LIBI 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 CALIFORNI, 
 SAN OIESO 
 
 due- /f*l 
 

 
 THE SIN OF ANGELS -^.^ 
 
 3SO3 
 
 Cromwell, I charge thee fling away ambition; 
 
 By that sin fell the angels." /
 
 THE 
 SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 BY 
 
 MARTHA GILBERT DICKINSON BIANCHI 
 
 ^ 
 
 Author of "A Modern Prometheus," "The Cuckoo's 
 Nest," "A Cossack Lover," etc. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DUFFIELD & COMPANY 
 1912
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1912, 
 BY DUFFIELD & COMPANY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I A VACANT TABLE ...... i 
 
 II RALEIGH PAYNE 18 
 
 III AT SKY HIGH ....... 37 
 
 IV RIDING ALONE 59 
 
 V THE MESSENGER OF BELGRADE . . 79 
 
 VI SHADOWS CAST BEFORE .... 106 
 
 VII THE WINTER OF THEIR DISCONTENT 125 
 
 VIII THE WHITE SWALLOW . . . .141 
 
 IX "SOME LITTLE TALK OF ME AND 
 
 THEE" . . 154 
 
 X ON THE PILLOW OF DOUBT . . .173 
 
 XI A COMMENTARY IN CARDS . . . 197 
 
 XII FORGETTING 216 
 
 XIII A WARNING 240 
 
 XIV ABSOLUTION 256 
 
 XV A PURITAN SABBATH 271 
 
 XVI TRENT 294 
 
 XVII Two BANKS OF A RIVER . . . .312 
 
 XVIII THE WISDOM OF A DREAM .... 333 
 
 XIX THE POSTMAN 349 
 
 XX AN ISSUE RAISED 366 
 
 XXI THE WAY OF THE WORLD .... 385 
 
 XXII AN ISSUE EVADED 414 
 
 XXIII THE TEST OF MONEY 436 
 
 XXIV THE ROYAL WAY OF THE CROSS . . 457 
 XXV THE SIN OF ANGELS 483
 
 TO 
 
 GASTON
 
 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A VACANT TABLE 
 
 HIGH noon at Piippe's marks social high- 
 tide during the season at Carlsbad. At 
 evening Society breaks up. In the morn 
 ing it is disintegrated, drinking its prescribed wa 
 ters at springs warranted to reduce undesirable 
 avoirdupois, and reproduce an appearance of lost 
 youth if not lost illusion; or being borne in the 
 seclusion of bath-chairs to the various treatments 
 incidental upon a " cure." At noon, however cas 
 ual or however exclusive the guest may be, Piippe's 
 is the universal rendezvous with all the world. 
 Here, as at the Casino, the desultory crowd is more 
 aristocratic than at Monte Carlo, less dull than that 
 of an English watering place. There is a certain 
 sanity, a self-conscious distinction observable in 
 the " public " on parade, and while to the naked eye 
 of the uninstructed, the men and women who pass 
 and re-pass may present no ostentatious claim, the 
 initiated often know their titles to be of Europe's 
 proudest. The breeding of the women alone is at-
 
 2 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 tested by their quiet, beyond need of that louder 
 personal advertisement so frequently adopted by 
 their sisters of a self-made democracy or the half- 
 world, so the atmosphere gains, in spite of the inev 
 itable human motley of any cosmopolitan crowd. A 
 King at home is always a King, though he discard 
 a crown for an Alpine hat and style himself the 
 Count of Nothing-in-Particular. And at Carlsbad 
 royalty habitually masquerades among common hu 
 manity; enjoying the secret of Polichinel shared 
 in good humour with all, since the cares of state 
 dare not approach the charmed circle of nominal 
 disguise. 
 
 On a certain noontide in July nearly a dozen 
 summers ago, the difficulty in securing tables or 
 even single places for dejeuner was frankly per 
 plexing the management. The maitre d'hotel was 
 in despair. The director had even condescended 
 to leave his sacred retreat, where he dwelt as a 
 myth upon Olympus no matter what the emergency 
 below, and stood frowning at a situation so serious, 
 and in reality so much to his entire satisfaction, 
 covering his complacency with a manner of anxiety 
 that deceived no one. Many breakfast parties 
 made up of varying nationalities, aristocratic and 
 assured, were standing unreckoned in the gala 
 swarm that ate and drank unconcernedly before 
 them. It was warm and bright after several days 
 of cold rain, so the terrace of course was earliest
 
 'A VACANT TABLE 3 
 
 filled. The inner balcony, glass enclosed, was over 
 flowing until even the musicians had been routed 
 and placed upon the stairway to relieve a little more 
 of the coveted space. The great main floor of the 
 caravansary was alive with colour and motion. 
 The summer hats of the women gave an effect of 
 gay parterres, and the white flannels of the men 
 mingled brightly with the uniforms of many grades 
 of officers. Two places only remained vacant. 
 These were at a table by a most desirable window, 
 and to them all new-comers were instantly at 
 tracted, only to be warned suavely away by the 
 attending garc.on, whose especial responsibility it 
 seemed to be, and who appeared rather complacent 
 than annoyed as the attention exacted by his cov 
 eted location increased. 
 
 Two men, who had nearly finished their break 
 fast at a table near, delayed from mere curiosity to 
 see for whom it was being reserved. A French 
 man and woman, who were waiting to slip into 
 their places shrugged impatiently and moved on, 
 the woman murmuring " Bete ! " under her 
 breath. An Austrian officer next approached, with 
 his wife, evidently a Viennese from the beauty of 
 her feet as she drew back her skirt to be seated, 
 with a gesture of authority. The two men looked 
 at her with interest, but instantly the deprecating 
 garqon had bowed them off and re-set the chair at 
 its exact original angle. The table was not re-
 
 4 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 served for them. The Frei-Herr of untold acres 
 must seek further. A breathless German next at 
 tempted it, insisting loudly that a third place be 
 laid on the end for his near-sighted daughter, who 
 had already caught up the " carte du jour " and was 
 holding it close to her nose, expostulating as to 
 the dearness of the fruit. Then a gay party of 
 voluble Americans drifted by, criticising the man 
 agement freely for the reservation " Why, even 
 at the Church of the Advent in New York the seats 
 are only held for pew-owners until after the second 
 lesson ! " protested a shrill girlish treble. Her es 
 cort's reply was inaudible. The two friends, who 
 were amusing themselves with the trivial little inci 
 dent, smiled at each other comprehendingly. The 
 older man might have been an American from any 
 where. He was a good looking affair of fifty or 
 more, who knew how to get what he wanted al 
 most anywhere, without making any fuss about it. 
 He was a cosmopolitan, who did not forget how to 
 speak pure English on his return to his native land 
 after either a short or long sojourn abroad, and 
 who remembered American modes and manners 
 without professed astonishment. Although per 
 fectly at home in France, where he had family con 
 nections as well as business interests, he never in 
 terlarded his mother tongue with Gallic interjec 
 tions or idiomatic lapses so affected by younger 
 diplomats of less serious experience than his own.
 
 A VACANT TABLE 5 
 
 Some of his friends considered his extreme sim 
 plicity rather over-done, but he had remained un- 
 corruptedly himself, in face of all temptations, pre 
 ferring to remain an American gentleman to a 
 polished imitation of a foreign importation. To 
 the gentle hint of his waiter now, " If M'sieur has 
 quite altogether finished " He quietly took up 
 the card, and glancing over it, ordered a sweet and 
 some fruit. The crestfallen servant moved away. 
 He had hoped to get rid of them and earn a second 
 or even a third fee. This eating by petite vitesse 
 was most undesirable 1 And men alone, with no 
 women to create the situation! It was too bad! 
 And in his turn he murmured " Bete ! " as he filled 
 the order he had provoked by his haste. 
 
 The younger man of the two was keenly of the 
 American type, but with so much will in his face 
 that it stood him in stead of all other distinction 
 at a first glance. He was watching with intent 
 eyes the manipulation of a couple of his country 
 men bent also upon the empty table by the window. 
 At the waiter's repeated remonstrance one of them 
 had put a gold piece in the open hand. But even 
 the American argument had failed. The man 
 passed on, gold in hand, as if an open bribery to 
 some more greedy gargon to hurry his clientele. 
 
 " Getting interested ? " asked the older man who 
 had intentionally delayed their finish. 
 
 " Yes, rather. Let us see it out," said the other.
 
 6 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " For whom do you suppose it is being saved ? 
 Want to wager on it ? " 
 
 " Some nameless crowned head possibly, just 
 a farce of advertisement perhaps calling atten 
 tion to the crowd " 
 
 " Some American on his bridal tour more likely, 
 who has no idea what it is going to cost him ! " 
 
 " Whoever it is, is going to be made conspicuous 
 enough when he does come, if that is his object! " 
 
 " I like to see an object attained, even if it is 
 only a fool object." 
 
 " Yes, you do," assented the older man thought 
 fully. " You are a real Payne, Raleigh. Your 
 ambition includes every minor goal in its path. 
 Some men see only the stakes, but you keep your 
 eyes fixed on the winning point without losing an 
 advantage or missing a trick in between." 
 
 " I usually know pretty definitely what I want," 
 the younger man admitted modestly, without boast 
 ing, but as if honesty compelled admission of the 
 fact. 
 
 " You never forget it, either. That is the won 
 derful part of it in a man barely twenty-five." 
 
 " I let the other fellows do the forgetting, Uncle 
 Steven." 
 
 Steven Randall let his gaze stray out to the flow 
 ers gleaming brilliant in the unshaded sunlight of 
 the terraces beyond. The fountains were leaping 
 like a sob of Nature.
 
 A VACANT TABLE 7 
 
 "If you never live to regret that you have lost 
 the power of forgetting " he began, more as if 
 thinking aloud than speaking to his nephew Raleigh 
 Payne. 
 
 The boy seemed hard to him sometimes ; repelled 
 him by this very lack of power to lose himself in 
 any exquisite moment or emotion. It was a qual 
 ity unassociated with youth, and one that might 
 mean atrophy of emotion in time, or some big 
 achievement by virtue of concentration in one su 
 preme channel. 
 
 He felt instinctively that channel would in his 
 nephew be Self. Raleigh had a tenacity, even in 
 detail of minor value, that seemed likely to fore 
 tell his career. Here, for example, they had been 
 storm-stayed, but there had been no thought on 
 Raleigh's part of leaving, until the sun shone and 
 yielded up all the charm of sky and forest peak he 
 had expected and demanded. It had rained half 
 heartedly, made a feint of clearing, and then poured 
 from leaden skies. The tapering pines had been 
 swept by gust after gust. The thunder had rolled 
 through the mountains encircling the town, and 
 shaken the glasses on hotel tables, but no clear-up 
 had followed its sullen withdrawal. Everyone had 
 been depressed. Many disgruntled tourists had 
 taken a disappointed departure. The water stood 
 in the streets and the hackney cabs were so wet 
 they gave out strange odours of mingled upholstery
 
 8 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 and stable. When the sun did wink at the golden 
 crown on the pavilion of the Royal Hotel, it made 
 the contrast garish. No one wanted to stop in 
 doors, yet outside it was too wet to permit of the 
 usual forms of distraction. Hence the world was 
 at Piippe's and lingering there because it did not 
 know what to do with itself next. 
 
 " I hate an afternoon clear-up," said Steven Ran 
 dall, cutting his pear as if to make the occupation 
 last as long as possible. " I always want to go to 
 bed and begin the day all over again with a bath 
 and coffee. One's clothes are wrong and one's 
 point of view is off colour. It is as if the lime 
 light was thrown on the stage carpenters instead of 
 the lovers on the balcony. Even my thoughts that 
 did very well for a rainy day, seem prosaic in this 
 dazzle, and my spirits need varnishing too. The 
 great joyous thing I was vaguely waiting to do 
 when it stopped raining suddenly eludes me." He 
 let himself go a trifle in time to the music, that was 
 .setting fire to many sluggish hearts and torpid 
 livers with its Hungarian rapture. 
 
 " I intended to take the two best climbs before 1 
 left, whenever that might be; and one this after 
 noon, no matter what the weather was," said 
 Raleigh. 
 
 " And I had intended to play a little bridge, al 
 ways smoking, and now I shall have to get into 
 walking togs and climb a peak with you, I suppose,
 
 A VACANT TABLE 9 
 
 while the pines trickle raindrops down my neck." 
 He ate his pear even more slowly, still waving one 
 hand a trifle, in time with the music. 
 
 The great skeleton of a clock over the main en 
 trance was already past the hour of setting out, if 
 they were really intending to go, but neither made 
 the move. Curiosity had intervened. And even so 
 slight a check to his will, once recognised, became 
 to Raleigh Payne worth surmounting; had its rela 
 tion to some remote connection with the indom- 
 itableness of his inner spirit. So they sat on, lis 
 tening to the music. It was Indicative of the older 
 man in many ways, that he had passed the stage 
 when he felt it part of being a cosmopolitan to 
 pay the musicians to repeat his favourite tunes 
 wafted over from Paris. He had arrived at that 
 point where he let other men, newer to their Eu 
 rope, pay for the music, which he simply enjoyed, 
 smoking quietly, keeping time unnoticeably, re 
 membering, perhaps. 
 
 " Rather an expensive joke," commented the 
 younger man, looking over the bill again offered by 
 the discouraged waiter. Steven Randall turned a 
 serious face upon him. 
 
 " My boy," he said, " it comes high to have your 
 own way in anything. Whether you win your 
 spurs in a sudden spurt or under slow fire, or in 
 the long pull of lonely self-surrender. Every 
 thing costs! You can't move unless you go and
 
 io THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 keep going. Every picture ever painted cost more 
 bitter self-denial than religion ever dared ask of 
 a man. It means hunger, thirst, days down the 
 river, nights under the stars. Never mind what 
 river, death perhaps, or what stars, those over 
 Eden or any other especial garden, from which one 
 is shut out. It costs all the joy of young philan 
 dering put by, the longing for companionship 
 and gaiety and motion denied, to sit with one's 
 back to the joy of the world outside the window, 
 and slowly, line by line, finger by finger, master the 
 results, the relentless technique of one's art and 
 justify its dominion over one. It means to curse 
 the music of voices that rise up from the street in 
 springtime, to put from one the visions of warm 
 fields, as one would shun the Evil one himself. 
 Ah, Lad, Lad ! Any success costs bitter hours ! " 
 
 Raleigh flushed. "I will have it though!" he 
 cried. " You have left out the reverse of the 
 medal. There is the sheer joy of being possessed 
 by one's idea. There is the oblivion that stamps 
 out the rest of the world and all its ways the 
 reaction after a long strain, when one goes out and 
 wrings one's hands and whispers half sensible grat 
 itude to God Almighty that it is coming! Com 
 ing, somewhere near one's determination! Let it 
 cost what it may 1 At any cost I will have it ! " 
 he repeated " I will ! " 
 
 " Yours is the sin by which the angels fell," said
 
 A VACANT TABLE n 
 
 Steven Randall, but he stopped there his atten 
 tion caught back to their actual surroundings by a 
 sudden swaying of servile backs occasioned by the 
 entrance of a party of three, who in turn ap 
 proached the forbidden table. 
 
 Instantly the two chairs were drawn back, but 
 the waiting gargon was not permitted more, for 
 the maitre d'hotel himself stood ready to place one, 
 and a grey-haired servant stood already behind that 
 of his mistress, with whom he had entered. She 
 was a tiny, weazened aristocrat, aged and bent 
 over her ebony stick like some fairy godmother, 
 dressed too young for her years and with eyes still 
 brilliant from compliments long lavished upon them 
 by voices long dead perhaps. With her was only 
 a little girl. 
 
 And somehow both men felt the child was an 
 instance of the special, the unique and distinctive 
 and that the instant was characteristic, not uni 
 versal. Her face was pointed, the eyebrows deli 
 cate but emphatic. Undier dark lashes her eyes 
 were already half closed by some innate instinct 
 of coquetry ; probably inherited from some woman 
 adored and perhaps adoring, more probably faith 
 less. Her colour was that of the wild rose. She 
 was slight and tall, of a daintiness unspeakable. 
 A witchery of childhood was hers, coupled with a 
 sophistication of birth. Her manner of accepting 
 the situation of the table, the attendance and serv-
 
 12 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 ice of hors d'oeuvre was gracious. A woman of the 
 Court might have studied its condescension. It 
 implied her aware of the honour of serving her, 
 yet was charming in its sweet unconsciousness. 
 She chatted with her aged companion as any 
 woman of the great world. She commended each 
 " plat " in turn and found fault with nothing, but 
 frowned furiously when a fork slipped clattering 
 to the marble floor drawing all eyes for an instant 
 in her direction. She prattled continuously of the 
 sunshine, her play, and the music brought an in 
 tense expression to her face very unusual in a child 
 so young. Nothing she said seemed an affectation. 
 She was evidently making her little effort to amuse 
 her vis a vis as if the role of hostess devolved upon 
 her. The taciturn old grandam opposite thought 
 in directly opposite proportion to her speech. 
 Those brilliant old eyes lost nothing of the impres 
 sion created by the child. " A convent was cer 
 tainly the place for her, and at once, at once " 
 was the decision arrived at behind that cold and 
 deeply powdered exterior. Yet in her own mind 
 the Countess de Lamoureux doubted not that the 
 nuns would have a few extra beads to tell after 
 listening to the bebe's chatter! A sardonic smile 
 played across her intelligence, as she recalled sev 
 eral recent instances of scandalously diverting rep 
 etitions, given by those innocent lips. Incon 
 ceivably the knowledge of the grown up world
 
 A VACANT TABLE 13 
 
 seemed always to have been hers, from her cradle. 
 " She was a born coquette. It had been to laugh, 
 to see her playing ' mariage ' with the little Span 
 ish Duke last evening in the Salon ; exulting at his 
 discomfiture as she paired her cards until he was 
 left weeping, with the solitary card of unrequited 
 love in his chubby fist ! Truly there was something 
 of the legend of mad Rudolph and his Marie in her 
 love for conquest, and passionate indifference to 
 convention, even already." So she sat eating her 
 pate with only a monosyllable now and then for the 
 little girl ; going forward and backward in her own 
 mind, and the two men at the table next sat on, 
 liqueur following liqueur. The strangers made a 
 brief luncheon. When it was over the little girl 
 summoned the maitre d'hotel. 
 
 " All has been very well," she said serenely, and 
 nodded to the white-haired family servant to at 
 tend to the bill. " You may conduct me to the gar 
 den now." The maitre d'hotel bowed obsequiously 
 as she slid off her chair like any child. A lady 
 beckoned to her. An officer blew her a kiss 
 through his cigarette smoke. Others signalled her, 
 but she came straight toward Raleigh Payne and 
 stood looking up at him through her dark lashes. 
 
 " Why did you not wish me to come and speak 
 with you, M'sieur ? " she asked. 
 
 " I ? " he stammered, disconcerted. 
 
 " Is it that I do not please you ? "
 
 14 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " But I did not have the honour to know your 
 little Highness ! " he explained. 
 
 " I came because of that, that you did not in 
 vite me. I detest the stranger men who are so 
 ' bete ' as to beckon me in public places," she said, 
 flushing indignantly. 
 
 A German woman, evidently her governess, 
 came hastily toward them, 
 
 " Madame the Countess desires that you will not 
 converse with the unknown gentleman," she said, 
 glancing toward the grandam for confirmation of 
 her orders. 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! But he desires to talk with me ! 
 And I also desire so " she shrugged her shoul 
 ders and made a baby grimace to express the sit 
 uation. " How the old are difficult ! Triste ! " she 
 cried, turning back to Raleigh Payne. " Come," 
 she begged, offering him her hand. " Come out 
 in the garden with us and I will let you hold Frou 
 Frou. She is sure to be well to-day for she was 
 so suffering yesterday we believed she must die. 
 She had eaten a lizard probably. Such cold things 
 are bad for one. I am never permitted to eat iced 
 food." 
 
 The governess looked the picture of distress, 
 blushing a tight, leathern blush more unbecoming 
 every instant. 
 
 " Come," repeated the child. " Come and play 
 with me. I find you are adorable."
 
 A VACANT TABLE 15 
 
 " Oh, Mademoiselle ! " gasped the governess. 
 
 " Well, what have I done ? " she asked, turning 
 still to Raleigh. 
 
 " Nothing, Petite. Only we say charming or 
 nice, to strangers. Adorable is a grown-up word," 
 he assured her. 
 
 " Then when I am grown up, I will tell you, you 
 are adorable ! " she laughed mischievously. 
 
 " Thank you," he said, bowing very low. He 
 was not an ungraceful man. " And will you marry 
 me when you are grown up ? " 
 
 " Frankly no," she replied without hesitation. 
 " You would never be a suitable parti for me, 
 M'sieur. I am the Countess Stephanie Marie 
 Louise Graubach von Lichtenberg. It is true, I 
 might be able to love you, but alas! you will be 
 long dead when I am grown up, a juene fille of 
 marriageable age." 
 
 Her mockery pricked him. 
 
 " I may not. It will not be so many years," he 
 warned her. 
 
 " But I shall marry diplomatically," said the 
 bebe Stephanie. " My grandmother will arrange 
 it, as my father is dead and I have no mother. 
 But if my ' Mari ' is old and ugly, certainly I can 
 love you, the same as now. All the Court ladies 
 in Vienna love someone, you know. The bon Dieu 
 says it is their duty to love, and so oh, they tell 
 me all their legends! The beautiful wife of the
 
 16 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 greatest general in Austria said, when I was play 
 ing near, very quietly and unobserved, ' To love, 
 to deceive, what choice have we ? We must 
 be quick to deceive as we are deceived. We women 
 must of a necessity be sage ! ' ' She flashed him a 
 smile of innocent youth and amorous conceit, as 
 the governess now drew her forcibly away, in re 
 sponse to an authoritative motion of the old count 
 ess' stick. 
 
 Both men rose Instinctively and stood as the for 
 mal exit was in process. Then Raleigh Payne said 
 quietly : 
 
 " I shall marry that child." 
 
 " How about your engagement to Christine ? " 
 
 " I admit I am not free at the moment." 
 
 " And as to the necessary fortune for such an 
 undertaking ? " 
 
 " I can make it." 
 
 " Of course you are talking beyond your book," 
 said Steven Randall lightly. " You frightened me 
 for the moment." 
 
 " I am not talking beyond my intention," Raleigh 
 replied. " I have done whatever I set out to so 
 far in life. And I repeat that I shall marry the 
 bebe Countess Stephanie Marie Louise Graubach 
 von Lichtenberg." 
 
 "If you do you will regret it," said Randall with 
 equal gravity. 
 
 "Why?"
 
 A VACANT TABLE 17 
 
 " Because she is a subject for the ' grande pas 
 sion,' as they understand it over here." 
 
 " You think an American is incapable of that, 
 given the feminine incentive?" 
 
 " The only passion an American understands is 
 Ambition. You will prove it."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 RALEIGH PAYNE 
 
 RALEIGH PAYNE in knickerbockers had 
 discovered for himself that the battle was 
 to the strong and the race to the swift, 
 the assertions of the wise notwithstanding. Hav 
 ing made this discovery he acted up to it. He was 
 a masterful boy with a genius for creating the im 
 pression he desired, to gain his private ends. For 
 example, as a mere lad being punished by an early 
 and supperless bed hour, he had inspired his 
 younger brother with such envy, by his descrip 
 tion of the fun he was having, that the little fellow 
 cried bitterly to be included in the game. In the' 
 preparatory school to which he was sent, pride 
 kept him up to a high mark, and whatever befell 
 him, he made a brave showing; turning the silver 
 linings of his clouds to the school world with amaz 
 ing persistence for a boy. In college, though not 
 of sufficient brain to take honours easily, he had 
 kept himself conspicuous by one means after an 
 other. What he lacked in mental calibre, he made 
 up in assurance, until it persuaded his world and 
 himself that it was the same thing. An appear 
 ance of success was necessary to his very existence. 
 
 18
 
 RALEIGH PAYNE 19 
 
 Popularity gave him the management of athletic 
 interests he had not the brawn to distinguish him 
 self by serving on the field, and hard study while 
 other men slept kept him ahead of men of greater 
 intellectual power but less force of will. It is 
 doubtful if he studied for love of the classics he 
 read, or the speculative courses through which he 
 cut a shining way. But it is certain that in any 
 contest with his fellows he was acutely conscious 
 of the sting of rivalry, and dogged to his appointed 
 end. He seemed to do little for the intrinsic love 
 of it, but rather to take life as an extensive gym 
 nasium, in which he was perpetually straining his 
 muscles to tenser endurance, and expanding his 
 chest measure to deeper inhalation and wider meas 
 urement. For so young a man he was considered 
 singularly aware of opportunity in any guise. The 
 envious said that he adored success at any cost. 
 He knew the right people, wasted no time on any 
 others, made no impulsive mistakes in his friend 
 ships, yet escaped being branded as a snob, by a 
 well bred instinct that made him shrink from a 
 policy that involved truckling to fate or society. 
 He felt superior to that. He was too sure of him 
 self to admit other dependence. In his pleasures 
 he never quite lost his sober balance through the 
 excitement of any rosy moment. Joy could not 
 tip the scale of judgment. He danced well and 
 wisely with the most attractive girls. He was far
 
 20 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 from being a zealous missionary to the overlooked, 
 nor did the cotillion find him favouring the plain. 
 So exclusive were his attentions that they came 
 to be held as a distinction, a sort of college deco 
 ration, so sparingly bestowed as to be valuable. 
 He held that society was but another arena for a 
 man's personal development. In it his success 
 must be only measured by his ambition, as in the 
 jostling issues of life beyond the college walls. 
 His class day oration was a stirring appeal for in 
 dividualism, which was only saved from sounding 
 like a call to higher selfishness by the earnest con 
 viction of the young orator, of clear cut features 
 and prophetic eyes, whose voice magnetised while 
 he spoke, whatever cooler thought may have found 
 to condemn in his propaganda. 
 
 His engagement to Christine Brand, two years 
 later, had been at the time considered a vindication 
 of his principles and a rather brilliant thing for 
 him. Christine was not without a distinct ambi 
 tion of her own, to which Raleigh appealed, as he 
 was well aware. Her father's political affiliations 
 were flatteringly possible as assets for his own 
 Career, if he chose to avail himself of them to the 
 exclusion of his literary plans. His love-making 
 was, it is true, something of an after-thought, but 
 his handsome person and the universal admiration 
 accorded him by his inner circle probably assured 
 the girl of her good fortune, and filled the vacancy
 
 RALEIGH PAYNE 21 
 
 of heart she might have realised, had Raleigh been 
 a less striking figure. In her father's Washington 
 mansion as well as on the family estate up country, 
 Raleigh at once established a recognition of his 
 importance. Christine's father treated him as 
 a man whose advice could at least be asked and 
 conceded a hearing. His address commended 
 him to the politicians and men of large affairs 
 with whom the two homes were constantly throng 
 ing. 
 
 " How does that strike you, Raleigh ? " was often 
 on the older man's lips. Or, " where's the flaw 
 there, Raleigh? Your eyes are younger than mine 
 and ought to be keener ! " 
 
 It was a flattery immensely stimulating, and true 
 to his ideals, the younger man made the most of 
 it, studying men and affairs, reading with a new 
 and critical interest that made history but revived 
 politics, and politics but living history. 
 
 It was not long before, yielding to the excitement 
 of these influences, he saw the political vista open 
 ing before him and left his muse to follow. The 
 pen might well be mightier than the sword, but 
 the tongue could out-wit both. Literature ceased 
 to be his medium the moment he saw a swifter, 
 more brilliant path. 
 
 It was his first parting with his headstrong, 
 boyish ideal for himself. He was too much ab 
 sorbed by the dazzling chance for a political career
 
 22 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 to estimate the loss to his intrinsic standards with 
 any justice. His uncle, Steven Randall, had tried 
 to hold him back. A seasoned diplomat himself, 
 too well versed in political manipulation not to be 
 disillusioned, he felt his nephew's desertion of so 
 high and reverenced a calling, with a degree of 
 regret that was almost bitterness. He had lived 
 for diplomacy, and knew its intricate charm too 
 well to gainsay the boy's increasing infatuation. 
 It broke his own dreams rudely, however; dreams 
 in which Raleigh and Christine were placed at Sky 
 High during the long summers he loved to spend 
 in his country home up in the New Hampshire 
 hills ; dreams in which they were to perpetuate the 
 family line, and bequeath an honoured name to 
 letters. At the end of a year of this indefinite 
 preparation for public life, Steven Randall had in 
 vited him to travel for a year, preliminary to a 
 definite diplomatic appointment. To Raleigh's 
 great satisfaction, Christine had seen at a glance 
 that two men, one of whom was quite at home in 
 most of the inaccessible corners of Europe, could 
 see the world to better advantage than a young hus 
 band and wife on their own initiative, and pre 
 sumably oblivious to any horizon beyond each 
 other's eyes. He had no trouble in drawing a 
 telling contrast between the relative value to his 
 career, of a honeymoon laid in some Italian coast 
 village, with letters of introduction for Berlin and
 
 RALEIGH PAYNE 23 
 
 Vienna unopened, unpresented, or perhaps met with 
 impersonal indifference and turned over to inferiors, 
 and the charming ease of informal presentations 
 made by a man of letters, who had served in more 
 than one intricate international arbitration. He 
 had specialised in language and history during two 
 years of graduate work, and his uncle's offer came 
 as the crowning reward of his own effort. It all 
 depended on whether Christine was going to insist 
 on their marriage and hamper his movements. 
 Happily she had not. She had been reasonable, 
 that is unselfish, and sent him off in perfect har 
 mony with himself unmarred by one expression of 
 reproach. 
 
 For which he had characteristically rewarded her 
 by wondering if it was in her to care much for 
 any man, aside from his position in the world ? 
 She was a fit mate for him, he decided, for of course 
 she must have hated to put off the wedding. Yet 
 she had understood to a fraction, the importance 
 of it all to him. She was like him in many ways. 
 He was content with her for awhile, and at times 
 proud of his perspicacity in choosing her. After a 
 glimpse of several governments, including a court 
 and an empire, his ideas had changed and enlarged 
 astonishingly. Personal experience with embassies 
 and legations taught him surprising lessons. In 
 efficiency stirred his blood with its suggestion of 
 all inefficiency might mean. The stupendous work-
 
 24 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 ing of harmonious precedent set him reconstructing 
 the weak places in his own government with a sure 
 touch. The little girl at Carlsbad had opened his 
 eyes to a possibility in women, far beyond the mere 
 domestic respectability and matter-of-course com 
 radeship offered him by a girl like Christine. How 
 was she to cope with a civilisation whose baby-talk 
 was beyond her comprehension? What was she 
 worth as secondary support in a life of continental 
 intrigue? If a man seriously meant diplomacy, 
 should not his wife be a decoration worn on his 
 breast rather than a button on his uniform ? French 
 women, Austrians, Italians, were a gauzy cloud of 
 witnesses for his new obsession. The fine, clear 
 quality he had admired in Christine suddenly seemed 
 ineffective. Her directness became inartistic. Her 
 lack of finesse recalled the jokes he had heard at 
 the expense of the honest unpolished wives of the 
 American representatives abroad. He remembered 
 her rigidly correct French, which was at best but 
 a grammatical translation of English prose, ren 
 dered word for word without idiomatic bias. He 
 wondered if, after all, he had done the best thing 
 for himself in such an engagement. Many of the 
 most successful diplomats were unmarried. The 
 wrong woman would be far more impeding than 
 none. He saw that, from every approach to the 
 subject. It was characteristic of him, that deciding 
 there was a better, though beyond his reach, he
 
 RALEIGH PAYNE 25 
 
 unhesitatingly discarded his best without regret or 
 scruple. 
 
 True, the prestige afforded him by Christine's 
 father had been of importance to him in the intro 
 ductory passages of his life. But was a man to stop 
 there? When any relation ceased to have the 
 power and the glory was it not already over? He 
 had but employed the nearest means to insure his 
 own recognition. This was now to a certain ex 
 tent secure. Why should one persist in using a 
 tool no longer sharp enough to carve one's name 
 upon the hard metal of the world, though one's own 
 hand had blunted the instrument in its first awkward 
 attempts of apprenticeship? Raleigh had never 
 taken a blow without gathering fresh resistance. 
 He had never failed without accepting a secret 
 lesson of how he might have succeeded. Was it 
 likely he would spare the girl to whom he had 
 pledged his word, if she became unequal to the 
 stride he was setting himself? His nerve and 
 pride alike responded to the challenge of the little 
 ten-year-old Countess Stephanie, baby though she 
 was. The distance between them only heightened 
 her charm for him. He was under the first glamour 
 of an aristocracy and either forgetful or ignorant 
 that class, not the individual, determines the goal 
 of the European of rank, and that foreordination 
 is more easily laughed down the wind than caste. 
 From that high noon at Carlsbad, through eight
 
 26 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 years of persistent success, he followed his little 
 star at a discreet distance; always pushing his 
 diplomatic connection, always increasing his modest 
 fortune by clever speculation. He knew the Con 
 vent of the Holy Mother where she was ostensibly 
 at school, but really out of her grandmother's way, 
 and he ventured to send her bonbons and even an 
 occasional gift. With his offering his card only 
 was enclosed. Never a word more to interrupt the 
 rule of the Sisters, or blur her first impression of 
 him. This continued until she must have been 
 eighteen, when his gift came back to him, briefly 
 inscribed by the postal authorities " Not Here." 
 He was unable to be in France for a year after, 
 or he would have gone to the convent for news of 
 her. It was not until a second year had passed, 
 a year full of intricate and promoting achievement, 
 that he met her suddenly face to face at a ball in 
 Vienna, wearing a jewelled bracelet, his last gift 
 to her. Her convent days were over; her own 
 struggle with the world well begun. 
 
 At sight of her his romance had flared into full 
 flower. The negotiations undertaken had been 
 prompt and daring. They were in the nature of 
 a coup long premeditated on his part. Who was he 
 to presume for the hand of a child of the blood? 
 This was the attitude he expected. And he was 
 not disappointed. His credentials, duly presented, 
 were indisputable. His fortune sufficient and over-
 
 RALEIGH PAYNE 27 
 
 estimated fortunately by those nearest to him. He 
 had some little literary distinction to add to his 
 credit, and yet, and yet he perfectly calculated 
 the weakness of his strength and the strength of 
 his adversary's weakness in the struggle before 
 him. His interview, for he had but one with the 
 old Countess de Lamoureux, had been insulting to 
 his spirit and wounding to his pride, but he had not 
 allowed himself to be jostled in his pretension. 
 In the end, after humiliating him by Austrian inso 
 lence, making every possible demand and tolerating 
 him only on sufferance, he had prevailed. He won 
 out by a fluke, the old countess having easily out- 
 diplomatised him, but the wizened old beldam let 
 him go without a suspicion of her real reasons. 
 And so he won, the means were all the same to 
 Raleigh Payne. It was by virtue of a blot on the 
 lady's scutcheon that he got her. He might, or 
 might not have felt he had done well, if he had 
 heard the beldam chuckle through her random 
 teeth like an autumn wind, to her old adviser, the 
 Master of the Chancellerie, in defence of her ir 
 regular action and consent. " No dot and a history ! 
 Stephanie may well take her millionaire Pretender 
 and bless all her Saints for the chance 1 " But the 
 very uncertainty of Stephanie herself, that had 
 made her so greatly a burden to her grandmother, 
 was as yet hid from his dazzled eyes. In her brief 
 taste of the world men had been quick to offer her
 
 28 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 irregular relations. She might have been the 
 dearest friend of the Emperor's own son. Why 
 she had not, she could hardly have told herself. 
 Probably from a whim of her own, that she would 
 love as well as be adored. She was capable of a 
 fault where she loved. The old countess knew 
 that very well, but love would be her price. With 
 out passion no indiscretion would be committed. 
 There had been one man she might have followed, 
 if a hint from her grandmother had not sup 
 pressed him. A man of redoubtable fascination 
 he was, though a sort of soldier of fortune, em 
 ployed ostensibly in newspaper work to cover im 
 perial orders most imperatively secret. His gov 
 ernment office had kindly removed him to a remoter 
 sphere of action, taking his ill-starred love affair in 
 hand just in time to save an esclandre on the brink 
 of publicity. He was wiped out in a night, and the 
 girl left to her own conjecture as to the reason 
 of their ruptured intimacy. Whatever the countess 
 suspected no one ever knew, but the grand-daughter 
 and herself. It is quite possible that the incident 
 served as an object lesson pressed home. Stephanie 
 might or might not have known her own story, but 
 within the high and narrow court circle it marred 
 her future beyond repair. Despite the protection 
 afforded by her grandmother's second marriage with 
 the French de Lamoureux, an alliance fit for beauty 
 like hers was not for her. Not simply because her
 
 RALEIGH PAYNE 29 
 
 mother had been a dancer, or because her father 
 had ruined himself for her and disgraced his name, 
 but that sunk until forced to accept whatever com 
 promising office was left him, he had been caught 
 and branded as a spy in the service of his govern 
 ment, which exposed him, paid him and disowned 
 him discovered. Misfortune and dishonour had 
 stiffened the spine of the old countess, his mother, 
 who had become even more arrogantly exclusive, 
 more outrageous in presumption on every down 
 ward step taken by her only son. The little girl, 
 always an ungrateful care to her, as a woman be 
 came an insupportable embarrassment. She had 
 been brought up at watering places where she saw 
 and heard over-much, and in Paris where her 
 grandmother's friends were too careless to lower 
 their voices of scandal before the presumable in 
 nocence of youth. In Vienna she had been handed 
 over to servants and a governess; playing in 
 gardens where sculptured nymphs and satyrs rioted 
 in fountained forms, whose waters threw a rain 
 bow glamour over the flowers; and in long mir- 
 rored-chambers that taught her the grace of her 
 tall little body and the joy of her ravishing feet 
 in their absurdly high heels and monster bows or 
 flashing buckles. Indeed many an American ma 
 tron surmised less of human psychology, than this 
 pretty bebe had overheard, or by some strange 
 unyouthful process stored away by intuition, to
 
 30 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 make good the lack of maternal precept in her days 
 of experience yet to come. The convent had 
 softened her childish boldness, restraining her man 
 ner and expression only to drive her instinct in 
 on itself. She had learned the " extase " of re 
 ligion and translated it into terms of personal pas 
 sion. She had learned to lower her eyes with virgin 
 modesty, but her heart was no less open to the se 
 ductions of her imagination. The sacred intimacy 
 with the holy Saints of both sexes insisted on by 
 the Sisters, had fired her with a confused mingling 
 of pious and profane intimations. Every priest 
 was an Abelard, though none offered her the role 
 of Heloise. Her grandmother's rein had been 
 scarcely less rigid as she grew older, and between 
 the convent restraint and the etiquette of the court 
 imposed upon her without mercy, she fell to the 
 foreign woman's only freedom, marriage. 
 
 Raleigh flung himself at his conquest of her as 
 he had at the other prizes he had coveted. He 
 flattered himself that a millionaire poet, at the same 
 time a rising diplomat, was equal to tipping the 
 scale of a Viennese alliance. Thfe million was 
 scanty and the poetry not of the finest, still to an 
 undowered girl the fortune was not so bad, and he 
 had no fear that Stephanie would see that his 
 poetry lacked the glow of old beauty or starkly 
 phrased thought. He was in love with her, wanted 
 her, meant to have her. He also meant to have
 
 RALEIGH PAYNE 31 
 
 not only her grandmother's consent but her own. 
 He read her romanticism, and dared an excess of 
 it he would have feared to show to Christine. He 
 had used influence, finessed, assaulted, and at last 
 almost carried her by storm. Is it God or Nature 
 that moves a girl to return the last one of a furious 
 rain of kisses poured upon her, while she struggles 
 in a lover's arms? However much she may have 
 intended to resist, the curiosity of love, the desire 
 for freedom were mingled in her acceptance of 
 him with something not unlike fascination. Ste 
 phanie, the first year after leaving her convent, was 
 a strangely bewildering softened variation of the 
 vivid little girl of Raleigh's Carlsbad memories. It 
 was due perhaps to the religious life about her dur 
 ing the impressionable years of girlhood. The 
 modulated order of her days, the continual twi 
 light of the soul in which she revolved, the rev 
 erent tones and adoring postures of the nuns, the 
 lingering echoes of mass and Ave might have driven 
 from her the hard and sordid world-voices of her 
 childhood. Or it might have been only a more 
 subtle form of the coquetry that had been her birth 
 right, suppressed, but nourished by long fasting. 
 Accustomed as he was to American women, she 
 bewildered Raleigh with her mystery and fragrance, 
 her exotic perfection. He was utterly her slave 
 in those days succeeding their marriage, and she 
 tyrannised over him with a power descended of
 
 32 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 despots. Everything about her he adored submis 
 sively. He had had his own way, and was sub 
 servient to the new form of his own will in hers. 
 He was hers, but she was his. This, he never for 
 got. If he had seen that this was the only way to 
 win her, he kept his knowledge to himself and 
 played the lover as astutely as he had played the 
 diplomat. To men of his type there is but one goal 
 in view until it is attained. And whether Stephanie 
 was ultimately swept away by the sleepless sincerity 
 of his suit, or if she recognised her own critical 
 position too well to risk being declassed by her 
 peers, and resolved to retrieve herself by a solid 
 if loveless marriage, the result was favourable to 
 the American's will. After all why does any woman 
 marry any man? Five years later one reason is as 
 good as another! 
 
 After a winter in Washington, where Stephanie 
 had been the success of the season, he went tri 
 umphantly on, intoxicated by his own sagacity. 
 His next diplomatic appointment had been dis 
 tinctly notable. Even the fact of his wife's faith, 
 at first a source of some misgiving to him, had 
 stood him in unexpected stead. Her close relation 
 to a member of the Vatican household had sensibly 
 furthered the outcome of his special mission to 
 Rome ; where there were delicate matters of infinite 
 importance to both countries, and even to united 
 Christendom, weighing in hidden balances. If he
 
 RALEIGH PAYNE 33 
 
 had used his Catholic connection to his own ad 
 vantage, to the point of semi-betrayal, his own gov 
 ernment approved his course. And if he had 
 seemed to lend himself to Stephanie's desire, 
 to see him formally within the Catholic communion, 
 only so long as it opened doors otherwise inacces 
 sible, modernism and the twentieth century easily 
 condoned his not actually " going over " in the end. 
 He had asked nothing of Stephanie but to marry 
 him and let him give her the devotion of which he 
 was capable. And she had married him not 
 eagerly, or too reluctantly for his pride, but much 
 as any girl a year from the restraint of a French 
 convent marries the man her guardians designate. 
 He spoiled her in every way he could devise. He 
 lavished the contents of Paris shops upon her and 
 was never so pleased with himself as when sur 
 prising her with some intimate trifle that reiterated 
 the closeness of their relation: the right that was 
 his in the bond that bound them. And with the 
 instinct of her mother, perhaps, hot in her veins, 
 she sometimes gave herself to him with an abandon 
 he had never dreamed moments of exquisite tor 
 ment to him in her reactions of coldness, when 
 she tired of him, or her love of his vehement ca 
 resses was spent. She never said she loved him. 
 He never could make her say it. It seemed to him 
 that her force of passion was strangely impersonal. 
 He could not deceive himself into the belief that
 
 34 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 she loved him, even in the closest embrace upon 
 her heart. Indeed was it love, as he had always 
 conceived love, that he felt for her? Love and 
 Lust are twin brothers in many a man's heart. 
 There was nothing of the brave sacrificial spirit of 
 his ideal, in these first onsets of passion. 
 They soon passed the point where poignant 
 pleasure ceases, and becomes inexorable habit. 
 But she was his ! Her beauty, her grace, her fire, 
 that in her which made men stare after her as she 
 passed, were his. His right to her was supreme. 
 And even in Rome she gave no tongue to scandal, 
 though men saw her to desire and were at small 
 pains to conceal their emotions. Sometimes he 
 drew off and wondered over her. It seemed as if 
 some secret scorn of men had rooted in that childish 
 breast, or some guarded bitterness kept her prisoned 
 in a magic circle of her own counsel. She never 
 betrayed herself. He could not imagine that the 
 nuns had inserted this blend of purity and pas 
 sion. It seduced him beyond reason, yet dreading 
 the result of excess, he allowed himself no relaxa 
 tion from his predetermined programme. He 
 cherished her beauty, preserved her from illness or 
 fatigue, kept her inviolate, sacred to his career. 
 
 And yet he never won her confidence and never 
 found the tranquil satisfaction of certainty as to 
 every event of her past, which he would naturally 
 have claimed from Christine ; who had confessed
 
 RALEIGH PAYNE 35 
 
 all her previous love passages to him the day after 
 their engagement. It had bored him a little at the 
 time, but he supposed it the proper thing. It was 
 different with Stephanie, who, though actually his 
 wife, held her past to herself, if indeed she had any, 
 under a smiling beauty that gave the lie to her 
 ignorance. Sometimes she would chatter gaily of 
 her childhood recollections with their changing 
 rainbow impressions, or of the chastened harmony 
 of the convent. But of what she had felt or suf 
 fered, no one word escaped her. Never one clue 
 was dropped that he could follow to her inner self 
 without a rude invasion of what was exclusively 
 her own. He thought he knew every phase of her 
 girlhood, from a distance, and was sure no romance 
 more tangible than vague dreaming had possessed 
 her. But the quality in her that escaped him, tan 
 talised and taunted. Could he be sure ? His 
 jealousy turned on him fiercely in those moments 
 of ignorant surmise. He remembered at those 
 black moments the very inflection of her voice, 
 when she had said to him as a child " But, of 
 course, if my ' Mari ' is old and ugly I can love you, 
 M'sieur. All women must love " And by 
 chance! he was himself the " Mari," and though not 
 old, older than she by fifteen years of his best youth. 
 Once she had inadvertently alluded to a summer in 
 Normandy. It was the summer before she met 
 him. But she had hurried over her mention of it
 
 36 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 and avoided his interest in the exact spot and date. 
 When he had proposed returning there for a few 
 weeks, she had dismissed it without petulance but in 
 the manner of one who found him stupid. She had 
 not confessed even to her Father Confessor, quite 
 fully perhaps, the madness of that first summer holi 
 day passed with an English schoolmate, whose fam 
 ily had taken her off her grandmother's hands for a 
 compensation. Her first love dream had been a 
 bitter one to her, and to the poor fellow who had 
 lost his mind over her, followed her to Vienna, and 
 left her without a word. He was unique, though 
 she was too young to know it, and the poems he 
 had wasted upon her were still with her in the little 
 black dress basket that always stood in her own 
 room, either at home or in hotels. Poems dyed in 
 the colours of the orient, steeped in the hopeless 
 shadow of the Slav; cries that cut like the blue 
 blade of a sword in the moonlight, seeking the 
 heart, the only souvenir of her brief and stolen 
 girlhood.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 AT SKY HIGH 
 
 THE second summer after their marriage 
 found them back in America ; their head 
 quarters with Steven Randall at Sky 
 High, where Stephanie remained, while Raleigh 
 made his flying trips to and from the city, and the 
 West, and countless destinations, by motor or 
 sleeper, by day and by night, after the manner of 
 the great American men. At first Stephanie had 
 wanted her own establishment, but a short experi 
 ence proved the wisdom of the present arrangement. 
 " When I talked of a home in the country, I see 
 now why you made an objection," she said to 
 Raleigh, on one of his brief visits between given 
 points. 
 
 " But surely your European men are not 
 in residence too long at a time," he reminded her. 
 " The loveliest of their chateaux in France are 
 little more than a nursery, and often their apart 
 ment in Paris is only a pied a terre." 
 
 " And you, Raleigh, have almost as much neces 
 sity of a ' pied a terre ' as a humming bird ! " she 
 cried. " Like him, you too fly over, but never re 
 main." 
 
 37
 
 38 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " But he always knows where to find the sweet 
 est flower " 
 
 " The flower wishes she had wings," remarked 
 Stephanie irrelevantly. 
 
 " A man does what he must," Raleigh said so 
 berly. 
 
 " Ah, really ? Does he believe it ? I had been 
 told a woman did as she must and a man what he 
 would." Raleigh was really troubled by her mood. 
 
 " Other men's interests are so inextricably in 
 volved, darling. I cannot get out of my tread 
 mill honourably, without risking their results as 
 well as my own." 
 
 " So you have said many times," she agreed. 
 " I ought to know that lesson perfectly." 
 
 " You have had ever so many disappointments," 
 he exclaimed, recalling all sorts of engagements 
 he had been obliged to break for business reasons. 
 
 " Oh, it is of no importance. It is only the first 
 time that one makes a scene. And after, one takes 
 the custom of the country, like the wine." They 
 both remembered the first time. It had been their 
 first real misunderstanding of their relation to each 
 other, and Raleigh's career. It had begun by his 
 sending her off to the theatre without him on her 
 own birthday celebration, and it had evolved into 
 this summer alone at Sky High. 
 
 The place lay in the heart of New England, a 
 long mile from the village where the trains only
 
 AT SKY HIGH 39 
 
 stopped on signal to drop the occasional wayfarer, 
 who was usually met and whirled away to the 
 sophisticated hermits of the wooded hills, beyond 
 the meadows with their slow-flowing river. The 
 house itself was a spacious, decent mansion, too 
 dignified to be even flauntingly colonial in build. 
 There was a courtyard enclosed on three sides, 
 that gave an English effect as one approached, 
 without seeming an anachronism. There was no 
 imitation Italian garden, no fountain. The great 
 terrace in front gave sharply to the next below, 
 where tall foxglove and dawn shades of phlox held 
 the paths, and the blue of the bee-larkspur blurred 
 on the blue of heaven like a little sister, and the 
 meek Virgin lillies stood in rows behind the pun 
 gent peonies in their decorative lines. On the up 
 per terrace the first jonquils and hyacinths gave 
 way later to the roses and heliotrope, and a small 
 lake of mignonette over which the bees like 
 drunken mariners continually lost their bearings to 
 drown in sweetness. 
 
 The tall cedars at the northwestern end of the 
 terrace, almost as mysterious as cypress trees, were 
 a solemn sun dial, for when the sun was drawn 
 further and further toward them as summer deep 
 ened, their warning shapes lengthened over the 
 grass of an afternoon, as if to remind one that the 
 most exquisite moment might not last. 
 
 There was no pergola, nothing foreign or out
 
 40 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 of keeping with simple native beauty and love of 
 nature on her own terms. From the low balus 
 trade one looked down over these tiers of bloom, 
 suggestive of the riviera gardens to Stephanie, and 
 away over the valley, across the ribbon of river 
 to the hills and even mountains beyond, rising 
 sharply, a playground for shadows, trooping all 
 day in fantastic procession beneath the light clouds 
 or portentous thunder heads, and over whose rug 
 ged shoulder the sun smiled back a last good-night, 
 like a child regretful to be gone. 
 
 From her first introduction Stephanie had 
 bowed to the charm of Steven Randall. 
 
 " I shall name you Grandee ! " she cried, on see 
 ing him at Sky High surrounded by his charac 
 teristic setting. 
 
 "I protest!" Steven Randall objected. "I am 
 a democrat of the democrats ! " 
 
 " On the contrary ! " she cried, throwing up her 
 hands with a pretty derision, " I find you per 
 fectly an aristocracy person ! " The language, still 
 so formidable to her, unable to hinder her thought 
 of him. " I am convinced you have Austrian 
 blood in your so patrician veins ! One sees it from 
 the way your servants obey at a glance. It is mili 
 tary precision." 
 
 She felt it more and more, as she saw the fear 
 and honour shown him by the people of all de 
 grees among whom he lived. His keen tongue
 
 AT SKY HIGH 41 
 
 and all-comprehending heart suggested nobility, as 
 did the pomps and forms of daily life with which 
 he surrounded himself even in his seclusion. The 
 community did indeed bow down and serve him, 
 while he demanded nothing, and would have rebuked 
 her assertion of their attitude impatiently. He did, 
 in fact, combine the respect due to the fifth genera 
 tion of Godfearing ancestry, with the admiration 
 of a man who, having seen much of the wide 
 world, had chosen the better part at last, his birth 
 place. To the rural mind this was an unanswer 
 able argument for his good sense and stability, 
 heightening their own valuation of ancestral acres 
 none too fertile, and lives none too eventful. 
 
 It was not strange that Stephanie felt the at 
 mosphere of the place. The house was one of 
 archives. It boasted its letters on file from men 
 of note, filled with familiar mention of women and 
 men whose names shone brighter as the years fled 
 on. It had that subtle background of culture and 
 increment of anterior generation. Books and 
 pamphlets carried presentation inscriptions. The 
 various editions of the classics had on their title 
 pages the names of the Randalls from great-grand 
 father downward. An aristocracy of fine taste, 
 displayed by accumulation of the best in art and 
 richest in friendship, was supplemented by the sev 
 eral congressional libraries, retained, for senti 
 ment's sake, on the walls of the long hall off the
 
 42 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 library ; evidencing the value of former Randalls 
 to their country's ornament and service. They had 
 been a mental lot, those fine old dead grandfath 
 ers, with a cavalier twist in their spirit that ac 
 counted for the un-Puritan luxury in the ornate 
 bindings of their Byrons and Keats, and even 
 " Watts and Select " ; as well as Steven Ran 
 dall's own preference for a generous trencher and 
 profuse service. His own father had been the 
 first of them to marry South. 
 
 His mother had brought her due share of an 
 cestral silver and ample tradition to mingle with 
 this Northern blood and memory. Archives, leg 
 ends, recurrent customs, that followed tradition in 
 evitable and unexplained, were here, as became a 
 family of distinction. Stephanie had chosen her 
 own rooms on the north wing, to be nearer the 
 few acres of timberland that skirted that side of 
 the estate. The many birch and beech trees gave 
 it something the effect of a European forest, so 
 free of underbrush and primitive disorder, and 
 made it less lonely to her than the open country. 
 She took her solitary rambles here, always sighing 
 in her heart for the sea. The little dappled lights 
 and scurrying shadows reminded her of Fontain- 
 bleau and the quiet reminded her of Sister Angela 
 and the nuns, and prompted her naive question 
 " Where really was the difference between a coun 
 try house in America and the convent in Paris ? "
 
 AT SKY HIGH 43 
 
 So it happened that she was glad when Raleigh's 
 friend Jim Trent took a cottage a mile or so up 
 the valley, since another woman might also 
 mean another man, coming and going, guests, vis 
 its; something to relieve the situation of its entire 
 monotony when Raleigh was away, attending to 
 mines and meetings and government committees, 
 where his name appeared as chairman or direc 
 tor in the records of the next day's papers, which 
 she never read. Grandee was glad for his own 
 reasons. He was, from time to time, disabled by 
 a form of heart attack that had seized upon him 
 of late, also an inheritance, accompanying the 
 claw footed mahogany and fabled ghost which were 
 the family pride. He immediately gave a dinner 
 party where the two women, Raleigh's ex-fiancee 
 and his wife, observed each other without more 
 than opportunity for a mutually reserved judg 
 ment. 
 
 Stephanie had seen her pass on horseback, rid 
 ing cross-saddle like any boy, and had heard the 
 sharp Walkyrie cry she gave, in response to the 
 shrill whistle of greeting Grandee always sent her 
 from his high balcony above, which commanded 
 the village highway running along the side of the 
 terraced gardens. They seemed on familiar, even 
 affectionate terms, these two, the breezy young 
 matron and the fading man of the world. Ra 
 leigh spoke of the Trents as family friends of long
 
 44 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 standing. It was not until the party broke up, 
 that the two women really measured each other, 
 and took the first position for what might prove 
 a duel of friendship, or a carefully preserved neu 
 trality. Christine was boldly blonde, and built on 
 a generous scale. In her presence, Stephanie 
 made one even more subtly aware of herself as 
 being rare, cherished, adored. To her pretty gra- 
 ciousness of manner, implying more than it ex 
 pressed of pleasure, and feeling far less, Chris 
 tine responded with an unaffected warmth. 
 
 " I shall come very, very soon to see you, and 
 really get acquainted ! " she promised. 
 
 As if any one could ever do that with Stephanie ! 
 
 Far from cherishing any resentment toward her 
 traitor lover of earlier years, Christine declared 
 herself frankly grateful to him for setting her free 
 for a greater happiness, ready at hand in her be 
 loved Jim. 
 
 The first time she found herself alone with him, 
 she extended her hand without a hint of malice, 
 saying, " I want to thank you, Raleigh, for doing 
 me the greatest service any one ever did for me in 
 all my life. I shall never forget to be grateful. 
 If I can ever do anything for you " the implica 
 tion was boundless. 
 
 It had been distinctly a relief to him at the time, 
 opening the way for restored relations between the 
 families, which might have remained strained.
 
 AT SKY HIGH 45 
 
 But otherwise, as he thought of it afterward, he 
 was not sure he liked her being so humbly glad to 
 get rid of him. Though he never doubted her sin 
 cerity in every word she said, be it remembered 
 for his credit. No one could doubt Christine. 
 They were all soon on terms of country neighbour 
 hood intimacy, less formal than those in town, but 
 with long intervals between visits, according to 
 weather, personal interests or changing mood. 
 One morning in June when Christine had been up 
 on Grandee's balcony, she came down to find 
 Stephanie at the piano in the music room, where 
 the long French windows stood open toward the 
 west. 
 
 Stephanie's foot was on the soft pedal. She 
 seemed to be talking to herself, as she ran softly 
 over the keys from time to time, as if completing 
 the expression of unspoken thoughts they touched 
 and dropped away from. She did not entirely 
 stop as they chatted together. Christine was in 
 her habit. Her face was a trifle over-flushed from 
 her vigourous exercise, her eyes full of the glory 
 of the morning. 
 
 " It is so good to ride again ! " she exclaimed. 
 She had said it twice before. It was the varia 
 tion her heart was playing round her recently re 
 covered health and happiness. 
 
 " You have given it up for some time, then ? " 
 Stephanie asked idly.
 
 46 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " Just a year, in all " 
 
 " How stupid ! And did you not detest having 
 some one ride your horse? I admire your great 
 beast extravagantly ! " 
 
 " No one but father's groom, Martin, rode the 
 mare. He kept her in order. But I did miss her 
 ridiculously, for the mother of a family." 
 
 " You love to ride very much ? " 
 
 " You see it has been part of my life," Christine 
 explained. " We rode all the time when we were 
 engaged. We even took our wedding trip on horse 
 back." 
 
 " Really ? How original. How like two men ! " 
 commented Stephanie, sharping a chord gently. 
 
 " Yes, it was fine ! " cried Christine, pulling off 
 her .long gloves as if again raising her crop to set 
 her mount off on a wild gallop. 
 
 " What strong hands you have I " said Stephanie. 
 " Like a man's hand, only so small and white ! " 
 
 " They are not much for beauty, I will admit," 
 said Christine, laughing. " They can hold a run 
 ning horse and soothe a little baby, though." 
 
 " There is something, I don't know how to say 
 it, rather like a goddess about you " Stephanie 
 said, with her head on one side, critically. 
 
 " Too big, you mean ? " Christine said it good 
 naturedly. 
 
 " Not that, something ; how does it say itself 
 in English? of life, a youth, an abundance "
 
 AT SKY HIGH 47 
 
 " That is only because I am so happy ! Jim is 
 an angel, the children are well, the new baby is a 
 seraph, and I am in the heavenly choir all the 
 time. Don't you see ? " 
 
 " You are fond of children, then ? " Stephanie 
 asked, not as a conventional assertion, but really 
 as if in her mind it was a question. Christine 
 stared at her. 
 
 " I adore them ! Don't you ? " 
 
 " They are rarely interesting until they are old 
 enough to have a personality " 
 
 " But they are so absorbing ! " 
 
 " And so inconvenient, Raleigh says." 
 
 " Raleigh ought not to say such things. He 
 ought to realise what a companion a child is. He 
 is away so much, " began Christine, with a young 
 mother's tendency to set the whole world fight, 
 after her own scheme of perfection. 
 
 " They are not companions, either, until they 
 are older " objected Stephanie. " Raleigh says 
 they are a form of protoplasm. He finds them 
 crude. Naturally he regards them as a detail of 
 love only, more as one does with us abroad." 
 
 " Perhaps they are not companions of the head, 
 in one sense, but they are of the heart," Christine 
 took her up, scandalised. Stephanie shrugged on 
 the piano, at least it sounded so. 
 
 " Raleigh says it is not possible to bring up a 
 family when one is so constantly changing place.
 
 48 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 Of course his career now is of the very first im 
 portance to him. It is impossible for him to think 
 of adopting those responsibilities until he is able 
 to definitely establish himself as he wishes." 
 
 Stephanie spoke as if she had been stating their 
 plans for the summer, instead of their deliberate 
 intention to thwart creation of its due, under the 
 divinely appointed authority of heaven. She saw 
 no reason to leave Christine in doubt or ignorance 
 of Raleigh's position. She had the foreign frank 
 ness in speech that avoids misleading judgment, 
 however it may embarrass the reticence of the lis 
 tener. 
 
 " Jim has always felt our marriage was excep 
 tional," Jim's wife pursued, convinced of a mes 
 sage and a mission, " You see, it was not an 
 ordinary love affair, from the start " 
 
 " They never are. Love affairs, I mean," said 
 Stephanie gently. 
 
 " Jim is such an altruist ! In his second love 
 letter, he said he was sure God had chosen us to 
 interpret the meaning of true love to the world. 
 We feel that we have a message, that there is a 
 great opportunity and responsibility in our excep 
 tional happiness." 
 
 "Yes? To whom?" Stephanie queried politely. 
 
 " To every one. To the community we live in 
 and to the world. Jim has such noble ideals! He 
 would never be content to rest in his own happi-
 
 AT SKY HIGH 49 
 
 ness and not try to influence others through the 
 power that comes from loving and being loved." 
 
 " I understand, he is a socialist d'amour ! " 
 cried Stephanie, her eyebrows arched enchantingly 
 over her pleasure at her discovery. Christine 
 drew a long breath. 
 
 " Of course if God singles one out for a great 
 happiness or a great sorrow, one must not fail to 
 reach out and give the message as broadly as one 
 can," she gravely insisted. 
 
 " And how marvellous it must be to imagine the 
 bon Dieu really concerning himself with one's 
 small affairs, like that ! " cried Stephanie, inwardly 
 thanking the saints that Raleigh suffered from no 
 such hallucination, while aloud she asked: 
 
 " You do not consider marriage for one's own 
 satisfaction, then ? " 
 
 " Oh, far, far from it ! That seems such a low 
 level of loving. I think of it as a supreme privi 
 lege. The joy of it comes from sacrifice, from ac 
 cepting the solemn responsibilities and giving ev 
 erything one is to it, without reserve. It is im 
 mortal and triumphant, infinite in resource ! " 
 
 " And you are so young, and really so very 
 handsome ! " admitted Stephanie mystified. " And 
 yes, I believe you are quite sincere. Is it, then, 
 that all the American wives do their marriages in 
 this same public spirit?" 
 
 " I suppose the more thoughtful a woman is,
 
 50 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 the less she wants to live for herself, whether she 
 marries or not," Christine said slowly. " But I 
 must admit we are ambitious, not for ourselves, 
 but for our husbands. We want them to succeed 
 of course. We do all we can to help them get 
 on." 
 
 " It sounds more like business than marriage " 
 
 " It is a sort of partnership, in the highest 
 sense." 
 
 " And more like ambition than love," com 
 mented Stephanie. " And your freedom, when 
 does that arrive to you ? " 
 
 Christine was smiling again. " We have that 
 before we are married. We have so much of it 
 that we do not want any more." 
 
 " But surely not ! How is it possible ? Not 
 when you are in the convent, certainly ? " 
 
 " Why yes, especially in our school and college 
 days. We do not go to convents for our educa 
 tion very often, in this country. Everybody tells 
 us our school days are our happiest, and helps 
 to make them so. We expect to take up our cares 
 later, so we put them off till we have homes of our 
 own, and when they come, we find they are very 
 sweet, sweeter than any pleasure we knew before." 
 
 " And so you cheat life of its ' black beast ' all 
 along your route? That is very adroit of you. 
 But with us it is not so arranged. If our mar 
 riage were to lay a chain on us, after the impris-
 
 AT SKY HIGH 51 
 
 onment of our girlhood, we should be always noth 
 ing better than captives. First our guardians, 
 then our husbands would control us. In Europe, 
 after all, a husband is either a convention or a 
 tyrant." Christine pronounced her declaration of 
 independence confidently " Love attends to all 
 that over here. We forget ourselves when 
 we love, however selfish we may have been be 
 fore," 
 
 " You are a very strange race " mused 
 Stephanie, running a scale softly. " One finds you 
 so cold, so without passion, so intensely ambitious, 
 I less and less understand you." 
 
 " We are not as temperamental as other races, 
 but of course every woman must work out her own 
 life problem for herself," began Christine reflec 
 tively, looking out of the long window where a 
 veerie was nesting confidently in the shrubbery, to 
 the dear familiar meadows beyond. 
 
 " Or be content to let it be decided for her " 
 said Stephanie, breaking into a waltz. Just then 
 Grandee's personal servant entered, " Beg pardon 
 Madame, but Mr. Randall sends word would you 
 play the Viennese waltz you were playing earlier? 
 He regrets to interrupt you, but it is still running 
 in his head." 
 
 Christine rose to go. She was not especially 
 musical, and music in the morning seemed out of 
 all drawing to her industrious heart intent on the
 
 52 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 welfare of others. After she had ridden away 
 Stephanie played not only the waltzes, but a Hun 
 garian rhapsodic, and then some odd folk songs, 
 with an accompaniment oddly imitative of the bell- 
 like instrument of the Hungarian peasant. Sud 
 denly she began to sing. It was not a large voice, 
 but it had been trained, or one might almost say 
 stained, in the convent by the thrilling intonations 
 of sacred words, and it rose up now through the 
 open windows with striking refreshment to the in 
 valid in his eyrie. To Steven Randall she was the 
 perpetual contribution of the foreign element he 
 loved, in his monotonous days. She never tired 
 him, and his eyes feasted on her piquant and 
 dainty outline, finding in her always the same be 
 witchment of the little girl in her lace frock and 
 rose-coloured sashes of Carlsbad. When she fin 
 ished playing, she went to the old-fashioned pier 
 glass between the long windows. It seemed more 
 like home to her than any other feature of her sur 
 roundings. She accosted her own image in it 
 fondly, if a trifle resentfully. To Christine out 
 side, the glory of green on the lush meadow-land 
 by the river, where some acres of grass were wav 
 ing yet, and the odour of hay being made close be 
 low, came up with the joy of the familiar. Not 
 only this summer day was in her nostrils, but all 
 the hot long summer days' of a country child's 
 revived recollection. She had ridden in on the
 
 AT SKY HIGH 53 
 
 fragrant humpy loads of hay that the elms tore 
 at, and the blackberry vines snatched for, as they 
 toiled past up the hill. She had lain still under the 
 eaves of the great cool barn, and been delighted to 
 find herself so near the dark roof and giant spider 
 webs, or to look down from this high point of van 
 tage right into the nest of an oriole, swung in the 
 branches near. To Christine, it all brought back 
 the sweetness and sanity of real things. She knew 
 the honest hunger and thirst of the toilers in the 
 torrid sun of the noontide. The primal joy of 
 rest, the assuaging coolness of the spring as it 
 rippled in the shade by the roadside, were native to 
 her, as they were to Steven Randall, who after his 
 wide wanderings found here that dearness of asso 
 ciation which is the youth of age. 
 
 But for Stephanie, to whom the landscape had no 
 background of passion as abroad, it was all rather 
 flat and uninteresting, dull even. She missed the 
 towered castles, fortifications, and bugling soldiers 
 looping away in the morning distance. And so 
 May had deepened into June; her mind unoccupied 
 and her heart grown vagrant if not actually disor 
 dered. She remembered all the light stirrings of 
 fluttering romance she had dimly known. She re 
 called men who had been her admirers, who might 
 have been lovers, and here life was uneventful 
 and long, and from the windows she saw only the 
 repeated meadows and open country. And only
 
 54 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 echo sang a siren song" of all she had cared for 
 and left behind ; gallantry, romance, passion. And 
 though the sun made hay with an unabated fury 
 outside, in her heart the plover was ceaselessly 
 calling for rain, for shadow, for all the mystic 
 tracery of the hidden and subtle to replace this 
 existence of the apparent and impersonal. " He- 
 las! but it is triste, triste to waste one's 
 youth here alone 1 " she confided to her reflection. 
 She clasped her slender waist in her white hands 
 covered with great jewels, as she whispered it. 
 She was slender as a rose. Her dawn-kissed col 
 ouring, the exact tinting of her flesh, gave her 
 the hint of one. She found herself musing idly 
 of a man she had met the week before at a dinner 
 at one of the villas on the hills. He had not taken 
 her out to dinner, but watched her fascinated, and 
 came to her the moment he was free. He had been 
 in Europe uninterruptedly for three years and was 
 immediately returning, he told her. They were 
 not strangers. Her first remark had led the way 
 for no ordinary conversation. 
 
 " You had not forgotten me ? " he challenged. 
 She so understood it at least. 
 
 " Not in the least, but you had forgotten me. 
 Yes, men do forget," as he tried to interrupt her 
 with his denial. 
 
 " Do men forget ? Do they ? I wish they did. 
 I have sought but one thing more than to forget ! "
 
 AT SKY HIGH 55 
 
 She cast her eyes demurely down, but it was very 
 diverting, this meeting. 
 
 " You did not have a suspicion of finding me 
 here in this so Puritan village ? " 
 
 " You in America ! You here in perpetual dry 
 dock, no! Unless your bon Dieu hears some 
 prayers as persistent and fervent as mine, which 
 have been utterly untiring since our last parting 
 that April day in Paris. I hear the fountains yet 
 I shall always hear them when I think of you." 
 
 " You rode by , me at dusk this evening," she 
 said hastily, " I was the other side of the wall sur 
 rounding the park at Sky High. I could swear you 
 were reading a woman's letter, or pretending to. 
 A letter written on faint blue paper, abominable 
 colour! Probably scented, the tint a femme 
 de chambre might use for her lover " she 
 mocked. 
 
 " It is true you saw me smiling over a pale blue 
 letter. A child's scribble it was that of a petite 
 of twenty, a veritable baby half awake " 
 
 "But pretty?" 
 
 " Pretty of course, and afraid of horses, in- 
 genu, in short." 
 
 " I am not jealous." 
 
 " I wish you were if you were " 
 
 " I have no right to be and if I had the right, 
 I should not be, for rights only imply tedious 
 things," she sighed, half closing her eyes that
 
 56 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 sparkled through her lowered lashes. " But in a 
 village, with no opera, no casino, no plage, no af 
 fair, or only such a ghost of a dead one as this, 
 what is an honest woman to do? Mon Dieu it was 
 different once, was it not ? " 
 
 " It was between us, once " he began. 
 
 " You were always a brute ! " she smiled allur 
 ingly at him, " but at least you did know what love 
 was. I detest blue." 
 
 " Was it a brute who all but sacrificed his honour 
 to secure L'Hirondelle, the white-footed mare 
 you rode those summer days in Normandie, when 
 we were learning the roads of love together? Do 
 men forget ! See how ! Thou knowest it is not so " 
 - falling unconsciously into the more intimate 
 speech of their past, " Do men forget ! Is it be 
 cause they forget, that I have kept her with me ever 
 since? I, who was nearly driven mad by thy fasci 
 nation and then deserted, promising everything 
 and leaving me without a word ! And not alone my 
 self, but also my friend, for whom I was aban 
 doned," he added. 
 
 " He is well, I hope," she suggested. 
 
 " What has happened to him, I never knew. His 
 friends have lost him. He cared no more, when 
 he was thrown aside with the dead flowers of that 
 summer." He leaned toward her until their 
 shoulders touched. 
 
 " Will you ride with me to-morrow at nine ?
 
 AT SKY HIGH 57 
 
 Is it not possible to leave this Puritan village at 
 once, and together ? " he had gone beyond the pale 
 in his excitement, and the surprise of their encoun 
 ter. Her answer had driven the pleasure from his 
 face, " I am leaving myself to-morrow, for a 
 time, and not alone. I am married." 
 
 " Adieu," he said firmly, bending to kiss her 
 hand. 
 
 " Au revoir, if you choose," she replied, and in 
 her ears, was the splash of the surf as they had 
 ridden, into it on the plage of Normandie. Her 
 heart shook with terror of the resurrection of her 
 pleasure, of her sin, and her madness for this friend 
 he had mentioned, the first lover she had known 
 and measured as her equal in potential passion. 
 
 She shook off her retrospection now, turning 
 back to herself in the mirror with mock despair. 
 " Poor darling ! To what a fate you are reduced ! 
 To be obliged to admire yourself ! " she said, as if 
 playing again one of her games of lonely child 
 hood. Under its soft hair always so elaborately 
 dressed, her small head had a little the langour of 
 a heavy flower. Her eyes were indolent oftenest, 
 leaving expression of her passing emotions to those 
 remarkable eyebrows. She was rather exquisite 
 than beautiful. Her slight hips and sloping shoul 
 ders suggested a Greek boy and made the delicacy 
 of her femininity more striking. In her loose sum 
 mer morning gown with its high silken sash, her'
 
 58 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 light limbs would have beguiled Burne Jones to 
 place her among the maidens of his golden stair. 
 Neither drapery or lace concealed the delicate con 
 tour of her perfect figure, a breast where mis 
 chief or indifference or slumbering passion might 
 dispute a lover's possession. Her arms escaping 
 their loose sleeves were warm and waiting She 
 played her little comedie for her own amusement, 
 " Poor darling ! to be obliged to embrace your 
 self ! " but at the moment, the frightened veerie 
 flew off her nest with a cry of warning to her 
 mate, and the sound of wheels grated on the gravel. 
 Raleigh had returned unannounced, it seemed. 
 She went toward him, instantly transformed to the 
 woman of the world, his wife, Mrs. Raleigh 
 Payne. He kissed her enthusiastically, patting her 
 between her shoulders after the manner of the 
 great American husband. 
 
 " Well, how have you been ? " he asked. " What 
 is there to eat, darling? Any breakfast left? T 
 am just in from Denver. Jim ran me over, so I 
 did not wire for a trap."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 RIDING ALONE 
 
 RALEIGH PAYNE was not surprised that 
 some one was to be sent to protect 
 America's interests for her outraged Chris 
 tians. The morning papers were full of it. He 
 read them while the odour of new mown hay came 
 in at the French windows and the veerie called 
 from the shrubbery. The telegram urging him im 
 mediately to the summer headquarters of his gov 
 ernment was however unlocked for. And at the 
 first blush it was unwelcome. He had rather inti 
 mate and fondly matured notions of his own for 
 disposal of this particular summer. He regarded 
 the yellow message with not too much pleasure, 
 though it gave him assurance of his own promi 
 nence in the minds of those supreme in power. 
 There was after all a distinct elation in reading the 
 succinctly worded command underlying the civil 
 notification. But there was also that moment of 
 personal regret, which had in it however no least 
 element of indecision. He was going of course. 
 He had gone mentally, was already past the pre 
 liminary formalities, had received his credentials 
 and instructions and stood again in fancy in the 
 
 59
 
 60 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 smoking room of the bizarre hotel he had fre 
 quented of old; the one facing the water at Buda 
 Pesth. He had been out to the Balkans several 
 times before, but never on a mission of such di 
 rect authority and importance. He finished his 
 coffee with his mind far away. Buda Pesth was 
 before his inward vision, Buda glittering, auda 
 cious, the lair of license and self-made law at the 
 scimiter's blade! Then Belgrade blotted it out 
 Belgrade the bloody home of assassination; Peter 
 Georgevitch with his boat tied always to the river- 
 washed stairway behind the palace, in case of sud 
 den enmity ; tragic plot and bungling slaughter ; hu 
 man beings half savage, regal assumption, pretence 
 and brutal revenge, promises made only for purpose 
 of swifter deception, in short Macedonia, that 
 arena of religious liberty, for political frenzy, for 
 personal lust and greed for power. He had no il 
 lusions concerning that semi-civilised peninsula, 
 the resource of careerists from the scum of Eu 
 rope, the grave of patriots; that seething mass 
 whose future is under eclipse of a red sun yet to 
 rise, doomed to barbaric massacre and fanatical 
 mania ; their blazing roofs lit by the Turk or his 
 enemy as wanton destruction may dictate; French 
 cooking and oriental human butchery side by side ; 
 Manon's farewell, with its last note of erotic Paris 
 played at table d'hote while the shrieks of women 
 outraged by soldiers in the streets are still un-
 
 RIDING ALONE 61 
 
 silenced. Raleigh Payne knew the risk he ran in 
 answering the summons he held in his hand. He 
 went up to Steven Randall holding it open and 
 walking as a man does whose body and mind are 
 not occupied in the same activity. They plunged 
 at once into every sort of political detail. Randall 
 knew Bulgaria and was keen for following up the 
 exigencies of present conditions and conjecturing 
 the outcome. 
 
 " The personal equation has more to do with the 
 chance for peace than most outsiders know, or 
 those inside will admit. A good deal depends on 
 Peter, after all," he said. 
 
 " What about the sons ? Do they come into the 
 proposition ? " 
 
 " One is too young, the other a * farceur,' a de 
 generate who plays the role of young tyrant with 
 sufficient bravado to dazzle some of such subjects 
 as his father's empire consists of. Paris gave him 
 a smattering of the worst kind of knowledge. He 
 is a swaggering, vile-tempered lad, handsome in an 
 effeminate way, who orders, ' heads off all 
 around ! ' like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonder 
 land." 
 
 " No real force of character or leadership ? " 
 
 " Force could not do it alone, out there," said 
 Raleigh judicially. "It takes magnetism and su 
 perstition too." 
 
 "What is Ferdinand good for? He and Peter
 
 62 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 rather keep the front doors of that region ; have 
 the appearance of soverignty, I mean," Randall 
 discriminated. 
 
 " There is no force in any present reign to be 
 relied on, once the military is demoralised. No 
 one's head will be safe long, one way or the other, 
 to my mind." As Raleigh spoke he went to the 
 table where all sorts of maps and charts lay ready 
 for instant service. He selected one of the Bal 
 kans, and spread it out between them, as Steven 
 Randall continued, " One plot just as likely to suc 
 ceed as another. One intrigue tripping up another 
 in the dark, and the end of one party assured by 
 the machinations of the opposing faction. A ruler 
 escapes by falling between armed bandits who are 
 after his throne and fall upon each other by mis 
 take." 
 
 " Exactly," nodded Raleigh, " and the murder 
 ers are murdered themselves in turn by those who 
 instigated their crime, to cover themselves from 
 suspicion and wash their hands in face of the mob, 
 before attempting to mount the throne. It is a 
 seething bloody mass, a mere disorderly mob out 
 there." 
 
 Randall re-read the telegram. His breath quick 
 ened. How he would have loved to obey that curt 
 summons! How he thrilled to his old vocation 
 with the thousand comprehending thrills of an old 
 war horse, at the scent of a distant fray!
 
 RIDING ALONE 63 
 
 " When do you go? " was his only question. 
 
 " At once I suppose. I judge it is immediate." 
 
 " Apparently." 
 
 The telegram lay on the table between them. 
 Stephanie had laid a rose there on her way from 
 her own room half an hour earlier. As the two 
 men stood discussing the situation, their eyes were 
 accosted by this mute protest. Neither had taken 
 Stephanie into account, or at least not in so many 
 words. 
 
 She stepped in now from the balcony, hesitated, 
 noting their preoccupation, and would have passed 
 on, but that Raleigh handed her the telegram, 
 without comment." 
 
 " My eternal rival, business ? " she asked sweetly, 
 without a suspicion of the truth. Her heart gave 
 no premonition of what it might 'mean to her. She 
 read it and gave it back mechanically. 
 
 " That is to say " she began. 
 
 " That I am immediately recalled to the diplo 
 matic service," said Raleigh, already on his way to 
 the telephone to telegraph the hour of his depar 
 ture 
 
 " Beg pardon, Mr. Payne, St. Louis is on the 
 long distance," announced the butler, precipitating 
 his exit. 
 
 "What does it mean, Grandee?" Stephanie 
 asked, turning to him with the fond soubriquet she 
 had chosen for him in place of the stupid word
 
 64 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 " Uncle," she could never bring herself to call 
 him. " Is it anything of importance ? " 
 
 "Possibly, that depends," said Randall, his 
 thoughts still far away on that troubled peninsu 
 lar and the course of probable event. 
 
 "Is it business or diplomacy?" she asked again. 
 And in her low voice there was that reminiscent 
 intonation of her convent training. 
 
 " Diplomacy, with a chance for a good deal of 
 both, perhaps. It works both ways often when it 
 works out in the end." Her cheeks flushed 
 eagerly. 
 
 " Abroad ? O tell me, Grandee, please, is it 
 abroad ? " she begged, forgetful of him as her host, 
 in her painful excitement. 
 
 " The Balkans," he said briefly. 
 
 "And he is going? Surely he is going? Surely 
 he would not refuse?" she started after Raleigh 
 as if to prevent it. 
 
 " Of course he is going. Did you ever know 
 Raleigh lose a chance to ride on the front seat, 
 no matter if it was his own funeral, no matter 
 what it cost him or anybody else ? " 
 
 " Coute que coute, he must not refuse ! " she said 
 firmly. " I will accompany him as far as Vienna 
 and there await his return, or even at Buda, as he 
 may wish." It was bravado, the last half of her 
 announcement. She knew she would not be per 
 mitted to set one of her high heels over the Aus-
 
 RIDING ALONE 65 
 
 trian frontier. She had heard and understood too 
 much discussion of the affairs of the desperate 
 Balkans, had too often seen the men, from every 
 quarter of Europe, excitedly drawing maps of Ser- 
 via and Bulgaria with their silver forks upon the 
 damask cloth of state dinner tables ; forgetful for 
 the moment of all but political significance and geo 
 graphical importance. She knew Raleigh would 
 never dream of taking her out with him. But 
 while he manipulated his country's affairs and 
 angled for his own diplomatic prizes, she should 
 again be restored to the world she loved and for 
 which she pined. She should again see and hear 
 and breathe! It would mean for her a coming to 
 life after the dull inertia of a long season in this 
 " so Puritan " retreat. She left the room as a sun 
 beam withdraws, swiftly, silently; leaving grey- 
 ness behind her to emphasise her absence. Steven 
 Randall remained looking after her as if he saw 
 her still, and not only saw her but her relation to 
 the event of the morning. His face clouded as 
 he realised her inevitable disappointment. Raleigh 
 would never hamper himself with the care of a 
 frail and precious object like this, when the game 
 of diplomacy was to be played at a moment's no 
 tice. Kipling's couplet expressed Raleigh's senti 
 ment perfectly 
 
 " Down to Gehenna or up to the throne 
 He rides fastest who rides alone."
 
 66 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 In which direction was his nephew riding? That 
 he would reach his appointed destination he never 
 doubted. He sometimes wondered, as he sat there 
 alone save for his books and his thoughts, if it 
 would compensate the boy for all he had let go 
 and lost and been unaware of on his spectacular 
 ride toward his self-set goal. He admired Ra 
 leigh's quality profoundly. He could not help see 
 ing that it lacked a certain sacredness, a generosity 
 of being that included the welfare of others. And 
 he feared the effect of a change he had dimly per 
 ceived of late in Raleigh, which he could only de 
 fine to himself as a tolerance of compromise. This 
 he felt to be an open door to lower standards, both 
 of personal behaviour and public morality. When 
 Raleigh came back, he broke into another side of 
 the situation without preamble. 
 
 " You will leave Stephanie with me, I hope ? " 
 
 " That is what I came back up stairs to say. 
 That is, if it does not inconvenience you, sir?" 
 
 " I should miss her sadly," Grandee said assur- 
 ingly, " but I am ashamed to be glad that she must 
 be left behind. She will suffer to our gain, 
 after the habit of women." 
 
 " She won't mind, after the first blow. She is 
 perfectly happy here. She is devoted to you, and 
 she has Christine and the babies to keep her con 
 tent," Raleigh enumerated glibly. 
 
 " I dread to see her unhappy," said Randall, pay-
 
 RIDING ALONE 67 
 
 ing no attention to him, " I dread also the conse 
 quence of a solitude prolonged against her will." 
 
 " Blood will tell," Raleigh said with confidence. 
 
 "Yes, I know. And will hers bear re-telling?" 
 It was the only sharp thing his nephew had ever 
 heard him say in regard to his marriage. He had 
 made up his mind to say .a few harsh truths to 
 Raleigh before he let him go, for Stephanie's 
 sake. Ambition was all very well, it was natural, 
 as were many other of the meaner, baser traits 
 men had to stamp out under their own heel. 
 
 " You owe something beside fame and a name, 
 to this soul you have taken for your own and de 
 prived of all its natural supports and satisfactions," 
 he reminded his nephew. " How long can a 
 woman, especially a woman like Stephanie, be ex 
 pected reasonably, to live on vicarious fame ? " 
 He smiled at the absurdity of the notion. 
 
 " Do you mean that I am neglecting Stephanie, 
 when I obey the call of my profession ? " 
 
 " The consequences of neglect may be the same, 
 whatever the cause." 
 
 " I am sure Stephanie has never thought of it in 
 such a light. She has been instrumental in count 
 less glittering conclusions that went as we wanted 
 them to go. She plays her part as consciously as 
 any accredited diplomat, always under the shadow 
 of my influence and shielded from the lightest 
 breath of scandal. Since our first warning in
 
 68 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 Rome, soon after our marriage, when I was so 
 shortsighted as to let her come within an ace of a 
 breakdown, we have been entirely united in our 
 plans. We have played our game to win, and 
 played it together. I have played fair and I 
 could stake my life she has, and will. We 
 have denied ourselves the ordinary joys of 
 less complicated and ambitious young people per 
 haps, but we have been in harmony always. 
 Stephanie adores place and power and she shall 
 always have it increasingly, if I am spared to get 
 it for her!" 
 
 " I hate to turn pragmatist and meddle with mat 
 ters above and beyond me, Raleigh," was the un 
 convinced reply, " but I think the time has come 
 to treat Stephanie less as a diplomatic asset and 
 more as your wedded wife. I believe if you starve 
 the woman in her indefinitely, it will find its natural 
 appeal answered in some less brilliant but more 
 normal agent of the devil, or the Almighty, accord 
 ing to the way Nature happens to see it." 
 
 " Mr. Payne, the communication is established 
 with Chicago, and Central would like you to use 
 it as soon as convenient," said the butler reappear 
 ing. It was always this same old story when Mr. 
 Payne was in the house. Sky High called it Pan 
 demonium, in comparison with its common calm. 
 
 Stephanie had waited for Raleigh to be done at 
 the telephone. He had in fact but laid the re-
 
 RIDING ALONE 69 
 
 ceiver down when she delivered her ultimatum 
 and congratulations in one breath. 
 
 " Grandee has told me. I am enchanted. Of 
 course you are going. How I am glad and proud ! 
 When do we start ? " 
 
 Her face was illuminated by the sudden joy of 
 deliverance. Raleigh dropped the pen he held. 
 The calculation he had begun was broken by her 
 interruption. On the desk before him a map of 
 the Balkans was propped up, over which his regu 
 lar red and black dots represented vital realities to 
 him. 
 
 " I have no instructions yet," he said evasively, 
 taking her outstretched hand in both his own. " I 
 shall go to New York to-night and wire from 
 there." 
 
 " When ought we to sail ? " she asked, assuming 
 her part in his arrangements. 
 
 " Look up the week's sailings, there's a darling," 
 he said, tossing her the morning paper. " Find a 
 quick boat, a Lloyd probably, for Bremen. There 
 ought to be one on Tuesday." 
 
 He turned back to his letter, writing deliberately 
 as if weighing his words. 
 
 Her heart beat to suffocation. She suddenly) 
 remembered Lazarus. There was a stained glass 
 window embodying his legend, that had been fa 
 miliar to her in a chapel at Vienna. This was 
 what he felt then, when his Lord suddenly called
 
 70 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 him to come forth from his tomb. Her breath 
 cramped her breast for the wild joy of this return 
 to life and the living. 
 
 " Tuesday," she read out to Raleigh, without a 
 hint of her inward storm. 
 
 "Tuesday? Which boat is it?" 
 
 She told him ; with a flurry of soft arms about 
 his shoulders and a red mouth close to his own. 
 
 " Let me go down with you to-night ! " she 
 begged. " You have only been with me one day, 
 and before that only a few hours, since I can re 
 member. I have been here for ever, since April, 
 alone, almost all the time alone. I am devoted, 
 sincerely, to Grandee, and I have not been too un 
 happy here, but it is always alone and I am not 
 one of those great souls born for solitude. I am 
 nothing but a woman, good for nothing but to 
 love and live to be loved. I suffocate for pleasure, 
 for the excitement of love and the world, for love 
 itself, for you and your love, which is mine by 
 right as well as by treaty ! " Again she invited his 
 kiss with those near lips. 
 
 " You have that always, you know," he said 
 warmly, patting her hand. 
 
 " You say so," she repeated, unfaith in her 
 words. 
 
 " Then what more do you want ? You must not 
 be silly, darling! " 
 
 " I do not want to ' know it/ for granted. I
 
 RIDING ALONE 71 
 
 want you to make me feel it, here " she touched 
 her heart, then his lips, with a light caress of her 
 frail fingers. He attempted to draw her to him 
 but she withdrew and stood with her proud little 
 head thrown back, every beauty of face and figure 
 full in his face, as she flung her love challenge at 
 him, " if you do not love me, some one else will 
 be obliged to. I am made only for love. I cannot 
 live without love." 
 
 He would not admit he was startled, but Gran 
 dee's warning came back most unpleasantly as he 
 heard her. 
 
 " Everybody here at Sky High loves you, as it 
 is," he retorted. " You are my little Queen of 
 Hearts. Christine is your wondering first Lady in 
 Waiting, and Grandee, though himself a crowned 
 head, your humblest subject. Even Joel Under 
 wood, who soured on everyone in his youth, has 
 an uncankered endurance of you as you walk 
 through his flower-beds, that he gives only to his 
 tallest hollyhocks when he has cheated the blight of 
 their perfection! Even that newest baby, James 
 Trent, Jr., prefers you to his mother." 
 
 Stephanie did not smile. " You may think you 
 love me," she said seriously, " perhaps you do, but 
 it is an American invention, this love of yours; a 
 long distance connection after the manner of your 
 telephones. You have installed it, and you expect 
 it to remain in service unless the lightning strikes
 
 72 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 it and it burns out. Then you make another in 
 stallation and think no more about it. I do not 
 comprehend such emotions." 
 
 Impulsively she threw herself upon his breast. 
 " Put your arms about me, listen to my heart, Ra 
 leigh, am I a thing of steel? Am I a triumph of 
 machinery? You know it is not so. Confess I 
 am made for sweeter satisfaction ! " 
 
 " But a man cannot be always at his Lady's side, 
 darling. He has to be out in the world fighting 
 for her fame," Raleigh opposed, parrying the 
 issue. " Grandee would be distressed to know you 
 had bored yourself here with him. There is really 
 quite a variety one can make. Have you driven 
 about?" 
 
 She gently disengaged herself. " Do you like to 
 drive about, Raleigh ? " she asked, in turn, " to 
 drive about, up and down on these hot country 
 roads, with never the diversion of a Casino, or a 
 boulevard where one sees others driving? Where 
 one never stops for tea or music, and never a sigh 
 of wind from the sea to make one refreshed ? " 
 
 " But there are always the hills and their chang 
 ing shadows " he began. 
 
 " So Christine finds," she cut him short, " and 
 Christine also is content here. She talks of Mr. 
 Trent, who is never beside her, as if he was an en 
 terprise in which her fortune was risked. If his 
 business keeps him from her all summer, it is to her
 
 RIDING ALONE 73 
 
 apparently the same thing, the accepted and ordi 
 nary course of affairs with your married people in 
 America. Bah ! It is policy, business, what you 
 will, but it is -not love ! " she snapped her fingers 
 like a gamin. Her great rings flashed with impre 
 cation. 
 
 " I thought you cared as greatly as I for the 
 game we are playing together," he justified him 
 self by reminding her. 
 
 " Together, yes. Let me play also, give me my 
 part in the game, and I can forget my instincts, 
 but leave me as I have been, these many months, 
 and I will promise you nothing. Non, merci ! " 
 
 Steven Randall talked the problem out with 
 Raleigh later in the day and failed. Raleigh saw 
 only obstacles confronting every suggestion he 
 made, even the proposition to go along himself, 
 and look after Stephanie in the enforced intervals 
 of absence over the frontier of civilisation. In the 
 end it was Stephanie who won her own cause. 
 Finesse and coquetry and the wiles of the eternal 
 feminine turned the scale. In one of her over 
 whelming moods of passion he could not resist her. 
 Her unique charm asserted itself over him to his 
 undoing, moved him beyond calculation or control. 
 She was actuated not by love of him, but by her 
 instinct to arouse his need of her. She knew the 
 one sure way to disarm him. When she had kept 
 him over his train and he had lost his first chance,
 
 74 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 she knew that she had won. The delay really 
 made very small difference if he was to sail on 
 Tuesday, but small as the concession was to his 
 weakness for his wife, it shamed him to admit he 
 had made it. Stephanie was radiant, lit by an in 
 ward fire. Let him be a politician in a thousand, 
 and a diplomat in a hundred thousand, her blan 
 dishments unmanned him for an oblivious moment, 
 as Helen and Cleopatra and all the nameless in 
 superable host have prevailed since Venus and 
 Mars began their unequal struggle. 
 
 He left her next morning ashamed of his tem 
 porary surrender, yet filled to the lips with the 
 sense of her. And she, triumphant in her power 
 over him, knew she had sold herself for a price, 
 and that price escape. The irregular blood in her 
 veins had instructed her not in vain. She had 
 given all that she had for her life, with all that 
 life meant to her, and what man or woman but 
 will do the same? 
 
 A message from Raleigh stating that he should 
 be unable to return but must remain where he was 
 until Monday, keyed her nerves to the breaking 
 point. She waited, conscious of every hour, try 
 ing to throw herself into her packing, and to si 
 lence the growing misgiving of her heart. In spite 
 of her actual preparations she could not make the 
 truth seem true. She could not visualise herself 
 either on her journey down to town, or walking up
 
 RIDING ALONE 75 
 
 the gang-plank at Raleigh's side, nor in any of the 
 ensuing attitudes of the voyage or their arrival on 
 the other side. On Monday afternoon, when she 
 was feverish with suspense, a second message 
 came; not with the news of his arrival to fetch 
 her, or the directions for her joining him, but a 
 mere statement of his own sailing the next morn 
 ing. He had added one curt word, " unavoid 
 able " as if in explanation of his strange desertion. 
 
 She was beside herself with anger as she read 
 it. His brief letter, sent back by pilot boat was 
 hardly anything more in extenuation of his offense. 
 She read it without a tear. 
 
 " Lache," she whispered between her white lips. 
 The word burnt her in passing them. Steven Ran 
 dall saw her take it and remembered men he had 
 seen take a bullet. He dared not speak to her. 
 He suffered too acutely for her disappointment in 
 her life, and in Raleigh. 
 
 " And I am married to this man ! " she said, 
 speaking very low. " I, an Austrian by birth and 
 title ! " 
 
 The regret on the face of the man before her 
 checked the other sentence all but out, " I am 
 imprisoned in this Puritan fortress without hope 
 of succour ! While he is free ! " She kept it back 
 for Grandee's sake, only adding, " He did not dare 
 to tell me. Coward ! " 
 
 " He promised to come back for me, and here,
 
 76 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 read it he promises to return to me from Eu 
 rope all the sooner, for sake of this sailing in se 
 cret. He even dared to write words of love to 
 me, after he had intentionally deceived me. How 
 I despise him ! " There was a luxury of contempt 
 in her voice that never once lifted from its low 
 level. 
 
 " Be just to him. He suffered in this as well 
 as you, dear Stephanie," Randall said tenderly. 
 " Raleigh loves you more than anyone in the 
 world. I am sure of it. I was with him when he 
 first saw you and swore he would marry you. 
 He threw over another girl to do it, and waited 
 years, until you had become sufficiently a woman." 
 
 " What sort of a person was that other woman ? " 
 
 " Christine's sort. Christine herself if you like. 
 I supposed Raleigh had told you." 
 
 " What an idiot he was! " she exclaimed. " She 
 was made expressively to his own order ! " 
 
 " He fell in love with you. Nothing else mat 
 tered to him after that," Grandee persisted. 
 
 " He was afraid to tell me, afraid of a woman ! 
 Miserable ! " she reiterated, clenching her small 
 hands. 
 
 " You must not forget all his splendid traits be 
 cause he has failed you in one respect," he urged. 
 
 " I have only contempt for him now. If he had 
 abused me or abandoned me, I could have forgiven 
 it or understood it, par example, the training of
 
 RIDING ALONE 77 
 
 a woman abroad would assist me to understand, 
 but to be a coward ! " She shrugged. She felt 
 herself suddenly lowered with him, as his property, 
 to an abyss of degradation to which her father, 
 the spy, had never plunged her. 
 
 " He is deeply in love with you, dear," poor 
 Grandee maintained. It was the best he could 
 think of to offer her. " I have a letter from him 
 too, full of concern for your happiness here, and 
 going into detail of his instructions more fully. 
 He has ordered you a consolation ring, that ought 
 to be sent up to-morrow. His every thought is 
 for you. He is absolutely in love with you " 
 
 " He is in love with himself. Undoubtedly he 
 admires his devotion in this last act, most pro 
 foundly ! " Steven Randall winced under her in 
 sight. He did not altogether admire his brilliant 
 nephew or his increasing fame, at the moment. 
 
 " He promised " was all she would say. She 
 continued unrelenting. " It is one thing to de 
 ceive an empire in diplomacy, and another to de 
 ceive a woman who trusts you. It was an affair 
 of honor between us." How could Grandee hope 
 to extenuate the breach of good faith, which he so 
 perfectly saw and condemned? 
 
 " Raleigh may have considered yours a diplo 
 matic pledge only, open to ratification by treaty," 
 he ventured as a last suggestion. 
 
 " It is entirely another thing to cheat an empire
 
 78 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 in diplomacy, when your opponents are playing the 
 same game, with the cards spread openly between 
 you. But it is like cheating at cards privately to 
 deceive a woman in good faith. Possibly a de 
 mocracy has no code like our noblesse oblige of 
 Europe," she concluded shrewdly. And with this 
 he quit the argument, for he knew that she was 
 right. And it is only a woman who takes much 
 satisfaction in arguing a point when she knows she 
 is worsted, and in the wrong, for the sheer pleasure 
 of testing her own eloquence. From that day 
 Stephanie never spoke of her husband if it was 
 avoidable. He had placed her in Grandee's care 
 by virtue of several closely written pages of expla 
 nation and expansion of his own plans. He trusted 
 his uncle to keep her from fretting too much over 
 the inevitable, expressed his regret at taking 
 French-leave of them, thanked him in advance for 
 .all his hospitality and protection, and then passed 
 eagerly to phases of the Eastern situation, and the 
 part in it he was cast to play. Everything was 
 taken easily for granted, and externally all went 
 on as before. To Stephanie nothing brought re 
 lief for white nights and restless days, until the 
 Imitation of the sacred A Kempis came to her res 
 cue, with its overwhelming balm for the wounded, 
 that in her convent experience she would have be 
 lieved inconceivable.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE MESSENGER OF BELGRADE 
 
 WHILE the heat crept higher and higher 
 at Sky High, and every day burned a 
 deeper coat of brown on grass beyond 
 the lawns where Joel Underwood played his hose 
 in the shadow, and snarled at the stupidity of 
 those who watered in the sun, " pouring tea 
 kettles on their green," Raleigh Payne was each 
 day nearer a new opportunity for the aggrandise 
 ment of his own reputation. He had hated to 
 leave Stephanie. But the haste of his bidding was 
 an exigence in itself and the thought of leaving her 
 at Buda Pesth or even Vienna not to be consid 
 ered. He had fled the charm he feared might 
 swerve him from his course, somewhat sobered by 
 the astonishing power she had over him, and more 
 deeply in love than he had time to realise. There 
 was bound to be much in the life he had chosen, 
 not as he might have preferred it. He accepted 
 this, so must Stephanie, having accepted him. He 
 dismissed compunction from his regret and further 
 consideration accordingly. 
 
 His striking figure, and handsome face, with its 
 open offer of friendship to any who might care 
 
 79
 
 80 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 for it, made him easily a social mark upon the 
 voyage, though he saved many hours of each 
 day for the books and pamphlets he had brought 
 with him, hastily snatched up on leaving to supple 
 ment his own intuition and information concern 
 ing the situation he was going out to meet. And 
 though nothing distinguished him on deck from 
 any summer pleasure-seeker, he talked late at night 
 in the empty smoking room with a couple of men 
 whose knowledge of the Danube territories far ex 
 ceeded his own, one of them a merchant from 
 Moscow, and the other a Hungarian musician in 
 the second cabin. All of which was without a 
 breath as to his own destination, of course. No 
 one but the young German Count wore shoes so 
 immaculately white, or yachting costume more 
 carelessly correct. There was no hint of business, 
 none of the nervous alertness or forced indiffer 
 ence supposed to characterise the war correspond 
 ent, in the easy leisure of this idler. He was on 
 terms of cordiality with the Captain and crew from 
 previous voyages, and his daily round of visits paid 
 beside the steamer chairs of his old and new ac 
 quaintance had the charm of a man of society, who 
 is happy to pass his own time by killing yours for 
 you, without committing himself to any particu 
 lar views of life, or localised reminiscence, in 
 volving personalities. He always seemed to know 
 when he had made a pretty girl sufficiently re-
 
 marked by his little attentions, and when to rise 
 regretfully to give his place to a Second Officer 
 enviously near and obviously drawn by his compe 
 tition. The mothers smiled on him, and recounted 
 scandal to him ; scandal so old as to have been 
 trustworthily proven in the courts, or so new as 
 to be not improbable however surprising. It was 
 likely to be useful later to this man who never for 
 got a relation between any two human beings, 
 since it might establish a missing motive, identity 
 or connection. Tall and commanding in bearing, 
 with the smooth shaven jaw that bespoke force 
 of will, and grey eyes that were sometimes blue 
 and transparent as those of a child, Raleigh with 
 his high cheek bones and rather florid colouring, 
 looked more like the portrait of his Virginia great 
 grandfather than like himself. His hair was chest 
 nut, but so dark that he had escaped the usual 
 jibes at the temper popularly associated with red. 
 When he was angry his mouth had an ugly way 
 of closing that accompanied a drawing of heavy 
 eyebrows and knitting of brow, making him at 
 once ten years older than he was. At such times 
 the grey eyes so full of wit, and sarcasm that 
 caused others to shrink, could narrow to a hateful 
 expression of positive aversion. It was said by 
 those who disliked him, or opposed him and in 
 curred his dislike, that he never stumbled over his 
 principles in making for his own ends. But one
 
 82 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 felt, at sight of him, that his breeding would save 
 him from any outward failure in morals or fine 
 taste. He might do a thing cunning to actual 
 untruth, but he would never commit a blunder due 
 to sins of the flesh, or be caught in a discredit to 
 his Southern honour. It would be done in a 
 corner, if it had to be done. He would never sin 
 openly, from principle or passion. Impulse was 
 no vice of his. Other men found his sympathies 
 hard to enlist but his interest unflagging. The pa 
 tience, which was really the genius of his career, 
 endured under the minor strain of social boredom 
 as magnificently as his dogged waiting for a gov 
 ernment to fall, or the signing of a ticklish treaty. 
 He played bridge as astutely with Mrs. Truxton- 
 Coming of Boston, who was at loss for an exclu 
 sive fourth at the table in her cabin de luxe every 
 afternoon, as he studied his map of Turkey and 
 Macedonia. His little red dots travelling down the 
 Danube from Buda to Belgrade, and then off side 
 ways on crowding trails of their own, looked now 
 like nothing but processions of Albanian bandits, 
 winding their way over those haggard hills at night 
 fall. As far as Buda the trip was entirely as he 
 had foreseen. There he expected to find cables. 
 But there was nothing awaiting him at the Hun 
 garian Palace hotel save a word from Steven Ran 
 dall, code of course, signifying " all well " and 
 " good luck to the enterprise." On reading it he
 
 THE MESSENGER OF BELGRADE 83 
 
 felt again his perfidy to Stephanie, with disagree 
 able vividness. He dismissed its effect upon him, 
 by promising himself to go back via Paris and pick 
 up such finery as would make everything all right : 
 some new frocks, jewelry of course. He knew 
 her taste and had often helped her own selection. 
 His eagerness to be at work received a serious 
 check at Belgrade. Here he found a cable from 
 headquarters bidding him await letters of instruc 
 tion. 
 
 By quickest calculation it meant ten days, yet if 
 he took advantage of that probability to go off at 
 some tangent of his own, a contrary cable might 
 come and miss him. A delay in execution was 
 not to be thought of. So down he sat, like nothing 
 but a cat by a hole where a fascinating tail has 
 disappeared; inactive but incapable of diversion. 
 Just as across the river the Austrian fortress 
 watched Belgrade with permanent suspicion. The 
 hotel was none too clean and the kitchen none too 
 palatable. He waited, marking time as best he 
 could, and the heat made even the game of soli 
 taire too much of an effort, though he cheated to 
 make brilliant runs that ought to have kept him 
 awake. Through a newspaper man, just en route 
 from Sophia to Caracas to cover the French-Afri 
 can situation, he got a permit to go through the 
 palace of the luckless Draga and her infatuated 
 King. He even amused himself by putting his
 
 84 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 fingers on actual faded blood spots and conjectur 
 ing the deadly onslaught up the dark staircase to 
 the royal chamber, until his own blood refused 
 to congeal satisfactorily, and his spinal column no 
 longer curdled over the amassing of ghastly hor 
 rors told off by the guide, gladly exploiting his 
 country's shame for a handful of cheap coin. 
 Aside from the European newspapers there was, 
 after the fourth day, no external resource left him 
 but to talk with the people about their recent his 
 tory and future hopes of freedom. Happily the 
 Concierge spoke German, and was delighted to re 
 peat the scandals he had overheard. He repeated 
 the common talk of the town, how Draga and her 
 sisters had lived together in questionable luxury, 
 before she had inveigled the boy into her toils ; be 
 ing herself an old coquette with a reputation no 
 lie could whitewash, though others pronounced her 
 a virtuous woman, ruined by her own ambitions 
 and hard fate. He enlarged upon her extrava 
 gance, which had emptied the treasuries of all Ser- 
 via, her toilets being the talk of the Balkans. He 
 explained how she had led the poor infatuated boy 
 monarch by the nose, until the sight of the stupid 
 husband and the designing wife, stirred her coun 
 sellors to rise and protect him, and how those 
 he trusted- most betrayed him at last, through ha 
 tred of the alien woman who had undone him in 
 their eyes, and left him no longer a ruler fit to
 
 THE MESSENGER OF BELGRADE 85 
 
 reign but a besotted fool, squandering his king 
 dom for lust of a woman openly unfaithful to him 
 or to them. There were all sides of the murder 
 to hear, from all sorts of sources. The air was 
 full of cries. Revolutionists shrieked oppression, 
 sympathisers of assassination applauded. Law and 
 order, backed by Europe and the balance of power, 
 spoke in would-be authoritative tones, while Russia 
 as firmly as lay in her power holding the throne for 
 Peter Georgevitch, her step-son, acted as inter 
 mediary pro tern. 
 
 It was not much to the point, as far as Raleigh's 
 affairs were concerned. His way lay southward 
 toward Constantinople. Bulgaria was more on his 
 cards than Servia. He listened because he had 
 nothing else to do, but he chafed desperately, when, 
 on the ninth day after his arrival, no instructions 
 had appeared. The French war correspondent had 
 told many marvellous tales and gone. He was left 
 to the isolation of the natives, who though over 
 paid and promptly, had begun to look curiously 
 and wag idle tongues over his delay. This was re 
 flected in the manner of those about him until it 
 became annoying. Twice the manager of the ho 
 tel had personally enquired of him his proposed 
 route. If he came to them from the East, or from 
 Europe? If his health was entirely satisfactory? 
 
 Raleigh replied that it was, with thanks for the 
 courtesy, and wondered if they were much in the
 
 86 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 habit of poisoning people, in their line of trade. 
 He was not nervous, but he was sick of the situ 
 ation beyond all endurance. He was alone, no, 
 let that be unsaid, for already there sat down with 
 him at table, and strolled with him through the 
 bazar, and never left him, an unseen figure, always 
 veiled, always in disguise, Suspicion. The offi 
 cials in the streets saw the ghost, so did the serv 
 ants indoors, who stopped speaking when he en 
 tered, to stare after him. But though the breath of 
 the spectre sometimes crossed his eyes, it was gone 
 as it came, and he alone knew not that he was 
 haunted. 
 
 He could not always be writing letters or study 
 ing pamphlets. It was too hot to prowl much in 
 the sun, and not safe at nightfall for an unknown 
 stranger. He was too keen on his mission to lose 
 himself in literary work, as he surely could have 
 under saner circumstances. At last he had un 
 broken time at his disposal, but he was unable to 
 think of anything he cared to say. In short, he 
 knew he was waiting. " Waiting like a house 
 a'fire," he wrote Steven Randall. Waiting, so hard 
 he could do nothing else but fume! In vain he 
 tried his hand on the lyrics he contributed at in 
 tervals to the best magazines. They at least proved 
 his all-round talent and emphasised him as a man of 
 varied gifts, if he had not won the recognition he 
 wanted. He was established as a poet to be ac-
 
 THE MESSENGER OF BELGRADE 87 
 
 cepted. His friends spoke to him of this or that 
 poem they had happened to see, usually forgetting 
 if it was a Sapphic or a sonnet, and confusing 
 which periodical had it, or the title with one by 
 somebody else in the same number. He was rather 
 distant now, when approached about his one 
 volume of Lyrics, published just before his mar 
 riage. He could not bear to be mediocre in any 
 thing. He loved literature as men often love the 
 buried part of themselves. And the guarded com 
 mendation of those who knew best, together with 
 the ill-advised congratulations of those who knew 
 not at all, were more trying to his self-esteem than 
 the tepid reviews of the press at large. Several 
 good publications gave him respectful notices, dis 
 criminatingly recalling to their public his distin 
 guished diplomatic career. Raleigh had made up 
 his mind that the next volume should be an ad 
 vance so startling, that the poet and diplomat should 
 henceforth be reckoned side by side. And behold, 
 here was his chance for all sorts of local colour, 
 and he could not get into the rythmic swing or 
 catch the verbal tune of savagery all about him. 
 He could not think of a rhyme for wheelbarrow, 
 unless it was to-morrow ! 
 
 On the night of the tenth day he overheard pro 
 tracted conversation outside his door. It seemed 
 to be the Manager and Concierge slightly at odds. 
 He could not understand the nature of their curses
 
 88 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 or the drift of their difference. But it was explicit 
 in intimation that one insisted, and the other op 
 posed. Argument followed, then scorn, then ap 
 peal. While he was sitting, distracted from his 
 poetical efforts by their voices, there came a sharp 
 knocking at his own door. On opening it, there 
 stood before him as he had surmised, the Manager 
 and the Concierge. It was the Manager who 
 spoke. 
 
 " If you please, Monsieur is of the English race? 
 And has recently come from Vienna. Yes? Not 
 the infected interior ? " he asked, civilly enough. 
 
 "Yes, absolutely. Why?" Raleigh said, with 
 dislike of the impertinence, if it proved one. 
 
 " Very good ! And M'sieur has the intention to 
 proceed at once? The affair of M'sieur being un 
 happily so urgent in its nature we may not hope to 
 keep him with us longer? Yes?" he repeated, re 
 gardless of the counter-question. 
 
 " Perhaps," said Raleigh and again, " Why ? " 
 
 " The nature of the affair of M'sieur requires it 
 of him to be prudent, absolutely sage," said the 
 Manager. This time it was an assertion made 
 with authority, almost threatening. 
 
 " Much as we should regret to hurry M'sieur " 
 he began, when the Concierge stepped into the 
 room. 
 
 " There is a man dying, in that chamber," he 
 said in German. " He is mad to have a word with
 
 THE MESSENGER OF BELGRADE 89 
 
 the English-speaking gentleman. He heard your 
 voice speaking with me in the corridor, and begs 
 of the respectfully honoured Highly-born to enter 
 with me his apartment, if for only an eye-wink." 
 
 " Do not listen ! Do not go," warned the Man 
 ager at once, comprehending as if by intuition. 
 
 " Is it not enough for the carrion to feed on 
 one dead body in this house? One sees that 
 M'sieur must not be allowed to expose himself. 
 M'sieur is of so distinguished a reputation! It 
 makes less of inquiry afterward for all. It 
 is better, certainly, if M'sieur were to leave us 
 quietly to-morrow morning, or even, if his affairs 
 are more important, to-night, to our own natural 
 regret." 
 
 " What is the sick man's name ? " Raleigh asked 
 curtly. 
 
 " As if one could say ! " scoffed the Manager. 
 
 "What is his nationality, then?" 
 
 " In the register he calls himself Denbeigh. 
 One doubts if a priest assisted at that christening! 
 He is one of a thousand denationalised robbers 
 that pass and re-pass ever between Belgrade and 
 the East, leaving trouble behind. Sophia, Bul 
 garia, every metre of the way to Plevna, is full of 
 spies, M'sieur. Russian, Austrian, Turkish, Hun 
 garian, even German and English. No man is ac 
 cording to his own statement of himself. No man 
 shows his passport unless he is forced to do it to
 
 90 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 save his skin. No man but trembles when another 
 suddenly enters at the door of the cafe. They 
 know who they are, and often who the others are 
 they fear, but we do not, we who become respon 
 sible for them to the police ! " 
 
 " Well, to begin with, my name is straight. I 
 am nothing but Raleigh Payne, taking a journey 
 into the East and waiting for my mail from 
 America." He smiled his disarming ingenuous 
 smile, at that, which would have reassured any one 
 west of Asia. " I am not plotting for Peter's 
 Crown or poisoning myself to give your hotel a 
 bad name," he added, " and if that poor chap 
 wants to see a man from home, I am not going to 
 be put out until I have seen him, and that the 
 sooner the better." 
 
 " Even so ! " the Concierge broke in, " Raleigh 
 Payne, Raleigh Payne! I must see him. Allah 
 sent for him of all others. He repeated it with an 
 intelligence. But I was afraid to bring trouble by 
 doing his commission to the Highly-born, without 
 the consent of the Manager." 
 
 " Knew my name, did he ? What was his mes 
 sage, if you can remember?" 
 
 " Say to Raleigh Payne, a gentleman unable to 
 call upon him, begs the honour of a visit- He is 
 in haste, as he is under orders and the Black Gen 
 eral cannot wait for him much longer " 
 
 But already Raleigh was down the hall and
 
 THE MESSENGER OF BELGRADE 91 
 
 opening the door of the dying stranger. " News 
 paper man, I bet a hat ! " he said to himself, " dy 
 ing game in this hole, with his pockets burning 
 with inside information probably. But oh the di 
 vine luck of it for me ! " 
 
 On the narrow bed before him lay a slight 
 figure, round which the sheet clung pathetically, 
 after constant tossing from side to side for the re 
 pose that would not be found. The face that 
 turned at the opening of the door was haggard 
 but very winning, unkempt as it was from illness 
 and helplessness and utter lack of care. 
 
 " Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Payne, and excuse 
 my not rising please," he said, with a pitiful at 
 tempt at bravado. " I am about at the end, you 
 see." 
 
 " Knocked yourself out a bit ? " Raleigh replied, 
 taking the blistering hot hand in his own cool one. 
 
 " Yes, fever, but the fire is about out now. I 
 had a silly notion to see a real face and of course 
 I knew your name." Raleigh bowed his acknowl 
 edgments and then scanned the sufferer's features. 
 They baffled him, so he went on with the same 
 lightness of touch 
 
 " Not much beautiful blue Danube about this 
 for either of us, I should judge ! " 
 
 " Rather not ! " cried the sick man with an Eng 
 lish accent. " If I had held out till I got up to 
 Buda I might have had a chance, but I am ecrase,
 
 92 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 fini ! and my mind winds like the steps to the Saint 
 Mathais kirche from the effort of imagining my 
 self back in sight of that cool white 'castle set in 
 its shade trees that keep the light out, or strolling 
 along the Franz Joseph Quai, again ! " 
 
 The two men looked at each other. 
 
 "Finished what you went out to do?" Raleigh 
 asked without preamble. 
 
 " Yes, and myself too. It's a mean quarter, 
 out there," he added quickly. " No one plays by 
 the rule of any game but his own." 
 
 " It is political outlawery," Raleigh assented. 
 
 " The peninsula is full of desperate men on queer 
 errands, Russia in the lead," admitted the stranger. 
 
 " She is always true to her first love, the Golden 
 Horn." 
 
 " The Black Sea provinces are her concern in 
 the present mix-up. Every road leads to tide 
 water with her. The Bosphorus is her road 
 out" 
 
 Again they searched each other's faces for 
 recognition or for assurance, then the sick man 
 asked in turn, " What are you out after ? " 
 
 " Protection of our Americanised Christians, 
 mainly." His questioner smiled vaguely. " They 
 are all mad for dominion. Creed does not stand 
 in the way. That is only a government bluff of 
 course." 
 
 " I don't know about that. When we see the
 
 THE MESSENGER OF BELGRADE 93 
 
 desire of liberty springing up like an innocent 
 flower to be crushed by the heel of Turkish armies, 
 it appeals to the free-born American " 
 
 " Or the rapacity of the powers. They are all 
 in it," declared the other. " And under all their 
 whining about the Jew and the Christian, they care 
 for nothing but their own aggrandisement. Rus 
 sia dreams of tide-water, no matter how fast asleep 
 she seems. Hungary is a despot by nature. Aus 
 tria is jealous for the rights of Herzegovina and 
 Bosnia. If America is disinterested, or in the 
 game for religion's sake, she is the hottest fanatic 
 and the only Samaritan on the peninsula to-day ! " 
 They were both temporising. Both knew it per 
 fectly. Neither was saying anything not already 
 known to the other. 
 
 "What is the outcome to be, do you think?" 
 Raleigh asked, trying to decide if this fever- 
 stricken chap was English or mongrel, a news 
 paper man or in some government's secret service. 
 
 " One hears everything predicted," was the eva 
 sive reply. 
 
 " There are rumours of England being called in " 
 ventured Raleigh, trying him with a bit of real 
 bait, a notion of his own. 
 
 " England could do it ! " exclaimed the sick man 
 with admiration, and would have said more but 
 that a sudden weakness overcame him and he 
 dropped flat on his mattress, with the face of a
 
 94 
 
 drowning man. When the seizure had passed a 
 little, after a stiff stimulant by hypodermic, he 
 began to speak rapidly as if in a hurry to have 
 done. 
 
 " Never mind all that please, we both know our 
 Balkans, I dare say. Raleigh Payne has a repu 
 tation for knowing the job he undertakes, the 
 English War office so understand it anyway, and 
 I have some trifling notion of it too. But that is 
 not why I asked your humanity in coming in here 
 to-night. It is just this. I am going to die here, 
 as soon as I can, since it is no use delaying, 
 and but for your turning up, there is no one here 
 who knows me, or would take the trouble to pick 
 me up and ship me to any other address. There 
 is money enough and an unused letter of credit 
 beside, but these dogs will never use it for the 
 peace of my soul, not they! They are hurrying 
 me already. It is a nasty bore I know, but we are 
 all sent to bed in the dark alone some time, and 
 I am trusting your being so grateful Allah has 
 spared you this luck of mine, that you will not re 
 fuse me." 
 
 " There can be no question of that," Raleigh 
 said solemnly. " But are you sure it is hopeless 
 with a man standing by to help ? " 
 
 " Absolutely. And I am not too much cut up 
 over it either, to say the truth. I did my errand 
 and received my decoration and double pay. I
 
 THE MESSENGER OF BELGRADE 95 
 
 have no one to fret about me and no woman now 
 to put a bow in her hair to welcome what was 
 Nicolai home again feet first ! " 
 
 " There was one, then ? " the question was very 
 gently put. 
 
 " I loved a girl once, but she was not for me. 
 Her guardians notified her government which, on 
 information, took my suit in hand and suppressed 
 me, forcing me into one infected zone after an 
 other, with pledges that were broken before they 
 were offered. There is always a woman behind 
 the men who do stunts like mine. There is noth 
 ing else bad enough or good enough, heaven to 
 win and hell to lose! so to speak." 
 
 "What became of this one?" 
 
 " Married." 
 
 Raleigh drew his eyebrows together angrily. 
 
 " That is not by way of saying she loved," sug 
 gested the man on the bed. " She was mine heart 
 and soul, but you know what the damnable double 
 dealing of artificial marriage contracts and court 
 tradition are, and lead a woman into? Netted like 
 birds, all of them! Then, Hoch Adultere! Or a 
 barren life without the love women are created 
 for!" 
 
 " But Raleigh was carefully setting his memory 
 at work on the name Nicolai, and piecing together 
 the disconnected fragments of a puzzle that he was 
 sure ought to make a picture, a man's face and
 
 96 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 reputation. There was satisfaction on his relax 
 ing lips now as he leaned eagerly toward the 
 stranger 
 
 " Nicolai, you said ? And surely Nicholas Heath- 
 leagh! You see I know you even better than you 
 knew me." 
 
 " Guilty," and their hands gripped in token of 
 mutual dangers shared. 
 
 " My dear boy, I have heard about it and you 
 have covered yourself with glory. I am proud to 
 have the chance to take your hand and boast of 
 it afterward, and prouder still to serve you." 
 
 The eyes of Heathleagh glowed dangerously. 
 " I am on the register ' in cog./ " he cautioned low 
 ering his voice. " I could not resist the desire to 
 see you and have it out before I went along." 
 
 " I should say not ! " Raleigh sat down on the 
 edge of the bed. " Tell me everything. I am on 
 the way out there now." 
 
 "Then take my advice and go back!" Heath 
 leagh warned gravely. " It is not worth it to you. 
 You serve a democracy. What rules to-day may 
 crumble to-morrow. Patriotism will, too probably, 
 be your only reward. It is too much hell to face 
 out there now, except for an Empire entrenched in 
 one man power, that never sleeps or fails to 
 reward what has served successfully, not for that 
 service, but because it may serve again ! Are you 
 married ? "
 
 THE MESSENGER OF BELGRADE 97 
 
 Raleigh nodded an affirmative. 
 
 "In love?" 
 
 " With nothing so much as my wife but my pro 
 fession." 
 
 " Then go back before you are where I am. Lis 
 ten, I have no time to lose," and he plunged into 
 his story he had feared must die with him unheard 
 from his own lips or only garbled by men who half 
 knew the truth. " You have been puzzled, like all 
 the rest, by my name. My mother was Russian, 
 my father English, who, while temporarily disaf 
 fected with his government party, deeply involved 
 himself in the affairs of his Majesty the Tsar. He 
 knew how to be useful to both governments in 
 turn no need to enlarge, comment unnecessary, 
 and the imperial favor was unfailing. I will skip 
 all that. It happened that when I came along, he 
 was already dead, and my mother preferred to re 
 turn to her own country. So I was bred up like 
 a subject, except for a few years in England to 
 acquire the language and politics of my father's 
 race. I came out of it a sort of hybrid soldier 
 of fortune, equipped for diplomacy, and keen for 
 all sorts and shades of performances that required 
 English phlegm and the red blood of Holy Russia. 
 My double qualifications were quickly appreciated. 
 My first errand for His Majesty was one of secret 
 information calling for tact, imagination and dar 
 ing. The result was satisfactory and my future as-
 
 98 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 sured, but on a basis of the unrecognised and ir 
 regular, as I at the time failed utterly to compre 
 hend. I never held an openly authorised post, 
 military or diplomatic. I was ostensibly attached 
 to the leading news journal of Petersburg. Under 
 this cover I reaped a brilliant harvest of success 
 far and wide, and was too much intoxicated by my 
 personal importance to care for the real degrada 
 tion from an established position. I have been 
 everywhere, seen everything inside and out, dis 
 guised as every sort of native, speaking every sort 
 of language, yet to the world I am only a lucky 
 correspondent, who always falls on his feet when 
 there is a fray to report. I might have written 
 some real copy out it all, if I had not this engage 
 ment with Charon obtruding itself at my elbow! 
 After the woman I spoke of turned her back on 
 me, I naturally went in deeper. Nothing was des 
 perate enough for me then. It suited the War 
 Office and nothing made any difference with me, 
 except to kill her husband if I got the chance. I 
 knew he was nothing to her but a name. She had 
 queer blood in her veins, hot as Hungary, but an 
 aristocrat on one side by birth. One of those 
 crooked things made to look straight on the outside. 
 Europe is full of them. In the beginning we swore 
 to dupe them all, to continue our intimacy in the 
 face of whatever arrived to us in consequence, 
 we belonged to each other, and we laughed at fate.
 
 THE MESSENGER OF BELGRADE 99 
 
 Then I was dispatched to the Transvaal, and my re 
 call changed to a more remote region even, and so 
 on until I swore I would break loose forever unless 
 I was allowed to come back. And she had disap 
 peared, not a word, not a sign left for me. 
 
 " The doors of the old palace were shut in my 
 face. I would not bribe servants, for pride. We 
 had no friends in common. She was above me in 
 rank, I told you. Then came the imperial demand 
 for some one to interview Serafoff in his fastness. 
 They tried it, one after another, officer after officer 
 crazy for preferment. Officer after officer got the 
 place but they never reported and no one, unless 
 perhaps the crows, knew where they laid down. I 
 heard of it and asked permission to go. Nobody 
 disputed my right. I set off with a small escort of 
 horsemen all disguised as Turks, to settle the loca 
 tion of certain disputed forts, to learn the roads, 
 and what rivers had bridges, in case of Russian 
 travellers coming after me; and intending ulti 
 mately to reach the Chief of the Insurgents and de 
 liver the verbal message of the Tsar, which he was 
 ready to make good, though not to entrust to pa 
 per." 
 
 He paused, too exhausted to continue, and Ra 
 leigh scarcely breathed. After a little he went on 
 more rapidly, " I left them, and in my Turkish 
 costume, made the last day's journey on foot and 
 alone, effecting my meeting with the man who was
 
 ioo THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 setting all Christendom at nought. I had barely re 
 joined my escort, and set out to retrace our jour 
 ney, when my field glasses showed me horsemen, 
 Turkish cavalry on second sight, coming down on 
 us at a run. I rolled my maps as tightly as I 
 could, crowded them into the blouse of my 
 bravest man, and bade them all fly ! I counted the 
 minutes it would take them, after emerging from 
 the shelter of the undergrowth, to cross the rolling 
 country beyond, in full view, before the wooded 
 hillsides again gave them cover. On came the 
 deadly Turkish cavalry at a mad pace. I waited, 
 always calculating the seconds that must elapse to 
 insure the safety of my work and my posthumous 
 reputation. The armed band of friendly insurrec 
 tionists was not far away, but would my men find 
 it? Or would they meet other bands of Turks to 
 stay and slaughter? 
 
 " On they came, until they halted with a ragged 
 flourish and threw themselves upon me. The 
 leader, seizing my bridle rein, demanded my name, 
 what government I served, by whose permission I 
 was alive, and what I was doing? 
 
 " I shook my head, and inwardly calculated that 
 my maps were about to strike open stretches on 
 Slazek's breast. They tried me in several tongues, 
 Bulgarian and Greek among others, always with 
 out result. I was trembling for the inevitable sortie 
 of my men from the underbrush, as I pretended
 
 THE MESSENGER OF BELGRADE 101 
 
 by signs that I was of no importance to them. At 
 last, when I dared wait no longer, I let them see 
 that I understood them. They were crowding upon 
 me cruelly, dragging me from my horse. I kept 
 them close about me while I admitted, word by 
 word wrung from me by their weapons pointed at 
 my heart, that I had been an innocent offender; a 
 mere mad Englishman, exploring for his own en 
 tertainment, protographing, it was true, and botan- 
 ising, but without ulterior motive. I was spared 
 execution in the end, but searched, stripped and 
 tied to a tree, left to realise my outrage against the 
 interior privacy of the Khedive's premises, while 
 they rode away with my horse in their lead. It 
 was not improbable that my own false Turks would 
 work their way out. I felt so confident of it at 
 first that I felt nothing else. I had trusted Slazek 
 with a cypher His Majesty alone, would understand, 
 if repeated as I gave it. The realisation of my 
 own predicament only came to me later. All after 
 noon I strained at the cords which bound me. The 
 sun came round the tree and found me. All sorts 
 of small insects ran over my face and arms, an ex 
 quisitely contrived torture. At nightfall I had for 
 gotten them for the torment of thirst. At dawn 
 my flesh was so swollen and my mouth so dry I 
 could scarcely swallow. It was not until after the 
 noon of the second day, that an old hag gathering 
 weeds for colouring, came within sight of my half
 
 102 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 blinded eyes. She took me for a corpse, and tot 
 tered away with an outcry of terror. I did my best 
 to scream after her, " Little Mother ! Little 
 Mother ! " My tongue was so swollen I could not 
 close my mouth and my voice was less than a groan. 
 She must have had a soldier son, Allah reward 
 her! for she came back bringing another younger 
 peasant with her, after a time. They cut me loose 
 and together dragged me like a dead animal into 
 their hut. I don't know how long I was there. 
 Lemaurret, the French correspondent, who knew 
 what I had undertaken, had me searched for, and 
 I was found and moved at night, still unconscious. 
 I came to myself in Stamboul, the charge of Rus 
 sians and newspaper men who seemed to know all 
 about me. They pinned a diamond star on my 
 pajamas and said two of my men got through alive. 
 Then I went off my head again, and they had a 
 congratulatory dinner down at the Pera without 
 the guest of honour, because he was raving wild 
 with fever again, and counting always the instants 
 between the open and the covert beyond, That's 
 all," he said, noting Raleigh's tense attention, hun 
 gering for more. 
 
 " But how did you come here alone ? " he begged. 
 
 " Any old way. There was no reason for stay 
 ing down there. The fellows had all scattered long 
 before I could step alone. But the fever got me 
 again, and "
 
 THE MESSENGER OF BELGRADE 103 
 
 He fainted with his secret still untold. 
 
 All night and next day Raleigh attended him. 
 He had wired at once for a physician from Buda, 
 but it looked as if he would be superfluous if he 
 came. At twilight the mist seemed to roll back 
 from the stupors of mortal weakness and Heath- 
 leagh gave a clear look right up into the eyes that 
 had watched over him all night and day. 
 
 " Don't forget the address. See me off. Send 
 me before you leave Belgrade. One thing more, 
 
 you will find a lot of poems in my despatch box, 
 
 queer trick for a man like me. Burn them. 
 Nobody ever saw them but her. Some of them are 
 not so bad, but her husband might, You have 
 been white to me. Some chap will stand by you 
 the same way ! Take whatever you find and do 
 what you like with it. It is yours. Wish I had 
 more to leave. There will be no one to dispute you, 
 
 no heirs, no executors, no mourners. This is a 
 private matter, no governments need apply ! If you 
 have loved a woman you have nothing to expect 
 from heaven or hell, you know it all ! I meant 
 at first to tell you, but I can't now " That was 
 all, not one word of the secrets his watcher 
 was straining every nerve to hear. Only once 
 more, at dawn, he roused himself to whisper, " I 
 wish she knew, that's all " and never spoke 
 again. 
 
 His ceremonious burial did prove to be a govern-
 
 104 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 ment affair after all. It was conspicuously at 
 tended for a man outside government and aris 
 tocracy. The newspaper men were there in a body 
 and the War Office assisted. There were crossed 
 Russian and English flags on the bier and many 
 forms of funereal distinction and many masses for 
 the repose of the soul, to whom heaven was about 
 the only locality left unexplored. Raleigh read it 
 all in the despatches. Every journal of any preten 
 sion reported it in full, but none told a breath of 
 those state secrets his stiff lips had held back even 
 in the garrulity of fever, even in the white hour of 
 death. And the American, bitterly chagrined, had 
 to admit himself checkmated in his heart's desire. 
 He had wanted the kernel of an intrigue known to 
 no living man, and he had got a thrilling story, and 
 a mass of manuscript to increase the fame of the 
 man who had kept his own counsel to the end. 
 Only His Majesty knew the answer borne on 
 Slazek's brown breast to the foot of the throne, and 
 the message delivered in person, despite the glar 
 ing Cossacks that would have barred his access, and 
 turned him back as an assassin, with their crossed 
 lances. Before Raleigh had time to more than ex 
 ecute the simple order of action he had promised, 
 his own cable came, and he moved southward in 
 haste, steeled to keener effort, resolutely setting 
 aside the advice to go home and live content with
 
 THE MESSENGER OF BELGRADE 105 
 
 love, while the enemies of the Turk and Martyrs 
 of conviction bled to death in the massacres whose 
 wild prayers for succour were unheard by Allah, 
 Mohammed, or God himself, unless the Christian 
 nations stood unfailing at their post.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SHADOWS CAST BEFORE 
 
 OF all the incidents that he was free to relate 
 afterward, there was none Raleigh told so 
 well, so simply yet with such sure dramatic 
 effect, as that tale of the dead man whose eyes he 
 had closed at Belgrade. It set his own part in the 
 tragedy in a modest but magnanimous light, care 
 lessly as he might touch upon his great pity for the 
 stranger. He may have enlarged a little on the 
 poor boy's gratitude, but for some private restrain 
 ing reason of his own, he omitted all mention of 
 the poetic bequest of the deceased, though he never 
 failed to light up with an increasing glamour how 
 he had loved and hated the woman who had tricked 
 him. Sometimes, when he had told the story un 
 til his own mannerisms had become unconscious, he 
 would lower his voice at the end, saying earnestly, 
 " I only wish I might meet her once, for his dead 
 sake ! " Implying much. And his listeners were 
 loth to break the spell, acquitting him of melo 
 drama for sake of his personal part in the tragedy. 
 He had been telling it to Grandee and the Trents 
 one evening shortly after his return. They were 
 out on the terrace, for the. late afternoon was sul- 
 106
 
 SHADOWS CAST BEFORE 107 
 
 try in spite of September and the forest fires made 
 the air depressing. Stephanie in one of her con 
 solation gowns, a bit of Paris mysticism, occult in 
 cut and line, had joined them only at the close. 
 She lay back in her low willow chair, with her ex 
 traordinarily high bronze heels crossed before her, 
 an epitome of indolence, hardly hearing what Ra 
 leigh was saying and making no effort at attention. 
 Steven Randall, who had been strolling slowly up 
 and down, had just returned to his chair beside her, 
 while Christine and Jim finished their cooling tea, 
 forgotten during the narrative. 
 
 " I wonder if there is always a woman behind 
 every man, to account for what he does and leaves 
 undone," Christine remarked, abstractedly. 
 
 " You remember Euripides called her ' the gleam 
 ing snare,' " suggested Grandee. 
 
 " And Omar * this woman of enchanted clay,' " 
 Raleigh added. 
 
 " I should hate to think any woman capable of 
 putting such conceptions of heaven and hell into 
 the soul of any man, as this miserable victim held," 
 Christine began. 
 
 " There is no heaven or hell," said Stephanie 
 calmly, not troubling hereself to glance in their di 
 rection. " And this man probably lied. All men 
 lie about a woman, especially if the woman escapes 
 them." As she spoke Joel Underwood's voice rose 
 querulous and implacable from below:
 
 io8 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " Raleigh, you are spoiling a rose vine ! " It al 
 ways made Stephanie open her eyes unusually wide 
 to hear her husband spoken to like a naughty child, 
 by the glum old gardener, whose creed was uni 
 versal blight. Raleigh had been half sitting, half 
 leaning against the terrace wall before them, as he 
 spoke, with his back to the view. 
 
 " There, you have spoiled it ! " Joel grumbled, 
 coming up with his pruning shears to cut off the 
 bruised branch. " You always was a two-legged 
 devil in a garden," he continued, aggravated by the 
 unimportance of his offence shown by this lawless 
 outsider. 
 
 " It will grow right out again," Raleigh said 
 easily. 
 
 " July's the growing month. Nothing grows in 
 August, it ripens," Joel insisted, " and in Septem 
 ber it waits for the frost, if it has not been eaten 
 up by insects or the worms' nests covered it." 
 
 " How is the garden, now ? " Christine asked 
 affably. Joel Underwood showed his contempt for 
 so general an interest. He was capable of being 
 Rabelasian in his conversation under due provoca 
 tion, but he would have been surprised to hear it. 
 He condemned her now in his general suspicion of 
 all women who considered children before gardens. 
 
 If she had asked how the asters stood up under 
 the heat, or remarked that his hollyhocks had won 
 derfully escaped mildew, she might have been
 
 SHADOWS CAST BEFORE 109 
 
 worth answering. As it was, he confined himself 
 to a non-committal answer such as her general 
 query deserved. 
 
 " About as usual, so so." Then compelled by 
 his subject beyond control or regard of persons, he 
 added generously, " A bug for every flower." 
 
 " But it is looking lovely ! " Christine exclaimed. 
 Jim Trent nodded his approval of her enthusiasm. 
 There was a theory in some minds that he never 
 talked unless he had to for money. " It is a nice 
 quiet profession. I envy you," he said. 
 
 " Gardening has fallen off. Nothing in it, as 
 you may say, but worry " Joel sighed. 
 
 He had one glass eye, and no one could exactly 
 tell now whether he was looking at Stephanie or 
 Christine. "There's the cutty worm, and the rose 
 lice, and the blight," he enumerated, with pride at 
 his opposition forces, " and the hollyhock rust, and 
 ants, let alone the chance of drought and mildew. 
 Seems as if Providence set up nights thinking up 
 insects. It is the plagues of the Scripture all over 
 again." 
 
 " You are a great realist, Joel," Steven Randall 
 commented. 
 
 " I talk it as it is," returned Joel sourly. 
 
 " That is a lost art in itself," said Jim Trent, 
 speaking a second time, much to everyone's sur 
 prise. 
 
 " Joel's father was such a rabid optimist it made
 
 no THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 a cynic of him," explained Randall, smiling. " It 
 is apt to work out that way." 
 
 " Of course, if you see how anything looks, you 
 would do the other. Any over-worked trait is try 
 ing, to live with," Christine put in shrewdly. 
 
 The humming birds, mad with colour and fra 
 grance, were careening, on the emerald breezes of 
 their own gauzy wings over the tall spikes of the 
 red balm. A little cry of pleasure escaped Ste 
 phanie, who had been watching them, oblivious of 
 all else about her. The charm of it appealed to the 
 glitter-loving Viennese. 
 
 Joel Underwood followed her gaze to the hon 
 eyed heads slightly bowing, where the infatuated 
 tipplers had passed. 
 
 " A toad is worth a hundred of 'em in a gar 
 den," he informed her. " Nineteen cents a week, I 
 calculate, is the value per capita of every toad. 
 These flimsy things take the honey from the bees 
 and don't amount to anything, any way." 
 
 Stephanie made a little shrinking gesture of 
 aversion. 
 
 " I had a shocking experience with a toad yes 
 terday," she said, with another shudder. " I met 
 it in the heliotrope bed, near where I sit. I hoped 
 he would go away, but he sat there and stared at 
 me with such a sinister expression, I got up and 
 gave him the afternoon for himself. He seemed 
 like a bad dream or an evil omen."
 
 SHADOWS CAST BEFORE in 
 
 " The cat likes the humming birds best, too," 
 said Raleigh. " He agrees with you against Joel. 
 See him sit and jerk his head off trying to watch 
 them as they dart back and forth. It is quite an 
 epitome of the eternal lure ! " 
 
 " He would be worse off if he ate one," warned 
 Joel. " How it would feel inside ! All beak and 
 whizz ! " 
 
 " The ideal is said to be indigestible," Raleigh re 
 marked. 
 
 " That is realism and life too, for you," said 
 Randall, as they all laughed and Joel moved dis 
 approvingly away. 
 
 " It is life, any way," Raleigh assented. 
 
 " I wonder if it is " mused Grandee. " I have 
 thought a good deal about that lately, now that my 
 engagements are chiefly mental. What life is, 
 what it ought to be, or might be. The French 
 man says the creator, by love or genius, alone lives. 
 His theory holds that however crowned, the rest of 
 us are only dead bodies, inanimate and outside the 
 real existing universe." 
 
 Raleigh straightened himself for discussion. 
 " The decreasing population of France needs the 
 first propaganda to avert race suicide, and the ar 
 tistic pride of France will support the other," he 
 said. He felt a certain vague disapproval in 
 Grandee's eyes of late. Perhaps it was only in 
 voluntary criticism, a covertly implied accusation.
 
 H2 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 To one whose approbativeness was so justly devel 
 oped it could not fail to be disconcerting, however 
 politely veiled. 
 
 Steven Randall had watched his nephew's wife 
 fondly. Was it strange if he noted an emptiness 
 in her woman's heart, that Raleigh, a careerist at 
 least, a casuist at best and by trade, was blind to? 
 Was it not a natural misgiving for the wise old in 
 valid to dread lest in sacrificing these years of their 
 youth to worldly success and fame, they were for 
 getting the provision of age against loneliness and 
 decay? Would not this highway of success prove 
 a blind alley if it stopped short with this forceful 
 creature, who must at last admit his end? Respect 
 for the individuality of another, always sacred to 
 him, kept him silent, but to-night he hoped Raleigh 
 might respond to the hidden message from his deep 
 desire. It seemed that he had, at first, for his next 
 words caught eagerly at the Frenchman's last 
 phrase. 
 
 " Life is either interpretation or creation " he 
 confessed, " and there is no joy like literary crea 
 tion and nothing costs like letting it go." 
 
 " Do you keep up your writing at all now, Ra 
 leigh ? " asked Christine. Grandee had wanted to 
 ask it often, but his regret over Raleigh's dropping 
 literature for finance and even diplomacy, was a 
 sore point between them that they covered by mu 
 tual evasion.
 
 SHADOWS CAST BEFORE 113 
 
 " I may have tried to desert my first Love, but 
 she rarely lets a man go," Raleigh replied, smiling 
 to himself. 
 
 " There is really nothing to be made in poetry, is 
 there?" asked Jim Trent. 
 
 " I had always hoped there might be immortality 
 for a Payne in literature," put in Grandee sternly, 
 as one whose gods were profaned by the commer 
 cial standard. 
 
 " It would almost seem to indicate a loss of 
 power," Christine noted, tentatively. 
 
 " Well, since you force me to the defence," said 
 Raleigh, still smiling, " though I meant it as a sur 
 prise for you all, I don't mind admitting that I am 
 going to edit a volume of poems before long; as 
 soon as I can prepare them for the printer." 
 
 " Why did you say edit ? You mean they are to 
 be published anonymously ? " his uncle asked in 
 credulously. 
 
 " I claim to be their editor, nothing more, on the 
 title page." Raleigh's answer was non-committal. 
 It did not satisfy his questioner. 
 
 " Why ? " Steven Randall again enquired. 
 
 " Your imagination is at liberty to supply you 
 with a host of plausible reasons, all sufficiently 
 good, which may or not be the determining one in 
 my case," Raleigh still parried. 
 
 " You mean that to make a literary venture would 
 harm your political prospects in the sober judg-
 
 ii4 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 ment of practical men, impress the world 
 as something one side and hinting a lack of bal 
 ance ? " 
 
 " Worse still, as something frivolous, even derog 
 atory," Raleigh assented, finishing out the sentence 
 for him. Steven Randall thought a little, as if 
 considering the situation from all sides, then he 
 said positively: 
 
 " That will do for an excuse to the outside world, 
 Raleigh, but underneath your hundred best reasons 
 that you always have ready for your own justifica 
 tion, what is the real reason for anonymity ? " 
 
 " It might be the very last one you would hit 
 upon, the truth," Raleigh suggested, with a smile 
 that was captivating but intentionally unconvincing. 
 " Who knows but even in these complex and 
 wicked modern times, I might be in reality simply 
 what I claim to be, the editor ? " 
 
 Steven Randall tossed away his cigar as if the 
 probability of such a truth went with it, as far as 
 he was concerned. 
 
 " That might be true with another man," he 
 said quickly. " I know you too well to picture you 
 devoting yourself to the success of another poet's 
 efforts." 
 
 "You think me too selfish, sir?" 
 
 " Too busy at least." 
 
 " All men have their whims, especially the poets 
 themselves. Why should I not turn benefactor of
 
 SHADOWS CAST BEFORE 115 
 
 letters, if I happen to please?" Raleigh asked in 
 defence. 
 
 " Because men in the public eye and in positions 
 of authority cannot indulge in whims," Randall re 
 torted. " Every one will know the poems are yours, 
 and you far better sign them, or burn them up if 
 you are ashamed of them. There is always some 
 thing cheap about mysteries of authorship and they 
 never clear up just as one expects them to." 
 
 " It seems to me an innocent enough little com 
 edy," Raleigh said lightly, then added " Even 
 where it is a mere mask and not the simple truth." 
 
 " Will they be out in time so that I can send 
 them to everybody for a Christmas present?" 
 Christine asked eagerly. " Who publishes them ? 
 Your old firm?" 
 
 She was counting already on her fingers the num 
 ber of copies to be ordered. 
 
 " Why, no, I believe not," Raleigh temporised. 
 " I showed them to the most exclusive house in 
 London and they said they wanted them. I have 
 not written them my final decision yet. I am con 
 sidering several alternatives." 
 
 Literally he had not given his word to any firm, 
 or his consent to their publication at all, but the 
 implied aspersion of his literary power to make 
 good, pricked him to the decision. His mind was 
 suddenly made up on a matter over which it had 
 vacillated more than he cared to admit. He was in
 
 ii6 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 the habit of being sure. Indecision like this seemed 
 like doubt of himself. 
 
 "Bravo!" cried Steven Randall. "Then they 
 must be the real thing and not too poor to claim 
 when the right time comes." 
 
 " They tell me so. No one can tell how the pub 
 lic will take them. They do not sound like the 
 minor poets, at least. Indeed I am afraid they are 
 rather daring; perhaps they are too much steeped 
 with reflection of the local colour of the East." 
 
 " What are they about ? " Christine demanded. 
 
 " What are lyrics always about ? " he counter- 
 questioned, looking at Stephanie. But she was 
 evincing little or no interest in the poems she might 
 reasonably be expected to have inspired. Set apart 
 by her own displeasure with Raleigh and her uncer 
 tainty as to the manner of her further punishment 
 of him, she had turned a face of stone toward all 
 his advances, refusing thus far to be propitiated. 
 She instantly resolved now, not to be drawn into 
 taking any interest in these American poems. She 
 asked nothing and continued to express nothing, 
 and Raleigh committed himself to his invariable 
 truism, least said soonest forgotten, and did not 
 press for favour. She wore the new Paris frocks 
 and allowed him to adorn her finger with a superla 
 tive ring, but the old Stephanie was not there for 
 him. She had never been lacking in spirit and Ra 
 leigh's leaving her behind after promising to take
 
 her with him, had turned it into definite resistance, 
 her eyes into steel and chained her heart in an 
 armour of its own. She sat impassive, as the twi 
 light deepened, watching the first magic flare of 
 the fireflies phosphorescent in the meadows, and 
 rising like errant stars to the garden terrace en 
 fete for their amorous pleasure ; while Raleigh dis 
 coursed on his theory of art and poetry, and Chris 
 tine thought of the baby, and half decided to risk 
 sending away the present nurse in the hope of get 
 ting a new one no worse, and Steven Randall 
 smoked and listened, so fortunate it is that con 
 versation is capable of varied forms of enjoyment. 
 
 " I do not agree with you. I do not believe a 
 real poet can be a man of the world," said Grandee 
 coming to the surface at last. " He has got to 
 have something cloistral in his nature, something 
 that sets him apart. It is ' the burden of the Val 
 ley of Vision ' ! " 
 
 " He has got to be a man of the world, on the 
 contrary, " Raleigh insisted, but just then the 
 Trents rose to go. 
 
 " That was such a thrilling story you told us ! " 
 Christine said. " Be sure to tell us, if you ever 
 find out who the woman was, won't you ? " 
 
 " It would be a picturesque situation, would it 
 not?" he agreed. "A sort of unsworn vendetta." 
 
 " You might make her fall in love with you, and 
 then desert her, as she did him."
 
 ii8 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " That would be lacking in the refinement of 
 cruelty. I should choose a subtler form of slow 
 torture for his vengeance," Raleigh protested 
 gravely. 
 
 " Well, I am thankful you happened along to 
 take care of the poor fellow. Think of our Fred 
 die being off alone some day when he is grown up, 
 and perhaps getting sick and being unhappy! I 
 think we better not send him off to a fitting school, 
 after all, Jim ! " Stephanie had risen and made 
 her good-nights with theirs. After they were left 
 to themselves, Steven Randall turned sharply in 
 his chair. 
 
 " Do you realise that no epitaph lives after a 
 man like his own son ? " 
 
 " I have waked up to the fact that I have no 
 heir," Raleigh replied. 
 
 " Stephanie has no one in her life, but an old 
 man who loves her devotedly, and a young man 
 who is blinded by the part he has cast her to play 
 in his career." 
 
 " She has a husband who never has thought 
 twice of any other woman. That is not too com 
 monplace a boast nowadays." 
 
 Randall's lips compressed as if he was doing 
 something disagreeable to himself. Aggressive, 
 conclusive, analytic as Raleigh was, he missed the 
 exquisite balance between self-interest and the 
 main principle, the self-effacement that puts the
 
 SHADOWS CAST BEFORE 119 
 
 cause of an opponent in a fair discriminating light. 
 He perceived a coarsening of the moral fibre, a 
 tendency to blur a doubtful issue, an exaggeration 
 of speech and attitude; a lowering of the tension 
 in short, that holds a man firm to the unalterable 
 truth unmindful of its effect upon his personal 
 avail. 
 
 " I am not judging your scheme of life, Raleigh. 
 I have no right to, above all not to interfere be 
 tween man and wife. But you are both dear to 
 me as my own blood, and I want to feel the old 
 place here goes to others of your name. Of course 
 there is Christine, but I would be willing to die 
 and leave my books and flowers to be sure another 
 Raleigh Payne would cherish all I love, instead of 
 strangers. I drop this hint for whatever it may be 
 worth. At all events it seems to me you must not 
 make business an excuse to decline the offices of 
 humanity. There is such a thing as prostituting 
 one's own for business ends that quite escapes the 
 laws protecting women." 
 
 Only his habit of respect for his uncle kept Ra 
 leigh submissively silent. He detected this and 
 laid a kindly hand on his nephew's shoulder. " A 
 man cannot live for himself alone, my dear Raleigh. 
 Seneca was right when he said ' Man was made 
 men that they might help one another.' You owe 
 Stephanie the same duty as yourself. I admit the 
 tide in the affairs of men that must be taken at
 
 120 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 the flood, but it will drown you in the end, if you 
 permit it no turning. Stephanie has bent to your 
 will these three years, as no American woman of 
 her spirit would have done. She has been here 
 alone all summer. You owe it to her to take a 
 year for yourselves. Travel, settle down abroad 
 where she will be happy and amused, and let Prov 
 idence or Nature see to the revival of your old love 
 for each other." 
 
 " I doubt if a tete-a-tete with me would exactly 
 amuse her, in her present mood," Raleigh sug 
 gested. 
 
 "It is not too late. You have prevented her na 
 ture, but if you set yourself to winning her 
 back she will discover with Antigone, ' Je 
 suis fait pour 1'amour et pas pour la haine/ 
 And where love is God is, and where God is, is 
 Life." 
 
 Raleigh was moved. His mouth showed it, and 
 the warmth of the clasp his hand returned to the 
 one outstretched him, as if to sweeten the bitter 
 ness of the attack. 
 
 " Give me just this winter first, sir. I must see 
 the poems through the press and hold on in Wall 
 Street till after January. Then, let it be as you 
 say. Give me until February in New York and 
 then if I can go, I will." 
 
 Randall hesitated. " You propose another win 
 ter like your last ? "
 
 SHADOWS CAST BEFORE 121 
 
 " More or less. I must be in the West a few 
 weeks right away, and then in Washington for a 
 short time. You see, Uncle Steven, it is not known 
 yet, but there may be a cabinet position vacant, also 
 a new Ambassador at the post I have most cov 
 eted within a month or two. Either would suit my 
 book perfectly. I do not say I am actually in line 
 for either, but I am as well qualified as any man, 
 and it will take money, as well as influence and 
 other things. I have got to have one more winter 
 to accomplish things: capital, more influence, you 
 understand? Stephanie likes it, you know. You 
 need not pity her. All women live on admiration. 
 She was born for the very life I am giving her. 
 Only imagine Christine Trent in her place or Ste 
 phanie in Christine's place, to .convince yourself of 
 the absurdity of it ! " 
 
 " Women are all alike if you go deep enough," 
 Randall objected sadly. 
 
 " Never ! Stephanie is not domestic. She is a 
 shining firefly. She dazzles like a humming bird, 
 leaving the useful toad and the humble bee to their 
 less spectacular vocations." 
 
 " Stephanie is a girl no longer," Randall per 
 sisted. " Remember, Raleigh, and never forget this 
 I am going to remind you of, in America love is an 
 episode of youth, steadying down to a mutual life 
 of gain or loss for a common end. But abroad, 
 love is a preoccupation and pastime of maturity.
 
 122 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 Stephanie is not an American. You may draw 
 your own conclusion." 
 
 " I decline to. She is a good Catholic." 
 
 " I consider that a difficulty in the way of your 
 children. What about her religion? She has not 
 heard mass for weeks, to my best belief." 
 
 " Children naturally take their father's religion." 
 
 " What is their father's religion likely to be, in 
 this case ? " 
 
 The question proved disconcerting. 
 
 " Both his religion and hers have got to keep 
 quiet for a time. My relation with the Catholics 
 is, at present, professionally hostile. Get her to be 
 reasonable, if you can, Uncle Steven. They could 
 use it against certain interests now, to a prejudicial 
 degree, if the red shows through. The Catholics 
 are all one pack and they hunt together. There is 
 every kind of complication to be avoided. All the 
 investigation of the last big corporation muddle I 
 was in, was an Irish mix-up." 
 
 " None of which prevents your being more ex 
 pressive, more the lover in your private life." 
 
 " Ah, well, these poems I am editing now show 
 feeling enough ! You will have no fault to find 
 with them on that score." 
 
 Steven Randall scrutinised the face of his nephew 
 narrowly, then he said seriously, as if inviting him 
 to a desirable confidence between them, once for all, 
 " What is your real motive for playing out a
 
 SHADOWS CAST BEFORE 123 
 
 farce like that? What possible good can come of 
 it? It seems to me trivial, if not unworthy." 
 
 " It is a secret," Raleigh laughed. " And I be 
 lieve you are proving the world's curiosity your 
 self, sir, by your unwillingness to believe me. It 
 promises splendidly for the sale of the lyrics and 
 proves the very point under discussion. There is 
 nothing like a secret to make the outsider want to 
 know what it is about ! " 
 
 " A secret the world will scream from the house 
 tops at the start ! " retorted Randall. " Your man 
 ner is perfectly recognisable to any one who has 
 read you before." 
 
 " My earlier manner is perhaps, but you for 
 get I have published nothing I have written since 
 my marriage. The conquest of a woman gives a 
 man a store-house of lyric material he never dared 
 approach, much less express." 
 
 Randall looked annoyed. He could not bring 
 himself to say how any exploitation of Stephanie 
 would shock and repel him. " I do hope they are 
 not decadent stuff, all physical intimacy and mor 
 bid satisfaction " he began. 
 
 " They are rather hot, I warn you." 
 
 " Better unpublished then " 
 
 " Better unclaimed beyond a doubt," Raleigh 
 agreed without loss of temper. 
 
 " When do you intend to confess to your pub 
 lic?"
 
 124 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " Let us see how they are received first. And 
 mind you, Uncle Steven, I have not admitted, even 
 to you under pressure, they were my own. No one 
 but Stephanie would be able to say whether such 
 fires were burning in the hold of my ship of life, 
 as it sails serenely on the surface waters. She 
 knows me better than any of you, after all. And 
 as to your complaint of my indifference toward 
 her, wait till I am famous ! A man shows a woman 
 how he loves her by marrying her, once for all. 
 He cannot be on exhibition with his feelings. If 
 anything threatened Stephanie, no man would shoot 
 straighter than I. But nothing is threatening her. 
 And as to her religion, you recall the saying of 
 Gibbon, no doubt, ' all religions are equally true 
 in the eyes of the people, equally false in the eye 
 of the philosopher, equally useful in the eye of the 
 magistrate ' ! " 
 
 And the only consoling hope Steven Randall held, 
 at the end of their rather unsatisfactory talk, was 
 the certainty that Raleigh's ambition would not 
 prove impervious to the hint of an inheritance and 
 a continuing name.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE WINTER OF THEIR DISCONTENT 
 
 THE house Raleigh had taken for the win 
 ter was fashionably located, and superb, 
 if impersonal in effect. What it lacked 
 in association it made up in scenic background. 
 In spite of the theory that the tired business man, 
 that alleged ogre preventing ideal levels in theatre 
 and music, must be amused, Stephanie might be 
 said to have listened her way into men's favour. 
 Man is still male enough to like to shine. And 
 there was something in her way of listening that 
 evinced a closer interest than the mere topic re 
 quired, a something enclosing his personality 
 with a glow of aroused possibilities unsuspected 
 by the dazzled owner of the same. She did not, in 
 fact, allow herself to think of other things, and 
 merely punctuate their recitals with appropriate 
 and discriminating use of the word " Really ? " or 
 " How clever of you ! " The common interpola 
 tions of Yes? and No? were never on her lips, yet 
 one felt she had followed, and expressed more 
 than the words of her voluble rivals, who tried to 
 charm by meeting their entertainers half way and 
 on their own ground. To some men her eyes were 
 125
 
 126 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 the explanation of her sympathy. They warmed 
 delightfully; and again there was a dawning of 
 disdain in them, that warned from hotter pursuit 
 of a subject she disliked. She saved men her own 
 displeasure often thus, and they were grateful after 
 ward. She even saved them from a blunder with 
 others, for their own sake, by the same illusory 
 method. When she understood the subject on 
 which they were talking, her own wit was no less 
 ready or her tongue less halting than that of the 
 precocious little girl of Carlsbad long years ago. 
 But she so rarely did understand I Of art and mu 
 sic she heard little from these Americans, and what 
 she heard of their lives and occupations left her 
 small opening beyond the pretty small coin current 
 in social interchange; flattery, repartee, the turn 
 ing of a phrase. She quickly saw their preference 
 for her as a foreigner, and adhered to her role 
 with consummate tact, keeping her own counsels 
 and making no entangling admissions as to her own 
 conclusions. To-night there was one man only, at 
 the dinner Raleigh was giving for a certain Sena 
 tor likely to be of use to him later, by whom she 
 might possibly have spent a forgetful hour or two. 
 He was a young attache from the German Lega 
 tion at Washington, who had happened over to 
 New York and been included as an afterthought. 
 His importance was too trivial to give him the cov 
 eted place by her side, and he had sulked over it
 
 WINTER OF THEIR DISCONTENT 127 
 
 at first, bored by the woman next him through no 
 fault of hers but his own inward disappointment. 
 
 " I have so often wondered, since I first met you, 
 over your opinion of our American men and 
 American life in general," Senator Fordyce was 
 saying to Stephanie now, but she could not be 
 drawn out, and the glance of the young attache was 
 openly commending. They two were of a differ 
 ent civilisation. Their opinions were not made and 
 re-made every few hours and scattered down the 
 wind, like those of these versatile and unreserved 
 Americans. To deliberate, was not to speak one's 
 true thought, and never to strangers. He admired 
 the resistance of his hostess and again sincerely 
 cursed his neighbour for talking to him, so that he 
 could not listen satisfactorily. 
 
 " I suppose we must seem terribly in earnest, 
 after your sluggish old Europe, eh ? " he prod 
 ded, with a twinkle in his eyes. 
 
 " You do seem always to be in a terrible hurry " 
 she admitted, through her long eyelashes, her 
 own eyes smiling indulgently. " When the servants 
 observe Mr. Payne driving to the door, they call 
 to any other within hearing, ' Hurry up ! Mr. 
 Payne is coming ' ! " 
 
 " Well, yes, I suppose we are all haunted by the 
 dream of getting there " 
 
 " You go always by ' grande vitesse,' as we say, 
 you seem not to care too much where it is that
 
 128 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 you arrive, as in how few minutes it cost you. I 
 hear always spoken by the American men, ' I can 
 go from the City Hall to the tomb of Grant in so 
 and so many minutes. It is not that you really 
 care to be at either of your destinations, it seems, 
 but it pleases you to feel your body hurled through 
 space. And after, to gain time to go between two 
 other places, where you never will care to remain ! " 
 
 " But all the same, my dear lady, we do arrive," 
 said Willerson, on her left, the great railroad mag 
 nate of the West. 
 
 " But it is always of transit, I hear so much 
 spoken, rapid transit." 
 
 " It is because we know we shall arrive at last 
 that we hurry so, and economise time at both ends. 
 We do not decorate over here, but on my roads 
 we raise the pay of any engineer who beats his 
 own record until it changes a time table even by 
 the fraction of a minute. There is nothing but our 
 own record fast enough to beat ! " 
 
 " We are our own ancestors, in a sense. We 
 have got to bequeath ourselves a fortune and a 
 name before we are put up on the top shelf by 
 the youngsters," explained the Senator. 
 
 " And to do that in a country where every other 
 fellow is doing the same thing, requires celerity ! " 
 cried Willerson. 
 
 " Exactly," agreed Senator Fordyce again. 
 " We are nobody to-day, the ruling magnate to-
 
 WINTER OF THEIR DISCONTENT 129 
 
 morrow. Born poor, we have to allow for time 
 to die rich." 
 
 Stephanie was listening deliciously. One white 
 ring-bedecked hand on her wine-glass, which she 
 seemed to have forgotten to raise. 
 
 " Did you ever ride on a locomotive? " Willerson 
 asked her abruptly. 
 
 She gave him a negative shrug and smile. 
 
 " That would give it all to you in no time. Eu 
 rope rides in the Pullman with the doors locked. 
 The American is the engineer, out in the night and 
 storm with Nature and Life and Death. That is the 
 difference. I will take you for a run some time, 
 out West, perhaps. Your husband has promised 
 to make a flying trip with me later in the season. 
 After you have ridden on a cow-catcher through 
 the Rockies you will get the idea without much 
 auto-suggestion ! " 
 
 " You see, my dear Mrs. Payne," Senator 
 Fordyce explained, convinced that his method of 
 enlightening her was less primitive. " You do not 
 understand our underlying principle. No one stays 
 put over here. Everything shifts and every 
 one moves up accordingly. I do not know about 
 Austria, but I take it in England a man who tends 
 gate at a railroad crossing was the son of a man 
 who tended the same gate. What was good 
 enough for his father is good enough for him. 
 And nothing is good enough for us ! "
 
 130 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " Nor half good enough for our women ! " said 
 Willerson, with a glance for his wife, a handsome 
 woman superbly gowned, the oldest daughter of a 
 millionaire down on his luck, that Willerson was 
 said to have married from the cashier's desk in 
 the Golden Alhambra Hotel at San Francisco. 
 
 Stephanie raised her glass. Both men admired 
 the beauty of her throat as she drank. When she 
 resumed her part in the conversation it was with 
 a platitude, intended to set them going again, 
 probably. 
 
 " It is also true in Austria. We remain where 
 we were born, bien places or to the contrary." 
 
 " That kind of ancestor worship would not go 
 over here, unless we set up shrines to ourselves 
 while we were alive," said Willerson, cutting his 
 bird as if it had been an offering to his own per 
 sonal divinity that had shaped his ends so satisfac 
 torily. 
 
 " That is what makes our society so vital," put 
 in the Senator. " There is no old stagnant blood, 
 half luxurious idleness, half musty Port, in our 
 veins. Our people are making and unmaking a 
 country, a history and themselves. They are light 
 of touch, quick of action. It is now or never 
 always with our men and women. The past they 
 are done with, and the future is a margin they do 
 not trade on too much." 
 
 " The equilibrium being assured by our all liv-
 
 WINTER OF THEIR DISCONTENT 131 
 
 ing so fast we can't fall off I " said Willerson, " we 
 have no time for trifles. We work like fury and 
 play on the dead run and do both twice as hard as 
 the other." 
 
 " And do you rest as violently as you work ? " 
 Stephanie asked, really curious to hear what the 
 answer would be. 
 
 " When we rest it is under Doctor's orders, with 
 a warning at our temples, held up like a mail-train 
 in a lonely gulch." Willerson spoke as if a spectre 
 had invaded the conversation. The Senator con 
 tinued, still addressing Stephanie exclusively, " The 
 national poise, such as it is, comes from the up 
 ward strain. Nobody is content. You must have 
 noticed that in our American women. They are 
 always after something more, something just out 
 of reach the moment before " 
 
 " They are very wonderful," murmured Stepha 
 nie, taking her cue devoutly. 
 
 "They arel" said Willerson. "It is due to 
 them that we have an approach to an aristocracy 
 ourselves now, though no sane man would dare de 
 fine or determine it. But the material of which 
 our world is made up to-day in New York, is an 
 amalgamated product. The American men are of 
 native stock idealised. There are not many immi 
 grants in society, yet, though they are in full cry 
 for the goal. But the women! Violet girls one 
 generation, and ladies of the Waldorf corridors
 
 132 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 the next! Our power of assimilation is not con 
 fined to business, not at all! And the American 
 man is not afraid to marry the starriest eyes he sees 
 looking his way and trust his own nerve to set 
 them up in a heaven of his own providing. Edu 
 cation is free, and culture, while it is not a matter 
 of money, can be had for money in such a close 
 imitation it often passes for the real thing. There 
 is less of that of course, but we rise, we rise ! We 
 are the dream of evolution vindicated. We are 
 evolving a nation of influential citizens out of riff 
 raff, and we understand each other because so many 
 of us came up the same road, or our immediate 
 people before us." 
 
 " One must not boast too much of culture," 
 demurred the Senator, " it is too often of the 
 Club variety. Club culture and syndicated 
 thought are too much like tinned food to bear ad 
 vertising. 
 
 " O well, the clever women come to the top, 
 and there is any place for any one who has the 
 eyes to see it and the pluck to get it." 
 
 " It is a new idea to me," Stephanie said softly. 
 " I had always an idea that men did what they 
 wished and women what they must." 
 
 " The American woman does not take what is 
 left, I assure you. She is after what she wants 
 quite as fast as any of the men," insisted Wilier- 
 son.
 
 WINTER OF THEIR DISCONTENT 133 
 
 " It fails in repose, perhaps a little, this idea of 
 life ? " she suggested. 
 
 " O there is repose enough, Woodlawn is full 
 of it ! " cried Willerson, " So is Greenwood. 
 American repose comes after death. You never 
 saw more determined monuments to it than those 
 erected to us by our grateful widows. Angels of 
 Peace, soothing selections of scripture wreathed in 
 poppies, and they are off to Europe in clothes 
 that are a regular mourning frolic, to do us credit 
 by their second marriage, always higher in the 
 social scale." 
 
 Stephanie shrank a little. " How very ter 
 rible you are! It is not so, is it, Senator For- 
 dyce?" 
 
 " Yes, I am afraid they do rise on stepping 
 stones of our dead selves to higher things," he 
 parodied with mock regret. " But they deserve 
 their reward. They help earn the money and they 
 put up with a good deal, first and last. They are 
 good partners and shrewd players in the game of 
 life. They are true till death and what more does 
 the prayer book even demand ? " 
 
 " And do they all do this that you say, from love 
 or calculation, then ? " she asked, bewildered a little 
 by the unfamiliar point of view. 
 
 " Love on the start, usually, almost always. 
 Then, the great American game of Success absorbs 
 them both. The women have heads. They see
 
 I 3 4 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 further than we do often, while they seem busy with 
 their children and their social duties." 
 
 " And their hearts " Stephanie said vaguely. 
 
 " O they put all that part of themselves into their 
 children. Love goes down you know. We men 
 have no time. It is a wise father that knows his 
 own child nowadays." 
 
 " But one hears so much of your divorce scan 
 dals " she began. 
 
 " That sort of thing is for the idle, not the ambi 
 tious," Willerson dismissed the notion as if he had 
 been asked if he liked poetry. There was a mo 
 mentary lull. The straying eyes of the attache met 
 those of his hostess and exchanged a sub-conscious 
 comfort, before they veered from conscious eti 
 quette. 
 
 Senator Fordyce leaned forward and spoke to a 
 man sitting next beyond him on the same side. 
 
 " They tell me you have been up to Sky High 
 to see Randall, this week, Doctor; how did you 
 find him? Improving, I hope?" 
 
 Doctor Wylin, an old friend of all the Randalls, 
 and one of the noted and peerless clairvoyants of 
 his profession, responded with enthusiasm. 
 
 " He is so full of joys and animosities that he 
 made me feel old beside him ! " he exclaimed. " I 
 found him reading the last of James and Kitchens, 
 and crazy over De Bussy music as no one should 
 be who is not reckless and bad and ultra-modern
 
 WINTER OF THEIR DISCONTENT 135 
 
 and mondaine. His heart, I fancy, soliloquises at 
 times, but his head vibrates to the life of all key 
 notes, the more intricate the measure the better for 
 him." 
 
 " You are very old friends ? " 
 
 " Yes, we hunt in the same pack, though we 
 seldom hear each other's voice or catch the fire 
 of each other's eyes. It is a tribal affinity, as a 
 friend of mine expresses it." He did not add that 
 he was in his place at this very dinner because 
 of Randall's repeated entreaty of him to keep Ra 
 leigh in sight. And some one at the moment was 
 asking him for some of his recent Balkan experi 
 ences. Others urged, glad of a respite in their 
 own efforts to be thought amusing. Raleigh hesi 
 tated becomingly, seemed to be searching for the 
 right thing, and began the story of his encounter 
 with the Messenger of Belgrade. He had never 
 repeated it since landing, except to the family, but 
 he had never told it better. He was at ease with 
 himself and his world to-night. Stephanie was 
 looking her best and playing up just as he wanted 
 her to. He had made an unexpected ' coup ' in 
 Wall street during the week, the dinner had gone 
 admirably, and the men it had been desirable to im 
 press had appeared elated to be there, and confi 
 dent of his right to a place of honour among them 
 and governmental recognition for his service. The 
 Senator and the Railroad King had met on the
 
 136 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 great American level that sets all men bragging of 
 a common cause, and Stephanie had known pre 
 cisely the one line on which this result was sure. 
 He complimented her in his heart, even as he was 
 speaking. Only a few weeks more of this sort of 
 thing and he could venture to take his hand off 
 the lever for a little while, a few months per 
 haps, a summer, no more, but long enough to 
 devote himself exclusively to Stephanie and set 
 their relations right. They had drifted unaccount 
 ably apart, still she shared his projects, he included 
 her in all his dreams, and that was more than most 
 men did, until after they were realised at least. 
 She ought to feel the flattery of his reliance upon 
 her tact to-night. He had put an important situ 
 ation in her hands, and both men were smiling, 
 well pleased with themselves and with her. And 
 she was his. 
 
 The wine had been good and he told his favourite 
 story well. No one at the table had heard it be 
 fore or ever would again. He made a mental note 
 of each one present. Stephanie of course was a 
 partial exception, but a man's wife in such mat 
 ters is a negligible quantity. She had only heard 
 the end, any way, and given it little or no atten 
 tion in her joy over those dervish humming birds. 
 And is it not a part of a woman's sworn, " for 
 worse," to listen to her husband's old stories? Ste 
 phanie was a comprehending if subtle claque. He
 
 WINTER OF THEIR DISCONTENT 137 
 
 glanced toward her constantly as he made his points 
 tell. There was just the right touch of self-efface 
 ment in the way he subordinated his own mission, to 
 the brutal achievement of the dying man, just the 
 right art in the balance preserved, while he set it 
 in all its savage cruelty before these people in 
 evening dress, in a hot room perfumed with red 
 roses and early hyacinths. It took so well that he 
 italicised the dead man's bitterness toward his Mis 
 tress, whose base betrayal of a chap like that, he, 
 Raleigh Payne, had been carried away to wish 
 he might yet have an opportunity to acquit as it 
 deserved. He went a little beyond his real infor 
 mation or feeling, stretching the situation to suit 
 the effect of his recital on the nerves about him, 
 forgetting perhaps just what had been the bald 
 truth of the experience, in its adaptation to literary 
 values. For even a story must be successful and 
 serve the moment's glory to the full, for Raleigh 
 Payne. Suddenly he gave the name he had hith 
 erto withheld. A name added just the necessary 
 touch of realism, and this name one man at the 
 table at least, the attache from Washington, would 
 be likely to know and appreciate. 
 
 Stephanie was suddenly aware of a current of 
 air blowing lightly over her tomb, where no sculp 
 tured American angel of peace kept guard. What 
 was it the man half way down the table was say 
 ing? They had presented him as an attache of
 
 138 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 some legation, had they not? What name was 
 that he was repeating? Had he actually spoken it 
 or had it come by some trick of memory? 
 
 " Nicholas Heathleagh." 
 
 Who had thrown a pebble into the tarns of mem 
 ory, the dead pools of the past, to raise that 
 name to the echo? It was not a name known out 
 of Europe, hardly west of the Russian frontier. 
 It was the foreigner of course, who had repeated it. 
 " So it was Nicolai's fate to die alone in Belgrade. 
 It was an honour for you, Mr. Payne." 
 
 Nicolai dead, entrusting his honour to the hands 
 of the man he had thirsted to kill! For an in 
 stant she was again back in Austria. The table 
 with its represented power of men, and glory of 
 decoration that was money, sank away from her 
 like Klingsor's garden of enchantment. 
 
 Nicolai was dead. And it was Nicolai's story 
 Raleigh was re-telling, and Nicolai's revenge he 
 was promising himself openly the pleasure to per 
 form. 
 
 The Senator was complimenting her on her rapt 
 attention 
 
 " I am always a good listener, I attend very 
 well, always," she said, with a dry throat that 
 made her words sound strangely to herself. 
 
 " But to your own husband ? " archly. 
 
 " Ah yes, I hear my husband speak at length but 
 seldom, and after, we women abroad are not ex-
 
 WINTER OF THEIR DISCONTENT 139 
 
 pected to be able to talk, as your women who are 
 so talented. We try to look as charming as the 
 good God permits, and for the rest we listen." 
 
 And the eyes of the Senator and those of the 
 Railroad King met, with an expression of " here 
 at last is a woman ! " an involuntary betrayal of 
 all those principles of the liberated sex enunciated 
 by both. 
 
 " Nicolai is dead " Stephanie repeated to 
 herself as she looked in her glass in her own room, 
 to satisfy herself she had not lost colour. " Eh 
 bien! He Is dead, and I was once so mad over 
 him! What imbeciles of passion we both were 
 ' autre fois ' ! And how the Countess, my grand 
 mother, was wise to protect me from a false step! 
 It was all her inspiration, our marriage at Aix 
 out of season, with no public to assist, and after, 
 no clue in the name of Mrs. Raleigh Payne. 
 Dieu, but what a precipice opening to-night! Ra 
 leigh must never repeat that story of Belgrade, 
 and how to prevent him? How to take it from 
 him, like a new toy from a child, without arous 
 ing his suspicion ? " She knew but too well that 
 any stranger, without intending evil, on hearing 
 this recital might speak the name of the Countess 
 Stephanie Marie Louise Graubach von Lichten- 
 berg, then all was lost. Raleigh had exagger 
 ated her relation with Nicolai, but he would believe 
 the worst, as Nicolai had evidently intended him
 
 140 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 to. That had been the silent revenge of a lover 
 betrayed but adoring, even in the hour of death. 
 To tell Raleigh? To make an end of this terror, 
 perhaps imaginary ? " No, a thousand times ! To 
 him, in spite of all I could say, I should be guilty. 
 He would never believe me innocent ! " Her so 
 phistication protested. She judged him from a 
 foreign standard, without reckoning on the confi 
 dence Americans place in those they love, and 
 shrank from the inevitable result as she conceived 
 it. The help of a Priest, of holy counsel and di 
 rection, appealed to her irresistibly. She knew 
 from Sister Angela that one of the Convent Con 
 fessors had been sent to assist in establishing a 
 French parochial school in America. But how to 
 reach him? How to elude Raleigh's restrictions 
 without exposing herself doubly to his displeasure ? 
 These were the conflicting fears that would not 
 let her sleep, even after the street cleaners began 
 their scuffling noises outside her carefully shielded 
 windows.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE WHITE SWALLOW 
 
 THE winter had been one of constant, chang 
 ing, and progressive excitement to Ra 
 leigh. The announcement of the forth 
 coming volume of poems, however stoutly he dis 
 claimed them, established him as a social lion 
 within the inner circle of Ihe literary elite, quite 
 apart from and unrelated to iiis larger interests. 
 
 Stephanie had thrown herself into the pageant 
 of their triumphal procession, with a grace that 
 demanded not, if it was to eventually lead up to 
 Parnassus itself, or some sacrificial pyre. She 
 knew her part and played it to perfection. Ra 
 leigh felt she had forgotten or laid aside her sum 
 mer's pique, and in return did all that lay in his 
 power to please her, even to dropping his fa 
 vourite story from his repertoire and foregoing the 
 applause it always won, since she disliked the repu 
 tation of " raconteur," that she pronounced an in 
 ferior gift for a man of distinction. He had en 
 tire confidence in her taste, and if she declared 
 story-telling a bore, he was ready to accept her 
 verdict and adopt the finer art of conversation. 
 
 '* It is not really comme il faut to monopolise, is 
 141
 
 142 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 it ? " she had asked indifferently. It set him think 
 ing until her next remark, " One is much im 
 pressed with the American's custom of speaking 
 all the time of himself and his experience, because 
 in Europe one holds oneself more, as the French 
 say, one does not confide too much. That is 
 why the American in society fails of the chic, the 
 distinguished silence of the man who is well-born 
 abroad." 
 
 He had raised no discussion and made no de 
 fence. He saw her point too clearly for that; so 
 clearly that he acted upon it, much to his own ad 
 vantage. His manner gained, applauded by her 
 with consummate flattery after each occasion where 
 the fatal story remained untold, and he allowed 
 other men to make an effort to amuse and capture 
 him; a change in attitude that duly impressed it 
 self upon the keen observers about him, who noted 
 his quiet assurance as that of a man who had 
 reached his goal and was beyond need of them. 
 As Stephanie had foreseen, it added to his prestige, 
 beside calming her own apprehensions that stalked 
 in alarming numbers in the darkest hours before 
 the dawn. 
 
 Raleigh and herself, to look upon, were as blithe 
 a young vision as ever strayed out of the golden 
 age to smile down from a chariot upon an applaud 
 ing populace. Circumstances of course involved 
 them in widely divergent ways. They did not keep
 
 THE WHITE SWALLOW 143 
 
 the same hours or the same engagements, nor 
 could he be said to keep any hours at all; coming 
 and going as he was, meshed in labyrinths of ap 
 pointments and important conjunctions with other 
 equally hurried and ambitious men, all dovetailing 
 equally exacting demands on time and strength. 
 So that his request to be admitted at the door of 
 her own sleeping room, one February night, or 
 morning rather, for it was between two and three 
 by the clock, took her quite by surprise. 
 
 He never had realised the strain he had put upon 
 her, until to-night. Measured by his own it was 
 slight, but as she stood, half bewildered by the 
 sound of his voice, in her pale rose peignoir, her 
 soft hair falling back from her face, she looked like 
 a weary child. 
 
 " Are you ill, Raleigh ? What has happened ? " 
 she asked, frightened as by an apparition. It re 
 vealed at a glance the distance betwen them. It 
 embarrassed him also. "When did you return?" 
 she asked again, as he did not explain his pres 
 ence. 
 
 " May I come in a moment ? " he said, trying to 
 conceal his chagrin at his own discovery, " I am 
 obliged to go on to Washington sooner than I ex 
 pected and by a much earlier train than usual. I 
 told you I should not go until later, but I find I 
 cannot keep any of to-morrow's engagements here. 
 You will explain for me ? Please be especially gra-
 
 144 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 cious to Christine about her luncheon for she made 
 it instead of a dinner on my account." 
 
 She drew back to allow him to pass into the 
 room. The mere necessity of taking his directions 
 assured her and set her at ease. 
 
 " I will search my engagement book for the 
 others, " she said, " there were also guests for 
 dinner here, I believe." 
 
 They ran over the list together. When they had 
 finished, he did not go. 
 
 " That is all ? " she suggested gently. 
 
 " Not quite," he said, and she noticed his eager 
 ness. She had never seen him so excited, so little 
 master of himself as in the first days of his court 
 ship. She saw then that he held a book in his left 
 hand, which he now held out to her. As he did 
 so, he stepped over by the bed and turned on the 
 reading light invitingly. She took the volume from 
 him and opened at once to the title page. 
 
 " You like the cover ? " he asked. He could not 
 wait. 
 
 " It is in perfect taste," she assured him warmly. 
 
 " Of course with poetry as with music, it is the 
 sound of the instrument not the case that matters, 
 still " he was boyish in his desire to know if 
 she was pleased. He wanted her to admit him 
 supreme on all sides. 
 
 " Music is said to be the sound of the soul," she 
 said slowly, " poetry is the prayer, perhaps. It
 
 THE WHITE SWALLOW 145 
 
 was charming of you to bring them to me first of 
 all." 
 
 He kissed her warmly. It seemed to her that 
 he kissed himself in her, and his joy in this new 
 evidence of his own power, more than Stephanie. 
 She missed any sense of losing himself in the 
 caress, any letting go to the influence of the em 
 brace. 
 
 He took the book from her again, " Read the in 
 scription," he begged, opening it for her. Shfe 
 read it in a flash, then without lifting her eyes 
 from the page " One could persuade oneself that 
 it was inspired by love, even passion, and the ob 
 ject of that passion a woman " she said as if in 
 credulous, half mocking the intensity of his mood 
 which she did not understand. 
 
 " And one would not be mistaken ! " he cried. 
 
 She allowed him to come close to her and look 
 over her shoulder, as she turned the pages at ran 
 dom, half seeing the words, careless of more than 
 a first casual impression. He watched her face 
 kindling here and there at a line whose import she 
 seemed to divine rathe r than fully comprehend. 
 
 He caught at it as a hint of her pleasure in this 
 evidence of his devotion. " Stephanie darling, listen 
 to me for a few minutes to-night, before I am 
 obliged to go. There is so much to make us happy 
 to-night! You are narrow about love. There are 
 so many kinds, and so many ways of showing it!
 
 146 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 And you have been determined there should be but 
 one. If a man writes a volume of lyrics in praise 
 of the woman he loves, it is really no more than 
 any one of a dozen equally real, if not equally pas 
 sionate, expressions of feeling for which she is re 
 sponsible. She is no more the inspiration of his 
 poetry than of his schemes of finance, or the suc 
 cess of a national intrigue. It is all hers and for 
 her and because of her." 
 
 " Perhaps " she said doubtfully, raising her 
 eyes slowly to his, " but in a language here more 
 natural to a woman's heart." 
 
 " Then if all my other plans to make you proud 
 count as nothing, you will accept the lyrics, with 
 my dedication to you, in love ? " 
 
 " I shall be proud and happy to imagine that af 
 ter three years of married partnership, an Ameri 
 can has still the sentiment remaining to offer any 
 woman, and that woman in this case his legally 
 wedded wife ! " she replied, still mocking at his 
 earnestness. 
 
 She turned back to the title page with its equivo 
 cal inscription, as if to escape his mood which she 
 failed to fully share or understand. Aloud she 
 repeated " Lyrics of an Unknown." " Edited by 
 Raleigh Payne." 
 
 " And you alone out of all the world hold the 
 key to the secret ! " he cried impulsively. " The 
 world is at liberty to guess, it is to be expected
 
 THE WHITE SWALLOW 147 
 
 that no denial from me can prevent pretty conclu 
 sive surmise, but you alone know why they are too 
 sacred to brand with a name. The hidden beauty 
 of a woman is beyond desecration of her poet's 
 word even, as her soul is beyond his faintest caress. 
 How could a poet keep silence who had loved 
 you ? " He kissed her on her mouth. She 
 trembled slightly. He felt instantly that she was 
 right and he had been stupid to be so embarrassed 
 and make a scene with his own wife in his own 
 house, although the hour was unconventional, even 
 compromising. How many weeks had they pre 
 served their formality with each other? How long 
 since their mutual play had been exclusively for 
 the gallery? After all, it was not strange that 
 they were constrained by finding themselves alone 
 together under the unique conditions associated 
 with their earlier tenderness. Whose eyes were 
 sweet as hers ? To whom did that weary mouth owe 
 its tribute, but to him? How often she had told 
 him she was made for love, and was he an Ere 
 mite? To-night it was important, it was neces 
 sary, that she should love him too blindly to re 
 member his words or forget his emotion. He 
 wanted her to lose herself in him, to save only his 
 awakened sense of her. 
 
 He held her now with the old passion. She did 
 not resist. He thought the old storm of instinct 
 had caught her too, and that she relaxed in
 
 148 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 his embrace as if yielding to long pent emotion. 
 
 " Stephanie," he murmured, " forgive me ! I 
 have been a fool. I have made other gods before 
 you. I have broken Love's first and greatest com 
 mandment, perhaps, but it was for you! Love is 
 after all such a many-sided and practical thing to 
 me. It is myself going to your day's pastime 
 through you, and you going to my work in me. 
 I wanted to make a career fit for you to share and 
 the competition is beyond your wildest dream. I 
 have never forgotten the indignities heaped upon 
 me by the old Countess, your grandmother, or 
 the humiliations she forced me to accept as the 
 price of her niece. I have sworn, day and night, 
 to raise a pedestal fit for so peerless a creature as 
 my wife. You have been wonderful ! You have 
 helped me and never cried out, or blamed me or 
 questioned my right to use you for our mutual 
 ends. But to-night I see what I have done. How 
 it has wearied you, and how you have suffered from 
 not fully understanding me! Forgive me darling, 
 and let us get over a few weeks more only, and I 
 will take you away from business and politics and 
 we will go back to some lovely spot of our honey 
 moon, and be lovers again. Shall we ? " 
 
 She knew the necessity of asserting her power 
 over him now. Her eyes were half shut as she 
 clung to him. in silence. He took it for acquiescence. 
 In her love moods, speech was always alien to her.
 
 THE WHITE SWALLOW 149 
 
 With something of desperation, like a child left 
 too long in the dark alone, she sobbed herself to 
 sleep in his arms at last. The numb loneliness 
 broken and a softened comprehension established 
 between them without words. He left her reluc 
 tantly, still asleep, and crept away to work until 
 daylight and catch his early train southward. 
 
 Stephanie wakened late. Waking was the event 
 of all the day she always dreaded most. This 
 morning she wakened with a consciousness of 
 something having happened. What was it? Had 
 she really a Lover? Husband he might also be, 
 yet capable of giving to life the one meaning with 
 out which, to women like her, it has no reason for 
 being. She lay in a vaguely remembering state, half 
 dream, half realisation, letting the emotions of the 
 night revive again in the senses. Until with this 
 thrill of reassurance of Raleigh's feeling for her, 
 came the terror again, and expedience was imme 
 diately pleading for full confession. If Raleigh 
 did love her, even in his cold American way, in 
 absence and repression, surely he would condone 
 the innocent passion of her first inexperience. She 
 owed it to herself, to be rid of the fear that lay 
 between them, since he had given her this proof of 
 his indisputably sincere devotion. He spoke of 
 Europe again, together and soon. How could she 
 hazard Europe with exposure menacing her there 
 at every street corner, where they might encounter
 
 ISO THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 ghosts of the past? If the future was to be love 
 between them she must remove this black beast from 
 her path. His honour was his fetish. But she 
 would swear to him Nicolai had lied in his desire 
 to inflict a wound upon him who stole her away 
 from Austria and her girlish promises. She would 
 stake everything on the intoxication of his senses, 
 she would even abase herself, be submissive, any 
 thing to vindicate herself and set herself free from 
 this haunting dread of losing all she had won so 
 dearly of place and power, and now the hope of 
 passion, which to her was life's only prize. She 
 would do it in Raleigh's arms, she knew when 
 and how. He should believe her as proud, as 
 stainless as himself. Then let the world howl, it 
 could do her no harm. 
 
 It was not until just before she was leaving the 
 house for luncheon, the luncheon planned for 
 Raleigh's convenience, to meet some foreign 
 friends at the house of Christine, that she actually 
 opened the volume of poems again, about which her 
 thoughts constantly circled as she dressed. 
 
 The English verse was too difficult for her to 
 fully enjoy. She began to read, translating into 
 French to be sure she got the meaning. 
 
 " Si dans la mort mon ame " she read, then 
 vexed with herself, made a little gesture of impa 
 tience, chiding herself for not trying to enjoy or 
 at least comprehend in English.
 
 THE WHITE SWALLOW 151 
 
 " If I in death outwing the fleet white swallow." 
 
 " L' hirondelle blanche " her heart echoed 
 She stood transfixed, scarcely breathing. I do 
 not understand! What does it signify? she asked 
 herself in vain. She read on, pale, then flushed, 
 as one under the influence of some hidden spell. 
 Nothing since her marriage had spoken to her like 
 this. Raleigh as a poet was also a lover, a new 
 possibility, a sixth sense. And yet why did some 
 of these lines of his sound of the sea reverberating 
 afar off but persistent? If this was indeed Ra 
 leigh, her lover as he would have her believe, 
 speaking to her, singing of her, life was not over 
 but just begun. Yet what strangely familiar 
 rhythm was it that haunted her, lingering yet van 
 ishing? She was increasingly confused until just 
 that one of the poems she had last read, by its 
 oddity of form and beat, came back to her entirely 
 in French, though she had but glanced at the first 
 two lines. 
 
 " Si dans la mort mon ame " 
 
 then disconnected phrases, " 1' hirondelle blanche " 
 " les ailles pales " while about her whispered 
 the accents of the moonlit waves. Whose voice 
 but Nicolai's was this at her ear? Whose hand 
 but his on the bridle of her white steed, forced 
 trembling and rearing into the August flood until
 
 152 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 the foam broke about her, lapping as some fawn 
 ing creature luring its prey? It had been his to 
 project just that wild ride outwinging the white 
 swallow of death, and his in abject terror to drag 
 her back to life and misery. Why did she feel 
 the soft sinuous body of her horse under her now? 
 Why was it Normandie and no longer America? 
 Suddenly the room became too light. Everything 
 that had been clouded, became at once transparent. 
 She saw and understood. Her secret was to re 
 main forever her own. There need be no confes 
 sion of it. She knew that, first of all. She knew 
 also why it would always be so. Her own safety 
 was now for ever and ever assured. She knew also 
 why she despised her husband, the smiling, popu 
 lar, successful Raleigh Payne, the poet and diplo 
 mat. Well let him smile, since it was the seal 
 set upon their mutual freedom. " Lache ! " she 
 whispered, " one would respect him more if he 
 had the courage to steal outright ! " Out of all 
 the world there was but one who could read the 
 carefully veiled translations of that lyric volume, 
 and recognise the originals as the poems breathed 
 forth to her at the full moon and flood tide of 
 Nicolai Heathleagh's midsummer madness. Ra 
 leigh Payne had veiled his treachery to the dead 
 man with all possible skill. He had reduced his 
 own risk to a minimum and accepted it, trusting his 
 lucky star to keep one woman lost in oblivion. And
 
 THE WHITE SWALLOW 153 
 
 that one woman was to be found upon his own 
 breast. 
 
 " II faut qu'il ne sache pas ! Jamais, jamais 
 jusqu' a la mort ! " she murmured. " All that 
 I know he must never suspect that I dream. 
 The person that shares his secret he will hate for 
 it, because it is an unworthy one. It remains now 
 to enact the drama together, only. It is not life 
 we shall live. It is not love. It is the tragi-com- 
 edy of two, the man and his wife ! " 
 
 "The motor, if you please, Mrs. Payne," the 
 butler announced, as she still stood motionless, with 
 the lyrics yet open in her hand at the page where 
 she had first read. 
 
 " If I in death outwing the fleet white swallow " 
 
 her own heart undulating upon the waves of her 
 Normandie beneath an August moon. And she went 
 down the marble stairway, crossed the regal hall 
 and entered the limousine, as an actress through 
 the wings of a stage to her next appearance before 
 the footlights, with the cry of Voltaire in her soul, 
 
 "Lisbonne est abime et Ton danse a Paris!"
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 " SOME LITTLE TALK OF ME AND THEE " 
 
 MRS. PAYNE wishes, if convenient, 
 you would come down to tea, sir." 
 The butler delivered the message at 
 the door of Raleigh's own especial sanctum on the 
 third floor where he carried on his private and im 
 portant affairs. 
 
 " Presently," he replied, then turning back to his 
 secretary, " Just run these over, and do them as 
 you have the others, Miss Macy. I will sign them, 
 of course, later." 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Payne." 
 
 " And never mind about those marked with a 
 cross, and these on the left you may destroy, 
 after glancing them over to be sure, in my hurry 
 I have not overlooked anything important. That 
 is all in connection with this morning's mail, in a 
 literary way, is it not? " 
 
 " There is the answer to Horace Weeden, in re 
 gard to collaborating with him in a five act tragedy 
 for the New Theatre, sir." 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 " No, Mr. Payne, there are the lyrics Miss Kem- 
 per sent for your criticism, and Mrs. Oliver 
 
 154
 
 "SOME TALK OF ME AND THEE" 155 
 
 Brown's letter, asking advice as to whether you 
 thought she had better go on with novel writing 
 or try a dramatic play for acting purposes." The 
 secretary spoke in that singularly colourless voice, 
 untinged with any sentiment whatever, of one so 
 long accustomed to doing other people's affairs for 
 them that nothing was ever personal. 
 
 " What else ? " Raleigh spoke in response to her 
 uplifted hand, showing still another bunch of en 
 velopes he had not seen before. 
 
 " A request for permission to dedicate a lyric 
 drama to you, and seven letters asking for an auto 
 graph, with or without quotation; two copies of 
 the Lyrics to be signed and three of the Hesse 
 photographs to be autographed, and " Raleigh 
 laughed outright, " Well, well we are celebrated ! " 
 he exclaimed. " We really are ! The editor of the 
 Lyrics is, I mean. He is to be congratulated on 
 his estimate of the world's curiosity. The Secre 
 tary flushed as if she could not bear to hear him 
 belittle himself even to her. 
 
 " Why, Mr. Payne, the Lyrics have made a new 
 mark in American literature," she protested. 
 " There has never been anything like them. 
 Everyone sees through the editorial bluff. That is 
 the reason they all write for your signature. You 
 ought not to be surprised. No one else is! I am 
 holding ever so many other appeals for your deci 
 sion when you can give me the time to attend to
 
 156 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 them. The Woman's Column of the ' Busybody ' 
 wants a copy of your favourite poems. The 
 ' Times ' Supplement will take an item on your 
 summer plans and what you intend to write next. 
 ' Poetry-in-America ' wants an article of four 
 thousand words on ' How to Write Poetry That 
 Burns at the Heart.' The ' Literary Advocate ' 
 wants both a sitting and standing picture for re 
 production, and Ammede, the photographer for 
 ' Celebrity,' wants you to give him a sitting at 
 your earliest possible convenience, beside all the 
 other personal interviews I have refused, as you 
 told me to do, without speaking to you about them." 
 
 " You don't say the poems are as bad as all 
 that ! " he said, really serious now. " What do you 
 think of them yourself, that is, if you have read 
 them?" 
 
 " I never read anything like them," the girl said 
 unhesitatingly. " They make me feel alive all 
 over, just like wine. It is another world ! " But 
 he was already at the door. 
 
 " You are prejudiced ! " he warned her gaily, 
 " but I will tell the real author when I see him. 
 Meantime, get in another girl to help you. I can 
 not spare a minute of Reardon. He has his hands 
 over-full of business matters just now." He would 
 have been gone but the man at the typewriter called 
 him back. 
 
 " One moment, Mr. Payne ! You said to remind
 
 "SOME TALK OF ME AND THEE" 157 
 
 you that you wished to revise your letter apropos 
 of your diplomatic reappointment and the govern 
 ment offer." 
 
 " Later ! " Raleigh promised, as he ran down the 
 stairs. 
 
 " That is what it is to be famous," said the girl, 
 holding up the photographs. 
 
 " Never saw anything like it in my life ! " said 
 Reardon, a man with steely eyes and no colour in 
 his face. " He wants the earth, and when he gets 
 it he will try for the stars ! " 
 
 " He will get them, too," the secretary agreed, 
 " and put them under Mrs. Payne's feet, with all 
 the rest. She does not begin to appreciate him." 
 
 " No woman could," said Reardon. " Any other 
 man would be a politician or a business man and 
 done with it. He is up to his neck in both, and 
 in the thick of it all he has to get this literary bee 
 in his bonnet! And that has given him a hand up 
 in a new quarter. He can have whatever he wants 
 now." 
 
 " He is a genius all right," said the girl with a 
 sigh as if she regretted the admission as soon as it 
 was made. 
 
 " He is a politician all the same," objected Rear 
 don, pushing back his chair with a long tired yawn 
 and crossing over for a new supply of paper. 
 
 " He is a gentleman, any way ! " cried the girl 
 cordially, remembering the volume of Lyrics pre-
 
 158 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 sented to her with her patron's signature and a 
 pleasant word of gratitude for her assistance. 
 
 " That's right, too," agreed Reardon. " He sent 
 his own car to take mother to church the Sunday 
 she spent in town with me," and again the two 
 typewriters clicked all the faster for the intermis 
 sion. During the first pause Reardon took it up 
 again, with 
 
 " But I should never have believed he had it in 
 him to write like that ! " 
 
 Miss Macy was phrasing a difficult sentence and 
 made no reply. 
 
 The tea hour at the Paynes was becoming a 
 function every afternoon. From its cosy niche by 
 the library fire it had moved down to a formal in 
 stallation in the drawing-room. Stephanie no 
 longer made a pretense of pouring it herself and 
 even had in an extra man to supplement the serv 
 ants of the house. To-day everyone had explained 
 his or her coming by the natural desire to be 
 among the first to congratulate Raleigh on his suc 
 cess in the literary arena. 
 
 The book was not as yet out a week and had 
 gone into a second edition. Everybody was talk 
 ing about it, and more astonishing to relate, buy 
 ing it. Poetry, the Nazarene art, was actually sell 
 ing! Raleigh, convicted from the first, had merely 
 smiled, and kept his own counsel.
 
 "SOME TALK OF ME AND THEE" 159 
 
 " I always say that your enemies buy your books, 
 but your friends borrow them," young Emmons 
 was saying, as Raleigh entered. " Most women 
 will spend five dollars worth of oil running the mo 
 tor to a public library for a novel, instead of de 
 cently buying one. It is one of their pet forms 
 of economy." 
 
 " I remember when Bob's book first came out, 
 I went paying visits on every one I knew, just to 
 see if it was on people's tables," cried a pretty 
 little woman buried in brown furs. 
 
 " Yes, it got to be a regular game of hunt-the- 
 book," said her husband, laughing at the recollec 
 tion. " And about as successful as fox-hunting 
 an anise seed bag in most cases, too." 
 
 " It is a material age," interrupted pretty Mrs. 
 Maltby, quoting her husband, and well-satisfied 
 with the platitude. She looked regretful as she 
 said it, and drew her faultless figure up com 
 placently to free her gown from a possible 
 wrinkle. 
 
 Manice Brown took Raleigh's hand with marked 
 sympathy denoting fellow feeling, though to him 
 success for another was bitter fruit. " I have seen 
 your little volume." he said. " You must be glad to 
 get it out of your way. Think of me, with three 
 of my own coming out next year ! " 
 
 " Really ! " interposed old Mrs. Malcomber, mov 
 ing to join them, and also shaking hands with Ra-
 
 160 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 leigh, forgetting she had already done so. " And 
 who are your publishers ? " 
 
 " I have not fully decided," he parried, as if 
 pressed to choose. " There is something to be 
 said for several of the best houses." 
 
 " What are the titles ? " Mrs. Malcomber in pur 
 suit was not to be evaded. 
 
 " I never definitely entitle them until they are 
 about to appear. One's titles are so apt to be 
 snatched away from one. One volume is to be 
 made up of essays, and another a collection of 
 poems on occasions chiefly historical, and the third 
 probably a novel " 
 
 " But they are already finished, I suppose. You 
 said they were to appear within the year ? " 
 
 " They are not written out yet, but I intend to 
 take the summer for that. I have them all in the 
 back of my head," he assured her jauntily. 
 
 "In contemplation, I understand you to mean?" 
 
 " It is practically the same thing," he said con 
 tentedly. " They are all done but writing." 
 
 " Ah yes, like the lives of some famous men, 
 all done but living," she said tersely, turning aside. 
 
 " O Mr. Payne, do come here! " begged the wife 
 of an editor of New York's most exclusive 
 monthly, a woman with a deep contralto voice, who 
 was always rushing from place to place, knowing 
 and making allowance for every one indiscrimi 
 nately. " Why on earth don't you write a novel ? "
 
 " SOME TALK OF ME AND THEE " 161 
 
 " Probably because he is a poet," said Mrs. Mai- 
 comber disdainfully. 
 
 " But you seem to feel so much, it ought to 
 make a splendid novel," continued the first speaker, 
 regardless of interruption. " Write a serial about 
 all the society people in New York, and hint at all 
 you know behind the scenes. I will get it accepted. 
 I am sure you could do it ! " 
 
 "Just came in to congratulate you, Mr. Payne," 
 Professor Gyer was saying. " I remember when 
 my history of the Persian race was published, it 
 also went into a second edition within a fortnight, 
 
 in cheaper form of course, for library and school 
 use. The publishers had never had such an experi 
 ence with a solid work. They were amazed, sim 
 ply amazed that a work, not a work of fiction by a 
 standard author, could have met with such a re 
 ception ! " 
 
 " Who is that with Aubrey Jones ? " asked Mrs. 
 Malcomber, raising her lorgnette as two men en 
 tered the room, one a well known essayist and 
 with him an oldish man with the undeniable ab 
 sent-minded manner of the scholar. 
 
 " Mr. Payne, I want you to meet Dr. Chemung " 
 
 Aubrey Jones was saying, "I brought him in to 
 have a look at our great American poet. He is 
 an authority on Greek poetry himself, and with 
 the poets as with thieves, it takes one to catch 
 one!"
 
 162 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 Dr. Chemung shook hands stoutly, but his eyes 
 were almost immediately riveted on Professor 
 Gyer. He went through his presentation to Ste 
 phanie in briefest formality. His mind was set on 
 Gyer from the first glance. He allowed himself 
 to be detained merely for his tea, which he took 
 with cakes arranged in scallops round the rim of 
 his plate, laid out on an onyx table conveniently 
 near, as if he had found himself at a railway junc 
 tion. 
 
 " When I have finished, we will talk," he 
 promised Professor Gyer genially. " It is aston 
 ishing how England took up my exegesis of 
 Homer " 
 
 " It was the same story with my history of Per 
 sia " began the Professor. And it was immedi 
 ately a duet in which they were engaged, neither 
 listening to the other, and neither offended by the 
 other's interruption, after the manner of great and 
 scholarly men quick with their own subject. 
 Launched forth on criticism and counter-criticism, 
 classicism and the true spirit of modern scholar 
 ship, they were confident of complete sympathy, 
 and oblivious of the fact the others had drifted 
 away and left them. 
 
 " Don't interrupt them. They are talking a 
 ' twosome ' and having a perfect time," said Chris 
 tine. She was looking very handsome this winter 
 in her velvets and monstrous picture hats. She
 
 "SOME TALK OF ME AND THEE" 163 
 
 had been at no pains to conceal her admiration for 
 Raleigh or his success. He established himself by 
 her now, with the air of having waited and ob 
 tained his reward, in the re-setting of new circles 
 that followed upon new arrivals. It was very 
 pleasant to hear her exclamations of surprise and 
 satisfaction, as well as her practical way of esti 
 mating results which tallied well with his own. 
 
 " All sold out again at Brentano's," she told him. 
 " You are a wonder, Raleigh ! " And perhaps deep 
 down in her heart beneath the diamond sun-burst 
 or the miniature of the baby set in pearls which 
 she always wore, lurked a secret envy of the 
 woman who had taken this paragon from her. 
 
 " What a stunning friend you are Chris ! " he 
 said impulsively. 
 
 "Am I?" 
 
 He nodded his affirmative. 
 
 " What is a friend, I wonder ? It is said to be 
 a person to whom one can talk about oneself with 
 enjoyment. I ought to fulfil that definition, to you, 
 Raleigh. You know how intensely I care for 
 every step ahead you and Jim gain. You knew he 
 was going to have the Judgeship he wanted ? " 
 
 " He owes everything he is to you," Raleigh said 
 with conviction. " A man's wife is part of him 
 self, but it may be the part that helps or hinders." 
 
 " How very foreign looking Mrs. Payne is ! " ex 
 claimed Mrs. Morton Smythe, glancing at Ste-
 
 164 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 phanie, and timing herself by a bracelet watch as 
 she spoke, beside getting in her own effect in a 
 long mirror opposite. 
 
 "Yes, perfectly pre-Raphealite, is she not?" 
 chorused another young woman, a bride of a few 
 weeks only. She had no idea what she meant, 
 but the expression sounded as Mrs. Payne looked, 
 and it was one she always used when she did not 
 know what she really did mean herself. It was 
 confusingly convincing to her at least. 
 
 " She is not smart, and I do not call her pretty, 
 do you ? " Mrs. Morton-Smythe continued, twitch 
 ing her veil into more fetching lines. 
 
 "No," admitted the bride reluctantly, "but she 
 always seems to have two or more men with her. 
 Even Jack, my husband, you know, considers her 
 interesting, that is in a way. He sat by her at 
 dinner somewhere and mentioned her several times 
 afterward, though he said she was not animated or 
 brilliant conversationally in the least." 
 
 And Stephanie, sitting there in her soft cloud 
 of lace, her great rings weighing down her frail 
 hands, the hum of alien speech about her, of whom 
 was she thinking? Of Raleigh Payne? That 
 same Raleigh Payne, himself, was his heart at 
 flood-tide, his blood stirred to its depths by this 
 newest triumph? Steven Randall alone knew 
 their faces well enough to have hazarded a guess, 
 and he was already back at Sky High, tired of the
 
 "SOME TALK OF ME AND THEE" 165 
 
 town and its noise, where one remembers less easily 
 than in the country silence of long mornings and 
 lengthening afternoons with purple shadows on 
 the parian landscape. 
 
 " Your own family are all literary, are they 
 not?" Aubrey Jones was asking Mrs. Mayhew. 
 
 " Yes, I said when I married Dick, I was thank 
 ful for just one thing, and that was that I was 
 not marrying into my own family ! " she cried. " I 
 never dreamed of his taking up the stage, after 
 ward." 
 
 " I married her under false colours," confessed 
 Dick Mayhew. " She won't go to a first night of 
 any of my plays for fear of failure or stage thun 
 der. They seem to be her two nightmares." 
 
 Externally they were all at ease. But under 
 neath the surface were there those hidden emo 
 tions, like strange monsters of the sea that crawl 
 beneath placid waters? Were there jealousies and 
 heart-burnings, uncertainties and envyings and mis 
 erable fears of the human breast? To herself, 
 Stephanie was thinking over and over " No one 
 but me no one but me and they never will, 
 they never, never will ! " 
 
 " Bill's last novel was so shocking to the coun 
 try people up near our summer place, that they 
 treated him as if he had scarlet fever, last season," 
 said the wife of the day's most rapid seller. " If 
 they saw him coming into the country store, they
 
 166 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 would carom off from the dry goods to the gro 
 cery side, and buy raisins when they had come ex 
 pressly for fly netting, so not to have to talk about 
 it! They liked Bill, but the book was too much 
 for them." 
 
 " O Bill is not so bad as he is advertised," en 
 couraged Dick Mayhew. 
 
 " Of course a man may write things a woman 
 is not allowed to think in the dark," said Mrs. Mai- 
 comber tartly. 
 
 Bill's wife looked thoughtful. " I wonder if 
 that is why, when Carrie Blair's book came out, 
 people would not admit they had read it, though 
 they said " how any pure-minded woman could 
 and how George Blair could have let her ! " 
 
 " No pure-minded woman could do anything 
 whatever, if women ran the world," interposed Au 
 brey Jones, " Carrie did what she could " 
 
 " And far more than she ought to ! " broke in 
 Mrs. Malcomber, cutting off his sentence. 
 
 " Her husband ran away, did he not ? " asked 
 Dick Mayhew politely. 
 
 " I am sure I do not know. I assume every 
 body, who is anybody in society, has been up in a 
 balloon, rolled down glaciers, killed a tiger, been 
 divorced and committed suicide and then begin 
 there with them. It simplifies life so," she re 
 plied. " Who is that pretty girl in the window-
 
 "SOME TALK OF ME AND THEE" 167 
 
 seat with a man ? " she asked abruptly. " She is 
 being bored to death." 
 
 " That is improvident of her, for he is eligible 
 to a degree," said Raleigh, overhearing her ques 
 tion. " He was born handicapped by his own eli 
 gibility. It is his parents' fault. He regrets it 
 sincerely enough. It robs life of all romance and 
 makes him a matrimonial commodity." 
 
 " The girl is Christine Trent's baby sister," con 
 tinued Kenon Ward, taking her empty cup. He 
 was himself an unimpeachable beau of sixty odd 
 summers. Mrs. Malcomber looked again at the 
 girl in the window-seat. " Ah, it is good to be 
 young and pretty, once in a while that is, " 
 she added quickly. 
 
 "It is better to be old and witty," he amended 
 seriously enough. 
 
 " But youth has its perquisites," she grumbled. 
 
 " Think so ? " He followed her glance toward 
 the young girl, who had been joined by a college 
 boy of her own age, " I would not go through 
 it over again for a free seat in Trinity." 
 
 " I admit it is a great deal of work to be young 
 and in love. I never liked to play the dupe, but 
 remember the perquisites ! " she reminded him, as 
 she turned away to Stephanie. 
 
 " Well, my dear, do all these flattering ladies let 
 you get near the idol of the hour ? " she asked for
 
 i68 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 the sake of opening some sort of chat with this 
 unknown hostess. 
 
 " I am also just a temple girl," Stephanie said, 
 with a sweet affectation of humility. " I serve the 
 idol with the rest." The old lady covered her with 
 her lorgnette for an instant and then swept the 
 room with a rapid stare for further prey. 
 
 Dick Mayhew had joined Raleigh and Christine 
 as they came forward together. 
 
 " I am glad to see you, Dick," Christine said 
 boldly. " I think it is an immoral point of view 
 you are working out in your last play. Tempta 
 tion in business, if admitted in action, is called 
 stealing. And the second act of such a play as 
 yours would in reality have to be set in the Tombs. 
 You novelists and playwrights are all writing tracts 
 on the fine art of sin in general, upside down. I 
 don't believe one word of your cant about the 
 ' preaching ' of the stage." 
 
 " You are all wrong and hopelessly philistine," 
 said Mayhew pleasantly. " One should regard 
 temptation as a gift. I know of no finer experi 
 ence. A soul incapable of such enjoyment is al 
 ready blunted to all moral finesse. No sensation 
 is keener than being tempted, except the superior 
 enjoyment of resisting it." 
 
 " Like love ? " asked the dowager, again break 
 ing in, after her own brigand fashion, upon any 
 group that sounded interesting or racy.
 
 "SOME TALK OF ME AND THEE" 169 
 
 " Temptation in its highest sense, is an affair 
 of divine insight, lending a flavour to the appe 
 tite for good," Raleigh asserted positively. " It is 
 a thing to be resisted as Dick says, but because it 
 exists it fires animation. Death ensues to the un- 
 tempted mortal, or has already occurred, for his 
 will power has no exercise, though his friends 
 may not have realised it and interred his body." 
 
 "Would you call that justifiable homicide?" 
 asked Mrs. Malcomber. 
 
 " The Catholic would," said Mayhew, " but I be 
 lieve the capacity for temptation in some form 
 proves life not extinct. I suppose you will think 
 it strange, but I even can understand poor George 
 hating his wife " 
 
 " Not at all, my dear boy. Don't apologise ! " 
 cried Mrs. Malcomber. " That is nothing. I can 
 quite imagine any man hating his wife. She is al 
 ways there, in the first place. She is the incarnate 
 inevitable ! " 
 
 " She is not always, " objected Christine. 
 " Jim says he is going to get himself a divorce as 
 soon as he has time, in order to see more of me." 
 
 " It might not work that way," Raleigh put in, 
 suggestively. 
 
 " What is love good for, any way ? except on the 
 stage and in novels, there is really no time for 
 it ! " said Mrs. Mayhew. " Come, Dick, we are 
 shockingly late as it is."
 
 170 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " It has its perquisites ! " Mrs. Malcomber called 
 after them. "Don't forget the perquisites!" 
 When almost all the rest had gone, she went back 
 to Raleigh with a kindly handclasp, to say, " And 
 so they have all talked about themselves and gos 
 siped and gone. If they were not here to con 
 gratulate you, why did they come ? " 
 
 " That proves nothing. Their coming showed 
 their kind feeling. They most of them ought to 
 have been somewhere else where they were wanted 
 and would have been important assets to the suc 
 cess of some one else." He took her easily enough, 
 not caring too much either way. 
 
 " I will tell you why they came," she contra 
 dicted. " They want to be able to say they know 
 you, at the next place they go. They want to 
 quote you, ' as Raleigh Payne said to me this after 
 noon, a charming house that of his, by the way, 
 one meets only the most talked of and exclusive 
 set there of course, among the younger celebrities, 
 etc., etc.! Or, So-and-So said to me yesterday at 
 the Paynes', you knew his poems had hit the pub 
 lic hard? His wife was that beautiful Austrian 
 Countess ' You are a commodity, my dear Mr. 
 Payne. Your name is a rising social stock. You 
 are a sort of literary and social elevator, no less 
 real in value to the rest of them than one of those 
 monster affairs that hoist grain out in Chicago, 
 though purely fictitious. Oh, success has its per-
 
 "SOME TALK OF ME AND THEE" 171 
 
 quisites, as well as love! But are they worth 
 while ? " 
 
 " You overwhelm me," Raleigh protested. " I 
 can only thank you for the clause relating to Mrs. 
 Payne. The beautiful Austrian may well make me 
 famous and envied. But you forget that I 
 claim only the editing of the Lyrics you praise so 
 kindly." 
 
 " I forgot your editorial pose. I refuse to call 
 it anything but that," she said. Then, with a 
 glance toward Stephanie through her lorgnette, 
 she shook her head. " Mrs. Payne looks fagged. 
 You should take her away at once. What can all 
 this sort of thing mean to her?" she said with a 
 real flash of kindness toward them both. 
 
 " I mean to, almost at once," he replied, thank 
 ing her with a smile of sincere recognition. At 
 the door when she was leaving, she paused an in 
 stant to again wave her lorgnette at him across the 
 room. " Do not forget the perquisites ! " she 
 called back at him. " Those of love are worth 
 while ! " 
 
 When they were entirely alone, Raleigh went 
 swiftly upstairs two steps at a time. 
 
 " Sorry to have kept you so long over your 
 hours, Reardon," he began. " Now for the letter 
 you spoke of. You may copy and forward the 
 second one: the one accepting. I have considered 
 it at length and see nothing to be gained by hold-
 
 172 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 ing my decision longer. Get it off on your way 
 home, will you ? Good-night ! " 
 
 " Good-night, Mr. Payne," Reardon replied, and 
 automatically took the cover from the typewriter 
 and laid out his copy. Raleigh heard the noise of 
 the keys before he was at the stairway. When he 
 heard the thing actually in progress he was glad 
 it was beyond recall.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ON THE PILLOW OF DOUBT 
 
 IT was the third time Steven Randall had read 
 over the same letter. It had surprised him 
 the first time, gone deeper and startled him 
 the second, and now settled down on him as a 
 heaviness of spirit dimly defined but definitely 
 wrong. 
 
 The crested monogrammed paper was of Ra 
 leigh's household, and the writing that of Ste 
 phanie. What did it mean? 
 
 Cher Grandee: 
 
 Will you be again so gracious as to permit me to come 
 and espouse poverty, chastity and agriculture with you? 
 It is sad without me, in your solitude, yes? And I 
 should be entirely happy to find myself once more 
 by your side. The life here is too much for me and the 
 Mari speaks of going soon to Europe. And since I lack 
 the inclination to accompany him, will you permit me to 
 remain with you while he is en voyage, as before? I 
 promise to do all my possible not to be a care. Write 
 that I may come 
 
 Your very devoted, 
 
 STEPHANIE. 
 
 I wish not to go, you understand. It has been discussed 
 between us and I will not go. I shaJl remain. It is de 
 cided. 
 
 173
 
 174 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 What was the trouble? To Grandee it was in 
 explicable. For Stephanie not to wish to go back 
 to Europe might be a caprice to punish Raleigh, 
 but to deliberately leave her husband in the New 
 York establishment was more. Something was 
 wrong. He wired her his hospitality at once, and 
 she came up the next day with many trunks and 
 without her maid, declaring herself prepared to 
 make no trouble and be a consolation in his soli 
 tude only. That something had happened, and 
 that it was a relief to her to be alone with him 
 was apparent. There was something that was im- 
 palpably with them, something that hovered and 
 relented and peered forth again when it had all 
 but faded away. Randall ranged himself on the 
 woman's side, ignorant. He despaired of any 
 thing that could break through her fine acting, yet 
 he was sure it was acting and kept up with effort 
 through their long solitary days and evenings. 
 She was never strong and the severe winter had 
 played havoc with her health. She was gay and 
 depressed by turns, and sat playing chess with him 
 hours at a time without speaking. The spring 
 seemed never to be coming. Joel Underwood 
 never met her pacing up and down the icy terrace, 
 without prognosticating the utter destruction of his 
 early crocuses and hyacinths, pursing up his mouth 
 sourly as if having foreseen trouble was his only 
 satisfaction. Sometimes he stopped her to ex-
 
 ON THE PILLOW OF DOUBT 175 
 
 change a few amenities as to " foreign parts," which 
 were his secret mania, and about which he read 
 every book he could get hold of. It was a con 
 cession to her, which she accepted as a high com 
 pliment, when he opened his remarks one morn 
 ing by saying: 
 
 " Speaking of furrin' parts, Mrs. Payne, I have 
 seen some furriners I liked about as well as Ameri 
 cans." 
 
 " I am very happy to hear you say so, Joel, most 
 Americans are not so generous," she replied, draw 
 ing her fur closer about her against the curdling 
 wind. 
 
 " It must be lonesome, over there," he continued 
 reflectively 
 
 And in Stephanie's imagination the other side of 
 the picture presented itself, as she saw again by 
 inner vision the thronging Ringstrasse, of Vienna, 
 where the pace of the horses is as mad as the 
 crowd on the promenade is leisurely ; the flying mo 
 tors of France, the idlers in the cafes of the Bois, 
 the riviera flutter and fascination The world 
 called her in various tongues and many-coloured 
 pleasures as the old gardener waited, and then 
 brought her back to the present by another semi- 
 inference, " I suppose you may have seen a 
 crowned head. That's what I want to do, next to 
 seeing a few battle fields. Not but that we will 
 have dead remains enough lying right round here,
 
 176 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 if this keeps up," he promised, his one eye de 
 tecting more possibilities of winter-killed beauty 
 without looking at it, than the co-operating pair of 
 better endowed mortals. She was so sweet and 
 patient with them all, Randall felt, from the na 
 ture of the case, her difference with her husband 
 must have been Raleigh's fault. That she was 
 deep, capable of going far below the surface and 
 staying down a long time, he admitted to himself 
 repeatedly. She never spoke unguardedly or in 
 any way that reflected upon Raleigh unpleasantly. 
 If she had sometimes made a little fling in a care 
 less way, or some little feminine sarcasm at the 
 expense of men in general, he could easily have 
 forgiven her. But she gave him no occasion. 
 The man who watched her so carefully would have 
 been more at ease if she had turned, in a sudden 
 spasm of anger, and confessed: 
 " I hate him, Grandee ! How I hate him ! " 
 It seemed to him that she was either subdued by 
 her dependence upon a man whom she disliked and 
 wished to separate herself from, or that she was 
 smarting under his indifference and trying to coerce 
 him by her own silence. At times he thought she 
 seemed afraid of Raleigh and again she acted in 
 dependently of his wishes, as in this instance of 
 thwarting his summer plans, which argued her mis 
 tress of whatever unexplained situation lay be 
 tween them. To Grandee she seemed to be think-
 
 ON THE PILLOW OF DOUBT 177 
 
 ing, always thinking about something that she did 
 not quite solve. When he spoke to her, she an 
 swered as if he, and not the absorbing thought, 
 was the unreality. And he studied her fondly over 
 his reviews and newspapers, as they sat by the 
 fire after dinner, while she read the Matin and 
 L'lllustration he had ordered sent to her from 
 Paris, with her head propped up on her frail hand, 
 jewelled as always. 
 
 And so day by day they lived toward the golden 
 hope of springtide, and one by one the tulips 
 pricked up and turned their eager cups for the 
 sun's overflowing, and the hyacinths, like stiff- 
 skirted shepherdesses of Arcady, were fondled by 
 bees that jostled each other in their fumbling gal 
 lantries to be first and longest at their honeyed 
 Cups. And only Joel unappeased by banks of 
 fragrance and colour, grumbled at portentous signs 
 of the ravaging elm beetle, and prophesied com 
 plete destruction if all the trees were not sprayed 
 at once. Only Raleigh's " furrin' " wife diverted 
 him somewhat from his acrid satisfaction in the 
 general doom of Nature. He found in her an op 
 portunity to study a new type of flower at hand, 
 hitherto only recognisable in bedizened catalogues 
 that were nefarious in the false expectations they 
 aroused. At least, that was the way he repre 
 sented his interest in her to his own understand 
 ing. He studied her by indirections, exaggerated
 
 178 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 by his visual dissent, and edged into conversation 
 with her as often as he could induce the impres 
 sion that he, not she, was being led to talk against 
 his will and better judgment, and so without loss 
 of dignity or circumspection. He expected little 
 of her and generously ignored her right to amount 
 to much " considering." Which last word was 
 with him the pith of many a prejudice and the end 
 of many an argument, leaving the matter open to 
 be again narrowly followed up as he saw fit. He 
 never let her observe how faithfully he tended the 
 flowers she preferred, or how rigidly he kept watch 
 over her own Sittings in and out his imperilled bor 
 ders. He was, however, none the less aghast when 
 her clear voice broke in upon the midst of one of 
 his worm-eaten meditations, with her sweet friend 
 liness of interest: 
 
 " Tell me something about your wife, Joel. I 
 hear she too is a Papist." He was lining a curved 
 path and he straightened up stiffly, while his dis 
 senting eyes disputed the right of first denial to 
 so preposterous a fallacy. 
 
 " Whoever said that must have got a blow on 
 his head " he remarked impersonally. 
 
 " It was Grandee, Mr. Randall, I mean," she has 
 tened to say, feeling she had made a mistake. 
 
 " Maybe he did, and maybe he didn't " Joel 
 qualified, " but he knew better, if he did." 
 
 " But yes, certainly, he said to me that word,
 
 ON THE PILLOW OF DOUBT 179 
 
 it sounded as if he did " she added apologetically. 
 " It is nothing bad to be one. I, myself, am one 
 you remember." 
 
 " She is a Baptist, that is what she is," Joel 
 stated, to whom it might concern. 
 
 "A Baptist," she repeated gently. "Tell me, 
 please, what is a Baptist, Joel ? " 
 
 " Whatever it is, it is a long way from a Papist," 
 abbreviating his definition for good reasons of his 
 own. 
 
 " And you are one of those, also, or are you of 
 Mr. Randall's faith ? " she asked, trying to atone 
 for her unintentional failure in respect. 
 
 " There is only one variety of religion in my fam 
 ily. That is enough for any respectable house 
 hold. I would not let a member of my family go 
 off and get a strange religion, any more than I 
 would go off and get another strange wife ! " 
 
 He verified his straight edge of the flower bed 
 he was cutting, with a long tort string, and as he 
 walked away from her, he added, as if he had at 
 the same time laid righteousness to the plumb, " It 
 would be better if others felt the same. There's no 
 good to come out of a different hope of heaven 
 and hell in the same family. It works against Na 
 ture." And Stephanie withdrew, feeling convicted 
 of spiritual misdemeanour, without having the least 
 conception of wherein she had erred. She was un 
 affectedly anxious to be gracious to all about her,
 
 i8o THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 in spite of an increasing sense of her isolation 
 from them by their distrust of anything unfamiliar 
 and not compliant with their own established or 
 der. There is no denying that Society is a play 
 for which no part can be learned beforehand. One 
 finds oneself upon the stage unaware if one has 
 been cast by the higher powers for a heroic role, 
 or one of sheer comedy to amuse the idle onlooker. 
 One may be letter-perfect in Juliet and find 
 oneself cast for Sans Gene, look the part of a se 
 ductive Phedre, and find the exigence of the mo 
 ment demanding the brains of a Portia to deter 
 mine a path out of life's relentless labyrinth. In 
 this respect the woman of society transcends the 
 actress-by-trade, however consummate, in her 
 adaptation to the demand of the totally unexpected. 
 
 Stephanie felt herself cast for the ghost of her 
 self in these hours that followed each other like 
 Emerson's muffled dervishes. The spring morn 
 ings broke to no rapture but Nature's elemental 
 passion, and the lengthening days given for joy 
 and youth, led back to evenings of impersonal ful 
 filment. 
 
 What is monotony to others, is to one who loves, 
 dearness. Each simple successive beauty here 
 might have stood for a continuing pledge of love 
 to love. To her, they were a dreary mockery. 
 She flitted about the terraces and tried to interest 
 herself in the garden, where Joel bore her experi-
 
 ON THE PILLOW OF DOUBT 181 
 
 ments until she planted a row of dahlias upside 
 down. 
 
 " As if there wa'nt enough to contend with, 
 without planting bulbs for China ! " he grumbled 
 when Grandee begged him to reverse the per 
 formance and say nothing to Mrs. Payne about it. 
 
 " It does seem as if Providence ' worked in a mys 
 terious way ' to pester me in that garden, without 
 planting upside down ! " he repeated ; his grievance 
 leaking like vinegar from his thin, determined lips. 
 " Have you noticed the brown leaves curled up on 
 the rosydendrums ? If one goes, they'll all go! I 
 can't have her, nor any woman, deviling round on 
 these terraces. If she wants to dig, let her dig 
 down in the kitchen garden where it won't show." 
 Fortunately her interest in Eve's avocation wasted, 
 and she turned to the piano for companionship, 
 but finding in it a device to set her nerves racing, 
 was wise enough to hold herself with a tight curb 
 and turn back to the outer world. 
 
 "If there was a fountain, Grandee, why is 
 there not a fountain ? " she asked wistfully. " It 
 would be like a little sister to play with, dancing 
 away out there when you are resting or reading 
 your ponderous works on impossible subjects. I 
 should never feel alone if there was alive water 
 near me." 
 
 " Fountains belong in artificial gardens," he told 
 her. " They are feminine ; like all running water,
 
 182 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 they prattle all they know, the gossips! I won't 
 have them in an honest bachelor's paradise ! " 
 
 " I know, and the ghosts walk beside them 
 too," she said quickly. " Sad little ghosts also, for 
 the ghosts are always saddest in any place they 
 have been once happiest, you know, Grandee." 
 
 And all the time she was wondering if Raleigh 
 had been told yet? Did he know that she knew? 
 Had some one at the story's end spoken her name, 
 " You knew who the woman was ? " And then 
 it would be all over in an instant. 
 
 As the season advanced she absolutely declined 
 being included in the summer colony. She made 
 no allusion to her retirement, but to Christine urg 
 ing all sorts of festivities upon her, reiterated un 
 waveringly : 
 
 " Grandee is not strong. He likes to have me 
 with him." 
 
 If she had her reasons for preferring to be away 
 from Raleigh, she was beyond criticism in the man 
 ner she employed her seclusion. To outsiders this 
 perhaps but increased her charm. Many a week 
 end guest implored his hostess to produce this for 
 eign-looking being to grace the more or less dull 
 Sunday dinner table. And not a little brazen 
 finesse of the American brand was employed to 
 net this unavailable butterfly that hovered tantalis- 
 ingly out of reach. 
 
 " I do not like to leave Grandee," Stephanie said
 
 ON THE PILLOW OF DOUBT 183 
 
 gently over and over again, as if her excuse was 
 also her subtle extenuation of being at Sky High 
 at all. 
 
 " Just use me either way, for or against," 
 Grandee said, amused to serve as social buffer. 
 "If you don't want to accept, say I am at death's 
 door. If anything you care to do comes up, I will 
 recover, and be able to be left." 
 
 But when she carried it so far that even he de 
 serted her, and added his importunity to the rest, 
 she was ready with still another soft evasion: 
 
 " I do not find it natural to go into the world, 
 in the absence of my husband." 
 
 Here she intrenched herself. She was never 
 seen in church, being a Catholic, so her legend 
 grew, as such legends will in a country place full 
 of idlers, all so closely resembling each other as 
 to hail any variety, and resent its insinuation of 
 superiority. To Grandee she seemed rather to be 
 protecting herself from a hint of scandal, than re 
 fraining from diversion from natural instinct, or 
 an absorbing passion for the absent husband. 
 
 One chilly April afternoon, when she had been 
 wandering through the wet woods, she lost her 
 bearings and came out upon a pair of bars at the 
 edge of a steep ravine. It was dusk already, as 
 she stood undecided how to go on. Suddenly, a 
 lighted train shot past her in the cut below. She 
 caught her breath. already she heard it whistling
 
 184 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 for the crossing half a mile below. It meant Life! 
 She knew, by the quick spasm at her heart, she 
 should come again at this hour and watch for the 
 thrill, quick with the beat of the great world. A 
 relation was instantly established, through this me 
 dium, with the passioning night-life of cities and 
 the troubling call of the Away! 
 
 So spring passed out into June with its wasted 
 wealth of roses and its vain moonlight, while 
 Grandee pondered his momentous moves at chess, 
 or she read aloud to him in her voice whose con 
 ventual intonation went oddly enough with the 
 editorial page of a New York paper. And one 
 evening as she returned from her tryst with the 
 lighted train in the cut, she heard some one on the 
 highway, the other side of the wall whistling 
 " Behiit dich Gott ! " and she listened till it trailed 
 off in the distance, wondering who the local Trum 
 peter might be, and why he chose that particular 
 song. 
 
 It was on a rainy afternoon before the longest 
 day, when the peonies and Carmencita poppies 
 looked like dishevelled revellers after a bal masque, 
 their tissue dominoes lying at their feet, 
 that Christine's stable boy appeared at Sky 
 High with a note marked urgent, begging Ste 
 phanie to come over for tea. Just why Stephanie 
 assumed her to be alone, if mere assumption it 
 was, perhaps she herself could not have satisfac-
 
 ON THE PILLOW OF DOUBT 185 
 
 torily explained. Grandee, on the face of it, was 
 for once on her side too, .or the side she had led 
 him to suppose was continuedly hers. He began 
 at once inventing excuses for her with unusual 
 ingenuity. 
 
 " Make the calamity that prevents you, public 
 or private, as you like," he offered recklessly. 
 " Anything except having died in the night, I will 
 live up to." 
 
 " She is really too amiable. Probably I ought 
 to accept," Stephanie said slowly. 
 
 " Not if you do not want to," Grandee pro 
 tested. " What right has Christine to order you 
 up?" 
 
 " But, yes, probably Raleigh would not wish me 
 to always refuse her." 
 
 " I would not go a step if I did not feel like it ! " 
 
 " It is not a question of what I feel. It is not 
 that I feel like it, or that I feel any inclination at 
 all, to go or not to go." 
 
 " Well, go then, I would ! " he urged half-heart 
 edly. 
 
 " Not if you will miss me ! " detecting his hy 
 pocrisy. " Shall you miss me, Grandee ? " 
 
 "Always!" 
 
 "Even for an hour?" 
 
 " Even for a quarter of an hour ! " 
 
 But she went. It was drizzling and chilly and 
 she was driven down under the drenched trees,
 
 186 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 with the hood drawn up over the Victoria, so that 
 she saw only the buttons on the back of the coach 
 man's coat, and got out at Christine's expecting 
 to be taken upstairs at once. 
 
 But there were voices in the library. There 
 was a bright birch fire and Christine sat by the 
 tea table; at her feet, on a red cushion, graceful 
 in spite of his unusual height, Archie Newbolcl, 
 the portrait painter. Jim Trent was mixing some 
 sort of a hot concoction, the empty glasses in a 
 row on the mantel above him waiting to be filled. 
 A stranger was reading aloud, standing by the 
 window to catch the fading light, and on the great 
 divan sat a girl she had never seen and another 
 strange man. 
 
 Stephanie saw at a glance round the low-stud 
 ded room with its atmosphere so pronouncedly " in- 
 time," that the situation was the one she most ob 
 jected to, an American " informal " occasion. One 
 of those indefinable miscellaneous affairs in which 
 she never felt herself at ease. 
 
 She wore a plain black frock with no other orna 
 ment than a long emerald chain and silver cruci 
 fix; a close silver collar with an emerald clasp 
 round her throat. Her exaggerated black hat was 
 veiled, for which she was grateful, and the thick 
 meshes, together with the drooping brim gave her 
 a slight sense of ambush, as they all turned toward 
 her at once. Her mouth remained proud and un-
 
 ON THE PILLOW OF DOUBT 187 
 
 smiling, and from her smart heels to her crouch 
 ing plumes, she was, and knew she was, utterly 
 out of drawing with the whole setting and the 
 group within. 
 
 " Ah, we have caught you ! " cried Christine mer 
 rily. " We have got her at last ! Come, Nina, 
 and be presented to Mrs. Raleigh Payne." 
 
 The girl rather reluctantly left the divan, with 
 a glance at the man beside her, as if commanding 
 him to remain standing where he was until her 
 return. Newbold drew himself to his feet and 
 covered her with a critical squint, that saw and 
 judged her artistic values at every point. Jim 
 Trent thrust a glass in her hand saying, " Try it ! 
 You will find it better than tea." The man who 
 was reading, becoming aware of an interruption, 
 stopped, looking little less than annoyed. 
 
 " I believed that I should find you quite alone," 
 Stephanie began, when the introductions were 
 over. She attempted conversation with the girl 
 first, a pretty, inconsequent thing, who announced 
 herself as hating Europe, having been dragged 
 over it three times by a father who wanted to be 
 able to say he had been there, and seen it, no mat 
 ter what came up. 
 
 She got back to her original position on the di 
 van by her first partner as soon as it was feasible. 
 
 The reading man, Remmington by name, took 
 his turn next, asking her a few leading questions,
 
 188 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 much as one would interview a reformed Esqui 
 maux, or some caged phenomenon, a fallen star 
 perhaps, or any stray wanderer from its native 
 sphere. 
 
 Did she think Americans exaggerated, as they 
 were said to? 
 
 Not too much, a little perhaps. 
 
 Did she think the American women were spoiled ? 
 
 No, on the contrary, the men. 
 
 Did she like America? 
 
 Oh, undoubtedly! 
 
 Newbold was waiting. He was from the South 
 and the only one in the room who in the least shared 
 her attitude of an alien, in his silent scorn of every 
 thing north of Dixie, which all the hall-marked 
 F. F. V.s carry about with them, unexpressed but 
 never inexpressive. He let Jim Trent, Christine's 
 sister and even Christine herself second Remming- 
 ton's efforts. Each took a turn at the elegant art 
 of manoeuvring conversation by interrogation out 
 of a reserved mortal with no idea of showing her 
 hand, before he quietly took the low chair next 
 her. He leaned his head contentedly back upon 
 the cushions and looked at her with due apprecia 
 tion. It was bound to be a deadlock at first, for 
 both knew relief was at hand and neither cared to 
 hurry the pleasant certainty. His eyes, odd eyes 
 that did not often meet one's own, continued to 
 approve. His first instant admission of her charm
 
 ON THE PILLOW OF DOUBT 189 
 
 was momently heightening. The others, glad 
 to be rid of the responsibility of her diversion, fell 
 to easier topics and cheerful chaffing, leaving them 
 to themselves. The meeting of every new man 
 and woman creates the possibility of the door of 
 a new Eden swinging open. Of this these two, 
 being cosmopolitans of emotion as well as life, 
 were perfectly aware. 
 
 He did not ask her if she liked America or 
 
 American men. And he did call the little tea cakes 
 
 . he offered her " Madeleines," then when she glanced 
 
 up quickly at the happy association of the name, 
 
 1 his odd eyes were responsive, though he dropped 
 
 them almost at once as he said earnestly, with 
 
 that equally familiar seriousness of the French in 
 
 trivialities : 
 
 " Don't you love the kind they have at the cor 
 ner of the Rue Olivier ? " 
 
 Like a fish coming to the surface at the shadow 
 of a fly she rose to his innocent bait. Without 
 lifting her veil she gave unveiled consent to forget- 
 fulness of surroundings in the joy of re-hearing 
 . those intimately remembered names in his easy 
 drawl that differed so from their American pro 
 nunciation. 
 
 " To think that it should sound like music to 
 hear one say again even La Cascade, Les Ambassa- 
 deurs, Arminoville ! " she cried. 
 
 " It is like reading over a wine card to hear you
 
 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 repeat them after me," he assured her, with his in 
 dolent smile. 
 
 " No, I am very serious in my desire to hear you, 
 
 if it is only to say over the railway stations 
 from Paris to Marseilles, Begin, please, at 
 Dijon." 
 
 " I can even say Folie Bergere, Auteuille and 
 the Belle-Maniere," he told her, amused by her fer 
 vour. " Every Parisian knows the beautiful 
 Alsace with her native head-dress and satin gown, 
 who was once the Mistress of Boulanger, and is 
 now mistress of the art of fried sole ' avec sauce 
 tartare ' and ' Faisan d'Artignan ' ! " 
 
 From cafes they went to theatres, acting, music, 
 
 he always leading. 
 
 " I am content that you love the French songs 
 best," she said, to lead him on to an expression of 
 his taste hitherto undeclared, for her own reasons. 
 
 " I have not said that I did, but I do. I am sur 
 prised that you do not insist upon the German mu 
 sic. Most women seem to feel they must. They 
 talk a lot of rubbish about the purity of German 
 sentiment," he ventured. 
 
 " Eh, bien, one prefers one's husband to like 
 the German songs best, it reveals those qualities 
 that make a good husband, does it not ? But me, 
 myself I prefer French." 
 
 " Yes, I know. The un-nerving kind," he sug 
 gested.
 
 ON THE PILLOW OF DOUBT 191 
 
 " But there are those equally beautiful in Ger 
 man, par example in the Trompeter von Sack- 
 ingen. Do you recall the farewell? It is called 
 the nursemaid's song in Austria. It is so popular 
 as to have become vulgar, even." 
 
 He shook his head. " I have no ear for music. 
 I should not remember it if I had heard it." 
 
 " In Vienna you would hear it until you could 
 never forget." 
 
 " Alas ! Vienna I have yet to see," he admitted, 
 regretting it sincerely with an impatient sigh. 
 
 " It is much better, Monsieur Newbold ! If you 
 had, our meeting to-day would have been quite a 
 scandal. To encounter one from Vienna to 
 day would be to embrace it ! " And gay as 
 guard-mount she began to talk to him, with 
 strange little dusks of melancholy sadness in be 
 tween, as she had not talked for months, years 
 perhaps. 
 
 He found her too delightful to share and monop 
 olised unblushingly. The carriage surprised her 
 as much as it did him. It had been a short hour 
 to both. 
 
 " I shall swear I have been to Vienna and just 
 come back, next time we meet ! " he told her, as 
 Jim Trent interrupting them, brought up the man 
 hitherto in the background sitting by Christine's 
 sister on the divan. 
 
 " I do not want you to go away, Mrs. Payne,
 
 192 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 without meeting my brother, my amusing little 
 brother Lawrence Trent." 
 
 Stephanie bowed formally without rising. 
 Something impelled her to lift her eyes and she 
 started slightly. 
 
 " If I knew you and loved you I should call 
 you Gaston," she said with a sudden daring reck 
 lessness, putting out her hand to meet his own. 
 
 " Please begin now," he begged. " Begin right 
 where you left off with him! You are so difficult 
 to meet I am sure there is not going to be any fu 
 ture tense to anticipate, I won out by betting you 
 would not come to-day, but I shall never hope to 
 win on it again, even if I change sides." 
 
 " So, then, this was a trap ? " she asked, colour 
 ing with annoyance. 
 
 " Well, of course one always wants to meet the 
 people one cannot, and nobody could seem to get 
 at you. And Newbold and I have dragged Rem- 
 mington up here to work this summer, so we are 
 really neighbours, in the country sense. We have 
 taken the Squirrel's Nest, you know, on the ridge 
 next below Sky High. We are really tenantry of 
 Mr. Randall's and just outside his walls." 
 
 " You must have a very beautiful panorama of 
 the hills," she said conventionally. 
 
 " Oh, heavens ! Do you do that too ? " he pro 
 tested. 
 
 "Do what?"
 
 OAT THE PILLOW OF DOUBT 193 
 
 " Talk about the purple hills, the hyacinthine 
 hills? Everybody does it here. It gets on my 
 nerves unbearably. Remmington has to, he is a 
 poet in streaks, and Chris is a nature fiend, and 
 Newbold makes his living in colour, of course. But 
 I never dreamed you would ! " 
 
 " You are the only person I have met who was 
 not a lover of Nature." She was incredulous of 
 the fact still. 
 
 " I said I did not like to talk about it," he cor 
 rected. " Everything has been said there is to say, 
 and it is time to return from Nature to the new 
 and glorified eighteenth century, still keeping the 
 passion of the past. You ought to see the expres 
 sion on all these benighted faces when I talk dis 
 respectfully of the blue-throated bat-wing or the 
 yellow-bellied grossbeak ! " 
 
 " I believe that I know the effect you mean," 
 she confessed. " I am always full of regret that 
 I am not able to talk with the same sentiment of 
 the hills as Christine and Mr. Randall." 
 
 " When they begin it before me I always whis 
 tle the Mendelssohn spring song. That is my 
 antidote for sentimentality. It out-banals banal 
 ity!" 
 
 " If you are not devoted to the country, why do 
 you place yourself here ? " 
 
 Her question implied her old feeling that a man 
 followed his inclination in all things.
 
 194 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " Oh, the country is good for some things, 
 though it is not good for the same thing to all peo 
 ple. I am working here this summer. I am a her 
 mit and hate society and the haunts of men, es 
 pecially women." 
 
 " Men of low degree are vanity, and men of high 
 degree are a lie," Newbold chimed in. 
 
 The re-appearance of the pretty Nina, with the 
 baby over her shoulder, here created a diversion. 
 In all probability the effect she intended. Chris 
 tine held out her arms but Remmington captured 
 the prize and tended it skilfully, crossing his foot 
 so high in the process, that baby Lucile played hap 
 pily with it as a monster toy. There was no pose 
 about it. He liked children and was used to them. 
 The tableau lacked all appeal to the imagination or 
 sentiment. He looked like an illustration from the 
 Cotter's Saturday night, no more no less. There 
 is no such test of a man's delicacy and charm 
 as his way with a child. Newbold refused the 
 honour outright. He did not care for children 
 in their uncertain states. Jim's brother mussed 
 the little creature as he passed her like a choice 
 bundle over to Christine, but a queer little jerk 
 contracted Stephanie's heart as she saw him do 
 it. There had been a supernatural sweetness on 
 his cynical young face of a duration swifter than 
 the passing of a shadow across moving water. It 
 threw the temptation of Saint Anthony upon the
 
 ON THE PILLOW OF DOUBT 195 
 
 screen of her fancy for an unappreciable instant 
 and was gone. 
 
 " Did I handle that emergency successfully ? " 
 he asked her. 
 
 " You should adopt the profession of the Ma 
 donna," she assured him gravely. 
 
 They all took her to the carriage. She did not 
 utter the hope of seeing any one of them again. 
 They stared at each other when the carriage dis 
 appeared into the soft misty darkness and then 
 they laughed. 
 
 Young Trent took up Newbold's wager, and 
 went the next day, it being Sunday, to pay a call, 
 but was informed that Mrs. Payne was not at 
 home. 
 
 Stephanie watched his irate back and stiffly con 
 scious shoulders down the driveway with some 
 amusement. He was young of course, and Jim 
 Trent's brother after all. There could have been 
 no objection to her receiving him. She wondered 
 if it was Mr. Remmington or the younger Trent 
 who whistled " Behiit dich Gott ! " outside the high 
 wall of Sky High, as she returned from her cus 
 tomary promenades. It could not be Newbold, so 
 it must be one or the other. She insisted to her 
 self that it must have been Remmington, because 
 she so distinctly preferred it to have been Trent, 
 after the manner of women and paradox. And 
 then with redoubled force the paralysing question
 
 196 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 returned, from which the diversion of the after 
 noon had temporarily set her free, did Raleigh 
 know that she knew? Had any one yet supplied 
 the name of that woman Nicholas Heathleagh 
 loved ? 
 
 For like her famous predecessor, Stephanie 
 " could not slumber tranquilly upon the pillow of 
 doubt."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A COMMENTARY IN CARDS 
 
 ASIDE from an occasional sharp reprimand 
 from Joel Underwood for picking buds 
 with the roses, Stephanie's days went on as 
 before. 
 
 "Mr. Randall don't like it that the heliotrope 
 don't cover the terrace wall by now, as 'tis," he re 
 iterated to her. " I see he was on the ramparts 
 about it yesterday. Right up on the ramparts ! " 
 he repeated, meaning rampage she assumed, from 
 Grandee's explanation of Joel's use of the word. 
 
 Stephanie had innocently supposed flowers, like 
 love, were more abundant for more love. She at 
 tempted to exonerate herself with Joel in vain on 
 any such excuse. 
 
 " Gardening's just one damn bug after another," 
 was his private adaptation of the popular con 
 ception of life in general. " And 'heliotrope is the 
 one flower that can't bear to be picked at all. I 
 wish't you'd try to hold your horses, Mrs. Payne, 
 until the ' excursiums ' are in bloom. They have 
 got to be picked, to head 'em off from going to 
 seed ! " 
 
 He left her wondering on the differing natures 
 197
 
 198 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 of flowers. They were not so unlike women then, 
 some of them had to be taken, and others left 
 to grow by themselves. 
 
 She had grown wakeful of late, pondering her 
 imperative question, and often heard the hurrying 
 trains between midnight and dawn. There was 
 one freight that came along about two o'clock, so 
 heavily loaded that it raced down the steep grade 
 toward the junction, echoing like the heels of a 
 galloping Centaur, and shrieking strange un-hu- 
 man cadenzas that she imagined not unlike the pos 
 sible cry of those wild and wholly rapturous pagan 
 creatures. It gave her an odd sense of comrade 
 ship in the dead of night when only the night-jar 
 was awake, heightening the desolation with its un 
 canny echo. 
 
 She often strolled toward the ravine where the 
 train slid away, down the whirling current of life 
 beneath her, and one evening returning, she delib 
 erately waited and peered cautiously through the 
 trees where the wall was low, to discover that it 
 was Jim Trent's little brother, not the artist New- 
 bold or the poet Remmington, who whistled 
 " Behiit dich Gott ! " on the highway. 
 
 He had never called again since that first unsuc 
 cessful attempt, and now July was all but with her. 
 All day long the Bruno-hearted bees, exponents of 
 a higher Pantheism than any Pater ever exploited, 
 were reckless in adoption of any or all sweets for
 
 A COMMENTARY IN CARDS 199 
 
 their own. The velvet-veined butterflies hung in 
 sultry swoons on noon-tide blossoms widely flaring, 
 and the scarlet Tanager, free from the cares of a 
 first brood, flashed like a sin of scarlet unfor- 
 given ! 
 
 It was Stephanie's turn then to be surprised, 
 when Steven Randall, with many apologies for de 
 serting her, accepted an invitation to dinner at the 
 Squirrel's Nest. It was really deserted on the ter 
 race after her solitary meal was over, with only 
 the whip-poor-wills' incessant lashing of the si 
 lence about her. 
 
 Over at the Bachelor's mess it was gay enough to 
 make up. Dinner well over, and an astonishingly 
 varied amount of discussion roused, and personal 
 opinion exchanged, they had settled down to whist. 
 Remmington was dealing in a crisp incisive man 
 ner of his own, that manner of perfection in de 
 tail often noticeable in one whose absorbing inter 
 est is far withdrawn. It was also the manner of 
 a man who plays to win, no matter what the nature 
 of the game. 
 
 " You remind me of my nephew, Raleigh 
 Payne," Randall said, picking up his cards. He 
 was the only one not smoking, but hugely enjoy 
 ing the vicarious forbidden fruit by inhalation. 
 " Raleigh plays to win, just as you do, life or 
 cards, as it happens. I have got to the point 
 where I look on in life very much as I do at a
 
 200 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 hand of cards. I never saw a run of spades just 
 like that last of yours, by the way, I remember 
 seeing a run of hearts to match it, barring the 
 queen, out in San Francisco. It is the same way 
 in life, any unusual combination interests and at 
 tracts me, whether it is for or against me." 
 
 " It is only when you do not care a picayune 
 that things come your way," said Newbold, ready 
 to play. 
 
 " I suppose that is what the ' Methody parson ' 
 means when he talks about ' losing your life to 
 find it,'" suggested 'Trent audaciously. 
 
 Randall smiled quizzically. " Not to men of my 
 nephew's stamp," he objected, " and they never 
 lead from a finesse." 
 
 In the next interval between deals Newbold re 
 curred to Raleigh Payne. 
 
 " He looks like a portrait of his own ancestors. 
 I admire his aristocracy of feature immensely," he 
 said. 
 
 " I never saw a man so bent on forcing events 
 to shape to his will," Randall remarked, sorting 
 his cards as he spoke. " He would back himself 
 against any combination of cards or luck and bet 
 his last dollar on himself ! " 
 
 " I like that," cried Remmington. " It is he 
 roic." 
 
 " Oh, well, the luck is bound to run about so 
 long one way, but when it turns, it turns. I al-
 
 A COMMENTARY IN CARDS 201 
 
 ways play as the cards fall,- at my age one does. 
 Life and the game are a good deal alike by that 
 time. When I lose, holding good cards, or win 
 unexpectedly through my partner or good playing 
 of my mediocre ones, or the reverse, with all or 
 nothing against me, it is largely subjective after 
 all. It is a great thing to enjoy the science of play 
 ing for observation, I mean. To watch the cards 
 as they drop for or against one, to play for the 
 game's sake, not merely to come out ahead. Why, 
 when you have won the fun is over! It takes 
 years and all sorts of experience to produce such 
 a result, and you youngsters are probably pitying 
 me for the dreariness of such a negative point of 
 view, but life is interesting to me, as an on 
 looker, perhaps more acutely interesting to me, in 
 spite of my years, than it ever was ! " 
 
 " Place pour le Vieux ! " cried Newbold gal 
 lantly. 
 
 " Yes, I note phenomena. I have ceased to 
 expect miracles," he concluded, as if to himself, 
 glancing at his hand again to confirm his princi 
 ple. 
 
 " That is odd, for nothing else ever really hap 
 pens," interposed Lawrence Trent. " They are 
 the only things I do really believe in or count 
 upon." 
 
 It was Newbold who asked in the next interlude 
 of the game, " Where is Mr. Payne now ? "
 
 202 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " In the Balkans briefly. He will not be long 
 over, this time, in all probability." 
 
 " The Reviews say that the poems he pretends 
 to have merely edited, revealed such an intimate 
 sense of the inner nature of those people out there, 
 that he can have anything he wants in the line of 
 re-appointment," said Remmington. 
 
 " Yes, Raleigh is thoroughly at home on the 
 watershed where European civilisation flows back 
 from Tartar instinct," Randall replied. " He is 
 climbing up a crater to look in, where the smoul 
 dering passions of the East and West are seeth 
 ing." 
 
 " What does Mrs. Payne think of the lyrics ? " 
 Newbold interrupted. " People say he wrote them 
 himself, to her. She must hate waiting here alone 
 all summer " 
 
 Steven Randall considered briefly, or he might 
 simply have been struck by some unusual com 
 bination in his cards, when he spoke, he an 
 swered only the first half the conversational lead. 
 
 " It is curious, now you speak of it, I do not 
 remember hearing Mrs. Payne say what she 
 thought of the lyrics. If she understands them in 
 English, I can imagine though." 
 
 " They are pretty hot, for America " Newbold 
 said, implying more. 
 
 " Yes, and they are truly great," Randall as 
 sented with entire unconcern. " And in great men,
 
 A COMMENTARY IN CARDS 203 
 
 Mr. Newbold, you will almost always find a strain 
 of coarseness. It is the inherent male in them. 
 Little women, that is mediocre, aenemic, unvaliant 
 women shrink from it or pretend they do not see 
 it. The great red-hearted lower class takes it for 
 granted and puts it to Nature's purpose. The su 
 perlative woman, great enough in herself to trans 
 cend class and code for elemental reality, accepts 
 it unashamed. George Sand did, so have notable 
 and honourable exceptions in every land and epoch. 
 A great woman recognises it for what it is, the 
 necessary alloy to hold the most precious human 
 ore together. She glories in it, in the man su 
 preme, without being herself less fine in fibre for 
 its life-giving contact." 
 
 " Mrs. Raleigh Payne would, in spite of her ex 
 quisite delicacy," Trent was about to say, but 
 stopped himself in time. 
 
 " That detracts from one's preconceived ideal 
 of a poet," persisted Newbold. 
 
 " Perhaps, but not from the man himself. I 
 went looking for an all-round ideal when I was 
 younger. Now I take men as I find them, and 
 I find them good. If you demand their best, you 
 will usually get it, that is if you do your best to 
 deserve it." 
 
 " Make it spades," interrupted Remmington. 
 
 When the game was again halted, Newbold 
 made one more return to his enthusiasm for the
 
 204 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 picturesque possibilities of Raleigh Payne. " It 
 would be tremendously interesting to paint him, 
 that is if he would stay in focus. He has such an 
 overwhelming personality it would be almost im 
 possible to get him on any canvas," he delib 
 erated, with his head a bit on one side, as if mak 
 ing the actual attempt. 
 
 " He is just as good at business as these more 
 sensational effects," said Randall. " His business 
 career sounds like a gamble, or would if he was 
 not the soul of honour. He was in debt some 
 three or four hundred thousand a year ago. His 
 income to-day is less than four thousand and he is 
 spending from fifteen to twenty. He knows it is 
 coming round all right. His capital is most of it 
 invested dead, but it is safe enough. He owns 
 more than a million that he made honestly him 
 self and he never borrows on any security but his 
 own name. Men are glad to oblige him. He says 
 himself, the secret of it is that he never keeps any 
 one waiting. He is three days ahead with his in 
 terest, always. That is one secret of his success. 
 He takes chances, of course, but not until he has 
 insured his own stake every time. Last year he 
 had the Catholic vote against him, but they failed 
 to down him. Men trusted him on his record, 
 though he was a heretic, and his own party almost 
 distrusted him for that same reason. But it all 
 turned in to Raleigh's account, both ways. His
 
 'A COMMENTARY IN CARDS 205 
 
 character was unassailable even under cross fire. 
 The Vinxton Trust investigations were on at the 
 same time too. But his luck held and he caught 
 up. He sold a block on the East side, he had of 
 fered for sixty thousand, for a hundred. And a 
 piece of vacant property up town for a hundred, 
 that his own agent had been trying to get forty 
 for, and so on. He owns to-day more than a 
 thousand acres of timberland, up in Northern 
 Michigan, that may burn up any windy night, but 
 it won't because it is his. He keeps steady too 
 and never goes into a pocket thinking it is a tun 
 nel ! " Trent yawned politely. It was frankly not 
 Mr. Payne who interested him. 
 
 " Men have all sorts of complications to face," 
 Randall resumed. " Raleigh has to look out for 
 the Catholic vote and influence." 
 
 " He is a big figure in the government race, al 
 ready," said Newbold admiringly. " I have heard 
 him mentioned for the very highest prizes. He 
 stands alone superbly." 
 
 " I sometimes think he is too self-reliant," Ran 
 dall qualified. " There is such a thing as playing 
 one's own game to the death of one's partners." 
 
 " A game does imply more than one," Trent in 
 serted. 
 
 " Still, there are situations in which a man dare 
 not be over-scrupulous," admitted Newbold, who 
 was not incorruptible.
 
 206 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " Oh, three scruples make a damn in almost any 
 case," scoffed Trent, wondering what part Mrs. 
 Payne was assigned in her husband's spectacular 
 career, and playing so indifferently that it lost him 
 the score, and roused Steven Randall to the un 
 wonted lateness of the hour and his waiting horses 
 outside. 
 
 He had thoroughly enjoyed the evening. He 
 made them feel it in his hearty invitation to come 
 and stir him up in his retirement. His hospital 
 ity was tinged with a certain distinct conscious 
 ness of what it conferred, impressing a recognised 
 obligation upon whoever might accept the gracious 
 urgence of his proffered open hand and door. 
 
 Lawrence Trent came first, to share coffee and 
 liqueur after dinner and try his skill at chess. 
 Newbold established himself by his indolent but 
 surprising knowledge of foreign affairs, delight 
 ful to an old campaigner of Randall's type. Rem- 
 mington chiefly stopped away and received the 
 comments of his friends upon Sky High and its 
 occupants. 
 
 Newbold extolled the brand of cigars offered 
 there and appreciated the wine. Trent went into 
 mock ecstasies over the cook, and raved, as long 
 as either would listen to him, over Mrs. Raleigh 
 Payne. He swore he had always suspected such 
 women to exist, but had grown weary of their
 
 A COMMENTARY IN CARDS 207 
 
 pursuit, and let them go as mere adornment of 
 fiction. He ground his teeth openly over the ex 
 istence of the paragon absentee-landlord and 
 vowed he would cause prayers to be said that his 
 ship might go to the mermaids on its return sail 
 ing. And his friends, who knew him best, could 
 not quite be sure whether he covered his shameless 
 satisfaction in Steven Randall's perfect dinners by 
 ardent professions of devotion to his niece-by-mar 
 riage, or whether the reverse was nearer to his 
 programme. 
 
 And Christine, noting the turn in the weather 
 cock, sent off for less foolish youths to play with 
 pretty Nina, who for her part wore more and more 
 elaborate toilets to each successive garden party, 
 in hope of extinguishing her rival ; who never ap 
 peared in person, but whose absent-presence 
 seemed to inexorably linger in the atmosphere of 
 the three most desirable men of the summer. To 
 Christine's cottage they went politely, when in 
 vited, three strong, conventionally attired, and 
 made themselves collectively and universally charm 
 ing; leaving together before eleven. But Sky 
 High they soon pervaded, " each in his separate 
 star." Hours and customs were secondary, save 
 for dinner, when after the fashion set by their 
 host, the proper recognition as to coats was un 
 derstood as unwritten law entirely binding and per 
 functory.
 
 208 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 They preserved the tradition among themselves 
 that they never saw Stephanie alone. The first 
 suspicion of unfair play was roused one night, 
 never to be quite laid again, when Remmington 
 asked without any connection whatever, " Why 
 don't you talk about Mrs. Payne any more, Trent? 
 Don't you like her any more? Or do you like 
 her too well ? " 
 
 " How can I love thee, love, too well, until I 
 know thee more ? " had been his instant para 
 phrase ; admitted by his listeners to be intentionally 
 evasive. It was Remmington who whistled the 
 " Spring . Song " now, out of tune and key, but 
 baldly derisive. 
 
 Lawrence Trent's own first discomfort was in 
 discovering that he always knew if she moved, and 
 what she said, in any given combination of peo 
 ple or circumstances. He had all but displayed 
 irritation, on several occasions, when she had low 
 ered her voice so that he missed parts of sentences 
 while supposed to be engaged in his own end of 
 the situation, serving tea or chatting with Chris 
 tine, or setting up theories for Steven Randall to 
 knock down, which was his favourite method of 
 slipping responsilibity in conversation, and eluding 
 detection. 
 
 He was not pleased to find himself so supernat- 
 urally aware, and noted it as check-worthy. Ste 
 phanie had loaned him her copy of Prudhomme's
 
 'A COMMENTARY IN CARDS 209 
 
 poems and he had carried his idolised Pater and 
 laid at her feet. It was a blind offering of course, 
 since without his interpreting voice it meant little 
 to her. After a time he read to her, but at the 
 most distant hint of sentiment in any author, his 
 lips would round over the " friihlingslied," which 
 she came to detest as the synonym for ridicule of 
 all that approached romance. 
 
 " A sense of humour is utterly incompatible 
 with sentimentality, thank God 1 " was his oft re 
 peated cry. In this she found herself unrespon 
 sive. She had never met a male creature with so 
 unaffected a horror of all expression of sentiment, 
 yet never one who lived on his emotions so openly, 
 and took whatever he found in his path that could 
 increase the vibration his nerves demanded for 
 their pleasure. Like Pater himself, indeed, he was 
 sensuous, but without sentiment. Of the three he 
 was the vagrant; unreliable and utterly unsatis 
 factory if one depended upon him. He rarely 
 came when invited, never if his presence was really 
 important to their plans for the table or happiness 
 of others. Never if he could get out of it de 
 cently, when there were to be other guests. When 
 Newbold flattered Stephanie, which was his cus 
 tomary phrase with all women, and her natural 
 tribute from all men, Trent looked his contempt of 
 women who live on such pabulum, as if it was be 
 yond all conception or recall; blaming her for the
 
 210 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 baseness of the performance, without for a moment 
 aspersing his friend, by whom he swore unre 
 servedly. 
 
 The first time Stephanie found herself alone with 
 him, on the terrace one evening, he asked her 
 abruptly " Why do you talk so fast to me, now ? 
 You are like a champagne bottle with the cork 
 out ! " His hands expressed his sense of brilliant 
 effervescence and he made a pretty feint of be 
 ing dazzled, by dropping his lashes to shield his 
 eyes. 
 
 " But I was not aware I did not intend " 
 she began and he thought she knew perfectly 
 that silence between them was an ultimate inti 
 macy, beyond the outer barricades of speech, 
 for which neither of them was prepared. It 
 quickened his hope of danger, for if she was an 
 epicure in the flavours of every day, she was more 
 promising of danger than he had dared even to 
 suspect or pray. The moon had risen, ridiculous, 
 at the full, with that leer of yellow compla 
 cency, " See, he is the Mona Lisa of his sex," 
 Trent scoffed, as it staggered over the hill oppo 
 site, a trifle tipped to one side. 
 
 " A thousand thanks for mocking it," she said 
 soberly. 
 
 " Why ? " He believed he knew, but he might 
 be wrong.
 
 A COMMENTARY IN CARDS 211 
 
 Her answer was a sigh suggestive of the wasted 
 hours of flower-scented nights. 
 
 "Are you tired of it, too? of it all perhaps? 
 Do you really get tired of things as I do? How 
 sweet of you! I should think all married people 
 would " he added inconsequently. 
 
 His face was as far away, yet as sympathetic, as 
 that of a wistful child, when he said it. She 
 looked at him and realised how close the resem 
 blance was to a Carlo Dolci saint. His hair was 
 so softly, densely black against his temples so ex 
 cessively white, and thin to asceticism. The eyes 
 came nearer being soft in evening light than she 
 had ever seen them before, and they did not mock, 
 their blue only deepened wearily under the long 
 lashes. The nose was strong, intellectually high, 
 and the mouth the feature that claimed her and 
 would not let her go. There was a way the upper 
 lip had, of curving up at the right corner, that 
 made the smile bewilderingly sweet and every tran 
 sient expression beguiling. It lost nothing in 
 character from its innate beauty. It could be cut 
 ting as well; keen, satiric to discomfort when he 
 willed. It mocked its own sweetness and beauty 
 often, as if in disdain of so feminine a charm im 
 posed upon the most masculine of men without his 
 consent. 
 
 " Why ? " she asked softly, after a long pause in
 
 212 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 which she had been considering his proposition. 
 
 " Why ? Oh, because I could get tired of any 
 thing I was bound to. I hate to do anything for 
 any reason except because I happen to want to. 
 I should be tired of anything if I was married 
 to it," 
 
 " If you were very * amoureux,' even ? " 
 
 " It would not last two weeks. It never does." 
 
 " Why ? " she asked again, she who never ques 
 tioned ! 
 
 " On the general principle, I suppose, that 
 Daphne ought to run if Apollo is to run after her. 
 If she is caught of course he stops running. Then 
 it is all over. That is, unless he runs after an 
 other nymph " Their eyes met. Stephanie was 
 trying to match this theory with Raleigh's ex 
 planation of the American idea, in different terms, 
 but much the same conclusion. 
 
 "This life here is so different for you! How 
 you must hate the monotony of it all! And your 
 old life was so brilliant, how you must long to 
 go back to it! Don't you ever? Won't you 
 ever ? " He forgot his manners in his eagerness. 
 
 " I was so very tired when I came here, I 
 wanted only to rest, only the absence of all ex 
 citement. That life for the public is hard, empty, 
 of all, and after " 
 
 " But there must have been some wonderful 
 days " he insisted.
 
 A COMMENTARY IN CARDS 213 
 
 " Nights," she corrected. His eyes blinked, 
 dazed, as if he veered from the audacity, the in 
 timacy of the suggestion, of which she seemed en 
 tirely unconscious. 
 
 " Oh, you are wonderful ! " he groaned. 
 
 She smiled that odd smile of hers, that con 
 senting smile that accepted it, knowing it was 
 neither legitimately given or taken. Her mother's 
 name was Pleasure, and surely it was her mother's 
 smile, too sweet to be sound at the core, too 
 relenting, too assenting. He held his own mouth 
 firm to grimness as he beheld it, but with effort. 
 
 " Don't you pity the people who do not dare 
 play with their emotions ? " he asked. 
 
 " As much as I adore those who dare every 
 thing! I detest, most of all beings, a coward who 
 is afraid of any danger, " 
 
 " Even one who is afraid of the situation chang- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Most of all, that person who is afraid of 
 change, and ruins the present by some dread of 
 what is to come." 
 
 " We are so absurdly alike, in some ways ! " 
 
 " You find it so ? Christine said, more than 
 once, to me, ' you will like Jim's brother, he 
 never says what he means any more than you do, 
 a'nd he never means the same thing on two fol 
 lowing occasions.' Is it true?" 
 
 " Perhaps. I am not so sure. I know the only
 
 214 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 marriage ceremony I could subscribe to, would go 
 something like this: 
 
 " To love or to lose, for poetry or for prose for 
 roses or for thorns, till life do us part and hereupon 
 I give thee my lips, if not my heart." 
 
 " Ah, yes," she said sadly, with one of her sud 
 den transitions of mood, " that is the tragedy of it 
 all, for souls like ours. We may swear to-night, 
 and we are so made, that by to-morrow our fate 
 may have overtaken us in some new form. How 
 to defend oneself from the new charm? That is 
 the affair of most importance ? Yes ? " 
 
 " Please do not be serious," he begged her, 
 " do let us laugh while we live, lest we should cry 
 over the joy never-lasting." 
 
 A week followed in which he either was, or was 
 playing, dead to the world, though at Grandee's 
 request she wrote him herself, bidding him to din 
 ner with the rest. Joel found her one morning in 
 the garden with the manner of one who has lost 
 something and is seeking it even in improbable 
 places. She had stopped short, when he noticed 
 her, and stood looking down into the heliotrope 
 but not seeing it. 
 
 " Lost something, Mrs. Payne ? " he enquired, 
 having a question or two he wanted to edge in 
 about the battle of Waterloo, if it came right. 
 
 " Thank you, no Joel, I have found something "
 
 A COMMENTARY IN CARDS 215 
 
 she said radiantly. She went quickly away 
 then, without explaining that after continued un 
 successful effort she had visualised Trent's mouth 
 for the first time. 
 
 That night the telephone rang up, when Steven 
 Randall had gone to bed earlier than usual, with a 
 sleeping potion and a French novel beside him. 
 
 Stephanie waited, then answered herself, which 
 was unprecedented for her. 
 
 " Allo, Allo ! " she called in the French fashion. 
 
 " Is this heaven ? " cried Trent's voice. " Give 
 me peacock, amethyst, and flame, please ! " 
 
 " There is some mistake. This is Mrs. Raleigh 
 Payne speaking," she said primly. 
 
 "Oh, is that you, Joy of Living? How well 
 you are looking to-night ! " 
 
 Infected by his caprice she called back " No, 
 it is joy of dying! " 
 
 " Well, then, ' let joy be unconfined ' ; I am com 
 ing up to read," and he rang off before she could 
 prevent or prohibit.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 FORGETTING 
 
 I FORGOT all about your note. I hope 
 Newbold told you," he said after the first 
 greeting. 
 
 " Mr. Randall regretted that you did not find it 
 possible to accept his invitation for dinner," she 
 replied without comment. 
 
 " I do so hate to promise ahead to go any 
 where, it is dreadful to have an engagement 
 hanging over you," he confided, sure of her sym 
 pathy. 
 
 " We should not have wished to be something 
 hanging over you," she assured him. 
 
 " And you are not vexed with me for forgetting 
 your note ? " 
 
 " I adored your forgetting it. Of all the men I 
 have ever met, you are the first to do just that." 
 
 " Yes, I put it in my pocket and never thought 
 of it again until I wanted some more paper to take 
 notes on," he explained contentedly. 
 
 " Is it, perhaps, that you would never have 
 thought to come again, if you had failed that 
 necessity ? " 
 
 " O, something might have reminded me. It is 
 216
 
 FORGETTING 217 
 
 just possible that it might. I remember now being 
 all but sure it was from you, and saving it until 
 the next to the last -of my mail. There was, I 
 think, that morning a letter from home, some invi 
 tations to weddings and things, a letter from Chris 
 tine's sister and that one from you." 
 
 " And you read mine the next to the last, one 
 is not impressed by your eagerness." 
 
 " But I never read the best first. I save it al 
 ways ! " 
 
 " And is it permitted one to demand who had the 
 honour to come last, that morning of my unfortu 
 nate invitation for dinner ? " 
 
 " Of course it was a catalogue of rate books for 
 sale. I never get the emotion out of anything I 
 do out of a book catalogue, do you ? of rare editions 
 I mean. And when I actually see them, my knees 
 shake and I tremble all over." 
 
 " I never have experienced it, I believe," she 
 admitted cautiously. 
 
 " Then you have missed one of the keenest emo 
 tions in life, probably the very keenest of all." 
 
 " You speak so often of emotion, I am afraid 
 I do not understand about it, in the same sense, 
 what it means " 
 
 " Why, music is emotion, real music, especially 
 Tristan, and all the poets that make pleasure 
 sparkles tingle in your blood, and Mass is emotion 
 in another form, and sudden intimacies of the in-
 
 218 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 expressible, and everything that makes one for 
 get duty and the golden rule and to-morrow morn- 
 ing!" 
 
 " Ah, but yes, I see, it is indeed another way 
 of saying sin " she said slowly. " The blessed 
 Imitation warns one from all such excess of the 
 imagination. One may not indulge oneself in 
 such, without reproach." Trent stared at her. 
 
 " What do you know about the Imitation ? " he 
 asked in amazement. 
 
 " It is my companion always, my book of life. 
 In the convent we are taught to respect and love 
 and trust its guidance wholly, without question." 
 
 " The world would stop if its precepts were lit 
 erally obeyed." 
 
 " Perhaps the world would not go as fast as 
 now, perhaps it would be better for contempla 
 tion and control." 
 
 " O you are wonderful ! " he repeated help 
 lessly. " Who would ever have dreamed you even 
 in his waking moments? If you are going to turn 
 out to be a saint, it is all over with me! But if 
 you are going in for asceticism I shall go in for 
 character. And it is such an ungraceful role ! " 
 
 " You have been going into the world very much, 
 since we have seen you, have you not?" she said, 
 leaving the subject with a sudden discretion. 
 
 " Yes, of course. I have many friends here in 
 the hills, and they are very good to me."
 
 FORGETTING 219 
 
 " Then you have not been working all the time, 
 as Mr. Newbold said ? " 
 
 "A man has to be decent." 
 
 " Naturally. And you must amuse yourself very 
 much in your American society. The young girls 
 are so little guarded and so completely the com 
 panions of the young men." 
 
 " You know it is all deadly to me ! " he contra 
 dicted, with a sharp change of base. " You are 
 utterly tyrannical ! Are you quite satisfied now 
 that you have spoiled everything else for me ? " 
 
 " Everything else ? " 
 
 " Yes, and everywhere else and everyone else ! 
 I used to quite like the set here, and now they bore 
 me to tears, and it is all your fault ! " 
 
 " What are you saying to me ? " 
 
 " You are so selfish," he went on. " You have 
 nothing to do but play music and pick flowers and 
 cavil at a poor hard-working student, who must 
 toil for his living and who must not insult his 
 friends, because he may vulgarly need them to 
 ( earn his bread and butter from later on ! Now, 
 of course, you are a very wonderful person to 
 know, and I should die and be Carthage in ruins 
 if I could not come here to Sky High, which is 
 probably the most alluring spot on the earth, but 
 I have to earn my living and I cannot be here all 
 the time for several reasons, much as I should 
 like to."
 
 220 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 She unnerved him by her utter sweetness, saying, 
 " It is true. I believe I have been egoistic and 
 a tyrant. Forgive me ! I did" not realize it." 
 
 " Oh Lord protect me ! " he implored, " I in 
 tended to produce a scene for the sheer joy of 
 seeing you angry and you become full of com 
 punction, humble, self-accusing! Oh, I am Car 
 thage in ruins ! I am a lost man if this goes on ! " 
 
 He was a lost man anyway. She suspected it, 
 if he did not. 
 
 " You treat me so ! " he next protested, " I fully 
 expect every time I come here you will trot me 
 on your knees before I get away. You never treat 
 Newbold so ! " 
 
 " But I do not receive Mr. Newbold as I do 
 you." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because, because he is older. It would not 
 be the same thing." 
 
 " I do not care for the way I am treated." 
 
 " Then why do you come ? " 
 
 " I have not." 
 
 "But now, to-night?." 
 
 " Because I revel in sensations and I find them 
 here." 
 
 " What a strange reason ! " 
 
 "Why do men ever go to see women, then?" 
 
 " For repose, or amusement, one would love
 
 FORGETTING 221 
 
 so much to be able to give peace." Her convent 
 voice and manner enveloped her as she spoke. 
 
 " You never will ! except that you pass under 
 standing." 
 
 " Then it is for me only to be gay. But you 
 are not gay to-night, though you make a pretense 
 of it," she insisted. 
 
 " I am gay," he retorted, " I am very gay, as 
 gay as a mirthful misrecordia. I ought not to have 
 come. Why did you make me come ? " 
 
 " Why should you not have come ? " she disre 
 garded everything else he had said. 
 
 " Because it is going to be a sin, sometime if 
 not now." 
 
 " I am not sure if you would recoil from what 
 you believed to be sin. Tell me if you think that 
 you would ? " 
 
 " That would depend on whether it was man 
 or woman." 
 
 " I suppose God is angry with us when we sin, 
 when we give ourselves over to our own happi 
 ness " 
 
 " On the contrary, I never feel so near God as 
 when I am happiest. I am happy now, are you ? " 
 
 " Not if you are really angry and impatient with 
 me. But it seemed to me so little to exact, only 
 that you will be always bored where I am not." 
 
 " It is always a bore where you are not. And
 
 222 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 yet you wonder that the women hate you ? " he 
 sighed. 
 
 " I hope they do not." 
 
 " You know they do." 
 
 " Christine Trent has too much character to be 
 so unjust. Grandee says so." 
 
 " She may have told him so, but that proves 
 nothing." 
 
 " Won't you begin to read, please ? " 
 
 He opened the book and settled down into his 
 chair, having arranged all the cushions within reach 
 behind his head. 
 
 " I am not going to read to you any more after 
 to-night," he announced. " You remember, per 
 haps, what happened to a certain Paolo and Fran- 
 cesca who read aloud once too often?" 
 
 Her eyes danced. She found him a gayer play 
 fellow than even those old Viennese mirrors of her 
 childhood. Yes, surely gayer even than the foun 
 tains. 
 
 " Was it not too amiable of Paolo to accompany 
 Francesca to perdition ? " she cried, " so many men 
 would have exclaimed ' place aux dames 1 ' and re 
 mained themselves behind." 
 
 " It was rather decent of him," he admitted 
 coldly. 
 
 " The only sad thing about death is that one is 
 obliged to do it alone," she ventured timidly. " I 
 am afraid of being alone. I am afraid of myself."
 
 FORGETTING 223 
 
 " It does lack mutuality, but so do other things," 
 he suggested. " You recall the objection of Au- 
 cassin to heaven, do you not? As a place where 
 there were no lovely lovers?" 
 
 " If you are not disposed to read, shall I perhaps 
 play ? " she proposed. " I hear the rain and it 
 drops on my heart, like Verlaine's. I cannot en 
 dure it to-night." 
 
 " It is good to forget " was all he said when 
 she finally ceased. " Euripides knew it, when he 
 said 
 
 " ' To sink the fretful day in cool forgetting. 
 
 Is there any way with man's sore heart, save only 
 to forget ?'" 
 
 and went absent-mindedly home in the dark and 
 rain, leaving his hat on the hall table. 
 
 And her own heart quivered at the thought. 
 Was it forgetting? Who? What? Music is said 
 to be an indiscreet confidence, " but I am a 
 ghost ! " she protested to her heart. " I am dead and 
 buried. There is nothing for me but this living 
 death. For me all is finished." And then over 
 whelmingly rushed the persistent uncertainty as to 
 her present wisdom in remaining in America, when 
 Raleigh had wished her to return to Europe with 
 him. Why, after all, was she here? Because she 
 was afraid to take the risk of increasing the 
 chances her presence would involve? If some 
 stranger should speak the name Nicholas Heath-
 
 224 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 leagh had at last withheld, ought she not to have 
 been there at the moment to explain and extenu 
 ate? And yet how could she support the intimacy 
 of a lover's journey with a man who had in fact 
 stolen from the dead ? And that too, with the boast 
 of his own honour forever on his pharisaical lips! 
 " Perhaps I shall die before he returns." " Per 
 haps something will happen " she relied now on 
 the uncertainty of fate, as much as she in other di 
 rections and relations dreaded its interference. 
 
 She met Lawrence Trent next at a garden party 
 at Christine's, where they avoided each other and 
 both went home irritated and wondering " what 
 have / done to deserve offence?" Trent devoted 
 himself to a pretty and inferior little creature, the 
 mere male aroused dispassionately, but proud to 
 perceive his effect. Which seemed to Stephanie 
 a reflection upon herself and a limitation of him. 
 It was Newbold who took advantage of the ensu 
 ing indifference. He not only went up to Sky 
 High oftener, but he dragged Trent in his wake to 
 all sorts of functions elsewhere, and preached at 
 him the value of the general in social relations. The 
 world might have come to an end there, for these 
 so ill-regulated and wilful spirits, had not Gran 
 dee emerged from his eyrie and given a large 
 dinner. They were separated by the whole table's 
 length, and only one swift glance united them, as 
 they happened to raise their glasses at the same in-
 
 FORGETTING 225 
 
 stant. But it rewarded them amply for their 
 wasted evening. Trent's glance, passing swiftly 
 to Newbold, detected observation of the incident, 
 which slight as it was, he preferred to have go un 
 observed. Stephanie chatted on unconcernedly, as 
 if she had merely tossed a bon-bon to a good child 
 who had been patient under exasperating condi 
 tions. He was puzzled to decide whether her cas 
 ual manner was studied, or unintentional, or if she 
 too had divined the instant importance of not be 
 ing in earnest, under those odd eyes of Archie 
 Newbold, that so rarely looked at what they saw, 
 and saw most clearly by indirection. He saved the 
 thrill of that unmasked moment to re-capture later, 
 when he might safely dare to let himself go to the 
 physical sensation and the import of the impulse so 
 spontaneously indulged by both. The next time he 
 came to Sky High it was to read to her as imper 
 sonally as if he had been entertaining an aged rela 
 tive. No hint of themselves betrayed either by 
 manner or inclination. He read on and on. She 
 knew that he had forgotten her, his young face 
 grown studious and keen as he read, regardless 
 that the language was almost meaningless to his 
 single listener. But Stephanie watched his mouth 
 for her pleasure, and knew he was not with Nina, 
 or any other girl, and that was enough to get from 
 any one form of enjoyment. Last of all, at her re 
 quest, he read a few pages of the " Imitation," on
 
 226 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 "The Royal Way of the Cross." His voice was 
 desperately sweet and passionless, and possessed by 
 the sacred import of the words. She had overcome 
 all obstacles put in her way and been across coun 
 try to a Catholic .church that morning, he had re 
 ceived at the early communion in the rustic chapel 
 supported by the summer colony, and they both 
 warmed themselves in the safety of their modera 
 tion, and the feeling of spiritual comprehension be 
 tween them, devoid of all more violent charm. 
 
 " It has been very blessed, to-night," Trent told 
 her, as he went away. But half way down the hill 
 he had paused and nearly gone back. His sense of 
 humour made the evening the most screaming farce 
 he had ever played, as he lived it over in memory. 
 He turned as if to follow his mood, then the vil 
 lage clock struck soberly, steadfastly, and he turned 
 back with a gay smile on his lips and a light of ut 
 ter mischief in his deep eyes. 
 
 It was not that Trent was a hypocrite, or under 
 bred or any of the double-hearted types described, 
 by those who fail to like them, as insincere. He 
 was perfectly sincere, only his sincerity was true 
 to as many moods in their passing as there are 
 sands on the shore of the sea. He was true to his 
 reactions as well as his positives, and his own per 
 sonal pendulum, having swung as far as it could 
 in one direction, was inevitably bound to swing as 
 far in the other. In his relations with Mrs. Ra-
 
 FORGETTING 227 
 
 leigh Payne he was not prepared for such extrem 
 ity of piety, without its rewarding excess of 
 something very much the reverse. And of this he 
 either had been cheated by taking her too seriously, 
 or had cheated himself by going home too soon. 
 He wished very much to know how it had left her. 
 And if she was laughing at him too. 
 
 Stephanie was not laughing, however. She 
 knew him to be a rarely devoted churchman, fast 
 ing before mass like any Catholic, and with a seren 
 ity on his pale face afterward, which she associated 
 only with her saints. He looked too frail at times. 
 It made her shudder, remembering an ascetic young 
 priest who had fasted himself into an ecstatic death, 
 when Trent with a sudden revulsion of feeling 
 would become so worldly, so luxurious, so sophis 
 ticated, so utterly unreasonable, ill-natured and diffi 
 cult, that she was ashamed of her spiritualisation of 
 his unreliable if appealing individuality. 
 
 Newbold had told her that his career was as yet 
 wavering between the priesthood and the literary 
 profession but not to so remain beyond the next few 
 months. And Trent himself had told her, very 
 amusingly, of his playing priest in childhood, and 
 refusing to " swop " the benediction for the pater 
 noster, in the sacred rites of the nursery, where he 
 ruled as Pope even over his older brother Jim. 
 Remmington, in describing their arrangement of the 
 Squirrel's Nest, had given her yet another vista,
 
 228 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 when he explained that he himself slept out of doors 
 and Newbold in a hammock on the piazza, but Trent 
 in a narrow cell of a room on an iron bed, like any 
 Franciscan. It was as hard to reconcile his personal 
 habits of Spartan restriction with his love of lux 
 ury and self-indulgence, as it was to follow the 
 vagaries of his conflicting temperament. Here, the 
 Catholic side of Stephanie grasped him by sympa 
 thetic intuition as no one of the Americans nearest 
 him could ever hope to do. The fasting before a 
 feast, the system of penance and indulgence, the 
 trance of the High Mass, and the exercise of emo 
 tion in all the successive celebrations of her reli 
 gion enabled her to appreciate phases of his tran 
 sient experience, as would otherwise have been be 
 yond her reach. 
 
 At last, when July was spent, there came a night 
 when Grandee had retired, when prose was laid 
 aside and he read recklessly into the heart of poetry. 
 Swinburne's Tristram: 
 
 "Love that is first and last of all things tnade 
 The light that has the living world for shade." 
 
 " I am thirsty, may I have something to drink? " he 
 asked, breaking off in the middle of a line 
 
 Together they silently crossed the hall into the 
 deserted dining-room. On the table stood a loving 
 cup filled with crimson roses. There was wine on
 
 FORGETTING 229 
 
 the sideboard, she brought several decanters her 
 self, not caring to summon a servant at that hour, 
 and placed two heavy gold-chased glasses beside 
 them. 
 
 They sat down, Trent at one end, Stephanie at 
 the side. She laid her hand on the white wine, but 
 he saw it and poured both their glasses to the brim 
 with red, without consulting her taste. The poetry, 
 that was in her eyes and in his blood perhaps, 
 seemed also in those crimson goblets waiting for 
 their red lips. 
 
 " What a perfect eve of Saint Agnes ! " he sighed, 
 sinking luxuriously back in Grandee's great chair 
 with a little murmur of voluptuous satisfaction. 
 " May I smoke ? Incense is really necessary to 
 such perfection. And you ? " offering her his cig 
 arette case as he spoke 
 
 " No, not now, not here, ever " she added 
 truthfully. He was instantly conscious how well 
 she might lie ; approved and appreciated the reverse 
 quality of such painstaking truth-telling about noth 
 ing, to a nicety. To Trent's mind truth in a 
 woman, carried too far, dulled the edge of hus 
 bandry. He told her so, trying to make her catch 
 his notion. 
 
 " And what does husbandry do ? " she inquired, 
 rather confused by the word. 
 
 " Husbandry ? Oh, husbandry dulls the edge of 
 everything," he assured her, laughing.
 
 230 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " But you are sure you do not mind my smoking ? 
 Please be honest about that ! " 
 
 " I adore it, on the contrary. Blow the least lit 
 tle breath of it to me ! " 
 
 He blew a ring of the faint smoke over to her. 
 She inhaled it daintily, indicating its pleasurable- 
 ness by one word " Delicious ! " 
 
 He repeated it, as she drew the roses toward her 
 and buried her face in them. 
 
 " Encore ! " she begged, leaning toward him, and 
 again the breath of blue smoke encircled her, wind 
 ing about her and through the red roses near her 
 breast, lightly as some hovering butterfly. 
 
 Her face relaxed softly. It impressed Trent sud 
 denly as the most intimate thing he had ever done, 
 or seen done on the stage, in all his life. It gave 
 him a perceptible shock of something that was like 
 fright, but the wine excited him beyond caring for 
 that or any other warning. 
 
 " It is like throwing kisses," he said, his eyes 
 brilliant with his own daring. 
 
 She smiled that strange, wholly provoking smile 
 of hers. 
 
 " It is not so unlike Europe, here, to-night with 
 us, after all," she said happily, nestling in a rap 
 turous little way of her own in her chair, " I was 
 never, before Sky High, accustomed to these long 
 sad hours of summer. Abroad one goes at even 
 ing to hear music, you know? To take supper, to
 
 FORGETTING 231 
 
 drink liqueur, or to promenade or admire some 
 spectacle. One dines late and sits by some lake to 
 be enchanted by the gardens and the fountains out 
 under the stars. I love best the night, in Europe. 
 If I had been God, I am quite sure I should never 
 have thought to make the night, it is too beauti 
 ful, and for it I adore Him most." 
 
 " And I should never have thought to make day." 
 
 " But yes, the day to sleep, or dream, is also 
 necessary ! " she said with a shrug and smile. 
 They raised their glasses, eyes deep in eyes. He 
 felt her gaze all through him. The glance ex 
 changed between them at Grandee's dinner party 
 had merely hinted at such unmasking. She allowed 
 her own emotion to blanche her slightly, her mouth 
 giving away to that smile he dreaded, yet coveted, 
 to his soul. 
 
 " It is so strange to have found you here " he 
 murmured. " I have always known there must a 
 woman like you exist, for my poets knew them, 
 but I had never found one and I had almost 
 given up in despair." 
 
 " But I knew you at once," she urged. " I said, 
 as I gave you my hand that first afternoon, if I 
 knew you and loved you I should call you Gaston. 
 I knew you were of the world I came from, and 
 the world of all unreal and amiable pleasures that 
 perish, and that your soul had also its altars un 
 seen of the others, but you "
 
 232 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 He did not let her finish her impression of him 
 and his behaviour. 
 
 " I saw you and adored, of course, that first day, 
 but I thought it would be Newbold ! " 
 
 " He is altogether charming," she admitted, as 
 if she saw in her statement a cause for inward re 
 gret. 
 
 " Women generally find him so." 
 
 "But you could never be jealous of him," her 
 eyebrows arched reproachfully. 
 
 " I am jealous of everybody, even of Joel Under 
 wood ! " he flung out, reluctantly. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 She leaned toward him slightly, across the roses, 
 around which one arm was curved. For an in 
 stant his heart stopped beating. Her mouth was 
 consenting. Of course she meant nothing, nothing. 
 He realised it even before he began to breathe 
 again. 
 
 " One more breath of your cigarette," she said. 
 " I have not had a taste for so long a time ! Mr. 
 Payne smokes them always, but Grandee never, and 
 none of you who are his friends, but always those 
 great cigars." 
 
 The mention of her husband sent a jagged quiver 
 of jealousy through him. He leaned a little for 
 ward and blew a long breath of smoke deliberately 
 through the roses that half hid her face. Their 
 eyes met and each knew what the other read therein.
 
 FORGETTING 233 
 
 " I hate you. I want to dance with you," he 
 stammered, then drawing himself to his feet, " I 
 think I had better go home now. Good-night." 
 
 " Yes, you had better go home," she said gently. 
 " Good-night, Gaston ! " 
 
 Neither glanced at the other. She stood motion 
 less until he had gone out by the long open win 
 dow, then turning off the lights, she crept noise 
 lessly up to her own room. 
 
 It was midsummer, and no rain for weeks en 
 suing upon that night when Stephanie had played 
 to drown the rain that rained on her heart. The 
 magic of midsummer had begun. The chestnut 
 blooms were whitening on the hillside, till when the 
 wind blew they gave her the feeling of flowing, 
 crested billows on a far French coast. All day the 
 red and yellow flowers in the garden reached and 
 leaned toward autumn, and stood wakeful and unre- 
 freshed under the red full-moon all night, in spite 
 of the drenching dews. Joel Underwood fumed 
 and watered and inveighed against all humanity, 
 and swore under his breath at the season's failings. 
 And up on his balcony Steven Randall read, and 
 remembered, and grew strong enough to drive 
 about with Stephanie and even accept a quiet in 
 vitation sometimes or profess to, perhaps to keep 
 her from noticing how long it was since Raleigh 
 had gone, and how little his reports said as to his 
 return dates. Trent seemed to be devoting him-
 
 234 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 self to Christine's sister Nina, which was a wise 
 thing to do, considering the wealth that every one 
 knew was to be hers on the death of a great-aunt, 
 whose will was made in Nina's favour and lying in 
 the safe at Jim Trent's town office. There was a 
 hard determination in the boy's bearing that wor 
 ried Remmington sometimes. There were nights 
 when sleep did not settle down over the Squirrel's 
 Nest as it should, and Newbold, stalking from 
 hammock to garden wall, encountered another rest 
 less apparition, also smoking, and took occasion to 
 deliver wise discourses on the art of being general 
 in society; keeping away from Sky High himself 
 for ten days, to show by object lessons how easily 
 it could be done. Grandee did nothing to encour 
 age further relations and the summer seemed to 
 have stopped. 
 
 It was Newbold who proposed calling on Mr. 
 Randall and Mrs. Payne, the evening after Law 
 rence Trent had announced he was off to the sea 
 for a change of air. Trent considered the sugges 
 tion intrusive, but would not commit himself by an 
 appearance of wishing to go alone. The call was 
 a gay one, for they were out on the terrace, with 
 Randall in unusually good spirits and Stephanie un 
 affectedly glad to break the fast of their absence. 
 When the clock struck ten they rose to go. The 
 conversation had been entirely general. They 
 made their good-nights without asides or any de-
 
 FORGETTING 235 
 
 viation from the commonplace. Half way down 
 the hill Newbold remarked on the fact that Trent 
 had made no mention of his leaving next day. 
 
 " That is so. Do you suppose they will think it 
 brutally rude ? " he exclaimed. 
 
 " If you really are not coming back, it does look 
 so, at least it is queer, after the hospitality you 
 have taken from them the last two months." 
 
 " I suppose it is. The fact is, I was thinking 
 about other things all the time we were up there 
 to-night." 
 
 " Then why not go back ? It is early yet. It 
 would not take but a few minutes and I will wait 
 for you." 
 
 " No, go on home," Trent said, as he turned and 
 left him. 
 
 Five minutes later he was back on the terrace. 
 He stood facing the lighted drawing-room, his 
 arms tightly folded, as if to steady his purpose. 
 Stephanie was there alone, Steven Randall having 
 already withdrawn. 
 
 She seemed to take his reappearance for granted. 
 
 " I came back because I forgot to tell Mr. Ran 
 dall that I came to say good-bye, to-night. I have 
 found it necessary to be off immediately, family 
 matters, and all that sort of bother. I wish you 
 would express to him my thanks for all his kind 
 ness. I shall hope to meet him again, somewhere." 
 
 He did not express the least regret or the least
 
 236 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 inclination to ever see Sky High or Stephanie again. 
 None are so stern, so cruel, so uncompromising as 
 the young under conviction. 
 
 As for her, what could she say? There was 
 nothing she might say without loss of dignity, how 
 ever she might feel. She ventured only upon a 
 conventional wish for his enjoyment during the 
 rest of the summer. 
 
 " Enjoyment ! " he jerked out against his will. 
 " I told you you had spoiled everything for me. I 
 do not want to go away and enjoy myself. I hate 
 you ! " 
 
 " That is like an American man, to go to one 
 place when he wishes to remain in another ! " she 
 mocked. 
 
 " If I stay here I am afraid it will change, and 
 it has been too perfect." He still kept his arms 
 folded and his mouth set defiantly. 
 
 " And if it must change, since all changes, why 
 not let it grow ? " she asked, her voice sinking to a 
 thread. 
 
 " I am afraid to let it grow." 
 
 There came a long pause like a shadow of fate. 
 
 " So, I am going," Trent said. " May I have a 
 rose?" 
 
 " But you will never wear one, you have al 
 ways refused before " 
 
 " I want this one though, I will wear this one." 
 She gave it to him silently. He placed it inside his
 
 FORGETTING 237 
 
 coat, out of range of Newbold's inquisitive eyes. 
 They both knew it was not the first he had worn 
 there, or kept with him through the soft summer 
 night. 
 
 " Good-bye," he said. 
 
 " One moment," she begged, leaving him where 
 he stood. She hardly knew herself what she in 
 tended. She passed straight to the sideboard in 
 the dining-room, and returned to him motionless by 
 the balustrade, with a glass of red wine in her 
 hand. A moonbeam struck through the crystal as 
 she held it out to him with the one word 
 "Drink!" 
 
 He drank until she took the glass from him, and 
 draining it deliberately to the last drop, let it fall 
 to the stone flagging. It shivered in a thousand 
 pieces. Then she turned from him without a word 
 and disappeared into the house. 
 
 Joel Underwood swept it up next morning, but 
 for days a brilliant spot of red wine clung to the 
 flagging, the sole reminder of that one for whom 
 the moon sought through the garden in vain. 
 
 Stephanie waked to an unfriendly day of grey 
 wind, streaked through at intervals by sunlight 
 that could not make the impression less ungracious. 
 It was chilly even in the protected terraces of the 
 garden. The tall foxgloves swayed awkwardly 
 as if resentful of the liberty taken with them, and 
 the porch even was transformed to a tempestuous
 
 238 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 storm centre, the vines clinging to the posts with 
 all their slender strength. Even association, Ste 
 phanie felt, was being swept away by this heart 
 less summer gale that brought none of the longed- 
 for rain to ease the ailing countryside. To sit be 
 hind doors was unspeakable to-day. She was rest 
 less, undecided, and under all was the dull wonder 
 that it did not hurt her more. So the " grand pas 
 sion " had been but a passing malady ! The divine 
 insomnia had merely taught him how to dream 
 more profoundly. She turned a hard face toward 
 the red roses in their second blooming, whispering 
 to herself, " I hate you ! Oh, mon Dieu ! how I 
 hate you ! " and then sneered at herself for being 
 melodramatic. What power had this boy to make 
 her suffer like this? She did not want to be 
 alone here. She wanted him to stay and, he had 
 gone. And gone to Newport to a house-party 
 given by Nina's great aunt. 
 
 She read again the letter from Raleigh received 
 the night before " the Ambassador asked for you, 
 with a thousand compliments. And our own at 
 tache begged his ' devoirs.' As soon as the new 
 ministry comes in, there is sure to be an effort to 
 get us back. Graf von Hochreither sends you his 
 respectful greetings, and in short as Shakespeare 
 says, my dear far-away lady, ' you are asked for, 
 and sought for, and called for and longed for ' on 
 all sides. And why not? They all ask why you
 
 FORGETTING 239 
 
 are not here with me, and really, most charming 
 Highness, why are you not? A kiss for your 
 Serenity ! Should you like me to accept Buda ? " 
 
 She read no further. Why was she not there 
 with him? Too many answers flung themselves in 
 her face at once to answer clearly. 
 
 Why was she waiting alone, in a New England 
 solitude, instead of shining in the most brilliant 
 quarter of Europe with a husband who was com 
 pletely in her power? "I am an imbecile," she 
 told herself, as Joel, coming upon her round the 
 shrubbery, handed her a yellow telegram. 
 
 It had no beginning or end, and was unsigned. 
 She read the six words, and the tide rose in her 
 heart, for she knew whose plea it was 
 
 "Write me things about yourself. Amen."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A WARNING 
 
 DOCTOR WYLIN turned back a second and 
 even a third time, before he left his private 
 office. The October sunshine, that hinted 
 of harvest beyond the barren city streets, failed 
 of his usual response. His office hours were over. 
 He only gave consultation by appointment and his 
 day was professionally free at one o'clock, or would 
 have been if he could resist tearing up and down 
 the avenues and cross-streets, to lay his finger on 
 a pulse here, and abbreviate a diet there; encour 
 aging, scolding, inspiring by turns. He had no pa 
 tience with ill health and the endless stories of 
 jangled nerves poured into his acute ears. If peo 
 ple lived decently they would live long and happily 
 was his wide-spread propaganda. He had been 
 preaching it all his life, and saw no abatement of 
 those surest symptoms of brain-fag in the genera 
 tions on-coming to take the place of those slipping 
 under the wheels of ambition every day ; symptoms 
 which he detected with closed eyes often, merely 
 by the timbre of a voice that did not carry firm to 
 the end of the sentence, an uneven point of view, or 
 that irritable, hasty judgment of men usually and 
 
 240
 
 A WARNING 241 
 
 normally prudent, until overcome by the stress of 
 hours and burden of responsibility. Women, Doc 
 tor Wylin had refused to treat as soon as his skill 
 had put him in a position to dictate. " Any charla 
 tan can undo my work in an hour with them, sci 
 ence is only their latest doll, when I tell them to do 
 house-work, instead of prescribing Aix at the 
 height of the season, they drop me instanter for 
 some insinuating chap who talks to them about 
 their temperament," he declared. " I know them, 
 all types and species. When I find one worth pre 
 serving, I save her. You remember what Leopardi 
 said to the beggar, when the creature whined for 
 a soldo to keep his life in his body, 'why?' 
 And there were few of his friends who cared to 
 argue against him on his favourite theme. Of 
 course he was a bachelor himself, an error in his 
 theory of the race progression, to which his atten 
 tion had been called, more than once by recalci 
 trant patients, who resented some of his blunt 
 statements as to their real needs and abuses." 
 
 He did not like this engagement to lunch with 
 Raleigh Payne at the University Club which he was 
 just about to keep, because he was fond of him, as 
 the nephew of his old friend Steven Randall. 
 Eliminating business interests from their mutual 
 relation, what was there left? Pleasure, neither 
 his host or himself would have cut out of the heart 
 of the day. So if two busy men were to sacrifice
 
 242 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 daylight hours it must be the professional alterna 
 tive, and if professional it could mean nothing 
 less than the inevitable smash he had been dreading 
 ever since he last met Raleigh, on an overland lim 
 ited four nights out from Seattle and fuming to 
 make an engagement in Pittsburg, that even with 
 out detention it would not have been within human 
 possibility to effect. Else why should the appall 
 ingly busy nerve-specialist be called in to waste his 
 gold-minted time over mere eating? 
 
 He took care not to show any interest in Ra 
 leigh's external appearance, as they met. There 
 was also no apparent unconcern in the way he dis 
 regarded the towering figure ; no subtle intention 
 visible in the carelessness of their greeting. They 
 settled themselves to picking out their lunch in a 
 holiday mood, without regard to dieting, or any 
 nonsense of concession to their physique. Raleigh 
 Payne's personality was in such high vibration with 
 realities, it kindled a contagious response. His eyes 
 were bright, his appetite keen. 
 
 " Never better in my life ! " he exclaimed in re 
 sponse to the usual formula as to his own condi 
 tion, following upon minute enquiry for Steven 
 Randall. He drew his fingers across his brow 
 and temples, as he spoke, as if to scatter the rem 
 nant of a mental suggestion. 
 
 " Been hard at it to-day ? " the doctor asked. 
 
 " Oh, nothing special. These electric fans are
 
 A WARNING 243 
 
 a nuisance always. It is too late in the season for 
 them any way. If you don't mind I will have the 
 nearest one stopped." He motioned to a waiter, 
 without speaking, and instantly the whirling tor 
 ment ceased. Doctor Wylin noticed that the servant 
 had understood without an order. That meant he 
 had stopped it before, and that meant a tired 
 head for longer than to-day. As the luncheon pro 
 gressed the doctor's curiosity increased. How 
 long would Payne keep it up? They chatted of 
 politics, of business, of entirely irrelevant things, 
 never once reaching health. Nothing was revealed, 
 nothing concealed, yet here they were, two of the 
 most sought, even pursued men in town taking the 
 vitals out of their day over a luncheon, like any 
 two frivolous women! 
 
 " When did you get back from Europe this last 
 time ? " Doctor Wylin asked, when there came a 
 pause that seemed available for personalities. 
 
 " The twentieth of September," Raleigh replied, 
 never hazy on a date however unimportant. 
 
 " Have you been at Sky High much of the three 
 weeks since, or out where I found you, between 
 the rising and setting sun ? " 
 
 " Why, no, I have been unlucky about getting 
 any rest since I got back," Raleigh said, frowning. 
 " We docked too late to get away from the city 
 that night and I got caught in a business whirl next 
 day, that kept me down all the week. Then I ran
 
 244 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 up and had been there about three hours when long 
 distance summoned me West, and since I saw you, 
 I have put in some hard work at Pittsburg, and 
 then been back and forth to Boston a couple of 
 times, and done the pipe-laying for the annual 
 meeting of a big company I am interested in here, 
 beside getting my report up for the government. 
 Of course that is the thing that takes head, and is 
 of the first importance, the rest of it only takes 
 nerve." 
 
 But the doctor could not wait. 
 
 " You gilded monopolist. I have got to be off 
 in five minutes. What is the trouble with you, 
 Raleigh Payne? Got a touch of gout or con 
 science ? Own up ? " 
 
 " Nothing in the least the trouble, Doctor." 
 
 " Then why am I here ? " 
 
 " I just wanted the pleasure of seeing you." 
 
 " You mean you dreaded the sight of me so, you 
 were scared, and you did not dare stave me off 
 any longer! Now go ahead, what bothers you? 
 It won't make you smash any sooner to be honest 
 about it, you know, so don't trouble to lie." 
 
 " Smash ? I ? Not a bit of it ! I was never 
 better physically in my life ! " The doctor sighed 
 impatiently. 
 
 " Europe is full of men who said that to me, in 
 just the same way. They are at every resort on 
 the riviera and every continental ' cure.' Look for
 
 A WARNING 245 
 
 them in wheeled chairs when the day is mild, wives 
 and attendants following," Doctor Wylin remarked 
 in a stage aside. 
 
 " I am telling you the truth, I respect you too 
 much to prevaricate with you, Doctor. I am 
 perfectly fit in every way, only I cannot seem 
 to do the thing I am immediately doing, with 
 out doing two or three things ahead at the same 
 time." 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "If I attend a dinner, for example, I am ahead 
 of it, and counting it off from my engagement list 
 as one thing more done, while I am at the oysters. 
 At the next course, I am mentally at the club keep 
 ing an engagement for some important interview, 
 and home and in bed and up and breakfasted and 
 off again at the next day's work." 
 
 " A plain case of anticipatory absorption," the 
 doctor said, smiling. " You want to let go. It is 
 a let-up in tension you need." 
 
 " I knew you would say that. I have tried, but 
 I can't." 
 
 " How seriously have you tried ? " 
 
 Raleigh made no attempt to equivocate. " I did 
 not mean to accept that last European commission," 
 he said soberly. " I wanted to take Mrs. Payne 
 off for a trip somewhere, away from all business 
 considerations. But my ambition got in between, 
 and she would not go in the way I was obliged to,
 
 246 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 or thought I did not really want to take her on so 
 hurried a trip, and I resolved to come back and 
 drop everything for a holiday. You see how it 
 has resulted? I feel the walls all around me and I 
 cannot seem to get out 1 " 
 
 " Nonsense 1 You have money and reputation 
 enough to satisfy any man, or woman. You 
 are in the Trust muddle now, are you not? But 
 that will go the capitalist's way. There is no hope 
 for the people's case, unfortunately I " 
 
 " It is not that I cannot stop for any reasonable 
 reason, I mean I cannot control my stopping. It 
 is just this persistent running ahead of schedule 
 that bothers me and tires me. I cannot stay on 
 time anywhere." 
 
 " Stop the clock a while then," 
 
 "You mean?" 
 
 " Amuse yourself." 
 
 " Go back to Europe, I suppose. Mrs. Payne 
 will appreciate that advice, poor child! She will 
 enjoy a holiday too, I guess, after six months of 
 the country." 
 
 The doctor scowled. " No, I do not mean go 
 to Europe, and talk politics and smoke, and drift 
 round vapid watering places to shop and bore your 
 self reading newspapers a week old and letting 
 your muscles get flabby. Nothing of the sort ! I 
 mean real change, something to tone you up men 
 tally as well as physically. A month or two way
 
 A WARNING 247 
 
 up in the wilderness to the north, where you have 
 to carry your boat, with only a native guide to 
 talk to, who won't talk about anything but moose 
 or salmon trout, and air that is not part sewer gas 
 and part cafe cooking fanned at you by balsam 
 branches instead of electric fans that set your head 
 swimming." 
 
 Raleigh drew in a long, deep breath. Doctor Wy- 
 lin approved it heartily. 
 
 " I mean where there is stillness unlike that of 
 any tense moment in a play on some roof garden," 
 he continued, " where there is a real bird in 
 stead of a chorus of kicking girls, and real water 
 leaping at the side of your canoe; a deer perhaps, 
 bathing at dawn, long avenues of pines instead 
 of frantic subways with chewing gum signs to 
 look at and patent food advertisements, or the eter 
 nal white walls of the tunnel tearing by too near 
 for your eyes to focus without confusion of every 
 nerve of sight. My dear boy, you only need what 
 is technically known as rest. There is nothing 
 mysterious about your case, nothing seriously out 
 of repair. You have set yourself one goal after 
 another until you have degenerated power. That 
 is all." 
 
 " What do you want me to do in the woods ? " 
 
 " It does not matter what you do. Call it hunt 
 ing or call it fishing, only go and go alone. And 
 stay until I tell you you can come back. A soul is
 
 248 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 sick indeed that fails to respond to the healing of 
 Nature in all her savage beauty ! " 
 
 "And if I do not go?" 
 
 Doctor Wylin leaned forward and lowered his 
 voice to reply, " Did you ever hear what happened 
 to Maynard's brother? He was one of your kind, 
 George Maynard? I will tell you about it some 
 time. He got going so he could not stop, and the 
 one son who survived him has a brain that will 
 not go at all. That is the divine balance of power 
 for you, physically. Doctors understand it. The 
 American race to-day is suffering from the abnor 
 mal ambition of the fathers and mothers. Society 
 and business together have done more for race sui 
 cide, and put more weak citizens into our glorious 
 free republic, than rum, Romanism, and immigra 
 tion! It holds true, with some modifications, in 
 city and country alike. The race is degenerating, I 
 tell you. Here, the mothers live on strychnine, 
 go to any swagger up-town chemist, they will 
 tell you, if they are not afraid to, but they can 
 not tell you if it is the nerves that create the de 
 mand, or the drug that makes the nerves. They 
 keep it in one-hundred-tablet-bottles though, all 
 ready to hand out, and you will find it in the beauty- 
 bag of almost every lady of high degree, and you 
 may thank Chance if you do not find anything 
 worse! The thing that is dragging our American 
 women down is not sin, honest, red-blooded, high-
 
 A WARNING 249 
 
 handed sin, but weakness, excess and hurry. 
 The selfish dream of getting the first and highest 
 place everywhere, and they drug to stimulate or 
 console. They are so exhausted keeping step, that 
 they have nothing to give their children but weak 
 nerves and failing will power. Bone and muscle 
 is all out of their race, generations behind! Ex 
 citement is the thing. Go to the play to excite 
 your nerves by risque situations, tease your emo 
 tions with decadent French music, sleep with se 
 datives instead of prayers for a pillow! It is not 
 abusive dressing, or late hours, it is excitement 
 that kills, and you men go even a wilder pace for 
 your stakes are higher. What is theatre to the 
 women is dead reality to you. The consequences 
 mean ruin, not a few idle tears because the actor 
 blew his charming brains out, as the only exit from 
 disgrace." 
 
 Raleigh laid a detaining hand on Doctor Wylin's 
 arm. " I am really not sufficiently knocked out to 
 be held responsible for all this " he objected. 
 
 " You do not realise it. None of you do, and 
 the brawn and passion of the Italian and the Pole 
 and the Irish and the German and Swede will out 
 wit your brains, talent, culture and all, if you do not 
 some of you come to your senses pretty soon and 
 right about face. What good does it do if you 
 monopolise the whole market, and they corner 
 health and unimpaired power to endure against
 
 250 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 you? I am sick of all the talk about survival of 
 the fittest. What if there is nothing left of you to 
 survive? If a man is not immortal while he is 
 mortal, how is he ever to hope to begin to be ? " 
 
 " You would make power the ideal of character, 
 then, and rule out genius, since weakness is the 
 inevitable shadow of great strength ? " Raleigh 
 asked. 
 
 " I would make America a force great enough to 
 create and hold her own. Cannot your generation 
 begin it ? Where is there an American opera or an 
 American novel, or play that is not filled up with 
 Indians, Niggers or Mexican cowboys? Is it 
 not possible for some of you men of talent as well 
 as force to lift us out of that? Do you sleep?" 
 abruptly 
 
 " I do not lie awake for fatigue or worry. I 
 sometimes get busy over future events." 
 
 " Ah, yes, a man may deliberately disobey law 
 and get on very well for a time, but a man who is 
 ignorant of law is in trouble right away ! There is 
 a nice distinction there." 
 
 Raleigh thought a little before he spoke next. 
 " I should hate to cripple the concerns depending 
 on me by going off just now " he said gravely. 
 
 " Listen to me " Doctor Wylin warned. " Civ 
 ilisation depends on a man's safety in defending the 
 other. Each man has to depend on another. No 
 man can insure his whole universe. Neither you,
 
 A WARNING 251 
 
 nor any other man can supply a safe cog in a sys 
 tem, if your will is out of gear. It is as bad as 
 depending on a man who is morally unsound. 
 Soon your mental apparatus will be untrustworthy. 
 They can trust you not to steal or cheat, but you 
 cannot trust a sleepless brain or an imagination that 
 plays leap-frog. You see I do not waste profes 
 sional phraseology on you. I have told you what 
 you asked me to come here and tell you. That is 
 all. And now I must go." 
 
 " I am immensely appreciative of your warning," 
 Raleigh said, rising. Plainly, then, that was all it 
 was to amount to. 
 
 Doctor Wylin looked at his watch impatiently to 
 hide his annoyance.' 
 
 " I have not another minute to waste," he said, 
 also rising. " Will you take a little run with me 
 this afternoon? I admit my car is a hundred- 
 horse-power, and speed not the best thing for you, 
 but I often have to hurry." 
 
 Raleigh hesitated a moment, then as if the invi 
 tation of the King was a command, accepted 
 heartily. 
 
 They ran out beyond the Park, up the Riverside 
 drive extension and plunged into the labyrinths of 
 suburban road paving, high tension electric poles, 
 high pressure derricks, electric trams, screeching 
 trains, out past Yonkers into White Plains. A 
 little beyond, in a commanding position overlook-
 
 252 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 ing the river a stone villa rose directly before them ; 
 its awnings and masses of pink geraniums bright 
 as Paris on the summer afternoon. A wall, with 
 a gate on the highway, ran a long distance, denot 
 ing the extent of the property. At this gate the 
 car stopped without an order. The doctor stepped 
 out, and drew a key from his pocket. 
 
 " Come up with me," he said, fitting the key to 
 the lock in the iron grilling as he spoke. 
 
 Within a short distance of the house Doctor Wy- 
 lin stopped and Raleigh did the same. 
 
 " Look ! " he said, pointing to the long pergola 
 that stretched the entire side of the house toward 
 the west. Through the shade between the vines the 
 sun fell brilliantly through the white lattice work 
 upon a tall, slight figure, walking up and down with 
 a perfectly measured though inert step. There was 
 nothing unusual about the boy, except that he 
 walked regularly, with studied precision, and from 
 time to time raised his hand to his eyes as if sight 
 ing some distant object with a glass, although his 
 hands were empty. 
 
 " Listen," said Doctor Wylin in a low voice. Ra 
 leigh heard a shrill voice like that of a much 
 younger lad, giving some order, presumably to a 
 servant unseen by them. They stood motionless 
 for five minutes or more, during which the figure 
 never swerved in its steady tramp up and down, 
 with a precise turn at the end of each trip the
 
 A WARNING 253 
 
 length of the vine-clad pergola, with its gay pink 
 geraniums flaunting from every opening in the 
 arches through which the sun beamed radiantly. 
 
 " Do you see the flag floating at the rear ? " 
 asked the doctor. " You may have supposed you 
 were looking at a pergola, but that is a full rigged 
 man-of-war to him, and has been for ten years or 
 more. He is in command. He walks there every 
 day of his life, sighting ships in the offing and 
 giving orders to his seamen, until he is told it is 
 seven bells and dinner is waiting for him in the 
 cabin. In the rain and in the cold it is the same 
 story. He sticks to his duty like an old sea dog. 
 God pity him ! " 
 
 " Where are we and who is he ? " Raleigh was 
 shocked and bewildered. 
 
 " This is ' Mon Repos ' note the irony of the 
 name, please, and that is George Maynard's son, 
 sole heir to the Maynard blood and millions. The 
 only child of a man who got rich and powerful so 
 furiously fast that he passed along this counterfeit 
 of himself on a world where you can fool Nature 
 some of the time, but not all the time or forever! 
 Not even so clever a man as he. I will leave you 
 here a few minutes. I am here professionally of 
 course. They pay me a salary to look at him once 
 a week when they are away; just as people pay 
 the undertaker to put fresh flowers on their fam 
 ily graves. People like their sad things done for
 
 254 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 them, you see, and I never fail the Admiral, here. 
 We are great cronies. You will see me welcomed 
 on board with command for a salute and all hon 
 ours." 
 
 There was little or no talk between them on the 
 trip back. When Raleigh got out of the car, he 
 said, " And you were in earnest about my going 
 alone?" 
 
 " Positively." 
 
 " For how long?" 
 
 " Until you do not want to come back." 
 
 "You exaggerate awfully, you know, Doctor!" 
 
 " That is my business. I have saved a few of 
 you. Your sort of suicide is unfortunately legal." 
 
 " Sometimes justifiable and inevitable." 
 
 "No, never! Utterly unjustifiable and wickedly 
 perverse ! " 
 
 Raleigh did not believe it, of course. He had al 
 ready made up his mind to compromise on Europe. 
 He would carry Stephanie off in a whirlwind, be 
 fore she had a chance to interpose her whims, and 
 abandon himself to the joy of living, as other men 
 did. Wylin was an old crank. He had ordered 
 men about until he was a faddist, a sheer faddist. 
 
 " Too bad about Remsen ! " said a voice at his 
 elbow. 
 
 " What about him ? " Raleigh asked sharply. 
 
 " Picked up off the floor here, ten minutes ago, 
 senseless. Over-work, they say. He got his warn-
 
 A WARNING 255 
 
 ing a year 'ago from old Wylin and snapped his 
 fingers at it." 
 
 " Get me a whiskey and soda," Raleigh ordered 
 the nearest waiter, " and send a porter up to my 
 rooms. Tell him to have a taxi ready immedi 
 ately." 
 
 He was not frightened, of course Remsen had 
 been taking high chances and walking a tight rope 
 physically at the same time. It did not affect him, 
 one way or the other, but he was not so cock-sure 
 of himself, or flippant in his estimate of old Wylin 
 any more. He did not care for the way he re 
 membered that son of George Maynard's, framed 
 in pink geraniums, either. He was going home 
 to Sky High and Stephanie and Grandee to talk 
 things over a bit and get all this morbid trend of 
 thought out of his head.
 
 258 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 as her shrill soprano carried even above the steady 
 throb of the motor, and into the honk of the horn. 
 It all impressed him as having happened a hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 What possessed a man like Steven Randall to 
 dry dock here, even if he had been born here? 
 Even if his great-grandfather had been provincial 
 enough to have happened to have been born in the 
 very room around which Sky High had been so 
 laboriously constructed? It would be no shame to 
 Stephanie if she challenged him to a duel, or took 
 the woman's underhand way of stabbing in the 
 dark, by divorcing him, for leaving her in such a 
 spot, if this was a typical Sunday morning aspect. 
 Why, it was ghastly! One could hear one's own 
 heart beat. Why had not the dear child run away, 
 or stolen her liberty in any fashion, long before 
 this? He had never realised how such awful still 
 ness could get on one's nerves before. 
 
 The bells beginning to ring might have made it 
 better or worse, he could not be sure which. No 
 one met him at the door, which he noted as un 
 usual without further inward comment at the time, 
 considering the hour. They must have been ex 
 pecting him, though he had only telephoned from 
 a near station, for the motor had been in waiting. 
 Randall of course would have been served hiiis 
 breakfast upstairs, and by this time be in the midst 
 of his protracted dressing, completed between news-
 
 ABSOLUTION 259 
 
 papers and tonics. He went directly to his own 
 room and crossing it knocked on Stephanie's door, 
 connecting. There was no response. He knocked 
 again, listened, hesitated and turned the handle. 
 It was open, but there was no one there. The 
 same Indian summer sweetness and stillness came 
 in at the latticed windows flung wide. The room 
 was full of a recent presence in spite of its utter 
 vacancy. 
 
 " Beware the absent woman ! " the French say 
 with justice. She was everywhere close to him 
 here, because she was not at all. Her foreign man 
 nerisms met him at every glance. He saw her 
 smiling before the mirror, turning away, stooping, 
 standing with uplifted hand as she touched her 
 soft hair, yawning her little languorous yawn of 
 content and provocation; mocking him, absent but 
 prevailing. 
 
 There is no sting so keen as a remembered sweet 
 ness of love's hours passed. The only thorn that 
 scratched him now was the rosary hanging over 
 the ivory crucifix at the foot of her white bed. 
 And instantly, as if her spirit avenged his resent 
 ment of her religion, came a vision of her kneeling 
 beneath it, a vision to soften the scoffing soul of 
 a satyr. 
 
 More than the actual sight of Stephanie, the 
 room she lived in overpowered him, giving him 
 back not only the woman his wife, and their actual
 
 26b THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 relation in which they stood to-day, but the little 
 girl of Carlsbad, the Mistress of his dreams, the 
 bride of his realisation, the glory of his " lune de 
 miel ! " Even the violet sachet from an open 
 drawer of the dresser was accessory to forgotten 
 emotions. The later, less impassioned, less inti 
 mate because more taken for granted relation, 
 withdrew, leaving this ghostly touch of mere 
 things their unhindered way with his sense and 
 memory and desire. If memory is immortality, as 
 the psychologists hold, surely a man must take new 
 reckonings to determine the exact location of his 
 own probable inferno, his own probable paradise. 
 Perhaps Raleigh Payne would have concluded both 
 to occupy the same given place, at that given Sun 
 day morning. He felt the focus narrowed to its 
 point, gave himself up to its impression, then 
 recognising himself as an intruder, he hastily went 
 back, downstairs in search of her whom he had 
 found, as he had hardly hoped ever to find again 
 so fully, in essence and unreality. 
 
 But the house shared the aspect of desertion with 
 the world outside. A maid returned his good- 
 morning greeting with a brief acknowledgment and 
 hurried away. Joel Underwood never came at all 
 on Sundays, being a deacon engaged in the active 
 employ of the rigours of his biased Baptist piety. 
 As he had breakfasted on the train, there was no 
 occasion for service of any sort being offered him,
 
 ABSOLUTION 261 
 
 and yet the lack of welcome depressed him. He 
 would not hurry his uncle. He knew the force of 
 leisurely habit though it had never been his own. 
 The church bells were just beginning to harangue 
 the valley. He strolled out upon the terrace and 
 stood overlooking the distant scene, and indiffer 
 ently scanning the road under the wall, where 
 decorous church folk began to plod their dusty 
 way toward their sacred duty. It was the usual 
 country procession, a superannuated buggy or 
 two, a wagon load of children, a smart cart well 
 driven from the wrong direction with occupants 
 too be-feathered to be other than papistical serv 
 ants from some neighbouring villa, then a fam 
 ily on foot, a pony-cart and again the recurrent 
 buggy with a faded couple who resembled the da 
 guerreotypes of long ago. Suddenly, he saw the 
 silver mountings of Steven Randall's blood bays 
 emerge from the woods. They came on steadily at 
 a sharp trot regardless of the stiff climb on the 
 road. Some one was evidently in a hurry. It re 
 vived him to think so! At the garden gate in the 
 wall below, they stopped and Stephanie got hastily 
 out, followed by a tall man garbed in clerical black. 
 She stood for a few moments looking up at him, 
 her back turned toward the house. From his 
 shaven face, and his unmoved, imperious manner 
 of making his adieus, Raleigh read him at once for 
 what he was, a Catholic priest. Immediately he
 
 260 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 relation in which they stood to-day, but the little 
 girl of Carlsbad, the Mistress of his dreams, the 
 bride of his realisation, the glory of his " lune de 
 miel ! " Even the violet sachet from an open 
 drawer of the dresser was accessory to forgotten 
 emotions. The later, less impassioned, less inti 
 mate because more taken for granted relation, 
 withdrew, leaving this ghostly touch of mere 
 things their unhindered way with his sense and 
 memory and desire. If memory is immortality, as 
 the psychologists hold, surely a man must take new 
 reckonings to determine the exact location of his 
 own probable inferno, his own probable paradise. 
 Perhaps Raleigh Payne would have concluded both 
 to occupy the same given place, at that given Sun 
 day morning. He felt the focus narrowed to its 
 point, gave himself up to its impression, then 
 recognising himself as an intruder, he hastily went 
 back, downstairs in search of her whom he had 
 found, as he had hardly hoped ever to find again 
 so fully, in essence and unreality. 
 
 But the house shared the aspect of desertion with 
 the world outside. A maid returned his good- 
 morning greeting with a brief acknowledgment and 
 hurried away. Joel Underwood never came at all 
 on Sundays, being a deacon engaged in the active 
 employ of the rigours of his biased Baptist piety. 
 As he had breakfasted on the train, there was no 
 occasion for service of any sort being offered him,
 
 ABSOLUTION 261 
 
 and yet the lack of welcome depressed him. He 
 would not hurry his uncle. He knew the force of 
 leisurely habit though it had never been his own. 
 The church bells were just beginning to harangue 
 the valley. He strolled out upon the terrace and 
 stood overlooking the distant scene, and indiffer 
 ently scanning the road under the wall, where 
 decorous church folk began to plod their dusty 
 way toward their sacred duty. It was the usual 
 country procession, a superannuated buggy or 
 two, a wagon load of children, a smart cart well 
 driven from the wrong direction with occupants 
 too be-feathered to be other than papistical serv 
 ants from some neighbouring villa, then a fam 
 ily on foot, a pony-cart and again the recurrent 
 buggy with a faded couple who resembled the da 
 guerreotypes of long ago. Suddenly, he saw the 
 silver mountings of Steven Randall's blood bays 
 emerge from the woods. They came on steadily at 
 a sharp trot regardless of the stiff climb on the 
 road. Some one was evidently in a hurry. It re 
 vived him to think so! At the garden gate in the 
 wall below, they stopped and Stephanie got hastily 
 out, followed by a tall man garbed in clerical black. 
 She stood for a few moments looking up at him, 
 her back turned toward the house. From his 
 shaven face, and his unmoved, imperious manner 
 of making his adieus, Raleigh read him at once for 
 what he was, a Catholic priest. Immediately he
 
 262 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 re-entered the carriage, the coachman swung the 
 horses round, and set off in the direction of the 
 village from which he had shortly come, while 
 Stephanie came on alone. From above the wood 
 came the solitary cawing of a single circling crow. 
 It carried the shadow of portentous evil and so 
 lemnities in its sinister repetition, unguessed by 
 mere mortals but revealed by the birds of the 
 air. 
 
 At the sound Stephanie turned and looked in the 
 direction of the carriage, but it was already out of 
 sight. She wore a pale grey costume, shoes, 
 gloves, hat, veil, enclosing her as some morning 
 mountain mist, untouched by Aurora because too 
 perfect to need heightening. 
 
 " You look like a cobweb on the grass," Raleigh 
 called down to her. 
 
 She started slightly on seeing him, then gave 
 him a shadowless smile of greeting. 
 
 " Joel tells me that is a sure sign of fair 
 weather ! " she called back, the serious preoccupa 
 tion of her face entirely scattered by the sight of 
 him. 
 
 " I hope so ! I am a stormy petrel myself 
 though, since I am come to see the lady of my heart 
 all the way from town by a most contemptible 
 process, and she is not at home ! " 
 
 He was on his way down to her and they met at 
 the terrace where the scarlet salvias were a fiery
 
 ABSOLUTION 263 
 
 furnace of bloom, a scriptural interpretation ap 
 propriate to the atmosphere of the day. 
 
 As they met, spoke, kissed, there was a something 
 suppressed imperceptibly, between them, a some 
 thing equivocal and witholding, an unseen third 
 intercepting, always veiled, disguised in a myriad af 
 fable blandishments, in eyes that feign, on lips that 
 evade, never beyond hail, unexpressed and shrink 
 ing away when challenged, gone if faced, yet 
 like a faint scent persistently recurrent, between the 
 safety of non-committal nothings exchanged, par 
 ried by trifling, held off, yet closer than each to the 
 other. 
 
 Nothing broke actually through, or even threat 
 ened, the perfect acting of Stephanie, except that 
 he found it possible to conceive that she might be 
 acting. But undoubtedly she was, and so was he 
 for that matter, that is, if avoiding an uncertainty 
 because one puts off knowing it is certain, is act 
 ing, in that it is feigning in opposition to direct 
 discourse. Constraint was inevitable between a 
 man and woman whose rights in each other were 
 inviolable, yet whose actual relation was so formal 
 as to involve the situation in the eternal charm of 
 novelty and need for re-conquest. There was ev 
 erything or nothing between them, as they chose. 
 As he appreciated her now, he revelled in the un- 
 staled freshness of their mutual attitude. She was 
 his, and he meant to reward her for her long pa-
 
 264 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 tience. He felt oddly excited at the prospect. 
 
 Her manner conciliated, while it withdrew her 
 self from his speculative analysis. The harmony 
 between them was perfectly preserved, it was not 
 spontaneous or involuntary. Beneath her grey 
 chiffon frock, her silvery greeting, there was a 
 throbbing question beating behind her heart. Her 
 conversation was to her, as the water lily lying 
 placid and sweet on the surface of a country pool, 
 while her unseen mental processes reached down 
 in involved coils of stem to the very mud of the 
 bottom. The figure persisted in her imagination as 
 they progressed. Did Raleigh know yet that she 
 knew he had stolen the fame of Nicolai Heath- 
 leagh ? 
 
 Down she went again, secretly, under the sun 
 shine of the actual words they were saying to each 
 other with their lips. 
 
 Had some one revealed it to him by chance? 
 Some stranger, some attache, who, proud to be 
 conversant with the gossip of the court, might say 
 on hearing the story of Nicolai's death, " You 
 knew who the woman was ? " And then her un 
 married name and the thing was done It would 
 take so little! Had it been done? 
 
 She came to the surface for a moment to encour 
 age Raleigh with a glance of the old coquetry he 
 never could resist, and a gentle word or two. 
 
 Then down again, to wonder if he, not she, now
 
 ABSOLUTION 265 
 
 occupied the strategic position in their future rela 
 tions. Or had he ceased to repeat that story, from 
 some intuition of danger to himself, or from her 
 hint of its becoming a bore on repetition? If he 
 knew, undoubtedly he would put the worst con 
 struction possible on the situation. He had said if 
 he ever found that woman he would torture her by 
 more subtle means than death. Was he doing it? 
 Was this the sort of resentment he had meant, this 
 exile of her? She heard, even in her dreams, that 
 sentence : " No, a more subtle form of revenge 
 than that ! " If he knew probably he would not 
 care what became of her. 
 
 He did not look as if he knew. He was openly 
 admiring her, flattering her, coveting her with 
 every grace of speech and glance. He was very 
 handsome. She allowed herself to return his bad 
 inage and reflect his unclouded mood. 
 
 He was sure to trust her not to disgrace herself, 
 and after, who would listen to any damaging 
 story against the honour of Raleigh Payne, told by 
 his foreign wife, an alien, unknown, a Catholic? 
 Heathleagh had lied of course and Raleigh had 
 exaggerated. There was nothing to be afraid of. 
 She would break through their restraint and tell 
 Raleigh the whole affair, and that Heathleagh had 
 lied if he implied any wrong in their relation. 
 But what if Raleigh did not suspect, what use 
 less complications she was preparing for herself.
 
 266 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 And would any man forgive a woman for abasing 
 herself before him by such a revelation as confes 
 sion of her part in the Heathleagh affair might 
 drag forth? And would he not condemn her for 
 delaying all these weeks that had intervened since 
 her certainty of the misunderstanding? Might she 
 not spare him, as well as herself, the humiliation of 
 open discussion if he was still unsuspecting? 
 
 Since Trent absented himself her letters to Ra 
 leigh had been less infrequent, more characteris 
 tic. The born flirt and the born poet have this in 
 common, that they must exercise their innate func 
 tion or cease to exist, and Stephanie bereft of all 
 other excitement turned to Raleigh for amusement 
 and dallied with him on paper, very charm 
 ingly, as he was not slow to perceive, without a no 
 tion of the underlying reason. She had re-read 
 some of his early letters to her and quite warmed 
 her hands at the flame of that abandoned forge. 
 If she was ready to forgive his false step in appro 
 priating a dead man's poetry, surely he must over 
 look her having been their inspiration. Neither 
 was perhaps guiltless of high treason to love in its 
 purest sense, but did it not all resolve itself in mu 
 tual compromise, in the last analysis? 
 
 The other horn of her dilemma presented itself 
 to her dishearteningly. What if he had simply let 
 her follow her whim, and left her there in exile, 
 unconcernedly, in proof that she had ceased to
 
 ABSOLUTION 267 
 
 be an adjunct to his life. She was then a mere use 
 less tool, yet being his wife she was forced to take 
 her daily bread from his hand. 
 
 This grew intolerable, yet what to do? 
 
 It was this extreme of her perplexity that had 
 thrown her approach open to the priest. Out of 
 incense and silence he had stepped forth into the 
 country daylight, conjured by a nameless sacred 
 magic known only to his order. As noiseless as 
 prayer, meek as no dove ever knew, wiser than any 
 serpent the Nile ever boasted, almost in answer to 
 the unspoken longing of the inner sanctuary of a 
 woman's troubled heart he was here. What 
 wonder if her confession so long disregarded had 
 passed the bounds of the conventional formulas, 
 that she had been led on by the gentle assurance 
 and familiar affection of his holy authority to open 
 her soul to him as a girl might speak with her 
 mother? Whether he had been sent to search her 
 out at the instigation of her own Confessor, Father 
 Damare, bound to her old life in Vienna, and just 
 now she understood in America, or whether 
 actuated by inspiration of Sister Angela in the con 
 vent of the Holy Mother Mary, Father Mayhew was 
 to her the incarnate priesthood, bringing sympathy, 
 peace and enlightenment. On him she could lay off 
 her self-weariness, her fear of the future, stretch 
 ing so long and un-promising before her. Her 
 long days of loneliness and nights of wakeful ap-
 
 268 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 prehension could let their weight of shadow fall 
 upon his shoulders accustomed to bear the burdens 
 of others, acquainted with other's grief as the di 
 vine shepherd of all sheep, the weak and the strong, 
 the safe-folded and the wandering alike, and 
 knowing how to support it since it was the way of 
 the cross, the only inevitable way to all believers. 
 
 He could soothe her from restless indecision, ex 
 hort to renunciation, blur the worldly issues, teach 
 her immolation of self by disdain of all pleasures 
 of the sense. If she was weak, he was strong. 
 If she, through disuse of the comforts of the holy 
 ordinance, had lost her way, accustomed as she 
 had always been to a clear and visible copy of the 
 Light of the World to guide her footsteps, he was 
 quick to hear his straying sheep and herd them back 
 to the infallible fold. 
 
 Raleigh read in her fashion of greeting him, that 
 she was not sure just how he might be expected to 
 take this relapse in Catholicism. But there was 
 that in her quiet assurance, her taking everything 
 so for granted, that disarmed him. As if his crit 
 icism or even his surprise would, after all, be the 
 only unusual thing there could be in connection 
 with the occurrence. Virtue, Stephanie assumed, 
 ought to be recognised with self -congratulation by 
 one's husband, even if he personally abstained from 
 the forms it took to express or confirm itself. Of 
 course she was a Catholic. It finished itself for
 
 'ABSOLUTION 269 
 
 her there, naturally. What was there remaining 
 " en plus " to be said about it ? And being a 
 Catholic, she must confess and commune or go to 
 perdition, justly. Which, equally of course, was 
 not to be thought of as possible or believable. 
 
 And among these inter-wound stems of the pond 
 lilies of their conversation she was sinking her 
 thoughts and recollections, as they exchanged 
 pretty phrases and admiring glances, on their way 
 up the terraced gardens that Sabbath morning in 
 October. He noted the keenness of the swift flash 
 light glance with which she sought to probe him, 
 when she thought herself unobserved. It pene 
 trated him, leaving a sudden sense of increased re 
 spect for her individuality; convinced him forever 
 of her power to hold herself in reserve if she chose, 
 independently of what he was to her, or what he 
 might wish her to be, or what he might wish to 
 know of her that she might prefer to withhold. 
 
 She impressed him, in her flagrant disobedience 
 to his restrictions, as more of an equal than he had 
 ever considered her. His infatuation had blinded 
 him at first to her mental capacity. Up here in the 
 solitude her metal had been tried in a new crucible. 
 She had come out a long way beyond herself of 
 the yesterdays. Man-like, he was stimulated and 
 covetous of something in her that he failed to 
 fathom. The inexplicable suddenly became the su 
 perlatively desirable. It is, after all, what a woman
 
 270 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 can make a man believe she has and will not share 
 with him, that he never ceases hankering after. 
 
 In the ears of Stephanie lingered undispelled the 
 blessed " Ego Te Absolvo " of the priest. " If 
 Father Mayhew gives absolution who shall judge 
 me, who shall refuse it to me?" her own heart 
 chanted on. 
 
 And so they turned from the beds of gorgeous, 
 outrageous, flaunting reds and yellows of the au 
 tumn's height, and ascended together to the levels 
 of paler sweetness, mignonette and heliotrope as 
 yet unblackened by the frost. 
 
 " My conscience, how still the stillness is ! " Ra 
 leigh sighed. 
 
 " It is strange, how it has of the fascination for 
 me now, here " Stephanie said reflectively. " It 
 is heavy with significance to me, and for you, a 
 poet, it must be, ah, what must it not be ? " She 
 lifted her dark eyes to his, waiting for response, 
 but he did not answer her thrilling pause in word 
 or gaze, " and to you, it must be a poem un 
 written, already," she concluded, finishing her 
 thought for herself. 
 
 Raleigh drew her hand to his lips, " If you 
 knew how I have waited to hear you call me that 
 one word ! " he told her, and there was real feeling 
 in his chastened speech, by which she caught not 
 only at his disappointment in her lack of poetic en 
 thusiasm, but the certainty that he was ignorant 
 of her reason.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 A PURITAN SABBATH 
 
 BUT for Raleigh all that first vivid sense of 
 her, found in her empty room, had van 
 ished. The shadow of the departed priest 
 lay between them. The length of the day with its 
 dearth of anything to do appalled him. He got 
 through the morning hours until luncheon by go 
 ing over the doctor's orders and his own interpre 
 tation of them to Grandee and Stephanie. He was 
 presenting his scheme for a trip abroad for sheer 
 pleasure, when Doctor Wylin inserted his portentous 
 personality by means of the long distance tele 
 phone, and made a few pertinently impertinent re 
 marks that left Raleigh rather hollow-eyed. He 
 returned to the terrace prepared to throw over 
 everything and set off alone for his wilderness. 
 Plainly both Grandee and Stephanie were inclined 
 to treat his furious pursuit of health in the North 
 Woods as extreme, like all his other pursuit of 
 any end he set after. But he did not care to re 
 peat Wylin's hint as to his own unfitness for the 
 honeymoon he was projecting, or to paint for them 
 the all too-convincing picture of George Maynard's 
 
 271
 
 272 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 only son, the Admiral of the vine trellised per 
 gola of " Mon Repos." 
 
 Having got over the announcement, what else 
 was there to do? Luncheon eaten, there would be 
 all the afternoon before them without any engage 
 ment of importance to fill it, even if he took the 
 evening train, as he had announced that he must. 
 Stephanie was either dazed by the unexpected 
 ness of all he had come to tell her or regretful for 
 another long season of retirement. She did noth 
 ing to fascinate him and he was too restless to 
 absorb himself in her. Women are for the leisure 
 and use of men, but not available in hours of nerv 
 ous energy and indomitable effort. Raleigh would 
 have liked to climb a mountain, the steeper the bet 
 ter. How was he to sit still on a shaded terrace 
 and play the bereft cavalier till sunset? 
 
 " Why not begin your cure by taking a nap ? " 
 suggested Randall, weary of his nephew's wearing 
 vitality in leash. 
 
 " Sleep ! " Raleigh derided. 
 
 " How horribly active you are ! Can't you enjoy 
 the rest up here, even for a day? If not, how are 
 you going to get on in the woods ? " 
 
 "An active man dreads to get inert and lethar- 
 gic-" 
 
 " There is a mental and moral inertia as well, 
 don't forget" 
 
 " That is just what Doctor Wylin does not al-
 
 A PURITAN SABBATH 273 
 
 low for in this primeval programme of his for me. 
 If I have nothing to use my mind on up there, 
 what is to prevent its grinding on itself awhile and 
 then stopping altogether ? " 
 
 " A soul is sick that refuses its response to 
 beauty, just as much as to high and noble aims, 
 according to Wylin," said Grandee decidedly. " I 
 think myself a soul is groping in its own decadence 
 that is not aroused by a summer dawn." 
 
 " Perhaps mine is a malady of soul instead of 
 flesh," suggested Raleigh. 
 
 " You are not accustomed to the inactive life we 
 lead," inserted Stephanie. " It is worse for you, 
 for that reason, Raleigh. It must be strange to sit 
 so long without other amusement than your own 
 unrest." 
 
 "Well, why not drive?" proposed Grandee. 
 Stephanie half closed her eyes to imply their 
 mutual indifference to this form of entertainment. 
 " How are the golf links now ? " Raleigh asked, 
 brightening at the idea. 
 
 " Never played over on Sunday," Grandee re 
 plied. 
 
 " We might take a run over to Westerly in the 
 motor, and meet my train there. We could dine 
 there at the Inn, and you would not mind coming 
 back alone, would you, darling?" he asked, turn 
 ing to Stephanie. But Grandee interposed again. 
 He had ranged himself on her side, ignorant of
 
 274 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 what was amiss, but aware of something gone 
 wrong between them, in spite of their scrupulous 
 consideration for each other carried to the point 
 of artificiality. 
 
 " That is a stupid programme for Stephanie ; to 
 return alone, shaking round in the tonneau for 
 twenty miles of darkness on a hooded road without 
 a moon ! " 
 
 He was openly protecting her now. Raleigh's 
 physical condition did not warrant him in forget 
 ting every consideration due everyone else! Nor 
 did it begin to appall him as much as the forebod 
 ing for this dear woman left in his care for an 
 indefinite period again, without occupation, or soci 
 ety, church or passion. The visit of the priest had 
 startled him, man of the world as he was. It had 
 set servants' tongues wagging, and Joel's squint 
 had gathered bitterness that hinted of scorn. And 
 here was Raleigh upsetting his peace like a shaggy 
 dog in a calm pond. What would the fellow do 
 if there was no Uncle Randall conveniently at 
 hand to shelter his wife's good name? And how 
 unnecessarily pretty the wife was, and what the 
 deuce was she up to with her confessor and her 
 noncommittal manner? He hated to be mystified. 
 And he did not understand what any of them were 
 exactly in for. He was vexed with Stephanie now 
 for saying gently again, " It is as Raleigh pleases, 
 Grandee. For me it is the same thing."
 
 A PURITAN SABBATH 275 
 
 " But not for my chauffeur ! " exclaimed Ran 
 dall. " He is entitled to his afternoon off on Sun 
 days." 
 
 " Oh, if that is all the objection, I will make him 
 want to go fast enough ! " cried Raleigh. " I will 
 run down to his house now and fix it up with 
 him." 
 
 He was off at once, thankful to be in motion, 
 to be doing something, to be going anywhere ! He 
 found the man willing enough, tired of his own 
 domesticity perhaps and was turning away when 
 Jim Trent hailed him. He got into his cart and 
 went home with him to say good-bye, and how do 
 you do to Christine. 
 
 She came to meet them quite triumphantly the 
 happy American matron : her golden hair burnished 
 by the sun, her simple blue cotton frock unable to 
 lessen her glowing beauty, carrying with it an 
 impression of abundant vitality. 
 
 " I am glad you have come back to the soil ! " 
 she said gaily. " Look at Jim, is he not the pic 
 ture of country content? Did you ever see him 
 looking better? He has had only a week up here 
 and he has got a week more, if nothing happens 
 to call him back." Then when Jim had driven the 
 trap round to the stable and got lost in talk with 
 his farmer, she asked quickly " What is it, 
 Raleigh? You are out of spirits." 
 
 " Nothing much. I have hurried too fast down
 
 276 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 a blind alley and got my eyes open at the end. 
 The sight of you and Jim sticks the knife in and 
 turns it round, that is all." 
 
 " Nervous break down, I suppose." She took it 
 for granted. Everybody she knew broke down 
 sooner or later. 
 
 " Not yet, but on the almanac as liable if I 
 do not run from it." 
 
 " Try a rest cure. That puts ever so many peo 
 ple in the saddle again. Toast, and no news from 
 home or the outside world until you can stand it, 
 and then an egg, and more of it all until you can 
 not stand it! There is one kind where you are 
 laid in cold sheets, I forget why, and another 
 up in the country, where they all wear sandals 
 and one garment, and the women let their hair 
 hang down. It looks like the mad scene from Ham 
 let. I had a friend up there once. But I suppose 
 you will go to Europe." Raleigh shook his head. 
 
 " Not this time. Doctor Wylin says the North 
 Woods." 
 
 " Stephanie, too, of course? " 
 
 "Stephanie in the North Woods?" 
 
 " A wife follows the caravan ! " 
 
 " What a woman you are, Chris ! " 
 
 " I am just what I was, Raleigh, and what 
 Jim has made me." For an instant they both won 
 dered if then the balance tipped to common 
 sense.
 
 A PURITAN SABBATH 277 
 
 " You have been terribly hard on yourself and 
 stunningly successful," she said, giving him just 
 the admiration he craved. 
 
 " A man wants to make his friends proud of him 
 and do his part in the race," he began modestly. 
 
 " In your case it is a thousand horse-power in 
 one man that has disabled the engine," she cried, 
 " I am thankful you are going to slow down in 
 time." 
 
 " Life is a fight," Raleigh retorted. " If you do 
 not fight involuntarily, you will be made to, and 
 there is no glory in that and just as much hell." 
 
 " What does Stephanie say about it ? " 
 
 " Accepts the situation with grace, as always." 
 
 " But I can see that you are worried about her, 
 and I do not wonder, for all your stoicism." 
 
 " Stoicism is a beautiful thing for those who have 
 no teeth," he reminded her. 
 
 Her eyes filled with sudden tears. He was not 
 happy. She was sure of it. 
 
 " I wish you were as happy as I am, Raleigh," 
 she said, in an access of affectionate sympathy. 
 
 " Nobody deserves to be, except you " he told 
 her, and lit his cigar, smoking while she sat turn 
 ing his affairs over in her mind. 
 
 To Christine, coming fresh from the sophistica 
 tion of cities, the joy of this village life was keen 
 because she had never been fretted by its limita 
 tions. The farmer's daughter sighs, when con-
 
 278 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 gratulated on the location of her home with its wide 
 outlook over mountain and meadow, while her 
 mother admits " it is sightly enough, but lone 
 some." 
 
 In the heart of the " centre " there is the same 
 spirit of unrest. Envy of the lazy, gay lives of 
 the cottagers supplants the daily satisfaction in 
 small events, and the rushing motors leave, too 
 often, not only the enveloping dust but a bitter 
 longing for a life of rapid progress and luxury. 
 To Christine, the closeness of community interest 
 here was a constant delight and opportunity. Her 
 home and her heart were alike accessible to the 
 highway, whereon humanity went up the long wind 
 ing hill to Sky High, and down to the long level 
 of the town. Christine would have felt herself de 
 prived to live off the road, behind a wall or hidden 
 from the cheerful business of the wayfarers. She 
 lived a complex, composite life here, with her head 
 full of her neighbour's hopes and schemes. It was 
 her personal responsibility to see that the sun rose 
 red when the sick boy down at the mill was to be 
 moved out under the elms for a first step toward 
 recovery, and that the full moon came loitering 
 up over the hills and lit the valley punctually for 
 the straw-rides of young people, who were most of 
 them strangers to her, except as they were part of 
 the universal romance of youth and joy. She knew 
 the quick measure of the Doctor's horse without
 
 A PURITAN SABBATH 279 
 
 turning her head, and was warmed like wine by 
 the swift assurance of help and healing on its way 
 to those who waited in anxiety. The early carol 
 of the milkman shamelessly broke in upon her morn 
 ing nap, but she liked it, and missed it if it failed 
 her. The white-frocked butcher boy on his way to 
 the out-lying farms and villas, whistled a random, 
 aimless tune, while his horses dragged slowly up 
 the hill. It floated back to her, familiar though 
 defiant of classification, the call of the road vocal 
 ised, without beginning or end. Stephanie said that 
 to drive with Christine was like nothing but the 
 progress of royalty abroad, for every one knew her 
 and she knew them better still, not only by name 
 but by an established relation, on a firm footing 
 of mutual habit and respect. For such multiplied 
 living Raleigh had no taste and Stephanie still less 
 conception. It never occurred to Christine, when 
 she crowded the empty, gable chambers of her cot 
 tage with girls out of work or sewing women out 
 of health, as anything but a reciprocal pleasure. 
 Duty or a professed socialism never tarnished her 
 hospitality. She honestly liked Kitty Bryan, who 
 was with her to-day, and honoured her for bravery 
 under conditions which she knew would have made 
 her quail. Once she had asked Stephanie if there 
 was not something the girl could do for her, to 
 keep her on in the country for a while, and 
 Stephanie had counter-questioned
 
 28o THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 " What could she possibly do for me ? " 
 
 And Christine saw it was out of the question. 
 It perfectly expressed the attitude of both women. 
 What could Kitty Bryan do, but spoil the moods 
 in which Stephanie arrayed herself, those fault 
 less costumes from Drecoll's hand? It had been 
 a preposterous suggestion. Christine accepted it, 
 and yet she could not help feeling that Kitty might 
 open Stephanie's eyes wider to valour than even 
 Drecoll's creations could open those of the sewing 
 girl to beauty. 
 
 " She envies you so ! " Christine had repeated to 
 Stephanie, " she says, what a grand gift it must 
 be to be Mrs. Raleigh Payne ! " 
 
 " I believe that the poor always envy the rich," 
 Stephanie had replied absently. 
 
 " It is not in the least that, in her case," Chris 
 tine said warmly. " She knows Raleigh's poems 
 by heart, and it is not his money or social position 
 or handsome self she envies you. It is just the 
 privilege of being his wife! The wife of a poett 
 And she is not alone by any means in her infatua 
 tion. Not the only woman who feels it, I mean." 
 
 " It is then so great an honour, one that ex 
 acts a just appreciation?" Stephanie asked with 
 her eyes half closed in her characteristic manner. 
 " Sometimes one can imagine one would prefer 
 to marry a man less given to his public. It is not 
 so unlike marrying with a statue in the park, par
 
 A PURITAN SABBATH 281 
 
 example, that all may admire as they pass. 
 Also, is it not possible that a woman may love 
 better to live in seclusion of some court-yard quite 
 enclosed, rather than the public gardens in gaze of 
 all the world?" 
 
 " But of course a woman cannot stop to think of 
 herself," Christine persisted. " It is no matter 
 what happens to us, if the man we love is safe 
 and successful. But it is dreadful for Raleigh to 
 work as he does, without any rest. He will break 
 down and then " Stephanie smiled sceptically. 
 
 " And then," she said, finishing the sentence, " he 
 will rush away and rest like the mad, and return 
 with more force for work than ever before! It 
 is strange why American men marry " she ven 
 tured, speaking as if to herself. "They work 
 alone, they play alone, they rest alone. Why? Is 
 it perhaps your fault? And the American women 
 live so much alone. It is a new idea of your new 
 world. We have not got it, in the same way, in 
 Europe at all." 
 
 Christine was remembering her conversation 
 word for word as she resumed her chat with Ra 
 leigh now, or listened to his plans for his imme 
 diate recovery. 
 
 " I never saw Uncle Steven so nervous and al 
 most irritable," he was saying. 
 
 " And Stephanie shows nothing, you say ? He 
 may be anxious about her."
 
 282 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " She accepts the programme without surprise 
 or apparent regret." 
 
 " She has realised the part a woman ought to 
 play in her husband's life. I always trust to the 
 power of example, and she has had time to learn 
 our American ideals and appropriate them." 
 
 " It is not so much that, as finding that protest 
 did no good in the past, I imagine. I am sur 
 prised myself to see how calmly she has taken this 
 last disappointment. We had planned to go to Eu 
 rope together for a long holiday," he said with 
 that drawing together of his brows that meant 
 real chagrin. 
 
 " You surely would not expect her to try and 
 turn you from what is for your health ! " she chal 
 lenged. 
 
 " Wylin has the word of command, I admit, 
 still " she saw he was disappointed, that he had 
 expected at least a more expressive outcry in Ste 
 phanie's final acceptance of conditions. 
 
 " It is going to be hard enough for her, though," 
 Christine sighed. She understood it, saw it in all 
 its limiting aspects. " I cry and get over it, and 
 look round for something to do. I never brood 
 like a mediaeval dame whose lord is away on a 
 crusade, but she is not like other women I know." 
 
 " The first joy of absence is the other fellow, 
 usually," Raleigh agreed, with an attempt at light 
 ness, but nettled by her implied criticism of his
 
 A PURITAN SABBATH 283 
 
 wife. " You are not that sort, and Stephanie is 
 not that sort either, or any other sort that comes 
 under common classification." 
 
 Christine frowned. " A woman gets the habit 
 of a man " she said slowly. " The more she 
 sees of him, the more she gets addicted to him, and 
 if she does not see him " 
 
 " She gets out of the habit, you mean ? " Ra 
 leigh asked, seeing her hesitation. 
 
 " Then, of course, Stephanie has her different 
 religion," Christine went on. He did not follow 
 up her lead as she perhaps hoped he would, and 
 she added: 
 
 " Frankly, Raleigh, do you think it is wise for 
 you to encourage her in these Catholic demonstra 
 tions, having her confessor up here? It does 
 stir up the village gossip so! What on earth can 
 a woman, a lady, have to confess, that cannot wait 
 until you go back to town for the winter? Be 
 side, you are a public man, involved in a host of 
 public trusts, therefore a target for all sorts of 
 attack. Stephanie is a child in a way. She may 
 be taken off her guard, without dreaming of do 
 ing the least harm, or betraying what you suppose 
 inviolate. But I would not trust a priest and a 
 woman, not if I were the woman myself ! I know 
 you think I am a narrow, bigoted Calvinist, but 
 you must forgive me for speaking out, for you 
 know that next to Jim, there is no one whose ca-
 
 284 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 reer is so vital to me as your own, and I am an 
 American like yourself, without illusion or desire 
 to be idolised or kept in the dark of candles and 
 perpetual incense. I am out in the open with you 
 both in the struggle, and I see straighter because 
 I am not a mystic blinded by mysticism or pas 
 sion. You ought to stop Stephanie's traffic with 
 the Catholic church, unless you are prepared to 
 come up against it later in a way that will dam 
 age you, or some of the measures you have at 
 heart/' 
 
 " Well, well, what a politician and bigot we have 
 here ! " Raleigh exclaimed, making light of her ad 
 monition. " If Stephanie gets any fun out of a 
 religious flirtation between her conscience and her 
 confessor, I am certainly not going to play George 
 Dandin ! There are few women capable of your 
 insight and sacrifice for a man's career." He took 
 her hand as he said it. Her face glowed. 
 
 " Your position against the Catholic movement 
 demands it, Raleigh," she repeated. 
 
 " I am invulnerable, Chris. It ought not to 
 worry you," he assured her. 
 
 " After those poems, how she can care " she 
 began inarticulately. 
 
 Raleigh gave her a strange glance. " Is it true, 
 Chris, I wonder, that a man does his work for one 
 woman, by inspiration of another ? " And she 
 knew he meant that his reward came from her ap-
 
 A PURITAN SABBATH 285 
 
 preciation, though his motive power was from Ste 
 phanie. And yet in his soul he was .convinced 
 that the passion of women like Stephanie is the 
 love that makes will and initiative power for set 
 ting all the world's work going. Not many know 
 this, only those so born, some poets, some 
 prophets and some common people who live on 
 farms. 
 
 " Keep her from getting too lonely," was all he 
 said aloud. " She has none of your resources in 
 the country." But the seed was sown, and Chris 
 tine knew it was. 
 
 " I will," she promised, as solemnly as if it had 
 been the wedding service, because it was for him. 
 
 The run over to Westerly was rapid enough to 
 preclude conversation. The road was in good con 
 dition and they had it to themselves. It was a 
 depressing vicinity to Stephanie, the zinc sol 
 dier's monument on the tiny green of one silent 
 hamlet through which they passed seemed to her 
 the very dreariest object she had ever looked upon. 
 So they sat silent, envied by the casual groups 
 roused by their warning horn, and let the satis 
 faction of mere speed possess them, since there 
 seemed to be no equivalent for joy otherwise at 
 hand. 
 
 Their dinner at the inn was not very gay, 
 though they both made an effort, which seriously 
 reflected on both by turn. Toward the end Ra-
 
 286 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 leigh referred to his anxiety for his Uncle Ran 
 dall. 
 
 " I never saw Grandee so unlike himself," he 
 remarked, smoking the last cigar he intended to 
 allow himself for a month. 
 
 " He is not able to support the slightest excite 
 ment or fatigue. I believe he is troubled about 
 you too, and to say the truth, frankly, he is tired 
 to-day from talking late last night," Stephanie 
 explained easily. 
 
 "Talking?" 
 
 " Yes, with Father Mayhew." 
 
 " Stephanie, you did not ask Grandee to have 
 him stop at Sky High ? " His tone was distinctly 
 annoyed. 
 
 " No, not in the least. But if I had ? Or if he 
 had? Would it be a scandal? What is there so 
 enormous about it? Grandee would do it. He 
 would do anything for me, as I would also for 
 him, par example ! " 
 
 " A certainty you should be careful not to abuse." 
 She shrugged her shoulders at the reprimand. 
 
 " As for that, I am always in the wrong. 
 It is Raleigh Payne only who is eternally in the 
 right ! " she said, half in play. But for the mo 
 ment she meant it. He saw that she did, though 
 she laughed as if it was all nonsense. 
 
 He was informed already from Steven Randall, 
 that the priest had come to confess her, and that
 
 A PURITAN SABBATH 287 
 
 she had gone fasting to early Mass, at the village 
 eight miles distant where the factories made a 
 Catholic mission church a commercial necessity. 
 But at whose instigation it had all come about, no 
 one but Stephanie herself could tell him, and she 
 had volunteered nothing; as if being out of 
 his world it did not concern him, any more 
 than his interests concerned her by his own ad 
 mission. 
 
 " Confession implies such unnecessary peni 
 tence," he began again, not inclined to discuss the 
 matter but wanting her to catch a sense of his own 
 feeling. " I remember Grandee saying that it was 
 abolished in the Greek church because a sixteenth 
 century woman confessed to ' relations ' with the 
 patriarch. It always amused me that they abol 
 ished the institution, rather than the woman or the 
 patriarch." 
 
 " But one is not allowed to receive the sacra 
 ment without confession, and one cannot be ab 
 solved without doing penance and one cannot live 
 without sin," Stephanie stated baldly. 
 
 " It does sound like an endless chain, put in 
 that way," he admitted. " I suppose it is all a mat 
 ter of training and credulity after all." 
 
 Stephanie regarded his attitude as that of any 
 heretic. " Have you ever heard of the two nuns 
 who died out of communion?" she enquired. 
 " They were buried beneath the chapel floor and
 
 288 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 whenever the sacrament is administered, to this 
 day, they rise and leave the place before the Ele 
 vation." 
 
 " The insinuation being that your charming 
 ghost might be barred from paradise, if you failed 
 to whisper in some holy Father's ear the exact num 
 ber of hearts you have broken, or the number of 
 thoughts you have omitted that you should have 
 thought of your absent husband, or the buds you 
 have picked against Joel's express commands? 
 What does a pretty woman confess? You must 
 have to make up sins at Sky High." 
 
 " The Imitation tells us that grace visits us in 
 two ways, in comfort and temptation. One is not 
 cut off from grace, even at Sky High," she re 
 proved him gently. And with this he had to be 
 content, for the harmony between them being dis 
 turbed, it was no time for discussion of any se 
 rious subject, much less one upon which their 
 opinions and education were so widely divergent. 
 In short, he read her as more a part of her own 
 life-system than his life or development, or their 
 mutual existence. She was schism if pressed, but 
 resigned to inactive submission unless goaded to 
 reaction. In the golden books of the married, 
 there is one supreme aphorism, Avoid the rais 
 ing of an issue. It is the secret of peace, the rule 
 for appearance well preserved, the test of mated 
 philosophy. If Stephanie preferred to assume that
 
 A PURITAN SABBATH 289 
 
 grace visited her in temptation and consolation, it 
 did no great harm to any fact or theory held by 
 himself. Raleigh Payne conceived it no sin to 
 employ diplomacy in private life; accordingly he 
 walked round the form of his wife's faith, as he 
 had walked round so many issues preceding, and 
 as he was also quite aware she had circled critical 
 differences of taste and prejudice which were 
 harmless as long as unobtrusively disregarded, in 
 which limbo they ceased to actually exist as far as 
 effect upon external events went. 
 
 " Your religion is your own," he magnificently 
 assured her now. " Gibbon left out what it meant 
 to a woman, but one can imagine it to play an im 
 portant part in a passive life. I only ask you to 
 avoid arousing discussion from the point of view 
 of good taste. And please make a vow to be so 
 good that you have no further need of ghostly 
 counsel until you are away from these orthodox 
 sects that look askance at Rome. It is important 
 to me just now, please keep it in the background 
 for 'the present as much as possible." 
 
 " I am to understand you regard religion also 
 as a matter of diplomacy ? " 
 
 " The absence of its display, as a matter of 
 expediency, yes," he replied. 
 
 She made no comment on his ultimatum. As 
 he looked across the table at her, she had never 
 piqued his interest more. That she held herself
 
 290 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 so aloof from him bat completed her attraction. 
 All out of drawing with the setting afforded by 
 the country inn with its primitive colour and local 
 furnishing, she was dining, as if to the inspiration 
 f gipsy bands, with a languor and perfection hint 
 ing of mannered courts and gay scenes, of 
 "plage" and "cercle" beyond these dusk-gather 
 ing hills, out in the decadent old world of love and 
 folly! 
 
 The recognition of it gave him a swift shiver of 
 pleasure. Ah, no, he had not been mistaken. It 
 was only for an instant that Christine had shaken 
 him to-day by her stupendous understanding of 
 him and his needs. No man would hesitate be 
 tween these two women. He congratulated him 
 self now without regret. Penelope for the others, 
 but wayward Helen for him! Pity he could not 
 give her just what she most wanted and was sulk 
 ing for! He would later. He knew exactly the 
 role to play with her, and the precise spot on the 
 Riviera where he meant to play it He gave her 
 a long, intense gaze from those heavy-browed eyes 
 of his, that brought the flush to her face. If he 
 had laid his hand on hers, or breathed but a hint 
 of his inmost self to her then, of the spell she al 
 ways cast over him when she would, but the 
 servant announcing the car and holding a respect 
 fully hastening coat for one, and then the other, 
 broke in upon the moment that fled with its eter-
 
 A PURITAN SABBATH 391 
 
 nity to follow, as eternity does follow every mo 
 ment however insignificant. 
 
 It was but a short distance to the station. The 
 night was dark and the brilliantly lighted coaches, 
 as the train rushed in, made it doubly dreary out 
 side. 
 
 As the movement slowed to a halt, a man looked 
 out of one of the windows of the Pullman smoker 
 directly into her eyes. Then the iron gates of 
 the vestibule were jerked noisily open, the officials 
 stepped down, Raleigh, who had gone to buy his 
 ticket, ran back, kissed her hurriedly, gave her a 
 little hug with that pat between her shoulders 
 which she excessively disliked as an Americanism 
 unbefitting any sort of emotion, and disappeared. 
 
 She watched him on board with a strangling 
 sense of desolation. He was so unfeignedly giad 
 to go! Resentment rose in her breast. It was 
 her only chance at life dtsanptniag in that lighted 
 train, that was sweeping away to die world and 
 leaving her sitting here in the dark alone. 
 
 A few drops of rain fell on her face. She had 
 twenty miles of up-hill country road between her 
 self and warmth; the creature comfort of even 
 bath and bed lay for the moment out of her reach. 
 Somehow the train epitomised all that was slip 
 ping away from her grasp day by day. The 
 driver had gone to make some inquiries for 
 Grandee, She gave a little half articulate sob, a
 
 292 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 sort of groan that escaped her, longing to cry out 
 not to be left behind there in the damp, dispiriting 
 drizzle, when a voice over her shoulder cried 
 full of an irrepressible gladness: 
 
 "This is very joyful! How is Grandee? And 
 how are Joel Underwood and the heliotrope? And 
 how very adorable of them to send you over for 
 me!" 
 
 And before she turned her head she knew she 
 could not be mistaken in her recognition, the 
 man she had seen in the smoking coach had been 
 Lawrence Trent. 
 
 With a sudden inexplicable reaction she put out 
 her hand. He clenched it in his own, making 
 no attempt to say his pleasure in the sight of 
 her. 
 
 " I accompanied Mr. Payne, who is just leaving 
 us for a holiday," she said in explanation of her 
 presence there alone. 
 
 " And you will let me go back with you, won't 
 you? Please do, for otherwise I shall have to 
 walk and I hate walking if I have to do it." 
 
 Morton, the chauffeur, returned. He took his 
 place at the wheel and waited for orders. 
 
 "How were you intending to go over?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " As Providence pleased ! And I am very much 
 pleased with Providence for his especial pro 
 vision."
 
 A PURITAN SABBATH 293 
 
 " Grandee would be very happy, I am sure," 
 she said decorously. 
 
 " With your permission, then ? " He stood for 
 several seconds, as if to compel her to raise her 
 eyes and give the consent for which he waited in 
 every nerve, then got in on the front seat by 
 the driver. It did not occur to her, until long 
 afterward, that it was odd for a man to be trav 
 elling without luggage of any sort beyond a stick, 
 and when Trent remembered his overcoat it was 
 only for sake of his cigarette case in the pocket, 
 being a man of impulse and action under sufficient 
 provocation.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 TRENT 
 
 JOEL UNDERWOOD'S reception of Trent, 
 when he presented himself again as a neigh 
 bour, was even more significant of the esteem 
 in which he was held at Sky High than Steven 
 Randall's own. The remarkable thing about the 
 boy was his gift of winning perfectly contrary, un 
 accountable, incongruous, incompatible liking, 
 all the more amazing because he obtruded his own 
 idiosyncrasies unblushingly, never making the least 
 effort to suppress them or conciliate a mutual 
 footing. Grandee disagreed with him, Stephanie 
 soon noticed, upon every topic brought up between 
 them, but counted the day lost that failed to bring 
 the engaging adversary to his Eyrie door. He 
 pronounced Trent unsatisfactory, but a genius, and 
 enjoyed his moods and pungent prejudices far more 
 keenly than Newbold's balanced opinions or the 
 well-rounded theories of Remmington. Once es 
 tablished as an habitue, favoured of servants 
 within and without, he returned now to all his for 
 mer habits as a matter of course; frequenting the 
 house at his own pleasure. Sometimes " led by the 
 spirit in his feet " he brought his books and read 
 
 294
 
 TRENT 295 
 
 down among the flowers of the garden terraces, 
 without coming up to inform his friends of his 
 vicinity. He liked this feeling of absent-nearness 
 and indirect suggestion; it so delightfully included 
 him, yet kept them at arm's length until he wanted 
 them as actual beings in an actual world. He 
 could often hear the piano, as he lay there in the 
 sun. He fancied it another of the pretty foreign 
 modes of welcome, as it floated down the terraces 
 to meet him. He had thrown himself down beside 
 the only mass of heliotrope still protected from the 
 frost, one morning, like a young faun, ostensi 
 bly to study, when Joel came upon him. 
 
 " Set your eyes on that, will you ? " he requested, 
 indicating a spindling La France rose bush he was 
 carrying in his arms. " Stunted for lack of sun ! 
 Not a bud all summer long ! " he complained, hold 
 ing it up in all its green enormity. 
 
 " But ^ou are not going to destroy it ? " Trent 
 protested. Joel focused an imaginary grievance 
 with his good eye, before he replied in his usual 
 indirect discourse: 
 
 " Bulbs feed on themselves, they want the 
 dark, so do a papist and a violet. Light kills 'em 
 in time. But keep a healthy plant, born to be a 
 free-bloomer, in the shade, and you'll get a stunted 
 growth, something like a papist bowed down to 
 false idols in the dark. This innocent rose is go 
 ing to be re-set in the sunniest corner of the green-
 
 296 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 house as quick as orthodox hands can set it. I 
 will ask you to look in at it by and by. You won't 
 believe it is the same plant." 
 
 The man among the heliotropes comprehended 
 the drift of Joel's allegory and neglected to follow 
 up the conversation. The only part of it that lin 
 gered with him was the association of papists and 
 violets. That appealed to him. It sent him off 
 on a fanciful train of purple imagery in which 
 sacred vestments, stained glass phantasies and the 
 wistful lips of women at prayer mingled in a blur 
 of the aesthetic and sensuous, inextricably confused 
 with the odour of heliotrope. For Trent was a 
 churchman, beyond all ordinary meaning of that 
 term. He called himself an Anglican Catholic ; 
 denying the efficacy of priestly intervention be 
 tween himself and the retribution of his sins, but 
 openly keeping his fasts, and doing his self-im 
 posed penance through abstinence from the grati 
 fications he innocently loved, devoutly observing 
 the despair of the passion and ecstasy of celebra 
 tion. His was a reactionary nature, violent in both 
 human and divine appetite. Stephanie and he sym 
 pathised deeply, rather than talked of religion to 
 gether, and never argued. He had confessed that 
 he wished himself born a Romanist; envying them 
 their visions, their tortures even, and all those 
 higher degrees of emotional experience of asceti 
 cism so inevitably allied to the extreme epicurean-
 
 TRENT 297 
 
 ism of his delicate yet intense nature. To him, 
 the mysticism of Stephanie supplied just the final 
 hint of feminine idealism, and when he challenged 
 her for inconsistencies, her unperturbed response 
 " The church does not concern my head, only 
 my heart," had suited him wholly for a woman. 
 That a woman should be religious meant also that 
 she had the other side, a side he recognised in 
 himself, the passioning imagination, the craving 
 for something unseen and beyond, remote and vi 
 brating with a straining excess beyond the visible 
 life of day and night. It hinted an inward life, 
 fed by desires unknown and unspoken. Her re 
 cent confession and confessor, of which he speed 
 ily learned on all sides, and which to Christine 
 boded so darkly, had nothing of repulsion for him. 
 Between the husband and the priest, he chose 
 shrewdly, and chose to the advantage of the latter. 
 The Magdalen is not repulsive to the musing of 
 men, as none are better aware than the priest in 
 orders. 
 
 Trent among the heliotropes found himself re 
 duced to terms of sheer envy. He envied her the 
 emotional excitement of it all. And what did he 
 not envy Father Mayhew? He returned to the 
 probable picture with a frequency that interfered 
 with his reading. Stephanie penitent was an un 
 nerving possibility to present to any live man. It 
 was one to hurry a man's blood, were he even re-
 
 298 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 motely responsible for so much as a dream over 
 the line toward intimacy, even the mere verging 
 toward the forbidden thought. He stared at him 
 self for the first time as a potential temptation, be 
 fore shutting his eyes to the deplorable but se 
 ductive spectacle. 
 
 The secrecy of her religion fascinated him. 
 Any secret opens the door to unrest, implies dis 
 comfiture of disclosure, reverses the simplicities of 
 life, introduces complexity through the relations 
 of the faith and unfaith of others. One no longer 
 belongs to oneself. Independence is gone. The 
 secret necessitates involved casuistry, subtlety of 
 intelligence, discrimination, the art of appearing 
 one thing and knowing the other, under the seal. 
 
 He always argued hotly against this, when 
 Grandee was defending any phase of Catholicism, 
 in his leniency toward all expression of aspiration. 
 In fact Steven Randall had often repeated at the 
 close of their discussions: 
 
 " It is age that condones laxity, youth is all for 
 severity." 
 
 " Youth sees without a glass," was Trent's ex 
 cuse. 
 
 " And I am more surprised every day that 
 Shakespeare did not reverse his line and say 
 
 "crabbed youth and age cannot live together!" 
 since youth is for no compromise, and no mariyr-
 
 TRENT 299 
 
 dom suffices it," Randall said, with the touch of 
 inevitable resignation to the-world-as-it-is, in his 
 mellow voice. 
 
 " If we began where you leave off, our young 
 enthusiasm would be wasted. You see, most wise 
 Grandee, that if the Church calls her own after 
 the earlier faith is tarnished, she will call too late 
 for our salvation or her own," Trent urged warmly. 
 
 " Ritualism and women appeal with equal 
 strength to a boy," Grandee remarked reflectively. 
 " There is, after all, no more sensuous appeal to 
 the imagination than the mere word chastity, by 
 all it implies." 
 
 " What do you consider a man's ultimate safe 
 guard, then? If you insinuate that the church 
 makes concession to his lower nature?" 
 
 " I do not insinuate that, but I believe in a man's 
 will as his staunchest defence, under God Al 
 mighty." 
 
 " What is the will good for, except to make a 
 choice? It cannot keep you from the pain your 
 choice inflicts. It cannot hold you from your long 
 ing, or from fear, or any spiritual misery." 
 
 " It makes for right action." 
 
 " It makes for self, and religion kills self, or 
 tries to, in us all. While the church supplies a 
 life and love to inspire devotion." 
 
 " And all boys have an appetite for love, sacred 
 or profane," was Grandee's conclusion.
 
 300 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 As Trent's own proclivities for a life of religion, 
 the taking of vows and assuming of orders at 
 some later time intensified, he dwelt increasingly on 
 the one step further that would carry him over to 
 the faith of this woman who was so thoroughly a 
 " mondaine," and at the same time so complacently 
 a Catholic ; one of the faithful combining the ex 
 tremes of his own capacities without apparent fric 
 tion of soul ; after the manner of other incredible 
 ladies of church history and legend. 
 
 He was reverent by nature and desire, and he 
 seemed to himself to have perceived in holy orders 
 a career that afforded a sacred clew to the hallow 
 ing of his feeling for Stephanie, which was no 
 longer a quarrelsome spectre, against which he 
 struggled, but an accepted secret of his hidden 
 heart. It was no longer a secret from him, but 
 his secret, blent with his religious meditation, 
 even shadowing the intention of his prayers, an oc 
 cult in-dwelling of a spirit other than divine, yet 
 never wholly human. 
 
 He had professedly .come back for quiet in which 
 to study and reflect, to realise himself and his own 
 positions. He announced no leanings toward the 
 priesthood openly, but his atmosphere declared him 
 for serious preoccupation and was so respected by 
 the two other men, who were beginning to think 
 of town and the coming season. Grandee claimed 
 him as formerly for long hours of talk and smoke,
 
 TRENT 301 
 
 but Stephanie and he got on less well than in the 
 earlier, less critical stages of the acquaintance. 
 
 One evening, when Trent had been dining with 
 them, the perfection of the dinner had been 
 marred by his brusque contradiction. He never 
 addressed her directly, or spoke her name in the 
 third person, which gave his conversation a sin 
 gularly detached effect. She wondered if it was 
 unintentional, or if he disliked branding her with 
 the name of another man, or what he did perhaps 
 call her in his own thought. To-night she slipped 
 away after a little and went into the empty music 
 room, to play softly to herself. 
 
 After all, who was this savage boy, that he 
 should presume to be so unamiable? He was ut 
 terly egoistic. His caprices were stupid. He 
 might have been a pretty diversion to suffice, here 
 in the enforced seclusion. It had looked so at one 
 time in the summer, but, no, he was " bete," in 
 corrigible, ignorant of usage and indifferent to 
 jchivalry. It was but to forget " the snows of yes 
 ter-year " ; and after, the roses of yesterday ! 
 
 It might have been an hour before the curtains 
 parted to admit Trent. She had left the piano and 
 was lying back in a deep lounging chair, staring 
 idly at the winged Loves in their painted flight 
 upon the ceiling. 
 
 " Good-night ! " he called with a bright pleasant 
 ness, quite unconciliating.
 
 302 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " Good-night, Mr. Trent," she returned, with 
 equal lack of colour, without rising or turning her 
 head. He waited a moment. 
 
 " That is, unless you would care to have me 
 read ? " he suggested. Still she did not move. 
 
 " Do you wish to read ? " she asked ; implying 
 that to have been the real question in the past, 
 whenever she had requested him to do so. 
 
 " I do not mind " She heard him go to the li 
 brary and return. He seated himself in the corner 
 he preferred, turned on the light and began to read 
 without a word. How he read, she knew, for his 
 voice persisted often when he had gone. To-night 
 it was nothing more romantic than an essay of the 
 renaissance, but it kept its golden haze intact under 
 his reading. For pages he read on, too immersed 
 in the beauty he loved to remember her, then sud 
 denly he raised his eyes. 
 
 Her own were full upon his face, yet she was 
 not listening. He paled perceptibly, at sight of 
 which the suspicion of a smile relaxed her lips. 
 
 He turned his head impatiently aside as if an 
 noyed. 
 
 " Don't look at me," he said. A peevish child 
 might have so spoken. 
 
 " Don't look at you, how ? " she asked, without 
 ceasing her offence. 
 
 " That way." 
 
 "But what way, par example?"
 
 TRENT 303 
 
 "Don't look at me hardly at all!" he cried. 
 " If you do I am going home." 
 
 Her only response was to repeat her long glance, 
 provokingly, under mischievous lashes, as one might 
 tease a petulant child. 
 
 Trent sprang to his feet and began to pace up 
 and down the long room. He turned his head 
 aside not to meet her eyes as he approached her 
 chair. 
 
 " How you know us ! " he exclaimed. " I won 
 der if you do know the things men think, feel, I 
 mean! I sometimes think you do, and again I 
 think if you did " 
 
 " I know that a certain man is very difficult to 
 night, very, very difficult," she repeated, her gaze 
 still on him. Her delicate chin was thrown up, her 
 figure flung careless as a flower against the warm 
 hue of the cushions, one arm trailing almost to the 
 floor, the other thrown back, giving the charm of 
 flesh and line through her lace sleeve. He knew 
 the pose unstudied, for he had seen her fall into 
 it innumerable times without self consciousness. 
 It beguiled him unfailingly, for its gracious 
 softness, a languor, and hint of abandon car 
 ried just far enough not to trespass upon good 
 taste. 
 
 " You are bored, little friend," she said simply. 
 " I recognise it. Mr. Payne is also bored here, to 
 madness. You never saw Mr. Payne, did you?
 
 304 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 He is very unnecessarily ' beau,' for a man. I will 
 get some of his photographs to show you. That 
 would be diverting, yes? It would perhaps inter 
 est you ? " 
 
 The daring insolence of it lay in his own pos 
 sessive thought of her, of course, the thought he 
 had permitted himself of her, not in her intention 
 perhaps. He recoiled, but he was interested. Oh, 
 beyond a doubt! 
 
 She drew herself out of her great chair. It was 
 some sort of a rose-coloured chiffon thing she had 
 on, that clung to her. He noticed that, as she 
 left the room, throwing him one last glance, 
 smiling 
 
 " Is there anything the matter with me ? " he de 
 manded, going to the long mirror and challenging 
 his own irritated face. 
 
 " Your mouth is an indiscretion ! " she cried, and 
 left him. 
 
 " Your clothes are a seduction ! " he called back. 
 She gave no sign of having heard him. 
 
 She was gone long enough to make him specu 
 late as to whether she had not been obliged to hunt 
 for the precious pictures. Perhaps they had been 
 mislaid in some careless hiding, being no longer 
 a vital part of her happiness. He hoped she could 
 not find them. What a triumph if she failed ! 
 " Oh, I am glad, glad ! " he exulted as the minutes 
 passed.
 
 TRENT 305 . 
 
 But she came, bringing several heavy silver- 
 banded frames, and others Rhine-stone studded and 
 glittering in her slender hands. Then, laying them 
 down upon the piano, she resumed her original po 
 sition ; her palms lying open after a mannerism of 
 her own, very helpless and appealing to him be 
 fore. Trent would not glance toward the piano. 
 He walked off toward the door again. " Make 
 music, please," he entreated, hoping to create a 
 new situation. " Play something peaceful, some 
 Beethoven perhaps." 
 
 " I am not in the mood for white wine to-night," 
 she refused. " I should be obliged to play red, not 
 white, something gipsy-blooded, Hungarian." 
 
 " Good-night, then," he said, one hand on the cur 
 tain at the doorway. 
 
 " Good-night ! Au revoir ! " she said sweetly. 
 
 He went out into the hall and put on his coat, 
 and again parted the hangings between. 
 
 " I hate you," he remarked quietly. " Oh, how 
 I hate you ! " 
 
 He was gone. She heard the hall door bang 
 behind him regardless of Grandee's first sleep. 
 She did not move. There was no doubt now about 
 the curve of her lips in that relaxed lure of some 
 thing that was hardly a smile, but her heart was 
 beating deliciously. She saw the rose-hued chiffon 
 quiver above it, like the tremulous wings of a but 
 terfly over the heliotrope. She laid her hand there
 
 306 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 as if to seize the traitor in her breast, but really 
 for the wild joy of living it recalled. 
 
 She was in grey the next time he saw her. 
 
 " Ashes ? " he enquired. 
 
 " Yes, of roses," she replied. 
 
 Now came the days when they met with a loud, 
 bright pleasantness, affecting an interest in the scar 
 let salvias, or the blue jays darting through the 
 pines, quite foreign to either under normal condi 
 tions, days when their eyes never met and their 
 topics were studiously impersonal, when their con 
 versation was addressed to Grandee, and he became 
 imperatively a factor in Trent's more frequent vis 
 its, the medium through whom spirit found 
 spirit and was momentarily unafraid. 
 
 The actual Trent was, as yet, to Stephanie only 
 as the sea shell, through which a flood of lost 
 memories poured in her ears and chanted of 
 drowned beauty, and lost lives, and secret hidden 
 treasure below the surface of the world. The poets 
 of all time sang through his lips. She understood 
 them now as never before. The Immortals spoke 
 to her. He was saturated with all that was essen 
 tially lyric, but no glance escaped him that included 
 her in his own joy of it all. It seemed to her he 
 had the superb self-control of the great actor. He 
 was either very deep, or very stupid. She did not 
 believe him stupid, therefore ? He became to 
 her more and more a living paradox. To her own
 
 TRENT 307 
 
 audience she called him Prince Paradox. Again, 
 she longed to get away from it all, to elude the 
 Fate that seemed hovering, the inequality of the 
 struggle, the embarrassment of the outcome, if it 
 were to be an outcome beyond this state of nervous 
 suspense. But Grandee was less strong and would 
 miss her inconsolably, even if he did not refuse 
 outright to let her away from him in Raleigh's ab 
 sence. So here she was, and must stand, with no 
 more hope of flight than that of a picket on duty. 
 If Trent had been also a Catholic she might have 
 imagined that some lapse, mental or moral, was be 
 ing expiated. She would have been at loss to say 
 to herself what, 
 
 The first time they found themselves unavoid 
 ably alone after his outburst, was a twilight when 
 he overtook her on her way to the hill from which 
 her train was visible. 
 
 He had telephoned not an hour earlier that he 
 could not dine with them, as he was going out of 
 town. She would not admit that it mattered. 
 Why should she care? 
 
 She started for her lonely stroll as usual, and 
 met him at the garden gate. 
 
 " Were you just going out? " he asked surprised, 
 knowing it was never her habit. 
 
 " Not immediately," she replied with a glance at 
 her watch. 
 
 " Do not let me detain you," formally.
 
 308 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " No ? You were not coming in, then ? " 
 
 " No, I am just walking by." 
 
 " Oh, yes, on your way to Westerly, I suppose ? " 
 It lay in the other direction and she knew it. 
 
 " Yes, I am only walking down your road. I 
 mean I had no especial reason for coming this 
 way." 
 
 " Then you will pardon me if I am not at home, 
 since " 
 
 " Since I am not calling? Yes, certainly." 
 Again she glanced at her watch. It was after five. 
 The crickets sang loudly to suggest that evening 
 was on the way. 
 
 " Were you going anywhere I was invited ? " he 
 asked, nettled by her haste to be rid of him. 
 " Newbold always tells me if I am invited to any 
 thing. He did not speak of any affair to-day, 
 to my recollection. Yet I have a vague premoni 
 tion" 
 
 " You were asked to dine at Sky High, perhaps 
 that was it ? " she suggested. 
 
 " That could not have been it. That would 
 have been a preferred engagement, not common 
 stock, beside, you are not going to dine at five 
 o'clock ! " he reminded her. 
 
 " No, I was going into the forest." 
 
 " Do you mind taking me ? " 
 
 " I do not know. You were not very polite to 
 Grandee, it seems to me."
 
 TRENT 309 
 
 " I was not rude," he explained eagerly, " be 
 cause I did not mean to be. I am never uninten 
 tionally rude. When I am I mean it to be so un 
 derstood, and I hate the creature who says, he 
 did not mean it, never mind! Rudeness is the 
 sharp weapon of a gentleman. It ought to be so 
 understood in society. Grandee knows it. He 
 never thought me rude for one instant ! " 
 
 " But you hate Nature also, and in the forest 
 to be content, one must love her " 
 
 " Why do you never forget that ? I only spoke 
 of that brute of a bird that creaks so it wakes me 
 up in the morning. I hate a person who remem 
 bers! I do not hate all Nature. I only hate talk 
 ing about Nature. Everything has been said, and 
 Nature is only lovely when it hints of the things 
 we feel, and that is psychology. I will talk that 
 sort of translation to you in the forest, with pleas 
 ure." 
 
 " Balzac does not recommend that topic to 
 tete-a-tete, as a rule " she objected. 
 
 " Every rule has it deception ! Take me with 
 you and I will prove it." 
 
 They walked fast, as people bent on a definite 
 errand, then leaned against the bars at the end and 
 yielded self to the spell of the October dusk. It 
 was dark in the fields below them. Already the 
 straight blue smoke from some tiny chimney, hinted 
 of the labourer's return to his evening meal. The
 
 3io THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 dusk rose as a tide threatening to envelope them. 
 She had grown silent. He had effaced himself as 
 far as possible. A dog bayed in the distance, then 
 all was still. The purple shadows lost their colour 
 and groped as hands that are empty and seek to 
 be filled with others empty as themselves. To her 
 it should have brought an echo of universal " An- 
 gelus," yet she had never in all her life before 
 known such an hour with a man beside her. The 
 novelty of it kept sacred associations from her 
 mind. How long the magic might have held them, 
 who shall say, save that with a wild shriek, at 
 frantic speed, the lighted train tore by. Stephanie 
 shivered. 
 
 " I adore itj " she said. 
 
 " It means the city to-night ! I always want 
 to go ! " he answered. 
 
 " It is the world calling." She turned to go 
 home as she said it. 
 
 "Do you feel that too? The passion of cities 
 within reach to-night ? " He saw by the tense re 
 straint of her face that it not only meant as much 
 to her as to him, but more, oh, far more! And 
 though she made no answer, he knew she had come 
 here to-night from no chance, but oft-repeated, 
 restless habit. It hurt him more than anything he 
 had ever known a woman do. That night his new 
 enemy, insomnia, got him, and he heard the two 
 o'clock freight and the four o'clock milk train be-
 
 TRENT 311 
 
 fore he forgot to hope that she had not, and to 
 remind himself that She, in this case, was another 
 man's wife. 
 
 He wished himself a Catholic, that by saying a 
 rosary he might be done with the cares of his day 
 and sleep in peace while the Saints protected, or 
 that he might buy surcease with a hundred repeti 
 tions of Hail Mary! He wondered if She was? 
 But, by the contrariety of Fate, she was as it hap 
 pened asleep with her head on the gently rounded 
 arm of Morpheus, the arch coquette, who perhaps 
 was breathing her own wavering arabesques upon 
 her in dreams of wayward sweetness.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 TWO BANKS OF A RIVER 
 
 THE more seriously Raleigh reflected on 
 the incident of Father Mayhew, the less 
 he enjoyed that innovation upon the 
 orthodox calm of Sky High. He accordingly 
 wrote to Stephanie, a letter of some length, just 
 before his final break with civilisation and plunge 
 into the woods, a letter in which effusiveness was 
 intended to smother a prohibition of the recurrence 
 in his absence. 
 
 At his letter Stephanie had neither smiled or 
 frowned which is not the best omen for a hus 
 band's law or devotion. Steven Randall had also 
 received a letter from Raleigh at the same time, 
 peremptory in tone and baldly laying down rules 
 and regulations for the conduct of his wife, as if 
 Stephanie had been a child intrusted to him for 
 training. To which Grandee replied, as befitted 
 one diplomat to another, making no mention of 
 the disputed subject, dwelling at length on his 
 pleasure in Stephanie's companionship, but adding 
 in the postscript so rarely found in the correspond 
 ence of untactful men, 
 
 312
 
 TWO BANKS OF A RIVER 313 
 
 " Turkey insists on lighting and buoying the headwaters 
 of the Gulf I am told. She has yet to learn evidently 
 that you do not own a river unless you own both banks." 
 
 Which carried no special assurance of security to 
 the man who read it in a double sense, as it was 
 intended, and perfectly comprehended its import. 
 
 He estimated his wife's piety, like that of all 
 young and charming women, as of a barometric 
 fervour, to a certain degree depending upon other 
 given circumstances. If he wronged her in his 
 reduction of the personal equation, it was an in 
 justice that, at least, gave him some degree of 
 peace and satisfaction in his most unwilling exile. 
 And whatever the other bank of the river at which 
 Grandee hinted, he preferred it unhesitatingly to 
 the wiles of the priest and the power of repeated 
 confession, in which respect he resembled a mul 
 titude of martyred men since Christendom, tyran 
 nically bent on possessing the individual being of 
 the woman God gave them, lest they be alone, 
 always reserving their own right to exclusive sov 
 ereignty of themselves, unquestioned and supreme. 
 
 Stephanie's nature was too rich on both the side 
 of human longing and divine intuition, to confine 
 her forever to either one life or the other. She 
 might have lived for religion or pleasure with equal 
 predisposition and not too much line of least re 
 sistance to overcome in either vocation. She had
 
 314 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 no gift of abstraction. All she felt or knew came 
 to her with the personal element uppermost and 
 inevitable. Love or the Church might in turn pre 
 sent their claim to her, sure of consent, if her heart 
 was captivated. Father Mayhew had found her 
 no less sincere in her impulse for guidance that it 
 was actuated by her tangled love affairs, and his 
 absolution had been followed by a period of com 
 plete renunciation, which gave way, in turn, to an 
 other phase of life, temporarily driving all, save 
 the mechanically repeated forms of her religion, 
 out of her mind. 
 
 It is to have missed it all, for some women, if the 
 brain has known no master. In the same sense 
 that one may be mistress of a man's heart, so a 
 woman needs the lover of her brain, whose mental 
 intimacy contributes the subtle quickening to every 
 common experience. 
 
 Stephanie and Trent talked of everything under 
 heaven with a frankness that astounded them both. 
 She might indeed have been the mere ghost of a 
 woman she often insisted she was, or his grand 
 mother, or another man, for all hindrance they met 
 in free interchange of ideas upon all the most 
 tantalising and impossible subjects. Whether they 
 began in history or psychology, they always really 
 talked about themselves, of course. They talked 
 much of marriage, ideal marriage and as it actu 
 ally exists, and of the girl he would some time
 
 TWO BANKS OF A RIVER 315 
 
 marry. And they talked of her absent husband, 
 as illustrative of general matrimonial tendencies, 
 vaguely at first, then more closely, until he and 
 the shadow girl of Trent's future, assumed the 
 proportions of a third and fourth party, turning 
 their iete-a-tete into the safer " partie carre," un 
 der whose chaperoning re-assurance they dared an 
 even closer intimacy of ideas. 
 
 " Christine has always said it would be nothing 
 but hysterics, when I fell in love," Trent said, hov 
 ering near the thin ice purposely. 
 
 " One would have said asterisks, preferably," she 
 returned, eyebrows slightly lifted in provocation. 
 
 " I think it is old fashioned to make love to 
 women now-a-days. It seems to have gone by en 
 tirely. Men never tell women they love them, " 
 
 "No? Then what is the American manner?" 
 
 " We tell them they interfere with our work, 
 or they make us nervous. It means ever so much 
 more. Don't you think so?" 
 
 " It is very scientific, but I find it too little spir- 
 ituelle. Love is for the soul, not the nervous sys 
 tem." 
 
 " Love is a rare bird ! I was talking about mak 
 ing love, that is a pastime not a condition. I have 
 never loved any woman longer than two weeks." 
 
 And she knew he had never loved before, and, 
 beside what he felt to be her experience in that 
 peculiar fever, was ashamed of his own uninfected
 
 316 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 nature and assuming a past out of sheer emula 
 tion. 
 
 " One sometimes imagines that it would be easier 
 to continue to love, if one promised not to, it is 
 so final, so in the past, to make a contract of one's 
 sensations and then cease to be moved by any new 
 emotion " she complained. 
 
 " Daphne keeping house and forgetting how to 
 run ! " he chimed in gladly. 
 
 " Many times, if there was the uncertainty of 
 love, there would be always the provocation. If 
 one fears that each day may present a charm more 
 gracious than one's own, one makes the effort to 
 be desired, as at first, but when one is sure, it 
 is like the epitaph upon one's tomb, written for 
 ever." 
 
 " You do not agree with our American idea, 
 that mutual confidence is the rock of married hap 
 piness and security ? " he pursued. 
 
 " Of the institution of marriage and the family, 
 naturally. I was speaking of love," was the swift 
 answer. " You will understand better when you 
 are married. She will be obliged to be a girl of 
 most unselfish spirit to make your life brilliant, 
 and never weary you. I shall love her for all she 
 can be to you, that I never could," she added, in 
 response to his reproachful glance. He had come 
 to all but dislike that girl. Her possibility got 
 between them, for he knew she probably existed,
 
 TWO BANKS OF A RIVER 317 
 
 and at present he wanted to believe she did not. 
 
 But it was only to herself Stephanie added, 
 " and for all she can never be to you that I shall 
 have been, and yet may be ! " 
 
 Then when he grew dreamy over that dim charm 
 that was to draw him into newer toils in the blur 
 of the future, she recalled him, by reminding him 
 of her omniscient Balzac's saying " men and 
 women are simply pegs on which to hang an ideal ! " 
 and for a week effaced herself, excusing her 
 presence when he was at Sky High on one pretext 
 or another, to heighten the truth of this sage im 
 pression, until a notice appeared in the columns of 
 the local weekly newspaper, which forced her hand 
 for fear of what further prank he might dare to 
 play. It was inserted among the Lost Articles, 
 with entire decorum: 
 
 Lost or Stolen. 
 
 A Peg, suitable for supporting an ideal of medium 
 weight. Valuable only for association's sake. Finder will 
 be suitably rewarded by returning to the owner after dark. 
 No questions asked or answered. 
 
 C. I. RUINS. 
 
 Carthage in ruins, of course ! Was there ever such 
 a versatile rascal? And she could not refuse him, 
 for Grandee had returned from a brief trip to 
 town to see Doctor Wylin, and equilibrium was re 
 stored once more.
 
 3 i8 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 The autumn was doing its best to excite to hu 
 man conflagration. Great fires leapt on the hearths 
 inside, and outside the colour blazed and flamed 
 and threw countless golden bonnets, not only " over 
 the mill," but over all creation in an impartial de 
 lirium of recklessness. The days were pierced 
 with a thrill to match the nights of frost. The 
 hunter's moon was abroad, and the sound of nuts 
 dropping through the darkness was as a stealthy 
 footfall of approaching winter, or the slowing 
 heart-beat of the year made audible. The gardens 
 were blackened in a night, and scurrying shrouds 
 of crimson leaves ran riot along the forbidden pre 
 cincts, while Joel, with the real last judgment 
 furor, cut and burned up, and covered over, glad 
 to be done with the beauty and doubt of his long 
 season. To Stephanie, the chill of autumn had 
 always before meant the return to cities ; the quick 
 ening spell of Paris, " first nights " at the theatres, 
 the Salon, the shiver of the crowd playing upon 
 her nerves, irritating and alluring by turn ; the 
 magic of lighted streets, the accumulated sense of 
 humanity pressed close. Paris and love had here 
 tofore been inseparable to her. Now, the alchemy 
 of solitude and colour turned reflection in upon it 
 self. The autumn here might mean nothing akin 
 to its former significance, but might carry with it 
 hearths aflame, reposeful embers glowing, encir 
 cling arms, and sleep illumined by dreams only less
 
 TWO BANKS OF A RIVER 319 
 
 ardent than reality, love lived close in the flesh, 
 clinging to its own in another, buried beneath the 
 pall of silence, sequestered from all the world with 
 " the hiddenness of perfect things." 
 
 Suddenly one night, when Grandee was ailing 
 and early gone upstairs, when the south wind and 
 rain, coming at nightfall after a white frost, had 
 wrapped Sky High in a winding sheet of gust and 
 darkness, it happened, just as any one but either 
 of these two concerned might have foreseen. 
 There was no prelude. There was no precipitat 
 ing event. There was no excuse. There could be 
 no condonation. Without a flash of warning their 
 arms were about each other, his soft hair pressed 
 against her own. No word was spoken, but she 
 was sobbing like a desperate child, " You have 
 broken my heart, Cheri, you have broken my 
 heart!" 
 
 He only held her gently, firmly, as if defiant of 
 all the united powers leagued to take her from him, 
 as if he had swept her from some hideous peril 
 not yet past, to temporary safety. In their un 
 broken human silence the great wind leaned against 
 the long windows as if to break through and set 
 them free upon the night. She gradually released 
 herself and drooped away from him down be 
 fore the fire. Trent stood staring into the flame 
 that burnt him ; his face worn by suffering, tor 
 mented by regret and instant remorse. Sin
 
 320 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 is so swift ! Regret so long, even eternal ! 
 
 Stephanie's face was hidden in her hands. 
 Through her mind ran the revelations of her con 
 secutive disloyalty; to Raleigh, to Grandee who 
 trusted her implicitly with the honourable hospi 
 tality of his home, to her vows made so solemnly 
 to Father Mayhew. Where were they all now? 
 And why did they seem not to matter any more 
 unutterably vain and of no importance, of no 
 connection with herself? Oh, why did they not 
 leave her in peace, conscienceless, but only the Ma 
 donna knew how blest? 
 
 Trent, overwhelmed with a physical sensation of 
 cold, threw himself down in Grandee's great chair, 
 spent by his effort at self-control. He was bewil 
 dered but firm against further weakness. With an 
 iron grip he held his senses in check, waiting for 
 strength to leave, searching for the words in which 
 to win her forgiveness for his appalling indiscre 
 tion. This was the end of course. There only 
 remained to him to go, if possible to go with her 
 pardon. 
 
 He was almost sufficiently sure of himself to 
 speak, almost firm enough to risk leaving her 
 with the formal expression of regret he was men 
 tally framing, when she suddenly came to him and 
 dropping on her knees beside him, hid her wet 
 face on his. shoulder. 
 
 Very reverently then he bent over her slight
 
 TWO BANKS OF A RIVER 321 
 
 form so shaken by its unbearable emotion, sooth 
 ing her as tenderly as he knew how, begging her 
 over and over not to cry; miserable for her and 
 for himself. 
 
 She remained so, motionless, passionless until 
 the sobs that shook her at intervals became less 
 frequent, then she raised her head and for the first 
 time they looked unflinchingly into each other's 
 eyes. 
 
 " You are not crying now ! " he sighed, infinitely 
 grateful for her calm. 
 
 " Gaston ! " she breathed back at him, her lips 
 close to his own. He tried to turn his eyes away 
 but he could not. 
 
 " Gaston ! " she whispered again. " I am not 
 crying if you care, what is there then to cry 
 about ? " She knelt, gazing up at him, bewildered 
 by what she saw. A rapt expression lit her face 
 as the first coming of the dawn. " Is it true ? 
 Ah, mon Dieu, yes, it is true ! " she cried, and 
 flung her arms about him, lifting her lips to his 
 trustfully as a child that has found the way home 
 across a dark and alien world. It was a groan 
 that escaped the man, as he answered her first kiss 
 with his own. It was he who drew back, closing 
 his eyes as he muttered, " Oh, God, why must a 
 man live on after this ! " But her arms clung 
 about him and her vibrant voice declared bravely, 
 "If you love me, I do not care for anything else
 
 322 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 in this world or the next. If you love me, I for 
 give God the ' faux pas ' of my existence. All is 
 arranged satisfactorily between us, definitely, for 
 ever ! " She was an amazing revelation to him, in 
 her swift succession of mood, as she lavished her 
 love upon him in her prodigal foreign endearment. 
 Aghast, at first, at the situation he had brought 
 upon them, who was he to resist her unnerving 
 nearness, the caress of her magnetic fingers, the 
 proud lips that murmured their humble need of 
 his love so unreservedly ? Her distrust of her hap 
 piness touched him more than all her self-revelation 
 or avowal. She could not believe it, until he 
 drew her to him silently, with that possessive cer 
 tainty speech can never gainsay. Then she rose 
 and stood erect before him, as she delivered her 
 own sentence, " Now, I have betrayed every one 
 who trusted me, for you " she said coldly, 
 " and you, how you have made me suffer all 
 these past weeks ! " 
 
 " I am glad ! I am glad ! " he exulted, and 
 again they clung to each other, 
 
 " Sight and speech extinguished, each on each." 
 
 " I am dead and buried. It is impossible. It 
 cannot be true ! " she reiterated, at last. 
 
 "There is nothing else true! Nothing!" he re 
 assured her. 
 
 " But I am just a ghost I am " she could
 
 TWO BANKS OF A RIVER 323 
 
 not say married, " It cannot be possible," she re 
 peated, transfigured if incredulous yet. 
 
 " Oui, c'est vrai, c'est vrai ! " he insisted, kissing 
 her words away and falling unconsciously into the 
 language they both loved. Then, both in French, 
 they began to whisper close, each to the other, in 
 sanely the stolen sweet 
 
 " Je t'aime," 
 
 "Je t'adore!" 
 
 Neither could breathe it often enough or hear it 
 often enough. They were starving, thirsting for 
 each other. 
 
 " Why would you never tell me ? " she begged. 
 
 " I never meant to tell you, if I could help it." 
 
 " I only thought of you as part of the colour and 
 fragrance of the summer." 
 
 " I will be that or anything else you like me for, 
 even the heat of summer," he protested. " But 
 I am dazed, of course, by the marvel of it all." 
 
 " It was the fault of your mouth," she said 
 solemnly. 
 
 " It knows how to love ! " He proved it to her. 
 
 " And that is all I know, how to love," she 
 confessed. 
 
 " There is nothing else to know ! " 
 
 Stephanie gave a little shiver of satisfaction, 
 then she drew back, and shook her head sadly. 
 " I do not believe it. It is not possible " she 
 stammered brokenly " Since when, Gaston ? "
 
 324 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " Since a long time, as the French say," he told 
 her. 
 
 That was all, broken sentences, breathless ex 
 clamations, staggering sighs long prisoned, no 
 reckoning with past or future, nothing but to 
 night and the forgetting that sundered them from 
 reality. His self-control wavered under the fran 
 tic beat of her heart beneath his own, that gave 
 him more than any word or caress, the truth of 
 her surrender. 
 
 She hoped he would not come next day. It 
 was too soon to banish the enamouring memory of 
 him even by his actual touch. She dreaded him, 
 and longed for nothing else but him. Cleverly as 
 he had masked, untiringly as he had fenced, she 
 had found his true self in the avowal she had so 
 dreaded, so longed to hear. She could not meet 
 him before Grandee, and yet. She turned weak 
 at the mere thought of the sight of him, a faint- 
 ness overwhelmed her in anticipation of it. She 
 crept off alone to the little forest. Her world 
 was crashing about her. She could not understand 
 or protest or reason. She could only run away like 
 a silly sheep whose sole resource lay in an alert 
 sense of danger. She did not want to think. She 
 only wanted to re-live his voice, the pain and pas 
 sion of their bodily swoon, his spirit breathing 
 upon her soul.
 
 TWO BANKS OF A RIVER 325 
 
 When she saw him, out upon the highway with 
 Newbold, the boyish arrogance of him was empha 
 sised in every light motion of his faultless figure, 
 a figure carved in fervour, and in the auda 
 city of his grace, that old assurance, diminished 
 of late in his uncertainty of himself and her, reas 
 serting itself startlingly. He walked to-day like 
 a young hero of mythology whose wings were 
 momentarily folded while he trod the under-world 
 to search its mysteries. 
 
 Newbold thought his manner a trifle too natural 
 not to be over-done, but reminded himself that 
 people who rarely are transparent, may happen to 
 be what they seem, by chance, and so fool their 
 friends both ways, and refused to allow the ulterior 
 explanation his own mind afforded for this sud 
 den, breezy cheerfulness on Trent's part. It was 
 certainly intended to put him off, but from 
 what? 
 
 After three days of singularly unbroken com 
 munion with male society, Remmington spoke out. 
 That is, he made the disconnected enquiry of New- 
 bold, 
 
 "Is she still up there?" 
 
 "Saw her yesterday " 
 
 "Then what the devil?" 
 
 " Exactly." 
 
 Which was how matters stood at the Squirrel's 
 Nest. One afternoon some days later while a dis-
 
 326 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 mal rain lashed the windows, raining in a mere 
 bleak fashion as if no longer jubilant at the havoc 
 it had wrought, Stephanie on joining Grandee in 
 the library for tea found Trent there before her. 
 
 Her frock was sombre black, by chance. She 
 saw Trent note it at a glance and augur from it. 
 Their chat ran on, of everything save that of 
 which each was thinking. Both vied to keep 
 Grandee with them. He was their anchor, their 
 lighthouse. They forestalled, as by mutual con 
 cern, each attempt at withdrawal, each suggestion 
 of his afternoon nap, all repetition of Doctor Wy- 
 lin's orders as to rest before dinner. At last their 
 every effort failed. He was rising. He was leaving 
 the room. He was actually gone. The shadows 
 crept out of the corners and the light of the log fire 
 burnished the friendly backs of the wise old books 
 and flickered over the tea tray to the silver cruci 
 fix Stephanie wore on its emerald and silver chain. 
 
 Until the servant had taken the tray Trent chat 
 ted on nervously, as if he dared not stop. Ste 
 phanie had ceased talking or even listening. Fi 
 nally he felt it and stopped chattering, smoking 
 hard. 
 
 His determination to withhold himself was so 
 open that she could not make the least effort to 
 ward resuming their interrupted relation. When 
 the constraint grew intolerable he remarked, as if 
 aggrieved by her unresponsiveness,
 
 TWO BANKS OF A RIVER 327 
 
 " I hoped you would be amusing this afternoon. 
 I wanted to be amused." 
 
 She sat looking straight into the fire, one hand 
 on her pearl crucifix. Her black frock invited the 
 shadows, which at every moment enclosed her in a 
 softer density. 
 
 " You have believed I would be able to be amus 
 ing? You have pulled my world down about me 
 and you have believed it a comedy only? I do not 
 comprehend you in the least," she replied gravely. 
 
 " We had better begin to put it back by treating 
 it as one, had we not ? " he asked, tentatively she 
 thought, as if to try her. 
 
 " Myself, I do not know what there is to be done 
 about it," she said, still pale and intent upon the 
 fire, as if reading her fate in the embers. " I am 
 not able to think any course out to the end. I 
 have not slept well, and was obliged to assist all 
 trains to mount the hill, during these last nights " 
 
 " And I have not slept at all ! " he broke in. 
 
 " Was it true, or were you lying to me ? " she 
 asked, as if inspired by a new suspicion. 
 
 " I did not lie." 
 
 " But you find it is not true, that you have 
 deceived yourself? It is no longer as it was 
 then ? " Inwardly she was shaking with terror of 
 his possible reply. 
 
 " What about the ten commandments ? " He at 
 tempted to put it jestingly.
 
 328 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 " They are Jewish, intended only for the dirty 
 wandering tribes who live in tents. They have 
 nothing to do with our modern society," she 
 qualified, with a shrug. There was no real alarm 
 for his scruple now in her easy justification. Her 
 first sharp recognition of her own disloyalties 
 had been dulled, if not effaced by her desire that 
 he should not take back what he had given. She 
 rose slowly and stood in her familiar place by 
 the fire, leaning a little, swaying slightly as she 
 spoke, pleading for their right to love. 
 
 " I have repeated many prayers and meditated 
 much, Cheri. After these so sleepless nights and 
 days of waiting, this is my conclusion. If I can 
 give you something of value to your life, is it not 
 my best, my only power to live? And where is 
 the fault? Even Father Mayhew would absolve 
 for such an innocent indulgence. Also, it is out 
 of my possibility to seek him now, for I am under 
 perpetual if loving surveillance here, by anti-Cath 
 olic command. Grandee is too much a man of the 
 world, of my world, to condemn, and after, even 
 he can perfectly remain in ignorance. The exac 
 tions of convention and good taste will naturally 
 be strictly observed." Her voice fell to a lower, 
 m6re intense pitch as she turned to him now, say 
 ing rapidly, " Imagine what love may be to us ! 
 I am so alone, so terribly alone! And is it not 
 that a man succeeds twice who has the soul of a
 
 TWO BANKS OF A RIVER 329 
 
 woman to inflame his inspiration? Do you not go 
 from me already, with twice the power of for 
 merly? Is not life for us raised every day from 
 the tomb? And why should we who have found 
 this miracle possible to us, deny it to ourselves? 
 What is there but love that matters anything ? " 
 
 Still he sat rigid, silent, the tumult inside his 
 heart keeping him externally calm. 
 
 " Love is a venial sin," she added softly. 
 
 It is the woman who is dare-devil in love, al 
 ways. The man is bound to remember his stand 
 ing among men. He shrinks from the world's cen 
 sure, clings to his cover, shams, and is secretive 
 long after she has escaped, as a glad and lawless 
 pirate, on the high seas that are so surely to wreck 
 her, and set her adrift as a vagrant uncharted 
 derelict. Women are considered better than men 
 but in matters of the emotions, men are, if not bet 
 ter, more far-seeing than women. Call it prudence 
 or principle as it happens. Trent sitting shielded 
 from the light in the angle of the chimney corner 
 where she could not see his face clearly, knew this 
 and clung to it blindly, although aware that he had 
 allowed himself to be carried over the impalpable 
 line that committed him to her by the standard of 
 her world. " Don't you think we had better put 
 it back ? " he repeated. Plainly there was no ques 
 tion in his own mind. Already his course was de 
 cided and his will strong enough to hold him to it.
 
 330 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " But certainly, if you wish," she assured him 
 quickly, with such contempt in her manner it made 
 him shrivel. 
 
 " You despise me ? " He looked straight at her 
 now. She saw the shrinking in his eyes, that was 
 not cowardice but pain and confusion of suffering. 
 For a moment she pitied him. for his helpless 
 ness. 
 
 " The mistake is mine," she said gracefully, in 
 clining her head as before a deserved correction. 
 " I believed you a man I find you an idealist 
 or a Saint." 
 
 He arose to take his leave as if under con 
 demnation. 
 
 " I regret to have disappointed you," he said 
 with touching dignity. She put out her hand. 
 He took it. Her mouth softened. He did not 
 heed its suggestion. It was not until he was ac 
 tually gone that she fully realised the humiliation 
 to which he had subjected her. She knew herself 
 unequal to sustaining the role he had created for 
 her. To be the mystic ideal, the intangible spirit 
 of his life, appealed to her no more than the wife of 
 an absentee lord, like her own wedded husband. 
 This was the end then. It was all over, finished, 
 thrown aside. 
 
 Grandee fretted next day over missing his chess, 
 but Trent did not appear. 
 
 Stephanie, with shaking hands, tore open a note
 
 TWO BANKS OF A RIVER 331 
 
 from him by the afternoon delivery, but it was only 
 a sonnet, paradoxical as ever. 
 
 "Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part 
 
 Nay, I have done, you get no more of me; 
 
 And I ant glad, yea, glad with all my heart, 
 
 That thus so cleanly I myself can free. 
 
 Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows, 
 
 And when we meet at any time again, 
 
 Be it not seen in either of our brows 
 
 That we one jot of former love retain. 
 
 Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, 
 
 When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies, 
 
 When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death, 
 
 And Innocence is closing up his eyes, 
 
 Now if thou would'st, when all have given him over, 
 
 From death to life thou might'st him yet recover." 
 
 For some strange, inexplicable reason the sight 
 of his odd handwriting renewed all that had sunk 
 to ashes within her. He was temporising. And 
 if a man will temporise with temptation, who bet 
 ter than a woman knows what it means or to what 
 it leads? Perhaps it was not all over. Perhaps 
 he too had been unable to refuse himself the pos 
 sibility of reprieve. All her courage and confi 
 dence came back to her. It was with the recov 
 ered spirit of comedy he loved, that she wrote her 
 first line to him since his return: 
 
 "Ultimatum received. Daphne running."
 
 332 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 then ordered the car, and was driven to Westerly 
 to telegraph it back to him. Trent received the 
 despatch at dinner but did not open it until after 
 midnight ; omitting mention of it to the denizens 
 of the Squirrel's Nest, who were celebrating their 
 near departure by a bachelor frolic. 
 
 And that same night Grandee wrote to Raleigh 
 Payne at some length, filling his letter with many 
 details of interest to them both in a political sense, 
 and adding again in postscript, enigmatic but en 
 tirely lucid to his astute nephew: 
 
 " Under Goluchowski Austria slept her time away, un 
 der Aerenthal she seems to dream it away."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE WISDOM OF A DREAM 
 
 GRANDEE was giving a dinner in the su 
 perlative degree. The best lace, the 
 heavily embroidered R on the linen, the 
 heavily crested gilded glass, the gold enamel 
 spoons and the reckless profusion of red roses all 
 proved it. It was in honour of Christine, about 
 to leave them for town, and Newbold and Rem- 
 mington had been persuaded to stop over and share 
 this last reminiscence of the summer with the first 
 snowflakes in the air, which for a brief silvery hour 
 gave the world the effect of a " bal poudre." 
 
 Stephanie installed as hostess at one end of the 
 table, glittered in a wondrous gown from Vienna, 
 cut more decollete than any she had ever worn for 
 the previous simple grandeurs of Sky High. Trent, 
 seated as far from her as the table permitted, heard 
 her over and under the rest, though her voice was 
 low, for her gay little heartless laugh ran along 
 with her mood, and he found it quite exciting as a 
 social game, to pretend to know what the girl next 
 him was saying, and yet not to lose what Newbold 
 was saying to Mrs. Payne to amuse her, or what 
 she in turn, was saying or doing to make the stran- 
 
 333
 
 334 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 ger on her right, a guest of one of the cottagers, 
 stare at her with such open admiration. 
 
 He had branded the latter as no thorough-bred 
 by the third course, for the way he was ignoring 
 the girl beside him, and the disgusting obtrusive- 
 ness of his flirtatious intent. Newbold was too 
 clever to give him the least advantage though, there 
 was consolation in that certainty, and he inwardly 
 cheered his friend on to be as brilliant as lay in 
 his utmost power, and ward off the too appreciative 
 stare, with which the other man was covering the 
 woman desecrated by his enviable eyes. He came 
 to himself to hear the girl beside him saying: 
 
 " Yes, she wanted me to help her with her girl's 
 friendly. She opens it with prayer before the toe 
 dancing. But I said the girls of the lower class 
 had so much better time than the girls in society, 
 I did not see the use. I am sure they have three 
 or four men to play off against each other, and 
 we are lucky to get one for the week end ! " 
 
 " Oh, decidedly, a man's friendly would be more 
 in your line ! " Trent inserted, straining his will 
 not to glance down the table for several seconds. 
 
 " I did try to help in the rescue mission but that 
 has blown up, you know ? " she volunteered. 
 
 " Why, I thought that was doing splendidly, 
 what happened to it?" he asked as if it was right 
 in his line of interest. 
 
 " Has nobody told you ? Why the two women at
 
 THE WISDOM OF A DREAM 335 
 
 the head of it rescued each other's husbands ! One 
 drank and the other flirted abominably, and now 
 they do not speak ! " 
 
 " And yet you women want the ballot ! " he 
 threw in, to keep her talking so he could eaves 
 drop satisfactorily. 
 
 " Oh, I am not a suffragette. I am an Anti- 
 Anti," she said. " That is really the only position 
 for a lady, don't you think so, Mr. Trent? What 
 do you think about it ? " 
 
 " Me ? I believe in equal suffering for men and 
 women," he assured her, allowing himself a quick 
 glance toward Stephanie, beyond her. 
 
 " That would be the millennium, Trent," said 
 Grandee, laughing. " I wish we might live to 
 see it." 
 
 All but the trio at the other end of the table 
 gradually joined in the discussion: Trent arguing 
 amiably on both sides, or wherever the skirmish 
 seemed to need re-enforcement, after his usual con 
 versational irrelevance. Having started them all 
 he was once more at liberty to realise without 
 looking, that Stephanie had never been so at 
 tractive. 
 
 Grandee was talking to Christine of the local at 
 tempts at reform in their rural midst. " Socialism 
 does very well in national administration, properly 
 organised," he was saying, " but these women here 
 belter let it alone. It is just a form of egoism
 
 336 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 with them. People like our rival rescuers here, 
 take it up because they are idle and happy, and 
 there is another sort of women who take it up be 
 cause they are idle and miserable. The latter suc 
 ceed better on the whole, because they help them 
 selves if nobody else." 
 
 The girl on Trent's right acted bored. 
 
 " It is several years since we met, " she sug 
 gested. " It is odd you never married ! You 
 never did, did you ? " 
 
 " Not to my knowledge," Trent assured her. 
 " Did you ? " She shook her head negatively. 
 
 " Mrs. Payne is not wearing her famous crucifix 
 to-night, is she ? " was her next remark, made with 
 feminine irrelevance ; intending Trent to notice her 
 own jewelled chain of rare Florentine workman 
 ship. At the word crucifix, Christine turned to 
 Grandee. 
 
 " Have you any idea where I could get a cross 
 something like that one of Stephanie's? " she asked. 
 " I want one for a friend and I have hunted 
 through all the antique shops I know, in vain. One 
 old collector, after showing me everything else un 
 der the sun, confessed that people now-a-days like 
 crescent and horse-shoe designs better. He added 
 that there was no demand for crosses." 
 
 " I am afraid there never has been," said 
 Grandee soberly, thinking of Stephanie and glanc 
 ing at Trent.
 
 THE WISDOM OP A DREAM 337 
 
 " Oh, well, while we live let us laugh ! " he re 
 sponded, gaily 
 
 " Or peradventure we may weep ! " Grandee con 
 cluded. Trent's left-hand neighbour now pro 
 jected himself into the foreground in turn. " Mrs. 
 Payne is really looking rather well to-night," she 
 commented. " Only she ought not to wear black. 
 That is a mistake. It adds to her age so! Don't 
 you agree with me, Mr. Trent? Black is for the 
 very young or actual old. It should be avoided by 
 women who are neither one or the other pro 
 nouncedly." 
 
 " It is said to be ambiguous," he returned, and 
 looked past her, toward the Mrs. Payne of her dis 
 section. 
 
 She who talked little with him, was now all bad 
 inage and raillery, daring from time to time a 
 " mot " rather out of the local genre ; referring 
 with a gesture to illustrations in French literature, 
 apparently familiar to those beside her beyond need 
 of amplification. He had never seen her use her 
 hands with so foreign a freedom. They spoke in 
 a language of their own, compelling constant at 
 tention. This was her element. He admitted it. 
 How colourless their hours of reading together, 
 and the sedate guise of friendship at first, must 
 have been to such a woman! How she must de 
 spise him, when after coming to his senses and 
 telling her he loved her, he had walked away from
 
 338 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 the joy she offered him so unreservedly, with such 
 touching confidence in him. Was he so immacu 
 late that he must needs refuse her, in the mis 
 shapen loneliness of her life, any solace his love 
 could afford her, without counting any cost to 
 himself? If he had meant to fail her, why in 
 heaven's name had he made love to her? And how 
 superbly she had taken it; however she must 
 have caricatured him in her own thought. The 
 champagne he was drinking helped his riot of un 
 reason finely. Away with empty morality! Was 
 there ever another such selfish fool? And so on, 
 ignorant that rank jealousy was at work within 
 him, not gentle charity or just self-examination. 
 He forgot and looked once deliberately at her. 
 She returned his glance over her glass for a long 
 instant and the sensation went completely through 
 him, hot and cold. He felt it to his finger tips. 
 Of course she scorned him for a chilly, calculating 
 prig. What had she wanted to do with him? Or 
 have him do with her? But if he had acted in 
 noble accord with his conscience, what man or 
 priest would not have lost respect for a man who 
 could refuse the gift such a woman offered him? 
 He dared not look again all through the remainder 
 of the dinner. She was branded already on his 
 senses. Her throat, her curving shoulder thrown 
 a little forward enhancing the soft undulation of 
 her neck, and the delicacy of her bare arms in their
 
 THE WISDOM OF A DREAM 339 
 
 soft whiteness against the black gown, with a great 
 red rose in her corsage, that would have been banal 
 in any less exquisitely frail creature than she, but 
 seemed on her the flaring flower of her own heart. 
 
 " See ! I am Yusef's flower ! The red rose cried, 
 And wide and warm her sanguine bodice flings" 
 
 ran pitilessly through his memory, again and again. 
 
 He saw her hand stray to it several times, won 
 dered if she could forget, wondered if her heart 
 felt no thorn, knew that it did, and was glad! 
 
 When he listened again to the general conversa 
 tion some one was talking of an absent notoriety, 
 a playwright and mutual friend of all it appeared. 
 
 " I met him abroad in July," a Boston man was 
 saying, a man of the gossipy type, always look 
 ing up people and rehearsing their recent fortunes, 
 a sort of animated " Who is Who." 
 
 " He married Mary Swain, the widow of Percy 
 Blythe, did he not?" asked the girl next Trent. 
 
 " Yes, it was an ill-omened marriage from the 
 start," some one else agreed quickly. 
 
 " Why ? " inserted Trent, for the sake of saying 
 something to show that he was in the circle. 
 
 " Because she was older than he. That never 
 works out," replied the Gossip, and then followed 
 lists of unhappy Jacks and Jims and Percys who 
 had tried it, and supported his theory.
 
 340 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 Suddenly Trent felt the inevitable settling down 
 over him like an imagination of the hangman's 
 cap. She was older than he in the experience that 
 ages a woman most. She was dependent upon lux 
 ury, such as none but the rich and successful man 
 could give her. Even counting out his own pre 
 disposition toward the scholar's life or the priest 
 hood, her whim for him was nothing more than 
 the caprice of a woman of society, in a moment of 
 despair over losing temporarily the higher stakes 
 in the glittering game of life. 
 
 " I do hope we are going to hear Mrs. Payne 
 sing to-night. Have you heard her ? " asked the 
 girl, again interrupting him. " Are you musical, 
 Mr. Trent? What is your instrument?" 
 
 " I play the golden lyre," he told her unblush- 
 ingly. 
 
 "All the time?" 
 
 " No, because then it would cease to be that in 
 strument and become truth. And life is so monot 
 onous when every one goes about repeating the 
 same things just as they are! It is mental pho 
 tography, not art, mere bleak repetition, hearsay 
 still-born, like reading the newspaper aloud. The 
 joy of lying conies from the common habit of 
 truth." 
 
 As they left the table for the smoking room, he 
 caught fragments of an unfinished discussion from 
 the absorbed trio at the head of the table.
 
 THE WISDOM OF A DREAM 341 
 
 " If retribution came now, not hereafter, one 
 might feel differently " the stranger said, bal 
 ancing the point, and Newbold finished it abruptly, 
 saying as he drew back Stephanie's chair, " Oh, 
 hell is the other woman ! " 
 
 " Is it not possible that it can be the other man ? " 
 the stranger persisted. 
 
 " Myself, I do not know. I never love but one 
 man," Stephanie said guardedly. 
 
 " At a time ? " Newbold queried. It was hard, 
 poor Trent swore to himself, to be forced to dive 
 under the chair of that girl next him, at that very 
 moment, in search of a missing glove, when he 
 wanted to note Stephanie's expression. But man's 
 lot is often doomed to just such tedious knight- 
 errantry, unsupported by steed or lance. 
 
 He kept away from his hostess the rest of the 
 evening, devoting himself ostentatiously to Chris 
 tine's guests, and saying good-night with formal 
 brevity in Newbold's wake. There was an ensu 
 ing complication of motors and carriages that car 
 ried them all together out to the porte cochere, but 
 somehow Trent was left alone to drift back for his 
 coat. Newbold had gone down with Christine's 
 party to see them safely in. Remmington had 
 walked on, supposing him arranged for in another 
 car. He saw Grandee kiss Stephanie's hand with 
 impressive appreciation and start up the wide stair 
 way. There was no light in the library where she
 
 342 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 stood, but that from the hall, and the fire on the 
 hearth. 
 
 He saw her throw herself down in her usual 
 chair with the familiar grace he loved. Quietly, 
 without really knowing what he was about to do, 
 he came to her, and leaning over the back of her 
 chair, covered her hand with his own and kissed 
 her like flame upon her mouth. He might hold 
 out against her in absence but her presence cap 
 tivated him against his vrill. 
 
 Then bending lower, he kissed the red rose she 
 wore. 
 
 " Now I have broken every vow I made," he 
 said firmly. " You can do about as you like with 
 me. Let us talk ! " 
 
 He dropped the cushions from the divan down 
 beside her and seated himself at her feet, her hand 
 still in his. A tense pause ensued, then he slipped 
 one arm lightly about her. They sat so, while the 
 fire absorbed their gaze in utter silence. Stephanie 
 first gave a long sigh of quivering content. 
 
 " You are the music of silence," she said softly 
 as if to herself. 
 
 Another long interlude unbroken save by the 
 purring of the fire, as an adventurous flame reached 
 to the heart of the great log and flared up ecstat 
 ically. 
 
 " Don't you hope heaven is like this ? " he asked, 
 as if merely continuing his own fantasy aloud.
 
 THE WISDOM OF A DREAM 343 
 
 " Why should one doubt it ? " she ventured, her 
 lips so close to his she could scarcely frame the 
 words. She bent over him murmuring her in 
 satiable question, " Are you mine, Cheri ? Are you 
 really 'mine? " 
 
 " Yours ! " he declared solemnly. But with the 
 quick reactionary restraint she had seen before and 
 dreaded, he drew back from the embrace that had 
 all but enfolded them and closed his eyes. Was 
 there something lacking in her charm for him? 
 Had he perhaps a loftier conception of rapture pos 
 sible to himself than any, lower than the supernat 
 ural, could ever afford? 
 
 " Why ? " she cried, apprehensive of some mys 
 terious change in him toward her. 
 
 " I am afraid of loving you too much." 
 
 " But of you I shall not demand anything. I 
 am yours to do with as you will, and after, 
 nothing. Absolutely nothing ! " It was a simple 
 statement of fact, no protestation. He knew it. 
 Stephanie sat wondering. " Truly you are a man," 
 she said reflectively. " I give you passion and you 
 blanch away from it. I give you indifference, as 
 to-night at dinner, and you retaliate with this. 
 Yours is the most sensuous soul and mystic sense 
 conceivable. You must at times, I am sure, be 
 confused to decide if you are reptile or angel." 
 
 " To-night I must be an angel, for this is 
 heaven," he reminded her. " And I am sure God
 
 344 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 must be pleased with us now, I am so content." 
 
 " You are very strange, Gaston. What has 
 changed you? You thought not so long ago love 
 was a sin to be resisted, and not sufficiently charm 
 ing to hazard the possible punishment. And 
 now?" 
 
 " I was sure it was a sin at first. I swore it 
 should stop, and then I was afraid it had. And 
 all the while I was away, I nearly died of loneli 
 ness without you, and when I was on my way to 
 Canada to camp with some men and forget you, I 
 saw you waiting for me, through that infinitely 
 blessed car window, and went after you without so 
 much as my coat, left hanging on its peg. And 
 you never noticed that men do not usually travel 
 with one glove and nothing in the way of luggage, 
 not even an umbrella! And now I am unhappy 
 because I know such happiness cannot last." 
 
 " And now you think also that it is no longer 
 wrong? " 
 
 " And now I do not care if it is ! " 
 
 " How strange " she began. 
 
 " It was strange, it is not any more. It is 
 simply irresistible." 
 
 She wanted to accept it as final, but this was to 
 night, and Stephanie knew that to-morrow would 
 not be the same. She comprehended his nature too 
 well to count on continuity of passion. And even 
 now, having soared to his zenith, he dove away
 
 THE WISDOM OF A DREAM 345 
 
 from her and took refuge in the flippant common 
 place. 
 
 She listened as he criticised Grandee's taste in 
 placing a random stranger next her at table that 
 evening. " He is not a gentleman, of course/' 
 Trent haughtily announced, " for he asked who 
 you were, yesterday in the village. No gentleman 
 would do that. Newbold and I never did. We 
 only told Christine and Jim that we did not mind 
 coming to tea with them some afternoon when you 
 were there." 
 
 " Oh, you precious ridiculous ! But how did you 
 know who sat by me, or what he was like? You 
 devoted yourself to Christine's friend so exclu 
 sively " she inferred her own consequent ex 
 clusion by a shrug. 
 
 " Did I ? I am glad. I had not noticed it." 
 
 " And that Mallory woman on your left was 
 very handsome." 
 
 " And like a grand piano. shut, to talk to. 
 Your gown was at fault too. I found it " 
 
 "All that it should be?" she asked anxiously. 
 
 " More ! But you were quite shameless in the 
 way you effaced all the others. I honestly pitied 
 them." 
 
 " Is it possible you saw it ? You never for but 
 one instant turned your eyes in my direction." 
 
 " I was afraid," he admitted gravely. " I am 
 always afraid of Newbold's eyes. They see when
 
 346 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 one least expects them to. Grandee has very 
 shrewd eyes too, sometimes. And you are a very- 
 terrifying person yourself in society. I feel 
 when I look at you, it cannot have been true: 
 it never was true; that I am just one of 'les 
 autres.' " 
 
 " Grandee trusts me entirely," she said hur 
 riedly, slurring over his compunction. But it did 
 not ring true. They both understood the false 
 ness of their position and suffered from it, not 
 only for each other, but for the personal loss of 
 self-esteem it involved. 
 
 It was characteristic of Lawrence Trent that he 
 could not stay pitched in one key. Tragedy was 
 not his taste, however it might prove to be his 
 fate. Tense as they both were to-night, he was 
 obliged to follow the law of his nature and slide 
 down a semi-tone, a whole third, an octave even, 
 by his trifling, to avert disaster. He could not 
 bear the sustained realisation of the pass to which 
 they had inadvertently come. 
 
 "You did amuse yourself, you will not deny?" 
 he insisted. 
 
 "Can it be possible that you were jealous?" 
 She was all dubious instantly. 
 
 " Newbold is very attractive and, as I have told 
 you before, every woman likes a new victim." 
 
 " He is brilliant, but not contagious," she dis 
 criminated.
 
 THE WISDOM OF A DREAM 347 
 
 " I did not mind. I rather enjoyed it. It is 
 more fun not to be certain of anything." 
 
 Stephanie recoiled. He felt it. 
 
 " You say it is fun, more fun," she remarked 
 sharply. " I have been false to a man who loves 
 me, for you. I cannot conceive of pretending to 
 give a moment's consideration to another man. It 
 is degrading. To so much as glance with coquetry 
 at another man is to declass oneself; it is vulgar, 
 plebeian. I shall never stoop to subterfuge or art 
 with you. It is not great or splendid. You have 
 it always in your power to humiliate me, by recall 
 ing that I have been at heart unfaithful to Raleigh 
 Payne, but you should be the last man in all the 
 world to inflict such disrespect upon my sacred 
 misfortune in loving you ! " 
 
 It was an unexpected depth in her, disconcerting 
 perhaps, but promising much for the clarity of her 
 affection, and boding ill for the complexity of the 
 relation he had involved them in. Hidden, holy, 
 hopeless as it was to him, he could not have defined, 
 even in her arms, if he really would have wished 
 it otherwise. It so suited his vague need of lov 
 ing and being loved, without personal responsibil 
 ity, or the cross of conflicting mutual obligations 
 of duty-imposing love under normal and regular 
 conditions. 
 
 A clock struck one. 
 
 " It is nothing to you ! You have nothing what-
 
 348 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 ever to say about it ! " Trent contradicted whim 
 sically. " But I have got to go home sometime, 
 I suppose." He unfastened the red rose from her 
 corsage and slipped it safely beneath his coat. 
 His last kiss was sacramental, an experience of 
 infinity in which all sense of self went down. 
 
 She lay quiescent in her deep chair before the 
 fire, after he had gone, unwilling to break the en 
 chantment of his spell. 
 
 She wondered later, what lie he would offer 
 Newbold in extenuation of the hour. She fell 
 asleep there at last, and dreamed. The dream shut 
 her in a room, like one she had occupied in Heidel- 
 burg, where moon-beams sifted through chestnut 
 trees in bloom and made feathery shadows tremb 
 ling on the wall. The mountains rose sharply out 
 side a window by which some one stood. She 
 heard a door drawn softly shut. As it closed, she 
 turned, but perceived it to be Raleigh who stood 
 beside her, and knew it to be Trent who had 
 closed the doqr and stood outside. 
 
 She waked sickened, with a physical sense of 
 chill, just as the Centaur freight train raced wild 
 down the steep grade. The pang that smote Her 
 revealed their situation. Her heart seemed to 
 stop. The dream outraged her soul and body. 
 She wanted to pray. The future leered at her 
 from the darkness. Even the echo of the familiar 
 train had vanished into the unknown.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE POSTMAN 
 
 ON the desk in Stephanie's own room lay 
 the usual elaborate writing contrivances 
 monogrammed and crested, for Raleigh 
 was fond of the Payne crest and liked to see it 
 reappear, repeated in varying form, under any pre 
 text. It gave him an ancestral feeling, a new young 
 dignity to offset her Austrian background. His 
 own picture, in a heavy silver frame, also cor 
 rectly monogrammed and crested, stood appropri 
 ately in the midst; surrounded by many small but 
 significant trophies connected with their courtship, 
 which he liked to see about her. It was, however, 
 at the small mahogany table in her dressing room, 
 by the window overlooking the narrow strip of 
 forest and the edge of the lawn, that she spent her 
 long solitary afternoons of summer and the bril 
 liant chill autumn mornings. Here were Trent's 
 careless notes, mere little bundles of faggots she 
 told him his writing resembled ; and here were also 
 the books Trent brought her to read and the flow 
 ers he cared for. That was all. She had an 
 aversion to any tangible proof of devotion, because 
 of these very accumulated gifts of Raleigh, which 
 
 349
 
 350 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 dragged on her memory like manacles, bidding her 
 mind guard what her heart had long loosed. 
 
 " Give me only that which cannot last ! " had 
 been her entreaty of Trent. " Give me, if you will, 
 a flower, a thought, a tear, the joy I do not see 
 or touch, that I shall not be obliged to behold it 
 with sharp regret at some future time, recalling 
 that which I most wish to put far from me. A 
 gift, Cheri, so soon becomes the symbol of an ex 
 perience that is dead. And one cherishes the body 
 of the dead but three days, however beloved, so 
 why then preserve the dead form of a love that 
 has vanished ? " 
 
 But to her the room was full of Trent. For 
 here were her conjectures, her fears, her brief 
 memories; clinging like incense undisturbed in 
 some holy place. He had never been here of 
 course, but he seemed to Stephanie never to have 
 been away. And here she always found him. It 
 was a northeast room, which perhaps accounted for 
 the rather pensive romance of the shadows across 
 the summer grass, or the autumnal feeling that 
 summer had turned her face away, which came 
 later as the season deepened into earlier dusk. All 
 the gates of summer seemed closed behind them 
 now and locked in frost, yet no letters came from 
 the North Woods and every day sped faster than 
 its predecessor, while the wasting November 
 prophesied the end in pitiless terms of dun-colour.
 
 THE POSTMAN 351 
 
 Every day too, Stephanie and Trent might have 
 asked with the divine old poet 
 
 "What did we do i' faith, before we loved?" 
 
 so absorbing had not only that occupation, but 
 their necessary precaution to conceal it from others, 
 become. He must have known that she was his, 
 to take or refuse. He gave her his love in his own 
 pent, cruel, silent way, most often against his will, 
 but he would never promise or beseech. It was 
 left to something outside themselves to determine 
 their destiny. 
 
 A perplexity as to the extent a lover is prepared 
 to support his protestations is the most absorbing 
 preoccupation a woman can have. And if he does 
 not protest, merely assumes, the perplexity is dou 
 bled. Stephanie followed her clew till it began to 
 mislead or she began to run ahead of the actual 
 scent of fact, then went back, to avoid the misty 
 turning between truth and her desire for what 
 should be truth, to again find herself confronting 
 one result at one minute, and its exact opposite the 
 next. She knew her own sickening predicament 
 by that vivid dream. 
 
 " If I am tempted to let Raleigh come back, I 
 shall live over again that terrible instant ! " she re 
 minded herself. " I have only in imagination to 
 feel my heart stop, as it did when that door was
 
 352 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 shut, to realise all the future." It shocked her to 
 recall that intimate moment, even in a dream. 
 She had expected, without too much struggle, that 
 all would externally remain as before. It would 
 look like purple and feel like treason, but that was 
 one of the world's accepted compromises. Now 
 it became revolting physically as well as morally. 
 She cried out to be saved from such catastrophe, 
 but the prayers of " the Way of the Cross " were 
 for those who approached by renunciation of their 
 sinful desires. And to renounce her love was not 
 in Stephanie. 
 
 Yet how was she to pray? How could she beg 
 of the implacable God to make her lover true, 
 when she was false? 
 
 " C'est ridicule, ma position!" she cried in her 
 heart. " If heaven had not such an infinitely nar 
 row conception of a woman ! " " To be a Ma 
 donna is but one career, justly ! " " And surely a 
 woman of society has need of God, more than some 
 innocent virgin of the peasantry! But how to 
 pray? To pray that he might sleep and dream of 
 her? What rosary held a petition like this? To 
 pray that he might come without fail, to-morrow 
 as always? Could the Almighty Judge turn from 
 his divine rehabilitation of fallen mankind and re- 
 introduction to fitness for eternal glory, long enough 
 to send Trent to her, with kisses smouldering on 
 his lips and the light of passion hid so deeply
 
 THE POSTMAN 353 
 
 down behind his eyes? No, surely not. The bon 
 Dieu must be too occupied sorting his goats from 
 his sheep." She was left to renounce all carnal 
 joys and earthly vanities unassisted. 
 
 It was just here that Raleigh's prohibition of 
 the confessional infected her, and even spread be 
 yond her to the demoralisation of Trent himself. 
 The ambition that saw in her relation to the priest 
 a menace to a phase of political activity, failed to 
 foresee the safeguard against the insidious lure of 
 love-in-loneliness. Stephanie reasoned that if her 
 religion failed her now, it was good for little. If 
 heaven would not help her now, for what use was 
 it intended ? She knew Trent prayed for her. He 
 was so good! Found such peace in his Mass, 
 looked so rapt afterward! His prayers surely 
 must surely be heard, yet for what did he pray? 
 
 That she might be faithful to her marriage vows? 
 Hateful! 
 
 That she might be too pure to love out of the 
 sacrament? Odious! 
 
 Once he had said on leaving her, " Now one long 
 wicked kiss ! " And with all her small strength 
 she had held him back. 
 
 " Not if you believe it is wicked," she had in 
 sisted. " I want to be holy to you, first in your 
 prayers as in your passion." She wanted more, in 
 reality, she wanted to be his peace and passion. 
 She was jealous of his goodness. " This affair of
 
 354 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 his soul with heaven ! " And he had overpowered 
 her, of course, and whispered as he kissed her, 
 " Oh, you are, you are first ! I do not care how 
 wrong it is ! I am all past that ! " 
 
 They were at sea, poor children, equally. 
 
 " All my vows broken ! " she heard him sigh ; 
 and again when she asked him hesitatingly, " Do 
 you mind if I care so much?" he had replied, as 
 if oppressed, she thought, " I do not mind any 
 thing now." 
 
 But she was forced to feel it a desperate accept 
 ance of their intimacy, on his part, rather than any 
 elation of happiness or personal triumph. 
 
 Sometimes he reverted to his original pose, say 
 ing quietly, as if he meant it, " I hate you." 
 
 " I detest you," was her invariable reply. 
 
 To which he would always retort, " I abhor you, 
 because I adore you ! " 
 
 " I have never asked you the only question that 
 I must ask soon," she said to him once, and he 
 cried impulsively: 
 
 " Leave it unasked ! I hate questions," as if he 
 foresaw a change impending in their relation 
 and wished to ward it off by affecting not to 
 see it. 
 
 " I must ask it " she repeated steadily. 
 " Do you love me ? " She felt how he grew tense, 
 then relaxed as if from the joy of a danger threat 
 ened and passed.
 
 THE POSTMAN 355 
 
 Were they the frail bands of indomitable con 
 science, or the pale hope of some remote eternal 
 bliss that so militated against her? 
 
 They were not happy and yet they could never 
 go back the way they had come, even if it had oc 
 curred to either so to desire. And every day the 
 mail came up to Sky High, bringing a quicker ter 
 ror to her heart for their diminishing safety. 
 Sometimes the impending danger made her trem 
 ble so that she feared detection from menial eyes, 
 and took a glass of wine before she ventured to 
 meet what might be lurking in the postman's hand. 
 At other times she fell upon her knees, whispering 
 wildly to the unmoved crucifix above her head, 
 " Have mercy ! Have pity ! Not to-day ! Not 
 to-day ! Not yet ! Give me courage ! But not to 
 day ! " Or merely repeated a few beads, distracted 
 and unheeding; an unintelligent form of signal 
 for help, like that of a drowning man without 
 proper rockets to call other ships to his succour 
 before he sinks for the last time. 
 
 Trent took more wine at dinner than had ever 
 been his habit before. He had to. It dulled the 
 call of the nerves or made him indifferent toward 
 inward remonstrance. To Stephanie he was an 
 increasing enigma. She perfectly recognised his 
 being bound by every obligation of manly honour 
 to make no least demand of her. Yet if he only 
 would! She had the woman's appetite for self-
 
 356 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 sacrifice, regretted his inadequate tyranny, doubted 
 her own charm. What if she failed to arouse a 
 passion sufficiently enduring and inexorable? She 
 knew there were lures before which men were 
 weak. And did men who really lived the lives of 
 men, ever allow honour to tie their hands to the 
 exclusion of inclination? She was a woman bred 
 to a different code. The fine edge of the blade of 
 an American's honour with women was out of her 
 reckoning by no fault of her own. She had yet 
 to learn that it takes more power to swerve an 
 American from his straight and narrow path of 
 the married sanctities, than to keep him in it. The 
 reverse may hold in Europe, but here the line of 
 least resistance is decency and the respect of 
 women, with an old-fashioned awe of a certain 
 commandment Moses and America have gone into 
 partnership on, in spite of lax divorce and the mil 
 lionaire minority. 
 
 If Raleigh came before Trent further committed 
 himself, and if the supernatural could not be pre 
 vailed upon to assist her, where was she to find 
 succour? No prayer and no exit came to her trou 
 bled suggestion. 
 
 She clung, for her single hope, to the only hint 
 of her definite salvation Trent had ever cast out. 
 It was but a brief exchange of sentences, that 
 might have been idle words unsupported by any 
 definite resolution.
 
 THE POSTMAN 357 
 
 " Raleigh may go to Panama, indefinitely," she 
 had thrown out, meaning separation. 
 
 " Let him ! " Trent replied savagely. 
 
 " But you will not let me go with him? " 
 
 "Never!" 
 
 " Do you care more than you did ? " 
 
 " I do not see how that would be possible." 
 
 It was all she had for a spar in possible ship 
 wreck, and she was not so infatuated as to trust 
 too implicitly to its endurance under stress and 
 storm. Before her dream she had tried to say to 
 herself that Raleigh was hers, and proud of hen; 
 he moved on the stage with assurance, never 
 lacked dignity or claimed from her preposterous 
 satisfactions: that her own tact would be equal to 
 whatever complication arose. He and she, what 
 ever there might lie concealed between them, un 
 derstood each other's love of effect and the stra 
 tegic position. But now, since her dream, the re 
 pulsion of the flesh made him impossible. 
 
 Raleigh had bought her, bargained for her. He 
 did not love her for love's 'sake. She had never 
 felt more than an attraction of the flesh toward 
 him, disgraceful as it might be. And yet he was 
 her husband and the postman would come some 
 day, until when here her argument broke 
 down. So every day she waited and dreaded, and 
 every day it had been put off once again, and she 
 grasped the cup of reprieve with fingers that shook,
 
 358 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 her spirits, soaring. There was never comrade so 
 gay, until the ghastly dread took hold of her 
 again, at sight of the grey-uniformed Fate, post 
 ing up to Sky High on his next round; impartially 
 scattering tragedy and comedy from his un-classic 
 motor-cycle, all unsuspicious of his potential im 
 portance to the peace of the pretty Mrs. Payne he 
 admired without limitation. 
 
 Trent, meantime kept desperately at his books, 
 never sparing himself, taking her quite by surprise 
 one morning by his announcement that he was off 
 to town for a few days. Conjecture could not sup 
 ply his motive, and his reticence was cloaked in 
 that appearance of frankness, already so familiar 
 to her in his evasive moods. 
 
 " Must you go now, just now?" she said, try 
 ing not to let her voice sound imploring. 
 
 " I have decisions to make, people to see, im 
 portant matters to arrange," he explained with an 
 inclusiveness intentionally misleading. 
 
 Her heart took fright at once. After all he was 
 one of these self-centred Americans, who allowed 
 neither love nor inclination to cross their deathless 
 determination to advance. 
 
 " We have so few days left " she faltered. 
 
 " But we have had so many ! " he exclaimed hap 
 pily. 
 
 " How long shall you be gone ? " 
 
 " Not more than ten days."
 
 THE POSTMAN 359 
 
 " Ten days ! " she stammered, " ten days but 
 I shall be so miserable " 
 
 " If you will not look like Durer's Melancholy, 
 I will make it two or three," he offered, enjoying 
 her confusion. 
 
 " Why do you persecute me so with the fear that 
 you are already weary ? " she demanded, her small 
 head thrown back, her hands tragically out-spread. 
 
 " Because you are so simple in spite of all your 
 subtlety." 
 
 "We are all simple when we love. But, Cheri, 
 I am not like other women in one respect, I care 
 only for what is mine. It may not be noble but it 
 is, alas! also true." 
 
 " That is a singular virtue. Most women care 
 for nothing until they have lost it," he complied. 
 
 " Yes, and for this reason it is not necessary for 
 you to absent yourself and be lost to me, to make 
 me love you. I shall love you a thousand times 
 more if you will not go. You will not? You will 
 give me these few days more?" 
 
 " Oh, no, I am going. I said I was, and I haye 
 written other people so," he asserted quite unde 
 terred. Instantly she was all dread of his leaving 
 her, felt the premonition of the hours without him, 
 struggling to remain calm externally. 
 
 " You will send me a little word to-morrow ? " 
 she begged, intent on forestalling the impending 
 blank, before which she already quailed.
 
 360 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 " Impossible ! I could not write you now," he 
 said, " my words would burn through the paper 
 and set the mail bag on fire ! " 
 
 " I so loved your notes last time you were away ; 
 but especially I loved your telegram," she derided 
 fondly, " the one you promised to send on arrival, 
 and did not remember to send at all." 
 
 " Promises are only good to break," he objected. 
 
 " If all the world so regarded them " she be 
 gan 
 
 " Put me in a class all by myself, in that respect, 
 then," he invited her unblushingly. But she 
 sighed quickly. " Alas ! then I am obliged to place 
 you in a class together with all the men I have ever 
 known in my life. I had hoped you were unique. 
 And if you do not believe in truth, in what do you 
 believe supremely, profoundly, Gaston ? " 
 
 Trent resented her insight and appreciated the 
 implication of her reproof, but he kept that to him 
 self, saying with a sudden bitterness that shocked 
 her, " I believe in the love-neverlasting, destroyer 
 of heaven and earth ! " Then, turning his head 
 aside, while she noted the rigidity of his face and 
 its unnatural pallour, he muttered, " It will not 
 last, it cannot last. It never does, and each 
 time brings the end closer." She tasted the chal 
 lenge to fate in his kiss and gloried in it, but her 
 impotence to turn him from his proposed journey 
 to town was like a hand at her throat. She would
 
 THE POSTMAN 361 
 
 not let him see her real suffering over so slight a 
 difference, but her heart went white within her. 
 He noticed her loss of colour and irregular breath 
 ing, and coming back to stand beside her, laid his 
 arm about her shoulders fondly, as he comforted 
 her by saying, " Think what a pleasure it will be 
 to come back ! " 
 
 She forced herself to share his mood, not daring 
 to oppose her own lest it annoy him ; arguing only 
 with reluctant eyes. They both felt vaguely that 
 there were things which probably ought to be said, 
 but they did not want to say them ; though by this 
 very assuming of their non-existence they realised 
 and evaded the possibility of raising an issue. 
 Such a mutual ignoring became a bond of avoid 
 ance, uniting them in a common effort. Panoplied 
 in their now recognition of the situation as an open 
 fact between them, they could sit now talking of 
 everything and anything else, while the reckless 
 ghosts of former hours revelled, mocking at them 
 from each other's arms, filling the room with phan 
 tom echoes of sighs and love-words, pitiless, tor 
 menting, distracting by comparison with the un 
 demonstrative present. 
 
 Their actual parting was tense, a silent, white 
 Mass, partaken side by side. Mystics, dreamers, 
 they both were; Fate might well laugh at their 
 doubt of any power to destroy what lay between 
 their eyes and deeper than touch. Their individ-
 
 362 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 uality complicated an otherwise simple outcome, by 
 their obstinacy in blessing God for each other. 
 Trent, in his first grim struggle with the element 
 that has worsted saint and hero alike, was con 
 strained to reconcile Deity with the sanction of his 
 love, which Stephanie took for granted. To her 
 the " bon Dieu " was marvellously making repara 
 tion for all that had hitherto been lacking in her 
 life. The strength to resist weakened with every 
 fresh persuasion in each other's favour. There 
 had come to be for both an inexpressible dearness 
 in their association, which set each secretly won 
 dering if in any constant association of a man and 
 woman who loved, one might not pretty safely 
 rely upon a wide margin of totally inexplicable 
 fascination, after all. As Trent wandered up and 
 down the dreary platform of the junction station 
 to-day, he wondered why it had seemed so at 
 tractive in the gathering dusk with Stephanie. He 
 recalled the hat she wore, her eyes that set him 
 imagining, and her tempestuous lips that let him 
 know. Where was that giddy spirit of joy to 
 day? Then and Now, that oldest of all tragi 
 comedies of man, was being again enacted in all 
 its tiresome sameness, only that it was within him, 
 a matter of his own individuality. 
 
 In the writing room of a certain down-town 
 caravansary, that same evening in New York, a
 
 THE POSTMAN 363 
 
 man very brown as to complexion and well devel 
 oped of muscle sat writing as fast as his pen could 
 fly. The capital letters were large, denoting self- 
 absorption, and the rest of the words were carried 
 to their end by sheer momentum. To one accus 
 tomed to his hand, what he wrote, however little 
 it might look like it, was really intended for 
 
 Darling Stephanie: 
 
 Feeling like a fighting cock. Got in this afternoon and 
 must stay here over to-morrow for a business conference 
 of importance. Expect me at Sky High in a few days at 
 latest. The city is dull enough without you. Greetings to 
 Uncle Randall, 
 
 Your aff. husband, 
 
 RALEIGH PAYNE. 
 
 This done he gave it to a page to mail, and 
 hurried off to dine at Christine's and go to the 
 first night at the opera, in the box of another friend 
 later. And upstairs in the same hotel, it happened, 
 a boy sat trying to write a letter of farewell, try 
 ing to bear the nameless pain that enveloped him 
 like some deadly mist and gathered in his throat 
 and choked him. At last, he tore all his attempts 
 in fragments and going to the telephone called up 
 Western Union. 
 
 " Take a message, please, and get it sent at once, 
 will you ? " he called and then dictated word by 
 word :
 
 364 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 To Mrs. Raleigh Payne, 
 Sky High, 
 
 Four Roads, New Hampshire 
 
 City glorious. Off to play, no time to write. Love to 
 Grandee. " On with the dance " ! 
 
 L. T. 
 
 And then he sat down and burying his head on 
 his arms shook like a man in ague from the effort 
 not to sob. And it was not till afternoon, follow 
 ing a night that brought no counsel, that he re 
 turned hastily to Sky High, without having accom 
 plished all of that important business he had de 
 clared as his object in coming. 
 
 Stephanie had waked and dreamed the night 
 away by turns, not neglecting the call of the two 
 o'clock freight or the four o'clock express. At in 
 tervals she counted the hours until she had him 
 back. That he might not come had never oc 
 curred to her. Grandee talked delightfully at din 
 ner, of the vulgarity of cities, of the modesty and 
 charm of the country to natures fine enough to ap 
 preciate its distinction of silence and space. It 
 reassured her soothingly. Terrified as she always 
 was by the thought of any woman attracting Trent, 
 any girl charming him by contrast, it comforted 
 her to remember how banal and unsympathetic the 
 glare and crowds must seem to him, after their 
 hidden life together here. It had been a monstrous
 
 THE POSTMAN 365 
 
 risk to run, she admitted, but he would come back 
 more hers than ever. The agony she suffered in 
 the dread of his leaving her would be assuaged, at 
 least for a time, in his gladness of return. She 
 went over all the circumstances that might be 
 safely calculated upon to detain Raleigh. Trent 
 and she had a little longer, and one of them 
 might die before the end, who could say? 
 
 At dawn she told herself she should see Trent 
 before another day, and waited with steadier fin 
 gers than she had boasted for a long time, as the 
 postman came up the hill. He found her waiting 
 for him, with gaunt trees high above her, pacing 
 the icy terrace, with a shine in her eyes to rival 
 the glitter of the scene about her. He delivered 
 both letter and telegram, after the local fashion, 
 the operator having been called away to a funeral 
 and, seeing there was no hurry from the contents, 
 not choosing to take the trouble to call up Sky 
 High for its transmission. 
 
 . She managed to smile and thank him, to even 
 comment on the beauty of the ice-storm, then she 
 lost herself in the desolate little forest, to read 
 what she had always known must come, yet never 
 believed could.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 
 
 STEPHANIE still held the letter and the tele 
 gram in her hand when she regained her 
 own room an hour later. Life sickened her. 
 She turned from Grandee, whose kindly soul had 
 ministered and guarded so faithfully. She did not 
 want to be saved from herself or her sin or her 
 love. Deeper than those fangs of pain at her heart 
 was her vivid consciousness of the sweet smile that 
 grew so cruel, and the cruel heart that was once so 
 sweet. She was the victim of her own nature : 
 too true to covet a new love, too satisfied to crave 
 other satisfactions or distraction. She had given 
 Trent all, from her soul's secret dim corners, and 
 if he could not accept these conditions, she was too 
 utterly robbed to begin again. She stared about 
 her. Was it all true? Had it come to this? 
 Those pictures of Christ in the chapel windows, 
 and at the shrines of the convent, did they all 
 mean suffering? Were they after all something 
 that stood for more than an incensed vision ? And 
 was God a force with whom she, Stephanie, must 
 reckon? She, whose mother's name was Pleasure 
 and whose father's stricken from the family rec- 
 
 366
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 367 
 
 ords? Was God going to judge her, here and 
 now? Was she facing inevitable law and punish 
 ment before death, like those miserable Old Testa 
 ment people she ignored? Here, now, with no 
 priest to intercede for her with the Saints? Was 
 the renunciation of the Imitation compulsory, not 
 the tranced exhortation of a monk? Was it true 
 that she, Stephanie of the long mirrors and those 
 dashing Viennese streets, the Stephanie of salon 
 and ball room, was she to be brought face to face 
 alone, with sacrifice of all she loved and desired? 
 It could not be! There must be some way, some 
 expiation that could make black look white enough 
 to pass! She had found what she supremely 
 wanted, and it had brought her desperate inward 
 desolation, to rend her, with ghastly doubt laying 
 siege to her soul, and a chaotic uncertainty of any 
 design anywhere that included her. She had de 
 fied God, neglected the laws of her religion, and 
 this had come to pass. Yet she had asked so little 
 of God! Only some one to love and to love her! 
 Only a boy's soul! 
 
 From the north window of her room she gazed 
 hopelessly out at the slender denuded birches, leaf 
 less and uninspired. It was a Boecklin landscape 
 hinting of conclusion, death, and doom even. The 
 hills in the cold December light were sharply lined 
 as a steel engraving, solemn as a passage of Scrip 
 ture. Seen behind the shivering virgin birches
 
 368 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 they seemed as the encircling Greek chorus, about 
 to warn of impending tragedy. 
 
 Raleigh would be there to-night. Trent was 
 gone. What was she to do? 
 
 " I am Raleigh's wife, I am his wife," she 
 whispered to herself. " He has the right to do as 
 he wills with me. And I love life so that I have 
 not the force to destroy myself. No, it is not that 
 I love life; it is another man. I will not live with 
 Raleigh ! And I have not money enough to go 
 away and live abroad, and my lover is an Ameri 
 can, with all that signifies, and he has a career too, 
 which he loves best in the end, and a horror of ir 
 regular relations with a woman. But he is mine ! 
 He swore it. He is myself, and if a man loves a 
 woman he will kill her before he will let another 
 man take her from him. The test of a man is 
 what he will fight for. There may not be any God, 
 but there is love, and there is the man I love. And 
 if he loves me he must want to keep me from Ra 
 leigh!" 
 
 But she had not the consolation of an ignorant 
 faith in men, and even as she said it she was terri 
 fied, for she knew it was not inevitable, it was not 
 even probable in a thousand proven cases. A train 
 whistled at the crossing. Her eyes flashed. Of 
 course, that was it. That would settle it all. She 
 would go to town under any pretext and see Trent 
 mmediately. How soft his hair was ! " Mon
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 369 
 
 Dieu ! how I have suffered without him ! " she 
 sobbed. Something relaxed within her and for the 
 moment she was mercifully forgetful that Trent 
 had a career and she, incidentally, a husband. 
 
 She forgot that while she had waked and waited 
 Trent had gone gaily to the play, by his own tele 
 gram's admission. She was blind to all but the 
 vision she loved best, the feeling of his arms about 
 her, his breath in her own. For the instant noth 
 ing was true but this, after the manner of women 
 who shun truth when it lights an unwelcome face. 
 
 The stamping of the horses at the door inter 
 rupted her sharply. They were waiting as usual 
 at this hour, part of the orderly habit of the house, 
 the luxury of service and the smooth gliding ma 
 chinery of the rich establishment, all that she 
 meant to put behind her if she left Raleigh. How 
 often she had sent the coachman back ! But to-day 
 he was here as punctually as if she had always al 
 lowed him to serve her. She put on a soft fur hat 
 and long fur coat, and went hastily up to the Eyrie, 
 on the next floor, where Grandee lived all day un 
 til dinner time. 
 
 " Going out with the horses ? I am so glad ! " 
 he encouraged cordially, as his glance fell upon her 
 furs. 
 
 " Yes," she said, laying her hand on his, " I am 
 going to New York for a few days, Grandee. I 
 have just decided it, in a real American hurry!"
 
 370 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 Instantly his gaze penetrated her, though all he said 
 was: 
 
 "Not alone?" 
 
 " Alone," she replied, and he might have caught 
 the peculiar tensity of her emotion by the set ex 
 pression of her mouth, if he had needed additional 
 revelation of something amiss. 
 
 " Is not this rather sudden ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes, a little sudden," she said quietly. 
 
 " Has Raleigh telegraphed you to meet him, in 
 stead of coming up here? " It occurred to him as 
 possible that this had happened, and she had re 
 sented its lack of deference, though acquiescing in 
 its demand upon her. 
 
 " No, but I thought I would," she said, as if it 
 was a perfectly ordinary move on her part instead 
 of being distinctly extraordinary. 
 
 " Is it a surprise you are giving him ? " 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " He will be here almost at once unless he has 
 changed his programme. Are you sure you will 
 catch him in town? I should not like to risk your 
 arriving alone, with only his secretary to look after 
 you. Of course I can notify Christine, and she 
 will take you in, but still if you are going down 
 on the notion of meeting Raleigh, it would be bet 
 ter to make sure of his plans first, unless you 
 really want to make a lover's meeting of it ? " 
 
 She delayed over the chance he was giving her
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 371 
 
 for cover, but refused it, to say, " I would rather 
 not trouble Christine." 
 
 " But if you are going down to meet Raleigh, " 
 he hesitated and their eyes met. " Are you going 
 down to meet him Stephanie ? " 
 
 " No, Grandee, not to meet him." They looked 
 the issue straight in each other's eyes then without 
 swerving or blinking it. 
 
 " I will not meet him, yet. I cannot," she said 
 coldly. 
 
 " And I as your host and protector cannot let 
 you go," he replied as if he really regretted his 
 inability. 
 
 " Then, much as I must regret to do so, I am 
 obliged to go without your consent." 
 
 Again they faced each other, and each under 
 stood in silence. 
 
 " I did not come to ask your consent, Grandee, 
 I came to inform you of my intention only, and to 
 say adieu, nothing more. I need not have told 
 you, but I find it beyond my power to leave you 
 without a word, to so fail in amiability after 
 your uncounted deeds of affection, your hospital 
 ity, your gentleness, I could not go away like 
 that!" 
 
 " Even though you knew I should not allow you 
 to go?" 
 
 " Yes, even though I was sure you would not 
 prevent me when you understood my position; for
 
 372 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 I have known, a long time, that you have seen and 
 have not blamed altogether, for sake of the pity 
 you also felt for me." Randall's face was as full 
 of suffering now as her own, so full of sympathy 
 for her that her lips suddenly lost their line of 
 pride to the common curve of waning self-control. 
 She blinked her long lashes skilfully, hoping he 
 had not seen the tears that clung there. But al 
 ready his frail hand was on hers and the trembling 
 of her own shocked him out of all convention 
 ality. 
 
 " What has happened, Stephanie ? What do you 
 mean to do ? " he begged her gently. " You are 
 not well, dear, your poor hands are icy cold." 
 
 " I am so weak ! " she protested petulantly, " and 
 yet my father before me did what I am doing. It 
 is in my blood, I am not one of your American 
 Amazons! I cannot do anything but love. That 
 is my sole ' metier.' Please, Grandee, if you love 
 me a very little, let me go " trying to draw her 
 hand from him as she spoke, " It is no matter 
 what happens to me now. I am just one more 
 woman among the thousands who curse the day 
 they were born. I only want to be permitted to 
 go away for a little quite alone, and perhaps Father 
 Mayhew can tell me what to do. I shall send for 
 him at once. You know Raleigh prohibited his 
 coming to me here. A Catholic without her con 
 fessor is as a ship at sea without a captain."
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 373 
 
 " No married woman needs a confessor to re 
 peat her duty toward the man whose name she 
 bears," said Grandee, trying to be stern. 
 
 " You forget, Grandee," she said wearily, " that 
 I am as I told you, weak. I have not of the char 
 acter, as your Christine understands it. I am 
 weaker than other European women even, by the 
 facts of my birth. I am only strong where I love, 
 and I do not love Raleigh Payne." 
 
 He took it without demonstration of any sort, 
 still holding her as if he feared she would disap 
 pear in spite of him. " Listen, Stephanie," he 
 urged. " When a woman is guided through life 
 by her head and her heart, her love burns as a 
 pure flame, giving light and warmth, but when her 
 sense and head guide her, the fire she generates is 
 apt to be a destroying fire, leaving blackness in its 
 course. Sense in predominance, without head, can 
 not be other than false to all high destination, for 
 it lures only instincts of the flesh, lowest in the 
 lower animals. It is left to sense, directed to 
 ward its prey by brains, to undo and pervert all 
 the angel in man, under cleverly devised sophis 
 tries that are traps, and excuses that do not excuse, 
 that arouse and never satisfy, stimulating imag 
 inary desires that are fiercer than normal realities. 
 The heart is a good woman's stronghold. The 
 senses are a bad woman's invincible army. Sense 
 is the kingdom of the courtesan and the subtlest
 
 374 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 danger of the lonely woman, or the woman whose 
 powers are unemployed. I realise " 
 
 But she heard the horses stamp impatiently. 
 She was insane to be gone. That was all. 
 
 " Forgive me, Grandee ! " she cried, drawing her 
 hand away. "! am definitely decided. I remem 
 ber my heritage and I cannot even wish to do other 
 wise." 
 
 " My dear Stephanie, the impulse to be weak 
 cannot excuse itself by heredity," Randall pro 
 tested, rising and standing before her. " All the 
 science of evolution is built upon a theory directly 
 opposed to such an exception. We should never 
 have kicked ourselves up out of the tadpole stage. 
 if we had submitted to being eternally tadpoles be 
 cause we came of tadpoles! We are men to-day 
 simply because we went our ancestry one better, 
 as you are going to prove. We have risen by an 
 infinitely small series of progressions but always 
 bettering the type. And because your father let 
 himself go to his lower instinct is no shadow of a 
 reason why you, born a free soul, should excuse 
 yourself for admitting his propensities." 
 
 " Science ! " she mocked, " it is indeed far from 
 my heart ! " 
 
 " No it is not," he opposed. " You are respon 
 sible to science as much as it is responsible for 
 you!" 
 
 " The race is all the same to me," she shrugged
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 375 
 
 " I want my joy now. If others do, let them take 
 it, or if they chose science or religion, let them take 
 what they will ! " 
 
 Randall thought of Euripides' cry: 
 
 :wenty-four hours in every day, and seven of these 
 n each week, for regret and 
 
 " And because you are a specialised form of in 
 dividualism, you prove your own concern with im 
 mortality and potentiality ! " he said in conclusion 
 of his own idea. He was sure she was not hear 
 ing what he said, though she seemed to be listening 
 to something, it might have been the whistle of a 
 train from the crossing, but she gave no sign of 
 interest externally. 
 
 "I am cursed. What does anything matter?" 
 she said, coming back to herself with a start to 
 realise he was waiting. 
 
 " My sweet, mistaken child ! " Randall cried, lay 
 ing his wasted hand again upon her soft, white 
 one. " You share the curse of all of us poor mor 
 tal immortals. No more, no less! How an im 
 mortal shall house himself with dignity, or any 
 semblance of grace, in a mortal form, how the 
 body shall subordinate itself to its demands upon 
 the soul, it is a helpless mystery. We must leave 
 it to the secret intent of the Supreme Certainty. 
 God knows what he intended the outcome to be, 
 racial persistence or personal resurrection, but the
 
 376 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 fact to respect is very elementary. Any child may 
 understand it " 
 
 " And this, what is this fact, which I do 
 not understand in the least ! " 
 
 -- H'nlrri'i?* f yJily fais. that any one insignificant thine: 
 .forgive me, Oiaim^^; ^iiv, ^n^u., GI awing n>-- . 
 
 .land away. "! am definitely decided. I remem- 
 and siccis mv. MT^/*. w.^^ ^,,^.~. i***, -.^.u^. 
 
 " Grandee, dearest, I am not of a seriousness, or 
 of an importance," she pleaded, like a wistful child 
 of a sudden. " I ask only, as the birds and flow 
 ers, my little hour of sunshine. I have not even 
 those magnificent ideals for others that Raleigh 
 has. I have never had any sweetness in my life 
 until this present time." 
 
 " Do not make so trivial a programme for your 
 self ! " he broke in. " You are a part of life's love 
 liness, Stephanie. One cannot see you without a 
 thrill. You are made for our joy. Do not let the 
 passion for one person begin and end here! I 
 fancy in the pretty dream of Jacob, that the angels 
 could not have come down to him if his ladder had 
 not rested against heaven. We live by vision, tell 
 me your vision for your life and I will help you 
 realise it, as far as my powers permit ! " He was 
 stirred beyond all his usual reserve, for life with 
 out vision would to him be pillaged indeed. 
 
 " Tell me your vision ! " he begged again, but 
 she shook her head tmcomprehendingly. 
 
 " A man's face " she said slowly.
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 377 
 
 Steven Randall thought rapidly. " It is not . 
 strange that it has all happened as it has," he said 
 sadly. He knew his world and hers too well to 
 preach the beauty of the ideal to this wilful 
 woman. Experience had taught him that there are 
 twenty-four hours in every day, and seven of these 
 in each week, for regret and mortal loneliness to 
 fill. Life is too long to throw away happiness! 
 He knew that cry. She had no need to teach it 
 to him now. 
 
 " Stephanie," he said, lowering his voice to a 
 thrilling whisper, "he is to be a priest perhaps, a 
 great and distinguished mark in literature certainly. 
 You would not wish to blight his career, to hurt 
 the man you love?" 
 
 " Why not ? " she challenged, her face harden 
 ing. " If I was able to do that, it would be just 
 so much paid of the debt due his sex from 
 mine ! " 
 
 " Then you are selfish and wicked and no longer 
 the Stephanie I love," he accused. " Love is al 
 ways two-thirds sacrifice. Your pleasure is noth 
 ing beside his immortal value. You love yourself 
 not another." 
 
 " And I find the people banal, who so comfortably 
 assign resignation and a career of blameless, empty 
 sacrifice, for other people ! Renunciation is charm 
 ing in art and popular literature, but it is not for 
 me, not until every path of happiness has been
 
 378 THE SIN OF ANGELS . 
 
 proved false. I have no desire to be strong and 
 solitary! I have told you I am a weak woman. I 
 am not a great soul ! " 
 
 Randall knew that sin is weakness oftener than 
 deliberate strength. He tried to explain something 
 of this to her now, but she repulsed him with a 
 repetition of her first statement. " I am weak. 
 My father ruined himself for love, my mother's 
 name was Pleasure, so my grandmother, the old 
 Countess, always said. I have not that within me 
 that cares to resist my heart. I love. I do not 
 wish to resist. It is my fate, that is all." 
 
 Randall saw the futility of appeal on general 
 lines. How softly her furs covered her implacable 
 resolve! He changed his tactics deliberately then, 
 saying with all his affection for her visible on his 
 face: 
 
 " But if you will not stay for right's sake, or 
 for Raleigh's sake, or for the sake of the other 
 you do love, will you stay for mine, Stephanie?" 
 I am less strong this autumn, and I care for you 
 very fondly, as your own father might have. Let 
 me talk to you for a few minutes only as if you 
 really belonged to me " 
 
 A tear rolled across her cheek under her veil. 
 " I want to do what I ought, Grandee. I was 
 trained in obedience, but I have had no one here 
 to guide me. I could carry any cross if Father 
 Mayhew told me I must, or give up any pleasure if
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 379 
 
 a priest said, ' My child, you must ; or must refrain/ 
 It is the uncertainty about what I have to do now 
 that is making me ill. Some days here God has 
 seemed like a divine romance, I feel most affected 
 toward him, as if he and love were the same. And 
 some days he seems a superstition of the Orient, 
 so droll as to make me feel like any comedienne to 
 be thinking of it seriously, when I recall it after 
 ward. I am afraid of death, but I am more afraid 
 of this long life that I am sure will be always tor 
 menting. Please let me go to Father Mayhew 
 now. He will help me." 
 
 " My own vision of death has become so soft 
 ened, dear," he remonstrated soothingly. " May it 
 not be our dearest angel, longing to liberate us? 
 How I wish I might help free you, and this whole 
 scared world, from the terror of it! It does not 
 seem as if we had been quite fairly treated about it, 
 and if you will stay with me, I shall feel it is 
 a case of angels * all the way/ like Browning's 
 roses." 
 
 " I wish I were that angelic being you paint, 
 Grandee, but " 
 
 " Every woman has something of everything in 
 her," he told her solemnly. " Let us be wise and 
 talk together quietly. In America, men merge 
 their love in its developing results " 
 
 " Ah, yes ! You have said it ! " she agreed. 
 " And in Europe love is an art, an occupation in
 
 380 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 itself. One loves, hopes, despairs, regrets, until 
 one is borne to the tomb ! " 
 
 "Raleigh loves you as American men often 
 love," he went on, disregarding her interlude, but 
 she confronted him with: 
 
 " No, not even that ! Remember, I know an 
 other type. Raleigh loves himself. If he deceived 
 me with another woman, at least I should feel pas 
 sion was yet alive in him. I could still wish to 
 bring him to my feet. But how is a woman to be 
 jealous of his career? A creature, formless, with 
 out flesh and blood, an idea without a body, a dis 
 traction without lips to kiss or arms to cling? 
 How is a woman to care, if she is not jealous? 
 And how is she to attack such a rival as this? If 
 he loved a woman, I should be perhaps hot for a 
 struggle, warmed into life by the challenge of her 
 charm. But, bah ! He leaves me for his stupid 
 debates, his political strifes, his interest in public 
 affairs of commerce and finance, his railroads and 
 associations and always his meetings of pompous 
 importance, to him always to him! The in 
 trigues of diplomacy, when he had made a suffi 
 ciently brilliant name, he discards for the sordid 
 power of money. He lacks in spirit, in imagina 
 tion, ' finesse,' ' chic,' what you will ! And flies to 
 protect his precious health at the first distant hint 
 of fatigue, forgetful of all possible weariness in 
 others, or in her who has the honour to bear his
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 381 
 
 name, as you have recently reminded me I still 
 have." 
 
 Randall grew whiter, his nostrils thinned dan 
 gerously, denoting exhaustion. 
 
 " You cannot call him entirely given over to vul 
 gar gain," he reproved. " Remember his poetry ! 
 Raleigh has the artist side and it is for you to find 
 and strengthen it. Make him something you can 
 be proud of, if his way of making you proud is a 
 failure. Woman can make men do anything, good 
 or bad. I should never have suspected Raleigh ca 
 pable of the feeling his poems betrayed for you. 
 What you have supposed was stolidity is his re 
 serve. Men are not as a race apt at expressing 
 their deepest feeling about any subject. .Raleigh 
 has given you a proof that surely none but a great 
 poet ever gave a woman of her power over him. 
 Of course I read his reason for withholding the 
 author's name between the lines." 
 
 Her face did not change. She showed no sign 
 of sympathy, no softening reassurance. 
 
 " Me, myself," she began, in her idiomatic way, 
 " I was never pleased with his poems. They are 
 hypocritical. He knows nothing of any of the emo 
 tions they describe." 
 
 Randall was taken off his guard. Could it be 
 that she suspected them written to another woman? 
 His first love perhaps? He hesitated, for an in 
 stant his own reason misgave him. Then he
 
 382 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 steadied himself on Raleigh's good taste. He 
 would never exploit an irregular affection. That 
 was not Raleigh. Faithful to the very few who 
 won him, he pursued through life this ideal of 
 selfish honour, unscrupulously; utterly regardless 
 of the rights of others, the wishes or resisting force 
 of those with whom he dealt. Was Raleigh to 
 come face to face with failure, which is almost 
 certain to be the fate of one who judges others 
 solely by their value to himself? The poems were 
 spontaneous contradiction. She must be brought 
 to see it. 
 
 " You do not for one instant conceive the poems 
 as inspired by any other woman ? " he demanded, 
 brusquely, prepared to convince her. 
 
 " Not for one instant," she assured him, but he 
 felt she was holding what she did mean very far 
 back in her mind. 
 
 " Love for your husband aside, if you live to be 
 as old as I, " he began, but he saw her draw back 
 involuntarily as if to ward off his fate, deny the 
 desire for age. " If you live to look back over a 
 long and varied life," he continued calmly, " you 
 will only regret that you did not always do the 
 right thing." 
 
 " But you have, poor, dear Grandee," she encour 
 aged commiseratingly. 
 
 " No, not always, not nearly always," he admit 
 ted. " Not even always when I knew what was
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 383 
 
 right, or which was which. And once when I 
 knew perfectly and chose the wrong." 
 
 To his amazement she threw herself on his breast 
 with all the abandon that had made her as a child 
 so unexpectedly adorable. 
 
 " Grandee, most dear Grandee ! Then I will 
 stay with you always, with you, not with Raleigh, 
 as long as you want me ! " she promised. " If you 
 have done wrong perhaps love made you, and love 
 will make clear to you how I feel, how I suffer. 
 For surely the blessed A Kempis knows, and I 
 know, that love is all that is of any importance, 
 though other things for a time may be made to 
 appear so ! The awful loneliness will vanish. Oh, 
 why did I never suspect that you too had sinned? 
 Dear, marvellous Grandee, I might have known you 
 were not in vain named for the holy martyr and 
 saint. And if at any time Society has stoned you 
 for your faith in love, or in some one too lovely 
 to be quite faithful, or admirable in the dull virtues, 
 it is Stephanie, who will understand and cherish 
 you the more, and you will in turn comprehend 
 how she may get free from her chains and be 
 happy with her love, who is too young to be wholly 
 sanctified to renunciation ! " 
 
 Some one knocked and pushed the door defer 
 entially open. It was Randall's personal manserv 
 ant. 
 
 " Mr. Trent is in the drawing-room," he said
 
 384 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 and withdrew, closing the door as noiselessly as 
 he had opened it. Stephanie gave a broken cry of 
 joy " Let me go to him ! " 
 
 They stood for a long pause, confronting each 
 other and the situation. 
 
 Then Randall turned without a word and left 
 the room.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 
 
 STEPHANIE sank down on the arm of Ran 
 dall's lounging chair, overcome by a sudden 
 extinction of being. Her limbs, betrayed by 
 the wild beating of her heart, refused to support 
 her. Mentally she was unable to distinguish one 
 emotion from another. It was not fear that pos 
 sessed her, yet it was a sweet form of terror. It 
 was not passion, for it desired nothing, simply ac 
 quiesced. Nor was it desperation, for it was suf 
 fused with a sort of death rapture, a final wonder, 
 that could never put her back in life as it was be 
 fore, and might be the open door to a second ex 
 istence beyond her present ordeal. Randall re 
 turning, read her as a soul at bay, between the 
 hunter Duty, and the instincts whose prompting 
 would carry her over the gulf of destruction. 
 
 She saw him drop a few drops of powerful 
 restorative, without compunction, almost with envy, 
 but weighed down as one in a heavy dream, pow 
 erless to interfere. 
 
 " Please wait here, a little while, Stephanie," he 
 requested. " I will see Trent to-day by himself. 
 It will be better." 
 
 385
 
 386 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 He avoided sending her away, sparing her the 
 momentary feeling of a culprit sentenced to her 
 own room, and accepting for her sake the addi 
 tional effort of this extra journey downstairs at 
 an unwonted hour. 
 
 " Let me go to him ! " had been her involuntary 
 first cry, but she dared not repeat it now as she 
 watched Steven Randall moving slowly away, for 
 there was that on his face she had never seen be 
 fore. She did not try to define it, being filled with 
 the thought of Trent's nearness, but it was in 
 reality the assertion of a principle of the es 
 tablished social order, in which he believed, and 
 for which he would fight or suffer, or what is 
 harder, allow, nay, compel those he loved to 
 suffer. 
 
 She waited motionless until she heard the li 
 brary door close behind him. Oh, if it was but 
 herself, Stephanie, who stood there now! She 
 knew the way to greet the returning wanderer. 
 What did Grandee mean to do? Why had he in 
 serted himself between them to-day, after weeks 
 of indifference to their ill-concealed joy in each 
 other? What would Trent feel toward her to find 
 himself betrayed? What had she done! Oh, 
 what had she done! Was it too late to say any 
 thing, do anything, that coul<l restore the lost equi 
 librium of the mutual relations of the household? 
 She leaned far over the balustrade, then ran softly
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 387 
 
 down one flight, to catch at the familiar thrill of 
 the sight of his coat and stick lying in the hall be 
 low. The love of inanimate things intimate to a 
 person who is dear, was hers. It is like nothing 
 but the sting of a fallen jewel after the hand that 
 wore it is wrenched from one's own by death. All 
 her doubt of him, or of herself, was gone at sight 
 of the rough great-coat that had sheltered him in 
 storms uncounted: She idealised it until seraphic 
 wings shielding Deity were not absurd to her over 
 wrought comparison. It was intoxication to have 
 him within actual touch again, if she chose to break 
 Grandee's prohibition and go down to them, as if 
 nothing had happened. She looked at the coat 
 again for courage. And if the body is dear, why 
 may not the outer garment be precious? Shall the 
 soul say " I have no need of love's transfiguring 
 smile to express me ? " Does not Nature prefigure 
 its Creator? 
 
 Trent was standing looking out upon the dreary 
 winter landscape, when his quick ears told him it 
 was not Stephanie's step approaching, so that his 
 gladness at Grandee's welcome was untroubled by 
 either immediate, or fear of ultimate disappoint 
 ment. Grandee was always a joy. She would 
 come soon. She never had any engagements. 
 Perhaps they would have tea together in the Eyrie, 
 though it was really later than the Sky High hour, 
 and he might stay on to dinner and for the even-
 
 3 88 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 ing. Everything was just as he had left it. The 
 very inanimate backs of the beloved books glowed 
 in remembrance of their happy hours together. 
 He had been gone but two nights, yet it seemed a 
 long time. He derided himself for being so in 
 ordinately glad to find nothing changed in his ab 
 sence. Nothing could have changed or happened 
 at Sky High in two nights and part of three days. 
 The leisurely patrician quality of its atmosphere 
 forbade such a suggestion. So the two men 
 greeted each other warmly and made themselves 
 comfortable over the log fire that never seemed to 
 go out; the lighted shrine of the household. The 
 absence of tea, or any mention of it, aroused a sus 
 picion at last of something not quite natural in 
 their pleasant intercourse resumed. 
 
 It seemed to have been forgotten by Grandee, in 
 a lapse of hospitality caused by something absorb 
 ing enough to put it second for the moment, which 
 in itself hinted strangely. 
 
 " Mrs. Payne is not in ? " Trent asked, as the 
 long minutes passed and no allusion to her was 
 forthcoming. 
 
 " Yes, I believe so," Grandee replied, speaking of 
 something else and making no motion toward sum 
 moning her. 
 
 " She is not ill ? " Trent asked again, too nervous 
 to veil his anxiety. 
 
 " No, I think she knows you are here. She was
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 389 
 
 with me in the Eyrie when the man announced 
 your name." 
 
 The pause that followed implied that the servant 
 had undoubtedly announced him to them both. 
 
 She had often kept him waiting. He tried to 
 quiet his impatience by imagining what mood the 
 gown she was even now putting on for him would 
 imply. How much should he be expected to read 
 in the colour ? Would it denote a reserve or frank 
 ness of attitude toward him? It would perhaps be 
 long, and graceful, and dark, like twilight, the 
 blessed Damozel incarnate, or no, it would be 
 radiant and soft and illumined like Fra Angelico 
 robed in Paris, or no, it would be Vienna ram 
 pant ! Coquettish, " provocant," to suit dazzling 
 glances shot at him beneath half-lowered lashes. 
 He was young and in love and his dutiful chat with 
 Grandee harassed him. He wanted to shut his 
 eyes and hold his breath until he had again oh, it 
 was two nights and almost three days since he had 
 seen her! 
 
 If Raleigh Payne carried his wife as a distant 
 load-star on the horizon of his brilliant career and 
 was satisfied, Trent held her close in the depths 
 of sub-consciousness, a part of himself not himself, 
 as men more or less against their will admit the 
 abiding presence of God. And Stephanie was the 
 equal of neither, and to both she seemed all that she 
 most was not perhaps. And how is truth in the
 
 390 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 relation of a man and a woman ever to be estab 
 lished, since one unconsciously deceives the other 
 by being other than he seems to her, and the 
 other by seeming other than she is to him ? Steven 
 Randall, intentionally procrastinating, gaining time, 
 listening for his nephew, was evading an issue for 
 the sake of the man before him. He knew that 
 antagonism of sex was strongly developed in Trent. 
 It had impressed Stephanie often, as if he resented 
 his feeling for her, mocked at himself for it, hated 
 her as much as he loved her, was ashamed of her 
 power over him, then in sudden revulsion kissed 
 his chains, subdued by that irresistible intoxication 
 the variation of sex exerts over its chosen victims. 
 The meeting of these two unusual male natures to 
 day, in conflict over a woman was something to be 
 positively negatived. 
 
 Randall realised that he need not hope for acci 
 dent to deliver ; nor event to take a hand in the ad 
 justment of these three lives, to which he* was 
 bound by varying degrees of love and loyalty. 
 Fate had looked the other way at the decisive mo 
 ment. There were no gods to reach down from 
 Olympus and magically protect or avenge. God 
 had again chosen a man, through whom to work his 
 will. There was no epoch-making catastrophe to 
 avert the imminent suffering, no sudden death to 
 relieve an over-crowded situation of two men 
 clamouring for the love of one woman. There was
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 391 
 
 to be no intervening Providence. Steven Randall 
 saw that a simple tragedy was nearing its culmina 
 tion. That was all. The elements of raw sin and 
 fainting righteousness were waiting to overwhelm 
 their prey with inevitable consequence. There were 
 no thunderbolts from heaven to descend. As 
 naturally as luncheon had followed breakfast, and 
 dinner would follow tea in the ordinary routine of 
 their well-regulated lives, will and principle were 
 to be the decisive factors in the tragedy developing 
 before its single unwilling spectator. Training, re 
 ligion, reason, enlisted against love, youth, and, on 
 the woman's part, a rankling sense of injustice. 
 Was it strange that the issue found him reluctant? 
 And for the sake of each of them it was imperative 
 he made no mistake. 
 
 " I came down to see you this afternoon, Law 
 rence," he said kindly, when it could be staved off 
 no longer, " because I am expecting my nephew 
 hourly." If he looked for any evidence of interest 
 on the part of Trent he was to be disappointed. 
 
 " He is coming to surprise Mrs. Payne," he con 
 tinued. Still no show of concern. 
 
 " Naturally she is bound to keep her afternoon 
 free of other engagements," Randall explained 
 easily. " He has been gone nearly three months, 
 you know. It will be a time when husband and 
 wife will forget us poor bachelors out in the cold." 
 
 " Will it ? " Trent said. He asked seriously, for
 
 392 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 information, not in a flippant manner of doubting its 
 truth. 
 
 An awkward pause followed, during which they 
 looked each other full in the face. Randall held 
 out his hand, " Frankly, man to man, you will un 
 derstand my motive in coming down, instead of 
 sending her to-day, won't you? Without further 
 words, I mean ? " he requested kindly. 
 
 Trent's eyes fixed as if measuring a mark at 
 which he intended to fire. His pale face hardened 
 to parian. 
 
 " Did Mrs. Payne know you were going to say 
 this to me ? " he asked. 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Then if not, " he broke off, as Randall re 
 minded him with some hauteur: 
 
 " She is in my guardianship, you remember, be 
 holden to the honour of my house." 
 
 Trent winced. " I hope I did not deserve that 
 rebuke, sir," he said courteously. 
 
 " It was not a rebuke. It was a reminder only. 
 You are bewildered, my dear Lawrence. Life has 
 overtaken you at a vantage you cannot gainsay. I 
 am trying to help you. Whatever transitory folly 
 or mistake has occurred can be overtaken now. 
 Later perhaps it might have been too late. Women 
 are emotional, self-deception is inherent in them, 
 they are undependable, and much of their charm 
 would be gone if they were not. But a married
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 393 
 
 woman is a blind alley, or worse, and I trust you 
 will spare me further remark or suggestion. Ra 
 leigh, as I told you, comes to-night." 
 
 " And what if he does ? How does that change 
 anything for her? What does it amount to more 
 than it has in the past?" he demanded, surprising 
 Randall by his counter-questioning. 
 
 " It amounts to this for you, that you have a 
 family and a distinguished career before you, which 
 you must not be allowed to mar at the outset." 
 
 " I did not inquire about myself. It is too late 
 to talk about laudable ambition to me, when it 
 means at the cost of everything else most sacred 
 in life ! " he insisted bitterly. 
 
 " It amounts to this then, for her. Raleigh is 
 after all her husband. She will go back to him, 
 even if her heart has temporarily played truant in 
 his absence. Their habits are familiar. She is 
 his wife and he will assume control naturally and 
 inevitably. The will-o'-the-wisp may be a pretty 
 pastime, but certainty, to a woman of Mrs. Payne's 
 type, is greater than romance in the last equation. 
 She would have no fancy for second or third class 
 foreign resorts, or a stately retreat behind remote 
 ivy- wound palings of some lonely chateau in 
 France, Paris forgotten but not well-lost. My 
 nephew has sacrificed her to his ambition, I grant 
 you. He made her live in this country, isolated 
 her from her practice of formal religion, subjected
 
 394 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 her to every temptation that most easily besets a 
 young and attractive woman. He is, however, her 
 husband. He has his rights." 
 
 " He is a brute ! " Trent stated baldly. 
 
 " No, he is a victim of the American form of 
 the grand passion Ambition. Stephanie will ac 
 cept life on his terms in the end, and she will be 
 satisfactorily compensated for all she has endured 
 temporarily. He will place her beyond any posi 
 tion you could ever hope to give her. He has es 
 tablished himself in the world, and in her rational 
 moments she perfectly estimates the importance of 
 that world's esteem." 
 
 "The world you think she cares so much for, 
 may turn down its thumbs when it hears that she 
 has left him, and why," he insinuated. 
 
 " Oh, my dear boy, how unworldly you are ! 
 The world goes with the man always. One knows 
 in advance, as well as if it was already in one's 
 ears, how the world will talk. * Raleigh Payne ? 
 Why, he is the very prince of good fellows. There 
 must be something the matter with a woman who 
 could not appreciate him! He was mad enough 
 about her to write poems about her in business 
 hours ! ' And it will not hurt Raleigh a whit, but 
 it will damn her. A woman's reputation is a mir 
 ror cracked after it is but breathed upon by sus 
 picion. And men are a group of pots and kettles, 
 loath to call each other black."
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 395 
 
 " If she merely left him and went quietly 
 abroad, " he suggested tentatively. 
 
 " Then they will say less noisily but with a 
 definite innuendo, ' What was it about her, any 
 way? Was not she seen about a good deal up in 
 the country with young Trent ? ' And it will not 
 hurt you, Lawrence, but it will fasten a vague re 
 proach upon Stephanie that will never lift again. 
 If you really care for her there is nothing for you 
 to do but leave her alone, now." 
 
 " She will not tell me this herself," Trent said 
 calmly. " I might believe her if she did. I might 
 not. But the fact is that she will not ask me to 
 go." 
 
 " If she does not consent to all the conditions 
 when I have made them clear to her, a formal sep 
 aration can be arranged. But you know as well 
 as I, that she would not be free to marry. I do 
 not imagine that either she or you would contem 
 plate any irregular relation. Whatever you may 
 either of you have dreamed, she will remain with 
 " me. I have her word for it. I shall legally adopt 
 her and eventually provide for her, under these 
 conditions." 
 
 Trent caught only at the first admission. 
 
 " You have not talked with her then, beyond 
 her willingness to prove her affection for you per 
 sonally? You are ignorant of her own real will 
 or intention ? "
 
 396 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 He was fumbling at problems too big for him. 
 His fingers trembled over knots Raleigh's firm 
 hands would have snapped. Steven Randall saw 
 that he was a .boy in a man's worst predicament, 
 tasking a man's mature force to the utmost. He 
 saw that Trent shrank from the situation in spite 
 of his manly front : shrank, from motives of 
 conscience revealed by daylight, though not in 
 exorable as long as they remained blurred in a 
 lover's twilight of the gods. While the woman 
 who had swerved him from his control was in his 
 arms, the darkness soft about them, he was all the 
 lover and the man she dreamed him. But when 
 the scathing reality of other men's eyes was turned 
 dispassionately, critically upon him, the chill reac 
 tions of fact, duty, ideals still consecrated, sapped 
 the glory of his desire and left him staring and in 
 competent. Steven Randall perfectly estimated his 
 worldly embarrassment before the actual issue, and 
 counted it as friendly to his own side of the strug 
 gle. He took a lighter tone now, in trying to 
 bring the boy to reason without wounding his dig 
 nity. 
 
 " You are a scholar, Lawrence, bred to books. 
 You are a victim of all the hallucinations ever 
 suffered by all the poets over love and women. 
 But you are lured hardest by the sirens of the 
 First Edition! Stephanie has been, for a time, the 
 embodiment of all that world of sentiment in which
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 397 
 
 you have lived alone until you met her. She is 
 every one, in your fancy probably, from Helen of 
 Troy down. That has been the great secret of 
 your charm for her. The novelty of a new and 
 absolutely unspoiled love to a Stephanie, gipsy- 
 hearted, born even beneath a roving star, 
 Rommany-haunted for life from birth, you cannot 
 conceive." 
 
 Trent did not contradict the analysis. He re 
 mained silent and the older man knew that there 
 was a harmless vein of unreality even in the very 
 real suffering he was enduring now. 
 
 " How much of an idea have you, of what you 
 are letting loose on us all by your ill-considered 
 impulse toward another man's wife?" he asked 
 suddenly, really wondering what Trent had hoped 
 or dreamed. 
 
 " It is not a small thing to have won a woman's 
 love. It overpowers everything for me and is 
 enough in itself," Trent replied indifferently, as if 
 it all ended there. 
 
 " Ah, you suppose it is in the winning ! " ex 
 claimed Randall. " But I tell you the great artist 
 in life knows that it is the holding! Even if you 
 hold her, the rare woman who can hold after she 
 was won, hers is the kingdom of men ! But with 
 out all the safeguards law and religion can put at 
 her command, how rare, how almost unheard of is 
 her triumphant vindication! And even if you did
 
 398 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 succeed in making Stephanie happy, how long will 
 she be to you what she is, without all that went to 
 make her your ideal ? " 
 
 " The value of anything is what it has cost 
 you," Trent said tersely. 
 
 " Paid in soul is too costly. The soul is ille 
 gal tender " 
 
 " But it puts a supreme rating on the transac 
 tion." 
 
 "You mean?" 
 
 " It compels one to be true to it. It cuts 
 ' noblesse oblige ' upon one's heart." 
 
 "You still believe in God, do you not?" Ran- 
 daH asked abruptly. 
 
 " What has that got to do with it? " 
 
 " Only that it is an odd way to begin to be true 
 to a woman by being false to the ruling power of 
 your life. I thought you had committed yourself 
 to a life of consecration, I even thought you had 
 definite hope of the priesthood." 
 
 Trent would not argue. Something in Grandee's 
 face cut him, and he cried out miserably, " Grandee, 
 won't you understand? She is the only woman I 
 have ever loved! I love her. I want her, no 
 matter about me. No matter about my future or 
 her past. I am hers to do what she likes with, 
 forever or for a day. Love is like this. You have 
 your character, Raleigh Payne has his gratified 
 ambition. I have my love of a woman, and may
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 399 
 
 God judge between us! The highest love gives its 
 own life for its friend. She may have mine." 
 To Grandee it echoed of the defeated Florentine 
 Andrea. 
 
 " So still they overcome 
 Because there's still Lucrezia, as I choose ! " 
 
 he quoted sadly, aside. " But remember, Law 
 rence," he warned " there is no value in useless sac 
 rifice. Ask yourself who is to be helped by it, 
 physically, morally, spiritually? Use your reason 
 in religion, and above all things, do not be a fool 
 for Christ's sake!" 
 
 To antagonise Trent was always to drive him to 
 any desperate extreme. Randall trembled for the 
 outcome if Raleigh arrived with Trent still in the 
 house and in his present unreasoning mood. He 
 refused to treat his outburst as final, however 
 Trent might wish it so considered. 
 
 " I do not follow you, and I shall not allow you 
 to throw away your life or career in which others 
 are involved," he said with authority. " You seem 
 to have forgotten that you told me how dependent 
 your own family were upon you, in more ways 
 than one. Recall the example to younger brothers, 
 the dismay of those who are counting upon you to 
 make their old age serene and proud. It will be 
 worse than death, in many ways " 
 
 " And you will be the murderer, if you put this
 
 400 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 in her mind against me ! " Trent declared. " She 
 will never let me commit social suicide for her, if 
 she realises it ! " 
 
 " You talk foolishly," said Randall, looking at his 
 watch, " and we have no time for heroics. There 
 is an insurmountable barrier between you. You 
 must give up all indulgence in such lawless fan 
 cies. Raleigh is due at any moment and you must 
 go at once. He is not a man to trifle with, in af 
 fairs touching his honour or his heart. You must 
 withdraw from the situation in a way that will 
 not compromise Mrs. Payne. You must ' play the 
 game,' and when that is done, I will do anything 
 to make it up to you. Go to Europe, if you like, 
 study, travel, collect, explore, every resource of 
 mine is at your disposal, and that is saying a good 
 deal. Will you do what a man ought to, Law 
 rence? Of course you will! I never doubted it! " 
 
 Trent stood exactly as he had stood from the 
 start, motionless as an inanimate thing. His pose 
 reflected his moral attitude. 
 
 " Every man has his price, sir, I hope mine is 
 above rubies," he said slowly, at last. " And if 
 we did try to get along without each other and 
 love, and did what you call ' play the game,' and 
 compromise honesty to save reputation, which you 
 seem to think the more valuable of the two, the 
 day would surely come when we could not. Our 
 feeling for each other would overpower us. And
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 401 
 
 we should not sin deliberately or intentionally, but 
 we should cease to care about anything, and cease 
 to consider the struggle worth while, and fall 
 into each other's arms." 
 
 " Then, all the more you must go." 
 
 The door opened to its full width and Raleigh 
 Payne stood before them. 
 
 Randall greeted him without surprise. He had 
 been listening a full half hour for his coming, and 
 counted on averting the impending collision. 
 Trent stood with his arms folded. He bowed 
 stiffly to the introduction informally extended, and 
 Randall saw his efforts at complete conventionality 
 threatened by this unyielding attitude from the 
 start. Raleigh, who had never seen him before, 
 and knew him only on hearsay, was entirely lack 
 ing in self-consciousness, effusively glad to reach 
 Sky High, and cordially inclined toward all the 
 world, until the singular detachment, almost accu 
 sation of Trent's bearing, impressed him as insup 
 portable in a stranger. He dismissed it as due to 
 some previous disagreement between the two other 
 men, which he had unwittingly interrupted. 
 
 Under different circumstances his curiosity might 
 have been aroused. The annoyance of an unfa 
 miliar, and ungracious presence merely obtruded 
 itself now, preventing any unconstrained inter 
 change of news or question with his uncle. He 
 much preferred a few hints as to the progress of
 
 402 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 the intervening weeks, and Stephanie's mood of 
 welcome for him, before he appeared before her 
 in person. He had his own reason for taking her 
 by surprise. His impatience increased as there 
 seemed to be no hope of the stranger's departure. 
 How singularly maladroit of his uncle it was, to 
 detain any caller beyond the definitely declared 
 hour of his own return! 
 
 Trent read his manner perfectly. He was gifted 
 with that exquisite breeding, implying acute per 
 ception of the feeling of others. He was aware 
 of his own lack of courtesy in remaining, but the 
 small change of courtesy went to the winds under 
 pressure of such exigence as he was now confront 
 ing. All he hoped or wanted, was to prevent this 
 man from going to his wife, until he had declared 
 his own hand. He divined how she dreaded her 
 husband's return, though in words she had never 
 betrayed her shrinking. If their meeting was in 
 evitable, he meant it to take place with his own re 
 lation to them both definitely defined. He looked 
 for a possible opening for what he waited to say, 
 but in vain. After a little impersonal comment on 
 the mildness of the season, the minor vicissitudes 
 of the journey from town, a message from Chris 
 tine and Newbold, no one was anxious to prolong 
 the halting effort at triangular conversation. 
 
 Raleigh, frowning his dissatisfaction, turned to 
 leave the room.
 
 403 
 
 " You will find Stephanie in the Eyrie," Ran 
 dall said. Raleigh nodded. Something in the 
 mere assurance of his so taking everything for 
 granted made Trent's temper rise as if he had 
 been struck. 
 
 " May I have the opportunity for a few words 
 with you, Mr. Payne, before I leave the house?" 
 he asked civilly enough. 
 
 Raleigh glanced at Steven Randall for explana 
 tion, but Randall disowned responsibility. 
 
 " Did you mean with me ? " he asked, " or with 
 my uncle ? " 
 
 " Yes, with you." 
 
 " With pleasure, later perhaps," Raleigh re 
 plied indifferently, his hand on the door. " I shall 
 be here several days. Look me up to-morrow 
 some time." 
 
 He did not intend to be insolent or exasperating. 
 The delay simply bored him. Trent's mouth hard 
 ened. " I prefer not to wait until to-morrow," he 
 said. " What I have to say is very brief. It will 
 detain you but a few moments." 
 
 " I took it your business was with my uncle. 
 What can I do for you, Mr. Trent ? " Raleigh put 
 the question without a suspicion of the truth, and 
 Trent, provoked to open rancour by Grandee's pa 
 tronage of his love, and affronted by Raleigh 
 Payne's easy assumption of Stephanie by marital 
 right, declined all subterfuge or finesse, and did
 
 404 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 the most unexpected and worst thing he could pos 
 sibly have done. In his unworldly determination 
 to prove himself a man equal to the mettle of those 
 before him, he went straight at Raleigh with the 
 gloves off. 
 
 " Mr .Payne," he began without preamble, " this 
 is a hurried and brutal age. I love your wife. 
 What are you willing to do about it ? " 
 
 Diplomacy was never so confounded. 
 
 But Raleigh was one to dodge an issue with a 
 light foot. It was his profession. He smiled 
 amiably at Trent, as if thankful there was nothing 
 serious in the air, nothing of real moment at 
 stake. 
 
 " I presume we shall not quarrel on a subject 
 where our tastes are so identical," he declared 
 without displeasure. And Grandee broke in des 
 perately to divert Trent from the " faux pas " he 
 seemed bent on making. 
 
 " Let my name there, as Abou Ben Adhem's, 
 ' lead all the rest ' ! " he cried fondly. 
 
 But Trent undeterred went right on over the 
 brink of disclosure, with the precision of a trained 
 mind and clear head bent on self-destruction. 
 
 " She does not love you. Why keep up the farce 
 any longer? And why keep her here against her 
 will ? " he asked. 
 
 Raleigh looked at his uncle for explanation, or 
 perhaps confirmation of his own rationality. But
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 405 
 
 there was none awaiting him. Again diplomacy 
 had been confounded by a direct question. The 
 bare truth had shamed the draped statue that be 
 lied her holiness, and Trent's own theory of the 
 value of truth reserved for great service only, 
 most nobly vindicated. 
 
 " Well, I will be damned ! " exclaimed Steven 
 Randall and left the room, warned by the pain in 
 his heart to delay no longer. He had just strength 
 enough left to drag himself to the chair in the 
 music room that commanded the stairway. He 
 could at least prevent Stephanie's intrusion upon 
 the scene he felt must ensue. Beyond that slight 
 service he could do no more for her now. The 
 pain was too sharp. Left alone together, the two 
 men stood more curious to discover each other 
 than to open the attack, or take advantage of the 
 first blow. 
 
 " Let me explain," Trent began coldly. 
 
 " It might be as well," Raleigh said with an in 
 clination of his head, giving him the right of a 
 hearing. 
 
 " You do not know how to love a woman. It is 
 not as if that lack in you was a sin. If it was, you 
 could fall and repent and be absolved. A sin could 
 be washed out, but your inherent passion for place 
 and power can never be eradicated from your 
 moral nature, because you treat it as a virtue. 
 You consider what is really your worst weakness,
 
 406 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 strength. You left this woman, of all women! 
 alone. You know what else you did, and did not 
 do, far better than I. I can only guess. I am a 
 man too. What else did you expect? Grandee 
 has reflected it all in his letters of course. He is 
 not blind. You did not care. You underestimated 
 us both. You were so sure of yourself that you 
 counted on doing as you liked with us when you 
 were ready. You might have succeeded with a 
 woman. But it is another proposition when you 
 run up against a man. And a man with a will 
 that matches your own. I do not care to prolong 
 this discussion, or go into general principles. 
 All I want to know is whether you will meet 
 us half way, or if we must prepare to do 
 what is necessary for our own happiness our 
 selves." 
 
 Raleigh rang and ordered a cup of tea. He 
 was minutely concerned as to the amount of sugar 
 he measured out for himself, and coloured the cup 
 he poured with a careful eye. 
 
 " As I have been from home some time, Mr. 
 Trent," he suggested, " probably you will be 
 good enough to defer this interview, at least 
 till I have seen Mrs. Payne." 
 
 " She will not see you. She cannot." 
 
 " A husband has certain rights, as perhaps you 
 know." There was iron under the suavity of Ra 
 leigh's voice as he said it.
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 407 
 
 " And a woman has certain instincts," Trent in 
 serted. 
 
 " I am going to have my tea now," Raleigh re 
 marked, angry at last. "'We will consider this 
 rather impossible interview over, if you please. I 
 shall ask my uncle to see that it is never re-opened 
 or your visits continued, during our short stay 
 beneath his roof. Good-afternoon." 
 
 Trent's dogged lips, thin and proud clenched to 
 his purpose. He did not abate his insulting calm. 
 He did not move. 
 
 " In questions of life and death a man does not 
 stop to consider arbitrary trifles," he said, dis 
 missing the facts of travel-stains and hunger su 
 perbly. " It is nothing to me when you have a 
 cup of tea, or how long you have been gone. 
 There is nothing of importance between us but the 
 one vital issue. I tell you I love your wife." 
 
 Once more the diplomat in Raleigh triumphed. 
 He resisted the temptation to strike, and smiled 
 instead. " And my reply is, as before, of course 
 you do! Why should we even pretend to quarrel 
 about it ? " Raleigh extended his hand as he 
 spoke. 
 
 Trent flushed painfully under the ignominy of 
 such treatment, the insufferable patronage of the 
 action. Men feel the same who are refused hon 
 ourable satisfaction. He turned sharply to leave 
 the room as if to restrain himself from delivering
 
 408 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 a physical blow. Something in the set of his shoul 
 ders suggested not retreat, but immediate attack 
 in a new quarter. Raleigh thought rapidly. He 
 had no wish to have Stephanie summoned to such 
 an unbecoming complication. There was respect 
 now, in the recall he offered, as he enquired, 
 " Have you considered to what your remarks lead ? 
 May I ask?" 
 
 " If I had not, Mr. Randall has at least pointed 
 out their conclusion with a sufficient clearness." 
 
 Again the diplomat played off and again Trent's 
 blunt resistance foiled the more skilful defence. 
 
 " I should like also to ask, since you force so 
 crass an issue upon me, without delay, or I may 
 even say decency, what is your own proposition 
 in all this vague statement and accusation of my 
 married responsibilities? Let us presume for the 
 moment that I allowed you to carry out your pro 
 posed invasion of my family life, where would you 
 intend to live? How would you intend to support 
 a woman? Mrs. Payne, unlike most foreign 
 women, was married without a ' dot.' Had you 
 been kept in ignorance of that sordid detail? Or 
 have you sufficient means to support the extrava 
 gant necessities of an idle woman bred to lux 
 ury?" 
 
 The tea service stood untouched where the serv 
 ant had placed it half an hour ago. Their voices 
 rose and fell upon Grandee's agonised ears for
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 409 
 
 what seemed an endless time. And not until Trent 
 hit upon the secret spring of Father Mayhew did 
 Raleigh Payne consider it all more serious than 
 a theatrical tilt with tin weapons. 
 
 " You act as if you were talking to a criminal, 
 as if I had forbidden .religion and you were a 
 knight to the rescue instead of a lover hot for se 
 duction ! " Raleigh threw at him, exasperated by 
 his manner at last. 
 
 " The location of the crusades to-day is changed, 
 the heart of chivalry is not dead." Trent, assured 
 by his adversary's discomfiture was growing 
 momently cooler. " Chivalry has no era," he 
 added. 
 
 Raleigh saw his disadvantage and attempted to 
 hide it. 
 
 " You are excited now. You do not know ex 
 actly what you are, or what anything else is. 
 There is really nothing so new and distinctive 
 about being made a fool of by a pretty woman, 
 even if she is another man's wife. That is old too. 
 Leave the priest out of it, since you are not her 
 husband; but since religion is so sacred to you, 
 turn your attention to the teaching of the church 
 as to the seven deadly sins. Priests and husbands 
 have never been appreciative of each other. That 
 scandal also lacks in originality." 
 
 " I am ready to leave all out of it but the woman 
 I love, and am bound to, by her own admission of
 
 410 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 love for me. I only wanted to put myself clear 
 before you at the start. I have done that. I will 
 not detain you longer." 
 
 " You intend to leave it there ? " 
 
 " I know what I intend. I have done what I 
 could to make you see it in its right light. I can 
 do no more for you." 
 
 Raleigh Payne recognised the mettle of the man 
 at last. He let him get to the door before he 
 asked roughly: 
 
 " Do you want to ruin yourself then for a 
 woman who has belonged to two men before you? 
 That is the question." 
 
 Trent stared at him. Raleigh came a few steps 
 nearer, as if suddenly they were leagued together, 
 as men, against all women in all the world since 
 time began. " If I told you, that I of all men, 
 have most cause to complain? If I told you that 
 the woman who betrayed Nicholas Heathleagh, and 
 sent him out of life from his disgust of all her 
 kind, the woman who had in his own last words, 
 ' been everything to him/ was none other than the 
 Austrian Countess Marie Louise Graubach von 
 Lichtenberg ? Whose husband I now have the hon 
 our to be ? " 
 
 " You lie, he lied, you cannot prove it ! " 
 Trent's words dashed as consecutive defence. 
 
 " I am not lying and I do not think he was. 
 Dying men do not as a rule. The game is played
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 411 
 
 out for them. As least as far as women go," said 
 Raleigh soberly, without heat. 
 
 Trent was more crushed by the matter of fact 
 statement than he could have been by any oratory. 
 The fires of life, that a moment before had blazed 
 up about his transfiguring Stephanie, and the sub 
 lime sacrifice she was ready to make for him, sank 
 to black and grey. 
 
 " She loves me," he repeated obstinately as a 
 child. 
 
 " And if she does say that she loves you to 
 day " continued her husband, " what assurance 
 have you that it will not to-morrow be some more 
 brilliant man, or one of more brilliant prospects? 
 What assurance is there ever in the love of a light 
 woman, so called? The experience, sad as it is, 
 will not perhaps hurt you in the world, after it 
 has blown over, if you take her away from our pro^ 
 tection now. But it will do things to your own 
 nature, you will never wholly get over. For a 
 man to have been briefly the transient lover of a 
 beautiful woman, is not the same as for a woman 
 to have been the mistress of a gifted man, such 
 as you undoubtedly are, Mr. Trent, on hearsay at 
 least. In the end it will be slurred over in you, 
 but it will ruin her of course. Those women go 
 down with incredible swiftness. Men will say of 
 me that I was patient, and she was a fool, or worse. 
 I married her without dowry, an Austrian of the
 
 412 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 aristocracy. You can be sure she was not flaw 
 less, or that would never have happened at Vienna, 
 of all courts in Europe the most exclusive. If you 
 would like to assure yourself of the truth of this 
 statement, you can have the address of Mrs. 
 Payne's grandmother, who signed the contract and 
 permitted the mesalliance. For such it was to her 
 and she was at no pains to conceal it." 
 
 Trent waived the notion aside as base. Raleigh 
 went on swiftly: 
 
 " Leave her, and I will keep her pitiful secret 
 as I have. But make me a target of scandal now, 
 expose me to the tongues of my enemies ever so 
 slightly just now, and I will reveal your dishonour 
 and her secret that my silence has shielded, the 
 pity of her shame. Her word, against mine, the 
 word of a woman who has slipped once, and again 
 betrayed her husband, will be given no credence 
 in America." 
 
 Even as he spoke Trent felt the crumbling of 
 his dearest certainties. It was preposterous, it 
 was not subtle, it was not diplomacy. It was all 
 that lies at the roots of a man, his jealousy of 
 another, that had goaded Raleigh Payne to such 
 a pass. 
 
 " It is a lie," Trent reiterated, outwardly un 
 shaken. " It is a lie and I will prove it. I swear 
 to God I will!" 
 
 " I only wish to God you could ! " Raleigh cov-
 
 THE WAY OF THE WORLD 413 
 
 ered his eyes with his hands as he said it. The 
 genuineness of his cry was undoubted. It was the 
 outcome of long inward debate and tortured query. 
 When he again lowered his hands and opened his 
 eyes, the room was empty. Trent was gone.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 
 
 HALF an hour later Stephanie stood 
 alone before the Squirrel's Nest. She 
 had followed Trent blindly. During all 
 that hour of calm, while the tempest had swept 
 over her, and the three men had disposed of her 
 fate to their various liking, without consulting her, 
 she had asked herself if it was really true? 
 
 If her grandmother's interfering manipulation 
 of her life had been in vain, and if her feeling for 
 Trent was imperative enough to compensate for 
 the luxury and worldly consideration to be fore 
 gone for his sake? When a negative tempted her, 
 simultaneously came its reaction, and as a sick per 
 son sinks back languidly upon supporting pillows 
 her inclination sank back, and clung desperately 
 to his image. It was a malady of reason, her love. 
 It had taken pitiless possession of her. She could 
 not, for she would not, fight it off. She had al 
 ways recognised that a supreme passion would be 
 her fatal enemy against reason struggling in oppo 
 sition. To her there was no law, no goal beyond 
 love. And there was no restraint she would im 
 pose between herself and its realisation. A daugh- 
 
 414
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 415 
 
 ter of the Greeks, believing her cult to be worship, 
 glorying in her power to incite and bestow where 
 other women, bent to modern standards, shrank 
 back from lesser motives of shame or self-protec 
 tion. There was no slight recollection of Trent's 
 touch but set her vibrating like tense strings of an 
 Amati, swept shuddering by a master hand. She 
 was his by his control of her senses, however men 
 might militate against the fact or its external con 
 clusion. Since she was his, the rest followed; 
 to her it did not matter to what precise end. Trent 
 was in himself the only conceivable end to her. 
 They might talk to her of going away with Raleigh, 
 paint the charm of new scenes, new faces in sit 
 uations to breed new excitements, but no! The 
 poison was in her veins. It was too late for their 
 mild antidotes of compromise. Not one of them 
 could drive this delicious stupor from her will, 
 or counteract the intoxication of his power over 
 her. From his own lips she had drained the un 
 nerving potion that was already working its spell 
 upon brain and heart alike. If her soul ques 
 tioned, Trent's eyes answered, deep in hers. If 
 its worth balanced for an instant waveringly 
 against the wilful squandering of luxury and 
 worldly esteem, Trent's arms in imagination held 
 her so close that the beating of his heart made her 
 forget her own. Did she love him? Instantly his 
 mouth, like flame upon her own, burned the answer
 
 416 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 with the question. She had busied herself by put 
 ting on a long white gown. She associated it 
 vaguely with marriage or a shroud. The ghastly 
 alternative fitted her mood without too much of a 
 shock. When Raleigh had come up to her there, 
 she had permitted him to kiss her, perfunctorily, 
 all the while trying to draw some conclusion from 
 his manner as to the outcome of these long inter 
 views in the library below. And he had been kind 
 and hearty, and patted her between her shoulders 
 as usual after a long absence, and after a few ex 
 pressions of interest in her splendid appearance of 
 health, and a few allusions to his own improve 
 ment, had excused himself to dress for dinner. He 
 had promised her that he would not keep Grandee 
 waiting, an allusion to his pet crochet, although 
 he professed to have quite forgotten how to wear 
 evening clothes in his savagery, up in the North 
 Woods. 
 
 And the instant he had gone, she realised how 
 cold she was, and catching up the long fur coat 
 she had meant to wear to New York earlier in the 
 afternoon, or some afternoon long ago, she 
 had left the house and fled into the little strip of 
 forest, without any definite plan or destination. 
 She wanted to get away, just not to have Ra 
 leigh touch her and make her turn so cold and sick 
 again. That was all. The December moonlight 
 made the frozen ground ugly, for there had not
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 417 
 
 been any snow that lasted under the trees, and the 
 windy forest was alive with nervous shadows that 
 flickered and startled her. She walked about idly, 
 holding her long skirt in one gloveless hand, and 
 with the other pushing back the branches that op 
 posed her as she threaded the thicket beyond the 
 half worn trail. She found herself before the 
 empty house where the bachelors had so recently 
 dreamed and feasted, appalled by its emptiness and 
 significant desolation. 
 
 Her feet had brought her unfailingly, without 
 guidance from her will. In her distraction, she 
 had never considered the possibility of Trent's ac 
 cepting her husband's dismissal, or treating it as 
 coincident with her own, or Grandee's, or that of 
 any one, or any train of refuting circumstances, 
 until she herself bade him leave her. 
 
 She had reckoned only with her own love. She 
 had staked her all on the vague hope of overtaking 
 him here and he had failed her. How had Raleigh 
 and Grandee done this thing? What lie had made 
 him hold her less dear ? What fear of the world in 
 sinuatingly presented had turned him craven ? There 
 flashed before her the hours that would drag their 
 accustomed round and never bring him back. The 
 pitiless spring mornings and balmy summer nights, 
 and worst of all the afternoons of the first snow 
 upon forest and garden, when they had not 
 cared ! They two in the crimson library, with blaz-
 
 4i8 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 ing logs and the solitude of friendly books and his 
 favourite pipe for the last note of indoor intimacy. 
 The first snow would be torment to her hence 
 forth. Then suspicion caught her. Had he never 
 meant more than a Platonic idling, perhaps? Had 
 he but treated her to a private performance of 
 some romance of chivalry, read her a chapter 
 from some unreal poem of idealism? He had no 
 conception of a devastating passion perhaps. He 
 too, was cold and calculating like all the rest of 
 these emigrant Americans, struggling to rise in the 
 social scale. He had amused himself in his own 
 refined and peculiarly scholarly fashion, as unhesi 
 tatingly as any other man might have done on the 
 lower levels. He had taken what he enjoyed while 
 it was easily within reach, and then gone without 
 the least effort to see her or indulge himself in so 
 much as a last scene of recklessly impassioned part 
 ing. He had heard what Grandee had to say of 
 worldly philosophy, let himself be persuaded and 
 gone. If he had met Raleigh, it had probably been 
 a mere form of pantomime between them. If he 
 had so little spirit, it must have been easy indeed 
 for Raleigh Payne to ignore, and brush aside in 
 his grand manner, any hint of lurking issues be 
 neath the surface, on which his own triumphant 
 face was always reflected. Raleigh would never 
 admit to himself even, that there could possibly ex 
 ist an indiscretion in the attitude of his wife,
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 419 
 
 much less toward a young scholar, unversed in glit 
 tering guile, who was put in his place once for all 
 by a chance truism or two from his more worldly 
 seniors. The train called long and shrill from the 
 crossing. It pierced her by association. How 
 easy to end it all there! She glanced down over 
 her white dress. It would be torn and disgust 
 ingly stained when they found her. No, suicide 
 was too one-sided. Life still held for her the suit 
 able award for Raleigh, and scorn of the man she 
 loved. These were left her. She still had " affairs " 
 with existence. Oh, might life only be long 
 enough to make Trent suffer as she was suffering 
 now! She was glad she had fled on her first hot 
 impulse. What if she had waited, boasted of her 
 lover, confessing herself unfitted for life with a 
 husband she could not love, imploring to be set 
 free! Raleigh knew nothing yet. His name and 
 fame were hers safely still. They were hers to 
 use in inflicting what pain she chose upon the 
 other man, who had abandoned her in her extrem 
 ity of indecision. She would go home. She 
 knew what her role was now. There would be no 
 more vacillation with expediency. The pride of 
 the old Countess was in her. Blood should tell ! 
 
 At this moment the door of the perfectly dark 
 house opened and Trent, bag in hand stepped out 
 into the haggard moonlight. The world lay calm 
 as if after the funeral of a great hope, a lovely
 
 420 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 summer, or the passing of some dearest soul. 
 The reaction of his presence made Stephanie 
 dizzy. She clung to the wall for support and 
 stumbling forward, slipped by him into the hall 
 way of the house. Trent stood staring at her as 
 if a victim of hallucination. He made no sign of 
 greeting, no motion of re-entering himself, any 
 more than if she had been a supernatural mani 
 festation. She supposed him transfixed with the 
 audacity of her coming there, the wonder of her 
 intention, or the unreality of her in her long white 
 dinner gown, as she tore open her fur to give her 
 cramped breast more air. Since he did not move 
 she came closer to him, but still he made no sign. 
 A moonbeam on his face revealed it hard beyond 
 any face ever turned upon her. He was going to 
 play the saint with her, then! So, she was to be 
 shown that she was on suffrance here, at this hour, 
 alone, a married woman. Bah! This was an ex 
 hibition of the vaunted honour of the great Ameri 
 can man ! It was a trifle late, since he had sinned. 
 if par example, love was a sin, and his re 
 pentance on discovery impressed her as too Cath 
 olic to be convincing. She had so often captivated 
 him to her caprice, was it likely a mere scruple, 
 even a possible promise to Grandee, would enable 
 him to resist her now? Now, when he was life 
 and death to her? Now, when by his obstinacy he 
 was rousing her as he had never done in his clear-
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 421 
 
 est devotion? There was no ambiguity in her de 
 cision now as she came so close to him her breath 
 was sweet in his, and raised a beseeching face. 
 He was iron before her, though he shut his eyes 
 too hastily; shut her out with the temptation she 
 presented his weakness. 
 
 With a cry she threw herself upon him, and 
 he stood, as a cliff before a breaker doomed to be 
 cast back into the maelstrom from which it has 
 lifted itself for the mighty effort of assault. 
 
 In an access of despairing bewilderment she 
 lavished her kisses upon his hair, his eyes, not 
 his lips for he turned them from her with decision, 
 if not repulsion. Then laying her ungloved hands 
 shaking with the cold, upon his shoulders, she be 
 gan her incoherent protestations, half in French, 
 half in English. .r ^ 
 
 " Listen only, my adored one. You have let all 
 the others speak for Stephanie. But she has come 
 to speak for herself. They have wounded you 
 with their stupid fear of the world, and tempted 
 you by the rewards that tempt egoistic natures like 
 their own. They are two, and the woman they 
 have disposed of to their content was one, and not 
 permitted to be heard. But I tell you I love you! 
 I am yours as you swore you were mine. Do what 
 you like with me. I will never live with Raleigh 
 Payne again. To live with one man for sake of 
 another that is a final blasphemy against the
 
 422 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 Holy Spirit within me of which I am not capable. 
 I am yours. Je t'aime, je t'adore! Tu sais bien 
 comme j'existe seulement pour toil " 
 
 Trent was a statue of marble stolidity before 
 her. She gave a quick shrug of comprehension. 
 He was saving her from herself, naturally. 
 
 " Once more, listen, my Bien aime, these are on 
 my part what they are pleased to promise me in 
 exchange for a loveless life, to me, Stephanie, 
 who knows only how to love and was created for 
 that end only. They offer me first, respectabil 
 ity. To run the risk of being declassed in their 
 disordered country, without a nobility or aris 
 tocracy, seems to them a calamity for an Austrian 
 Countess! What can it mean to me? And after, 
 they promise me dull, beautiful, weary days, a 
 routine of glittering loneliness, eternal engagements 
 distasteful to me, none of them gay or sweet. If 
 this does not suffice, I am assured of a public part 
 to play at your government's seat, and always a 
 starving heart! No let Raleigh Payne take his 
 public to wife. I refuse that form of married in 
 fidelity. It is too bloodless. Compare it with the 
 little, hidden, simple days of perfect happiness to 
 gether." Her voice broke. She felt herself fail 
 ing, sickened by all lack of response. 
 
 " You kill me," she whispered hoarsely. 
 " Only for the love of anything you hold sacred do 
 it completely. Do your work to the end! Finish
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 423 
 
 it, do not leave it to others whose hands are sac 
 rilege!" 
 
 He had to hold her then, for she tottered help 
 lessly, all against her will. Life seemed to have 
 gone out in her pale body, with hope. He drew 
 her inside, and seated her upon the wooden settle 
 beside the empty fireplace where only the witless 
 moonbeams lit the melancholy ashes. Again she 
 made one spent effort toward him, lifting her lips 
 meek and passionate. But he saw them not. His 
 was, he supposed, the madness that had driven 
 that other man out of life before him. Her hus 
 band had said so. Her husband was a man of 
 honour. Trent saw her now as she must have 
 looked upon that first man's breast, their arms in 
 terlaced. He bade himself recall the embraces that 
 shamed an honest memory to recall, that had 
 ploughed their searing remembrance deep in the soul 
 of that noble husband, who had kept silence until 
 it became the price of another man's escape, and 
 then been brave enough to speak and trust the is 
 sue to another man's discretion and just estimate 
 of her worth. The thought turned him to steel. 
 His desire for her was brutal as his rage with her 
 for deceiving him was disdainful. If he took her 
 now, he should lose respect for himself forever. 
 If he let her undermine him now, knowing her un- 
 worthiness, it would be nothing less than to stamp 
 their relation beyond hope of redemption. It
 
 422 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 Holy Spirit within me of which I am not capable. 
 I am yours. Je t'aime, je t'adore! Tu sais bien 
 comme j'existe seulement pour toi! " 
 
 Trent was a statue of marble stolidity before 
 her. She gave a quick shrug of comprehension. 
 He was saving her from herself, naturally. 
 
 "Once more, listen, my Bien aime, these are on 
 my part what they are pleased to promise me in 
 exchange for a loveless life, to me, Stephanie, 
 who knows only how to love and was created for 
 that end only. They offer me first, respectabil 
 ity. To run the risk of being declassed in their 
 disordered country, without a nobility or aris 
 tocracy, seems to them a calamity for an Austrian 
 Countess! What can it mean to me? And after, 
 they promise me dull, beautiful, weary days, a 
 routine of glittering loneliness, eternal engagements 
 distasteful to me, none of them gay or sweet. If 
 this does not suffice, I am assured of a public part 
 to play at your government's seat, and always a 
 starving heart! No let Raleigh Payne take his 
 public to wife. I refuse that form of married in 
 fidelity. It is too bloodless. Compare it with the 
 little, hidden, simple days of perfect happiness to 
 gether." Her voice broke. She felt herself fail 
 ing, sickened by all lack of response. 
 
 " You kill me," she whispered hoarsely. 
 " Only for the love of anything you hold sacred do 
 it completely. Do your work to the end! Finish
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 423 
 
 it, do not leave it to others whose hands are sac 
 rilege!" 
 
 He had to hold her then, for she tottered help 
 lessly, all against her will. Life seemed to have 
 gone out in her pale body, with hope. He drew 
 her inside, and seated her upon the wooden settle 
 beside the empty fireplace where only the witless 
 moonbeams lit the melancholy ashes. Again she 
 made one spent effort toward him, lifting her lips 
 meek and passionate. But he saw them not. His 
 was, he supposed, the madness that had driven 
 that other man out of life before him. Her hus 
 band had said so. Her husband was a man of 
 honour. Trent saw her now as she must have 
 looked upon that first man's breast, their arms in 
 terlaced. He bade himself recall the embraces that 
 shamed an honest memory to recall, that had 
 ploughed their searing remembrance deep in the soul 
 of that noble husband, who had kept silence until 
 it became the price of another man's escape, and 
 then been brave enough to speak and trust the is 
 sue to another man's discretion and just estimate 
 of her worth. The thought turned him to steel. 
 His desire for her was brutal as his rage with her 
 for deceiving him was disdainful. If he took her 
 now, he should lose respect for himself forever. 
 If he let her undermine him now, knowing her un- 
 worthiness, it would be nothing less than to stamp 
 their relation beyond hope of redemption. It
 
 424 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 would make her what he could not name, and 
 himself an outcast from all his traditions. If he 
 touched her now, it would be the same as the 
 spring of the untamed beast for its prey. He 
 should hurt her. He wanted to hurt her. He so 
 hated her and so loved her! He held himself in 
 check in sheer terror of himself, this new, un 
 known, strange self. Conflicting emotions, reso 
 lutions, longings laid a pall upon him, benumbing 
 his confused desires. There was blood on her 
 soul, if not on his hands. There was sin between 
 them, or at least the foreshadowing of sin, in evil 
 anticipation of each other. She had deceived each 
 one of the three men who had adored her. He 
 had her husband's word for it, the admission wrung 
 from him to save her from further downfall. 
 Trent swore that he hated her. Yet he was sure 
 her touch would destroy both his hate and him. 
 He was lost or saved by this half hour's work of 
 endurance. The husband had sacrificed himself to 
 save him. She was a creature of any man's love, 
 lucky to find so magnanimous a shelter as Raleigh 
 Payne. Then the moonlight through the unclosed 
 door reached her, where she sat huddled in his 
 contempt. Her head was thrown back as if to 
 make breathing less irksome, her hands fell limply 
 beside her with the soft palms open in their touch 
 ing helplessness. The advancing moonbeam re 
 vealed her every perfection, offered her to him
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 425 
 
 without reserve, and he felt reason swerve from 
 the spur of wild instinct. He looked at her, com 
 pelled by her beauty, transfigured by the passion 
 he had roused. 
 
 What if he were to shut that door on the world? 
 What if he lit a blaze at her feet, and took her to 
 him forever? What was anything any more, but 
 to feel the every curve of her unresisting body 
 melting to his own! To let his clenched hands 
 seek and find the joy they craved, to give him 
 self blindly to the innate something, for whose sat 
 isfaction man is made, in defiance of any super- 
 artificial creed or code! A spasm shook him. 
 Principle died hard. She was panting now, still 
 speechless, but radiant with a smile that knew 
 she and the lower impulse had won him against 
 fearful odds of the spirit. Paler than the moon 
 light she smiled her unresisting smile at him. 
 Whatever had snatched him from her, whatever 
 unknown odds had been against her, she had pre 
 vailed. He was still hers. Hell and heaven were 
 flinging wide their gates with equal plausibility. 
 While Trent stood worsted, giving himself to her 
 first in that distracted, ecstatic gaze, in the long mo 
 ment that was to be the last before he snatched her 
 to him forever, a shadow fell across the band of 
 moonlight at her feet and her husband was upon 
 the threshold. 
 
 With a glance that covered his wife and at the
 
 426 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 same time exonerated Trent, he exclaimed with a 
 sigh of relief: 
 
 " What a lucky chance that you were not gone, 
 Mr. Trent? I have always feared Mrs. Payne 
 would get a fright in these woods after dark. 
 The labourers cross them because it cuts the dis 
 tance, and it is late for a lady to be out alone at 
 this season, even as early as this." Thus he ig 
 nored the situation and suppressed any ex 
 planation he might have dreaded for all their 
 sakes. He went toward Stephanie as he spoke, 
 and made a feint of drawing her cloak about 
 her. 
 
 " I am afraid you were dreadfully startled, dar 
 ling," he began. " Shall we ask Mr. Trent's 
 housekeeper to give you a cup of tea, or a glass 
 of wine? and then I will take you home." It was 
 the perfect assumption of an unjostled self-assur 
 ance. He was assuming a housekeeper, to keep 
 up the effect of outraged convention, and enunciat 
 ing a role for each of them as smoothly as if it had 
 been a proposition in geometry. 
 
 But Stephanie, triumphant in her freedom and 
 reassured that Trent was hers, did not respond to 
 the gallantry of her husband's effort to dictate his 
 own terms. She had not risen. Indeed her manner 
 betrayed no suggestion that she ever would leave 
 her present refuge. She threw back the fur Ra 
 leigh had drawn about her, and her white dress in
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 427 
 
 the moonlight lifted her outlines in high relief 
 against the murky shadows behind her. 
 
 " I have not been frightened," she said calmly. 
 " I came here with intention. I followed my heart. 
 It is the first time in my life, it will not be the 
 last, grace a Dieu ! " 
 
 Trent made an involuntary intercepting gesture, 
 but Raleigh Payne seeing it, frustrated his pur 
 pose. " I entirely exculpate you, Mr. Trent," he 
 said with unabated dignity. " I am sure your 
 word was proof even against such a test as has 
 been imposed upon you." 
 
 Stephanie's repulsion for her husband increased 
 at each urbane word. 
 
 " I am in ignorance of whatever you have said 
 or done to influence Mr. Trent," she said in an icy 
 voice, haughtily lifting her eyes to scrutinise his 
 unwelcome intrusion in the light of its possibility 
 to harm her. " But whatever it may have been, it 
 will have no effect. And for whatever you may 
 say to me, it is too late, too much in the past." 
 
 Raleigh accepted the glove so rashly hurled in 
 his face, as a definite challenge. 
 
 " Not an hour ago, Mr. Trent left me in entire 
 agreement with my suggestions. No woman 
 would wish to detain a man against his will. 
 When there are others dependent upon him and 
 his honour demands it, there is no second choice, 
 even in love. Caprice in a pretty woman is not
 
 428 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 unpardonable, but when it goes so far as to 
 threaten the ruin of a man's career, my dear Ste 
 phanie, no honest man will stand by and see the 
 waste of a life scattered to the winds of mo 
 mentary pleasure, or passion if you like to call 
 it so. You are both very young. I am not going 
 to play the Moor and rant in serious horror at 
 your thoughtlessness of conventions, or even of 
 myself. Fortunately Mr. Trent has no wife to 
 make an outcry. It lies interred in our three ca 
 pacities for forgetting. If you are sufficiently 
 yourself again, let me assist you in putting on your 
 coat. We shall have kept Grandee waiting for din 
 ner as it is, and as you know, Grandee detests 
 waiting." 
 
 " I am not going," she said. 
 
 " That comes better from a lover than from the 
 woman in his power," Raleigh remarked, with a 
 sneer he made an effort to soften without lessen 
 ing its full value of insult. 
 
 " Possibly, to a man of your scrupulous hon 
 our." Her voice out-sneered him. 
 
 " To any man protecting a woman of so stain 
 less a record as your own," he replied. 
 
 Stephanie's heart stopped beating. It seemed to 
 turn and go the other way, then stand still and 
 crumble, like water slowly dropping. 
 
 His insinuation was perfectly clear to her. He 
 knew then. In her later complexities she had
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 429 
 
 grown dull to that sharp, earlier torment of un 
 certainty. The climacteric moment was upon her. 
 It was to be a test of her word believed against 
 his own. To lose her head now meant to lose 
 everything, past, future, present, while Trent stood 
 waiting for her to rid herself of this encumbering 
 figure that had stepped between them and hindered 
 their desperate fulfilment of themselves. In her 
 soul she whispered, " O Sainte Vierge ! Aide moi ! 
 Ne m'abandonne pas ! " 
 
 The two men, jealous to the quick, each of the 
 other, and mated in mutual jealousy of the dead 
 man they believed to have loved her first, thereby 
 defrauding them, helping her to deceive them of 
 their male right to be first in the heart of any 
 woman they might choose, stood waiting before 
 her. Something in her, as she rose and stood frail 
 and undaunted before them, in her angelic white 
 ness, disarmed Trent. If any one but Raleigh 
 Payne had told him so base a truth about her, he 
 would have staked his life on her perfect good 
 ness and innocence of soul. He saw her flinch at 
 her husband's retort. Was it weakness or aston 
 ishment at an attack so unprovoked, so porten 
 tous in its double meaning? How was he to tell? 
 He stood helpless between these two, who were 
 bound together in marriage, in knowledge of each 
 other, in suspicion and in hate. It was as if he 
 looked on at a storm sweeping round him, dealing
 
 430 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 devastation he was powerless to prevent or escape. 
 Then for the first time Trent spoke. 
 
 " I told your husband this afternoon that I 
 loved you," he said, turning to her only, speaking 
 as if they two were alone. 
 
 " And he was able to convince you that you did 
 not ? " she asked. 
 
 " No, I have not changed. I do I shall " 
 he confessed, wretched at his vision of coming days 
 deprived of her. 
 
 " I was, however, able to convince Mr. Trent, 
 that a man's honour is more to him than a woman's 
 temporary preference," Raleigh explained, with cut 
 ting emphasis. 
 
 " If you intend to assume that my feeling for 
 him is the less sincere, because of my present po 
 sition as your wife, let me remind you, Raleigh 
 Payne, that the professions of love between us 
 have been yours and not mine," she said with 
 hauteur, unsubdued by his covert threat. " I do 
 not say that you could not have made me love you. 
 It remains only that you did not make the effort, 
 or the sacrifice, as you wish to call it. A woman's 
 heart cannot be filled by a public appreciation. I 
 am not light in turning from you to another man, 
 who is capable of love, who does not measure, and 
 considers it of first importance in his life. You 
 know perfectly what our relation has been, and 
 who has been most at fault. I make no accusa-
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 431 
 
 tion or defence. You know that none is necessary 
 between us." 
 
 " I make no allusion to our own mistakes/' Ra 
 leigh said hastily, " rather to the more removed 
 'past, which never escapes a woman's relentless 
 memory. We both remember our own perhaps too 
 well to boast. But do you consider yours calcu 
 lated to make it a safe venture for a man of Mr. 
 Trent's rare promise, to throw reputation and 
 character away for your sake? A woman who has 
 loved more than once, loves again, most often, 
 does she not." 
 
 If she had turned upon her husband then, de 
 manded what he meant, accused him of a cowardly 
 insinuation that he could not support, Trent could 
 have believed her utterly. The fact that she did 
 not, accused her in his painfully confused esti 
 mate. 
 
 " You know best what you mean, if you mean 
 anything," she said. It sounded evasive to Trent. 
 
 "Do I?" Raleigh questioned. And it had the 
 ring of sincerity she lacked. 
 
 " You also know that you are lying, by what 
 you imply," she asserted, gathering courage from 
 desperation. 
 
 " Have I ever lied ? When ? In public or in 
 private life? Could my worst political enemies 
 find anything to discredit my word? Have even 
 the Catholics found one flaw in my honour?
 
 432 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 Should I have been spared if it was possible to 
 assail me ? " he flung back at her arrogantly. 
 " With what untruth do you presume to charge 
 me, Stephanie? A wife should know her hus 
 band's honour at its weakest point ! " 
 
 He had wisely or unwisely given her her oppor 
 tunity, once for all. He was waiting. If she 
 spoke now, he knew how to silence her forever, 
 disgrace her in Trent's eyes and tighten the chains 
 that bound her to his will. Her lover's whole hope 
 and faith were in the balance, lit his imploring 
 gaze. He loved her whatever she did or said, but 
 he besought mutely of heaven, that she prove her 
 self beyond reproach for her own sake. 
 
 She had drawn herself up before them, a proud, 
 slight figure of contempt. The withdrawal of her 
 posture, the poise of her deliberation discarded 
 them both. Austria more than religion upheld her 
 in this ordeal before the two men who had already 
 judged her and held her condemned. 
 
 She knew how well it lay in her power to im 
 peach her husband's vaunted honour. She had 
 only to produce poor Nicolai Heathleagh's blot 
 ted poems. Probably she had but to hint at the 
 defence in her hands, to hush Raleigh's calumny 
 of her forever. If he knew, he had probably told 
 Trent all and more. But did he know or was he 
 but letting his suspicion be confirmed or put to 
 sleep once for all ? Both Trent and he, being men,
 
 AN ISSUE EVADED 433 
 
 would believe from Nicolai's vague words what 
 Raleigh had distorted from them. He would make 
 Trent believe the worst of her if she produced 
 these very poems to support her counter-charge, 
 whose passion would contradict her innocent de 
 nials and shatter the faith of the man she would 
 die to save from such desolation. Did men ever 
 believe a woman in affairs of the heart? Never! 
 If she insisted on her innocent relation with the 
 dead man and taxed Raleigh outright with theft 
 of his verses, it would only complicate her further, 
 instead of extricating her clear and blameless in 
 the eyes of her lover. Trent would despise her, 
 Raleigh would hate her. Heathleagh must have 
 told Raleigh that no one had ever seen the poems 
 but the one woman. If she proved herself to be 
 that woman, how could she escape their inevitable 
 conclusion? If she said nothing, there was the 
 chance that Raleigh knew nothing, beyond some 
 vaguely aroused suspicion, and that Trent would 
 fail to catch the deadly import of the issue. If 
 she could save his ideal of her, or the chance of 
 his faith outliving a false accusation, it was in 
 finitely better than taking the open alternative. 
 Father Mayhew could do the rest later. 
 
 It was this blending of possibilities that impelled 
 her restraint at last. 
 
 " My conscience and my memory are reconciled," 
 she said coldly. " I am ignorant of your intention
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE TEST OF MONEY 
 
 WITH an outward composure that cov 
 ered something very like paralysis of 
 inward being the habits of Sky High 
 were resumed. Grandee asked nothing and did all 
 that lay in his power to preserve a semblance of 
 family accord and winter cheer. Never had the 
 great log fires leapt more brilliantly or the devices 
 of the table held more subtle snares for the appe 
 tite. He talked wisely and wittily, of books, of 
 his own experience with foreign rulers, and the 
 men and women of society. He was never, it 
 seemed, at loss for an illustration, the " mot juste," 
 a word picture of some famous personage who had 
 at some time been his own familiar friend ; or the 
 intimate interpretation of the moods of Nature, 
 and his speculations toward the future of the race, 
 and one's own premonition of immortal adventures 
 yet to come, disembodied of this hindering bulk 
 and free to gad with the stars if one would. 
 
 He knew that Stephanie's capacity for suffering 
 was that of a sweet, undisciplined child, taught 
 only in the convent and the hearsay of her grand 
 mother's world. Neither of these he believed ade- 
 
 436
 
 THE TEST OF MONEY 437 
 
 quate to the great moral strains of maturity. 
 They would break down before a vital decision, 
 Grandee was sure. He would have supplied a 
 firmer foundation for her if he had known how. 
 As it was, he held her hand in his as closely as he 
 could and trusted the rest to the ministration of 
 time. She had none of Christine's resources at 
 her command. She had read, played, dreamed, 
 dressed, even ordered Grandee's household to a 
 certain extent, for Trent. Without him there was 
 no meaning to any single one of the activities of 
 her day. Her tastes were intrinsically pointless un 
 less intensified by his sharing, and nothing was 
 worth while without his dazzled appreciation. 
 
 What eloquence had either Grandee or Raleigh 
 to restore the thrill she pined for? Neither had 
 been able to make her waver in her own devotion 
 to Trent, but when he left her, or allowed her to 
 leave him, and go alone in the deathly moonlight 
 from the Squirrel's Nest, every hope had collapsed 
 and buried her under an ignominy that shamed 
 even her fondest memories of their brief passion 
 for each other. 
 
 Until this calamity Grandee talked against time 
 and an unlistening heart. After that tragic de 
 sertion of hope, no one dared to break in upon 
 her rigid reserve. She did not regret her silence 
 under her husband's provocation. She did not 
 feel any sort of emotion about anything. She went
 
 438 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 on living, and Grandee grew more grave as Ra 
 leigh procrastinated his preparations to take her 
 away from the scene of so much unhappiness. 
 
 To Raleigh's generous proposal, " Suppose we 
 begin all over, darling, to-day, and try to forget 
 there was any yesterday," she had only repeated 
 uncomprehendingly, " Begin what over ? " 
 
 " Begin everything over." 
 
 " You wish to leave all that is in the past, as if 
 it had not been ? " 
 
 " Yes," he assured her, encouraged by her at 
 tention. " I mean to step out of our past selves, 
 leave our unpleasant memories behind, our sins to 
 ward each other, our inheritance of weakness, our 
 tendencies, habits, associations. Think what it 
 would be ! A sort of Easter of the heart ! " 
 
 She shook her head unconvinced by the alluring 
 possibility. 
 
 " I am willing and ready, darling. Don't be 
 hard on yourself ! " he urged with increasing mag 
 nanimity. 
 
 " To begin over ? " she said again. " Ah, no ! 
 That would be to lose all and to gain, what ? " 
 
 In her soul she was sure he suspected her to 
 have been guilty in her relation to Nicolai Heath- 
 leagh. She considered him a coward to withhold 
 his charge for fear of her own unique hold over 
 him in return. Why should he assume this for 
 giving condescension? He, who had stolen a dead
 
 THE TEST OF MONEY 439 
 
 man's reputation and a woman's right to denounce 
 him? In the rage of helplessness she turned to 
 Father Mayhew for light. She would have gone 
 to him, begged him to provide her with some form 
 of escape, but she knew too well that the convent 
 would be his only alternative from a life of dis 
 cretion with her husband. And the convent would 
 separate her from the thought of Trent. She 
 needed no external aid to her vision of him, any 
 more than the hasheesh dreamer needs to glorify his 
 cell ; but if to love him now, in her wedded vows 
 to Raleigh Payne, was a venial sin, to adore him 
 behind a nun's vows to heaven would mean not 
 purgatory shared, but ultimate perdition, alone. 
 The advantage was all Raleigh's. It maddened her 
 most to be dependent upon him. Day and night 
 the struggle went on within her, while Raleigh 
 delayed at Sky High, which puzzled Grandee and 
 worried him even more. He would have given a 
 great deal for Dan Wylin's verdict now: would 
 have sent for him, if he had not gone South to 
 supervise the opening of a home for nervous chil 
 dren, founded at his own expense and as his own 
 experiment. It occurred to him as possible that 
 the added weight and superb animal condition vis 
 ible in his nephew might conceal a mental weak 
 ness, hid from all but the scrutiny of professional 
 insight. He did not like to hurry Raleigh back to 
 the city, lest his imagination get working to the
 
 440 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 detriment of his own condition. Otherwise there 
 were other good men who could take a look at 
 him, and suggest a beneficial move. Grandee was 
 sure the quiet of Sky High had no charm for Ra 
 leigh, yet there was no effort toward other de 
 parture and a lack of initiative never visible in that 
 indomitable will before. 
 
 " What does love mean to you, Raleigh ? " he 
 asked, one afternoon as they sat alone in the Eyrie, 
 pretending to read. The answer was unhesitating 
 and sure. 
 
 " What does love mean to me ? Life, dou 
 bled." 
 
 And Grandee knew that had he asked Trent the 
 same question, the shadows of Rossetti would have 
 clung to his evasions, reluctant and dusky. And 
 to which of these men, each the counterpart of the 
 other, was it real? Or even more real? To 
 which, if either, was this dear woman necessary? 
 And if to either, why did they not assert it? Ste 
 ven Randall condemned both men, in his heart, 
 these long, dark afternoons of early winter when 
 the cold crept like a were-wolf nearer and nearer 
 the blaze upon the hearth. What business had the 
 Creator to have made women, if they were to be 
 the legitimate victims of men? Raleigh read his 
 unrest and met it encouragingly. 
 
 " I wish you would not worry so about Ste 
 phanie, Uncle Randall," he said kindly. " She will
 
 THE TEST OF MONEY 441 
 
 come out all right. Let her have a little chance 
 to get over the jolt of the first re-adjustment. As 
 soon as she gets herself in hand, I shall assert my 
 self of course. She will swing back into step easily 
 enough. We shall get on famously, better than 
 ever for the additional knowledge of each other. 
 I am not taking this flurry seriously. I do not see 
 why you should. There is no harm done. Ste 
 phanie will pout for a week or so, and then forget 
 it all." 
 
 " You seem to eliminate the effect upon Law 
 rence Trent," Randall said drily. " I suppose you 
 recognise what this has taken out of him." 
 
 " As for him, he is at large again all the better 
 for a harmless course in feminine folly. He is an 
 ambitious lad along his own lines. He would not 
 want Stephanie or any other woman at the price of 
 his standing among men. He has a keen head on 
 his shoulders, once a woman's arms are removed 
 from them. He has more stuff in him naturally 
 than Jim. It takes Christine to keep Jim up t6 
 the scratch, but this younger brother is marked 
 for the peerage of his profession. He knows it. 
 He will be more careful of entangling alliances in 
 future, to speak diplomatically." 
 
 " I am not sure you are right," said Randall 
 slowly. " I think you do not read him deeply 
 enough. He is one of those still things, narrow as 
 the grave and just as final."
 
 442 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " On the other hand, Stephanie herself would 
 never espouse a cottage by the mill ! " 
 
 " I do not know about that either," Randall ob 
 jected again. " She is disillusioned pretty thor 
 oughly for a woman so young, and he is a scholar. 
 She has seen, and heard said to her, about every 
 thing men and countries can give or say. She 
 knows the worth or vanity of it all rather too pre 
 cisely to make any mistake in her estimates. He 
 cares not a jot for anything outside his books, 
 unless it is Stephanie. Politics mean nothing to 
 him. I doubt if he knows whether the Governor 
 of his native state is a Democrat or a Republican. 
 She will always be able to remember, for her 
 amusement, and he can imagine, and then, 
 they are both under the spell of each other." 
 
 " It surprises me to hear you treat it as more 
 than a summer breeze," Raleigh said carelessly. 
 " I am always curious about what you think, but I 
 own I am astonished that you think at all about so 
 transient an episode." 
 
 " I do think about it. I think even more, and 
 that is, if either of them had a private fortune we 
 should be given a chance to see where we came in. 
 I believe it would astonish you even more." 
 
 " The lack of sufficient fortune Mr. Trent does 
 seem to consider a final barrier. There is nothing 
 that cools a lover's ardour quite so perceptibly as 
 the need of the almighty dollar, vulgar as it sounds
 
 THE TEST OF MONEY 443 
 
 in association with the divine language of the in 
 flammable poets," Raleigh said, smiling at the 
 comedy element in all heroics. 
 
 " Of course he cannot contemplate reducing a 
 woman like Stephanie to even poetic, rose-thatched 
 poverty," Randall mused sadly, " but his motives 
 are not mercenary." 
 
 " You seem to be commiserating their escape 
 from wrong-doing," Raleigh remarked, annoyed. 
 
 " I pity them," Randall replied simply. " If I had 
 been Trent I could not have done as he has done, 
 whether from supernatural strength or human 
 weakness." 
 
 " And I think you quite underestimate the power 
 of public opinion and social convention. My wife 
 will never over-step the bounds," he spoke stiffly. 
 Randall made no reply. He was thinking how he 
 would love to put a fortune at Stephanie's com 
 mand, if only sin would not be the price of her en 
 suing happiness. It seemed harder than ever to 
 him to-day, that love might not flow in a refreshing 
 stream, to gladden meadows and illusion cities. 
 Why should love be expected to stay always in one 
 place, more than a life-giving river on its glad way 
 to useful mill-wheels and majestically stored 
 power, as well as the lush banks of flower-fringed 
 idling? 
 
 " One's vision of life is a fairer habitation to 
 dwell in, than the actual world," was all he said
 
 444 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 aloud. But Raleigh instantly took high moral 
 issue with such laxity. " Vision is the catch-word 
 of to-day, Uncle Randall, not duty. I heard a 
 Bishop say, at a dinner in town the other night, 
 that the children of Israel were lost because they 
 did as seemed good to them, and God was not 
 pleased ! " 
 
 " Don't lug God into this. I cannot stand that ! " 
 Randall said impatiently. And the subject was 
 never re-opened. 
 
 When Randall appealed to Stephanie to rouse 
 herself and try to let the light in her heart again, 
 she cried out, as a sick child, " I want to, dear 
 Grandee, for your sake. But I am not able." 
 
 *' You are dear to me as a daughter," he told her, 
 " be brave, and let me give you all I have, to fortify 
 your self-respect and nerve you to face life again ! " 
 
 " And I love you, too, more than all, but one," 
 she assured him, " but I have lost my power to 
 love, or to wish anything very strongly. For me 
 the summer is over. It is winter in my soul also." 
 
 Gradually a dull semblance of harmony crept 
 over them. She could not marry Trent, for while 
 Raleigh lived he would not marry her, even if 
 she swore she was a base creature and obliged 
 Raleigh to divorce her. And even if law was ap 
 peased to the last fraction of blood, she could not 
 ruin Trent by giving herself to him penniless. 
 Others depended upon him. Only once Randall
 
 THE TEST OF MONEY 445 
 
 dared to approve and encourage, but then she 
 turned from his smile with a hard shrug that hurt 
 him, as she cried, " Do not deceive yourself. I 
 am dependent upon my husband. We are obliged 
 to live it out with a crossed sword between us. 
 Love is my sacred ideal. Ambition is Raleigh's 
 idol." There was no hint of resignation in her 
 word or manner. 
 
 And Raleigh went smilingly on, unconscious of 
 her smouldering resentment, indifferent to all save 
 his own health and success, and so certain of his 
 power over her that he was willing to wait indefi 
 nitely. If he had not been a trifle suspicious al 
 ways of too much good luck, he would have been 
 perfectly at ease. 
 
 The Trust investigations had piroved a dumb 
 show. He had come off with flying colours and an 
 added notoriety, involving complimentary resolu 
 tions, and flattering notices right and left. He had 
 come out ahead in his struggles against certain 
 Catholic interests that he had checked from pre 
 dominance in a vital quarter, and though assailed 
 on all sides, his unblemished reputation for truth 
 had protected him from the probing given all pub 
 lic men under the glare of a crisis. Wall Street 
 was firm and he had received an offer for his risky 
 timberland in the North-west that convinced him it 
 would be a mistake to consider its sale, thereby 
 backing his first scent for the investment, which
 
 446 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 pleased his appreciation of his own judgment. And 
 now the Washington appointment was open, and 
 soon to be decided, with no conspicuous rival in 
 sight. His complacence was only marred by his 
 certainty that life always strikes an average. And 
 if all else was going so swimmingly, the drop might 
 come in the very place he would give up all the rest 
 to secure. He did not lay enough stress on this 
 whirligig in his wife's emotions to consider it use 
 ful in the balance of greater things. Beside he had 
 a secret to tell her, that was only waiting for a 
 less indifferent mood on her part. He could ab 
 solutely count on her pleasure in the telling, and 
 he was reserving it for the last course in his cure 
 of her experiment in the illegitimate comedy of 
 European marriage a la mode, including the lover 
 as an inevitable third. 
 
 He did not suspect that every hour Stephanie 
 hated her bondage more. What he had said to 
 Trent, she had no way of guessing. She supposed 
 it was nothing more than the trite maxims of the 
 world. He would not dare to accuse her. He had 
 not dared before her face, and no man would be 
 a man who refused a woman opportunity to con 
 tradict a lie. He had spared himself as much as 
 her in holding back the name of Heathleagh, de 
 terred perhaps by the same scruple that sealed her 
 own lips. Her mind ran incessantly on the poems. 
 Were they, after all, so compromising? It was
 
 THE TEST OF MONEY 447 
 
 a brilliant winter morning when the idea came to 
 her to read them over, just as he had first written 
 them, and see if they were indeed beyond her use 
 as complete justification, and reason for leaving 
 the husband she knew false at the core. Outside, 
 the white-cowled pines bowed submissively to their 
 heavy habits of snow, and the shadows along the 
 edge of the forest lay purple as the vestments for 
 the especial feast days of the church. She went 
 to the foreign dress-box that always stood in her 
 own room, at home or hotel, and unlocking the box 
 that held her private papers, drew out the battered 
 sheets and began to read. 
 
 They transported her. They suffocated her 
 she threw open the window and the cold clean 
 breath of the pines blew across her with infinite 
 invigoration. The wind was blowing in a deter 
 mined way, sweeping down from the height to the 
 valley below, in eddies that set the snow whirling 
 before it. 
 
 When Raleigh later opened the door from the 
 next room, the draught sent a gale blowing, in 
 which the light curtains streamed out like banners, 
 and put every flimsy thing in instant motion. The 
 papers before Stephanie would have gone sliding 
 after, if she had not swept them hastily into an open 
 drawer, glad for this excuse of necessity to save 
 them from being blown out of the window, which 
 he closed; commenting disparagingly on the low
 
 448 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 temperature of the room. She saw at once that he 
 had an object in coming to her there and something 
 of importance to say. 
 
 " You have seemed so preoccupied, darling," he 
 began, seating himself upon the arm of her chair, 
 and pushing in one of her long shell hairpins with 
 a marital air of entire possession, " that I have de 
 layed giving you some information that has come 
 from abroad. I waited to investigate it first, and 
 then to have the announcement confirmed." 
 
 She paid little or no attention to him now, be 
 cause it sounded so exactly like all Raleigh's pre 
 vious announcements of a new appointment. She 
 was unprepared to hear him ask, instead of con 
 tinuing with his monolog, " But first tell me, when 
 did you hear last from your grandmother? " 
 
 Stephanie shrugged regretfully. She shrank 
 from admission of her Grandmother's casting her 
 off. It wounded her to have it recalled. " She 
 does not write at all. She has forgotten me," she 
 said. 
 
 " She has gone so far as to make you believe her 
 indifferent as to your fate ? " Was he trying to 
 impress the misery of her utter dependence upon 
 her? Her heart hardened under the impression 
 that he was. 
 
 " When have you heard from her ? " he persisted. 
 
 " Never, since she gave me over into your hands," 
 she replied dispassionately.
 
 THE TEST OF MONEY 449 
 
 They had all done what they liked with her 
 from the first! She felt herself a mere object in 
 their handling. 
 
 " I have intended to live up to her confidence 
 in me," Raleigh said hastily. Was he reminding 
 her that she, not he, had departed from the letter 
 of their contract? 
 
 " Why do you ask me questions! about my grand 
 mother?" she asked, wishing he would go away. 
 " What possible interest can our relation have for 
 you?" 
 
 " It has a very great interest ; for you have mis 
 judged her affection, even more than mine." Still 
 she betrayed only a sense of interruption. 
 
 " The old Countess is dead," Raleigh added, " and 
 she has left her entire estate to you, darling." Even 
 then Stephanie looked at him with unconcern. 
 
 " You see she did care for you, appearances to 
 the contrary, all the time." He patted her arm 
 playfully as he watched her for the revival of pleas 
 ure he had anticipated from the telling of his great 
 news. 
 
 "The Countesse de Lamoureux died in spite of 
 herself, or her own wishes," she said unmoved. 
 " As her only surviving descendant I must inherit. 
 That is what has arrived, tout simplement. It is 
 not an affair of sentiment," she corrected him drily. 
 
 " Don't be so hard toward her, darling ! She had 
 suffered greatly, you know, and the real estate in
 
 450 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 Vienna will come to you unencumbered, with a 
 sufficient fund to make up to you for your father's 
 failure to provide for you." 
 
 " We will leave the misfortunes of my father 
 out of our discussion, if you please." Raleigh 
 thought he had never seen such an exhibition of 
 hardness of spirit, such unrelenting implacability 
 toward the dead. 
 
 Suddenly she covered her face with her hands, 
 and sat so long silent that he believed her touched, 
 at last, by natural feeling for the loss of the only 
 earthly relation of her own blood. Instantly he 
 laid a warm hand on her shoulder, won to her by 
 an instinctive sympathy, urging affectionately, 
 
 " Do not grieve too much, Stephanie. It was 
 a natural and inevitable death. She was very old, 
 beyond almost every enjoyment, and she had 
 lived her life out. Let us try to feel she had time 
 to fully repent her follies, and face her future in 
 a hope of immortality." 
 
 But Stephanie was not weeping. When she 
 slipped from his caress, it was a tearless face that 
 confronted him. 
 
 " When did you know this ? " she demanded. 
 
 " Only recently by the lawyer's communication." 
 
 " Why did you not tell me immediately ? " 
 
 " I waited to establish identity, according to 
 foreign custom. I had to assure myself there had 
 been no mistake and no legal form was lacking."
 
 THE TEST OF MONEY 451 
 
 " Did you know it the day you came up from 
 the city and found Mr. Trent here with Grandee? " 
 
 " I was reasonably sure of it." 
 
 "Why did you not tell me?" 
 
 " I considered you too over-wrought at that time 
 to pay proper heed to any other matter, especially 
 one that might prove an uncertainty." 
 
 " I see," she said, and her voice shook so that 
 she could hardly form the words. " And so in 
 stead of telling me then, you generously took me 
 back, after that interview with Mr. Trent, as the 
 forgiven, and sinning wife! Penniless, friendless, 
 except for her husband's merciful bounty?" 
 
 " I fail to catch the connection, if there is one in 
 your own mind, Stephanie." 
 
 " There is one ! My word of honour for it ! " 
 she cried, laughing hysterically, " there is as much 
 connection as freedom to the captive after he has 
 taken poison." She put her hands over her mouth 
 to prevent the hysterical desire to laugh more 
 loudly, even to scream. 
 
 The aristocratically marked brows across Ra 
 leigh's nose contracted haughtily. 
 
 " There was no dishonour in delay, or in my 
 intention," he said. 
 
 " Oh Raleigh, your honour ! You are more than 
 honest in so many ways! One could leave the 
 golden rule lying about forever, with entire safety, 
 you would never touch it ! You knew of this
 
 452 THE SIN OF 'ANGELS 
 
 money my grandmother had left me, but it was 
 too critical, too dubious, a moment to admit it, 
 yes?" 
 
 " Stephanie really, you are insulting ! " he pro 
 tested, his colour deepening as she went on. 
 
 " I am not insulting. I am only honest like you. 
 Does it please you? You knew I could not leave 
 you without a sou. You know I should have gone 
 to Father Mayhew if I had seen but a little fortune 
 in my own right. I would have gone to the man I 
 loved, if I could have been anything but a bitter 
 embarrassment and a burden to him. And you 
 conceal the fact of my fortune from me, and go on 
 talking to me of honour! It is too ridiculous! 
 Mon Dieu, but how you make me laugh ! How you 
 'are droll!" 
 
 Her ridicule stung him beyond any possible re 
 proach. At the moment some one knocked. Ste 
 phanie remained motionless. It was Raleigh who 
 recovered himself enough to step to the door and 
 open it. 
 
 Joel Underwood stood outside. He stepped 
 into the room, unbidden, holding a paper in his 
 hand.' 
 
 " It blew out of your window," he explained, 
 " right down into the early snowball bed. I was 
 lightening up their covering a little. Season's too 
 warm for all the bulbs. It is going to be the poor 
 est year since I was a boy, for all those early things.
 
 THE TEST OF MONEY 453 
 
 I should not wonder if they was to fail and not 
 one of 'em come to a bud." 
 
 " I hope not. We should miss them sorely from 
 the terrace. They have our best and brightest 
 wishes ! " Raleigh returned glibly. 
 
 " When I see beggars ride I shall value wishes 
 more than I do now," Joel observed, glancing at 
 Stephanie, who threw him a faint smile. He ex 
 tended the sheet of paper that he had rescued to 
 her, with unconciliated visage. As he withdrew, 
 the eyes of the husband and wife met upon the 
 manuscript poem of Nicolei Heathleagh 
 
 " L'Hirondelle Blanche" 
 
 For some time they stood so. Neither knew 
 how long. 
 
 " So you were the mistress of that dead boy ! " 
 Raleigh muttered, too shaken to spare her. 
 
 " I was not." 
 
 " This proves it ! " 
 
 "You forget perhaps what it also proves?" 
 
 Again they faced each other. Each was men 
 tally reviewing the past and the influence exerted 
 by a mutual enmity. 
 
 " I will tell you without reserve, once for all, 
 that I loved Nicolai " she said dreamily, " so 
 loyal, so brave, so tender always of a woman's 
 heart! Never cruel, never forgetful, never de 
 grading love to a second place ! His devotion was
 
 454 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 like that of a mother to her little child. Gentle, 
 patient, trusting wholly to the generosity of the 
 heart that loved him. Faithful, in face of the ap 
 pearance of infidelity, he held the young girl he 
 adored sacred as heaven. Courageous in danger, 
 but before her trembling with awe. First at the 
 front in battle, but weak enough to weep over her 
 slightest sorrow or pain. Deceived, it is true, but 
 never by Stephanie! He remains in her disil 
 lusioned experience of men and their world, the 
 purest, noblest, most generous figure of a young 
 girl's blameless dream, before the rude dawning 
 of her day of marriage and reality." 
 
 Twice Raleigh began to speak. Twice she mo 
 tioned him to silence. 
 
 "What is there more to say?" she demanded. 
 " We do not believe each other. You have played 
 your part in the play to the end, for as far as J 
 am concerned it is the end, here and now. I have 
 always said you were a man of the very highest 
 principles, for others. My ideals are of a differ 
 ence. My grandmother the Comtesse de Lamou- 
 reux has atoned, blessed be her memory ! It is 
 now possible for us to consider it of no moment 
 what one does, or the other feels. There is no 
 necessity of discussion or explanation or recrim 
 ination between us. I shall go at once to Vienna 
 to assume control of my grandmother's affairs. I 
 shall do all my possible to induce Grandee to ac 
 company me."
 
 THE TEST OF MONEY 455 
 
 "You will leave me, Stephanie?" He was in 
 credulous. 
 
 " With your career," she replied sweetly. " It 
 will not fail you. You possess the first quality of 
 success ingratitude." 
 
 " And my love for you cast aside ? " 
 
 " You have loved my contribution to your suc 
 cess, and you have had it. You will always have 
 my good wishes." 
 
 "And the scandal!" he retorted. 
 
 " Not unless you prefer to make a scandal out 
 of it. You will say, naturally, that Mrs. Payne 
 was called abroad by the exigence of legal adjust 
 ments, you will hint at a larger estate than is 
 really mine. It will not hurt your position to ex 
 aggerate in this case, it will increase your won 
 der." 
 
 How pitilessly she knew him, riddled him 
 through and through! 
 
 " You will add," she went on, " that happily 
 your Uncle Steven Randall, of whom she is de 
 votedly fond, is with her in your place. You will 
 add, apropos, a few plausible details of some new 
 state secret, that keeps so important a man as the 
 honourable Raleigh Payne tied to his government 
 for the moment, however against his will. You 
 will admit the sacrifices a public man is often 
 obliged to make." 
 
 Then with an arrogance and finality that would 
 have done credit to the wizened old Countess de
 
 456 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 Lamoureux in her insolent prime, Stephanie drew 
 herself, slender and uncompromising and trium 
 phant, to her utmost stature, and dismissed him, 
 unheard. It was incredible. But what had he to 
 say? What could he have said? At least just 
 then? 
 
 She was right. He had cared most for her con 
 tribution to his success. And he had it still. She 
 had covered his every possibility of attack. It 
 remained an open question as to the avenging of 
 Nicolai Heathleagh. Stephanie had squared the 
 dead man's account as to the poems, but had his 
 own avenging been so subtle or so satisfactory, 
 after all? It was almost the first misgiving Ra 
 leigh Payne had ever been forced to contemplate 
 in his unmistaken upward career, and it was un 
 pleasantly blended with a curiosity as to how much 
 the priest had been told by her in confession, and 
 how implicitly he might be relied upon to keep 
 his own counsel.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE ROYAL WAY OF THE CROSS 
 
 IT was very still at Sky High in those first 
 days after Steven Randall's unexpected de 
 parture with Stephanie. He had raised no 
 least objection to accompanying her. He took it 
 all as a matter of course, on her representation of 
 her need of him. Servants and friends were alike 
 confounded by the nonchalance with which he left 
 his lounging chair for an ocean voyage in mid 
 winter, and not even the alleviation of the south 
 ern route before him, at that. The excitement of 
 preparation, and the actual getting off improved 
 his spirits in spite of sinister predictions and much 
 shaking of heads on the .part of a disapproving 
 chorus. Perhaps he did not so much care just 
 where death overtook him, so long as it found 
 him doing the right thing. 
 
 It occurred to Raleigh, that the weariness of 
 waiting for release might well have become intol 
 erable to a man with the habit of the world in his 
 past as thoroughly as it had been in that of Steven 
 Randall. Everything had been decided so sud 
 denly that they were gone before even the imme 
 diate household realised their intention to the full 
 
 457
 
 458 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 extent or enormity of the invalid's recklessness. 
 
 The miracle of peace seemed to have been 
 wrought in Stephanie's soul. She who had paced 
 her room as restlessly as any nun denied the sac 
 rament on Good Friday, harried by her distrust 
 of Raleigh and his intention toward her, as well 
 as her speculation as to the true nature of Law 
 rence Trent's love for her, seemed to have been 
 touched by a divine release. With perfect gen 
 tleness, and yet remote as a faithful star, she shone 
 upon them all with equally distant sweetness. She 
 forgave perhaps hoping to be forgiven. Possibly 
 she only drew herself away from an alien environ 
 ment in a manner to give as little pain as she 
 could, too thankful for her liberation to think of 
 the distance she was putting between herself and 
 the man whose face was still her vision. 
 
 At the last moment, on the last morning when 
 the trunks were being carried out, and the hall 
 doors stood wide and heartless to the intrusion of 
 the cold, Joel Underwood, with gall and worm 
 wood in his manner, had brought Stephanie a 
 prodigal bunch of heliotrope. It was a contradic 
 tion of his life principles more eloquent than any 
 verbal farewell. It was in reality an apostasy. 
 
 " They'll fade, of course," he remarked bitterly, 
 " sooner than camellias or carnations would. But 
 while they last they'll smell sweet, and nothing 
 lasts long, anyhow."
 
 THE ROYAL WAY OF THE CROSS 459 
 
 The pain at her throat had almost cut her as she 
 thanked him with outstretched hand, remembering 
 how frail and transient the sweetest memories of 
 Sky High had been to her, and would always be. 
 
 Joel did not say he should hope to see her back 
 soon. He was not given to indulging in futile 
 amenities. He expected the worst and was in 
 ured to its varied forms of attack. In this up 
 heaval he recognised something analogous to an 
 early frost or unseasonable rose lice, and he was 
 not a shallow optimist to make light of its porten 
 tous disaster. He resigned his stems of purple 
 fragrance to Mrs. Raleigh Payne, very much as 
 he would have laid them with equal decorum upon 
 the lid of her coffin. His manner, as he withdrew, 
 was a nice shade between the funereal and the 
 reproving. 
 
 Raleigh put her in the car, kissing her without 
 any jot of difference in his manner, and saying 
 loud enough for the servants to hear without lis 
 tening, " Have a good voyage, darling, and ca 
 ble from Cherbourg! Write just how you find 
 things, without fail.' I wish I could run over with 
 you, but Uncle Randall will be as good as a dozen 
 husbands! If it was not for this sudden cold of 
 mine I should go to town too, and see you off, at 
 least. Don't let Uncle Randall over-tax himself, 
 will you? Jim Trent will attend to everything 
 his man cannot do. And by the way, where is
 
 460 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 Uncle Randall? There is not any time to waste." 
 
 Steven Randall stood in the hall. His face was 
 a tragedy of parting with all he held most sacred 
 and most dear. Raleigh was shocked to silence at 
 sight of it. The portraits of his ancestors looked 
 down upon him too, mute and stern in their heavy 
 frames, to chide or to exhort as one might con 
 strue their painted purpose. He broke the tensity 
 of the situation, only by a determination to inter 
 fere at any cost. 
 
 " Uncle Steven, do not go ! " he cried impul 
 sively. " Let me entreat you before it is too late. 
 This winter voyage is madness. Let me send a 
 woman with Stephanie, but do not sacrifice your 
 self, and perhaps rush to your own death, for a 
 mere bit of Quixotism ! " 
 
 Randall's grave eyes rested on one beloved vista 
 after another, seen perhaps through these windows 
 for the last time, except as memory would repeat 
 them. His gaze strayed through the open library 
 door to his books, and back to the frozen garden 
 framed by the crimson curtains that almost lent 
 a warmth to the sleeping hearts* of his flowers be 
 neath the snow. Then holding himself erect, he 
 replied curtly, with a ring of steel in his voice 
 that cut to the quick: 
 
 " The sins of men are mine, not those of angels, 
 Raleigh. I have never feared death, or failed a 
 woman who trusted me. I am nearing seventy,
 
 THE ROYAL WAY OF THE CROSS 461 
 
 and it is too late for me to unlearn my creed. It 
 is no further to paradise from Vienna than from 
 Sky High, if God and you are one! And the 
 woman who is waiting for me, being an angel, 
 will ' remember and understand.' " 
 
 It was in the hush of one of those first after 
 noons, that the bell rang harshly, echoing as bells 
 will, almost as if possessed of vindictive conscious 
 ness of their broken connection with humanity. 
 
 The message repeated at the door was a spare 
 one. It took but a moment to repeat it. And it 
 was Raleigh Payne this time, who stood alone at 
 the window and watched the irate back and stiffly 
 uncompromising shoulders of Jim Trent's younger 
 brother down the driveway; exactly as Stephanie 
 had done on an afternoon in early spring, the first 
 Sunday after their chance meeting at the cottage 
 of Christine. 
 
 Father Mayhew was, or supposed himself to be, 
 reading his breviary, as he walked up and down 
 the south side of the building sanctified as a par 
 ish house, adjoining the church and parochial 
 school. He had risen before dawn to attend the 
 call of a presumably dying man, who had incon 
 sistently improved on his arrival, and returned 
 to officiate at one of the several early offices. His 
 luncheon had been over by a little past noon, and
 
 462 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 the warmth of the sun and sense of momentary 
 lull from the active exercise of his religion was 
 grateful. It was one of those innocent and benign 
 ministrations of Nature, that even the strictest 
 priest may allow himself without reproach, if he 
 neglects no duty, leaves no penance unperformed 
 thereby. 
 
 The narrow garden enclosed by a high wall was 
 in wintry ruin of course. A few rose leaves only 
 held to their vines, where the hips and haws were 
 already frozen. One meagre patch of mignonette 
 had somehow braved or escaped the frost, and 
 made a deathly sort of sweetness, as he turned 
 each time at the corner, where an uneasy, unsym 
 pathetic east wind cut through his summer habit. 
 He was musing vaguely now upon the tenacity of 
 such sweet, frail things, as he walked. 
 
 He had been a priest at heart from boyhood ; al 
 ways, one might say. Rigour had no repulsions 
 for his seasoned soul, yet to-day strangely enough 
 he basked in the chill sunshine, noted the passing 
 of the flowers with that pathetic love of them no 
 ticeable in celibates, and even scattered a few 
 crumbs for the doves on the church roof opposite ; 
 prolonging his usual quarter of an hour to nearly 
 double his wonted time. The path he trod led 
 past a long porch with a bricked floor, trellised 
 over with grape vines and shut in at one end by 
 the building. The long wooden settle, that ran
 
 THE ROYAL WAY OF THE CROSS 463 
 
 the entire length, was sheltered from the wind, 
 and even in winter afforded a possible place for a 
 noon-day rest. Indeed the winter as Sky High 
 knew it never penetrated this more southerly loca 
 tion, and was always a backward guest, coming 
 late and hastening away before it became too un 
 welcome. To-day Father Mayhew had already 
 reached the porch on his way back to the house, 
 when a visiting card was brought to him by a 
 young lay brother, who coughed as the east wind 
 penetrated his lungs with its contracting shiver. 
 Father Mayhew chided him gently for venturing 
 into the open air bare-headed, and pursued his in 
 quiry as to his care of himself and progress to 
 ward health, for the moment oblivious of the er 
 rand that had brought him. Then pausing on his 
 way in, he bade the visitor sent to him there. The 
 name on the card meant nothing to him. But as 
 Lawrence Trent stood in the whitewashed arch of 
 the doorway, for an instant his likeness to. a Carlo 
 Dolci saint in the Pitti palace, struck him so 
 forcibly that he believed he must have known the 
 man before. One had only to throw the lilied 
 velvet vestment over his shoulders, halo the head 
 with its pale brow and deep-set, ascetic eyes, to 
 remove every trace of the modern secular. His 
 scrutiny was returned, if he had been less preoc 
 cupied to observe it, but his own face kept its 
 secrets well under the habitual mask of the priest.
 
 464 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 Trent could not define the impression he got of it, 
 even to himself. He had always held that the 
 faces of priests came under three classifications: 
 those of frank satisfaction, those of mortal resig 
 nation, and the melodramatic stamp of those who 
 enjoy the prominence of the part and play it con 
 sciously. Under none of the three could he place 
 the man before him, who waited with dignity, yet 
 all possible encouragement of manner, for him to 
 begin the explanation of his own presence there. 
 After the exchange of a grave and formal greet 
 ing he was at loss how to begin. What was there 
 to say? How was he to introduce the errand that 
 had so impulsively brought him? Father Mayhew 
 noticed his confusion and making it his own, as 
 sumed himself the one at fault, saying as if to 
 excuse a lack of memory on his part: 
 
 " You will pardon me my failure to remember 
 your name? My duties are among so many hun 
 dreds of men. We have met before undoubtedly, 
 but I must ask you to remind me of the circum 
 stances." 
 
 " It is I who should ask pardon for intruding 
 upon your solitude," Trent began, but Father May- 
 hew waived his apology. " It is never an in 
 trusion for a priest to be sought by one who has 
 need of him," he said assuringly. " All his people 
 are equally his to care for, as he is theirs to serve." 
 
 " I have not even that justification," Trent ad-
 
 THE ROYAL WAY OF THE CROSS 465 
 
 mitted with regret. His voice always dropped at 
 the end of his sentences, as if too wistful or too 
 weary to bear the burden of his feeling to the end. 
 The priest noted it. 
 
 " Will you sit down ? " he asked, motioning to 
 the wooden bench. " Or do you prefer to go in 
 doors? The afternoon fire is not lighted yet, and 
 the open air is really less chill in the sun." 
 
 Trent acquiesced in silence. " The outlook here 
 is contracted," Father Mayhew continued, trying 
 to put him at his ease, " but the opportunity for 
 the spirit to soar is perhaps doubly enhanced, to 
 the church and heaven beyond the church." As 
 he spoke the wind crept closer through the vines 
 and a few of the remaining rose leaves shuddered 
 and fell. He turned to Trent kindly, but as if to 
 remind him that time counted, even in sacred mat 
 ters, and the days of summer were already long 
 gone by. 
 
 " How can I help you ? " he begged. A heavy 
 bell chimed one. Trent started. That was the 
 hour Stephanie dreaded most to hear toll at night, 
 the supernatural hour. Instantly its association 
 flashed her before him. He saw her and all his 
 need for love, and the necessity of its abnega 
 tion pressed upon him and urged him on 
 
 " I do not know how you can help me, or that 
 you can help me. I only know I want help," he 
 confessed.
 
 466 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " We all need that sooner or later, at some time 
 in our lives, but of what sort? What has failed 
 you in which you trusted ? " 
 
 Trent arose and stood before the priest. He 
 folded his arms, holding his elbows in his hands 
 in his old characteristic grip, denoting extreme ef 
 fort at self-control. " I came because a Catholic 
 once asked me to come," he said. 
 
 "What was his name?" 
 
 " It was not a man." 
 
 There was a silence during which the pigeons 
 gurgled contentedly from the church roof. The 
 priest also arose. "If you came for confession," 
 he suggested, " shall we not go inside ? " motion 
 ing toward the open door of the church as he 
 spoke. 
 
 " It is only a lay confession," Trent explained 
 rather reluctantly, " for I am not of your com 
 munion. I am an Anglican Catholic. May I 
 speak to you, never-the-less, under the seal of the 
 confessional, but informally ? " 
 
 " Assuredly, my dear son. And may God give 
 you his blessing upon your holy impulse to seek 
 counsel and guidance from his priests ! " He 
 traced the sign of the cross between them, and 
 re-seated himself, but Trent remained standing re 
 spectfully. 
 
 " Mrs. Raleigh Payne sent me to you," he said, 
 without further prelude.
 
 THE ROYAL WAY OF THE CROSS 467 
 
 " Yes. Why ? " Father Mayhew's countenance 
 evinced no more curiosity or interest even, than 
 the bleak side of the grey stone wall untouched 
 by the scant sunshine. 
 
 " Because you are her confessor and I am 
 her lover." His mouth, that the priest had 
 thought saintly, had the set beauty of martyrdom 
 now. 
 
 " Avowedly ? " The question was crucial. 
 
 " What do you mean by avowedly ? " 
 
 " I mean does she know it ? Is the relation rec 
 ognised between you, and of how long standing, 
 to what degree of sin?" 
 
 " There has been no sin, that is " 
 
 Father Mayhew did not wait for the conclusion 
 of the sentence. " You are hardly in a condition 
 to judge, since the light of the world even can be 
 put out by a blind passion," he said with more pa 
 tience than rebuke. " I am obliged from the na 
 ture of my sacred office to repeat my question. It 
 is of vital importance technically or spiritually, 
 since a reserved confession from her would only 
 heighten her guilt, and the absolution given be 
 worse than none, rendering her soul doubly im 
 perilled." 
 
 " Avowedly ; innocently in the sight of the law." 
 
 " But in the sight of God?" 
 
 Trent faced him hotly. " Who is innocent in 
 the sight of God? She is another man's wife and
 
 468 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 I love her more than anything in the world ! " he 
 cried. 
 
 " Then you will not destroy her hope of the 
 next." The earnest words were full of faith in 
 him, and confident of his right desire. 
 
 Trent's face was like a sacrificial flame. It was 
 the priest's turn to be silenced, as he heard him 
 say with a sort of desperation, " You think me a 
 blasphemer and an adulterer at heart. I am not, 
 nor is she. She was sold to a man who pursued 
 her for his own ends, a man who loves himself 
 and his own career better than his wife or his 
 God. We met by no effort of our own, and loved 
 in spite of ourselves. I fought inch by inch from 
 the first moment, with prayer and fasting, and 
 then with the worldly weapons of travel, distrac 
 tion, change. I barricaded myself behind self-re 
 spect, I took every antidote I knew, and no for- 
 getfulness came " 
 
 Still the priest did not speak. 
 
 " Of course you think her whole duty is toward 
 her faultless paragon of a husband. You con 
 demn me as a spiritual outcast and you approve 
 him because he has not wronged her by common 
 infidelity. He has your sanction to destroy her 
 life and forbid her religion, but because he is her 
 husband you will not dispense any form of relief 
 from this domestic oppression ! " 
 
 " She has been deprived the exercise of her re-
 
 THE ROYAL WAY OF THE CROSS 469 
 
 ligion, you said ? " Father Mayhew asked. He 
 had pondered not a little on the sequence of that 
 single confession, on the occasion of his summer 
 mission in those New Hampshire hills. The 
 young French priest, Father Damare, associated 
 with him for a few months, had prodded him as to 
 the spiritual welfare of this daughter of the 
 French convent of the Holy Mother, whose Su 
 perior was deeply concerned for the outcome of 
 her marriage with a heretic. His attention nar 
 rowed as Trent went on. 
 
 " From the first every obstacle has been put in 
 her way. It is easy for a man in power to thwart 
 a woman, without seeming to do it intentionally! 
 She was forbidden to go to you or send for you. 
 He took her right of appeal for your sacred guid 
 ance from her, and now he takes her right of 
 consolation from her, and her poor heart is dis 
 tracted, torn, with no one to sustain her! We 
 love each other, but it is a sin. They are nothing 
 to each other, and theirs is a virtuous marriage 
 on both sides, without love. What can we do? 
 Help us! She felt that you could. She must 
 have known you could, for she told me when the 
 memory of our parting became unbearable, to go 
 to you. She felt that in the divine resource there 
 must be some way known to your wisdom alone. 
 When marriage is a farce it is a profanation of 
 the sacrament, and its object is blasphemed while
 
 470 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 the highest feeling of the holy of holies is out 
 raged. What is religion for, if is it not to right 
 such wrongs? God is love, at least He says so." 
 
 " God is love, He is never lust," the priest cor 
 rected gravely. 
 
 The blood flamed in Trent's face, then sank, 
 leaving him whiter than before. 
 
 " My poor child ! " Oh, the compassion on the 
 priest's face now, as he spoke, yet was it en 
 tirely compassion ? "I know so much more, and 
 deeper than you suppose! I am Mrs. Raleigh 
 Payne's confessor. I have received constant so 
 licitude for her from her spiritual director abroad. 
 Her grandmother, who so recently died in the 
 faith, was continually instigating efforts on her 
 behalf. The faithful never relax their vigilance. 
 There is more extenuation for her than you con 
 ceive or a priest may admit, bound by the seal. 
 Do not misunderstand me as raising guilty hopes 
 or extending encouragement for their satisfaction, 
 but even a priest may admit milder penance for 
 sin under circumstances of heretical oppression. 
 It shall be accorded her. Be at peace in that re 
 spect. There is but little more I can say to you " 
 he paused, and lifted his searching eyes to those 
 of the man before him. " If you were of my own 
 communion " he suggested. " Why are you 
 not?" 
 
 " It is strange that I should have come to you
 
 THE ROYAL WAY OF THE CROSS 471 
 
 to-day," Trent replied frankly, " when the chief 
 objection to me in the Roman Catholic faith has 
 always been the confessional. I have always pro 
 fessed to scorn the idea of a man between my con 
 science and God ! " 
 
 " It is more strange that you could feel so, when 
 God has always chosen that way, always ordained 
 a man to do the most divine and revealing work 
 upon earth. It is a mistake of men outside the 
 faith, to think of a confessor as a wall, when they 
 should think of him as a bridge. You cannot see 
 for yourself. You are blinded by human desire. 
 The flesh cries out for human nearness, but in 
 nearness of spirit only is there real delight. In 
 timacy between mortals is an idea only. It can 
 not exist. It leaves a space between, that no pos 
 sible contact can efface. ..The communion of 
 saints is a never-ending celebration. Let your soul 
 long for contact in spiritual communion, for the 
 human can never assuage, and the divine Unap 
 proachable is the only lasting ideal that can never 
 disappoint because man can never prove it reached. 
 It stimulates but never satiates. Confession is 
 salutary, and comforting even if one stumbles and 
 falls in his noble effort after perfection." 
 
 " And even if a man sinned again, would he 
 find forgiveness in your eyes ? " 
 
 Father Mayhew realised how much harder upon 
 himself this pure spirit would be, than any whose
 
 472 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 voluntary confession was the result of inured habit. 
 He saw that evil was sickening and strange to 
 this troubled soul, and so he told him gently of 
 the good Saint Filippo Neri, and a youth refused 
 absolution. How the Saint absolved him freely, 
 only imposing another confession should he re 
 lapse, how three days later he returned with the 
 same sin upon him, and for a month this went on, 
 till victory was gained and the youth reached a 
 stage of angelic perfection. 
 
 " Some sins one might break from " Trent 
 said wistfully, at the conclusion. " I have always 
 considered love was a virtue. It is hard to see it 
 in an ugly light, with crime and the brood of outer 
 darkness." 
 
 " There are mortals and venials," Father May- 
 hew reminded him. " Temporary fires suffice for 
 the ' minuta peccata.' There are penances vary 
 ing from pilgrimages, fasts, and daily religious 
 exercises, to the giving of alms, acts of mercy, and 
 the lighter forms of advice and prayer open for 
 your release from the stain that has soiled your 
 soul." 
 
 " I have confessed ! " Trent said stolidly, his 
 arms not once unfolded. " Inflict any punishment 
 upon me, only let me love her! Find some way 
 that we may hold to each other without sin ! Some 
 way to thwart the awful laws of death and the 
 shrouded secret of first cause, the desolation of
 
 THE ROYAL WAY OF THE CROSS 473 
 
 passion, the utter contradiction of love in tempta 
 tion ! " 
 
 Father Mayhew's hands tightened on his brevi 
 ary. " Temptation is not reserved for the laity, 
 my son," he warned, as if in the presence of a 
 visible antagonist. " The terrible temptations of 
 the sacerdotal career you know nothing of. You 
 will find many an unworthy priest who holds him 
 self blameless if he has given no scandal. It has 
 always been so. But the laxity and rigour of pen 
 ance and its saving grace, only divine wisdom can 
 ever effect with perfection of justice." 
 
 " Yes, and even if you absolved me, and I per 
 formed whatever you bade me, my sin would be 
 ever before me," was the unspoken answer of 
 Trent's own heart. And yet if Stephanie's con 
 science could be disburdened, could he not risk his 
 own punishment? Ought he not, since he had 
 assisted at the tragic linking of their fates? And 
 while he speculated thus, Father Mayhew was 
 tempted with a different form of evil. To him, 
 murder was less a sin than deliberate heresy. 
 Voting for a liberal had cost more than one Cath 
 olic his sacramental privilege. He was, like every 
 priest, unscrupulous without hesitation in resort 
 ing to control of the ballot in matters of Catholic 
 education for Catholic children. Raleigh Payne 
 had fought against this use of the confessional, 
 with his party behind him, supporting his denun-
 
 474 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 elation of it as abuse detrimental to the liberal 
 principles of American democracy. The political 
 struggle was already assuming, in some quarters, 
 the definiteness of an issue. The Church had rea 
 son to strike and strike hard, and the adversary 
 being a heretic and in error had, in the priestly 
 mind, no defence. The secrecy of the confes 
 sional had put a slight but most important weapon 
 in his hand. He had only to concede his motive 
 sufficient excuse to expose a dishonesty, which 
 though in itself unpolitical, would argue for a flaw 
 in the spotless character of a man urgent against 
 the Catholic interest. The breach in secrecy 
 could be covered in a way that would perfectly 
 conceal its origin. Neither the priest nor his pen 
 itent would ever suffer from the exposure of Ra 
 leigh Payne. There were subtle channels, hidden 
 agencies, and here now was a man, who needed 
 only the shadow of a hint of the truth to bring 
 about the same result without other intervention. 
 
 The two men were far apart, yet curiously united 
 by the undercurrents of their thoughts as they 
 stood deliberating their situation. Lawrence 
 Trent had no clew as to what was passing in the 
 mind of Father Mayhew. When he spoke, it was 
 to throw himself on the priest's resourceful in 
 tuition again. 
 
 " I am walled in by two inevitables," he said. 
 " The facts are as they are. If I could change I
 
 THE ROYAL WAY OF THE CROSS 475 
 
 would. But I cannot. Even if she forgot all her 
 sanctity of soul, I could not outrage God. I have 
 got to go on being myself. I want only one thing 
 more than I want her. I fear only one thing 
 more than living without her. It is physical pain, 
 it is deadening paralysis of my will, to love as I 
 am doomed to, but there is a blacker abyss than 
 life without love, and that would be life without 
 God. I cannot imagine it. There must be some 
 way to reconcile the two loves. I do not know 
 what is right or possible for her, or for me. You 
 are a man of clarified vision and sacred life. It 
 is your profession to help those who trust in you. 
 What life is there for us, except in death? The 
 mortal death of Raleigh Payne or our own eternal 
 damnation? If you know, by whatever means, of 
 any possible reason to justify us for what we have 
 already done, or to save us from worse, for God's 
 sake forget you are a priest, and be man enough to 
 guide us by your knowledge of the case, no mat 
 ter how you came by it ! " 
 
 Father Mayhew's face was not free from per 
 plexity. He laid a restraining hand on Trent's 
 arm, as if to mutely counsel patience and forti 
 tude " Pain is holier than joy, being a reflection 
 of the crucified," he suggested 
 
 " There are crucifixions and crucifixions ! " 
 Trent broke in. "And the mortal misery of our 
 latter-day sort is that they do not save a world,
 
 476 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 or often even the souls we die to save ! " He 
 stopped himself with visible effort, and said quietly, 
 with that touch of weariness that betrayed long 
 effort at control, " I am shocking you, of course, 
 but let me show you all my impiety! I rage that 
 God made man so that a woman can un-do his will. 
 Why is his reason set aside by the thought of her? 
 What is this savage craving in him, that stalks un 
 abated after centuries of our boasted civilisation? 
 Where is a man safe, or his honour unassailable, 
 if he is to be undermined in spite of his religion 
 and his duty, so that nothing is left to him but a 
 face or the awful lack of one? Do not blame 
 her ! " he cried suddenly, terrified lest he had 
 seemed to do so himself, " When she comes to 
 you for consolation, as she surely will, in spite of 
 him, give her all gentleness, all hope, for it is 
 never the woman's fault. I did it. I am the one 
 to suffer." 
 
 The priest said nothing to show what was pass 
 ing beneath the surface of his thoughts. " Love 
 of the flesh is a flame, soon blown out " he 
 urged, soothing the torn spirit as if it belonged to 
 a little child, " it is an appetite soon sated, un 
 stable, temporal, unequal to the cloudy music made 
 by angelic rapture of a victorious triumphant soul. 
 You have passed through deep waters, and may 
 all you have suffered and all the tribulation you 
 may in future bear from your wrong desires, be
 
 THE ROYAL WAY OF THE CROSS 477 
 
 to you for absolution! My sxm, temptation takes 
 many forms. It is not alone the devil's instrument 
 to destroy a soul, but God's own visitation of 
 grace to insure a tried perfection. It is written 
 for our edification by one of the most blessed of 
 the Saints, that temptation is profitable, for in it 
 a man is humbled, and you have yourself profited, 
 in that you have distrusted your own strength and 
 pride in coming here, taking the first step toward 
 the only true Way. For it is written, ' Thou art 
 man and not God. Thou art flesh and not angel.' 
 Angels in heaven have fallen, as did the first man 
 in paradise. There was never Saint that was not 
 tempted. What does it matter, if suffering attains 
 unto salvation? If there were any better thing 
 than suffering Christ would have shown it ! " He 
 paused, and after a few moments of inward strug 
 gle, known only to himself, continued earnestly, 
 with lowered voice, " A priest may not reveal, 
 but he may safely counsel from, the confession of 
 a sinner. His temptation may come in that holy 
 guise, to be overcome not by his own power but 
 the grace of the cross, reminding him that evil 
 may not be done that good may come of it. For 
 it is written that if a man cast away the cross he 
 will surely find another. And as another Saint 
 has written, ' thou shalt ever find the cross, the 
 cross is ever ready and ever awaits thee. Thou 
 can'st not escape it wherever thou shalt run or go.
 
 478 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 Thou earnest thyself with thee and shall ever find 
 thyself. But go where thou wilt, seek what thou 
 wilt, there is no higher way above or safer way 
 below than the way of the holy cross ' ! " If 
 Father Mayhew had wrestled for his own victory, 
 forgetful of Trent, the light in his eyes was as 
 surance of deliverance from his momentary im 
 pulse of revenge. " I must leave you for a time," 
 he said, as the bell struck the half hour. " Medi 
 tate on the eternal truth, here or in the church. 
 Wait for me, or go if you will, and God t)e with 
 you and give you the only, true peace and 
 light!" 
 
 " Only one moment more," Trent begged, as 
 if waking from a trance. " There is one question 
 I must ask, for the sake of purity and my faith in 
 women forever. It is the question that brought 
 me here to-day. I do not ask you to tell me where 
 she is. I ask only, as she told me to ask of you, 
 if in your sight she has been blameless in the past? 
 I mean until this present fault for which I am re 
 sponsible. Her husband has sworn to the con 
 trary. You are her confessor " he did not finish. 
 The inference was too obvious. 
 
 Father Mayhew was silent. To what might his 
 answer lead? The importance of its issue made 
 him pause and consider. And again the reverend 
 Father did not so much blame the woman for her 
 present weakness. Her husband was a heretic and
 
 THE ROYAL WAY OF THE CROSS 479 
 
 a bitter partisan in the recent fight against the 
 parochial educational interests; opening wedge of 
 the detested modernism. Raleigh Payne stood 
 pledged to all the Catholics opposed. For a mo 
 ment the sacred priest and astute politician buried 
 in Father Mayhew came to the surface face to 
 face. If this man had lied once twice he 
 would again. He need not hurry event. If he 
 merely pronounced this woman blameless, would 
 it mean that in future she was to be respected and 
 given over, a victim of heretical oppression? Or 
 if blameless, and her husband thereby branded a 
 liar, would human antagonism aroused in the lover 
 before him, seek its own satisfaction, and the 
 Church find a swift and hidden avenger? What 
 man would hear the honour of the woman he loved 
 falsely accused? On the contrary he had only to 
 refuse to answer, to insure her from further il 
 legitimate pursuit, since no man would follow a 
 light woman far, if his was a nature possessed by 
 righteousness, such as the man now before him 
 had unconsciously revealed. He could save the 
 woman by a compromising silence. He could also 
 save the lover, perhaps for the priesthood. He 
 could expose the husband by one condemning 
 word, and since she who made the confession had 
 given him liberty to speak, there would be no 
 breach of the sacred seal implied. What was 
 best, holiest, for them all, he was hard pressed to
 
 480 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 determine without discrediting the woman s record 
 by seeming to hesitate. 
 
 It was the decision of but a moment. Trent 
 waited, without seeming to breathe. 
 
 " She is blameless," was the brief response. 
 Truth had won, through the priestly habit of im 
 plicit obedience regardless of individual reason. 
 
 Father Mayhew returned to find the porch 
 empty. The east wind complained, and the rasp 
 ing of the dry branches alone broke the silence of 
 the afternoon. But prayer would follow and un 
 failingly shield the faithful, and God knew where 
 the boy was, and would protect him. He felt rea 
 sonably sure that he would come back. The 
 Church had been less stern with that young soul 
 than he had been with himself. Even a priest 
 could not hold the same degree of harshness as 
 the uncompromising rigour of youth toward its 
 first grave fault. 
 
 And Trent meantime, in one of his vivid reac 
 tions from monk to minstrel, had let himself out 
 of the garden; the mood of passioning cities call 
 ing him to life, rather than the killing of self and 
 mortifying of desire, and filled with the one su 
 preme purpose of going to Stephanie, wherever 
 she was, to tell her what a dupe he had been. He 
 knew now that she loved him. It was a lie that 
 she had ever loved that other man! He wanted
 
 THE ROYAL WAY OF THE CROSS 481 
 
 only to abase himself for his vile distrust of her, 
 to make her know how gloriously her disdain of 
 self-vindication had skied her in his love. That 
 was all. And for him that was enough. He had 
 been absolutely sincere in his fortnight of renun 
 ciation and asceticism, and he was absolutely un 
 affected in his return to the joy of the world. 
 That was Trent, for better or for worse! He was 
 his own cross as Father Mayhew had shrewdly sus 
 pected. 
 
 As he boarded the flying express train for New 
 York, the prayer of Saint Augustine was sub-con 
 sciously his : " O God, make me good, but not 
 now ! " The Catholic communion dwelt on the 
 killing of self, and he had never cared so much to 
 live before. To be alive in bodily sense, in men 
 tal vigour! Was it a fit ending for a career of 
 promise favourably begun, to throw away the hon 
 ours he had already won? To ignore the talent 
 that only secular life could fully develop? The 
 words of Grandee, not those of the priest, clung 
 to him approved, and would not let him go, " Re 
 member, there is no value in a useless sacrifice. 
 Do not be a fool for Christ's sake. Use your rea 
 son in all things." 
 
 Ah, yes, Grandee knew what life meant, and life 
 abundantly too. He himself cared little for so 
 ciety, but he had his books, his music, his studies, 
 and now this provocative, sweet, adorable, proud
 
 482 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 woman creature, who tormented him and aroused 
 all his protest and anger against her control over 
 him, and yet gave life again all the colour and 
 aroma he had ever hoped or dreamed. He would 
 find her, tell her and the world might end or be 
 gin there, as she willed.
 
 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 WHATEVER remorse or compunction 
 Raleigh felt, he exhausted in punctil 
 ious attention to every detail of Sky 
 High's care and ordered procedure in the absence 
 of the master. Everything was to go on just as 
 usual. The horses would be exercised daily, only 
 an extra maid or two would be dispensed with. 
 When the sunshine called loudly enough to wake 
 the daffodils and jonquils, the bulbs would prick 
 up in the familiar corners and be followed by the 
 customary gorgeous sequence of bloom, to find 
 him or find him not, as it might happen. But 
 Joel would grimly help them to do their part to 
 ward his absent or present delight in the ancestral 
 home that enshrined his heart. Still Raleigh lin 
 gered on. There was nothing to keep him, and 
 no society beyond his own or that of the villagers, 
 and they never stepped out of their tracks to avail 
 themselves of his conversation; merely passing the 
 time of day if they chanced to meet him upon the 
 highway; letting well enough alone, after the habit 
 of taciturnity bred by lives aloof from interchange 
 
 483
 
 484 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 of opinion, or absorbed in the daily struggle for 
 existence. 
 
 Christine, warned by Jim's solicitude for his 
 brother mute and miserable, had rushed up from 
 town to lay matters before Grandee, only to find 
 him gone, and Raleigh in an unsatisfactory state 
 of civil platitude, sweeping over her concern for 
 them all, and excusing himself for being there by 
 the accumulated press of affairs he had found 
 awaiting him on his return. She had invaded 
 the library and his innermost counsel, without 
 apology. 
 
 " You look very handsome in your black furs. 
 How is Jim ? " he asked, after the first greetings 
 had been exchanged and the blow of Grandee's 
 departure somewhat softened. If he hoped to 
 turn her aside to some less vital topic, he was not 
 flattered by his success, for she disowned his at 
 tempt openly. 
 
 " What has happened, really ? " she demanded. 
 " What does it all mean, Stephanie dashing off 
 to Europe at this season and Grandee looking like 
 a steel engraving when your name is mentioned, 
 and Lawrence not sleeping and growing to look 
 more like a Catholic Saint in a dirty Italian church, 
 every day ? " 
 
 " Then you have seen Uncle Steven ? " he sug 
 gested. She had overlooked her own contradic 
 tion in her troubled haste to make Raleigh talk to
 
 THE SIN OF ANGELS 485 
 
 her freely. She saw her blunder and blushed for 
 it glowingly. 
 
 " No, I have not seen him," she replied, " but 
 Jim told me how he looked. Of course no one 
 could have imagined he was sailing without saying 
 good-bye, or telling any of us his plans ! " 
 
 " It was rather sporty, was it not ? " Raleigh 
 said, smiling appreciatively. " He promised to let 
 Jim see to everything that his own man servant 
 might not prove equal to." 
 
 " We heard nothing of them, knew nothing, un 
 til Jim met Grandee on his way out of the bank 
 where he deposits. They chatted a few minutes, 
 and then Doctor Wylin drove up in his car and took 
 Grandee in, and Jim supposed there was nothing 
 more in it than a little trip to town with a con 
 sultation for objective. Afterward he recalled 
 how Grandee changed, when he answered the in 
 quiry for your health and next move on the polit 
 ical chess board." 
 
 " And so you came post haste to scold me, be 
 cause Uncle Randall was clever enough to keep 
 his affairs to himself and leave you all in the 
 dark ! " He refused to treat any of it as mys 
 terious or surprising. 
 
 Christine drew a straight, hard chair nearer the 
 table and sat down. " You have got to tell me 
 everything, Raleigh, so why trouble to beat about 
 the bush? I cannot help any of you unless I
 
 486 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 know what is at the bottom of all this muddle. 
 And I must help you, because I love you all, and 
 because Jim must not take the time or be worried 
 about anything until he has finished the stupendous 
 case he is in. I came to stop his worrying- about 
 Lawrence, and help him keep his mind clear for 
 his work. So please be frank and spare me your 
 diplomatic tendencies." 
 
 Raleigh repeated his lingo in regard to the in 
 heritance of Stephanie from her grandmother, the 
 importance of her immediate presence at Vienna, 
 his .uncle's unwillingness to have her go without 
 one of them, and his own inability to get away at 
 just this present time. She was too polite to show 
 him that she did not believe him, but he had more 
 difficulty in getting her to understand why he re 
 mained where he was, when all there was to do 
 had been done, than he had ever had to make her 
 believe anything, since he had first met her in his 
 plausible college days. For once Christine was 
 unconvinced. He did his best to be obvious and 
 she rejected his effort, saying, " You cannot be in 
 your right mind to stay up here alone, with noth 
 ing to do ! Doctor Wylin would be far more exer 
 cised about your apathy than he ever was about 
 your energy." 
 
 " But I am doing things," he pleaded. " I have 
 got six months of back work to catch up." 
 
 "But why here? You have always hated the
 
 THE SIN OF ANGELS 487 
 
 quiet here, even in summer with the house 
 crowded," she objected. 
 
 " The reason I like it now is very simple. I can 
 work so much faster uninterrupted." She read 
 her own conclusion without his words. 
 
 " You are very much changed, Raleigh. What 
 has changed you ? " she asked sharply, suspecting 
 him of fending her off and hurt by his inclina 
 tion. 
 
 " Perhaps my long stay in the woods unfitted me 
 a bit, to take the first plunge into the whirl of 
 city life again." 
 
 " It ought to be the very time when you are mad 
 for it!" 
 
 " I seem to have lost my taste for the scramble, 
 for the moment. It will come back. I am very 
 comfortable here, and I had meant to give myself 
 a chance to accomplish some quiet brain work, 
 before I opened my winter campaign." 
 
 " I do not believe one word you are saying ! " 
 she cried. " You are lying low for some unprece 
 dented ' coup/ Own up that you are ! " 
 
 He deprecated her prediction with a genuine de 
 nial. " I am working, catching up the dropped 
 threads, and exercising, that is all," he confessed. 
 Even with Christine he was prudent. 
 
 "That is not all," she said, accenting the 
 all, " unless you are really down and out physi 
 cally."
 
 488 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 " On that score there is nothing to worry about," 
 he assured her. " I am even now dictating the 
 policy of one or two strenuous new companies here 
 and abroad, on a gigantic scale of combination, 
 capitalised up in the multi-millions. I am also 
 outlining the duties of several newly appointed 
 members of the general Consular service, who do 
 not in the least know their job, or what is expected 
 of them." 
 
 " Everything comes your way ! " Christine mur 
 mured with delight. " The government will wake 
 up some day and realise whose hand is the power 
 behind the machine. They ought to be dreaming 
 it now, and soon open their eyes." 
 
 " Oh, this is nothing of any account," he said. 
 " These lads are sent over to outlandish places, 
 without training as to their rights or functions, 
 and unfamiliar with everything from the geography 
 of the country, to its language and law. Their 
 fathers were useful in matters best known to the 
 administration, and honours were, accordingly, easy 
 for the sons. If I were Secretary of State, or 
 Foreign Affairs, I would " Christine drew a 
 sharp breath. 
 
 " You ought to have it and you will some day," 
 she broke in. " Ever so many men have said so. 
 Senator Fordyce told Jim you would get the 
 Treasury appointment now, if you were not so 
 young. It is only that which stands in your
 
 THE SIN OF ANGELS 489 
 
 way ! How Stephanie [could be such a blind baby 
 as not to see the glory of you! And to throw 
 what little power she had, into your scale! You 
 must let me speak, Raleigh " she protested, as 
 he drew dissenting brows. " I have kept still too 
 long already, until it is too late to be of real prac 
 tical service to her or to you, I am afraid. But I 
 do hope and pray that you are not going to sit 
 down and mope and mourn over her. Let her 
 come or go! What is it to you? A woman is 
 only good to supplement a man, to amuse him, and 
 rest him, and make him believe in himself in the 
 face of every discouragement. If she is not for 
 this, what is she, but a drag upon him? You are 
 a man to whom the country looks for shining serv 
 ice, because your honour is untarnished and unap 
 proachable. Senator Ellerson called you the Gal 
 ahad of politics, at the New England dinner, and 
 everybody applauded. Never let yourself be un 
 horsed by a woman who cannot appreciate the 
 pride of her position as your wife. Who cannot 
 give you a free rein now on the winning stretch 
 in ! Why, look at Jim ! " 
 
 " Yes, you have made Jim," Raleigh admitted. 
 " You have a right to say this." 
 
 " I have not un-made him," she claimed with a 
 sweet modesty. 
 
 " He is one of the most trusted lawyers in New 
 York to-day, or in America," he stated as if it
 
 490 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 was a mere fact, needing no re-inforcement from 
 him. 
 
 " He has gone ahead," Christine said, with a 
 brilliant smile, fond as it was proud. 
 
 " He certainly has, and he will be Attorney 
 General before he dies, if you keep after him and 
 his health holds firm." 
 
 " Do you believe it, Raleigh ? " Her eyes 
 flashed, but she added quietly, " I would not pre 
 dict improbabilities, if I were you, even to please 
 an old friend. And do not repeat it to any one 
 else, for fear they might think your own judg 
 ment less trustworthy where your personal friends 
 are concerned." How she guarded him, even 
 against her own interests ! He was deeply 
 touched by this evidence of her unremitting jeal 
 ousy for his attainment. 
 
 " Own up, Chris, you have it at the back of 
 your own mind ? " he insisted. 
 
 " In my dreams, perhaps." 
 
 " And why not ? " he sighed, for the first time 
 showing his depression openly. " There is no 
 door shut before a man with a wife who lives 
 his life, as you do with Jim. You women have it 
 all in your own hands, after all." 
 
 " That we do not is proven by the [case in point," 
 she dissented. " But, Raleigh, do not let Ste 
 phanie drag you back. Go on! Go on alone! 
 Stephanie can add nothing to, and take nothing
 
 THE SIN OF ANGELS 491 
 
 from, your success. The goal is almost within 
 reach and you must not let your private affairs 
 blur your public sense. She does not understand 
 or accept our American interpretation of love or 
 life. Let her take her own little personal share 
 of this big universe, and gratify her own little 
 selfish joy. She cannot rise to you! She cannot 
 even appreciate your height enough to spare you 
 the only vague reflection on your honour it has 
 ever known, the natural imputation of her leav 
 ing you now." 
 
 " I have failed with Stephanie," he said. It was 
 the first admission of failure he had ever made in 
 his life. 
 
 " It is not too costly a failure," she said heartily, 
 " but for Jim's sake as well as your own, the world 
 must not be enlightened as to the actual predica 
 ment we find ourselves in. Jim is worried to death 
 over Lawrence. He says it needs only the slight 
 est pressure suddenly applied, or removed, to set 
 him off after Stephanie hot foot. Forgive me for 
 speaking of it, but of course we know he is mad 
 over her. He says nothing. But we do not have 
 to be told. That is in the Trent blood. Deny 
 them anything, and that is the one thing they will 
 have, if they pull the world down on their heads 
 to get it. They are born so. Jim says something, 
 not principle or conscience alone, is holding Law 
 rence off, now that Stephanie is out of reach and
 
 492 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 away from Sky High. He cannot find out what 
 it is, or get any hint of it, even with his training 
 for evidence. He thinks this money she has in 
 herited would only hold Lawrence back, but know 
 ing Lawrence, I think if once he overcomes her 
 past " 
 
 " Her past ? " Raleigh repeated involuntarily. 
 
 " Yes, of course, her having been your wife. 
 My idea is that if Lawrence gets past the sin of 
 that, he will not stop for a mere detail of money. 
 Any one can make money, there is no especial 
 force in that for an American. So we must count 
 on you to assert yourself and avert a catastrophe, 
 under the surface of course, where it will all 
 sink peacefully down to oblivion." In vain Ra 
 leigh reassured her as to the groundlessness of 
 her fears. She would not go. 
 
 " Why do women always delight in imagining 
 a ghost, Chris? Suppose Trent did have a pass 
 ing fancy for Stephanie? Most men have. And 
 he will never throw away his life for another man's 
 wife. Go home to the children and sleep in 
 peace ! " 
 
 " Well, if I do, will you come down and talk to 
 Lawrence ? " She was for any bargain, it seemed, 
 that drew him away from this solitude. 
 
 " I have." 
 
 "Then you two do understand each other? I 
 supposed you did."
 
 THE SIN OF ANGELS 493 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And you are not concealing anything from 
 me?" 
 
 " Nothing but the full force of my admiration." 
 At that she rose and gathered her cloudy furs 
 about her. The bright gold of her hair set her 
 devoted face in more striking relief for the high 
 contrast. She might have been the radiant god 
 dess of the success he worshipped, as she stood 
 there, so brave and undaunted and self-forgetting 
 in her determination to help the universe spin on. 
 
 " Stephanie is my wife and Uncle Randall is 
 with her. Everything is safe and conventional," 
 he said. " We shall be as good friends as ever 
 one of these days when I have time to run over 
 and make up with her. I have neglected her a bit 
 savagely of late. But do not worry about us, and 
 do not let Jim magnify his brother's wounds. 
 They are only skin deep. You know that really 
 the only person who cannot jest at wounds is he 
 who never shows a scar, if the poet did reverse 
 his opinion on that matter. Young Trent took his 
 orders like a veteran. There is nothing to worry 
 about, you see, after all." 
 
 " It is no matter whether I worry or not, if you 
 only will not ! " she persisted, giving him her hand. 
 " Too much depends on you, to let anything any 
 woman can do weaken your power." 
 
 Without realising what he meant to do, he
 
 494 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 stooped and kissed the hand within his own. Her 
 simple nobility humbled him and shamed preten 
 sion. 
 
 " The mills of God do grind fine, Chris, but we 
 grind them ourselves, that is the worst of it. I 
 lost you through my besetting sin. Once I was 
 blind. It was on the start and I have been well 
 paid for it. I can only say, ' they who win heaven, 
 blest are they ! ' Give my love to Jim," he added, 
 ashamed of his burst of sudden feeling. He stood 
 on the steps as she was driven away, strangely 
 shaken, and unable to account for his weakness in 
 experiencing such rare emotion. 
 
 Imperceptibly the days slipped by. It was nearly 
 a month since his strange interview with Stephanie 
 and Lawrence Trent at the Squirrel's Nest, while 
 the fantastic moonlight wove its arabesques about 
 their feet. He was at loss to account for the spell 
 that had been laid upon him. A sort of lethargy 
 robbed the hours of desolation and bound him to 
 the place inexplicably. 
 
 He came in later than usual from his tramp in 
 the dusk one evening, and the incongruity of his 
 inertia struck him forcibly for the first time. He 
 had been turning over in his mind his own course 
 toward Stephanie, as he walked. The night be 
 fore he had read over the lyrics, and their poetic 
 imagination sounded so fatally like intimate cer-
 
 THE SIN OF ANGELS 495 
 
 tainty, he had reluctantly been forced to put the 
 worst interpretation upon their bearing on Ste 
 phanie's truth. No man reading them could but 
 believe them compromising. And how else was he 
 to justify himself? And if they were what they 
 now seemed to him, why should she not meet re 
 morse with remorse, and let the past be decently 
 interred between them forever? What if he went 
 to her, declared himself at fault? Could he do 
 it? It was what Steven Randall seemed to exact 
 of him. Perhaps she wanted him to think her 
 false, was exciting him to divorce her under any 
 pretext. She would have denounced him when he 
 accused her before Trent, had she not cared too 
 much for him to risk the issue then. Of course 
 it was for the lover not the husband her tongue 
 had frozen. 
 
 His indecision enfeebled his action increasingly. 
 Stephanie was the only woman whose personal 
 charm lured him. What if he swept all other con 
 siderations aside and bent his knees to her, suppli 
 cating to be taken back, and given one chance only 
 to show her that he really loved her as she would 
 be loved? 
 
 He almost decided that he would this after 
 noon, as he tramped the little forest with her faint 
 figure flitting before his inward vision. But what 
 right had she to conceal her past from him? To 
 let him play the knave and fool before her, and
 
 496 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 mask it out with him to the very end? She had 
 been deceitful surely, if not unfaithful. She had 
 listened to the first soft voice that sued after mar 
 riage, and why not before ? And of all people, . 
 she whom he had burned to distinguish, knew his 
 one secret, and the price of his honour would al 
 ways stare at him through her eyes, though all 
 the world acclaimed him. He went back pains 
 takingly over his career, step by step. It had been 
 his pride that his life was free of the random 
 loves of other men. From his first sight of Ste 
 phanie, and ensuing disloyalty to Christine, there 
 had been no other woman in his life for whom he 
 must blush. That score was clean. He had pre 
 served the integrity of his body. In the matter 
 of the poems, he had only followed his habit of 
 extorting from life whatever tribute there was to 
 be collected: yielding to his temperamental crav 
 ing for diadems rather than giving way before an 
 overwhelming temptation. The publication of the 
 lyrics had not been a necessary link for his sig 
 nificant distinction. They afforded only an addi 
 tional laurel for him to lay at Stephanie's feet. 
 The unimportance of the value for which he had 
 made his mistake was insolent in its increased pro 
 portions now. It was having its chance to deal 
 with him heroically too, in his perception of the 
 importance of human relations, viewed with an 
 added insight gained by intense introspection.
 
 THE SIN OF ANGELS 497 
 
 Out of it all rose a feeling of outrage against the 
 snare spread for him in his own nature. 
 
 The malign influence of his choice left the world 
 untouched. It was only within him that the ty 
 ranny of secret fault was exercised. Yet Ste 
 phanie, of all the wide ignorant world, was the one 
 who knew ! And this had separated them. The 
 long unfolding of his energies had come to nought 
 because of the false kernel of his inmost heart. 
 He had not been instinctively on the safe and right 
 side, when the hidden temptation had crept upon 
 him. The repeated habit, which was character in 
 all men, had not resisted the appeal to take one 
 more laurel, from a dead man's hand, from which 
 there remained no impress leading to identifi 
 cation. Raleigh equivocated even yet, between the 
 evil of Stephanie's discovery of him, and the im 
 port of his own wrong-doing. He had held love 
 as something to be done, rather than believed or 
 loved. He had turned his life from poetry to 
 prose on this conviction. He had prospered be 
 yond all expectation. And yet, at thought of the 
 woman he loved, he was disheartened by a strange 
 sense of loss of all that kept life warm, of com 
 panionship and physical hope, and a lonesomeness 
 of darkness and alien lands settled over him. 
 She was lovely and young and a stranger in his 
 country, and he had loved her in his own way, 
 without suspicion of his harshness to her, until
 
 498 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 she had ceased to desire his affection. In the bare 
 sense of having loved her he seemed to find his 
 only solace now. He recalled phrases of hers, mo 
 tions, touching images from their first bewildering 
 intimacies. He often dreamed of her, and now 
 her shadow-presence like far away music, or the 
 forms of sleep, passed before him waking, always 
 with averted face but always retaining the old 
 seductive sweetness. He extenuated his crime of 
 the lyrics again, by admitting that if the crisis of 
 his decision had been a great one, if he had met 
 it in open arena as a wrestler, he should have re 
 pudiated the first hint of dishonour. But it had 
 come upon him as easily, unconsciously as the hour 
 of the day. The climacteric moment was met and 
 passed, and his life changed forever, while he 
 scarcely knew the hands had been moving across 
 the clock of his fate. And to-night he felt the im 
 port of Stephanie's removal of herself from him as 
 an unworthy creature. And he knew that not to 
 have instinctively chosen the straight course was 
 to have failed at the crucial point and opened his 
 life to the enemy. 
 
 But whom had he wronged? No one, and it 
 was to cost him the joy of life! No, no, he had 
 not failed. She was his wife still. He would 
 make her see how it had all come out of his pas 
 sion to distinguish her. No woman could resist 
 that appeal. He would delay no longer. He
 
 THE SIN OF ANGELS 499 
 
 would go to her, would dominate her, would 
 forgive her Here he stopped short. And 
 he knew he could never forgive her, because he 
 had wronged her, and she had not wronged 
 him. 
 
 That was the crux of the whole matter. That 
 was what kept him agreeing and disagreeing with 
 consecutive schemes of severity or reckless self- 
 reproach. It was absurd of old Wylin to suppose 
 him capable of losing his nerve, whatever hap 
 pened to him. A man with such iron physique as 
 he! Every day he walked further and faster in 
 derision of such an idea. The break with Ste 
 phanie had not acted as a sedative exactly, but he 
 was good for it, he told himself. He was un 
 reconciled to Steven Randall's having turned his 
 back on his own blood, but no one was the wiser 
 for his domestic annoyances. If he felt a slight 
 indisposition to the fray, which had been enough 
 to startle Christine, he felt himself cured to-night, 
 and ready to face and solve the question once for 
 all, that had been so persistently harrying him. 
 He had practically made up his mind. Inclina 
 tion and expediency counselled the same perfec 
 tion. Stephanie he would not live without. The 
 certainty that Trent wanted her, and the uncer 
 tainty as to what Nicholas Heathleagh might have 
 meant to her, barbed him on the elemental male 
 passion .of jealousy, stronger than universal prin-
 
 500 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 ciple or rational design. The depression over 
 nothing in particular, that had been weighing him 
 down, seemed lifted. He ate his dinner with a 
 woodman's appetite and drank a bottle of choice 
 claret with a joy in the flavour that impressed him 
 as a good sign. The morning papers did not get 
 to Sky High until evening, which alone showed 
 the difference in his avidity for the news, and 
 the mail came but once a day in winter, unless he 
 sent a man over for it, five miles and back, 
 which he always did. As he sat smoking before 
 the library fire, he heard the sleigh driven in from 
 the post office as usual, and Neptune whinnying 
 for his belated feed. The mail was brought in at 
 once, as methodically as if Steven Randall himself 
 were in command. Raleigh wondered idly, since 
 his uncle trained servants so well, how he would 
 have come out with a wife, if he had attempted 
 one. He called the man back to send a message 
 to the stable, chatting with him in the hearty way 
 that made him so popular with all who served 
 him, then opened his papers. But as the servant 
 stepped back, to ask some direction further for 
 the next day, a sudden purpose animated him to 
 add a positive order for the sleigh, to catch the 
 morning train. After all, he had done all he had 
 accomplished for Stephanie, why should he lose 
 her now? She would accept that excuse. Any 
 woman would. Again his jealousy flamed up.
 
 THE SIN OF ANGELS 501 
 
 She was his. No other man might dare to touch 
 her unless he threw her away. 
 
 "Was that all, sir?" 
 
 The servant's voice drew him back to realities. 
 
 " That is all, at least if I decide otherwise I 
 will send word to you in time," he said in dis 
 missal. Again he took up his papers. He tried 
 the stock market first. Steel was up, there were 
 other phenomenally lucky lifts in the stocks that 
 interested him. The foreign dispatches of the as 
 sociated press came next, then the day's progress 
 at the heart of his own government. He but 
 glanced at the editorials, preferring his own opin 
 ions, and as he turned the page his eye fell by 
 chance upon the sailing lists. 
 
 Sailing to-day he read, without caring, or 
 purposing to read on Killian L. Millish, wife 
 and attendant. 
 
 " So old Millish has played out and Wylin 
 has got him off at last ! " he interpolated. And 
 he continued to read down the list, idly making 
 his own comment between the lines as he did so. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Julian Kemper, daughters and 
 maid. 
 
 " The people who bought Christine's old house 
 in town " 
 
 Mrs. Mary Massey. 
 
 " She buried Massey last week, poor 
 girl!"-
 
 502 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 Honourable C. D. Hemminway. 
 
 " He is over for raw silk concessions " 
 
 Franklin Daggert. 
 
 " Bill Daggert's son who married an act 
 ress " 
 
 Ordway VanNess. 
 
 " Crossed with him in September " 
 
 Lawrence Trent 3rd. 
 
 He read no further. Trent had followed her 
 then. That settled it. He would go at once. He 
 sat, how long he never knew, going to and fro in 
 his mind over that turning place in his life where 
 the roads had parted, and this present juncture, 
 where they would unite, or separate never to meet 
 again. The official seal, conspicuous on the en 
 velope lying at the top of his pile of disregarded 
 mail, drew his straying glance at last. He had 
 work to get through if he left on the early morn 
 ing train. He opened the letter that came first, 
 without a hint of its contents, and read without a 
 tremour his own appointment to the vacant place 
 in the Cabinet, tendered him in secrecy and oblig 
 ing his immediate presence in Washington. 
 
 He plunged into his papers and worked till 
 dawn, the old fire in his veins unabated, his pri 
 vate griefs stifled by the public call. 
 
 It was daylight when he arose from his desk. 
 All was done. He drew himself up wearily but 
 without a trace of lassitude. He looked older than
 
 THE SIN OF ANGELS 503 
 
 in the summer, but the chestnut hair on his full, low 
 brow was untouched by a single thread of grey. 
 His eyes were unmarred by the night's work, lus 
 trous and clear as those of other men after nine 
 hours' sleep. He was handsome and untarnished 
 as the winter morning itself, as he stood for a mo 
 ment reconsidering his future. Had he really in 
 tended to humble himself allow himself to be 
 drawn from his appointed orbit by a woman? 
 Women hindered. Why should he allow himself 
 to care for a woman's private estimate of his true 
 worth ? 
 
 For Stephanie, love would suffice. It did not 
 matter who the man was, if he was her lover, 
 or indeed if he was nothing more. Let her be daz 
 zled back to a submissive place at his side ! It was 
 beneath Raleigh Payne to pursue. He had always 
 backed himself at the turning stake, why should 
 he distrust himself now? He threw up his head 
 haughtily, and frowned to find himself talking 
 aloud. Wylin disapproved of that. Again he 
 picked up the letter and read its contents. This 
 appointment had been his star in the East. It had 
 beckoned and was standing still. 
 
 He forgot remorse, and jealousy, and duty to 
 the woman he had sworn to cherish, and even love 
 itself, as he put back the heavy crimson curtains 
 and met the flush of dawn over those cold, white 
 hills. Unconsciously then he wrung his hands as
 
 504 THE SIN OF ANGELS 
 
 in his boyhood, repeating as he had in those mo 
 ments of half sensible reactions of joy in ambition 
 all but within his grasp: 
 
 " I may have lost everything else most men hold 
 dearest, but it is coming! God Almighty, it is 
 coming ! It has come ! " 
 
 And the sudden jangling of discordant sleigh 
 bells, calling him from outside, drowned his latent 
 misgiving in their pealing clamour of applause. 
 
 THE END
 
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