Refractory Husbands 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 JUST FOR Two 
 
 LITTLE STORIES OF COURTSHIP 
 
 LITTLE STORIES OF MARRIED LIFE 
 
 MORE STORIES OF MARRIED LIFE 
 
 THE SUBURBAN WHIRL, 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES OF MAR- 
 RIED LIFE 
 
 THE UNFORESEEN 
 
 THE WAYFARERS 
 
"0A, if you do, I'm afraid I wont love you 
 any more!" 
 
 (Meeting the Dogj 
 
JWarp fetetoart Cutting 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 1920 
 
Copyright, ipij, 6? 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of 
 
 translation into foreign languages, 
 
 including the Scandinavian 
 
 COPYRIGHT, IQI2, 1913, THE CROWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1913, THE AMERICAN HOME MAGAZINE COMPANY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1912, THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, IQXI, 1913, THE RIDGWAY COMPANY 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 When Aunt Mary Came 3 
 
 A Friend of the Married 27 
 
 Father's Little Joke 49 
 
 Marie Twists the Key 75 
 
 Meeting the Dog 101 
 
 Marrying Willow 127 
 
 Thursday 157 
 
 Bunny's Bag 185 
 
 The Blossoming Rod 211 
 
 525605 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
When Aunt Mary Came 
 
 fHEN Aunt Mary comes, Preston, 
 you will just have to go to church!" 
 Pretty Mrs. Chandor's tone was that 
 of one nerved for combat. 
 
 " Anything you say," remarked her husband 
 absently, with his eye still glued to the magazine 
 he was reading in the waning light, as he sat on 
 the piazza in a chair that was slightly tilted 
 to allow for the comfortable placing of his feet 
 on the railing, revealing an expanse of cadet- 
 blue lisle stocking, matching his necktie, above 
 the low, speckless patent-leather shoes. Mrs. 
 Chandor's eye rested on him with a momentary 
 esthetic pleasure, in the midst of her harassment; 
 she never had to implore her husband to go and 
 make himself "look nice," as Lucia Bannard was 
 obliged to. Late shadows were lying across the 
 pretty, smooth lawn; the wistaria lifted lan- 
 guidly in the dying breeze; from nearby came 
 the sound of little boys' voices laughing and 
 calling in some merry game. Everything was 
 at peace but Elinor Chandor's mind. 
 
 " Preston, put down that book ! It's too dark 
 
 [3] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 for you to read, anyway. I was just saying that 
 when Aunt Mary came you'd have to begin and 
 go to church again. Besides, what would she 
 think of me if you didn't? It would simply 
 break her heart she wouldn't understand at 
 all. Not that / understand it myself I never 
 have ! How a man, brought up as you were by 
 her, can reconcile it to his conscience to stay 
 away from church as you have lately Sunday 
 after Sunday! Do you realize how long it is 
 since you were in one?" 
 
 "I haven't any idea," said her husband 
 genially. 
 
 "Well, I was thinking about it just the other 
 day. It's nearly three years!" Mrs. Chandor 
 paused, with a little tremulousness in the last 
 words. "Of course I know it began that winter 
 when I was ill so much and we had Dr. Gleamer 
 for rector. I know his delivery was dreadful, 
 and he never said anything; but you stay home 
 now just because you've got into the habit of 
 staying home; you won't go and see for yourself 
 how changed everything is, and hear what good 
 sermons Mr. Owen preaches, and what lovely 
 music we have you just couldn't help liking 
 it. I know people blame me for not having more 
 influence over you ! Oh, they do ! I know it is 
 partly my fault; but it is so hard for me to make 
 you do anything you don't want to do." 
 
 Mrs. Chandor paused once more, and looked 
 
 [4] 
 
When Aunt Mary Came 
 
 at him piteously. "I wouldn't have Aunt 
 Mary know for worlds! Why, she'd never get 
 over it and she's done so much for you always. 
 I cannot have her hurt." 
 
 "Well, if you think it's necessary " began 
 
 Mr. Chandor doubtfully. He reached over, 
 and took his wife's hand, pressing his thumb on 
 each of her soft knuckles in turn, in a way that 
 with him expressed affection, while his gaze took 
 note of her upturned blue eyes, her soft, ripply 
 hair, and the slight feminine droop of her head to 
 one side, which gave a suggestion of depend- 
 ence. Mr. Chandor thought his wife exactly 
 right; he had a permanent satisfaction, when he 
 looked at her, in his choice. 
 
 "It does seem" -his voice rose argumen- 
 tatively "as if I might have one morning to 
 do as I pleased in, after slaving all the week." 
 
 "Preston, how you act! Why on earth you 
 should make such a fuss I can't see. You don't 
 have to work as hard as that! And just be- 
 cause you like to lounge around all Sunday 
 morning! Yes, I do think it's necessary. If 
 you want to spoil Aunt Mary's visit entirely 
 and it would " 
 
 "Oh, all right, all right; I'll do it, of course," 
 said her husband resignedly. "Now the sub- 
 ject's closed." 
 
 "You promise me faithfully you will go to 
 church with Aunt Mary while she's here?" 
 
 [5] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 "Yes, I'll promise. She shall do anything 
 with me that she wants/' said Mr. Chandor with 
 emphasis. "And I hope you're satisfied now." 
 He drew his wife's chair a little closer to him, 
 and put his arm around her. "Poor girl, she 
 has an awful time with her husband, hasn't she? 
 Pity she didn't get a better one while she was 
 about it." 
 
 "Oh, when you talk that way!" said his wife 
 disdainfully unimpressed, yet yielding sweetly 
 to the caress. 
 
 When it came down to it, she didn't think 
 there was a better man in the world than 
 Preston. 
 
 But she suddenly sat up straight as she saw a 
 lady and gentleman approaching up the path, 
 and gave her chair a little hitch away. 
 
 "Good evening, Mrs. Crandall. Good even- 
 ing, Mr. Crandall!" 
 
 "You and your husband always seem to have 
 so much to say to each other," said Mrs. Cran- 
 dall, a nice-looking young woman with tired 
 eyes, glancing now at her husband, a short square 
 man with dark hair and an impassive counte- 
 nance. "No, don't get up! We can't stay; I 
 just stopped to give you this, Mrs. Chandor." 
 She handed over a paper. "It's one of the new 
 Sunday-school leaflets; I hear you're to take 
 Miss Green's class while she's away. We all 
 think it so charming of you. You ought to come 
 
 [6] 
 
When Aunt Mary Came 
 
 to church next Sunday, Mr. Chandor! Will 
 is going to sing a solo in the new anthem; it's 
 by Elgar; the most exquisite thing! some- 
 thing above the heads of the congregation, I 
 fear! But I suppose there is hardly any use 
 in asking you." 
 
 "Yes, better come, and hear me," said Mr. 
 Crandall, speaking for the first time and puffing 
 out his chest. 
 
 "Why, I've just promised Elinor that I'd be 
 there," said Mr. Chandor meditatively, "but if 
 
 I have tohearyour old bass growl, Crandall " 
 
 He reached over and clapped the other on the 
 shoulder, and both men grinned comfortably, 
 while the two women exchanged confidential 
 glances of question and assent, and then con- 
 gratulation on the part of the visitor. 
 
 "I'll tell Dr. Owen to get at that sermon 
 he's aways promised to preach for you, you old 
 sinner," announced Mr. Crandall. "Come 
 on, Nell, we must be getting home to the chil- 
 dren. Hello, here's your boy! How are you, 
 Teddy?" 
 
 "For goodness' sake, don't look at him," said 
 Mrs. Chandor dejectedly. Teddy was one of 
 those small boys who, let forth immaculate from 
 a mother's hand at five o'clock, freshly bathed 
 and brushed, and dressed in white linen, re- 
 appears in half an hour, his clothing soaked and 
 limp with perspiration, and streaked with dust 
 
 [7] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 from his matted hair to his shoes. From thence 
 until bedtime his progression was unspeakable; 
 there were nightly talks on the necessity of 
 improvement. Lucile, her seven-year-old girl, 
 really liked to be clean; Mrs. Chandor couldn't 
 help wondering sometimes why it was so hard to 
 make any impression on the masculine nature ! 
 
 If Preston's friends had been of the non- 
 churchgoing variety, his defection might have 
 been the less obvious, but most of their little 
 circle were interested in St. Stephen's. Will 
 Crandall had been a choir-boy, and the habit 
 still clung' to him; not to sing in a choir would 
 have dropped him out into the open wastes of 
 life, where he had no accredited place. Dick 
 Durland, who came over every Monday night 
 to play chess with Preston, was a vestryman, 
 although he wasn't half as well fitted to be an 
 officer of the church as Preston. Jolly, middle- 
 aged Mr. Brentwood, was a pillar of the parish 
 as well as of trade; even Mr. Minott, who 
 had been "something else" before he married 
 Minnie Chase, attended services intermit- 
 tently, it is true, but still, he attended; Mr. 
 Owen, the rector, was a frequent visitor of their 
 next-door neighbours, the Bannards. And Pres- 
 ton put his hands in his pockets as frequently as 
 any one when he was asked for subscriptions! 
 His wife was proud of that, as of many other 
 things about him. 
 
 [8] 
 
When Aunt Mary Came 
 
 Every one seemed to know by the next day 
 that Mr. Chandor would be seen at church the 
 following Sunday. 
 
 Mr. Durland jocularly asked if he should send 
 an additional envelope for the collection, and 
 Mr. Owen, meeting Preston in the street as the 
 latter was coming home from the train, said, 
 with a cordial greeting, that he was already 
 working hard on that sermon! 
 
 Elinor Chandor, with prophetic vision, could 
 see everybody waiting to shake hands with 
 Preston as he left the sanctuary she hoped 
 they wouldn't be too effusive! She had a sud- 
 den fear that Lucia Bannard, who was an emo- 
 tional young woman, though married, might 
 even, in an excess of religious fervour, present 
 Preston with some commemorative emblem or a 
 book of devotion, to mark the event, and thus 
 unalterably revolt the boyish shyness which 
 dwells in the inner recesses of the nature of the 
 real man, and keep him forever from repeating 
 the action. There was a rapt, far-away gleam 
 in Lucia's eye, when she had spoken of it that 
 morning, that might bode anything. But 
 Elinorwas;sure that if things were left in a normal 
 state Preston would get in the habit of going to 
 St. Stephen's once more, when he found out 
 how changed it was; he couldn't help liking it 
 now. It was time indeed that Aunt Mary came ! 
 
 Aunt Mary was a large, fresh-coloured, gray- 
 
 [9] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 haired lady, who looked her age which she 
 always proclaimed on every occasion only 
 in the way of becoming it. Her nephew averred 
 that when he was a little boy he thought Aunt 
 Mary's lap the most comfortable place in the 
 world, and she still preserved this characteristic 
 for all childhood. Their elders always had the 
 feeling, after her arrival, that, if everything wasn't 
 exactly right, it was going to be; she knew so 
 many infallibly best ways of reaching perfection 
 that all you needed was to make a little pleasing 
 extra exertion to get there. 
 
 Her loud, clear voice and cheerful presence 
 seemed to bring an atmosphere of agreeable 
 competency. 
 
 "Indeed, the journey was nothing," she 
 affirmed, when, dinner finished, she was com- 
 fortably bestowed by her nephew and niece 
 in the biggest armchair on the piazza, with 
 Lucile, a small-faced girl with gigantic butterfly 
 bows on each side of her head, hanging on the 
 arm of every one's chair in turn, as well as on the 
 converse of her elders. 
 
 "There was a very kind young man who 
 carried my bag for me of course, there was no 
 porter in sight! As I told him, when a woman 
 is sixty-eight years of age she appreciates a 
 courtesy. He said he was a student in the 
 Theological Seminary, and I assured him of 
 the pleasure it gave me, in these days when 
 [10] 
 
When Aunt Mary Came 
 
 young men are so lax, to find one who was pre- 
 paring for the sacred calling of the ministry. 
 He had such red eyes that I offered him my 
 recipe for eye-lotion it is so inexpensive and 
 simple that no one should be without it." 
 
 "How very kind of you, Aunt Mary," 
 murmured Elinor. 
 
 "It is especially excellent for children as a 
 preventive/' continued the visitor. "I was 
 just noticing Lucile's eyes. Aunt Mary will 
 prepare some of the lotion for you to-morrow, 
 dear;" she patted the child's hand affectionately. 
 "We'll put it in a cunning little bottle. I have 
 one in my trunk; it has a glass stopper with a 
 blue ribbon around it; and I have chocolate 
 drops for a little girl who remembers to use it ! 
 
 - just the plain kind, Elinor, they won't 
 hurt her." 
 
 "How attractive you always make every little 
 thing, Aunt Mary," said Elinor, half enviously. 
 "Doesn't she, Preston?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed," he agreed affectionately. 
 
 "My dear, it's the little things that it pays to 
 take trouble about," said Aunt Mary benignly. 
 "By the way, speaking of the ministry, what 
 kind of a rector have you now, Preston?" 
 
 "Mr. Owen is a very nice fellow," answered 
 her nephew sincerely. 
 
 "When I was here before, there was a 
 good deal of dissatisfaction with Dr. Gleamer. 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 Many people had stopped going to church on 
 account of him; and when that kind of habit 
 once begins" Aunt Mary sighed heavily 
 " there's no knowing where it will stop. It's 
 the evil of the age." 
 
 " Papa's going to church next Sunday," 
 carolled Lucile, throwing herself with precipitate 
 affection at that parent. " Papa's going to 
 church, aren't you, papa?" Her immense 
 butterfly bows quivered wildly. "He's going 
 to walk to church with you, Aunt Mary!" 
 
 Aunt Mary's look of growing surprise at 
 Lucile's first statement relaxed into one of 
 smiling appreciation. 
 
 "Why, of course, he is, the dear boy," she sup- 
 plemented; "he doesn't have his old aunt to 
 escort every day," while Elinor said with en- 
 forced sweetness: 
 
 "Run away, Lucile, at once, darling, and see 
 what little brother is doing." 
 
 "Do you like your Mr. Owen's sermons, 
 Preston?" pursued Aunt Mary. 
 
 "Best I've heard in years," said her nephew 
 blandly. 
 
 "And is the music good?" 
 
 "Every one says it's fine." 
 
 "Well, you are fortunate," said Aunt Mary. 
 She looked with fond affection at her niece and 
 nephew. 
 
 "It is delightful to find myself here with you 
 
 [12]" 
 
When Aunt Mary Came 
 
 again, and also to find you, Preston, the same 
 dear, good boy you always were, so devoted to 
 your church. Remind me, Elinor, when we go 
 upstairs to-night, to ask you for an ordinary 
 rubber band you doubtless have plenty in 
 your desk; I saw that the catch of one of the 
 shutters in my room was slightly loose, and a 
 rubber band will secure it nicely. And before 
 I forget it, I want to say that I am going to make 
 an old-fashioned rice pudding for you the first 
 thing in the morning, so that it will be cold by 
 dinner time; I heard you say, Elinor, that 
 your maid didn't know how to do it properly. 
 It is so delightful, as I was saying, to find myself 
 here again in such a satisfactory household. 
 When I was staying last month at the Shaws', it 
 really made me feel dreadfully to find how lax 
 Tom had become; a boy who was in my own 
 Sunday-school class, too! Emma says that he 
 never goes to church with her any more. When 
 I spoke to him about it, he had those same old 
 foolish excuses to offer that have been trumped 
 up since the year one. I've no patience with 
 them. I said to him: 'Tom Shaw, by the way 
 you go on about hypocrites in the church, any- 
 body'd think they went there to be made bad, 
 instead of to be taught what's right, even if 
 they don't follow it.' But I couldn't help feeling 
 privately that it was mostly Emma's fault; her 
 influence hasn't been what the influence of a 
 
 [13] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 wife should be not like yours, Elinor. You 
 don't know how thankful I have always been 
 that my dear boy has had your high character to 
 uphold him." 
 
 "I say," remonstrated Mr. Chandor to his 
 wife when they were at last alone, after she had 
 sought high and low, unavailingly, for the needed 
 rubber band, and Aunt Mary, hovering around 
 after her, had promised to buy her a box of them 
 in the morning, "I say, Elinor, you're making a 
 regular Ananias and Sapphira out of me! Do 
 you think it's right? Aren't you afraid retribu- 
 tion will overtake me?" 
 
 " No," said his wife stoutly; "I'm not. You'll 
 deserve all you'll get, anyhow! Oh, Preston, I 
 was ready to shriek once or twice! But" her 
 tone changed "did you ever see anything like 
 the way children always let out just what you 
 don't want them to, the very first thing? I 
 could have slapped Lucile! And it's worse 
 telling them beforehand not to say what you 
 don't want them to that's fatal! They will 
 always ask politely: ' Mamma, why mustn't I 
 say this or that?' ' 
 
 Her mind reverted to the welcome that might 
 be made by members of the congregation to 
 her husband next Sunday. The Crandalls 
 she could warn, but her wifely dignity wouldn't 
 let her take others into this demeaning con- 
 fidence. 
 
When Aunt Mary Came 
 
 The culminating day of the week assumed an 
 unusual halo that coloured all the hours leading 
 up to it Elinor wanted that Sunday to be 
 perfect not only in its highest way, but in all 
 those little material ways that show the festal 
 spirit in them. She already had the promise of 
 her new summer silk from the dressmaker 
 a simple little thing, the gray and white stripe 
 that was so cool looking, and that Preston 
 always liked. Her hat had been a great dis- 
 appointment; it was a very large hat. She 
 knew, of course, when she bought it that Pres- 
 ton invariably inveighed against large hats, but 
 it had seemed so peculiarly becoming when she 
 tried it on, both to herself and the milliner, be- 
 sides being so exactly "the style/' that she had 
 been sure that Preston must consider it becom- 
 ing, too. But when she had worn it for the first 
 time, and, her eyes beseeching approval, she 
 had asked: "How do you like my new hat, 
 Preston?" he had dashed all her hopes to the 
 ground by the fell words: "I don't like it at 
 all!" 
 
 No normal woman can ever take any satis- 
 faction in wearing a hat that her husband dis- 
 likes. Elinor had sadly felt obliged to wear hers, 
 but for this coming Sunday she took down out 
 of the closet a little old toque, that Preston had 
 always admired her in, and that fitted down 
 compactly over her rippling brown hair, and 
 
 [15] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 trimmed it with a bunch of pink rosebuds, to be 
 pleasing in his sight as they walked from the 
 sanctuary. Nor did her preparations stop here; 
 she would have a special plate of corn muffins 
 for his breakfast that morning, smothered 
 chicken, such as he used to have at his own home 
 when a boy, for dinner, and the dessert should 
 be boiled apple dumplings with hard sauce. 
 
 Elinor never could quite understand why the 
 hot boiled apple dumpling should appeal so 
 strongly to both the fancy and appetite of her 
 husband; if he were asked, at any time of the 
 year, what he would like for dessert, he always 
 unhesitatingly answered, " Boiled apple dump- 
 lings." 
 
 From the morning after benevolent Aunt 
 Mary's arrival, the household had benefited 
 steadily by her suggestions and assistance. 
 The promised rice pudding had been made, 
 indeed, after a long delay, during which Aunt 
 Mary, in a white apron, sat cheerfully patient 
 while Elinor strove maddeningly at the telephone, 
 first in ordering the rice and nutmeg which 
 of course no kitchen storeroom should be with- 
 out and then in asking why the articles 
 didn't come, and then in striving excitably to 
 point out the fact that, even if they were "on 
 the wagon" an hour ago, they were of no cul- 
 inary use in that position. But the rice pudding, 
 [16] 
 
When Aunt Mary Came 
 
 when it was finally set before them at night, 
 was of the creamiest, most delicious variety, 
 and there was actually enough of it for every- 
 body, which is so seldom the case with a really 
 good rice pudding. 
 
 Aunt Mary hung up the two brooms by strings 
 so that they should not be worn out by resting 
 on the floor, reminding the maid smilingly of 
 this usage, during the day; she made dusters, 
 and little bags for them, disposing them con- 
 veniently everywhere, so that one could always 
 dust on the spot; she screwed up a hook behind 
 the side door where Teddy could reach it to 
 hang his hat, under her kindly supervision, in 
 strict observance of this rite. 
 
 She was continually saying to Elinor as the 
 latter hurried about her avocations: 
 
 "Now do sit down for a few minutes, dear, 
 you're tired; you may not know it now, but 
 you'll feel it afterward. 'Rest when you can!' 
 that has always been my motto. A young 
 mother never realizes how much vitality she 
 may use up unnecessarily." 
 
 Aunt Mary had many long, serious, and up- 
 lifting conversations with her niece on the sub- 
 ject of living, based on the thoughtful experience 
 of a courageous woman of sixty-eight who had 
 been through a good deal in her day. She was 
 so indefatigably kind and resourceful and help- 
 ful, her advice was so indisputably good, that 
 
 [17] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 Elinor was horrified to find herself at times wish- 
 ing that she might weakly relapse unnoticed 
 into doing things hit or miss, in her own natural 
 way, even though it mightn't be the best one at 
 all, instead of having everything arranged for 
 her. Even Preston showed an occasional fret- 
 ting of the bit under prolonged instruction. 
 
 It was in vain to deny that kind Aunt Mary, 
 beloved as she certainly was, had a will of her 
 own; it was impossible to gainsay her; as every- 
 thing was for one's own good, it would have 
 seemed the part of the ingrate to strive to balk 
 her, even if the striving had been of any use. 
 Yet with that, perhaps, natural weariness of the 
 flesh, on her young relative's part, was mingled 
 Elinor's deep gratitude at Aunt Mary's uncon- 
 scious influence over Preston in the matter of 
 the Sunday observance. There was soft radi- 
 ance, a melting happiness in Elinor's eyes at 
 moments, unknown to herself, when she re- 
 garded her husband, of which he found him- 
 self tenderly and comprehendingly conscious. 
 His wife wasn't like most women there was a 
 lot she never talked about. 
 
 Others were thinking of the day as well as 
 she. Will Crandall, as she met him Saturday 
 afternoon coming from the train, announced 
 that he had applied to sing two solos for the 
 occasion ! Mr. Owen took off his hat to her with 
 a smile of remembrance, and Lucia Bannard 
 [18] 
 
When Aunt Mary Came 
 
 herself came to the house with a pensive, up- 
 lifted look in her dark eyes and some sprays 
 of lilies of the valley. 
 
 "They are out of our own garden/' she 
 announced in her low, thrilling voice. "We 
 are all going to wear them to church to-morrow. 
 I thought if you and your husband would each 
 wear a spray, it would show that we were all 
 together/' 
 
 "Why, that's awfully sweet of you/' said 
 Elinor, kissing her friend warmly. 
 
 She pinned the flower in her husband's button- 
 hole the next morning, when, the corn muffins 
 enjoyed and the apple dumplings secretly 
 accomplished, she was all ready and dressed to 
 set out. She had to go early to-day, that was 
 the only drawback, on account of substituting 
 for Miss Green with that lady's Sunday-school 
 class. It was too bad that she couldn't walk 
 to church with Preston, but she would walk back 
 with him, and Aunt Mary would love to have 
 him all to herself going there. 
 
 "Lucia Bannard wanted you to wear this," 
 she announced. "We all have them in honour 
 of the occasion." 
 
 "Why, that's nice of her," said Preston, very 
 much surprised, but rather pleased. She stood 
 there in her gray-and-white striped silk and the 
 little hat, with a bunch of pink rosebuds, fram- 
 ing her rippling hair, her soft blue eyes gazing 
 
 [19] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 up at him with that new, happy light in them. 
 He drew her to him, and kissed her, his arms 
 lingering around her as he whispered: 
 
 " You're an awfully nice woman, do you know 
 that? Best wife I ever had." 
 
 The day was beautiful, though warm; the 
 walk to church was long, but Elinor was not 
 tired. Lucile and Teddy went prattling along 
 beside her. 
 
 By some miraculous sixth sense, after reach- 
 ing Sunday-school, though she hardly heard 
 what the children in the class were reciting, or 
 asking her, she seemed to be equal to the re- 
 quirements of the situation. Her mind was 
 bent on the triumphant moment that was com- 
 ing, when she should be in her own pew and, 
 looking up, see Aunt Mary's fine, fresh-coloured 
 face, her gray hair and her stately presence, 
 coming down the aisle with Preston; Preston, 
 tall, well-dressed and fine-looking; nay, hand- 
 some! He mightn't be handsome to any one 
 else, but he was to her. 
 
 She was in the pew at last, Lucile and Teddy 
 had gone home. People came in gradually, 
 by twos and threes; the organ was playing the 
 voluntary then more people; the church was 
 filling up, yet none from her household appeared. 
 The choir-boys were entering, singing lustily; 
 she stood up, still no one ! Had anything hap- 
 [20] 
 
When Aunt Mary Came 
 
 pened? She saw, with swift-beating heart, the 
 house on fire Aunt Mary in a fit of apoplexy 
 - Preston stabbed by a passing tramp ! 
 
 The service began, still no one! But as she 
 knelt, some one slipped into the pew beside her, 
 and Aunt Mary, flushed and breathing hard, 
 yet composed, slid with competent facility into 
 prayer. 
 
 Elinor had to wait until they arose, to ask 
 agonizingly, "Has anything happened?" and 
 receive Aunt Mary's decisive shaking of the 
 head and the words, framed laboriously, almost 
 inaudibly, with her lips: 
 
 "I had a telegram just as I was starting; I will 
 have to leave immediately after dinner to see 
 my brother to-morrow before he sails." 
 
 "And Preston?" breathed the wife. 
 
 "I'll tell you about him later," nodded Aunt 
 Mary quietly, and relapsed prohibitively into 
 worship. 
 
 "You see, my dear, it was this way," she 
 announced, when the service was over and they 
 were free of the congregation and the amused 
 I-told-you-so looks that Elinor could feel passing 
 over her. Aunt Mary's kind face shone ten- 
 derly on her young companion as they walked 
 along under the green branches of the spreading 
 elms. "My dear, you may not have noticed it 
 -he kept up until after you left but I 
 couldn't help seeing then, when I was alone 
 
 [21] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 with Preston, that there was something weighing 
 on the dear boy. I never saw any one get so 
 restless. He couldn't keep still a moment, 
 though I was reading him a most interesting 
 article on the Diseases of the Throat a 
 subject of moment to every one; as I always 
 say, 'An ounce of prevention is worth a pound 
 of cure.' He had such a line between his eyes, 
 and there was a strange lassitude about him that 
 convinced me that he was in pain. 
 
 "Of course, when I asked him if there was 
 anything the matter, he denied it at first 
 men always do but I just said: ' Preston, 
 dearie, if you think you can hoodwink your 
 Aunt Mary, who brought you up, and who 
 knows you better than any one else, dear, you're 
 much mistaken. I know you've got one of your 
 bad headaches, and there's no use your saying 
 you haven't. I'm the last person to advocate 
 any one staying home from church as a usual 
 thing, but there's common sense in all things; 
 you don't go a step out in that sun to-day, if 7 
 know it. Well, Elinor, it really touched me to 
 find how much the dear boy hated to miss even 
 one service, and when it came down to it, I could 
 see, besides, that he thought his little wife 
 wouldn't approve of his absence; but this time I 
 was firm. I knew you would understand." 
 She paused. 
 
 [22] 
 
When Aunt Mary Came 
 
 " Yes," said Elinor, striving for self-control. 
 
 "He didn't want to go upstairs and lie down, 
 but I left him in the shaded corner of the piazza/' 
 went on Aunt Mary happily, "stretched out 
 comfortably, with a pillow behind his head, in 
 the steamer-chair, with the collect, epistle and 
 gospel to read I found them for him myself 
 in the prayer-book and a glass of water beside 
 him. I knew you really wouldn't mind when I 
 told you the facts of the case. I have no doubt 
 that we shall find him much better on our return 
 now. And, my dear, take the word of a woman 
 of sixty-eight; nothing is gained by forcing a 
 man to keep up to a certain mark! Preston 
 can be safely left to his own guidance. " 
 
 "I really did want to go," whispered her 
 husband, in ludicrous, dismayed protest, as 
 Elinor bent over him. "I couldn't help it; I 
 give you my word!" 
 
 "I know," whispered his wife smilingly in 
 return. She pressed her cheek against his. 
 "It's going to be just the same for me as if you 
 went. And, after all " she stopped a moment 
 before she murmured shyly "dear, I always 
 take you in my heart with me anyway, when I 
 go to church. I didn't need to have Aunt Mary 
 come for that." 
 
 [23] 
 
A Friend of the Married 
 
A Friend of the Married 
 
 UCIA BANNARD, in a becoming lav- 
 ender gown, sat in her pretty yellow 
 bedroom, on a Sunday morning, gazing 
 at a large and dingy overcoat spread out before 
 her on the bed. 
 
 The Bannards' small home was conceded to be 
 one of the most charming in the neighbourhood. 
 Everything with which Lucia had to do was 
 perfect so far as taste was concerned; even the 
 Brentwoods' big roomy mansion, with its old, 
 harmonious furnishings, its stacks of books and 
 air of comfort and prosperity, couldn't compare 
 in a sort of exquisite, inspiring beauty with the 
 Bannards'. In the nine years of her married 
 life it had been one of Lucia's chief objects to 
 gather the things together which, as she ex- 
 pressed it, were "right," even if the house had 
 to wait, scantily furnished, from Christmas to 
 Christmas, for a chair, or bookcase, or rug. 
 
 Lucia herself bore out the character of the 
 house. She was a beautiful young woman, with 
 a slender figure, very large and expressive dark 
 eyes, a short upper lip with a proud yet infantile 
 
 [27] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 curve, and pale golden hair. Her taste in her 
 own dress was as perfect as in other things. 
 She was a clever manager, and never told any 
 one but Elinor Chandor,her next door neighbour, 
 how little her clothes cost : she seldom talked of 
 any of her economies. Even the maid who 
 answered the door, showed an extra nicety of 
 cap and apron, as well as in smiling good looks. 
 
 Where everything was so esthetically "right," 
 the one discordant note, in the matter of suitable 
 appearance, was Mrs. Bannard's husband: he 
 was a delightful young man, but he would not 
 buy clothes. As he came in now, tall, happily 
 light-footed, with a noticeably distinguished 
 bearing and a teasing twinkle in his nice blue 
 eyes, she interrupted his cheerful if tuneless 
 whistle to say abruptly, as her eyes wandered 
 over his big figure: 
 
 "Donald, you will have to order your new 
 overcoat at once, if you're going up to the head 
 office with Rex Courtney on the first: it's only 
 two weeks from Wednesday!" 
 
 "Why do I need a new one when I've got 
 this?" asked her husband with prompt con- 
 clusiveness. 
 
 "Why? For the same reason I've told you 
 twenty times before, Donald Bannard, because 
 this one is worn out!" 
 
 "I don't see anything much the matter with 
 it," said Mr. Bannard unimportantly. 
 
 [28] 
 
A Friend of the Married 
 
 He took up the garment and examined it with 
 
 cheerfully appraising eye. 
 
 " All it needs, is to have a few little things done 
 to it : a new collar, perhaps velvet gets worn of 
 course and the buttonholes worked over where 
 they're split, and the lining patched up. I 
 don't see but what that will make it all right 
 for this winter; lots of wear in that coat 
 yet!" 
 
 "Donald Bannard, if you begin talking like 
 that again after all I've said to you before, 
 you'll drive me raving crazy ! You've worn that 
 dreadful, cheap thing I've always detested it! 
 - for five years. You've had the collar renewed 
 three times, and the buttonholes worked over 
 so often that the last time even the tailor ob- 
 jected to doing it. If you have it done again, it 
 will take buttons the size of tea-plates to hold 
 them. And it's all frayed out around the wrists 
 and shiny in the seams: it's horrid; it's dis- 
 gusting! It took away all my pleasure every 
 time I went out with you last winter. You 
 owned, yourself, in the spring, that you 
 could never put it on again. Whenever I've 
 spoken to you about it since, you've promised 
 me you'd go to Grandon's this fall and 
 order a really handsome coat, good material 
 and all, the kind Rex Courtney wears. And 
 now " 
 
 The tears welled thickly in Mrs. Bannard's 
 
 [29] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 lovely eyes, while her husband obliviously 
 searched for something in a chiffonier drawer, 
 whistling under his breath. 
 
 "And you needn't try and act as if you didn't 
 care when I speak to you this way: you ought 
 to care! I have to work, and work, and work, 
 to make you buy the ordinary clothes that other 
 men get as a matter of course. If you hadn't 
 the money now, Donald, I wouldn't say a word, 
 but when I've taken such pains to save up 
 enough so that you could get a really good 
 coat going without a new suit myself, though 
 goodness knows I need one ! but, then, a woman 
 can fix up things to cover deficiencies, and 
 everything does show so on a man! And I've 
 made over my blue satin myself, just because 
 I had set my heart on your looking as you ought. 
 Are you listening?" 
 
 "Yes, I'm listening," said Mr. Bannard, 
 smiling at his wife. He had a smile that in- 
 variably charmed; it was always with great 
 effort that Lucia withstood it, but she did so 
 now; she met his eyes stolidly as he continued 
 with growing restiveness: 
 
 "What difference does it make what I have 
 on, anyway? It's my own affair if I choose to 
 wear what I please. Great Scott, Lucia, I'll 
 be so busy these next two weeks, I'm nearly 
 crazy as it is; I haven't time to go hanging 
 around the tailors. All this talk about dress 
 
 [30] 
 
A Friend of the Married 
 
 makes me sick: people don't judge me by my 
 clothes !" 
 
 " You're very much mistaken, that's just 
 what lots of people do judge you by," returned 
 his wife triumphantly. "One thing is certain, 
 you cannot go up to the head office with Rex 
 Courtney if you haven't a new overcoat; 
 I'd die of mortification if you did! And 
 if you think going up there looking like a 
 tramp will advance your interests, Donald 
 Bannard " 
 
 "Oh, well, then, don't say another word," 
 said Mr. Bannard in a slightly raised key. 
 "Stop right there! I'll get the coat." 
 
 "And you will go to Grandon's and bring home 
 samples of cloth to-morrow?" 
 
 "Yes, I suppose so. Look here, Lucia," 
 Mr. Bannard's tone changed from one of 
 reluctant submission to that of masculine 
 authority, "have you been taking my small 
 screw-driver out of this drawer again?" 
 
 "No, no, I haven't taken it! Oh yes, 
 perhaps I did take it for just a moment. Ellen 
 wanted one for the wringer, but I put it right 
 back again; I'm perfectly positive." 
 
 "Well, you didn't," said her husband with- 
 eringly. He faced her with his shoulders thrown 
 back and his nice blue eyes flashing lightning. 
 "How many times have I told you, Lucia, not 
 to touch that screw-driver? Things have come 
 
 [31] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 to a pretty pass if I can't keep one thing of 
 my own where I can lay my hand on it!" 
 
 "I know I put it back, but I'll go and look 
 for it this minute," said his wife, hurrying off 
 with placating alacrity. She had gained her 
 point! 
 
 The next evening he really brought the samples 
 home with him, and studied over their possibili- 
 ties with her, in as deep interest as if he hadn't 
 fought against the proceeding. They spent the 
 evening, in the intervals of reading and con- 
 versation, in hanging small dabs of cloth on his 
 coat-sleeve and considering them from different 
 angles. There were all the ones that wouldn't 
 do at all, and the four or five that were so 
 attractive that one hardly knew how to make a 
 choice. But both at last fixed on an Oxford 
 gray that wasn't an Oxford gray, but some- 
 thing darker, richer, indescribably satisfactory 
 in colour, and stylish, as Lucia proclaimed, to 
 a degree. She saw Donald in prospect in 
 a quiet-toned, richly soft, superlatively cut 
 topcoat that would even surpass that of Rex 
 Courtney. 
 
 Rex Courtney was the one unmarried man in 
 the little intimate social circle of which the 
 Bannards composed a part. There were other 
 young men in the place, of course, but they 
 were of the ordinary sort, who were only in- 
 terested in their own kind, or in girls, whereas 
 
 [32] 
 
A Friend of the Married 
 
 Rex was superlatively the friend of the married. 
 He was credited with having had an affair 
 of the heart perhaps, indeed, two or three - 
 in which he had been, colloquially, so "hard hit" 
 as to turn his mind from love toward the less 
 demanding comforts and pleasures of friendship. 
 
 He, like Donald Bannard, was "in Steel/' but 
 he travelled much of the time in its interests, 
 often returning only over the week-end, and so 
 warmly pleased to be welcomed in the houses of 
 his more fortunate fellowmen that each house- 
 hold vied with the other in the possessiveness 
 of its welcoming; each wife wished to believe 
 that hers was the abode in which he really 
 felt most at liberty to smoke when he desired 
 to, and ask for cake when he wanted it. 
 
 He was a favourite with all the men. He 
 was indeed an extremely nice fellow, cheery, 
 entertaining, and indefatigably considerate of 
 womankind, performing all the little courteous 
 attentions which their husbands meant to per- 
 form, but didn't; he brought boxes of candy 
 and flowers, and never forgot the children, 
 who were devoted to him. His perfection in 
 these respects, instead of casting a slur on the 
 husbands seemed on the contrary to raise the 
 standard of all the male sex ; the men concerned 
 had the effect of generously allowing services 
 that belonged to them by right. If at times 
 he strove to help over those places where both 
 
 [33] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 husband and wife from their inner circle knew 
 that no help was needed, they only smiled at 
 each other comprehendingly. Lucia liked to 
 feel that Donald was really the nicest after all. 
 
 Rex gave the impression of thinking sym- 
 pathetically: "If / could get as charming a 
 wife and as delightful a home as this, you bet 
 it wouldn't be long before I'd have them; but 
 I know very well it can't be duplicated. It's 
 awfully good of you to let me have a little 
 corner here." 
 
 For the rest, he was in the early thirties, not 
 very tall, but broad-shouldered, fair, clean- 
 shaven, and with very white teeth; as Lucia 
 Bannard had hinted, he was always notably 
 well dressed. 
 
 The women, though giving him his title in 
 converse, always spoke of him as Rex Courtney; 
 there was something in the name itself that 
 showed you what he was like. The men called 
 him, familiarly, Court. 
 
 He had been at one time most intimate at 
 the Crandalls, and then at the Chandors; but 
 lately his visits had grown more frequent to 
 the Bannards, with whom, though the latest 
 known, he found many interests in common. 
 He and Donald were both ambitious so far as 
 Steel was concerned, and his appreciation of 
 Lucia's love of beauty was of an intelligent 
 kind which she didn't usually receive. He had, 
 
 [341 ' 
 
A Friend of the Married 
 
 besides, a real masculine force that made his 
 sympathetic insight of her aims and motives 
 very delightful to receive. When he occasionally 
 joked with Donald on some solecism in the 
 latter's attire, she felt deeply though she 
 never spoke on the subject to Rex Courtney 
 that he saw and appreciated her troubles in 
 that line. 
 
 It was this man with whom Donald was to 
 travel in company to report at the head office on 
 the first of the month. 
 
 "Did you take the samples back to Grandon's 
 to-day?" Lucia asked her husband anxiously 
 the next night after he had come home from 
 town. 
 
 "Yes," said Donald lightly. 
 
 "I hope to goodness you showed him the 
 right sample ! " 
 
 "I certainly did. Grandon says it will make 
 a fine coat." 
 
 "And when will it be finished, dear?" 
 
 "Oh, some time within the next two weeks; 
 before the first, you may depend on that; Grandon 
 never disappoints. And, look here, Lucia" 
 he spoke gently but firmly, kissing her up- 
 turned face half absently as if it were some 
 necessary refreshment "I don't want to be 
 questioned about that overcoat every night 
 when I come home! When it's done I'll get 
 it, and that is all there is to it. And, by the 
 
 [35] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 way, you might as well telephone to Bergwitz 
 to-morrow, and have him send over for the 
 old coat and put it in some kind of shape. It 
 may turn cold suddenly." 
 
 "Well," said Lucia grudgingly, "I'd like to 
 pitch the thing out of the window this very 
 minute, but I don't want you to get pneumonia, 
 of course." 
 
 It did turn cold by the end of the following 
 week, that bitter cold that comes sometimes 
 in late November. Only the thought of the 
 beautiful garment her husband was to have, sup- 
 ported Lucia in the ordeal of seeing him in the 
 old one. The tailor's art had somehow failed 
 him in the renovation; perhaps he had tried 
 it so often that he had lost heart; those awful 
 buttonholes sprawling over one side, the thread- 
 bare edge, its indescribable air of rustiness and 
 collapse, were accentuated by the new velvet 
 of the collar. It took enormous self-control on 
 Lucia's part not to burst out at him violently 
 when he put it on. A pregnant, withheld 
 silence, in which she was apparently oblivious 
 of her husband, always made him demonstra- 
 tively affectionate, while she, on the other 
 hand, became warmest when he was cool. 
 Sometimes things went his way, and sometimes 
 they went her way; and no human power could 
 ever predict whose day it was going to be. They 
 
 [36] 
 
A Friend of the Married 
 
 were a young couple who, on the whole, found 
 great interest in life. 
 
 It was on the Monday evening before the 
 trip, and while Lucia was hourly expecting the 
 arrival of the new garment, that Donald came 
 home earlier than usual, particularly brisk and 
 affectionate. 
 
 " What do you say to going to town for a little 
 treat to-night?" he asked. " Somebody gave 
 Court three tickets for the opera, and he wants 
 us to meet him in town after an early dinner. 
 Can you make it? " 
 
 "Can I make it!" cried Lucia rapturously. 
 She flew at her husband and embraced him, 
 while he fished in his pockets for a time-card. 
 "I can get dressed in five minutes. You'll 
 have to change, yourself; you'll wear your 
 evening clothes, of course." 
 
 "Oh, it never takes me long to get into them," 
 said her husband easily. To do Donald justice 
 he never minded wearing clothes when he had 
 them: it was the bother of getting them at which 
 he balked. 
 
 She surveyed her husband with pride and 
 pleasure when he was arrayed in his handsome, 
 well-fitting evening togs. Heaven only knows 
 what she had gone through before they were 
 accomplished, long after his original suit had 
 grown too small for him! The last time he 
 had worn the latter was at a wedding. She had 
 
 [37] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 begged and prayed him for three weeks before- 
 hand, ever since the cards were out, on their 
 return from the summer vacation, to get those 
 clothes down and try them on, and he wouldn't, 
 with the result that the very night of the fes- 
 tivity he had had to have the waistcoat split up 
 the back, because it wouldn't button in front, 
 and her sister Bess had inserted a wedge-shaped 
 piece: Lucia was so angry that she wouldn't 
 touch a needle to it! When he put on the coat, 
 it skewered him to that degree that he looked 
 ridiculously like a trussed chicken. He couldn't 
 move all the evening for fear of its splitting. 
 That had settled it: he had ordered a suit the 
 next day, but his surrender taught him no 
 lesson. 
 
 The one drawback to the evening now was 
 that that fiendish overcoat had to be put on 
 above his splendour. She fancied that Rex 
 Courtney's eyes took note of it curiously. 
 She felt his underlying sympathy with her when 
 he complimented her later on the becomingness 
 of her pale blue satin under her lovely 
 white cloak with its tunic and tight skirt, 
 after the fashion of the day, and the blue, 
 silvered bandeau in her golden hair. 
 
 "You have the art of making whatever you 
 wear look as if it were the one perfect thing," 
 he announced; and she did not think it neces- 
 
 [38] 
 
A Friend of the Married 
 
 sary to inform him that the gown was one of 
 her exquisite economies, made over laboriously 
 by her own fingers, so that her money .for a 
 new one might swell the fund for her darling 
 Donald's overcoat. He was careless as to his ex- 
 penditures; his money was apt to melt as soon 
 as he touched it; she had to be the wise provider ! 
 
 Yet there was something in Rex Courtney's 
 praise now that she found vaguely haunting 
 her. It wasn't in what he said, but in something 
 he hadn't said, something, she was sure, that 
 he had wanted to speak of; she felt it all through 
 the opera. 
 
 " Thank you for a most delightful evening; 
 it's been a joy!" she breathed fervently when 
 they were parting at last on the home doorstep, 
 and he had answered simply: 
 
 "I'm so glad you liked it; it's been a great 
 pleasure to me," and added, turning to Donald: 
 
 "We'll have to do this oftener, together, the 
 three of us. I don't know of any one who has 
 a greater appreciation of beauty and a good 
 time than your wife, Bannard!" Both men 
 looked at her affectionately. 
 
 "You're about right there, Court!" said 
 Bannard with his hand on Lucia's arm. 
 
 To have Rex Courtney speak in that way 
 about her! Nell Crandall and her husband 
 used to get all Rex Courtney's extra tickets, 
 but now ! 
 
 1 39] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 She wondered again the next morning, how- 
 ever, what it was that he didn't say. 
 
 But she said to her husband suddenly before 
 he left: 
 
 " Donald, do you realize that that overcoat 
 hasn't come home yet, and you start to-morrow 
 night?" 
 
 " Yes, Lucia, I realize it," he answered tersely. 
 
 "Be sure and see about it to-day. Don't 
 chance their sending it. Wear it home, and 
 let them send the one you have on. I'd have a 
 fit if anything went wrong about it." 
 
 "Look here, Lucia, who's getting this over- 
 coat, you or I?" he asked imperturbably. 
 
 "Goodness knows that, if I had been getting 
 it, you'd have had one long before this," replied 
 Lucia with a desperate gesture and a theatrical 
 moan. 
 
 It did not arrive during the day, nor did he 
 wear it home. Lucia, on tenterhooks, after 
 the first moment's questioning, subsided; she 
 saw that look on her husband's face which warned 
 off speech. She could get nothing out of him, 
 except that it would be all right the next day; 
 otherwise, as she confessed to herself, he was as 
 dear as only he could be. He had brought 
 her a box of marrons as a solace after he left, 
 and was so delightful a lover that she couldn't 
 bear to mar the hour in any way. 
 
 [40] 
 
A Friend of the Married 
 
 All Wednesday she looked forward to the 
 moment when he would arrive, resplendent, for 
 those last couple of hours before going in town 
 again to start off for the night. 
 
 At his footfall she rushed downstairs and 
 turned up the hall light, that his effulgence 
 might burst upon her. Instead, he stood 
 there as usual, taking the newspapers out of 
 the worn pockets of his old coat. 
 
 " Donald Bannard!" she began wildly, before 
 he stopped her with a gesture : 
 
 " There's no use your saying anything. I 
 never ordered the coat; that's all!" 
 
 " You never ordered it! You told me yourself 
 that you went to Grandon's; you - 
 
 "I did go to Grandon's, and showed him the 
 sample we picked out, but I was in such a tearing 
 rush that I couldn't even wait to be measured 
 then; I said I'd be over the next morning. I've 
 honestly expected every single day to go in, 
 but I've been so all-fired busy that I just 
 haven't had a minute. Great Scott, Lucia, 
 when a man has as much to see to as I've had 
 lately, you can't expect him to bother about 
 such a little thing as clothes! I've been nearly 
 wild. You will just have to let me go on as I 
 am till things straighten out a bit and I have 
 more time." 
 
 "Oh, that's the way you always talk," said 
 his wife bitterly. Her large eyes dwelt on him 
 
 [41] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 with a tragic despair. She had nothing to say: 
 it was too dreadful. She had done her best; if he 
 made a bad impression at the office, she couldn't 
 help it. What was the use of struggling any 
 more? Perhaps he had been too busy. She 
 had a strange, forlorn, feminine pride in his 
 being beyond her control, even in her despair. 
 She did not see how she could ever say any 
 more to him about that overcoat than she had 
 said. 
 
 She had thought this the height of the situa- 
 tion, but there was a peak beyond, unseen as 
 yet. In the three days before his return she 
 found herself growing tired, incapable in thought 
 of managing things. She wasn't used to being 
 without Donald, and she seemed to be illimit- 
 ably homesick for him. She wanted to feel his 
 dear hand; she could forgive him temporarily 
 for his tacit deception of her if he would only 
 come back. 
 
 But the step on the piazza, when it did come, 
 was not Donald's, but Rex Courtney's. 
 
 " Where's Donald?" she asked anxiously as 
 she greeted him. 
 
 "Oh, he's all right. He had business that 
 detained him. I came on this morning," said 
 Rex. "He asked me to leave these papers here 
 for him and to tell you he'd be out on the last 
 train. I'll only sit down for a moment." 
 
 [42] 
 
A Friend of the Married 
 
 "Did you have a nice trip?" she asked per- 
 functorily. 
 
 "Yes, it was all right," said Mr. Courtney 
 with a reminiscent smile. "Donald's a fine 
 travelling companion. The company gave us 
 a bang-up supper the other night, too. I got 
 my promotion. I hope Donald will get his 
 
 soon; but " Rex paused, and slapped his 
 
 knee meditatively with the gloves he held in 
 his right hand. 
 
 "There's something that's been on my mind 
 for some time, Mrs. Bannard. I wonder if 
 you'll let me speak to you about it now?" He 
 faced her earnestly. "It concerns Donald." 
 
 "Why, certainly," said Lucia, confusedly agi- 
 tated. What did he mean? What could he 
 mean? 
 
 "Well, it's just this, Mrs. Bannard: Ronald 
 ought to be more particular about his dress. 
 A woman is apt to think that only her own 
 clothes matter; she spends on them all the 
 money her husband can spare, as a usual 
 thing. It's her right, of course, to make herself 
 look charming no one knows how better 
 than you, Mrs. Bannard but it's a mistake 
 to think that a man's clothes don't matter just 
 as much; it is indeed! A woman doesn't see 
 the business side of it: it makes a great differ- 
 ence in many ways if a man looks well dressed, 
 
 [43] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 prosperous; respectable, in short! Other peo- 
 ple place much more confidence in him. Now 
 
 that overcoat your husband wears " Rex 
 
 lowered his voice tenderly as his eyes dwelt 
 
 on the downcast face of his pretty hostess 
 
 " Really, Mrs. Bannard, you should never 
 have let him off in a thing like that; it gives every 
 one a wrong impression, and he's such an all 
 around fine fellow, I hate to see it. You feel all 
 right, don't you, Mrs. Bannard? You haven't 
 been ill? Of course I know that no matter what 
 he has on he looks all right to you; that's the 
 woman of it!" He smiled encouragingly as 
 he rose. 
 
 "I'm sure it is only a little thought on your 
 part that is needed. You will forgive me, Mrs. 
 Bannard, won't you, for taking so much upon 
 me?" He looked at her anxiously. "Really 
 you don't seem well." 
 
 "Oh, I'm perfectly well," said Lucia, con- 
 trolling her voice by a superhuman effort. It 
 was as much as she could do not to let herself 
 burst forth in towering hysterical wrath at 
 this unspeakable blunderer. 
 
 Instead, she achieved, for the moment, a 
 languid, chill carelessness of voice and manner 
 as she went on: 
 
 "I think, however, with all your kind inten- 
 tions, you are just a little mistaken; outsiders 
 often are, don't you think? A man like my 
 
 [44]. 
 
A Friend of the Married 
 
 husband has no fear of being judged by his 
 clothes; he dresses entirely to please himself, 
 and / should never think of interfering. But 
 I'm sure you meant well. Good night!" 
 
 That night a tall young man in an old over- 
 coat plunged from the last train into the snow 
 that was beginning to fall, and walked with 
 cheerful, anticipative steps toward his home, 
 happily unconscious of the tempest that he 
 was to be called upon to soothe when he got 
 there. But it has been noticed since that 
 there has been no better dressed man in the 
 place than Donald Bannard, beginning with 
 that very handsome overcoat which even 
 threw in the shade that of Rex Courtney's, 
 wko, by the way, doesn't seem to visit the 
 Bannards as much as formerly, Lucia owning 
 to Elinor Chandor that they found him rather 
 stupid at times. Perhaps a friend of the 
 married is most successful in that capacity 
 when he is content simply to admire, and does 
 not dash in where wiser men might fear to say 
 a word. 
 
 [45] 
 
Father's Little Joke 
 
Father's Little Joke 
 
 [OTHER, don't you think we might in- 
 vite the Iversons here next week?" 
 
 It was Winifred Brentwood who 
 spoke; she was the dark-haired one, while her 
 sister Audrey was fair. Both were unusually 
 tall and beautiful girls. When people asked 
 pretty, plump Mrs. Brentwood if it didn't make 
 her feel old to have such grown up young 
 daughters, she only smiled a superior disclaimer 
 the people who could ask you such a question 
 wouldn't understand if you told them how 
 delightful it was to be a girl again in the 
 intimate company of two others, who treated 
 her at times with a disrespectful comradeship 
 that she adored! She looked fondly now at 
 Winifred as the latter continued: 
 
 "If Audrey and I hadn't met Leslie Iverson 
 last month in Denver I shouldn't feel the same 
 way about it. Of course we only saw him twice, 
 but he was so very nice, and he seemed so 
 anxious to have us know his mother. I told 
 him, momsey, that you and she had exchanged 
 calls last winter, but that I knew you were going 
 
 [49] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 to invite her to the house as soon as Audrey and 
 I got back. I want to have everything as 
 
 attractive as possible " she paused, and 
 
 added impulsively: "He is so nice; I'd like 
 her to think we are nice, too! Not that I 
 expect to see anything of him when he comes 
 east at the end of the month he is here so 
 seldom and stays such a short while, that they 
 want him at home all the time. His mother 
 always has a house-party for him over the week- 
 end." 
 
 "Yes, and I know that he hopes she'll ask 
 us," chimed in the younger sister eagerly. "He 
 says they have a grand time." 
 
 Winifred's cheeks glowed consciously. "Au- 
 drey, how you talk ! It's not at all likely that 
 she will even think of it!" 
 
 Mrs. Brentwood gave a penetrative glance at 
 her daughter, but she only said matter-of-factly : 
 
 "Of course we ought to have had the Iversons 
 here long ago. It is nearly a year since they 
 moved into the place, but there always seems 
 to be so much going on " 
 
 She stopped with a reminiscent sigh. The 
 Brentwoods, in their comfortable, roomy, pros- 
 perous house, practised such continuous hap- 
 hazard hospitality that it was hard to know 
 where to sandwich in formal entertaining such 
 as this of the Iversons would have to be. The 
 Iversons were not only very much richer than 
 
 [50] 
 
Father's Little Joke 
 
 any one else in the little community Mr. 
 Iverson being many times a millionaire 
 but they were rigidly correct and elegant both 
 in appointment and demeanour; as one might 
 say, "icily regular, splendidly null." The 
 time Mrs. Brentwood had called, the tea things 
 and biscuits had been brought in by two butlers; 
 one couldn't imagine anything haphazard in 
 connection with the Iversons. 
 
 " Shall we ask them to dinner? " she went on. 
 
 "No, no, not dinner! Luncheon," answered 
 Winifred. "Mother, stop pulling at your waist ! 
 That isn't the way to make it stay down. Lean 
 over to me a moment. You do get your hair 
 so tight at the sides! There, that's better." 
 She gave the offending parent an affectionate 
 pat. "I think it had better be luncheon." 
 
 "Then we can't have Mr. Iverson." 
 
 "No, we'll just ask Mrs. Iverson and her 
 sister. We won't try to have any men; Mr. 
 Iverson is so delicate that he probably wouldn't 
 come." 
 
 "Father doesn't care for that sort of thing 
 anyway," said Audrey. 
 
 There was a moment's silence. "No, your 
 father doesn't care for that kind of thing," 
 corroborated Mrs. Brentwood. They had all 
 known from the beginning that they would 
 decide on the luncheon, and why. 
 
 Mr. Brentwood was a tall, strongly built 
 
 [51] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 man of fifty, with an almost military bearing, 
 a handsome gray head, fine features, a gray 
 moustache, and an infectious smile. His family 
 adored father, who, in addition to his noble- 
 mindedness, unselfishness, and sweet temper, 
 was generous to a degree, and always thinking 
 of the welfare and happiness of his family. 
 He was one of those fathers of whom there are 
 not too many, whose duty to them did not 
 end with providing money his children were 
 as much a matter of his intimate care and com- 
 panionship, if in different ways, as they were 
 their mother's; his responsibility for them was 
 always back of hers, to be trustfully relied on 
 and appealed to. Mrs. Brentwood looked 
 with wonder not unmixed with disdain at the 
 women who actually boasted of having the 
 sole management of their boys and girls. Mr. 
 Brentwood was well born, well educated, and 
 successful in affairs. He had, in the eyes of 
 his family, but one fault: he had a masculine 
 sense of humour of a homely, almost rural 
 type, at which they winced uncontrollably. 
 Mrs. Brentwood, even from the earliest days 
 of their marriage, had been wont to implore 
 her Theodore, when they were expecting com- 
 pany, not to be "funny." 
 
 Certain jokes or mannerisms of his at the 
 table were of daily occurence. Hardly noticed 
 any more when they were alone, they sprung 
 
 [52] 
 
Father's Little Joke 
 
 unto startling prominence when there were 
 guests. He always said: " People come from 
 miles around to hear us drink soup." He jovially 
 inquired if he might " borrow the butter/ 7 or 
 if Ellen, the waitress, could "spare him another 
 slice of bread." He made puns on the vege- 
 tables, and he had a habit of looking with sudden 
 suspicion at any dish handed to him, no matter 
 how familiar, and asking disgustedly, "What 
 is this anyway?" Strangers always inspired 
 him particularly to their entertainment. Cer- 
 tain ancient, inherited anecdotes could be 
 endured by his wife and children, even if with 
 aching strain, but there was a bath-tub story 
 (Mr. Brentwood had in his early boyhood 
 migrated with his parents to what was then the 
 edge of the prairie) beginning mendaciously: 
 "You know we never took baths when I was 
 a boy," that, though it was amusing, nearly 
 went beyond the pale of refinement, and an 
 awful tooth-brush story which positively did. 
 If people laughed at his stories, Mr. Brentwood 
 became practically untrammelled. 
 
 It was better indeed to ask the Iversons to 
 luncheon! No matter how deeply he was 
 warned against it, father would have his little 
 joke. 
 
 There was a distinct glow of satisfaction 
 when Mrs. Iverson and her sister, Miss Loomis, 
 
 [53] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 promptly accepted the invitation; it amounted 
 almost to a feeling of proprietorship in them 
 when they were seen passing in one of their 
 many automobiles. And there was a further 
 glow of satisfaction when the morning of the 
 festivity heralded a perfectly beautiful autumn 
 day. 
 
 "Did father go to town?" asked Winifred 
 suddenly, as she bent over the gorgeous mass 
 of flowers she was arranging for the table. 
 
 "No," said the mother, "he drove up to the 
 golf club for the tournament." 
 
 "To the golf club! Then won't he 
 
 Audrey stopped short. 
 
 "When your father goes to the links, he 
 never comes home till six o'clock," said the 
 mother tranquilly. 
 
 "Unless his leg troubles him," suggested 
 Audrey blankly. 
 
 Mr. Brentwood had had a slight accident 
 the year before that occasionally disabled him. 
 He always referred to the cause as "that infernal 
 ligament." 
 
 "Oh, it hasn't troubled him this fall," said 
 Mrs. Brentwood, gazing secretly at Winifred 
 bending over the flowers. She had a little 
 uneasy divination that Winifred, who was usually 
 unimpressionable, had been more "taken" with 
 Leslie Iverson than the girl herself realized. 
 Once in a while Audrey's glance, meeting her 
 
 [54] 
 
Father's Little Joke 
 
 mother's, seemed to confide the same thought. 
 Even if she had only met him twice Winifred 
 had changed in some way. Mrs. Brentwood, 
 as she looked carefully over her lace-edged 
 plate-doilies to see that there was no imper- 
 fection in them, sighed unconsciously, as she 
 thought of that new look in Winifred's eyes, 
 with the aching, mature knowledge of the fre- 
 quent, crude denial of the opportunities of 
 life in spite of the young rosy vision that creates 
 them. 
 
 The Iversons, with their retinue of servants, 
 might readily be supposed to have none of the 
 delightfully intimate pleasure of preparation 
 for a festivity that was the habit of the Brent- 
 woods. It was a part of the enjoyment of 
 the thing, though the preparations indeed 
 had their distracting side when it was found 
 that the best lace centrepiece had been put 
 away by a careless maid, with a spot of chocolate 
 on it; also, when Mrs. Brentwood temporarily 
 mislaid the key to the trunk containing the 
 fancy silver, and two of the tall goblets had 
 mysteriously become cracked since the last 
 using. There was quite an argument as to 
 whether the round table should be made large 
 for six or kept without the extra leaf, but Wini- 
 fred insisted that it was cosier small. Every- 
 thing seemed perfect when it was finished; 
 no table, with the efforts of ten butlers, could 
 
 [ssi 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 have looked more exquisite. There was a 
 serene security as to the food; it was always, 
 as some one had proclaimed, "the best ever." 
 The family, dressed competently on time, in 
 the drawing-room, were each a credit to the 
 other; Mrs. Brentwood in a becoming mauve 
 robe, Audrey in blue, and Winifred in the white 
 gown and scarlet ribbons that suited her dark 
 hair and glowing cheeks and lips so well. When 
 the bell rang, they congratulated themselves 
 on being ready; but it was, after all, only 
 pretty young Mrs. Bannard, as first arrival, 
 full of neighbourly behind-the-scenes interest. 
 
 "How lovely it all looks/' she breathed as 
 she seated herself by Winifred. "I took a peep 
 in the dining-room as I came in." 
 
 "YouVe met Mrs. Iverson and her sister 
 before, haven't you, Lucia?" asked Mrs. 
 Brentwood. 
 
 "Yes; I've met them several times," answered 
 Mrs. Bannard with what seemed some delicate 
 reservation. "They're very nice, oh, very nice 
 indeed! as every one says; but we find them a 
 little difficult to know. I think they are used 
 to a very formal way of living, and of course 
 here in this place - Mrs. Bannard spread 
 
 out her hands lightly. "Is Mr. Brentwood 
 at the golf tournament? My husband is com- 
 ing out for it." 
 
 "Yes, father went up there this morn- 
 
 [56] 
 
Father's Little Joke 
 
 ing/' said Winifred, rising with a flush. 
 
 " Mother " 
 
 The state guests were entering the room. 
 
 Mrs. Iverson was a slender, fragile woman 
 with a long throat, a small, narrow face and 
 very light hair and eyes; her colourlessness was 
 accentuated by a pale gray gown. She had an 
 air at once of extreme unobtrusiveness and 
 great elegance. Her expression seemed habitu- 
 ally anxious; when she spoke, a couple of vertical 
 lines in the middle of her forehead became 
 contracted. Her sister, Miss Loomis, who 
 lived with her, was heavy-chinned and dark- 
 eyebrowed, her stout figure straightly busked 
 and stayed into the mould that fashion required; 
 she had a little the air of being more the rose 
 than the rose itself. The apparently modest 
 gowns of both women were, to the practised eye, 
 of Parisian manufacture. A chilled atmosphere 
 seemed to enter with them. 
 
 "I hope we're not late," said Mrs. Iverson, 
 after the first greetings, glancing swiftly about 
 her, while the nervous vertical lines appeared 
 in her forehead. 
 
 "No, indeed!" responded Mrs. Brentwood 
 warmly. 
 
 "My husband dislikes so much to have us 
 late anywhere. He is home to-day with a 
 headache; he has been quite an invalid lately." 
 
 [57] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 "Yes, he has been quite an invalid/ 7 cor- 
 roborated Miss Loomis, with the air of con- 
 fiding a matter of importance. 
 
 "I am so sorry/' said Mrs. Brentwood. 
 
 "I often find it very difficult to leave him/' 
 continued Mrs. Iverson. 
 
 "Yes, indeed, my sister finds it difficult to 
 leave him/' said Miss Loomis; "he depends 
 so much on her. I often offer to relieve her 
 by reading aloud to him, but she says he prefers 
 her voice." 
 
 "Yes, he prefers my voice," said Mrs. Iverson, 
 with eyes that seemed to grow luminous at the 
 thought. Mr. Iverson was evidently a power 
 to be reckoned on. 
 
 She turned the conversation away from the 
 subject, however, as she smiled over at Winifred 
 and Audrey though it was evident that it 
 still occupied her thoughts. "I have never 
 met your daughters before, Mrs. Brentwood." 
 
 "No; we went to Europe last spring, soon 
 after you came here," said Mrs. Brentwood. 
 She flushed as she always did at the recollection 
 of that miraculous trip, as she went on im- 
 pulsively: "We had the time of our lives! 
 We were gone two whole months, not counting 
 the voyage. We had none of us, not even Mr. 
 Brentwood, ever been over before. Absolutely, 
 we went around thrilling! But luncheon is 
 ready. Will you come into the next room, 
 
 [58] 
 
Father's Little Joke 
 
 across the hall?" She led the way, still talking 
 as the party took their places, with the iced 
 fruit in the tall amber glasses already in place. 
 
 "You have been over, I suppose, Mrs. 
 Iverson?" 
 
 "Yes; my sister and I were educated abroad, 
 and I have been across with Mr. Iverson every 
 summer for the past fifteen years, except this 
 year," said Mrs. Iverson gently. Her brows 
 knitted again. "But there is such a sameness 
 about it. I don't think it is much of a rest 
 to him; my husband dislikes strangers. Of 
 course you had your daughters with you. 
 It must have been very pleasant," she went 
 on, with a smile at the younger part of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 "Yes, it must have been very pleasant," coin- 
 cided Miss Loomis, with her bright air of 
 saying something original. 
 
 "Oh, mother never could have got along 
 without us," said Winifred, with a glance over 
 at the tall fruit-glasses before the two guests. 
 Lucia Bannard and the family were emptying 
 theirs with evident enjoyment, but the others 
 seemed to be only dallying lightly with theirs. 
 
 "I used to wish that I had daughters, but 
 it is perhaps just as well that I have my boys 
 instead," pursued Mrs. Iverson, "Girls take 
 up so much of one's attention; they have to be 
 
 [59] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 looked after, of course, and with Mr. Iverson 
 in his present state of health it would have made 
 things very difficult." The strained expression 
 deepened. "With boys it is very different: 
 they have their own lives." 
 
 "Your youngest is at Groton?" hazarded 
 Mrs. Bannard. 
 
 "Yes, at Groton. My eldest son, Leslie, 
 is an electrical engineer out West. When he 
 comes home, I try to make things as gay for 
 him as possible. Mr. Iverson thinks a home 
 should be made attractive for a young man, 
 but it is sometimes difficult. Of course Mr. 
 Iverson mostly keeps in his own apartments 
 at such times, and I always have a trained nurse 
 on hand in case he should need some little 
 attention that I cannot give him at the moment; 
 but he seems to think no one can take my place." 
 
 "No one can take her place!" volunteered 
 Miss Loomis effectively. 
 
 "Audrey and I met your son a couple of 
 weeks ago, when we were in Denver," said 
 Winifred, a little pink colour coming into her 
 cheeks. 
 
 "Indeed!" said the mother. She regarded 
 Winifred evidently without seeing her. A 
 little haze grew over her eyes. "I should 
 like to travel in the West so much, but Mr. 
 Iverson does not care for travelling." 
 
 The conversation turned on California, which 
 
 [60] 
 
Father's Little Joke 
 
 Lucia Bannard had lately visited, and wandered 
 still further afield; but the talking got 
 laboured when it left Mr. Iverson. There 
 seemed no other point of real contact with the 
 star guests. The sense of chill began to grow 
 deeper. They dallied with their oysters as 
 they had with their fruit, eating little, and that 
 with a sort of impersonal detachment about 
 them. They had come out to perform a social 
 duty, and they were performing it; but in 
 spite of politeness it was evidently a nervous 
 strain. They were oddly like recluses free 
 from some hermitage for a few hours, politely 
 striving to enjoy an unnatural liberty, with the 
 atmosphere of the secluded life still around 
 them. Winifred, in her young, clear-eyed im- 
 pressionableness, got an unshaped yet not the 
 less vivid sensation of some large, tormented 
 personality behind the two women who absorbed 
 all their individuality and yet wreaked itself 
 unhappily on them, because all they gave was 
 insufficient for the need. 
 
 Mrs. Brentwood was waiting in hopes of 
 success in the next course, the chicken bouillon 
 with whipped cream, somewhat long in making 
 its appearance, when, after a sound of wheels 
 outside, the noise of manly footsteps was heard 
 suddenly in the hall, and Mr. Brentwood's large, 
 handsome, grizzled head was thrust between the 
 dining-room portieres. 
 
 [61] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 "I thought I'd come home to luncheon. 
 
 That infernal ligament of mine Hello! 
 
 I didn't know you were having company," 
 he announced genially. 
 
 "I told you myself last night, Theodore," 
 said Mrs. Brentwood, flushing with an exaspera- 
 tion such as one feels with a beloved child. 
 She loved her husband whenever her eyes 
 rested on him, yet she could have shaken him 
 for coming in just now and disarranging every- 
 thing. 
 
 "Come in, dear! Mrs. Iverson, Miss Loomis, 
 my husband." 
 
 "Very glad indeed to welcome you here," 
 said Mr. Brentwood heartily, shaking hands. 
 "I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Mr. 
 Iverson, but I hope to soon. Lucia, it's always 
 good to see you!" 
 
 He was a man who always kissed his wife and 
 daughters affectionately after even half an 
 hour's absence. He proceeded to do it now, 
 holding Winifred's hand tenderly in his as he 
 went on speaking: 
 
 "Now don't let me upset the party; if there 
 isn't any room for me, you can just send me a 
 bite upstairs." 
 
 "You know you only say that for effect," 
 said Winifred, saucily. She appealed to the 
 tableful, her dark eyes, her scarlet cheeks and 
 lips framed in the circle of his arm. "He's 
 
 [62] 
 
Father's Little Joke 
 
 the most pampered man! He'd never get 
 over it if he thought we'd let him go off by him- 
 self and have our good time without him would 
 you, daddy dear?" She pulled his cheek 
 down to hers for a moment with defiant pride. 
 
 "It was very, very bad of you to come home 
 now, and you'll crowd us dreadfully, but as 
 
 you're here " she was busy, as she spoke, 
 
 helping the maid to lay another place. Every- 
 body was moving up inconveniently close, 
 with a confusion of doilies and glasses and 
 knives and forks, and deprecatingly polite 
 murmurs from the guests. The seventh chair 
 could barely be edged in; Mr. Brentwood's 
 large figure in his gray suit seemed to dominate 
 everything as he beamed with courteous kind- 
 liness on the surrounding womankind, with 
 apparent obliviousness of an uneasy, startled 
 air that seemed to pervade Mrs. Iverson and 
 her sister. 
 
 "I'd have been here before, Matilda," he 
 apologized to his wife, "but I went out of 
 iny way to give that little sewing woman of 
 yours a lift; I met her trudging down the road." 
 Mr. Brentwood was always giving a "lift" 
 of some kind to oppressed femininity. "But 
 I've come in time for the broth, I see." He took 
 a spoonful of his, and smiled jovially across the 
 table. "That disposes of formality at once. 
 People" the eyes of Winifred, Audrey, and 
 
 [6 3 ] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 their mother commingled in one agonized glance 
 "people, Mrs. Iverson, come for miles around 
 to hear us drink soup." 
 
 Mrs. Iverson looked more startled; she seemed 
 indeed to shrink a little, but she only said, 
 "Indeed!" with an effort at response. 
 
 "Yes, it reminds me of that precept we were 
 taught at school, 'Eat slowly and distinctly!' 
 Ha! I believe I have made a slight mistake: 
 it was, as you were going to remind me, Audrey, 
 'Read slowly and distinctly/ but the principle's 
 the same. Matilda, Miss Loomis would like 
 to borrow some bread." 
 
 "Oh, no, no," murmured that lady as Ellen 
 hastily passed the article. 
 
 "Well, I will then," said Mr. Brentwood, 
 helping himself. "I never can see why my wife 
 won't have the bread left on the table, as usual, 
 when we have company. At all the best 
 restaurants, both here and abroad, they leave 
 the bread on the table where you can help 
 yourself. Isn't that true, Mrs. Iverson?" 
 
 "I believe it is the custom abroad," said 
 Mrs. Iverson, turning a delicate pink in an 
 effort to respond. "But when we travel, Mr. 
 Iverson prefers to have our meals served in a 
 private room; his health demands quiet." 
 
 "Is that so," said Mr. Brentwood, with 
 genuine interest. "Poor fellow, I'm sorry 
 for him. I know what it is when this infernal 
 
 [6 4 ] 
 
Father's Little Joke 
 
 ligament of mine troubles me. But speaking 
 of the food abroad" he leaned forward deep 
 in his subject, "I don't think it's what it's 
 cracked up to be. We struck the plum season 
 in England; nothing but stewed plums or 
 plum tart every blessed day for a 'sweet' as 
 they call it. A sweet indeed! At luncheon 
 or dinner at the house where we were stopping, 
 or when we were invited out, plums, I give 
 you my word, just the same! I became" 
 the twinkle in Mr. Brentwood's eye heralded 
 to the family the approach of a much-used 
 pun "I nearly became plumb crazy." 
 
 A sickly smile around the board put its hall- 
 mark on the joke, and he went on with another: 
 
 "And the eternal string-beans! I used to 
 say, in the words of the poet, 'I have bean here 
 before.' Ha, ha!" He paused for appreciation 
 before going on. "But I'd like to go over 
 again. Ever heard the story of the man who 
 bought a coat that was too short for him?" 
 
 "A coat that was too short for him?" re- 
 peated Mrs. Iverson painstakingly. "I really 
 do not know." 
 
 "Father, you chatter so nobody gets a chance 
 to say a word," protested Winifred. "You're 
 taking an undue advantage of being the only 
 man." 
 
 "Oh, pray tell the story!" murmured Mrs. 
 Iverson nervously. "We are so interested." 
 
 [6 5 ] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 "We are so interested/' stated Miss Loomis 
 officially. 
 
 "You see, my dear, Mrs. Iverson wants to 
 hear it. Ellen, if you can spare me another 
 glass of water! Well, he bought a coat, and 
 the Irishman told him it was too short for 
 him. 'Oh,' said poor Jim, 'but it'll be long 
 enough before I get another!' And the Irish- 
 man thought that was so funny that he went 
 off Audrey, my dear child, don't fidget so, 
 you can't be well slapping himself and laugh- 
 ing, and he says to the next person he met, 
 'Me friend Jim has been saying the funniest 
 thing yet. Bedad, when I told him his new 
 coat was too short, he up and says: "It'll 
 be a long time before I get another one !' " And 
 he couldn't understand why nobody laughed 
 with him. Well, it'll be a long time, I'm 
 afraid, before I'll get another trip abroad." 
 He stopped short. He glared darkly with 
 sudden suspicion his head reared back at 
 a silver dish on a tray which Ellen was pre- 
 senting at his left side. "What under the 
 sun is this, Matilda?" 
 
 "Browned potatoes, dear," replied Mrs. 
 Brentwood in a tone of dangerous calm. 
 
 "Oh," said Mr. Brentwood, happily relieved. 
 "What are you looking at me that way for, 
 Matilda? What have I done now?" He 
 [66] 
 
Father's Little Joke 
 
 helped himself largely, and then went on with 
 a ruminative confidence to Mrs. Iverson: 
 "I like potatoes in any way but cold." He 
 shook his head retrospectively. "I never have 
 a-ny use for potato salad; cold potatoes always 
 remind me of cold feet." An icy thrill seemed 
 to run visibly around the table to the agonized 
 sense of the family before Lucia Bannard began 
 to laugh hysterically, and they joined in, Mrs. 
 Iverson and Miss Loomis palely smiling. 
 
 "But you're not eating anything, Mrs. Iver- 
 son," said Mrs. Brentwood a moment later in 
 real concern; "nor your sister either!" 
 
 Alas, it was too true! They had seemed to 
 eat without appetite before Mr. Brentwood's 
 coming, but since that there had been hardly 
 a pretence at it. What was the use of having 
 the "best food ever" for guests who didn't 
 appreciate it? Never had such a thing hap- 
 pened before. Nothing, nothing, could have 
 turned out less as it had been planned for! 
 " Why had they tried it at all? " Winifred moaned 
 to herself. 
 
 After that last awful remark the conversation 
 was left to Mr. Brentwood without any effort 
 to draw it away. Mingled with a desire to 
 shake this parent who was behaving like a 
 naughty boy, was a feeling of resentment against 
 these impossible Iversons for not being able 
 to see how fine he really was; there could be no 
 
 [6 7 ] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 further pretence of intimacy with Leslie Iver- 
 son's stupid, disapproving family. Something 
 in those brown eyes of his seemed to speak, 
 as it had on that last meeting, straight to young 
 Winifred's soul, and she said now, in her heart: 
 "Yes, I saw what you did, and I say good-bye 
 to that something that drew us together. 
 There will never be any opportunity for it to 
 be more than a memory to both of us." 
 
 The guests seemed to grow more and more 
 repressed, yet nervously almost furtive in 
 their glances at each other behind the polite 
 veil of punctilious attention which they gave 
 their host. Their deference encouraged him 
 to fresh efforts; he soared in his untrammelled 
 invention. 
 
 Later, when he had Mrs. Iverson and Miss 
 Loomis ensconced on the piazza, and after hav- 
 ing brought them each the most beautiful late 
 rose he could find, and the biggest Bartlett 
 pears off his own tree, he arranged their cushions 
 for them although they were in nervous haste 
 for their motor to come- and got the steamer rug 
 to put around Mrs. Iverson with dexterous care, 
 and that kind smile of his that was so heart- 
 warming, in spite of her agitated protests, 
 because he saw she looked chilly. After that he 
 sat on the railing one leg over the other, and 
 Winifred heard the fateful words: 
 
 "You know when I was a boy we never took 
 [68] 
 
Father's Little Joke 
 
 baths " He was beginning the Bath-Tub 
 
 Story! She and her mother clasped at each 
 other's hands secretly with an unheard moan. 
 
 If he came to the Tooth-Brush Story He 
 
 was coming to it. 
 
 The girl began to feel a fury at her visitors 
 for being there at all. She never wanted to 
 see Leslie Iverson again. She went up to her 
 father when the visitors rose at last to go, and 
 said her good-byes to them with her arm around 
 him; and as the motor drove off he stooped and 
 kissed his child as she clung to him. Though 
 the Iversons had been so long in going, the 
 swiftness of their departure at the last precluded 
 all but the most hurried and perfunctory adieus; 
 there was nothing said of any future meeting. 
 
 Contrary to their wont, the Brentwood 
 family did not talk over the luncheon among 
 themselves afterward. The best centrepiece 
 and the doilies were put away, the fancy silver 
 locked up again, things restored to their rightful 
 places, but with no reference to the entertain- 
 ment or what had happened at it. They had 
 tried whole-heartedly to please, and they hadn't 
 pleased; and it came to the place now when they 
 didn't care whether the guests had been pleased 
 or not. The Iversons had dropped out of 
 their scheme of things. 
 
 Yet, unexpectedly enough, after all, two days 
 
 [6 9 ] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 afterward they were surprised by a call from 
 Mrs. Iverson. They were sitting on the piazza, 
 Mrs. Brentwood sewing and the girls just 
 back from tennis, when the big motor-car 
 drove up and Mrs. Iverson stepped out alone. 
 There was an air of animation about her, 
 both in movement and expression, that was in 
 striking contrast to her repressed manner 
 before. She came up the steps with her hand 
 already stretched out to clasp Mrs. Brentwood's, 
 the anxious lines on her forehead seemed to have 
 been smoothed away. There was a slight 
 flush on her hitherto pale cheeks; her gentle 
 eyes shone; there was a perceptible glow about 
 her that seemed to come from some inner 
 change. 
 
 " Please don't disturb yourselves. I'll sit 
 down here beside you, if you'll let me," she 
 said taking her seat by Winifred on the willow 
 settee. "I can stay only for a moment, but 
 I felt that I couldn't wait any longer before 
 seeing you all. My sister is reading to Mr. 
 Iverson. As he always says her voice is not 
 mine, but he really wished me to come." 
 
 " Indeed, we appreciate it," responded Mrs. 
 Brentwood, wondering somewhat. 
 
 The other put up a gloved hand of pro- 
 test. "Oh, no, no, it is we who appreciate 
 your kindness so much! I couldn't rest until 
 I had told you what a delightful time we 
 
 [70] 
 
Father's Little Joke 
 
 had at your luncheon the other day. It is 
 so long since we have been in a real home 
 with a family! Perhaps you don't realize 
 what it is to see daughters with their father. 
 And Mr. Brentwood! he was so brilliant, and so 
 
 extraordinarily entertaining, and so kind " 
 
 Mrs. Iverson's eyes filled with tears. "My 
 sister and I were spellbound: we couldn't eat, 
 couldn't say a thing; we felt so stupid, and we 
 were simply spellbound! Mr. Brentwood re- 
 minded us so wonderfully of our own dear 
 father, who died before I was married, especially 
 when he told the story about the coat; it 
 really quite affected Amelia and myself." 
 
 Mrs. Iverson paused for an instant. "And 
 all his little attentions to us he was so kind! 
 But the thing that my sister and I felt most of 
 all was how much Mr. Iverson would enjoy 
 him. We have done nothing since but try and 
 repeat Mr. Brentwood's clever sayings and 
 anecdotes to my husband, and he is all impatience 
 to meet Mr. Brentwood. He would have driven 
 over with me to-day if he had been able, so 
 I have come now to beg you to excuse the 
 informality and be so very good, if you will, 
 to dine with us, all of you, to-morrow evening. 
 Mr. Iverson has so few pleasures, and he is 
 anxious to meet you and Mr. Brentwood at 
 once." 
 
 "My dear, we'll be delighted," said Mrs. 
 
 [71] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 Brentwood warmly, but somehow it was Win- 
 ifred's hand that the visitor was holding as 
 she went on to say: 
 
 "And I want to engage you and your sister 
 now it's a little far ahead, but I cannot rest 
 until I have an opportunity of returning some 
 of the pleasure you have given us I want 
 to engage you both for a small house-party 
 that I expect to have on the twentieth for my 
 son, when he comes on for a few days; for I 
 think you said that you had met him, Miss 
 Brentwood?" 
 
 "Yes, I have met him," said Winifred, 
 with shining eyes, and knew not what strange 
 telepathy made the hitherto impersonal, re- 
 pressed Mrs. Iverson draw Winifred's face to 
 hers and kiss her. 
 
 If father had succeeded in having his little 
 joke, this time it was on them! 
 
 [72] 
 
Marie Twists the Key 
 
Marie Twists the Key 
 
 rRE you going to the Crandalls' to-night 
 to meeti that girl they have visiting 
 them?" 
 
 Mrs. Chandor, a pretty, fair woman, paused 
 once more before going out of Atkinson's to 
 ask the question of Mrs. Paxton. 
 
 Atkinson's was the leading grocery, a most 
 attractive spot with its gleaming glass jars of 
 fruit and vegetables and bright tins of foreign 
 delicacies piled up everywhere. On clear morn- 
 ings you met almost as many people you knew 
 passing in and out as if it were the Woman's 
 Club. To-day, however, it was raining hard; 
 in lieu of the usual motors and carriages out- 
 side there was only the Iversons' limousine 
 with its swarthy foreign chauffeur speeding 
 past, and so few people out with dripping 
 mackintoshes and umbrellas that the fact gave 
 an additional intimacy to any meeting. Mrs. 
 Chandor and her friend, Mrs. Paxton, had 
 been talking already fifteen minutes by the 
 clock on the opposite wall. 
 
 "Why, I hardly think we'll be there that 
 
 [75] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 is, I told Mrs. Crandall when she called me 
 up this morning that if Beverly wasn't too 
 tired to-night when he came home we might 
 go over for a while. But if it rains " 
 
 A succession of expressions seemed to flit 
 suddenly over Mrs. Paxton's speaking coun- 
 tenance. She was a short woman, with a gen- 
 erous waist, a round face and a snub nose; but 
 she had a very clear, fair skin, lovely roundish 
 eyes of a very light blue, straying curly tendrils 
 of light brown hair, and a dimple at one side 
 of her rather large mouth. She had that 
 matronly if still youthful appearance that gives 
 the effect of having always been married; but 
 sometimes, as now, when she smiled with puz- 
 zled eyes so that the dimple showed by her 
 red lips, her face, under the straying brown 
 tendrils, looked unexpectedly like that of a baby. 
 
 "The fact is, Mrs. Chandor, I half hope it 
 will rain it gives an excuse. It's next to 
 impossible to drag Beverly out in the evenings 
 now after he once gets home; he is kept down- 
 town so late and is so tired and to the Cran- 
 datts'l" 
 
 She stopped again expressively. The Cran- 
 dalls' presented no gayety even to her willing 
 mind. Every one liked them, but they were 
 people who in their own narrow-doored, high- 
 ceilinged, black-walnuted home didn't shine 
 neither kind, housekeeping Nell, nor choir- 
 
 [76] 
 
Marie Twists the Key 
 
 singing Will, nor old Mrs. Crandall, with her 
 black gloves and sloping shoulders and in- 
 sinuating manner, seemed to know what to 
 do with you when they got you there. 
 
 "I know," assented Mrs. Chandor feelingly. 
 "I should think it would be a little dull for 
 Miss Davis. She's just come from some army 
 post out West I forget the name; but before 
 that she lived all over Europe. Her mother 
 married again and Miss Davis has come back 
 to America to make her own way. Her father 
 was some connection of Will CrandalPs. They 
 say she's very accomplished." 
 
 "I'd like to see her," responded Mrs. Paxton 
 vaguely. "Well, I must go!" They had been 
 talking in the doorway for the last few minutes, 
 and she raised her umbrella now with an air 
 of finality. "Good-bye." 
 
 She wondered with compunction as she went 
 home whether it sounded as if she had been 
 complaining of Beverly. Things indeed had 
 come to that pass that the mere mention of 
 any invitation either raised in him an almost 
 vituperative storm at the people who had 
 asked them, so that his wife was obliged to 
 insist that it hadn't been meant as an insult, 
 or else caused him to say resignedly, with tired 
 eyes: "All right, all right! I'd give anything 
 to stay home quietly this evening it's been the 
 hardest day in six months; but if you say so, 
 
 [77] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 Dorry, of course I'll go." The times that she 
 had to insist on his keeping an engagement made 
 her more miserable than him. His fastidi- 
 ousness too often made him unduly critical 
 of the village entertainments he was wont 
 to thank Heaven when they were over. 
 
 Perhaps it was no wonder that after Mr. 
 Paxton's business day in town as dim and 
 far off to Mrs. Paxton's understanding as to 
 that of most women, as if he had taken his 
 daily train to and from Mars the comfort 
 of his home should appeal ineffably to a brain- 
 and-body worn-out man. 
 
 Dorothy Paxton had no artistic sense, like 
 Lucia Bannard, but she had an abounding 
 gentleness and reposefulness like the fruit from 
 a Horn of Plenty. Her soft plumpness seemed 
 typical of a generous softness of nature; she 
 had that sixth sense which consists in knowing 
 how to make a man comfortable. 
 
 It was not only that his dinner was always 
 appetizing Mrs. Paxton never indulging in 
 those "off" meals in which there is nothing 
 anybody wants to eat the evening lamp 
 at its most perfect angle by the sofa, the fire 
 at its brightest, the cosiness of the winter 
 evening nestlike after the pretty children had 
 come in to bid him good night in strainingly 
 affectionate little arms it was not only these 
 material charms that appealed, but the mere 
 
 [78] 
 
Marie Twists the Key 
 
 presence of Mrs. Paxton in a house gave a 
 sense of pervasive warmth, an all-embracing 
 loving-heartedness in which the spirit basked. 
 Her absence left an aching void. Mr. Pax- 
 ton's hungry "Where's mamma?" conveyed 
 its own message to her children's sympathetic 
 ears. 
 
 Yet sometimes it were vain to deny it! 
 Mrs. Paxton felt secretly that she didn't 
 get quite so much out of this partnership as 
 she should. It is hard to quench effectively 
 the inherent sense of justice even in the heart 
 of the most loving woman. If Beverly were 
 satisfied it was perfunctorily taken that she must 
 be. If what she did for him failed to awaken 
 him to an equal care for her in little things, 
 the only way she knew to meet his inadequacy 
 was to take thought for him even more gener- 
 ously. It was Mrs. Paxton's simple creed that 
 the more you did for any one the more they 
 must naturally want to do for you. Why, 
 if she received the least little kindness from 
 a friend she couldn't rest until she had done 
 something kind too; it wasn't so much in the 
 nature of a payment as an equal privilege. 
 She enjoyed getting out in the evening, and 
 Beverly knew it; it was a change a soul- 
 lift in the unvarying round of her domes- 
 tic days. In her meditations she had plans 
 for reforming him that came to naught 
 
 [79] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 convincing talks that never materialized. She 
 had had even those wild flights of fancy that 
 may come unsuspectedly to the most married, 
 in which she saw herself, after the way of the 
 heroines of fiction, coquettishly charming her 
 husband's renewed and loverlike interest to 
 her by being very attractive to some other 
 man. Mrs. Paxton was, however, no fool; 
 even if there had been any man who wanted 
 to captivate or to be captivated, she had 
 herself seen that in real life the spectacle of 
 a flirting wife didn't draw a husband's interest 
 to her pleasingly it only irritated him and 
 made him like her less. There seemed to be 
 no effectual way. Yet when one can foresee 
 only baffling effects from all one's efforts, 
 circumstances may unexpectedly step in and 
 give a twist to the key that unlocks the gate 
 to a different road. 
 
 As the day wore on toward night and the 
 rain came pouring down more and more blackly 
 in chill, rushing torrents, she was thankful 
 that it was, after all, to the Crandalls' that her 
 regrets would be telephoned when her husband 
 reached home, rather than to some more 
 attractive place. Nothing could have sent 
 Beverly forth again on such a night. 
 
 She was putting the finishing touches to her 
 simple blue house-gown when she heard him 
 run up the steps, and leaned over the balus- 
 
 [so] 
 
Marie Twists the Key 
 
 trade to call "I'm up here, dear," before he 
 could ask little Gertrude, who opened the door 
 for him, where mamma was. 
 
 " You're home early to-night," she said 
 happily, lifting up her face to be kissed after 
 he had come loping upstairs to her. 
 
 "Yes," assented her husband. He was a 
 somewhat thickset man of medium size, 
 with a long, smooth-shaven face, rather small 
 eyes, a handsome nose and mouth, shining 
 hair and very small ears and hands and feet. 
 His wife was very proud of his aristocratic 
 appearance. He had an unusual animation 
 now in his eyes and voice. 
 
 "I thought I'd get home in time to dress 
 before dinner." He paused in evident wonder 
 at his wife's astonished glance. "Why, didn't 
 you get the invitation? Miss Marie Davis 
 I went in with her and Crandall this morning 
 said that Mrs. Crandall was going to call you 
 up the first thing." 
 
 "Miss Davis! Yes, I got the invitation, 
 but I'd no idea that you would go," responded 
 his wife blankly. "I thought, of course, on 
 account of the rain and everything you wouldn't 
 want " 
 
 She stopped; her husband was sitting down 
 on the lounge, already drawing off his shoes. 
 
 "Oh! The rain doesn't amount to much," 
 he announced absently. "We'll telephone for 
 [81] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 Docherty's hack if you want it." His eyes 
 kindled reminiscently. "Have you met Miss 
 Davis?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Curious history she must have had. Her 
 mother's been married three times, or maybe 
 it's four a regular old Henry the Eighth, I 
 call it! Crandall says that poor girl has been 
 dragged all over the world. Once they were so 
 poor she had to sing in the streets of Budapest 
 I think it was to get money to buy medicine 
 for her mother when she had the pneumonia. 
 Crandall says her eyes fill with tears when she 
 speaks of it. You can see that she longs to 
 have a life like other girls, quiet and domestic. 
 Her stepfather, the count, is rolling in money, 
 but she won't live with them." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 Mr. Paxton shook his head and pursed his 
 lips significantly. "Don't ask me! If you 
 want to know, I think she's too attractive. 
 She gives you to understand delicately, 
 of course that her looks have always been a 
 drawback to her. She hates foreigners." 
 
 "Well, if you're going to shave I think you'd 
 better not stay here talking any more," said 
 his wife sensibly. She went to the wardrobe 
 and took out, after a moment's hesitation, 
 her best, brand-new trained evening gown of 
 lacy black, trimmed at the neck with cerise 
 
 [82] 
 
Marie Twists the Key 
 
 velvet, which was very becoming to her fair 
 skin and made her figure almost slim. 
 
 The thought of wearing it gave a pleasant 
 sense of excitement. She would dress after 
 dinner. She reached the foot of the stairs just 
 as the maid was opening the door for Donald 
 Bannard, who, with a dripping umbrella left 
 outside, proffered one neatly furled. 
 
 "Good evening, Mrs. Paxton. I'm bring- 
 ing back this umbrella we borrowed of you. 
 Lucia thought you might need it to get to the 
 CrandallsV 
 
 There was a peculiar light in his always 
 merry eyes. "You're going, aren't you?" 
 
 "Why, yes," said Mrs. Paxton, "unless 
 Beverly backs out before the time comes." 
 
 "Oh, Paxton will be there! Have you seen 
 the fair Marie?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, she's a winner, believe me!" Mr. 
 Bannard shook his head with a smile of delighted 
 remembrance. "That girl had every man 
 around her on the station platform this morning. 
 You should have seen old Brentwood! I told 
 him he was a disgrace, and he had the face to 
 say that I was jealous of him. Well, good 
 evening; I'll see you later." 
 
 "Thank you for the umbrella," said Mrs. Pax- 
 ton sedately. She felt puzzled and dimly aloof. 
 The girl somehow didn't sound attractive. 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 She was forced to alter her opinion, however, 
 when she reached the Crandalls'. There was a 
 different air about the house at once notice- 
 able; a buzz of conversation smote the ear on 
 entering, an unusual excitement was evident, 
 not only among the guests but in the bearing 
 of the family. Even old Mrs. Crandall, with 
 her neatly banded coal-black hair, her black 
 gloves and her genteel manner, showed it. 
 The cause was revealed when Nell loudly 
 announced: " Marie, I want you to meet Mr. 
 and Mrs. Paxton my cousin, Miss Davis." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Paxton and I are old friends already," 
 said Miss Davis in a deep voice, slipping lithely 
 toward them from a group of men, her head 
 thrown back and both hands outstretched. 
 It seemed a wonder that she could move at all; 
 her white satin skirt was so narrow that it 
 almost appeared, in a back view, as if she were 
 sitting down when she was really standing up. 
 She was the slimmest, whitest creature Mrs. 
 Paxton had ever seen, but her eyes were enormous 
 and dark, with violet circles below, and black 
 eyebrows above; her mouth was very red, and 
 her hair, of which she seemed to have pounds, 
 was of a metallic golden colour; waved on top, it 
 stuck out in an immense banded knob a quarter 
 of a yard from the back of her head. If her 
 appearance was foreign, her voice and accent 
 were not she had evidently kept her Western 
 
Marie Twists the Key 
 
 burr through all vicissitudes. She went on now 
 after her greeting to Mrs. Paxton: 
 
 "Your husband and I went into town to- 
 gether this morning. He is such a dear fel- 
 low, isn't he?" 
 
 "Now, now, now!" protested Mr. Paxton 
 with a laugh, "Miss Marie, you mustn't say 
 that before me!" 
 
 "And why not?" asked Miss Davis. She 
 turned her cheek toward him, with her head 
 still thrown back and her eyes looking from 
 under her drooped eyelids. "I know my 
 friends often say to me: 'Marie Davis' she 
 pronounced it Murree 'you are too frank.' 
 But I believe in being frank with men that 
 is, of course, if they're the right kind. Then 
 you know just where you are. Don't you 
 think so, Mr. Bannard?" She turned to 
 that gentleman and Mrs. Paxton passed on, 
 although the latter noticed, after a moment, 
 that her husband was not with her. 
 
 There were no men among the women sitting 
 or standing around the room, with the exception 
 of young Leslie Iverson, whose engagement to 
 Winifred Brentwood had just been announced, 
 and who had eyes for nobody but her. Will 
 Crandall stood on one side of the door keeping 
 watch on the group around Miss Davis. Mrs. 
 Paxton had been fascinated by the sight of her 
 own figure, almost unbelievably slender in 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 the modish black and cerise gown, but by the 
 side of the Crandalls' visitor she felt dull and 
 solid. If it was any satisfaction, all the other 
 women, even Lucia Bannard, looked the same. 
 They seemed merely as background for the 
 dazzling, metallic brilliancy of the fair "Murree." 
 
 u What do you think of her?" murmured 
 young Mrs. Wilmer in a tone that left an open- 
 ing for confidences. 
 
 "She seems very attractive," said Mrs. 
 Paxton. 
 
 "Yes, doesn't she?" agreed Mrs. Wilmer. 
 "Old Mrs. Crandall was telling us how ac- 
 complished she is. She played the banjo 
 before the king of I've forgotten the name 
 of the country, but he's a real king just the 
 same and he was so enraptured that he 
 gave her that green bracelet she's wearing; 
 but old Mrs. Crandall says that she is still 
 a simple American girl." 
 
 "Old Mrs. Crandall was very intimate with 
 the grandmother," chimed in the matronly 
 Mrs. Brentwood. "Mr. Brentwood met Miss 
 Davis this morning; he's always so sorry for a 
 girl who has to make her own way he feels 
 that he has daughters himself, you know." 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Paxton!" called Miss Davis' 
 deep voice, as she approached with a following 
 of black-coated figures. "I want to ask if 
 your husband is truthful." 
 [86] 
 
Marie Twists the Key 
 
 " Probably not," said Mrs. Paxton with a 
 gleam in her baby-blue eyes. 
 
 "There, what did I tell you, you bad man!" 
 cried Miss Davis, gazing at him provocatively. 
 "But I forgive you for trying to impose on me. 
 Captain Spears, out at the fort, used to say: 
 'Murree, anybody can get around you; you're 
 too warm-hearted.' But I'm glad I am; I 
 wouldn't be as cold as you are for anything. 
 Yes, when a man has as small feet and hands 
 as you have, Mr. Paxton, you may be sure he 
 has a Cold heart." 
 
 "Now, now, now!" expostulated Mr. Paxton, 
 laughing, but, as his wife felt wonderingly, 
 fatuously pleased instead of repelled. "Cold, 
 indeed! Put your little hand by the side of 
 mine. There mine would make four of 
 yours; wouldn't it, Wilmer?" 
 
 "These big strong men!" said Miss Davis 
 admiringly to the world at large. "I'm afraid 
 of you! Although after the way you saved 
 my life this afternoon, Mr. Wilmer " 
 
 "Saved your life?" interrupted young Mrs. 
 Wilmer unwarily. "I hadn't heard of that!" 
 
 "Oh, shucks! It was nothing," objected Mr. 
 Wilmer hurriedly. "That black-faced chauffeur 
 of the Iversons' lost control of his machine for a 
 moment just as Miss Davis was crossing the 
 street, that was all that happened." 
 
 "All! If you hadn't put your beautiful 
 
 [87] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 strong arm around me I would have slipped 
 under the wheels," said Miss Davis, shuddering 
 coquettishly. Her white face and arms, her 
 white satin gown, and her metallic hair caught 
 new light as she shuddered. 
 
 "I'll be there next time to see that you don't 
 slip," affirmed Mr. Paxton jovially. "Wilmer 
 takes an unfair advantage." 
 
 "Very attractive girl, isn't she?" said Nell 
 Crandall later in the evening, to the row of 
 women sitting somewhat stiffly on the walnut 
 chairs under the dim oil paintings. There 
 was a hint of growing uneasiness in her manner 
 at the continued bursts of loud laughter from 
 the other end of the room, where Miss Davis 
 had effectively kept all the men. Having 
 just finished a song with the alluring refrain 
 of "Kiss Kiss Kiss," she was now re- 
 arranging Mr. Paxton's necktie for him. "So 
 fresh and unspoiled a perfect child! in 
 spite of the career she has had in courts 
 and everything. She said to me just this 
 morning: * Cousin Nell, I act as I feel. I 
 cannot help being natural.' It makes her 
 
 unusual, of course, but " Nell paused for 
 
 a moment uncertainly "very attractive, we 
 think." 
 
 "Oh, very," assented Mrs. Brentwood, while 
 young Mrs. Wilmer fanned herself, though 
 it was not warm. 
 
 [88] 
 
Marie Twists the Key 
 
 "I shouldn't call her a child/' she asserted 
 dryly when Nell had gone. 
 
 But afterward the male members of the party 
 came once more into view, ranging themselves 
 round the walls as Miss Davis appeared in a 
 new r61e. Standing under the chandelier in 
 the middle of the room in her white satin gown, 
 she wriggled from side to side, bent forward and 
 back, waved her arms, clasped them over her 
 bosom, rolling her large eyes the while, to a 
 laborious, stumbling accompaniment played by 
 Nell. Old Mrs. Crandall, with a worried ex- 
 pression, going from guest to guest, explained 
 in her most refined tone that it was an Eastern 
 dance that dear Marie was giving. "Her 
 grandmother/' said old Mrs. Crandall, "was 
 a beautiful dancer, though in a different way. 
 It is wonderful, here in our little town, to feel 
 the customs of the East brought so near to us 
 as in this dance of dear Marie's." 
 
 "I don't call it a dance; I call it a squirm," 
 said young Mrs. Wilmer bluntly when old Mrs. 
 Crandall had gone. It might be Eastern, but 
 it was also at times embarrassing. 
 
 When the dance was finished Miss Davis 
 held out her long white arms toward Mr. 
 Paxton, and they whirled rapidly together 
 among the impeding furniture and guests, 
 her head with its metallic hair resting on his 
 black-coated shoulder. Mr. Paxton was a good 
 
 [8 9 ] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 dancer, though it was long since his wife had 
 sampled his perfections in that line. 
 
 It had come to that pass to Dorothy Pax- 
 ton's wondering observance that however the 
 fair Marie might be surrounded by the jesting 
 crowd, Beverly, the quiet and fastidious, was 
 always the nearest to her, his laugh the loudest, 
 his attentions the most hilariously persistent. 
 Mrs. Paxton began to feel an odd chill little 
 contempt for her husband; couldn't he see, in 
 spite of the glamour thrown round her, how 
 common the girl was? Her eyes wandered 
 thoughtfully to the corner where Leslie Iverson 
 had no eyes for any one but Winifred Brentwood. 
 He was only engaged. She had a dim per- 
 ception that to the husbands this was a sort of 
 unreal, intoxicating Arabian Night's Enter- 
 tainment in the suburban monotony of married 
 life. 
 
 But it was after supper, at which the strongest 
 refreshment served was grape- juice, and during 
 which seven men had shared Miss Davis' 
 cake with her, that the climax came to this par- 
 ticular Arabian Night. Every one seemed to 
 be standing up, grouped in the narrow door- 
 ways, when the fair Marie started to go up- 
 stairs for a photograph of herself in Turkish 
 costume which every one had been clamouring 
 to see. She stopped, however, on the lower 
 step to say, with a plaintive droop : 
 
 [90] 
 
Marie Twists the Key 
 
 "These dreadful stairs! They spoiled me 
 so at the fort, I never walked up once while 
 I was at Captain Spears'; either he or Lieu- 
 tenant Pike insisted on carrying me. But 
 of course I don't expect such attentions out 
 of the army." 
 
 "See here, are we going to lie down on a 
 dare like that?" asked Mr. Wilmer, laughing 
 immoderately. 
 
 "I should think not," amended Mr. Brent- 
 wood gallantly. "If it were not for my years 
 I should certainly offer my services." 
 
 "Oh, but I'm a great deal heavier than 
 you think," protested Miss Davis with an 
 alluring fall of her long lashes. 
 
 "Heavy! Do you hear that, Chandor?" 
 asked Donald Bannard, slapping his friend on 
 the back. "Just wait a moment, Miss Marie. 
 Chandor will run up and down with you in 
 five seconds." 
 
 "Oh, I don't want to step ahead of everybody 
 else," said Mr. Chandor. "I'll give you a 
 chance, Donald." 
 
 "No, I'm referee. How about Paxton? 
 He's crazy for the opportunity." 
 
 "Yes, how about Paxton?" came in deep- 
 voiced chorus. 
 
 "All right, that suits me," agreed Mr. Paxton 
 with the air of a hardy rover. "Time me ! " 
 
 There was a general cheer. Mrs. Paxton, 
 
 [91] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 looking from her place in the outer circle, saw 
 Beverly, her husband, snatch up the willing 
 captive in both arms, her head hanging back- 
 ward, her eyes closed and her teeth shining 
 between her red lips, and dash up and down 
 again, while Mr. Wilmer held the watch. 
 
 "By Jove! You are heavier than you look/' 
 he said with genuine surprise, as he set her on 
 her feet again and a derisive shout proclaimed 
 that he had failed. Her slipper fell off and 
 he jammed it on her tiny foot. "That isn't 
 fair. You ought to let me have another show!" 
 
 The mirth grew uproarious. Beverly was 
 laughing incessantly, as was every one else, 
 yet with a glittering eye, a hint of eagerness 
 under his laughter, that wasn't perceptible in 
 the other men. Old Mrs. Crandall, with a still 
 more worried expression than before, was cir- 
 culating elegantly round with anecdotes of the 
 young woman's grandmother; Nell was anx- 
 iously repeating to unheeding ears how much of 
 a child and how natural Marie was; while 
 Will Crandall, with glowering eyes, seemed to 
 be muttering something unpleasant to his wife. 
 There were, in fact, all the symptoms of un- 
 easiness in regard to an uncontrollable guest. 
 No one knew where this might stop. 
 
 Just as Mrs. Paxton came suddenly forward 
 to her husband she caught sight of herself in 
 a mirror opposite. The black and cerise gown 
 
 [92] 
 
Marie Twists the Key 
 
 certainly set off her white neck and arms as 
 she moved with dignified grace; her blue eyes 
 were larger and more luminous, her cheek 
 deeply rosed; she looked unexpectedly handsome, 
 while she said pleasantly, yet in the tone no man 
 disregards: 
 
 "I think we had better be carrying ourselves 
 off now, Beverly. It is growing late." 
 
 "Oh, well if you say so," returned her 
 husband with reluctance. 
 
 "It's too bad to break up an evening like 
 this," protested Donald Bannard. 
 
 "Oh, we'll continue it," said Mr. Brentwood 
 with hospitable intent. "We'll have a series 
 of evenings while Miss Davis is here, one 
 at each house. I know you won't be able to 
 keep Paxton away!" 
 
 "Not unless I'm put in irons," agreed Beverly. 
 He openly squeezed Miss Davis' hand at parting, 
 while she leaned forward very close to his face, 
 her enormous, dark-circled violet eyes full of 
 preposterous extravagant meaning as they 
 |azed into his while his laugh answered her. 
 If they had all been at the silly age, ignorantly 
 untrammelled, the thing might have had an 
 excuse. 
 
 "You're looking very well. Did you have 
 a nice time to-night?" the husband asked 
 his wife vaguely after they were home. He 
 bent forward to kiss her, also vaguely, as if 
 
 [93] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 some other emotion wrapped him round, and 
 he saw her dimly yet agreeably through it. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she answered indifferently, bend- 
 ing over to pick up a glove so that the intended 
 salute was lost. 
 
 As she lay on her bed that night, her mind 
 luminously clear, she felt that if he had been 
 fascinated by a woman who was really beautiful 
 and charming, some one of his own kind, she 
 could have understood, appreciated nay, even 
 though she might have been madly jealous, 
 have yet genuinely sympathized with his in- 
 fatuation. But to make an exhibition of him- 
 self over a girl so excruciatingly in bad taste, 
 beneath all her tawdry, artificial attraction 
 yes, so flagrantly common as "Murree!" gave 
 Dorothy not even any thrill of jealousy; it 
 left her cold. She regarded her husband from 
 a region remote and unattached, as if he were 
 somebody she didn't know but rather disliked: 
 he was somebody she didn't know if he could 
 be attracted by a girl like that! To be sure, 
 all the others had behaved foolishly, but not 
 like Beverly it was not the same. 
 
 She thought of him curiously, yet with 
 indifference. The superstructure of her wedded 
 life seemed to have crumbled; for the first 
 time in nine years she felt a strange proud 
 freedom of not being married to him at all, as 
 if the children were only her children, her life 
 
 [94] 
 
Marie Twists the Key 
 
 her own, something in which she herself no 
 longer had any need to count on him or hang 
 upon his pleasure. She slept calmly, with 
 existence on this new stationaiy plane, and 
 entered as calmly, after the first inevitable 
 jar of waking, on the day. 
 
 If all the men on the station platform the next 
 morning had a slight shamefacedness about them 
 there was no wife to see its cause even Miss 
 Davis, contrary to expectations, was not there. 
 
 Neither, as turned out the following day, 
 was she at the Crandalls'. All kinds of queer 
 rumours were abroad, whispered by excited 
 women as they grouped magnetically coming 
 in or out of Atkinson's, or Bolt's Emporium. 
 Lucia Bannard herself was authority for Mrs. 
 Iverson, who had been obliged to walk into the 
 village in default of the chauffeur with whom 
 Miss Davis had gone off. It wasn't a real 
 elopement; they had been married secretly a 
 year ago and separated afterward. It was 
 rumoured that there had been a disgraceful 
 scene at the Crandalls' when he had jeal- 
 ously demanded his wife. It was rumoured 
 that he had gone to kind Mr. Brentwood for 
 money it was rumoured that he was a Hun- 
 garian count it was rumoured that he was a 
 Russian nihilist. All that Mrs. Iverson could 
 say was that, whatever else he might be he 
 certainly wasn't a gentleman. 
 
 [951 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 But Mr. Paxton heard no word on the 
 subject from his wife. When he came home 
 from town the following night, furtive-eyed, 
 but loudly cheerful, to ask casually if she knew 
 about that affair of Miss Davis and the chauffeur, 
 she merely said, Yes, she did, listened to his 
 comments politely and changed the subject. 
 Later in the evening when the Bannards and the 
 Chandors happened in, with the livened air 
 and mental stimulus that a near-scandal brings 
 to a suburban community, Mrs. Paxton, though 
 hospitably disposed toward the conversation, 
 kept entirely out of it. No word in deroga- 
 tion of the pyrotechnical Marie escaped her 
 lips; what the girl had or hadn't done was as 
 indifferent to her as her husband. She was 
 conscious that he was secretly watching her; 
 once he put his arm around her, an unusual 
 manifestation of affection in public, but it 
 brought no flush to her cheek. 
 
 As the days wore on, even to the hypnotized 
 consciousness of a husband as a rule impercep- 
 tive to change, there was something oddly differ- 
 ent about Beverly Paxton's wife. She was as 
 attentive to his wants, as scrupulously careful 
 of his comfort as ever, but the atmosphere 
 had changed dully. Something ineffable that 
 warmed and cheered and restored and ten- 
 derly covered all his imperfections no longer 
 emanated from her presence. He was left, a 
 
 [96] 
 
Marie Twists the Key 
 
 naked soul, to wander lost and alone among the 
 elements. 
 
 It was toward the end of the week that she 
 heard his step swinging up the walk with an 
 unusual ring in it. When she went down to 
 greet him he presented her, still furtive-eyed, 
 with a large bunch of roses. 
 
 "I saw them in the Terminal and thought 
 you might like them," he explained carelessly. 
 
 " They 're exquisite. Thank you so much/' 
 said his wife nicely. 
 
 "And, by the way, I came out with Bannard 
 to-night. I said we might go over there for a 
 while this evening if you felt like it. We 
 haven't been there for a long time." 
 
 "Aren't you too tired?" asked his wife re- 
 mindingly. 
 
 "Oh, no! It'll do me good wake me 
 up/' returned her husband with heartiness. 
 "I was talking to Bannard. We think of 
 making up a little party he says his wife 
 hasn't been out so much as she ought since 
 the baby came. What do you think of coming 
 in Saturday to dinner there'd be the four 
 of us I can't get off in the afternoon and 
 going to the theatre afterward? What do you 
 say to our having a little lark just among our- 
 selves?" His arms were round her, his eyes 
 searched hers. Underneath his jovial manner 
 was a strain of anxiety and something more, 
 
 [97] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 something far deeper, a confessing, yearning, lov- 
 ing note that spoke straight to her heart and set it 
 beating. " Would you like it, my Dorry, dear? " 
 
 "Yes," she whispered, with large eyes fixed on 
 him; it seemed as if in another moment the tears 
 that were gathering there must fall unless she 
 smiled. That crust of ice that had lain about 
 her heart suddenly melted from the constant 
 fire hidden all the time below the flame that 
 burned for him; a fire that cleansed away in- 
 stantly some inexpressibly corroding hurt, while 
 it took that new-found freedom forever from her. 
 
 Her husband put up one long finger to brush 
 her chin and throat. "You have the whitest 
 skin," he remarked with tender irrelevance . 
 
 "Miss Davis' was much whiter," said his 
 wife demurely. It was the first time she 
 had pronounced that woman's name. 
 
 "Miss Davis! Pshaw, she was all chalk," 
 said Beverly Paxton in careless disdain. With 
 the fatal facility of mankind the very remem- 
 brance of his thraldom was already joyfully 
 fading. His wife had a wondering, lightninglike 
 perception that what had meant so much to 
 her all these days had, after all, been nothing 
 to him except in so far as she had been affected 
 by it. "I'll tell you my candid opinion if you 
 want it Mrs. Beverly Paxton is the hand- 
 somest and most attractive woman I know. 
 You're the only girl in the world for me!" 
 
 [98] 
 
Meeting the Dog 
 
Meeting the Dog 
 
 TTF YOU'RE looking for a house, Mrs. 
 
 11 Wilmer, why don't you take the Merriam 
 
 *^ cottage? It will be snapped up before you 
 know it. I hear that the Merriams are going to 
 separate, but I'm not surprised. / think when 
 a man begins to keep things from his wife you 
 can always scent trouble ahead." 
 
 Mrs. Roberts rolled her fine eyes expressively, 
 as she leaned forward in to the circle, letting 
 her completed string of paper cherry blossoms 
 fall into her lap. All the women gathered in 
 Mrs. Brentwood's comfortable library were 
 making floral decorations for a Japanese Bazaar 
 
 at the behest of Mrs. Bantry, an ardent pres- 
 ident of the club with more or less concealed 
 discontent in the work at this busy time of the 
 year, Mrs. Chandor having anxiously confided 
 to her neighbour that little Lucile didn't have 
 a petticoat to her name, and Lucia Bannard 
 responded that she hadn't had a chance to wash 
 her hair for a month. Every one looked up 
 now as Ethel Roberts went on speaking: 
 
 " Don't you think, Mrs. Brentwood, that a 
 
 hoi] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 wife ought to be able to win her husband's 
 confidence?" 
 
 "Why, I suppose so," said stout, kind Mrs. 
 Brentwood, somewhat vaguely. For her own 
 part she couldn't have kept her big middle-aged- 
 boy of a husband from telling her everything 
 if she tried: there had been weak moments 
 when she had half wished that he wouldn't 
 tell her quite so much! Her eyes and Mrs. 
 Ridgely Ferguson's met, as if swayed by the 
 same feelings, before her mind reverted to the 
 facts mentioned. 
 
 "Are you sure about the Merriams?" 
 
 "Oh, yes! I heard it let me see, I'll tell 
 you when it was; it was the night after your 
 husband met the dog, Mrs. Wilmer we all 
 thought it was quite an adventure! That was 
 Friday, wasn't it?" 
 
 "When Jack met the dog! He didn't tell 
 me anything about that," said young Mrs. 
 Wilmer blankly, flushing the next moment up 
 to the roots of her beautiful copper red hair. 
 
 "He didn't!" Mrs. Roberts looked astonished 
 but instantly recovered herself. She was a 
 woman of almost brutal tact; you couldn't 
 escape from it; she soothed and sympathized 
 and helped you up when you didn't want 
 assistance, and made you seem horribly rude 
 when you frantically repelled it. She went on 
 now with winning sweetness : 
 [102] 
 
Meeting the Dog 
 
 "Of course he wouldn't I understand 
 Jack so well! he didn't want to frighten you, 
 what with the struggle with the tramp and 
 everything; and dogs can be so dangerous! 
 He just slipped naturally into telling me about 
 it as we walked along together from the train 
 it really seemed quite like old times once more 
 as he said; such friends as we always were! 
 Oh, it's quite right that none of us see him now 
 the way we used to before he was married 
 we all know that he has eyes only for his charm- 
 ing young wife! You're not going so soon?" 
 
 "I must," said young Mrs. Wilmer, calmly, 
 rising with apparent disregard of the secret 
 glances levelled at her. She had a gentle 
 manner which delusively covered at times 
 the most incendiary feelings. "It's growing 
 late." 
 
 "Indeed, it is," said Mrs. Iverson, rising. 
 "My son will be coming home from town." 
 
 Every one began making preparations to go off 
 in friendly groups and companies; only Clemen- 
 tine Wilmer, in her red-brown suit and hat, with 
 its long drooping willow plume that matched her 
 hair, hurried off by herself. She was tingling 
 all over with wrath at Ethel Roberts; it was 
 maddening to have her act as if she alone 
 saw around a situation, when one knew far 
 more about it one's self, but couldn't say so. 
 She remembered with a superior smile her hus- 
 [103] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 band's irritable remark after he had walked 
 home with Mrs. Roberts last Friday: 
 
 "Why in time does Ethel always have that 
 brute of a suitcase for me to carry whenever I 
 meet her? I think Roberts goes on another 
 train on purpose." 
 
 Why was she always hearing from Ethel how 
 well every one knew Jack before he brought 
 her here? She did not know that it was indeed 
 almost a foregone conclusion that unless a youth 
 grew up betrothed to his school-companion, he 
 married out of the place; the intimate social 
 notice focussed on his most ordinary atten- 
 tions to a young woman usually crushing out 
 the kindling flame in sensitive Man and sending 
 him far afield. 
 
 Mrs. Wilmer's way led toward the two- 
 family houses that with their green-topped roofs, 
 and half-enclosed two-story verandas, stretched 
 in a row monotonously down the block, with 
 clayey patches of lawn in front, and bare, 
 diminutive trees like lead pencils dwindling 
 in sentinel line far along the curb that bor- 
 dered the new, snow-sodden earth. She ap- 
 proached with a feeling of intense repulsion, 
 increased by the discomfiture of the afternoon. 
 Last summer, when in the ardour of the ap- 
 proaching wedding, the Wilmers had engaged 
 the second floor of the seventh cottage, applaud- 
 ing themselves for their economy, a glamour had 
 
 [ 104] 
 
Meeting the Dog 
 
 hung over it that didn't exist now; it wasn't 
 only that they had taken the wrong domicile 
 whose lower-floor family seemed to absorb 
 eternal hordes of messy, loud-calling children 
 in their front piazza and walk, instead of the 
 neat, immaculately tenanted dwelling farther 
 down but that the Wilmers had reached that 
 stage of matrimony when they burned for a 
 house to themselves. 
 
 To enter this place now added to the revolt 
 of Mrs. Wilmer 's mind; she could hardly wait 
 for her husband's return, as she donned her 
 pretty lilac and white house-gown, and set to 
 work getting the dinner she was a good cook - 
 in the absence of the maid. Mrs. Wilmer had 
 charm, there was no doubt of that; there was a 
 kittenish grace in the swift movements of her 
 rounded figure; in a kitchen apron with a bib 
 her piquant loveliness was as evident as in a 
 ball dress. Unmarried men whom her husband 
 brought to the house were moved by her 
 charm, not to love of her, but to a fascinated 
 leaning toward marriage itself; it was certain 
 that Leslie Iverson, on his last visit from the 
 West to his family, had proposed to Winifred 
 Brentwood after a dinner at the Wilmers'. 
 
 Mr. Wilmer was wont to allude to his wife's 
 red hair in delighted explanation of the fervid- 
 ness of her likes and dislikes; the hair was of a 
 beautiful copper colour, but the strain of red 
 
 [105] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 was undoubtedly present; it showed now in the 
 way she greeted her husband, holding off as he 
 bent to kiss her. He was five or six years older 
 than his wife, neither particularly good looking, 
 nor tall, nor distinguished in any way, but he 
 had strong, clasping hands, a direct eye, and 
 a nice expression. Clementine often said with 
 satisfaction that he was a "very man-y kind 
 of man." 
 
 "No, I don't think I'll let you kiss me to- 
 night. I'm perfectly furious at you! Your 
 friend, Mrs. Roberts, has been giving me 
 information about you this afternoon." Her 
 voice rose tragically. "Why on earth, Jack, 
 didn't you tell me about your meeting the dog?" 
 
 "Meeting the dog!" Mr. Wilmer held off, 
 himself looking down at her perplexedly. 
 "You're raving, Teen! I don't know anything 
 about meeting a dog!" 
 
 "Yes, you do! Mrs. Roberts I know sne 
 was the hopeless passion of your life! said 
 that you had an adventure with one. You 
 told her about it the night you walked home with 
 her and were so disagreeable afterward because 
 you carried her suitcase." 
 
 "Oh, that!" said Mr. Wilmer, in undisguised 
 relief. "Why, that was nothing nothing at 
 all! I give you my word I haven't thought 
 about it from that minute to this." He sat 
 down suddenly in a big chair and drew his wife 
 
 [106] 
 
Meeting the Dog 
 
 down on the arm of it. "I'll tell you now, if 
 you want me to. There was a dog had hold of a 
 
 cat, and " 
 
 "I don't want you to tell me now, after 
 everybody else has talked of it! I refuse to 
 listen. Do you know what you do, Jack 
 Wilmer?" Clementine had her hand in one 
 of his; she emphasized her words by soft thumps 
 with the other little fist. "You go and tell 
 everything to the first person that comes 
 along, and then forget to say a word to me 
 and it's got to be stopped! It's bad enough to 
 have every one telling me what you always liked, 
 and how you took your coffee, and the care 
 you need because you're so susceptible to cold" 
 a specially vicious thump emphasized the 
 words "without having to learn your affairs 
 now from other people. There was your 
 cousin's engagement that you never told me of, 
 till I heard it from your mother and the 
 time you left the parcel in the train and 
 when you took Mr. Bannard to the doctor's, 
 and oh, I couldn't count the times! And 
 this very afternoon, before the whole club, 
 when Ethel Roberts spoke of your meeting 
 the dog, and I didn't know about it it 
 made me look like such a fool! They all pity 
 me; yes, they do!" The tears came in Mrs. 
 Wilmer's shining eyes for a moment, but she 
 laughed through them, audaciously, with a 
 
 [107] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 lovely, glittering, rainbowlike effect. "No! 
 Wait a moment. I'll give you fair warning. 
 If I hear from any one else of your meeting 
 any more dogs, I'll get even with you. 
 Do you hear?" 
 
 "You shock me," said Mr. Wilmer with 
 ferocity. He pulled his wife down into his 
 arms and kissed her fondly. 
 
 "Oh, I'll shock you a great deal more before 
 I get through," she murmured, with her cheek 
 pressed close against his. 
 
 "You won't have to. I promise to remember 
 to tell you every single thing I know before 
 I open my lips to any one else. Now, will that 
 content you? Is dinner ready, Teen? Then 
 let's go in." 
 
 II 
 
 Yet, after all, it was only the next night, at the 
 Japanese Bazaar that the incident occurred about 
 which everybody talked so much afterward. 
 
 There was no place in the town to hold 
 anything of a publicly social nature but Beamley 
 Hall, which had been built, apparently, to 
 thwart as nearly as might be, the requirements 
 of those who had to use it. Its high ceilings 
 and bare drab walls successfully defied any 
 adequate attempt at decoration, while the 
 floor space was almost maddeningly small; there 
 were no dressing-rooms and no kitchen; the 
 [108] 
 
Meeting the Dog 
 
 heroic women in charge of the restaurant a box- 
 like room approached through a dark and 
 narrow passageway wrestled with untold dif- 
 ficulties in the way of heating and apportion- 
 ing food, in the midst of unwrapping chill wet 
 papers from melting pink blocks of ice-cream 
 and sending them forth on relays of heavy stone 
 china as from unknown recesses of the earth, 
 where gnomes might lurk to satisfy the 
 demands of patrons waiting at small tables bare 
 of aught but the folded Japanese napkin, and 
 a wilted flower in a glass vase. 
 
 The fact that it was a Japanese Bazaar, 
 with all the glamour of being called the Feast 
 of Cherry Blossoms, was supposed to give an 
 air of novelty to the scene; but all the garlands 
 of paper flowers couldn't conceal the fact that 
 this was the same old Beamley Hall, or that 
 the aprons, and the innumerable coloured 
 bags, and the crocheted slippers, and the gilt- 
 edged china and perfume taken on commission 
 by the lady who had a friend in the business, 
 were duplicates of articles displayed at past 
 bazaars. 
 
 It gave one a momentary start indeed, when 
 the figure in the gorgeous stork-embroidered 
 kimono turned around to show the gentle, 
 mousey face and spectacled eyes of Mrs. Neff, 
 the wife of the cashier at the bank; familiar, 
 matronly countenances and solid forms took 
 
 [109] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 on no unsuspected enchantment from the 
 foreign garb, but rather the contrary. The 
 very young girls, who swooped and fled, and 
 came again down the room, their arms around 
 each other, were no more attractive than in 
 their usual bizarre dress; Lucia Bannard, 
 who was undoubtedly handsome, still looked 
 handsome, though tired, as if she might have 
 been cleaning house all day; Eleanor Chandor's 
 delicate prettiness was eclipsed. 
 
 Only young Mrs. Wilmer showed the magic 
 transformation. Her cherry-red lips, her small 
 white teeth, her glowing red-brown eyes with the 
 black curved arches above them, her lustrous 
 skin, her burnished hair, and lightly swaying 
 form under the rope of cherry blossoms, gained 
 a new brilliance, a fire from the gold-embroidered 
 robe with its jewel-like colours which encircled 
 her, and the polished green jade pins on either 
 side of her head. As she perched on the outer 
 edge of the apron booth late in the evening, 
 laughing and talking, both men and women 
 seemed perforce drawn her way; her husband, 
 hovering near, couldn't take his eyes off her. 
 
 The people who had got up the Bazaar 
 went from table to table, buying; others, 
 pausing reluctantly by a booth, after furtively 
 asking the price of an article, fled; the husbands, 
 a minority, were yet nobly in evidence, pur- 
 chasing bluffly, with manufactured hilarity, 
 
 [HO] 
 
Meeting the Dog 
 
 from pretty girls, and saying in secret to their 
 wives: When are we going home? Mr. Brent- 
 wood, good man, having just conveyed his 
 sixth party of tired workers to and from the 
 restaurant, stopped now in front of lovely Mrs. 
 Wilmer where she stood the centre of a group 
 formed by Mrs. Iverson, her son, Leslie, and 
 his pretty fiancee, Winifred Brentwood, with 
 the Crandalls, the Bannards, the Chandors 
 and a few more. Mrs. Roberts, in a scarlet 
 kimono, leaned across to say with business- 
 like sprightliness: 
 
 " Don't you want to buy out our table, Mr. 
 Brentwood? We have these aprons and glass 
 towels left, you see such useful things!" 
 
 "All right, I'll take the bunch," said Mr. 
 Brentwood shortly, with a sudden lapse of 
 enthusiasm, throwing a bill on the table, and 
 turning to his wife. "Most time to go home, 
 isn't it, mother?" The next moment, with the 
 instinct of a gentleman, he sought to make 
 up for a seeming discourtesy. 
 
 "Just the very things for Winifred here, 
 Mrs. Roberts; I'll hand 'em over for her house- 
 keeping outfit; it looks as if she'd be able to 
 use 'em before long, now. I suppose you know 
 that Leslie's got a position here, and that he's 
 not going back to the wild and woolly West at 
 all?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed, I've been pouring forth my 
 
 [mi 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 congratulations ever since I heard it yester- 
 day," said Mrs. Roberts. 
 
 " Oh, isn't it lovely!" exclaimed Mrs. Wilmer, 
 impulsively. "To have you really stay with 
 us, Winifred!" Her colour rose delightedly. 
 "Why, perhaps we can live near each other. 
 It seems almost too good to be true!" She 
 had that strange feeling that comes to one 
 suddenly in the midst of speaking that this 
 was a subject in some incomprehensible way 
 to be avoided; instinct warned her, but she 
 wouldn't heed it. "How glad you must all 
 be!" 
 
 "Yes, indeed!" said Mrs. Iverson, looking 
 fondly at her handsome son. 
 
 "Your husband says I'll find out what work 
 is, all right, Mrs. Wilmer," announced Leslie 
 with a laugh. 
 
 "And how did it all happen? " pursued Clemen- 
 tine. " I'm crazy to hear. Are you going to 
 be with the Electrographic Company?" 
 
 There was a sudden hush, an appalled si- 
 lence. Mr. Wilmer, after a swift glance at his 
 wife's face, straightened up with a military 
 effect, as if to take all that was coming to him. 
 It was Leslie's surprised voice that broke the 
 stillness after a moment. 
 
 "Why, your husband got me a place with 
 his firm, Mrs. Wilmer a mighty good place, 
 too! I supposed of course that he'd told you. 
 
 [112] 
 
Meeting the Dog 
 
 He's taken no end of trouble about it. I'm 
 mighty thankful to him, I know that! " 
 
 "Oh, a place in your firm/ 7 said Mrs. Wilmer, 
 gazing at her husband with a dazed expression. 
 Her voice shook slightly, she flushed suddenly 
 to the roots of her beautiful copper-coloured 
 hair; one of her long jade pins, caught in the 
 cherry blossomed post behind her, fell on the 
 floor, and she stooped to pick it up. Her 
 husband stooped for it also, a moment too late; 
 she gave his coat-sleeve a furtive, furious 
 little jab with it that pricked through the cloth 
 to the skin. He started involuntarily; his 
 jaw dropped, his eyebrows rose unperceived 
 by the others in an extreme astonishment 
 that turned the next instant into suppressed 
 laughter. 
 
 "Husbands all need educating, don't they?" 
 said Ethel Roberts with winning sweetness, 
 rolling her fine eyes around the group, like 
 marbles. "If you keep things from this dear 
 little wife of yours, Jack, we'll all quarrel with 
 you; I'll have to take you in hand, just as I 
 used to, and lecture you myself." 
 
 "Ah, you see what the married man has to 
 live up to, Leslie," said Mr. Brentwood, gen- 
 ially, while Mr. Wilmer tried vainly to catch 
 his wife's eye. 
 
 Her whole slender person was electrically 
 instinct with anger through all her wraps, 
 
 [us] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 when they finally left the hall to go home; 
 she sheered off far from him in the street; he 
 caught her small, wildly-beating fists capably, 
 and held them tight in one of his under her cloak, 
 while the other steered her along. 
 
 "What a little spitfire!" he murmured laugh- 
 ingly. "That was a dig you gave me! You 
 ought to be ashamed of yourself, Teen, 7 
 wouldn't behave like that for anything! It's 
 well for me that you don't live in a country 
 where the women carry daggers in their belts! 
 Why, I'll be afraid to go home with you in the 
 dark, next. This is what comes of marrying 
 a girl with red hair!" 
 
 "Let me go!" cried Clementine, wrenching 
 away ineffectually. 
 
 "Let you go! I should think not." He 
 tightened his hold, controlling the situation, as 
 she felt, by main strength. His voice changed 
 the next moment. 
 
 "What's the matter? Teen darling you're 
 not crying! A dear girl mustn't let herself 
 
 be made unhappy by such a little thing as 
 
 Why, you know perfectly well I wouldn't hurt 
 a sweet wife for the world!" 
 
 "But you have hurt me!" The tears were 
 raining down her face, and she rested it mo- 
 mentarily against his shoulder before holding 
 off again. "You've hurt me dreadfully. What 
 do you suppose all those people are saying about 
 
 [114] 
 
Meeting the Dog 
 
 me now?" She mimicked Mrs. Robert's tone. 
 "' Dear Jack, it's evident that his wife is really 
 no companion for him; he never seems to tell 
 her anything. Of course he loses a great deal.' 
 Oooh! And you promised me faithfully only 
 
 yesterday How did it happen that you 
 
 never told me about Leslie, when you knew 
 I was so interested in him and Winifred?" 
 
 " Search me!" said Mr. Wilmer, deeply. "I 
 give you my word that I thought I had told 
 you, Teen." They had reached their own 
 domicile, the moonfight spearing out the lead- 
 pencil trees in thin black shadows down the 
 street. As they entered their apartment 
 after plodding silently up the stairs, he turned 
 and faced his wife thoughtfully where she 
 stood under the gas jet, in the jewel-like 
 kimono, the light falling on her lovely up- 
 turned face. 
 
 "I just remember now that I was thinking 
 all the way home last night how pleased you'd 
 be; honest! And then when I came in you 
 began all that yarn about my meeting a dog, 
 and Leslie went clear out of my mind and I 
 never thought of him again. I'm awfully 
 sorry. Let up now, Teen, dearest, won't you? 
 Don't you think you've cried enough? Suppose 
 we pretend it's over. I won't forget again." 
 
 "If you do!" threatened his wife tragically. 
 She looked at him with swimming, appealing 
 
 [us] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 eyes, and then flung herself upon his breast, 
 and strained her warm arms tightly around his 
 neck. "Oh, if you do, I'm afraid I won't 
 love you any more!" 
 
 Ill 
 
 What force of suggestion is it that makes one 
 so often succumb to temptation just after 
 strenuous resolving to the contrary? It is as 
 if the unusual concentration on a higher purpose 
 left the subconscious mind an easier prey to 
 habit. If one could be successfully put in a 
 comatose condition chloroformed, as it were 
 for ten days or two weeks, so that one's better 
 resolutions might have a chance to subcon- 
 sciously root themselves, one's further course 
 might be much more satisfactory. Unfortu- 
 nately, Jack Wilmer was not subjected experi- 
 mentally to any chloroforming process. 
 
 The very next day after the Bazaar the Wilmers 
 received one of those annual letters from an 
 agent requesting to be informed at once as 
 to whether they wished to take their two-family 
 section for another year, as it was being already 
 inquired for by other parties an epistle 
 which always produces a hurried, irritated 
 state of mind and the feeling that the owner 
 is only waiting to thrust in more desirable 
 tenants. The Wilmers had for the last six 
 
 [n6] 
 
Meeting the Dog 
 
 weeks gone through the disillusioning process 
 of looking for the Perfect House at the Right 
 Price. Most of the cheap houses to rent were 
 new, boxlike affairs, miles from any station, 
 or enormous mansard-roof dwellings in a 
 state of decay. There was one in Vyner Street 
 that was perfect, but the rent was ten dollars 
 a month more than the Wilmers' outside limit, 
 and had been reluctantly but firmly put out 
 of mind. The Merriam cottage headed the 
 list of houses that were really possible, but by 
 Saturday morning a buoyant, contrary feeling 
 had evolved regarding haste; they agreed 
 that they wouldn't be forced into action yet; 
 some more desirable house might be put on 
 the market before they were obliged to decide. 
 As usual on the Saturday half -holiday Clemen- 
 tine went into town for luncheon and the matinee 
 with her husband. There was still to her some- 
 thing of the character of an adventure in the 
 journey through the lower tube and the walking 
 along those downtown streets; Trinity Church, 
 looming up suddenly in the open space between 
 the buildings at either side, pointed the way 
 to Romance by the path of Wall Street. The 
 very air was different from that uptown; 
 in the wind that gallantly unfurled a brilliant 
 flag here and there, there was a flavour of the 
 sea that swept the Battery Wall, farther down; 
 the ocean-going clouds seemed set in a bluer sky. 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 Strange, that a section given over to the prison- 
 bondage of offices should be filled with such 
 suggestion of wide and luring freedom! But Mr. 
 Wilmer's manner, when he came out of his inner 
 office to greet his wife, was disappointingly 
 hurried. 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry, Teen, but I can't go 
 with you after all. There's a man here from 
 the West a customer that I've got to take 
 out to lunch." 
 
 "Can't you take me, too?" pleaded Mrs. 
 Wilmer, trying to smile engagingly. 
 
 "No, I'm afraid not he wants to talk 
 business. There may be something in it 
 for me. Here are the theatre tickets; get some 
 one to go with you. I'll turn up for tea at the 
 Venetia, if I can; if not, I'll look for you in 
 the third car going out." 
 
 "Very well," said Clementine submissively, 
 but with a depth of disappointment in the eyes 
 which she lifted to her husband. 
 
 His answered hers, for the moment, ten- 
 derly. "I'll see you to the elevator," he sug- 
 gested. He pressed her hand furtively as he 
 hastened her along the corridor. "I'd have 
 telephoned you if I'd had time, but everything 
 has been on the jump this morning." 
 
 "Any news?" she inquired. 
 
 He looked at her with a strained expression. 
 "News? Not that I know of. What is it, 
 [118] 
 
Meeting the Dog 
 
 Blicker?" He paused as a youth delivered a 
 message. " Tell him I'll be there at once. . . . 
 Here's your car, Teen; mind the step, dear. 
 Good-bye !" 
 
 He was already sucked away from her in the 
 whirlpool of the business world before she was 
 out of sight. 
 
 She ate a solitary luncheon and annexed a 
 stray and uninteresting cousin for the theatre. 
 It was an unexpected pleasure later, on reaching 
 the Venetia, although her husband wasn't 
 there, to be hailed by a party of women already 
 seated by a red-candle-lighted table; Mrs. 
 Chandor, Lucia Bannard, Mrs. Crandall, and 
 Mrs. Roberts, very much plumed and white 
 gloved, with a chair beside them piled high 
 with cloaks and muffs and chain bags. 
 
 "Well, if here isn't another one! YouVe 
 come just in time, Mrs. Wilmer. Waiter, 
 bring another chair; there's plenty of room. 
 You never can come in here on Saturday after- 
 noon without meeting some of the crowd." 
 
 "This is really very comfortable, not too 
 near the orchestra," said Elinor Chandor 
 happily after all the orders had been given. 
 "What did you see this afternoon, Mrs. Wilmer? 
 Did you have a pleasant time? " 
 
 "Why, I expected my husband to be with 
 me," returned Clementine, an unconscious note 
 of wistfulness creeping into her voice. "I 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 went to his office, but he was too busy to get 
 away." 
 
 "I never feel as if they were really as busy as 
 they say they are. I believe they can always 
 get away if they really want to," remarked 
 Mrs. Crandall placidly. 
 
 "Oh, if you went to Jack's office, Mrs. Wil- 
 mer," cried Mrs. Roberts, "of course, then he 
 told you ! " Her big dark eyes rolled over toward 
 Mrs. Wilmer. "I wasn't going to breathe a 
 word, if you hadn't seen him. I think it is 
 so mean to tell another person's special news 
 before he has a chance to!" 
 
 "We will be so glad to have you for a neigh- 
 bour," said Mrs. Chandor. 
 
 "A neighbour I" repeated Mrs. Wilmer, un- 
 warily. 
 
 "It certainly was fortunate that Jack heard 
 about those other people on his way to the 
 train and went and had it all settled up at once 
 with the agent, or you would have lost the 
 chance altogether," continued Mrs. Roberts 
 to Mrs. Wilmer's mystified expression. "That 
 was how he happened to go in to town with 
 me on the 9:04. He was so sweet about carry- 
 ing my bag, though he said he would be terribly 
 late at the office. I told him that now he had 
 taken the Merriam cottage " 
 
 "Taken the Merriam cottage!" exclaimed 
 Mrs. Wilmer involuntarily. 
 
 [120] 
 
Meeting the Dog 
 
 "Why, didn't he tell you?" asked Mrs. 
 Roberts. She stopped short, staring; Mrs. 
 Chandor looked at her plate. Mrs. Wilmer's 
 face evolved after an instant's strange contor- 
 tioning into a brilliant, superior smile of com- 
 prehension and amusement. Nobody would 
 have guessed that her circulation had nearly 
 stopped with the effort; her hands were icy 
 chill as she went on brightly : 
 
 "Isn't Jack the most absurd fellow!" She 
 appealed to the tableful at large, tingling sud- 
 denly with the audacious resolve to conquer 
 this situation anyway. "Half the time when 
 people question him" -she paused impercep- 
 tibly "he doesn't know what he answers! 
 He gets more and more absent-minded every 
 day. No wonder I was surprised when you 
 spoke of the Merriam cottage, Mrs. Roberts; 
 it is the Vyner Street house that we have 
 taken!" 
 
 "The Vyner Street house!" exclaimed Mrs. 
 Roberts, bewilderment in her tone. She stuck 
 to the point. "Aren't you mistaken? He 
 
 certainly told me He said the Vyner Street 
 
 house was much too expensive." 
 
 " It certainly is," agreed Clementine. " There 
 are occasions, however, when a man feels it 
 best, you know, to make the effort." She turned 
 laughingly to the others. "I see that Mrs. 
 Roberts doesn't quite believe me ; but I assure 
 
 [121] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 you that it is the Vyner Street house and 
 I ought to know. 7 ' 
 
 "Well, if you will put me in such positions, 
 I have to do something to defend myself/ 7 
 said Clementine impishly, later, as she ended 
 her recital to her husband. She was sitting 
 in the third car with him. 
 
 "Oh," said Mr. Wilmer. When she had 
 reached her climax his jaw had fallen and his 
 eyebrows lifted in the same astonished fashion 
 as when she had stuck him on that other 
 occasion with her jade pin. He regarded her 
 now thoughtfully. He had a masterful way 
 at times of holding her hands down spiritually 
 as well as literally; she was too dear to be allowed 
 to work her untrained will. There was a 
 softening through his inscrutable gaze as he 
 met her dazzling red-brown eyes, full of elfish 
 defiance; her red-brown willow plume danced 
 over the copper brown hair with its strain of 
 red; her face, with its cherry lips and white 
 teeth, seemed full of tantalizing, provocative 
 light as she poured forth fiery, disconnected 
 sentences. Every man around appeared to be 
 buried in his newspaper, yet every eye, Jack felt 
 was drawn her way. 
 
 "Nothing has gone right since you began by 
 meeting the dog! I'm not going to care for 
 you any more! I'll pay that extra rent out of 
 [122] 
 
Meeting the Dog 
 
 my allowance; I won't buy any more clothes 
 for a year. If you think I could possibly live 
 
 in the Merriam cottage after That woman 
 
 sets my teeth on edge; I can't stand her. 
 Can't you see that I had to get the best of her?" 
 
 "Yes, I see," said her husband deliberately. 
 While she talked he had perhaps been planning 
 ways and means of getting out of one contract 
 and into another; the man from the West had 
 meant a good thing. "But why do you speak 
 of giving up your allowance, Teen? Of course 
 you knew I would make sure where the money 
 was coming from when I took the Vyner Street 
 house." 
 
 "Before you took it!" Clementine gasped. 
 "Did you take it, then?" 
 
 "Am I not telling you?" asked Mr. Wilmer, 
 with masculine dignity. 
 
 "But Mrs. Roberts said - 
 
 "For Heaven's sake, Teen, drop Ethel 
 Roberts! You've got her on the brain. I 
 never told her a single thing about the Vyner 
 Street house, I give you my word of honour. 
 Can't you understand that I'm telling you, for 
 the first time, now? If she was gassing about the 
 Merriam cottage I can't help it, can I? You'd 
 better call a halt, Teen, after this; you see once 
 for all, how foolish you are to think I don't tell 
 you things. I hope the Vyner Street house 
 satisfies you ; it certainly does me." 
 
 [123] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 "But I don't understand!" said Clementine, 
 helplessly. The train was already jarring into 
 the station, but she paused as she rose. 
 
 "Do you mean to say why, it's all perfectly 
 ridiculous! You have me so twisted, Jack, on 
 
 purpose Mrs. Roberts you think you 
 
 have the best of me, but " 
 
 "The incident," said Mr. Wilmer, magisteri- 
 ally, "is closed. I wish to hear no more about 
 it. Come on, Teen!" A triumphant and 
 dancing gleam showed itself momentarily in his 
 eyes as he bent over to help her down the 
 high step. "Now will you be good?" 
 
Marrying Willow 
 
Marrying Willow 
 
 THINK Willow should be told that she 
 ought to marry him !" Mrs. Bantry, a very 
 stout, black-haired woman in brown, spoke 
 emotionally. 
 
 The few members of the cooking lecture 
 class, just out from an ineffective Thirty 
 Minutes with the Saratoga Chip, stood on 
 the corner of Main Street, the differing feathers 
 in their hats all wildly blowing, as they talked 
 in an intimate group before parting: they were 
 all matrons, though of various ages, from the 
 bridal Winifred Iverson to her mother, Mrs. 
 Brentwood. The attendance on Miss Willow 
 Walter's Talks, on whatever subject, from the 
 Minor Prophets to her present cooking series, 
 had dwindled alarmingly of late, only the inner 
 circle of the faithful remaining to pay that 
 pitiful two dollars for the course. 
 
 "It does seem to me that when things have 
 come to this pass " Mrs. Bantry was going 
 on more emotionally. "What income there 
 was, stopped when her father died; and now 
 I hear that the house they never paid any 
 
 [127] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 taxes on it is to be torn down to make way 
 for the new street. They're going to rebuild 
 the Guild room, so she has to give up her Talks, 
 though that's no loss to me: she may know about 
 the Prophet Ezra, but she knows nothing about 
 cooking; besides, as Mr. Bantry always says, 
 there is no nourishment in a Saratoga Chip! 
 But how that poor girl is going to get along 
 I don't know; in these days women know how 
 to do things, and she doesn't. I heard for 
 a fact that last week that she lived on a 
 dollar forty-nine" Mrs. Bantry paused with 
 agitation. "I couldn't sleep last night think- 
 ing of it. Of course she's so close-mouthed 
 she never tells you a thing. And she's so 
 unbusinesslike! If you do her the least little 
 kindness she goes and buys you flowers! And 
 just now when she seems to have come to 
 the jumping-off place to have a perfectly 
 good, respectable man like Mr. Porch offer 
 to marry her he's not rich, but he can lift 
 her out of this awful struggle / call it Prov- 
 idential!" 
 
 "Of course, Mr. Porch is well, of course, 
 we know he's 'not quite,'" ventured the elder 
 Mrs. Iverson. "Not quite," was her delicate 
 synonyme for those in a slightly lower scale 
 of refinement. "But every one says he is a 
 very excellent man; he is so good to his 
 mother; and I have always heard that very 
 
 [128] 
 
Marrying Willow 
 
 large ears are a sign of a generous disposition. 
 It is rather a pity, perhaps, that he has so 
 
 many children, but " She broke off with 
 
 a sigh. "Mr. Iverson always admires Willow's 
 air and manner, and he says she is so restful; 
 although he is slightly deaf, he can always 
 hear everything she says/' 
 
 "Well, I think Mr. Porch is a very nice 
 man indeed. I shall never forget how kind 
 he was that time I was trying to get Ellen 
 into the hospital," said Mrs. Bannard em- 
 phatically. Lucia was a very handsome young 
 woman with dark eyes, glowing cheeks, and 
 an impulsive manner. A vision of the solid 
 Mr. Porch with his sandy hair and gray suit 
 materialized before her. "If Willow hush, 
 here she comes now." 
 
 They all stood looking after Miss Walters 
 a moment as she passed swiftly by, as usual, 
 with that effect of flying from something 
 that pursued her. When a person wears 
 overshoes on a perfectly dry day, there can 
 be but one interpretation of the act; the 
 meagre black jacket and hat showed poverty 
 in every line, though she carried her tall, very 
 thin figure with a peculiarly graceful ease, her 
 small head drooping slightly to one side. Her 
 small face was colourless, and her pale lips 
 drooped also slightly at the corners. She had, 
 however, very beautiful blue eyes veiled by 
 [129] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 a misty haze, through which she seemed to be 
 striving to understand Life. They had at times 
 an indefinably helpless and pathetic expression 
 which appealed to the inherent chivalry of every 
 married man who knew her. 
 
 Colourless as she seemed, she had had the 
 strangely startling experience of once being en- 
 gaged for a short time to a young English- 
 man, an attractive, delicate fellow, who was 
 found afterward to be married; he swore he 
 had thought his wife was dead. Those who 
 knew told of the telegram received by Willow 
 
 a lightning stroke and that anguished 
 parting afterward between the miserable 
 lovers. Willow had been found lying face 
 downward on the matted floor of the sitting- 
 room by the faded green rep lounge, with the 
 lengths of black stovepipe overhead. An odd 
 flavour of romance had clung to her since from 
 the fact that she passionately refused to hear 
 him blamed, flying into incongruous, shattering 
 tears and fury at any hint of it. It seemed 
 to show something a spirit of daring, perhaps 
 
 different from what any one would expect 
 in Willow. The wife had really died after- 
 ward, but he had married again in Australia. 
 
 Ever since then Willow had lived, gentle, 
 repressed and reticent, in a tumble-down 
 house with an incredibly old father, who seemed 
 to have lost all power of human companionship 
 
Marrying Willow 
 
 in the mere tottering effort to live, until his 
 death a year ago. 
 
 "I met Willow Walters in town to-day," 
 said Donald Bannard that night as he sat in 
 the cosy, red-curtained upstairs sitting-room, 
 smoking by the log fire, his long legs over 
 one arm of the chair, and his curly head at 
 an appropriate angle, while Lucia, in a blue 
 gown, mended his gloves with fierce little 
 pats and pulls at the fingers. 
 
 "By George, it's a shame about that girl! 
 She looks as if she didn't get enough to eat. 
 She was with that woman who lodges with 
 her; a weird old party, with a black wig, a 
 purple bonnet with strings, a sense of humour 
 and a cultivated accent; she might be worse." 
 
 " Willow has a perfect genius for lodgers 
 who never pay her," interpolated his wife. 
 
 "I took them both to lunch. Bassenden was 
 with me the man we met at the Iversons V 
 
 Lucia let the gloves drop, her face flushed, 
 ecstatically. 
 
 "Mr. Bassenden!" 
 
 "Yes, he doesn't go back to Denver until 
 his boy gets out of the hospital, next Friday. 
 Well, we gave those two women a bang-up 
 luncheon; I knew you'd want me to." 
 
 "Oh, why didn't you telephone for me to 
 come in, when you knew Mr. Bassenden was 
 there?" cried Lucia poignantly. 
 
 [131] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 "How could I? It was one o'clock then. 
 Use sense, Lucia. At any rate, he's coming 
 to us for the Thursday Evening Club meet- 
 ing next week." 
 
 " Not really ! How perfectly grand ! " 
 
 "I thought you'd be pleased. And by 
 the way, Lucia, Willow gave me one of her 
 cards with her new scheme on it: Orders 
 taken for dinners, luncheons, suppers a spe- 
 cialty. I thought you might pay her to take 
 the supper in charge the baby takes up so 
 much of your time now that he's teething." 
 
 "Well, of all things! Here this morning 
 you were preaching economy to me, and now, 
 
 because you think of this yourself " She 
 
 appealed, with flushed cheeks, to the Uni- 
 versal Spirit of Womankind. 
 
 "Aren't men funny! They hate to spend 
 twenty-five cents for a new gas bracket, but 
 when it comes to big things! All right, if 
 you'll pay." 
 
 "I'll pay. We've got to do something to 
 help her. Willow will get the chance to 
 be upstairs with us part of the time, won't 
 she?" 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 "Then that's settled. Speaking of Wil- 
 low," Mr. Bannard reared his handsome head 
 indignantly; "I heard about Hen Porch to- 
 night, and I think it's a darned shame! If 
 
Marrying Willow 
 
 that's all you women can do, to let her marry 
 Hen Porch!" 
 
 "Stop banging the table. You shake the 
 lamp! Donald Bannard, do you know how 
 old Willow is?" 
 
 "No, and I don't want to. She's a lovely 
 girl, that's what she is! If she hasn't mar- 
 ried before this, it's because young men are 
 so stuck on themselves they don't know a 
 good thing when they see it, and that awful 
 father of hers was enough to keep any one 
 away. But she hits it off with a married 
 man all right. That fellow who liked her 
 first was married that's what gave him 
 sense. She's the kind a married man can 
 talk to without any foolishness about it: she's 
 sweet and she's restful and she keeps track of 
 what you're telling her without any inter- 
 ruptions and her eyes make you feel that 
 you're a big strong man. Bassenden said he 
 hadn't enjoyed meeting a woman so much in 
 a long time. And then you talk of Hen Porch! 
 What I can't see is, why you women haven't 
 got together before now, and married her off 
 once for all. You just selfishly enjoy your 
 own perfectly good husbands, and don't do 
 a thing for her." 
 
 "Donald Bannard ' 
 
 "Oh, yes, I know all you are going to say. 
 I'm vulgar, of course. But what is the use 
 
 [133] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 of women howling for the vote and bragging 
 of the way they'll rule for the good of every 
 one, if they can't so much as marry off one 
 sweet, unprotected woman in their midst? 
 / could, if I got busy, I know that." 
 
 "Then why don't you?" 
 
 "Very well, I will. I'll ask old Hooker 
 out. He hasn't been here in ages." 
 
 "Mr. Hooker " 
 
 "There you go! You've never forgiven 
 him for being fat, and for eating up mush- 
 rooms when you didn't have enough. Well, 
 if he is fond of his food, all the more reason 
 why he should take to Willow. I'll tell him 
 it's her show, and he'll be struck by her ability. 
 You reach a man's heart through his stomach. 
 At any rate, he's a gentleman he's no Hen 
 Porch. Mrs. Bannard, have the goodness to 
 stop. I wish an end to this unseemly brawl. 
 I want to read." 
 
 In the Bannard family there was never any 
 real conversation one or the other of them 
 held the floor. Only Lucia, of course, had the 
 last word. "I do think Mr. Porch is a very 
 nice man," she said, before she gave herself 
 up to the delightful anticipation of entertaining 
 Mr. Bassenden. 
 
 Good food was the cult of the Thursday 
 Evening Club; supper had much to do with 
 
 [,134] 
 
Marrying Willow 
 
 the popularity of the house where it was served. 
 It was always rather difficult, for instance, to 
 get the men to the Iversons', where the enormous 
 silver trays offered one the most minute of 
 p&tes, a mouthful of marblelike pink and green 
 ice, sandwiches the size of postage stamps, 
 and a thimbleful of coffee. On the other hand, 
 there was also a feeling of tempered enjoyment 
 toward the Crandalls, where the black walnut 
 table with its blue doilies, worked by old 
 Mrs. Crandall, was spread with platters of 
 lukewarm rarebit and a salad that delusively 
 aroused anticipation by simulating the festive 
 lobster, when it was really only the same old 
 apple and Spanish pepper, with a mayonnaise 
 that left no impression on the mixture. The 
 Brentwoods, of course, excelled every one else 
 in their chicken and mushrooms, and hot 
 biscuits; the Chandors and Paxtons ran a 
 close second; Lucia herself always strove to 
 have something original as well as good. 
 
 The prospect of having Mr. Hooker in 
 Willow's behalf, combined with the honour of 
 entertaining Mr. Bassenden, made her feel 
 that no effort could be too great. 
 
 Mr. Bassenden had happened to stay 
 over night the week before at the Iversons' 
 when the Club had its last meeting; he had 
 known Mr. Iverson some years ago in Den- 
 ver, the latter, as a semi-invalid, having later 
 
 [135] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 somewhat lost track of his friends. Those 
 who had met the stranger, the women espe- 
 cially, looked back upon it as an Event. 
 
 He was a man of forty-five or so, remark- 
 ably handsome in a large, clean, masculine 
 way; he had a broad forehead under his thick, 
 waving, slightly grayish hair; his eyes were 
 brilliantly blue; his nose was straight, his 
 chin square, and very white teeth showed 
 when he smiled delightfully. He had a certain 
 gracefulness of power in every motion of his 
 tall, rather solid, square-shouldered figure, 
 when he leaned on the mantelpiece talking 
 to Mr. Iverson, or brought a chair forward 
 for Mrs. Bantry. He had a quiet, but charm- 
 ing manner that seemed to be the outcome of a 
 noble nature. Magnetism radiated from him; 
 wherever he stood, was easily the centre of 
 the room. 
 
 That he was one of the finest men Mr. 
 Iverson had ever known; that he was very 
 wealthy; that he had told Mr. Iverson he 
 had come East to visit a sick boy at school; 
 that his wife whom Mr. Iverson remem- 
 bered as a very domineering woman, had 
 died some years before; that he and his brother 
 Arthur had lived alone in his magnificent 
 house in Denver, but that he himself was to 
 be married and bring a new mistress there, 
 were all component parts of slight information 
 
 [136] 
 
Marrying Willow 
 
 gleaned by eager questioners. Mr. Iverson, 
 who was somewhat deaf, had at least understood 
 that the fourth of the next month was the date 
 of the wedding. To Mrs. Iverson, who had 
 questioned Mr. Bassenden as to the bride- 
 elect, the latter had simply replied: 
 
 " She is very beautiful." 
 
 It was impossible to pursue the subject of 
 his personal affairs. 
 
 The men admired his physical perfections 
 with the ardour which only men evince to one of 
 their own sex, while they unanimously voted 
 him a good fellow; to the women he held an 
 even stronger appeal to sentiment in a glamour 
 such as might surround royalty, or a great 
 tenor. His lightest word, or fleeting glance, 
 seemed instinct with a subtle insight, a high, 
 heart-to-heart appreciation. Each woman felt 
 it meant for her alone, with a yearning impres- 
 sion that she could say things to him that a 
 lesser man wouldn't understand. . . . Mrs. 
 Bantry told, with shining eyes, how wonderful 
 he was in picking up her handkerchief three 
 times. 
 
 "I can't tell you what there was about it 
 that made it different; it just simply showed 
 that he never forgot you, even when he seemed 
 to be absorbed in talking to some one else!" 
 
 Later they had had an unfinished conver- 
 sation on the presence of spirits. 
 
 [137] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 Nineteen-year-old Audrey Brentwood had 
 announced, in the brazen parlance of the day, 
 that she was perfectly crazy over Mr. Bassenden. 
 She didn't care what his age was; if he were not 
 going to be married already, he could have her! 
 
 Mrs. Cranmore sent him over one of her 
 celebrated fresh eggs for his breakfast. Elinor 
 Chandor elaborately copied out a Scotch 
 song that he said his mother had sung. Mrs. 
 Wank sent him a repulsive, thin, gilded copy of 
 her "Two Days in the Yellowstone," which 
 nobody had ever been known to read. Lucia 
 Bannard herself impulsively wrote him a little 
 note, beginning: 
 
 "Just a line, dear Mr. Bassenden, to tell 
 you how wonderfully I enjoyed your descrip- 
 tion last night of the Oberammergau play. 
 I thought you would like to know that you 
 made it seem something more to me than it 
 had ever been before. If I ever see it myself, 
 I shall think of you." But after all she didn't 
 send it; a vision of Donald's raised eyebrows 
 and pursed whistling lips made her feel foolish. 
 As Elinor Chandor said, you didn't need to tell 
 things to a man like that; he understood with- 
 out it. 
 
 The only woman whom Mr. Bassenden 
 hadn't spoken to that night was Willow Walters. 
 Mrs. Iverson said he had noticed her once 
 sitting over by the dark green portiere, which 
 
 [138] 
 
Marrying Willow 
 
 showed off her drooping white-clad figure and 
 her fairness, and had asked about her; Mrs. 
 Iverson had given him a brief account of Wil- 
 low's history, and he seemed interested, but 
 he didn't seek her afterward, though it was dis- 
 approvingly noticed that Willow, looking up 
 once and meeting his eyes, had flushed. It 
 was felt to be a little forward of her to blush 
 so intimately. 
 
 Lucia spent a morning in consultation with 
 Miss Walters about the eventful Thursday, 
 the latter bringing a selection of recipes and 
 menus with her. Lucia saw her from the 
 window as she came along accompanied by the 
 candidate for matrimony, the excellent Mr. 
 Porch, who as a contractor, didn't go to town 
 with the men. His plain, heavy-chinned face 
 was agleam, but by the side of his solid com- 
 monplaceness her air of delicate, fugitive aloof- 
 ness seemed even more evident, as she hurried 
 lightly along. 
 
 To Lucia's critical eye Willow looked un- 
 usually well as she entered; a faint colour in 
 her cheek appeared to be called forth by a long- 
 stemmed deep crimson rose, in the front of 
 her shabby, tight-fitting black jacket, that set 
 off her whole costume, but her beautiful blue 
 eyes seemed to have a more childlike and 
 helpless look than ever under their haze. 
 
 "Now, Mrs. Bannard," she announced in 
 
 [139] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 her sweet, low voice, " before we decide on 
 the bill of fare, I want it understood that I 
 am to have all the responsibility of this supper, 
 or I will not undertake it at all. That is what 
 you pay me for, and pay well. I will not 
 accept one penny unless I do the work." 
 
 "Very well," said Lucia meekly, but with a 
 side glance at the speaker. Could Willow do it? 
 
 "Then how would you like frogs' legs en 
 casserole, with nuts and whipped cream? That's 
 quite new." 
 
 "N-no, I don't think men care much for 
 nuts and whipped cream. As Mr. Bassen- 
 den will be here, and a friend from town, a Mr. 
 Hooker, I'd like everything to be very nice." 
 
 "Yes, indeed. I have a receipt a very 
 interesting dish made of the breasts of par- 
 tridges. You chop them first, and then " 
 
 "You may skip that." 
 
 The lines in Miss Walters' forehead began to 
 show, the colour in her cheeks faded out. 
 
 "How would you like individual oyster pies? 
 Not pates, but deep English pies, served very 
 hot, with celery and pickle sandwiches?" 
 
 "That sounds good," approved Lucia, " Very 
 good," she repeated, adding swiftly, "Why 
 not have a nice chicken salad with that; they 
 would combine well together, and be enough 
 solid food, with the coffee." 
 
 "Very well. Then afterward you could have 
 
 [ 140] 
 
Marrying Willow 
 
 a fruit ice-cream with candied cherries and 
 chestnuts in it, served with a clear orange 
 jelly cut into strips, little frosted pound cakes 
 and macaroons." 
 
 "That really is charming," cried Lucia. 
 "But you can't see to all this yourself; of 
 course, you'll have Ellen in the kitchen, but 
 she's so inefficient; I do wish you'd let me 
 help you." 
 
 "Thank you, but I have all the directions 
 here," said Miss Walters in her even tone, 
 touching the papers in her hand. "If you'll 
 excuse me, I think I'll be going now. I'll make 
 out my list of materials and quantities later." 
 
 "If you haven't enough money " 
 
 "Oh, I'm sure I have enough." 
 
 "I wish you'd come to see me oftener," 
 said Lucia impulsively. 
 
 "I have so little time " 
 
 "Yes, I know; but oh, haven't things been 
 terribly hard for you sometimes? I've been 
 so sorry I Wouldn't it perhaps be best now if 
 
 Please don't mind if I ask " Lucia stopped; 
 
 Willow was gazing past her with something oddly 
 bright in her smile. The sweet voice in which 
 she spoke seemed to come from afar. 
 
 "No, it hasn't been so hard. I don't know 
 whether I can make you understand; sometimes I 
 don't understand myself, but I haven't minded 
 my life at all truly I haven't! Ever since 
 
 [HI] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 something happened to me that's nine years 
 ago it's just as if the real / had been put 
 to sleep, drugged, I have just gone on and on, 
 and on; it hasn't made any difference, I haven't 
 minded until now. But these last few 
 days" her lips suddenly trembled " they've 
 changed it all; I'm getting terribly afraid I'll 
 wake up ! That that would be bad. I 
 don't know why I'm saying this to you but 
 you're so sweet to me! When I come in a 
 house like this there's something different 
 in a house where people love each other; perhaps 
 you don't notice it, but I do." She put both 
 hands in Lucia's and the two stood silent for 
 a moment. 
 
 "You have the prettiest place behind your 
 ear," said Lucia irrelevantly. 
 
 Miss Walters suddenly flushed scarlet, as at 
 some revealing remembrance. She put up one 
 hand to her neck involuntarily as if to hide it 
 from sight. 
 
 "I really must leave! Give yourself no un- 
 easiness about the supper; it will be all right," 
 she said in her usual tone, and was gone. 
 
 "But I don't know whether it will be all 
 right or not!" Lucia said that evening to 
 her husband, after she had got as far as this 
 in her narrative. "Is Mr. Hooker coming?" 
 
 "Yes; he remembered Willow." 
 
 "Have you seen Mr. Bassenderi?" 
 [142] 
 
Marrying Willow 
 
 "Not to speak to. I saw him yesterday, 
 though, in Fraunces Tavern, lunching with 
 Willow.'' 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "True as you're born." Mr. Bannard set 
 his lips in a straight line as he met his wife's 
 eyes. "He's a handsome brute, and no mis- 
 take! They seemed to be having a very 
 good time together. He took her into the 
 florist's afterward and bought her crimson 
 roses. I happened to look through the win- 
 dow as I passed." 
 
 "She had one on to-day," said Lucia breath- 
 lessly. "Donald Bannard! And you never 
 told me a word last night!" 
 
 "Why should I?" 
 
 "Why should you! Anything as extraor- 
 dinary as that " 
 
 "Not extraordinary at all. He's an awfully 
 nice fellow, and she's a very lovely woman." 
 
 "What? When she hardly knows him, and 
 he's to be married next week? Stop hunching 
 yourself together; I hate you when you make 
 yourself look idiotic. Do you mean to say 
 that if you were away in another city a week 
 before we were married, you would have taken 
 a girl out to lunch alone I don't care how 
 old Willow is, she looked young enough to- 
 day! and given her crimson roses?" 
 
 "I'd have given her sweet peas. I don't care 
 
 [143] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 for red roses," said Mr. Bannard coolly, and 
 then sat up straight. "Lucia! Can't you ever 
 take a joke? " 
 
 The prospect of having Mr. Bassenden at 
 Lucia's Thursday evening he was to leave 
 the next day for the scene of his marriage 
 gave it immense prestige. The men were 
 careful that the business exigencies of the 
 last of the month shouldn't keep them away, 
 and every woman felt that she had some- 
 thing, particularly, to say to him in connec- 
 tion with their last meeting. Elinor Chandor 
 had formulated a long conversation on music, 
 beginning with: "I noticed that you were 
 fond of Scotch songs, Mr. Bassenden." Gentle, 
 quiet Mrs. Iverson had an anecdote of her 
 son's college days that she knew it would 
 please him to hear; even Lucia Bannard found 
 herself murmuring in imagination: "When you 
 were speaking to me of Oberammergau, Mr. 
 Bassenden, I forgot to say . . ." 
 
 His coming had been a rival to the sub- 
 ject of Willow, about whom everybody was 
 in despair. It was whispered that not only 
 was she not smiling on Mr. Porch, but that 
 she had been seen around with Mr. Bassen- 
 den. Every one felt somehow responsible for 
 her indelicately hanging on his kindness in 
 this way. "For he can't like it," Mrs. Bantry 
 
 [H4] 
 
Marrying Willow 
 
 feelingly argued. "I think somebody ought 
 to tell her not to. For all her quietness there's 
 always been something in Willow that you 
 couldn't explain." 
 
 All day the kitchen of the house of enter- 
 tainment had been in a turmoil. Lucia, hear- 
 ing her husband come in late he had dined 
 in town with Mr. Bassenden rushed down 
 to meet him with her tale of woe. 
 
 "I thought you said she began so nicely 
 yesterday/' he objected, hat in hand. 
 
 "I did but it's all beginning! The poor 
 thing doesn't get anywhere; she doesn't know 
 how. She's rolling her pie crust still with that 
 composed air, while her fingers are trembling 
 and there's a red spot in each cheek. She 
 won't get any chance to play cards this even- 
 ing! and she's only made half enough of the 
 chicken salad, and we've had to get the cake 
 from the baker's! Ellen helped her all she 
 could, but the baby has kept me so tied down 
 all day I couldn't do a thing. Of course it 
 puts me in a dreadful position! No, don't 
 take off your overcoat. I want you to go 
 for two bottles of milk. Willow forgot to 
 order it." 
 
 "Milk!" 
 
 "Yes, you can get it at Lester's, around 
 the corner from Main Street; the little grocery 
 that is always open." 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 "All right. Perhaps you didn't notice Bas- 
 senden's here." 
 
 "Good evening, Mrs. Bannard," said Mr. 
 Bassenden coming forward. He looked hand- 
 somer and more wonderful than ever in his fur 
 overcoat, standing there tall and imposing, 
 his thick, dark hair over his white forehead, and 
 his brilliant dark eyes smiling down at her. 
 "Let me go for the milk. I have the car here. 
 Mr. Bannard, I know, has to dress." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Bassenden!" breathed Lucia, all 
 aglow. It was almost as if he might have 
 been a relation. 
 
 "But before I go I'll ask you to take these." 
 He went down the hall and brought back a 
 couple of boxes. "Just a few roses for you, 
 and violets for Miss Walters. She's helping 
 you to-night, I understand. At the corner of 
 Main Street, you said? I'll be back in a few 
 minutes." 
 
 Violets for Willow! In the midst of her 
 own pleasure Lucia hadn't time to analyze 
 the shock the words gave her, or do more 
 than take note, for future reference, of Wil- 
 low's downcast eyes. Before she knew they 
 were upon her, the guests had arrived Mr. 
 Hooker, a small, fattish gentleman with glis- 
 tening shirt front and a black eyeglass ribbon, 
 being all too evidently brought by the lure of 
 food; complimentary reminiscences of the lob- 
 
Marrying Willow 
 
 ster once eaten under that roof forming part 
 of his first greeting to Lucia. 
 
 Everybody came at once. Even Mr. Iverson, 
 who seldom left his own home in the evening, 
 escorted his wife. The sight of Mr. Bassen- 
 den's fur coat on the rack in the hall seemed a 
 delightful earnest of pleasure. There was an 
 unusual rustling and preening in the dressing- 
 room, where the cloaks and wraps were piled 
 on the pink and lacy spare bed, before going 
 down to meet the distinguished guest; Mrs. 
 Bantry waiting with officious patience and a 
 bitter smile for a chance to see her stout, newly 
 corseted figure in the mirror before which all 
 the women were dabbing on powder and 
 instantly wiping it off again. The tide of 
 excitement was running high. 
 
 Yet from the first moment when, hastening 
 downstairs, they caught sight of Mr. Bassenden 
 talking to a group of men in the hall below, 
 there was felt to be a vague, indefinable, but 
 disappointing lack in him, though he was as 
 royal looking and dominant as ever. He came 
 forward with instant politeness, to be sure, but 
 there was no warmth, no individuality in his 
 greeting; it was, as Elinor Chandor said, as if 
 he were meeting you for the first time; and he 
 returned at once to the group of men, who were 
 talking of the Senate, or the Market, or Polit- 
 ical Corruption, with the tiresome oblivious- 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 ness which men show when they get on those 
 subjects. Only whenever Lucia came into 
 view, with a distracted face, he always saw her 
 at once; starting up to go to her, and occasionally 
 following her out of the room; they consulted 
 together with that intimacy which is so satis- 
 fying to the participants and which leaves 
 everybody else on the outside. Mrs. Bantry, 
 indeed, was so fortunate as to find herself later 
 alone by him for a moment, but when she said, 
 with tremulous sprightliness, referring to their 
 former conversation: 
 
 "This is indeed no night for spirits to be 
 abroad," he had only replied, "I beg your 
 pardon?" as if recalling his wandering thoughts, 
 and added, "Yes, I think the fog has lifted." 
 
 Afterward, instead of taking his allotted 
 place at the card table with Mrs. Bantry 
 and Elinor Chandor, he dropped into a chair 
 by Mr. Iverson to whom he had been heard 
 talking, apparently, about his wedding next 
 week at a table over near the door, with old 
 Mrs. Crandall in her black banded hair and 
 black chenille shawl who wasn't meant to 
 come and pretty, quiet Mrs. Paxton, the 
 only woman in the Club who had evinced no 
 interest in him at all. He laughingly declined 
 to change his position when the mistake was 
 pointed out to him. It was very disappointing! 
 
 A singular atmosphere seemed to settle 
 
Marrying Willow 
 
 down. With all the soft lights in the yel- 
 low and mahogany-furnished room, the flowers, 
 the pretty dresses, the air of general festivity, 
 there was a pervading sense of stress behind 
 the scenes. There were rumours that Willow 
 was doing very badly. 
 
 It became one of those blank evenings of 
 entertainment whose parts have no cohesion; 
 one might as well be out on a snowbank for 
 all the social warmth evolved. 
 
 Lucia kept going out and coming back with 
 a still more distracted expression. Once there 
 was a horrid smell of burning milk. She called 
 her husband to her, and he disappeared, shrug- 
 ging his shoulders as he returned. 
 
 " Looks as if we wouldn't get much to eat 
 to-night/' he suggested. "The oysters seem 
 to have burned up, and the ice-cream is full of 
 salt. I bid one on hearts." 
 
 Mr. Hooker had a bitter smile, as one lured 
 out under false pretences. 
 
 "If Lucia had asked my advice," said old 
 Mrs. Crandall to the guest of the evening, 
 while the cards were being shuffled, "she would 
 never have placed any dependence on Willow 
 Walters. She is a very sweet woman, but she 
 is incompetent in every way; my daughter-in- 
 law finds it impossible to help her. The best 
 thing for her to do is to marry Mr. Henry 
 Porch. His mother keeps the house." 
 
 [H9] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 "Ah, too bad, too bad,'' said Mr. Iverson. 
 44 1 understand Willow's cottage is to be torn 
 down next week, to make room for the street." 
 He added, in explanation to Mr. Bassenden. 
 "Hard time she has to get along, poor girl; 
 she needs some one to look after her. Hah! 
 Something dropped in the kitchen! It sounded 
 like Hendrik Hudson's bowling ground." 
 
 "I play before you put your hand down, Mr. 
 Bassenden," stated Mrs. Paxton remindingly. 
 
 " Pardon me," said Mr. Bassenden. He 
 waited with a visible effort while the lady 
 studied her resources, and then, laying his 
 cards on the table for dummy with one com- 
 prehensive swoop, dashed out to Lucia Bannard 
 in the hall, and disappeared with her in the 
 regions beyond. 
 
 A few minutes later he was seen emerging 
 into the dining-room, carrying a large dish 
 of apples and oranges in his steady hands, 
 with Willow Walters' slender white-aproned 
 figure beside him. Her ordinarily pale cheeks 
 were pink, her eyes, as she raised them, had 
 their pathetically helpless look. The impetus of 
 their conversation still carried them; he was 
 leaning toward her and she toward him there 
 was something in the manner of both that inde- 
 finably startled, before the two vanished once 
 more. A few minutes later a chug-chug was 
 heard by the card-players, and the lights of a 
 
 [ISO] 
 
Marrying Willow 
 
 motor flashed past a window that had been 
 slightly raised for the air. 
 
 "Where's Mr. Bassenden? Isn't he coming 
 back?" asked Mrs. Paxton. 
 
 " Why, he asked if we'd excuse him for a half- 
 hour," said Mr. Bannard with what seemed 
 to be a mixture of embarrassment and jaunti- 
 ness. "He he's gone out in the car for 
 a few minutes. The fact is he's taking 
 Willow Miss Walters out for a spin; the 
 heat in the kitchen has been a little too much 
 for her." 
 
 Old Mrs. Crandall sniffed. "Why, that's 
 very kind of him," ejaculated Mrs. Bantry 
 wonderingly. "Very." She fell to playing 
 cards with an air of detachment from her 
 surroundings that became noticeable also in 
 the manner of the other women. Mr. Bas- 
 senden, the star of the occasion, had been un- 
 warrantably removed from them by Willow! 
 And on this last night of his stay! That 
 mysteriousness that had always been felt in her 
 seemed to have come suddenly to the fore. 
 
 And they were gone for a long time. . . . 
 
 "I suppose she appealed to his sympathies, 
 and he couldn't refuse," murmured Nell Cran- 
 dall to Mrs. Bantry, as the game at last wore 
 to a close. The men and women separated 
 into two sections while they waited for supper, 
 if there were indeed to be any. 
 
 [151] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 "I think it extremely tactless of her," said 
 Mrs. Bantry. 
 
 Old Mrs. Crandall sniffed again. "I have 
 always observed something in Willow I 
 can't exactly explain what it is, that " 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen and fellow-citizens," 
 proclaimed Mr. Bannard, entering suddenly, 
 "I have the honour to inform you that our 
 own supper being unfortunately not eatable, 
 our distinguished guest, Mr. Bassenden, has 
 returned to say that he has been making arrange- 
 ments to have one imported from town, and that 
 it will be here in half an hour. He wants this 
 to be his party, as he is leaving to-morrow. In 
 the meantime, would you like to take a look 
 at the moon? It's grand! Throw something 
 around you all and come out!" 
 
 Laughing and talking, even the morose 
 Mr. Hooker, inspired by this unexpected 
 lift to the occasion, the party trooped out- 
 side on the hard ground that lay frozen in 
 an atmosphere so windless that the air seemed 
 benignantly soft and mild. The beauty of the 
 moonlit scene, incomparably bright, stole into 
 the senses, so that after a moment voices were 
 hushed; they all stood silent, looking at it. 
 All of a sudden some one, turning toward the 
 house, uttered a shocked exclamation. Every- 
 body turned to look that way. 
 
 The shade had been drawn up from the kitchen 
 
Marrying Willow 
 
 window. Within, Mr. Bassenden stood with 
 Willow, the light fell on both faces. His 
 handsome head was bending over her, his face 
 all tenderness, as he stood a little apart from 
 her; he held her two hands in his, drawing 
 her to him. But Willow! Was this the pale, 
 colourless girl they had all known, this slender, 
 spiritlike, exquisitely beautiful creature, with 
 the violets at her bosom, her eyes starry, her lips 
 parted, her cheeks rosed with an immortal 
 
 flame? There was a moment 
 
 with one impulse everybody turned away and 
 tiptoed into the house, only Mr. Iverson break- 
 ing the silence to say musingly: 
 
 "Odd, the mistake I made about Bassen- 
 den's marriage. I am a little hard of hearing. 
 He was explaining to me to-night that it is his 
 brother Arthur who is to be married next week!" 
 
 "Well, she certainly landed on both feet," 
 said Donald Bannard the following spring. 
 He and Lucia had been at the opera the night 
 before, occupying a box as the guests of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Bassenden, just on a visit from Denver. 
 ''Did you twig the rope of pearls, and the 
 white satin and the opera cloak? She's a 
 beauty, and he can't keep his eyes off her. 
 It's a wonderful match; and to think I made it, 
 after all you women had given up!" 
 
 "You!" scoffed his wife, indignantly. 
 
 [153] 
 
Thursday 
 
Thursday 
 
 | O, MRS. BRADY, I'm afraid you 
 can't clean Mr. Laurence's room this 
 next Thursday; the Thursday after 
 that he goes off on his fishing trip, and we'll 
 get at it then." 
 
 "It's t'ree weeks to-day, ma'am, since it 
 was done t'orough." 
 
 "Yes, I know." Mrs. Laurence, hatted and 
 cloaked as she was on her return from town, was 
 still in all the glow of wonderment at an extra- 
 ordinary happening there occasioned by the 
 merest chance; she had been thinking of it all 
 the way out in the train, and it seemed a little 
 difficult to adjust herself to those needs of the 
 household which always rose up and smote her 
 the moment she entered it. On her way up- 
 stairs she had already telephoned for extra 
 milk, changed perforce the order for dinner, 
 and sent her eleven-year-old son Robert on 
 that belated errand to the post-office to which 
 he had daily to have insistent reminder. She 
 stood now irresolutely in the doorway of her 
 husband's den, so-called, strewn from end to 
 
 [157] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 end Hvith fishing paraphernalia; her eyes wan- 
 dering over the groups of linen-cased rods 
 stacked in the corners or on the lounge he 
 was always adding an absolutely necessary one 
 to that overflowing, unusable stock the blan- 
 ketlike coat hanging over the back of a chair, 
 the seven-league waterproof boots sprawling 
 their astounding length over by the window, the 
 immense green-japanned bait-pail in the centre 
 of the floor, and the table, on which, in the 
 midst of a toppling pile of magazines, a large 
 and gorgeous leather tackle-box was surrounded 
 by a bulging mass of reels, fly-books, green and 
 red floats, matches and cigar stands, all covered 
 with a light layer of dust on the edges; it 
 was as much as even Mrs. Laurence's life was 
 worth to displace any article on that table. 
 
 But she repeated firmly: "We'll get at it 
 the Thursday following; I've just invited com- 
 pany for this Thursday, anyway," and turned 
 away with a sigh after paying the worker, going 
 into her own room to change before her hus- 
 band's homecoming; that unkempt den was 
 the visible manifestation of a problem that 
 seemed to have come to stay. For twelve 
 years she and her husband had shared all their 
 pleasures; they stayed home or went out in the 
 evenings together, and by an unworded compact 
 neither had ever left the other for a vacation. 
 He had never wanted to do anything away from 
 
Thursday 
 
 her; it was she who suggested their pleasures; 
 she had felt herself the Dispenser of all Delights. 
 It had become a pleasantly scoffing, half- 
 envious habit of other women to say to her: 
 
 "Oh, you and your husband are so devoted I" 
 And now just this last year, without any warning 
 he had, in connection with a Mr. Wynkoop, a 
 business friend unknown to her, developed a 
 passion for fishing that threatened to push 
 her entirely out of his horizon. He had not 
 only gone off five times altogether without her 
 last summer, but for the last four months he 
 had done nothing but talk about his three 
 days' trip in May to a secret trout-stream in 
 another state. Mrs. Laurence, true to her 
 cult, had spent their evenings at home up in 
 the den, while he fingered his beloved fishing 
 gear with shining eyes; but even with her 
 utmost efforts at sympathetic attention her mind 
 was apt to wander dreadfully, so that her 
 would-be intelligent comments were strikingly 
 the reverse, requiring incredibly patient further 
 explanations from her husband he never 
 balked at explaining. She could never re- 
 member which kind of rod was used for which 
 kind of fish. The only time that he had ever 
 really shown annoyance was when she persisted 
 in speaking to guests of his sacred four-pound 
 trout, stretched out on a board upstairs, as 
 "That bass Will was so crazy about catching ;" 
 
 [159] ' 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 he seemed to really brood over that, in a way 
 that wasn't like himself. 
 
 Lately he hadn't even needed her society, 
 importing into the den no less a person than 
 the village carpenter, a long, lanky, soft-stepped 
 man of immense experience in fishing, to whose 
 words Will listened as they dropped from his 
 lips as if they were pearls, while she practised 
 lonesomely on the piano downstairs. The fish- 
 ing had also made trouble in her well-ordered 
 household last summer, by his bringing home 
 live bait and insisting on its being preserved in 
 the laundry wash-tubs without reference to the 
 exigencies of the family wash; even without that 
 grievance the faithful Ellen had complained 
 that "all thim little weeny fishes slippin' round 
 that ghostly when she went into the cellar at 
 night, took all the stomach from her." Mrs. 
 Laurence felt that she could hardly wait until 
 this phase was over, and everything be as it 
 always had been before, forgetting that Time 
 never goes backward, any more than water runs 
 uphill. 
 
 "May I come up?" 
 
 The voice was that of a neighbour, Mrs. 
 Stone. Mrs. Stone had a way of following 
 her voice at once, without waiting for an answer, 
 that was sometimes disconcerting. Mrs. Lau- 
 rence gave a wild look around the room as she 
 
 [160] 
 
Thursday 
 
 hastily snatched up an enshrouding kimono 
 that tangled for the moment and wouldn't 
 go on without a struggle, as the figure of the 
 visitor appeared on the threshold. Mrs. Stone 
 was a large woman of matronly build, dressed 
 in a very much starched and shrunken last 
 year's white duck skirt, and a shirt-waist, 
 partially covered by a gray ulster buttoned at 
 the neck with empty sleeves hanging limply 
 down at the sides. She sat down on the nearest 
 chair, saying as she did so, with a comprehensive 
 glance around the room: 
 
 "You don't mind me, I hope. Goodness, 
 you don't mean to say you've taken off your 
 high-necked flannels already!" 
 
 "I never wear them," said Mrs. Laurence 
 hastily. 
 
 " Oh ! How the dust does show on everything, 
 doesn't it at this time of year? I've been 
 cleaning all day. That rug by your dressing- 
 table hasn't worn very well, has it? " 
 
 Mrs. Stone paused momentarily, and then 
 went on, this time as one with a purpose: 
 
 "I saw you coming back from town, and I 
 thought I'd run over, just for a moment. 
 Mrs. Budd and I have been at the Spicers'. 
 Poor little Mrs. Spicer is all worked up you 
 know how nervous she is! It's about your 
 Robert. Mrs. Laurence, is his father going to 
 let him have a gun for his birthday?" 
 [161] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 "Why, certainly not/' said Mrs. Laurence, 
 with decision. 
 
 Mrs. Stone's tragic countenance only slightly 
 relaxed. 
 
 "Well, Robert has been telling all over the 
 neighbourhood goodness, you used to have 
 such an enormous braid! Hair comes out so 
 in the spring, doesn't it? / won't have a spear 
 left soon! Well, Robert is telling all over the 
 neighbourhood that he's to have a gun for 
 his birthday; he points sticks now at all the 
 children and pretends to pull a trigger, and you 
 can see yourself, Mrs. Laurence, what that 
 will lead to! Poor little Gladys Spicer nearly 
 had a fit the other day because he told her that 
 she was dead, and Gladys Spicer's nurse heard 
 him say that next week he was going to shoot 
 the grocer's white horse. Mrs. Laurence, that 
 boy ought not to be allowed to have a gun." 
 
 "He isn't going to have one." Mrs. Laurence's 
 colour rose with her voice, as she strove to hook 
 the back of her gown with trembling fingers. 
 "If Robert said anything of the kind, he was 
 just imagining playing, as a child will. But, 
 of course, if you take everything seriously that 
 you hear from that Gladys Spicer and her nurse ! 
 Whatever Robert's other faults may be he is u 
 perfectly truthful child!" 
 
 "Oh!" said Mrs. Stone, with eyes that 
 seemed to take on a blank, veiled expression; 
 
 [162] 
 
Thursday 
 
 as the mother of four she was perhaps less 
 given to a wholesale belief in virtue. She 
 politely swerved from the subject as one who 
 sees danger below it. "Was it pleasant in town 
 to-day?" 
 
 "Yes, very/' answered Mrs. Laurence, sitting 
 down at last in the long draperies of her rose- 
 coloured gown to buckle the beaded slippers on 
 her pretty feet, with a remorseful effort to 
 recover her hospitable spirit. She had that 
 kind of lofty, sweet purpose with which one 
 may inform one's life, no matter how small that 
 life's environment; was not one of Raphael's 
 most famous Holy Families painted within 
 the limits of a barrel hoop? She was always, 
 through all her deeply trivial excitements, 
 seeking her rightful connection with high things. 
 "I saw such a lovely hat for your Susan in one 
 of the shops! I'll help you make one later, if 
 you like. And the most unexpected thing 
 happened to me! There, right on the corner 
 by the Flatiron Building, I met some people 
 from California that I hadn't seen for six years 
 - friends of Mr. Laurence's the Von Rosens." 
 
 "Oh, that German family he lived with 
 before he was married?" 
 
 "Yes, the same people. I've only met 
 them that time before, but of course I've 
 heard of them so much from William. It was 
 impossible to mistake them; the only change 
 
 [ 163 ] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 I could see was that Mrs. Von Rosen looked 
 even fatter and rosier, and the two daughters, 
 Amelia and Ida -they pronounce it E-da are 
 thinner and yellower. They are such warm- 
 hearted people I was almost embarrassed, 
 right there in the street. Shall we go down- 
 stairs now? They are going on to Philadelphia 
 this evening, but they promised to stop off 
 here to dinner on their way back to town on 
 Thursday; they leave for California the next 
 day. I knew Will would be so disappointed 
 if he didn't see them." 
 
 Mrs. Stone stared inexplicably. "Why, I 
 thought Mr. Laurence told my husband he was 
 going fishing on Thursday?" 
 
 "He is going in May." 
 
 " But this is May!" 
 
 "Yes, of course it is I'm so absent-minded! 
 But it's next week that he goes fishing." 
 
 "Oh!" said Mrs. Stone. She hastened to 
 offer her neighbourly services. "If you'd like 
 my recipe for lobster bisque you can have it as 
 well as not." 
 
 It was an understood thing on the Ridge 
 that Company from Town had its own laws, 
 the neighbourhood delicately effacing itself in 
 these occasions without hint of offence, sharing 
 indeed opulently in the calculations before- 
 hand, and the conversation about it afterward, 
 although not bidden to the feast. 
 
Thursday 
 
 The sight of the curly-haired and rosy- 
 cheeked Robert, in his brown corduroy knick- 
 erbockers, cap in hand, at the foot of the stairs, 
 incited to further beneficence. "And why 
 don't you let Robert come over to our house 
 to dinner that night? It will be one out of 
 the way." 
 
 "Well, thank you, I'll see," said Mrs. Lau- 
 rence, tentative response in her voice, before 
 turning to her only child. 
 
 "Did you go to the post-office, Robert, as I 
 told you?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I saw him there, as I came along," corrobor- 
 ated Mrs. Stone nicely. 
 
 "And did I get any letters?" 
 
 Robert's dark eyes were fixed on her ear- 
 nestly. 
 
 "Did I get any letters, Robert?" 
 
 "No. No, mother. May I go to Herbert's 
 now?" 
 
 "Wash your face and hands before you go." 
 Mrs. Laurence said the last words automatically 
 before turning once more to the guest. "Really, 
 I think some one ought to complain at Washing- 
 ton of the postal service. Just because we 
 have nothing but a little branch post-office 
 here on the Ridge, half the time we don't get 
 our letters. My sister sent me two last month 
 that I never received at all." 
 
 [165] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 "Yes, it's dreadful," agreed Mrs. Stone. 
 It was the thing to complain of the postal 
 service in the small outlying residential section 
 that made the Ridge. "Mrs. Spicer got 
 a letter back from the Dead Letter Office 
 only this last week. To be sure, it was mis- 
 directed, but the principle's the same. Good- 
 ness, here's Mr. Laurence. I didn't expect 
 to be here when he came home!" She hastily 
 gathered her ulster about her. "I see you've 
 brought home a new landing net. How does 
 your wife like your going off fishing so much? " 
 
 "Oh, she's as interested in it as I am," re- 
 turned Mr. Laurence, mistakenly, taking off 
 his hat to the departing guest, before stooping 
 over to kiss his wife. He was a tall, dark man of 
 whose distinguished appearance she was proud. 
 
 n 
 
 It was not until the evening meal was com- 
 fortably under way that Mrs. Laurence artisti- 
 cally brought forward the subject of engrossing 
 interest. 
 
 "Whom do you think I met in town to-day? 
 You'd never guess." 
 
 "Then you'd better teU me." 
 
 "Well, it was the Von Rosens actually, 
 the whole three of them! What do you say to 
 that?" 
 
 [166] 
 
Thursday 
 
 "Ida must be getting on by this time/' 
 said Mr. Laurence with unconscious tact. 
 
 His wife had always suspected Ida of a weak- 
 ness for Will in those days when she herself 
 had been a stranger to him. 
 
 "Oh, well, I think she looks about the same/' 
 said his wife generously. "They overwhelmed 
 me with questions about you. I knew you'd be 
 heartbroken if you didn't see them. They go 
 to Philadelphia this afternoon! " she explained 
 their plans at length, as she had to Mrs. Stone 
 "so they will stop off at the station below, 
 on the main road and come out here to dinner." 
 
 "That will be nice," said her husband. " What 
 night did you say? " 
 
 "Thursday." 
 
 "Wh-a-a-t?" 
 
 Mr. Laurence dropped his knife and fork with 
 a clatter on his plate, and looked with horrified 
 incredulousness at his wife. "Do you mean to 
 say you've asked them for this Thursday? " 
 
 Mrs. Laurence's colour rose. "Don't be 
 so forcible, Will. Why shouldn't I ask them 
 for Thursday?" 
 
 "Because that's the day I want to go fishing. 
 Great Scott, Nan, I've been planning this 
 trip ever since Thanksgiving, and you go and 
 ask people out to dinner. I can't understand 
 it. Why you should have pitched on that 
 night of all others when you knew !" 
 
 [167] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 Tears of vexation came into Mrs. Laurence's 
 eyes. 
 
 "I don't see why you speak like that. You' ve 
 been talking so long about this old trip that it's 
 no wonder I got mixed up; I thought it was the 
 next Thursday, of course." 
 
 She paused an instant to gather her forces. 
 "Can't you be here to dinner that night, and 
 go on to join the others the next day?" 
 
 "Go on the next day!" Mr. Laurence laughed 
 shortly. "Do you realize, Anna, that even 
 starting at seven o'clock Thursday evening 
 we don't get to the lodge on the Susquehanna 
 until the middle of the next morning? We 
 have to stay all night in a little tavern beyond 
 Coalberg. We had to write last week to have a 
 rig meet us. We'll only have two days' fish- 
 ing as it is; you know very well that I have 
 to get home Sunday night." 
 
 The mere recounting of the plan served to 
 bring back the accustomed tone to his voice. 
 "You'll have to just send word to the Von 
 Rosens to come some other time." 
 
 "But William!" Mrs. Laurence looked out- 
 raged now in her turn. "I can't do that, pos- 
 sibly; I told you just now that they'd gone to 
 Philadelphia / don't know where they're 
 stopping!" 
 
 "Well!" Mr. Laurence shrugged his shoulders. 
 [168] 
 
Thursday 
 
 "It's all your own doing. I certainly have 
 given you warning enough. You'll have to 
 make my excuses, and entertain them yourself, 
 that's all." 
 
 "You don't mean to say that you will go 
 away when the Von Rosens are coming?" 
 Mrs. Laurence regarded her husband with 
 unfeigned horror. "Why, they're taking all 
 this trouble to see you they don't care for 
 me! The time I met them we hadn't a thing 
 in common; they bored me to extinction. 
 They're your friends." She gave a gulp that 
 might have been a sob. No one knew how 
 heartfully noble it had been of her to behave 
 so nicely to them. "And I must say, Will, that 
 if you can forget all they did for you you 
 have so often told me that Mrs. Von Rosen 
 really saved your life when you were ill out 
 there, bringing you broth in the middle of the 
 
 night, even " her voice trembled with the 
 
 pathos of the situation. "And Amelia reading 
 to you day after day when your eyes gave out 
 if you can't even give up such a little thing as 
 this fishing trip for them now " 
 
 Such a little thing as the fishing trip ! 
 
 The two sat there on opposite sides of the 
 table, lightened by its yellow daffodils. Before 
 Mr. Laurence's vision came the irresponsible, 
 free, jolly companionship of the train journey, 
 when one began insensibly to leave all burdens 
 
 [169] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 behind; the smell of the wood smoke in the 
 hospitable, far tavern of the night; the mighty 
 breakfast eaten at dawn; the drive through the 
 pine-scented woods to a certain joy; he saw 
 the tall, lush grass on either side of the narrow 
 brown stream, with bare and nodding boughs 
 interlaced slenderly above, through the deli- 
 cious tracery of which arched a delicately blue, 
 white-clouded sky. He felt the brain-soothing 
 peace that came with the sounding swirl and 
 rush of that white-foamed, cascading brook; 
 the exhilaration of that needed rest; that inde- 
 scribable moment when the leaping trout sent 
 a quiver down the length of the rod, creating a 
 man over again in an Eden that was even more 
 perfect than the first Eden because he didn't 
 need any Eve. It was all so vivid to Will 
 Laurence that he couldn't believe that his 
 wife didn't see it, too. The very vision calmed. 
 
 "If you can't send them word not to come 
 I suppose you can't, though I confess I don't 
 understand how you came to get yourself in 
 such a box, Nan have a good dinner, anyway; 
 Mother Von Rosen knows one when she sees it." 
 
 " Of course I'll have a good dinner; you needn't 
 tell me that," said his wife, with a feeling 
 of immense relief. She had known that he 
 would have to give up the trip when he stopped 
 to think. With unusual tact for a woman 
 who has gained her point she forbore to press 
 [170] 
 
Thursday 
 
 it further home. But as they left the table she 
 asked : 
 
 "Why don't you ever take me fishing with 
 you? I met a woman the other day who said 
 that she always went with her husband." 
 
 "Oh, you wouldn't like it," said her husband 
 with his hand on her arm. "It wouldn't do 
 for you at all." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 He gave the arm a tender pressure. 
 
 "Too snaky." 
 
 "Oh!" said Mrs. Laurence with an instinc- 
 tive shudder, and a horrible sense of dreadful 
 slithering things slipping around her William's 
 legs. She was glad that she would escape the 
 thought of it this week, at any rate. 
 
 They had an engagement in town the next 
 evening, which was Saturday, and company all 
 day Sunday. When the company had de- 
 parted Robert had still to be read to exhaustively 
 before going to bed, a Sunday night office that 
 had lately torn Mrs. Laurence asunder in the 
 performance, her husband going over to con- 
 sult Mr. Stone who had once fished in some 
 prehistoric period, and not coming back until 
 she was ready for bed herself. To-night, 
 Robert, angelic-eyed and flushed on his white 
 pillow, kept her by his bedside at least half an 
 hour longer, consulting her on matters of the 
 soul, such as if it was always right if you told 
 
 [171] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 the Exact Truth; which only, after all, led up 
 to an ungranted request not to be sent to the 
 post-office any more in the afternoons, for the 
 absurd reason that he didn't like to go in the 
 doorway; she was obliged to define at length 
 what a Duty was. 
 
 But to-night Will didn't go out; he was still 
 in his own room when she reached it. 
 
 "Come in," he said hospitably, clearing a 
 place for her on the lounge, as she trailed, in 
 her pretty blue gown Mrs. Laurence liked 
 pretty clothes through the disorder. "I'm 
 just trying to think what I'll take." He in- 
 dicated an immense pile on the floor beside an 
 open suitcase. "Shoes take up the most room, 
 of course, and those boots. Last year I stuffed 
 some things in the bait-pail, but I'm not going 
 to take the bait-pail. One thing I'm going to 
 
 decide right now " he spoke with sudden 
 
 forcefulness, stalked forward and abstracted 
 a pair of trousers from the pile, and sent them 
 flying across the room. "I've always taken 
 two pairs and I've never needed more than 
 one. I've settled that question now and forever. 
 What's the matter, Nan?" 
 
 Mrs. Laurence sat gazing up at him with 
 startled eyes. "What are you making all these 
 arrangements now for?" 
 
 "For Thursday, of course." 
 
 "But you're not going!" 
 [172] 
 
Thursday 
 
 " Not going? What do you mean? Of course 
 I'm going!" 
 
 " But I understood " Mrs. Laurence felt 
 
 her lips trembling beyond her control. "You 
 told me you would stay home on account of the 
 Von Rosens." 
 
 "You bet your life I didn't," said Mr. Lau- 
 rence, emphatically, roused to an unusual effort 
 of slang. "Why, you're losing your mind, 
 Nan ; I say a thing like that? I never considered 
 it for a moment!" 
 
 "You told me to have a good dinner." 
 
 "Of course I did that's all right. I'm 
 fond of old Mother Von Rosen. It's too bad; 
 I'd like to see her, of course, if it were any 
 other time; but as for saying I'd stay home, 
 after all the arrangements I've made with 
 Wynkoop no, not for the Queen of Sheba!" 
 
 "Will!" said Mrs. Laurence. Her voice 
 rose tragically. "Then all I can say is, that 
 if your love for sport makes you so ungrateful, 
 if it blots out everything but the little, narrow, 
 inch-wide way of your own pleasure, so that 
 you can't even give it up to see friends whom you 
 profess to love, to whom you own yourself 
 deeply indebted, and whom you may never 
 see again in this world if it makes you not 
 even care for what is right then I think 
 fishing is a wicked thing ! " 
 
 "All right, then it is," said her husband, 
 
 [173] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 with cold gaiety. "I'm a thief and a murderer. 
 Will you just move your foot for a moment? 
 There's a reel down on the floor there. It's a 
 new one." His voice insensibly softened; he 
 smiled down at her. "Would you like to see 
 how it works?" 
 
 "Thank you, no," said Mrs. Laurence politely. 
 She went downstairs and played Handel's Largo 
 on the piano, under the rose-coloured lamp, 
 amidst the pretty artistic furnishings of the 
 room, with great care and deep expression, 
 that she might feel how calm she was. But 
 if he hadn't given up, she hadn't, either. It 
 seemed to be the deadlock that she had felt 
 imminent for so long. She knew, as every 
 loved wife knows, that she could win if she 
 descended to certain measures; if she cried all 
 the time, for instance, so that she threatened to 
 make herself ill but to that she couldn't 
 descend. She could not win by an appeal 
 to the senses; she couldn't wheedle, she couldn't 
 coax as some women might and whose 
 profitable lightness she almost envied. When 
 it came to a question of right there was a 
 certain sweet and truthful earnestness in her, 
 that connection with something high, which 
 wouldn't let the appeal to it rest on anything 
 lower. She had a standard, and he loved her 
 for it. She tried to see his point of view 
 almost saw it, before it slipped predestinedly 
 
 [174] 
 
Thursday 
 
 away. Then she couldn't stay downstairs any 
 longer, she must go up where he was; perhaps 
 he had been thinking over what she had said. 
 
 As she reentered the room, he looked up 
 from the tackle-box to say: 
 
 "Cheer up, Nan, it'll be all right; they won't 
 come." 
 
 "Why do you think that?" She had a 
 momentary gleam of hope. 
 
 "Oh, just on general principles," he answered 
 carelessly. There were some things which 
 even after their closest communion of soul he 
 had never told his wife; had never even thought 
 of telling her. 
 
 He had lent poor old Mother Von Rosen a 
 rather large sum of money years ago, which 
 she had never been able to repay; on that 
 last visit, six years ago, she had agonized over 
 it when alone with him, though he had told her 
 he didn't care if it was never paid. She mightn't 
 look on this visit as lightsomely as Nan sup- 
 posed. 
 
 "It's all very well to talk that way, but 
 they are coming; they would have sent 
 word at once if they hadn't been." Her voice 
 was very gentle, but clear, as if she were speak- 
 ing to Robert. "Will, if you knew what it 
 means to me to have you go on this fishing trip 
 now it isn't your going, it's what it means. 
 Dear, I've stopped being provoked and silly, 
 
 [ 175 ] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 it's just your own good I'm thinking of 
 it's the way I've seen other men deteriorate, 
 the way I thought you never could. I'd be a 
 poor kind of a wife if I couldn't help you to 
 keep to your highest self if I shrank from 
 telling you what was the truth." 
 
 "See here, Nan. Do you actually mean to 
 say that you want me to stay home?" asked Mr. 
 Laurence. His voice was amazed, incredu- 
 lous, as if he heard her stupendous words for the 
 first time. "For, of course, you know if you 
 say the word, I won't go." His outraged eyes 
 fixed hers, his lips pressed together, the lower 
 one protruding slightly over the other; his 
 unbending figure remained as much a thing 
 apart from her as if her arms were not around 
 him. Twelve years of intimate married life 
 hadn't done away with a certain subtle strange- 
 ness in it; his wife had at times an unexplained 
 awe of him as a man perhaps he had it 
 also in his turn at times toward some phases of 
 her womanhood. 
 
 The moment for which she had hoped and 
 striven had actually come like a stroke of 
 lightning from heaven, but she could no more 
 take advantage of that moment now than she 
 could have raised herself through the ceiling 
 it was an effort out of nature. She tem- 
 porized instead with angry weakness. 
 
 "Why should you throw all the responsibility 
 
Thursday 
 
 on me? You know perfectly well yourself 
 what you ought to do." 
 
 "All right then, well let the subject 
 drop" said Mr. Laurence. 
 
 "And you're going?" 
 
 Ill 
 
 Those ensuing three days were the dreariest 
 of her life; not even when Robert had the 
 diphtheria had she been so mentally distraught. 
 There was no relief for the sickness of her soul. 
 She couldn't forgive Will for going, and if 
 he had stayed he couldn't have forgiven her. 
 Anyway, she would have had to lose. That 
 was what it was to be a woman you always, 
 always had to give up! A man gave you 
 what he wanted you to have, but if there was 
 something you wanted and he didn't under- 
 stand the need, you had to go without. And 
 if Will even now had only shown her the little 
 loving attentions that he had often shown 
 her before brought her flowers or sweets 
 but he only brought home more fishing-tackle. 
 He wasn't doing anything to make up to her 
 for this, precisely because he would never 
 realize that there was anything to make up to 
 her for. He was obsessed by this mania for 
 fishing! She could call it nothing else. He 
 was as amiable, as courteous, as affectionate as 
 
 [177] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 ever, but as one listening to the Higher Call 
 beyond, and all aglow with it. All he wanted 
 to do was to go fishing! 
 
 She waited until the day beforehand to make 
 out languidly her menu for the loathed dinner; 
 her mind's eye pictured her surrounded by 
 kind, tiresome Von Rosens, supporting their 
 astonished, hurt disappointment; lamely lying 
 out of the affair, telling them how much Will 
 wanted to stay home and see them, but being 
 bound by his word etc., etc. The mere 
 thought of that dinner alone with them made 
 her feel frantic. She morbidly dreaded meeting 
 Mrs. Stone when she went to market, to be 
 revealed to the pitying neighbourhood afterward 
 in her character as a repudiated wife. 
 
 Beside the larger stress was the minor one of 
 a daily tussle with her son about changing 
 those brown corduroy knickerbockers in which 
 he seemed to want to live; he always forgot in 
 the morning to put on the blue ones hung over 
 night by the side of his bed. She was already, 
 in Robert, experiencing the difficulty of mak- 
 ing anything masculine do what he didn't 
 want to do; Wednesday, she had sent him 
 upstairs from the lunch table to change, 
 and then come back and show her he had 
 changed. And late in the afternoon, going 
 into his room, she spied the discarded garments 
 on the closet floor; as she picked them up a 
 
 [178] ' 
 
Thursday 
 
 stream of white envelopes slid from the pockets 
 before her horrified eyes wedding invitations, 
 bills, a letter from her sister, three from friends, 
 four small invitations, a letter in a German hand- 
 writing Mrs. Laurence's fingers eagerly tore 
 it open. 
 
 It had been written, of course, the very day 
 that she had met the Von Rosens; they had 
 decided to go home without coming back to 
 New York at all. 
 
 They were not coming they had never 
 been coming! The whole pulling contention 
 of this bitter week might have been avoided; 
 that was her first fierce thought; but it was too 
 late to alter the situation now the moral 
 aspect remained unchanged. Yet in that un- 
 reasonable way in which the material affects 
 the spiritual, she felt a little more lenient to- 
 ward her husband because she was not to suffer 
 this last unbearable thorn-pricking, though it 
 was by no doing of his. When she told Will 
 that night he acquiesced brightly. 
 
 "Is that so? I never supposed they'd really 
 come." 
 
 "I don't see how you could possibly suppose 
 that." She felt herself drearily in the aggressive 
 again, at once. " Where are you going? " 
 
 "I'm going up to settle things with Robert." 
 
 "Will Will!" her agonized voice halted 
 him. "I've been talking to him. He didn't 
 
 [179] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 tell me a lie truly ! I have such an absurd 
 way of speaking. It appears that I always 
 said: 'Did I get any letters to-day?' Of 
 course I didn't get them. If I had asked him, 
 ' Have you any letters for me? ' he would have 
 handed them over at once. It was a sort of a 
 game with the child; one understands so little 
 what is in a child's mind! I blame myself for 
 persisting in sending him to the post-office 
 when he particularly asked me not to. Will I" 
 
 " He'll get your letters all right while I'm 
 gone," said Mr. Laurence on his return from the 
 upper regions. "The little rascal! " His tone 
 had a satisfied affection in it. "No; you're not 
 to go up." 
 
 His wife hid her face in his shoulder; she 
 felt that she desperately needed a little comfort. 
 After a few moments she murmured in a voice 
 which she tried hard to steady: 
 
 "Do you suppose we can read a little together 
 this evening as long as you are going away 
 to-morrow?" 
 
 "Why, I'd Kke to, dear, but I'm afraid I can't 
 to-night," said her husband kindly. "I've 
 got to go out and grub for worms Wendell's 
 coming up to help me, and Stone says he'll 
 go with us and carry the lantern. Worms seem 
 uncommonly hard to find out here. We 
 never sent any word to Higgins to have some 
 [180] 
 
Thursday 
 
 for us. I'll ask Ellen for an old tomato can. 
 You look tired; why don't you go to bed? 
 I've got to get my things together afterward; 
 I'll be puttering around till all hours." 
 
 "Oh, of course you will!" said his wife 
 below her breath. What difference did it 
 make whether the Von Rosens came or not, 
 except that she was free of that unbearable 
 sting of their entertainment? Their not coming 
 hadn't altered the larger issue which they had 
 set in motion . She and her husband had nothing 
 in common any more, that was certain. She 
 might as well be on the other side of the world. 
 He didn't even know that she gave him short 
 answers that fateful Thursday morning at 
 breakfast. There was a whole day's hard 
 work he was a busy lawyer before that 
 seven-o'clock train at night with Wynkoop; 
 a whole day's work before the glory of 
 that dearly prized, transcendent holiday could 
 begin, but the absorption of it was already in 
 his eyes, in his voice, in every gesture. 
 
 Even as he kissed her good-bye in the hall, 
 his hands were clapping his pockets to make 
 sure certain treasures were in them, before 
 putting on his hat and adequately snatching 
 up the enormous pack, the landing-net, the 
 rods, the camera, and that iron-weighted suit- 
 case. 
 
 Then as he went striding down the walk, with 
 [181] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 the free motion of one whose mind and muscles 
 are lightly attune, while she held the door open 
 gazing after him, the thing happened which she 
 was always wishing might happen and which 
 never did; he turned and took a couple of steps 
 backward toward her to speak to her again. 
 He called out: 
 
 "I'll bring you back all the trout you want!" 
 in the tone of one pouring crown jewels at her 
 feet. His dear, happy smile of unquenchable 
 belief in her oneness with him was like a flashing 
 accolade that touched her for an ennobling 
 instant as she rose to the occasion. 
 
 "If you don't, I'll never forgive you!" 
 she called back, with full-toned, glad high- 
 heartedness. 
 
 She couldn't have done it if the Von Rosens 
 had been coming! 
 
 When he was no longer in sight she went 
 into the house again and sat down on the 
 sofa, trembling a little, with a vista opening 
 before her down which she could see but dimly 
 as yet. 
 
 Perhaps perhaps, in that sweet confusion 
 of thoughts and feelings that seemed to have 
 unbidden possession of her, she saw herself 
 still, in some new way, the Dispenser of 
 Delights; perhaps she didn't know it 
 mightn't be a deadlock after all! 
 
 [182] 
 
Bunny's Bag 
 
Bunny's Bag 
 
 WAS the fifteenth of May. The large 
 calendar with the enormous black numbers 
 that hung opposite Mr. Ridgely Fergu- 
 son's desk announced the fact persistently when- 
 ever he raised his brown nervous eyes. Years 
 after, when the fifteenth of May was mentioned, 
 it brought back a vague, haunting sense that 
 something of import, long since forgotten, had 
 happened on that date; as the grief -stricken one 
 in Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's poem, leaning 
 forward with his hand on his knees, looking 
 vacantly down into the weeds and grasses, 
 remembered clearly afterward not what had 
 driven him there, but only that "the wood- 
 spurge" had a "cup of three.'' 
 
 Apart from looking at the calendar, Mr. 
 Ferguson was staying home ostensibly to 
 write a popular financial article which in- 
 cidentally refused to write itself to be de- 
 livered to the magazine on Monday. It was 
 Saturday a half -holiday by rights and 
 his wife, who had an appointment with her 
 sister in town directly after lunch, warmly 
 
 [185] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 deplored the necessity of leaving the house when 
 he was unaccustomedly in it. 
 
 "But you'll have a better chance to write 
 when I'm out of the way!" she proclaimed. 
 "Everything will be quiet this afternoon, and 
 you'll have nothing to disturb you." 
 
 He had acquiesced, with a sneaking feeling 
 of anticipatory relief in the possession of a 
 perfectly clear field, the house all to himself, 
 with none to ask him why or wherefore; with 
 no sense of Bunny's pervading presence 
 neither the sound of her light footsteps nor her 
 voice, as she went restlessly in and out of other 
 rooms, nor her head poking in at the door 
 to see how far he'd got, to disturb him even 
 momentarily, nor what went deeper! that 
 sense of the critical frame of her mind where he 
 was concerned. 
 
 Yet, what is there in an empty house with all 
 hindrances to work removed that so often 
 militates against it? Why is it that when one 
 stands no chance of interruption, ideas halt 
 and stumble against some unseen barrier? There 
 is a vacuum where before was fulness, a ghostly 
 sense of strangeness in which the spirit has to 
 strive to regain its natural bearings a chill 
 pressure is laid upon the working muscles that 
 numbs it. Far off in the kitchen Ridgely could 
 hear the clatter of dishes, or the dull shaking 
 down of the kitchen range alien sounds that 
 
 [186] 
 
Bunny's Bag 
 
 were usually veiled from his perception. The 
 grandfather clock in the hall ticked loudly as in 
 an empty vault; the strike was out of order, 
 because he never could take the time to fix it. 
 He had an almost irresistible desire to put down 
 his urgent work and take time to fix it now. 
 He might even have insanely done so if it hadn't 
 occurred to him that he had forgotten to bring 
 out the new weight for which Bunny had been 
 asking him for the last two weeks. 
 
 Writing his financial article seemed on the 
 face of it to be an easy task; his facts were 
 ready to hand, cut from newspapers or noted 
 down from other sources. The Express Com- 
 panies, the Tariff, the Trusts, the High Cost 
 of Living, were all represented he had tabu- 
 lated^ figured, compared. The only difficulty 
 lay in the proper handling of the subject; it had 
 to catch the popular, un technical reader; it 
 all depended on getting the right keynote. 
 He had already written and rejected seven 
 opening paragraphs. 
 
 A yellow envelope on the mantelpiece to 
 one side of the black-numbered calendar caught 
 his roving eye: Nelly had brought it when the 
 postman made his last round. He knew it as 
 a bill from the plumber, which had no reason 
 for being there, or for the " Please Remit," 
 that, he felt by instinct, adorned one corner of 
 it; he had had its double in his pocket since 
 
 [187] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 last month, and had promised his wife faithfully 
 to write out an immediate check for it from the 
 balance which she knew to be in the bank. 
 Somehow, when he got so far as putting a bill 
 in his pocket he felt as if it were paid. He 
 got up now, took the duplicate, tore it in small 
 pieces with his long, nervous fingers, and dropped 
 them in the waste-basket. There was no need 
 of Bunny's seeing it when she came in. 
 
 On the brink of grappling with the financial 
 article his mind wandered idly picking up 
 foolish straws, such as "Seed-time and bill- 
 time shall not fail"; he imagined the consterna- 
 tion in different households if all such missives 
 were put in the hand of a special messenger 
 with a whistle, to be called the Bill Whistler; 
 what awful revelations would be made. He would 
 send the check for this bill that very afternoon; 
 he only hoped he wouldn't tell Bunny about 
 his f orgetfulness he had an absurd habit 
 of confession; he couldn't help telling her things 
 even when he had firmly resolved not to. 
 
 He looked meditatively now at the faded, 
 silver-framed photograph of her that had stood 
 for eight years in the corner of his desk a 
 childish-faced Bunny, with a rose in her hair. 
 She had a different expression now. 
 
 " There's some one at the telephone for you, 
 sir." 
 
 Ridgely arose with a start and made his way 
 
 [188] 
 
Bunny's Bag 
 
 to the landing. It was his wife's voice at the 
 other end of the wire. 
 
 "Ridgely, is that you, dearest?" 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 "Well, I want to tell you that we have just 
 had the most delightful invitation for to-night. 
 Sue and Joe are to take us with them to dinner 
 at the Pallisers' the Hawley Pallisers' he's 
 the artist, you know; they are the ones who have 
 the gorgeous Italian studio, and are so charming. 
 Do you understand me, dearest?" 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 "I thought if you could take the six o'clock 
 train that ought to give you time to finish 
 your article first. Besides, if you haven't 
 finished it, you'll need a rest and a change then, 
 anyway. The Pallisers are going to Europe 
 next week, and we'll never get such an invita- 
 tion again. I'm just crazy about it! And, 
 dearest - 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 "I want you to bring in a bag with my things. 
 Nelly can get them together. You'd better 
 get a pencil and paper and write them down. 
 Have you got it there? Well, all right, dearest. 
 Now listen: 
 
 " My evening gown." 
 
 "Your evening gown which one?" 
 
 "Ridgely Ferguson, I've had the same evening 
 gown for two years. The white silk, the only 
 
 [189] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 one I possess. It's hanging up in my closet 
 Nelly knows. And my white silk stockings 
 and white slippers. Tell Nelly to clean them 
 with gasoline if they need it, and put them in 
 the sun so they won't smell; and my long white 
 gloves, the best pair; she'd better clean them, too; 
 they are in my second drawer; or they may be 
 rolled up in my silver scarf I want that, 
 too in the blue window-box in my room. 
 And I want my white bandeau for my hair; 
 it has pink rosebuds on it Nelly knows where 
 it is. Have you written all that down, dear?" 
 
 " Yes, dear." 
 
 "Tell her to get the tan-leather suit-case 
 from the tank room. Oh! and I want my 
 little pearl pendant, it's in the green case in my 
 top drawer the chain is in the jewel-box. 
 Oh! and my messaline underslip. Tell Nelly 
 not to forget that when she gets the dress. 
 I think that's all. Did I say the slippers, 
 dearest?" 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 "Perhaps you'd better read the list over, 
 dearest." 
 
 "Yes, dear. White silk gown in closet. 
 White silk stockings. White slippers to be 
 cleaned. White gloves, ditto. Silver scarf in 
 blue window-box. White bandeau with rosebuds 
 for hair. Pearl pendant. Chain. White mes- 
 saline slip." 
 
 [190] 
 
Bunny's Bag 
 
 "Yes, that sounds all right and oh, dear- 
 est - 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 "Be sure and don't forget a thing. Oh, and 
 you'd better bring my tube of cold cream and the 
 little silver shoe-horn on the dressing-table. 
 Sue never keeps anything where you can find it, 
 since the baby came. And dearest there's 
 a couple of yards of \yhite baby ribbon in my 
 work-basket or somewhere, if Nelly can find 
 it you won't forget anything this time, will 
 you, dearest?" 
 
 "No, dear." 
 
 "Dinner's at seven-thirty. You'll have to 
 get dressed yourself, don't forget that. Come 
 straight up to Sue's as quick as you can with 
 my things. Tell Nelly not to light the lamps, 
 and to turn down the gas in the hall. Good-bye." 
 
 "Good-bye, dear." 
 
 Ridgely hung up the receiver and went back 
 to his room. As he sat down to his work once 
 more he had a paralyzing sensation of being 
 physically and mentally exhausted. He took 
 up the pen: his brains felt as if they had been 
 scattered in a dozen different directions, and 
 could never come together again to a focussing 
 point. 
 
 "Please, sir " it was Nelly's voice again 
 as before. "Some one's at the telephone for 
 you, sir." 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 Ridgely laid down his pen with an exclamation 
 and stepped down to the landing once more. 
 It was his wife's voice, as he knew it would be. 
 
 " Is that you, dearest? 7 ' 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 "I just want to say that I hope you don't 
 mind coming this way. If it were any ordi- 
 nary invitation, I would have refused; but 
 one like this, so important you sounded 
 some way as if Sue is paying for these calls, 
 dearest." 
 
 "No, I don't mind it's all right. But 
 I'll have to get back to work now, if 
 
 "And you won't forget?" 
 
 "No. Good-bye!" 
 
 As he started back to his desk it suddenly 
 struck him with a spasm of fear that he almost 
 had forgotten. Nelly must be called at once 
 and started on her quest. She listened, with 
 her head on one side, as he read over the list 
 aloud impressively; her running comments 
 showed a reassuring intelligence that took the 
 whole burden from him. 
 
 "Ah, yes, 'tis in her lower drawer. The 
 blue window-seat ah, yes. I'll find the 
 gloves whichever place they are. Ah, yes, 
 'tis cleaned they have to be. If you'll give me 
 the paper, sir 'twill be all right. I'll have 
 them in the big dress suitcase when you're 
 ready for them." 
 
 [192] 
 
Bunny's Bag 
 
 It was already three o'clock. The indefinite 
 spaciousness of the afternoon in which any large 
 work might be accomplished had contracted 
 to a meagre complement of two hours and a 
 half two hours and a quarter, for he must 
 begin to dress and shave not later than five- 
 fifteen. 
 
 He marshalled his slips and notes before him 
 and strove with knitted brows to decide at 
 just what point he should begin. The first 
 sentence must catch the eye and pique the 
 attention, while yet being the exact beginning 
 from which the sequence would naturally flow. 
 It gave an arresting shock to realize how nearly 
 he had forgotten to speak to Nelly about Bunny's 
 things! He might have exerted himself to 
 throw a little more warmth into his tone when 
 he said he didn't mind coming in though 
 it was taking time from his work. 
 
 It was just that lack of enthusiasm that Bunny 
 had missed in his tone the first time and that 
 she longed to call forth in him. That was the 
 trouble she weighed every tone, every gesture; 
 she was always missing something in him and 
 showing that she did. 
 
 A strong smell of gasoline assailed him 
 evidently Nelly, good girl, was following out 
 instructions. The defective clock in the hall 
 suddenly struck thirteen an unnatural hour. 
 By looking at his watch he found that thirty 
 
 [193] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 minutes had gone from his afternoon. He went 
 in the other room and deliberately laid out his 
 togs, even his necktie, so that if he ever got 
 started on his theme he needn't stop until the 
 last possible minute. 
 
 He shaved, put on his dressing-gown, came 
 back to his desk; it was five minutes of 
 four. The sense of the shortness of the time 
 left seemed to give a click to the close-locked 
 mechanism of his brain; he seized the pen 
 masterfully and wrote without hesitation his 
 illuminating opening sentence: 
 
 "The late Commodore Vanderbilt was once 
 heard to say " 
 
 The handling of the whole thing suddenly 
 became plain before him; the newspaper clip- 
 pings and financial tables and jottings fell into 
 place like the blocks from a magic wand; 
 his pen went like a race-horse. His face grew 
 flushed as he wrote and wrote, faster and faster, 
 with higher concentration each moment. A dark- 
 ening shadow across his paper made him sud- 
 denly look up at last and glance at his watch. 
 Immersed as he had been in his work, the 
 sixth sense of a commuter as to trains had not 
 left him. 
 
 Twenty minutes to six. He scratched another 
 sentence, flung down the pen impatiently and 
 dashed for his clothes, blessing himself for having 
 laid them out. 
 
 [194] 
 
Bunny's Bag 
 
 "Nelly! Nelly!" he shouted, as he tugged 
 on his waistcoat, "is that bag ready?" 
 
 "I'm just after closing it, sir," said the maid. 
 
 "You're sure everything is there?" 
 
 "Ah, yes, sir, everything." 
 
 "All right, give it to me, then." 
 
 He finished his hurried toilet subconsciously, 
 his mind still immersed in pregnant sentences, 
 caught up the bag, ran downstairs with it and 
 deposited it by the front door while he put on 
 his overcoat and hat, ran back upstairs swiftly 
 to get his commutation and money not very 
 much of the latter from the pocket of his 
 everyday suit, and was off at last. 
 
 It was time. He swung complacently on to the 
 just departing train with that pioneering prehen- 
 sile leg-movement which bespeaks long practice. 
 
 There were not many people in the car at 
 that time of day. Ridgely sat abstractedly, 
 gazing straight before him, with brows knit, 
 his lips occasionally moving with the reflex 
 action of the paragraphs pounded out by his 
 still-working brain. That was a good article, 
 if he knew one; it could be read with interest 
 by people who knew nothing technically of the 
 subject as well as by those who did. It was 
 by such handling of facts as this that men suited 
 the popular taste, and to suit the popular taste 
 meant money and perhaps fame. He might come 
 to be an authority on certain subjects. 
 
 [195] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 Ridgely turned suddenly and looked out of 
 the window idly as the train made its only 
 stop; it was an express from here on. He 
 felt his half-arrested attention to have some 
 hazy yet peculiar significance in it that seemed 
 striving to reach his consciousness. Several 
 people got on, but he certainly knew none of 
 them a gaunt, low-collared, long-throated, 
 gum-chewing lad, a large woman with a little 
 boy, and a pretty girl with a bag. 
 
 A bag! Ridgely leaned swiftly forward and 
 groped beside him in the place where the tan- 
 leather dress-suitcase should have been. It 
 was not there it never had been there, 
 he had left it inside of the front door of his 
 own house when he had dashed out of it! 
 
 He sat, still gropingly leaning forward, struck 
 to stone, as the full horror of his loss broke 
 over him. 
 
 The next instant he had grasped a time-card 
 from his pocket and was wildly burrowing down 
 into the figures, trying to extract a return train 
 at the moment of his arrival in the big station, 
 and another with which it might connect at home 
 in time to get the bag after all. 
 
 As he knew before he looked, the outgoing 
 train left five minutes before his rolled in, 
 and the next would make eight-ten the earliest 
 hour at which he could catch one back to town. 
 It was as impossible now to get the bag to Bunny 
 
Bunny's Bag 
 
 in time for that dinner as to bring to life a man 
 he might have murdered; there was an appalling, 
 sheer finality about the frustrative quality of 
 such a grotesquely small amount of time and 
 space so few miles to go, so few minutes 
 lacking for accomplishment, and the bag utterly 
 beyond reach. 
 
 It was the worst thing, short of death or 
 disgrace, that could have happened; one thought 
 stared him in the face: What would Bunny 
 look like when she saw that he hadn't brought the 
 bag? 
 
 The thought was such a baleful one that he 
 leaned back with his eyes closed, to see it more 
 clearly with his inner mind. If he could have 
 had a moment's hope that even after the first 
 shock she might condone his oversight! But 
 there could be no such prospect. There had 
 been times times, as he allowed, much too 
 many! when he had too delusively enter- 
 tained such a hope. Bunny never condoned 
 anything he did; her clear sight of the reasons 
 for any remissness on his part, and her irritated 
 impatience at his omissions, grew with their 
 recurrence. 
 
 He had no excuse to offer for having forgotten 
 the bag, whose safe transmission meant so much 
 to her, beyond the usual one of having been 
 thinking of something else. 
 
 "Oh, you are always thinking of something 
 
 [197] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 else," she would reply in that tone that he knew 
 so well. "I cannot understand how you " 
 
 That was the way it always began. She 
 would flare out, control herself with an effort, 
 listen to his halting excuses, bitterly smiling, 
 drive home a truth or two stingingly, thresh the 
 whole matter out heavens, at what length! 
 and finally, as one beaten to cover by circum- 
 stances too much for her, come to him, the 
 angry, helpless tears still in her eyes, to be con- 
 soled by his caresses as the only thing left for 
 her. 
 
 He knew, with a twinge, what this going to 
 the Pallisers' meant to Bunny. She was always 
 deeply susceptible to the joy of the Surprise. 
 This stepping unexpectedly out of the rut of 
 daily life into another world, virtually, at the 
 Pallisers' Italian studio, would have given her 
 
 the keenest pleasure. Well ! This time 
 
 she couldn't have the pleasure, that was all 
 there was to it! And he had to meet her and 
 tell her so; there was no help for that. 
 
 It wasn't only his larger faults that she 
 minded, faults for which, when you came down 
 to it, she had some reason to hold him to ac- 
 count. He had been conscious for this last year, 
 especially, that her critical faculty where he was 
 concerned had taken more and more possession 
 of her. She was a woman who tried to live 
 up to her own generous standard; she exacted 
 
Bunny's Bag 
 
 much from herself in the household, his home 
 was well kept, his comfort considered and 
 planned for unvaryingly. 
 
 But she noticed everything he did; if he pulled 
 down a window-shade, she rose the moment after 
 and pulled it a fraction higher or lower; if he 
 laid a book inconsequently on the table, she 
 immediately took it up and put it in the right 
 place; if he poured a glass of water for himself, 
 she instantly wiped up the few drops that 
 he had spilled on the table. His necktie was never 
 the right one to wear with that suit, and the 
 suit itself the one that should have been sent 
 to be pressed. 
 
 He either shut the door so hard that it made 
 her jump or he didn't shut it at all. He forgot 
 continually when he should have remembered, 
 and remembered when he should have known 
 that the conditions were changed. Bunny was 
 not ill-tempered in this attitude of hers; she 
 might even laugh as she chided, though with an 
 inner note of earnestness that took all mirth 
 out of the laughter but his most trivial action 
 was subjected to an adverse scrutiny that saw 
 the flaw before it saw anything else or saw 
 nothing else. 
 
 Love cannot live in the chill atmosphere of 
 continual criticism. Where the atmosphere is 
 primarily of love, warm-enfolding, all-encourag- 
 ing love, criticism may take its rightful, helpful 
 
 [199] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 place among a hundred other forces, but it is 
 a blighting, killing thing where it has the main 
 prominence. 
 
 Ridgely had what he felt sometimes to be a 
 foolish, boyish habit of confessing small mis- 
 deeds to his wife when she needn't have known 
 them otherwise: when he forgot to post 
 her letters, or made a mistake in an order to be 
 delivered, or got something wrong that for a 
 wonder she had taken for granted he had got 
 right. He would resolve on the way home not 
 to tell Bunny a word about it this time; yet 
 after all he would find himself owning up lightly 
 in a moment of weakness, and getting the storm 
 over with at once; it seemed somehow petty, and 
 not worthy of him, to keep such things from his 
 wife even though he pandered to her critical 
 spirit in so doing. 
 
 But perhaps the real reason lay back of this; 
 perhaps the real reason so dimly felt as to be 
 unacknowledged lay in the fact that if he 
 recognized the necessity of silence toward her it 
 would also be a recognition of that quality in her 
 which he was growing to dislike; to dislike a 
 quality in a person means usually, after a while, 
 to dislike the person. 
 
 A sensation of intense bitterness surged sud- 
 denly over Ridgely, an overpowering revolt 
 at the conditions of his life. Women take 
 tally of their feelings continually, changing the 
 [200] 
 
Bunny's Bag 
 
 grades and colouring in the handling. It is 
 well that so many of the reluctant perceptions 
 of the normal man, unwarped by vice or genius, 
 are unacknowledged to himself; for once to 
 acknowledge a condition or a feeling makes it 
 instantly concrete. 
 
 As Ridgely sat leaning forward, his head in 
 his hands, his eyes gleaming with an exhausting 
 flame, a long procession of days stretched out 
 before him in which, instead of the warming 
 and steady glow of the hearthfire, he should 
 have the crackling of thorns; instead of bread, 
 a stone. Heaven knew, he worked hard enough 
 for Bunny to get her what she wanted! 
 
 There was this valise business. He had known 
 all the time that he should never have been 
 asked to stop his work and bring it in. He 
 tried to keep a hold on himself through the 
 intense passion that seemed about to rise and 
 wreck him. He was sorry that she should be 
 disappointed; of course he realized that this 
 chance to visit the Pallisers was an unusual 
 one that probably wouldn't occur again; they 
 were unusual people much sought after. 
 
 Yes but suppose Bunny was disappointed, 
 what did it all amount to anyway that such 
 monstrous prominence should be given it as 
 he foresaw would be the case? Her face, when 
 her eyes first fell on him without that bag, 
 showed itself inexorably before him. He felt 
 
 [201] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 in advance the impatient, dumb writhings of 
 spirit to which that exhausting disappointment, 
 with all its raking up of past misdeeds, would 
 condemn him until he was finally and tearfully 
 forgiven, when he no longer cared whether he 
 were forgiven or not, except that the air would 
 fortunately be breathable once more. 
 
 This, then, was what his married life had 
 come to be: a shift, an evasion, an eternal 
 struggle to keep up with trivial demands that 
 meant nothing, that never should have been 
 made! The daily irritation, the continued 
 picking at him, the continued lack of sympathy, 
 why should he put up with them longer? 
 
 An utterly wild and insane idea took momen- 
 tary possession of him. Suppose he cut the scene 
 with Bunny altogether; suppose he stepped out 
 of this train into one that would carry him far, 
 far out West? Yellowstone Park spread out 
 before him, all crimson and purple rocks and 
 golden-hazed mountains. 
 
 Suppose he took another train and stepped 
 into a new life where a man could be a man, 
 where there were big things instead of these 
 little ones that made this slowly tightening, 
 fettering web about his feet? He had always 
 loved travel; in his boyhood he had imagined 
 himself going through many lands. He mechan- 
 ically thrust his hand into his pocket; the action 
 brought him back sanely to reality. Besides 
 [ 202 ] 
 
Bunny's Bag 
 
 his commutation ticket, he had but a dollar 
 and fifty cents. What had come over him, 
 anyway? 
 
 He rose, as he saw others doing; the train was 
 nearing- the terminus. There was still that 
 tube journey for him afterward ! He remembered 
 suddenly, as if it were in the trembling film 
 of a moving-picture, an intoxicated man sitting 
 with a friend on the opposite side of a midnight 
 trolley once in the past; the friend was loudly 
 proffering encouragement as to the fitness of 
 the tipsy one's condition, in view of his home- 
 coming. The latter, while confidently agreeing, 
 stopped every few minutes to lament fearfully: 
 "Yes, but what'll my wife say when she sees 
 me?" 
 
 The gray stone of the platform, the darkened 
 lines of cars on the tracks, the high iron railing 
 separating them from the gray stone space 
 outside the waiting-rooms with their swinging 
 doors, the broad flight of gray stone steps leading 
 upward at the side, showed desolately through 
 the electric lights as the small straggling pro- 
 cession emerged from the train passengers 
 belonging to no regular hour of travel and with 
 no cheerful suggestion of the business world 
 about them. 
 
 Hunched ahead of Ridgely in the dreary 
 emptiness of the station were two smaller, 
 slouch-hatted men carrying bundles. A short, 
 [203 ] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 shawled, pyramidal Italian woman followed 
 with several children. He hurried past them 
 straggling and went down the steps to the 
 tunnel automatically, a desultory figure going 
 his way as in a dream. He was steeped in a 
 monstrous moodiness in which this sickening, 
 chafing episode seemed as if it would never 
 come to an end and be over instead of always 
 in prospect. 
 
 He sat down in the tunnel car with a lurch 
 and something hit lightly against his hand; as 
 he looked down he saw that a tiny locket which 
 he wore on his watch had come open. Within 
 was the tiniest curl, the faintest flaxen wisp, 
 cut from the head of the baby boy whose brief 
 little life had ended seven years before. 
 
 Something blurred Ridgely's vision. With a 
 mighty rush came a torrent of tenderness for 
 Bunny his Bunny little bride, little wife, 
 little mother. Ah, little mother! Could he 
 ever forget her face when the baby first lay in 
 her arms after that terrible fight for life could 
 he ever forget her face when the boy went from 
 them, lying in his arms at the very last, so little 
 and so unspeakably dear? The greatness of 
 that bond of joy and grief oh, what, what 
 could ever lessen it? How infinitely small 
 seemed these selfishnesses and meannesses of 
 hers yes, and his! when one so much as 
 touched the healing garment of Love. Poor 
 [204] 
 
Bunny's Bag 
 
 little Bunny, whoever else meted out stern jus- 
 tice to her, not he never he! 
 
 He sat up straight now, still looking pierc- 
 ingly ahead of him athwart the white-enamelled 
 posts of the car into the rock-bound darkness 
 outside. There was a new sadness in his eyes, 
 a firmer compression of his lips. 
 
 That rush of love and pity still held its place, 
 but he knew also inexorably that it would fade, 
 as before; no such moment of sentiment could 
 keep its living force in the demands of the present. 
 One couldn't live only on the love of the past 
 with a living, changing person; one drew one's 
 breath every morning anew to the day and the 
 love and the problems of it. He ought to 
 try to help Bunny of course; he ought to try to 
 remember what she missed. As for what he 
 missed why, he could be strong enough to 
 stand it. 
 
 The car came to a stop, and he rose with a sigh. 
 
 " Yes, but what 1 II my wife say when she sees me? " 
 
 There was still the trolley ride to Sue's 
 apartment before this interminable intermezzo 
 came to an end. 
 
 But after he had reached the top of the long 
 steps that lead up from the tube he saw in 
 astonishment a little figure in a blue suit and a 
 blue velvet hat with rosebuds on it, just beyond 
 the barrier of the ticket-takers no other than 
 Bunny herself! 
 
 [205] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 He braced himself for the fearful moment when 
 her gaze would take in the damning fact that 
 the precious bag was not with him yes, she 
 saw! but with no change of expression unless 
 it were to one of relief. 
 
 "Oh, I'm so, so glad you got my last tele- 
 phone/' she said excitedly, as she put out her 
 hand to press his arm when he came near her, 
 with that slight alteration of colour that always 
 showed in her face when she met her husband 
 suddenly. She went on talking swiftly: 
 
 "I was so afraid there might be some mistake! 
 Nelly said she knew you must only have stepped 
 out for a minute, for the bag was still by the 
 hall door while she was talking. It was awfully 
 sweet of you to come in this way. I wasn't 
 sure you would care to. Nelly gave you the 
 message correctly, I suppose. The baby had 
 just broken out with the measles, and of course 
 Sue and Joe couldn't go to the Pallisers' that 
 threw us out completely, and I was so disap- 
 pointed, when I had been expecting such a good 
 time! That was why I asked you to come in 
 anyway and we'd have a little dinner together 
 somewhere they're so upset at Sue's, and we 
 had only chops and string beans at home any- 
 way! As I telephoned, if you hadn't got here 
 by seven o'clock, I should have taken the next 
 train home. But it was awfully nice of you to 
 come!* 
 
 [206] 
 
Bunny's Bag 
 
 " I have only a dollar and fifty cents with me/' 
 said Ridgely warningly. 
 
 "Oh, I have a five-dollar bill. I wouldn't 
 have suggested the dinner if I hadn't had the 
 money. I know you too well for that! You 
 
 never " she stopped short with an odd effort, 
 
 as if in some way recalling herself from a for- 
 bidden path. Her eyes searched his face. 
 
 "Do you know, you looked so strange as 
 you came toward me I noticed it the first 
 moment I caught sight of you as if you had 
 been terribly ill," her voice shook for an instant, 
 "and gone to heaven! I know you work too 
 hard! It gave me the most awful shock, until 
 I saw that your necktie was crooked oh, 
 don't laugh at me! and that your shoes 
 aeeded a shine." 
 
 "You deserve to be laughed at," said Ridgely. 
 "I never felt better in my life. I'm going to 
 wear my necktie crooked after this, and go 
 without shines entirely, if I feel like it 
 you hear?" 
 
 His tone had a fascinating, careless, masculine 
 peremptoriness as her eyes helplessly adored 
 him, for the moment giving all, asking nothing; 
 she had all the charm of the little Bunny he had 
 married. 
 
 "Come on, Bun, don't let's stand here 
 spooning; let's go and get something to eat." 
 
 As usual, when one had braced one's self for 
 
 [207] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 a mighty effort, the sands of occasion had 
 shifted into a new shape that made the effort 
 unnecessary. In the utterly unexpected bub- 
 bling joyousness of this reprieve, in which his 
 spirits rose like a cork, Ridgely yet felt him- 
 self in danger of yielding to a grandly careless, 
 overpowering impulse to confession that might 
 spoil everything now. 
 
 If he could only keep from telling Bunny that 
 he had forgotten that bag! 
 
 [208] 
 
The Blossoming Rod 
 
The Blossoming Rod 
 
 . LANGSHAW had vaguely felt un- 
 usual preparations for a Christmas 
 gift to him this year; he was always 
 being asked for "change" to pay the children 
 for services rendered. 
 
 It might have seemed a pity that calculation 
 as to dollars and cents entered so much into 
 the Christmas festivities of the family, if it 
 were not that it entered so largely into the 
 scheme of living that it was naturally inter- 
 woven with every dearest hope and fancy; 
 the overcoming of its limitations gave a zest 
 to life. Langshaw himself, stopping now, as 
 was his daily habit, to look at the display made 
 by the sporting-goods shop on his way home 
 the Friday afternoon before Christmas Monday, 
 wondered, as his hand touched the ten-dollar 
 bill in his pocket a debt unexpectedly paid 
 him that day if the time had actually arrived 
 at last when he might become the possessor 
 of the trout-rod that stood in the corner of the 
 window; reduced, as the ticket proclaimed, from 
 fifteen dollars to ten. 
 
 [211] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 The inspiration was the more welcome because 
 the moment before his mind had been idly yet 
 disquietingly filled with the shortcomings of 
 George, his eldest child and only son, aged ten, 
 who didn't seem to show that sense of respon- 
 sibility which his position and advanced years 
 called for even evading his duties to his 
 fond mother when he should be constituting 
 himself her protector. He was worried as 
 to the way George would turn out when he 
 grew up. 
 
 This particular trout-rod, however, had an 
 attraction for Langshaw of long standing. He 
 had examined it carefully more than once when 
 in the shop with his neighbour, Wickersham; 
 it wasn't a fifty-dollar rod, of course, but it 
 seemed in some ways as good as if it were 
 it was expensive enough for him! He had 
 spoken of it once to his wife, with a craving for 
 her usual sympathy, only to meet with a sur- 
 prise that seemed carelessly disapproving. 
 
 " Why, you have that old one of your father's 
 and the bass-rod already; I can't see why you 
 should want another. You always say you 
 can't get off to go fishing as it is." 
 
 He couldn't explain that to have this partic- 
 ular split bamboo would be almost as good as 
 going on a fishing trip; with it in his hand he 
 could feel himself between green meadows, the 
 line swirling down the rushing brook. But 
 [212] 
 
The Blossoming Rod 
 
 later Clytie had gone back to the subject with 
 pondering consideration: 
 
 "Ten dollars seems an awful price for a rod! 
 I'm sure I could buy the same thing for much 
 less uptown; wouldn't you like me to see about 
 it someday?" 
 
 ' ' Great Scott ! Never think of such a thing ! ' ' 
 he had replied in horror. "I could get much 
 cheaper ones myself! If I ever have the money 
 I'll do the buying you hear? " 
 
 Hello, Langshaw! Looking at that 
 rod again? Why don't you blow yourself to a 
 Christmas present? Haven't you got the nerve? ' y 
 
 "That's what I don't know!" called Langshaw 
 with a wave of the hand as Wickersham passed 
 by. Yet, even as he spoke he felt he did know 
 his mind was joyously, adventurously made up to 
 have "the nerve"; he had a right, for once in 
 the twelve years of his married life, to buy him- 
 self a Christmas present that he really wanted, 
 in distinction to the gift that family affection 
 prompted, and held dear as such, but which 
 had no relation to his needs or desires. Children 
 and friends were provided for; his wife's winter 
 suit a present by her transforming imagination 
 already in the house; the Christmas turkey 
 for the janitor of the children's school sub- 
 scribed to sometimes he had wished himself 
 the janitor! and all the small demands that 
 drain the purse at the festal season carefully 
 
 [213] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 counted up and allowed for. There was no 
 lien on this unexpected sum just received. 
 The reel and the line, and the flies and such, 
 would have to wait until another time, to be 
 sure; but no one could realize what it would be to 
 him to come home and find that blessed rod 
 there. He had a wild impulse to go in and buy 
 it that moment, but such haste seemed too 
 slighting to the dignity of that occasion, which 
 should allow the sweets of anticipation - 
 though no one knew better than he the danger 
 of delay where money was concerned : it melted 
 like snow in the pocket. Extra funds always 
 seemed to bring an extra demand. 
 
 The last time there was ten dollars to spare 
 there had been a letter from Langshaw's mother, 
 saying that his sister Ella, whose husband was 
 unfortunately out of a position, had developed 
 flat-foot; and a pair of suitable shoes, costing 
 nine-fifty, had been prescribed by the physician. 
 Was it possible for her dear boy to send the 
 money? Ella was so depressed. 
 
 The ten dollars had, of course, gone to Ella. 
 Both Langshaw and his wife had an unsym- 
 pathetic feeling that if they developed flat-foot 
 now they would have to go without appropriate 
 shoes. 
 
 "You look quite gay!" said his wife as she 
 greeted him on his return, her pretty oval face, 
 with its large dark eyes and dark curly locks, 
 
 [214] 
 
The Blossoming Rod 
 
 held up to be kissed. "Has anything nice 
 happened?" 
 
 "You look gay too!" he evaded laughingly, 
 as his arms lingered round her. Clytie was 
 always a satisfactory person for a wife. ' * What's 
 this pink stuff on your hair popcorn? " 
 
 "Oh, goodness! Baby has been so bad, she 
 has been throwing it round everywhere," she 
 answered, running ahead of him upstairs to a 
 room that presented a scene of brilliant disorder. 
 
 On the bed was a large box of tinselled Christ- 
 mas-tree decorations and another of pink and 
 white popcorn the flotsam and jctsrm of 
 which strewed the counterpane and the floor to 
 its farthest corners, mingled with scraps of 
 glittering paper, an acreage of which surrounded 
 a table in the centre of the room that was 
 adorned with mucilage pot and scissors. A 
 large feathered hat, a blue silk dress, and a 
 flowered skirt were on the rug, near which a 
 very plump child of three, with straggling yellow 
 hair, was trying to get a piece of gilt paper 
 off her shoe. She looked up with roguish blue 
 eyes to say rapidly: 
 
 "Fardie doesn't know what baby goin' a 
 give 'm for Kissemus ! " 
 
 "Hello! This looks like the real thing," said 
 Langshaw, stepping over the debris; "but what 
 are all these clothes on the floor for? " 
 
 "Oh, Mary was dressing up and just dropped 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 those things when she went to the village with 
 Viney, though I called her twice to come back 
 and pick them up," said the mother, sweeping 
 the garments out of the way. "It's so tire- 
 some of her! Oh, I know you stand up for 
 everything Mary does, Joe Langshaw; but she 
 is the hardest child to manage !" 
 
 Her tone insensibly conveyed a pride in the 
 difficulty of dealing with her elder daughter, aged 
 six. 
 
 "But did you ever see anything like Baby? 
 She can keep a secret as well as any one! It 
 does look Christmassy, though doesn't it? 
 Of course all the work of the tree at the mission 
 comes on me as usual. The children, with the 
 two Wickersham girls, were helping me until 
 they got tired. Why don't you come and kiss 
 father, Baby? She is going to sweep up the 
 floor with her little broom so that father will 
 give her five cents." 
 
 "I don't want to fweep 'e floor!" said the 
 child, snapping her blue eyes. 
 
 "She shall get her little broom and fardie will 
 help her," said Langshaw, catching the child 
 up in his arms and holding the round little form 
 closely to him before putting her down carefully 
 on her stubby feet. 
 
 Later, when the game of clearing up was over 
 and the nickel clutched in Baby's fat palm, 
 he turned to his wife with a half -frown: 
 
 [216] 
 
The Blossoming Rod 
 
 " Don't you think you are making the children 
 rather mercenary, Clytie? They seem to want 
 to be paid for everything they do. I'm just 
 about drained out of change!" 
 
 " Oh, at Christmas ! " said the wife expressively. 
 
 "Well, I hope nobody is going to spend any 
 money on me; the only presents I want are 
 those you make for me/' said Langshaw warn- 
 ingly. He gave the same warning each year, 
 undeterred by the nature of the articles pro- 
 duced. His last year's " Christmas" from Clytie 
 had been a pair of diaphanous blue China-silk 
 pajamas that were abnormally large in chest 
 and sleeves as for one of giant proportions 
 and correspondingly contracted in the legs, 
 owing to her cutting out the tops first and having 
 to get the other necessary adjuncts out of the 
 scant remainder of the material. "You hear 
 me, Clytie?" 
 
 "Yes, I hear," returned Clytie in a bored 
 tone. 
 
 "Do you know : Langshaw hesitated, 
 
 a boyish smile overspreading his countenance. 
 "I was looking at that trout-rod in BurchelPs 
 window to-day. I don't suppose you remember 
 my speaking of it, but I've had my eye on it 
 for a long time." He paused, expectant of 
 encouraging interest. 
 
 "Oh, have you, dear?" said Clytie absently. 
 The room was gradually, under her fingers, 
 
 [217] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 resuming its normal appearance. She turned 
 suddenly with a vividly animated expression. 
 
 "I must tell you that you're going to get a 
 great surprise to-night it isn't a Christmas 
 present, but it's something that you'll like even 
 better, I know. It's about something that 
 George has been doing. You'll never guess what 
 it is!" 
 
 "Is that so?" said Langshaw absently in his 
 turn. He had a momentary sense of being set 
 back in his impulse to confidences that was not, 
 after all, untinged with pleasure. His delight- 
 ful secret was still his own, unmarred by unre- 
 sponsive criticism. "By the way, Clytie, I 
 don't like the way George has been behaving 
 lately. He hasn't shown me his report from 
 school in months; whenever I ask him for it he 
 has some excuse. Hello! Is that little Mary 
 crying?" 
 
 " I wonder what on earth has happened now ! " 
 exclaimed the mother, rushing from the room to 
 return the next instant, pulling after her a red- 
 cloaked and red-hatted little girl who sought to 
 hide behind her. 
 
 "Well, what do you think she's done?" 
 Clytie's tone was withering as she haled forth 
 the shrinking culprit, her small hands over her 
 eyes. "She lost her purse with the dollar she 
 had saved up for your Christmas present 
 lost the money for dear father's present; and 
 
 [218] 
 
The Blossoming Rod 
 
 all because she took it with her to buy a five- 
 cent pencil a green pencil with purple glass 
 in the end of it; to buy something for herself 
 before Christmas !" Clytie paused tragically. 
 "Of course, if she hadn't taken her money out 
 to spend it on herself she wouldn't have lost it!" 
 
 "I don't care!" burst out the culprit, her big, 
 dark eyes, just like her mother's, flashing from 
 under her brown curls, and her red lips set 
 defiantly. "It was my own money, anyhow, if 
 I did lose it. I earned it all myself. It wasn't 
 yours!" 
 
 "Oh! Oh! Oh!" interposed the father in 
 gentle reproof. "Little girls mustn't talk like 
 that to dear mother. Come, get up here on 
 father's knee so." He took off the red cap, 
 tucked the brown curly head in the bend of his 
 arm, his chin resting on the top of it as he went 
 on, with the child's small hands clutching at his. 
 "Mary must always do what mother says; but, 
 so far as this money is concerned, you can 
 make me something that I would like far better 
 than anything you could buy. Why don't 
 you make me another pincushion, for instance? 
 The one you gave me last year is quite worn out." 
 
 "A pink one?" asked Mary faintly. 
 
 "Yes. What's the matter now? " The child 
 had suddenly wriggled to a kneeling posture in 
 his hold and had her little strangling arms round 
 his neck in a tempest of sobs. 
 
 [219] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 "I don't want to give you a pi-ink pincushion 
 I don't want to! I want my dollar ! I want 
 my dollar to spend ! I want - Father, 
 
 I want my dollar my do-o-ol-lar! I want 
 my " 
 
 "What did I tell you, Mary Langshaw?" 
 cried Clytie. She appealed to her husband. 
 "It's just the way I knew she'd act. Now I 
 suppose you'll have to give it to her. Mary, 
 be still a moment her head is so hot!" 
 
 "There, there!" said Langshaw soothingly. 
 "She shall have her money this minute." 
 
 "Of course she doesn't deserve it," said Clytie, 
 but with a tone of relief in her voice that seemed 
 oddly greater than the occasion warranted. 
 Mary had wound herself round him passionately; 
 her sobs were dying away happily in long, deep 
 breaths at intervals. Baby, being undressed on 
 her mother's lap, was laughing over some pieces 
 of gilt paper. In the heart of this domesticity 
 it was as if the father and mother were embarked 
 with this little company on a full and swelling 
 river of love, of which they felt the exquisite 
 soothing ripples. 
 
 Langshaw put his hand into his pocket. 
 
 "No, I can't give you the dollar this minute, 
 little girl; father has only a ten-dollar bill. 
 I'll get it changed right after dinner. Isn't 
 dinner 'most ready, Clytie?" 
 
 "We'll go down just as soon as I get Baby in 
 
 [ 220] 
 
The Blossoming Rod 
 
 bed/' said the mother peacefully. "I don't 
 see why George isn't here. Goodness! There 
 he is now," she added as a tremendous slam of 
 the front door announced the fact. The next 
 moment a small boy, roguishly blue-eyed and 
 yellow-haired like Baby, with an extremely dirty 
 face and a gray sweater half covered with mud, 
 hurled himself into the room, surreptitiously 
 tickling one of Baby's bare feet and pulling 
 Mary's curls on his way to greet his father. 
 
 "What have you been doing to get so dirty?" 
 
 "Playing cops and robbers," said the boy, 
 serenely. His dimples appeared suddenly; his 
 eyes lit up. " Say, mother" - he turned to her 
 irresolutely " shall I tell father now? " 
 
 "Not until after dinner," returned the mother 
 inexorably. " Go and make yourself clean ! " 
 
 " May I put on my white silk tie? " George's 
 white tie was the banner of festivity. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You rouse my curiosity. This seems to be a 
 great occasion," said Langshaw. 
 
 "Oh, it is!" agreed the mother happily. 
 She murmured in his ear as they went down- 
 stairs: "I hope you'll show that you're pleased, 
 dear. You know sometimes when you really 
 are pleased you don't show it at once and 
 George has been trying so hard. If you'll 
 only show that you're pleased ' 
 
 "Yes all right!" returned the husband a 
 
 [221] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 little impatiently. Clytie had a sensitive con- 
 sideration for her son's feelings which struck 
 him at times as exaggerated. He thought of 
 the delightful secret back in his own mind; 
 there was no reason for talking any more about 
 the rod until he brought it; he would manage 
 to replace the dollar abstracted from the reserve 
 fund. 
 
 If he gave absent answers during the meal 
 Clytie seemed to be preoccupied also. Little 
 Mary, who sat by him, tucked her hand into 
 his as she prattled. 
 
 "Now, George !" said his mother at last 
 suddenly when the rice pudding had been 
 finished. George rose, clean and red-cheeked, 
 looking more than ever like a large edition of 
 Baby, in spite of his jacket and knickerbockers, 
 as he stepped over to his father with a new 
 dignity and handed him a folded sheet of paper. 
 
 "What's this?" asked Langshaw genially 
 opening it. He read aloud the words within, 
 written laboriously in a round, boyish hand: 
 
 To George Brander Langshaw, from father. 
 You Oh me five dolers. 
 
 Reseived paiment. 
 
 "Hello! Hello! What does this mean?" 
 asked Langshaw slowly with an unpleasant 
 startled sensation that any such sum in con- 
 nection with George was out of all reason. 
 
 [ 222 ] 
 
The Blossoming Rod 
 
 "It means a bill for you from me ! " announced 
 George. His cheeks grew redder, his blue 
 eyes looked squarely at his father. "It's for 
 this!" He pulled from his pocket a school 
 report card divided into tiny ruled squares, 
 filled with figures for half its length, and flung 
 it down proudly on the table before his parent. 
 
 " It's the Deportment since September. 
 You said when Miss Skinner sent that last note 
 home about me that if I could get a hundred in 
 Deportment for every month up to Christmas 
 you'd be willing to pay me five dollars. You 
 can see there for yourself, father, the three one 
 hundreds no, not that line that's only 
 fifty-five for spelling; nobody ever knows their 
 spelling! Here is the place to look in the 
 Deportment column. I've tried awful hard to 
 be good, father, to surprise you." 
 
 "The way that child has tried!" burst forth 
 Clytie, her dark eyes drowned in sparkles. 
 "And they're so unfair at school giving you a 
 mark if you squeak your chair, or speak, or look 
 at anybody; as if any child could be expected to 
 sit like a stone all the time! I'm sure I love to 
 hear children laughing and you know yourself 
 how hard it is for George to be quiet! We 
 had a little talk about it together, he and I; 
 and now you see! It's been such work keeping 
 his card from you each month when you asked 
 for it. One day he thought he had a bad mark 
 [223] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 and he couldn't eat any dinner you thought 
 he was ill; but he went to Miss Skinner the 
 next day and she took it off because he had 
 been trying so hard to be good. Joe, why 
 don't you speak? " 
 
 " George, I'm proud of you!" said Langshaw 
 simply. There was a slight huskiness in his 
 voice; the round face and guileless blue eyes 
 of his little boy, who had tried "awful hard to 
 be good," seemed to have acquired a new dignity. 
 The father saw in him the grown-up son who 
 could be depended upon to look after his mother 
 if need were. Langshaw held out his hand as 
 man to man; the two pairs of eyes met squarely. 
 " No thing you could have done would have 
 pleased me more than this, George. I value it 
 more than any Christmas present I could have." 
 
 " Mother said you'd like it," said the beaming 
 George, ducking his head suddenly and kicking 
 out his legs from behind. 
 
 "And you'll pay the five dollars?" supple- 
 mented Clytie anxiously. 
 
 "Surely!" said Langshaw. The glances of 
 the parents met in one of the highest pleasures 
 that life affords: the approval together of the 
 good action of their dear child. "George can 
 go out and get this ten-dollar bill changed." 
 
 "If you can't spare it, father - " suggested 
 the boy with some new sense of manliness, 
 hanging back. 
 
 [224] 
 
The Blossoming Rod 
 
 "I'm glad to be able to spare it," said the 
 father soberly. "It's a good deal of money," 
 he added. "I suppose, of course, you'll put 
 it in the bank, George?" 
 
 "Now you mustn't ask what he's going to do 
 with it," said Clytie. 
 
 "Oh, isn't it much!" cried little Mary. 
 
 "Dear me, there's the doorbell," said Clytie. 
 "Who can it be at this hour? Run, George, and 
 see!" 
 
 "It's a letter for you, mother," announced 
 George, reappearing. "There's a man in the 
 hall, waiting for an answer." 
 
 "It looks like a bill," said Clytie nervously, 
 tearing open the envelope; "but I don't owe 
 any bill. Why, it's two and a quarter, from the 
 tailor, for fixing over my old suit last fall! I'm 
 positive I paid it weeks ago. There's some 
 mistake." 
 
 "He says he's been here three times, but you 
 were out." 
 
 "Have you any money for it, Clytie?" asked 
 her husband. 
 
 Clytie looked as if a thunderbolt had struck 
 her. 
 
 "Yes, I have; but oh, I don't want to take 
 it for that! I need every penny I've got." 
 
 "Well, there's no need of feeling so badly 
 about it," said Langshaw resignedly. 
 
 "Give the ten-dollar bill to the man, George, 
 
 [225] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 and see if he can change it." He couldn't 
 resist a slight masculine touch of severity at 
 her incapacity. "I wish you'd tend to these 
 things at the time, Clytie, or let me know about 
 them." He took the money when George 
 returned. " Here's your dollar now, Mary- 
 don't lose it again! and your five, George. 
 You might as well take another dollar yourself, 
 Clytie, for extras." 
 
 He pocketed the remainder of the change 
 carelessly. After his first pang at the encroach- 
 ment on the reserve fund the rod had sunk so 
 far out of sight that it was almost as if it had 
 never been. He had, of course, known all 
 along that he would not buy it. Even the 
 sting of the " Amount due" quickly evaporated. 
 
 Little Mary gave a jump that bumped her 
 brown curly head against him. 
 
 " You don't know what I'm going to give you 
 for Christmas!" she cried joyously. 
 
 II 
 
 Langshaw was one of those men who have an 
 inherited capacity for enjoying Christmas. He 
 lent it his attention with zest, choosing the 
 turkey himself with critical care as he went 
 through the big market in town, from whence 
 he brought also wreaths and branches of holly 
 that seemed to have larger and redder berries 
 
 [226] 
 
The Blossoming Rod 
 
 than could be bought in the village. On Christ- 
 mas Eve he put up the greens that decorated 
 the parlour and dining-room a ceremony that 
 required large preparations with a step-ladder, 
 a hammer, tacks, and string, the removal of his 
 coat, and a lighted pipe in one corner of his 
 mouth; and which proceeded with such painstak- 
 ing slowness on account of his coming down from 
 the ladder every other moment to view the 
 artistic effect of the arrangements, that it was 
 only by sticking the last branches up any old 
 way at Clytie's wild appeal that he ever got it 
 finished at all. 
 
 Then he helped her fill the stockings, his own 
 fingers carefully giving the crowning effect of 
 orange and cornucopia in each one, and arranging 
 the large packages below, after tiptoeing down 
 the stairs with them so as not to wake the offici- 
 ally sleeping children, who were patently stark 
 awake, thrashing or coughing in their little beds. 
 The sturdy George had never been known to sleep 
 on Christmas Eve, always coming down the 
 next day esthetically pale and with abnor- 
 mally large eyes, to the feast of rapture. 
 
 On this Saturday Christmas Eve's eve 
 when Langshaw finally reached home, laden 
 with all the "last things" and the impossible 
 packages of tortuous shapes left by fond rel- 
 atives at his office for the children one 
 pocket of his overcoat weighted with the love- 
 [227] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 box of really good candy for Clytie it was 
 evident as soon as he opened the hall door that 
 something unusual was going on upstairs. 
 Wild shrieks of "It's father! It's father!" 
 rent the air. 
 
 "It's father!" 
 
 " Fardie ! Fardie, don't come up ! " 
 
 "Father, don't come up!" 
 
 "Father, it's your present!" 
 
 There was hasty scurrying of feet, racing to 
 and fro, and further shrieks. Langshaw waited, 
 smiling. It was evidently a "boughten" gift 
 then; the last had been a water pitcher, much 
 needed in the household. He braced himself 
 fondly for immense enthusiasm over this. 
 
 An expression of intense excitement was 
 visible on each face when finally he was allowed 
 to enter the upper room. Mary and Baby rushed 
 at him to clasp his leg, while his wife leaned 
 over to kiss him as he whispered: 
 
 "I brought out a lot of truck; it's all in the 
 closet in the hall." 
 
 George, standing with his hands in his pockets, 
 proclaimed loudly, with sparkling eyes: 
 
 "You nearly saw your present! It's from 
 mother and us. Come here, Baby, and pull 
 brother's leg. Say, father, do you like cut 
 glass?" 
 
 "O-oh!" came in ecstatic chorus from the 
 other two, as at a delightful joke. 
 [228] 
 
The Blossoming Rod 
 
 "It's a secret!" announced Baby, her yellow 
 hair falling over one round, blue eye. 
 
 " I believe it's a pony," said the father. "I'm 
 sure I heard a pony up here ! " 
 
 Shouts of renewed joy greeted the jest. 
 
 All the next day, Christmas Eve itself, when- 
 ever two or three of the family were gathered 
 together there were secret whisperings, more 
 scurryings, and frenzied warnings for the father 
 not to come into the room. In spite of 
 himself, Langshaw began to get a little curious 
 as to the tobacco jar or the fire shovel, or what- 
 ever should be his portion. He not only felt 
 resigned to not having the trout-rod, but a sort 
 of wonder also rose in him that he had been be- 
 witched even momentarily into thinking 
 he could have it. What did it matter anyway? 
 
 "It's worth it, old girl, isn't it?" he said 
 cryptically as he and Clytie met once un- 
 expectedly in the hall, and he put his arm 
 round her. 
 
 "Yes!" answered his wife, her dark eyes 
 lustrous. Sometimes she didn't look much 
 older than little Mary. "One thing though 
 I must say: I do hope, dear, that the children 
 have been thinking so much of our present to 
 you and saving up so for it I do hope, Joe, 
 that if you are pleased you'll show it. So far 
 as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter; but some- 
 times when, of course, I know how pleased 
 [229] 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 you really are you don't show it at once to 
 others. That's why I hope you'll show it to- 
 morrow if - 
 
 " Great Scott! Clytie, let up on it! What 
 do you want me to do jump up and down 
 and make a fool of myself?" asked her hus- 
 band scornfully. " You leave me alone ! " 
 
 It was Langshaw's firm rule, vainly pro- 
 tested even by his wife, that the household 
 should have breakfast on Christmas Day 
 before tackling the stockings a hurried 
 mockery of a meal, to be sure, yet to his mas- 
 culine idea a reenforcement of food for the 
 infant stomach before the long, hurtling joy 
 of the day. The stockings and the piles under 
 them were taken in order, according to age - 
 the youngest first and the others waiting in 
 rapt interest and admiration until their turn 
 arrived a pretty ceremony. 
 
 In the delicious revelry of Baby's joy, as 
 her trembling, fat little fingers pulled forth 
 dolls and their like, all else was forgotten 
 until it was Mary's turn, and then George's 
 and then the mother's. And then, when 
 he had forgotten all about it: "Now father!" 
 There was seemingly a breathless moment while 
 all eyes turned to him. 
 
 "It's father's turn now; father's going to 
 have his presents. Father, sit down here 
 on the sofa it's your turn now." 
 
 [230] 
 
The Blossoming Rod 
 
 There were only a blue cornucopia and an 
 orange and a bottle of olives in his stocking, a 
 Christmas card from his sister Ella, a necktie 
 from grandmamma, and nothing, as his quick 
 eye had noted, under it on the floor; but now 
 George importantly stooped down, drew a narrow 
 package from under the sofa and laid it beside 
 his father, pulling off the paper. Inside was a 
 slim, longish, gray linen bag. Langshaw studied 
 it for a moment before opening it. 
 
 "Well, I'll be jiggered!" he breathed, with a 
 strange glance round at the waiting group and an 
 odd, crooked smile. "I'll be jiggered ! " 
 
 There in its neatly grooved sections lay the 
 rod, ready to be put together not a rod, but, 
 as his eye almost unbelievingly reassured him, 
 the rod the ticket of the shop adorning it 
 in all its beauty of golden shellac and delicate 
 tip. His fingers touched the pieces reverently. 
 
 "Well, will you look at that! How did you 
 ever think of getting it? " 
 
 "How did I think of it? Because you talked 
 about it all the time/' said his wife scornfully, 
 with her arms round his neck from behind, while 
 the children flung themselves upon him. "Oh, 
 I know you thought you didn't; but you did 
 just the same. George heard you too. We got 
 Mr. Wickersham to pick it out. He said it 
 was the one you wanted. And the reel you 
 haven't noticed that box there the reel is 
 
Refractory Husbands 
 
 the right kind, he says; and the line is silk- 
 the best. There's the book of flies too six. 
 Baby's crazy over them! Mr. Wickersham 
 said it was all just what you ought to have. 
 We've been saving up for the longest time; 
 but we had to wait, you see, for George's 
 deportment before the things could be bought. 
 If it isn't right - 
 
 " Right? Say, this is the finest present 
 I ever had!" said Langshaw with glittering 
 eyes and that little crooked smile. "It just 
 beats everything!" 
 
 He rose, scattering his adoring family, and, 
 walking to the window, threw it open to the 
 frosty December air and called across to a 
 neighbour standing on the walk. 
 
 "Want to come over here, Hendon? Got 
 something to show you. Will you look at this! 
 Present from my wife and the kids been 
 saving up for it. It's a peach, I'll tell you that! 
 I'm going to take George off fishing this 
 
 spring What? Well, come over later, 
 
 when you've got time to take a good look at it." 
 
 "Do you like it, father?" came from three 
 different voices at once. 
 
 "Do I like it? You can just bet I do," 
 said Langshaw emphatically. He bent and 
 kissed the three upturned faces, and leaned 
 toward his wife afterward to press her sweet 
 waiting lips with his; but his eyes, as if drawn 
 
 [232] 
 
The Blossoming Rod 
 
 by a magnet, were only on the rod not the 
 mere bundle of sticks he might have bought, 
 but transformed into one blossoming with love. 
 
 "And do you know, we hardly saw a thing 
 of him all day!" Clytie proudly recounted 
 afterward to her sister. "My dear, he would 
 hardly take time to eat his dinner or speak to 
 any one; he was out in the back yard with Henry 
 Wickersham and Mr. Hendon until dark, 
 flapping that rod in circles the silliest thing ! 
 He nearly sent a hook into George's eye once. 
 George acted as bewitched as he did. Joe 
 kept telling every single person who came along 
 that it was 'a present from his wife and the 
 kids.' He certainly showed that he was pleased." 
 
 "It's been a pretty nice day, hasn't it?" 
 Langshaw said to his wife that Christmas night 
 when the children were at last in bed. "Best 
 Christmas I ever had ! To think of you and the 
 kids doing all this for me." 
 
 His hand rested lovingly on the rod, now 
 once again swathed in the gray linen bag. 
 He would have been the last to realize that, 
 in his humble way, he typified a diviner Father- 
 hood to the little family who trusted in his care 
 for them for all things came of him and of his 
 own had they given him. 
 
 THE END 
 
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS 
 GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY