released her at once and drew away, pull- 
 ing up the nearest chair. It happened to be 
 Sarah's first little rocker, but he obliviously 
 folded his long frame into it, intent only on re- 
 assuring her. 
 
 "Forgive me, dear," he said very quietly. 
 
 She knew that there was really nothing to
 
 264 THE STARLING 
 
 forgive, since she loved him like that, too, when 
 she was alone. She could not bear to have him 
 misunderstand. 
 
 "It is just that I haven't seen you for so 
 long," she faltered, and that he might find out 
 the truth in spite of her, she gave him a sorely 
 shaken hand. He laid it up under his chin, 
 evidently the heart's place for its dearest treas- 
 ure, comforting and reassuring it until it re- 
 laxed and of its own accord turned to put its 
 palm against his. He dropped his cheek to it, 
 then his lips, but his eyes never left her bent 
 head. 
 
 "How did you hear?" she asked. 
 
 He turned back to the bitter experience with 
 a shiver. "I had come over to have an interview 
 with the President of the University. They 
 have offered me the Chair of Journalism did 
 you know that? Of course, my book did it. 
 And it is exactly what I want a chance to 
 hammer at the coming journalists. We had 
 settled everything when he said that the sug- 
 gestion of me for the post had come from Mr. 
 Cawthorne weeks ago, but that he had been 
 prevented from taking it up again with him be- 
 cause of Ah, my dear, my dear!" He had
 
 THE STARLING 265 
 
 to have her other hand, and the little chair was 
 drawn closer. "For I know how you loved her. 
 I ran here I ran all the way." 
 
 "It isn't all sad, Christopher. Oh, there is 
 so much to tell you !" She fell silent before it. 
 "So you will live over here," she said presently. 
 
 He smiled at that. "May I come inside the 
 hedge?" 
 
 It was the question her hands had already 
 answered, but she could not meet it in words; 
 she was not ready for all that must follow. She 
 had to put him off. 
 
 "There won't be any hedge," she said. "My 
 father has given it to me. He has abdicated, 
 poor soul ! I am going to cut it down." 
 
 "Ah, you wouldn't do that!" 
 
 "Wouldn't I!" 
 
 "But you made me a promise." 
 
 "Oh, yes. I was just going to write you about 
 it a very formal note on the typewriter." 
 
 "Ah, of course, you have thought me a dog! 
 And yet" his hands tightened on hers "and 
 yet ?" he repeated. 
 
 "Yes." Her face flamed. "You were right 
 about Robert. That wasn't real love. That was 
 just dreams."
 
 266 THE STARLING 
 
 "And when it went ?" he prompted. 
 
 She looked into his face, and it was no longer 
 strange. "Ah, then I loved you," she said with 
 an impulsive motion toward him. 
 
 He rose up as his shadow had risen up the 
 wall. He drew her to her feet, then lifted her 
 from them to hold her tight against his breast, 
 his head dropped against hers. But he set her 
 
 down, very gently, before he kissed her. 
 * * * 
 
 "You really want the hedge, Christopher?" 
 
 They sat on the camphor-wood chest, just out- 
 side the circle of lantern-light, with Sarah's 
 crib on one side of them and her dolls' house on 
 the other. 
 
 "Ah, I have been beaten on by noise until it 
 seems like Paradise in here." 
 
 "But it is ugly, it's grim !" 
 
 "We would beautify it. Make the entrance 
 twice as wide and plant blooming, inviting 
 things there, and train vines to grow up on it, 
 and spill a little of the garden outside. Trust 
 me. I will make it a dream of loveliness. You 
 don't really want it to go?" 
 
 She looked into her heart and made the eter- 
 nal discovery. "Not if you want it to stay."
 
 THE STARLING 267 
 
 The discovery went on and on until it brought 
 her, shining, to the very heart of the miracle. 
 "I have got out! Christopher, I'm out!" 
 
 He kissed her for it. "You poor darling, you 
 are in for life, you mean," he said ruefully. 
 
 "No. Where you are, that is being out. That 
 is the whole world that is life and love and 
 people! I'm out! Oh, this is all I want you 
 may have the hedge. But our children, Chris- 
 topher " She faltered, as if she might turn 
 shy, but his natural assent carried her on 
 again : 
 
 "Yes, dear our children?" 
 
 "It won't be enough for them. They shall 
 not be shut in as I was. Even if it disturbs us, 
 they must have their lives. Promise it, Chris- 
 topher happy lives, like other children par- 
 ties and playmates!" 
 
 "Parties and playmates," he promised them 
 gravely, and sealed the vow. 
 
 THE END
 
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